Outside the fort, on the fan-shaped battlefield, clamor and death had utterly fused into one, indistinguishable from each other.
Under the merciless, bloody driving of the Sauron Supervisory team, though their formations had long since dissolved into chaos and their casualties were grievous, the Sauron elite still displayed a courage and toughness that chilled the heart.
Braving the hail-like rain of lead shot, they howled and surged upward one after another.
Carnford's defensive line had long lost any unified firing rhythm; the entire line had shifted to free firing.
The soldiers' faces were either twisted with ferocity or pale as death. They fought entirely on the brutal training of their daily lives and their instinct to survive.
Load, aim, fire, reload... their movements warped by exhaustion, terror, and strain, their speeds uneven.
The officers' shouts were swallowed by the earthshaking roar. They could only rely on the personal guards and sergeants at their sides to keep the line from collapsing with their bodies, blades, and swords.
In many places, the breastwork had already been breached or was on the verge of being breached, and savage close-quarters fighting erupted.
Blue uniforms and white Sauron armor tangled together. Bayonets and curved blades, spears and Battle Axes hacked and thrust at each other in mad frenzy.
People screamed and fell without end. Blood soaked the earth, turning the ground slick beyond measure.
The defensive line was like a small boat tossed in a storm, liable at any moment to be smashed apart and swallowed by black waves.
Tommy crouched in a relatively sunken shell crater behind the breastwork, his back against cold, wet, sticky mud. His hands shook violently as he carried out the hardest—and most crucial—reload of his life.
He had just watched a Flintlock Rifleman beside him take a stray arrow