Screaming Eagles

^FIFTY COLEY

Coley and his crew came across a pair of black soldiers struggling to get an M45 Quadmount anti-aircraft gun turned around.

“Need help?” Coley called.

“You bet, Lieutenant,” one of the men said. “I’m Audley and this is Higgins. We’re with the The 969th Field Artillery Battalion. We got overrun and lost our guns. Figured we’d requisition this fine piece of weaponry and setup a roadblock.”

“Damn fine figuring,” Coley said.

They gathered around the gun and maneuvered it the the edge of a street intersection, over some rubble, and down a short alley. The gun was monstrously heavy. It had a hitch and could be towed, but there was no time to get it attached to a truck.

“What happened to the crew for this beast?” Coley said.

“Don’t know, sir. Up and left, I guess,” Audley said and looked over the controls. “What you all doing with those Krauts?”

“They’re on our side for now,” Coley reassured the men.

Higgins and Audley looked the Germans over, and didn’t appear convinced.

“Know how to use it?”

“More or less. Point and shoot,” Audley said as he studied the machine. He flipped a switch and a battery powered engine hummed to life.

They got it lined up on a wide road, and Audley hopped in the turret and fiddled with the firing mechanism until the four guns moved on their electronically-powered axis.

“Just in time, here they come,” Coley said.

His men lined up alongside the big gun and took up weapons.

“Remember, Audley. Fire in bursts. Top guns, then bottom. Let ’em cool,” Higgins said.

“I know what I’m doing,” Audley said. “Sorta.”

A group of civilians pounded up the road, a force of Germans right behind them.

“Out of the way!” Coley yelled.

Seeing help, the civilians ran straight at the Americans.

“Ah, shit. Wait till they clear, Audley,” Higgins said.

“Ain’t gonna shoot no Belgians,” Audley said. “What are you, my mother?”

Coley’s men took aim and picked off Germans when they could. The civilians got the idea, and cleared a path.

Then the M4 Quadmount fired.

The top guns belted out .50 caliber rounds designed to shoot airplanes out of the air and decimated the forward ranks. The Germans didn’t drop; they blew apart. Blood misted and body parts flew. The Krauts didn’t change direction. They didn’t dive for cover. They stepped over their comrades’ bodies and kept up a pretty convincing imitation of a goosestep toward the gunner’s location.

Audley stopped firing the top two guns and opened up with the bottom pair. He fired quick bursts, then shifted aim slightly to take out more of the advancing army.

Along with von Boeselager and the remains of his squad, Coley and his men covered the side roads and popped rounds off at any flanking maneuvers. Not that Coley would call the mass of Nazis anything like coordinated.

He reached for another clip and found none.

“Shit, I’m out,” Coley said, patting at his pockets.

He backed up and went for his sidearm. A force of eight Germans had found a cross street and advanced on them. One of the men carried a flamethrower, but it wasn’t lit. He lowered it and pushed the trigger, but nothing happened.

“I got ’em, sir,” one of his guys said, and popped a grenade.

“No, wait!” Coley shouted, but it was too late. The grenade was already sailing toward the mass of men.