.
The lead Sherman stopped and the Tank Commander unbuttoned the hatch and peeked out to have a look through his field-glasses and scanned the area. He could see movement in the tower occasionally but was not sure what was in there, and as he was radioing this back to the command post a very large arrow was launched from the watch tower and struck the Tank Commander directly in the upper chest area and proceeding cleanly through his body. As soon as it was realized what had happened the Sherman opened up and blasted the tower down with a single perfect shot. .
The order was given to encircle the castle and as the troops spread out to accomplish this the Draw-bridge came crashing down and ugly armored creatures that resembled, well, Orcs came storming out of the castle on foot and riding large wolf-like creatures. The troops stood in wide-eyed amazement for a short period until they realized that the beasties meant to attack them. At that time the machine gunners opened up as did the infantry with their M1 Garands and some with Thompsons. The Sherman's also opened up with their main guns as well as their machine guns. There were hundreds and hundreds of the beasts but none made it to the established skirmish line alive. When all were dead the Draw-bridge suddenly raised back up.
General Patton ordered that some of the bodies of the beasts be collected and sent immediately .
to I-Corps for study and made his initial report to HQ about what had occurred to date. .
A single sentence was relayed back to General Patton which reportedly came from President Roosevelt himself - Destroy the castle and all the beasts that will not surrender! .
Well that settled that. .
General Patton could see that whatever the creatures were they were going to force him to go in after them from here on out. He called for a group of flamethrower troops to move forward with infantry support and storm the castle. .
Lt. Pikeman gave the receiver back to the radioman and ran his hand across his grizzled face.