Moreau crouched low behind a shattered log, blood running down his temple from shrapnel.
He barely noticed.
The roar of gunfire was constant.
His rifle was down to its last magazine.
"Status!" he barked into the radio.
Renaud's voice came back, half-buried in static. "Foxtrot is twenty minutes out. Paris acknowledged the distress. Two light armor columns en route. ETA forty-five minutes. Air support denied too dark."
"Of course," Moreau muttered. "We'll be bones by then."
The enemy didn't let up.
Mortar shells rained sporadically, shredding trees and limbs.
MG fire danced across the trench line like a madman's paintbrush.
Faure's voice rose behind him. "Weiss is safe! Family's secure behind medical crates! No casualties to them yet!"
Moreau fired over the trench lip.
A black-uniformed shape went down.
He ducked again just as a burst kicked up dirt inches from his face.
"'Yet' is doing a lot of work in that sentence, Faure!"
