Men of War #6

Code Name: Gravedigger: A Choice of Deaths

Ulysses Hazard, Gravedigger, is stowing his boat and looking across a lake at a prison called Remarchant on top of a mountain due to be attacked by Allied bombers. Inside the prison are several pieces of French art stolen by the Nazis that Hazard is tasked to recover before the prison is turned to rubble.

Suddenly, he sees a woman fleeing a German patrol, heading for a river. They shoot at her and, wounded, she begins to float down with the current. The Germans spot Hazard, but he kills them with a well-placed grenade and sets off to rescue the woman. He reaches her and grabs a branch before they go over a waterfall. Desperate, the woman makes him promise to free her friends. Hazard promises, the branch breaks, and they go over the waterfall. Only Hazard makes it to shore. A German soldier happens upon him, cocks his gun and fires.

In a three-panel interlude, Major Birch is arriving at an English mansion, his new home and base of operations. His driver is revealed to be a Nazi spy who knows about Operation Gravedigger.

Back in the field, Hazard kicks at the German's gun just as he fires. During their fight, the soldier brags about Aryan superiority until Hazard shoots him in the stomach with a machine gun. Hazard infiltrates the prison, killing Germans along the way, until he reaches a square to see a young girl about to be guillotined. The German commander is demanding to know who is in charge of the resistance. Every man in the square steps forward as the leader. Hazard makes his move, but the German makes his, too, letting go of the string. Hazard rushes forward, drops his gun into the basket, and holds the blade up with a spare clip while the girl is saved. Hazard starts shooting Germans and organizing a mass escape, but the girl grabs a painting, intending to save it. Hazard picks up the girl and sprints to escape before the bombing begins. Many citizens pick up paintings as they escape, some dying in the attempt. Hazard escapes with the girl and the painting as the first bombs fall.

Dateline: Frontline:

Wayne Clifford, a war correspondent in London during the Blitz, approaches an East London flat. he has just escaped a bombing raid that took the lives of many people living in the subway system, including a woman named Julie, who lived with her family at the flat. Clifford takes it upon himself to inform the family of her death. The mother is widowed, living with Julie's grandfather and Julie's young daughter.

As Clifford sits with them, air raid sirens go off again, and the stricken family heads for the basement. A bomb falls right on the house, but does not explode, instead burrowing down to the basement and beginning to tick. The grandfather is caught under rubble; Clifford and the daughter, Valerie, cannot get him out. Clifford hurries the mother and daughter outside and gets the attention of a Civil Defense worker, who agrees to help disarm the bomb. As they hurry back to the basement, the stairs collapse, pinning the worker under rubble. Believing his back is broken, the Civil Defense worker tells Clifford he'll have to defuse the bomb. The correspondent says he can't, but seeing how everyone is counting on him, he overcomes his terror and agrees to try. With the Civil Defense worker instructing him, Clifford works on the bomb. When he's almost done, the worker mumbles something about red and faints. Clifford pulls the red wire and disarms the bomb.

Rejoicing, Clifford turns to the people he's just saved. The worker is unconscious, Valerie is morose and the grandfather is dead. Clifford, driven to the house by his conscience, is tortured by the family's losses. He consoles himself by remembering how he admired Julie in the short time he knew her and how he's preserved Valerie, who is a part of Julie still in the world.