“Cover! Jones, get that jeep out of here!” Logan shouted.

  Davey Jones grabbed the nearest soldier. They leaped into the jeep, started the engine, and roared away. The rest of the platoon scattered off the track into the forest, waiting for the appearance of a German armored column. Four vehicles arrived, and they weren’t tanks. Half-tracks, the transport of choice for Panzer Grenadiers, except these were packed with American soldiers.

  Cassidy corrected that thought. They were packed with German soldiers in American uniforms. They drove past, trundling steadily west, the tracks churning the snow into slush, and disappeared, heading toward the American lines. Cassidy glanced at Logan. “My guess is there’ll be more of them. The Krauts are planning to hit us on a wide front. Sarge, we have to warn our people.”

  “Sure we do, but the woods are full of Germans, some of them in American uniform, and some of them in German uniform. Getting past them could prove to be impossible. Shit, what would I give for a radio.”

  “If we can’t send a warning, we have to slow them up.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, good plan. We have two bazooka rockets, so with a lot of luck we could take out two half-tracks, but that leaves two other two, and in case you missed it, they have machine guns mounted on the top.”

  “But…”

  “No, forget it. It’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible.”

  “Sometimes it is, Cassidy. You’ve pulled off some good stunts, you and your buddy Byrd, but this isn’t gonna happen. All we can do is head back through the woods, try to stay out of sight, and pray we can get the message through in time.”

  “I think we can do it. They have to stop sooner or later, and maybe we’ll have a chance to take them.”

  “Forget it.” He walked across to the Lieutenant. “Lt, we should get moving. If we travel through the center of the forest, we have a chance of staying out of trouble. I reckon it’s about five miles to our lines, and in these conditions we should make it in about five hours. One mile an hour is about the best we can do.”

  “I concur, Sergeant. Form them up, we’ll start moving.” He looked at Cassidy. “You and Byrd have done a good job on point, are you up to it again?”

  “No sweat. But, Lieutenant, I still say we should go after those half-tracks.”

  His eyes blazed with anger. “How many more times, Private. The answer is no, so get your ass moving through that forest.”

  He glanced at Harry, who looked even colder, visibly shivering. “It’s you and me again.”

  “Great. Another chance to freeze my ass off.” He held up the Grease Gun, “I swear if I see a German, I’ll shoot the bastard with this just for putting me through this misery.”

  “Cheer up, it’ll be a challenge getting through the forest, so it’ll warm you up.”

  “Ray, if this gets any worse, I’m gonna lay down and die.”

  “It won’t get worse. Once we start moving you’ll be so warm you’ll be sweating.”

  Logan had calculated they could make one mile an hour. After the first hour they’d barely made a half-mile. In places the snowdrifts was so thick they’d covered depressions in the ground to a depth of almost six feet, and they had to fight hard to make any progress. Cassidy continued to head west, using an Army compass to stay on course, but it was by no means a straight course. He’d pictured the bloodshed when those Germans ran into American infantry, with no armor and no heavy weapons. And with the cloud base so low, air support was impossible.

  Instead of heading due west, he vectored a fraction north, toward the town of Bastogne. American troops would be heading toward the town, and he estimated the Germans would surprise them somewhere on the other side. If he was right, and more Germans infested the Ardennes Forest, some in American uniforms and driving American vehicles, the carnage when they fell on the Allied troops would be unimaginable.

  Byrd was no fool, and after the second hour, he glanced at Cassidy. “We’re heading the wrong way. You’re leading us too far north. If we keep going, we’ll cut the track and we could bump into those Germans.”

  He gave him a look that was filled with innocence. “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t screw with me, Ray. You’re up to something, what is it?” Moments later he worked it out, “Don’t tell me, you’re planning to lead us to those half-tracks.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ray, they’ve probably linked up with the Panzer tank, and the chances are there’ll be more tanks on the way. You’re crazy. There’s not a damn thing we can do with two bazooka rockets.”

  “We have grenades.”

  He snorted. “Sure, they’re gonna stand watching while we run up and toss the grenades into their vehicles. I don’t think so.”

  “We also have a secret weapon.”

  “What’s that, a death ray?”

  “American uniforms.”

  Understanding dawned a moment later. “You’re serious! You really do mean to walk up to them like we’re their best buddies, and hit them with grenades?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “It’ll never work. Even if Logan goes for it, Bond will go ape.”

  “I’ll handle Bond. I’ll tell him he’ll get a Congressional Medal of Honor afterward.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Harry, I want this to be over, same as you. I want to go home, meet my folks, and take my girl for a drive. Get out into the woods and do some hunting.”

  His shivering had stopped, but at the mention of hunting it returned. “I was with you all the way, until you mentioned hunting.”

  “Whatever. What I’m saying is the only way to get home is to get this war finished, and finishing it means killing plenty of Germans. The more we kill, the quicker we get home. There’s something else. The quicker we kill these Germans, the quicker you get out of these woods.”

  His expression changed. “Now you’re talking. What’re we waiting for?”

  They reached the track two hours later, and darkness had fallen. The platoon was following their footprints in the snow, so they had no problem in linking up with them fifteen minutes later.

  Bond looked around suspiciously. “This looks like the track we left back there. Are you sure you have come the right way?”

  Cassidy shrugged. “Come to think of it, it does look familiar. I must’ve made a mistake with the compass.”

  Sergeant Logan’s lips twitched, but he kept his voice neutral. “Lt, now we’re here, we may as well follow the track, we’ll make faster progress.”

  “We may also run into those Germans.”

  “It’s dark, Sir. They’ve probably turned off it, but even if we run into them, we’ll see them long before they see us.”

  Bond muttered and grumbled a while longer but gave in with bad grace. “Cassidy, Byrd, you got us into this, so you can lead the way.”

  They made good time. The snow had been churned up by the tracks that’d passed earlier, and Cassidy picked up the speed so they were jogging west. Several times they slipped and fell on their faces on the icy slush-covered surface, but each time they picked themselves up and kept moving.

  “They’re not far ahead, Harry, I can smell them.”

  He grimaced. “I can’t smell a thing, my nose is frozen. This is the last time, Ray. Never again will I listen to you.”

  “Quiet. I hear something.”

  They slowed and went forward without making a sound. They didn’t have far to go. They heard voices, and as they got closer, they were German voices. The half-tracks had stopped, two either side of the track. The two-man crews, the driver and the machine gunner, were standing in a group, eight men in all, chatting to each other and drinking from flasks. They weren’t water bottles, which explained their overly loud voices in a war zone.

  “Where’re the rest of them? The troops they were carrying in American uniforms.”

  “They can’t use German half-tracks, so they parked here, and they’re going forward on foot. Our guys are in trouble,” he murmured, “When they arrive, they’ll assume they’re American troops, and they’ll get into the middle of them and start shooting. We can’t let this happen, Harry.”

  “I agree, but they’re a long way ahead of us. They’ll reach our lines long before we can. Then there’s the Panther, and I don’t see we can do a damn thing about it.”

  They went back to wait for the platoon, heard a noise behind them, and whirled. It was Sergeant Logan leading them in. Ray held up a hand for silence.

  “Don’t make a sound. They’re close, just round that bend. If you sneak through the trees you can see them, the Hanomags, with the crews clustered nearby.”

  He explained what they’d seen to Logan and Bond. “When they reach our lines, they’ll murder them.”

  “What about the half-tracks? If there’re eight men, we can waste them and destroy the vehicles. It’s better than nothing.”

  He looked at Bond. “It won’t stop what’s gonna happen, Lt.”

  He sighed. “Cassidy, I would remind you there’s a Panther somewhere up ahead. Whatever you have in your mind, forget it. Sergeant, deploy the men. We’ll take down those crews and destroy the Hanomags.”

  “With respect, Lt, that’s not a good plan. Kill the men, but if we had at least one or two half-tracks, we could get after them.”

  He sneered. “You think they’ll stop a tank shell?”

  “Sir, why don’t we worry about the Panther when we see it? There’s a bunch of Germans about to chew up our men, and we’re the only ones that can stop it.”

  He looked at Logan. “What you think, Sergeant?”

  He shrugged. “We ain’t got nothing better to do, so why not?”

  “And the tank?”

  He didn’t have an answer. Save one. “If it opens fire on us, our people will hear it, and it’ll give them fair warning.”

  “It’ll also kill all of us.”

  He returned the ghost of a smile. “Probably, but at least it will be warmer in hell than in the middle of this forest.”

  Chapter Five

  They sneaked through the forest, coming up behind the Germans. They were still standing in a circle and passing the flask of booze from man to man. Harry muttered something about he wouldn’t mind some of that, but Ray reminded him their befuddled brains would make it easy for the platoon to jump them. “Better off cold than dead.”

  “I’m not too sure about that,” he murmured.

  They edged closer to the nearest vehicle and were able to take cover behind it. They hadn’t relinquished their Grease Guns, and Bond had agreed they could hit them first with shattering bursts of automatic fire.

  “Don’t stop to reload. It’ll take too long. If there’re any left alive, we’ll handle them.”

  “Roger that, Lt.”

  They took aim over the hood of the Hanomag, Harry nodded he was ready, and they squeezed the triggers. The M3s hammered out shattering volley of bullets, and they kept their fingers pressed down on the triggers until the firing pins clicked on empty. Thirty .45 caliber rounds in each gun, sixty rounds in all, and they tore into the Germans, sending their cozy little drinking circle into bloody chaos. They were all dead or dying, ripped apart by the withering bursts, and they stopped firing and reloaded.

  Sergeant Logan walked out from the other side of the track, keeping them covered with his Garand, but he relaxed when he saw the bloody heap of what had once been human flesh. “Steiner, Adams, drag the bodies off the track and leave them just inside the woods. The rest of you can take a look further up the track. Don’t go more than one hundred yards, just in case those Germans haven’t gone far.”

  They’d dragged five of the corpses away, and the Lieutenant bent down to look at the other three. And jackknifed backward in astonishment as a ‘body’ suddenly came to life. The German scrambled to his feet, only partly wounded with a bullet through his leg, and he limped into the forest to escape. Cassidy didn’t need a shouted order, and he went after him, floundering and tripping in the snow and hidden tree roots, following the sound of the fleeing man deeper into the dark gloom. Suddenly, there was nothing.

  No sound of a man running nothing, just silence, punctuated by the usual noise of the forest, and the occasional flurry of snow falling from a branch. It was eerie, like the guy had disappeared into thin air. He hadn’t disappeared, and he cautioned himself to keep low while he went ahead to find him. And almost missed him. He’d expected to find him hiding behind a tree trunk, but the German had somehow tumbled into a deep drift that covered a shallow gully, and he’d pulled snow over his body to hide from pursuit. He rose up suddenly, a monstrous figure, all white like a polar bear, yet shedding its coat of white.

  Ray was in time to see the gun in his hand, a Luger, before he threw himself behind a tree and a half-dozen bullets smacked into the trunk. He readied his Grease Gun and stepped out to return fire, but the German was waiting for him, and two bullets slammed into his helmet with such force his head jerked backward. It was pure luck that he continued the movement, falling back into the snow, out of the line of fire.

  But the German had problems of his own. He fired again, a single bullet, and then there was just a click as he squeezed the trigger. Ray shook his ringing head in an attempt to clear it and seized the opportunity. He stepped back out, saw the white loom of the soldier moving as he hastened to reload the Luger, and he let him have it with a long burst. When he went to check the body, this time there was no question. The line of bullets across his chest told their own story.

  When he turned, Harry was standing there, ready to cover him. “I thought you could take him, but I came just in case.”

  “Thanks, Harry.”

  They started walking back to the track, and an argument was in progress. Logan insisting they use one or two Hanomags to catch up with the disguised Germans, and Bond was still reminding him about the Panther. They both turned when Cassidy and Byrd showed up.

  “Well?”

  “He won’t cause any more trouble, Lt.”

  “That’s good. I intend to move off the track, and we’ll thread our way through the forest to get back to our lines.” He held up a hand as Logan went to argue. “No, Sergeant, this time we’re gonna do it my way. Get them moving.”

  They swapped glances, and Ray looked at the nearest Hanomag. Harry gave a slight nod, and they sidled over and climbed inside. He looked at the controls, and it looked straightforward enough, with a steering wheel, gear levers, and pedals he assumed were for the gas, the brake, and the clutch. Harry took the wheel, and Ray nestled behind the butt of the machine gun.

  “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

  Byrd pressed the starter button, and the engine roared into life; the heavy vehicle jerked and kangarooed as he attempted to work out the clutch and gears. They didn’t hear Lieutenant Bond shouting at them to stop, but they saw the soldier leap onto the back and pull himself over. Sergeant Logan tossed something heavy onto the floor of the Hanomag and pulled himself forward, hand over hand, attempting to prevent the jerking and uneven motion from throwing him over the side.

  “Cassidy, you’re gonna be on the Lieutenant’s shit list for this.”

  “You, too, Sarge.”

  “Not me, I’m trying to stop you.”

  “You’re not trying too hard. By the way, what did you throw into the back?”

  “I brought along the bazooka in case I needed it to make you listen to reason.”

  “A bazooka?” He thought for a moment, “Then again it could come in useful if we run into that tank.”

  “That was my theory. If we do get close, you realize we’ll be coming in from the rear. About the only part of a Panther vulnerable to a bazooka rocket.”

  The Sarge picked up ammunition belts from the floor and inspected the machine gun. They’d all seen the MG34 before, although usually from the wrong end. He disengaged a belt and loaded a replacement to make sure. Cassidy cranked the charging lever, and he figured they were as ready as they could be. The Hanomag bounced and lurched along the darkened track, and they were almost on them they saw the American soldiers who weren’t American soldiers.

  Cassidy didn’t stop to count them, but he estimated there were between forty and fifty men. He tucked the butt of the machine gun into his shoulder and prepared to fire. He still wasn’t sure, shooting at men wearing the same uniform seemed wrong, and he’d have liked to stop to check. Except if they gave forty or fifty disguised storm troopers half a chance, they’d tear them into little pieces. Which was exactly what he’d planned for them. If they were who he thought they were.

  Harry slowed and called over his shoulder. “What do I do, Sarge? They could be ours.”

  He didn’t answer, and he was trying to think it through when the troops ahead of them confirmed their suspicions. They recognized the German half-track, stepped off the left side of the track to allow them room to pass, every man waving and cheering as they got closer.

  They didn’t need further confirmation. Byrd increased speed, Cassidy took aim, and Logan held a spare ammunition belt ready to load. A second later they opened fire, and the machine gun spat bullets at a frightening rate, between eight and nine hundred rounds a minute. It took them twenty seconds to recover from their shock, and in that time he’d hit them with more than two hundred and fifty 7.92mm chunks of German lead, swiveling the barrel along the long line of Germans. They went down like pins in a bowling alley.

  A few survivors started to run, and as Harry came abreast of them, he leaned out and emptied his Grease Gun after them. Ray emptied the belt, Logan replaced it, and he fired again, sending streams of bullets after the fleeing men until none were left to shoot at. Byrd slowed, about to stop, but Cassidy and Logan had seen a dark, menacing shape about five hundred yards further along the track, just before it disappeared around a bend.