Episode 5: Regret's Siege

By Leigh Barker

Soldiers - Season 1: Episode 5: Regret's Siege
A Bitesize 1-hour read.

Our Hero, Regret, and his squad track the deadly Big Bertha to Maubeuge, a small town on the Belgian/French border.

It should be a quiet little place, except the German 7th Army and thousands of artillery pieces are besieging the town and its ring of forts.

But if they are to destroy the monster-gun they must walk right into the town. Into a death-trap.

Now with only 8 men, will Regret after the gun? Against 60,000 enemy troops?

No ordinary man could expect to survive.

It speaks volumes for our hero that his men are prepared to follow him into this without question.

So they wait for his order. And to die.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leigh Barker
• Release date: Dec 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311911353

Leigh Barker

Leigh was born in Dudley in the middle of England. He has been a merchant seaman, a (useless) electronics salesman, a programmer, and a business analyst. And now he is a full-time writer, but that doesn't make him a bad person.He is presently writing 4 series:Clan, following the adventures of Calum Maclean as he tries to avoid the Bonnie Prince but still protect his beloved Highlands.The Hellfire Legacy Series follows US Marine Master Sergeant Ethan Gill and his team as they take on the jobs too hot for other special forces. They go where they're sent; South America, Middle East, Korea, but their most dangerous missions are on US soil.Volume #1: A Whisper of ArmageddonVolume #2: The Hellfire LegacyVolume #3: The Orpheus DirectiveEden, a three-volume series -Trinity is at war with Lucid, the son of Lucifer, and he will do whatever it takes to win. The Archangel Gabriel has an army but he needs more. He needs heroes, but they are few and far between. Which is why he gets Dylan and co. Not too much luck in Heaven then.Volume #1: Eden's Last HeroVolume #2: WinterwoodVolume #3: Requiem for Eden.Soldiers is set in 1914 and follows John Regret and his 12-man squad on their suicidal mission to find and destroy the German howitzer nicknamed Big Bertha. Find it before it drops it's thousand-pound shells on the allied army retreating across France. A seemingly hopeless mission that just cannot fail.Other occasional series include:Anarchy, the 'completely true' stories of men doing what men do when there's nobody to keep them in check. Create mayhem and behave like monkeys on speed.Coffee Break Reads - each issue has 5 stories short enough to read while taking a break from life. A mix of adventure, love, disaster, and fun. All with one thing in common; for a moment they transport the reader to another world.Episode 1 of each Season is free and can be picked up with other free books at:https://leighwbarker.com/my-library/Just copy the link above and paste it into your browser and you're there...

Book preview

Soldiers

(Episode 5)

Regret's Siege

Copyright 2014 Leigh Barker

Published by Leigh Barker at Smashwords

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ISBN: 9781311911353

Regret’s Siege

Regret met Schiller’s steely blue eyes and waited for the soldiers to fire. It was a pity, he’d really wanted to kill this monster. Now it would be up to Alan.

He looked past Schiller at the twenty rifles pointing at him from the train windows. What he needed right then was a miracle, but they were in short suppl—the carriage exploded.

He flinched and stepped back as the windows blew out and the sides of the carriage turned into a squall of burning splinters blasting out across the clearing and hurling Schiller to the ground.

Regret ran forward and shouted at the civilians. It took them a moment to realise what he was saying, but a few understood and jumped from the train to run into the woods. Then the rest got the message and made their break for freedom.

He retreated across the clearing, dived into the bushes and crawled behind a tree, expecting bullets to follow him, but there was nothing, just the sound of shattering glass as the carriage burned fiercely. He looked back at the train and saw men staggering out of the blazing carriage, some flaming like Roman candles and others bloody and wounded. Part of him was glad they weren’t all dead, it was just too high a price for his life. But that was another throwback to a time before this different kind of war. He put the feelings aside and looked for his rifle and remembered he’d left it with Alan. Schiller would walk away again.

He crawled back away from the tree until he was screened from the train, got up and circled the clearing until he was opposite the trestle, then crouched low, took a last look at the burning carriage and ran. And prayed none of the soldiers had recovered enough to fire, or he’d be dead.

The first round missed him by a few inches, and he heard the old familiar phitt! as the round zipped past his ear. He cut right as another round passed over his left shoulder. The trestle and the ditch were twenty feet away. He wasn’t going to make it. There was a fallen tree to his right. It wasn’t going to provide much cover and not for long, but it was better than being out in the open. He dived over it and rolled back up against the trunk and listened to the bullets thumping into the wood. They’d be coming for him soon.

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a dozen Lee-Enfields pouring hell down on the soldiers around the train. The lads were in the game.

He wriggled to the end of the tree and took