Not only is the title a working project, the story was started this morning, literally, and I wrote it in about 10 minutes for a friend of mine. As such, it's neither refined nor thought through, it's just something I put together that I plan to continue working on because I like the concept.
The sun shone hard on Eric’s exposed neck as the boat bobbed back and forth in the tide towards the beach. Resting on his rifle, he was beginning to doze off when a loud explosion rocked the boat, and he jumped back to see a shell had hit the very front of the boat, and it was sinking fast. The deafening screams of the wounded were the first to silence as they sank under the waves quickly, and as the boat came to rest on the shallow water the machine guns opened fire, cutting down half of the survivors. Instinctively, Eric jumped to the floor, and before he knew it he was swimming through the body of his comrades.
Bullets whistling by him, he finally waded to the beach having left behind his soaked rifle and pack. Looking around him as the bullets from the Mg42s clanged off the tank traps, he spotted the corpse of another soldier and he waded through the sand towards it. Picking up the rifle and beginning to unhook the marine’s pack, he was startled when he spoke, in a low sickly voice.
“Help… me, please…” the man grabbed onto Eric’s hand as he fumbled for the other strap, causing him to mumble when he answered.
“I’m not a medic, I’ll call for one though,” Eric looked around him, trying to spot the familiar red cross of the medics. Spotting one coming from a ship that had just beached, he called out, “Medic! Medic!” Hearing the shouts, the medic looked around and started a mad dash towards the two of them, “Okay mate, the medic’s on his way, just leave me your gun and pack and he’ll take good care of you,” unhooking the last strap, Eric swung the pack around his shoulder, picked up the gun and ran towards the next tank trap, inching closer to the German fortifications.
EDIT: It looked so much longer while I was writing it in Word... and when I was posting it...
hooray for run-ons
Now finish it.
Just a few thoughts:
-I highly doubt anyone in a landing craft would be "dozing of"....Puking and getting the shakies is more likely.
-I think you're talking about the Normandy landing. If so, the weather that day was really bad. So the sun wasn't shining at all.
-In your second paragraph you write "waded through the sand" should probably be "waded through the water"
-When you say "low voice" I think about someone who speaks with a lot of bass...not something I'd associate with someone who's dying. I think "gargle" would be better suited, the kind of sound you get when someone has blood in his throat.
