I know the exact time because I'm checking my watch when the first shell hits.
The explosion freezes the moment in my memory like a photograph: 08:47, second hand sweeping past the nine.
The shell lands two hundred meters east.
In what used to be someone's house.
The building just... ceases to exist.
One moment it's there, next moment it's dust and debris and a crater that wasn't there before.
Then the world speeds up.
More shells.
Dozens.
The ground shakes hard enough to rattle my teeth.
Dust fills the air, choking and blinding.
Someone's screaming—maybe me, maybe someone else, maybe everyone.
"CONTACT EAST!"
Davies's voice cuts through the chaos.
"ARMOR! ARMOR APPROACHING!"
I peer through the dust and smoke.
Three German tanks rolling down the street, massive and inevitable.
Panzer IIIs, some part of my brain supplies, though I've never seen a Panzer III before in this life.
Infantry behind them, using the tanks as cover, weapons ready.
My hands move.
Safety off.
Sight picture.
Breathe.
I don't remember deciding to do any of this.
My body just knows.
The first German soldier steps into my sight line—maybe thirty meters away, rifle raised, scanning for targets.
Young.
Maybe younger than me.
Scared beneath the aggression.
I squeeze the trigger.
The rifle kicks.
The soldier drops.
I've just killed someone.
I should feel something.
Horror. Guilt. Triumph.
Something.
Instead, I just chamber another round and find the next target.
---
The battle becomes fragments:
A German soldier rushing my position.
Close enough to see his eyes widen when I shoot him in the chest.
Thompson firing his rifle methodically.
Each shot deliberate, like he's at a range instead of fighting for his life.
One of the Polish volunteers—didn't catch his name—taking shrapnel to the face.
Going down without a sound.
The Brit from the truck, the one who asked if I was scared.
Crawling behind cover with his leg torn open.
Screaming for a medic who isn't coming.
Davies throwing a grenade that lands perfectly inside a German position.
The explosion cutting off their machine gun fire mid-burst.
My rifle overheating.
Barrel too hot to touch.
But I keep firing anyway because stopping means dying.
And through it all, my body moves like it knows the choreography.
Duck. Roll. Aim. Fire. Reload. Repeat.
Muscle memory from lives I can't remember guiding me through a war I've never fought.
The tanks keep coming.
Infantry keeps advancing.
We keep shooting.
---
I don't know how long it lasts.
Could be minutes. Could be hours.
Time loses meaning when every second might be your last.
But eventually, the German advance stalls.
Their infantry pulls back, dragging wounded with them.
The tanks reverse, disappearing into the smoke.
The artillery shifts to a different sector—someone else's problem now.
The silence that follows is worse than the noise.
It's the silence of men checking if they're still alive, if their friends are still breathing, if the person next to them is sleeping or dead.
Thompson moves through the positions.
"Count off! Who's hit?"
Voices call out.
Present. Here. Wounded but functional.
Some don't answer.
The Brit with the leg wound is still breathing, barely.
Davies and another soldier drag him toward the farmhouse where a medic is trying to set up an aid station.
He won't make it.
I can see it in the way his blood pools too fast, the way his lips are already grey.
But they try anyway.
The Polish volunteer is dead.
So is a Canadian whose name I never learned.
And a Brit from Manchester who showed me pictures of his girl last night.
Three dead.
Five wounded.
Two dozen still standing.
We held.
Doesn't feel like winning.
---
Davies finds me sitting against the rubble.
Rifle across my lap.
Hands shaking now that the adrenaline is fading.
"You alright, Castellanos?"
"Yeah."
He lights a cigarette, hands it to me.
"You move well. Where'd you train?"
"I didn't."
"Bullshit."
"I'm serious, sir. I just..."
How do I explain?
"I just knew what to do."
Davies studies me.
"Some people are naturals. Saw it in the last war—men who'd never fired a rifle before but moved like veterans the first time bullets flew."
He pauses.
"Usually they were the ones who didn't make it home. War doesn't like to let go of people who're good at it."
I don't have a response to that.
He claps my shoulder.
"Get some water. Check your equipment. They'll come again."
He's right.
They come again at noon.
And again at sunset.
Each time we hold.
Each time more men die.
By nightfall, we've lost seven.
Thirteen wounded.
The rest of us are running on adrenaline and fear and the knowledge that running means dying slower.
I've killed six men today.
Maybe more.
Hard to tell when you're firing into smoke and chaos.
I don't feel bad about it.
I don't feel good about it either.
I just feel tired.