The Second Objective

by Mark Frost

  “I think the third guy ran toward the gate and shot Anderson—he’s got six small-caliber rounds in him—and Anderson shot him back with the M1. Won’t know for sure till I see the bullets, if they don’t fuck that up at the hospital, which is a big if.”

  “Okay,” said Carlson. “So we got GIs shooting GIs. Maybe it’s a robbery. Maybe the parties knew each other. Maybe the killers drove out here to settle some score, or a gambling debt—”

  “Facts first, theories later.” Grannit stepped forward, setting the scene. “Our third man came in on the jeep with three others. One of those men is the main shooter.”

  “They shoot ’em, drag the bodies, dump ’em in the woods, and just drive off?”

  “That’s right. With one of ’em wearing a new pair of boots,” said Grannit. “Ask the MPs in Elsenborn if any jeeps came through there last night that fit the profile. See if any infantry dug in around here heard anything. The trail’s already cold.”

  Carlson hurried off toward the other MPs. Soldiers carried the bodies by him on three stretchers, covered by ponchos. Grannit asked them to hold up. He uncovered the third man, looked at the tattoo on his arm again and the dental work in his mouth. Then he examined his boots. He wore them without leggings, against dress regulations, but not unheard of in the field. Reaching inside, he found a small photograph tucked in the calf of the man’s right boot and held it up to his flashlight. A casual Kodachrome snapshot with scalloped edges, probably taken with a Brownie, of a woman in her mid-thirties standing on a dock near a waterline. An ordinary brunette in a swimsuit, overweight, her arms folded self-consciously across her middle, forcing a smile for the camera. Bright midday sun overhead, shining in the woman’s eyes, causing her to squint.

  The man’s wife or girlfriend at some vacation spot, probably the last one they spent together. A row of buildings lined the shore to the right, a couple of street vendors visible in soft focus behind her. The developer’s stamp on the back was slightly smudged, but it looked like “August 1944.” Grannit kept looking at it. Something about the photograph felt wrong, although he couldn’t put his finger on why.

  Grannit shined the flashlight on the face of his watch: 5:30. Daylight wouldn’t break for another hour. He caught a flicker of bright light out of the corner of his eye to the east, miles in the distance. As he looked up, more pinpricks of intense light blossomed, like an immense panel of flashbulbs going off. The thick cloud cover on the eastern horizon began to glow as if a full moon had just lit up the sky.

  It occurred to him in that split second that the last few hours had passed silently, none of the distant small-arms fire you heard this close to the front. Not even a dog barking.

  Grannit ran toward the ring of vehicles, calling for Carlson, looking for their jeep. He jumped in behind the wheel, shouting at Ole to get in—

  Just then a roar like a hundred distant thunderstorms filled the night from the east, shattering the silence with a series of cascading booms that stepped toward them in intensity.

  Then the barrage hit and obliterated time.

  The first fourteen-inch shells whistled overhead and crashed through the highest trees. A shower of others landed and detonated across a thousand-yard range, shaking the earth in a continuous shudder. Grannit saw a string of explosions and flame rising to the east, closer to the border, lines of trees uprooting in eruptions of fire. High above, at a piercing frequency above the rumbling artillery, he heard the deadly whine of V1 missiles. On top of that, screaming engines of aircraft flying low, headed west, emitting a sonic roar unlike any planes he’d ever heard before. White blossoms, small solid clouds, hundreds of them, mushroomed in the gray clouds above. It took a moment for Grannit to register that he was looking at a sky full of parachutes.

  Carlson jumped into the jeep as Grannit stepped on the gas. As they skidded onto the road, a shell landed where Grannit had been standing thirty seconds earlier and demolished the cinder-block guard house.

  10

  Stavelot, Belgium

  DECEMBER 16, 6:30 A.M.

  Erich Von Leinsdorf’s squad had been on the road for three hours, working their way back from the Meuse, when they heard the artillery barrage begin in the east. Von Leinsdorf patted Bernie on the shoulder as he drove, and showed him the time: Operation Autumn Mist had begun exactly on schedule. With the offensive under way, their task on its first day was to disrupt the American reaction. Moving east, they had already reversed or removed half a dozen road signs at key intersections to confuse Allied troops who would soon be swarming toward the invading forces. They also severed three telephone and telegraph trunk lines between Spa, Liège, and the American Front.

  Bernie huddled over the wheel, unable since hearing about it the night before to shake the idea of a “second objective” out of his head. They were trying to injure or kill more Americans, and it made him sick. The thought of what Von Leinsdorf would do to him if he tried to interfere paralyzed him.

  The barrage from the east ended abruptly at 0630 hours. Bernie knew that was the signal for the three army groups to begin their advance into Belgium and Luxembourg. If all went according to plan, German paratroopers and assault squads would already be swarming through the Losheim Gap, ripping holes in the Allies’ defenses, opening the way for the tanks.

  A light appeared on the road ahead of them as they entered a clearing. Bernie slowed when he caught sight of it. The overcast sky had begun to turn gray with the approach of dawn, and he could make out what looked like a farm boy standing by the side of the road, swinging a lantern. The boy waved at them and stepped into their path.

  “Keep your distance,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  Bernie stopped the jeep about fifty feet in front of the boy. He waved his hands again and walked toward them.

  “American?” the boy shouted. “American?”

  “Whoa, hold up there. What do you want, kid?” asked Bernie.

  “American, yes?”

  “That’s right. What do you want?”

  The boy glanced nervously to his left, toward a tangled, overgrown hedge to the right of the jeep. Something rustled in those branches. Von Leinsdorf grabbed his rifle and dropped down in the seat.

  “Drive, drive!” he shouted.

  Bernie stepped on the gas and ducked, just as a rifle barrel pointed at them out of the dense branches. He heard two loud booms. The jeep fishtailed in the mud then righted itself and skidded forward. The boy on the road pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the windscreen, but the jeep’s right front fender clipped him on the leg, spun him around, and knocked him to the ground before he could fire. Von Leinsdorf came up from the floor of the backseat firing an M1, emptying an entire clip at the brush behind them.

  “Stop!”

  Bernie slammed on the brakes. Von Leinsdorf jumped out of the jeep and ran toward the trees, slamming another clip into the rifle.

  “Get the boy!” he shouted.

  Bernie pulled his pistol and jumped down, crouching low around the jeep. The boy on the ground was writhing in pain, whimpering, trying to reach the pistol lying a few feet from him in the snow. Bernie hurried over and kicked the gun out of his reach. The boy glared up at him, pain and raw hatred contorting his face.

  “Amis, fuck you!”

  “Easy,” said Bernie. “Take it easy, you little shit. You all right?”

  The boy spat at him.

  “Ami, I hate fucking Amis,” he said. “Fuck you.”

  Von Leinsdorf came around the hedge dragging a second boy by the collar, carrying an old shotgun. He manhandled him to the ground next to the first boy. As he went down, the boy’s coat came off in Von Leinsdorf’s hand. Something he saw made him laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Bernie.

  Von Leinsdorf moved and Bernie saw that the boy wore a red armband with a Nazi swastika around his left arm. Bernie stripped the coat off the wounded boy on the ground; he was wearing a swastika as well.

  “God damn,” he said. “Fucking Hitl
er Youth.”

  “I told you this was more Germany than Belgium.” Von Leinsdorf spoke to the boys in German. “Meine kleine Hitlerjugend. So tell me, you pick up a signal the invasion is about to begin and try to pick off some Americans with your father’s bird gun, nicht wahr?”

  The boys stared at him in shock. Von Leinsdorf broke down the ancient double-barreled shotgun and popped out the spent shells.

  “You are German?” asked the second boy, in broken English.

  “That’s right. Not that we don’t appreciate your enthusiasm,” said Von Leinsdorf, “but you nearly shot my head off.”

  “Are you really soldiers?” the wounded boy asked.

  “What are you, the village idiot?” asked Bernie.

  “Where’s your father?” asked Von Leinsdorf. “In the army?”

  “He was killed. In Russia.”

  “He’d be proud to know his son is a patriot. Even if you don’t know which side to shoot at.”

  They heard a rumble of heavy vehicles rolling up behind them along the same road. Headlights flashed through the woods. Von Leinsdorf yanked the wounded boy to his feet.

  “Go home, get the hell out of here,” he said. “Those are real Americans coming now.”

  “You better think twice before taking any more potshots if you want to live till dinner,” said Bernie.

  The second boy put an arm around his injured friend and helped him limp toward the trees.

  “And don’t forget your blunderbuss,” said Von Leinsdorf, hurling the old gun after them. The boy picked it up and they helped each other stumble out of sight.

  Bernie and Von Leinsdorf hurried back to the jeep and saw Gunther Preuss slumped forward in the backseat. He turned to look at them, a pinched, fearful hangdog stare. His left hand gripped his right shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers.

  “Oh shit,” said Bernie.

  “It’s nothing,” said Preuss. “It’s nothing, Erich, I swear.”

  “Let me see,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  He pried Preuss’s hand away from the wound. The uniform was shredded across his unit patch, the flesh of his shoulder peppered with shot. Other pellets had sprayed him across the neck and the right side of the face. All three areas were bleeding copiously.

  “God damn it,” said Leinsdorf.

  “Please, Erich,” said Preuss, tears running down his face. “Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.”

  Bernie could see Von Leinsdorf weighing the odds, and his hand moved toward his pistol.

  “It’s not that bad,” said Bernie.

  “Get out of the jeep,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  “I can patch him up,” said Bernie. “It’s not going to kill him, he won’t slow us down—”

  “Out of my way. Preuss, get down—”

  Von Leinsdorf reached for Preuss. Bernie grabbed his hand.

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Let go of my hand, Brooklyn—”

  Before they started to struggle, both men were caught in the convoy headlights; eight vehicles—jeeps, transport trucks, and a towed antitank gun—turned into the clearing behind them. Von Leinsdorf shook off Bernie’s grip and stepped toward the oncoming vehicles waving his arms. Bernie could see a platoon of rifle infantry hunched in the trailing canvas-backed trucks.

  The lead jeep pulled up alongside Von Leinsdorf. An American captain in the backseat stood up.

  “What’s the holdup?” asked the captain.

  “Somebody fired on us when we drove in,” said Von Leinsdorf. “One of my guys is hit.”

  “Let’s take a look at him,” the captain said, then turned and called to the rear. “Get a medic up here!” A man jumped out of one of the transports and jogged toward their jeep. “Was it Krauts?”

  “We couldn’t see. We returned fire, I think they moved off—”

  “You a recon unit?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Well, don’t go after ’em, all hell’s broke loose up ahead—”

  “We heard shelling. What’s going on?”

  “Who the hell knows? We’re getting reports they started coming at us in force soon as that artillery knocked off. Radio’s saying there’s Kraut paratroopers up along the ridgeline—”

  “No shit—”

  “We’ve got units strung out all along this road; everybody’s ass is hanging out. They want us to hook in and form a line at Malmédy—”

  The medic opened his haversack and stepped up on the jeep’s sideboard to take a look at Preuss. Bernie hovered next to him.

  “He can’t even talk,” said Bernie. “Think he’s hit pretty bad.”

  Taking his cue from Bernie, Preuss rolled his head back, moaning as the medic ripped the arm of his jacket down and probed the wound. Preuss didn’t respond to any of the medic’s questions; Bernie answered in his place.

  “We heard they might try a spoiling attack,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  “Hell, you hear those planes overhead, the V1s? They’re throwing the works at us. It’s no fucking spoiling attack—”

  “He needs a field hospital,” said the medic, sifting a packet of sulfa powder onto Preuss’s shoulder.

  “We were on our way to Vielsalm,” said Von Leinsdorf.

  “Screw that, I’m overriding it, you’re coming with us,” said the captain. “Two hundred ninety-first Combat Engineers. Got orders to drag every able body we can muster in there. Fall in behind me, Lieutenant. We’re about five miles from Malmédy.”

  The medic jumped into the jeep beside Preuss, unrolling a bandage. Bernie looked for guidance at Von Leinsdorf, who nodded at him to climb in. Bernie steered their jeep into line behind the captain and they continued down the road.

  “One hell of a morning, huh?” said the medic to Von Leinsdorf.

  “You said it, pal.”

  Malmédy, Belgium

  DECEMBER 16, 6:30 A.M.

  Earl Grannit’s jeep covered the mile back to Elsenborn at top speed, dodging through a moving wall of vehicles as the artillery barrage continued behind them. The village was in an uproar, hungover soldiers roused from sleep running in every direction. Frantic citizens clogged the roads, belongings in hand, evacuating to the west. Grannit pulled up next to the checkpoint at the edge of town, waved over one of the young MPs trying to control the traffic spilling in from the east, and flashed his CID credentials.

  “Were you on duty here night before last, son?” asked Grannit.

  “I guess I was, sir,” said the MP.

  “A jeep came through, sometime between nine and midnight, three men. Anything come to mind?”

  “Coulda been ten like that, sir.”

  “I’m only looking for one. Think about it. Something stand out?”

  Another shell burst, closer to the village, less than a hundred yards from where they were parked. The MP ducked down; Grannit didn’t flinch. “Yeah, maybe. There was one came through from Bradley’s headquarters, Twelfth Army. Seemed like they were a little off course.”

  “Who was in it?”

  “Couple of officers. A lieutenant, I think, that’s who I talked to. They had a private driving.”

  “Was their pass in order?”

  “I think it was.”

  “Where were they headed?”

  “Somewhere south of here.”

  “You get any names?”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, that’s all I remember.” Another shell exploded, even closer, and the MP ducked again. “Jesus, what the hell’s happening?”

  “There’s a war going on,” said Grannit.

  He steered them past the checkpoint, getting bogged down in traffic and mud on the main road halfway through the village.

  “I never been shelled before,” said Carlson. “You been shelled before?”

  “No. I’d say once is enough.”

  “Yeah, I don’t need to go through that again.”

  “Next chance you get at a radio, call Twelfth Army,” said Grannit, “see if they’ve got any patrols in this sect
or answers to that description.”

  Carlson wrote it down.

  “Where we headed, Earl? We going after them?”

  “Has our job changed in the last ten minutes?”

  “I guess not.”

  “These are wrong guys, Ole.”

  “Okay, so we’re going after ’em. So where we going?”

  “You remember the location of that field hospital where they took Sergeant Mallory?”

  Carlson searched his notebook. “I think I wrote it down.”

  “It was Malmédy, wasn’t it?”

  Just as Carlson found it in the book. “Sixty-seventh Evac.”

  67th Evacuation Hospital, Malmédy

  DECEMBER 16, 8:00 A.M.

  When the artillery barrage began at dawn, no one at the hospital paid it much mind: By the time it ended an hour later, shells had started to land near Malmédy, word came in that the Germans had punched a hole through the American line, and paratroopers had been spotted on the ridge less than three miles away. The operating theater, which had been running at less than a third of capacity during the recent lull, was put on full alert.

  A wave of ambulances arrived within minutes—front-line soldiers with blunt trauma and shrapnel wounds. Many had suffered puncture wounds when shells shattered the trees, firing splinters in every direction. A number of civilians were injured when a rocket hit near the town’s medieval Catholic cathedral after morning mass, knocking down a wall and ringing the bells.

  Earl Grannit and Ole Carlson entered the large tent complex on the outskirts of Malmédy just after 7:30 A.M. They moved past a crowd of wounded GIs stacked in the prep area, located the surgery ward, and found the senior nurse on duty, Dorothy Skogan, working in postop recovery. Grannit showed his credentials and asked about Sergeant Vincent Mallory. Skogan didn’t know the name, but recognized him from Grannit’s description.

  She told them Mallory had arrived earlier that night, without dog tags, just after 3:00 A.M., accompanied by a medic and a pair of MPs. He had been shot three times and his complicated surgeries lasted over two hours. By the time they finished, the soldier had stabilized, his severe blood loss restored by transfusion. The surgery team had just wrapped out of the OR when the bombs started flying.