Wendigo E-Book

Joel Puga

• Herausgeber: Joel Puga
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

After Spain agrees to an alliance with Nazi Germany, Portugal is forced to do the same so as to avoid annexation. As a result, Portuguese soldiers at Lajes, in the Azores, come under attack from an American force that wants to occupy that strategic point. Frustrated by the stubborn resistance of the defenders, the Americans turn to a very unconventional weapon.

Leseprobe

Wendigo

by Joel Puga

Text copyright © 2016 Joel Puga

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents

Story 

About the Author 

Other Works by the Author 

Story

Bullets riddle the outside wall of the house that is our last stand. In response, we fire our rifles and light machine guns through the windows. The gun of a Sherman demolishes a small annex nearby where a few of our comrades and a 47mm anti-tank piece had been, but our SOMUA S-35 tank fires at the American vehicle, hitting it and sending its turret about two meters into the air. Since dawn, when they drove us out of the main buildings of the Lajes Air Base and reduced us to this house near the airfield, the destruction of the annex has been the only major progress the Americans have made against us. Maybe they weren't expecting to face these thick granite walls.

Despite their efforts, hours later, near dusk, they aren't any closer to dislodging us. To our surprise, the volume of enemy fire begins to decrease until, when night falls, it stops completely. But they don't give up. We keep hearing them and seeing the lights of their campfires and lanterns.

My comrades and I take the opportunity to sit down and rest our fingers and ears from the firing of rifles and machine guns. It's unsettling how, in less than three weeks, we went from a quiet life to this hellish siege. No one ever thought that Portugal would fight in this war. Then, after the annexation of France and the signing of an alliance between Hitler and Franco, Salazar was forced to join the Axis to prevent an invasion of the mother land and losing control of the State. Almost immediately, the British annexed the Portuguese colonies in Africa, India and Timor. And now, Americans have invaded the Azores, as these islands are a perfect base from which the Axis can support its Central American members: Mexico and the United Provinces of Central America.

“Pedro, you can go downstairs and eat something if you want,” the sergeant tells me. “It seems that the Americans are done for the day.”

I grab my Mie 1907/15M34 French rifle – much of the equipment the Germans have sent us to update our obsolete military had been captured from the French – and leave the small room. I then follow a corridor until I reach the stairs leading to the ground floor. There, in the center of the main room, five of my companions sit around a small fire, heating cans of field rations, while two others stand next to the windows, watching the enemy's movements. I join the former and take from my backpack a can of meat with beans, which I eat as soon as it gets warm because my last meal has been breakfast. Once I finish, I sit against a wall and take from my uniform's chest pocket a picture of my wife and two sons. I wish I could be with them in our home in Braga instead of being here fighting a losing battle. Unless we get reinforcements, and I doubt that even the Germans can get through the enemy fleet, sooner or later the Americans will defeat us. At best, we will be sent to a prison camp until the end of the war. What will become of my family then? My wife has no one else, and neither my parents nor any of my brothers can feed three more mouths.

“Help. Alarm,” someone yells from the upper floor.