Behind Enemy Lines: Heroes of the 82nd Airborne Book 4

By Eric Meyer and Todd McLeod

August 1944, and a group of senior Free French Army officers are trapped behind German lines in the village of Giverny, thirty miles west of Paris. 1st platoon, B Company, 82nd Airborne is past to drop outside the village, break through the enemy positions, and lead them to safety. An operation fraught with risk and danger, and one that normally would be handed to an armored unit to smash their way through German lines and retrieve the Allied officers. Except the village of Giverny has immense significance to the French nation. As does the name of the French senior officer in command.

Things start to go wrong after the night drop on an LZ close to the village. The French Resistance had promised to guide them in the target, yet they fail to show. First Platoon has to find their way to the village, hoping to avoid any deadly encounters with the Brandenburgers, an elite Wehrmacht unit known to be in the area. Known for their hard fighting skills and their brutal cruelty on the Russian Front. Their hopes are dashed when machine-gun fire tears into them from the darkness, and the mission becomes a desperate scramble to locate the French officers and return to their lines. Fighting every step of the way against overwhelming odds that test their skills, strength, and determination beyond the limits of normal men.

Heroes of the 82nd Airborne Book 4 – Behind Enemy Lines is the fourth shortread fiction set during the Second World War. The book is a collaboration between Todd McLeod and Eric Meyer, the bestselling author of more than fifty war novels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Swordworks Books
• Release date: Nov 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005757168

Eric Meyer

An internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML, CSS, and Web standards, Eric has been working on the web since late 1993. He is the founder of Complex Spiral Consulting, a co-founder of the microformats movement, and co-founder (with Jeffrey Zeldman) of An Event Apart, the design conference series for people who make web sites. Beginning in early 1994, Eric was the campus Web coordinator for Case Western Reserve University, where he authored a widely acclaimed series of three HTML tutorials and was project lead for the online version of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History combined with the Dictionary of Cleveland Biography, the first example of an encyclopedia of urban history being fully and freely published on the Web.

Book preview

Behind Enemy Lines

By Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer

BOOK 4 OF THE HEROES OF THE 82ND AIRBORNE SERIES

SHORT FICTION

Copyright 2020 by Todd McLeod & Eric Meyer

Published by Swordworks Books

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Chapter One

Aircraft ranged across the sky, bombing and machine-gunning everything that moved, and plenty that didn’t. They could have been Allied or German, but on the ground, nobody cared. When a bullet or a bomb had your name on it, the country of manufacture didn’t make a damn bit of difference. They kept up a fast pace along the quiet country road, and it was like the battle was moving away. The sound of gunfire and artillery began to ebb, the roar of aircraft engines receded, and suddenly everything was peaceful, as peaceful as it ever got in wartime. No machine guns chattering their messages of death, no bombs exploding in a fury of flame and smoke, no soldiers advancing or retreating from the next bloody battle. It was like the war had passed them by, leaving peace. Not all were fooled.

What did I tell you? the tall officer, as erect as a telegraph pole, remarked to the Major walking at his side, They’ve gone. Run away. He looked up at the sky and sniffed the air with his long nose as if that was enough to confirm his assessment.

Yessir, it looks peaceful. For now. Perhaps.

The tall man snorted. Why so nervous, Major?

Sir, we have no idea where the enemy is. The battlefront is very fluid, and they could be anywhere.

He gave him an acid look. "They’ve run, like cowardly dogs. Heading east, and they won't stop running until they get back to Germany. It won’t help them, I assure you. Our Free French Army will pursue them to the River Rhine, and they'll