by Dean Hughes
“The Germans have started a big counteroffensive up in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium,” Wells announced.
Alex sat up. He was still half asleep and was trying to let the words register in his mind.
“We’re going in with the 82nd, but this won’t be a drop. Trucks will haul us up there in the morning. So get some sleep but roll out early and get ready to go. All leaves are canceled. Everybody’s going.”
Alex dropped back onto his bunk. His first reaction was to tell himself this couldn’t happen; it was too terrible. He tried to think whether he couldn’t talk to someone, maybe Summers, and . . . but he knew it wouldn’t work.
Wells hadn’t turned the light on. Somewhere in the dark someone said, “What time are we pulling out?”
“I can’t say for sure. Be ready by 0800.”
“What about ammo? Where do we get that?”
“There’s none here,” Wells said. “If you brought anything out of Holland, take it with you. Otherwise, we’ll have to be supplied somewhere along the line. We don’t have winter uniforms, either. Take your trench coats and anything else you have to keep warm.”
There were other questions, but Wells had no answers, and he soon left. As the door to the barracks closed, one man swore bitterly, and then curses filled the air. Someone said, “No ammo. No winter clothes. If there’s a way to make of mess of things, the army will find it every time.”
Alex had the strange sensation he was sinking–falling into darkness. But it had always seemed too good to be true, this chance to see Anna. He felt a kind of inevitability in the arrival of more evil, more suffering, and suddenly he was gripped with resentment. It seemed so obvious that sooner or later he was going to die in one of these battles, and he would never see Anna again in this life. After his escape from all the misery in Holland, he had allowed himself to begin to hope, but now he knew that had been a terrible mistake.
Alex heard the other men, but he didn’t curse, didn’t say anything. He lay on his bunk, stiff and awake, but in a kind of protective daze. And he stayed that way all night. Very early he used a flashlight and wrote Anna a letter:
I’m sorry. You know how much I wanted to be with you. But I think Hitler is making a huge mistake to come out from behind the Siegfried Line. We’ll stop this offensive, and the Nazis will be finished. I know this is hard for both of us, but one more time we’ll just have to make the best of things. I love you, Anna. Keep praying for me.
The letter did express his opinion, or at least what he wanted to believe, but it didn’t represent what he felt. He couldn’t tell her that he was numb, that his heart seemed to have stopped pumping. He had been hoping every day that his mail from Anna would catch up to him, but now he was pulling out without so much as a letter.
When others began to stir, Alex got up and packed. But as usual, the army asked its soldiers to “hurry up and wait.” The first trucks didn’t arrive until 0900, and it wasn’t until nearly 1200 that Easy Company finally got underway. Some men complained the whole time, but most had grown quiet. The hope of an easy winter was lost now, along with Christmas in a fairly pleasant camp. Clearly, more men were going to die–maybe before the day was over. Alex felt the dread, of course, the tightness in his chest he had known before each battle, but he didn’t calculate his odds of surviving one more time. He was moving into that other self, the one he had resorted to in Holland, the one that didn’t think or feel.
“How bad do you think it’s going to be up there?” Howie asked him. The two were standing behind the deuce-and-a-half truck, getting ready to board.
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “But it doesn’t do any good to worry about it. We’ll know before long.”
“Everyone kept saying we were going to be here all winter.”
“I know. But forget that now.”
“Are you going to get me through this one, too?” Howie laughed, but there was strain in his voice. Clearly, he wanted to hear the promise again, the reassurance Alex had always given him.
“I told you–just stick with me. You’ll be okay.”
“I’m going to be a better soldier this time, Sergeant.”
“I know you will.” And Alex did believe it. Howie obviously had more confidence, more trust in himself this time. What Alex hoped was that the boy was hard enough now. In all this cold, he could easily break down again.
When the company finally got under way, the troops were packed tight into the backs of the trucks, and there were no seats, no protection from the bouncing and jostling. Before long the men were also chilled through. The driver of Alex’s truck was one of the Negroes from the Red Ball Express, and he was a skilled driver, but he pushed hard, and he made very few rest stops.
“The way these truck drivers are pushing it,” Duncan said, “they must need us up there fast. I’ve got a feeling this ain’t going to be no picnic.”
“The army is moving something like 60,000 men up there,” Campbell told him. “The drivers probably have to go back and make another run.”
Campbell was sitting next to Alex, but the two were crowded so close together that they shifted back and forth, bouncing, as though they were conjoined twins. Duncan was on the other side of Campbell. “I don’t see why Hitler had to pick Christmas, of all times,” Duncan said. “The dirty . . .” Duncan stopped. He was swearing less these days, especially around Alex.
“Hey, that’s the whole point. He figures the German boys have more will than we do.”
Alex thought of the Germans he knew, how much they loved Christmas, but he didn’t say that.
Howie was pressed against Alex, on his other side. He leaned forward, looked around Alex, and said, “The Krauts have this all planned. They’ll have plenty of winter gear. We’re not going into this thing ready, the way they are.”
“That’s exactly right,” Duncan said. “They’ve got that smokeless gun powder, too. I hate it when they have cover and they can snipe at you–and you can’t spot ’em.”
“We’ll be all right,” Campbell said. “It’s not all that cold. In Minnesota, we have days colder than this in September.”
“Hey, what about me?” Duncan asked. “This time of year in Georgia, we sit on our front porches and listen to the birds sing.”
“I’d hate that,” Howie said. “At home, we don’t figure it’s even Christmas if we don’t have snow.”
“Same here,” Campbell said. “We always go out and cut our own Christmas tree. My grandpa has a farm, and up in the hills, along one side of his land, he’s got a big stand of pine trees. Me and my brother and my little sisters, we’d always hike in there on snowshoes. Then we’d pick out any tree we liked. No store-bought trees for us.”
“Is your brother in the service?” Howie asked.
“Yeah. The navy. But he’s got a nice, soft office job in San Diego.”
“How old are your sisters?”
“I don’t know. They’re all teenagers. Eighteen, I guess, and probably sixteen and thirteen–something like that. But don’t get interested. They’re all too pretty for a dogface like you.”
Howie laughed. “Yeah. I gotta admit, the girls never did line up just to get a look at me.”
Actually, Howie was fairly good-looking. If he hadn’t gone out much, that was probably because of his shyness. What Alex was glad to see was that he was talking, not turning inside himself.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, Idaho. When the war is over, you borrow your dad’s car–if you’re old enough to drive by then–and you take a trip to Minneapolis. I’ll let you take a look at three of the prettiest girls in Minnesota. Maybe one of them will even take you dancing.”
“It’s a deal. I’d let you dance with my sisters, but they’re both married. I’ll tell you what, though. We’ve got a couple of cows better looking than ol’ Elsie, the Borden cow, and you can dance all you want with either one of them.”
“Well . . . that’s a tempting offer, but there’s one more girl back home–as pretty as my sisters. If she’s still there
when I get home, I think I’ll spend the rest of my Minnesota winters with her.” He grinned. “Boy oh boy, that sure would be nice right now.”
The men laughed, but no one made any crude remarks, and even the banter gradually stopped. Alex thought of what was coming, the days in the open, the battles ahead. He was sure everyone was thinking the same thing: Christmas, and now this.
As the day continued, Alex saw nothing to encourage him. When the truck stopped late in the afternoon and the men piled out, they were on a country highway, and in the distance, the sound of heavy artillery fire was rolling, echoing across the hills. “Okay, men,” Lieutenant Owen hollered. “We’re hoofing it from here on in. We’re heading to a place called Bastogne. It’s a crossroads for the roads in this area, and the generals say we have to hold it. You squad leaders, lead out. Spread out a little and stay on the sides of the road. We could catch some fire now, so be ready to hit the dirt.”
“Where’s the ammo?” someone yelled.
“I still don’t know. Maybe in town they’ll have a supply dump.”
This was unbelievable. The artillery was not that far off. The men were heading into battle, some with a clip or two of M-1 ammo, others with nothing.
As the men hiked the two or three kilometers to town, they saw no sign of enemy troops, but they began to see American soldiers, infantry troops from the First Army, heading in the opposite direction. Alex was surprised to see men retreating, not regrouping, but even more, he was shocked by the look of the soldiers. Most of them seemed dazed and frightened. Some had thrown away their rifles and ammo, even their coats. Apparently, at some point, they’d had to run for their lives.
When an older-looking man, a sergeant, walked past, Alex stepped out of line and stopped him. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“You’re walking straight into hell,” the sergeant said. “The Krauts threw everything at us. I didn’t think they had that many tanks. Whole divisions, heavily armored, are pouring in from everywhere. We lost most of our company. I don’t even know where my company commander is. Dead, I’d guess.”
The sergeant was already starting to walk away, obviously hesitant to be slowed down.
“Could I have those grenades?” Alex asked.
“Sure.” The sergeant stopped long enough to hand them over, and then he said, “Take these too,” and handed Alex two M-1 clips. Then he was gone.
All along the line, the same thing was happening. The retreating soldiers were warning the 101st troops about the massive force they would be facing, and the paratroopers were asking for ammo and then walking with grim expectation into the combat that they could hear up ahead. When they reached Bastogne, they found a town of shops and little hotels, built mostly along one long strip of highway. By then the men were almost frantic about the shortage of ammunition, but they found no ammo dump in the city, and the direction came down the line to continue on through town and north, along the road toward Foy. Supplies would come.
Alex made sure everyone in his squad had at least one ammo clip for his rifle, but he had a machine-gun crew without a machine gun and a mortar team without a tube or any mortar rounds. In the dusk ahead, the blaze of exploding shells was lighting up the low-hanging clouds. He just hoped his men could get dug in somewhere, and supplied, before the action came closer.
The steady march had kept the men fairly warm, but the wind was picking up now, and the air was extremely cold. What Alex knew was that a frigid night was coming on. The men had no winter boots or galoshes, no long underwear. Almost everyone had a coat and a blanket, but they would have little protection should it snow that night.
Finally a truck came down the road from the north, driving hard. When it reached the first of the men, it slowed and then stopped between the columns. A lieutenant jumped down from the driver’s seat and shouted, “This truck is full of ammo and weapons. It’s not enough, but it will get you started. Don’t everyone crowd around. You squad leaders come up and get what you need for your squads.”
The sergeants hurried to the truck, and everyone grabbed for all he could get. Alex made sure he got a machine gun and a mortar tube. He made several trips, and he brought back a couple of cases of M-1 ammo and a case of hand grenades. The men grabbed all they could, but they were more than happy to share. They wanted ammunition, but they also wanted the guys next to them to have some too.
The troops fell back into columns and continued their march toward the tiny village of Foy, which lay in a valley to the northeast of Bastogne. As the village came into view, Alex could see only a few houses silhouetted against the false twilight created by the explosions not far away. First Battalion had arrived ahead of Second and had marched on through Foy. Those troops were clearly in the action now, taking heavy fire.
When word came down the line to halt, Alex was not at all sure what was going on, but eventually Owen met with Wells and then walked back to the platoon. “First Battalion is trying to get to a place called Noville,” he told his squad leaders. “Third is supposed to move on past us and march into Foy. Our battalion will head into those woods and dig in. This road will be our left flank, and the railroad line beyond the woods will be our right.
“Where’s our platoon going to be?” one of the men asked.
“We’ll create a line along the edge of these woods,” Owen said. “Our outposts will be in that field, just outside the tree line. No matter what the Jerries throw at us, we have to hold that perimeter. We can’t let them into Bastogne.”
That sounded clear enough, but once the platoon marched to the woods, Alex was unsure about where each squad was to locate. Finally the platoon leaders worked it out, since Wells seemed to disappear. But that worried Alex. If the units weren’t placed just right, there could be gaps in the line, and the Germans could send patrols in to penetrate.
But he placed the men as best he could, and then, in the dark, they dug two-man fox holes at least deep enough to sleep in that night. The men knew all too well that they could be moved again in the morning, and they were tired. On the other hand, they also knew that artillery fire could open up at any time, and that was enough incentive to dig a decent hole.
Alex and Howie dug in together again and then put in a terrible night. They were exhausted from the long, hard day, but the cold was so penetrating, and the apprehension so unnerving, that neither got much sleep. And then in the morning, true to everyone’s expectation, the squad had to move again–and dig new foxholes. The platoon took a position a couple of hundred yards to the east, looking down a long, sloping field toward Foy. They set up outpost stations–what the men called OPs–in the field, just as they had the night before, and dug in deep this time on a line just two or three meters inside the edge of the woods. Alex saw the danger in those pine trees. He walked along, stopping at each foxhole, telling the men, “If we take any fire, the shells are going to break up these trees and send limbs and splinters and shrapnel flying everywhere. I’d cover up your holes some way. Find logs if you can. Or cut yourselves some pine boughs.”
When he stopped to talk to Duncan and Curtis, Duncan said, “You don’t have to tell me, Thomas. I’m working on it. I scrounged a piece of canvas, and I’m going to hold that down with logs. I want to keep more than tree limbs out. I figure we’ll have some snow one of these days, too.”
“Where in the world did you get canvas?” Alex asked him.
“Never mind. In this man’s army, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
“Or what you can steal,” Alex said, and he laughed. Then he crouched down closer to Duncan. “I’m worried about these three young boys we picked up,” he said. “This could be a baptism of fire.” In Mourmelon, just a couple of days before pulling out, three kids, all just seventeen or eighteen, had arrived, straight from training camp.
“They were scared spitless last night,” Duncan said. Then he grinned. “About half as scared as me and ol’ Curtis. We know what to be scared of.”
“Do you know their name
s?”
Duncan looked away and gave his head a little shake.
“Look,” Alex said, “I know how you feel. But get to know them. Help me look out for them.”
“I know their names,” Curtis said. “Buckley’s the big, tall kid from Washington State. Ling’s from California, and Davis–I can’t remember–somewhere in the Midwest.”
“Illinois,” Alex told him.
“Irv Johnston has already fallen in with those guys,” Curtis said. “They’re his age. He’ll help ’em. We all will.”
“Yeah. I will too,” Duncan said. But then he asked, “What’s that one kid. A Jap?”
“That’s Ling. He’s Chinese.”
“Hey, as long as he can shoot a rifle–and will shoot at Krauts–he could be colored for all I care.”
Alex felt himself tense, but he only said, “Dunc, from what I hear, the army might start putting colored soldiers in with regular units now.”
Curtis was as southern as Duncan, but Alex knew that his attitude was quite different. “Won’t there be Negro regiments anymore?” he asked.
“I think so. But I’ve heard that some of the regular infantry divisions will get colored replacements. There was something about it in Stars and Stripes.”
“Don’t worry,” Duncan said. “They won’t ever put any of those boys in the Screaming Eagles. There’s not one of ’em that would jump out of an airplane.”
“Duncan, the colored units have fought well.”
Duncan finally seemed to notice that Alex was bothered by what he was saying. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve lived around coloreds all my life–more than you have. And I just told you, those boys can fight right next to me, as long as they can shoot.” He grinned. “When it comes to digging in with one, though, I think I’ll let you do that.”
Alex didn’t laugh. He merely said, “Anyway, I had a chance to talk with Ling when he got to camp. He’s as American as apple pie. He played halfback on his high-school football team in Bakersfield.”
“No complaints here. The only thing I wish is that we had back all the guys we started with.”