Bernie reached the tree line. Bullets nicked the trunks and naked branches around him, buzzing like hornets. He didn’t know if any of the shooters had him in their sights, but he didn’t dare look back, plunging into denser stands of evergreens until he was gasping for air. He didn’t stop for half a mile, when the enfilade behind him finally ended.
Bernie fell to his hands and knees. All he heard from the meadow now were single shots and occasional bursts. The SS killers were walking in among the bodies, finishing off survivors. He turned back and held perfectly still, but he couldn’t see or hear anyone moving through the woods behind him.
The snow was deeper here, slanting drifts of cold, fresh powder. Bernie’s body began to shake uncontrollably, chilled to his core, on the brink of going into shock. He pushed his back against a tree, wrapped his arms around his middle, and tried to breathe deeply. His feet and hands felt numb; his ribs ached where the soldiers had clubbed him. Some deep animal instinct told him he had to keep moving or his body might shut down. He willed himself forward, the trail of footprints behind him his only point of reckoning.
It began to snow again, flurries thickening to a heavy shower. He darted through the woods for another mile, until he heard traffic and caught sight of another road and tried to get his bearings. A steady line of German vehicles moved along it, heading right to left; if they were going west, he was facing north. Farther down the road to the right he saw the edge of a small village. He kept going inside the tree line until he could see the first buildings more clearly.
The town looked deserted. A few houses had been hit by shells. One structure was still burning. A vague idea drove him-that he could crawl into an abandoned basement, find some warmth and maybe something to eat-but he knew he couldn’t chance crossing the road in daylight. Just then the dull drone of a plane passed overhead, slower and lower than any he’d heard all day.
Moments later, a shower of paper fluttered down around him. He looked up, as hundreds of white pages descended like oversized snowflakes. He plucked one out of the air as it neared him, held it up in front of his face, and willed his eyes to focus.
It was an illustrated leaflet, written in English. It featured a line drawing of two handsome, tuxedoed men, with their arms around three sexually exaggerated women in evening gowns and jewelry carrying open bottles of champagne. Next to these decadent figures, and oblivious to them, three American GIs stood over the dead body of another soldier in the snow. The title underneath the drawing read: YOUR FIRST WINTER IN EUROPE.
“EASY GOING HAS STOPPED” read the headline to the flyer.
Perhaps you’ve already noticed it: The nearer you get to the German border, the heavier your losses.
Naturally. They’re defending their own homes, just as you would.
Winter is just around the corner, hence diminishing the support of your Air Force. That places more burdens on the shoulders of you, the infantry.
Therefore, heavier casualties.
You are only miles from the German border now.
Do you know what you’re fighting for?
Bernie laughed bitterly. The absurdity of it lifted enough of the weight he carried that somehow he felt he could keep going. There were at least two hours of light left, and he prepared to settle in among a stand of trees to wait. His vantage point gave him a view down the main street of the village. He couldn’t understand why it looked familiar.
He found himself staring for almost thirty seconds at something hanging from one of the buildings that he knew he should recognize, before he remembered where he’d seen it before.
A sign in the shape of a large pink pig.
15
The Bridge at Amay, Belgium
DECEMBER 17, 3:00 P.M.
Earl Grannit pulled out the German’s hand-drawn map and compared it to the bridge crossing in the town of Engis, but it didn’t match the picture. He climbed back in the jeep, where Ole Carlson waited, and continued along the road fronting the east bank of the Meuse.
“There’s another bridge ten miles south,” said Carlson, who had been studying their regulation map. “Town’s called Amay.”
They had made slow progress west on the roads out of Malmédy that morning, which were choked with Allied vehicles. At every checkpoint, they encountered GIs who knew less than they did, and who held them up with questions about the German offensive. Coherent orders had yet to filter down from First Army headquarters to company levels. The officers they ran into were acting solely on their own authority, without any overview of the field. There was no consensus at ground level about what the Krauts were up to, where their attack was headed, or how the Allies were going to respond.
As they rounded a turn in the river and the nineteenth-century stone bridge at Amay first came into sight, Grannit ordered Carlson to stop the jeep. He pulled out the hand-drawn map again, and compared it to the scene in front of them.
“This is it,” said Grannit.
Carlson craned out of his seat to look. “Think the Krauts are here already?”
“I don’t know, Ole. Let’s drive up and ask.”
“But what if they’ve taken the bridge already?”
“Then we’ll ask in a more subtle way.”
They found a platoon of GIs manning an antiaircraft battery on the eastern approach to the two-lane bridge. A single.50-caliber machine gun and some sandbags completed its defenses, another match to the map. Grannit waved over the sergeant in charge as they drove up in front of the bridge. Grannit showed his credentials and asked the sergeant what orders he’d received since the offensive began.
“Stay on alert,” said the sergeant, his cheek plumped with a wad of tobacco. “Increase patrols. Company said they were sending reinforcements, but we ain’t seen squat. Thought that might be you.”
“What’s the new vice president’s name?” asked Carlson.
“What?”
“The new vice president. What’s his name?”
“What do you want to know for?”
“I just want to know,” said Carlson, his hand on the butt of his pistol.
“Harry S Truman, from my home state of Missouri,” said the sergeant, spitting some tobacco. “What the hell’s wrong with you, son?”
“I think he’s okay, Earl,” said Carlson.
“Thanks, Ole.”
Grannit told the sergeant what they’d run into at Malmédy. Other men from the platoon drifted forward to listen. He skimped on detail, but it was still the most news they’d had since the attack began.
“What’s backing you up on the other side of the river?” asked Grannit.
“Backing us up? Not a damn thing. Everything’s supposed to be in front of us. We’re it, brother.”
“So what’s over there?”
“Cows, dairy farms, and a shitload of pissed-off Belgians.”
“Where’s this road lead?”
“Once you’re across, about fifteen miles west it ties into their main highway. Straight shot from there to Brussels, about forty miles, then another thirty to Antwerp.”
Grannit held the hand-drawn map out to the sergeant. “You have any idea what angle you’d have to be looking at your bridge to draw this?”
“Up on that bluff, most likely,” said the sergeant, pointing to some low hills to the east. “Where’d you get this?”
Grannit ignored the question. “Any jeeps come through here the last two days with guys saying they’re from Twelfth Army?”