“Incoming!” I yelled at the same moment a few other guys did, and I wasted no time running off the road and leaping face-first onto the flat ground, holding my helmet in place, bracing for the blast that I knew was coming.
The sound shattered the air as the explosions shook the ground and the concussion swept over me, peppering my body with dirt, debris, and who knows what else. The shelling kept on, hitting the village and the roadway precisely. The Germans had this area zeroed in. They knew the column was here, even though we’d come up in the dark and the approach was shielded from their lines by the walled village. I didn’t spend much time thinking about that, though. I mainly tried to melt into the ground, praying that I was far enough off the damn road to survive. The ear-splitting crash of each explosion drove everything else from my mind, until there was nothing but the trembling earth beneath and my prayers sent up to the saints.
As quickly as it began, it ended. I moved my limbs, shaking off dirt and making sure everything worked. I was grateful for the silence, until it began to be filled with the groans and cries of the wounded. Smoke roiled from within the village, and wrecks of vehicles littered the road. Men rose from the fields, gazing at those who didn’t. A few yards away an arm lay by itself, a gold wedding ring gleaming bright on the still hand. Medics began running out of the village, seeking the wounded, finding plenty. Most of the dead had been caught in the road, slow to react. The words to a prayer ran through my mind: from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I had to get into the village and find Danny, make sure he was still among the quick. As I got to the road, I saw the Graves Registration sergeant, dead, mattress covers smoldering at his feet.
My ears were ringing as I stumbled into Le Ferriere. Rubble spilled out into the street where buildings had taken hits. GIs began to file out of the standing structures, eyes cast to the skies, ears tilted to hear the incoming rounds. Officers formed them up and got them moving, toward the German lines. I passed one building that took a direct hit, the sign for 2nd Battalion HQ blackened but readable.
“Third Platoon, Easy Company?” I asked one lieutenant. “Know where they are?”
“Easy pushed off before dawn. They’re out there somewhere,” he said, pointing with his thumb to the open fields that led to a wooded rise across the Mussolini Canal. “You might be able to see the advance from the third floor of that factory over there. It’s full of brass who came to watch the show.”
“I’ll give it a try anyway,” I said.
“Good luck.” He returned to his men, probably knowing that everyone’s luck ran out, sooner or later. I climbed the metal steps up the outside wall of the factory, a short, squat concrete building that had a few chunks blown out of it, but was still in one piece. The third floor looked out over the town wall, to the northeast and the waiting Krauts. Inside, a gaggle of officers stood at the far wall, their binoculars trained on the advance. Their helmets and jackets were covered in dust shaken loose from the bombardment, but otherwise they were in good shape. No getting caught out on the open road for them. On a table near the door were thermoses of coffee and a couple bottles of bourbon. A man gets thirsty watching a battle, after all.
A lieutenant turned, probably checking to be sure I wouldn’t swipe the booze. It was easy to tell he was an aide to a senior officer. Clean boots, a good shave, and a West Point ring on his finger. He was along to carry the booze and get points for being at the front, so his benefactors in the West Point Protective Association could promote him as soon as possible.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Where’s Easy Company headed?”
“Battalion HQ could help you. They’re down the street.”
“They’re in pieces. Who’s running the show here?”
“Boyle?” It was Harding. He and Kearns detached themselves from the scrum of officers and gave a nod to the aide to let him know I was allowed access to the high and mighty. Ring knockers, we called them, for those big academy graduation rings they flashed around. “What happened to Battalion HQ?”
“Direct hit. If anyone’s alive in there, they aren’t up to running this attack. You didn’t know?”
Neither of them answered, but Kearns was off, taking the aide with him. Maybe the kid would get his boots dirty.
“What are you doing here?” Harding asked.
“Checking on my kid brother,” I said. I saw no reason to lie. Harding knew me pretty well, and I thought I had his number. He was a straight shooter, and he responded best to the truth, even when it went against regulations.
“Easy Company, Third Platoon, right?”
“Yes sir. How are they doing?”
He handed me binoculars and eased a major out of the way at the window. “See that track, across the canal?” I did. It was bigger than a path, smaller than a road. Drainage ditches had been dug on both sides, and the piled earth gave a few inches of cover. Small trees and shrubs grew along the ditches, giving some visual cover too. “They headed up there. Two companies on either side, spread out in the fields. The objective is that wooded rise beyond them.”
I could make out men crawling in the road and across the fields. Others lay still, dead, or scared out of their wits. Explosions hit the wooded rise, but through the binoculars I could see the deadly sparkle of machine guns sending controlled bursts down into the advancing GIs. It was terrible, that ripping chainsaw sound of the MG42, a machine gun they called the Bonesaw. It spewed out 1200 rounds per minute, so fast that you couldn’t hear the individual shots, just a blur of noise that sounded like heavy fabric tearing. Against that fire I could make out the almost leisurely rat-tat-tat of our machine guns, no match for the dug-in German firepower.
“They need smoke, and air cover,” I said. “Do you have a radio here?”
“No,” Harding said. “The communications gear was in the headquarters building, and the cloud cover is too low for air support. Hell, we’re just here to escort the visiting brass, and to observe.” He nearly spit out that last word as he grabbed my arm. “Come on, Boyle. I’ll find a way to call in smoke and get more artillery on that hill. You find your brother and his platoon and help them out, then get word back to me. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Yes sir. I’ll send a runner back and let you know how far they’ve gotten.” I sprinted down the street, heading for the north gate that opened to the fields and the storm of steel and death my kid brother had plunged into. Danny, who used to follow me everywhere, who got bullied when I wasn’t around, who was smarter than I was though I never admitted it, who I’d punched in the arm, hard, more times than I could count-Danny, out there, alone. Meaning with no one he could count on. No family, no Irish, no veteran platoon leader. I jumped smoking craters and debris until I was clear of Le Ferriere. As I descended the slope, I could barely make out the tiny shapes of crawling men amidst the smoke and dust of battle. In the distance, three Sherman tanks made their way along a narrow road across the canal, the first good news of the morning. Bad news caught up with the lead Sherman as it blew up, black smoke churning out of every hatch. The other two tanks reversed, not wanting to roll over another Teller mine or into the sights of a hidden antitank gun. They retreated, I went forward, and I couldn’t help thinking they knew what they were doing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I came across the litter bearers first, hustling the wounded back to aid stations along the canal. Mortar rounds were landing near the closest bridge, so I went into the water, scrambling up the embankment into chaos. Two jeeps, pulling trailers stacked with dead, careened across the field, evading enemy fire so vigorously that the bodies leapt with every jolt, arms and legs bouncing as if they’d come alive. Machine-gun rounds chewed up the fields and zinged over my head, the odd thrum like a hornet buzzing by my ear. White phosphorous rounds began to land to our front, and I knew Harding had managed to get the coordinates to the artillery. Thick white smoke blossomed in the morning air, and I ran until I found the dirt track.