“Our orders are to assist with the pullout of all forces. Let’s go, men,” Coley said.
They spread out and left the church, but quickly ran into a dozen SS. The bastards were covered in blood and debris. One of them carried a machine gun, and fired on Coley’s men. They fired back and took his head off.
“Double-time, let’s go,” Coley ordered, and led the small team towards the rear of the town.
FORTY-NINE
GRILLO
He’d never seen so much demolition in one place. He’d had the other men help him load rows of twenty-two pound satchel charges into the back of the half-track while Staff Sergeant Graves kept them covered with the Kraut machine gun. They’d outpaced the rest of the force fleeing the city, only to find themselves on a side road, and having to backtrack.
The trip through the rest of the city had been harrowing. They’d found clumps of civilians blocking entire roads. The people of Bastogne seemed to be trying to flee with all of their earthly possessions.
After a group of men, women, and children were run down and massacred by the crazed Germans, the villagers got the idea and abandoned their belongings in favor of a faster escape. It made for a frustrating journey.
“Here,” Captain Taylor yelled.
They’d run into a squad of Americans directing traffic out of the city. A deuce and a half rumbled next to a building. Men moved boxes out and stacked them on the ground. When Grillo got down from the German truck, he was relieved to see others with demolition patches on their uniforms.
“You the other guy?” a man named Lyris said.
Lyris’ uniform and thick field jacket looked like they’d just been pulled out of a bag. He even had creases on his pants.
“Yeah. 101st, Baker Company, but I got assigned to the wrong outfit. Demolition engineer.”
“Great. We got most of the explosives deployed, and Ankers over there,” he waved at a man who hunkered over a bale of wire, “is running cable. Can you get all of this into that building?” Lyris pointed at a two-story complex that probably housed apartments.
Grillo nodded, and took a few steps back to take in the the tall buildings. It’d work, but only if they could get the explosives set correctly. That, or put so much in place it would blow the structure into tiny pieces. The rubble wouldn’t stop the Germans, so they needed to drop the building correctly and create a wall. Then again, it might just destroy this entire block and a lot of civilians.
“How much help can you spare?”
“None,” Lyris said. “You’re on your own. You got some strong backs in the Kraut truck. Load her up.”
Grillo nodded. “No problem, Sergeant Lyris. I’ll make it count.”
“Make it count, or just blow up a million Krauts. Don’t matter much to me either way.”
Trucks rolled past them on their way out of Bastogne, with soldiers and civilians close behind. While the MPs tried to keep order, there was a panic that was setting in. Every face that passed them was harried. People looked over their shoulders in fear.
Grillo scrambled up the remains of the building that had been partially destroyed, and surveyed the route the Army was using to get everyone out of the city. He found a natural choke point and dropped back to the ground.
“Captain. I need a couple of guys,” Grillo said.
Captain Taylor nodded and pointed out Shaw, Wayne, and Hough. He knew Shaw and Wayne. Hough was from Able Company. He was about Grillo’s age, and looked as green as Grillo felt. He wondered what had become of the guys he’d arrived with on the back of the truck a few days ago. Were any of them still alive?
“You men. Corporal Grillo is going to need your help. We’re going to provide covering fire while you get that demo set up.”
“Don’t know nothing about blowing stuff up, sir,” Hough said and pushed his GI helmet back to wipe a line of sweat off his forehead.
“That makes two of us. Just do what Grillo needs and we’ll get out of this, right, Corporal?”
“Yes sir,” Grillo said.
Later, he’d wish he could take back those words.
FIFTY
COLEY
Coley and his crew came across a pair of black soldiers struggling to get an M45 Quadmount anti-aircraft gun turned around.
“Need help?” Coley called.
“You bet, Lieutenant,” one of the men said. “I’m Audley and this is Higgins. We’re with the The 969th Field Artillery Battalion. We got overrun and lost our guns. Figured we’d requisition this fine piece of weaponry and setup a roadblock.”
“Damn fine figuring,” Coley said.
They gathered around the gun and maneuvered it the the edge of a street intersection, over some rubble, and down a short alley. The gun was monstrously heavy. It had a hitch and could be towed, but there was no time to get it attached to a truck.
“What happened to the crew for this beast?” Coley said.
“Don’t know, sir. Up and left, I guess,” Audley said and looked over the controls. “What you all doing with those Krauts?”
“They’re on our side for now,” Coley reassured the men.
Higgins and Audley looked the Germans over, and didn’t appear convinced.
“Know how to use it?”
“More or less. Point and shoot,” Audley said as he studied the machine. He flipped a switch and a battery powered engine hummed to life.
They got it lined up on a wide road, and Audley hopped in the turret and fiddled with the firing mechanism until the four guns moved on their electronically-powered axis.
“Just in time, here they come,” Coley said.
His men lined up alongside the big gun and took up weapons.
“Remember, Audley. Fire in bursts. Top guns, then bottom. Let ’em cool,” Higgins said.
“I know what I’m doing,” Audley said. “Sorta.”
A group of civilians pounded up the road, a force of Germans right behind them.
“Out of the way!” Coley yelled.
Seeing help, the civilians ran straight at the Americans.
“Ah, shit. Wait till they clear, Audley,” Higgins said.
“Ain’t gonna shoot no Belgians,” Audley said. “What are you, my mother?”
Coley’s men took aim and picked off Germans when they could. The civilians got the idea, and cleared a path.
Then the M4 Quadmount fired.
The top guns belted out .50 caliber rounds designed to shoot airplanes out of the air and decimated the forward ranks. The Germans didn’t drop; they blew apart. Blood misted and body parts flew. The Krauts didn’t change direction. They didn’t dive for cover. They stepped over their comrades’ bodies and kept up a pretty convincing imitation of a goosestep toward the gunner’s location.
Audley stopped firing the top two guns and opened up with the bottom pair. He fired quick bursts, then shifted aim slightly to take out more of the advancing army.
Along with von Boeselager and the remains of his squad, Coley and his men covered the side roads and popped rounds off at any flanking maneuvers. Not that Coley would call the mass of Nazis anything like coordinated.
He reached for another clip and found none.
“Shit, I’m out,” Coley said, patting at his pockets.
He backed up and went for his sidearm. A force of eight Germans had found a cross street and advanced on them. One of the men carried a flamethrower, but it wasn’t lit. He lowered it and pushed the trigger, but nothing happened.