The Second Objective (17 page)

One of the
Waffen
-SS standing along the road stepped forward, pulled his handgun, and fired three shots point-blank at an American private in the front rank of the crowd. The GI fell to the ground, clutching his chest in surprise, crying out for help.

Time seemed to slow; no one on either side moved. The prisoners around the man stepped back in horror and watched him drop.

Bernie dug in his feet to gain traction with every step, as if he were running in place, his legs heavy and unresponsive. As the first fatal shots cut sharply through the meadow, all he could hear was his own labored breathing. The logic of what the SS was about to do hit him in an oblique flash of intuition.

They don’t want prisoners. They’re moving forward too fast. They don’t want anything to slow them down—

The meadow filled with bullets. Machine guns opened up all along the edge of the road. Gunners on top of half-tracks turned their barrels into the meadow and fired away. As the first rows of prisoners went down, the stunned Americans behind them scattered in all directions, but the relentless fire from the SS grenadiers covered every angle. Cries of anguish and terror rose from the field as panic spread. Many tried to follow Bernie toward the woods but couldn’t catch him. Only a handful covered more than twenty paces before they were cut down, blood splattering the snow. A few close to the front line never even moved, but helplessly stood their ground; some fell to their knees and prayed while they waited to die.

Bernie reached the tree line. Bullets nicked the trunks and naked branches around him, buzzing like hornets. He didn’t know if any of the shooters had him in their sights, but he didn’t dare look back, plunging into denser stands of evergreens until he was gasping for air. He didn’t stop for half a mile, when the enfilade behind him finally ended.

Bernie fell to his hands and knees. All he heard from the meadow now were single shots and occasional bursts. The SS killers were walking in among the bodies, finishing off survivors. He turned back and held perfectly still, but he couldn’t see or hear anyone moving through the woods behind him.

The snow was deeper here, slanting drifts of cold, fresh powder. Bernie’s body began to shake uncontrollably, chilled to his core, on the brink of going into shock. He pushed his back against a tree, wrapped his arms around his middle, and tried to breathe deeply. His feet and hands felt numb; his ribs ached where the soldiers had clubbed him. Some deep animal instinct told him he had to keep moving or his body might shut down. He willed himself forward, the trail of footprints behind him his only point of reckoning.

It began to snow again, flurries thickening to a heavy shower. He darted through the woods for another mile, until he heard traffic and caught sight of another road and tried to get his bearings. A steady line of German vehicles moved along it, heading right to left; if they were going west, he was facing north. Farther down the road to the right he saw the edge of a small village. He kept going inside the tree line until he could see the first buildings more clearly.

The town looked deserted. A few houses had been hit by shells. One structure was still burning. A vague idea drove him—that he could crawl into an abandoned basement, find some warmth and maybe something to eat—but he knew he couldn’t chance crossing the road in daylight. Just then the dull drone of a plane passed overhead, slower and lower than any he’d heard all day.

Moments later, a shower of paper fluttered down around him. He looked up, as hundreds of white pages descended like oversized snowflakes. He plucked one out of the air as it neared him, held it up in front of his face, and willed his eyes to focus.

It was an illustrated leaflet, written in English. It featured a line drawing of two handsome, tuxedoed men, with their arms around three sexually exaggerated women in evening gowns and jewelry carrying open bottles of champagne. Next to these decadent figures, and oblivious to them, three American GIs stood over the dead body of another soldier in the snow. The title underneath the drawing read:
YOUR FIRST WINTER IN EUROPE
.

“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.

E
arl 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.