Fuel was low, and the refueling station was a long ways off, so they’d have to be smart about how they handled the Krauts. But Staff Sergeant Michael “Gravedigger” Graves hadn’t survived the war this long by doing stupid stuff.
Until today.
Graves cupped his hands together and blew in them. He tucked his palms back inside his shirtsleeves and huddled next to “Big Texas”. Tom LaRue was large enough to take up the room of two men, but that hadn’t stopped him from being assigned to a Sherman. Somehow LaRue had figured out how to scramble in and out of a tank with the agility of a man half his size. He was a man that got his temper worked up at times but he was a cool as a cucumber when he was manning the gunner station.
Gabe Woodward sipped from a cup of ice he’d been blowing on in the hopes of making the snow melt faster. Gabby—as they’d called him from their first engagement, when he’d refused to shut the hell up about whatever little thought came into his mind—was the only one among them who was mostly warm.
They’d been stuck in a tiny village a few weeks ago, and he’d seen the writing on the wall, guessed that it wasn’t going to get warm anytime soon, and negotiated with some of the townspeople for a castoff German overcoat. He wore it under his army uniform, lest anyone mistake him for a Kraut and shoot his head off.
“Thing about surviving the cold is you gotta outthink it,” Gabe said. “When I was sixteen, me and my pops went up to Alaska to do some fishing and we got stuck in a snowstorm. Well as much as I’d like to say I had fun, it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.”
“Listening to you talk, Gabby, is one of the worst experiences of my life,” LaRue said.
“Come on now, I’m just imparting my life experiences on y’all. Keeping us talking while we slowly freeze to death in this hunk of steel. Was a time I used to welcome the cold so I could sleep better at night. We had a wood stove that I had to keep stoked, and there was an art to it. Too much air and you’d be sweating. Not enough and Dad would be thumping me upside the head for being lackadaisical.”
“Can I thump him upside the head?” LaRue asked Staff Sergeant Graves. “I’ll be real gentle about it and promise not to knock out more than three teeth.”
“You try it and see what happens. You’re a big guy, Texas, but I was a boxer, and I’ll put you on your fat ass,” Gabby said.
The two men stared at each other, each willing the other to make the first move.
“Cut out the chatter, both of you, I’m listening for Germans,” Graves said.
The men simmered down, Gabby going back to sipping on his cup of ice, and LaRue closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat.
Murph clambered onto the tank and poked his head inside. The man’s face was covered in dirt, which he’d liberally applied with a little tree sap. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but Graves had to admit it worked. When Murph was in the trees, he was damn near invisible.
Murph was from a small town in Louisiana, and swore he’d been hunting game since he was ten years old. On more than one occasion, he’d had a hot meal for the men of the tanks, thanks to a clever snare he’d set during the night.
Last night he’d come up empty, but that was to be expected with all of the damn shooting going on in this region.
Mortars and screaming meemies had kept all of them awake, and now they faced another cold day of waiting to spring their ambush.
“You’re as ugly as the day is long,” ‘Big Texas’ Tom LaRue said.
“You’re one to talk. Face only a momma would kiss,” Murph said as he slid inside the tank and took up position at the gunner controls.
“I already know you want to kiss me. Seen it in your eyes on more than one occasion,” LaRue said.
“Shut up, all of you. I hear something,” Graves said.
The men quieted down and listened as well. LaRue pressed his ear to the side of the tank and plugged his other ear with a finger.
Graves popped out of the tank’s portal and scanned the area.
To his right was Momma Rose: a Sherman run by by a fresh-faced kid from Pennsylvania who was nick-named Bucky, thanks to his enormous front teeth.
Bucky looked young, but he had an old soul, and was all too happy to kill any German forces in his path. He was a ruthless tank commander, and the men under his watch were always willing to comply with his orders to run over a cowering German soldier out in the field.
Bucky was up top as well, looking for trouble, and even though there was a layer of fog, he had his binoculars pressed to his eyes as he scanned the area.
“You hear that?”
“I think so,” Bucky said. “We may have company.”
“Where’re the scouts?”
“Should be back with word in a few minutes. Time to warm the engines,” Bucky said.
Graves nodded and slapped the top of the tank. “Warm up the engine, Murph.”
“Ready to roll,” Murph called back from the cold interior.
The Sherman’s engine rumbled to life as her 470 HP engine turned over. The exhaust filled the tank’s interior, making the men cough before it cleared up. Next to her, Bucky’s M4 did the same thing, as did the third tank, commanded by a man named Charles Noble.
Noble was new to both of them, and stayed aloof. He was tall and gaunt and had a scar that ran from above his right eye to below his lower lip. He said a shell had penetrated his first tank while he was a gunner and killed everyone but him. His mangled hand had been partially put back into working order, but he tended to hide the damage in his sleeve when the tank commanders met over meals.
“This is how we’re going to play it. I want that engine killed in thirty seconds. We’re gonna sit here, cold, and wait for the Krauts to pass. They get hung up by those mines and we have full defilade. Got it?”
“Sounds good. Hitting Panzers on the ass end is a good way to kill em. Great plan,” Murph said.
“Stop being a smartass for a second and listen. After we hit them, we’re going to back up and hope they don’t make us a target. The woods are a hindrance, but they will also be an asset. These ponderous Kraut tanks are already struggling to make it over the crap roads around here.”
“Got it, Sarge.” Big Texas grinned.
Murph popped up to give the thumbs-up and caught Bucky looking down the road with concern etched on his face.
“Problem?”
“Yeah,” Bucky called back. “Trouble with the mines.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Ford can’t get the damn thing set in the dirt. He’s one of the replacements and said he knew what he was doing. It’s a couple of those Teller mines we swiped from the Krauts. Poetic justice and all.”
“Lemme up, Sarge. I know how to set em,” Gabby said. “Seen a guy do it before. Actually I saw a guy disarm one, but it’s the same thing.”
“We don’t have time,” Murph said.
“We can’t have the damn Krauts slipping away if this goes south. Gotta block this road,” Gabby said.
“Fine. But hurry. We don’t have long.”
Woodward slithered out of the tank and down the side, then hightailed it out of the brush.
The three tanks cut their engines and waited.
NINE
GRILLO
“Stay right behind me and call out anything, and I mean anything. Could come from the sides or even the back, if they get around Baker. Make sure it’s one of them and not one of our guys. Seen too many guys bite the dust due to friendly fire. That’s what they call it, friendly fire. Don’t seem to friendly to me,” Fahey muttered and set out across the snow-laden ground.