“We ought to try to advance into the village,” he said to Vaccaro.
“I don’t know about that, sir. There’s a hell of a lot of Germans. The plan is to back this puppy back to the mouth of the tunnel and regroup.”
“All right. Let’s do it.”
The tank crept forward, still firing, and the soldiers behind it didn’t have much choice except to follow it or be exposed to enemy fire.
“Where’s he going?”
“They’re blind inside,” Mulholland said. “They can’t see that we’re out of the ditch.”
The lieutenant used the butt of his rifle to give the tank two quick whacks. The forward motion of the tank stopped. They heard gears shifting, and then the tank began to reverse. The reverse speed was faster than expected and the three men had to trot to keep from being run over.
Down the road, the German with the Panzerfaust saw the tank starting to retreat, and figured it was now or never. He lined up the sights and fired.
There was a tell-tale whoosh of smoke and flame, so fast that there was no time to dodge the deadly Panzerfaust round. The subsequent explosion made the tank shudder.
Whether it was a lucky shot or skill, the German’s Panzerfaust round had scored a crippling hit.
Mulholland and the others just had time to throw themselves flat in the snow. Lucky for them, it was the right front quarter of the tank that took the brunt of the explosion. Nonetheless, Bigelow cried out as a splinter of shrapnel caught him in the leg.
To their horror, the wounded tank came to a halt, engine clanking and shuddering. Thick, black smoke began to pour out of the Sherman.
Unfortunately, the security offered by the tight steel confines of the tank also turned it into a death trap. Exiting a tank filled with roiling, choking smoke was no easy task — if any of the crew had even survived the initial blast.
“Those poor bastards!” Mulholland shouted. “We’ve got to help them!”
Without thinking, the lieutenant scrambled onto the back of the tank, headed for the hatch.
On top of the tank, the hatch started to open, then fell shut again. Whoever was in there seemed to lack the strength to lift it from within.
When the hatch started to open again, Mulholland was there, getting his fingers under the lip and yanking it open. A soot-stained face appeared, coughing and choking on the thick smoke that boiled out.
Mulholland started to help the tanker, who suddenly slumped lifelessly in the lieutenant’s arms. From the village, they heard the solitary crack of a rifle. A shot from the sniper in the church steeple had finished the work that the Panzerfaust had started. Mulholland had no choice but to let go of the dead weight, and the body slid back into the smoking maw of the tank.
“Anybody else in there?” he shouted.
He waited a moment, bullets slicing the air around him, but no one else emerged. Flames began to lick upward from the interior of the tank.
Vaccaro had climbed up on the tank and grabbed Mulholland by the back of the belt, trying to haul him down from the top of the Sherman, where he was a target.
“Sir, it’s no use! They’re gone!”
It took another forceful tug from Vaccaro, but Mulholland finally got the message and slithered down off the tank, keeping low. Heavier smoke now poured from the crippled Sherman, helping to screen the soldiers from the gunfire in the village. It was as if in death, the crew of the defeated Sherman tank was making one final act of defiance against the Germans.
Benefitting from the bulk of the wrecked tank and the smokescreen, the three soldiers were able to run back to the cover offered by the tunnel.
Finally safe for the moment, Mulholland punched the air in an angry gesture. “Son of a bitch! They were just trying to save my ass and I got them killed.”
“Wasn’t your fault, sir. You didn’t kill those boys. The Jerries did.”
Mulholland knew it was true, but it wasn’t much consolation. He shook his head. He seemed to notice Cole slouched against the tunnel wall. “Hillbilly, are you hit?”
Cole raised his head, but didn’t seem to have the strength to respond. Whatever energy that he had managed to summon earlier was gone. His eyes looked glassy and bright with fever.
“He’s just sick, sir.”
“I’ll be damned. All right, let’s get out of here. Somebody grab Cole. It’s going to take more than our squad to capture this town.”
They pulled back, leaving the dead to be collected later. Bigelow was wounded, and they carried him out. Vaccaro draped Cole’s arm over his shoulder and dragged him out of the tunnel as the sound of German firing increased. Cole felt like dead weight.
So far, it had been one hell of a fight and it hadn’t gone well. They had lost two men, along with a tank and its crew. As for Cole, it looked as if he was out of commission for the time being.
On the other side of the tunnel, the rest of the company had set up a defensive line, reinforced by the second Sherman tank. Now, the tables had turned. As the Jerries advanced through the tunnel, the Americans opened up with a withering fire. The tank fired directly into the mouth of the tunnel with a white phosphorous round, resulting in a blinding explosion. A single German soldier emerged, hands in the air, screaming as burning phosphorus consumed him.
Vaccaro fired, and the screaming ended.
It wasn’t the first time that he had shot someone, but even if he was just putting that poor German bastard out of his misery, it wasn’t something that he’d ever get used to.
He turned to look at Cole, who sat in the bottom of a foxhole with his eyes closed.
“Hillbilly, I hope you get better soon,” Vaccaro said. “You’re a whole lot better at this than I am.”
Chapter Twelve
Night returned, along with the bitter cold. The fresh snow that had fallen previously turned crunchy underfoot. Troops did what they could in their foxholes to stay warm, liberating tarps from the trucks and huddling together, but it wasn’t enough. Everybody was shivering and miserable.
Adding to his misery was the fact that Cole was still fighting the flu, the night passing for him in fitful dozing. His head ached. His bones hurt. Vaccaro gave have him some lukewarm instant soup that he had begged and borrowed, which was about the best that could be hoped for in these conditions. Vaccaro also brought him some hard candy to help with his sore throat.
“I swear I could have heated up that soup on your forehead, Hillbilly. You want me to get the medic? Maybe he can give you some more pills.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Cole said. “I’ll be all right in the morning.”
“If you say so.”
Cole finished the soup, sucked on a piece of candy, and slept.
Vaccaro had given Cole his own blanket, so he tugged his coat as tight around him as he could, shivering. They had been in a lot of tough spots, but even he had to admit that this night was a new low point. It was freezing cold. Cole was sick. The Germans had halted the attack on the village, killing the greenbean and one of the squad veterans, wounding Bigelow, and destroying a tank in the process. All that they could do now was sit in the snow and lick their wounds.
From the village, he and the other soldiers heard the sound of singing. The Germans occupying the houses were sheltered from at least some of the cold. They started fires in the fireplaces, breaking up furniture to burn because most of the firewood was gone. Still, with the windows open to shoot out of, awaiting another American attack, the conditions were hardly cozy. But from the perspective of the shivering American troops dug into the frozen ground, the enemy was enjoying the lap of luxury.