For What He Could Become Page 8

  “I understand, sir, but it would save a ton of energy if we could dig our holes there. And sir, my men need sleep. And food. They need food and water. Will there be any tonight, sir?

  “I don’t think so, Corporal.”

  Captain Clark looked over at Adams, still trying to get a start on the foxhole.

  “Sir, are we gonna get out of this…?” Bill asked.

  “You’re right, corporal,” he said. “Lieutenant—order the company back into the woods. Tell them to find themselves a soft spot and dig in. We’ll put a couple of listening posts out here if we can ever get through this concrete.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lt. Adams said. He picked up his shovel and pack and started around the perimeter. “Williams, you go that way. Pass the word.”

  Bill looked at the captain still sitting as he was when he’d come over to him, one arm resting on each knee.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The captain nodded.

  It wasn’t all that easy, digging in the woods. But the ground was only frozen about an inch, and once the men got a shovel through that, they pried the frozen top off and set it aside. And digging the dirt wasn’t so bad until you hit a tree root. Roots, rocks, frozen soil—all enemies of the infantryman, but at least they couldn’t kill you. That was left to the machine guns, the artillery, and the freezing weather. Bill wondered how many of them would come out of this alive.

  They had left their wounded behind on The Eifel with several volunteer medics. And now, only a couple of miles from their last camp, they were digging in again. Bill swore that if he got out of this he would never dig another hole again, come hell or high water.

  At 0915 on the 19th, with the veil of fog beginning to lift from Schoenberg, the ground erupted. The first explosion lifted Bill halfway out of the foxhole and deafened him. Wayne was writhing on the bottom, arms and legs moving as he rubbed the side of his head, blood coming out of his ears and nose. Bill pulled himself back into the hole, forced the helmet down over his face, and covered his head with his arms. Fist-sized chunks of shrapnel sang as they flew over their heads and tore holes in the trees. Great clods of frozen earth rained down on them, but Bill thought of them as protection rather than being buried in his own foxhole. There was no talking, no looking. It was hard enough to stay in the hole with the noise hurting their ears as much as the concussions thumped their chests.

  Bill remembered the prayers he’d been taught in the village. How often had he heard them? How did they start? He couldn’t remember but he could see the priest standing in the cabin they had built as a church, the Episcopal cross on the door, the pulpit. He knew the words and he knew they were for times like this.

  “Death and destruction lie open before the Lord – how much more the hearts of men…” He remembered that. After each explosion he started over. He couldn’t retain what he had just thought; it was as if each explosion erased his thoughts and all of his memory and just as everything started to take form again it was removed in another concussion.

  In between explosions he heard Wayne throw up. He didn’t know how Wayne had enough in his stomach to throw anything up. Now the sour stomach smell mixed with the acrid odor of high explosives. It occurred to him that he had never had to endure much in his life—how was he going to endure this? How could anybody endure it?

  As suddenly as it began, the artillery ceased. It was as still as it had been for him under the water in the river. Then, one at a time, voices became audible. Cries for help, for the corpsman, GI’s stood up and shook themselves off, looked around to see who was alive and who wasn’t, took in the trees, observed the torn tops and distortion of the ground around them. Some smiled that they had survived it and seemed almost giddy, as if life had been re-handed to them and their hunger and thirst and cold and fatigue were nothing at this moment. They could wipe the dirt off, shoulder their rifles, march into Schoenberg, and clean house.

  Shouts came from behind them. Bill turned, and all the fight went out of him. German troops in green-black uniforms were coming through the trees, shooting and yelling. GI’s raised their hands and some removed their helmets. The front wave of Germans passed by GI’s still kneeling in their foxholes. The second wave of troops aimed their guns at the Americans and prodded them into a group.

  Wayne was still in the hole but had reversed himself and was now looking to the rear. He glanced up at Bill with a dumfounded look on his face.

  Bill was stunned. How had the Germans gotten behind them? Where was the main part of the battalion? Which way to go? His mind registered questions, thoughts, but there were no answers. He had maybe fifteen seconds. Run or surrender.

  He grabbed his pack in one hand and slung a strap over his shoulder.

  “Let’s go!”

  He leapt out of the hole and ran downhill away from the Germans, who were laughing as they came through the forest. Wayne passed him before he’d made fifty yards, then Bill struck a slick place, lost his footing, and tumbled down the incline. He spread his legs and skidded to a halt, adjusted his pack, and followed Wayne towards an area with foliage and small trees.

  When Bill got to the trees, Wayne pointed out the other side. As soon as Bill caught his breath he peeked out. German soldiers were walking back and forth in front of an 88mm cannon aimed at the hillside they had just come down. They were on the road to Schoenberg, but the Germans were there first and they were in place.

  A tank came into view around the corner, followed by self-propelled guns and more tanks jammed nose to tail.

  “That’s the Seventh Armoured,” Wayne whispered. “They got here.”

  “This is gonna be a hell of a fight. Let’s get out of here!”

  They both looked at the tanks edging closer to the concealed 88mm. There was no shooting. The tanks got closer—and Bill saw the German cross on the side.

  “They’re krauts!”

  Wayne went flat on the ground.

  Above them they could hear shots. They looked back up the hillside, where groups of GI’s had started down the hill and were moving to cross the stream and get to the forest on the other side. They were about a hundred yards down the hillside when German tanks came out of the woods to their left and started firing at them. Some GI’s doubled over, those that weren’t hit ran for the bottom. German machine guns opened up on their left. As soon as they got to the stream, German tanks on the right opened up and cut them down.

  While the Germans in front of them were directing their attention to the running GI’s, Bill and Wayne started back up the hill through a small gully toward the remnants of the 2nd Battalion. Near the top they ran into Lt. Adams, who had put together a mixed company of survivors and was raining mortar bombs on the German vehicles. He was wounded in two places but still directing the action. At last the tank and self-propelled gunfire drove them back into the forest and into the face of the oncoming 18th Volksgrenadier.

  Lt. Adams stopped and took count of his remaining men. There were 119 survivors from fifteen outfits. Wounded, surrounded, and exhausted, the 2nd Battalion was finished. Lt. Adams called a halt to the attack.

  Disorganized, confused, frightened, demoralized men slumped against broken trees, their weapons cradled in their arms. Most were almost out of ammunition and all were out of hope. What they had thought was the Seventh Armoured coming to rescue them had been the enemy in full strength. Now the hillside was littered with their dead, and down in the valley, scattered groups of the 423rd and 422nd were surrendering to the Germans.

  Bill and Wayne could see the Command Post and first-aid station beside it and could make out the officers nodding their heads from time to time. Rumors were going from man to man. Surrender. Fight it out. Food was on the way. The Seventh Armoured was at the bottom of the hill. Bill scooped up snow once they got back on top and filled a discarded canteen. He pulled out the cardboard he had packed, quickly got a small fire going, and put the canteen close to the flame. Every minute or so he shook the canteen and added more snow. Wayne, fasc
inated, watched him for a minute, then found an abandoned mess kit and did the same.

  GI’s looked over at the little operation but couldn’t seem to raise themselves enough to do it. Somebody was going to bring them food and water, there was surely going to be an airdrop today.

  While the snow melted Bill pulled dry grasses from around the base of the trees and replaced the grass in his boots and at his back. He put a pile by Wayne’s elbow.

  The officers dispersed out of the CP, each going to his own unit. Lt. Adams called what was left of the platoon together at Bill and Wayne’s location. He held his hands over the clear flame and rubbed them together. Bill noticed the cuts on his dirty fingers, the broken nails.

  “We’re going to surrender. Break up your weapons,” he said.

  Bill and Wayne looked at each other in stunned silence.

  “Lieutenant—can some of us break out?” Bill asked.

  Lt. Adams, his face twisted with pain from two wounds, said, “I’m sorry, Corporal. The orders are to surrender.” He kept his hands over the small flame for another few seconds, then straightened up and walked back to his foxhole.

  “I’m not surrendering,” Bill said. “I’m not spending the rest of this war in a prison camp.”

  “Me either,” Wayne said. “What do we have for ammo?”

  Bill felt his bandolier. “Four clips.”

  “I have five.”

  Bill reached down and shook the canteen. It was almost full. He took a drink from it, then shoved more snow into it and shook it again.

  “Which way?” Wayne asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Just then the officers in the CP stood up and walked down the slope. The men, reluctant and dejected, began to file down in columns, waving a white rag stuck on top of a branch in front of them.

  “This way,” Bill said and moved off to the southeast away from the Schoenberg road.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Their footprints were well defined in the snow, but Bill hoped that with all the trails and prints on that hill there would be no one who could track their movements. They passed several GI’s going the other way who just looked at them, helmets off and shoulders slumped. Moving toward capture they were shuffle-footed and distanced from the events around them. Their blank eyes stared but they didn’t speak. Coric watched longer than the others.

  “You guys gonna stay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Bill said.

  Coric put his helmet on and stepped out of the line. “Can I come with you?”

  “You got a weapon?”

  “I can get one.”

  They didn’t respond but moved away from the hill and back into the forest, away from the prisoner of war camp the battalion was moving toward.

  Bill could see green-black uniforms off to his left and slid behind a tree. He heard a click and turned to see an M1 aimed at him from behind a group of small firs. He pointed to his shoulder patch, and the rifle slid back into the bush.

  “Over here,” a voice whispered.

  Bill glanced around the tree, dropped, and crawled over. Wayne and Coric had seen the Germans and sheltered behind some broken-off treetops, victims of the last artillery barrage. They too crawled over behind the brush.

  There were three soldiers set up in there. They had a .30 caliber machine gun, two canisters of ammunition, and two M1’s.

  “You guys staying?” one of the soldiers said.

  The three nodded.

  “Have you seen where they’re coming from?”

  “Everywhere,” Bill said.

  He was itching between his shoulders. He didn’t like the situation here. If the six of them tried to go out together, the possibility of one of them being seen was high. But he liked the cover and the machine gun. Sweat leaked under his headband—he wiped it off with his sleeve, wondering how a person could sweat when it was freezing. He checked his watch: 1605 hours. It would be dark soon. He suspected that the Germans were cold and hungry too and that they wouldn’t willingly search everywhere in this forest.

  The soldiers’ uniforms showed them to be privates in the 106th. He outranked them, but he didn’t have much experience leading men. Then he smiled.

  “Mike O’Leary from the Northland Echo sent me to get you out of here.”

  “You Irish?” the machine gunner asked.

  “No.” Bill didn’t think the light was that bad. “But I think we can get out of here, if you’re willing.”

  They looked at each other, trying in a minute to size up their chances of going as a group or trying it on their own. Most of them shivered, not just from the cold. They could stay put or run, and they knew they had a good chance of meeting death or detention either way.

  Finally the gunner looked at Bill and said, “I’ll go.”

  His team nodded.

  “We’re agreed? All of us?” Bill said.

  Everyone nodded.

  It was as dark as it was going to get in the snow. They could see no moon or stars, yet a slight breeze stirred the treetops and caused the sweat they had generated to turn cold.

  They had heard no firing and seen no Germans since they slipped through them on top of the hill, sprinting one at a time from tree to tree in the opposite direction. None of them knew where they were, but Bill was sure they had crossed back into Germany. Two of the men thought the town of Oberlascheid was nearby.

  Bill spread them into a defensive perimeter, the machine gun at the highest point. Six men didn’t make a big perimeter, but it was their piece of this hill and they intended to hold it against all comers. It had turned dark before Bill found a large boulder at the edge of a narrow wood. He thought about building a fire, and the chances it would be seen or smelled.

  He got a small fire going against the rock and took out his canteen.

  “Who’s got water?”

  They all placed their canteens in the center. Three of the six had some water in them.

  “Wayne, get these filled with snow. We’ll spread the water we have around, put snow in and shake them. Couple of hours and we’ll have water for everybody. The water’s gonna be real cold, so keep your canteens from freezing, keep them under you or between your legs or something. In the morning we’ll find some food somewhere. Every other man awake, now—take shifts.”

  Bill awoke several times during the night and listened. Both sides seemed to be settled down for the first night in a week. Before dawn he awoke shivering and crept into the woods to relieve himself. This was the first time he had taken a moment to consider his patrol. They were young and strong. True, they’d been without proper food and short of water for several days, which would limit their endurance, but he thought every one of them could make it, physically.

  His thoughts turned to the enemy.

  If the German tanks were heading toward Schoenberg, it made sense that they were attacking and had defeated the 106th. For him and his men to get to their lines, they needed to head beyond Schoenberg but stay outside the combat area.

  Ammunition and food were critical. At first light he would send out several guys to take a look over the battlefield. There must be rations and unused clips of M1 ammo out there if they looked hard enough.

  He came back to the perimeter unchallenged, which bothered him a little.

  Before first light he called the men together near the rock.

  “I didn’t get your names yesterday, but now I need to know who you are and what you’re good at.”

  He knew Coric and liked the blond kid. He seemed eager to be a part of the patrol, and Bill told him to go toward the left and search all foxholes for discarded ammo and food. Eric and John, who were trained machine gunners, were sent one straight and one to the right. They each had a musette bag and were to stay out not more than twenty minutes, ten out and ten back. Peter, who normally carried cans of ammo for the machine-gun and protected it with his M1, was to go in thirty yards and act as a listening post.

  “Check the burned-out kitchen trucks if you get to
them,” Bill said.

  Wayne looked up. “If there’s anything warm there, bring it back.”

  Coric looked at him. “Even if it’s a tire?”

  “If it’s warm, bring it.”

  Bill knelt and watched them go. They weren’t like a platoon of confident victorious soldiers, but alone amongst the dead who lay as they’d fallen.

  The first to get back was Coric, who’d found several partial clips but no food. They divided up the ammo. Several minutes later the other three came in.

  “What’re you guys doing down that far?” Bill asked.

  When they opened the musette bags pieces of rations fell out, unopened cans, D Bars half eaten, a half-can of Spam.

  “The whole rations must have been picked up,” Peter said, “we didn’t find one.”

  “How about the kitchen trucks?”

  “There wasn’t anything left there, not even a hot tire.”

  Wayne said, “Next war I’m volunteering for the kitchen crew, at least I’ll get food.”

  They put the food in the center of the perimeter.

  “We’ll draw straws,” Bill said. “Short straw gets first pick of the rations. The guy on his left gets second choice and on around. You can trade if you want to.” He held up his fist with six straws in it.

  Coric got the short straw. He looked at the small pile of food that had been cast off by GI’s just a few hours ago and now seemed so valuable to them. He approached the pile and hesitated.

  “Come on,” Bill said.

  He took a partially eaten D Bar and sat down. Peter was on his left and took the Spam. “I’ve always thrown this stuff away before.”

  Each of the others chose halfheartedly.

  Wayne said, “Before the day’s over we’re gonna need more than this to get across the river and to Bastogne.”

  “Saddle up—let’s go.” Bill took point and moved in a southwesterly direction with the goal of getting to the Our River and crossing it before it got too dark. Somehow, he had to find a way they could dry out and warm up on the other side of the river or they’d freeze to death.