“We can wish all we want to, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s foggy, snowy, and goddamn cold,” Patton said. He snorted gruffly. “Our planes can’t fly. My tanks don’t give a damn what the weather is like.”
Ike fixed Patton with a baleful glare. He knew that he should have welcomed Patton’s can-do attitude — it was what won wars. The trouble was that, coming from Patton, such words always sounded more like a taunt — as if everybody else had their heads up their asses and it was up to Patton to save the day.
Ike poured more coffee to allow himself a moment to rein in his temper and gather his thoughts.
If there was one general who had been a source of constant headaches for Ike, it was Patton. The problem was that Patton had a knack for making rude comments in speeches, bragging, and otherwise making himself unloved by the rest of the officers’ club. Only Montgomery’s ego was possibly bigger, but at least Montgomery conducted himself like a gentleman.
For the most part, the show that Patton put on resonated with the average soldier. He was like the army’s equivalent of Admiral Halsey, who was always making spirited comments. He meant them too. There was no general with more of a fighting spirit than Patton. But as was typical, Patton often went too far.
Nearly the final nail in Patton’s career coffin had come just a few months before, when he had slapped young soldiers hospitalized for shell shock and called them cowards. The incidents had incensed Eisenhower, and he had briefly sidelined Patton.
Then again, Patton was just the man you needed in a fight. And a fight was what they now had on their hands.
Perhaps Patton’s hour had finally arrived.
Ike sighed. “George, how long will it take you to get your tanks into action against these panzers?”
“I can have them killing Krauts the morning after tomorrow,” he said.
The other generals stared. Pivoting the entire Third Army that Patton commanded seemed like an impossible task. What they didn’t know yet was that Patton had already set the wheels in motion, issuing orders before he had even left for this meeting. He had bet that Ike would be desperate for help and so had planned ahead, unwilling to waste precious hours.
“Don’t be fatuous, George.”
“Nothing of the kind,” Patton said. “Hell, it’s not really the Boche that worry me. I’m more concerned about this snow and fog. That’s the real enemy.”
Quickly, Patton revealed his plan to send his troops and tanks to turn back the Germans. He spoke with such confidence that he seemed to consider the outcome to be a foregone conclusion.
As exasperating as Patton could be, it was a reminder of the man’s talents.
Soon after that the meeting broke up. There were other details to be set into motion, but in the end, Patton’s men would provide a key piece of the plan to fight back against the Germans.
Ike might not have cared much for the name — Battle of the Bulge — but more than anything else, he didn’t want anyone to call it a German victory.
Ike had good reason to be worried.
Germany’s bold Operation Christrose was coming closer to success as the Germans made a move to reach Antwerp and deliver a setback to the Allied advance. The port city of Antwerp remained vital to Allied supply lines. Fortunately for the Allies, the weather that enabled the Germans to attack without fear of retaliation from the air was a double-edged sword.
In addition to the winter weather wreaking havoc with German logistics, the poor roads and staunch resistance by US forces had slowed Hitler’s plans. However, the advance had not been entirely thwarted. There was a narrow window of opportunity before either the skies cleared or the Allies could respond in greater force.
While the prong of the German advance led by Kampfgruppe Friel was running into trouble, it didn’t mean that the Germans had been defeated or turned back everywhere. Case in point was the crossroads town of Bastogne. The German advance couldn’t go around it because there weren’t any roads in the countryside big enough to support the passage of their armor. No, the Germans must go through Bastogne. What they had not counted on was stubborn resistance by the beleaguered forces there.
Reinforcements had arrived in the form of the 101st Airborne. They were putting up a good fight, but they didn’t have any armor of their own. The battle for Bastogne had heated up as the Germans threw everything they had at it. Now US armor and personnel were rushing toward the fight — Cole and the men in the trucks included.
Cole’s eyes roved across the dark stretches of forest they rolled past. All that he could see were trees and more trees across low rolling hills carpeted with snow. It was the sort of landscape that Cole was used to from the mountains back home. However, the deep shadows among the trees gave the forest a sinister feel. Lucky for the convoy, they had not encountered any other Germans since the skirmish in which the Krauts had blown up one of the trucks with a Panzerfaust.
Nonetheless, he knew all too well that danger might lurk around the next curve in the road.
As a reminder of that, over the noise of the truck motor could be heard the occasional chatter of a machine gun in the distant hills and the deep thump of artillery. As the miles passed, the sounds gradually grew louder, indicating that they were headed toward the action.
“You’d think what we did at La Gleize would have been enough,” Vaccaro grumped. “Isn’t it someone else’s turn?”
“Hell now, city boy. You know they’re just sending us because they know we’ll get the job done.”
Still, Cole had to agree that they had already done their part, and then some, in the fighting around La Gleize.
At that village, Cole and the other members of his sniper squad had helped turn back the German panzer unit that had reached La Gleize before running out of fuel and ammo. The German commander Friel and nearly eight hundred of his men in Kampfgruppe Friel had escaped back toward Germany.
By some measures, allowing so many experienced SS troops to escape and fight again another day seemed like a disaster. The Germans had used a clever ruse of lighting cooking fires and giving the appearance of holding their position, but had slipped away in the hours before daylight.
You had to hand it to the Krauts for pulling that one off, he thought.
Had allowing the Germans to escape been a failure? Cole didn’t feel that way, because the truth was that the American forces had managed to end the advance of Kampfgruppe Friel. Also, the Germans had been forced to abandon their tanks and support vehicles — they’d nearly all been out of fuel, anyway.
Then again, not all the Germans had escaped. Cole had set a trap for the German sniper known as Das Gespenst and had caught him in the forest outside La Gleize. Das Gespenst had been attached to Kampfgruppe Friel, helping them cut a swath of destruction as the Germans advanced.
But no more.
Das Gespenst kaput.
Cole smiled at the thought, cold lips curling back from his teeth in a feral grin. The smile did not reach his pale eyes, which were thoughtful, remembering the moment when, with a single bullet, he had finally ended a feud that had begun on the bloody beaches of Normandy.
There was no telling how many Americans Das Gespenst had targeted in his crosshairs, but it had certainly been a terrible toll. The German sniper had finally been paid off in American lead.
Although one prong of the advance had been blunted, the Germans were far from done. They were still pushing hard at Bastogne. The American holdouts were blocking their advance but hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Whatever reinforcements could be rounded up were being rushed toward Bastogne before the Germans could break through.