With the panzers out of sight, the only vehicles that Bauer had at his disposal were a couple of Kübelwagen. Small but sturdy, these vehicles, manufactured in the tens of thousands by Volkswagen, managed to traverse the hilly roads no matter how much mud and slush the winter threw at them.
The Kübelwagen were currently serving as their ambulances, and Bauer had long since given up his seat to make room for the wounded and the worst cases of frostbite. The second Kübelwagen had been Messner’s, and it had taken a direct order for the Hauptmann to give up his vehicle — and then only reluctantly. Messner made the point that Germans who allowed themselves to get frostbite were no different from men who shot themselves in the foot to avoid duty.
“Duly noted, Messner,” Bauer had said, his tone far from patient. “But you need to get out and walk.”
Bauer was not ready to go so far as classifying frostbite cases as dereliction of duty. Nonetheless, he was not happy about the frostbite — those men should have known better than to let their feet get wet. In this cold, wet feet were as effective as a bullet in neutralizing a soldier. He made sure that the sergeants reminded the newer men to change their wool socks whenever they could.
Bauer now had little choice but to plod along at the head of his men. He even carried a rifle taken from one of the wounded.
They left the open ground and moved back into the forest. As the trees closed in around them, Bauer felt a sense of uneasiness. He’d been told that there shouldn’t be any Allied troops between here and Bastogne, but who really knew?
Something flickered just at the corner of his vision. He turned that way, rifle at the ready, but there was nothing to see. Perhaps it had been some winter bird or foraging animal? Looking at the barren trees, he couldn’t help but think that they resembled the rib bones of the dead he had seen piled up in Russia.
He recalled hearing stories about the old days and how there had once been wolves roaming these woods, preying on the local peasants during the coldest months. Men went off to cut wood and did not return. Children went to bring the cows home and disappeared.
The wolves grew fatter.
Stories to scare children, not soldiers.
He shook his head and turned his attention back to the road.
He set a brisk pace, and after an hour his men were strung out along the road despite the efforts of the sergeants and corporals to keep everyone moving. He had lost sight of the end of the column around a bend in the gloomy road.
Bauer was about to call another halt so the column could regroup when he heard a burst of automatic weapon fire toward the rear.
His first thought was that the Americans had found them after all. He shouted orders for the men to get off the road, but it was unnecessary. His men knew what to do. They were already sprinting into the underbrush, getting behind trees, pointing their weapons toward the rear.
Bauer strained to see what was happening, but whatever was going on back there was hidden from sight. The flurry of gunfire was followed by a series of pistol shots, spaced apart like the ellipses at the end of a sentence.
It didn’t sound like an attack, because there was no return fire. He had been in this war long enough to know the different sound that American weapons made, and he had heard only what sounded like German weapons. Then he remembered that Messner was back there bringing up the rear and shepherding the prisoners.
The prisoners, he thought. He’s gone and done it, damn him.
Frustrated by the fact that his view was blocked, and with a growing sense of anger, Bauer jogged back along the column. Of course, the rest of his men were now on edge and watching the woods nervously.
When he finally reached the rear, he saw the curtain closing on the massacre.
Most of the prisoners lay dead in the snow. Hauptmann Messner walked among the bodies like he was out for a stroll, inspecting the cabbages in his garden with delight. When he came to a prisoner who was still moving, a cabbage ripe for the picking, Messner paused and shot the American in the back of the head with his pistol. The sharp crack echoed across the snow-covered hills.
Messner wasn’t the only one with unfinished business. Miraculously, one of the prisoners seemed to have gotten away. Bauer could see him in the distance, running through the trees. He was limping badly and probably wounded, but he had somehow managed to get away from the road.
But he would not escape. One of his men raised a rifle equipped with a telescopic sight. That would be Dietzel, he thought, one of his Jaeger, or scouts, who had a reputation as a crack shot.
Bauer found himself holding his breath as the Jaeger took aim, even surprising himself by willing the prisoner to run deeper into the trees. Yes, the man was an enemy soldier, but he had so much fight in him.
Then the rifle fired, and the fleeing man tumbled into the snow and did not move again.
Bauer stood alone in the abrupt silence, clenching and unclenching his fists. He had the odd sense that the wintry hills and trees were somehow looking on in disapproval.
Hauptmann Messner walked toward him, brandishing a happy smile. Behind Messner came two soldiers. One was Obergefreiter Gerhard Dietzel, holding his sniper rifle, and the other man carried an automatic weapon. He recognized him as a soldier named Gettinger. Both were men who had found the Hauptmann’s favor and had become quite loyal to him. In their sullen eyes, Bauer saw mirrored Messner’s disapproval of their commander.
Over the Hauptmann’s shoulder, Bauer could see the prisoners’ bodies sprawled at the edge of the road. Several soldiers had come from the front of the column to see what all the shooting was about.
“They could not keep up, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Messner said. Even Messner seemed to hear the lie in his voice, because he shrugged dismissively.
“Is that so?” Bauer fought down the anger that he felt because he did not want to shout at his second-in-command in front of the men. It was not the prisoners that Bauer cared about so much as the fact that Messner had intentionally thumbed his nose at Bauer’s orders.
Dieser Hurensohn. That son of a bitch.
Bauer took a deep breath to calm himself.
“For pity’s sake, Messner. What have you done?”
Like a lawyer, Messner laid out his case. “The prisoners were slowing our advance, perhaps intentionally. Some of them even tried to get away into the forest.” He turned to the soldier with the sniper rifle. “Isn’t that so, Dietzel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s done is done,” Bauer said. “Just make sure that there are no survivors.”
“There were none. I think you saw me make sure of it.” By way of emphasis, Messner patted the pistol at his belt. Then he commenced to pull his black leather gloves back on.
“Good. Because if the Americans find out what you have done, none of us will survive, either, if we are captured. No German will.”
Bauer turned away, his one consolation being the look of realization crossing Messner’s face.
A die had been cast; a line had been crossed.
Also, none of them knew it yet, but Messner had been wrong about killing all the prisoners.
There had been one survivor.
Hidden under the corpse of one of his buddies, a GI named Charlie Knuth held himself very still to avoid receiving a coup de grâce at the hands of the German officer. He held his breath until his lungs felt ready to burst, although he wanted to cry out in pain from the bullets that had torn through his body. Lucky for him, before the German officer had made a closer inspection, attention had turned to the GI trying to escape through the woods.