“March order,” he shouted, and both trucks rolled out after him, double-clutching for speed and traction against the mud and sleet. In the valley below them Docker saw three German tanks emerging from a black growth of trees, their tracks churning up a storm of snow. Panzer Ills or Panzer IVs, heavily armored with 75-millimeter cannons.
The tanks sighted the truck convoy, and the first projectiles smashed into the mountainside fifty yards behind the Americans, shattering trees and rocks and sending whistling fragments tearing at the sides of the jeep and trucks. But before the German gunners could make corrections, the three vehicles had swung around a turn that put the bulk of the mountain between them and the tanks. Seconds later they were gathering speed recklessly down a treacherous roadway toward another range of hills...
Dog Battery’s Section Eight spent the rest of December 16th bivouacked in a narrow rocky gorge above a tributary of the Our River.
They knew from fragmentary radio reports that the Germans were attacking on a broad front, and from the sound of heavy transport and tanks echoing for miles around them in the frosted air they knew they had been overrun on both flanks by columns of mechanized enemy troops. Eating cold rations and maintaining a full guard mount, they pulled out at dawn the following morning and headed west toward Lepont on the Salm.
Their only ally was the weather; heavy fog and zero visibility reduced the risk of detection by German aircraft and armor and provided Section Eight cover for the tortuous passage through the mountains.
Later that afternoon, as the darkness gave them another degree of safety, the section’s last truck was waved down by a soldier in an American uniform who stumbled from the underbrush and ran alongside the cannon, his boots slipping and sliding in the mud.
Radar barked loudly but Laurel whacked the dog and he and Kohler braced themselves and reached for the desperate hands of the young soldier, touching his fingers, then his wrists and finally hauling him over the tailgate into the truck.
The youngster’s face was drawn and white with fatigue, eyes wide and staring above his roughly chapped cheeks. His boots were clogged with mud, frozen in ridged crusts along the soles, and he fell into a sitting position with his knees drawn up to his chest, his red and swollen hands locked under his arms. The collar of his jacket and shirt was open and Solvis saw a pulse pounding rapidly at the base of his throat.
In response to Laurel’s first questions, the young soldier said his name was Jackson Baird, that he’d been in a line company with the 106th Division. Kohler wanted to know what the Germans had hit them with, tanks or infantry or both, but Baird was so close to shock from exposure that it was obvious he had no clear idea what had happened to him or his outfit.
“He needs to rest, let him alone now,” Solvis said, and taking a blanket from his bedroll he slung it over Baird’s shoulders, tucking the ends around the boy’s chapped wrists and hands. Solvis also noticed then that Baird had no rifle and that there was no sign of dog tags behind the open collar of his woolen shirt.
“You want a cigarette?” When the youngster shook his head, Solvis said, “Then how about a drink? We’ve got some whiskey. Might do you good, kind of thaw you out.”
The soldier shook his head again, with no expression at all in his white face and glazed eyes. He seemed to withdraw into himself then, trembling slightly and hugging himself for warmth, his body swaying with the motion of the truck.
Chapter Thirteen
December 17, 1944. The environs of Lepont, Belgium. Sunday, 1500 Hours.
In the afternoon of the day that would be known as Bloody Sunday, Dog Battery’s Section Eight took cover in a grove of fir trees, protected from wind and observation by heavy green limbs weighted almost to the ground with layers of ice and snow.
The men were exhausted, but Docker had ordered the stop only for cold K-rations. From his maps, he estimated they were about five or six miles from Lepont. Above the village was a promontory identified as Mont Reynard, and he knew if they could get the trucks to the top they could control the river and bridges below with their guns.
Trankic had been checking Battery and Battalion headquarters every hour since the first German attacks but so far had raised neither unit.
Dormund and the Hogman were opening K-rations and spooning the contents into mess kits. Private Joseph Pitko had cleared snow from the base of a tree and sat cross-legged reading his Bible, a short and powerfully built man with a totally bald head and brown eyes that seemed to darken with the intensity of his emotions, a state he achieved effortlessly when temporal distractions were not besetting him and he was able to pursue and savor a complete union with his God. Pitko had no need to look at his Bible in order to read from pages flyspecked with dirt and faded and stained from exposure to weather; he knew the Word of the Lord by heart. Now he stared at the white fir trees, his body motionless, a carven figure of Old Testament fervor and purpose, relevant in a mythical fashion to storms and sleet and the sound of artillery on the horizons, but detached and unrelated to the men of the section who were preparing food and checking the guns and maps.
Pitko did not believe Almighty God had been speaking in metaphors when He called the human body a temple for His presence. The religious conviction that had seized and permeated him since earliest memory was a natural, elemental force he had no interest in trying to explain or share; he did not believe in the rationale of those who became converted to the Lord on reaching the age of reason. Or at any other age. The Hand of God was offered to each man and woman at birth and he who refused it was either blind or foolish, and Pitko had no tolerance for those who would not see and believe, who needed to be “converted” to the truth.
Dormund brought a mess kit of food to Pitko and shifted his weight uncertainly from one foot to the other, scratching his neck and searching for words, because while he wasn’t afraid of Pitko, he was awed and puzzled by him.
“Joe, it’s kind of wretched stuff, but Sarge says no fire.”
Pitko’s fingers continued to move across the page of his Bible but his eyes remained fixed on the trees. “Compose your mind to the indignation of the Lord,” he said in his quiet, resonant voice. And then, “He hath said: ‘The mountains shall be thrown down, and the hedges shall fall and every wall shall fall to the ground. And I shall judge him with pestilence, and with blood, and with violent rain and hailstones. And I shall be magnified and they shall know that I am the Lord.’ ”
Pitko pointed at the fog-shrouded mountains where the sound of artillery was like an avalanche rolling down the hills.
“Reflect on what He has spoken, Dormund, and what He is now bringing forth, because He said, ‘For I will rain fire and brimstone upon him and upon his army, and upon the many nations that are with him.’ ”
Pitko stared at Dormund, his eyes almost black now in the pallor of his lined and angry face. His finger had stopped under the word “Lord.”
“There will be fire soon for all of us, Dormund,” he said. “You may trust the Lord.”
There were times when Dormund thought Pitko was crazy, because Pitko believed everything in the Bible and that made Dormund uncomfortable since he wasn’t sure about anything he read, even in comic books. Maybe somebody just made it all up. Even the Bible. He thought of making a joke about that with Pitko, but knew it wouldn’t work, that it would come out wrong. So he backed away and took the rations over to Farrel and Sonny Laurel, who were playing with the big dog.