“You seen my lieutenant? I was with somebody-”
“Sorry. Just you and a bunch a dead GIs, kid. Keep your voice down. I can hear you just fine.”
Bernie noticed the attention of the other prisoners in the room drifting toward the door. The SS captain was shouting at the civilian, who had his hands up, flinching at every word. He wore a white shirt and stained white apron. Bernie guessed he owned the café. The captain pulled his handgun and pistol-whipped the man across the face, knocking him to the ground. He covered his head with his hands, pleading for his life. The captain twisted the barrel of the gun into his ear, toyed with shooting him but didn’t. He shoved the man to the floor with his boot, then turned to his soldiers and barked a series of orders.
The SS men at the door fanned out toward the prisoners, gesturing with their guns. “Raus! Raus! Ausenseite!”
The GIs stumbled to their feet and pressed together as a unit toward the front door. Swept up with the men around him, Bernie tried to maneuver near one of the grenadiers to try to say something in German, but he couldn’t get close enough. Even if he’d caught the man’s attention, what would he say? All he had with him was American identity papers. He didn’t know if any other divisions involved in the invasion even knew about their brigade. Without Von Leinsdorf to back him up, what if they didn’t believe him?
The SS men herded the GIs outside. A main highway passed in front of the café, intersecting with a smaller road that fed down from the north around a tight corner. Both arteries were jammed with German military vehicles-artillery, rocket launchers, tanks, scout cars, troop transports-entire armored divisions pouring in from the north and east. Two SS officers stood at the intersection, shouting frantically, trying to direct the columns as they merged toward the west. The traffic stretched out in either direction as far as the eye could see.
In a meadow to the east of the café, just south of the main road, stood a larger group of American prisoners, over fifty of them bunched together in the trampled snow and dead grass, under heavy Wehrmacht guard. Bernie and the GIs from the café were funneled down into the meadow to join them, forming a solid mass. German soldiers riding along the road shouted curses and laughed at the Americans as they passed. When one of the massive German Tiger tanks slowed to negotiate the sharp turn, an officer-Bernie thought he was a general-stood on the turret of his tank and called out to the prisoners in crisp English.
“How do you like us now, Amis? It’s a long way to Tipperary, boys!”
The other SS men riding on the general’s tank roared with laughter and gave the Americans mock salutes as they drove past the clearing. A burly American sergeant standing in front of Bernie raised his middle finger at them, which only made the Germans laugh harder.
“Nice to know they took care of that little morale problem they been having since we kicked their ass in France,” said the GI defiantly, moving toward the road and shouting after them. “We’ll see you again, you Prussian pricks! Go shit in your hat!”
Some of his buddies stepped in front of him to head the man off and shepherd him back into the crowd. Bernie didn’t like any part of what he felt brewing. The Germans were riding on a belligerent high that felt reckless and unpredictable. He worked his way to the southern edge of the crowd, away from the road, and looked back toward the café.
Bernie thought he spotted a green American field jacket among the black-shirted soldiers. He took a few steps closer. When the SS blocking his view shifted, he realized that Von Leinsdorf was standing next to them. He had his American helmet propped against his hip, talking to two SS officers. The two men laughed at something he said; Von Leinsdorf clearly hadn’t had any trouble explaining his identity.
Bernie took a few steps toward the café, waving his arms at Von Leinsdorf. He raised his helmet over his head, their brigade’s signal to alert other German divisions, and tried to call out, but he couldn’t make himself heard above the traffic from the road. Two Wehrmacht soldiers stepped toward him as soon as he moved out of the cluster in the meadow. He showed his helmet and raised it even further as he continued toward them, hoping they knew the signal.
“Ich bin deutsch! Ich bin ein deutscher Soldat!” he said as loudly as he could.
Von Leinsdorf never looked in his direction. Bernie saw Erich and the officers shake hands and part. The SS captain issued a fresh set of orders to the grenadiers around him. They hurried toward the meadow, while the captain followed Von Leinsdorf back into the café. Bernie pointed after Von Leinsdorf as the two guards closed in on him.
“Der ist mein dominierender Offizier! Ich muss mit ihm sprechen!”
The first soldier speared him in the stomach with the butt of his rifle, doubling him over. The second man struck him a glancing blow behind the ear. Bernie hit the ground and covered his head.
No other blows fell. He thought for a moment that he’d gotten through. When he chanced a look up, the soldiers had turned back toward the road. The SS grenadiers from the café entered the meadow, shouting orders to every soldier in the area. The two privates dragged him back to the main body of prisoners, dropping him near the perimeter.
Bernie heard the sound of breaking glass from the café, and moments later flames sprouted from the windows. The SS captain pushed the café owner ahead of him out the front door, shoving him to the ground, kicking him, pistol in his hand again.
The grenadiers from the café waved down two troop transports. They pulled to the side, out of the flow of traffic. A dozen heavily armed Waffen-SS jumped down from the back of the trucks, listened to the grenadiers, and then spread out along a fence that ran the full length of the meadow. Bernie heard a loud crack. He looked back over to the café; the owner was loping down the street, comically unsteady on his feet. The SS captain fired his pistol at him a second time, laughing, shooting for sport rather than trying to hit the man in earnest. Bernie didn’t see where Von Leinsdorf had gone, but he was no longer in sight.
The Americans in the meadow shifted restlessly in place. Bernie could smell the bloodlust in the air, and when the SS men turned to face them, he knew exactly what was coming. He backed slowly away from the rear edge of the group, the mass of prisoners between him and the guards near the road. Then he bent low and sprinted straight for the line of trees behind the meadow, fifty feet away.
One of the Waffen-SS standing along the road stepped forward, pulled his handgun, and fired three shots point-blank at an American private in the front rank of the crowd. The GI fell to the ground, clutching his chest in surprise, crying out for help.
Time seemed to slow; no one on either side moved. The prisoners around the man stepped back in horror and watched him drop.
Bernie dug in his feet to gain traction with every step, as if he were running in place, his legs heavy and unresponsive. As the first fatal shots cut sharply through the meadow, all he could hear was his own labored breathing. The logic of what the SS was about to do hit him in an oblique flash of intuition.
They don’t want prisoners. They’re moving forward too fast. They don’t want anything to slow them down-
The meadow filled with bullets. Machine guns opened up all along the edge of the road. Gunners on top of half-tracks turned their barrels into the meadow and fired away. As the first rows of prisoners went down, the stunned Americans behind them scattered in all directions, but the relentless fire from the SS grenadiers covered every angle. Cries of anguish and terror rose from the field as panic spread. Many tried to follow Bernie toward the woods but couldn’t catch him. Only a handful covered more than twenty paces before they were cut down, blood splattering the snow. A few close to the front line never even moved, but helplessly stood their ground; some fell to their knees and prayed while they waited to die.