I was still stuffing my face like a starving dog, grease and condensed milk smeared across my beard, when three other survivors stumbled into the dugout. Their eyes were wild, uniforms soaked in blood and canal water, faces streaked with dirt and gunpowder. The skinny private from Izmir didn't even ask—he just tore open another tin of bully beef with his teeth and shoved fistfuls into his mouth, chewing so fast that chunks fell back out onto the table. Another man grabbed the biscuits, crumbling them in his trembling hands before cramming them in, crumbs spraying everywhere like snow. The third just laughed, a cracked, hollow sound that made my skin crawl, and poured condensed milk straight from the tin down his throat in thick white gulps, some of it dribbling down his chin and mixing with the blood already there.
"Eat fast," I muttered between greedy bites, my voice thick with food. "This might be the last decent meal any of us ever—"
The table shook violently.
Not a little tremor—a deep, heavy rumble that rattled the tins, sent the lantern swinging wildly, and made dust sift from the sagging canvas roof like gray rain. The half-empty cans toppled and rolled across the floor. We froze mid-chew, mouths still full, eyes wide.
"What the hell—" one of the men started, voice muffled by biscuit.
I crawled to the edge of the dugout on my hands and knees, heart already hammering, and peered over the trench lip. My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
Coming straight at us was a steel beast unlike anything I had ever seen. The Commonwealth's first tank—massive, ugly, a lumbering monster of riveted iron plates painted in dull green and brown camouflage, tracks churning the sand with a grinding roar that shook the earth. It belched thick black smoke from a rear exhaust, and two small turrets bristled with machine guns that tracked back and forth like hungry eyes. Strapped into harnesses on top of it rode Commonwealth mages—ethereal flying machines folded away for now, but their hands glowed with the same cold arcane light I had seen on Empire sorcerers. Their constructs hovered just above the tank like guardian spirits, runes pulsing, ready to unleash enchanted death at any moment.
Behind the beast came thousands—British and Egyptian troops charging in a screaming human wave, bayonets fixed, rifles cracking, faces twisted with fury.
"Tank!" I screamed, voice cracking. "Tank! Open fire! Everything you've got!"
We poured every bullet we had into it. My rifle barked until the barrel burned my hands and the bolt grew too hot to touch. The water-cooled machine gun in the next emplacement chattered for a full belt, water hissing as it steamed. Sparks flew off the armor like angry fireflies in a storm. Nothing. The rounds pinged and ricocheted harmlessly, leaving only bright scratches on the iron hide. Even the few enchanted bullets some of our officers carried bounced away as if the tank wore invisible wards from the mages riding it.
Then it rolled forward without slowing.
The tank reached our forward trench line and simply kept going. The grinding tracks crushed the parapet, sandbags bursting open like overripe fruit and spilling their contents. Men who couldn't scramble out fast enough were pulped underneath—screams cut short into wet, crunching sounds as bodies burst like grapes under a boot, blood squirting out from under the treads in thick red jets mixed with chunks of meat and shattered bone. One soldier tried to crawl away on his elbows; the track caught his legs and dragged him under. I heard the bones snap like dry branches, the scream that followed turning into a sickening gurgle as his torso disappeared beneath the iron. Another man was caught halfway out of the trench—his head popped like a melon, gray matter and blood spraying across the sand in a wide arc.
The British infantry poured into the trench right behind it like a flood.
Hand-to-hand exploded again—worse this time, more desperate. Bayonets flashed in the sunlight. Fists and rifle butts smashed faces until teeth flew and noses flattened. I stabbed one Egyptian in the gut; he screamed and tried to hold his spilling intestines with both hands while I twisted the blade deeper, feeling them slide hot and slippery over my knuckles. Another Brit lunged at me with a knife; I caught his arm, head-butted him until his nose flattened into a bloody pulp and teeth cracked, then finished him with a thrust to the belly that spilled his guts across the trench floor in steaming loops.
Then the officer's voice cut through the chaos, raw and desperate: "Retreat! Back across the canal! Retreat! Save yourselves!"
We broke like frightened animals.
Men leaped out of the captured trench and ran for the pontoons, boots slipping in blood and sand. I was among them, lungs burning, rifle abandoned somewhere behind me. Behind us the Commonwealth mages opened fire—enchanted rounds streaking after us like vengeful spirits, exploding in the sand and sending men flying in bloody pieces, limbs torn away, torsos shredded. The tank's side machine guns opened up too, sweeping left and right in long, merciless bursts that cut down runners like wheat. Bodies jerked and dropped everywhere, blood spraying in bright arcs.
Worse—far worse—the Commonwealth and Egyptian troops chased us like hounds. They shot us in the back, bayoneted the wounded where they lay, and even gunned down men who threw up their hands and screamed "Surrender!" in broken English or Arabic. One poor bastard raised both arms high; an Egyptian officer laughed coldly and emptied a revolver into his face at point-blank range, the head snapping back in a red mist.
I saw one of our men slip and fall right in front of the tank. The tracks rolled over him without slowing—his body flattened with a sickening crunch, blood and organs squirting out the sides like paste, a wet smear left behind on the sand. Another soldier running beside me took a burst across the chest and spun into the sand, still twitching, fingers clawing at the air as life leaked out of him.
I reached the pontoons just as the first of our men started crossing. Then the Commonwealth mages struck again.
Blue-white fire lanced down from their hovering constructs. The nearest pontoon bridge exploded in a fireball of splintered wood and screaming men, bodies hurled into the air trailing flames. The next one followed seconds later. The exit was gone—bridges shattered, burning, sinking into the canal in clouds of steam and smoke. Thousands of us were trapped on the wrong side with no way back.
"Fight to the death!" someone roared from the rear.
Some tried to surrender anyway. They were cut down where they stood—bullets ripping through raised hands, bodies collapsing in twitching heaps.
I ran for the last intact section of pontoon. A shell landed nearby. The blast lifted me off my feet like a rag doll and hurled me sideways into the canal.
The water hit like a wall of ice. My pack, rifle, bayonet, ammunition—everything dragged me down like stones tied to my limbs. I thrashed wildly, lungs already burning, and tore at the straps with desperate fingers. Buckles popped. I kicked free of the gear, boots filling with water, and clawed my way back to the surface, gasping and coughing.
My hands found the jagged edge of the shattered pontoon. I pulled myself up, half-drowned, water streaming from my mouth and nose.
A shadow fell over me.
An Egyptian soldier—young, eyes burning with hate—stood on the bank above me. He drove his bayonet straight into my shoulder. The steel punched through muscle and bone with a wet crack, scraping against my collarbone. White-hot pain exploded through my entire body, so intense I couldn't even scream at first.
Before I could react he kicked me back into the canal with his boot.
His foot came down hard on my head, pressing me under the water. I thrashed frantically, bubbles exploding from my mouth in a frantic stream, blood from the bayonet wound clouding the water around me in dark red swirls. My lungs screamed for air. The boot held firm—heel grinding against my skull, pushing me deeper into the cold, murky depths of the Suez.
Darkness closed in fast. The last thing I felt was the cold water flooding my throat, the crushing weight of that boot, and the terrible certainty that this narrow strip of water would be my grave.