Captain Scott looked down to see the wounded old man.
M. Poulain had sustained multiple bites from the creatures and was losing blood at a rapid rate.
Before the officer could even try to move him the old man reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling the soldier’s pistol to his forehead.
The look on the man’s face told him exactly what he had to do.
Closing his eyes for just a moment he fired a single shot from his handgun.
M. Poulain, the crazy old man with the blunderbuss was dead. There was no time to grieve though as the creatures were still massing in numbers outside and more were making their way to the doorway.
Moving the body up against the wall, Captain Scott approached one of the south facing windows where Chard was defending.
Shouting up to him, Captain Scott passed up his grenade, which Chard deftly armed and then threw twenty feet out in front of the doorway.
From the other window Jones threw out two more grenades.
The men ducked down and the thuds and piles of debris announced the detonation of the devices.
Chard looked back out of the window; the grenades had done their job well.
At least thirty of the creatures were down, some still moving but none on their feet.
Looking out further the numbers were still substantial but at least this part of the church had held.
Archer climbed on top of the stacked material so he could take up position with his Bren gun.
Jones jumped down, giving him full access to the window.
From there Archer had an unrestricted view of the southern face of the church.
Popping in another thirty round magazine he started shooting, picking off the closest of the creatures from the pack.
Though the weapon carried only small magazines Archer was carrying almost a dozen more, taken from the rest of the men who as a matter of course carried spare magazines for the Brens.
Several more explosions blasted around the church.
The defenders in the main tower, and Humphreys along the northern wall of the church, did their bit to force back the attacks.
With a loud wailing sound the attack seemed to stop just as soon as it had started.
Up in the tower Trent watched the unfolding battle with awe.
The MG42 team had used up all their ammunition and had left him with just one spare MP40 and several spare magazines they had found earlier.
The MP40 submachine gun seemed to be working pretty well and from his vantage point he was able to put a considerable amount of fire down into the area around the base of the tower.
They had now withstood two pushes to break inside the church and though difficult had held them off, so far.
Lifting his scope rifle up he surveyed the scene out to the south and then followed through to the west and up to the north.
These main attacks seemed to have slowed.
There were no major groups of the creatures within a distance of about a quarter of a mile to the south.
To the west a large group of the things were shambling forwards, they were much closer and would probably reach the church in five to ten minutes.
The north looked pretty clear, apart from the odd straggler.
He saw one out on its own and without hesitation put a bullet into the side of its head.
Normally he would be very pleased with a shot like that; today it just seemed it made no difference.
He shouted down through the tower to the Captain.
In the nave the situation was pretty grim.
Private Wilks was losing a lot of blood from his leg wound and Chard was trying to patch him up.
M. Poulain was dead and all the spare ammunition had been shared out amongst the defenders.
They were now left to just Clarke, Smith and one Frenchman at the chancel.
After a quick check they found they carried only four magazines between them.
In the nave Captain Scott, the young French resistance fighter and Archer watched the walls whilst Chard saw to the wounded Wilks and Humphreys whose wounds seemed to be taking a turn for the worse.
In the nave Lance Sergeant Jones spoke to the civilians.
This small group consisted of the German soldier, the middle-aged couple, the two girls and an old French man who was still balancing against his walking stick.
Jones put his hand on the shoulder of the middle-aged man.
He looked in his late forties, maybe early fifties and was in no way capable of putting up much of a fight.
He spoke quickly, the French girls translating as Jones spoke.
“I need you to take them to the basement,” he waved his arms around the group.
“Get them under the ground and hide them.
Do not come out till we come and get you.”
The middle-aged man nodded and taking the small group headed for the tower.
The German soldier made to move but was grabbed by Jones.
He started to struggle until Jones held up one of the captured Kar98K rifles to him.
After a brief pause he thrust the weapon into the man’s hands.
The German looked confused for a few seconds but the meaning was simple and clear.
Jones pointed to the windows in the nave and then to his eyes.
The German had a job and looked almost relieved as he ran to the southern wall of the nave and climbed up to the window.
They now had four to defend the centre of the church.
At the church tower Harris and Gardner had taken over from Lewis on the ground floor.
From their position they had an excellent view in three directions and could also provided a small amount of fire into the nave if needed. Up the staircase was Trent, still shooting from the bell tower.
Though the church had held it had sustained damaged along its walls and windows and a number of the creatures had managed to break inside, inflicting causalities on the defenders.
The attrition of the combat had taken its toll and the exhausted soldiers and civilians alike needed a break, even if just for a few moments.
Sadly the next wave of the creatures was now only a few minutes away and another assault was imminent.
Bizarrely though, the building was almost silent just the occasional rifle shot against any of the undead if they got too close.
Through the silence each of the defenders strained their hearing for the sound of the undead finally reaching the building.
Nothing though, the place was deadly quiet, as though the creatures had vanished.
Trent looked out nervously from his high vantage point.
He could still see the creatures but for some reason they had stopped, each of them just stood still, almost as though they had forgotten what they were doing.
Some of them kept turning and looking out to the north-west.
The horizon flashed multiple times as though a massive flashgun was being triggered.
With each flash the distant trees and faint outlines of buildings were silhouetted by the light.
Seconds later came the crump of heavy weapons, explosions and artillery.
This all pointed to an epic battle underway, perhaps this was the start of the battle for the Orne River Bridge or maybe more of their forces had run into these undead creatures.
Trent called down into the nave.
“Captain, you need to see this!”
Looking back to the horizon he could see tracer fire from anti-aircraft guns reaching high into the sky.
Every now and then it was just possible to spot the outlines of dark aircraft, probably delivering more Allied troops to the invasion of France.
On the ground in the distance though there was definitely a battle on the go, just a matter of a few miles away.
Captain Scott entered the cramped room up high in the church tower and moved towards Trent.
“What is it?” he asked.
Trent pointed to the direction of the flashes.
“Look!”
The two men surveyed the scene for a moment.
More flashes erupted in the distance followed by puffs of shells exploding just a mile into the distance.
Trent spoke quietly to the Captain.
“It looks like more of our forces have arrived.
Can you see the anything near where the battle seems to be going on?”
Captain Scott looked intently, using his binoculars to get a better view.
“Yeah, I think I can see a few vehicles every time the flashes go off.
They must be fighting near the bridge, maybe they heard you needed help?”
“I don’t think so, Sir.
We lost our equipment in the crash.”
The American continued watching the horizon before turning his attention to their more immediate problem, the creatures outside.
“How many of these undead things do you think are still out there?”
Trent looked out to the south to double check.
“Hundreds, maybe thousands, Sir.
I don’t know where they’re coming from now, they just seem to keep coming.
Maybe they came here from one of the local towns.
They’re on all sides now and I can see more coming down the road to the west and east...look!”
Trent leaned over the window ledge and pointed out to the east.
The shape of the vicarage was visible in the distance and all around it seemed to be even more of the undead.
“So, we’re completely surrounded then.”
He turned from the window, looking at Trent for a moment.
“Shit!”
Sergeant Smith arrived from the chancel, wondering what was happening.
The Captain briefed him with the bare minimum of words.
“It seems the second wave is arriving,” he said.
Captain Scott pointed at the light in the distance and the substantial amounts of tracer fire that blasted through the sky.
Sergeant Smith swore, and then looked back inside the church.
“We don’t have enough ammunition to stop another attack.
Even if those guys are ours they could take half a day to get here, assuming they aren’t stopped by these things,” he said.
Gunfire erupted to the east of the church, the sounds coming from the chancel.
Smith cocked his Sten gun and moved for the stairs, speaking briefly to the Captain.
“I’ll check on Jones, he said he found something in the basement, maybe it could help.”
Captain Scott nodded and followed him downstairs.
Upon entering the ground level of the tower it was clear that the gunfire wasn’t sporadic, it was time for yet another attack.
Jones ran over to the two after spotting the signal from Smith.
More gunfire started from the tower and also in the nave.
Smith shouted to make himself heard.
“We need to fall back, can we use the basement?”
Jones considered his question for a few seconds, looking back to the entrance to the basement area.
“There’s lots of space but the only way out is through the locked gate.
If we can blow it we can see where it goes.”
Before any decision could be made the blocked doorway to the south ripped open again to reveal at least twenty of the undead who staggered inside.
Archer opened up with the Bren and the battle continued its bloody progress.
Captain Scott continued.
“Take what you need and get down there, we’ll hold here as long as we can.”
Jones saluted uncomfortably, forgetting for a moment that the officer was American then rushed to the ladder that led to the basement.
Scott and Smith looked around, the defence was solid but for how long?
Scott pointed to the chancel and Smith rushed back to his original position to assist Clarke and the French resistance fighter still fighting near the altar.
Captain Scott kept himself placed firmly in the centre of the nave, he wanted to see exactly what was happening and this was the best spot.
Archer had decimated the undead at the doorway but more fire was needed to stop anymore reaching the open space inside.
The Captain was now out of ammunition for his rifle and dropped it so he could make use of the capture MP40 given to him earlier.
Holding down the trigger the friendly clatter of its mechanism left him feeling confident, especially as one after another of the undead dropped to the ground.
He could see movement to his left as Smith and Clarke fought a number of the undead in hand to hand combat.
Another of the creatures was on top of what looked like the French resistance fighter.
He aimed carefully and emptied a short bust into the creature, throwing it up against the wall.
He couldn’t quite see if the young man was still alive.
Back in the tower Trent was starting to panic.
He’d just used his last magazine and the number of undead seemed to be growing by the minute.
Outside were hundreds and hundreds of them, all heading towards the door and windows of the church.
Abandoning his position he dumped his rifle and ran down the stairs to find the desperate defenders fighting off the monsters at every wall in the church.
All the windows of the tower along the ground floor were smashed and arms and heads were trying to force themselves in.
Part of the stone frame around the tall windows on the north of the nave collapsed under what must have been the immense pressure of scores for the undead.
Their bodies collapsed inside and on top of them followed dozens more.
The northern wall had amazingly been breached and the creatures streamed in.