No Less Than Victory

by Jeff Shaara

  “What do you mean?” asked von Rundstedt.

  Blumentritt seemed uncomfortable. He was far outranked by the others. “This army has built itself upon training. In every battle I have witnessed, the well-trained force is the force that holds his ground, that will fight until the enemy loses his will. No matter if they are outnumbered or outgunned, well-trained troops will prevail. When I expressed my concerns about the poor quality of the soldiers under my command, Herr Hitler insisted I not be concerned. He believes that our soldierly spirit will prevail.”

  Model said, “It has to. We have that spirit. I have seen it, so have all of you. No matter what our reverses have been, the German people wish us to continue the fight. The morale of this army is as high as it ever was. I admit … I do not completely understand why.”

  Model had calmed, and von Rundstedt saw the man’s gloom seeping past the anger, the energy behind the show of confidence drained away. The old man returned to his chair, nursed the pain in his legs, thought, Model is a man caught in a trap, hard walls closing in on both sides of him. He is angry because he has a job to do that he knows will fail. And he has no choice. Von Rundstedt wanted to speak but held it back, would not embarrass this man. Yet the words rolled through his brain. I feel sorry for you, Walther.

  After a long moment, von Rundstedt said, “Do your jobs. That’s what Hitler told you. If your soldiers are willing, they have a chance. It has always been so. An army that is unwilling will not fight. This army is still willing. They know nothing of plans and strategies and doubts. They will only do what is expected of them.” He paused, thought of the word. Plans. “My God, those fools around Hitler so love their plans. That lunatic Skorzeny and his plans to kill Eisenhower, his plans to capture bridges. We are wallowing in plans that are fanciful and absurd in every extreme. Perhaps you are correct, Walther. I should walk away, claim my age is too much of an impairment. Hitler has no use for me anyway, beyond whatever blame he can lay at my feet. None of us here expects to capture Antwerp, none of us believes the British and Americans will beg for peace. But you are right about the German people, and you are right about our soldiers. I have seen it in every fight. This army will do what its Führer tells it to do.” He paused, shook his head, looked again at Model. “There is no disloyalty here, Walther. In this room there is only truth. You know what you are being asked to do, and you know that it is quite likely it cannot be done. But you will do it anyway. Nothing we say will change any of that. And there is one more thing that will not change. No matter how successful this plan, too many German soldiers will die because they believe it when their Führer tells them they can still be victorious.”

  NEAR ST. VITH, BELGIUM

  DECEMBER 14, 1944

  The night seemed unending, full dark by five every afternoon, sunrise well after eight, like an afterthought, another screwup by the army. The men of the 106th had struggled that first night, frozen feet and wet wool coats, and if there was any sleep at all, it came from the brutal exhaustion of their journey. Benson had finally found sleep, curled into a tight ball against one side of the muddy foxhole. But as the Second Division’s officer had said, the Germans provided reveille. At five that first morning, the artillery barrage came. Now, three days later, it was routine, exactly as the officer had described it.

  It had been a shattering surprise, every man stunned by the quaking ground, the hard blasts that numbed their ears. They sat low in their foxholes for those few minutes, what seemed to the new men like hours of hell, engulfed in the unique terror that came with their first experience of incoming shellfire. When it was over, the men around Benson had emerged unscathed, calling out to their buddies. Gradually they rose, emerging from the holes, hesitant, testing the quiet. In some, the fear had given way to maniacal laughter, the GIs realizing that they had survived, that no matter the wreckage throughout the vast stands of trees, somehow they were protected. But the strange hysteria didn’t last, word coming along the lines that the company had taken casualties, one direct hit, a shell coming down straight through a makeshift canvas rooftop, the three men in the foxhole obliterated. There were questions, who … but the lieutenants had been angry and direct, ordering the men to keep to themselves. Benson had wondered about those men, had made a quick search for those closest to him, no one missing, thought, well, if you’re going to go, that’s one good way. You won’t even hear it. But soon his attention had turned to the woods themselves, damage he had not expected to see. Sergeant Higgins had noticed as well, the word passing that the Germans were using something very different, a kind of artillery shell these men had never seen before. The typical shells they had trained with exploded on impact with the ground, leaving a crater, tossing up muddy debris that a man could escape by staying down low in his foxhole. Those craters were around them now, spread down the wide open hill, dark smears in the snow. But the Germans were using something else as well, shells that exploded above them, high in the treetops, blasting limbs into tumbling debris and, worse, blowing shrapnel straight down. Around the foxholes, pieces of trees jabbed out of the snow, the fresh smell of cut and burnt wood, smudges of black from burning pine needles. The men didn’t need the officers to tell them that a foxhole wasn’t much protection against that, and with each new dawn there had been more casualties, a dozen men wounded in their shelters, three more men killed by a shell burst that had erupted only a few feet above them.

  The airburst shells drove the men to improvise, digging the bottoms of their foxholes sideways, carving angled gashes in the bottom, so a man could hug the ground facing the enemy and feel somewhat sheltered from above. But the idea was drowned by the mud, the sloped earthen walls too soft, more likely just to collapse. By the third morning, when the shelling had come, the routine had taken over, the men huddling up tightly, pulling their knees under their chins, making themselves small, some praying, some, like Benson, crawling deep into their own minds, hands clamped on ears, staring down into darkness, shouting silently at the enemy, Get it over with. There was another kind of routine as well, the men who could not keep silent, who screamed, muffled terror from scattered foxholes. Some of those were so engulfed by fear that they never heard the sound of their own voices. The others who sat cramped beside them tried to ignore the screams, but there was a contagiousness some could not resist. Benson had heard it close by, not sure of the man’s name, a few others down the ridgeline, a hellish chorus of screams that lasted nearly as long as the shelling. When the shelling stopped, no one sought out the voices, no one would tease or cajole or condemn the man who let his fear strike back the only way he could. In the silence, with ears ringing and debris scattered around them, the men of the 106th could only check on their buddies and begin their day, watching, waiting, resting. There was nothing else to do. After three mornings of this horrifying routine, Benson had realized, as had some of the others, that the Germans either weren’t very good shots or just didn’t care about targets. Many of the shells overshot their mark, coming down behind the ridgeline, others falling short, down below, out in the open. But there was mathematics to the shelling. It became clear that the German guns were each launching the same number of shells, four per gun, four guns per battery. It was as though the enemy artillerymen had been given a perfunctory order, a pattern of firing that served no other purpose than to harass the American positions. The shrieks and groans of the incoming shells could be traced from specific directions, what seemed to be beyond the next ridgeline. Benson was growing more curious if those batteries were hunkered down in some fixed position, not bothering to move or adjust, since the Americans had not done much to respond.

  How long till the sarge is gonna let us have some chow?”

  Benson shook his head, swung the ax. “Don’t have a watch. Looks like it’s getting dark, though. Sun goes down in the middle of the afternoon. Best to work up a good sweat. Maybe keep the cold away for a little longer.”

  Mitchell ignored the darkening skies, swung again, said, “Yeah, well the f
irst time you come out here to use this trench, you’ll forget all about being warm. I tried squatting over the old one, and the snow blew against my ass like I’d been slapped. Can’t be healthy for my … family.”

  “If you two jackasses would dig instead of jabber, this latrine would be done by now.”

  Benson glanced back, saw the sergeant moving close, two more men behind him, their relief.

  Higgins said, “All right, back off. I got replacements for you ditchdiggers. You two haven’t made a trench deep enough to hide a rat.”

  Mitchell tossed the pickax up to the flat ground. “Any rat wants to hide in this thing, he’s doing it at his own risk. My guts are so torn up, no one’ll wanna be near this thing when I let go.”

  Benson couldn’t help laughing, had always enjoyed Mitchell’s brand of humor. But Mitchell’s condition was increasingly common among the men, the combination of fear and K rations adding intestinal torture to the misery of the muddy cold. Benson had seemed immune, so far, an irony not lost on the men in his squad. As long as his feet were on solid ground, his stomach seemed to leave him alone.

  Benson handed his pickax to one of the others, saw the dirty face of Milsaps, no smile, the man accepting the job of latrine excavation with the same resignation that had affected them all.

  Higgins said, “You two go back to your foxholes. There’s supposed to be some hot food coming up our way by dark. Brubaker, Milsaps, you’ve got an hour to show these two idiots that a trench is supposed to be dug into the ground. Like a ditch.” Higgins looked at Benson, then Mitchell, who was already moving away. “You morons.”

  Benson ignored the sergeant, picked up his rifle, slung it over his shoulder. He tried to keep pace, but Mitchell was moving quickly, puffs of white from his breathing.

  “Wait up, Kenny.”

  Mitchell didn’t stop, said, “I gotta get out of these wet socks. The whole damn lot of us are gonna come down with some kind of fluenza or something if we don’t keep dry. I read about it … somewhere. Or worse, there’s some kinda crud out here, they say it’s worse than trench foot, but damn if I know what could be worse than freezing my ass off in this mud hole.”

  They tramped through deepening snow, followed the tracks of the others, could see scattered foxholes spread all through the pines. Benson, up beside Mitchell, said, “This is what Maine looks like, I bet.”

  Mitchell looked at him with a silent question: How stupid are you? “Nobody shoots at you in Maine, Eddie boy.”

  “I bet there’s deer out here. Plenty of ’em. You could climb under these short trees, use the limbs for cover. Deer would never know you were there. Probably a pretty good place to kill one.”

  Mitchell seemed to absorb that, pulled at the branches of a wide spruce, knocking snow off the limbs. “You may be right about that. I hear there’s wild boar too. But I’d rather hunt for Krauts. This might be a good way to set up an ambush. Put a thirty-caliber under there, hidden like inside a tent. Nobody could see you at all, as long as you didn’t go bumping into the limbs. You’re not so stupid after all. Now, do you mind if I have some damn supper? There’s at least half a dozen K ration boxes in that hole I been saving for a special occasion.”

  “What occasion?”

  “Easy one, kiddo. By later tonight, we’ll have a brand-new straddle trench.”

  DECEMBER 15, 1944, 5:15 a.m.

  The fourth morning’s shelling had ended, the ringing in his ears passing. Benson uncurled himself, worked on the stiffness in his knees, rose, one hand easing back the canvas sheet, peered up. Men were emerging, beginning to move, Higgins, rousing them awake, as if any man had slept through the barrage.

  Benson looked back into the darkness beside him, put a hand on Mitchell’s shoulder, said, “You okay?”

  He could only tell that Mitchell wasn’t looking at him, the man silent, and Benson thought, damn stupid question. If he was hit, we’d all be hit. He felt the misery, the frozen sogginess in his feet. The slush in the foxhole had turned icy again, but not solid enough, the muddy mess invading his boots. He tried to flex his toes, too stiff, and he cursed, the other two men pulling themselves up, another routine, testing, aching, suffering in their boots.

  Benson reached into the dug-out hole in the side wall of the foxhole, felt blindly inside his field pack. “Damn. No more dry socks. You got any?”

  Mitchell had stored his pack above the icy slop as well, and Benson could see his movement in the dull shadows, the sound of him rifling through his own pack.

  “One pair left. If I could see, maybe there’s another one stuffed down in here. I could strike a match—”

  “No, don’t!” The voice was too loud, panicky, the third man in the hole, Yunis, one of the newer men. “You can’t strike a match! The sarge said any light at all—”

  “Oh shut up. I don’t have any matches to strike. They’re all wet. Idiot.”

  Benson knew Mitchell didn’t like the new guy, and when Yunis had been placed into their foxhole, Mitchell had made a grumbling protest. But there was no choice, no one given options on which hole he slept in or who would join him there. Benson didn’t particularly dislike Yunis, but the man’s voice had a squealing whine that annoyed him, and so he tried to avoid speaking to him at all. It was hard to do in a hole barely long enough for a man to stretch out in, only wide enough for them to lie down close-up side by side. The men who had dug these holes, the veterans of the Second Division, had left them small conveniences that Benson would never have thought of, like the holes punched sideways into the earth halfway up, a makeshift shelf to keep things dry. But nothing was dry now. Each day, the frozen mud thawed just enough to create a deep pool of cold sludge in the bottom of the hole. The sides were soft as well, and Benson understood why the men they had replaced were so dirty. Mud was now a part of everything they did, and at night, when the temperatures dropped, the mud again would turn to ice.

  The clothing was adequate during the day, the heavy overcoat offering some protection against the breezy snowfall, which randomly changed from flurries to blinding whiteouts. The foxholes could be covered partially with shelter-halves, sheets of canvas or in some cases plastic, anything the men could scrounge. They were thankful to the Second Division veterans for that as well, the scraps left behind. But inside each foxhole, no matter how well sheltered from the snowfall, there was nothing they could do about the mud. Some men tried starting small fires, gathering small sticks, any sort of kindling, placed on top of some piece of metal, an empty ammo box, a beat-up mess kit, anything that would sit above the mud. The lieutenants didn’t seem to care as long as the fires were lit in the daylight. But the efforts were mostly futile, since almost nothing would burn except the wax-coated cardboard of the K-ration boxes, which burned too quickly and spewed out smoke that filled the shelters. Breathing meant uncovering the foxhole, which meant snowfall on the makeshift fire. The results were usually charred cardboard, loud curses, and the hacking cough of men who sucked in too much smoke. The successful fire starters had drawn brief crowds, clusters of men seeking more warmth than the makeshift fires could offer. Though the men kept low, the officers had been right not to be concerned. For the most part, the smoke blew away quickly, the wind-driven snow hiding the precise locations. But Benson remembered the Second Division commander, his words, that this hillside had once been in German hands. If the Germans decided to make real trouble, they didn’t need any smoke for their artillery to find its targets.

  Benson stuffed his backpack farther into the hole, said, “Keep the socks. I heard the sarge say more were coming up. I’ll wait.”

  “You sure? You know the orders.”

  “I’ll be all right. It’ll be light soon, and I’ll get up topside and take my boots off.”

  Yunis had pulled back the sheet of wet canvas, looked upward, said, “No stars again. Nothing at all. Jeez, it’ll probably snow again today. How many days is it gonna be like this? There’s gotta be some sunshine sooner or later.”

 
“Shut the hell up. Is that all you do? Bitch?”

  Benson tried to smile, but Mitchell’s cursing had lost its humor. Benson said, “Let it go, Yunis. The weather is gonna clear up when it clears up. Griping about snow isn’t gonna make it go away.”

  “Don’t coddle this creep,” Mitchell said. “Hell, it’s light enough. I gotta go test out the new straddle trench.” He grunted, climbed up from the foxhole, too noisy, and Benson wanted to whisper, Be quiet! Snipers! But Mitchell was gone quickly, and Benson tested his own gut, nope, not yet. Probably after I eat some more of this … whatever it is. Who figures out what we’re supposed to have in these K rations anyway? Somebody who never has to eat them.

  Beside him, Yunis said, “The snow really helps to see. I been watching those far trees, that ridge over there. The sarge said to keep an eye out on that line, and that narrow gulley to the right. There’s brush there, some kind of creek, I think. Could hide the Krauts until they made a move up the hill at us. I heard the lieutenant say there’s a road up that way that goes all the way around the hill behind us. The Krauts could show up anytime.”

  The words came in a nervous babble, and Benson had no patience for it.

  “Look, kid. What the hell’s your first name, anyway? I forget.”

  “Arnold … Arnie. Arnie Yunis.”

  “No wonder I can’t remember it. Look, the Krauts are sitting low just like we are. The sarge said that we’re supposed to sit here and let them know we’re on this hillside, so they know they can’t just wander up here. It’s just the way it works, I guess. They know we’re here, we know where they are … sorta. We keep an eye on each other and make sure nobody tries anything stupid. The worst thing we have to worry about is some German asshole up on that far hill taking a shot at one of us. Snipers. You get it? So while you’re doing all that watching, keep your damn head down. Just shut up and relax, okay?”