BREAKING POINT: Book 10 of the WW1 Alternate Series by Max Lamirande

Author:Max Lamirande [Lamirande, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2026-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Fighting on Plugges Plateau (“Hain Tepe” Hill in Turkish)

(…) Turkish 57th Regiment (…)

Private Mehmet Celal could barely feel his hands anymore as his fingers trembled around the hot barrel of his rifle. Smoke stung his eyes, dust choked his throat, and the ground shook beneath him from the constant hammer of rifle fire and distant explosions rolling across Hain Tepe.

He crouched in a shallow fold of earth, the southern lip of the ridge falling sharply into a maze of gullies and broken brush below. Every time he leaned out to fire, he saw them: Australians climbing upward in relentless waves, their uniforms torn, their faces streaked with sweat and dust. They kept coming even though their dead were rolling down the slope with every volley. Beside him, Private Arif Öztürk screamed over the noise that the enemy was coming up the rocks, his voice cracking. Mehmet risked a glance.

The Australians were less than twenty meters away now, clambering over scrub and stone like men possessed. A Lewis gun fired from the shadow of a split boulder, spraying bullets across Mehmet’s position. Two soldiers to his left threw down their rifles and broke into a wild run toward the crest behind them. One was shot immediately, tumbling forward into the dirt. Arif cursed and shouted that if they lost the crest, the whole peninsula was doomed. Mehmet muttered that the heights were the key, the words sounding small in the chaos around him. A bullet snapped past his cheek. He felt the tug on his hair where it grazed him. The Turkish line was collapsing. Officers were shouting, men were stumbling backward, rifles clattering down the rock. A captain’s shouted order to fall back was almost drowned by the sound of the Australians reaching the lip of the ridge. Mehmet fired point-blank into a khaki uniform. The man fell backward, but two more took his place. Mehmet felt panic creeping into his throat as he scanned for Arif, who was firing wildly from behind a jutting rock with blood streaking his arm. Mehmet believed in that moment that this was the end. The Turks were done. And then he heard hooves.

(…) Australian 11th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, ANZAC Corps (…)

Private Thomas McLaren’s boots slipped on the steep clay as he climbed, grabbing at brush and roots to keep from sliding back down. Every breath scraped his throat. Sweat blinded him. But he kept climbing. They all did. The officers had told them Plugge’s Plateau was the key, that taking the heights would split the Ottoman line in two and open the road inland.

Tom didn’t know if any of that was true, but he knew one thing: the Turks were breaking. He saw men running uphill in terror, dropping rifles, stumbling over loose stones. The Australians surged forward, bayonets fixed, rifles firing from the hip. Sergeant Harris roared at them to push harder. Tom’s heart hammered with equal parts fear and grim determination as he saw a Turkish soldier firing from a shallow depression just below the crest.

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