That moonshiner had reckoned wrong.
Dead wrong.
Cole doubted that Brock was half the man that wily old moonshiner had been. That moonshiner had underestimated Cole. If Brock thought that he could push Cole around, he would be making the same mistake.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The colonel ordered up a jeep for them. Transportation down the cold and snowy road would be welcome, but they would hardly be traveling in luxury.
A corporal from the motor pool delivered the jeep with some explanation. Well, it was really a disclaimer. He hopped out and approached them with a bowlegged swagger, wearing his grease-stained khakis like a badge of honor.
“If it was just you two and the prisoner, Colonel Roberts said he wouldn’t have bothered,” the corporal admitted. “But he had to make an effort to accommodate that British liaison. Heaven forbid that we should make a British officer walk anywhere. You’d almost think they were still sore about losing the Revolutionary War.”
Cole glanced over at Lieutenant Rupert but had a hard time imagining him as a redcoat with a powdered wig, possibly carrying a Brown Bess musket. Then again, who knew — maybe one of his ancestors had tangled with one of Cole’s people way back then. They were both on the same side now, at least.
He took a second look at the British lieutenant. Rupert wore a newer uniform and hadn’t been living rough like the GIs, so that with his fresh-scrubbed face he barely managed to look older than a teenager. He had grown a thin mustache in the style of Clark Gable, as if to make himself look older. However, the mustache was so sparse that it more closely resembled the tines of a rake than a thick brush, so that it only managed to highlight his youth.
“Once the gas runs out, you’re on your own,” the corporal said cheerfully, as if that thought pleased him. “That’s if the engine doesn’t up and quit first. Or the brakes give out. I’d say it’s a coin toss which one happens first. Nobody is going to miss this bucket of bolts, that’s for sure.”
“Gee, thanks,” Vaccaro said.
The corporal strode off, whistling tunelessly.
Vaccaro got behind the wheel and started it up. The jeep ran about as well as the motor pool corporal whistled. Cole eyed it doubtfully. The strong scent of gasoline filled the air as the jeep’s motor rumbled and sputtered, racing one minute and then threatening to die the next. A pool of black oil steadily expanded across the snow beneath the vehicle. A few bullet holes pockmarked the sides.
Though the average jeep was truly basic transportation, this one wasn’t much more than a motor and four wheels held together with wire and rusty bolts. It had already been beat to pieces by untold miles of European back roads. Between the bullet holes and the rust, the thing had more spots than a leopard. Gasoline remained in short supply, but somehow a full tank had been procured for the jeep.
Though battered, the jeep beat walking. Within minutes of the vehicle’s arrival, they were on their way. Cole wanted to cover as many miles as they could before dark — and hopefully put some distance between themselves and the fighting around Bastogne.
Their jeep threaded its way through the outskirts of Bastogne, with Vaccaro at the wheel. Cole rode shotgun, an old term from stagecoach days when it was the job of the armed man sitting beside the driver to defend the stagecoach against highwaymen. Cole obliged by keeping his rifle at the ready. The German and the British officer sat in the back seat. Everyone was squeezed in tight, and it promised to be a long, cold, uncomfortable ride in the open air.
Several times Vaccaro had to slow down and steer around the wreckage of mangled trucks or the burned-out remains of a tank. Fresh snow dusted the blackened metal skeletons as well as the bodies nearby, as if nature itself was trying to hide the ugly charnel house horrors left by men at war. Under their blanket of snow, it was hard to tell whether the dead were German, Americans, or civilians caught in the cross fire. For the dead, it no longer mattered whose side they had been on.
The road was rough, worsened by the winter conditions and cratered by shell holes. Deep ruts seemed to want to reach out and grab the tires, so that Vaccaro had to slow down and maneuver carefully. Even on the good stretches of road, the jeep loaded with four men struggled to reach speeds of more than forty miles per hour. The motor struggled and wheezed in protest. In the open air, that much speed felt as reckless as being in a race car.
Cole still appreciated the fact that they didn’t have to walk, although it was anybody’s guess if the gas in the tank would be enough to get them to their destination. There was also the nagging thought of how much oil the jeep was leaking.
Vaccaro broke his concentration long enough to pat the dashboard and say, “Hang in there, Betsy. You can do this.”
As it turned out, running out of gas or engine troubles would be the least of their worries.
Just a few miles out of Bastogne, a mortar shell came screaming in. It was hard to say who had fired at them, and it really didn’t matter. Any vehicle moving on the road might be considered fair game by either side.
“Holy hell!” Vaccaro shouted, his natural inclination being to jerk the wheel to one side, away from the sound of the incoming round.
His reaction kept them from continuing in the straight line that would have carried them right into the mortar shell, which burst off to their left. Hot metal flashed overhead, but they weren’t hit.
However, Vaccaro had steered the jeep directly into a deep rut, one so deep that it was practically a trench. The forward motion of the jeep came to an abrupt halt as the front tires disappeared into the rut. The force of the jolt sent Cole, Rupert, and the German flying out of the vehicle.
Cole managed to grab the German by the back of his coat collar and shoved him toward a roadside ditch that offered some cover as another mortar shell rained down. Cole threw Bauer in the ditch and landed on top of him. The last thing he wanted was for the man to run away.
Fortunately, the barrage halted. Cole picked himself up out of the ditch and dragged the German after him.
“Everybody all right?” he asked, looking around.
Nobody had been hit. Lucky for them, the snow and mud had softened their landing when they had been thrown clear of the jeep. Vaccaro wasn’t as lucky, slamming his head against the steering wheel with such force that he came away with a bloody nose.
“Dammit, I think it might be broken,” he said, pressing a handkerchief to his face.
“It’s better than a fat chunk of shrapnel in your face,” Cole said.
“If you say so.” He dabbed at his nose again. “Hurts like hell in this cold.”
“I thought you said you were a good driver.”
“Normally when I’m driving, people aren’t shooting at me.”
“There is that,” Cole agreed. He didn’t say it to Vaccaro, but Cole had never actually driven a vehicle. Growing up, the Cole family had been too poor to own so much as a rusty old Ford. Or a mule. If they wanted to get anywhere, they walked. In the mountains, all that they ever needed were their own two feet.
Vaccaro’s bloody nose was no picnic, but as it turned out, the jeep got the worst of it. The four of them pushed it out of the hole that had caught the front wheels, but the force of the impact had shredded one of the tires, bent the steering rod, and bashed in the radiator. Considering the nearly indestructible nature of the average jeep, the amount of damage was testament to the force with which they had hit that hole.