“And now?” Matthew asked as he pressed closer to the frozen ground, the chill penetrating right through his uniform, and narrowed his eyes. The hill was cloaked in darkness, and the booming in the distance could have come from a fairground rather than a battle scene.
“They’re coming. Can’t you hear them?” He cocked his head towards the distant sound. “We’re meant to hold this position no matter what, but you should see these bastards when they start coming. They’re crazy. We’ve been pushed back, but we’ve got to hold now, or else. So the higher-ups say.” He shook his head. “If this is their last-ditch effort, it’s a helluva one.”
“All right, then,” Matthew said. His heart had slowed to steady thuds, each one a deep throb in his chest. Even with the artillery fire cracking through the air, there was a strange stillness to the scene. It had started to snow again, big, soft flakes like something out of a fairy tale.
“Lawson. You keep showing up like a bad penny.”
Matthew lifted his head from the ground to see Tom Reese crouching by the machine gun, a weary smile on his face. He almost seemed glad to see him.
“I could say the same of you.” Of course he would bump into Reese along the whole of the Bastogne–Liege line. They seemed destined to see the war out together, for better or for worse.
“I thought you didn’t fight.” There was a note of something like envy in Tom’s voice as he glanced at the sergeant Matthew had just been talking to. “He’s a German.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The sergeant sounded disbelieving rather than suspicious, which gratified Matthew a little.
“I’m a German refugee, a Jew,” he explained tiredly, the words all too familiar. “My brief is usually to interrogate prisoners of war, but everyone is needed at the front right now.”
“I’ve heard about you guys,” the sergeant said. He looked impressed. “That’s a job and a half, I bet. Some of these Krauts are tough customers.” He grimaced. “Sorry. You’re one too, of course.”
Matthew shrugged him aside. He didn’t feel German. He didn’t feel anything.
They lapsed into silence, huddled on the hills, bellies flat on the frozen ground, as the snow continued to fall. Tom had turned back to the machine gun he was manning, and they were all quiet and watchful.
Moments passed, perhaps hours. No one spoke; muscles tensed and ached as they waited, the softness of the snow at odds with the pistols in their hands, the tracer fire in the sky. Matthew started to feel sleepy, despite the clench of his jaw, the fact that he couldn’t feel his toes.
And then they came. Fireworks lit up the sky as signal flares went off, and in the ensuing, eerie yellow glow, Waffen-SS troops began to charge up the hill, scrambling in the snow, shouting loudly to encourage one another on. Matthew was transfixed by the manic look on their faces, the way they ran straight towards enemy fire without a single misstep.
“Start shooting, for fuck’s sake!” the sergeant shouted and Tom got behind the machine gun as everyone else began to fire.
Some of the soldiers fell, scarlet staining the snow, and yet others kept coming, undeterred, undismayed by their fallen comrades, pressing forward with determined zeal.
Bullets zinged past Matthew as he pressed deeper into the earth and took aim. There was a ringing in his ears and a coldness in his chest that had nothing to do with the snow beneath him. Tom was swinging the machine gun wildly, a look of wild terror on his face. No matter how many fell, still more came, shouting, shooting, an endless, undulating wave of manic hostility.
They were all going to be killed, Matthew thought numbly. There were too many of them; they couldn’t shoot them fast enough. They would be overrun, perhaps in minutes. They would be cut down right here in the snow. He reloaded and took aim again, the air around him full of smoke and sound, light and fire.
“They’re never going to stop,” Tom cried. “They’re going to kill us!”
“That’s the idea, isn’t it,” the sergeant returned grimly. “Us or them.”
“We can’t,” Tom insisted. His voice was high and thin. “I’m not going to die here, damn it.”
“Keep shooting that fucking gun, then!”
But the machine gun fire had stopped, even as the onslaught of soldiers continued. Matthew twisted around to see Tom stumbling away from the great gun. For an instant their gazes met, and Matthew saw something terrified yet resolute in the other man’s eyes. Then Tom turned and started running, sprinting in the snow, away from the battle.
Matthew’s mind felt cold and clear as he watched Tom run away, abandoning his position as well as his comrades. In that single, sharp moment he thought of Sophie, and how she might hate Tom for this. He thought of Lily, who might understand. And he thought of himself, and how he’d never liked Tom Reese much, but how he was signing his own death warrant by the U.S. Army if he deserted.
Even so, there was no conscious decision, no weighing in his mind, no what if or should I. He simply leveled his pistol and shot, a single bullet fired into the darkness. Tom fell.
“They’re going to overtake us, damn it!” someone shouted.
Matthew scrambled towards the machine gun, a piece of equipment he’d never actually used before. His fingers curved around handles, the freezing metal seeming to burn.
The SS troops were coming closer; he could see the whites of their eyes, their faces twisted in a grimace of something that looked disturbingly like joy. They were crazed, possessed, almost as if they were oblivious to the hail of bullets, or even welcomed it.
“I have command!” he called out hoarsely. “I have command! Do not leave your positions!”
Then Matthew aimed and fired.