We ran out of a thicket of trees, taking cover near a wall that had recently had a large hole blasted through it. The rain poured down on us, muddying the ground and making miss my helmet all the more. The wall wasn’t very high, so we had to crouch behind it for full cover. Gunfire was still constant, the town long since turned into a bloody battlefield. We could barely hear people yelling, some in English and some in French. There was also someone yelling on a loudspeaker, in English but with a German accent so heavy I couldn’t understand much of what he said. Maybe thirty feet ahead on the other side of the wall, we could just make out a group of soldiers, taking cover behind another short wall and a few broken carts. We were in the right place after all! Zach tried to go past our wall, but Sergeant Horvath held him back.

“Flash!” Captain Miller shouted, as a family of French civilians ran by.

“Thunder!” One of the men called back. Horvath released Zach at that point, and Miller lead the way forward. We ran from our wall to the side of a house, pausing for a few seconds, before we ran up to them. They turned out to be a squad of Airborne troops; a sergeant, a radioman and a handful of privates hiding out behind a broken carriage, while a few other privates exchanged fire with the Germans at the next wall several feet past them.

“You guys are a sight for sore eyes,” one of the privates said, then another told the sergeant that their relief had shown up.

“How many are you?” He asked Captain Miller, when he squatted down next to the sergeant.

“Twelve. We’re not your relief,” Miller stated. “We’re here for a Private Ryan,” he finished, as the sergeant sighed in consternation.

“Who? Ryan? What for?” He asked, confused.

“Is he here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe with the mixed unit on the other side of town. It’s hard to get to, the Germans punched a hole in our center, cut us right in two. What’s his name again?”

“Ryan. James Ryan. He dropped in with the 101st.” Sergeant Hill, he said he was called, had one of his guys call for a runner. Hill, Miller, Horvath, the runner, and a few of our other guys moved up to the next wall, while the rest of us found cover behind whatever debris we could. I couldn’t really hear them from the ruined apple cart I crouched behind, with Mellish and Caparzo. The cart’s load had been scattered across the ground, and Caparzo started picking through them. He offered a good-looking one to me, but I waved him off, my stomach too twisted up by my nervousness and the fear of combat. I wasn’t able to even consider eating in the middle of a warzone. While we seemed relatively safe for the moment, we could still hear the fighting in the western portions of the town, so I kept my guard up, scanning the area beyond Miller’s wall. I didn’t see much of anything, just the rubble from ruined buildings, some sandbags, a few corpses and a whole lot of bullet holes.

“The Statue of Liberty is kaputt!” The voice on the loudspeaker yelled slowly, so I was able to understand the voice somewhat clearly for the first time. The message was repeated, before whoever was on the other end went back to rambling quasi-English nonsense.

“You hear that, Caparzo?” I asked, chuckling. “The Statue of Liberty is kaputt!”

“That is bad news,” he laughed back, before biting into another apple.

“Your father got circumcised by my rabbi, you prick!” Mellish shouted back at the voice on the loudspeaker, leaving Caparzo and I in hysterics. Not long after that, though, the runner was ready to head across the battlefield, to send a message to the officer on the other side of town. Captain Hamill, I thought someone had said. The runner took a few deep breaths and bolted, racing through the town as quickly as he could.

“Fuck!” I yelled, after a German machine gun opened up on him, quickly dropping the runner into the dirt. We dove to the ground, the apple cart no longer feeling like adequate cover. The shots came from the east and we felt exposed behind the little wooden cart. As soon as their firing ceased, we rushed over to Miller’s wall, where it should have been safer. Miles and Reiben were already there, the former watching the runner through a hole in the wall.

I joined him, checking on the soldier, surprised to see him struggling to get to his feet. I’d considered him dead as soon as the first shots went off. Maybe he’d get out alive, I thought optimistically, as he got one knee up.

I swore and ducked fully behind the wall when they started up another round of fire, focused around the runner once again. I had watched long enough to see another round pierce through him, though I wasn’t sure exactly where. He collapsed from that, his only further movements being spasms as more shots hit him.

“Why do they keep shooting him?!” Miles yelled, barely audible of the sound of the gunfire. “He’s already dead you fuckers!” He added, as I pulled him down behind the wall. Miles beat his fist against the wall once, as he slid down the wall with his head in his hands, then Miller gave him his answer.

“As long as there’s breath in his lungs he can carry the message. We’d do the same thing!”

“No we wouldn’t!” Caparzo shot back, as pissed off as the rest of us. Hill tried to contact Captain Hamill once again, via his radioman near the wall. I grabbed Miles and Caparzo and backed us up, to give them some space and so we could find Sergeant Horvath. Miller and Hill stayed with the radioman, Hill giving Miller the overlay of the nearby parts of Neuville. Trying to find a safe(ish) route to Captain Hamill, I assumed.

“Quinn, Porter, Caparzo, Mellish,” Captain Miller started, his meeting with Sergeant Hill apparently complete. “We’re heading down that street,” he continued, pointing towards one of the many ruined residential streets in the area. It leads to an open square. The Germans are still jamming our radios, so we’ll have to find Captain Hamill ourselves. You and two of Hill’s guys will be leading the way,” Miller finished, motioning for us to get ready. He gave out a few more orders as two Airborne troops, Hastings and Goldman, they were called, joined us.

We ran down the street, taking cover behind every building, wall, or chunk of debris we could along the way. The street had two story houses on either side of it, many of which were partially collapsed. We checked the windows of the houses on the way, our rifles at the ready. Miles stuck right behind me, practically shaking in his boots, while the other four were much more composed.

Several shots rang out from across the street, three Germans that had been holed up inside a house popping up. One of the paratroopers, Hastings I think it was, took a couple of shots to the side, collapsing to the ground. He tried to crawl to a nearby wall, as the rest of us took cover. Goldman reached out for Hastings, trying to grab hold of his squadmate’s outstretched hand. Another shot blew off one of Goldman’s fingers, but the guy grabbed Hastings anyway, grunting in pain as he pulled the heavily wounded paratrooper behind the wall. He tried to wrap up his hand while applying pressure to Hastings’ gunshot wounds at the same time.

Deciding enough was enough, I popped up from behind a chunk of rubble I’d lain behind and opened fire with my BAR. That was actually the first time I’d fired it, and the thing had a lot more kick than I’d expected, throwing off my aim. I essentially fired from the hip with the automatic rifle, spraying lead into the Nazi soldiers and their hideout. We were too far away, and my rifle was far too loud, too hear the thumps of their bodies hitting the floor, but I was sure they were dead. Caparzo and Mellish carefully approached the house, then shoved their guns’ barrels through the now-glassless window.

“You got ‘em,” Mellish stated nodding at me. We converged around Hastings and Goldman after the coast was clear, not sure what we could do.

“Just clear the rest of the way!” Goldman shouted, pointing down the street with his good hand. “I’ll stay with him ‘till the medics get here. Go!” We agreed, continuing towards the end of the street. We moved more cautiously but found no further resistance, coming out to a more open area. We took cover just at the end of the street, until the rest of our squad and a dozen Airborne troops made it to us. Both Wade and Cora trailed them at the back, Private Goldman following behind somberly, a cloth over his missing finger. Cora just shook her head when I gave her an inquisitive glance. Damn.

“Those are the gates,” Sergeant Hill told the Captain, all of us slowly turning onto the new street. We met with no resistance on our way to the gate, quickly heading to the wall on one side of said gate. The paratroopers stayed back, content to let the Rangers handle things for a bit after losing one of their own. We heard movement on the other side, and Miller told Horvath to initiate the check.

“Flash!” Horvath shouted, receiving no immediate reply. “Flash or we will fire on you!”

“Ne tirez pas! On est français!” They shouted.

“Don’t shoot, we’re French, he said,” I told the Captain. Miller and I crept over to the edge of the wall, peering past the gate. We saw a French man, standing on the second floor of a house with a hand raised. An entire wall of the house had collapsed, leaving them painfully exposed in what looked to be their dining room.

“Alright, tell him- Tell them to show themselves,” Captain Miller ordered.

“Montrez-vous!” I shouted back at the Frenchman, who promptly stepped a bit further into the light. That revealed that he’d been holding onto his wife’s hand, who was in turn holding onto a baby. Another little boy and a little girl hid behind their mother, poking their heads out to watch us. The man shouted something again. “He said they’re not armed,” I clarified to the captain, just in case.

“I got that part,” Miller said. “Alright, let’s go!” He had me hurry out, my rifle at the ready, then the rest of my teammates and the Rangers poured out, along with a handful of the paratroopers. We settled down against the rubble of their ruined wall, and Captain Miller turned to me again. “Ask them if they know where the Germans are.”

“Où sont les Allemands?” I shouted up to him, as he walked a bit closer to the edge. His wife followed nervously, as she took her daughter by the hand.

“Ils sont partout! Il faut vous emmener les enfants!” He shouted desperately, releasing his wife’s hand and turning around.

“What’s he saying?” Miller asked me, impatiently, as the Frenchman picked up his daughter.

“He said the Germans are everywhere, Captain,” I started, sighing. “And, uh, they want us to take the children,” I added, predicting his response.

“What?! We can’t take the kids! Tell him that!” As expected. I tried to tell him, but the man insisted, despite my denials. That didn’t go on for long, before Caparzo stepped up, hiking up the hill of rubble. He reached up to take the girl, the father leaving him in her arms and firing off another couple of statements to me.

“He thinks they’ll be safer with us, sir,” I said weakly, knowing he wouldn’t care about that.

“It’s not gonna be safe with us!” He fired back back, and I tried to relay the message, but the Frenchman and Caparzo were having none of it. He held onto the girl, leaving his helmet in the house.

“Are you nuts?!” Sergeant Horvath shouted at Caparzo, as he took full hold of the kid. He took off a rosary he’d worn under his uniform, handing it to the little girl. “Listen to the captain!” Horvath continued, Caparzo ignoring him.

“It’s not gonna be safe anywhere!” Miller shouted, as the kid clutched the rosary and began to cry for her papa. “Caparzo! Put that kid back!” He continued with variations of the same, but Caparzo didn’t care.

“I can’t! She reminds me of my niece, sir. The decent thing to do is to at least take her up the road to the next town,” Caparzo argued, unconvincingly.

“We’re not here to do the decent thing!” Miller shouted, wrenching the girl out of Caparzo’s hands. “We’re here to follow fuckin’ orders!” The captained stomped off, telling Sergeant Horvath to take the kid and marching towards him. Caparzo stood at a bit of a loss, pointing up at the Frenchman and looking like he was about to say something.

However, before he could begin his counterargument, he stumbled and a shot rang out! Caparzo fell against the shell of a broken piano, then tried to run for cover but fell into the street.

“Cover!” Someone shouted, the captain following it up with the same. I took cover behind a broken down automobile near the captain, trying to comfort the little kid, whispering that she would be okay. Internally, though, I was berating myself and I felt like an idiot. This was part a scene in the movie! We’d gone over it with Keith just a few days ago, but I’d been too caught up in my part as the translator to even think about it. I looked guiltily on towards my buddy as he lay on his back several feet away, struggling to move.

“He was on the ground ‘fore we heard the shot!” Jackson declared, poking his head up over his cover. “That’s where I’d be,” he then muttered, looking towards a bell tower a few hundred yards away. He readied his rifle and set the magnification of his scope, then said, “I wouldn’t venture too far out there fellas. This sniper’s got talent.” Everyone of us, including the captain, took his word for it, as our sniper snuck over to a better position.

“Captain!” Caparzo coughed, trembling on the ground, blood flowing from his chest and out his sleeve. The rain poured down on him as it had been the whole time we’d been in Neuville. “Help me up! I can w- I can walk!”

“Caparzo! Stay still!” Wade called out, from his position hiding out with the paratroopers.

“Fish!” Caparzo cried out while looking desperately towards Mellish, who was sprawled out behind a large pile of rubble not far from Caparzo. I wanted nothing more than to rescue Caparzo, but there was just nothing we could do. We were all pinned down, and we had to just leave him there until Jackson could take down the German sniper. He could just casually pick us off, one by one, if we showed ourselves. I could do no more than just hold the little girl tight, trying to keep her calm and letting her know she was safe, while her father yelled the same.

“Captain! Can you see him from there, how is he?!” Wade shouted again. Miller told him to stay put, but the dutiful medic refused, crawling closer to our wounded comrade. “Where’s he shot, Captain?! Captain?! Can you see him?!” Wade tried to stand up and jump out then, but Sergeant Hill pulled him back.

“Quinn! I can walk! Come here, help me up!” Caparzo begged me, his head tilted towards me as he took in frantic breaths.

“Stay still like Wade told you, Caparzo! You’ll be fine!” I lied, as my own eyes started to tear up.

“I think I can get him!” I heard Zach, of all people, shout, from behind a different broken car, Reiben and Maxley crouching beside him.

“Stay here you idiot!” Reiben shouted, Zach taking several quick breaths.

“I can- I can get him. I’m fast! I’ll get him out of there!” The teen got in a sprinter’s pose behind the car, and tried to shoot off! He’d barely gotten started when Reiben grabbed him from behind by the collar, pulling him backwards. Another shot rang out, and Zach shrieked in pain. I could just barely see him from my position, and it looked like he had fallen into Reiben, knocking them both to the ground after being shot. He was shaking and held his left hand over his right cheek, the right hand digging into the dirt beneath him. His eyes were clenched shut and I could see blood leaking past his fingertips. Zach continued to groan in pain but, all things considered, he wasn’t hit too bad. Nothing a shot of health potion couldn’t fix, anyway.

“Is Michaels alright?!” Captain Miller shouted, as the teenager continued to tremble, gritting his teeth.

“He’s not hit too bad! Just grazed his cheek! I’m fine too, Captain,” Reiben muttered at the end, holding a cloth over the gash on Zach’s face.

“Fish! Come over here!” Caparzo shouted out in desperation once again, the blood pooling on the ground in the rain.

“Carpy keep your head down! They’ll get you- put your head down!” Mellish called out, holding back his tears as he watched his best friend bleeding out in the street. Caparzo shakily reached into his jacket’s inner pockets, pulling out a piece of paper.

“Copy it!” Caparzo said weakly, waving the paper at Mellish. “Copy it and send it for me…” He continued, his words slurring together. It was unbearable; I wanted to cover my ears, but I was still holding onto the little French girl.

“Carpy you’re gonna send it yourself, put it down!” Mellish shouted back to him, trembling.

“It’s got blood!” Caparzo shouted, his hand shaking. “It’s- it’s to my dad… It’s got blood on it, Fish…” Those were his last words. His hand slumped to the ground, the letter dropping into the pool of its writer’s blood.

Not long after, Jackson finally took his shot, after saying another of his quiet prayers. Everyone was silent for several seconds, like we were waiting for the pin to drop.

“We got him! Stay down,” Mellish said, relieved. Jackson waved us forward, and I released the girl. She ran back to her parents screaming, and her father pulled her back up. She slapped him repeatedly, both of them in tears.

Our squad swarmed Caparzo, checking his wounds and his pulse, but we were too late. He’d been shot through the chest, maybe even through a lung. Cora told me later that it was practically a miracle he’d lasted as long as he did. After we confirmed Caparzo’s death, she bandaged up Zach’s face, saying he’d probably be fine even without the potion. We only had five doses for the rest of the Mission, after all, and he was up and mobile not long after he took the hit.

Horvath and the paratroopers checked the area, and declared we were clear. We stood around Caparzo’s body, staring in subdued silence, as Captain Miller walked over, holding Caparzo’s helmet.

“That’s why we can’t take children,” the captain stated, dumping Caparzo’s helmet onto my head, tilting it over my eyes. I shifted the helmet back to normal, grimacing. That was decidedly not how I had wanted to get a new helmet. Miller crouched near Caparzo’s body and grabbed his dog tag, pocketing it. He had Horvath do an ammo check and sent Miles and Maxley to fill up everyone’s canteens. Wade bent down and grabbed Caparzo’s letter, carefully stowing it away, then covering the body up with a blanket.

“Jackson, Quinn, Mellish, check the tower,” Miller finished, and everyone got to it.

“Fuck Ryan,” I heard Reiben mutter, as he stared at Caparzo’s form beneath the blanket. In that moment, I agreed with him.

Jackson led us to the tower the enemy sniper had occupied, and we busted in, guns blazing. We felt silly, to the say the least, when we found that the first floor was empty. We carefully made our way up the stairs, but every floor was the same- nobody.

Mellish whistled when we reached the top, staring at the dead German sniper. Jackson had shot him right through the scope, blasting out the man’s right eye along with parts of his brain.

“Holy shit. I didn’t think that was actually possible,” I muttered, looking back and forth between Jackson and his mark. I remembered that scene in the movie, but it was kind of surreal to know that the sniper before me was truly that good.

“My God gave me strength,” Jackson replied simply, kissing the cross on his necklace. We didn’t argue, though Mellish rolled his eyes at that. Jackson claimed the enemy sniper’s combat knife and sidearm, then we were on our way.

Back on the ground, Maxley and Miles had returned, handing out our topped-off canteens. I silently thanked Maxley with no more than a nod, which he returned, just as quiet. I wasn’t sure how the other Players saw the movie characters at that point, but to me they were as real as anyone I’d ever met, and Caparzo had been my buddy. The only ones I’d spent more time with were Maxley, Reiben and now Mellish.

Miller gathered us up real quick, along with the paratroopers, and had Sergeant Hill lead the way. After just a few minutes we ended up in another alley, Hill still taking point. I was just behind him, Miles and Maxley close behind me. We stayed close to the wall of a large building, just before the courtyard square we were searching for. Sergeant Hill peered around the corner, then froze. He slowly turned back towards us, grimacing.

“Machine gun,” Hill whispered, then shouted, “Flash!” The seconds ticked by, as we waited grimly.

“Thunder,” someone called back. “Come on in.” We let out a collective sigh, but still didn’t dare to relax. We finally turned the corner, finding a new paratrooper stationed at a window, the machine gun evidently having been retracted.

“We’re looking for Captain Hamill,” Hill stated simply. “Where is he?”

“Should be just over there, across the square,” the soldier said, pointing to a small nearby courtyard, debris and shell casings littering the square. There was a staircase leading up to a landing, and a pile of boards sticking out of a small heap of rubble and leaning against the wall of an old stone building. Hill sent his radioman up the stairs to find Captain Hamill, while the rest of us waited in the square. I casually stood around on the edge of the group, near the wall by the rubble pile. I knew what was coming next.

Sergeant Hill told everyone to relax and sat down on the pile of rubble, saying he had to get something out of his boot. He shifted his weight and grabbed the boot, but that cause the whole pile to move, one of the boards crashing into the building, just about that whole wall collapsing, sending up a huge cloud of dust. Then we heard an asinine yelling, in a language I didn’t understand. The building was full of Germans!

But I was ready for that. I didn’t exactly remember this part of the movie, but I’d been thinking long and hard about what Keith said was supposed to come next. Most of my comrades dove to the ground or tried to take cover, but I just hoisted my BAR and opened fire. I was not in the mood to look for prisoners after what had been done to Caparzo, and I sincerely doubted they’d surrender. They had been gunned down after being given ample time to surrender in the movie anyway, according to Keith.

I just held the trigger down and pointed, in such close proximity that it wasn’t really possible to miss with an automatic weapon. The half-dozen German soldiers in their makeshift command room died in seconds, all by my hand. Some of them had even raised their weapons; I didn’t feel any remorse.

“Clear up!” I heard someone shout, behind and above me. I turned to see a tall Airborne officer standing on the staircase’s landing, another paratrooper and Sergeant Hill’s radioman on either side of him. They had their guns still aimed into the building, but they hadn’t gotten a chance to fire.

“Clear down,” Hill said after a day, shakily taking to his feet. The others around me stood up then as well, most of them staring at me. Some with appreciation, some with shock or even fear. I just shrugged and lowered my rifle, as Mellish and Jackson went in to check out the building.

Captain Hamill, the Airborne officer we’d been searching for, came down the stairs and introduced himself to Captain Miller.

“We’re looking for a Private James Ryan, supposed to be part of your outfit. Any chance you’ve got him here?” Miller asked. Hamill looked at his Sergeant and waved for him to answer.

“Yeah, we’ve got a Ryan,” the man said gruffly. “You want to see him?”

“Absolutely,” Miller replied, relief slipping into his voice. “Take us to him.”