No Less Than Victory

  Benson knew very little about what had happened to the rest of the division, though word had filtered through the men about one casualty in particular. As the fighting around St. Vith turned to a full-out retreat, the 106th’s commanding officer, General Alan Jones, had suffered a heart attack. To the riflemen of the 423rd Regiment, Jones was mostly just a name, to be replaced quickly by another name, General Herbert Perrin. Far more important was confirmation that the 423rd’s commander, Colonel Charles Cavender, was gone, almost certainly dead or snapped up by the Germans.

  The 422nd had suffered much the same fate as Benson’s own regiment, while the 424th had fared slightly better, many of those men escaping still with some organization, or driven southward, jumbled up with units from the 28th Division west of Bastogne. Though some of the division’s artillery had survived, many of the guns were lost, along with their crews. While Benson had recuperated at the field hospital, Sergeant Higgins had made some effort to report the situation of the lone lieutenant, the artilleryman and his loader, the only men in the divisional artillery who actually seemed to believe some training manual’s insane propaganda that no gun should be abandoned. But there was little sympathy from above for this one renegade lieutenant when the troops still in St. Vith were working desperately to hold their ground. Benson had seen parades of artillery pieces himself, survivors pulling their guns into the town, and then, beyond, to the west. When the retreat from St. Vith began, those were the men who had the worst task. They were the rear guard, doing as much as they could to hold away the German pursuit in a deadly game of leapfrog, artillery doing their job, then moving past the next unit, which did the same. None of the artillerymen that Benson saw resembled the lone lieutenant.

  Unlike the dismal reports coming up from Bastogne, St. Vith was not yet fully surrounded, the German push more like a vise grip than a siege. The road to the west had been kept open, mostly by the extraordinary efforts of Jim Gavin’s Eighty-second Airborne, and so, while the armor and scattered infantry made their final effort to hold the town, supply and transport trucks still rolled in. Once the hospital staff were ordered to join the retreat, Benson had been ordered by a doctor there to return to his unit. There was no paperwork, no one sorting through personnel records. The doctor had no idea, and probably didn’t care, that for now, Benson’s unit was Mitchell and Sergeant Higgins. As they rode west into the relative safety of the guns of the Eighty-second Airborne, the three men finally found officers who took charge of them, what remained of the command structure of the 423rd, mostly field officers who had fought their way through the woods and thickets, or wandered with small groups of cutoff troops, until they reached St. Vith. With the supply trucks came boots and fresh uniforms, mounds of dry socks, new gloves and wool hats, and the wonderfully warm overshoes. Once they reached Trois Ponts, the survivors of the 423rd were brought together in increasing numbers, and the questions had come, men seeking buddies, the few officers locating men from their own commands. For Benson, Higgins, and Mitchell, no one had any answers.

  TROIS PONTS, BELGIUM

  DECEMBER 22, 1944, 11 P.M.

  “We really don’t know what to do with you. I’ve been told that the army hasn’t decided whether the One Oh Sixth should be parsed out to other units altogether. I’m certain no one here wants to see that happen. The major thinks we should ship you back to the replacement depot at Antwerp. But every division in this sector is seriously undermanned, especially their rifle companies, and while the army makes up its mind, we need you to rejoin the party.”

  The captain was a thick truck of a man, Benson guessing thirty years old, bald head, helmet on the small table behind him. The man paced, seemed no more enthusiastic about his own speech than the men who were receiving it. Benson glanced around, forty men, maybe more, all from the 423rd, a platoon-sized group, most of whom had been a part of the withdrawal from St. Vith. Some were familiar faces, but there were no names, no one he knew well. Other than Higgins and Mitchell, no one had come into St. Vith from the platoon that had once belonged to Lieutenant Greeley.

  “You men all get your overshoes?” There were positive mumblings, the captain scanning the room. “Good. I have been told that we are finally going to get snowsuits. White camouflage. For now, pretend you never heard that, since God knows how many of those things will ever find their way out of the depots. Some idiot in supply who never actually goes outdoors thinks all this talk of snow is nonsense.” The captain paused, seemed to run out of words, thought for a moment. “You’re veterans now. Remember that. That’s maybe the most important thing right now. Other platoons in my company are being refilled with shiny new replacements from the States, men who couldn’t poke themselves in the ass if their bayonet had directions. It took some doing … someone at corps HQ owed me a big favor … well, you don’t need to know about that. But for the time being, you’re mine.” He paused again. “All right, we’re done here. See Lieutenant Fornell, the bivouac next door. He’s working on ammo supplies and weapons, making sure everyone has the right equipment. He’ll be your platoon commander, organize your squads. There are what … four sergeants here? Good. I can’t spare anyone else. You know your own men. Until somebody upstairs tells us different, you’re a temporary part of the Thirtieth Division. Next week, that could change, and it probably will.” He stopped, reached for his helmet, the men beginning to stir. Benson stood, testing the remnants of pain in his feet, and the captain spoke up again.

  “Listen. The One Oh Sixth has something to be proud of. If you don’t know that, the rest of us do. You took the hardest punch Hitler could throw, and you slowed those bastards down enough so we could do something about it. Hang on to that. The army will figure out … well, not for me to say. I’ve got my orders, and now so do you.”

  “Excuse me, sir.” The voice was Mitchell’s, beside Benson.

  The captain seemed annoyed by the distraction, said, “Yes, soldier, what is it?”

  “Can you tell us, sir, if we are going to fight Krauts again?”

  “You damn well better. That’s all. Get out of here.”

  NEAR STAVELOT, BELGIUM

  DECEMBER 23, 1944, PREDAWN

  The trucks had driven out away from the Salm River, a road slippery with the snowpack hardened by the troops who were still strengthening the defensive lines along the western bank. This time, the deuce-and-a-halfs had no canvas covering, the men crushed by the brutal cold, every man bundled tight, faces down, enduring every bounce as they counted the minutes of the hour-long trip. When they were finally unloaded, they were met by MPs, hushed instructions to the lieutenant passed to each of the sergeants. The squads had been thrown together according to which truck the men occupied, and Higgins now commanded another ten men besides Benson and Mitchell.

  Once they were away from the trucks, they had warmed the numbing stiffness in their feet by a brief brisk march. They stayed in a narrow road, moving past vivid signs of the snowstorm that had washed over them the past two days. The road was in heavy use, and so the bulldozers had plowed the surface clean, snowbanks pushed high on both sides. But the road itself was a river of ice, crushed into ankle-shattering debris by the armored trucks and tanks that had already moved ahead. With daylight still hours away, the march had concluded at a narrow cut through a snowbank, the men following their lieutenant and his guide to the hulking shadow of a large farmhouse. Each man had been issued a small, jointed shovel, and Benson had wondered if this Lieutenant Fornell would issue that most idiotic of orders, for the men to dig foxholes into brick-hard ground. But the order didn’t come, the lieutenant leading them all into the house, spreading them from basement to an upstairs attic space. The luxury of a roof was appreciated by every man, but the wind and cold found them anyway, no window glass, the house obviously used before, and just as obviously, it had been in the middle of a fight. Benson and Mitchell had staked out a space on the main floor, in what had been a bedroom, where backpacks could be used as pillows. Most of the furniture was gone
, and in the shadowy darkness, Benson could see ripped and trampled remnants of clothing, the bed and other wood furniture long since used for fuel in one of several fireplaces. But there would be no fire tonight, nothing to offer a target to enemy gunners. Incredibly, the house did have one surprising luxury: a working toilet. That caught the attention of every man in the platoon, and in the dark silence, the men grumbled at one another for the excessive amount of time each one took enjoying a porcelain throne.

  But not every man enjoyed this particular bit of luxury. Before Benson could settle down and enjoy an hour or two of sleep, the lieutenant had come, an order to the sergeants to supply guards to be posted outside. Each sergeant had offered up two men, and Higgins had come to the men he trusted most. For Benson and Mitchell, there would be no sleep, no toilet, and no reveling under the shelter of a hard roof.

  They marched in slow, silent steps, flattening a path in the snow close to the house. Mitchell kept pace beside him, staying in motion only for warmth. On the far sides of the house, the other guards did the same, six more rifles and six sets of eyes, a comforting thought as Benson tried to see any sign of movement across a wide field that spread out in three directions.

  Mitchell, slapping his arms against his sides, pulling the coat in tight, said in a whisper, “How much colder can it get? Where the hell are we, anyway? That lieutenant … not sure about him.”

  Benson had heard this before, nervous chatter from the man who never admitted he was nervous.

  “I think he’s okay. He’s been through this stuff too. Damn it’s cold.” Benson looked up, saw stars, then looked back to the field. They reached the corner of the house, saw the shadows of two other guards, no greeting, then turned, paced back the other way. Benson flexed his fingers, kept them stuffed into the pockets of the thick coat. “Just like home. Clear nights are always the coldest.” He stopped suddenly, looked up again, and Mitchell responded, his rifle slipping quickly off his shoulder.

  “What. See something?”

  Benson still stared up, and Mitchell followed his gaze. Benson said, “Yeah. I see stars. Stars.”

  Mitchell began to pace again, still thumping his arms around his sides.

  “Great. You see stars. Just means it’s colder.”

  Benson caught up with him, scanned the field again, the wide-open ground showing more light, the first hint of dawn. There was something new, farther away in the field, thick mounds of black, uneven lumps in the snow. He jerked the rifle off his shoulder, said, “Kenny!”

  Mitchell slapped him on the back.

  “Just dirt, Eddie. Shell holes. Sun’s finally coming up. Those stars are going away pretty quick.”

  Benson wasn’t convinced, studied the dark blotches. From the house, he heard sounds, the men stirring, someone emerging through the shattered front door, the low voice of Higgins.

  “Time’s up. We’re supposed to get moving. Lieutenant’s been on the walkie-talkie. The rest of the company is across the road. We’re supporting half a battalion of tanks and a slug of infantry moving into the town. Krauts are there waiting for us. Get in here and grab some chow. You got five minutes.”

  Mitchell led Benson inside, Benson still nervous, glancing back to the field. He caught the new smell, hot chocolate, someone finding a way to boil water, most likely in the basement, the only place a glow of fire would be hidden. The low voices were all around him, men checking their rifles, a BAR man talking to his own sergeant, a four-man bazooka team huddled in one corner, hoisting up their boxes of the tank-killing rockets. Men were coming down the stairs, sergeants bringing their squads into the larger main room, harsh orders to move outside. Higgins was there again, and Benson saw the lieutenant, could make out his face in the low light.

  “You boys ready to go to work?”

  Mitchell said, “I’m ready to find some Krauts. Sir.”

  “Keep the big talk to yourself. There’s a whole town full of them right up ahead. Get ready to move out.”

  The lieutenant was gone quickly, outside, and Benson ripped open a K-ration box, fought with the contents, saw a small flame in one corner, another man heating his breakfast by burning the box.

  Higgins was there, said, “No time for that soldier. Eat it cold. Then fall in.”

  The man cursed, was up on his feet, stomped the fire, moved past Benson, said nothing. Benson swallowed something cold and hard, flavorless meat, some kind of stew, moved toward an open window, stared again at the field. The sun was still below the horizon, but he could see much farther now, the black blotches in the field clear and distinct. They were dead cows. He wanted to say something, felt foolish, knew Mitchell wouldn’t care anyway. Mitchell had finished his breakfast, tossed the empty boxes in a corner, waited for Benson, who followed him outside. The men were moving quickly, the sergeants pulling them back out into the road, and Benson hustled out, followed the trampled snow, looked to one side, the tracks where he and Mitchell had stood guard. As they moved past the corner of the house, his eyes caught more black, like logs, spread in the snow, a few yards beyond the house. He stopped, saw now that they were bodies, half a dozen, faces upturned, lying in twisted shapes, the helmets German. He stared, more curious than sickened, the faces eyeless, the skin an odd shade of green. Mitchell was beside him, a small laugh.

  “I wondered if you knew they were there. We walked right up to them a hundred times. I had a pretty good idea they were Krauts. Our guys wouldn’t have been left out here like that. Didn’t wanna spook you.”

  “God, Kenny. They’re … green.”

  “They’re dead. Let’s go.”

  Benson took a last look, one man’s mouth open, yellow teeth, and he forced himself to move, join the others.

  Higgins was waiting for them at the edge of the road, and the lieutenant was there, stepping in place, fighting the cold and his own impatience. He pointed, said, “The town’s half a mile over that next rise.” Fornell moved in closer, weaved the men into a tighter group, spoke in a low voice. “The rest of the company is across the road, in that draw, moving up with us. Can’t see ’em yet, but they’re there. Another company’s along that far ridge beyond. You’ll see them soon enough. We’re converging on this side of the town, and we’re ordered to move in together, if that’s possible. So don’t shoot at anybody until you know your target.” He turned, pointed up the road. “There are supposed to be several more farmhouses up ahead. No reports of snipers, but the Krauts might have moved out here last night. Watch those damn houses, check ’em out as we go by. We can use ’em for cover if we start taking fire from the town.”

  Benson felt the chill increasing, the nervousness, his teeth starting to chatter.

  Fornell continued, “Tanks are already moving up, and there might be armor and artillery coming in on this road, so keep your men the hell out of the way.” He stopped, craned his head, staring out past the farmhouse. “Listen.” Benson heard them, a cascade of engines far across the field. “That’s our boys. Let’s go to work. Spread out from the road to the right. Sergeant Jernigan, take your squad to the right flank, anchor the flank yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Benson didn’t know Jernigan at all, watched as he led his squad out into the snow. The lieutenant kept up the orders, spreading the men into a thin line of advance, and Higgins was given the final order, would keep his squad closest to the road. The lieutenant moved away, out into the snow, midway along his line of men, made a sharp wave, began to step forward through the snowy field. Benson focused on the engines, louder now, the fear rolling into raw excitement. Half a battalion. How many’s that? God, that ought to be a sight. Higgins was just in front of his own squad, moving in step with the lieutenant. Beside Benson, Mitchell kicked up snow with his boots, held his rifle in his hands. Benson tested his feet, numb with the cold, but no pain, another thank you to the medics. The men around him were silent, just the soft shuffle of boots through powdery snow, the sound of the tanks still there, moving ahead, passing them by. He l
ooked out across the road, saw the draw, the ridgeline beyond, no sign of the soldiers there, thought, no, you idiot. They’re gonna stay hidden as long as they can. Not like … us. We’re in the wide blue open.

  The sun was breaking the horizon to the left, a sharp piercing light along the ridge, the first sunlight Benson had seen since he left Le Havre. Out front, hard thunder began, tank fire, the distinct thump of the Shermans. He couldn’t help the fear, the shivering, the pace of the men around him quickening. They crested a low rise, and suddenly the town was there, nestled into a shallow valley. He saw a tower of a church, some scattered wreckage, but most of the buildings were intact. There were bright flashes to the right, smoke rising, the fire from the Shermans increasing, tank gunners finding targets. Above him, a loud shriek, then another, coming from behind, and he flinched, the sound bursting in his own gut, said aloud, “Artillery! Gotta be ours!”

  “Shut up. Keep walking.”

  He felt idiotic, didn’t know he had said it aloud, but the whistles and shrieks kept coming, the far side of the town erupting in fire. Benson realized he was jogging, keeping up with the others, all of them caught up in the moment, and out front the lieutenant waved them back, slowing them down. Benson forced himself to step slowly, hard breathing, his heart racing. He had a sudden flash of memory from the training, a film, some war movie, men charging the enemy in an all-out run. Afterward an officer had explained to them what kind of shape a man would be in if he made a charge like they did in Hollywood. Cannon fodder. The officer’s words had stuck with Benson then, came back to him now. He focused on the men around him, the lieutenant, the pace still quick, Higgins right in front of him, under control. The cold was gone, and he still fought the urge to run, the energy boiling up, the lack of sleep forgotten, the miserable breakfast. His mind sharpened, staring at the town, bathed in smoke, flashes of light beyond. He saw now, a river beyond the town, and across, houses coming apart, artillery shells landing in splashes of fire.