Chapter 441

The darkness before dawn was the hardest to endure. Andrew Smith gripped the battle map until his knuckles turned white. The ultimatum from command hung over him like a blade—forty-eight hours to reopen the supply line.

"Captain, Third Platoon requests another charge," the adjutant rasped.

Andrew snapped the map shut. Three days. The entire engineering company had been nearly wiped out. Young faces that had smiled at him yesterday now lay forever in the minefield.

"Let them rest," he said hoarsely. "We move at first light."

By sunrise, Andrew was fully armed. He led the charge himself, followed by the last ten surviving engineers. Everyone knew this might be their final stand.

At the edge of the minefield, craters gaped like bloody maws. The soil still soaked with the blood of previous waves.

Boom—

An enemy shell landed lazily a hundred meters away, mocking their futility.

"Advance!"

Clad in bulky bomb suits, the engineers waddled like clumsy penguins. The beep-beep of metal detectors counted down their borrowed time.

Three men fell simultaneously.

"Take cover!" Andrew's pupils constricted.

In the explosion's glare, he saw a soldier writhing in a pool of blood. The boy was only nineteen—just yesterday, he'd shyly asked if his sweetheart back home would wait for him.

"Cover me!"

Andrew tore off his helmet and charged. Shrapnel grazed his cheek, the heat searing his skin. He couldn't watch another kid die in front of him.

"Captain! Fall back!" The adjutant's shout drowned in artillery.

When Andrew reached the wounded, his hands sank into slick mud—blood. Three men's blood mingled, indistinguishable.

"Hold on..." He gritted his teeth, hauling up the nearest casualty when his boot clicked against something metallic.

Time froze.

(Cliffhanger)