Screaming Eagles (The Front, Book 1) (2 page)

P
ine trees
overhead cast shadows on the cold hard ground as Sergeant Heinz Behr studied a tuft of undergrowth that had somehow survived the frigid cold. He dropped the envelope that had contained his division’s orders and tucked the letter itself into his jacket. No fire meant there was no way to burn the paper. He should've ripped it to pieces and buried it, but the ground was too hard.

His face was smooth-shaven, but it had come at the cost of applying a razor in the sub-zero weather. His cheeks and chin burned like they’d been scraped raw by a cheese grater. Just another indignity to bear while waiting for the next battle. It was important to keep up a front with his men, but in this war the effort seemed futile.

His combat clothing was stitched together in places, and his jacket was sodden. His boots dragged at the ground when he walked, and he couldn’t feel his toes. He’d long since given up on being disgusted at his own smell—that and that of his men. The last time he’d had a bath was sometime before the battle outside of St. Lo. He’d taken a bullet wound across his upper arm, but the medic had managed to stave off an infection. That or God had seen fit to allow him to keep his limb.

He took out the piece of paper and read the letter he’d received two days ago again.

1st Company, 9th Regiment, 2nd Fallschirmjäger Division

There was an addendum added of the letter in hasty, handwritten script.

Sergeant Behr had sworn off Pervitin after getting addicted to the pills for a six-month stretch while fighting on the Eastern Front. When he’d first tried the wonder drug, he’d sworn he’d never felt so alive and powerful on the battlefield. He’d been able to stay awake for almost twenty-four hours and had stayed alert during that time.

Then he’d crashed.
Hard
.

The next evening, he’d slept through an artillery barrage that had kept half of his men awake. Shells had roared all through the night while "screaming meemies", aka the 30 cm Nebelwerfer 42, had laid down barrage after barrage. When he awoke, it was to a tremendous headache that no amount of coffee and aspirin could alleviate.

They’d passed the last half of a week by moving along roads behind Panzer tanks and half-tracks filled with men. A few minor engagements had ensued, but nothing like the resistance they expected in the coming days.

His men had performed admirably, but they’d also known when to find a ditch to dive in or tree to hide behind. The second night had been much like the first, except word had come down that the doctors were on the way with the new serum. Behr informed the men, and they looked at him as if he’d slapped them.

“We need no magic juice to fight. We fight for the Fatherland and that is enough,” they’d seemed to say, but no one questioned his orders. The men rarely argued with him, because they were scared of his acid tongue. They also feared being given an assignment less desirable than attacking Anglo-Americans.

They set up camp behind a screen of armor, and were ready for a fitful night. Planes roared overhead on occasion, but fog had moved in, making aerial missions next to impossible.

Now they were being ordered to accept an injection of unknown chemicals, and they had no choice in the matter.

A man in an SS overcoat moved among Behr's men with the doctor in tow. They were creeping through the dark, and dragging a large wooden box. They stopped near his location and opened the container.

“Sergeant Behr," the SS officer spoke in a reedy voice. "You will be the first. For the Fatherland, you will soon know untold power.”

The doctor grinned in the wan light. His face was pinched and he had a little rat nose. He’d attempted to grow a small moustache like the Fuhrers but it was a grey and thin giving him a comical look.

Knowing he had no choice, Behr unbuttoned his thick jacket with numb fingers. He worked at the buttons for a moment before the doctor assisted. Behr rolled up his sleeve and exposed his upper arm.

The stab was quick, and then it was done.

The man took out a fresh syringe and applied it to his corporal’s arm. Jaeger’s took it stoically.

Another medic joined the doctor, and together they made short work of the company.

Behr’s eyes closed as a lassitude took hold. He gazed at a puff of snow, and thought it might be moving. He smiled, because he suddenly felt warm, like he was sitting before a nice fire.

Around him, his men sighed in equal pleasure.

If this was the worst of it, he would be a happy soldier for the rest of the night and day. To feel warmth again was the best thing he could ask for right now.

He shifted his weapon and double-checked his load out. He had several extra magazines, and also carried a pair of grenades. Sergeant Behr clenched his teeth and thought of the enemy: the Anglo-Americans who had killed so many of his brethren. What he wouldn’t do to charge into a mass of them right now, shooting, slashing his bayonet, leaping on men and ripping out their hearts.

Behr’s pulse raced as he thought of blood. Hot blood spilling from the enemy. Piles of bodies left to rot.

He snarled.

Near him, his friend Corporal Jaeger let out an equally strange sound.

The night lit up as an artillery barrage erupted from the east. Behr stared up, eyes following the descending rounds as they smashed into the Americans' positions.

The fight was on.

Behr motioned for his men, and together they moved into the night to find the enemy.

“
H
ow long will
the effects last?” the SS officer asked the doctor.

“For about twelve hours, mein Herr. They will go into battle and kill many of the Anglo-American forces. Our men will not feel pain and they will not feel the cold.”

“And after? How will they cope?”

“They will need more of the serum to be sure. Those who survive.”

“I do not like this. We have wasted too many soldiers. Far too many sons will not be returning home since Normandy, and yet I see the Führer’s goal clearly. We must strike and it must be swift and without remorse. We must break their lines and send them scurrying.”

“The serum is not as bad as it sounds, sir, and it has been extensively tested. Would you like to taste its power?” the doctor asked.

The SS officer stared at the man and didn’t say a word. He merely turned away from the hideous doctor and led him on to the next company.

L
ieutenant Joseph Coley
of the 394th Regiment, 99th Infantry Division was rocked out of a deep sleep by the world going up in flames. He rolled over, right into Corporal Travis Tramble. The next round landed in front of their position, and sounded like the end of the world.

Tramble pressed his hand to the side of his helmet and put his head in the dirt. Coley got a look at his Corporal’s shell-shocked face and wondered if he had the same terrified look on his own.

“What the hell is that artillery fire doing here?”

“Trying to kill us, I suspect,” Coley yelled over the din of exploding rounds.

They were in a dugout made a few days ago. Lieutenant Coley had overseen and helped his men dig the holes himself. They’d had to maneuver tree trunks over the openings to provide slits to shoot through.

As an Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon, their job was to dig in and watch for enemy movement. This far in Belgium and close to the German border, the allies had enjoyed total supremacy, so this was supposed to be easy duty. He’d been asked to sit out here for just a couple of days, but that had stretched into four, and now they were under attack.

Trees blew apart, scattering chunks of wood at high speed, impacting the earth and the dugout. Pieces of debris struck the log shelter above and rained down on the two men.

Coley found the radio and pulled it out of the canister. He rang up regimental command and reported that they were under an artillery barrage.

“Say again?”

“We’re getting pounded here. It’s like every gun on the other side of the Siegfried opened up on us.”

“That can’t be right. We don’t have reports of any German movements in that area.”

“Does this sound like I’m playing a fucking prank?” Coley held the radio receiver up in the air for a few seconds.

Lieutenant Coley argued with the radio operator before being told to call back in fifteen minutes, when they’d have a better idea of what was happening.

He relayed the words back to Tramble.

“How 'bout we go back and put our boots up someone’s ass and see if
they
know what’s going on?” Trample yelled.

The explosions marched a chaotic pattern behind the men in the direction of the small town of Longvilly. Coley took the moment to dive out of his dugout and issue orders.

The eighteen men under his command were spread out in a long line, two hundred yards from the village. They’d been digging in and stockpiling ammo for half a week.

He found Private Shaw and Corporal Harpham and told them to go back to town and find a house to gather intelligence from. The men shot him quick salutes. When the artillery let up for a moment, they rolled out of their dugout and made their way through the knee-deep snow toward the barbed wire fence that cut a line across the slope leading into town.

Artillery fire went on for over an hour. At any second, Lieutenant Coley expected it to find their hole. It would be over quick; that was the only saving grace.

T
he bombardment had ceased
, and somehow, they were still in one piece. Holes the size of tanks were left over the field, and trees around them--once tall and proud--had been lopped off and tossed to the earth.

“Lieutenant. I see movement near the town,” Tramble said.

Coley took the man’s binoculars to assess the situation, and in the process got a look at the tank destroyers that had guarded the rear of Longvilly.

“Are they deserting us?” he wondered out loud.

The machines heaved over mounds of snow and disappeared into the tree line.

“Guess that answers that question,” Tramble said.

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Coley said.

The slope of the German soldiers' helmets gave them away. They faded out of the mist and streamed toward the town. It wasn't just a single German patrol either; there were at least a hundred men moving in a column.

He tried the radio repeatedly, and finally got through to command.

“You must be seeing things,” they told the Lieutenant. Again.

“Respectfully, we just hunkered down during two hours of artillery barrages. The entire goddamn Sigfried line just opened up on this location. Something big is brewing and we need orders.”

“Wait one,” the radio operator said, and clicked off.

“Son of a bitch. They’re still saying we’re just seeing things and the barrage isn’t happening,” Coley relayed the words.

“That’s a fine way to say good morning. What do we do?”

Ten minutes later, Coley got back on the radio, and repeated his requested his artillery support.

Explosions and gunfire came from the direction of the village. The men dug in around Coley, set up weapons and pointed them toward the houses below. They had a .30 caliber machine gun, as well as a .50 cal mounted on the back of a jeep. The jeep had been placed in a dugout and covered with logs and foliage, to keep it hidden from view.

That left them with five jeeps that had been hidden in the woods behind their position.

Coley and his men turned their gunsights on the town, and waited.

A pair of figures that had to be Private Shaw and Corporal Harpham dashed across the field, maneuvered under the barbed wire fence, and ran like the dickens. They wove through trees and ducked behind natural cover.

Coley lifted an M1 and aimed at the mass of soldiers near the village.

“Get ready to fire, men," Coley called. "Pick your targets and drop as many as you can before they get wise to us.” His orders were relayed across the half-dozen dugouts. “Hold your fire until I say.”

“They ain’t seen us yet,” Tramble said.

“Yeah, and maybe they won’t."

Coley wondered how they were going to fight off a force nearly twenty times their size without artillery support. He used his binoculars to watch the men gathering below.

A Belgian woman approached the Germans. She was young and pretty, and reminded Coley of one of his sisters. She spoke to a commander for a few seconds, and then pointed at the 99th’s position.

“Oh Christ. I’m gonna take her out,” Tramble said.

But he didn’t fire.

Coley held his breath while the two spoke.

Suddenly the German commander belted out orders, and his men dove into ditches on either side of the road.

A jeep roared up behind Coley’s position, and out spilled three men. They quickly unloaded a 60mm mortar and started getting set up in a dugout behind them.

“Guess our request for help was heard?” Coley asked the mortar team.

“Sir. We heard there might be some action here. Captain Phillips asked us to check it out, so we brought along help, just in case.”

The addition of the mortars was a big help, but it wouldn’t be enough to cause serious damage to such a strong force.

The Germans didn’t waste any time. Small arms fire erupted from their position. They were stretched out across the road, and had decent coverage. But Coley could make out figures. The minute they set up a flanking maneuver, the well-trained Krauts would take them out.

“Pick your targets, men.” Coley said, and his orders were relayed from dugout to dugout. “When I fire, give 'em hell.”

As far as motivational speeches went, it wasn’t the best. His men had trained with him for months, and they were a tight outfit. If he'd felt he’d need to stand up and shout orders like Patton, he’d have been a poor commander.

“Fire!” Coley yelled.

Coley picked out a figure dressed in white and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck and the soldier rolled away, grasping his back. Tramble had opened up with the .30 caliber machine gun and sent Germans scrambling. Bullets kicked up snow and found targets.

The Germans returned fire, and the fight for the hill was on.