Chapter 5: The Charge and the Burning Tree
The gully was a cold, damp artery in the hill’s flesh. Dean moved through it like a shadow in water, his body pressed against the slick clay wall. The sounds of the battle were muted here, reduced to a dull thumping through the earth and the distant, mosquito-like whine of bullets passing overhead. He counted his breaths, forcing them slow and even. Out. The weight of Castiel’s pistol was a cold brand against the small of his back, a stone of finality.
He passed things in the gloom. A discarded helmet, half-full of muddy water. A bloodied field dressing, trampled into the ooze. The gully was a dump for the battle’s refuse. Clutter, he’d called it. He was just more clutter.
The gully began to climb, twisting to the left. He could hear the MG-42 now, not as a general roar, but as a distinct, chattering rhythm. Brrrrp-pause-brrrrp. It was close, maybe thirty feet above and ahead. The gunners were conserving ammo, firing disciplined bursts. They felt secure. He could smell them now, too—a hint of tobacco smoke, of sweat and wool, cutting through the cordite stink.
He stopped at a place where the gully wall had collapsed, creating a rough, screened overlook. Crouching, he peered through a tangle of roots.
There it was. The nest.
It was beautifully constructed, a lesson in German engineering. They’d dug into the base of the splintered fir tree, reinforcing it with sandbags and logs. The muzzle of the MG-42 protruded from a narrow slit, wafting a thin ghost of smoke. He could see two men. One on the gun, his back to Dean, a canvas bandolier across his tunic. The other, a loader or spotter, sat slightly to the side, smoking a cigarette, occasionally leaning forward to say something to the gunner. They were relaxed. Confident. They had the Americans in the crater perfectly zeroed.
Dean’s mind worked, cold and clear. He had two grenades. The angle was bad. If he lobbed one from here, it might bounce off the logs and roll back down on him. He needed to get closer. He needed to be sure.
He slid back down, his heart hammering a steady, urgent drum against his ribs. There was no heroic charge, no dramatic speech. There was only a problem of angles and explosives. He crept forward another ten yards, where the gully shallowed and turned. He was almost parallel to the nest now, separated by about fifteen feet of open, scarred slope.
This was the kill zone. The moment he left the gully, he’d be exposed to the other nests. He had one shot.
He pulled the first grenade from his kit. The familiar shape of the Mills bomb was comforting in his hand. He pulled the pin, the click loud in his private world. He held the spoon down.
Don’t think. Just do.
He took one last breath, the air tasting of mud and metal. Then he moved.
It wasn’t a run. It was a lunging, scrambling crab-walk, covering the fifteen feet in three frantic, graceless steps. The world exploded into noise and motion. A shout from his left—the smoker had seen him. The gunner began to swing the heavy barrel around, but it was anchored, slow.
Dean didn’t stop. He arced the grenade underhand, like pitching a softball back on the farm, aiming not for the men, but for the dark space of the firing slit itself. It was an impossible throw. It had to be perfect.
The grenade vanished into the slit.
For a terrible half-second, nothing. Then a muffled, concussive WHUMP from inside the nest. It wasn’t a Hollywood fireball. It was a contained, brutal detonation of force. The sandbags bulged. The log roof splintered. A single, choked scream was cut off instantly. Smoke and dust billowed from the opening.
The machine gun fell silent.
Dean was already moving, stumbling back toward the gully. The hill, for one heartbeat, seemed to hold its breath. Then it screamed.
Fire erupted from the other two nests, but it was confused, angry. Tracers slashed the air where he’d been, chewing into the destroyed position, seeking a target that was already gone. He tumbled back into the gully, rocks biting into his palms. He’d done it. The interlocking fire was broken.
Now for Cas’s part.
He lay there, gasping, waiting for the sound of the Eighty-Second’s concentrated fire, the “big, loud, distracting punch in the face.” It didn’t come. Not yet. Come on, you stone-faced bastard. Move.
He had to get back. His job was done. He was a medic again. He pushed himself up, turned to start working his way down the gully—and froze.
Two German soldiers were blocking his path. They must have been in a listening post or a communication trench linked to the nest. They were young, their faces pale and shocked beneath their coal-scuttle helmets. One had a rifle, leveled unsteadily. The other held a MP-40 submachine gun, its muzzle trained squarely on Dean’s chest.
The world shrunk to the dark, circular void of that muzzle. Time didn’t slow; it crystallized. He saw every detail: the chipped paint on the German’s helmet strap, the panic in his eyes, the way his finger was taut on the trigger. They were shouting at him in guttural German. “Hände hoch! Hände hoch!”
Hands up.
Dean’s own hands were empty, covered in dried blood and fresh mud. His medkit was on his back. His mind was terrifyingly calm. It presented options with brutal speed.
He could raise his hands. Be captured. Interrogated. He knew what intel he had—company strength, morale, the radio being out, Cas’s face, Hendriksen’s limp. He saw the barn again, not the one in Kansas, but the one from his childhood he never talked about, dark and smelling of sour hay and despair. He heard his father’s voice, a drunk, slurred snarl. You don’t let them get a hold of you, boy. You hear me? You end it first.
He heard Castiel’s voice, just minutes old, flat and final. You will not be taken alive.
The weight against his spine was no longer just a weight. It was a promise. A duty.
The German with the MP-40 took a step forward, gesturing violently with the barrel. “Hände hoch!”
Dean didn’t raise his hands. He moved with the smooth, resigned motion of a man accepting a drink. His right hand went behind his back, his fingers finding the checkered grip of the M1911. He cleared it from his waistband. It felt heavier than he remembered.
He saw the German’s eyes widen, saw the man’s finger convulse on the trigger.
This was it. He’d use the gift Cas had given him. He brought the pistol around, not toward the Germans, but toward his own temple. A clean shot. Instant. Deny them everything. It was the ultimate act of control in a world of chaos.
His thumb found the hammer.
The MP-40 roared.
The impact wasn’t like the movies. It wasn’t a neat little hole. It was a sledgehammer blow to his right side, just below the ribcage. It spun him, a violent, ungainly pirouette. The pistol, unfired, flew from his numbed fingers and skittered into the mud. The force drove the air from his lungs in a shocked, silent gasp. He hit the ground on his back, the world tilting crazily.
He didn’t feel pain at first. Just a shocking, cold wetness flooding his side, and a profound inability to draw breath. He stared up at the smoke-veiled sky. Well, shit, he thought, distantly amused. Missed.
Boots crunched toward him. The German with the rifle was standing over him now, his weapon pointed at Dean’s face. The soldier’s hands were shaking. He was saying something, his voice high with adrenaline and fear. Dean looked past the barrel into the boy’s eyes. He was just a kid. Probably from some Bavarian village. Scared.
Dean tried to smile, to give him one last, bloody grin, but his face wouldn’t work. A bubble of blood formed on his lips and popped.
Then, a new sound erupted from above—the beautiful, rattling chorus of American guns. M1 Garands, BARs, everything Cas had left, all firing at once. The “punch in the face.” It was late, but it was here. The German above him flinched, looking up toward the sudden, furious storm of fire.
A new figure slammed into the German from the side, a blur of olive drab and fury. It was Hendriksen. The Sergeant used his rifle butt like a club, a short, vicious swing that connected with the German’s jaw with a sickening crack. The soldier crumpled.
The second German, the one with the MP-40, was trying to bring his weapon to bear on this new threat when a single, sharp crack rang out. A neat, dark hole appeared in the center of his forehead. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
Castiel Novak stood at the lip of the gully, his service pistol—a different one, taken from a dead officer—smoking in his hand. His face was bone-white, his eyes wide and burning. He scanned the scene, taking in the destroyed nest, the two dead Germans, and Dean lying in a rapidly expanding pool of dark red.
“Winchester!” he yelled, his voice cracking. He half-slid, half-ran down into the gully, ignoring Hendriksen who was already moving to secure the area.
Cas dropped to his knees in the mud beside Dean. His hands hovered, unsure where to touch. The wound was a ragged, pulsing mess on Dean’s right flank. Blood pulsed out with every faint, struggling heartbeat, too dark, too fast. This wasn’t a neat bullet hole. It was a catastrophic tear from the submachine gun round.
“Medic!” Castiel roared, the irony utterly lost on him in his panic. He fumbled for a bandage from his own pouch.
Dean’s eyes found his. The green was dimming, clouded with shock, but a faint, familiar spark flickered in them. His lips moved. Cas leaned closer, his ear almost to Dean’s mouth.
“You… you call a medic…” Dean whispered, each word a wet, bubbling effort, “I’ll sue…”
A hysterical, awful sound escaped Cas—a cross between a sob and a laugh. He pressed the bandage hard against the wound. The thick cotton was saturated in seconds, turning a glossy crimson. “Shut up, Dean. Just shut up and hold on.”
His eyes darted around, looking for the medkit, and instead landed on the M1911, lying in the muck a few feet away. The hammer was still cocked. The safety was off. The intent was as clear as if Dean had painted a sign.
Castiel’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t just given him a tool for last resort. He’d given him the means, and Dean, the arrogant, reckless, magnificent bastard, had been milliseconds from using it on himself. Not to fight. To die. To follow the order Cas had given with such cold, commanderly logic.
The realization was a physical sickness in his gut. He’d handed a man a loaded gun and told him to kill himself rather than be captured. And Dean had been trying to do exactly that.
“The kit… get his kit!” Castiel snapped at Hendriksen, who ripped the bag from Dean’s shoulders. Castiel tore it open, his disciplined hands trembling. He found a large field dressing, the kind with tails to tie, and ripped it open with his teeth. He shoved the useless, soaked bandage aside and packed the new one directly into the ruin of Dean’s side, applying crushing pressure.
Dean’s body jerked, a weak, animal sound escaping him. His eyes rolled back.
“Don’t you dare! Look at me, Sergeant! That’s an order!” Castiel’s voice was raw, stripped of all authority, pure pleading.
Dean’s eyelids fluttered. He focused on Cas with immense difficulty. “Told you… get the two in the gully… deeper…”
“We got them. They’re safe. You did it. The nest is gone.” Cas was babbling, applying pressure, his hands slick and warm with Dean’s life. “We’re moving on the center position now. You did it.”
“Good.” Dean’s breath hitched. “Cas… the gun… I was…”
“I know.” Cas’s voice broke. “I saw. Don’t… don’t think about that. Just stay with me.”
Hendriksen was back, his face grim. “Lieutenant, the center nest is supressed. We overran it. Hill’s not secure, but we have the ridge. We need to move him now. They’ll mortar this spot for sure.”
Cas nodded, the officer part of his brain re-engaging through the panic. “Make a litter. Use those German overcoats and rifles. Now!”
As Hendriksen shouted for help, Castiel kept his hands pressed to the wound, leaning his weight into it. He looked down at Dean’s face, which was growing paler, the freckles standing out like stars on fading parchment. The cocky grin was gone, replaced by a stillness that was worse than any pain.
“You listen to me, Winchester,” Castiel said, his voice low and fierce, dripping into the space between them. “You are not allowed to die. Do you understand me? That is a direct order from your commanding officer. You are too insubordinate to die. You haven’t finished annoying me.”
A ghost of something touched Dean’s mouth. Not a grin. A twitch. “Trying… my best…”
Two soldiers scrambled down with a makeshift litter of canvas and wood. Gently, with a care that seemed alien in this place of violence, they rolled Dean onto it. Cas never let up the pressure, moving with him, his knees grinding in the mud. As they lifted the litter, Dean cried out—a short, sharp sound that was worse than any scream.
“Morphine,” Cas barked. One of the men fumbled in the kit, handed Cas a syrette. Cas ripped Dean’s collar aside, jabbed the needle into his neck, and squeezed.
They began the agonizing journey back down the gully, then across the open slope, now eerily quiet except for the moans of the wounded and the sporadic crack of distant sniper fire. Castiel walked sideways, one hand still pressed on the dressing, the other gripping the edge of the litter, as if his will alone could keep Dean from sliding off into the darkness.
They reached the new American line, a ragged trench just below the former German ridge. Corpsmen swarmed forward, taking the litter, carrying it to a semi-protected dugout that was serving as an aid station. Castiel was forced to let go.
He stood there, watching as they cut away Dean’s tunic, as a doctor with blood up to his elbows barked orders, as they tried to find a vein for plasma in Dean’s limp arm. Castiel’s own hands were red, glued together with drying blood. He felt hollow, scooped out.
Hendriksen appeared at his side, handing him a canteen. Cas took it, rinsed his mouth, spat out pink water. He tried to wash his hands, but the stain was deep.
“He’s a tough son of a gun, Lieutenant,” Hendriksen said, his voice quiet. “If anyone can walk away from that, it’s him.”
Castiel didn’t answer. He was staring at his own clean(ish) pistol, still in its holster. And he was seeing the other one, cocked and ready in the mud, an inch from Dean’s lifeless fingers. He had given that order. He had meant it. It was correct tactics. It was what a commander did to protect the larger unit.
But seeing the near-execution of it, on the man who had just saved them all, left a black, freezing hole inside him that no amount of doctrine could fill.
A young corpsman approached, his face weary. “Lieutenant Novak? The doc says he’s got a chance. The bullet went through, missed the spine, but it chewed up his liver pretty bad. He’s lost a lot of blood. We’re pumping him full of everything we’ve got. If we can get him to a field hospital in the next few hours…”
“Do it,” Castiel said, his voice gravel. “Use my jeep. Get him down the hill. Now.”
The corpsman nodded and ran off.
Hendriksen lit two cigarettes and handed one to Cas. “We took the ridge, sir. The Eighty-Second secured the objective. Orders from the Major are to dig in and hold.”
Castiel took the cigarette, inhaled, and stared at the aid station dugout. The battle was won. The hill was theirs. The cost was tallied, and part of it was lying in there on a stained canvas cot, his life hanging by a thread Cas himself had almost snipped.
He had won. He had followed the book, adapted, led his men to victory. And he had never felt more like a failure.
The smoke from his cigarette mingled with the lingering haze over Hill 207. Somewhere down the slope, a soldier started singing a low, sad song about a yellow rose. The wind picked up, carrying away the scent of blood, bringing the damp, cold promise of rain.