Untutored Courage

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[TheVolskinator]

For the last couple years I've been bumbling my way through a novel following a few different bands of guys on both sides of WWII, both on the eastern and western fronts and in the Pacific theatre. I've also made illustrations to go along with everything, but I cba to post them now  . Once everything is said and done with (after college) I'm thinking of either animating the series or at the very least making it into a comic of some sort, the latter of which I've already started to do.

Exerpt from "Untutored Courage" (Part II, Chapter I - 'Eyes of the World'):

    Streams of tracer fire raked the beach from end to end, knocking any who dared stand in its path over like a heavyweight boxer. Raph sat, stunned, behind a hedgehog with three other men he didn't know. He saw the next boat over erupt as it backed away from the beach, showering the men in the water with hot shrapnel and body parts. With a glazed look he took in the scenes around him; men cowering behind obstacles much like himself, the dying flailing and grasping at air, the disemboweled being spread over everything. Raph flopped forewards and drunkenly crawled towards a helmet and rifle lying next to a private with no head and no legs, oblivious to the shouts from the men of Fox Company. From a hedgehog a few tens of yards from Raph's, Parker leaned over and shouted into Haloom's ear;
    "What the fuck is Raph doing?!"
    "Damned if I know!", Haloom screamed in reply as he fidgited with the sand-encrusted bolt of his Garand; "So long as he doesn't get the rest of us killed I don't fuckin' care either!"
    “Yeah well, start caring.” was Parker’s reply as he grabbed him by the arm and dragged him along as he tore down the beach towards Raph, who was still groping lazily for the rifle. Parker jumped headlong on Raph’s back and frantically tried to get him to notice that it was him.
    His attention focused, it took Raph a few seconds to realise that someone was shaking his shoulder, and a few more to turn his head and see that it was Parker. He grinned inwardly; he was glad Parker had made it and wanted to tell him he just needed that rifle over there, if only he could get a grip on it. He paused; Parker's face was gaunt and he looked like he was shouting, but Raph couldn't figure out what for. A shell screamed overhead, landing long and drenching Raph, Parker, and the men around them in the freezing water of the Channel.
    "What the fuck Raph?! What are you doing, we gotta' get the fuck off this beach!! Goddamnit, move, what are you doing?!" Raph started and fell backwards. Parker leaned forewards and grabbed him by the collar, throwing him behind a hedgehog before flopping behind it himself.
    “Sarge, Parker, I’m sorry, I don’t know, I don’t know, I dunno’ what happened!” Raph babbled. Parker wasn’t paying attention; he was too shaky to have heard. Three men leapt behind the same obstacle with Parker and Raph. “Sarge, hey Sergeant, what do we do?!” cried the closest. Parked merely shook his head, he had no idea how to draw a plan out of the carnage and he was too shaken to say anything. Parker was started from his own trance when a blood soaked, sand covered  Major O’Shaunessy appeared from nowhere and slid behind the tank trap,  grabbing him by the shirt, and screaming:
    “Sergeant, what the hell are you planning to do from behind this beach obstacle? Get moving!”
    O'Shaunessy motioned towards the other three men behind the metal heap.
    “YOU!” he screamed, red faced, “YOU THREE! WHO ARE YOU?! HEEEY!” The closest man gestured;
    “I’m Southgate, this is Ingham and I dunno who the fuck the third guy is!”
    “Peterson!” the mentioned man throated.
    “You six are with me! Grab your rifles and move the fuck up!” O’Shaunessy exhorted; “Look, there’s the wall! We need to make it to that wall NOW, before they get us pegged in, alright?”
    Everyone nodded.
   
    Struggling to their feet, the seven men began diving from cover to cover, slowly snaking their way towards the seawall. Bullets kicked up tan trails around them until hitting an unlucky soul and spraying a vibrant red trail into the air. O’Shaunessy would get up and stiffly dash to an obstacle, sometimes pausing to empty a magazine from his BAR or .45 automatic, and then motion furiously at Raph and the others to do the same as they stumbled foreward yard by yard. The pattern repeated itself for what seemed like an agonizing eternity.

    A single Sherman tank that had somehow managed to make it to shore and avoid getting hit belched shells and spat machine gun fire into the pillboxes at the top of the bluff, advancing slowly all the while. The tank inched its way forward behind the small band, adding its invaluable fire to the staccato bark of O’ Shaunessy’s BAR and the short rattle of Parker’s Thompson, but also drawing fire that the unprotected infantrymen would most assuredly like to avoid. The tank drew even with them about 60 feet off to the right, and paused to aim its cannon at a field gun emplacement in the distance.
    O’Shaunessy swore and ducked down as the front of the tank was suddenly enveloped in a sheet of yellow flame. Raph screwed his eyes shut and turned away as an ad-hoc armor plate cartwheeled through the air, carving a swath through also-advancing men of the heavy weapons platoon and flying towards the seven drenched men as they made the final dash to the seawall…   
   

[aeroblade56]

What the fuck did i just see.

[nikomas]

Something somewhat enjoyable to read?

[Baine]

Beach Landings are overdone, just saying. Other than that its good i think.