“At the rate you’re going, you’ll either end up there yourself or get killed,” the soldier with the country accent said. “Best follow us if you want to get there in one piece.”
The two ducked down an alley, and the paratrooper felt compelled to follow. The alley grew narrower, seeming to press in on all sides, but the sound of the artillery shells impacting diminished. Minutes later they arrived at the hospital. He turned to thank them, maybe offer them a sip of beer, but they were already gone, having slipped quietly away into the darkness.
The paratrooper delivered his second helmet filled with beer, sharing it with even more soldiers this time. There was still plenty despite some of it having sloshed out during the shelling.
When that helmet ran dry, he made a third trip and shared the beer around.
With the praise of the soldiers ringing in his ears, he made yet another trip back to the tavern for more beer. Half of it slopped out on the run back, but it hardly mattered, because he never made it through the hospital doors.
Blocking his path was a very irate officer, who happened to be one of the doctors at the hospital.
He stabbed an accusing finger in the paratrooper’s direction with so much force that it may as well have been a bayonet.
“Are you the one who’s been giving my patients beer?” the officer demanded. He didn’t wait for an answer before launching into a tirade. “I’ve got all kinds of bad wounds in here. Head wounds, chest wounds. Some are awaiting surgery. Giving these men anything to drink by mouth — beer, no less — is the worst thing you could do. You could kill them, dammit. I ought to have you shot!”
“Yes, sir,” the young soldier stammered. The officer looked mad enough to make good on his threat.
“Now get out of here and don’t let me see you again!”
Out of pure reflex, the chastised paratrooper slapped his helmet back on his head. The dregs of the beer that remained ran down over his ears, but he scarcely noticed because he was eager to get out of there. He wasn’t going to wait around for the officer to change his mind. He followed the doctor’s orders and got the hell out of there.
Back at Division HQ, Colonel Roberts was not a happy camper. It was bad enough that the Germans remained intent on pushing them out of Bastogne. Now he had the brass breathing down his neck to boot.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“Sir?” asked a clerk who was busy at a typewriter. Paperwork continued for the army, even in the midst of war.
Ignoring the clerk, he glared down at the message in front of him. He worked at a makeshift desk that consisted of an old door set between two crates. Just days ago, the door had actually graced the front of a neighboring house but had been blown off by an incoming shell. One of the clerks had salvaged it out of the street.
A fireplace struggled to heat the room, but it seemed to be throwing off more smoke than heat. As a result, they had been forced to open the window to let in fresh air, which defeated the purpose of having a fire in the first place. A stack of papers on his desk threatened to blow away in the breeze, so he had set his .45 on top of the stack to weigh it down.
The colonel chomped hard on an unlit cigar. He would have liked to light it, but to do so would have endangered his ample sandy-colored mustache, because he had already smoked the cigar down to a stub. Cigars were in short supply, and the soggy nubbin of the last cigar that he’d smoked was all that he had left.
The message he had received concerned a German prisoner. In particular, a German officer named Bauer. The colonel had barely been aware of the existence of this officer beyond the fact that several Germans had surrendered outside Bastogne, but apparently someone knew about him — and they wanted to interrogate Bauer for a couple of reasons. The first reason centered on the fact that Bauer might have valuable information to share about the disposition of German troops or other battle plans.
The colonel shook his head. He knew that interrogating the German officer would be pointless. A German officer was a tough nut to crack, and there was no reason this one would be any different.
The second reason interest had been expressed in Bauer was that he was being considered a war criminal, responsible for the execution of American prisoners. The colonel had raised his eyebrows at that — he hadn’t known anything about the incident until he had been informed by a surgeon who had treated a soldier who claimed to be the lone survivor of the incident.
The colonel had no reason to doubt that the account was true.
Perhaps the powers that be thought the accusation of a war crime would give them leverage with Bauer to get him to talk. For his own part, the colonel thought that the best solution would be to take Bauer out back and shoot him, if he had, in fact, been responsible for the murder of American boys.
But the decision wasn’t up to him, and to make matters worse, he was being sent a British intelligence officer who happened to speak German. The colonel’s orders were to make sure that the officer returned with the German.
It was this last part that left the colonel fuming. He would have to give up some of his soldiers to escort the German. He wasn’t in any position to give up a single able-bodied man, not while there was still a chance — a diminishing one, fortunately — that the Germans might still be marching through downtown Bastogne and singing “Ach, Du Lieber Augustin.”
Not only that, but escorting the German to the rear for interrogation would be a dangerous business, perhaps even foolhardy. It was hard to say who held the territory south of town. It might be Americans one minute and Germans the next.
The colonel glared at the clerk. “Go find Lieutenant Mulholland. Tell him I need a couple of his snipers. I hear he has a couple of real crackerjacks. If they can’t get the job done, I don’t know who can.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Brock Sumner had managed to find one of the few bottles of booze still available in the city, then claimed it by eminent domain.
The bottle had started out in the possession of a young soldier who’d had the good luck to find it in the ruins of a café. Brock had quickly relieved him of his burden upon spotting the soldier carrying the bottle.
“Gimme that,” he’d said after approaching the other GI.
“Finders keepers,” said the GI, who was already feeling the effects of the couple of pulls he had taken from the bottle. If he noticed Brock’s tone, he didn’t seem concerned about it. The booze seemed to have gone straight to his head.
But it was clear from Brock’s body language, as well as the menacing presence of three or four of his rough-looking buddies, that the rule of finders keepers no longer applied. It had been supplanted by the law of the jungle. The jungle, in this case, being the bombed and blasted streets of Bastogne.
Brock squared his shoulders and stood directly in front of the GI, blocking his path. The GI’s giddy smile faded. He was sobering up fast. Brock held out his hand for the bottle, and the GI acquiesced.
However, the GI lingered, seemingly uncertain as to what to do next.
Brock gave him a shove, and the smaller man stumbled back a few steps.
“Get lost before you get worse than that,” Brock growled. “Maybe you can find yourself some milk and cookies.”
Brock and his cronies laughed as the confused GI scurried away, processing the fact that he had just been the victim of a strong-arm robbery.
“You sure told him, Brock,” said a soldier to his right. Everybody in the squad called him “Brock” — no nickname necessary. Deep down, he took pride in the fact that “Brock” had a certain ring to it, like one of those movie stars who always played a tough guy.