The Beach Brigade
 

The town was in chaos. Men and women ran in random directions, not knowing where to go or what to do. The rain, silhouetted in front of the blood-red sky, blew sharp grains of sand across the numb faces of the German  infantry as they marched in an orderly manner across the wet sand of the beach. They were the stone in the river of running people. A plane flew overhead, shortly followed by an explosion in the sand, creating a cloud which stood there, in the middle of the beach. It then burst and expanded across the beach, spraying the line of uniformed men with scraps of metal. One of the men flew back as a gust of wind blew him into the sand behind him.
“Get up! Aufstehen! Jezt!” The young captain shouted, trying to keep a calm head as yet another bomb hit, throwing a running civilian into the air.
Two soldiers picked up the fallen soldier and stood to attention as the captain bellowed another order. As a plane flew overhead, one of the soldiers noticed the small shape of a bomb fall from the plane. The man turned and ran. He stumbled on the sand and dropped his gun in desperation.
The captain pulled out his pistol and aimed its cold, hard sight at the running man. As the shot went off, hitting the fleeing soldier in the back, the bomb hit, metres away from the small patrol.
From a distance nothing could be seen but the sand as it spiralled around the forsaken men.
As the sand twirled its death-mocking dance, a lone soldier crawled out of the cloud. His face bloody and his clothes torn. He pulled himself out far enough to avoid the flying metal.
As the sand cleared he saw them, his comrades, lying, dead in the sand. Some without legs, others without anything but the forlorn look of innocent terror on their faces. Not all were lying in the pile of the dead, the captain had been thrown far from sight. His body was lying near the sea. A wave washed over his body and slowly but steadily, pulled him into the breakers, as if nature was ensuring his death.