Screaming Eagles (The Front, Book 1) (4 page)

T
he shooting died
down a few minutes later, so Coley told his men to take a breather and conserve ammo.

A force of twenty Germans rose and walked toward the barbed wire fence.

“Pick your target carefully and wait for them to reach the fence,” Coley called to his men.

The Krauts in white camouflage approached with swagger, like they were on a country stroll. They carried their guns at the ready, but hadn’t fired them yet.

Coley waited until two of the men paused to inspect the barbed wire, and then gave his command to fire.

Gunshots echoed up and down the line, and the Germans took immediate casualties. Half of the approaching men in white dropped, or crawled back toward the ditch. The other half of the force tried to get over the obstacle and got hung up.

Coley’s force eliminated the men. They caught on the barbed wire or slumped to the ground. Men who were his age--men with families--were dead or wounded.

“Damn firing squad,” Tramble muttered and then opened fire again.

“Line 'em up,” Coley said.

A bullet whizzed past Coley’s ear and struck a log behind him. He shook his head, and then shot at a pair of Germans who were moving toward the fence like they hadn’t just seen their men get slaughtered. Behind him, the distinctive “whump” of a 60mm mortar sounded. A shell fell ten feet behind the road and tossed snow and dirt into the air.

The next round found a clump of Krauts and sent bodies flying.

Shots on their right flank drew Coley’s attention. The dugouts were spread out over twenty or thirty yards, so the last pair of soldiers would have to deal with it. Coley and his men were green but they had all trained with him, under grueling conditions. He knew the men well and trusted them to respond. Right now he needed to get command to help their position.

“A couple got around us, but McClure and Eagles took em out,” Tramble relayed to Coley.

“Tell them I said ‘good shooting’,” Coley said.

He was smiling because his mind had been reeling. There were now twenty men under his command and they faced an overwhelming force. If he didn’t get help soon, they were all going to die or be taken prisoner of war.

Now that they had faced their first assault, he felt much calmer. His men had performed admirably under intense pressure.

The Lieutenant rolled over and dug the radio handset out. He rang up command and again repeated his request for assistance.

“We are assessing the threat. You are to hold your position at all costs,” the man on the other end said.

“We could really use some help. We have a force of five or six hundred men in our sights. We can’t hold them forever,” Coley said.

“Hold at all costs,” the man repeated, and rang off.

Coley slammed the radio receiver down in frustration.

“Tramble, you go left and I’ll go right. Check the men for casualties,” Coley said, nodding at the corporal.

C
oley rolled
into the first foxhole, and found Jones and Thomas lighting up cigarettes.

They had an arsenal of weapons at their disposal, including an extra M1 and an unwieldy BAR rifle. A satchel of grenades lay between the men. Eagles was left-handed, and the men had smartly positioned themselves so they could grab and throw.

“You guys okay?”

“Yes sir,” said McClure, a skinny kid from the Bronx. “Just scared to death.”

“I’m working on getting us support. We’re to hold this hill for the time being.”

“Understood, sir, but if those Germans keep waltzing up the hill like that, this battle will be over sooner than later,” McClure said.

“Let’s hope you’re right.

I
n the third foxhole
, Coley found the first casualty. Dan Eagles had taken a round to the chest, but he was still moving. His partner, Private Dave Jones, applied a bundle of gauze to the wound.

“Jesus, Eagles, you hurt bad?”

“Pretty bad, but I can still fight.”

“I’ll get us a medical team on the double,” Coley promised.

C
oley rushed
toward the last dugout. He caught movement ahead. A German soldier stepped out of the woods with his machine gun lowered. Coley let him have it and dropped the soldier. Coley rolled into the hole and appraised the situation. His men were doing fine and ready for more. He passed on more words of encouragement.

As he was preparing to make his way back to the center, his men started firing again.

The Germans approached the fence in force this time. There had to be fifty men heading their way.

“Watch the flanks, if they get around us we’re dead,” he reminded the two.

They shouted acknowledgment, then shot at the approaching Krauts in white.

C
oley came
under direct fire a few seconds later. Bullets blew past his position but he kept moving. If he paused to find targets, he was a dead man. He found his dugout and dove inside. His helmet went flying and he hit the ground hard enough to expel all of the breath from his chest. He flipped over and stared at the sky for all of five seconds before getting back to business.

“Sir, all present and accounted for," Tramble called. "No casualties on this side.”

“Same here. It’s a miracle,” Coley said.

He’d moved to a dugout behind Coley’s position and taken up position on the .50 cal on the back of the jeep. The big gun boomed, putting giant holes in the approaching force of Germans. The bullets were the same armor-piercing rounds used on the back of the B-17 bomber. They could separate a man from his limbs with one shot.

“Damn thing's got no range of motion. I’m going to unhook it,” Tramble said.

“It’s gonna be hot as hell,” Coley warned.

Tramble grabbed the barrel and lifted, but dropped the gun back on the mount and thrust his hand into snow. “Ah, Christ that hurt,” Tramble said and ripped a handkerchief out of his pocket. He got the gun under the barrel and lumped into the dugout.

“Don’t burn that gun out,” Coley said. “Short bursts.”

“Do my best, sir, but there are a lot of Germans down there.”

Coley turned his attention back toward the road and found what looked like the entire Kraut division coming at their position.

D
ear Mother and Father
,

I’ve arrived in Europe, but not in the way I’d expected. Me and some of the other boys from my division were held up while they tried to decide what to do with us. I had hoped to see some action, but there were delays with our flight. So far I am the only paratrooper I know who has not dropped from an airplane yet.

It’s different in Europe. Not just the food and drinks, it’s the people. They have been under the stress of war for so long they hurry around like scared chickens. Remember that hen we had who would never come out of the coop, even when it was time to eat? A lot of people here are like that.

But they are also friendly, and treat us with respect. They call our names, call us liberators. I’ve tried to tell those I’ve talked with that I haven’t done anything, but they just smile and touch me. They shake my hands and they act like I’m kind of star.

Some of the people threw us some fruit. I don’t think they were throwing the fruit at us, but throwing it for us. I sure was appreciative.

How is Louise? I’m going to write her next, but if anything happens to the mail please tell her that she is in my thoughts every day. Tell her I miss her and I love her. I wish she knew just how much I miss her. I haven’t been gone more than three months but sometimes it seems like three years.

Tell father that I’m thinking of him as well. He was always a hard man, but he looked at me differently when I came home in my new Army uniform. I hope he’s proud of me.

I love you both and I’ll write again as soon as I have a chance.

-Franklin

P
rivate Grillo perched
next to a tree and finished scratching out his letter home with a stub of a pencil, on paper that was already worn.

Around him the world was relatively quiet in that there were no gunshots, no falling mortars, and no diving for foxholes as 88mm shells screamed in and shattered foliage, pounded earth, and killed or wounded his fellow soldiers in Able Company.

Two days in the cold and he was already cursing his decision to join the Army. He was also cursing whoever had fouled up his orders and sent him to this company as an infantryman instead of his specialization in demolitions.

Bare tree branches hung overhead, covered in snow and ice. Wood popped as a little bit of heat seeped into what had been a miserably cold night. Many of the trees were cut off about twenty feet off the ground, the splintered ends blackened thanks to tree burst mortars.

He hadn’t needed to be be warned to find a foxhole as soon as shelling started. That was part of basic, and after being with the 101st for a few days, he'd grown used to spending a lot of time prone, on the ground with his ass in the air. Standing around in shock as a rounds fell around you was a good way to get peppered with shrapnel.

Not that taking cover was any guarantee of safety. The first day, he and the other fresh recruit, Billings, had arrived to assist Baker Company. They’d come across a former hole where several soldiers had been caught as they'd huddled together. There was no way to tell if the red-colored snow was from flesh or scraps of clothing. The splatter of blood around the mortar blast told the whole story.

Grillo had slept in a shallow hole next to Private Fahey, a man who managed to snore like a freight train. He’d spent most of the night huddled next to his new friend, and shivered under a thin blanket.

When the 101st had been called in to support the 28th infantry from the German counter-offensive near the Belgium city of Bastogne, they’d been unprepared for the weather in more than one way. They were short on supplies, dressing for wounds, food, and of worst of all, ammo.

He’d been sitting in a barracks for weeks after his, waiting for orders. When they’d arrived, he and several other men had been hustled through processing, issued weapons, and put on a truck heading toward Germany. The day they'd departed had been bitterly cold, but somehow rain had fallen instead of snow.

The truck was fine for now. While he’d signed on to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, the reality was that it scared him to death. He’d never been good with heights, and there was something about falling that didn’t agree with his gut or constitution.

Too late to lament it now. He was here in Europe, on the border of Germany, and instead of marching in with guns blazing he was cowering with a few men, waiting for a German counter-assault.

His and Billings' uniforms were newer than anyone else's in the platoon, but that didn’t make them any warmer. His jacket felt threadbare, and his boots felt like they were frozen to his feet. The company's doc had advised him to loosen the laces every hour and walk around, so he didn’t get a case of trench foot.

Grillo had spent a week in Great Lakes a few years ago while visiting his Uncle Steve, but that hadn’t prepared him for this biting chill. The wind had roared off the water and hit fifteen below one morning. Still, they’d gone out ice fishing, hadn’t caught a damn thing, and spent the rest of the weekend sitting around a fire playing cards and drinking beer.

The Ardennes was a different kind of cold. Everywhere he looked was snow. Tufts of plants poked up from the white here and there, but so did tree roots and chunks of earth. Under the light snow was ice that had to be broken through to reach the earth beneath so you could dig a hole to cower in.

He thought of his friend Eddie Elgin and wondered how the man was faring. He looked like a matinee idol, but those looks wouldn’t help him in the war. He’d be just another young soldier looking to put a bullet into an enemy.

Grillo would never say it out loud, but he missed the training base. He missed having a warm bed, even if he was tossed out of it at all hours of the morning for maneuvers, or just to do some PT.

Paths had been worn into the snow-covered ground the night before, but they were covered now by a fresh dusting of white. There was a fresh winter smell in the air thanks to the cold, but it was undercut by hints of exploded shells.

Fahey let out an epic fart, then rolled over and tugged the blanket up around his neck.

“Gonna give away our position with that kind of gas,” Grillo said. They were the first words he’d spoken since last night.

“It’s the Krations," Fahey said. "Fill ya up, sure, but then you gotta deal with the other issues, like how that lousy food sits in your guts. I never missed home so much, even when we were rolling up on the beach at Normandy. Wait, I take that back. I missed home a lot that day.”

He was from Boston, and had the heavy accent to go with it. Fahey liked to talk about his father’s ‘cah’--a six-year-old Chrysler that burned through oil at an enormous rate--and how he wished he was at a ‘bah’ while a girl in a little red dress--whose name changed on a regular basis--talked to him about going back to her place.

“Krations aren’t so bad,” Grillo said, trying to convince himself it was true. “I like pork. I don’t like it every day, but I like it. Chocolate’s the best.”

“If we ever get on top of the enemy, Sergeant Pierce over there,” he said, gesturing toward one of the many holes in the ground, “knows how to mix up a couple of cans of meat over a cooking fire and make it taste a like a four-course meal. At least we got warm guts last night. Thought I was going to starve in the damn forest.”

Grillo nodded.

Fahey dug out a four pack of Chesterfields and shook one loose. He lit it with a match and sucked in smoke, but kept the glowing end cupped in his hand so he didn’t give away their position.

Grillo shivered, and thought about moving around. He’d been sitting here for over an hour, and the chill had sunk in. His clothes felt damp thanks to the cold, and he was pretty sure his jacket was frozen to the tree.

He held his M1 Garand to his chest like it was his best friend. It was loaded with a full-eight round clip and he had a few extra in his pouch. Not enough if they came under heavy fire, but the rest of the squad’s ammo was spread thin. Him being the new guy, they’d stripped most of his rounds when he’d arrived and passed them out among the other men.

Along with some ribbing, the guys had generally let him settle in. There were the usual shenanigans as they regulars broke him in, like asking him to walk the perimeter until he found his gig line. After the joking died down, him laughing it up with three others including Sergeant Pierce, they’d left him alone, because a mortar had exploded nearby.

“Didn’t think I’d be spending Christmas in Europe,” Grillo said.

“I didn’t think I’d be spending
another
Christmas in Europe,” Fahey replied.

“What was it like last year?”

“Like this. Krauts shooting at us. Us shooting at Krauts.”

“I haven’t even fired a shot yet. Think I’ll fit in after I kill my first German?”

“Brother, I hope you don’t have to shoot one, but you do, and you make sure the son of a bitch stays down,” Fahey said with a grimace.

Something cracked in the distance and Fahey suddenly bled confidence. He rolled over, tossed the blanket to the side, and put his M1 to his shoulder. Grillo tore himself away from the tree, ice ripping at his clothes as he peeled himself off his perch. He dropped next to Fahey and raised his gun and tried to spot movement.

“Where’d the noise come from?” he whispered.

“From shut up, that’s where,” Fahey whispered back.

Fahey scanned the tree line.

Grillo followed the man’s lead. Bootcamp was one thing--practicing shooting at targets, how to look downrange, how to aim, how to exhale and squeeze the trigger. It didn’t teach you how to deal with fear, but that was all he could think about now.

The morning was misty and that made visibility low. Plus, movement could come from any direction in a two hundred degree plus arc. The rest of the squad had the other sides covered, but even they could fall victim to a surprise attack.

Another twig snapped in the distance.

Grillo tensed and squinted his eyes. He should have been wearing glasses, but they kept fogging up in the chill air. He should have a pair of binoculars, but one of the other guys had the Baker’s only remaining pair. He should have been home in bed, warm and waiting for college to start, but instead he’d enlisted, and now here he was, in freezing temperature, laying in a cold hole in the ground, waiting for a man from another country to come try to kill him.

“Christ. It’s cold as a witch’s tit.” Fahey stated the obvious.

“What do we do now? I don’t see any movement. Should we go out there?”

“If Sarge don’t say scout, we don’t scout. If you see a guy in a metal helmet don’t look like ours, you lay into him,” Fahey said.

Grillo shivered. His gut was done up in a knot so tight he thought he was going to pass out. He inhaled and exhaled, but for some reason his head got foggy and stars danced before his eyes.

“I don’t feel good, can’t see,” Grillo muttered.

“Big dummy. Don’t suck in so much air. That’s just fear getting to you. You’re in the damn 101st airborne. You’re here to chew lead and kill Krauts. Now get it together. Just curl up and take some deep breaths. Think about a pretty girl taking off her dress, that always done it for me,” Fahey said.

Another twig snapped, and Grillo was sure he heard something brushing through the snow.

“Oh Christ, they’re coming for us,” Grillo said.

He followed Fahey’s advice and slipped into the foxhole. He took slow breaths, and thought about Louise. They’d had one night together before he’d shipped out. She had been shy, and slipped out of her clothes in the dark.

Then, warm and soft, Louise had slid into bed with him and let him work at her garters until he'd peeled the stockings off her long, smooth legs.

He tried to picture her big puff of blonde curls while she lay beneath him, but his thoughts kept getting interrupted by images of Germans coming out of the mist.

“Contact,” Fahey said and fired.

The M1 boomed next to Grillo.

He pushed his panic aside, sucked in a deep breath, and rolled to his stomach with his M1 ready and prepared to fire. He aimed at a vague white shape and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Then he remembered the safety and flicked it forward.

“Contact. Contact!” Fahey yelled and fired again. “Christ. My sight's off or something.”

Grillo steadied his aim, centered the sights, and fired twice. Around him, the men of Baker company ran toward their location. Sergeant Pierce arrived first and dropped next to Fahey. He bore a Thompson submachine gun in one hand, his helmet in the other, and a pair of pineapples from each shoulder strap. The grenades bounced against his chest as he hit the dirt. Pierce lifted his weapon and scanned the forest.

Grillo sucked in a breath and swore quietly.

“Where?” Sargent Pierce asked.

“Grillo popped his cherry. Kraut dropped like a rock just beyond that fallen log,” Fahey said, and pointed north.

“Any more?” Sarge plopped his helmet on his head and left the straps hanging around his cheeks. He hadn’t had a shave in days, and looked rough around the edges. Dirt coated the front of his jacket, and was smeared on his face like camouflage.

“Don’t know. Krauts didn’t send a telegraph,” Fahey said.

“Okay, wiseass, got a job opportunity for you. Since you’re so smart today, why don’t you and Grillo go take a look?” Sarge said.

“Oh, Jesus, Sarge. I just got warm, here,” Fahey complained.

“If you’re warm, you’re the only one, Fahey,” Sarge said.

“Uh, fellas?” Grillo said.

The figure he’d shot twice got up on all fours. The enemy struggled to rise and then came to his feet. He had a pistol in one hand, but he didn’t lift it. The shape was a good hundred feet away, but Grillo wasn’t able to get a good look at the soldier’s face.

“Thought you killed him, Grillo,” Fahey said and tossed his smoking cigarette butt to the ground.

“I got it,” Sarge said.

“Wait, Sarge. He’s been whining ‘bout his first kill,” Fahey said.

“Fine. You two take care of that Kraut, and then I want a patrol out to fifty yards. Stay low and don’t get your asses shot off,” Sarge said.