by Jeff Shaara
Once they moved out past the towns, the crowds had given way to something new, shattered buildings, entire villages blasted into rubble. The MPs were there, manning the intersections, pointing the convoy in the right direction. Benson had seen them, tough-looking men in heavy coats, and behind them outposts armed with heavy machine guns, mortars tucked behind sandbags. There were armored vehicles, and he had seen several tanks, the round-turreted Shermans, dirty white stars on the sides, and then more armor, different, self-propelled artillery, half-tracks. The countryside was littered with wreckage, more rubble of villages, small homes and farms broken into heaps of stone. There was armor again, or what used to be, black hulks of destruction, tanks perhaps, pieces of ripped steel that could have been anything at all. He had wanted to see more of that, the signs of war, felt a curious excitement, something he could write home about. But fear came as well, churning up the sickness. He tried to hide it, would not let Lane or anyone else mouth off to him about being afraid. He had to believe they all felt it, men like Lane most of all. Until now, the war was training and mindless repetition, grouchy officers and sullen Sergeant Higgins. All the battlefields had been make-believe, fields in Indiana and their too-brief glimpse of England. But now there was smoke, smoldering fires from … what? Bombs? Artillery fire? The trucks rolled forward still, and now, as he stared with shivering hands into the bleakness, even the wreckage was gone, replaced by trees and mud and swirls of snow.
He felt a new urgency, intense curiosity, searched for any kind of details, the sickness granting him a reprieve. The road was winding, the truck sliding again, then falling hard into a pothole. He bounced painfully with the rest of them, ignored the curses, thought, it’s darker, getting late. The road was hemmed in by tall pines, the truck bouncing high again, a hot curse from Lane. Beneath him, the tires seemed to struggle, spraying brown water back toward the truck behind them. The truck swerved again on the narrow road, someone cursing at the driver. Some of the men who had kept silent began to stir now, a loosening, talk and cigarettes. Benson looked at Mitchell, saw his friend staring back at him, shaking his head, a silent question. Benson shrugged, thought, I don’t know either, Kenny. How much more of this are we going to do? Where the hell are we? Maybe we’re close, maybe we might actually be somewhere. The talk began to come, the men more anxious, some spouting off about the truck, the misery of the potholes, anger at one another, at the sergeant up front. Lane’s voice dominated the others.
“They’re gonna drop us right into Krautville. You watch. They want to be rid of this garbage outfit, and so they’re gonna unload us where we’ll make good cannon fodder. I heard the lieutenant talking about it …”
Milsaps, another of the new men, responded. “You’re so full of crap. You haven’t heard a damn thing. I heard they’re taking us to a rest area. Captain Moore told the sergeant. They’re putting us where we can’t hurt anything, and we’re gonna start in with the training again. Maybe you’ll finally learn to shoot that rifle, Lane. I keep telling you, the narrow part’s where the bullet comes out. The big wide wooden part—that goes in your mouth.”
“I’ll show you where to put this rifle—”
Lane was silenced by a squeal beneath them, the truck’s brakes slowing them, then a sliding stop, all the talk ending.
Lane leaned close to him, said, “Open the damn flaps. What’s going on?”
Benson pulled one flap in close, the cold rolling over them all, heavy snow falling. The truck behind them had stopped, and Benson saw more trucks behind that one.
Now the sergeant was there, slapping his gloved hands together, his breath in clouds of white fog. “Out! Let’s go! We march now!”
Benson felt his heart racing, tried to rise, his legs stiff. He grabbed his backpack, the rifle, leaned out, saw that the woods were nearly dark, black spaces through the trees. He climbed out, pushed from behind by Lane, jumped down into mush, snow on top of more mud. To one side were fat pines, a gathering of thick spruces, the snow dusting them like so many Christmas trees. Across the road, the ground fell away sharply, and Benson stepped back from the truck, waited for the others to unload, grunts as each man hit the ground.
The sergeant said in a hard whisper, “No talking. There’s enemy out here somewhere. The lieutenant says we ought to run smack into the boys we’re replacing. Keep an eye out. You see someone, he’s one of us, you got that?”
There was no need for a response, the men hoisting up backpacks, slinging rifles onto their shoulders, waiting for the next instruction. Benson was shivering, fought it, the coat already growing soggy with the wet melting snow. He looked up past the front of the truck, more trucks, more men, trees and mud and snow. A man was plodding quickly toward him, head low, and Benson saw the face now, the lieutenant.
“Sergeant, we’re moving out straight down this road. Four hundred yards, there’s a narrow trail that goes into the trees. Someone there will direct you. Stay in line, men, you go wandering off in those woods, you might run into the enemy. You go the other way, you’ll roll your asses down that hillside, and I’m not sparing anybody to haul you back up here. Let’s move out, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir. Let’s go.”
Benson fell into line, the lieutenant leading them, the sergeant close behind him. The column was moving with soft, sluggish steps, past a dozen or more trucks that had been in front of them. The drivers were mostly up inside, watching them go past, rude calls, one man shouting out, “Hey, no tip? I got you here without a crack-up. You’re lucky. You get to go to sleep in some nice warm foxhole. I gotta do this trip again.”
Benson flinched at the volume of the man’s voice, no other sound but the muddy slurps of their boots. After long minutes, they passed the lead truck, and Benson saw officers, a cluster to one side of the road, some of them familiar, men in clean snowy coats, the 423rd’s brass, others, four men who looked like they’d been rolled in the mud. They crested a hill, and beyond he saw an opening, the trees giving way to a snowy field, churned up by a sea of tire tracks. I guess that’s where the trucks will park, or turn around, maybe. The fog obliterated the far side of the field, but he saw shapes, dark smudges against the far trees, saw a jeep coming closer, bouncing high over the ruts. There was more activity, more jeeps, a dark tent nestled into a group of pine trees, larger trucks, but not the deuce-and-a-halfs. Some were kitchen trucks, and he saw a water truck, men moving slowly in huddled misery, doing their jobs.
Lane bumped him from behind, a hard hand in his back. “Get moving, you slug. I wanna get where we’re going.”
Benson didn’t respond, quickened his pace, moved closer to the sergeant. He thought of the rifle on his shoulder, Lane’s ugly face, Benson’s nervousness focusing into hatred. I know what I ought to do, he thought. Ram this rifle butt into that jerk’s gut. Somebody needs to knock his teeth out, he thought. Maybe not in front of the lieutenant, though.
He kept up the march, the road less muddy, hard-packed snow. There were more men standing to one side of the road, heavy coats, helmets low, a voice.
“Halt the march. Make way for the guys coming out.”
The lieutenant obeyed, the line behind them slowing, stopping. Benson stared into the dark gaps in the trees, saw them now, heard voices and laughter, shattering the low silence.
“Well, it’s the new bunch. Howdy-do, boys?”
“Ski lift is over that way. The lodge is just ahead, big fireplace. About a hundred little barmaids to warm your feet.”
“Y’all hoping to see some Krauts out here? Sorry, we done kilt them all.”
“Fresh meat, eh? You bring us anything cuddly? I hear the 106th’s got mostly girls in the ranks. You’re one ugly bunch of broads.”
“Shut up that chatter!”
The voice came from behind him, and Benson knew the sound of an officer. The man was there now, two aides trailing close behind him, his authority silencing the talk. Benson recognized him, one of the men he had seen with the brass, older, the coat caked wit
h mud. Across the road, the men continued to emerge from the woods, and Benson caught their smell, thick and musty, heard the slow tramp of feet on the packed snow.
The officer stood to one side, said to the lieutenant, “What’s your name, son?”
“Lieutenant Greeley, sir. Company B, Four Two Three.”
“All right, Lieutenant Greeley. Your boys are taking over this hillside hole for hole and gun for gun, and you’re replacing the best damn fighting division in this army. Take a good look at them. They’ve earned a rest. You do us proud, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir. We will, sir.”
The officer glanced at Benson, then down the line behind him. “You men haven’t been under fire yet, have you?”
The lieutenant responded, “No, sir. We just arrived from Le Havre—”
“I don’t care, Lieutenant. But you’re replacing veterans up here. These men fought like hell to take the city of Aachen away from an enemy who fought like hell to keep us out. We were due to move into a rest-and-recreation area, but somebody back at SHAEF forgot to look at a map and stuck the whole damn Second Division out here in the middle of frozen hell. The good news for you is that there’s nothing going on here, and not likely to be anytime soon.”
There were footsteps, hurrying forward, and Benson saw his company commander, Captain Moore. Moore stopped abruptly, threw up a salute, said, “Sir, I was told you’d be up here. Colonel Cavender is arranging to bring us some dinner.”
“Calm your motor, Captain. I just talked to him back there. My men have been perched up on this hill for too many weeks, and we’re damn glad to see you. You’ve got two sections of heavy weapons coming in behind you. That’ll give you eight machine guns to go with these rifles. Those boys should know how to get in position, but double-check them, Captain. You won’t need to dig too many holes tonight. You’ll move right into ours. We’re leaving you some eighty-ones, spaced out and dug in where there’ll do you some good. No need for us to haul a load of mortars in and out of here. Take your men down this trail until you see my adjutant, Captain Gridley. He’ll put your men into position, give you the guided tour. Been pretty quiet for the most part. The enemy tosses a few shells at us the same time every morning. Oh five hundred. Works just like reveille. We’ve been occupying ground that used to be theirs, so they know the lay of the land. Wasn’t my decision, but here we are. And now it’s yours.”
Benson stared at the older officer, thought, this son of a bitch knows a few things.
The officer stepped toward the trail, waved his men forward. “Let’s go! You’ve been bitching about replacements, well, they’re here! I’d think you’d be in a hurry to get back off the line!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right, sir.”
The men seemed to come out of every dark gap in the trees, ragged and filthy, bent cigarettes hanging from grim faces, rough beards and tired eyes. He caught one man’s eye, the man looking straight past him, unseeing, and Benson nodded, a silent greeting that was ignored. There was exhaustion in the man’s face, a smear of black on his cheeks, his eyes dull and yellow through the shadow of his helmet. Benson wanted to speak to the man, but he was gone now, moving back toward the trucks. Benson held the man’s image in his mind, thought, a soldier. That’s what we’re supposed to be. Behind him, no one was speaking at all, these new men suddenly face-to-face with veterans. Benson shivered again, thought, none of us is a tough guy now.
Another officer appeared, emerging from the woods, and Benson saw youth, a lieutenant, a salute for his commander.
“Company D has completed their withdrawal, sir. Captain Gridley is waiting for the replacements.”
“Good. Get our men into the trucks as soon as you can. I want to be off this damn mountain before it’s too dark to see.”
“Yes, sir!”
The young lieutenant began to scramble back along the road, hurrying his men. Benson watched the scene play out, the men of the Second Division flowing out, the woods draining of men, the officer just watching them.
Captain Moore said, “Sir, Colonel Cavender has instructed me to order my men into position only when you give the command. We don’t want to hold up your withdrawal.”
“The withdrawal’s complete enough. Get going, son. It gets dark here at sixteen thirty. You’ll be placing your men into those dugouts and holes we left you. It’ll be a cold one tonight. I don’t expect trouble, but the enemy might sense something’s going on here. Keep lookouts posted all night. We’ve rigged up plenty of noisemakers if anyone goes wandering around in front of us. That means your men too. Keep them in tight for tonight. By morning, you’ll see what you’ve got in front of you.” He paused, looked up. “Probably snow all damn night. I told Colonel Cavender to start raising hell with supply for more socks, boots, and anything else they can send up here. Sooner the better. Ask for it before you need it. I think you’ll need everything you can get pretty quick.” He paused, looked at Moore, then the lieutenant. “Good luck, boys. Keep your heads down.”
The officer stepped out alongside the stream of men moving back toward the trucks. Benson watched him go, felt a strange sense of power in the man, nothing empty about his authority. Captain Moore watched him as well, glanced upward, the snow swirling harder through a darkening sky.
ZIEGENBERG, NEAR BAD NAUHEIM, GERMANY
DECEMBER 12, 1944
He was shocked by Hitler, who seemed more like an old weathered tree than a man whose mantle of power was absolute. Hitler seemed to know it too, made his entrance with no flourish, none of the bombast. He seemed instead to be hiding, holding something away from the eyes of the others, a coat wrapped around a quivering left arm. But the eyes were hard, searching, sharp glances toward the faces of the officers, as though he was testing them. Von Rundstedt had seen that before, more so since the assassination attempt. He has changed, certainly, he thought, furious at the betrayal, and just as furious that some of these men might have been involved. We will never know, after all. No matter how brutal the Gestapo has been, no matter how many investigations and executions, Hitler will never again trust this army. Not even Himmler can convince him that the Gestapo was perfectly thorough, that the entire plot was ripped out by its roots.
The plot had erupted in July, a bomb that had killed some, and wounded nearly everyone else in the room. Hitler had been injured as well, but his life had been spared by a phenomenal stroke of luck, the bomb placed beneath a table whose massive wooden legs shielded him from the worst of the explosion. Von Rundstedt knew that some of what he saw now were the effects of those injuries, but there was more to Hitler’s physical presence than old wounds. The man seemed to be withering away, betrayed by some physical or mental condition that no one would dare to describe.
Hitler moved close to the long table, self-consciously dragging one leg behind him, was followed closely by General Jodl and the ever-present doctor. He still eyed the gathering of officers but acknowledged no one, no smile, no friendly greeting. We have never been his friends, von Rundstedt thought. He followed Hitler’s eyes, glanced around the long room, the faces of men who knew the plans, others who did not yet know why they were there. No one spoke, no private discussions. We have changed as well, he thought. We are more afraid of him now than we have ever been.
Von Rundstedt knew many of the faces, generals and colonels, four dozen men focused almost exclusively on the Führer’s efforts to reach his chair. Jodl moved in front of him, pulled the chair away from the table, and von Rundstedt caught Jodl’s downward glance. Of course. Every table could have its own bomb.
Hitler sat, his shoulders stooped, curved like a bow. His face had changed as well, and von Rundstedt thought, it is not just aging. He looks sickly, puffy, like a man who drinks too much. The thought pulled his gaze toward Dietrich, one of the principal commanders for the Watch on the Rhine, Hitler’s outrageous plan of attack. Sepp Dietrich had once been Rommel’s man, at least for a time, a man who shared Rommel’s love of armor and, like him,
a general who enjoyed ramming his tanks into the face of the enemy. But many of the High Command believed him to be brash and stupid, and his heavy drinking did not endear him to Hitler. All the generals had learned long ago that you did not imbibe strong spirits in front of the Führer. Von Rundstedt looked at the glass of dark liquid, placed carefully by Hitler’s right hand. Ah, yes, the doctors at work. Von Rundstedt had often wondered about them, the prissy and proper medical men. They had long ago responded to Hitler’s ailments with a steady flow of strong medicines, drugging him to sleep every night, drugging him awake during the day. That is what he has become now, what we see here before us. And yet it is us who dare not imbibe the spirits.
The room was mostly full, the senior generals seated around the table, waiting for Hitler to begin. Jodl stood stiffly behind Hitler, ever-present, the puppet of a man von Rundstedt despised. If Alfred Jodl had any real ability as a commander of armies, no one in this room had ever seen it. But Jodl’s soul had long been handed over to his Führer, and though his official title was military chief of staff, everyone believed Jodl’s job was simply to agree with the Führer’s decisions. Jodl has done his job, has flitted about like some butterfly, a soldier who will never hear the guns, adding oil to Hitler’s wheels. One must not incur the Führer’s wrath, and so we must not incur the wrath of Jodl. Why will Hitler not trust us to do our jobs? Von Rundstedt continued his scan of the faces, so many good generals whose armies had been gutted and blasted from battlefields by so many bad orders that poured over them from behind. Obscene orders. Orders from a madman. The Little Corporal. And here we are again.
Hitler leaned forward on the table, supported by both arms, looked straight ahead at the man across from him, Model, his new favorite. To Hitler’s right sat Hasso von Manteuffel, the commander of the Fifth Panzer Army. Manteuffel would be one point of the spear, the armored force that Hitler had chosen to lead the drive toward Antwerp. To Manteuffel’s right sat Dietrich, the other spear point, his Sixth Panzer Army designated to drive the right-handed fist through the Allied defenses. Farther down the table sat Erich Brandenberger, the commander of what had once been Rommel’s magnificent Seventh Army. The Seventh had been bled viciously in the campaigns that had driven it away from the beaches at Normandy, so many of its veterans dead or scattered throughout other parts of the army. What remained were the men who had escaped through the Falaise gap, pursued and butchered by the Allied artillery and air force. But escape they did, and now they would fight again, though von Rundstedt knew they would never be the same. The Seventh had been rebuilt by scrounging men from other units, home guard militia, the Volksturm, some too old to be soldiers, some absurdly young, schoolboys, all that Germany could spare. The Seventh was the left side of the fist, mostly infantry, that would march close beside Manteuffel’s armor to clean up the ragged mess of the enemy on the left flank, the chaotic remnants of the American forces that Hitler expected to be obliterated by the panzers’ lightning strike.