It was one o’clock in the morning, and three deuce and a half trucks rolled through Bastogne. In the lead truck was Mahoney, with Pfc Steven Ball of Casper, Wyoming, behind the wheel. The paratrooper major, whose name was Strickland, rode in the second truck.
The three trucks headed toward the south of town. The plan was to leave not by the road but over the frozen fields to the woods and then through the woods for a few miles until they thought they’d passed the main German lines. Then they’d head for the road and try to break through to the south.
Each of them was armed with a Thompson submachine gun, and each had been issued a map of the area and a compass in case there was trouble and they had to split up.
They reached the edge of the town, and all was silent except for an occasional artillery shell or machine gun burst. The night was pitch black, but if they headed due south, they’d hit the woods before long. They drove off the road and onto the frozen crust of the field, moving along slowly in low gear so they wouldn’t make too much noise.
The trucks rolled across the field, and Mahoney hoped they wouldn’t hit a weak spot in the snow and fall through. But the temperature was twenty-five degrees, and the snow held. Mahoney and the paratroopers looked around for signs of Germans and expected to draw German fire at any moment, but suddenly trees loomed up in front of them, and they knew they’d made it to the woods.
Mahoney got out of the lead truck and walked in front of it to guide the trucks through the trees, which were tall and spaced far apart. Major Strickland replaced Mahoney in the front seat of the lead truck, and Mahoney moved through the forest, holding his submachine gun ready and walking slowly enough so that Pfc Ball could see him.
The forest was dark and eerie. Mahoney’s sharp eyes picked out the black forms of trees against the gray snow and he threaded his way among them, listening for odd sounds and straining to see the shape of a German helmet or the gleam of a German button.
A bird leapt into the air a few yards away from Mahoney, and Mahoney almost fired a burst at it but realized in time that it was only a partridge or quail flapping its wings and trying to escape from the weird caravan. Adrenaline pumped through Mahoney’s arteries, and his mouth was dry even though the bird could be heard no more. He stooped down, picked up a chunk of snow from a bush, and put it into his mouth.
Fifteen minutes passed, and Mahoney gradually became more confident. He thought it might actually be possible for them to get around the main body of Germans and then roll onto the road when suddenly he heard a crack to his front, the sound a foot makes when it comes down on a branch and breaks it.
Mahoney held up his hand, and the trucks stopped. He moved his hand to the side in a cutting motion, and the drivers turned off their engines. Straining his ears, he listened for sounds and wondered if the wood had snapped because of the intense cold or whether someone was out there.
He heard footsteps on the snow somewhere to his front, and his blood turned to ice. Then he heard something moving past a bush. He held out his arms like Christ on the cross, and the paratroopers silently climbed down from the trucks.
Major Strickland eased toward Mahoney. “What’s up?” he whispered.
“Somebody’s out there,” Mahoney whispered back.
“Are you sure?”
A machine gun opened fire in front of them, and Major Strickland’s question was answered. Bullets zipped through the air, clanging against the trucks, and everybody dropped to the ground. One of the paratroopers was hit in the neck, and the impact of the bullet nearly tore his head off before he landed.
Mahoney raised his submachine gun to his shoulder and prepared to fire back, but Major Strickland slapped down the barrel of the gun.
“Don’t fire!” Strickland said. “You’ll give away our position!”
“You think they don’t know our position?”
“They’ll know it a damn sight better if you give them a muzzle blast to zero in on.”
Another German machine gun opened fire, and then numerous rifles joined in. The air above Mahoney’s head became thick with bullets, and he knew that the mission had failed already, that it had been a harebrained idea to begin with and now they had to get out of there.
The other paratroopers crawled toward Mahoney and Strickland. Mahoney peered ahead at the muzzle blasts of the German weapons and thought a few bursts of submachine gun fire might quiet them down for awhile.
“Sir,” said Mahoney, “they’re going to rush us before long. I think we’d better get out of here.”
“I’m trying to figure out whether we should split up or try to go back together.”
“I think we should split up, sir. We’ll make too much noise together.”
Machine gun bullets kicked up snow in front of Mahoney and the paratroopers.
“Let’s go, sir!” Mahoney said with urgency. “Make up your mind!”
“All right men!” Strickland replied. “We’re going back in two groups.” He explained that Mahoney would leave with Pfc Ball, and he’d go with the other two paratroopers. “We’ll throw some hand grenades to cover our movements. All right now—get ready.”
They took out hand grenades and pulled the pins, looking at Strickland for the command to throw them.
“NOW!” he yelled.
They all hurled their hand grenades toward the muzzle blasts of the German guns, and seconds later the night was torn apart by fiery orange explosions. Trees crashed to the ground, Germans screamed, and Major Strickland yelled, “MOVE OUT!”
Mahoney and the paratroopers jumped up and ran toward Bastogne. The Germans recovered from the grenade attack and sprayed the woods with machine gun bullets. Mahoney ran beside Pfc Ball and suddenly Ball screamed and tumbled to the ground. Mahoney dived head first into some bushes, but there was a tree behind them, and he crashed into it head first. If he hadn’t had his helmet on, he would have split his head open, but instead he only knocked himself out for a few seconds.
He opened his eyes and realized he was lying on the snow. Pfc Ball lay moaning and bleeding only a few feet away. German bullets whistled through the woods, and Mahoney crawled to Ball, who lay on his stomach, his back a mass of blood. Ball’s eyes were closed, and he was unconscious but moaning softly anyway.
Mahoney realized he couldn’t do anything for Ball but maybe he could save his own ass. He slithered away as quickly as he could, hearing the German bullets crackle over his head and wham into trees nearby. He continued crawling, came to a little gully, and dropped into it.
The Germans stopped firing suddenly, and he heard a German order that his men advance cautiously. Seconds later Mahoney heard footsteps and the rustling of bushes, which he thought might cover his own escape. Crouching low, he held his submachine gun tightly and moved north, bringing his feet down silently, and being careful not to brush against any branches. He heard the Germans talking and learned that they’d found some bodies. Mahoney wondered if Major Strickland had gotten away.
Mahoney continued walking cautiously through the woods. Every ten steps, he’d stop and listen for several seconds and then move out again. The German voices behind him sounded farther away, and after a while, he could barely hear them.
He congratulated himself for having escaped. Now all he had to do was make it back to Bastogne in one piece. He craved a cigarette but didn’t dare smoke. Thinking about what had happened, he concluded that the Germans must have had some patrols in the woods, and one of them had heard the convoy. That meant he’d have to be extra careful so that he didn’t bump into any more Germans.
Slowly, he made his way through the woods. He estimated that he should be back in Bastogne in two or three hours if no problems developed.
Mahoney couldn’t see well in the darkness, and he tripped over a branch, tumbling head over heels into a ditch.
“Is that you, Hans?” asked a voice in German.
Mahoney looked up and saw a big hulk of a man a few feet away in the ditch. He didn’t dare shoot the German soldier because it would attract too much attention, so he reached for the bayonet on his belt.
“Hans?” asked the German soldier.
Mahoney pulled out his bayonet and leapt toward the German soldier. He covered the German’s mouth with his big hand and pushed the bayonet with all his might into the German’s belly. The German twisted his face away from Mahoney’s hand and howled in pain. Mahoney slashed his throat, and the howling stopped.
“What’s going on over there!” asked another German voice.
Mahoney picked up his submachine gun and jumped out of the ditch. He ran into the woods in a crouch and heard Germans shouting behind him. They fired a few shots, but the bullets came nowhere near Mahoney.
He ran for several minutes, dodging around trees and jumping over bushes. Then he stopped to catch his breath and listen for sound of pursuit. All he heard was a commotion in the distance behind him. He grinned when he realized that the Germans probably thought they’d been infiltrated by an American patrol and were shooting at shadows.
He continued moving again and happened to look up at the sky. Something twinkled up there, and he blinked to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. It still twinkled and Mahoney realized it was a star!
That meant the weather was clearing, and he wanted to jump for joy, but instead he kept himself under control and stepped over the snow, still heading for Bastogne.