The soldiers in Bastogne had been fighting for days on end without relief. In addition to the artillery fire, on Christmas Eve the Luftwaffe had made an appearance, bombing the town and even strafing it with machine-gun fire. It had been one hell of a Christmas present.
At the edge of the town, the truck stopped, and they all piled out once again, joining a larger group of soldiers assembling there. Some of the men had already been fighting in Bastogne for several days, and others, like Cole’s own squad, had been rushed in to hold off the German attacks.
A veteran of the Bastogne fight wandered over to bum a cigarette. Those had become scarce. Supplies had been dropped from the air, but ammo and medical supplies had been the priority, not cigarettes.
“Here you go, buddy,” Vaccaro said. “Take the rest of the pack. It looks like you could use it.”
“Thanks,” said the soldier, who was muddy and had a large patch of what looked like dried blood down the leg of his britches. Considering that he wasn’t limping, it probably wasn’t his own. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Welcome to the circus,” he said.
“It’s quite a show,” Vaccaro agreed.
“The Krauts won’t quit and neither will we. Did you hear what we said to the Germans when they asked us to surrender?” the soldier asked.
He spoke with a pride as if he had personally negotiated with the Germans.
“From the looks of the place, I’m guessing you told them to forget it. The Krauts are still pounding away.”
“You’ve got that right, buddy. General McAuliffe had one word for them, that’s what. ‘Nuts!’”
“Boy, are we glad to see you,” another soldier said as the reinforcements jumped down from the truck. “It’s about time you ladies got here.”
“Yeah, yeah, we already licked our Germans south of here in La Gleize, so they sent us up here to help you handle your Krauts.”
The soldier snorted. “Be my guest. The thing is, the Krauts don’t like being handled by you or anything else.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The soldier noticed their rifles. “Are you guys snipers? That’s a good thing. The Krauts like to set up in the hills or in one of the church steeples outside town and pick us off. It’s about time we had somebody who could shoot back.”
“That’s what we do.”
As it turned out, their skills as snipers wouldn’t be put to use right away.
Lieutenant Mulholland gathered the men to be addressed by a captain who seemed to be in charge.
“All right, I know you men are from different units and some of you just got here,” the officer said. “I’m Captain Brown. We appreciate the help, believe me. Since this group is kind of cobbled together, you’re now officially part of Team SNAFU.”
Several of the men chuckled. SNAFU was a popular military acronym for “situation normal, all fouled up.” The name Team SNAFU seemed to fit the circumstances. The unit had been thrown together by order of Colonel Roberts as a way to get every possible soldier into action. Meanwhile, the 101st Airborne anchored the defense of Bastogne.
“SNAFU sounds about right!” someone yelled.
“Listen up,” the captain said, raising his arms to tamp things down. “The first job for Team SNAFU is to hold back the Germans who will be coming along this road soon enough. They want to get into Bastogne, and we’re not going to let them, are we?”
“No, sir!” several men shouted in unison.
Cole had to hand it to Captain Brown. He was managing to rally tired and exhausted troops in time to face a new threat from the enemy.
“We’re going to follow this road here and then get into the trees and dig in. Remember that if the Krauts get past us, this road takes them right into Bastogne. So don’t let them by, goddammit.”
That was it for the speech, and it was too damn cold to stand around listening to speeches anyway. Captain Brown climbed into a jeep that rushed up the road, and the infantrymen followed on foot.
CHAPTER SIX
Holding Bastogne against the Germans was a bit like the Dutch boy trying to stop all the holes in the dike by using his fingers. In this case, they might need their toes too.
“What I’d like to know is, Where the hell did all these Krauts come from?” Vaccaro wondered. “They’re supposed to be beaten — or close to it. That’s what everybody says, anyhow.”
“I reckon Hitler had other plans,” Cole said.
“You have to hand it to those Kraut bastards,” Vaccaro said, offering the enemy some grudging praise. “They just don’t know when to give up.”
“How do you know they don’t think the same thing about us?” Cole pointed out. “It’s got to gnaw at them, us putting up such a fight.”
The weary soldiers of Team SNAFU were trudging beside elements of the 101st Airborne, being rushed to plug the latest hole in the dike. All of them were cold, weary, muddy, and hungry. Their C rations did little to quell their deep hunger.
The only consolation, at least as Cole could see it, was that the Germans couldn’t be in much better shape. Not if they had been advancing in these same conditions.
Cole looked around at the column of men, all moving along the slushy road. Nobody talked much, as if trying to conserve energy. Most of them had boots soaked through, no match for the snowy conditions, leaving their feet white with cold and their toes numb. It was amazing how a man could get to fantasizing about dry socks. Once they stopped moving and the sun went down, frostbite would set in.
Below the knees, the men’s trousers were wet from melted snow and speckled with mud. Many wore jackets that were not adequate for the winter conditions, not having been issued real cold weather gear yet. A few didn’t have coats at all. The weather was as much of an adversary as the Germans.
Soldiers did whatever they could to buttress themselves against the cold, developing a strategy to reduce their shivering as much as possible. Around their necks, some wrapped makeshift scarves cut from blankets they had scavenged in Bastogne. Still others stuffed old newspapers, mattress ticking, or even straw under their clothes in a desperate attempt at insulating themselves.
Some men wore cloths tied under their chins and tucked under their helmets to protect their ears, looking as if they wore old-fashioned bandages for a toothache. Vaccaro wore a strip of cloth torn from a flowered bedsheet from his chin to his helmet, making him look utterly ridiculous.
So far Cole had made few concessions to the cold, but even he had his limits and found himself shivering whenever he stopped moving for long. He still wore the bedsheet that he’d found as camouflage. The makeshift poncho didn’t offer any protection against the cold, but it would help him blend in against a snowy background when the time came.
They didn’t have far to go before they were ordered into the woods along the roadside, where they commenced to dig in. They were on high ground at the top of a low hill that overlooked a large open field below, through which the road continued. From this position, they had a commanding view of the road as it passed through the field. The entire area would be within their field of fire. It was clear to everyone that this spot had been chosen because the Germans were expected to make an appearance soon.
The men proceeded to dig in, but getting their entrenching tools to bite into the frosty ground wasn’t easy. The stubborn ground spit chunks of frozen earth back at them as it bounced off their shovels. The tree roots didn’t help either. Some men resorted to stabbing at the ground with their bayonets to loosen the soil. Once they had dug down about six inches, past the frost line, the digging became easier.