The Call of Duty.

Chapter 1

The Lieutenant, Lieutenant Corval, yelled over the sound of gunfire at his private. "Private! Get over the radio! We need air support!"

I watched from a distance, safe in my foxhole. Safe was relative in times like this, but for now, I was safer than the rest of them.

"EVERYBODY DOWN!" I listened to Sergeant Miller yell. The whistling I didn't notice at first got louder. I covered my head as best as I could as the hole to my left got bigger with a loud BOOM! The ground under me shook as dirt and body parts flew up and landed in my hole.

"Medic!" Another private yelled. Did someone survive that blast?

"He's dead, private! Leave him!" Corporal Jones had the frantic private by the collar.

Dirt flew up next to my head. Someone saw me! I quickly burrowed myself deeper into my hole as a bullet flew past where my head was.

I kept my rifle upright. The M1-Grand was what most people had. A few of the people who had been here longer stole Sten machine guns from the enemies dead bodies. If you were lucky enough to find one of the higher ranking officers bodies, you could take home a Rheinmetall pistol.

I pulled over my foxhole and fired a few shots at the enemy before reloading my clip. A few different ranking soldiers ran past me in my hole to the front. I thought about joining them, but hesitated when 2 of them were gunned down!

I felt my blood get cold at the sight of brains blowing out the back of someone's head. It was for reasons like that I kept my friends list short.

"Soldier! Get your ass up here!" The lieutenant yelled at me. I did as I was told, moving quickly to avoid getting shot.

When I got to his position I noticed the body. The private he was yelling at earlier had a hole in his neck and had bled out only seconds ago.

"Sir!" I let him know I was there. He was too busy shooting back at the enemy to notice I had arrived.

"Kid, we need reinforcements! Get on his radio and make sure we have them!" With that, he was back to shooting.

I quickly moved the dead private somewhere safer and grabbed the blood-soaked radio handle. I pulled out the antenna to turn it on and quickly put it up to my ear. "This is Bravo Company! We are under heavy fire and requesting backup!" I heard no reply. I repeated myself after doing anything I could to make it work. "Bravo company under heavy fire! Requesting backup immediately!"

"Damn, boy!" Sergeant Miller had come behind me and pushed me against the nearby tree. "The radio is shot! Look!" I saw it.

"What should we do, sir?" I just barely managed to get my last word out before he yelled to the company.

"Everyone down!"

Half the firing stopped as a whistle was heard from the sky. I covered myself as best as I could.

BOOOOM!!

The ground rumbled beneath our feet. When the dirt finally landed and I could hear again there was more shouting. My old Foxhole was gone!

"Soldier!" Sergeant Miller yelled at me. "Do you hear me!?" I nodded, shocked at the events unfolding. "Good! Take this and run! Take it to Charlie company! They have a radio you can use!"

I took the piece of paper he was holding out for me. I didn't know when he had time to write whatever was on this down, but I didn't have time to ask. My duty now was to go to Charlie company without dying.

I picked up my feet and ran deeper into the woods, avoiding foxholes and soldiers coming to the front. The further in I went, the fewer bullets would reach me. They would all be hitting other trees or soldiers. It was a cold thought, but that was the reality. People were going to die, and I could do nothing about it.

That bothered me when I first got to the front lines. I was helpless to save people. I could call for a medic but that wasn't enough for me. After a while, I learned to accept the fact that people died. I'd become numb to helping. If they were breathing, they could call for their own medic.

It didn't take long to get to Charlie Company. They were 3 miles east of our position, taking only 15 minutes to run there.

When I got there, half of their soldiers were dead. I jumped into a foxhole as I heard a whistle and yell. The voice was unfamiliar. The explosion was far enough away to keep my hearing thankfully.

I ran forward to the closest soldier. "Who's in charge here?" I asked. He pointed toward the tree line. I ran to the soldier in that general direction. "Lieutenant!" I caught his attention. "Where is your radio, Sir?"

"Destroyed with that last mortar!" He looked at the hole in the ground nearby. "I'm afraid you just missed it, soldier! Try Alpha!"

I nodded and thanked him before taking off toward Alpha. My Sergeant would probably be getting impatient. He would have to work on that if he were going to get his reinforcements.

The firing stopped and the whistling came through the lack of noise. It was loud and coming straight for me!

I'm a dead man.

That was my last thought before everything went dark.

~~

Hey, so this is the first of many chapters. Obviously. This account is shared between me and my best friend, Angelle. My name is Cipriano, and this book is mine.

Credit for the story cover: