Screaming Eagles (The Front, Book 1) (12 page)

P
rivate Grillo spent
a fitful night in a bombed-out house’s basement.

The city of Bastogne was an ancient town. Residents had piled their furnishings and goods into dray carts and left them in the town square despite military placard that read “Unattended Vehicles Will Be Impounded.”

Many windows had been shuttered and Bastogne’s power had failed, so most were left in the dark that was barely pushed back by lanterns and candles, a risky thing to do when a city was in danger of being bombed. However the weather hadn’t allowing any flights so the residents had used whatever was available to provide light.

He was surrounded by men from his company and elements of the 502nd who’d been injured around Foy. Grillo had visited the seminary where they were taking in the injured, and had his wound tended by a pretty Belgian nurse.

He only knew a few words of French, so used
merci
generously. She was a slim woman in a thick wool dress that did nothing to flatter her figure. Grillo hadn’t seen a woman in weeks and it was a nice change though she was nothing like his beauty back home. That reminded him he should write Louise soon.

Her hair was done up in a bun, and rather than facing the angry tongue of a no-nonsense nurse, she had an easy smile and reassuring words for every man she assisted.

Grillo came across a small room where a number of black soldiers were being tended to. The United Stats Army had rules about segregating negro units from white units. But huddled together in a basement those rules fell away. Curiosity got the better of him, so he poked his head in.

“Evening,” he said.

“You lost?” one of the men asked.

“No, Corporal,” said Grillo. “Just wondering why you’re all in here.”

“Army likes us to fight, but they don’t like us to be integrated,” the man said.

“What unit y'all with?”

“The 969th Field Artillery Battalion,” one of the other soldiers said. He’d been sat with his back against a wall, reading from a Bible. The man put a finger between the pages to mark his place and closed it. “You?”

“With the 101st,” Grillo said.

“So what’s it like to jump out of an airplane? Ask me, it’s crazy, but I ain’t never tried it.”

“I don’t know. I just got here a few days ago, and haven’t seen a combat jump yet,” Grillo said.

“Hear that, Auldey? He ain’t jumped yet. Told you they was busing in green recruits,” he said.

“They ain’t gonna let you into Airborne, man. Just give it up,” Auldey admonished his friend.

“I’ll get my chance. As soon as we break through and advance to Berlin I’ll get a shot,” Grillo said defensively.

“Think we gonna make it out of Bastogne? Gonna make it out of Belgium? Way I hear, they got us surrounded on all sides,” Auldey said. “We just waiting to die.”

A white officer poked his head in the doorway and fixed his eyes on the black solders.

“All hands, men. Time to man the guns,” he said.

Grillo shot the officer a quick salute. The men in the room rose to their feet and shuffled around, picking up gear and jackets. The officer looked Grillo up and down, then departed without a word.

“Well, okay, buddy. You men give 'em hell,” Grillo said, unsure what else to say.

“You too, buddy.”

Grillo moved on to find Sergeant Pierce.

G
rillo wove
around cots and improvised beds. The seminary had been converted to a hospital and offered shelter to the wounded, but a direct impact from German artillery would probably bring the roof down on everyone in the space.

Pierce lay back on a cot with one leg dangling off the side of the little bed. He had his hand over his eyes, and was humming a tune.

“Sarge?” Grillo said.

Pierce sat up and looked Grillo over.

“How ya doing, Private?”

“Good enough to fight. I’m going back to find the company. You stuck here for a while?”

“Nah. I’m just resting up and enjoying the quiet for a few hours. I got it good in the calf, but the bullet went through. Leg’s kinda stuck without full mobility, but I’m not planning to sit out the war,” Pierce said. “I’ll go with you.”

“Sure, Sarge. I heard they got the whole city encircled.”

“Yeah, that’s the word. They got us completely surrounded,” Pierce said, and swung his legs off the cot. “Poor bastards.”

Grillo helped him to his feet, and together they went back into the cold.

T
hey set
up in a trench a quarter mile from town. Ammo was still short, but they’d been given enough rounds to put up a fight. Figures moved in the mist and faded into and out of the woods. Some of the men took shots, but they’d been told that if they fired they'd better leave a corpse.

Bullets hit, but they didn’t
always
hit. The men were uneasy around Grillo, and muttered about the prowess of the new “über-soldier,” as some had started to call them.

“Look at that son of a bitch,” the man next to Grillo said. Wayne had been tagging along with Baker for most of the morning while he looked for his company. So far none of them had made it to Bastogne.

Grillo wished he had a pair of binoculars. The Germans were a swarm in the distance and well covered by the weather and foliage.

A man stood a few feet from a copse of trees. He was dressed in a black overcoat that bore the unmistakable SS emblem. One of the men took a shot at him, but he must have missed, because the officer faded back into the woods.

“That took balls,” Wayne said.

“He pops his head out and I’ll shoot him in the balls for real. Gonna have to be a sharpshooter to hit those little raisins,” one of the men said with bravado.

Grillo snorted and laid out a pair of clips. Once the enemy came, he didn’t want to be fumbling in his jacket.

After returning the the company, Pierce had demanded his Thompson back from Grillo. Grillo had lost his M1 in the assault and was without a gun.

“Better beg, borrow, or steal a new weapon, Private,”

Grillo had spent twenty minutes wandering around looking for a gun until he came across a row of bodies in the snow. He felt sick to his stomach doing it but a casualty didn’t need a weapon so he took an M1 that was leaning against a wall and returned to his position.

Pierce looked him over and said, “that’s the spirit.”

He was cold and scared to death. He’d only been in the war for a few days, and already he’d seen enough death and destruction to last a lifetime. Contrary to his dreams of heroic actions, he was now ready to get this war over with so he could go back home to Louise. Once they were married, he hoped to never pick up a weapon again for as long as he lived.

As he spent a few minutes daydreaming about Louise the attack bagan.

Sergeant Pierce told his men again not to waste ammo.

A machine gun team opened up on the Germans and decimated them. Then, hundreds of bodies began pouring out of the woods and swarming toward the front lines.

The 101st laid down fire. Grillo picked his targets carefully, but like he’d seen the previous day, even a shot dead center in a Kraut's chest only took him off his feet for a few seconds before he was back up and moving. Better to get a headshot but hitting a moving target was anything but easy especially when it was the size of a cantaloupe.

The Germans continued pouring toward the city, and eventually overwhelmed a position just to the east. Grillo tried to shift fire and help the men in the foxhole, but they were completely engulfed. Two soldiers managed to get out and run toward the American lines.

Mortars fell among the Germans, but they just shrugged off the damage, got back to their feet, and came on.

“Get the Captain, someone get the Captain!” Wayne yelled. He pointed at a group of men stumbling toward them, and let out a gasp.

They were American infantry, and Grillo and his men were shooting at them.

C
oley’s men
spent an exhausting night evading Germans. They wove between lines, hid the jeeps behind hills and inside copses of trees when they had to, and drove like the devil was on their tails when the opportunity presented itself.

His men were tired, and keeping the German prisoners under cover was getting on everyone's nerves. Tramble wanted to shoot them, and Shaw wanted to push them off the jeep and move on without the burden.

But freed German soldiers would only rejoin mixed unit regiments, causing problems--and likely the deaths of Allied soldiers, if set loose. It was either kill the men outright or bring them along until they reached command and could turn their prisoners over.

With the exception of one man, they spoke little English. He spoke surprisingly good English, though heavily accented, and even knew some slang. His name was Erwin von Boeselager, of the 9th Regiment, 3rd Fallschirmjaeger Division, and he was from a small town outside of Munich called Dorfen.

“Where are you from?” von Boeselager asked Tramble.

“I’m from the great state of Massachusetts,” Tramble said.

“Ah. Which city are you from?”

“It’s near a town called Boston. You’ve never heard of it,” Tramble said, clearly uncomfortable answering the Kraut's questions about his hometown.

“Boston, yes. I am familiar with this name. What is the name of your city?”

“Why are you so curious? I couldn’t tell you the difference between Munich and Dusseldorf,” Tramble said.

“I am familiar with this area you speak of,” the German said.

“It’s a city called Chelsea,” Tramble said with annoyance.

“Ah yes. Chelsea is attached to the city of Boston by the Chelsea Street Bridge,” von Boeselager said.

“Hey Tramble, get a load of this guy. He’s been to Boston,” Shaw teased.

“How the hell do you know that?” Tramble asked the prisoner.

“I was trained to work in that city after the war,” von Boeselager said and then went on to mention which cross streets met at the cities civic center.

Coley shook his head, and Tramble grew silent after the POW’s admission. Were the Nazis so goddamn cocky that they had already started breaking the country into sections that would have to be managed after the war? Good luck setting foot on American soil. His countrymen would fight until the last breath.

“This guy’s full of crap,” Shaw said.

“In case you haven’t noticed, the German army is about to be in charge of a bunch of rubble by the time this war is over,” Tramble said.

“Perhaps you are right. Our own men are attacking each other. How can we fight wars on many other fronts while we fight our own? I wish only to return to my family in Dorfen when it is all over,” the German said.

Coley had to agree with the man. Something had changed with the German war machine. They were no longer acting like soldiers. Rather, they were acting like mindless robots, like something out of a Saturday matinee at the old movie theater in town.

As dawn approached, they came into sight of the town of Bastogne. They broke a line of trees with Coley’s jeep, poking forward in cautious maneuvers. If the town had been overrun, they’d be blown to kingdom come.

If it was still under Allied control, they’d have a chance to evade the Germans for the last time.

The problem was they’d hit a patch of ground that was swarming with Krauts. During the night they’d come across countless abandoned tanks and artillery pieces left in the snow. The men who should have been using the war machines were nowhere to be found.

It was strange that most of the artillery had fallen silent as well. For the last day, the skies had been illuminated by nonstop barrages. The unmistakable noise of explosives shaking the ground in the distance was also no more.

Then something whistled in the distance and impacted to the east. Like he’d jinxed the silence with his thoughts.

More artillery opened up and pounded the ground.

“I think that’s ours,” Coley muttered.

“Hope so. Hope someone’s giving he Germans hell,” Shaw said.

Von Boeselager sat quietly in the seat as the jeep broke a line of trees. Coley swore and slammed the vehicle to a halt. The small convoy behind him came to a stop, the last vehicle almost smashing into his rear end.

“Oh shit, Lieutenant!” Tramble said and stood. He snatched up a Thompson and worked the bolt handle.

Coley swore loudly and made a command decision. They had every opportunity to back up and try to escape into the woods. They might be able to outpace the enemy, but they might also be quickly overwhelmed. But the chance to rejoin the allies was tantalizingly close.

Except for the fact that they’d driven right into a mass of thousands of Germans.

G
erman soldiers continued
to pour into the forest. When one of them spotted Graves, they quickly made for the tank. The men looked like they’d been through hell. Their overcoats and uniforms were covered in dirt and blood. Many had wounds on their faces. One man who staggered around like he was lost was missing most of his lower jaw. His tongue flapped up and down like he was tasting the air.

An officer walked at the head of the men, but he was in as bad a shape as the rest. Part of his ear had been blown off, and even though he carried a German machine gun, one of his hands was missing.

Graves got behind the .50 cal and worked the bolt, but it had become frozen in the night. He slapped the device a few times, but it wouldn’t come free.

Thankfully, the Germans hadn’t started shooting yet.

“Get me a cup!” Graves yelled into the tank.

La Rue dug out a metal tin and handed it up.

Graves unzipped his pants and fought through a couple of layers of clothing.

“Hey, boss. If you’re trying to intimidate the Krauts, shouldn’t
I
be up there?” Big Texas called.

Graves got the cup next to his pants and willed his bladder to comply. He’d just taken a leak a few hours ago, so there wasn’t a lot of piss, but what he managed to trickle out would have to work.

“Get us moving,” Graves said.

“On it, Staff Sergeant,” Murph said.

The tank lurched with a grinding of tread, then came to a halt. Graves was slammed forward and almost dropped the cup.

“You’re splashing piss on me!” Big Texas said.

One of the Germans lifted his gun and let loose a stream of bullets. They were fired in an erratic manner, most flying around the tank, but several rounds plinked across the solid steel.

Graves poured his urine on the bolt, then slammed it a few times until it came free.

The tank lurched again and rolled a few feet as Murph tested the tread. Too fast, and the quick repairs might leave them stuck.

Another Kraut fired and bullets whizzed around Graves.

He swung the big machine gun around and opened up.

The first rank of Germans fell to withering fire, but as the bullets found targets, the sounds seemed to alert the enemy. They poured out of the woods until their ranks grew. The men started to run toward the tank.

Big Texas was already maneuvering the main gun until it was pointed at the Germans.

“Punch a hole,” Graves said and fired again, sweeping away a half dozen soldiers.

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.