[innokenti]

Well, a book I am co-authoring with a mate of mine who may or may not turn up on this forum. Anyway, we were both in a way inspired by SE's epics so are busy slugging away at an original concept which we came up with almost simultaneously.

It has involved a fair amount of historical research (and will involve far more) but it is coming along nicely I think. I am going to give the prologue here and keep you up to date with the progress!!!

NOTE: Perevorot means turnover or revolution in Russian. (oh yes, I am Russian btw.)



To: Field Marshal Morton
From: War Office
Monday 20th January 1938

At 0400 hours tomorrow, Captain Chaft, an official observer from the American State Department, will arrive in Calais from London on the Luxuriant; ensure he is given a full welcoming party and immediate transportation to the Clemence Depot. He will carry out a full inspection of the demilitarisation, as defined by Article 3A in the Paris-Berlin Agreement, of the Line from the Depot to Fort Wellington. His report goes straight to the Treaty Organization so give him the full works.

T.S



Prologue
Black Monday

0600 hours

Captain Chaft watched the Maginot Line blur past the window: millions of miles of barbed wire and thousands of tank traps, trenches, bunkers, pill boxes, and concrete forts stretched away for eternity. Occasionally, there was a clump of khaki where Brit soldiers were standing around in huddles, talking, smoking and patting themselves to keep warm.
It was a desperately cold day and his breath burned the back of his throat raw. His driver, an ill tempered man called Harris, kept his mouth closed and his eyes on the road as he mistreated the truck, hurling it around corners with a sort of angry contempt. They bumped off the main road that ran parallel with the Line and started bouncing over the ditches and ruts of cold-hardened mud towards the Clemence Depot. Harris hammered the horn at a French sergeant who passed in front of the truck on a bicycle and a Jackal roared overhead.
The twin engine jet fighter wasn’t as glamorous as some of the newer planes but was still beautiful in the way only a high speed vehicle can be. Chaft loved planes. His father had been an air force pilot but had never seen action.
“Show off,” said Harris, as the Jackal did a victory roll. Some men playing cards in the shade of a Davey tank beside the track cheered.
With so many British troops and bases in northern France, they sold English newspapers in Calais and Chaft had been able to buy The Times. It was not comfortable reading: about twelve pages set aside to various views on the main story, President Unmoved By Kaiser’s Ultimatum.
It just added to everything he’d seen already, heightening his worries about entering the British Sector of the Line. Too volatile, his commander had said, best that there were no Americans on the ground at all, in case worst came to worst and they got caught up in the fighting. That was the sort of thing, he had said, that caused international incidents. And the fighting he was afraid of seemed more likely by the day. The relationship between the Equalist States and the German/Austro-Hungarian Empires had been icy at best since the Hamburg Bombings and Chaft had no wish to get stuck in the middle. Chaft had expected them to put it back a little, at the least, but the date seemed to set in stone, and when the State Department commanded, you went, Damn the consequences.
A flight of planes went over, vapour trails scarring the sky, and the truck rumbled to a stop, the engine gurgled and cut out completely.
There were a couple of worried looking Brits in trench coats waiting for him as he clambered out.
“Captain Chaft?” asked the man.
“That’s me.”
“I’m Bosford, War Office,” said the man. “This is Major Cranburgh, Elvish Fusiliers, he’s your tour guide for today.”
“I drew the short straw,” said the Major, a tall, handsome elf, he smiled grimly and flicked his cigarette away.
Bosford laughed awkwardly, coughed and said, “Shall we begin, gentlemen?”
Cranburgh turned on his heel and wandered over to a grey, concrete building on the far side of the depot.

“This is Major Cranburgh, Elvish Fusiliers, he’s your tour guide for today.”
“I drew the short straw,” said the Major, smiling grimly, a tall, handsome elf, flicking his cigarette away and grinding it under his foot.
Bosford laughed awkwardly, coughed and said, “Shall we begin, gentlemen?”
Cranburgh turned on his heel and wandered over to a grey, concrete building on the far side of the depot.
A Britishcorporal opened the door for them. It led straight down a flight of cold stairs to another, metal reinforced door at the bottom. There was a more serious looking soldier, an elvish marine, standing there who checked Cranburgh’s papers, before talking into an intercom set into the wall. There was a brief discussion of crackled static and the doors slid back, revealing a junction of interconnecting tunnels.
“This,” announced Cranburgh, turning to face, “is the Subway, allowing large amounts of troops and vehicles to move freely along the Line without being seen and without being exposed to any enemy fire. Down there,” Cranburgh pointed, “is Liverpool Street, one of the many stations on the underground railway line that stretches from here to the southern coast.”
The Major yawned and wandered down one of the passages, waving them on.
“Bosford’s been on the Line since it’s creation, he knows it better than anyone else in the British Army,” explained Bosford, “he was just out on a recon patrol last night.”
Chaft smiled. He was a man of charm, all easy smiles and reassuring handshakes that meant nothing. A tall, tanned Californian with the slightly slouched, quick walk and confident air of one of America’s elite, he was a fish out of water in the stale air and bright, artificial lighting of the tunnels. Only just past his prime, Bosford could see the muscles through his uniform, but there were a few tell tale grey hairs in the sides of his crew cut.
Bosford himself, by comparison, was a suit: hands rammed into pockets, clipped moustache and stubble, he walked with slow, awkward strides and was constantly pinching the bridge of his nose. Under his long, beige coat was a uniform he didn’t feel right in, a rank he wasn’t suited to and a revolver strapped to his side he couldn’t use.
They hurried after Cranburgh.

At the end of the tunnel was a security door manned by a number of heavily armed guards. Mounted machine guns muzzles poked from slits in the concrete walls, and two five man patrols with snarling Alsatians on leads passed them.
One of the guards, an elf with a pattern of badly healed burns on the side of his face, checked all of their papers and spoke into an intercom. The doors slid back.
“Go in,” prompted Cranburgh.
The next “room” was really just a space sandwiched between the doors behind them, and another set of doors in front of them.
“This is called the Airlock system,” said Cranburgh. “We perfected it in 1919.”
The doors behind them closed. A light up on the right bathed them in a red glow. There was a few seconds wait, Bosford swallowed and started tapping his foot. The light went green. The doors in front of them slid back.
“This,” said Cranburgh, “is the front line.”



The Airlock closed behind them. Chaft looked around, they were in an open trench, the walls and bottom of which were concreted. It was so deep, he couldn’t see over the top. Cranburgh led them down it. There was more sense of purpose here than out at the Depot, the heavily armed soldiers they saw saluted smartly and then immediately carried on down the Line. Cranburgh greeted a few officers that passed by.
“The forward positions are shallower than this,” said Cranburgh, “this is basically a supply trench. That’s why it’s so wide. Two men can pass each other easily. If everyone keeps to the left we can have a flow of supplies and ammunition going to the front and wounded taken back underground.”
There were signs set into the walls of the trenches. After the First War when the Maginot line had first been constructed, the troops gave certain places nicknames and over time these were used officially.
They headed down another slightly shallower trench marked Oxford Street. There were dozens of tributaries leading into it, passages leading down into bunkers or medical bays or up into the occasional square pillbox, jutting out of the ground, front slit bristling with machine guns. Chaft could hear people talking inside them.
Cranburgh led them past a particularly well-guarded intersection past a sign saying Forward Trenches. There was a parapet running along, two feet above the ground and a wall of sandbags at the lip of the trench, the occasional gap filled with a mounted machine gun. As they progressed down the duckboards riveted to the bottom of the trench, they passed the occasional Brit sitting by the parapet, cleaning his rifle, or writing something in a journal, or reading a book. Chaft could tell by their expressions that they were just doing something, anything, to fill the time; a few of them were even shaking slightly.
“They’re a bit shaken up by last night,” said Cranburgh, “one of my officers bought it.”
“What?” Chaft frowned at him.
“Artillery shell landed right in on him,” explained Cranburgh, Chaft didn’t reply, but Cranburgh saw his expression, “Captain, you Americans don’t appreciate what goes on here. You think the front line is sterile. It isn’t. Every day, we prepare for and anticipate an attack, everyday, for a couple of hours, they bomb us and we bomb them. So, don’t you see why so many front line officers distrust the Germans? While we slowly dismantle our fortresses and positions, while we systematically weaken ourselves, and see the Germans do the opposite?” The Major paused, looking at him levelly.
“The T.O. has observers over there as well,” said Chaft.
“You can go wherever you like, Captain, drop in at any time. The observer in Germany must comply with restrictions, otherwise the Germans don’t play ball. So, whereas you are allowed to see everything that goes on, our friend over the Wall is led around by the hand and shown only the places the Germans want him to see while some bureaucrat tells him a load of propaganda about German good intentions in this sector,” the Major looked at him and read the expression, “I’ll believe it when I see it, Captain.”
“How can you possibly know any of that, Major?” asked Chaft. He didn’t like this limey. The French Section Commander had treated him with the respect he deserved as a representative for the US Government.
“Its my job to know, Captain,” said Cranburgh. “The same way it is my sausage eating opposite number’s job to know exactly how much ammunition we have supplied to each and every pill box per week. A sudden increase in the figures, and he’s got a good enough reason to move eight panzer divisions into the Sector. We’re all on a knife’s edge out here, Captain.”
Bosford was keeping very quiet, but slid a hand into his coat to get a cigarette.
Cranburgh pointed at a No Smoking sign on the wall of the trench, “Snipers, if they see a flash, they won’t wait to identify you as an American,” he explained. “Anyway, let’s continue with the tour, shall we? This is the forward most trench, the first line of defence against any potential attack. From here, we fight for every inch, back into the supply trenches, and then from the Maginot Line proper. Out there,” he waved, “is the biggest minefield ever known to man, dwarf, orc or elf alike. The Wilderness, we call it. Two miles separating us from an almost identical system of interconnecting tunnels and fortresses the Germans call the Great Prussian Wall. But you’d know about that of course.”
Chaft smiled grimly. The Jackal he’d seen earlier flew over again. The air throbbed with noise for a moment and then silence resumed.
“The RAF launches fly bys every ten minutes. Every half an hour, a whole squadron goes over. Behind the Line, in this sector alone, we have five Battle-class zeppelins on permanent station, ready to come forward to meet any airborne force head on,” said Cranburgh, leading them down the trench, past a 16-pound artillery piece set into the ground. “We have one of these every fifty metres and mortars every hundred. Each gun is fixed, so it can’t be turned. Also, if a retreat is sounded, the teams have satchel charges to spike the gun with, so it doesn’t fall into German hands.”
There was a whistle from somewhere down the trench. There was a sudden scurry of activity, as Brit soldiers moved forward and pulled themselves up onto the parapet.
“During the First War, we had a set schedule all our troops complied to, but the Germans cottoned onto it pretty quick and deliberately disrupted our daily routine. Now, we have set daily events, but the order and time of them is modulated, so no two days are the same. Also, we use underground bunkers to serve meals, so artillery barrages can’t ruin lunch,” he flashed a brief smile and then paused by the opening of another side passage, “Every two hundred metres we have a double-R station, a radio and radar point. Shall we go in?”
The passage sloped down into a large, concreted room underground. Along one wall was a mass of slightly dusty but fully functional equipment; there were two men sitting at it with headphones on. Along another wall were the radar monitors, glowing green. There were men hunched over these too, jotting down notes onto paper beside them. In the centre of the room was a cache of weapons.
“If an attack comes,” said Cranburgh, “we want everyone to have a weapon. All these men are fully combat trained.” He turned to one of the men, “Anything on the set, Wilkins?”
Wilkins turned, “A flight of 1-90s did a patrol about an hour ago. Now it’s clear.”
“Sounds quiet,” said Cranburgh.
“Wasn’t even as dead as this at New Years Day,” said Wilkins.
“Keep an eye out for anything unusual,” said Cranburgh.
“As always, sir.”
Cranburgh smiled and they left the RR room.
Bosford had stayed outside and was waiting for them when they came back, stamping up and down. “Shall we move on, Major? It’s getting colder.”
Cranburgh smiled, “Depending what Chaft wants to do, we could go back to Liverpool Street and go direct to Wellington.”
“I’d like to see the rest of the forward positions.”
“I thought you might,” said Cranburgh. “All right, this way.”
As they carried on down the trench, Chaft could see a bank of fog rolling in through the East.

The fog was thick by the time they reached Fort Wellington, a huge steel re-enforced concrete structure that towered over the trench. There was a great gap in the front; dozens of machine guns and the two huge, greased, barrels of the biggest artillery piece Chaft had ever seen pointed out from it, over the Wilderness.
“Wellington’s Shotgun,” said Cranburgh, proudly. “Coverage of the entire Sector.”
“Shall we go inside?” Bosford asked.
Cranburgh glanced at Chaft, who nodded. “This way,” he said.

The inside of the Fort was warm and well lit. There was a garrison of over five hundred men, most of whom operated the Shotgun. There was also a large War Room, although most of the room was set aside for radar equipment, there was a map on the large oak table in the centre of the Sector, units were denoted with labelled flags. It certainly gave Chaft a sense of the vast scale of the Maginot Line. Tank divisions, aerodromes the size of towns, forts, barracks, training compounds, fields and fields of artillery, look out posts, silos, depots and mile after unending mile of trenches all crammed into a couple of miles: the most militarised zone in the world. Chaft shook his head at the enormity of it. It was still practically impregnable, even after twenty-two years of demilitarisation. The Germans would have to pull off some sort of miracle or have a hundred secret weapons the Brits couldn’t anticipate to break through.
Cranburgh was about to move on when one of the radar men said, “Erm, sir, I’ve got twelve contacts moving in at…. an impossible speed.”
“What?” the Major’s face flickered with momentary panic, just as suddenly calmed before he went over to the man who’d spoken.
“Looks like…. in excess of six hundred miles an hour.”
“What are they?”
“I don’t know sir, they’re too small for aircraft.”
“They’re coming in from Germany?”
“Yes sir,” said the man, he’d gone very pale.
Suddenly, Chaft’s musings came back to haunt him: secret weapons the Brits couldn’t anticipate. But, it couldn’t be. The Germans wouldn’t jeopardise the peace process with a surprise attack, surely. Bosford had joined Cranburgh by the instruments.
“Radio?”
“Sir?”
“I want a screen of anti-aircraft fire.”
“Colonel Haynes says he can’t see a thing, sir.”
“Tell him to fire blind then.”
“Yes sir.”
Bosford stared at Cranburgh, “We don’t know what these things are, David, you could cause an international incident-”
“Morton would tell me to do the same thing, damn the consequences.”
“But he hasn’t.”
“I haven’t got time to go begging clearance off high command. Those things might be the first wave in an invasion.”
“If we kill German airmen-”
“That’s just it, sir,” the radar man piped up, “they’re too small to be manned.”
“Unmanned fighters?”
“Magery,” said Cranburgh with contempt. “Radio, are you in contact with the AA teams?”
“Yes sir,” said the radio operator, “they’ve opened up.”
“These things will fly through that flak in a matter of seconds,” said the radar man.
“Yes, but at least it’s something, we might stop a few of them.”
There was a pause. Everyone in the room was silent. Finally, the radio operator spoke, “Colonel Haynes reporting sir, they hit one, but it exploded. The biggest explosion Haynes has ever seen, took two of the others with it.”
“That leaves?”
“Nine, sir,” said the radar man. “They’re separating, branching off.”
“What?”
“It looks like they’re heading for specific targets-”
“They must be manned,” said Bosford.
“One’s coming straight for us,” screamed the radar man. There was immediate panic.
“Are you sure?” Cranburgh said, staring at the screen with wild eyes.
The radar man nodded mutely. “Take cover,” yelled Cranburgh. “Get under the table, Chaft.”
Chaft, who had been standing, rooted to the spot, threw himself to the ground and scrambled under the map table.
He gazed out as he saw Bosford and Cranburgh stumbling towards him. Then, he passed out as everything went white with noise.

* * *
His ears screeched in agony, a painful sort of silence that buzzed in his head and made his nose and ears bleed. He couldn’t see either. The room was full of smoke, or fog or both. There were a few flickering orange blurs. Fires.
He dragged himself along the floor and pulled himself up from under the table. Huge chunks of concrete, great, mangled metal pylons, fused tangled wires showering sparks over the floor and the occasional crushed body all piled up around the war room, which was now open to the sky. The entire top section of the bunker had been blown off.
His hearing gradually returning, Chaft wiped clogs of grit from his eyes with the back of his shaking hands. “Bosford?” he called, not quite hearing his own words.
He staggered over the rubble and scorched debris to the edge of the room, the wall having collapsed outwards, through the drifting swathes of fog. The tattered door lay in fractured chunks on the oak table, which was somehow still standing, although scorched and dented where falling masonry had bounced off it.
He found Bosford, lying under a fallen metal support, the side of his head and his stomach torn open. The radar man was propped up against the wall next to him, it seemed like he was sitting up. At first Chaft thought he was still alive, but then saw the ugly, jagged hole at the base of his skull, the rest of his back was covered in burns. Chaft was sick. This didn’t help his feeling of dizziness and nausea, so he shook his head, as if to clear it, and clambered over to where Cranburgh had been blown clear of the exploding radar equipment and was just getting up. He was covered in blood, but none of it was his own.
He saw Chaft. “Bosford?” he said.
Chaft couldn’t quite hear him but guessed at what he’d said and shook his head.
Cranburgh swore and said, “We have to get out of here.”
Chaft nodded and they clambered out of the room over a hunk of smouldering metal that had once been part of The Shotgun’s barrel. Parts of the corridor outside the War Room were still standing, but most of it had been blown away. A Brit soldier lay in a crushed heap up against the wall, blood sprayed on the floor around him. They walked past him, Chaft in a dizzying daze of shock and deafness and limped down the stairs.

Harris, Chaft’s driver, was hiding under his truck when the first wave of German aircraft passed overhead, they strafed the depot and everything around him started exploding. Shrapnel rained down, drumming on the truck and his nerve broke. He dragged himself out from under the truck and watched a group of soldiers, manning an anti-aircraft gun get cut to bloody pieces by a low flying fighter.
“Where’s our air support?” he screamed, as the Dwarvish engineer beside him was hit in the head by a chunk of debris.
Blood splattered over his face and he started running faster, dashing towards a slit trench at the far end of the depot. A plane swooped over, machine guns chattering, bullets tearing up the tarmac in fountains of chips. Harris was hit in the knee. His leg buckled and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, he started crawling, but a ricochet drilled through his neck, shattering a section of his vertebra. He died almost instantly.

The fog was thick but tainted with the smell of cordite and burnt skin. Fort Wellington had been destroyed. Whatever they’d seen on the radar, it had set off all the ammunition and the entire place had just fallen in on itself.
Chaft’s hearing had returned and he could hear large explosions in the distance, going off with the succession of a sustained machine gun burst.
Hundreds of planes must have been going over, as the world seemed to rock with the constant roar of aircraft passing.
“Haynes won’t be able to see a thing,” muttered Cranburgh.
“This is it, isn’t it?” said Chaft, as they moved up the deserted auxiliary trench that led to the Fort, “This is the invasion?”
“You’re an eye witness,” said Cranburgh with disgust, “You can tell the T.O. all about it.”
“You sound as if you’re blaming me,” said Chaft. “This isn’t my fault, Major.”
“No, I suppose the fact that if the Americans had supported us during the First War this wouldn’t be happening has nothing to do with you. The fact that we’re still dying over here trying to fight for the greater good and you, you Americans, are happy to sit on the side lines, is completely unimportant,” said Cranburgh. “Excuse my completely unwarranted general dislike and distrust of America.”
“Now is hardly the time to voice your xenophobia, Major,” said Chaft.
“Shut up or I’ll shoot you myself,” said Cranburgh stepping over a body laying the width of the trench. He had his revolver in his hand.
An elf came running the other way, there was a small, blood soaked, hole in his left shoulder, but it didn’t seem to concern him, “Sir! We thought you were dead when we saw the Fort go up.”
“What happened, sergeant?”
“This… self propelled…. bomb just glided into the bunker, through the Shotgun’s firing hole.”
“That’s precision targeting,” stated Cranburgh, “It was unmanned?”
“Definitely, sir,” said the elvish sergeant.
“Magic then.”
“Yes, sir, as is this fog. Some of the mages from the 5th are trying to clear our section, but it’s being controlled by a huge number of High Casters. Its too powerful unless we had all the mages from this sector combine their wills to throw it back. That’s what they say, sir.”
Suddenly the air was filled with a chorus of ear splitting shrieks.
“Incoming!” screamed a voice from down the trench.
The elf pulled Cranburgh to the ground and covered him. Chaft ducked down. Shells landed all around them, sending up fountains of mud and dirt that showered down all around them.
The elf struggled off Cranburgh and helped him up, “Are you going to the front, sir?”
“Yes,” said Cranburgh.
“We haven’t seen any infantry or armour, but the fog’s so thick we wouldn’t know if they were three feet in front of us.”
“Casualties?” Cranburgh asked, hurrying after the elf down the trench.
“Light, so far,” said the elf, “but Henderson bought it.”
Cranburgh swore.
They rounded a corner. The trench they were in was full of elves, many standing to on the parapet or manning their machine guns. The mortar crews were waiting and there were NCOs moving about, ensuring everyone had enough ammunition.
“Is your radio still operational?” asked Cranburgh.
“Yes, but something’s disrupting out signal.”
“I didn’t think they could jam the new sets,” said Cranburgh, passing a sergeant who saluted him. “Get Chaft here a weapon.”
Chaft silently shook his head, “I’m an impartial observer, Major, my government has forbidden any involvement-”
“We need all the men we can get, Chaft,” snapped Cranburgh, “the German assault troops who come over the top won’t care who you are, or where you’re from. I recommend taking a weapon.”
The sergeant was offering him a Stout, the British standard submachine gun.
“If you want to remain impartial, fine, but I won’t waste any men on trying to protect you,” said Cranburgh, and hurried off down the trench with the elf and started calling out orders to his men.
Chaft hesitated, looked at the sergeant and took the Stout. He checked the action. “Thanks.”
The sergeant passed him a handful of clips, nodded and went back to his position. Chaft pocketed the clips, paused and then joined the sergeant on the parapet.
“What’s your name, sergeant?”
“Coras Templar,” said the sergeant.
“Mind if I stick with you?”
“You a good shot with one of those things?” asked the sergeant, as some more shells arced overhead and exploded in muddy blossoms behind them.
“Never used a Stout before,” Chaft paused, watched the sergeant’s face and then continued, “but they’re similar to the stuff we use in the Rangers.”
“You’re a Ranger?” asked the sergeant, desperately trying to make conversation.
“Used to be. Then they made me military attaché to the Advisory Committee.”
“You’re an inspector for the Treaty Organization?”
“Yeah,” said Chaft, looking down at the submachine gun in his hand and smiling, “completely impartial.”
Coras smiled, then blinked, “Can you hear that?”
Chaft cocked his head, “What do you hear?”
“Sounds like… vehicles. Big,” the sergeant frowned and then turned to face the trench, “Turner!”
An elf a couple of metres down the line turned, “You hear it too?”
Coras nodded.
“Major!”
Cranburgh, who was hunched over a map talking to a lieutenant turned, “Turner? What is it?”
“Vehicles. A lot of them.”
“Heads up, people,” shouted Cranburgh, flinching as a shell landed behind him, showering him in clumps of dirt. “Wait till they’re in range. No premature firing. Radar’s dead,” he said to the lieutenant, “they’re blocking our radios, they’ve used a shroud to obscure our vision. Just how we’ve been saying they’d do it for months, ever since we’d heard about their expansion of the mage training programmes.”
“Huge aerial bombardment, must have knocked out most if not all of our supply depots and main forts,” said the lieutenant.
“I swear, if I get out of this, someone’s going to hang,” said Cranburgh. “Ten years of scaling down and then they hit us with this.”
Gradually, while he listened to the conversation, Chaft could hear a muffled rumble get louder in the background, louder and closer.
“Turner?” Cranburgh asked, fumbling with his holster and drawing his pistol.
“Sounds like panzers,” said Turner who was sitting cross-legged in the bottom of the trench, his eyes closed. “I’d say two hundred. Maybe more.”
“I still can’t see a thing,” yelled a tall elf just down from Cranburgh. Chaft could tell by his uniform that he was from the artillery. A spotter.
“Closing fast,” said Turner, a trance like quality in his voice, “less than a quarter of a mile.”
“Artillery - blind fire until you see something then make every shot count,” commanded Cranburgh, glancing over at his troops, all staring at him he shouted, “Eyes front.”
The artillery pieces nearest Cranburgh fired, filling Chaft’s still aching head with a reverberating boom. He cringed and swayed slightly.
“Okay?” asked Coras.
He nodded.
“Fifty yards,” shouted Turner suddenly.
“I see them,” yelled the elf spotter. “Twenty-five degrees, elevation: sixteen.”
The big guns boomed again.
“There,” someone shouted, pointing,
“Hold,” shouted Cranburgh.
“Thirty-five yards.”
“Hold.”
“Twenty yards.”
“Fire!”
The elves along the line started firing. Small arms and machine guns opened up all around him. Coras nudged him and pointed. Chaft squinted into the fog and made out a dull silhouette, “Troop transport,” said Coras, firing.
Chaft swung the Stout up, sighted down it and fired out over the Wilderness.
The Germans returned fire. He saw a flickering burst of yellow through the fog, and dirt was kicked up all around them. The elf next to him fell backwards without a scream.
This cannot be happening, his mind repeated to him, over and over again. As he saw, through the grey haze that enveloped the trench, the back of the transport open up and men pile out, firing as they did so.
An elf nearby was plucked back off the parapet and landed in the bottom of the trench, a hole in his forehead.
Bullets tore up the lip of the trench in front of him, some were stopped dead, others ricocheted off, a number of them streaked past him: the air snapped and whined. Some parts of his brain shut down and he went into automatic, his training took over.
The Stout clicked empty and he ducked down and reloaded.
Everyone was at the parapet firing, the artillery guns were firing again and again and again and the mortars popped and thunked as they lobbed shell after shell into the Wilderness. Turner was lying in a twisted heap in the bottom of the trench, most of his chest ripped open, blood pooling all around him and collecting in the ruts of the duckboards.
A squall of bullets impacted all around him. One of them clipped his arm. He staggered backwards, clutching at the lip of the trench so he didn’t collapse off the parapet. He swore.
“All right?” Coras called as he fired a burst.
“Yeah,” said Chaft, touching the wound with his over hand, he looked at his fingers, they were bloody, but he couldn’t feel anything. “Dear Lord Almighty,” he said. “Dear Lord Almighty.”
He repeated it over and over again as he reloaded with a religious fervour he’d never felt before. He felt completely detached, as if he was viewing the entire scene from the outside. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t be. An hour ago, there’d been no danger, no war. The world didn’t change that quickly. It couldn’t.
An elf was hit in the head behind him and went down without a sound, blood jetting from the wound.
“Dear Lord Almighty,” he said, firing. His arm was beginning to ache now but he kept his Stout steady by tightening his grip until his knuckles felt like they were popping out. The fear pulsed through him, an inexorable, aching, yawning, unquenchable flow of terror that gnawed at his insides all the time, and bit hard every time a bullet passed close.
A shell landed in the trench and exploded, the roar of the explosion consuming the screams. The Germans were returning fire with a horrendous accuracy, picking off elf after elf. The sheer rate of fire was atrocious and Chaft slowly realised just how many men were out there. As opposed to the thirty or forty elves in the trench, there must have been upwards of six hundred troops attacking them, backed up by armour.
As the smoke from the shell impact cleared, he realised the crews of both big guns had been killed. The artillery spotter was slumped over the barrel, several bullet holes in his back, blood soaking his uniform.
“In the trench!” yelled an elf just down from him, “In the trench!”
Chaft could hear voices, German shouting, and, perhaps for the first time, he felt raw terror through the shock.
He could see them, in grey helmets and long raincoats, firing short bursts either way: Elves were going down, twitching, raked with bullets.
Chaft saw one elf, he wore the green band of a sniper, draw a longbow and fire a succession of arrows into the Germans. His hands moved in a blur as he reloaded and fired, over and over. A German, standing on the lip of the trench, brought his rifle round on the sniper, but Chaft fired a burst into him. He pitched forward.
Cranburgh was still alive, his pistol had run out of ammo and he’d drawn his sword. He hacked a German out of the way. The lieutenant beside him was carrying a Stout and covering him.
Coras had discarded his submachine gun and had drawn his automatic.
A German leapt down from the lip of the trench and landed on Chaft, dragging him to the ground. Chaft didn’t think, training took over, and all his emotions seemed to cut out suddenly, gripped his stout by the barrel and brought it down on the small of the German’s back, he heard bones pop and the German cried out, Chaft drove a fist into the German’s open mouth, breaking teeth. The German flopped backwards and Chaft scrambled towards him, squatted over his chest and rammed the butt of his stout into his skull. There was a sickening crack and the German under him went slack.
Chaft had never killed a man so close up. He expected to feel… something. Anything. But he didn’t. There was just the numb shock of what was going on and the fear, slowly flowing in again. It had been a matter of survival, of preservation. He turned and saw a German aiming a rifle down at him. Cranburgh was right behind him and drove his sword through the German’s chest. The German dropped onto his knees and sank slowly forward. Cranburgh glanced at Chaft who gave him a thankful look and tried to scramble up to his feet.
“Fall back,” shouted Cranburgh. “Get to the supply trench, Chaft.”
The lieutenant behind was firing a long burst over the top of the trench when he got hit in the shoulder; he was turned around by the bullet and fell backwards.
“Medic!” Cranburgh shouted, taking the lieutenant’s Stout and emptying the clip into a German who rounded the corner of the trench.
A medic, his right arm tattered and hanging useless at his side ran over to the lieutenant and crouched down. He placed a hand on the lieutenant’s head and said a number of words. Colour returned to the lieutenant’s face.
“It’ll ease the pain, I haven’t got time-”
A grenade landed behind him, he turned and threw out his arm, “Repulse!” he screamed. The grenade, as if scooped up and tossed aside by an invisible hand was hurled to the other end of the trench and exploded. There was a scream in German. A man, the front of his uniform coated in blood staggered to the lip of the trench and fell inwards. He lay in a crumpled, heaving heap at the bottom of the trench. Coras took aim and put two bullets into him.
“We have to move, now,” said Cranburgh, helping the lieutenant up.
Cranburgh supported the lieutenant and helped him down the trench. Coras, Chaft, and the sniper laid down covering fire for the other survivors. The dead lay in piles in the trench and blood coated the duckboards.
The sniper was hit in the neck and fell backwards, spluttering.
“Come on,” yelled Coras, and they began running, leaving the trench to the Germans, and the sniper drowning slowly in his own blood.

There was smoke filled, death-strewn chaos in the trenches. The Germans had punctured through in several places and the elite Blitzkreig Units were roaming through the trench network.
The Maginot Line had buckled, and now it was broken. The entire sector was in disarray. During a panic, rumours spread and multiply quickly. It was said that airborne units had dropped into France and that Calais was burning, that there was German armour on the main roads, that German cavalry were hunting down the retreating troops and that Field Marshal Morton had been assassinated.
Chaft didn’t know at the time, but all of the rumours were true.

There was a last ditch defence force being assembled by The Airlock. Furniture was being dragged from inside to form a barricade across the trench. There was a General, giving out commands. Chaft recognised him, a career officer called Welloake: they’d met several years ago, on Chaft’s last inspection of the Line. Cranburgh went over to him, “Have you notified Sector Command?”
“By now, the President knows,” said Welloake, “but that isn’t going to help us - Teyla, take that ammunition over to Ledif.”
“No?”
Welloake leaned in closer, “Morton and Trine are dead. It seems I’m in command here.”
“Of the entire Sector?”
“I have authorisation from Calais to pull the plug myself,” said Welloake, “and that’s exactly what I’m going to do – set up a Lewis there, I want full coverage of the forward trench, sergeant.”
“Yes sir.”
“You’re sure the forward positions are clear?” asked Cranburgh.
“Its impossible to be sure, but most of our forces are falling back,” Welloake paused, “Johyl – is that radio operational yet?”
“No, sir, I’m still trying.”
“Captain? Have you got an engineer with you? I need him over here.”
“Yes sir.”
Welloake turned to Cranburgh, “You and your men get out, Cranburgh.”
“All right, sir, good luck,” said Cranburgh. They exchanged salutes.
Chaft approached Cranburgh, “What did he mean, pull the plug?”
“That was a private conversation, Chaft,” said Cranburgh, taking off his helmet and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he sighed and leaned closer, “Fifteen years ago, during the Polish Crisis, we had huge mines planted at ten mile intervals, underneath the forward positions.”
“The entire,” Chaft caught himself and whispered, “The entire Maginot Line is booby-trapped?”
“And no-one knows,” said Cranburgh, “its going to be a nasty surprise for the Germans.”
“And for the men still out there,” said Chaft.
Cranburgh nodded, grimly, “You do not understand the situation, Chaft.”
“There could still be hundreds of them in the forward positions.”
“Yes, there could be. But we know that there are thousands of Germans out there,” said Cranburgh, “its an exchange Welloake and I are both willing to make.”
“What gives you the right?”
“Rank,” said Cranburgh, smiling, “its as simple as that, Chaft. Rank. But, in the army, it is as simple as that.”
“But-”
“You’re not officially involved, remember, Captain? I don’t think your opinion on the matter is of any relevance at all.”
Crnaburgh directed his men to gather all the ammunition they could carry.
“Does the T.O. know about the mines?”
Cranburgh snorted, “Of course not. That’s as good as just telling the Chancellor.”
“Hadn’t you got any intention to even attempt peace?” asked Chaft, angrily.
Cranburgh shook his head, sadly as he collected some ammo for a Stout he fished out of a supply crate, “Out here, Chaft, there never was any peace. You talk to me like I’m the enemy. I didn’t launch a full-scale attack this morning. You wanted us to blindly trust them? We did demilitarise: for years we’ve been slowly disarming and see what they’ve done? The Germans do not deserve trust.”
“You’re as bad as them,” said Chaft.
“What?”
“You elves complain about the German’s racist policies, but you’re just as bad as them.”
“I’m not from Britain, Chaft. Originally, I’m from Denmark. They killed my family. I escaped and grew up with an uncle who smuggled me out of the country in a suitcase. How dare you preach to me.”
“Peace starts with you, Major.”
“You killed as many today as I did Chaft, you’re in no position to tell me about peace.”
“I was fighting for survival,” shouted Crhaft, drawing the attention of a few nearby men who were setting up a machine gun.
“So,” said Cranburgh, “are we. And we have been for fourteen hundred years.”
A high-pitched howl filled the air, Chaft instinctively looked up. He couldn’t see anything.
“Incoming!” screamed a voice, down the trench.
“Stukas!”
“Get down!”
“Hit the dirt!”
Welloake was screaming. “Blind fire!”
There was a chorus of further commands and warnings as Chaft dropped. The air was filled with the high pitch screech of Stukas, diving out of the fog.
The machine gun in front of him started chattering, empty bullet casings showered over him, burning the backs of his hands, which he’d thrown over his head.
The high pitch screech was joined with a higher scream of something a lot smaller falling.
There was an explosion and screams behind him.
Another plane screeched over, firing its cannons. The machine gun in front of him fell silent.
Another explosion.
And, almost as suddenly as they’d come, the planes were gone.
Men who’d pushed past him moments before were lying in heaps. The man who’d been feeding ammo into the machine gun was lying on his back, his leg almost completely severed from the rest of him by the Stukas cannons.
Welloake was still alive, he brushed himself off and said, “I’m not waiting any longer. Get out of here, Cranburgh. Get Chaft out of here as well. He’s probably valuable to Washington.”
Chaft resented that. He picked up his helmet; it had fallen off when he’d dived for cover. He rammed it on his head.
“Do up the chin strap,” said Cranburgh, offering a hand and hauling him up.
Chaft was going to thank him but Cranburgh walked off without sparing another thought.
Chaft looked around at the trench for one last time. A medic was leaning over Sergeant Coras, who had been caught in the explosion. Chaft watched as the medic cursed, sighed and moved away. Coras was dead.
“Come on, sir,” said one of Cranburgh’s elves passing him.
They went through the Air Lock into the tunnel network beyond.
“We’ll see if we can scrounge some transport at the Clemence Depot,” said Cranburgh, his voice echoing down the eerily deserted tunnels.
One of the Colonel’s men followed them in and handed Cranburgh a torch, “Most of the lights have been knocked out further down, you’ll need this, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Cranburgh, flinching as more aircraft shrieked overhead.

The Clemence Depot was burning, great billowing palls of black smoke stained the sky and flames washed the tarmac. Chaft almost tripped over Harris, long dead.
The fog wasn’t as bad here and Chaft could see a little way down the Line. There were dozens of thick columns of smoke, tiny symbols of the carnage that had been unleashed that morning.
“There’s a truck here, sir,” said a voice.
Cranburgh, picking his way through the wreckage, hurried over, towards the voice.
“It looks fine,” said the soldier, who was leaning inside the cab. “They’ve shot up the back a bit, but the engine’s and the tyres are okay.”
“Make sure of it,” said Cranburgh, “Yul, get that Lewis over there and stick it in the back.”
“You really think they’ve broken through?” asked Chaft.
“I was here during the first lot. I’ve got no trust in the French,” said Cranburgh.
There was an overlapping succession of huge explosions that seemed to tear the sky in half from the other side of the Line and then a dreadful, dreadful silence, as if the world was in shock. Chaft could see the mushroom clouds rise slowly into the sky.
“So,” said Cranburgh, “he did it.”
“What was that, sir?” asked the elf checking the engine.
“The beginning,” said Cranburgh, clambering into the back of the truck.


All comments more than welcome!