"Loaded and ready to fire!"

  Rothstein's reminder jarred him back to the present. Amid the fear and excitement, he'd clean forgotten to give the order.

  "Fire!"

  The main gun fired a fraction of a second before he gave the order, an explosion of noise and smoke. Solly had decided not to wait. A chunk of cliff several yards from the emplacement broke away. Already Dale Weathers was loading a new HE shell, and they set up a rhythm; load, aim, fire, load, aim, fire. When the smoke cleared, the emplacement appeared undamaged.

  Waste of time. Shit.

  The 75mm main gun belched flame again, and this time they scored a direct hit on the gun pit. At the same instant, the fourteen-inch guns of the USS Texas fired a salvo that struck the same emplacement, a direct hit and a massive explosion followed. The sky was lit by an even greater blast as the ammunition exploded, showering chunks of concrete, steel, and body parts two hundred feet into the sky.

  He looked down at Solly who'd paused for a moment, awed by the awesome destruction.

  There were men inside that thing. Soldiers like us. Men with families back home.

  A German shell smashed into an LCT yards away from them, splitting it in two. He focused on the shore to locate the source. The huge flak gun was half hidden inside a sunken emplacement, with only the barrel showing to give away its position.

  "Target two o'clock, top of the cliff, looks like an 88."

  "I see it."

  The Sherman shuddered as Solly fired a round that went wide. Dale slammed in a new shell, and the 75mm bucked as they fired again. The shell also missed, but the Kraut fired a shot that grazed along the hull of their LCT and exploded in the water, only yards from the stern.

  "Bastard is targeting us!" one of the sailors shouted, "Nail his ass!"

  All around them the Sherman main guns were at maximum elevation, firing furiously at the 88, with little effect until the warships joined the party. Salvo after salvo rained down on the German gun, yet they seemed to possess a charmed life and continued hurling huge shells at the mass of lumbering ships. Another LST staggered as a shell slammed into the vessel. Fires and explosions broke out, and the craft lost way.

  "We're getting creamed!" someone shouted. It sounded like Angel, "Someone kill that bastard!"

  "I'm trying," Solly shouted, "Bastard has the luck of the Devil."

  Grant could imagine Angel touching the crucifix he wore around his neck. Angel Montalban was steeped in the superstitious Catholicism of South America, where mention of the Devil not something to be taken lightly. A first generation immigrant, he was probably wondering if he'd survive to cash in with that takeaway pizza shop. Grant smiled, astonished that the absurd thought came to him at such a time.

  "You wait," he'd retorted. "All I need is the cash and I'll be a millionaire. This thing is going to be big."

  "You ain't got any cash, Angel," Vern reminded him. Probably because he had no money to realize his dreams either.

  "Not yet, no. I was just saying if I did have it."

  "Well you don't."

  His thoughts snapped back to the battle as a new voice intruded on the radio net. Sergeant Ernie Elliott, an Australian immigrant to the US, he'd arrived just in time for the war. His tank was nicknamed Matilda, inevitably. He said the Australian song, Waltzing Matilda, reminded him of home.

  "Shit, Solly, your lousy shooting couldn't hit a barn from the inside. Should have put Matilda at the front. "

  "Damn right. And if we meet a Tiger, I'm gonna shoot his dummkopf ass off."

  He smiled at the Germanic tones of Karl 'Kraut' Lieber, Matilda's gunner. Grant had heard the Liebers were the Liebermanns when they left Germany, and they changed their name for a fresh start in the US.

  Major Morgan, CO of A Company, 745th Independent Tank Battalion, snapped at them to stay off the net, and the crew of Matilda went quiet. Morgan was a good officer and all business where the war was concerned; there was nothing of the absent-minded professor about him. He was something of a hardass, but he looked after his men, who wouldn't want to serve with any other CO.

  "Any moment now," the LCT skipper intoned over the speaker system.

  Then the LCT would ground on the sand, and they'd drive into the hell of that lousy strip of beach, if they ever made it that far. More shells exploded all around them, and heavy machine gunfire forced the infantry to cower behind the protection of the steel hulls of the landing craft. There was a slight lull in the shooting, and he opened the hatch. The Germans had concentrated their fire to finish off a stricken LST. The craft was virtually dead in the water, listing badly to starboard, and it was only a matter of time before it sunk.

  Solly climbed up beside him. "I can hardly breathe. I need a minute to get some air in my lungs. It's the damn fumes in there. The extractor can’t cope."

  They surveyed the fire and destruction surrounding them. Ships making their precarious way inshore, aircraft flying overhead in dense waves. In the middle of it all, somewhere, there were men. He wondered how many would survive this day. Solly took a final gulp of fresh air and went back inside the hull.

  It stank of ammonia; someone had pissed himself. There'd been no groans of complaint, not today. They had bigger problems with which to concern themselves. Besides, many of them were actually looking forward to hitting back at the enemy after so many years of Nazi conquest, some with better reason than others.

  Men like Solly, who thought his family could be dead after they disappeared inside the hell of the Third Reich. Karl Lieber, smarting from a legacy of Nazi oppression. There was his own brother who was killed at Slapton Sands in Devon, on a routine training exercise for Overlord. Their LCTs were shot up by a roving flotilla of German E-Boats, leaving almost a thousand men killed, two LCTs sunk, and two more severely damaged. Wasted deaths all of them, after the usual fuck ups when the escort vessels had failed to show, leaving the men exposed. When his parents heard about David, his father had a stroke and died soon after.

  His relatives were surprised when he enlisted. Josh Grant was a lawyer, in his second year in a lucrative Wall Street practice after graduating summa cum laude from Yale and passing the bar. He was a natural for JAG, the Army's legal branch, everyone said, except him. They'd offered him a commission, and he was ready to go, despite his brother David's contempt for deskbound soldiers. Men who avoided the front line. Then they had the devastating news from Lyme Bay. He'd had enough; he wanted to fight the bastards, to hit them where it hurt, not spend the war in a musty courtroom. The day after the news reached them, he volunteered for active service. They said no, so he enlisted in the 745th Battalion, US Armor. The unit was desperate for leaders, and he had a track record in armor, after service in ROTC. His early promotion was inevitable after only a matter of weeks, and they shipped him to England ready for the coming invasion.

  His crewmen were suspicious of the smooth, college-educated lawyer. Until he began to help some of those less fit than him who struggled through the worst parts of basic training. Some were only semi-literate, but he was more than happy to help with their letters from home. When he gave them free legal advice virtually on demand, they finally accepted the smooth faced, dark haired, and dark-eyed young sergeant.

  Grant was slightly built, a whisker over five seven, and he gravitated toward armor, or maybe it gravitated toward him. In the cramped interior of a tank, it was useful to be leaner than the average soldier. Assigned to a Sherman, he quickly became expert at all aspects of operating the thirty-ton vehicle. He even came to like the noisy, smelly monsters, to enjoy the feeling of awesome power they projected. But the memory of Slapton Sands was always present. He didn't just want to fight. He wanted to kill Germans. And keep killing them.

  He heard Major Morgan's voice on the net. "When we hit the beach, keep going forward. Do not stop for anything. Not for anything," he repeated.

  They acknowledged. They'd heard the same speech a dozen times.

  'Keep moving, and clear the beach. Hit the German defenses and send them to hell.'

  Isn't that what we're here for?

  "Almost there."

  The crewman was standing by the ramp release, clutching the big iron lever. Then it all happened at once. The LCT shuddered as it grounded on the beach. The ramp went down the rest of the way. Angel slammed the levers into drive, and they were going forward, into the maelstrom of shells, machine gunfire, barbed wire, mortar rounds, rifle bullets, and anti-tank missiles.

  Where are the Kraut planes?

  So far, there'd been no air attacks, but it couldn't last. The Luftwaffe had something of a kickass reputation. So did the USAAF and the RAF. They'd seen squadrons of P-47s, Spitfires, Hurricanes, and Typhoons roaming the skies, as well as the medium and heavy bombers pounding the crap out of the enemy.

  Maybe they got the Luftwaffe beat, or maybe not.

  He glanced up as they rumbled forward, but the sky was empty of enemy aircraft. Forward vision from inside the turret was lousy, but there was no way he could open up the hatch if he wanted to survive. The gunfire was even more intense, an avalanche of lead and steel continuously slamming against the hull. He briefly wondered how the infantry would make out in the metal maelstrom.

  They'll go to ground, dig foxholes in the sand, sure, but sooner or later, they'll have to emerge into that fiery inferno.

  A shell slammed into the frontal armor of his tank, and it rocked on the springs. Angel screamed in pain.

  We’re hit already!

  He shouted down to Vernon Franklin, the co-driver.

  "Vern, check out Angel. See how bad he is."

  "I'm okay, Sarge," Angel reassured him. He sounded shaken, but he was alive, "It was a steel fragment, tore away from inside the hull when that shell hit. Ripped a slice out of my side, but it's nothing."

  "You can drive?"

  "Yeah, I'm good. Did you see Matilda get it?"

  The Aussie, Ernie Elliot. "Did they get out okay?"

  "I didn't see. We were already past them. They may be okay. The shell hit them on the track."

  "Anyone else?"

  "No idea."

  Their platoon was down to three tanks, and they'd only just started rolling up the beach. He looked up to the far cliffs, right and left, and the sloping ground in between they had to cross to get to grips with Jerry. The high cliffs of Pointe du Hoc loomed large, and further to the east, St Clare, closer to Arromanche and Gold Beach. They were the outer markers of Omaha.

  Those cliffs on Pointe du Hoc will be a bastard, no question.

  He knew several Ranger outfits were assigned the task of scaling the high cliffs. Under lashing fire from the defenders, it looked like an impossible mission.

  Poor bastards.

  A clang on the turret only inches from his head made him jump. Someone cursed. It hadn't penetrated, so it was from a smaller caliber gun. They knew a hit from an 88 would blow them apart. Like some of the coastal defense guns, it was also fitted to the Tiger I, the Germans’ heavy tank. Intelligence told them the Krauts had started to field an even more formidable tank, the Tiger II, known as the King Tiger. He pushed it to the back of his mind; it would be enough to deal with the Tiger I.

  Solly was determined to destroy at least one of the Nazi Panzers before the war ended, unless they were already dead. Someone told them their only chance was to close within a couple of hundred yards, to enable their 75mm to penetrate the thick armor. Although no one offered any guarantees. Neither did they tell them what the Tiger crew would be doing while they got up close. Maybe they'd be singing the Horst Wessel song and eating plates of sauerkraut. Whatever, the further away they stayed from the Tigers, the better.

  "You're not scared of them?" Solly had grinned at Angel when they were discussing the German heavy tanks.

  "Tigers?" the Latino exclaimed, "No, I'm not scared. I'm fucking terrified, and anyone who isn't needs his head testing before some Nazi blows it off with an 88mm shell."

  Looking at that shell, bomb, and bullet-tormented beach, Grant knew there was no way they'd survive for long, even if they managed to cross the sand intact. There were too many obstacles along the way. Tiger tanks, the new Panzer Vs, which were supposed to be just as lethal. Tank hunters, assault guns, anti-tank missiles, and coastal guns, not to mention several million Germans under arms. They were supposed to be good soldiers, the Krauts, real good. They should be after several years fighting this war, including the bitter fighting reported from the Eastern Front in Russia.

  Then again, Americans were no slouches. Some of them, like him, hadn't seen any action. Not until today, but the planners claimed they'd outnumber the Germans in Northern France by a factor of four to one. If they ever got off the beach, that is. There was also the fact their equipment was the best America could build, which meant the best in the world. So maybe they'd get off the beach after all. Maybe.

  An anti-tank round impacted on the soft sand, narrowly missing the hull. For a few seconds clouds of debris hid the enemy positions. When it cleared, he stared through the vision slot and instantly shouted a warning.

  "Target, twelve o'clock, dead ahead. Enemy gun position, hit him, Solly!"

  He hardly got the last word out when the main gun fired. Vernon opened up with the Browning machine gun, spraying bullets at the enemy gun position, trying to kill his crew. Grant grasped the handle of the Browning .50 caliber in his turret, searching for a target.

  There!

  A coalscuttle helmet, peeping over the top of what had been camouflaged to resemble an innocent hillock of grass and sand. Another one bobbed up to take a look, then another. He could make out the barrel of a gun. No, shit, it was an anti-tank missile tube. A burst of gunfire from elsewhere on the beach ripped chunks of camouflage from the German position, exposing the shapes of the defenders.

  Time to give them a taste of .50 caliber rounds.

  He squeezed the trigger, and the weapon jolted in his hands as bullets streamed out the barrel.

  He walked the burst onto the target. Each bullet was almost six inches in length and a whisker less than an inch in diameter. With a weight of two ounces, a single round packed a heavy punch. Grant fired twenty rounds in a continuous burst that stitched across the German position. He halted and then walked a second burst back into the dead center of the target. Then he stared at the result. The helmets had disappeared, the missile tube had vanished, and the German position was no longer there.

  "How's that for shooting?" a loud voice came over the net. He recognized Ernie Elliot, the Australian.

  "Hey, Ernie, we thought you were out of it."

  "Nah, the engineers were alongside us in less than a minute. They hooked up a new track. We're good as new. Well, almost. It makes a racket, but they'll sort us out when we get off the beach. We just hit knocked out an enemy field gun."

  "Shut up!" Major Morgan growled, "Stay off the net, all of you, unless you have something important to say."

  It was good to know Matilda's crew was back. He'd assumed the worst. More shells burst around him, and he searched for the source. He couldn't see clearly, and he popped open the hatch to look out. The full devastation of Omaha Beach came into sharp focus. Burned out vehicles, tanks, equipment and LCTs lying wrecked and useless on the beach. There were also bodies, scores of bodies, hundreds of bodies. Many lay next to the strange crossed-steel structures, traps designed to rip the bottoms from landing craft. The poor bastards had sheltered behind the flimsy cover, despite all the urging to keep going forward.

  A sudden movement caught his eye, out to the west. On the top of Pointe du Hoc, a turret was rotating. A German heavy tank, surely, the turret looked huge. He felt something churn in his guts, but it wasn't fear. It was something else. Fate, maybe.

  What is it they say, 'someone walked on my grave.' Yeah, that's what it felt like. Why?

  Then he focused his binoculars and chuckled. It was a turret fitted into a concrete base, for use as a shore defense gun. Not a tank. Not a Tiger, but still lethal. The gun fired, and close by a Sherman went up in smoke and flames. His stomach lurched. She was one of theirs, nicknamed Cochise. The commander was Sergeant Daniel Kuruk, a full blood Indian. The hatch opened, and men started to stumble out, careful to keep the burning hull between them and the enemy guns. He counted them as they emerged, two, three four, and then five.

  They made it out!

  "Nail that fucker!" a voice screamed into his headset. Lieutenant Christopher Bligh, the platoon commander, riding his tank The Bounty, after his famous namesake. The order wasn't necessary. Solly was already lined up on the target, and his first shell impacted the reinforced concrete. It did little damage. He kept firing, but by now Bligh's gunner had joined in and attracted by the fall of shot, other tanks were moving their aiming points to strike the embedded turret. When the fire slackened, and the smoke cleared, the Kraut appeared undamaged. The gun fired again.

  "What is that thing made of?" Dale Weathers shouted in dismay, "We keep hitting him and it barely scratches the paintwork. How about we try some AP, Sarge?"

  Armor piercing, shells designed for tank on tank engagement. He hesitated for a moment and shouted in agreement.

  "Three rounds AP, gunner, and then switch back to HE."

  They were hurting the enemy with HE, even if the shells couldn't penetrate a hardened target. Kill enough Krauts manning the coastal defenses, and the rest would make a run for it. So they'd said back before they left England. Although if that were a Panzer V or Tiger I turret, they'd be lucky to damage it with AP. All they could hope was for it to be a turret from a Panzer IV. Thinner armor.

  Solly fired off three rounds. Two of them glanced off the sloped glacis of the turret; the other missed, but it was still intact. Then the warships got interested, and the first salvo from the USS Texas exploded fifty yards from the German defenses. Someone cheered, and the gun stopped firing for several seconds, but then it fired another shell toward them. It missed, but the Texas had her teeth in the target, and two more salvos landed, one very close, and the other hit the bullseye. Concrete and ruptured steel flew into the air, and then a half-dozen secondary explosions rocked the cliff top as the store of shells exploded.