"Platoon, advance!"

  Bligh's Sherman was already picking up speed as they headed for the gap in the defenses. Grant gave the order, and Angel gunned the big Continental four hundred horsepower radial engine. He could smell gasoline and thought it possible one of the hits they'd sustained had ruptured a fuel line, but when they passed another burning Sherman, the stink got stronger. They were okay, for now. He risked a glance behind him. Matilda's replacement was near enough for him to see the commander standing in the open turret. If he weren't careful, he'd take a Kraut bullet between the eyes. There were more than enough bullets to go around.

  A pair of aircraft roared in on the beach and slammed the hatch closed.

  Messerschmitt 109s! So they are around.

  The fighters came in fast and low, and then zoomed out to the west in the direction of Utah Beach. They probably came from the Luftwaffe base on the Cotentin Peninsula. There was an airfield close to Cherbourg, one of the primary objectives of the Airborne outfits. They'd jumped early to secure bridges and other strategic targets. He smiled to himself; those Messerschmitts would get a surprise if they landed, and some hairy-assed paratrooper from the 101st or the 82nd was pointing a gun at their bellies.

  Another 88 opened up, and plumes of sand were tossed into the air as the Germans sought their range.

  Where the hell did that come from? Yeah, up there. Another bastard.

  "Gunner, target two o'clock, up on the cliff top."

  "I've got him."

  Solly fired, and his armor piercing shell exploded against the cliff top. A few chunks of rock tore away and tumbled to the beach.

  "Solly, you'll have to use HE. That's an open emplacement. Kill the gunners. You'll never get them with AP."

  "Sorry."

  The next shot impacted closer to the gun, but still the German kept firing. A shell hit the replacement Matilda yet again. This time the petrol exploded, then the ammunition store, and the vehicle became a flaming pyre. The hatches remained closed. Grant's Sherman was already at the edge of the beach starting up the long slope, behind Lieutenant Bligh, who screamed in anguish. "The fuckers, let's get 'em. Grant, are you okay?"

  "Right behind you, Lt."

  "Good. Did anyone get out of Matilda?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Shit."

  They hurtled up the slope, and German defenders popped up from foxholes where they'd been waiting to engage the armor at close range. Only twenty yards away he saw the distinctive Kraut helmet appear, followed by the long tube of a launcher; a panzerfaust, the cheap, single shot, anti-tank weapon, a disposable tube that fired a high explosive anti-tank warhead, cheap, but effective.

  Before the shooter could pull the trigger, Grant swiveled the .50 caliber and riddled him with enough lead to kill a whale. The guy disappeared, and immediately he began searching for the next target. A shallow crack sounded from nearby, and he turned to see another anti-tank weapon aiming at them. This one was different, a Panzerbuchse, an anti-tank rifle.

  Jesus, they're throwing everything at us.

  He squeezed the trigger, and watched the target disintegrate. Scratch one Jerry.

  Bligh was moving fast up the slope, and they tucked in behind him. Solly positioned the main gun over to the right, to the west, toward Pointe-du-Hoc. They'd skirted the 88mm emplacement, and now it was time to destroy the bastard before he killed any more of their comrades. Three Krauts pushed an anti-tank gun out of hiding and raced to get in a shot before the Shermans rolled over them.

  "Enemy artillery, two hundred yards to the east," Bligh shouted over the net. "Fire!"

  He didn't wait for an acknowledgment. The Lieutenant was charging down the enemy like hell on wheels. Two more panzerfausts popped out of hiding, and the machine guns of The Bounty shredded the gunners, brushing them aside like flies as they charged for the jackpot. The crew of the 88 had seen the danger, and they started to traverse, but their gun was as unwieldy as it was powerful. Bligh's Sherman started shooting HE. Angel stamped on the gas to draw Minnie Mouse alongside The Bounty, and Solly sent an HE shell straight into the gun pit.

  Both tanks fired again, and again, and they added their secondary machine gunfire to the devastating storm of high explosive. The turret stopped traversing and fell silent.

  Both tanks halted, and Bligh popped his head out to survey the damage. Grant opened up the hatch, and he could see the emplacement was a twisted, tangled mess of concrete, steel, blood and shredded human tissue. No shots buzzed and whistled past them, no shells impacted nearby. For a moment, it was as if the little corner of the battlefield was their entire world.

  Grant climbed down to look. He stared with astonishment at the bloody carnage they'd wrought, and then a shell crashed into the earth yards away from where he was standing. He jumped onto the hull, ducked back inside and buttoned up.

  "That was a fucking Tiger!" Vernon Franklin shouted, "I ain't kidding. We need to get out of here."

  Bligh's voice sounded in Grant's headphones. "Enemy armor in front of us, about five hundred yards inland. They're only light tanks. I'm not familiar with them, but I guess we can handle them. I'll call in Able and Charlie Platoons, and we'll take them together."

  "I tell you they're fucking Tigers!"

  Vernon hated being wrong, especially where his favorite nightmare was concerned. Grant smiled, Bligh was right, they weren't Tigers. He identified more than a dozen French built Renault and Char Hotchkiss Model 35s. They were light tanks, thinly armored, with a main gun half the size and hitting power of the Sherman. The Germans had no business throwing those relics into battle against modern equipment. Then again, it could be a good sign. If they were that desperate for equipment, the resistance they faced inland could be less than expected.

  "This is Able Platoon. We're right behind you."

  "Charlie Platoon coming up on your left. Christ, what are those things? Garbage trucks?"

  "French Chars," Bligh informed them, "They shouldn't hurt us, but they could murder the infantry, as well as the soft-skinned vehicles coming up the beach. Help yourselves, guys. There's plenty for everyone. Attack!"

  The drivers floored the gas, and a total of nine Sherman M4s charged the enemy. Smoke appeared from the stubby barrels of the enemy armor, and several rounds chipped paint off their frontal armor, but none penetrated. The Germans could have fired M1 carbines at them for all the difference it made, and then the Shermans opened up. Within seconds, three of the Chars were smoking wrecks, and two more had slewed to a stop.

  The Company A Shermans crested the low rise, and now it was a downhill race to destroy the enemy. The Germans had realized their error and turned tail, but it was too late. Someone gave out a Rebel Yell, probably Vern, as they closed with the enemy. With a top speed of seventeen miles per hour, against the thirty miles per hour of the Sherman, it was almost ritualized slaughter. The Renaults and Chars traversed their turrets to face backward, trying to hold off the vengeful M4s, but their gunnery was no more effective than before.

  They caught up with them a few hundred yards away, and Bligh led the Shermans in a charge as they opened fire on the enemy armor. They were firing AP, armor piercing shells, hitting the enemy at close range, and there was never any doubt as to the outcome. They finished off the last three vehicles inside a couple of minutes.

  "Hey, some of the crews are escaping," Solly shouted, "Shoot the fuckers."

  "Hold it, hold it, they're surrendering," Grant shouted before his men committed a war crime, "I'll go check them out."

  "They're Krauts, only one way to check them out," Rothstein muttered, angry at the thought of a single German escaping his Old Testament wrath.

  "I said don't shoot."

  He opened the hatch, took out his Browning automatic, and climbed down to the road. There were five men confronting him, wearing the black uniforms that so many soldiers mistakenly assumed were SS. They were wrong; the Waffen-SS wore field gray and leopard pattern camos, not black. These men were Wehrmacht tankers, the German Army. The Heer. Grant tried to speak to an NCO using the German he'd learned at school.

  "Hande Hoch! Sie sind gefangene der Amerikanischen Armee."

  The Sergeant replied in English after he'd hastily raised his hands in the air.

  "Please, may I translate your order?"

  He shrugged. "Go ahead."

  The NCO spoke rapid German, and they quickly raised their hands. He looked at Grant.

  "Sir, I told them not to resist. They will not give you any trouble."

  He stared at the prisoners. They were a sorry looking bunch. More like a barroom brawlers than soldiers.

  "What kind of unit is this?"

  The Kraut grimaced. "A penal unit, all serving out their sentences. They're under punishment for a range of offenses; theft, rape, desertion, you name it. They didn't want to fight on the Eastern Front."

  "Russia? You were on the front line?"

  He looked shifty. "Not exactly, no, Sir."

  "What did you do?"

  "I was a guard in a camp, but they transferred me."

  Grant was aware of Solly standing next to him and could sense his mounting fury.

  "Most of the prisoners would have been Jews," he snarled, "They take them to those kinds of places to kill them. They're murder factories."

  The gunner grabbed the German with one hand and pushed the barrel of his pistol into the man's face.

  "Where was this prison camp?"

  Another hesitation. "Oswiecim, in Poland."

  "Auschwitz," Solly breathed, "The end of the line. A death camp, isn't that right, Kraut?"

  The Sergeant shrugged nervously. "I wouldn't know about such things."

  "Did you kill prisoners?"

  He shivered. "Some. They were Jews."

  A burst of shellfire several hundred of yards away made Grant look to the west. Pointe du Hoc was wreathed in smoke and fire as a new assault began. He thought of those impossible cliffs and shivered. He climbed onto the hull of Minnie Mouse.

  "Time to move out. Solly, we need to get back."

  He didn't move. "What about the prisoners?"

  "Send them toward the beach. They can..."

  The shot made him swing around fast. Solly had his Colt automatic raised, and a wisp of smoke spiraled out the end of the barrel. The German sergeant had slumped to the ground, blood pouring from a huge wound to his head. He glared at the gunner.

  "Goddamn it, Solly, what the hell did you do that for?"

  His reply was stony. It was no apology. "For Auschwitz."

  They looked up as Bligh's tank returned and halted next to them. He glanced down at the bloody body of the German and then at the remaining prisoners. When he looked at Grant, his eyes were cold.

  "Tell me this isn't what it looks like, Sergeant Grant."

  Before Josh could reply, yet another armada of large aircraft flew low, heading inland to chew up the defenses. The ground shook with the elemental roar from the engines of scores of four-motor bombers. When the noise died away, Grant gazed at Bligh.

  "The Kraut was trying to escape, Lt."

  "Who shot him? Was it you, Grant?"

  "It was me."

  He felt Solly's gaze boring into his back. He'd have to have a word with the stupid bastard. Revenge was one thing, but if he did it too often, they'd string him up for war crimes. Then again, the German had clearly been involved with killing Jews in this place called Auschwitz. If it were true, the Russians would soon uncover the evidence as they steamrollered through the Nazis on their way to Berlin. But once was enough. No more.

  "It doesn't look like an escape attempt, not to me," Bligh said quietly, "Don't let it happen again, is that clear?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "What the hell's going on here?"

  They swung around and glanced at the officer standing in the turret of a Sherman that had just pulled up next to them. Grant felt like he'd been kicked in the guts. Of all the officers who had to come past right now, it had to be Lindbergh. Bligh pointed to the dead German.

  "The German was shot trying to escape, Colonel."

  "Is that right?"

  He climbed out of the turret, jumped to the ground, and dusted off his immaculate uniform.

  "Who killed him?"

  "It was Sergeant Grant, Sir."

  Lindbergh nodded in satisfaction. He'd been seeking an excuse to nail Grant ever since he found out he was a lawyer. People said he'd taken a hit from a pack of high-priced lawyers in a messy divorce back home, and he was looking for some form of revenge on the legal profession. When Grant joined the 745th, both an NCO and a lawyer, he was fair game. He stared at the Sergeant, working hard to control a smirk.

  "Why did you murder this man, Grant?"

  "Who said anything about murder, Sir?"

  Lindbergh looked angry. "Just answer the question."

  "I killed him. For your information, nobody murdered him. I shot him while he was trying to escape."

  "Bullshit!" the dapper Colonel spat out, "It's as clear a case of murder as I've ever seen. The penalty is death. I'm placing you under open arrest, pending court martial. You will continue in command of your tank for the time being. I will call you to answer charges at a later stage. Don't try running away. It'll only make things worse." He sneered. "Maybe this would be a good time to get yourself a lawyer."

  Grant gave him a hard stare. "Fuck you, Colonel."

  His face was bright red with anger. "I'll add insubordination to the charge of murder. You will not use inappropriate language to your superior officer."

  He stared back at him. "Fuck you, Colonel," he said again."

  With a huge effort, he managed to control his anger. "You just disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer, and in the face of the enemy. You should know the penalty is death."

  "Is that right? Which one comes first, death for the murder or death for disobeying the order?"

  A few yards away someone sniggered. Lindbergh glared at him for a few moments, then turned on his heel and stomped back to his tank.

  "We need to move on," Bligh said eventually, "There's a lot of Krauts to kill." He gave Grant a significant glance, "On the battlefield, I mean."

  "It wasn't murder, Lt."

  "I'll do my best to get it straightened out."

  "Sure."

  Bligh wasn't a bad officer, whereas Lindbergh was a nasty little shit. He was consoled by the fact they were confronting what some people said was the biggest, most formidable army in the world. Their chances of survival were not good. And when they encountered the Tigers, they were worse, probably infinitesimal.

  He put Lindbergh out of his mind. After they'd sent the Germans’ Russian prisoners walking back toward the beach, they got the tracks rolling again. Grant looked seaward; they'd come a distance of only a few hundred yards. Yet the ground was strewn with bodies and wrecked vehicles. How many more deaths would they suffer before they reached Berlin? Would any of them survive? More bombers were attacking to the south, and the landscape echoed to the thunder of heavy explosions.

  The Germans are probably wondering the same thing.

  The salvos from the warships kept coming, and it seemed as if they'd shoot off every shell in their arsenals before they called it a day. But the Germans were fighting back hard. Machine gunfire and anti-tank guns hit back incessantly, and when he looked south, he had a fleeting glimpse of a Kraut tank. For a brief moment he thought it was a Tiger, but then he recognized it as a tank destroyer. It melted into a small wood and disappeared. It was big, much bigger than their M10s, which were built on the hull of a Sherman. With any luck, the bombers would find it.

  Solly joined him in the turret. "You heard that guy. Bastard Germans, killing Jews, he deserved it."

  "Maybe, but don't do it again, Solly."

  "I hear you, Sarge. And thanks for taking the rap. They would never have believed me."

  "Maybe, maybe not."

  "Is that true, Lindbergh could charge you with murder?"

  He smiled. "Let's get on with the war, Solly. I couldn't give a damn about Lindbergh."

  * * *

  Franz raced around the side of the barn, his face sweating with exertion.

  "Obersturmfuhrer, our orders have arrived from Division. They want to speak to you."

  Manhausen nodded thanks his driver and walked quickly to the farmhouse. The radio operator handed the mike to him.

  "Dreux HQ for you, Sir."

  He took the instrument. "This is Obersturmfuhrer Manhausen."

  "Heil Hitler!" The radio operator the other end sounded excited, "We have orders at last to head for the beaches. The Fuhrer has instructed our Tigers to throw the Allies back into the sea."

  He didn't return the Heil Hitler. "I assume we are to move after nightfall. We should have received those orders last night while it was still dark. We cannot leave until 22.00 at the earliest."

  "Sir, the order requires you to move immediately and engage the enemy."

  "In daylight, that's madness! The distance is one hundred and fifty kilometers at the least, and we can expect to have enemy aircraft attacking us every meter of the way. We may as well place charges and destroy the Panzers ourselves."

  A pause. "I'm sorry, Obersturmfuhrer, but the order comes from the Fuhrer himself, direct from Berchtesgaden."

  He fought down his anger. He'd sworn an oath to obey the Fuhrer. Yet to obey this order would wipe out most of their precious Tigers. He tried to picture the route they must take.

  Can we make it alive to the Channel beaches? A few of us could get through, yes, but we’ll lose many of our precious tanks.

  They'd also have to detour, using up more precious fuel, in order to try and stay behind cover. They'd be forced to use hedgerows and woods, darting from one to the other, always keeping an eye on the sky. For long stretches of the journey, he knew there were no trees. In which case, they'd be sitting ducks for the Typhoons, the Lancasters, and the B-17s.