The Second Objective

by Mark Frost

  “EASY GOING HAS STOPPED” read the headline to the flyer.

  Perhaps you’ve already noticed it: The nearer you get to the German border, the heavier your losses.

  Naturally. They’re defending their own homes, just as you would.

  Winter is just around the corner, hence diminishing the support of your Air Force. That places more burdens on the shoulders of you, the infantry.

  Therefore, heavier casualties.

  You are only miles from the German border now.

  Do you know what you’re fighting for?

  Bernie laughed bitterly. The absurdity of it lifted enough of the weight he carried that somehow he felt he could keep going. There were at least two hours of light left, and he prepared to settle in among a stand of trees to wait. His vantage point gave him a view down the main street of the village. He couldn’t understand why it looked familiar.

  He found himself staring for almost thirty seconds at something hanging from one of the buildings that he knew he should recognize, before he remembered where he’d seen it before.

  A sign in the shape of a large pink pig.

  15

  The Bridge at Amay, Belgium

  DECEMBER 17, 3:00 P.M.

  Earl Grannit pulled out the German’s hand-drawn map and compared it to the bridge crossing in the town of Engis, but it didn’t match the picture. He climbed back in the jeep, where Ole Carlson waited, and continued along the road fronting the east bank of the Meuse.

  “There’s another bridge ten miles south,” said Carlson, who had been studying their regulation map. “Town’s called Amay.”

  They had made slow progress west on the roads out of Malmédy that morning, which were choked with Allied vehicles. At every checkpoint, they encountered GIs who knew less than they did, and who held them up with questions about the German offensive. Coherent orders had yet to filter down from First Army headquarters to company levels. The officers they ran into were acting solely on their own authority, without any overview of the field. There was no consensus at ground level about what the Krauts were up to, where their attack was headed, or how the Allies were going to respond.

  As they rounded a turn in the river and the nineteenth-century stone bridge at Amay first came into sight, Grannit ordered Carlson to stop the jeep. He pulled out the hand-drawn map again, and compared it to the scene in front of them.

  “This is it,” said Grannit.

  Carlson craned out of his seat to look. “Think the Krauts are here already?”

  “I don’t know, Ole. Let’s drive up and ask.”

  “But what if they’ve taken the bridge already?”

  “Then we’ll ask in a more subtle way.”

  They found a platoon of GIs manning an antiaircraft battery on the eastern approach to the two-lane bridge. A single .50-caliber machine gun and some sandbags completed its defenses, another match to the map. Grannit waved over the sergeant in charge as they drove up in front of the bridge. Grannit showed his credentials and asked the sergeant what orders he’d received since the offensive began.

  “Stay on alert,” said the sergeant, his cheek plumped with a wad of tobacco. “Increase patrols. Company said they were sending reinforcements, but we ain’t seen squat. Thought that might be you.”

  “What’s the new vice president’s name?” asked Carlson.

  “What?”

  “The new vice president. What’s his name?”

  “What do you want to know for?”

  “I just want to know,” said Carlson, his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  “Harry S Truman, from my home state of Missouri,” said the sergeant, spitting some tobacco. “What the hell’s wrong with you, son?”

  “I think he’s okay, Earl,” said Carlson.

  “Thanks, Ole.”

  Grannit told the sergeant what they’d run into at Malmédy. Other men from the platoon drifted forward to listen. He skimped on detail, but it was still the most news they’d had since the attack began.

  “What’s backing you up on the other side of the river?” asked Grannit.

  “Backing us up? Not a damn thing. Everything’s supposed to be in front of us. We’re it, brother.”

  “So what’s over there?”

  “Cows, dairy farms, and a shitload of pissed-off Belgians.”

  “Where’s this road lead?”

  “Once you’re across, about fifteen miles west it ties into their main highway. Straight shot from there to Brussels, about forty miles, then another thirty to Antwerp.”

  Grannit held the hand-drawn map out to the sergeant. “You have any idea what angle you’d have to be looking at your bridge to draw this?”

  “Up on that bluff, most likely,” said the sergeant, pointing to some low hills to the east. “Where’d you get this?”

  Grannit ignored the question. “Any jeeps come through here the last two days with guys saying they’re from Twelfth Army?”

  The sergeant canvassed his platoon. “Don’t ring a bell, Lieutenant.”

  Grannit looked up toward the hill behind them. “Your boys know the way up there?”

  “Sure, we patrol it all the time.” The sergeant ordered one of his men into the jeep with Grannit and Carlson. “Duffy’ll take you up.”

  It took ten minutes up a steep dirt switchback road to reach the summit. Grannit climbed out and walked along the ridge until he found an opening in the trees that offered a view down at the bridge. He compared it to the map. The angles and perspectives matched perfectly. Grannit signaled to Ole and the private.

  “Spread out and search this area,” he said.

  A short distance away, Carlson found some tire tracks that had pulled off the road. They followed them fifteen yards into the woods and in a small clearing found the remains of a campsite: discarded K-ration wrappers, a few soggy cigarette butts. Grannit examined them.

  Lucky Strikes. The brand he’d found at the Elsenborn checkpoint, smoked down to the nub.

  “They were here,” said Grannit. “Before the attack even started. That’s the reason for the American uniforms, that’s why they came over the line. They sent teams in to scout these bridges.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because this is where they’re headed. They don’t give a damn about Malmédy or Liège or Spa—”

  “Earl—”

  “This isn’t about taking back ground or engaging us where we stand. They’re going to cross this river and drive straight for the coast—”

  “Hey, Earl,” said Carlson. “There’s a jeep coming down the river road.”

  Carlson handed Grannit his field glasses. He steadied them on Carlson’s shoulder, found the road, then picked out a Willys heading south, slowing as it approached the checkpoint at the bridge.

  There were four men in the jeep.

  Grannit ran for their own jeep, shouting for the others to follow.

  Waimes, Belgium

  DECEMBER 17, 4:30 P.M.

  Traffic slowed as daylight began to fail, German vehicles passing now in clusters instead of a steady stream. Bernie could see their oncoming headlights splash across the side of a barn at the corner just before they turned right and exited the village. He waited until the barn went dark, then burst out of the trees toward the road. The barn lit up again just before he reached the front of the pavement. Ten seconds to cross over and reach the shadows behind the barn.

  The approaching vehicle leaned around the corner at high speed before he was halfway across. Bernie picked up his pace, cleared the far side, and sprinted for the barn. The headlights swept across him just as he flattened his back against the wall, but the German scout car shooting past him down the road never hesitated. He caught his breath, then crept along the dark side of the barn toward the edge of town.

  He heard footsteps crunching in the snow, voices speaking German just around the corner, and he froze in place. Two soldiers walked around the building ahead of him, rifles on their shoulders. Bernie was about to step out and
speak to them in German when he saw the double-lightning insignia of the SS on their collars. Images of the shooters who’d gone to work in the meadow flooded his mind. He leaned back into the dark and waited for them to pass out of sight.

  He crept cautiously down an alley in the failing light until he found Frau Escher’s butcher shop. He tried the back door, but it was locked, and he saw no lights inside. Bernie moved around the side until he found a narrow casement window at ground level that fed down into the cellar. He leaned down, broke the pane with his elbow, brushed the splinters out, reached in to undo the lock, and lifted the frame. He lay down on his belly and shimmied backward into and through the opening, feeling for the ground inside with his feet.

  When he dropped to the floor, Bernie pulled out his lighter, turned up the wick, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the faint, flickering light. He was in a storage room with a dirt floor, and a pile of firewood and a variety of cans, boxes, and tools stacked against the walls. He moved to the room’s only door, opened it quietly, and stepped into a short hallway covered with filthy, chipped linoleum.

  On the left, a steep flight of open stairs without a banister led up to the first floor and ended at a door. A second door was straight ahead of him at the end of the hall he was in. In the gloom of the basement he could see at least one other door, possibly to a closet. He started up the stairs. They creaked loudly under his feet. As he was about to reach the door at the top, he heard something move in the room at the end of the hallway down below.

  Bernie stopped midstep, held his breath, and listened. A few moments later he heard the sound again. A slight rustling, some substantial mass shifting in place against the floor. It sounded heavy and alive. An animal most likely. Maybe she kept livestock down here. He remembered the unidentifiable carcass he’d seen earlier hanging in the woman’s abattoir. He tried to erase that picture from his mind as he reached for the doorknob.

  A low, keening moan issued from the room down below and sent chills crawling across the back of his neck. Startled, Bernie turned toward the sound; the flame wavered in the air, burning his hand, and he dropped the lighter. It clattered through the gap between the stairs; the flame went out as it fell from sight, and the basement plunged into absolute darkness.

  The sound again. He realized that his first instinct had been wrong; it wasn’t an animal. A terrible sound of pain and despair—only a human voice could express such suffering.

  Bernie stopped in place, trying to orient himself in the darkness. He turned carefully and reached his hands ahead of him for the door at the top of the steps, located the knob, and turned it. Locked. He leaned forward and pressed his full weight against it. The door felt substantial, unyielding. He wouldn’t be able to attack it successfully in the dark.

  Another pitiable moan issued from the room below.

  Despite the cold, he felt sweat break out all along his brow. He felt his hands shaking. Afraid he might lose his balance, he turned and sat down on a step below him, trying to settle his nerves.

  Who was in that room? The woman, Frau Escher? Maybe the SS had come through and injured her, or worse, then left her to die.

  He used both hands and feet to slide down one step, then another, and work his way back down to the floor. On his hands and knees, he felt his way around the stairs, to the back of the risers, heading toward the spot in his mind’s eye where he’d watched the lighter fall from sight. He spread his hands out ahead on the floor as he edged forward, trying to cover every inch of ground.

  One of his hands came in contact with something smooth and fleshy and he scuttled back away from it, grunting in disgust. Another moan issued from the room behind the door at the end of the hall. Much louder and closer, and in the deep darkness the sound cut right through him.

  What had he touched? He waited, but sensed nothing moving toward him. He reached out his hands again, angling in another direction, slowly at first, then more frantically as fear wormed deeper into his mind, until his thumb grazed something metallic on the floor. He chased after it with clawing fingers and finally got his hands around the lighter. Trying to stave off panic, he flicked it once, twice, but got no spark. He shook the lighter in his hand, breathed deeply, waited, then tried again. The small flame sprouted into the air and held, a pinpoint of light in a sea of black.

  The geography of where he was faded back into view. His eyes took in everything in snapshots, turning to look in each direction until he fixed his position.

  The stairs. The short hallway. The door from which he’d entered from the storage room. The second door at the end of the hall.

  Under the stairs near where he was crouched, a pile of gnawed and weathered bones.

  Lying next to them, the object he’d grazed in the dark—a human hand.

  Bernie scrambled backward across the floor, away from the thing, until his back collided with a wall. His heart thumped in his chest; adrenaline pumped through his gut. He stood up without realizing it. As his back bumped against the wall again, the door behind him swung open. Bernie turned when he heard the hinges yawn.

  He stepped back from the open door and held the lighter out in front of him, waiting for the flame to penetrate the gloom inside. Two long shapes lay on the floor inside the small space. He took a step closer and saw that they wore olive green field uniforms. One rested motionless, and he knew on instinct the body had no life in it. The other moved slightly, seemed to sense his presence, then moaned again and feebly raised an arm in his direction. The arm ended in a bloody black stump.

  Bernie heard the sharp bang of a door slamming shut upstairs, followed by heavy, shuffling footsteps crossing the room directly over his head, and the sound of something heavy dragging across the floor. Keys rattled in the lock of the door at the head of the stairs. Bernie killed the lighter, left the small room where the two bodies lay, and retreated back down the hall to the storage room. Hiding behind the closed door, he eased it open a crack and looked out.

  The door at the top of the stairs swung open and a wedge of yellow light sliced down into the basement hallway. He saw her shadow first, then the woman’s bulk appeared on the landing, almost obliterating the light. She clumped down two steps, then turned and reached back for something. She proceeded to back down the stairs, dragging a body behind her feet first, face up. Bernie saw black boots and the green field jacket of a GI. The head bounced heavily on each step as she yanked the body after her like a sack of cement. She was wheezing with effort, and muttering under her breath in German.

  “Sehen Sie, Amis, wie Sie es jetzt mögen.”

  When the body hit the basement floor, she turned and noticed the open door behind her to the room with the other soldiers. She dropped the feet of the body she’d just dragged down and entered the smaller room. She pulled a string to turn on a naked overhead bulb, setting it swinging. Bernie saw a concrete floor with a drain in the middle, dried blood on the walls. Hanging from a line, apparently to dry, he saw what looked like a stretched, mottled sheet of skin. The woman leaned down over the soldier who was still alive and viciously kicked him with her boot, prompting another moan.

  “You open this door, Ami? You open this door? What I tell you? Maybe now I took your other hand, yes?”

  She marched back into the hall. Bernie shut the door quietly and leaned back, feeling ill and weak. He thought about trying to identify himself, in the hope she’d remember him from the other day, but what he’d seen in that room made that unthinkable. Not in the dark hell of that basement, not in an American uniform. She’d crossed a border human beings never came back from. He heard the woman’s weight burden the stairs as she made her way back up.

  Bernie glanced around the room in the dim light from the broken window. The line of tools against the wall. A shovel. A pickax. A hatchet planted in a small stack of cut wood under the window. He moved over to pick up the hatchet and caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

  Her bright, vacant blue eyes were staring down at him through the broken
window. Then, in an instant, she was gone.

  Bernie tried to pull out the hatchet, but it was wedged so deeply into the wood that he couldn’t dislodge it. The woodpile collapsed around him, sending logs rolling across the room. He stepped over them, his hands found the shovel, and he threw open the storage room door. He heard her footsteps stomping across the floor above. He closed the door behind him, ran underneath the staircase, and planted his back against the wall.

  He saw her shadow first, thrown down against the basement floor by the sharp yellow light as she stood at the top of the stairs. She held a meat cleaver in her hand.

  “You come to steal my food again, Ami?” she called toward the closed storage room door. “Like those other boys?”

  Bernie didn’t move. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

  “Maybe I lock you in down here. See how you like that for a week, yes? No food? No water? You like that, Ami? With your friends here?”

  She waited, then took a step down onto the first riser. Bernie heard the nails groan above him as they held her weight.

  “They all lying in a meadow, Ami. All dead. All your friends. We take care of them good, huh? Like I take care of you. You come into our village. You kill my livestock. Take my food. We see how you like it.”

  She stepped down to the next riser. Now Bernie could see the back of her feet and thick, booted ankles through the open stairs.

  “Come out, Ami. I have something for you,” she said, her tone changing to a playful sing-song. “You must be hungry, yes? Come here, boy, I fix you something nice.”

  As she stepped down onto the third stair, Bernie reached both hands in from behind, grabbed her fat right ankle and yanked it toward him with all his strength. Her left foot lifted off the stair, and she struggled to maintain her balance. She planted her left leg and nearly pulled her right foot out of his hand. Leaning forward, she made a small hop to the left, then tried to skip down to the next stair onto her left foot. Bernie twisted the foot he still held in his grasp and felt it turn her body in midair. She toppled forward, arms extended, landing heavily on her left side down the rest of the stairs with a loud yelp. She slid the rest of the way, then rolled onto the floor on top of the dead soldier.