No Less Than Victory

by Jeff Shaara

  Benson huddled low in the snow, impatient for Higgins to finish. He could smell the coffee in the sergeant’s cup, thought of the kitchen trucks, those wonderful coffeepots. Well, that’s just fine with me.

  Beside him, Mitchell spoke up again, his low whisper just loud enough for the squad to hear. “Hey, Sarge, what do they want us to do tonight? We escorting another big-shot artillery guy, or we just cruising for Krauts?”

  “Don’t know yet. The captain didn’t let on any secrets. That engineer won’t be with us again, that’s pretty certain. The captain said he went back to his unit with his head in his hands. I talked to his private, the guy with the metal detector. Name’s Jacklin, or Jerkin, or something. He was pretty down too. Said he’s never seen a dead body before. They feel guilty as hell about our guys. Not much I could add to that.”

  Benson was getting annoyed at the talk, the wind picking up, the iciness biting his face. He pulled hard on the wool cap beneath his helmet, but his ears were stinging, the cold eating all through him.

  “Hey, Sarge, can we head back to those kitchens now? Nothing going on up here, and it’s three hours until we can see anything.”

  “Quit bitching, Benson. They’ll let us know when breakfast is ready. Nobody leaves this ridge until those replacements get here. The captain would have my stripes if I left these foxholes empty. If you’re so damn cold, then crawl back into your hole. The rest of you too. I’ll let you know when you can grab some chow.” Higgins flicked a lighter, held it low, looking at his watch. “It’s getting close to five. Time for our morning wake-up call. Everybody get into cover.”

  Benson didn’t hesitate, slipped away, moved quickly across trampled snow, pulled at the coat, beat his arms across his body, trying to erase the shivers. Damn! How much colder can it get out here? He slid down into the foxhole, curled up as tight as he could, trying to squeeze away the cold.

  Yunis said, “Wonder how that artillery observer’s doing? Feel bad for that guy. He gets lost or something and he’s in it real deep.”

  Mitchell was surprisingly talkative, said, “You heard all that outgoing stuff after dinner. That battery down in the draw behind us fired off a couple dozen rounds. It wasn’t for show. The phone line did the job. That was a hell of a show, and I’m betting he blew those Kraut bastards to pieces.” He lit a match, continued, “Five o’clock on the nose. Get ready for it.”

  Benson huddled low, used to the ritual. Yunis sat on the far side, his face turned toward the dirt, bracing himself. Benson remembered something Mitchell had said the first time they endured the wake-up call. One of those things lands right in this hole, nothing else matters. Nope, guess not.

  5:20 A.M.

  Mitchell was lying back against the side of the hole, his knees stretched out, and Benson could smell the chocolate bar. Mitchell said, “They’re late. No reveille. I told ya! That artillery spotter did his job.”

  Yunis seemed to perk up. “Hey, it’s almost five thirty. God. He did it. You know, when our shells went over, I was thinking how exciting it was. Kinda like training. I always did like the sound of the artillery. They shoulda sent me there instead of a rifle unit. Uh, no offense.”

  Mitchell was fumbling through his backpack. “You’re an idiot. It was exciting because they were our shells. Incoming’s not so much fun. Or did you forget about that?”

  Yunis was silenced, and Benson stared up, starless black. “You’ve gotta be right, Kenny,” he said. “That phone musta worked just fine, and that captain called back for the artillery. Just like it’s supposed to work. That’s pretty impressive, if he took out that whole battery. We were responsible for that. Got him out there where he needed to be.”

  Mitchell sat now, and Benson heard the cardboard, knew Mitchell was probably unwrapping another chocolate bar.

  Mitchell said, “Yeah, so tonight we get to do it again. That’s the army for you. Do a good job, and they make you do it again until you screw up.” He paused, looked at Benson. “You saw those Krauts down in that valley. I bet you wish you could have plinked at least one of those helmets. I could have nailed one of them from that hilltop.”

  Benson knew that Mitchell liked to brag about his shooting. Both men had done well at sharpshooter training. Yunis stayed silent, and Benson thought, I wonder if he’s even fired his rifle?

  Finally Yunis said, “I was just happy to get off that hill. I don’t like getting shot at.”

  Mitchell began to chuckle, and Benson knew what was coming.

  “So, that’s why you joined the army? No chance some bad guy might shoot at you?”

  There was a pause. Yunis replied, “I told the recruiting fellow I could type, and he said they needed office guys. It made sense to me. I worked for my dad in his store, kept the books. Had some bookkeeping classes in high school, and I type pretty fast. I figured I’d do my part that way. The recruiter told the truth too. The army made me a clerk, put me in an office with three gals working with me. That was pretty fun. Next thing I know, orders come in, and I’m shipped off to Indiana to join up with you fellas.”

  Mitchell said, “Yeah, ain’t we lucky. Just shut the hell up. I don’t want to know I’m in a foxhole with a damn secretary. You see any damn typewriters up here? You get somebody killed, Office Boy, and I’ll kick your ass … or worse.”

  Benson let the routine wind itself out, his thoughts drifting, his brain trying to distract itself from the chill in his feet and hands. He thought of the engineer, the lieutenant who had seemed so confident, who knew everything about mines and how to move through woods, roads, all of that. Benson realized now, I didn’t even know his name. He’s gone back to some engineering unit thinking he botched the job, that he got somebody killed. He glanced at Mitchell, the man eating the chocolate with noisy bites. You can kick Yunis’s ass anytime you want as far as I’m concerned. But that engineer … he’s doing it to himself. I can’t see how it was his fault …

  The air was split by a sharp roar, a thunderous impact, the ground suddenly rising up beneath him, the shell coming down close behind the hole. Mitchell fell hard to the bottom of the foxhole, his helmet in Benson’s stomach. Benson grabbed him, held tight, heard Mitchell cursing, but more shells came, the ground heaving again, the walls of the foxhole caving in, a burst of fire above them, more shells impacting the high trees. Benson still held Mitchell, felt the man curling up into a ball, and there was no pause, no break in the shelling, more coming in toward the left, men yelling, a call for a medic, someone hit. Still there was no pause, the shelling growing more intense, higher-pitched whines, shrieks, the whistle of shrapnel, slapping trees, timber falling. All along the hillside the shells came down, flashes of fire, hard bursts close by, many more farther away. Men were screaming, as they always screamed, their voices blending in with the sounds of the incoming fire, and Benson wanted to cover his ears, but his grip on Mitchell wouldn’t release. Yunis began to yell now, no words, his face buried into the dirt, and Benson ignored him, held his head low, his chin against his chest, felt one thunderous eruption close in front, dirt pouring in on them. He waited for the silence, for the final shell, so used to it now, the game the Germans played, reveille, but the sounds were very different, different-sized shells, and many more, ongoing, not stopping at all. The shelling rolled in over them from a hundred guns, then a hundred more, the entire ridgeline erupting into fire and smoke, the hard stink of explosives, dense smoke swirling around them all. Farther back, the shells came down along the roads, blanketing the kitchen trucks, the men with coffee cups, and to one side the command posts, Captain Moore diving headlong into cover of his own. Other officers had been caught above-ground, were swept away, erased by fire, some wounded, struggling to find cover where there was none at all. Others tumbled blindly into whatever foxholes they could find, coming down on top of men too frightened to curse them. The men who were wounded called for help, but no replies were heard, and those who were suffering, who lay sprawled out above-ground, did not suffer long. The shells c
ame down where others had already landed, no crater offering cover, wounded men blown high, new wounded scrambling blindly, panic, terrified search for escape. The men who had been deep in their foxholes sat in paralyzed terror, the routine they had endured every morning. But then it had been short minutes, now the shelling continued, blankets of fire, the horrifying screech of the German rocket launchers, the piercing shudder of the eighty-eights. Benson could feel the hillside quaking beneath him, some of the shells falling just short, the blasts like so many lightning strikes, bursts of blinding light washing over the foxhole, punching holes in the open field below. More of the shells were bursting high above, shrapnel punching hard into the ground, some straight into the holes, more screams, blood and cries, some foxholes giving way, mud and snow driven down, burying the men in their cover. Though daylight was still hours away, the German artillery brought their own dawn, entire ridgelines erupting into fiery hell, trees shattered, blanketing the men who hid below with torn branches and heavy splinters. In the thickets, the men who manned the machine guns had nowhere else to go, the fire sweeping down on them as well, no protection from the thick canopies of spruce and fir, nothing for the men to do but curl up into their dugouts and wait for the end. For some it was immediate and painless, others enduring the same terror of the riflemen in their foxholes, silent screams, prayers, men deafened and blinded, some paralyzed by the raw terror.

  The Germans had observers of their own, and the big guns sought out more than the troop positions. They targeted the American artillery, those batteries nestled into cover behind the infantry. As the men of the 106th absorbed the terrifying bombardment, the German guns opened up on a much wider front, far out in both directions. Two thousand German artillery pieces had begun an extraordinary bombardment along a front that stretched from Bastogne in the south to St. Vith and Elsenborn in the north, and beyond. North of the 106th, the 99th Division was blistered, as was the 2nd Division north of them. To the south, the American Twenty-eighth Division, fresh from their bloodletting at the Hürtgen Forest, felt the German guns as well, while on their flank the Fourth Division, the first men to swim ashore at Utah Beach, found their respite in the forest utterly shattered.

  In the command posts all along the American lines, calls rang out, company commanders alerting their colonels, the regiments calling back to division commands. But soon the phones went dead, the wires blown apart by the shells, or the command posts themselves no longer there. On the two main roads through the Ardennes, the two primary intersections at Bastogne and St. Vith, the Americans close to the front began to understand what the generals behind them did not. All the movement in the German lines, all the sounds of trucks and machinery, had a meaning that no one had predicted. The commanders of the American First Army had placed the inexperienced combat divisions, or those divisions that desperately needed rest, along the quiet zone of the Ardennes Forest. Their lines were too thin, their manpower stretched far beyond an effective defensive position. The forest that spread out around them was considered the least likely place to launch an attack, no place for armor, certainly, and with winter swallowing the hills and deep valleys in snow, no place for infantry to make any kind of assault. But still, the shelling came.

  DECEMBER 16, 1944, 6:40 A.M.

  Mitchell began to slide off him, the hard painful ringing in Benson’s ears relentless, blotting out any other sounds. Benson straightened his back, pushed against the wet dirt behind him, dug at the muddy wall that had collapsed across his shoulders. He saw Yunis at the far end of the hole, the man crying, wailing, his hands on either side of his face, a sound Benson could barely hear. Mitchell was moving, trying to unwind himself, picked his rifle out of the mud, turned toward Benson, faceless in the dark, but Benson felt the eyes, felt Mitchell’s hand, a light slap on his face, the question, and Benson nodded, Yes, I’m okay. Mitchell checked the rifle, struggled to stand, slowly peering out, and Benson pried himself into motion, ice and mud in his clothes, could see Mitchell outlined against the gray, his helmet, the shape of his face. But there was no dawn, not yet, and Benson stared past him, looked at the sky, the darkness gone, a strange glow of light, moving now, waves and streaks, drifting across the sky, revealing the shattered skeletons of trees. The light was not artillery, no blinding bursts, was different, dull and steady, broad swaths sweeping back and forth, coming from the east, from the Germans. Benson stared, fixed, curious, the paralysis wearing off, his brain starting to come alive. What the hell? Those are searchlights.

  Men were screaming, Benson’s hearing coming back, and he saw bodies close beside them, a direct hit on a foxhole, the men tossed out of the ground like broken dolls. One man was crawling away, down into the open field, plowing his helmet into the snow, dragging a ribbon of one leg behind him. Benson stared for a brief sickening second, saw others moving, one man turning over, rolling, then again, his uniform torn away, ribs, and Benson shouted, “Medic!”

  Others repeated the call, and men with medical kits were there, coming up and out of their holes, some slipping close to the bodies, checking, moving away. Benson could see their faces, odd, ghostlike, the searchlights reflected against the thick clouds above, revealing the entire ridge. More men were coming forward, running up from behind, one man helmetless, waving, and Benson recognized him, Captain Moore, pointing out toward the open field, shouting orders, meaningless words. The roar in Benson’s ears had changed, the painful piercing ring gone, replaced by something low and metallic. Benson watched Moore, waving at the men on the ridge, the men who had survived, and Moore was closer now, shouted into Benson’s face, “Get down! The enemy is on the road! A column of tanks! Watch the woods out there! Watch that open ground!”

  Moore moved on, repeating the order, some men responding, dropping down, some staring, as Benson was, paralyzed with the shock of the barrage. He turned toward the new sounds, up the ridge to the left, toward the road, the road they had crossed, out there, somewhere, the artillery spotter …

  “Get your ass down!”

  Mitchell yanked him hard, and Benson fell back, sat down hard onto mud. Mitchell was up again, peering out just above ground level, said, “Grab your rifles! Both of you!”

  Benson fought through the mud beside him, his M-1 wedged into the side of the foxhole. He tried to clean it, wiping with his wet gloves, heard shooting up the ridge. He climbed up, shoulder-to-shoulder with Mitchell, could hear the rumble of engines more clearly, the distinct sound of steel tracks. But the sounds came from the right as well, farther away, other roads and trails he had never seen. Down there, the ground was held by other companies of the 423rd, and beyond them, farther south, the 424th. He copied Mitchell, put his rifle up on the ground, pointing down the hill, saw nothing there, no targets, but Moore was back, still shouting, “Get ready! The Krauts are coming! Those are Kraut tanks! Hold here until you get orders to move! Watch that open ground, those far trees!”

  Benson stared out across the open slope of the hill, the woods beyond, the low ridge, lit now by the soft glow from the searchlights. Up on the road, there was a hard punch of fire, the impact ripping farther back through the trees, behind the foxholes. He jerked his head that way, but there was nothing to see, the road hidden. He thought of the captain’s word, column. How many is that? More tanks were firing, blasts in the woods back behind him. Rifle fire began now, familiar pops from M-1s, more, the rattle of machine guns, another hard thump from a tank.

  Benson felt a wave of panic, helpless, heard Mitchell screaming, “Get your ass up here! Get that rifle!” Benson looked down, saw Yunis, still curled in a ball, Mitchell grabbing his coat, yanking him hard upright. “Get your rifle up here or I’ll break your arm!”

  Yunis began to rise, and Benson looked away, would not see the man’s fear, not now. Mitchell shouted close to Benson’s ear, “Check your rifle! There have to be infantry!”

  “It’s good. Loaded. I checked it.”

  Mitchell said nothing, stared out down the hill, and Benson still fe
lt the panic, the churning in his brain. But he knew to follow Mitchell’s lead, and so leaned against the muddy walls in front of him, his helmet just above the top of the foxhole, stared out down the slope. The snowy open ground was different now, pockmarked with black, the churning impact from the shelling. He tried to keep his eyes on the far trees, but the fight to his left was increasing, more tank guns, machine-gun fire, the thump of a grenade. The ghostly glow from the searchlights was all across the sky, far out on both sides, and suddenly Mitchell fired his rifle, startling him. Yunis cried out, and Mitchell yelled, “Shut up! There they are!”

  Benson felt his heart punching his chest, the cold gone from his fingers, Mitchell’s voice driving into him, and he stared again at the trees, saw them now, lumps of white, moving in slow rhythm, coming out of the woods, drifting in a snaking line across the snowy field. More men came behind them, many more, and Benson felt his chest shaking, icy cold, braced the rifle against his shoulder, stared down the barrel. The open hillside was a blanket of motion, and beside him Mitchell fired again. Others were firing as well, the ridgeline coming alive, the rifles and machine guns working, shouts from the sergeants, so much training, all those games in Indiana, now giving way to the horror of why. Benson stared at the white figures far out in the snow, the word in his brain, Germans, and he felt shaking in his hands, could not aim the rifle, the fear boiling up. He felt wetness in his pants, down his legs, anger at himself, stupid, helpless. Mitchell shouted, close to his ears. “Shoot the bastards!” Benson gripped the rifle again, his cheekbone against the stock. He steadied his eye on the rifle’s sight, saw a blob of white, the man stepping high in the snow, and Benson aimed at the man’s chest, his brain fighting the fear. He hesitated, saw a face beneath a white helmet, the man stepping slowly, deliberately, a rifle held out, pointed forward, and Benson let out a breath, and pulled the trigger.