Gunslinger

Back in Uden, Somerville and McKenzie lost their front-row seat. A German sniper spotted them and his shot hit the bell in the belfry. The ringing noise and the surprise sent the two officers flying back down the steps like the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels.

In Veghel, the Germans continued to attack through the night and into the next morning. After a couple of hours of sleep, Dana woke to find herself warm and she stretched slightly, enjoying the warmth and the strong arms around her. Whoa, hold up there. Arms? She glanced over and saw that she was snuggled up with Brian, and he was holding her close as he slept. His head was buried in her neck and his soft breath was fanning across the exposed skin above her jacket, which was beginning to do strange things to her insides. She moved slightly and she watched as he came awake. He lifted his head and their faces were inches away. She saw a look of lust darken his eyes, and they lowered to glance at her lips. His face inched closer and closer….
“Hate to break this up, you two”, Holmes said, “but we need to move out.” Muttering a soft curse, Brian sat back and pretended to stretch nonchalantly. Dana looked at him with a slightly stunned expression. Damn, Brian had been about to kiss her! Strangely though she wasn’t repulsed by it, and she could have happily hurt Holmes at this point.

“Damn, I hope the boys in Uden are alright”, Melville said as he prepared to leave the dugout. At the same moment, the rest of the company that were in Uden were hoping that the small force trapped in Veghel were also OK. When the two groups converged, they were elated that they had all managed to survive in good shape.

The company prepared to spend the night in Uden.
“Wow, you guys dug foxholes 4 feet deep?”, Johnson asked, impressed. “Damn, we only got about 6 inches dug”, he laughed.

*********

The Germans had lost Uden and Veghel, but they had by no stretch of the imagination given up. On the evening of 24th September they attacked Hell’s Highway from the west, south of Veghel, and once again they managed to cut the road, and it had to be re-opened. Although the strategic objective of Market Garden had been lost, it was still critical that they kept the road open. Tens of thousands of Allied troops were dependent on it for all of their supplies. The units north of Veghel included the US 101st Airborne at Uden and the 82nd at Nijmegen, the British 1st Airborne outside Arnhem, the Guards Armored and the 43rd Wessex Divisions, the Polish parachute regiment, and the British 4th Dorset and 2nd Household Cavalry. All of these regiments were between Nijmegen and Arnhem. If the 101st could not regain control of the road and keep it open, what was already a major defeat would turn into a disaster of catastrophic proportions.

General Ripley ordered the Colonel to eliminate the Germans south of Veghel. At 12.30am, the battalion began marching in heavy rain south from Uden toward Veghel.
“Damn I hope it stops raining soon”, Pagliaro sighed as they trudged along.
“I smell like a wet dog”, Dana lamented.
“You’re a lot sexier than a wet dog”, Brian said then his eyes widened when he realized what he had said. He missed the smirking glance and nudge that Pagliaro gave O’Shea.
“That wouldn’t be hard to accomplish”, Dana said with a small smile.

About noon, the battalions were forced to halt and dig in. The Colonel ordered Lieutenant Colonel Brookes to have 2nd Battalion make a flanking move to the left, supported by British Sherman tanks. There was a wood of young pine trees along the left side of the highway to provide a screen for the flanking movement. E Company led the way for the battalion.

**************

Somerville joined McKenzie to scout the terrain and they found a solid and firm pathway on the edge of the woods, which would provide traction for the tanks. That was good enough so far, but the woods ran out 350 metres from the highway, giving way to open ground that provided no cover.

Somerville put the company into two formations: scouts out, with two columns of men, spread out. They got halfway across the field when the Germans opened up with machine gun fire. Everyone hit the ground, and Dana felt her fingers gripping into the dirt and grass as the machine gun fire roared over them. She glanced up and saw Pagliaro and O’Shea with their 60mm mortar. Pagliaro called out range and direction and O’Shea worked the mortar. He was the only man in the entire field who was not lying on his stomach. His first mortar round knocked out the German machine gun post, allowing the rest of the men to regain their feet.

Somerville ordered the machine gunners into action, and the crews found a slight depression on the ground that they used to set up the gun and began laying down a base of fire. Somerville spotted a Tiger Royal dug in on the other side of the road and ordered the machine gunners to take it under fire. Turning to his right, he saw McKenzie examining his helmet, with a big smile on his face.
“What on earth are you smiling about?”, Somerville asked then broke off when he noticed the burn mark on McKenzie’s forehead. McKenzie held up his helmet and Somerville saw that a shot from the machine gun had entered the front of McKenzie’s helmet and exited out the side at such an angle that it had just brushed past his forehead.
“You are one lucky bastard, Clarence”, he declared.

Somerville pulled the company back to the woods as the German fire was too intense. He resolved to maintain the base of fire from the machine guns while the riflemen backed off the field. When the riflemen reached the woods, they would begin firing to permit the machine gunners to pull back. Somerville told Richland that the machine gunners would need more ammo and he needed to get out there and find some. He ran to a Sherman tank, which was hidden behind the woods out of sight of the Germans and he was given four boxes of ammunition, as the Sherman used the same 30 calibre machine guns as E Company’s machine guns. He gave two boxes to Brian and took two himself. They ran out to the machine gunners in the middle of the field, which were firing continuously, dropped the boxes, circled around and ran back to the edge of the field as fast as they could. They were zig zagging as they ran, evading the German machine gun fire. Dana was watching from the woods, her eyes wide as she saw Richland and Brian dodging the machine gun fire. When both men reached the woods they grinned at each other.

Just as the German parachute troops began to drop mortars on the machine gun positions, E Company’s riflemen went to work and the machine gunners were able to withdraw.

E Company spent the remainder of the day and all that night in miserable constant rain, raking the roadway with mortar fire. Headquarters Company brought up some 81mm mortars to add to the fire. Artillery at Veghel joined in, however cautiously, as elements of the 502nd Division were attacking the Germans from the south.

In the early hours of 26th September, the Germans withdrew from the area and the 506th Division was able to advance up the road unopposed. Once again the American paratroopers occupied the ground after a fierce battle with German paratroopers.