In Bastogne, General Troy Middleton was trying to make sense out of the scattered reports that he’d received. Several indicated that a few individual units had been overrun or cut off by Germans, but Middleton couldn’t tell how serious or widespread the German attack was, or where it was going. His communications network had been damaged, and he was out of contact with many of his commanders. Finally he decided to call his superior officer, Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, at First Army Headquarters in Luxembourg City.
It took a while to get through, but finally General Hodges came on the phone. General Middleton explained that his line had been pierced by the Germans in four or five places and requested reinforcements from other corps in the First Army to beef up the Eighth Corps Ghost Front.
General Hodges, a tall and lean gray-mustached man of fifty-eight, listened quietly and calmly to General Middleton’s report and requests. An unusually soft-spoken and gentlemanly officer, Hodges was equal in rank and responsibilities to General Patton but was almost unknown to the American people because he had no talent or interest in self-promotion. He never wore bizarre uniforms and never engaged in flamboyant behavior. Yet his First Army had covered more ground in France than Patton’s Third Army, and he’d commanded more armor than Patton. Whereas Patton was a creature of inspiration, Hodges was a cool, methodical worker, and he was said to be unshakeable in battle.
Hodges thought for several moments after Middleton stopped talking, and then said, “I’d like to have a better picture of your situation there before I divert other units from the missions they’re on right now. How soon do you think you’ll be able to report back to me?”
“I don’t know, sir. My communications net is a mess.”
“Then get it repaired and report back to me. Be as accurate as you can because I wouldn’t want to break off attacks that presently are underway if it’s not necessary. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Carry on.”
General Middleton hung up the phone and scratched his head. He’d wanted to argue with Hodges because he had the feeling that a dangerous situation was developing in the Eighth Corps sector, but he had no proof, so he hadn’t said anything. Somehow he had to get the facts, but how could he get facts if his telephone communications net was out of whack?
He made a call to his communications officer, Colonel Denton. “Denton,” he said, “what’s the communications picture now?”
“Getting worse,” Denton replied.
“You’d better get it fixed fast,” Middleton said angrily. “I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
“Sir, lines are being destroyed faster than my men can fix them, but we’re doing our best.”
Middleton knew that radio communications were out of the question, due to the difficulty of transmitting in mountainous areas. “You’ve got to do better than your best,” he told Denton.
“I’ll get right to work on it sir.”
General Middleton hung up the phone and was more troubled than ever. It was inconceivable that the Germans could mount a full-scale attack at this stage of the war, but what if they had?
Middleton shook his head. That was too horrible to contemplate.
~*~
Mahoney’s nose was buried in his collar and his helmet was low over his eyes, but he thought he saw figures on the road up ahead. Braving the frigid wind stream, he took his hands out of his pockets and raised his binoculars to his eyes as the jeep bounced over the icy road. The magnification showed three soldiers running toward a jeep.
“There’s something up ahead!” Mahoney shouted above the roar of the engine.
Captain Carlson looked through his binoculars and saw the three men driving away toward Clervaux. “Looks like some of our people,” he said.
“Didn’t somebody say there are Germans wearing GI uniforms behind our lines?” Mahoney asked.
“That’s right too. We’d better see what they were up to. Hathaway, slow down. They might have tossed some mines onto the road.”
Hathaway braked, and Captain Carlson stood up to get a better look at the road ahead. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Keep going slowly.”
Hathaway drove forward in low gear, and Captain Carlson raised his hand to signal the trucks behind him to slow down. The jeep eased into an intersection that had directional arrows on a post. Captain Carlson and Mahoney jumped out and looked around. They saw jeep tracks in the snow and some footprints around the signpost. Mahoney checked the arrows and realized that the one for Clervaux was pointed in the wrong direction.
“Hey,” said Mahoney, “the bastards fucked with the signs!”
“How do you know?” asked Carlson.
Mahoney pointed down the road. “Because Clervaux is thataway.”
“We’d better fix the signs,” Carlson said.
“I think we’d better tear them down and take them with us,” Mahoney replied. “Otherwise somebody’s liable to come by and fuck them up again.”
“You’re right. Take ’em down, Mahoney.”
Mahoney trudged into the snow and batted the signs down with the butt of his carbine. He picked up the signs, carried them to the jeep, and dumped them in the back seat. Then he got in. Hathaway drove off toward Clervaux again. The other trucks and jeeps followed. Mahoney looked at his watch. He figured that Clervaux was only about half an hour away.
~*~
Ahead on the road was a jeep with three German SS men disguised as American GIs. They were Lieutenant Rolf Gurtner, and Sergeants Franz Muller and Ernst Grieser. Each had been born in Germany but raised in America, and they spoke American English perfectly. Gurtner and Muller were from the German neighborhood known as Yorkville in New York City, and Grieser was from Milwaukee, which also had a large concentration of German-Americans. In the thirties, each of them had become inspired by the Nazi movement in their native land and returned to become a part of it.
Gurtner held a captured U.S. Army map low so that the wind wouldn’t disturb it. “We’re almost in Clervaux,” he said. “There is a large garrison there, and we have to cut their communications.”
The other two SS men nodded. That’s what they’d been doing all morning, in addition to changing road signs and giving inaccurate directions to any Americans who were lost. One of their missions behind the lines was to kill high-ranking American officers, but they hadn’t seen any yet. They hoped they might find a general to shoot in Clervaux.
“Can’t you get any more speed out of this piece of junk?” Gurtner asked Muller, who was driving.
“This is as fast as it will go,” Muller replied.
Gurtner muttered something about the inadequacies of American manufacturing as the town of Clervaux came into view on the horizon. A cloud of dark smoke hung over the city and fires were raging in some of its neighborhoods. As the jeep drew closer, the extent of the devastation could be perceived by the three German commandos. Many buildings had been leveled by the bombing, and other buildings consisted only of a wall or two. Nearly every building had suffered some damage, and from the distance it appeared as though all human life had ceased in the town.
The three German commandos entered Clervaux, looking in all directions for communication lines to cut and Americans commanders to kill.
~*~
Fifteen minutes later, the convoy led by Captain Carlson and Mahoney entered Clervaux and made its way around rubble and devastated vehicles to a headquarters building in the center of town.
“You men wait out here,” Captain Carlson said, “while I go inside to find out what we have to do.”
Mahoney got out of the jeep, and the other soldiers jumped down from the trucks. They entered the buildings nearby so that they wouldn’t be out in the open when the Germans started shelling again. They knew that the German armored column would arrive in Clervaux before long, and when it did, another battle would ensue.
Mahoney found himself in a store whose shelves had been stripped of goods. The signs and posters on the walls indicated that it had been a grocery. He sat on the floor and leaned his back against the wall.
He thought that maybe he should go to the MP station and destroy the records of his arrest, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that might be hazardous. If the MPs still were in the station, they might remember him and lock him up again, or at least put him under guard. If they weren’t there, they probably had taken their records with them.
The image of Madeleine flashed into his mind. He saw her sitting in the candlelight of the cafe, so frail and vulnerable. He knew that she’d liked him; a man always can tell when a woman likes him, even though she argues with him and gives him a hard time. It was a shame a woman like that had to be a whore. He wondered if she still was at the cafe and if she was all right. Maybe she needed some help right now. He wanted to see her again.
He got up and walked to the shattered front door of the store.
“Where you going?” asked one of the soldiers.
“Out to take a piss.”
On the sidewalk, Mahoney slung his carbine over his shoulder and headed in the direction of the cafe. It was on the other side of town, but the town wasn’t very big, and he didn’t think it would take long to get there. He passed broken telephone poles and shell craters in the middle of streets. A few other soldiers were moving about, and smoke curled from burning piles of debris. The air had the rotten stink of burning, wet, old wood. Occasionally, he saw a jeep and ducked into a doorway until it passed. He knew that if he was seen by an officer, he’d be told to go someplace else.
Finally he came to the cafe. The street, which had been so serene and magical last night, was now a junkyard like the rest of the city. An artillery shell had hit the top of the building that housed the cafe, but there seemed to be little damage on the lower floors. The front window had broken and boarded up on the inside. Mahoney turned the doorknob, but the door was locked. He banged on the door with the butt of his carbine and listened, but heard nothing inside. He banged again, but still no one came. He decided to shoot his way through the door. Raising his carbine, he pulled back the bolt and took aim.
Just then the door opened a crack, and standing there was the bartender who’d served him last night. The bartender saw the carbine pointed at him, jumped back, and looked terrified.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Mahoney stepped inside the cafe and closed the door behind him. He looked around and in the dimness could see only vacant tables and a blanket over the piano that had been played so raucously the night before.
“Where are the girls?” Mahoney asked.
“They’ve all gone.”
“Madeleine too?”
“Yes.”
Mahoney pinched his lips together. “Shit!”
The bartender peered into his face. “You’re the one who killed another soldier with a broken bottle here last night, aren’t you?”
“Did I really kill him?”
“That’s what I heard.”
Mahoney pulled out his pack of cigarettes and offered one to the bartender, who took it. Then Mahoney put one in his own mouth. “You got anything to drink in here?”
“What would you like?”
“Brandy.”
“Have a seat.”
Mahoney sat at a table near the bar and looked at the one near the wall where he’d sat with Madeleine last night. He wondered where she was right now. Probably blowing some other GI, but somehow that didn’t bother Mahoney very much. It was her job and all that mattered was that she’d have something for him if ever they met again.
The bartender returned from the back room with a bottle and two glasses. He sat and poured brandy, then lifted one of the glasses into the air. “To victory,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mahoney replied, taking a swig. “How come you haven’t left town with everybody else?”
The bartender raised his chin. “This is my cafe. I’ve worked for most of my life to establish it, and I’ll never leave.”
“German money is as good as American money, I guess.”
“A person has to live. I prefer the Americans and the British because they’re not as cruel to us as the Germans, but I’m going to stay here regardless. What’s the point in running every time the town changes hands? If I did that, I’d be running back and forth all the time.”
Mahoney drank some more brandy and puffed his cigarette. “Tell me about Madeleine.”
“What do you want to know about her?”
“Where’s she from?”
“From Brussels, I think,” the bartender replied. “She’s a nice girl—provided you don’t cross her. She has a terrible temper just like you. Once she attacked one of the girls with a nail file and cut her face up.”
Mahoney smiled. “That’s my baby.”
“You are in love with her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I think she liked you. She was very upset when the MPs took you away. She told everybody that you’d fought the other soldier because he was bothering her, and I had the impression that she was very grateful.” The bartender winked.
“She’ll probably show you a good time if ever you see her again.”
“Think she’ll be back here?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to say about these girls. They’re all a bunch of gypsies.”
“If she comes back,” Mahoney said, “tell her that I came by asking for her.”
“I’ll tell her,” the bartender replied. “I’m sure she’ll be very glad to hear that.”
An artillery shell exploded in another part of town, and Mahoney perked his ears up. The bartender looked at the ceiling. Another shell exploded in the distance, and then another.
“The Germans are coming,” the bartender said.
Mahoney pulled his canteen out of its cover. “I think I’ll fill this up before I leave.”
He poured the brandy into his canteen, threw a ten-dollar bill on the table, and walked toward the door.
“Good luck,” the bartender said.
“You too,” Mahoney replied.
Mahoney stepped onto the sidewalk wondering whether to participate in the defense of Clervaux or to head south where the Third Army was. He stood in a doorway and puffed his cigarette as shells fell on Clervaux with greater intensity. He decided that if he had to fight, he’d rather fight with his buddies, but he could never make it back to Third Army on foot, and he didn’t want to steal a vehicle that might be needed in the fight here. He also didn’t want to hide in a cellar like a rat until the battle for Clervaux was over. If the Germans took the town, he’d be in more trouble with them than he was in right now.
The only thing to do was go to the front and be a soldier. He came out of the doorway and walked toward the east side of town, where the Germans most probably would attack. He’d seen maps of the area and knew that the Germans would have to go right through Clervaux if they wanted to advance deeper into Belgium, because the town was ringed by hills and mountains impassable to armor.
A three-quarter ton truck turned the corner behind him and sped up the street. When the driver saw Mahoney, he hit the brakes, and the truck screeched to a halt. The driver stuck his head out the window. “Hey buddy—you want a lift?”
Mahoney ran toward the back of the truck, and arms came down to pull him aboard. The truck started moving again, and Mahoney sat on the wooden bench on the left wall of the cargo space, looking at four big brawny GIs. They carried no weapons and hadn’t shaved for days.
“Where are you guys coming from?” Mahoney asked as the small truck rocked from side to side.
One of the soldiers pointed in a northerly direction. “We’re loggers,” he said. “We were working in the woods when they came for us.”
“Loggers?” Mahoney asked. “You guys know how to fire rifles?”
“Yeah,” said one of the others, “but they don’t have any rifles for us yet. If they can’t come up with any, we always can use these.”
The soldier opened a big wooden toolbox, and Mahoney saw hatchets and axes inside.
“I don’t know how good they’ll be against tanks,” Mahoney said, “but I suppose they’re better than nothing.”
Mahoney looked out the rear of the truck, seeing bombs exploding among the buildings. Occasionally he saw a civilian scurrying down a street or a small group of GIs moving toward the front. Mahoney wondered why it had taken this long for the German armored column to reach Clervaux. He figured that GIs must have fought a few delaying actions along the way.
Finally, the truck stopped. The driver came out to the back and said, “I can’t go any farther. Everybody out.”
The loggers took axes and hatchets out of their toolbox and jumped down with Mahoney. In front of the truck were some GIs building a roadblock out of bricks and lengths of timber taken from ruined buildings nearby.
A young second lieutenant was supervising the construction of the roadblock. “Hey you men!” he shouted to Mahoney and the others. “Get over here and help out!”
Mahoney walked toward the lieutenant and saluted smartly. “I’m sorry sir, but I’ve been ordered to report with my men to Captain Carlson at the front,” he lied.
“All right,” said the lieutenant. “Move ’em out.”
“Let’s go, men,” Mahoney said to the loggers.
Mahoney led the loggers through the streets and could see that a defense was being established in depth. If the German tanks broke through one roadblock, they’d soon encounter another. Soldiers worked everywhere building fortifications and obstacles for the battle that was looming. Meanwhile, German artillery shells continued to fall on the town, and Mahoney didn’t think there’d be much of the town left when this battle was over.
Finally, he and the loggers came to the edge of the town, where the biggest barricades were being constructed. Antitank guns and bazooka crews were deployed behind the barricades and in the buildings nearby. Machine gun nests were everywhere, and rifle soldiers threw bricks and wood onto the fortifications, their exhalations making gray clouds in the cold air.
An old lieutenant colonel noticed Mahoney and the loggers. “What unit are you men with?” he asked.
“No unit, sir.”
“Then you might as well get to work right here.”
Mahoney aimed his thumb behind him at the loggers. “These men don’t have any weapons.”
“We’re expecting some to arrive soon. Meanwhile, there’s a lot to be done. Report to Captain Devine.” The lieutenant colonel pointed to an officer supervising some work nearby.
Mahoney and the loggers walked toward Captain Devine, who wore a wool overcoat with the collar up. He turned as Mahoney approached, and Mahoney saluted him. Captain Devine appeared cheerful, as if he looked forward to the battle. Mahoney figured he was from West Point because West Point graduates often acted that way. Evidently it was supposed to be inspiring to the men.
Captain Devine told them to work on the fortifications. “The krauts will be here pretty soon,” he said. “We’ll want to give them a warm reception.”
Mahoney and the loggers joined the work gang. In the bitter cold, they carried bricks and debris, and threw them onto the wall being built on the edge of town. Mahoney grumbled and scowled because NCOs usually didn’t do coolie work like this. They just supervised it. But there was no time for that nonsense now. The Germans were coming, and they wanted Clervaux. Pausing to take a break, he drank some brandy from his canteen. As he was returning his canteen to its case, he heard a faint hum in the distance. He raised his binoculars and scanned the horizon. Tiny dots were spread across the sky.
“GERMAN PLANES!” Mahoney shouted, running for his carbine, which he’d leaned against a stack of other rifles.
The officers and NCOs with binoculars looked through them and saw what Mahoney had seen.
“TAKE COVER!” shouted the old lieutenant colonel. “MAN YOUR GUNS!”
Mahoney ran to the barricade and lay behind it as soldiers he’d never seen before flopped down on either side of him. The dots on the horizon became larger, and soon the silhouettes of the aircraft could be seen. The machine gun crews opened fire, their tracer bullets making long red lines on the gray clouds. An anti-aircraft battery to the rear began pumping shells into the sky, and the German planes roared forward in attack formation. Orange sparks appeared along their wings as they opened fire, and their bullets ripped into the ground in long straight lines.
Mahoney could hear the bullets whamming into the ground all around him. He pulled his elbows in to his sides in an effort to make himself smaller, and breathed through clenched teeth. Then the light bombers came, dropping their loads. The ground shook with deafening explosions, and groups of soldiers were blown into the air. A few of the soldiers who’d been clerks or other kinds of service personnel broke and ran to the rear, screaming in terror, but most of the men stayed where they were and prayed that somehow they’d survive.
Some of the men running away were struck in the back and nearly broken in two by the power of the big German machine gun bullets. Mahoney looked up and saw planes as thick as hornets in the sky. Where’s our air force? he wondered. It looks like these bastards have caught us with our pants down.
“HERE COME THE TANKS!” somebody yelled.
Mahoney peered over the barricade and saw tanks all over the road and fields leading to town. They were charging at top speed, shooting their cannons as they came. A bazooka crew near Mahoney fired at the tanks, but the rocket fell far short.
Mahoney cupped his hands around his mouth. “Wait till they get closer!”
The bazooka crew fired again, and that round fell short too. Mahoney realized that the men firing the bazooka probably hadn’t seen one since basic training back in the States and didn’t know what its effective range was. He’d have to go over and take charge.
Mahoney cradled his carbine in his arms and crawled toward the bazooka crew. He heard an artillery shell whistling down on him and stopped cold, certain it was going to land on his head. He held his helmet tight and squinched his eyes as he prayed to the Lord for deliverance. The artillery shell smacked into the ground nearby and blew chunks of ice and frozen sod into the air. Some of the small pieces landed on Mahoney, and a chunk two feet wide crashed a few feet from his head.
Mahoney resumed crawling toward the bazooka crew. The soldiers had stopped firing and were trying to stuff themselves into nooks and crannies to protect themselves from the mounting shell bursts, although the tanks were coming into range now and this was the time to fire the bazooka.
Mahoney reached the bazooka and put it onto his shoulder while rising to one knee. “One of you guys load this fucking thing up for me!” he shouted.
The soldiers wouldn’t move. They hugged their helmets to their heads and tried to hide. A bullet ricocheted off the top of the barricade, and they squirmed even more frantically. One of them wore an MP armband. Mahoney laid down the bazooka and pulled the man up by his arm. “Hey—I just gave you an order!”
Mahoney found himself looking into the horrified face of Santucci, the MP who’d worked him over with a billy club.
“You son of a bitch!” Mahoney screamed and punched him in the mouth with all his might.
Santucci went out like a light. Mahoney wanted to pick him up and belt him again, but a German bomb came whistling down, and Mahoney dropped to his belly. The bomb exploded, blowing a length of the barricade into the air. Mahoney grabbed one of the other soldiers who was trying to claw his way deeper into the frozen ground. Mahoney held the soldier by the front of his field jacket and spoke so forcefully he spit all over the soldier’s face. “Load this fucking bazooka!”
“Yes, Sergeant,” the soldier said, trembling with fear.
Mahoney placed the bazooka on his shoulder and aimed at one of the huge tanks advancing toward the barricade. The soldier behind him tapped Mahoney’s helmet, and Mahoney pulled the trigger. The rocket flew and landed directly on the tank’s turret. It exploded, and the tank became wreathed in smoke, but seconds later the smoke dissipated, and there wasn’t a scratch on the tank.
“Holy shit,” Mahoney muttered, as the soldier loaded up the bazooka tube again. Mahoney took a good look at the tank and saw that it was bigger than any German tank he’d ever seen before. It had so much armor on its front that a bazooka shell did no damage. The only thing to do was to aim lower at the treads or let the tanks pass by and hit them in the rear where their armor was thinner and their ammunition racks were located. The soldier hit Mahoney’s helmet again, and Mahoney fired at the tank’s treads. He scored a direct hit, and the treads blasted apart, stopping the tank cold and causing it to tip toward its damaged side.
Now the tank was a stationary fortress, and its turret swung around as its commander looked for a target.
“Uh-oh,” Mahoney said, wondering which way to run.
Just then, the tank was hit by an anti-tank shell, and once again it disappeared in an explosion and cloud of smoke. This time, when the smoke cleared, the tank was a pile of hot smoking scrap iron. The shell had pierced the tank’s armor!
Near Mahoney, the crew of the anti-tank gun cheered.
“Load me up again,” Mahoney told the soldier behind him.
The soldier pushed another rocket into the tube and tied the rocket’s wires to the terminal posts. Mahoney aimed at the treads of another tank and pulled the trigger of the bazooka. The rocket flew forth slowly enough so that Mahoney could watch it, and it missed the treads of a tank by two yards.
“Load me up again!”
Machine gun fire raked the section of the barricade in front of Mahoney. Mahoney ducked instinctively, but the soldier behind him didn’t move quickly enough, and he received a burst in his chest, breaking apart his ribs and shattering his lungs. He fell backwards and was dead before he hit the ground.
Mahoney lay on the ground until the machine gun fire moved to another part of the barricade. Then he raised himself and looked at the German tanks. They were closer, and he could see the black crosses distinctly on the turrets. Glancing around, his eyes fell on Santucci, the MP.
“You—load me up!” Mahoney said.
Santucci shook his head, and a trickle of blood ran from his nose where Mahoney had slugged him before. “I don’t take orders from stockade rats!”
“Oh no?”
Mahoney punched him again, and Santucci collapsed.
“I’ll load you up, Sergeant,” said a youthful voice.
Mahoney turned and saw a kid with freckles on his nose. He looked sixteen years old and probably had lied about his age when he’d enlisted.
“Do it,” Mahoney said.
Mahoney placed the bazooka on his shoulder. Men screamed farther down the line, and Mahoney saw a big fat German tank rolling over the barricade. The freckle-faced soldier tapped Mahoney’s helmet, and Mahoney swung the bazooka around, aiming it at the rear of the tank. He licked his lips and pulled the trigger, watching the rocket speed through the air toward the tank. It slammed into the tank’s rear deck and burst apart in a violent explosion. When the smoke cleared, the tank was stopped and smoke poured out of the black hole.
“Hey Sarge—we got him!”
Machine gun bullets whistled past their ears and both of them dived toward the ice and snow on the ground. Mahoney saw in the corner of his eye another tank breaching the barricade, firing its cannon at a building where a GI machine gun nest had been set up. Hearing the roar of an engine to his left, he looked and saw that tank rumbling over the barricade as soldiers ran in all directions to get out of its way.
Mahoney wanted to raise his head and try to knock out one of the tanks with his bazooka, but the barricade in front of him was being peppered with machine gun fire. Mahoney looked at the tank and cursed it when suddenly it exploded in an orange burst. For a split second, Mahoney thought his curse had destroyed the tank, but then common sense overtook him, and he realized that one of the anti-tank guns must have hit it.
The machine gun fire moved away from his barricade. Mahoney got to one knee again, feeling pain from the wound in his leg that he’d sustained earlier in the day. He looked down and saw blood seeping into the bandage. His movements and scraping against the ground must have opened the wound. He swore as the freckle-faced soldier loaded up the bazooka. Mahoney aimed it at the other tank that had broken through, but from out of nowhere, a GI ran at the tank with a hand grenade, stuffed the grenade into the treads of the tank, and sped off. The soldier dived to the ground, and the grenade exploded, ripping apart the tank’s tread. The tank stopped, and its turret turned around as the tank commander looked for the soldier who’d done the damage. Mahoney wondered how the German tankers felt, knowing they were stationary targets. But they weren’t stationary targets for long. An anti-tank shell hit them, WHAM, and the tank and crew were out of the war for good.
Mahoney turned to the front again and went pale at the sight of a German tank only twenty yards away, heading straight for him.
“LOAD ME UP!” Mahoney screamed.
The freckled-faced soldier tried to keep his trembling hands under control as he inserted the rocket into the tube and tied up the wires. Mahoney got as low as he could, aimed at the underbelly of the tank, and fired the rocket. It shot forward and hit directly where Mahoney had aimed it, exploding and blowing the tank’s turret into the air.
Another tank was beside the tank Mahoney had hit, and its machine gun swung to the side as lightning shot out of its barrel.
“Get down!”
Mahoney dropped as bullets whizzed over his head. Looking behind him, he saw the kid hugging the ground too.
“I’m still here, Sarge,” he said.
Several tanks breached the barricade and turned to the side to fire at the men behind it because the tankers knew by now that they didn’t dare bypass live, armed GIs. The anti-tank emplacements in the buildings fired broadside at the tanks, knocking one after the other out of action, but the undamaged tanks rolled over GIs and fired their machine guns across the barricades.
Mahoney knew that the barricade was no longer a viable fortification, and more tanks breached the barricade because the GIs were too busy dodging bullets to shoot their bazookas at the tanks. Mahoney was afraid to run because he’d be an easy target for the tank’s machine gunners, but if he stayed where he was, a tank would roll over him and grind him into the ground.
The kid tapped his helmet; through the intense fire he’d managed to load Mahoney up again. Mahoney aimed straight up at the belly of the tank bearing down on him and turned the rocket loose. It hit the tank low and on target, and the tank bounced two feet in the air, smoke and fire blasting through cracks in its hull.
“FALL BACK!” somebody shouted. “RETREAT!”
Mahoney turned to the kid behind him. “Let’s go!”
The kid looked like he was going to cry. “We’ll never make it!”
“We won’t make it here either!”
Mahoney sprang to his feet and ran like a racehorse despite the pain in his leg. He zigzagged and dodged as bullets flew over his head and kicked up ice near his feet. Glancing to his left and right, he saw other soldiers dashing back to the next barricade, which was on the main boulevard of the town and extended between the buildings on both sides of the street. Blood dripped down his leg, but he summoned up his deepest reserves of energy and galloped over the final yards of ground to the barricade, vaulting over it, catching one toe on a piece of debris at the top, and falling face first behind it. He managed to get his hands up before he hit the ground, saving his nose from being mashed into his face.
Rolling over, his skin scraped from the palms of his hands, he got to his knees and tried not to think of the pain in his leg and the blood freezing on the bandage and his pant leg. He looked back to the German tanks and saw one of them burst into flame. The boulevard was littered with bodies of dead GIs, and Mahoney wondered what had happened to the kid. He glanced behind the barricade at red-faced GIs struggling for breath and realized with chagrin that the kid evidently hadn’t made it.
Mahoney looked to the front again and saw a figure writhing on the road beside a crate of bazooka rockets. Mahoney raised his binoculars and could see the kid clawing the air, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Mahoney wanted to get him, but knew it would be suicide. The tanks were coming, and he wouldn’t have a chance.
An anti-tank gun knocked out a tank that had been heading straight for the kid. Mahoney wished he had those rockets for the bazooka, but he’d never be able to get them. Or could he? The tanks appeared to be regrouping into something that resembled a flying wedge, and Mahoney thought he might be able to dash out there and get back if he moved quickly. Then, before his eyes, an anti-tank gun scored a direct hit on another tank behind the kid. Mahoney could see that those two knocked-out German tanks could provide a screen for him, because no other tanks could pass through them.
It’s now or never, he thought. Laying the bazooka on the ground and leaning the carbine against the barricade, he uttered a silent prayer and leapt over the barricade. He swung his fists back and forth and ran as quickly as he could, not bothering to make zigzag lines and a low silhouette. He saw tanks moving and regrouping in the middle of the street, but to his front the kid was reaching out to him and next to the kid was the crate of bazooka rockets. Mahoney tried to stop suddenly when he neared the kid, tripped over his own feet, and pitched forward onto his face. Scrambling to his feet again, he picked up the kid and threw him over his shoulders. Then he bent his knees, tucked the crate of rockets under one arm, and headed back to the barricade.
His leg ached more than ever, and he thought it was going to give way beneath him as he raised his knees high and sped to safety. On his shoulders the kid groaned and dripped blood onto Mahoney’s field jacket, Mahoney sucked wind and thought he didn’t have the strength to go on. The kid and the crate of rockets were too much for him. But he kept running anyway and noticed a curious thing. No one was shooting at him. Either the Germans were too busy with whatever they were doing and didn’t notice him, or they were going to let him make it. He’d never know which, but he reached the barricade anyway, dumped the kid over it, threw over the crate of rockets, and then collapsed over the top of it to safety.
“Medic!” he yelled as he hit the ground.
The old lieutenant colonel ran in a crouch behind the barricade toward Mahoney. “I saw that!” he said. “I’m putting you in for the DSC!”
The kid was gasping, trying to stuff his intestines back into his stomach. Mahoney’s leg was drenched with blood.
“Such courage!” the colonel said, pointing his finger in the air. “Such élan! What a magnificent—”
A German bullet whacked the colonel on the cheek and blew away his jaw, mouth, and nose, spraying blood all over the street. The colonel stood for a second with his finger still in the air, then collapsed to the ground.
A tubby little medic ran on bow legs toward the colonel. He kneeled beside him, took one look, felt his pulse, and shook his head. “He’s a goner,” the medic said. Then he hopped toward the kid, who was hollering and screaming and hugging his steaming guts. The medic jabbed a needle into the kid’s arm, and the kid relaxed.
The German tanks had formed their wedge and roared their engines as they moved forward, firing their cannons at the section of the barricade in front of them. They wanted to bull their way through the barricade and speed through town, but the anti-tank gunners had other plans. They fired at the mass of tanks and couldn’t miss because the tanks were so close together. The ground shook with the violence of the explosions, and tanks farther back in the formation had to change direction to avoid hitting ruined tanks in front of them.
Mahoney loaded his bazooka by himself, put it on his shoulder, and aimed at the treads of the tank closest to him. He pulled the trigger, and the rocket swooshed out, landing inside the tank’s tracks and blowing them off their runners.
Mahoney turned to load his bazooka again and saw a grizzled old soldier behind him.
“I’ll load it up for you, Sarge,” the old soldier said.
Mahoney turned to the front again. Ruined tanks smoked and burned, and undamaged tanks tried to break through the barricades. The top hatch on one of the damaged tanks opened, and German tankers in black uniforms and berets jumped out. Mahoney dropped his bazooka, picked up the carbine, flicked it on automatic, held the butt against his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. Fire and lead spit out the barrel, and the German tankers dropped their submachine guns and spun through the air, spraying blood onto the charred hulk of their tank and the icy cobblestones.
Mahoney lifted the bazooka again. The old soldier behind him tapped his helmet. Mahoney aimed at the treads of a tank and fired, but his rocket bypassed the tank and crashed through a store window on the far side of the street, exploding and blowing yellow fire and chunks of debris into the street.
The German tanks kept coming, and the American soldiers in front of them scattered out of the way. The tanks pushed through the barricade and shifted into high gear. The old soldier tapped Mahoney’s helmet, and Mahoney fired at the rear deck of one of the tanks. This time he didn’t miss, and the tank disappeared in a cloud of smoke. A split second later an anti-tank shell hit the same tank and pulverized it. When the smoke had cleared, the tank had become a pile of junk.
“KRAUT SOLDIERS COMING!” somebody screamed.
Mahoney looked down the street and saw a horde of German soldiers advancing with fixed bayonets. The old soldier tapped Mahoney’s helmet, and Mahoney aimed his bazooka into their midst. Pulling the trigger, he saw the projectile streak toward the Germans and plow down a number of them before hitting the pavement and exploding.
Americans fired BARs and anti-tank shells at the charging Germans, but they kept coming anyway. Mahoney fired one more bazooka shell at them, blowing a hole in their front rank, but the German soldiers who hadn’t been killed or wounded didn’t falter and charged down the boulevard at the Americans.
“FIX BAYONETS!” somebody yelled.
Mahoney looked around and saw an M-1 rifle lying next to a dead GI. He picked up the M-1 and stuck his bayonet on the end because an M-1 was a longer, heavier weapon than a carbine and more formidable in close quarters.
The Germans were quite close now, screaming and shouting and shaking their rifles and bayonets as they raced toward the barricades.
“FORWARD!” hollered an American officer, jumping over the barricade and charging toward the Germans. “FOLLOW ME!”
His bold gesture inspired the GIs. They leapt over the barricades and followed the officer although many of them never had seen him before in their lives.
Mahoney was one of the first over the barricade, bellowing like an elephant, enraged at the Germans for shooting him in the leg.
“GET THE COCKSUCKERS!” Mahoney screamed.
“SKIN THE FUCKERS ALIVE!” somebody else yelled.
The German soldiers and GIs came together in the middle of the street and fought for their lives. Bayonets clashed and rifle butts slammed against helmets. Limping on his left leg, Mahoney ran toward a German corporal who lunged at Mahoney with his rifle and bayonet. Mahoney didn’t dodge or try to retreat backwards. He planted his left foot between the two feet of the German, parried the German’s rifle and bayonet to the side, and delivered a horizontal butt stroke to the side of the German’s head. He caved in the German’s head, and the German’s legs gave out underneath him.
Mahoney jumped over the German and drove his rifle and bayonet forward, smashing through the guard of another German soldier and burying his bayonet in the soldier’s chest. The German’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he sank to his knees. Mahoney tugged to free his bayonet, but it wouldn’t come out of the German’s chest. He pulled the trigger of the M-1, and the German’s lungs and intestines blew apart, splattering Mahoney with blood and portions of the German’s organs. Mahoney raised his gory bayonet, saw another German soldier, and leapt toward him, pushing his bayonet toward the German’s stomach.
The German parried Mahoney’s bayonet to the side and tried to slam Mahoney in the head with his rifle butt, but Mahoney ducked and brought his own rifle butt straight up, catching the German on the chin. The German’s head snapped back, and Mahoney punched him in the stomach with his rifle butt, and then, as the German fell backwards, brought his bayonet down and slashed the German from neck to hip bone. The German shrieked horribly and dropped to his knees.
Mahoney kicked him in the face, and another German soldier jumped in front of Mahoney, trying to harpoon Mahoney’s head with the end of his bayonet.
Mahoney sidestepped and feinted with his own bayonet. The German moved to parry Mahoney’s bayonet, not realizing it was a feint, and Mahoney shoved his bayonet into the German’s throat. Blood burbled out the German’s nose and mouth as he fell to the ground.
Mahoney spun around and found himself face to face with an American soldier. They made a motion to charge each other, realized they were on the same side, grinned, and turned to look for more Germans. Mahoney saw a German officer facing the side, aiming his service pistol at a GI. Mahoney ran toward the officer and rammed his bayonet into the officer’s left kidney. The officer screamed and fired wildly into the air as Mahoney pulled his bayonet out and banged the officer in the head with his rifle butt. The officer collapsed onto the street.
Mahoney stepped over him and a German rifle butt came crashing down out of the squirming melee in front of him. Mahoney flinched backwards and nearly dropped his rifle, but he managed to hang on and bang the German in the head with his rifle butt, but the German dodged at the last moment, and Mahoney only succeeded in knocking off the German’s helmet.
The German had blond hair and classic Nordic features. He looked like a recruiting poster for the SS, but he wore an ordinary Wehrmacht uniform that was torn in a few places. He lunged at Mahoney with his bayonet, but Mahoney parried it out of the way. The German feinted, but he didn’t fool Mahoney. You had to get up pretty early in the morning to fool Mahoney. Exasperated, the German soldier feinted again, but that was what Mahoney had thought he’d do. Mahoney shot his bayonet forward and rammed it up to the hilt in the German’s chest. The German said oof and blood poured from his nose and mouth. Mahoney pulled his bayonet free and slammed the German’s bare head with his rifle butt. The German’s head cracked apart, and his blond hair became drenched with blood as he sagged to the ground.
Mahoney looked up and saw more Germans running toward him, followed by a sea of tanks.
“FALL BACK!” somebody shouted. “TAKE COVER!” Mahoney stepped backwards, still fighting off Germans, as he and the other GIs retreated to their barricade.