Screaming Eagles

^TWENTY-NINE GRILLO

Private Grillo spent a fitful night in a bombed-out house’s basement.

The city of Bastogne was an ancient town. Residents had piled their furnishings and goods into dray carts and left them in the town square despite military placard that read “Unattended Vehicles Will Be Impounded.”

Many windows had been shuttered and Bastogne’s power had failed, so most were left in the dark that was barely pushed back by lanterns and candles, a risky thing to do when a city was in danger of being bombed. However the weather hadn’t allowing any flights so the residents had used whatever was available to provide light.

He was surrounded by men from his company and elements of the 502nd who’d been injured around Foy. Grillo had visited the seminary where they were taking in the injured, and had his wound tended by a pretty Belgian nurse.

He only knew a few words of French, so used merci generously. She was a slim woman in a thick wool dress that did nothing to flatter her figure. Grillo hadn’t seen a woman in weeks and it was a nice change though she was nothing like his beauty back home. That reminded him he should write Louise soon.

Her hair was done up in a bun, and rather than facing the angry tongue of a no-nonsense nurse, she had an easy smile and reassuring words for every man she assisted.

Grillo came across a small room where a number of black soldiers were being tended to. The United Stats Army had rules about segregating negro units from white units. But huddled together in a basement those rules fell away. Curiosity got the better of him, so he poked his head in.

“Evening,” he said.

“You lost?” one of the men asked.

“No, Corporal,” said Grillo. “Just wondering why you’re all in here.”

“Army likes us to fight, but they don’t like us to be integrated,” the man said.

“What unit y’all with?”

“The 969th Field Artillery Battalion,” one of the other soldiers said. He’d been sat with his back against a wall, reading from a Bible. The man put a finger between the pages to mark his place and closed it. “You?”

“With the 101st,” Grillo said.

“So what’s it like to jump out of an airplane? Ask me, it’s crazy, but I ain’t never tried it.”

“I don’t know. I just got here a few days ago, and haven’t seen a combat jump yet,” Grillo said.

“Hear that, Auldey? He ain’t jumped yet. Told you they was busing in green recruits,” he said.

“They ain’t gonna let you into Airborne, man. Just give it up,” Auldey admonished his friend.

“I’ll get my chance. As soon as we break through and advance to Berlin I’ll get a shot,” Grillo said defensively.

“Think we gonna make it out of Bastogne? Gonna make it out of Belgium? Way I hear, they got us surrounded on all sides,” Auldey said. “We just waiting to die.”

A white officer poked his head in the doorway and fixed his eyes on the black solders.

“All hands, men. Time to man the guns,” he said.

Grillo shot the officer a quick salute. The men in the room rose to their feet and shuffled around, picking up gear and jackets. The officer looked Grillo up and down, then departed without a word.

“Well, okay, buddy. You men give ’em hell,” Grillo said, unsure what else to say.

“You too, buddy.”

Grillo moved on to find Sergeant Pierce.

GRILLO WOVE around cots and improvised beds. The seminary had been converted to a hospital and offered shelter to the wounded, but a direct impact from German artillery would probably bring the roof down on everyone in the space.

Pierce lay back on a cot with one leg dangling off the side of the little bed. He had his hand over his eyes, and was humming a tune.

“Sarge?” Grillo said.

Pierce sat up and looked Grillo over.

“How ya doing, Private?”

“Good enough to fight. I’m going back to find the company. You stuck here for a while?”

“Nah. I’m just resting up and enjoying the quiet for a few hours. I got it good in the calf, but the bullet went through. Leg’s kinda stuck without full mobility, but I’m not planning to sit out the war,” Pierce said. “I’ll go with you.”

“Sure, Sarge. I heard they got the whole city encircled.”

“Yeah, that’s the word. They got us completely surrounded,” Pierce said, and swung his legs off the cot. “Poor bastards.”

Grillo helped him to his feet, and together they went back into the cold.

THEY SET up in a trench a quarter mile from town. Ammo was still short, but they’d been given enough rounds to put up a fight. Figures moved in the mist and faded into and out of the woods. Some of the men took shots, but they’d been told that if they fired they’d better leave a corpse.

Bullets hit, but they didn’t always hit. The men were uneasy around Grillo, and muttered about the prowess of the new “über-soldier,” as some had started to call them.

“Look at that son of a bitch,” the man next to Grillo said. Wayne had been tagging along with Baker for most of the morning while he looked for his company. So far none of them had made it to Bastogne.

Grillo wished he had a pair of binoculars. The Germans were a swarm in the distance and well covered by the weather and foliage.

A man stood a few feet from a copse of trees. He was dressed in a black overcoat that bore the unmistakable SS emblem. One of the men took a shot at him, but he must have missed, because the officer faded back into the woods.

“That took balls,” Wayne said.

“He pops his head out and I’ll shoot him in the balls for real. Gonna have to be a sharpshooter to hit those little raisins,” one of the men said with bravado.

Grillo snorted and laid out a pair of clips. Once the enemy came, he didn’t want to be fumbling in his jacket.

After returning the the company, Pierce had demanded his Thompson back from Grillo. Grillo had lost his M1 in the assault and was without a gun.

“Better beg, borrow, or steal a new weapon, Private,”

Grillo had spent twenty minutes wandering around looking for a gun until he came across a row of bodies in the snow. He felt sick to his stomach doing it but a casualty didn’t need a weapon so he took an M1 that was leaning against a wall and returned to his position.

Pierce looked him over and said, “that’s the spirit.”

He was cold and scared to death. He’d only been in the war for a few days, and already he’d seen enough death and destruction to last a lifetime. Contrary to his dreams of heroic actions, he was now ready to get this war over with so he could go back home to Louise. Once they were married, he hoped to never pick up a weapon again for as long as he lived.

As he spent a few minutes daydreaming about Louise the attack bagan.

Sergeant Pierce told his men again not to waste ammo.

A machine gun team opened up on the Germans and decimated them. Then, hundreds of bodies began pouring out of the woods and swarming toward the front lines.

The 101st laid down fire. Grillo picked his targets carefully, but like he’d seen the previous day, even a shot dead center in a Kraut’s chest only took him off his feet for a few seconds before he was back up and moving. Better to get a headshot but hitting a moving target was anything but easy especially when it was the size of a cantaloupe.

The Germans continued pouring toward the city, and eventually overwhelmed a position just to the east. Grillo tried to shift fire and help the men in the foxhole, but they were completely engulfed. Two soldiers managed to get out and run toward the American lines.

Mortars fell among the Germans, but they just shrugged off the damage, got back to their feet, and came on.

“Get the Captain, someone get the Captain!” Wayne yelled. He pointed at a group of men stumbling toward them, and let out a gasp.

They were American infantry, and Grillo and his men were shooting at them.