What happens when your best friend dies? Set in Bastogne.
***


He’s gone.

My hands are numb from the cold. The dog tags, his dog tags, twirl around and around in my hands aimlessly, absently. A photo is propped up on the edge of the foxhole. Me and him. Him and me. Two best friends, laughing away, looking as if they had not a care in the world, as if they were the happiest friends on earth. We thought the good times would never stop, that we’d be together again, playing baseball in the park after the war.

Yet, now…

Now he’s gone. And he’s never coming back.

Someone slides into my foxhole. I barely glance at him. From the way he moves, and from the red cross on his arm, I know without a doubt it’s our medic, Eugene Roe.

“Hey, cap’n, y’alright?” he asks in his Cajun accent, carefully, cautiously. I guess he knows, from bearing the brunt of my multiple outbursts, that I’m rather volatile, especially in this state. I look at him again, properly now. There are black rings under his eyes and blood on his uniform. He looks dead tired, yet still manages to grin crookedly at me.

“Do I look like I’m alright?” I snap back brusquely. I guess I shouldn’t have shouted at him. He took time off just to see me, to see if I was alright. As it is, he looks a little hurt.

“Hey, I was jus’ askin’,” he shrugs. “I mean…” his voice trails off as he realizes his folly.

Enraged, I turn on him. “You don’t need to goddamn remind me.” I spit every word out. “I don’t ever want to hear another damn word about him. I…” I realize I’m rambling, taking it all out of him. Ashamed, I fall silent.

He stares at me, undaunted, unblinking, un-intimidated. (is there such a word? I can’t remember anything anymore.) “Go on,” he says gently, quietly. “Go on and let it all out. Take it all out on me.” He looks into my troubled eyes and smiles encouragingly.

I try to, but I can’t. Eugene’s just not bad enough, horrid enough for me to yell at him. What I need is Dyke. I need Dyke so that I can yell at him, so that I can unleash all my pent up anger on him, so that I can kill him. Eugene’s just too nice to pretend be someone like Dyke.

“That goddamn Dyke,” I curse him bitterly. “Just had to be so goddamn stupid and lead the goddamn patrol straight into the goddamn Krauts. And then he just has to go and…and…” it is just too much. I look away, my eyes suddenly feeling rather watery. Eugene looks at me strangely, almost amusedly.

“Well, I guess I’ll be going, then,” he says at last, as if he thinks I’m upset because he’s there. He slaps me on the shoulder in a friendly manner, grabs his medic pack, and clambers up the side of the foxhole. Suddenly I realize how lonely I’ve been after his death. “Wait!” I call, but he’s already gone, disappearing into the darkness.

A metallic cling. I look down. The dog tags have slipped from my numb hand and fallen to the ground. I pick it up again and run a finger over the protruding letters. How could he have died? How could he have left me here alone, in this cold, godforsaken place, a place with no happiness, just misery?

How could he have left me here alone?

All I have left is the dog tags and his watch. Which is broken, anyway. And I’ve got that photo. Of him and me, in happier times. I stare at the photo. He was such a great guy, so reliable, so intelligent, always there for you…but now, it’s all gone to waste. He’s gone forever and he’s never coming back.

I have a sudden urge to tear the picture up. All those memories, those happy memories rushing back are just too much for me to bear. I pick up the snapshot and stuff it into my pocket. I can’t look at it anymore. It’s just too…painful, I guess. Too painful for me to stare at his handsome, happy face anymore, too painful to think about it anymore, to think how close I could have been to saving him.

Why couldn’t it have been me instead? Why, God? Why couldn’t you have taken both of us and not just him? Why?

***

The Captain peers into the snowy white slush in disgust. “Dyke’s gone and done it again,” he comments to his friend, standing beside him. “Goddamn idiot went and lost his patrol in the snow. Damn if I know where they are.”

If his friend is surprised at his uncharacteristic swearing, he shows no sign of it. Instead he asks, “So should I send out another patrol, then? Get them to look for the rest?”

The Captain turns to look at him. “Yeah –” he begins to say, but pauses and changes his mind. “No,” he says decisively. “This time he’s gone too far. I’ve got to look for him personally, give him a hiding he’ll never forget. Get Malarkey, Guarnere, Lipton, Martin, and Roe over here.”

His friend nods and leaves the observation post. In a few minutes the men the Captain wanted are assembled. The Captain looks them squarely in the eye and says, “Right, boys. I know you’re not going to like this, but…” he trails off, hesitates, then starts again. “We’re going to rescue Dyke.”

The men look at him, stunned. Bill Guarnere, the most outspoken, blurts, “But sir! Ain’t it better t’ let th’ idiot alone?” the moment he says it, he bites his lip and shrinks back, preparing to face the wrath of his commander.

The Captain, however, just inclines his head, a half amused, half exasperated expression on his face. “Actually Sergeant, I quite agree with you.” He gives a small smile as he surveys the shocked expressions on the men’s faces. No one says anything.

“However,” the Captain continues briskly after a long pause. “He’s still one of our men. Plus, he led some of our good boys out and we’ve got to get ‘em back. I’ll be taking the lead. C’mon, then. Let’s do this.”

Silently they move out, creeping through the snow as quietly as possible. The Krauts are somewhere ahead and they have to keep a look out. They trek on for half an hour before Eugene Roe, lagging behind and moving a short way away from the main group, utters an exclamation and bends down.

“What is it, Roe?” asks the Captain cautiously. Eugene Roe looks at him dolefully. “The question should be ‘who is it’, really, sir,” he replies. He holds up a couple of dog tags. “Joe Toye’s,” he says. The words hit Bill Guarnere like a kick in the gut. “Wha-?” he mumbles disbelievingly, yanking the dog tags from the medic’s hands. “That’s not possible,” he says hollowly. “Just…” he stares unseeingly at the dog tags and trails off.

The Captain’s friend sympathizes with him. Joe Toye was Guarnere’s best friend and it was understandable. He can’t imagine what life would be like without the Captain. Thankfully the Captain was one of those men who seemed like they could never be killed.

“Well, at least we’re on the right track,” the Captain says grimly, his voice jolting his friend out of his reverie. “Guarnere, you alright? You need to go back?”

Guarnere shakes his head. “No, sir,” he says, his voice barely audible. “Never given up before, never will. I’ll keep on goin’.” There’s a fire in his eyes, not unlike the one he had when he found out that his brother had died in Monte Carlo. The Captain’s friend looks worried. When Bill Guarnere goes wild, he goes wild. That’s why they call him Wild Bill.

The Captain himself looks anxious. “Maybe you better go back,” he says. Wild Bill’s eyes flash. “No,” he snarls, then adds, as if it was an afterthought, “sir”. There is really nothing they can do about it. The Captain signals and they continue walking.

Roe, who’s now up front, finds a pool of dried blood. There are two pairs of dog tags next to the pool. There were only four soldiers that went out on the patrol. Now three of them are down. Only Dyke is left.

And then suddenly, all hell breaks loose. “It’s an ambush!” yells Martin, before copping a couple in his head and pitching headfirst into the ground. Everyone ducks quickly, instinctively, and fire back into the shadows flitting in the snow. One or two Germans keel over, dead. But there are still a dozen more. Desperately they fight back, but they are outnumbered.

Slowly, miraculously, the German soldiers falter, and the Americans press on. All of a sudden there is silence and everyone stops, unbelieving, looking around. The Captain wipes his bleeding hand on his uniform. “Well, that’s it, then,” he says.

It’s anything but over, unfortunately. As they prepare to set off again, a German, thought to be dead, suddenly raises his rifle and summoning every last bit of strength he has squeezes the trigger.

BANG! The shot echoes, clear and loud, across the field. The Captain clutches at his throat, gasping. A small scarlet fountain of blood spurts out and the Captain, choking, falls to his knees. “NO!” roars his friend in anguish, drawing his pistol and shooting the Kraut squarely between the eyes. Roe, the medic, is already at the Captain’s side, trying to stem the flow of blood. The rest look on helplessly, unsure of what to do.

The friend sprints to the Captain, his eyes brimming with tears, swearing repeatedly as Eugene tries to save the Captain. Finally Eugene looks up and shakes his head sadly. The friend looks at him, gaping, a million thoughts whirling around in his jumbled mind. Eugene doesn’t have to say anything but he still does.

“He’s gone, sir.”

***

I realize I’ve been sleeping for a long time, with the gruesome details of his last moments on earth playing again and again in my mind. Now it’s morning and some runner has come to find me, to call me to Colonel Sink’s headquarters. I sit in the back of the jeep and stare dazedly into space, lost in my thoughts.

The jeep lurches to a stop and jolts me out of my thoughts. Colonel Sink greets me outside. “G’morning, Captain,” he greets me.

“Nothing good about it,” I mumble, staring at the floor, suddenly finding it rather interesting. Somehow, not even Sink, the funniest man I know, can cheer me up.

He sighs. “Captain, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. Or rather, re-meet.” He says it cautiously, his tone making me look up. Someone steps into the room. My eyes narrow.

Dyke.

The idiot who got him killed. The idiot who just had to go missing and make us search for him. The idiot responsible for his death. Four soldiers went out on that doomed patrol. Four. Why must he, of those four, be the only one to make it back? Suddenly I’m fighting a mad urge to break his neck and tear him from limb to limb.

“Hello, sir,” he says nervously, as if he knows what I’m thinking. When his greeting isn’t acknowledged, he ploughs on. “Well, look, sir, I know I was stupid and all, but I didn’t…really…”

I snap. “DAMN RIGHT YOU WERE STUPID!” I roar, lunging forward and smashing my fist into Dyke’s nose, hearing the satisfying snap. “You goddamn fool!” I punctuate each word with a blow to his ugly face. “Captain, no!” yells Sink, he and Eugene Roe (who had since come in) rushing forward to restrain me. I get a couple of good blows in before they succeed in dragging me out of the room. While Gene rushes back in to take care of Dyke, Sink looks at me and says seriously, “Y’know, Captain, you can get court-martialed for that sort of thing.”

Something wet and hot slides down my face. Am I crying? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s blood. I don’t care anymore. “I could have saved him,” I choke, trying to hold back my emotions, to hold my temper in check. “I was this close…! I could have gotten to him in time, but I didn’t. I let him down. All these years he’s never let me down and yet I let him down.”

“Calm down,” Sink says firmly. “You couldn’t help him, Captain. There was no way you could. He’s gone, he can’t come back.” He sighs. “I’m going to overlook this, since normally you wouldn’t do something so extreme.” He pauses, hesitating. “I just wanted you to know that we all miss him. Not just you. People’ve been coming to me, asking me to help them get over his death, to help them come to terms with it. He was a great man, a great friend, a great commander. We all miss him terribly.” He claps me on the shoulder and walks off.

Later, I hear that Dyke was brought to hospital, with a broken nose and a gunshot wound in the hand. The nose was supposedly from some accident (the walk into the door kind), although I know better. The gunshot wound was supposed to be self inflicted.

My guess is that he met Wild Bill Guarnere.

The war will be over soon, I hope. I don’t think I can bear any of my close friends, any of these men, dying anymore. I have to write a letter to his relatives, since I’m now C.O. of Easy now, to inform them of his…passing, but I don’t know what to write. How can you write a letter informing people of your best friend’s death?

To whomever it may concern,

I sincerely regret to inform you that Captain Richard D. Winters was killed in action on the nineteenth of December 1944. He was a great man, a great friend, and a great hero to all who knew him. He died a heroic death, while trying to save his comrades from a German ambush. He will be sorely missed.

It sounds really clichéd, but I can’t write anything better. The person who reads it will probably think I’m not emotionally affected by his death whatsoever, that I’m just doing it as a necessity, a chore, but I’m not. I mean each and every single word of it.

I fold the letter and pocket it, planning to get it back to his family as soon as possible. On my way to visit his crude grave on the field where we were ambushed, marked by his M1 and his helmet, a single question, one that has been bugging me for so long, pops up again in my mind.

Why?

Finis