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squeezed his heart.
    The Germans were doubled up on the grassy ground laughing so hard that tears were flowing freely down their cheeks.
    “They’re too close to our people…” Alan whispered.
    “I know…” Sam started crawling forwards like a leopard.
    The Germans started to recover and began to point at the woman and her daughters. They were deciding who would get whom and in which order. Some of the Germans were already putting down their weapons and starting to unloosen their belts.
    The corporal suddenly barked an order. The soldiers immediately stopped talking and moving and instantly snapped to attention. He gave a series of short, sharp commands. The soldiers all stood up. One of the girls started crying. Her mother wrapped her arms around both of her children as if she could protect them from the horror that was about to come.
    Alan and Sam were now a dozen yards away from the scene unfolding in front of them and quietly took cover behind a fallen tree trunk. They silently slipped off their safety catches and aimed their Schmeissers at the Germans.
    The corporal moved towards the mother. Her husband intercepted him blocking the soldier’s path.
    “He’s in the way. I can’t get a clear shot,” Sam whispered through gritted teeth..
    The soldier stared at the man with a mild look of surprise on his face. A mild look of surprise that turned to one of grudging approval and admiration. A man trying to defend his wife and his children. What could be more natural than that? A very brave man. But an unarmed man. A very foolish man. The man fell backwards clutching his stomach, vainly trying to tug out the bayonet embedded in his intestines.
    “Now!” Sam screamed.
    A stream of rounds flew out towards the Germans, knocking the corporal and the two would-be-rapists standing behind him off their feet. Alan opened fire a split second later catching another pair of potential pedophiles as they scrambled for their weapons. Sam and Alan charged forwards firing their weapons from the hip. Another soldier spun around and collapsed as the bullets caught him.
    “Hande hoch! Hande hoch!” Sam ordered.
    The two surviving Germans automatically raised their hands.
    Alan and Sam advanced on them breathing heavily.
    Alan turned to Sam. “What did you do that for, Sam?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “What the hell are we going to do with prisoners?”
    “Christ, Al. You’ve changed your tune. You were like a Good Samaritan when I shot those wounded Jerries back at Wake and now you’re a regular Attila the Hun! I wish that you’d make your blasted mind up!”
    Alan could tell that Sam was amused rather than annoyed. “That was then this is now,” he explained slowly and patiently as if to a child. “That was before I watched the S.S. massacre the whole regiment in cold blood after they’d surrendered. I’m no longer looking at the world through rose tinted spectacles.”
    “For which I’m heartily grateful.”
    “But the question still stands: what do we do with these prisoners?” Alan gestured with his Schmeisser.
    “We question them,” Sam answered.
    “But we don’t speak German.”
    “Yes, but laughing boy here speaks English.” Sam looked at one of the soldiers.
    The interpreter had survived. Alan nodded his head in understanding. “Be my guest.”
    “What is the importance of Hereward?” Sam asked.
    The interpreter sneered and spat onto the ground at Sam’s feet.
    Sam swung his Schmeisser to the left and fired a burst of bullets at the other surviving soldier. The rounds stitched a line of holes across his stomach almost sawing the German in half. He collapsed with a loud grunt in a bloody heap on the ground.
    “Not laughing so much now are you, Fritzie?” Sam said. He looked at the German like a wolf leering at a lamb before it ripped its throat out. “I won’t ask you again, Fritze: what is the importance of Hereward?”
    Alan waved his hand in front of his face as the noxious smell