Second Chance War - 25 Monte Cassino Nightmare

Thomas awoke to the feeling of fine, gritty, and sharp pieces of dirt with rocks embedded in it smacking him in the face. An explosion happened not too far away from him in which a hand grenade went off. There was a soldier who got caught in the explosion. He was missing half a leg and screaming in utter pain, his shrill screams were drowned out by the sound of machine gun fire and mortar explosions which promptly interrupted his screams for all of eternity when some machine gun fire stitched his face into swiss cheese. The dirt around him got splattered with bits of blood, bone, and metal fragments turning the area around him into a sort of shattered glass look, befitting of the fallen soldier.

Thomas looked around, he recognized where he was, the hills to both sides, the long narrow road between. This was the valley pass at Monte Cassino, the fighting was hard here and he almost didn’t make it. Back then the fighting was just as fierce, they were pushed back three times by the Germans. The artillery the Germans fielded turned this pass into a kill zone, no one could pass without tremendous losses, on top of that, anyone who made it through ended up at the mercy of MG-42s.

Thomas quickly looked around and took stock of his overall situation. Things were pretty grim, they were at the beginning of the valley, but they were already being pushed back a couple of yards at a time. It was a gruesome scene, tens of bodies falling by the minute, retreating backward in shame. Thomas had to turn this situation around, but first, he had to figure out which failed assault this is.

The problem is, he only gets one chance to determine which of three failed assaults this was. He, after all, had only participated in the final push for victory on the fourth assault, the French had done their jobs by eliminating the artillery and machine gun nests on one of the mountainsides, allowing a pincer action between French and American forces which quickly rolled over the defending Germans.

Well he needed a weapon first, he looked around, not twenty feet away there was a dead soldier with M1 Carbine. Thomas moved over and he had to pry the rifle out of the young soldier’s dead hands, even in death he still valued the tool of his survival. Load of good it did him though, the sniper round through the back of his head says otherwise. Thomas quickly searched the young man’s body, he also remembered to shut his eyes, he found enough ammunition to last a few magazines. He would need another gun very soon.

He was armed now, that was one less thing to worry about. He quickly looked at his rank patch, he is a sergeant, that’s good, he can lead a squad. Two things down, quick equipment check, he had two frags, a couple of magazines for a pistol he didn’t have, seems like he lost most of his equipment somehow. He took the fallen soldier’s pistol, it was a Colt 1911, decent pistol, very reliable. Magazines match, he is set. Time to get the show on the road.

Thomas looked around for the nearest squad through all of the flying bullets and dirt haze, he really hated fighting in these conditions. He ran with the retreat through the bullets and haze, dirt being stitched through the air by machine gun fire, or tossed like a salad by artillery before lingering about in the air. The screams of anguish and pain still filled the air, lingering like phantoms on the wind, it was a very surreal scene. Thomas finally found what he was looking for, a squad without any sort of command. It consisted of two private and a corporal, he addressed the highest ranking soldier there, a Corporal Shelland.

“You there, Corporal!” Thomas had to shout above all of the noise. Shelland whipped his head in Thomas direction before saluting for a brief moment against regulations.

“Sir! Didn’t see you there sir!”

“At ease men, who’s your commanding officer?” Thomas needed to know, in case they were still alive. It is really frowned upon to take command of someone else’s men.

“Sergeant Calhoun sir! He took a hit awhile back and bled out. We’ve been retreating since then! We need to find some cover sir!” Shelland was correct, they were out in the open, the whole group quickly found and ducked behind some cover, it was just a bunch of rocks that formed a natural boulder-like wall. Bullets followed them up until they hunkered down behind the rock wall, where they instead tried to drill through the rock to no avail.

“Alright, no more retreating, we need to get out on that ridge and assist our allies in taking out those artillery! They’re chewing up our men!” Thomas laid out his plan, it was not well recieved.

“Sir!” One of the privates complained, “There are just four of us! How are we supposed to do that without a substantial force or any explosives?”

“We’ll pick all of it up on the way, search dead bodies, anyone who can walk and hold a gun. We are not dying here today boys!” Thomas said. He was firm in his reply, his faith and conviction seemed rock solid and pulled the other soldiers together.

“Sir! We’ll get it done sir!” They gave Thomas a quick salute, and as one they all exited from cover to the greetings of machine gun fire, it missed all four of them and kicked up the sand at their feet instead. They all went scavenging for ammunition, supplies, explosives, anything of use. They were to meet back at the rock wall in no more than ten minutes according to the plan. They needed to either silence the machine guns on the left ridge or make their way up the right and destroy the artillery. Thomas found a couple of corpses with some more rounds for his M1 Carbine, he also picked up more frag grenades and one sticky grenade. He didn’t find anything else on them, he closed their eyes and moved on, no time to check for more. The next corpse he came across was just half a body with bits of bone and exposed ribcage, looks like he took the force from an artillery shell, but not the explosion. At least his equipment was intact, Thomas picked up another frag grenade and swapped out his Colt 1911 for the Webley Revolver this soldier had, shame he died. It was custom made, with a nice floral pattern on the hand grip and barrel. There was a nice amount of ammunition on his body to go with the six-shooter.

Thomas found one more body before he decided to head back, it was his look the man was an engineer. He carried enough explosives to destroy a few of the artillery, looks like they’ll be attacking the ridge on the right instead of the left. Thomas grabbed some of the explosives, he couldn’t carry them all, and hauled ass back to the rock wall. Along the way he found some private snivelling behind a rock, he looked pretty demoralized, but after slapping him around a few times and giving a short motivational speech, the private willingly went with him. The private was a heavy gunner and carried a Browning Automatic Rifle or BAR for short. His was rechambered to be belt fed a thirty round belt instead of the standard twenty round magazine, he carried ten belts on him.

Thomas arrived at the rock wall and he was greeting with a plethora of people of all ranks. The two privates and Shelland were there and they each brought along five people. There were two private first class, two corporals, three sergeants, suprisingly they found and managed to rope in a field liuetenant, and one captain. Thomas scratched his head, he wasn’t sure how he was going to explain this to the higher ranks.

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OBSERVATION ROOM, AREA 1 FACILITY

The doctors were all astonished by what they are seeing in front of them through the observation glass, they would have never believed the reports otherwise. The entire medical room where Thomas is in, is gone, replaced by the scenes from Monte Cassino as seen through Thomas’s eyes. His phasing ability didn’t phase him through time, he was the time phase. He literally goes back to the past to fight Kincade on a battlefield of Kincade’s choosing, almost like chess. If they were to understand it, when they saw Thomas close his eyes, the room was enveloped in an incredible burst of light before swirling into the vortex they see now.

“Doctor Katz, what do you make of this phenomenon?” Doctor Elaine had no knowledge on any of this. She was just a really good surgeon.

“I believe this is out of our hands, this has nothing to do with his brain, it is more like a calling.” Doctor Katz replied.

“Maybe not so outside of our expertise as a whole though, doctors.” Turing chimed in. “Although the computer is destroyed, the data in it, is not, I had that fed by wire to a nearby electric typewriter I made. Paper copies exist, perhaps we can formulate a solution. We may need to bring in a Physicist.”

“Doctor Turing is correct, this is not something we alone can handle.” Doctor Elaine pointed out towards the reinforced mecial room where bullets were flying about and artillery shells were exploding. It seemed that Thomas did affect the space around him, just not in the way which they had hypothesized. It seems they were going to have to force Kincade to come out in the open.

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Thomas spent a good ten minutes explaining his plan to the Captain who had the highest rank here. His name last name was Butler, he refused to give out his first name. The plan was three fold, they had enough people here for three squads. Two five-man and a four-man squad. Each squad would carry two of the explosives that Thomas had brought from the dead engineer, bless his sacrifice. They would climb the ridge from the side, the French were supposed to have climbed from the back, but they may have met too much resistance. It would be a mix of light a medium arms, the only exception being the private Thomas brought back, Thomas insisted he bring the private with him. They would only get one shot at this plan, failure could not be tolerated.

Once they climbed the ridge, they were to regroup and take out as many artillery as they can, silencing the machine guns on the ridge as well. One of the PFCs that the Corporal brought back was a radiomen, they wouldn’t need to use signals now. If possible, the guns they capture at the end had to be turned towards the machine gunners on the other ridge. If they could destroy those positions, the allies would be in a favorable position in which they could push forward and possibly turn around this assault. They needed to keep the radioman alive as long as possible, to that end the radioman would be going with the Captain’s squad, they had the most favorable route. Now that the plan had been approved, it was time to actualize it. A quick radio call was sent out through the open channels, all squads were to advance to the ridge, this was do or die. The Germans would not live to hold this pass at the end of the day.