In many ways, Brock was simply echoing his training. Army philosophy was to advance. Maybe it was football thinking. The best defense was a good offense.
Advancing sure as hell beat running, as far as Brock was concerned.
Up ahead he could see commotion. There was a tank — actually, a line of three tanks — plowing right up the middle of the road. The Sherman tanks were forcing the retreating soldiers into the ditches. Jeeps, trucks, whatever else was in their way, were also being forced off the road. A handful of support infantry traveled in the wake of the tanks.
“What’s going on?” Vern had seen it too.
“Looks to me like somebody has finally got the right idea,” Brock said. “They’re moving toward the fight, not away from it.”
The tanks traveling against the current of the retreating column were causing more than a little consternation. A few arguments broke out, but nobody was going to win an argument against a Sherman tank. Any truck or jeep that refused to move out of the way found itself nudged into the ditch.
The bully in Brock liked that.
Off to one side, avoiding the mess on the road, a jeep was driving across the field, heading toward them. Brock could see an officer in the passenger seat. Suddenly the jeep came to a stop, close enough that Brock could hear a major shouting orders to the advancing tank unit.
“Take no orders from anyone who’s not Seventh Armored!” the major shouted. “I don’t care if they’ve got stars on their collar. If anybody gets in the way, run them over!”
As the Sherman tanks approached, Brock made up his mind. He gathered up his squad and told them, “Enough of this retreating shit. We’re hitching a ride with these tanks.”
If the men in the squad disagreed, they knew better than to argue.
The tanks were forced to move slowly, but at least they were moving in the right direction. Their pace was slow enough for Brock and his men to climb aboard. In the hatch, the tank commander made it clear in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want Brock bumming a ride.
“Corporal, get the hell off my tank!”
“We’re going with you. We’re in this war to fight,” Brock shouted over the revving engine. “We’re sure as hell not here to run!”
The tank commander gave him a nod, then grinned. “In that case, welcome to the Seventh Armored. Now hang on!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Darkness enabled the convoy of reinforcements to slip past the Germans and get into Bastogne. For Cole and the other snipers, it was a relief to finally get off the truck.
“I hope I never have to ride on a truck again,” Vaccaro groaned. He stretched his arms over his head and walked stiffly away from the vehicle. “That thing bounced around so much that my legs hurt, my spine hurts. Hell, even my teeth hurt. As for my ass, it’s gonna be sore for a week.”
“At least we were better off than those poor bastards who had to ride in the jeep,” Cole said. “They couldn’t even grab some sleep because they had to hang on for dear life the whole way.”
Lieutenant Mulholland gathered the men, taking charge of the group that had ridden up in the truck, not just the snipers. “Listen up, we’re going to bed down in one of the buildings and get our orders in the morning. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can find us some hot chow.”
They would be spending the night in the cellar of an old furniture shop. In the dim light of an oil lamp, they descended well-worn wooden stairs, brushing against ancient stone walls that exuded dampness. There was no heat, but they were out of the wind. More importantly, the cellar provided shelter from the shells that the enemy occasionally lobbed into the town just to keep anyone from getting a good night’s sleep.
The electricity had long since gone out, and the only light came from candles and lanterns. A few lucky residents still had enough coal to heat their homes, but others were forced to huddle under blankets or put on all their sweaters to fend off the cold. Families sheltered in basements between bombings, praying that this nightmare would end sooner rather than later. Food and clean drinking water were getting scarce.
Cole took off the sheet that he had been using as improvised camouflage. It had once been a blinding white but was now soiled, spotted with mud and blood. He spread his blankets on the hard-packed dirt floor of the cellar, with Vaccaro and the kid doing the same.
“To be honest, it’s not much of a place to bed down,” Vaccaro said.
“I’ve slept in worse,” Cole said. The dirt-floored cellar reminded him of how he had slept under the porch back home when his pa was on a bender. “We all have.”
“I guess it does beat a foxhole.”
Cole stood up and stretched his stiff arms and legs. Vaccaro wasn’t the only one who felt sore right down to his bones. It had been a miserable trip, made worse by the constant threat of attack. At least here in the cellar he felt as if he could finally let his guard down, no longer having to worry about being ambushed by Germans hiding in the woods beside the road.
Exhausted though he was, Cole set to work cleaning his rifle. He slid the bolt out and ran a patch through the barrel to clear any fouling.
Watching him, Vaccaro just shook his head. He’d made no move to clean his own weapon. “Hillbilly, you must already have the cleanest rifle in Bastogne. They don’t give out medals for that, you know. Why the hell don’t you relax a little for once?”
“I don’t need a medal,” Cole said. “I just need to hit what I’m shooting at tomorrow.”
“You haven’t missed yet,” Vaccaro said. “That’s what they should give you a medal for.”
“I’m just doing my job, city boy. Shooting things is what I do best.”
Cole returned his attention to the rifle. He knew that his life depended on the Springfield functioning properly. It hadn’t let him down yet. Vaccaro had told him to relax, but truth be told, cleaning the rifle did help him relax. He found going through the ritual of breaking down the rifle and cleaning it to be soothing, a way to clear his mind before turning in. Other men might dip into a paperback or read a letter from home for the umpteenth time if they weren’t too exhausted, but that wasn’t an option for Cole. Even if he could have read them, he never got any letters.
Vaccaro was just about the only one who knew the truth, which was that Cole was illiterate. Anybody else who figured it out and made fun of Cole for being a dumb cracker risked having his teeth bashed in.
He’d never had much of a chance for book learning back home in the mountains. The nearest school was miles away, and it always seemed like there were more chores to do. Besides, Cole had always preferred spending his free time wandering the woods and hills, usually with a rifle in his hands. The woods had provided the only education he’d needed.
He could read signs in the woods the way most men could read a newspaper. Words just looked like so much chicken scratch on the page to him. Hell, he could pick out the shapes and patterns of the constellations in the clear night sky better than he could make sense of a jumble of letters.
His parents hadn’t put much stock in book learning, especially his pa. Cole’s old man had been what folks called woodsy, in that he scrounged a living from the hills and forests of the Appalachians by cutting firewood, trapping, and making moonshine. Unfortunately, his pa had been a bit too fond of his own product. He was a mean drunk, and it was best to keep out of his way if you didn’t want to get your head busted by his hard fists.
But when he was sober, Pa had been a good teacher in the ways of the mountains, showing Cole and his brothers how to shoot, hunt, and trap. Being a good shot meant the difference between meat for supper — or just some eggs and potatoes fried up in lard.