The story of the 101st Airborne Division in Bastogne...sorta. Loosely based on Lyle Bouck's I&R Platoon of the 99th Infantry.
***


They never came.

We waited and waited for them. Fighting day after day, enduring shelling after shelling, battling the biting cold, holding our position, waiting for them to come.

Yet, they never came.

Every day the same routine occurred. We climbed out of our foxholes, had a piece of cold, stale bread – or anything we could find for breakfast, really, climbed back in again and waited. Waited for the German shelling to begin. Waited for them. Waited…and waited…and waited.

Of course, they never came.

But the German shelling started. It came, when they didn’t. Even the Krauts are more reliable than they are.

Whzzz…BOOM! Shells flew in everywhere, bringing down trees, blowing up men. One guy tried to have a picnic right in the middle of the shelling the other day. I think he was slightly insane, gone mad from the shelling. Just suddenly…snapped, broke. There he was, a lone figure happily munching on five cold white beans and half a bottle of frozen wine, with shells and trees falling all around him. Suddenly a shell came in and he scrambled. BOOM! A piece of white bean landed on my face.

So much for the guy’s picnic.

***

It’s Christmas Eve. Patton’s just sent some message, Battalion S2 tells me, something about a Christmas Eve present. A glimmer of hope ignites. Does he mean that they would be here soon?

Of course, now I realize it’s just an empty promise, like all the other promises they had made. They never would come. We’re all alone, and we always will be, even to the end. All we have is each other.

We are still in this cold, god forsaken place on Christmas. Imagine, being in this hellhole on Christmas! I think we deserve a better holiday than this.

Me and Sergeant Hastings find a small, undernourished Christmas tree. We bring it back to camp and decorate it. It isn’t much, but I think the boys really appreciate it.

We get a copy of McAuliffe’s Christmas message, or something like that. The only part I recall is the part where he told the Germans “NUTS!” in response to their asking us to surrender. Damn right, he is. We’ll never surrender, never ever. Even if they never come.

***

“I SURRENDER!” the call rings through my ears, making me cringe. So much for never surrendering. I think it came from one of the privates, those fresh replacements that joined us before this stupid “Battle of the Bulge”. I’m right. From my hideout in the trees I can see the Private crashing through the snow, with a couple’a Germans chasing after him. Finally he slows down and lets the Krauts take him. I snort derisively – but quietly, of course, can’t risk the Germans hearing me – and scowl. Who does this rookie think he is, shaming the name of the regiment and the division?

The Krauts are laughing now, chatting. From what I can remember from my high school German, I gather that they’re think the 101st isn’t very good, and we’re only holdin’ out ‘cause of a lucky fluke or something like that. And to add insult to, well, insult, they thing we give up easily, that we’re cowards.

My eyes narrow. No one, especially not some measly goddamn Krauts, calls the division cowards.

With a guttural roar of rage I fling myself at the idiot Germans. Don’t know why I do it, I just do it. I realize my folly now; I get the first guy in a football-like tackle, but the second guy is already pointing a gun at me. Darn. I duck as the first bullet whizzes past me, and tackle him to the ground. You can tell I like football a lot. I manage to whack the gun out of his hand…only for the other guy who had since gotten up to take it and fire it at me. Thankfully the idiot’s a lousy shot and hits his friend instead! Who in the world’s such a lousy shot that he can kill his friend? His mate’s brains are all over me. Bleaugh. I wipe as much off as I can, spitting some out, and tackle the remaining Kraut, who simply drops the gun. All the fight seems to have gone out of him. I guess shooting your enemy is one thing – shooting a friend is another. I look at him contemptuously. “Think the 101st is crap, huh? Think again, pal.” I step on his face, lightly at first. “The – 101st – is – the – best – damn – division – in – the – world!” I yell, punctuating each word with a blow to his face, getting progressively harder until I hear the satisfactory snap! of his nose. Blood spurts everywhere. He howls agonizingly. “And we’ll never surrender,” I continue coldly. “Don’t you ever forget that.”

I walk away from the German. The replacement is watching me, wide-eyed. As I walk he falls into step besides me. “I would’ve done that as well, y’know,” he says quickly, trying to redeem himself. He’s staring at me as if I’m a God or something. “I just wanted to see how you fight.”

I bite my lip to keep from laughing. What a liar! He’s just another of those rookies with that “let-me-at-‘em!” attitude, always eager to prove himself, especially to his superiors. Trying to make excuses to save face, as usual. Trying to win bragging rights. I can imagine him now, telling his friends about he, and not me, fought the two Germans off single-handedly.

I look at him and grin absently, unexpectedly. “’Course ya did.”

***

The shelling never ceases. It’s a part of our life now, a daily routine. It’s constantly there. See, it’s beginning again, now. Not that it really ever stopped. The whole time I was fighting the Krauts it was there, according to Sergeant Hastings. To think it’s Christmas! We should get a break. If not from holding this outpost, a stop in the shelling would be as good. Can’t they even give us a nice Christmas present?

As if they hear me, the shells suddenly stop coming. Men begin to crawl out of their foxholes carefully, looking around in wonder and amazement.

“It’s a damn Christmas present!” a trooper says, voicing my thoughts. They laugh. I don’t. What if it’s a trick? They get us to think it’s stopping then they start again. Or maybe they’re just reloading. Don’t they ever run out of ammo?

Of course, it could be another Christmas of 1914, when all the soldiers got out of their trenches, played soccer, sang songs together. Somehow, though, I can’t imagine us and the Germans playing soccer together. Heck, I can’t even imagine playing football in this snow.

Night falls. Still no German shells. Maybe it’s half a 1914 Christmas, just without the soccer. There are definitely songs; the men are singing Christmas carols. In my opinion, they’re a helluva lot better at fighting than singing. Still, it’s a nice gesture. Makes me feel like I’m back home again, with my family and the big roast chicken – or was it duck or turkey? – and not in some cold, bitter hellhole.

I don’t suppose the shells will be coming anymore, at least for tonight. Finally, a good time to catch up on long awaited sleep. Sergeant Hastings walks by. “Merry Christmas,” he tells me warmly.

“Merry Christmas too, sir,” I reply. I crawl back to my foxhole – imagine, today was the first day I spent without a single moment in a foxhole! – and snuggle down, my rifle in my hands. I fall asleep to the tune of “Silent Night”…sung in German.

***

Tuesday, December 26, 1944. We’ve been here for ten days now. What little food and ammo we had before is fast disappearing. Plenty of water, of course; all you have to do is stuff snow in your mouth.

Looks like we were right about the Christmas present thing – the artillery has resumed fire. On our position, anyway. We’re so far from Bastogne, where the others are. I don’t know about the others, if the shelling has resumed…or if it even stopped at all.

BOOM! CRASH! BAM! I hate the trees. They kill almost as many people as the shells. Sure, they’re supposed to give us cover, but when the shells hit the trees they’ll fall and crush us. I saw one tree smash a trooper just yesterday. Poor guy.

Sergeant Hastings is running around, telling the troopers to “stay low!” in their foxholes. As if we need reminders. The replacements are already one step ahead, cowering inside. Ha.

Some troopers are caught in the open. I see little Jimmy Cook scrambling towards a foxhole. He takes a tumble and does a perfect somersault straight into the hole while a shell bursts right behind him. A tree, hit by the blast, falls directly over the foxhole, deterring him from getting out. Guess we’ll have to help him out after the shelling.

A Private, the replacement I saved yesterday, is scurrying towards another foxhole. The shells seem like they’re zeroing in, getting closer and closer. “C’mon!” I yell at him, encouraging him, telling him not to give up. He can get there, he can, he can, he can, he can, he can, he –

He can’t.

BOOM! Bits of what used to be a Private rained everywhere. What a way to go.

Everything’s quiet again. I rush to Jimmy Cook’s foxhole and attempt to pull him out. With help from Sergeant Hastings, I manage to get him from under the tree. And the first thing he does is looks up and grins at me.

“Like my foxhole decorations?” he asks.

***

“They’ve got us surrounded, the poor bastards,” says the medic, grinning sadly and shaking his head.

“Bastards? Them or us?” I say, looking a little surprised at his remark.
“Them, o’course,” replies the medic, jerking a thumb at the general direction of the Krauts. “Who in their right mind would want to surround us? It’s all over for them now.”

I offer him a wide smile. I like this guy’s attitude. Never give up, never surrender.

***

The Krauts are going to attack any moment now, desperate for one last charge. We’re as good as dead now. They’re all around us, and when they attack from all sides we’ll never be able to survive. Plus, we only have twelve men. This is, after all, only supposed to be an outpost.

They still haven’t come. And now, I have a sinking feeling they never will.

The shells have stopped. They must be preparing to attack, conserving their ammo. Or maybe they’ve run out. I hope they’ve run out.

Suddenly, without warning, they pounce. Shells, grenades, bullets, rain down on us as they attack from all four sides. One by one we fall; the Krauts are just too strong. We’re running out of ammo now. Our medic, the man I admired so much for having the “never say die” attitude, is dead. Soon we’ll have to go down boots and bayonets into the merciless German fire.

But not without a fight.

We’ll go down with as many of the Krauts as we can take along with us. Can’t waste our lives now. We can’t wait for them anymore, either. They’re never going to get here. It’s exactly the same, time and again. Reinforcements will never arrive. We always have to rely on ourselves to get out of skirmishes – and this looks like one skirmish we won’t be getting out of. We’ll just have to go down fighting. I see Sergeant Hastings going down. Suddenly I’m the only one left. Bodies of my men, my friends, all around me, but I continue fighting. Suddenly, I’m hit. A dark stain spreads across my chest, but I feel no pain. I fall in slow motion, the world spinning around me. What a waste, to die now, with half the Germans still not dead. But I’ve got one consolation.

At least I’ll die together with my mates. At least we’re still a band. At least we’ll still be together. We were, we are, and we will always be standing alone…

Together.

Finis