Benson saw the uniforms, the soft light of a lantern to one side. The man leaned low over him, said, “You hear me okay, son?”
Benson blinked, smelled cigar smoke, saw the man’s face, older, no helmet, the stub of a cigar in his mouth. The stink was waking him quickly, and Benson said, “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” The man straightened, and Benson saw a medic moving past, stopping, blood on the man’s shirt.
The older man said, “How’re his feet?”
“Not too bad, sir. Some pretty rough blisters, but I took care of it. Frostbite not near what I thought. He’ll be up in a couple days.”
“Good. Damn sick of so much trench foot. You’re a lucky man, Private. Too many of our boys getting shipped home because their feet fall apart in this mess. Damn tired of losing people to bad feet. Your sergeant says you boys came in from the Four Two Three?”
“Yes, sir. We were cut off—”
“Yeah, I know. Heard it all from your buddies. I’m Colonel Jayson, Combat Company B, Ninth Armor, adjutant to General Hoge. This is Captain Smithers, from G-2. Captain?”
“Doesn’t look like he’ll be any more helpful than the others. I have to ask you, Private, did you pick up any information along the way? Figure out what Germans you ran into? Where you came through? We think the smaller village you went through was Mützenich. Your sergeant described it pretty well. It’s about the only place that was still intact. We’re pretty sure it’s blown to hell now. Every damn place the enemy could use a road, he rolled right over us.”
The colonel interrupted. “Enough, Captain. He doesn’t need an intelligence briefing.”
“No, sir. Of course, sir. With your permission, I’ll report back to G-2.”
“Dismissed.”
The colonel moved the short cigar back and forth in his mouth, watched the captain depart. He looked down at Benson again, seemed to stare right through him, the man’s authority pressing Benson down into the bed.
“Glad you’re okay, soldier. These intelligence idiots got us into this mess, now they’re trying to find any way they can to get us out of it. They want to question every damn GI who floats through here. Don’t worry about it. You know where you are?”
Benson glanced to one side, saw a row of beds, medics moving between them, dark canvas above him.
“No, sir. Sorry.”
“Saint Vith, son. Field hospital.”
“Really? We made it?” Benson absorbed the man’s name now, the patch on his shoulder. “Did you say Ninth Armor, sir? Really? I heard the captain say something about the Seventh Armor.”
The colonel laughed, hands on his hips.
“Yeah, we’re both here, but the Seventh did the job first. Saved this place from being nabbed right off the bat. We’ve got people in both outfits scattered to hell, all the way to Bastogne. Your General Jones got out with his ass. Can’t say that about too many of your other officers. Most of the Four Two Three is … gone. From what we can gather, Colonel Cavender and a large number of your buddies were captured by the enemy. There have been a few, like you, who wandered in. But damn few.”
Benson tried to grapple with the words, a jumbled flood of memories.
“My God. We were fighting in some wrecked village … I saw Colonel Cavender …”
“That was probably Radscheid. Let it go, son. Nothing we can do about that now. Those G-2 idiots are still trying to figure out which enemy units we’re facing, but at this point all we can do is draw a line in the sand. We’ve got a hell of a fight on our hands.”
“Sorry, sir. There were lots of Krauts, that’s for certain. I mean, the enemy, sir.”
Jayson nodded, seemed frustrated.
“Get those feet healed up, Private. We need your rifle. We need every damn rifle we can get. The enemy’s coming in from every damn direction. I don’t know how in hell your sergeant pulled you out of that hole, but the fight’s not done. We’ve got engineers and cooks out there, when we need good riflemen.” He paused. “That’s all you need to know for now. Your buddies are outside. We’re not sure what to do with you boys for now. We’ve got bigger problems.”
Another man appeared, the clean uniform of an aide. “Excuse me, Colonel, message from the general …”
The medic was there again, said, “You can handle another shot. Here. This’ll put you to sleep.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m only a corporal, soldier. Save the sirs for the big guys.”
Benson felt the needle prick, then watched the medic move away, realized the officers were still there, low voices, meaningless now. Benson blinked, bleary-eyed, stared into the darkness above him, a comfortable fog drifting through him. He tried to remember the colonel’s words, the authority of the man’s voice. Ninth Armor. Seventh Armor. Good. That’s gotta be good. Lots of tanks. St. Vith. The sarge did it. Got us to St. Vith. I’ll be damned. We’re safe. He closed his eyes, flexed his toes, no pain, wonderful, that medic … thank you. Tanks. Lots of tanks. Very good. Very damn good.
Sleep was coming quickly, and he didn’t fight it, his eyes closing, and he heard the colonel’s words again. Bigger problems.
NEAR METZ, FRANCE
DECEMBER 19, 1944
He glanced at his watch, ten thirty, looked out at the rain, the entire morning painted by a chilling mist that soaked into every tent seam, every boot. He ignored Harkins beside him, was in no mood for talk. Colonel Paul Harkins had been with Patton nearly as long as any officer on his staff, was as much a friend to Patton as any subordinate could be. But Harkins had come along only because Patton knew a reliable officer might be needed, primarily to handle the communication of orders that would most certainly result from the meeting. The others, including his chief of staff, Hap Gay, were already preparing the Third Army for the specific orders Patton himself was on his way to receive. If Patton needed a good reason for Harkins to be there, it flashed through his mind now. With Harkins on one end of the phone line and Gay on the other, things wouldn’t get screwed up.
The roads were mostly bad, what Patton was used to in France. But the driver had been chosen for his skills as well, and Patton appreciated that he seemed able to miss most of the rougher stretches. Their most annoying inconvenience had been the excessive number of MP checkpoints. Even this far from the fighting, SHAEF had issued orders that the roadblocks and outposts be increased in number and in strength. Patton had laughed at that, thought it nothing more than a wave of paranoia washing through SHAEF, inspired by too much faith in the rumors that vast legions of German commandos had completely infiltrated the Allied rear.
As the driver guided the car through the misery of the rain, the checkpoints helped at least to break the monotony. Patton actually found them entertaining. At every checkpoint, he gave the men his own silent inspection, staring at them through the window glass with a stern reproach. These men knew better, had seen enough of Patton passing through their posts to know that neckties were fastened tightly, helmets always on. Even in the misery of the cold rain, the men had stood at sharp attention, rows of stiff backs acknowledging him with respectful salutes. After long seconds of scowling, he would suddenly smile, wave, and the response would come as it always came, the at ease that allowed the men to loosen into greetings and cheers, the usual response from the soldiers in the Third Army when he passed by. He knew that once his car had passed a checkpoint, those men were passing the word, telephoning the next roadblock, and he laughed to himself. Fine. Tell the next guy down the road who’s in this damn car. I’ve got no time for bawling out some idiot lieutenant because he forgot his damn tie. Of course, they don’t know that. And I do love the cheers.
The weather was as dismal now as it had been for several days, and Patton fought to see through the rain, the road passing by muddy fields, many occupied by small cities of tents, usually supply depots. There were field hospitals as well, where the Red Cross flags flew high, or spread out on the flapping rooftops of the tents themselves, wishful thinking that some
Luftwaffe bombardier wouldn’t use the hospitals for easy target practice. But enemy aircraft had been scarce, and with the bad weather, no one on Patton’s staff had seemed particularly concerned that Patton himself was in any danger in a lone staff car splashing its way through the dismal French countryside.
He scanned a field of trucks, parked in neat rows, nodded to himself. Good. We’ll need every damn one of them. For weeks now, a steady stream of hardware had been flowing up to his army from the massive port at Marseille. Patton had long given up on filling his larder by competing with the other commanders for the trickle of supplies that rolled through Cherbourg, and Antwerp was massively overstuffed with ships and their cargo caught up in a spiderweb of bureaucratic and engineering nightmares. Those supplies were designated for the British mostly, though Hodges’s First Army was being supplied through there as well. Patton had never prioritized supply lines the way he had now, a lesson learned in Sicily and, more, in his amazing push across France. He had usually left those details to someone else, what he called his clerk army. But then, when the supplies ran out, when the gasoline stopped flowing to his trucks and precious armor, Patton’s fury had been absolute. At first, the blame was aimed at Montgomery, and Eisenhower had been caught squarely in the middle of a different kind of war, Patton fuming that the British were being given first dibs on the limited flow of equipment and fuel. It was a fight Eisenhower didn’t need, and Patton understood that. But he also understood that if Eisenhower had sent the bulk of available fuel his way, Patton’s army would be the first to drive straight into Germany. There were political realities about that he just didn’t want to think about. Montgomery wanted that carrot, certainly, and Patton had envisioned another race, the same kind of race with the British that Patton had won in Sicily. Then, it was for Messina, a major city. This time it could be for the major city, Berlin itself. And if Patton won that race, he might end the war. But Eisenhower had pulled him back, and Patton had no choice but to obey. The supply lines were so meager that even if the German army opened the way, Patton’s tanks didn’t have the fuel to make the trip. It was a lesson learned. Now his primary supply port was on the Mediterranean, far from the chaos of the French and Belgian coasts. The Germans had never bothered to wreck Marseille the way they had Cherbourg. And there had been no time-consuming and costly battle for control of the port, the way Monty had stumbled into Antwerp. Marseille also supplied Jacob Devers’s Sixth Army Group, which occupied ground to the south of Patton’s right flank, the forces that had invaded southern France in August, two months after D-Day. That landing had been enormously successful, and mostly uncontested. Unlike the Normandy landings, Devers’s forces had not been held up by a vicious German defense, and had rushed northward, bringing all of southern France under Allied control. Patton had little affection for Devers, whom he had known for much of his career. But then, Patton had little affection for anyone whose rank was close to his own.
He thought of Hodges, well, there’s another of Ike’s cronies. Right about now his glorious First Army is kicking up snow trying to get the hell out of the way of the enemy. I thought we were supposed to move forward, not run like hell if we get shot at.
Courtney Hodges had served as Patton’s chief of staff in North Africa, though only for a short while. Hodges had come up through the infantry, did not share Patton’s love of tanks. But he got his reward, Patton thought. Just like some of the others, he gets a few stars and an army with his name on it because he kisses Ike’s boots with plenty of tongue. Bradley should know better than to give that command to Hodges, but maybe Brad has no choice. He’s pretty meek around Ike, and I guess it’s just his style. I bet they wanted Hodges to stand tall and take some of the headlines, pull some of the attention away from me. But Hodges is never going to be anything more than a slow-thinking, slow-talking Georgia boy, and no amount of wishful thinking on Brad’s part is going to make him into Stonewall Jackson. It takes someone with an iron codsack to keep pushing forward without talking about it first. Hodges wants to chat before he makes decisions. Fits right in with Bradley. Maybe all of them. Now his cods are in the frying pan, and sure as hell Ike will want me to get them out. No one else up to the job. Why am I the only one who knows that?
Patton didn’t believe the first reports that came out of the Ardennes, had never expected that whatever the Germans were doing in those rugged hills could amount to more than a big noisy show, some kind of rip-roaring Christmas present to build Hitler’s pride. I don’t care how much Hodges’s people have been tossed on their asses, it still doesn’t make any logistical sense to launch a major offensive in that part of the front, not with the weather going to hell like this. He was nagged by the thought even now that it might all be a demonstration, lots of firepower to distract the Allies from what the Germans might truly be planning to do. If there was going to be a major offensive in winter, it should have come right here, he thought, straight into my lines. Those bastards are over there in that Siegfried line watching every move I make, knowing every time I shift a unit from one spot to another. They’ve been eating my artillery and taking casualties every damn day, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before I chew them to bits. The best way to defend against a tough son of a bitch standing in front of you is to punch him hard right in the gut. That’s what they ought to be doing, punching me square in the gut. If somehow they drove my people back, it would be their greatest accomplishment in years. Every German general would get a boost out of that, and every Allied general would know what it meant, and be damn scared of it. It would mean the Krauts could still put up a fight, a fight that actually means something. No matter how much panic they’ve caused Hodges, no matter how much crying and hair pulling is going on at SHAEF, all the Krauts are doing in the Ardennes is poking a stick into Hodges’s eye.
Patton was increasingly frustrated by the orders for him to bide his time, to push his troops forward in limited attacks, gradually shoving the Germans back to the relative safety of their massive defenses along the German border. But Patton’s impatience had finally been relieved. The order came from Bradley: Eisenhower’s strategy was at last kicking into action. Patton was to drive hard against the Siegfried line and push across, into the Saar Valley. Once he put his people well to the east, German defenses would certainly ease up in the north, allowing Montgomery and the rest of Bradley’s forces to advance under much more favorable conditions. The scheduled date for Patton’s attack was December 19. But with only three days to go, and Patton fully prepared to resume a glorious drive into the teeth of the enemy, the Germans made their surprise assault in the Ardennes. To Patton’s furious dismay, the order came to call off his attack and instead look to the north, shifting his troops in a way that would aid the crisis swallowing up Hodges’s troops, a crisis whose magnitude was only now being understood.
He folded his arms across his chest. December 19, he thought. Today. We’d have rolled right over the Siegfried line and left half the Krauts smoldering there in those fat bunkers. I’m so damn sick of looking out across all that concrete. What the hell is the point of that thing anyway? Who could ever believe that a German army, this German army, would think it was a good idea to hunker down in big fat concrete boxes, surrounded by tank traps and barbed wire, and fight a defensive war? Who the hell thought that was worth all that labor, all that concrete and steel? Four years ago, those bastards drove straight through the British and French, and either obliterated them or shoved them into the ocean. And yet someone convinced Hitler they should build this line along their own border … just in case? The Siegfried line is nothing more than Hitler’s people hedging their bets. I guess it makes sense to protect your own borders, but the smart ones over there have to know their history. For centuries, no one’s been able to figure out how to build a defense here that actually works. Not in this part of the world, anyway. Hitler must have laughed like hell at the French, knowing his tanks were rolling right on through their big fat defenses. What were the French doing, sta
nding by the roadside selling lemonade? It’s all just concrete, and I haven’t met a concrete bunker yet that can out-think a good battlefield commander. But I can’t prove that today. Dammit, and we were ready to go. Nope, today I have to go to Verdun and sit down with Ike and his boot lickers, and listen to them wring their hands about Hodges getting his ass kicked. I just hope to God Monty isn’t there.
VERDUN, FRANCE
DECEMBER 19, 1944, 11 A.M.
They sat around a rectangular table, Eisenhower at one end, Tedder to one side. Devers was there, no surprise, and at the other end, Bradley. Behind them were staff officers, the usual faces, and Patton anchored his own man, Harkins, close behind him. The room itself was sparse and cold, heated by a lone potbellied stove, a makeshift meeting place someone had code-named Eagle Main, one of those peculiarly military practices that Patton usually ignored. He sat facing Devers, thought, this is just a damn meeting. We’re not going to change the world, and nobody is ever going to build a monument to this ramshackle building. Why in hell does it need a fancy security name? Has to be Beetle Smith’s idea. He’s the one who wants to attach importance to Ike’s every move, so he can sell this whole idea to Hollywood one day. Beetle will want to be played by John Barrymore, but I bet Monty will put up a fight for that one. Monty ought to be played by Buster Keaton.
Eisenhower’s seriousness brought Patton back to the moment, and he realized now that the faces all around the room carried the same look of despair, an infection of gloom that made the room chillier still. Two aides were hammering the top corners of a map to one wall. All faces turned that way, the map hanging loosely.
Eisenhower seemed to pick up the same mood as Patton, said, “The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity and not disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table. Am I understood?”
There were meager nods, and Patton felt a wave of disgust, the gloom spread even to Bradley. He slapped a hand on the hard wood of the table, said, “Opportunity! Hell, yes! We should let the enemy pour right through that gap until they make it all the way to Paris. Then we can cut the sons of bitches off, and chew ’em up that much easier!”