Next to his head he found what he was looking for. One of his legs. It had been shredded by shrapnel and then completely ripped off.
Behr had been growing colder by the second.
Very cold.
Behr blinked once then his eyes locked open and he passed from this world.
THIRTY-NINE
COLEY
Tramble looked at Coley, eyes pleading. He touched his chest and bucked once, body lifting off the seat before settling down again. A bubble of blood formed on his lips then his eyes closed.
He didn’t move again.
“Stop shooting at us!” Coley tried to yell, but he’d been dazed after being tossed out of the jeep like a ragdoll.
Von Boeselager helped Coley up, and the men took shelter behind the vehicle. The others had come to a halt behind them, and men poured out of their transports and pointed guns in the direction of the Allied line.
To their left, the force of Germans had taken an interest in them, and some shifted to advance on their position.
Coley coughed and tasted blood. He’d bitten his tongue. He poked his head over the side of the jeep to take in what was happening. They’d been fired on by their own men. If they stayed here for much longer, they wouldn’t stand a chance. They were already sitting ducks.
He made a hasty decision, and prayed it would work.
“Men. Stow your weapons and put your hands in the air. Yell ‘surrender’ at the top of your lungs and move toward the line in single file. I’ll take the lead.” Coley said then leaned to the side and spit out blood.
He knew he’d be the first one to get shot, but he set the example and slung the Thompson over his shoulder. He lifted his hands high in the air and stepped around the jeep, yelling that he was surrendering at the top of his lungs.
Behind him, a mass of Germans closed in. There were only twenty-five yards between the enemy and their location.
He walked at a fast clip and the rest of his men fell in line, yelling that they were surrendering, which was the stupidest fucking thing he’d ever heard in his life. Surrendering to their own forces was beyond madness.
Several men left their dugouts and advanced on the men, with guns lowered and ready to kill.
The first man to arrive was a Sergeant, who took in the men with a quick glance.
“Sir, thought you were the enemy. We’ve seen our guys working with the Germans back there.” The man nodded at the advancing force.
“We’ll deal with it later. Right now I need my men safe. We have POWs who may have vital information about what’s been happening. Tell your men to stop shooting. You already killed one of my Corporals.”
“Ah, Christ, sir. I’m real sorry about that.”
Coley was mad as hell. They’d shot Tramble, and now the man’s body was in the snow, and there was no way to go back for him.
“We didn’t know,” the man reassured him. He looked harried and exhausted. He hadn’t shaved in days, and his eyes were lined by dark bags.
Coley shook his head and didn’t say another word. He led the way as he struggled over packed snow to reach the Allied line. When they found a dugout to take cover in, his men spread out and joined the ranks. Von Boeselager and two of his men stuck close, but kept their hands on their heads.
Coley turned to look at his jeeps, and found they’d been completely swarmed by figures in white and brown. Some of them started shooting at the Allies, so the men around him returned fire.
Then the forest erupted as thousands of Germans advanced on their position.
FORTY
GRAVES
Graves bounced up and down as the half-track ripped over a pocketed road until they came into view of the city. They were approaching from the north, and there were forces of the Allies clustered around the remains of the shattered walls and bombed-out buildings. Gunfire rippled along the line, and artillery started to boom from inside Bastogne.
From the western flank came a group of the enemies that was hard to fathom. Thousands of men poured out of the woods, scrambled over foxholes, and pounded over roads. The majority of the force were not returning fire. There were no carefully-placed machine gun squads covering the men. Mortars weren’t firing back. It was simply a mass of humanity assaulting a vastly outnumbered force, much like he’d seen assaulting their tank.
“My god. Do we even want to be rescued?” Murph said from the driver seat.
Graves swung the big-mounted machine gun around and prepared to fire on the enemy.
Bullets ricocheted off the half-track, forcing Graves and Gabby to duck.
A bazooka sounded, and the explosive sailed past their vehicle.
“Murphy! Remember when I told you to bring your pack? Well get that damn flag out and wave it like it’s on fire!” Graves howled.
“If it was on fire, they’d shoot us all to death,” Murphy said.
Murph swung his pack off and dug around inside. His brother had been killed at Normandy, and he’d been carrying big American flag as a memento of his brother’s sacrifice.
He unfurled it in the whipping wind and held it aloft. Graves reached for the other side of the flag, but it flapped just out of grasp as more bullets whizzed around them.
Graves finally got his fingers around the other end, and together they lifted the flag over the top of the half-track as it raced toward the Allied line.
“We’re going to get shot,” Murph said over the roaring wind and engine.
Graves found it hard to argue. On the cold metal beneath them, the body of their tank gunner, Tom “Big Texas” LaRue lay in the cold. Murph was right: they’d likely join him, in the coming moments.
Rounds hit the half-track, and one pierced the American flag. Murph ducked, but Graves urged him back to his feet. They got up higher, stepping on the benches on either side of the half-track’s interior slopped walls. The rounds stopped smacking armor.
They pulled in before a dug-in platoon of Army infantry.
It kept guns cautiously trained on Graves and his men.
Graves called down his identification, and cursed the lack of radio communications today. He’d left his notebook in the Sherman and he couldn’t remember the exact daily password. Lemon? Was it Tripoli? A harried officer who looked green greeted them. His uniform was spotless and his army jacket showed signs of little rolling around in the dirt, unlike most of his men.
“I’m Lieutenant Calhoun. Mind telling me how in the hell you men ended up in a German half-track? In fact, how do we know you’re actually Americans?”
“What else would we be, sir?” Graves said in confusion.
“Had reports of German forces fucking around behind our lines. Changing signs around and pointing divisions in the wrong directions.”
“Well, we’re not Krauts,” Graves said, and fumbled around his pockets until he found his wallet and tossed it to the officer.
The Lieutenant flipped through it and tossed it back.
“You men want to help? Park that half-track there,” he said, pointing at a break in the wall. “And keep the Krauts from getting too close.”
“You got it, sir. Shouldn’t we report in first, though?” Graves asked.
“No time. We’re about to be overrun by thousands of Germans. Even if every man fired nonstop, we’d never pick them all off before we were swarmed.”
“So why fight at all?” Murph interjected. “We should be packing it in.”
“Because it’s about to bet ugly and we’re all that’s protecting the city,” the Lieutenant said.
“Whole damn war’s ugly,” Graves said, looking at the corpse of Big Texas.