Random warstory, ehk tööl hakkas igav 3

It was a dark night, the darkest John had ever seen, with clouds covering the stars and moon and no light on the ground, he couldn’t even see his own hands, let alone his weapon or comrades. It was a bad time for such a dark night, because the HQ ordered his men on 100% watch that night, expecting a full enemy counterattack at any moment. The men were tired and weary from fighting for the last 36 hours, yet they had to endure for another sleepless night. Then came the sound all to familiar to John and his platoon...like a collection of trains was being thrown through the air, and they were meant to fall on his position. The ground shook as bright flashes exposed the hastily dug positions they had to protect with their lives. A random stretch of dirt in the middle of France one would usually never notice, but now it was something worth dying for on both sides. The artillery lasted barely 15 minutes... getting low on ammo maybe, John thought. With neat German punctuality, barely 20 seconds later a group of infantry started to move towards their position, betraying its movement with breaking branches and clacking equipment. John ordered the mortars to fire flares which lit up the ground beneath...there he saw soldiers hoping to low-crawl to their positions. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
„Open Fire!“ was all he needed to shout as 24 rifles started emptying their clips..there should have been 52. The germans immediately hugged the ground in the hopes that the flares would soon die out and they could continue their advance over the open field. It was not in vain, the flares lasted for a minute and there wasn’t anything left to replace them. The initial salvo had thinned the german lines but still they had more than enough to overrun the defensive positions. The firefight went on after the flares had died down and now the darkness was only cut by muzzle flashes from both sides of the line. The germans were reluctant to move fast in the fear of another nasty surprise, but John knew he had nothing, all he had was about 20 men and their low-on-ammo rifles. It was only a matter of time until the germans reached the foxholes. Now it was every man for himself and there was nothing anyone could do to help others in their unit. The muzzle flashes stopped and the sounds of life-or-death fights started...
Dawnbreak brought clarity to the field...there were german bodies everywhere, confused by the unorganized placement of foxholes and the blue on blue contact that followed, the rest pulled back, fearing being outnumbered...if they had only known. John now had 10 men and himself left holding the so-called line of foxholes. The enemy’s failed night attack was probably just a test of strenght and John knew the real attack would follow at dawn, with armored vehicles, maybe even Tigers...he was told to expect Tigers. With only 2 PIAT systems and no one left who knew to use them effectively, they were pretty much screwed if any armor would decide to show up. John’s only hope was the reinforcement he was promised would be arriving two hours ago...nothing so far.
Then came the sound he dreaded the most, a Panzer engine was fired up in the distance...then another..christ, there was a whole battalion getting ready to move. But then John’s ear caught something else, a Cromwell unit closing in behind him. That had to be the most beautiful sight he had ever laid his eyes on. At least now he wasn’t completely hopeless...just utterly screwed.