by Jeff Shaara
O’Brien moved to the dead man. “We heard him, Sarge. We got here too late to help him. Kraut bastards.”
Adams pulled them both to the ground, whispered, “Guineas, probably. Shouldn’t be many Krauts here. Let’s cut him down, then move north. We should find some more guys. We gotta find the captain.”
Adams reached into a pants pocket, pulled out his small switchblade, the same knife they all carried, for the single purpose of cutting the straps in case you found yourself hung up in a tree. It was one more piece of the training, but Adams knew it was false comfort, since if you came down in a tree, you might be too torn up to do much of anything about it. The straps were cut, the man lowered, and Adams leaned low, pulled the man’s helmet away.
“Oh, Christ. It’s McBride.”
The others were low beside Adams, and Fulton said, “We gotta bury him.”
“Not now we don’t. We know where he’s at. We’ll come back for him. We have to move north, and right now!”
He couldn’t let them hesitate, no emotion, not now, not with so much still to be done. They were three men out of three thousand, and they were lost in the enemy’s backyard. Adams moved away, the others close behind him, made his way ducking low through the trees, keeping close to the edge of the orchard. He looked to the sky again, the North Star. In the stark clarity of the New Mexico skies, he had spents night learning the stars, scanning for meteors, naming the constellations. Now, they were his guide, and for now it was the only guide they would need.
H e had five men behind him, the squad fanning out slightly, easing through patches of thick brush, more walls, low boundaries that seemed to divide open grassy fields and orchards. The moon was gone, the last orange glow below the horizon, but his eyes had grown sharp, absorbing the features of the ground, landmarks sticking in his brain, shadows that had meaning.
The machine-gun fire had come again, mostly distant, several directions, no way to tell if anyone was actually in an organized fight. As they moved northward, the orchards had ended, and he kept the men close beside a wide drainage ditch, one man dropping down low, testing, confirming the depth, a soft bottom of mud and water. On the near side of the ditch, the ground rose up, a wide hillside flecked with dark patches. Adams gathered the men in close, whispered through heavy breaths.
“Let’s head up to the higher ground. Maybe we can see a village, some kind of reference point. Keep low. Don’t make a silhouette!”
They fanned out again, and he heard one man grunt, stumbling, the ground rocky and hard. He cursed to himself, but there was nothing to say, no one needing a reminder that the enemy could be anywhere around them. He focused on one large cluster of bushes, led them that way, thought, cover at least, maybe there’ll be something to see. It would be nice to know where the hell everybody is.
He was breathing heavily, reached the brush, a thick mass of thorny bushes, the men pulling up close to him. He jerked at his canteen, shook it, still nearly full, took a short drink.
“What now, Sarge?”
“Let’s keep moving. We’re not doing a damned bit of good here. Go toward the crest, but stop just short. Let’s take a look around.”
“George!”
They froze, heads darting around, each man trying to locate the voice.
“George, you morons.”
Adams smiled, breathless relief, knew the voice. “Marshall, sir.”
It was Captain Scofield.
The brush in front of them was alive with movement now, and Adams saw Scofield slipping toward him, others emerging from the brush. He realized close to a dozen men were on the hillside, the brush offering them perfect cover. They said nothing, small grunts, Scofield moving close, and he put a hand on Adams’s shoulder, a low whisper.
“Six of you? That’s it?”
“All we’ve seen, sir. They killed McBride.”
“They killed several, Sergeant, and we’ve got several more badly busted up. We made an aid station back in a drainage ditch, base of this hill.”
“We saw the ditch, sir.”
“If you’d have kept going, you’d have walked right into them. We saw you coming up the hill, let you get close enough so we could tell who the hell you were. I heard you talking. Eyeties don’t speak English.” Scofield stopped, looked back toward the crest of the hill. “Enemy machine guns are anchored along the next ridge, four or five hundred yards north. Several pillboxes, looks like. Maybe a house too. Trucks coming and going. They were shooting at shadows for a while, but somebody in charge probably shut ’em up. Eyeties, most likely. Krauts would have come out here looking for us. Eyeties would rather stay put. We got fifteen men now. Two mortar carriers, one bazooka. That’s enough to get something done. I’m not going to just sit here and wait for daylight. We’re supposed to engage the enemy, and he’s right out there. I’d rather do it in the dark.”
Scofield dropped low, flicked a match, a brief flash of light, covered by his hand.
“Three a.m. You take the right point, I’ll take the left.”
Scofield moved away, Adams absorbing the orders, so matter-of-fact. He stood upright, felt the quiver in his legs, scanned the hillside. To one side, Scofield was gathering the men, more low whispers. Adams felt a strange calm, could feel that Scofield was in complete control, the simple mission, get something done. Well, hell, what else we doing out here? He stood still for a long moment, stared up at the crest of the hill, and his brain began to work now, the questions, how many men are out there, how many machine guns? Guess it doesn’t matter. No way to find out until we give them something to shoot at. Fifteen men. He looked down at the Thompson, touched the bolt, the gun still ready, unfired, no targets yet. He was impatient now, moved out to the right, still below the crest, watched Scofield, the man giving him a quick wave, pointing out to the left. Adams waited for the men to fall into position, and he felt suddenly ridiculous, childlike, fifteen men, an army, like so many kids in a backyard playing war. The chill was all through him now, and there was no laughter, the absurd image washed away by the fear, a flash of pure terror in his brain, spreading out through him, the annoying quiver in his legs again. He gripped the Thompson hard in his hands, fought it, the terrified voice in his brain, the urge to do anything but advance on a cluster of machine guns. There was another voice, the hard steel, months of training, cursing him, shaming him. Grab hold of it, mister! Follow the man in charge.
The men began to creep forward, Scofield leading them up and then out to the left, around the crest, keeping them low. Adams knew his role, waited for the last man to fall into line. He was doing what he had done in the desert, what he had done in the planes, keeping the men together, bringing up the rear, no stragglers, no one hanging back. The voices were quiet now. There was nowhere else to go but forward.
T he fight erupted right in front of him, enemy lookouts picking up movement and sounds in the darkness. Scofield was still on the left, the men lying flat in clusters of low brush. The ground fell away behind them, narrow cuts in the rocky hillside, a gentle slope that led straight up to the pillboxes. Adams slid upward into a shallow gap, tried to raise the Thompson, the rocks too tight around him, his mind working, damn, nothing to shoot at anyway. I can crawl farther up.
Behind him he heard a hollow punch, the sound of a mortar, and he flattened out, knew to wait, the shell arcing overhead. It came down now, a sharp blast, and he raised his head, tried to see, what? Fire? Nothing else, just darkness, the enemy machine guns spraying the rocks again. The punch came again, the wait, the new blast, and Scofield was calling out, pushing the mortar crews to continue their fire.
Along the rocks beside him, men were creeping forward, pops and flashes of rifle fire, and Adams shouted out, “Cease fire! No targets! Save your ammo!” He heard motion in the rocks below him, realized he could actually see, faint light, shapes, thought, dawn. He saw a man slipping along, searching, looking up at him, Scofield.
The captain crawled up the hillside, was close now, said, “I’m
going forward, taking one man for cover. We can’t just sit here, and they’re too strong for us to have a damned shoot-out. There will sure as hell be reinforcements coming up. Everybody in this country has heard this fight. We can’t wait! Give me two minutes to get into position, then throw out some covering fire. Try not to shoot my ass!”
Adams said nothing, watched as Scofield slid back down the hill, crouching through the low brush. He looked to the side, faces watching him, said in a low voice, “On my command, shoot like hell. Then lay low. They’ll answer.”
He tried to see Scofield, the man hidden by the scrub, felt his own impatience, the Thompson itching his hands. The daylight was increasing, and he could see his hands, black with dirt, realized now, dried blood, McBride’s blood. Enough of this. We can’t accomplish a damned thing pinned down here. Two minutes. Hell, I lost my damned watch.
“Give it to ’em! Now!”
The men rose up, carbines and submachine guns ripping fire toward the enemy strongholds. The response came now, and Adams slumped down in his cover, the air and the rocks above him shattered by machine-gun fire, dirt and debris spraying him. He waited for a pause in the fire, rose up again, saw the shape of the closest pillbox, aimed, emptied the clip of the Thompson, the men following his lead. He dropped low again, waited, the machine guns splitting the air above him, another spray of rocks and dirt. He curled his fingers around the machine gun, saw smoke from the barrel, felt the heat of the steel. The clip, he thought. He reached down, felt his pocket, pulled out another, stabbed it into the gun, jerked the bolt. The fire had stopped again, men searching for targets in the low light, and he eased himself slowly up, could see it all, up beyond the hill, a row of pillboxes, like fat concrete haystacks, gathered around a house. There was a burst of fire, rocks splattering against his helmet, and he slumped low again, damn! Stupid! Stay down! He saw others watching him now, men all along the hillside, familiar faces, Fulton, yes, this time I’m the moron, not you. We’ll laugh about that later. The firing from the pillboxes had stopped again, and he thought of Scofield. Well, where the hell are you? Adams was sweating, furious, the Thompson pulled tight against his chest, the barrel against his cheek. Dammit! Where the hell did he go? He get himself killed?
There was a quiet pause, voices in the pillboxes, his face close to the ground, dirt and small rocks, can’t stay here in daylight, this brush isn’t much cover. He looked out to the right, knew he was the end of the line, but there was no cover out that way, the sloping ground bare, small dots of brush. They can’t surround us that way. Unless they send a pile of men out there. He thought of Scofield’s word, reinforcements. Yep. There could be. Here I am, Mr. One-Man Flank. Dammit, Captain, what are we supposed to do now?
There was a sharp blast, shouts from the pillboxes, short pops of rifle fire. The enemy machine gun began again, ripping the air above him, and Adams heard another sharp punching blast, the gun silent. He raised himself out of the cut in the ground, knew the sound, said aloud, “Grenades!”
There was another blast, another grenade, a flash of light at the house, smoke pouring from windows, more pops of rifle fire. There was shouting now, English, Scofield, and Adams responded, crawled up out of his cover, saw smoke pouring from the slits in one pillbox, felt a burst inside him, yelled out, “Let’s go! Advance!”
He scrambled up the soft dirt, the men coming up behind him, a brief burst of machine-gun fire, then silence, more smoke, men screaming, loud cries, a surge of motion from the house. Adams dropped to one knee, the Thompson pointed forward, men drawing up beside him, spreading to the side, some up to the house itself, low against the flat stone. Scofield was there, close by the house, shouting at them, waving.
“Go! Inside! Prisoners!”
Adams ran forward, was at the house, smoke still pouring from a window, men calling out, foreign words, no firing now. He eased along the wall, more of his men gathering, soldiers emerging from the pillboxes, strange uniforms, hands and handkerchiefs in the air. It was over.
T hey had captured fifty prisoners, with more than a dozen heavy machine guns and an extraordinary supply of ammunition. Adams had to believe that Scofield was right about enemy reinforcements, that the small squad of paratroopers could not simply sit tight and wait for the enemy to pour fire on them. The prisoners were an inconvenience, certainly, but they would come along, could serve one useful purpose: haul their own machine guns, the heavy ammo boxes. They could be guarded by a few of the Thompsons, men who would bring up the rear, keeping the prisoners together, move them along, all of them pressing toward the ultimate goal, the place on the crumpled map in Scofield’s jacket: Objective Y. The incredible haul of heavy machine guns was only one surprise. The second came from the prisoners themselves. They were not all Italians. Among the men were a dozen Germans, men who gave their unit as the Hermann Göring Panzer Division. They were front-line observers, the forwardmost eyes of an enemy that no one expected to see. Adams had heard the briefings, that they might find some German engineers or technicians, advisers to the Italian commands. But their prisoners told a different story. The enemy would certainly be reinforced, and when those reinforcements came forward, they might be driving tanks.
T hey had ninety men now, had found a cluster of headquarters personnel and scattered paratroopers, a squad of antitank fighters, bazooka carriers, all of them completely separated from their own commands. They had also found Lieutenant Colonel Art Gorham, the battalion commander, the man known throughout the Eighty-second Airborne as Hard Nose. With the daylight came a clear view of the lay of the land, and the satisfying conclusion that Adams and Scofield had indeed landed close to their drop zone. Their blind advance had taken them directly across the wide, hilly prominence of Piano Lupo, exactly where they were supposed to be. With Gorham now in command, the paratroopers spread out across the dismal open scrub, climbing still, assuming that once they reached the vantage point where Objective Y could be observed, they would find the rest of the 505th, or at least enough men that the assault on the enemy stronghold could be done with the power necessary to accomplish the mission.
“N o one. Not a damned soul. Three thousand men couldn’t just disappear.” Scofield lowered the binoculars, handed them to Adams. “Here. Look for yourself. Unless I’m blind, there’s not a man to be seen. You’d figure we could see somebody lying low, small groups maybe. There’s shooting to the east, but way the hell off. That could be some of our guys.”
Adams raised the binoculars, scanned the brush, rolling, uneven ground, nearly treeless. He saw the road, a white, dusty ribbon, an intersection, and along one side a row of low, fat concrete mushrooms.
“Pillboxes. Out there, in those hills above the road. More than a dozen of ’em.”
“Sixteen. The colonel says this is it. Objective Y. The maps describe it pretty well. This is what we’re supposed to hit.”
Adams lowered the glasses. “With what?”
Scofield rolled over onto his back, slid down the hill, Adams following, heard no response to his question. Colonel Gorham was waiting for them, said, “Pretty clear what we have to do. We can set up the mortars in that low ground to the left, some deeper hills there. The rest of us can spread out along whatever cover we can find. We have to use the land, get as close as we can, let the mortars bust ’em up a bit. We make enough noise, it might draw some of our own men out of hiding, let them find us.”
Adams looked down the wide hillside, saw the prisoners guarded by a dozen paratroopers. The Italians had seemed almost eager to surrender, officers as well as their men, the few Germans more sullen. But there was no defiance even from them, no anger, all of them seeming to be exhausted by the war, accepting captivity with quiet stoicism. He watched them for a moment, the questions rising inside him. How many battles? Where? Africa? Russia? Or maybe they’ve been here the whole time. But it’s been a while. None of them look like recruits. It would be nice to get rid of them, not lose those men to guard duty. We need all the Thompsons we can get
.
He looked toward the paratroopers now, the men lying flat, some helmets covering faces, others with canteens and ration tins, the first chance any of them had had to eat. Most of them still showed traces of the face-black, the foul-smelling ash that Gavin had ordered them to use for camouflage. It was thought best to cover their white faces in the moonlight, but now, in full daylight, the men simply looked filthy. Gorham and Scofield continued their discussion, and Adams felt his own hunger, pulled a tin of crackers from his pocket, said in a low voice, “We look like a bunch of damned savages.”
Gorham stopped talking, looked at him, pointed a finger into Adams’s face. “Damned right, Sergeant. That’s an asset. General Ridgway said that the Eyeties have been told we’re nothing but escaped convicts and Indian scalp hunters. We might as well look the part. Could scare them enough to just give up this fight. Propaganda works both ways.”
“Yes, sir.”
Adams crushed the dry crackers in his mouth, thought, yeah, and it could also convince them to fight like hell to keep us from capturing them. He washed the dry mush down his throat with the last swig from his canteen.
Gorham moved down the hill toward the men, and Scofield followed, motioned to Adams to follow. The men began to gather, responding to the colonel, and Gorham waited for them to close in, said in a low voice:
“It’s time to go. Our objective is beyond these hills here, two thousand yards or so. We have no way of knowing what’s waiting for us, so just shoot hell out of anybody who doesn’t look like us, and don’t stop moving forward. There’s a good spot for the mortars about halfway there, and we can make it pretty hot for whoever’s in those bunkers.” He paused. “We could wait a while longer, try to gather up some more men. But I don’t know any more than you do, and all I know is a whole bunch of paratroopers landed God-knows-where, and they’re not where we expected them to be. But we’re here, the enemy’s over there, and we still have our objective.” He pointed south. “The beaches are that way, and we’ve got a hell of a lot of infantry coming ashore. This intersection in front of us joins two roads that feed out of two key towns north of here, where the enemy is supposed to be waiting in force. Once they know where our landing zones are, they’ll be hauling everything they’ve got this way. We have to take this intersection, and then, hold on to it. We throw up a roadblock, we can slow the enemy enough to give the infantry time to establish and fortify their footholds. If we give way, if the enemy shoves past us, those boys on the beach could be in a world of trouble. That’s why we can’t just sit and wait and try to find more of our people. We have to make a go with what we have. And you’re it.”
