“Jones, follow them down and get every weapon you can.
Stack them in the middle of the nave,” he pointed the space between the aisles.
Captain Scott moved from the nave and into the ground floor of the tower section so he could call up to Trent.
“How many and how long have we got?” he asked.
Trent vanished for a moment before reappearing, “They’re all around, larger numbers to the south and east, at least two, maybe three hundred, Sir.”
Scott gasped in surprise, “Two or three hundred?”
He shook his head, “How long have we got?”
Trent answered immediately, “They’re slow, real slow, my grandmother could go faster, I reckon about ten minutes before they get here.
Wait, I can see more, there are many more further away, probably fifteen minutes tops for them!”
A shot rang out quickly followed by another, then Trent reappeared.
“There are a few small groups a bit closer, I reckon they’re staying low or crawling, it’s pretty hard to spot them till just before they get to the wall.”
“Ok Private, keep at it, let me know if anything changes.”
Captain Scott returned to the nave where Smith met him. He’d heard the discussion and didn’t seem particularly pleased.
“So we could have three hundred plus hostiles out there, maybe even more?”
“It looks that way,” answered Captain Scott.
“Based on their numbers, and the fact that we have this position, I recommend we hold until relieved in morning.”
“How do you know we’ll be relieved in the morning, Sir?” asked a bemused Smith.
“Pretty simple, either Fritz will find us or our comrades will.
If neither, then that means they’re all dead and we are already in a world of pain,” Captain Scott smiled, Smith looked less than impressed.
“On the positive side, these undead things are slow and we should be easily able to evade them once the sun is up.
If we’re not reinforced by morning we’ll saddle up and make a break for the Orne River Bridge.”
Smith nodded, looking more comfortable with the situation.
Captain Scott looked about the church.
The soldiers were all in the middle of preparing the position for an all out battle.
Those in the nave took up their positions on their hastily arranged barricades that lifted them high enough to shoot through the windows.
He sighed, in just a matter of minutes they were going to be in one hell of a fight.
Back at the top of the church, Trent scouted the area from his high position, watching in each direction for anything new.
He shouted down with more specific information on the enemy.
“They’re approaching from all directions now, definitely heading this way.
Most of them are coming along the road from the west.
I counted fifty plus at the front, I can see more following up behind.
I think some are coming from the old garage.”
Along with Trent in the tower were two more soldiers, Gardner and Harris.
Gardner manned the captured German MG42 machinegun and Harris watched the perimeter with his Enfield rifle at his shoulder. From their vantage point the three men could put down a substantial amount of medium to long range firepower.
M. Poulain stood at the base of the tower whilst Jones and the two Frenchmen rummaged around in the basement.
At the small windows in the ground level of the tower Lewis stood with his Enfield rifle.
Opposite the church tower, at the western end of the building was the chancel with the altar.
This part of the church was quite open and featured substantial windows.
Captain Scott had deemed this a weak point, hence placing the redoubtable Sergeant Smith as well as Clarke, Wilks and Archer.
Between them they could muster two Sten guns, a single Bren and an Enfield rifle.
The largest part of the church was the centre section or nave.
Captain Scott was there from where he could command a central position in the defence of the building.
He was flanked by Corporals Chard and Humphreys, armed with both Enfield rifles and Sten guns.
Chard had placed his PIAT launcher in the middle of the room, cocked and ready to use.
Also in his centre section stood the five remaining survivors from the village as well as the two French girls, Madeleine and Adrienne.
* * *
North of the church was a large group of the creatures.
Lacking any kind of discernable formation they walked slowly towards the village.
Each one suffered from a wound or ailment of some kind.
The most obvious ones were those with missing limbs and substantial injuries, though some of them seemed almost normal apart from the way they moved.
Just a short distance from the largest group was the stationary and confused shape of Steiner.
He was quite close to the church now though unfortunately since leaving his shelter he’d wandered into a very dangerous area, either that or the creatures had wandered into his.
Getting there he’d noticed the tree-covered areas seemed to be occupied by the strange creatures.
By keeping low and quiet they seemed to ignore him, which was just as well as he hadn’t spotted them until he’d stumbled into a field surrounded by the things.
There was a large group in front of him and also to his right; this meant he would have to work his way around to the left, into what looked like a cemetery from his position.
Of course, the other concern for Steiner was that he had no idea whether the people in the village, and specifically in the church, were friends or foes.
Either way they surely couldn’t be worse than these things, could they?
He looked down at his captured PPSH and made sure it was loaded and ready.
Taking it slowly he started to walk and made a gargantuan effort to not make any sudden movement.
If he was lucky he would make there it in one piece!
* * *
Jones was now far under the church and inside its substantial catacombs.
The ceiling was very low and they had to stoop not to smack their heads on the stonework.
He’d expected to find just a small storage area; instead it contained multiple small rooms, many of which were full of narrow wooden crates.
The two Frenchmen had followed him down and led him to a place where four crates were stacked in a corner.
The first man picked up a crowbar that was propped against the wall and forced open the lid of the top crate.
He then stepped back and beckoned to Jones to examine the container.
Inching slowly forward he peeped inside to see the dark shapes of weapons.
He smiled to himself as he slid the lid off completely and pulled out the prize.
From the container he removed an unused Sten submachine gun, presumably one of the hundreds of thousands assembled back in Britain for use by forces scattered through Europe.
Unlike the weapons carried by the Airborne troops these were the much more basic weapons that had been designed and manufactured back in the days when fancy fittings and finishing were a luxury that the British could not afford to wait for.
He placed the Sten down onto a box and pulled out the rest of the weapons to reveal more Stens.
The other man helped him lift the box down whilst the first proceeded to pop open the second case.
Inside this one were two dozen hand grenades, each one placed carefully with packaging all around to protect them.
Jones pointed, making it clear he wanted the equipment taken upstairs.
As the two Frenchman started to take the weapons up into the main tower room he kept checking to see what else he could find.
The other two crates contained a number of Sten magazines and a substantial supply of bullets.
Dragging the equipment to the ladder he helped them move the supplies up.
He could hear the stamping of feet as the defenders of the church rushed about in readiness of the coming attack by the enemy.
After dragging the wooden containers to the bottom of the ladder he left the two Frenchmen to take the supplies up and then carry them into the nave.
He was much more interested in the extensive basement.
Taking his flashlight from his pack he cast its beam all around, taking in the open space.
As he’d first noticed, it was partially divided up into small rooms, each one separated by low stone arches.
The ceiling was low for the whole of the area but one thing did catch his eye.
At the largest room was a dark space, like a distant doorway.
He worked his way forward until he thought he was probably directly under the altar.
The dark space was in fact a narrow doorway, about three feet behind it was an iron lattice door, almost like a medieval portcullis.
He shone his torch into the gaps to see what it led to, but the space on the other side twisted off to the right into some kind of corridor.
Jones called out to the Frenchmen who were still taking the supplies up the ladder.
They shrugged and denied knowledge of the door or where it went.
Now feeling both intrigued and also unsatisfied, he looked all around the doorframe to see why it would not open.
The hinges were very substantial, each almost the size of his fist and dark with age.
Through the middle ran an iron bar that pinned the door into place on both the left and right hand sides.
It seemed the bar ran into deep holes within the stone.
In the middle of the door was a large metal plate with several holes in it, obviously a type of extra heavy locking mechanism.
Jones held onto the door and tugged at it.
As expected it didn’t even creak.
He would need to get his hands on some decent tools to force it open.
Before he was able to get any further a single gunshot rang out, it was muffled and much quieter than he would have expected from anybody shooting from inside the church.
He though it must be Trent on the sniper rifle, the only trouble with that was his job was to watch for trouble.
If he was shooting then he must have found it!
It was now approaching three o’clock and it was still difficult to see more than a few hundred yards.
From Trent’s position in the tower he’d already fired four shots, each one picking off a lone creature that was lurking a little too close to the church.
In the last twenty minutes he had been amazed at the number of these things.
What had the German soldier called them, Untoter, the undead.
He shivered a little at the thought.
How was it possible that normal people, civilians and soldiers, were turning into monsters after they died?
There must be another explanation, perhaps the Germans were working on some kind of mind altering drug that gave the effect of looking dead.
But what about the dripping blood, their pale skin and foul obsession of trying to eat the living?
Well, right now it didn’t really matter as they had much bigger problems to worry about.
In every direction now the shadows under trees and near buildings were full of the undead.
All around they were moving closer and closer, though until now the only person shooting had been him, due to the fact that he carried the unit’s sniper rifle and also he commanded the highest position.
Next to him, Harris and Gardner were doing something to the MG42, presumably some fine adjustments to the weapon.
One thing they had found back in England when testing this weapon was that its rate of fire was substantial.
In fact, the sound it made was almost like a buzz and this meant it ripped through ammunition at a crazy rate.
Stacked in the church tower nearby was all the ammunition they had located, it wasn’t that much, only four belts.
From memory he was pretty sure each belt was about two hundred rounds, maybe two fifty.
Either way, they could burn through that in a matter of minutes, even with controlled fire.
They would have to be careful.
Rechecking each direction it was pretty obvious that trying to escape with all these things about would have made an early grave for them all.
The other concern was that they were all heading for the church.
It was completely surrounded by a thick ring of undead creatures numbering in the hundreds in every direction.
At the rate they were moving they would be at the church walls in less than three minutes by his guess.
“Can you see that?” shouted out Gardner.
Trent followed his hand and tracked the movement through the scope of his weapon.
It was definitely one of the undead but this one was faster, moving at almost a slow jogging pace.
He looked closely, double-checking.
Yes, it moved the same as them but definitely had the edge in speed.
At this rate it would be at the church in under a minute.
He squeezed the trigger and put a round through its upper body, sending it spinning to the ground.
Just like the others it started to lift itself up.
Gardner called out again.