More gunfire splattered the tank. Graves ducked down before his head was taken off.
“On the way,” Big Texas bellowed, and fired.
The tank bucked, and the round blew a hole in the ground in the center of the Germans. Bodies burst apart or were tossed to the unforgiving forest floor.
Graves fought a gun jam, got the shell loose, and then opened fire again.
The tank rolled away from the Krauts, hit a dip and bounced back out. Steel wrenched against steel. Graves worried the the tank would come off the tread again, but it managed to stay on.
Hundreds of Germans streamed around the tank. Gabby opened up with the Browning M1919A4, spitting 30.06 rounds across the mass.
“Get us out of here,” Graves shouted into the tank.
“Trying. We’re going to lose the tread if we run too fast,” Murph called back. “She’s pulling like a son of a bitch.”
“They’re getting too close,” Big Texas said. “I can’t get a clean shot at this range.”
Big Texas fired anyway, and decimated a squad of Germans in the rear of the advancing army. Limbs separated from bodies and blood misted. Bits of clothing and equipment flew into the air.
The Sherman swung to the right, putting less load on repaired tread until it had completed a semicircle. The tank came up to speed, but during the turn they’d managed to pick up a couple of soldiers. The men scrambled at the metal, trying to get hands onto the wood and concrete chained to the side of the hull.
Graves drew his sidearm and shot one in the face. The man still wore his dickhead helmet, but his mouth and most of his face were covered in dried blood. The man’s eyes were white, and unfocused. He seemed crazed with reaching Graves.
He fell away with a hole between his eyes, and rolled over a couple of times. The pursuing Germans ran right over his body without stopping to check on him.
The tank bumped over something big and then rolled over it. When they were past Graves found they’d they’d hit a mortar tube and crushed it into the ground.
He got back on the .50 cal and fired until the gun jammed again. He fired in three-round bursts, taking out as many of the soldiers closing in on the tank as he could.
The Sherman rolled to a slow halt before spinning treads again.
“What are you doing?” Graves yelled down into the interior.
“Sorry! Thought we lost the left side again. It’s hooked on something and we’re thumping metal every time the tread goes around.”
“Jesus,” Graves said.
The tank picked up speed, but they’d brought on a number of Germans. One lunged for him, so Graves put a bullet in the soldier’s head.
The front-mounted gun blasted away for a few seconds, then went silent.
“I’m reloading!” Gabby called.
“Hurry the hell up. These crazy bastards are swarming us,” Graves urged him on, but it was too late.
Figures scrambled up the sides and front of the tank, all seemingly intent on tearing Graves apart. He fired his sidearm until he ran empty, then popped back in the tank and slammed the hatch closed… but not before one of the German soldiers got a hand around the opening.
Fingers fell as they were severed from the man’s hand and flopped onto the tank’s floor. Graves spun the lock closed, then sat back in his seat. He was fully encased in a tomb of metal, and that tomb was covered in Germans.
He tried not to appear scared, but his reality had become a nightmare. He stared at the man’s fingers, then pushed them into a corner.
The Sherman burst out of the trees, brushing some of the bodies off the tank in the doing, judging by the thumps from above.
“Oh shit!” Murph swore, just before they ran into an abandoned German half-track.
THIRTY-TWO
TAYLOR
Captain Taylor didn’t get a wink of sleep. He’d spent the evening and night conferring with command. General McAuliffe was clear about one thing, though, out all of the talks: they needed to hold the town of Bastogne until relieved.
They’d met in the remains of a partially-bombed home to compare notes. Other officers had presented reports similar to Taylor’s much to the consternation of the General, who said he’d put nothing past the damn Krauts.
The 506th had run into an ambush and lost nearly half of their men, due to the Germans’ tenacity… and teeth.
“Teeth?” McAuliffe had asked.
“Teeth, sir. Some of them tried to use weapons, but they were like monsters. Animals. They were rabid. We were overwhelmed as we displaced. Foy was a complete loss. They came in by the thousands, ignoring gunfire and mortars. We decimated their force, but it did little, because there were always more of them. Ammo ran short and we retreated.”
Captain Edwards was an older man who’d been in the war for three years and was as hard as a piece of granite. If he’d been chased out of Foy, then things were worse than Taylor could have guessed.
“Men, this whole thing is nuts. Nuts!” The general looked each man in the eye as he spoke. “We’re cut off, but help is on the way. I can promise you that. Now, in the wake of this latest development, I have a lot of questions to answer. Command is breathing down my neck. They want some of these crazed German soldiers captured and brought in for questioning.”
The men were given orders, and told to make haste in preparing the town for assault. With a small contingent of artillery, and ammo running low, they would be hard-pressed to stop the Germans, but they would put up the best defense they could.
After the meeting, he’d been summoned to the seminary to check on his men. Owen was kept in a little room so he could be observed. When a pair of MPs had come for him, he’d flown into a rage and tried to bite the men. His eyes had gone completely white and even though he took damage in the ensuing shuffle, he shrugged it off like a heavyweight champ.
They’d had to beat the man to the ground, but he’d only become more enraged, and struggled until they’d secured him with rope.
There was no sign of his orderly, Corporal Krantz so Taylor put out the word that he was looking for him. With the confusion in town he may have been dispatched anywhere.
TAYLOR SLUMPED against the side of a building and dug the remains of a Kration out of his bag. There was a can of pork, but it was practically frozen. He dug around and found a metal spoon one of the townspeople had donated. The wooden utensils they’d been used to using weren’t much good on frozen food, and broke easily.
The problem with the metal utensils was that there was no way to properly clean them, and dysentery was running rampant throughout the companies. Taylor found a clump of snow that looked more or less white, and scrubbed the spoon.
Across the street, a group of GIs helped clear the rubble from a house that had fallen to an artillery shell. A pair of villagers helped while an older woman wept as they hauled out the remains of her possessions. One of the men handed her a picture frame.
She sat down on what was left of a wall and stared at the picture. She ran her fingers over the surface and quietly sobbed.
A small terrier broke from cover and ran across the street. The woman rose and called to him. The dog settled down and came to her with its tail tucked between its legs. She picked up her dog and whispering soft words to the terrified creature.
Taylor rubbed at his eyes.
“Must be the cold,” he muttered to himself.
Halfway through his meal of crackers, a couple of olives, and some half-frozen pork, one of the men from Baker Company found him.
“Sir, we need you to look at something,” Grillo said.
It was the fresh recruit who hadn’t lost it under pressure. He’d helped his fellow soldiers, and was one of the reasons they’d gotten back to Bastogne. Concern etched the man’s face—boy’s face, really. Taylor was going to put in for Private Grillo to have a field promotion to Corporal.