Chereads / Pirates of Oceanlandia: A Collection of Short Stories / Chapter 18 - POS: The Bloody Thirty Third

Chapter 18 - POS: The Bloody Thirty Third

For as far as Kay's eyes could see in any direction was a wall of green coated soldiers marching towards the enemy. 

Kay, the son of a peasant farmer on the island of Soresoth, never thought he would escape the farm. Now he was a recruit in the Thirty-third Regiment of the High King's army, helping to fend off an invasion from a powerful force. 

The Elven army had begun it's island hopping campaign throughout the kingdom of Oceanlandia. Now the Elves had landed on Cottonland, one of the largest Islands in the Kingdom. 

The High King had called for all able bodied men to take up arms against the invaders. And Kay was one of the ones to answer the call. 

He marched with his musket at arms alongside an immense number of other soldiers, surrounding him doing the same. For Kay and many others it was their first actual taste of war, for some such as Kay it was their first time away from home. 

The men marched towards the enemy position, as chaos engulfed the area around them. The clear blue sky above them was clouded by the amount of smoke from the muskets, cannon, mortar, and rocket fire. 

Some patches of the ground were charred from real fire spreading on the ground. 

The stench of smoke filled the air, not a soul could hear the inner workings of their own mind over the loud sounds of war. 

Kay was further back in the firing line, closer than most but still pretty far from the factory farm of death that was the front line. 

His heart was on the verge of self destruction as he marched closer to the enemy soldiers. Eventually the firing line was stepping over the badly mangled corpses of their fallen comrades as the enemy line began to fall back.  

Peering down, Kay saw a dead body with the upper right side of their head completely blown off, the left side was still very much intact, with the eye looking right at Kay, dead as a doorknob. 

On the ground were the corpses of literally hundreds of fellow soldiers, many were missing limbs, and appendages. 

The loud whistling sound of a rocket flying could be heard and then the ground shook violently, as the projectile hit the ground, exploding. Where the rocket made contact was a line of soldiers which were blown to pieces of bloody chunks that rained down on the rest of the soldiers, a bloody mist showered Kay's part of the line covering them in crimson colored fluid. 

"Yuck." Said one soldier

"Absolutely grotesque!" Shouted another 

If this gets anymore intense I think I'm going to throw up

Kay thought to himself, 

The force kept marching, as the fighting grew in scale and intensity the action reached Kay's line, one of the men beside him had their head just explode from being hit with a sniper's bullet. 

Another soldier had a cannonball fly right into their stomach with so much force it ripped them to shreds. 

This is it. I'm going to die

Kay thought to himself, he began hyperventilating and nearly collapsed but he had to keep moving. Eventually the line ceased to move. 

The sound of a bunch of maniacs screaming infested the air, and as Kay looked forward through a gap in the lines in front of him, he could see the pure white uniforms of the Elven soldiers charging at them.  

The soldiers in front aimed down their sights and then fired a volley. 

The enemy soldiers then fell silent and dropped dead on the ground. Their advance had failed. The rest of the enemy soldiers then started to run for their lives.

"They're retreating!" An officer shouted. 

"Charge!" 

The entire Oceanlandian army began to charge at the retreating Elven force. Their hope was to slaughter the Elven army off of the Island of Cottonland and send them back to their ships and back home. 

The Oceanlandians lines broke, different regiments blended together, the cavalry unit was running alongside the infantry units. It was chaotic. 

Some of the Green coats fired their weapons striking down the Elven soldiers. 

Then to the immediate shock of the Oceanlandians, the Elven army regrouped in lines behind a long line of gatling guns. 

"It's a trap!" The officer shouted "Retreat!" He demanded just a fraction of a second before the onslaught of death commenced. 

The gatling guns began firing, sending tiny red hot balls of lead flying at them. The front line that was still charging the enemy was instantly cut to pieces by the gunfire, the second line fell dead immediately after, so did the third line and the fourth. 

Kay tripped over a body, hitting the ground before he could be shot. The body of the man behind him landed on top of him, before he knew he had four or five different corpses piled onto him. Kay used all his might to remove the deceased from his back. Upon moving them, the gatling guns had fallen silent and looking over the field, it was littered with corpses. He looked over towards the enemy to see them advancing.  

Kay pretended to be dead, as the enemy marched over him. Kay hid under corpses until nightfall, when he was sure all the enemies had long since passed. He then collected a few survivors with him and began to run towards a nearby village.