MOON ABOVE,

MOON BELOW

A Moon Brothers WW2
Adventure

By

William Peter Grasso

Novels By William Peter Grasso

Moon Brothers WW2
Adventure

Moon Above, Moon Below

Jock Miles WW2 Adventure
Series

Operation Fishwrapper, Book 5

Operation Blind Spot, Book 4

Operation Easy Street, Book 3

Operation Long Jump, Book 2

Long Walk to the Sun, Book 1

Unpunished

East Wind Returns

Kindle Edition

Copyright 2016 William
Peter Grasso

All rights reserved

Cover design by Alyson
Aversa

Kindle Edition,
License Notes

Moon Above, Moon Below is
a work of historical fiction. Events that are common historical knowledge may
not occur at their actual point in time or may not occur at all. Apart from the
well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all
names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or
locales or to living persons is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Novels by William Peter Grasso

Copyright

Author’s Note

Dedication

Falaise Gap Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

About the Author

More Novels by William Peter Grasso

Dedication

To all those GIs
(like my father) who served in WW2 not because they wanted to but because they
felt it was their duty to do so. They were truly “The Greatest Generation.”

Author’s Note

This is a work of
alternative historical fiction. The story begins by mirroring actual events in
France during August 1944 leading up to the imperfect encirclement of German
forces in the Falaise Pocket. Taking cues from the personalities of the various
Allied commanders, the storyline then diverges from actual history, evolving
into a very different telling of that encirclement and its effects on bringing
WW2 in Europe to an end.

The designation of
military units may be actual or fictitious.

In no way are the
fictional accounts intended to denigrate the hardships, suffering, and courage
of those who served.

Contact the Author Online:

Email: wpgrasso@cox.net

Connect with the Author on
Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso

FALAISE POCKET, FRANCE, 1944:

An ALTERNATIVE
PROPOSITION

“The remarkable
resurgence of the German Army in autumn (1944) owes something forever
unquantifiable to the imperfect victory of Falaise.”

Raymond Callahan

Historian

Chapter One

Some lucky Kraut might’ve just taken
a piece out of her.

There’s a fine stream of oil
coming out from under her cowling, painting thin black skeleton fingers up the
windshield.

Oil pressure’s holding, though…oil
temp is okay, too.

No excuse to abort. At least not
yet.

Gotta keep my damn eyes outside
her cockpit before I hit a tree like Mason did the other day. Wasn’t enough
left of him after the fireball to put in a bucket, they said. Mostly ashes. Flying
this low—and this fast—will get you dead, and real quick. Without any help from
the Krauts, either. Just one little slip-up…

God, I don’t want to burn.

Shit! Did that oil pressure gauge
just spike down? And is that temp starting to creep up?

No. I’m imagining it. They’re
steady. It’s nothing. Probably nothing. Just a little leak. These engines
always leak somewhere.

An excited voice in my
headphones says, “Blue Leader to Blue Two, we got Krauts in the open on the
yellow smoke. My right wing, on three, Tommy.” Then he counts one-two-three
in less than a heartbeat.

I push her throttle forward and
begin a slip to get next to Wilson, my flight
leader. The ground—only two hundred feet below—is just a blurry treadmill of
green and brown. Everything in France looks like patches of green
and brown from up here, even when you’re flying much higher and it’s not racing
past you so quickly.

But I don’t see any yellow smoke
marker. Just the usual clouds of black and gray boiling up to the late summer
sky from the madhouse below. Some of the smoke is tinged red. First time I saw
that I thought it was from blood. Turns out it’s pulverized brick from
buildings blown to smithereens.

No more than a second has ticked
off the clock. Wilson’s voice screams in my ears, “I got it!” He opens up with
his fifty cals, pumping out API rounds—armor piercing incendiaries. Their
tracers bounce off the ground only a hundred yards ahead of us like fireworks
gone berserk. I still don’t see the yellow smoke, so I kick my rudder to align
my guns with his and squeeze the trigger.

I stop firing as soon as he
does. I have no idea who or what we just shot at.

No time to dwell on it. The town
of Mortain looms through the smoke ahead of us—higher than us,
actually, perched on the side of that big hill like it is. A north-south line
running through the hill marks the operational boundary between us and the RAF.
Except for a coastline or river, that damn hill is the clearest boundary marker
we’ve had since coming to France. Clear boundaries between armed
forces are real important—matters of life and death, in fact. Especially to
pilots. Without them, we might get confused and start bombing the crap out of
friendlies all over again. The Brits shrug and call it “own goals.” I call it a
shitty sports analogy for fratricide. I can only pray I’m not guilty of it. But
mostly, it’s out of your control. Those imaginary lines the generals draw on
maps? Nobody paints them on the ground for the pilots.

We swing our P-47s hard left to
get back into the racetrack pattern we’ve been flying west of Mortain. A whole
mess of panzers broke through yesterday north and south of the town—two
divisions’ worth, the briefing officer said—and started driving west, trying to
split the US forces breaking out of Normandy in
half. I don’t think we’re slowing the Krauts down much. Not yet, anyway. But the
weather’s been good for our flight ops, and whatever Luftwaffe is left in this
area has been knocked out of action. In fact, in the month since the squadron
moved to France from England, the few German planes
I’ve seen were parked on the ground and centered in someone’s gunsight. I
wouldn’t mind it staying that way for the rest of this damn war.

So around and around we go again
in this two-mile-wide circle, praying that making two-fifty down on the deck
keeps us untrackable for the Kraut gunners, until we’re low on fuel, ammo, or
both. I tuck back behind Wilson, covering his tail from the
Luftwaffe we’ve never met in the air…

And I watch my oil pressure
gauge start its jittery dance toward zero as the oil temp needle starts its
unmistakable climb. She’s gonna crap out any second…and I’ll be flying something
that glides like a brick.

I tell Wilson, “Blue
Two to Blue Leader, I’m heading back to A-6. Oil pressure’s gone.”

I hear the click of his
microphone key in my headset, like he’s about to reply…and then his plane
explodes in a brilliant orange flash, flinging aluminum and steel in every
direction like a seven-ton grenade. He manages to get out only one syllable,
spoken in the voice of a frightened child: “Ma!”

Chapter Two

As he pulled the rattled Tommy Moon
from the cockpit of Blue Two, Sergeant Harry McNulty said, “Geez, Lieutenant, not to cast no dispersions
on your fine piloting abilities or nothing, but couldn’t a good Brooklyn mick
like you keep her in the air another hundred feet?”

Another hundred feet meant the
wheels of the dead-stick P-47 would have touched down on the Marston Mat runway
instead of the soft muck just short of it. She could’ve then rolled
majestically to an unpowered stop before being quickly towed clear of the other
planes stacked up to land.

Struggling to regain his composure,
Moon replied, “Aspersions, Sergeant. The word you’re looking for is aspersions.”

“Hey, close enough, Lieutenant. I
didn’t get to go to no Fordham or nothing like you officer types.”

Blue Two’s current position
was anything but majestic. She was pranged, with the lower lip of her nose cowl
buried two feet deep in the mud. That made her tail stick up in the air like a capital
“T” canted backward, posing an obstacle to the other planes waiting their turn
to land at forward airfield A-6. The runway was short to begin with; having to
clear the vertical monument now decorating its threshold made its available
length significantly shorter. Already, another aircraft had landed long after
clearing Blue Two’s tail and rolled into the mud at the runway’s far end.
At least this ship had been going slow enough not to prang when she ran off,
but her wheels had promptly sunk to the axles. She’d have to be pulled out,
too. “That’s all we fucking need,” McNulty muttered just loud enough to be sure
Moon heard him. “Me and my boys’ll be digging these mud ducks out half the
night.”

He wiped a thin streak of oil off
the windshield with his fingertip and studied the dark drop of fluid for a
moment. Then he wiped it away in disgust on his coveralls. “So why the hell did
you shut her down and go for the dead stick, anyway, Lieutenant?”

“Losing oil pressure. Didn’t want
to blow the engine.”

McNulty exhaled through his mouth,
making that motorboat sound with his lips that meant bullshit. “We ain’t
like the Limeys, Lieutenant. We got spare parts up the recticulum. Ain’t
no sweat to swap an engine out.”

Tommy Moon was pretty sure the
sergeant meant rectum, not recticulum.

“Looks like she’s gonna be out of
action a while,” McNulty said as he scanned the damage. “What the hell chewed
up all these leading edges, Lieutenant? Wings, stabilizers, prop…they’re all
fucked up.”

“Captain Wilson’s ship blew up
right in front of me. There was shrapnel flying everywhere.”

“You think he got out?”

“Not a chance,” Moon replied.

“Tough break. So what got him,
Lieutenant?”

McNulty’s questions were getting
painful to answer. Worse, Tommy Moon knew he’d have to answer them all over
again at the debrief, and his reply wouldn’t be any better than the one he was
about to give his crew chief: “Beats the shit out of me.”

The squadron had long since lost
any inclination to grieve its losses. The only ceremony marking today’s death
was performed by a sergeant as he erased Captain Wilson’s name from the
squadron readiness board on the operations shack wall, just like he’d done when
Mason and the two before him went down. It had been different when they were
still flying out of England, with solid roofs over their quarters, real
plumbing, a village pub in which to drown their sorrows, and the free time to
do so. They’d lost three pilots from the squadron scattered across that year
prior to Overlord, each dead man receiving one rousing, beer-soaked eulogy
after another from his squadron mates as flirty English barmaids kept the
pitchers of warm ale coming and the Yanks spending. Now, living in the desolate
mud and olive drab tentage of liberated Normandy, with casualties a regular
occurrence, the willingness to mourn had long passed.

“He was a good man,” Colonel Pruitt
mumbled as Wilson vanished from the board as quickly as he’d vanished from
their lives. “Damn shame.” Then he turned to Tommy Moon and said, “Half,
I’m giving you Blue Flight.”

Half: Tommy’s squadron
nickname. Everybody had one that suited him to a tee: Popeye, Lech,
Smiley, Grump, and so on. So what was more fitting than sticking a very
short pilot named Moon with the moniker Half? It didn’t come as any surprise
to him; he’d been called Half Moon by friends and foes alike most of his
21 years:

I can thank my big brother Sean
for that. It was better than Shrimp, Tiny, or PeeWee, at least.

“Me, sir? Flight leader?” Moon asked.
“Aren’t Goins and Springer senior to me?”

“Oh, probably,” Colonel Pruitt
replied, “but I don’t give a rat’s ass. Let’s just say I prefer your…well,
let’s just say your objectivity, Tommy.” He lifted a stack of debrief
forms from his desk. “According to these, I’ve got more than enough throttle
jockeys who can embellish after-action reports as good as any general.
Thirtieth Division is thrilled as hell with the support we’re giving them, but
like me and you, they’re just a little skeptical the Three-Oh-First Fighter
Squadron has wiped out a panzer division all by itself, like these bullshit
debriefs from your buddies would have you believe.” He let the stack of papers
drop back to the desk with a loud plop, and then added, “If you put any
stock in those reports, this war’s going to be over in a month or two.”

The colonel had a point. Just about
every swinging dick in the ETO—from Ike on down—seemed to be convinced they’d
be home by Christmas.

“Yeah,” Moon replied. “Like they
say: Home alive by Forty-Five.”

Pruitt swept his hand across the
big briefing map decorating another wall. “Look at this...it’s Seven August and
we’re nowhere near Paris yet, after two fucking months on the continent! Hell,
Monty and his Brits are still nailing down the area around Caen, and that’s ground
he said they’d capture by D plus Three! Home alive by Forty-Five, my
sweet ass.”

“I’ll settle for the home alive
part, sir.”

“Wouldn’t we all, Tommy. But can
you believe we just made that strutting Limey fraud Allied Ground Commander?
Is Ike fighting a war here, or running for Parliament?”

“You’ve heard the saying war is
just politics by other means, sir?”

“Yeah. Didn’t some Kraut say that?”

The squadron maintenance officer, a
major, entered the shack and went straight for the status board. Without saying
a word, he took a red grease pencil and drew a long line through the data for
Tommy Moon’s aircraft. At the end of the line, he wrote the letters UTR,
which stood for uneconomical to repair. The colonel and Moon watched
with the same dispassionate emptiness as when Wilson’s name had been erased.

“Shit,” the colonel whispered.
“Scratch another jug.”

Jug: common nickname for the
P-47 fighter. Officially known as the Thunderbolt, it was heavy, but powerful
and fast, with a big ordnance-carrying capability. Rumor had it that its thick,
oval fuselage cross-section once reminded someone of a jug, and the name stuck.

“What the hell happened, sir?” Moon
asked the major. “We thought it was just some sheet metal damage and a new
prop.”

“Negative, Lieutenant. McNulty
found a cracked wing spar. It’s got what sure looks like a supercharger vane
jammed into it. Nothing we can do. You’re lucky it didn’t fold up on you.”

A supercharger vane, Tommy
thought. Got to be Wilson’s.

Then the major reassured Colonel
Pruitt, “We’re getting some replacement jugs from the depot in a couple
of days, sir, so we’ll be back to full strength before you know it.”

“Well, Flight Leader Moon,”
Pruitt said, “looks like you’ve got a couple of days to relax and get yourself
organized.”

Chapter Three

12th ARMY GROUP COMMUNIQUE

FROM:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

8 AUG 44/1800 HRS

TO:

EISENHOWER--SUPREME
COMMANDER, SHAEF

COPY (FOR INFO):

HODGES--1ST ARMY;
PATTON--3RD ARMY; QUESADA--IX TACTICAL AIR COMMAND; WEYLAND--XIX TACTICAL AIR
COMMAND

COUNTERATTACK AT MORTAIN BY ELEMENTS
OF AT LEAST 3 PANZER DIVISIONS (2ND PANZER, 1ST SS
PANZER, 2ND SS PANZER) HAS BEEN THROWN BACK AFTER PENETRATIONS OF NO
MORE THAN TWO MILES.  SURVIVING PANZER FORCES ARE IN HEADLONG RETREAT EAST OF
MORTAIN AND BEING PURSUED BY 30TH DIVISION.  TACTICAL AIR SUPPORT
EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE.

POSSIBILITY EXISTS TO TRAP ALL
RETREATING REMNANTS OF GERMAN 7TH ARMY, PROBABLY IN THE TRIANGLE
FORMED BY FLERS TO WEST, FALAISE TO NORTH, AND ARGENTAN TO SOUTH, PROVIDED
MONTY CAN GET OFF HIS “CAEN” AND CLOSE NORTHERN JAW OF THE TRAP.

ANY “ENCOURAGEMENT” YOU CAN OFFER OUR
ALLIED GROUND COMMANDER TO GET MOVING ON THE DOUBLE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED.

SIGNED,

BRADLEY

Chapter Four

Tommy Moon tossed his AWOL bag into
the back of the jeep and then climbed into the passenger’s seat. The driver,
another flyer from the 301st named Hank Kirkland, lounged against a
fender nursing a cigarette and the last of the breakfast coffee in his canteen
cup. He seemed in no hurry to begin the journey.

“C’mon, Lieutenant,” Moon called to
Kirkland, “we’ve got about forty miles of crummy French roads ahead of us.”

“I ain’t in no hurry, Half. You may
be going on a social call but I’m going on business. Shitty business at that.”

“Hey, that’ll teach you to get
yourself grounded with an ear infection. Might as well make yourself useful in
the meantime.”

“Being an ASO with Fourth Armored
was not the being useful I had in mind, Tommy. Even if General Quesada
thinks putting pilots with the tankers to coordinate air support is the
greatest thing since flush toilets. You’ll see. You’ll get your turn.”

Probably not, Tommy told
himself. Not as long as I’m a flight leader.

“And you’d be a natural, too,
Tommy, with a brother in Fourth Armored and everything. He know you’re burning
leave time just to come visit?”

“Hell, no, Hank. I’m not even sure
where his unit is, exactly. I’m taking a shot in the dark here.” He took a last
look at the map board he’d carefully marked up at the intel section and then
tucked it under his seat. “At least the weather’s good. We should make it to
Mayenne by noon.”

“You sure of the route? I don’t
want to take a wrong turn and drive right into Kraut country.”

“Knock it off, Hank. I’ve seen most
of these roads from the air already. So have you. We’ll be miles behind the
front lines the whole way.”

“We’d better be, that’s all I can
say.”

Halfway to Mayenne, the town of Fougères
seemed as good a place as any for Moon and Kirkland to stop and stretch their
legs. They weren’t making forward progress at the moment, anyway. A herd of
cattle was being slowly marched through the town, completely blocking their
path.

Three main highways intersected in
Fougères, providing easy identification for the American bombardiers who had
plastered the town in the days before Overlord. The bombing had taken a
frightful toll of its civilians as well as its German garrison. The rubble of
shattered stone buildings—many of them centuries old—was everywhere. It was
much too soon for the citizens of the town to forget their hundreds of dead and
injured at the hands of American pilots. The eyes of the bartender and his few
morning patrons fell on the shiny wings Moon and Kirkland wore on their chests,
symbols that seemed badges of guilt to the Frenchmen. They watched in hostile
silence as the Americans took a big round table by the door.

A waitress approached, a haggard,
middle-aged woman whose face seemed incapable of smiling. She pointed to the
three empty chairs around the table and said, “Pour le cinq, messieurs.”

“What the hell did she say?” Kirkland
asked.

“She says the table’s for five, Hank.”

“So what? There’s nobody in this
dump. What’s wrong with these fucking frogs?”

“Shut the hell up, Hank. Let me
handle this.”

In the schoolboy French the nuns
had taught him back in Brooklyn, Tommy began to apologize for their faux pas.
He was halfway through asking where it would be all right for them to sit when the
roar of trucks spilled through the open door of the cafe, growing louder until
it was clear they had no intention of stopping for the bovine parade still blocking
the road. For a sickening second, the thrum of motors blended with the
soft thuds and the shrieks of animals being mowed down. Those inside the
cafe watched in shock as the American deuce-and-a-halves lurched over the
thrashing bodies of their mortally wounded victims.

Not a truck in the long column
bothered to slow down. As the last one raced by, the waitress split the air of
silent outrage by answering Tommy’s unfinished question:

“S’asseoir dans le caniveau avec
les vaches, meurtriers.”

Sit in the gutter with the cows,
murderers.

As they drove out of Fougères, Hank
Kirkland said, “I tell you, Half, you parlez vous that stuff pretty
good. That was some hot shit back in town, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t think the frogs thought
so.”

“Ahh, fuck ’em. They oughta be
kissing our asses. That clown hopping around like some looney in the middle of
the street…what the hell was he saying to you, anyway?”

“He wanted to know who was going to
pay for all his dead cows.”

Expelling a burst of laughter, Kirkland
said, “Did you tell him to send the bill to Hitler?”

“No, I told him to send it to
General Patton. You did notice those were Third Army trucks, didn’t you?”

Kirkland shrugged. He couldn’t have
cared less.

They drove on through the French
countryside, down narrow highways lined and crowned with single columns of tall
trees on either side. “It’s like driving through a damn tunnel,” Kirkland said.
Beyond the trees were miles of open, gently rolling terrain. “I’d love to catch
me a bunch of Krauts out there in the open,” he added. “They could run but they
couldn’t hide.” He weaved the jeep left and right, mimicking the s-turns of a
strafing aircraft as he bellowed, with great glee, “BA-DA-DA-DA-DA.”

“Is that supposed to be your fifty
cals, Hank?” Tommy Moon asked.

“Of course.”

“Pretty crappy imitation, if you
ask me.”

Tommy peered ahead into the distance,
then rechecked his map.

“Something wrong?” Kirkland asked.

“Yeah, slow down. We’re coming to a
fork in the road…and it’s not showing up here.”

The jeep rolled to a stop. Unlike
most road junctions, there were no signs pointing toward one town or another.
Both paths looked like they’d seen lots of military traffic; the distinctive
marks of tank tracks and tactical tires were sketched in mud on their pavement
and imprinted into the soft shoulders.

Kirkland said, “I don’t like the
north fork.”

“Why?”

“Because north gets us closer to
the Krauts.”

Tommy studied the map for a few
moments. It wasn’t helping him:

It’s all just lines, and none of
them mean shit, as usual.

“Yeah, you’re right, Hank,” Tommy
said. “Let’s take the south fork. Worst we can do is end up in Laval instead of
Mayenne, I think…and that’s even deeper into friendly territory.” He almost
added, or at least it was earlier this morning.

As Kirkland guided the jeep to the
south fork, he laughed and said, “Ain’t this hot shit? Put two flyboys in a
jeep instead of a plane and watch them fuck up a free lunch.”

Chapter Five

The tall trees lining the south
fork road abruptly ended. After less than a mile, the smooth pavement ended,
too, devolving into a rutted and muddy dirt track. Kirkland slid the jeep to a
stop in the slippery muck. Slamming the gearshift into reverse, he said, “No
wonder it wasn’t on the map…it doesn’t fucking go anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Tommy Moon replied, “and
that isn’t our only problem.” He tapped the engine’s temperature gauge. The
needle quivered each time his finger struck the glass but didn’t budge from the
lower end of the warning range. “I think she wants to boil over. Don’t tell me
you didn’t check the Prestone in this thing when you signed her out?”

Kirkland shook his head.

“Shut her down for a minute, Hank. Let
her cool off…and get our bearings in the meantime.”

He watched as Kirkland switched off
the ignition, waiting to hear nothing but pastoral silence. But it never came.
There was still the steady rumble of idling engines—lower-pitched than the
sound of the jeep’s motor and farther away—but with a menacing, bassy timbre
their light vehicle could never project.

Oh, shit…

Those engines were revving now as two
German tanks emerged from the woods a hundred yards ahead. Overheating radiator
or not, the jeep was cranked, thrown into reverse, and racing backward up the
muddy trail.

His head and torso twisted to the
rear, Kirkland struggled to keep the skidding wheels on track. His frightened
voice an octave higher than usual, he said, “We’re gonna have to turn around at
some damn point.”

“Not in this mud,” Tommy replied.
“Don’t want to get stuck. Wait for the pavement.”

“What kind of tanks are those,
Tommy? Panthers? Tigers?”

“Nah, they’re smaller ones. Panzer
Fours, I think.”

“Small, my ass! They still
got guns, don’t they?”

A burst of machine gun fire from
the lead tank answered Kirkland’s question. They couldn’t tell where the rounds
landed. All they knew was they hadn’t hit the jeep.

Moon said, “As long as they’re
moving, they’ll never get a good bead on us, bouncing along like they are.”

“But what if they stop to aim?”

“That’ll be a different story,
Hank.”

“Are they gaining on us?”

“No. Just drive, dammit.”

They’d almost doubled the distance
between them and the tanks when the jeep’s wheels hugged pavement again. Tommy
got a good grip on his seat and said, “OKAY, HANK, SWAP ENDS NOW.”

Kirkland performed the feat far
more skillfully than Tommy could have imagined. With a deft jerk of the
steering wheel while applying the hand brake, the jeep’s rear wheels locked and
it snapped around in a vehicular pirouette. Now facing away from the tanks, he
slammed the accelerator to the floor.

But when he glanced to the
passenger’s seat, it was empty. Tommy Moon was gone.

Kirkland didn’t slow down. The jeep
traveled a few hundred yards before he looked back.

There was no sign of Moon, not on
the road, not in the tall grass on either side. The lead tank had stopped, its
main gun being tweaked into position for a shot at the jeep.

Shit! Gotta get away!

He pushed harder on the accelerator,
but it was already firmly on the floor.

Daring one last look back, he saw
the lead tank suddenly plunge off the road as a P-47 streaked low over it, its
belly nearly scraping the turret’s protruding antennas.

The American plane would be on him
in a heartbeat. The muzzle flashes from its guns made Kirkland shriek, “Don’t shoot at me, you stupid son of  a—”

Like a band saw, .50-caliber rounds
ripped the jeep open right down the middle, bathing Hank Kirkland’s legs in
metal splinters and gasoline from the ruptured tank below his seat. The
armor-piercing incendiaries promptly ignited the fuel.

A human torch from the waist down, Kirkland
tumbled from the mangled jeep as it juddered to a stop. He never noticed the
three other P-47s whizzing by split-seconds later or the second German tank off
the road, her crew bailing out and running to get as far from their tank as
they could. He was too busy struggling to shed his burning trousers. All he
could think of was:

Ain’t this some shit? We’re all
worried about burning in our cockpits…but I get burned up in a Willys jeep.

He got the trousers off in seconds
that seemed like hours. Exhausted, he lay in the waist-high grass and examined
his legs. Large, crinkled patches of crisp black skin were charred like the
pages of a book thrown into a fire, their curled-up edges revealing the raw
redness below. The pain he’d felt when wearing the flaming trousers was gone.
He lied to himself that that was a good thing. The only sound was the snarl of
the loitering P-47s.

Suddenly, the grass next to him
ruffled as if being threshed by invisible hands—and Tommy Moon appeared,
crawling on all fours.

“Shit, Tommy, I thought you were
some fucking Kraut.”

“I could’ve been. Those tankers are
running around here somewhere. I guess it really is true some of them bail out
at the first sign of planes. Where’s your forty-five?”

Kirkland gave a weary shrug. “Maybe
it’s still on the road somewhere.”

“Here, take mine,” Moon replied,
pressing the pistol into the man’s hand. “C’mon, we’re gonna get out of here.”

“I don’t think I can walk, Tommy.
Can’t feel my legs.”

He began to lift Kirkland across
his shoulders—a fireman’s carry.

“Wait, Tommy…you ain’t big enough
to—”

But Moon was already walking,
struggling to bear his wounded comrade. “Just shut up and cover our asses,
Hank.”

Not far down the road, they came to
their wrecked and smoldering jeep. Tommy stopped to take a good look. The seat
he’d been thrown from was a bullet-riddled tangle of twisted metal.

Moon said, “You know, Hank, when
that fancy driving of yours sent me flying—and then you didn’t come back for
me—I was cursing you and your whole family.” He glanced back at the carcass of
the jeep. “But now, I’m thinking maybe you did me a real big favor.”

Tommy Moon was exhausted. He’d
carried Kirkland as far as he could, but they still hadn’t made it back to the
fork in the road. At least they’d reached the welcome safety of some tree
cover. Tommy laid his wounded partner down and said, “I’m going back to that
main drag and flag down some help. You wait here. I’ll be back for you.”

Kirkland nodded and tried to hand
the .45 to Tommy.

“No, Hank. You keep it.”

As Moon set out again, Kirkland
called after him, “You are coming back, ain’t you, Tommy? I mean, I wouldn’t
blame you if…”

“Shut up, you idiot, and try to
stay out of trouble.”

Once Tommy made it back to the
fork, it was just a matter of minutes before a platoon of American tanks, four
in all, rumbled up. The lieutenant in the lead tank took one look at the wings
on Moon’s chest and asked, “You get shot down or something?”

Tommy told his story, finishing
with, “Those Kraut tanks—I thought around here was supposed to be way behind
the lines.”

“Yeah, it’s supposed to be,” the
tank lieutenant replied, “but I guess nobody told the Krauts. We’ve been
mopping up infiltrations for days. Hop on—let’s go get your burned-up buddy.”

Chapter Six

21ST ARMY GROUP COMMUNIQUE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

9 AUG 44/1200 HRS

TO:

SHAEF--EISENHOWER

COPY (FOR INFO):

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

IN RECEIPT OF YOUR MESSAGE URGING
RAPID ACTION RE ENCIRCLEMENT OF GERMAN 7TH ARMY. BE ADVISED THIS
COMMAND HAS BEEN AWARE OF THIS POSSIBILITY FOR SOME TIME AND IS MOVING TOWARDS
ITS EXECUTION WITH ALL DUE CAUTION. HASTE IS A POOR SUBSTITUTE FOR PROPER
TACTICAL PLANNING AND PREPARATION.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

Chapter
Seven

The doctor took one look at Hank
Kirkland’s legs and announced, “Lieutenant, you’re a lucky man. Your war is
over.” For just a brief moment, the months of treatment ahead—complete with
frequent, painful debridements, skin grafts, the almost inevitable infections,
even the possibility of amputation—seemed like a gift:

My war is over. And I’ve still
got my pecker, at least.

Tommy Moon said goodbye as he was
being wheeled off to burn ward quarantine. As they shook hands, Kirkland, his
voice weak but earnest, said, “You won’t tell anyone what I did, will you?”

Tommy smiled. “Fog of war, pal. Who
the hell remembers?”

Two hours of hitchhiking and a few
misdirections later, Tommy found his brother’s outfit: 37th Tank
Battalion, 4th Armored Division. As he walked into the battalion CP
tent, the crusty master sergeant behind the front desk gave this diminutive flyboy
lieutenant a disapproving once-over as he asked, “You lost, Lieutenant?”

“No, I think this might be the
place, Sergeant. I’m looking for a guy named Sean Moon.”

“Crunch? What do you want
with ol’ Crunch, Lieutenant? You didn’t come to arrest him or nothing, did
you?”

“No, just visiting. He’s my
brother. Where can I find him?”

“Let us save you some time. Private
Odom here’s gotta run some errands for me down that way. He’ll take you to
him.”

In the jeep with Odom at the wheel,
Tommy asked, “Private, do you know how Sergeant Moon got the nickname Crunch?”

“Yessir, everybody knows that.
That’s the sound a Jerry makes when you run over him with a tank. I
heard tell that Sergeant Moon says when you’re up close, it’s easier than
shooting them, and it saves ammo, too.”

Odom turned the jeep down a trail
of fresh tank tracks cut through a thick stand of trees. Tommy could see the
outlines of a dozen or more Shermans parked under camouflage nets, swarmed by
crewmen and mechanics servicing them. He saw Sean, too, berating a team of men
slathered in grease and grime, struggling to shove a very long ramming staff
down the tube of a tank’s main gun. It had been seven months since he laid eyes
on his big brother back in England. In that time, Sean Moon seemed to have aged
10 years.

“End of the line, sir,” Odom said
as he braked to a stop.

Sean did an angry double take as he
saw his brother walking toward him. “Holy shit, Half. Just what the fuck are
you doing out here?”

“You’d better snap to and salute
me, Sergeant,” Tommy said, a big grin on his face. “You don’t want your men to
think you’re an insubordinate son of a bitch, do you?”

Sean was grinning now, too. “I am
an insubordinate son of a bitch, you little jerk-off. Now get over here.” He
wrapped his little brother in a bear hug that left no doubt he really was happy
to see him. With an arm still around Tommy’s shoulder, he pulled him toward his
tank and the team of men working on it.

“All you assholes, listen up,” Sean
thundered. “This here’s my little brother Tommy. He’s a big deal fucking pilot,
one of them Thunderbolt jockeys who keep our asses covered. Don’t none
of you ever forget he’s an officer and all that shit. If you don’t respect him
all proper-like, you won’t have to worry about no court-martial because you’ll be
answering to me. Is that fucking clear?”

Eight heads nodded and mumbled
acceptance.

“Outstanding,” Sean said. “Now get
your sorry asses back to work. We ain’t gonna be pullin’ our puds in bivouac
forever.”

The brothers Moon settled on a
stack of wooden ammo boxes. Sean lit up a cigarette from a K ration pack, then
offered one to Tommy. He waved it off.

“You still don’t smoke, you little
pussy?”

“Nope. And I can’t believe you guys
smoke around ammo.”

“It’s in a fucking box, Half. It
ain’t gonna go off.” He pointed to the Sherman, adding, “Besides, we fight
inside those Zippo lighters over there. You don’t have to smoke to go up
in flames in one of them.” He pushed the sleeve of his coveralls up to reveal
the mottled, waxy skin of the burn that covered his arm, like lava that had
cooled and hardened.

“Remember? My souvenir of North
Africa,” Sean said.

“Yeah,” Tommy replied, a sickening foreboding
coming over him. He’d seen that burn before, when they were both in England in
the months before Overlord.

“You still worry about fire in that
airplane of yours? You know, burning up with nowhere to run?”

“Every damn day, Sean.”

“Well, that makes two of us,
brother. You in that plane, me in that tank. But enough of this sad sack
bullshit. What do you hear from Mom?”

The tank battalion’s field kitchen
was set up in an old barn. As they lined up for the supper meal, Tommy was sure
there wouldn’t be enough food for some 200 tired, filthy, and hungry men. When
he saw the miniscule portions the cook doled into his mess kit, however, he
realized how they were making ends meet. He’d never thought his fighter squadron
was being overfed, especially not since they’d repositioned to France. But
seeing the tankers’ rations, he realized he and the other pilots were eating
like kings.

Most of all, he could see the lack
of calories in his brother’s face. Sean, at six feet, was a good seven inches
taller than him, with a sturdy, broad-shouldered frame and a ruddy complexion
in better times. Now, that face had gone sallow and gaunt, the body wiry but somehow
still strong, his temperament still blustering and commanding. Though the
close-cropped GI haircut tried to hide it, Tommy was sure he could see traces
of gray in the sandy hair around the temples…

And Sean’s only twenty-four.

Twenty-four. An old man in this
man’s army.

They picked the base of a tree
outside the barn to eat their supper, close enough to the others so Sean could
keep an eye on his crew but far enough so they could talk in private. “My
gunner over there—Fabiano—he’s been getting into some pretty bad fights
lately,” Sean said. “Now, between you, me, and the lamp post, that guinea’s off
his fucking rocker. But he’s a pretty cool customer when the shit’s flying.
Don’t want to lose him.”

Tommy replied, “So you’re sticking
up for him like you stuck up for me all those years?”

“Apples and oranges, Half. You
wasn’t no fighter. Your little ass needed protection from the goons. He, on the
other hand, needs protection so he don’t go berserk and kill someone. You get
the firing squad for that. There’s plenty of ways to die around here without a
bunch of brass hats canceling your ticket.”

A jeep pulled into the mess area. A
major in spotless battle dress jumped out and yelled, “LIEUTENANT MOON. I’M
LOOKING FOR A LIEUTENANT MOON.”

“Ahh, shit,” Sean mumbled. “This
can’t be good.”

“OVER HERE, SIR,” Tommy replied. He
started toward the jeep but Sean stopped him. “Whoa…go slow, Half. You’re gonna
take it in the shorts, for sure. He’s from Division. How the hell they even
know you’re here?”

Tommy pulled away. “Relax, Crunch.
I can take care of myself now.”

“Where the fuck you hear that
nickname?”

“It seems like everyone knows it. Apparently,
you’re some kind of legend, Sean.”

“Do me a fucking favor, Half. Don’t
call me that, okay?”

Tommy started to salute but the
major batted his hand down. “You trying to get me killed, Moon? This isn’t the
goddamn Air Force. No saluting outdoors. There could be snipers everywhere.”

You could’ve fooled me,
Tommy thought as he looked at all the men sprawled around the field kitchen,
relaxed and enjoying their chow.

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Ninth Air Force has—”

The major had stopped in
mid-sentence to glare at something over Tommy’s shoulder. “Can I help you,
Sergeant?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Sean replied. “It’s just
that the lieutenant here is my kid brother. I wanted to hear firsthand what
kind of shit he’s getting into.”

“Hmm. Brother, eh? Well, suit
yourself, Sergeant. What I’m going to say isn’t exactly top secret.”

The major turned back to Tommy.
“Here’s the deal, Moon. You’ve been assigned as an air support officer to
Fourth Armored. The G3 is putting you here with the Thirty-Seventh.”

“But I’m on a three-day leave, sir.
I don’t have any of my field gear.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you your
leave’s been canceled, Lieutenant. I’m sure Battalion can fix you up with
whatever you need.”

Stepping around Tommy to get face
to face with the major, Sean said, “Hang on a minute, sir. Ain’t it a rule
brothers can’t be in the same unit in a combat zone?”

“Sean,” Tommy said, “knock it off,
will you? That’s not—”

“No, really. Ain’t it a rule?”

The major shook his head. “You’re
both volunteers, right?”

Tommy and Sean nodded in unison.

“Then none of that crap applies,”
the major said. “Lieutenant Moon, report to the battalion CP in three-zero
minutes.”

As the major drove off, Tommy told
himself, You knew this was coming, you idiot…with Kirkland out
of action and all. But I needed to see my brother. And I think he needed to see
me.

Chapter Eight

ALLIED GROUND FORCES DIRECTIVE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

9 AUG 44/1700 HRS

TO:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

COPY(FOR INFO):

SHAEF (EISENHOWER);
HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY; DEMPSEY--2ND
BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY; CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND
TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC

12TH ARMY GROUP WILL
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE TURNING MOVEMENT NORTH TO ENCIRCLE GERMAN FORCES RETREATING
EASTWARD THROUGH THE FLERS-FALAISE-ARGENTAN TRIANGLE.

12TH ARMY GROUP FORCES WILL
ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN--REPEAT, MAINTAIN--AN EAST-WEST LINE THROUGH
FLERS AND ARGENTAN. 21ST ARMY GROUP FORCES WILL CLOSE FROM THE NORTH
ON AN EAST-WEST LINE THROUGH FALAISE TO COMPLETE THE ENCIRCLEMENT. ALL UNITS
SHOULD BE IN THE POSITIONS INDICATED ABOVE BY 0600 HOURS, 14 AUG 44.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

Chapter Nine

In the crowded tent, Tommy Moon was
beginning to wonder if the tank battalion commander even knew he was there.
Watching from the shadows, Tommy stood in a corner not bathed in the harsh glow
of the bare electric light bulbs strung between the big tent’s poles. The C.O.
had just returned from Division. He was explaining the changing tactical
situation to his staff and company commanders: the German 7th
Army—the defenders of Normandy—were falling back in retreat. It was a
tooth-and-nail fighting retreat, for sure, he told them, but a retreat nonetheless.

For 15 minutes, the commander, a
light colonel named Abrams, looking older than his 30 years, stood at the
large-scale map hung on a side curtain, making sweeping motions with his arms
meant to illustrate the movements of the major units in the fight. Tommy had
become so engrossed in the map study—trying to add all those details to the
broad stroke aerial view already in his head—that, for a moment, he didn’t
realize the C.O. was talking about him.

“Over in the corner there,” Colonel
Abrams said, “stands something—excuse me, someone—we’ve waited a long
time for. Lieutenant Moon just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time, so he’s going to be the air support officer we’ve so sorely needed. Take
a bow, Lieutenant.”

As Tommy acknowledged the colonel’s
introduction, he thought, The wrong place at the wrong time. Ain’t that the
truth.

“You’re familiar with all the
terrain I’ve just been talking about, Lieutenant Moon?”

“Yes, sir. Been flying over it for
months now.”

“Very fine. We’ve gotten some great
air support—”

Abrams paused as some grumbling
rose from the crowd and then continued, “From you fighter guys, mostly. The
bomber boys…well, let’s just say they’ve been less than impressive.”

“Impressive, my aching ass,” a
voice called out. “They’ve only bombed us twice. Accidentally, of
course.”

“All right, knock it off,” the
colonel commanded, silencing the tent. Then he turned back to Tommy. “What
we’re trying to say, Lieutenant, is it sure will be good to have someone who understands
these problems from the flyboys’ perspective and can work them out for us. Without
any more self-inflicted fiascos. You guys have done a hell of a job keeping the
skies clear of the Luftwaffe, so don’t try to do the Krauts’ job for them.”

Tommy knew they were talking about Operation
Cobra, the Normandy breakout a few weeks ago, where high-flying American
bombers killed over 100 GIs: But that was due to shitty planning by the top
brass. With the paths to target they laid out for the bombers, they were damn
lucky they didn’t kill even more GIs. Not much an ASO could have done to change
that. But then he thought of all the times that he—even at low level—hadn’t
been 100 percent sure what—or who—he’d been attacking, either.

“I’ll do all I can to help, sir,”
Tommy said.

“Outstanding. Now I’m told our
Sergeant Moon is your brother?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Excellent. Couldn’t be better.”

Colonel Abrams returned to the map
and, taking a grease pencil, sketched a straight line across its acetate
overlay. The line linked two towns some 30 miles north of their present
position at Mayenne. “This is the line Twelfth Army Group is to establish and
hold. Argentan marks its center. First Army covers west of Argentan. Third Army—that
means us, gentlemen—covers the east. We’re supposed to be there by sun-up,
Fourteen August, five days from today.”

“Wait a minute, sir,” one of the
tank company commanders said. “If we’re supposed to be encircling the Krauts—and
we’re holding this straight line—who’s going to close the trap?”

“That’ll be Twenty-First Army
Group’s job,” the colonel replied.

More grumbling—louder this
time—rose from the tankers.

“Really?” a captain said. “Montgomery
and his Brits are going to close it? In what year?”

“At ease,” the colonel said. “Those
are our orders.”

“Then those are really dumb orders,
sir,” the captain replied. “Just where is Montgomery at the moment, anyway?
Wait a minute…let’s ask our ASO. He’s had a bird’s eye view of all this. Let’s
get it straight from the horse’s mouth, not some charlie-charlie up at
SHAEF with a vivid imagination.”

All eyes swung to Tommy Moon.

Abrams said, “Care to step up to
the map, Lieutenant?”

Tommy knew it was an order, not a
request.

“Well, I haven’t been up in a
couple of days,” Tommy said, “but here’s about where the Brits were at the
time.” He sketched in a line on the acetate.

“Oh, fuck,” the captain said.
“That’s it? Just a little south of Caen? So they moved about five fucking miles
in the last couple of weeks while we’ve been making five, maybe ten, a day,
kicking Kraut ass the whole time?”

“Looks that way,” Tommy replied.

The captain flung his helmet to the
dirt floor. “Oh, that’s just fucking swell,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll bet
ten bucks right now that the Krauts will be long gone before any of Monty’s
boys show up to close that trap.” Pulling the bill from his wallet, he waved it
in the air and asked, “Who’s game?”

There were no takers.

The battalion XO, a pipe-smoking
major, said, “You know, when I was up at Patton’s HQ last week, the Brit
liaison there was still singing that same old song about Monty facing the bulk
of the German Armor, while we’ve got it easy.”

“With all due respect, sir,” the
captain replied, “that’s a bullshit excuse. They’re up against panzers, we’re
up against panzers. There isn’t any fucking difference.”

“At ease, gentlemen,” Colonel
Abrams said. “We all agree the Brits don’t go anywhere fast. But as I’ve
already said, we have our orders.”

Stumbling through the darkness of
the tankers’ bivouac with only pale moonlight to guide him, Tommy finally found
the tent where Sean and his crew bunked. Throwing open the blackout curtain to
enter, he was met with a tirade of curses from Fabiano, Sean’s hot-headed
gunner. Once Tommy stepped inside, the lieutenant’s bar on his collar reflected
just enough of the tent’s dim lantern light for Fabiano to soften his tune.

“Gee…sorry, Lieutenant,” the gunner
said. “Nothing personal, but you gotta keep light discipline. Slip in and out
through that crack in the curtains, not throw them open like you’re waltzing into
the five and dime. You can see one little speck of light for miles at night,
and the Krauts are looking, believe you me.”

“Ain’t that the God’s honest
truth,” another voice drawled from a dark corner. “Nothing fucks up sack time
like artillery coming down on your ass.”

If Tommy felt like debating the
point, he might have mentioned their position was about as secret as an
airfield. There was nothing stealthy about a battalion of tanks coming into a
position such as this one. Those bellowing engines could be heard a mile away,
maybe more. From the air, the track marks they left in the ground were like
signposts pointing to their location, no matter how well concealed that
location was. But this was their house, and they lived on the tip of the spear.
Anyone who didn’t play by their rules was asking for trouble.

“No, I’m the one who should be
sorry,” Tommy said. “I should’ve known better. Can one of you men tell me where
my brother is?”

Fabiano shrugged. “No, sir. He
keeps an eye on us, not the other way around.” As Tommy turned to leave, the
gunner added, “Hey, Lieutenant, how many Krauts you shoot down?”

“None. Don’t really see a lot of
German airplanes in the air these days.”

Tommy took great care slipping
through the curtains on his way out. Back in the darkness, with his night
vision compromised by the tent’s lantern, it only took a few steps to realize
he’d lost his bearings. He had no idea in which direction the battalion CP—with
the cot they’d loaned him—was located.

Like a blind man, he searched for some
clue that would get him oriented—and then, as his night vision slowly returned,
he thought he’d found one. Ahead was an empty grayness, distinct from the black
labyrinth of trees. He remembered passing through a clearing between the CP and
the tank park: I’m pretty sure it looked just like this. Maybe I’ll find my
bed, at least. But I wish to hell I could have found my brother.

Plodding ahead, a dot of orange
light appeared. It seemed so far away at first, but then Tommy realized what
the dot really was: a cigarette. It only took a few steps before he was
standing next to the smoker, who was seated with his back against a tree. He
didn’t need to see the man’s face to know it was his brother.

“Geez, Sean…I just got my ass
reamed by your gunner for poor light discipline, and you’re out here lighting
up the whole damn world like sniper bait. Do you realize how far you can see a
cigarette’s glow in the dark? You got a death wish or something?”

Tommy wasn’t sure if Sean heard
him. He didn’t move, just stared into the infinite darkness, the tell-tale
cigarette still pressed between his lips, inviting disaster.

“You going to talk to me or what,
Sean?”

With a slow, studied motion, his
brother stubbed out the cigarette on the heel of his boot. When he finally did speak,
his voice wasn’t the bellicose trumpet it had always been. Now, it was a low,
forlorn monotone.

“You think we’ll be home by
Christmas, Half?”

Tommy would’ve done anything to
cheer his brother up—except lie to him.

“I seriously doubt it, Sean.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe that shit,
either.”

Sean leaned his head back against
the tree. His face caught the moonlight just right, showing Tommy a melancholy
expression he’d never seen before. To cap it off, a small, glistening spot
rolled down his cheek.

Holy shit. He’s crying.

Tommy sat down next to his big
brother, put his arm around his shoulder, and pulled him close. They remained
in silence, all the while Tommy thinking:

Ain’t this something? When we
were kids, it was always Sean looking out for me, protecting me and Mom and the
girls from Pop’s drunken rampages, always standing up to the neighborhood tough
guys. Hell, he could be more of a hood than the hoods.

But now, all of a sudden, I’m
the one doling out the comfort. Me, the little brother.

War is such a shitty deal, isn’t
it?

They sat that way for a few minutes,
brother to brother. Then, in an even softer voice, Sean said, “Just a matter of
time, Tommy.”

“Until what, Sean?”

He hugged his little brother as if
he was saying goodbye.

“Just a matter of time, Tommy. Just
a matter of fucking time.”

Chapter Ten

Sunrise had barely begun to
brighten the eastern sky. Tommy had little appetite for breakfast. He took the
scrambled egg sandwich the cook insisted on giving him—“This delicacy is
a ritual when we’re moving out, sir,” the cook insisted—but delicacy or
not, Tommy couldn’t eat it. Coffee was all he could stomach. He was too nervous,
and he knew why:

I know the drill in the air. But
down here on the deck I’m a raw rookie—and rookies make dumb mistakes that get
people killed.

Sean came striding up and asked, “You
gonna eat that?”

When Tommy shook his head, his
brother’s hand swooped the sandwich from the mess kit and he downed it in three
quick bites. Pointing to the carbine his little brother had been issued, he
asked, “You flyboys even know how to use those fucking things?”

“Hey, we’re dead shots with fifty
cals, rockets, and bombs. I’m pretty sure we can handle little pop guns like
this.”

“I hope so, Half, because you just
might need it where we’re going.”

Sean gave an amused once-over to
the ill-fitting tanker’s coveralls Tommy had been issued; the sleeves and
trouser legs had to be rolled up to keep from covering his hands and feet. “I
know you pilot-types get to go to English tailors and all that shit, but I see
you’re learning that around here, we only got too sizes: too
large and too small.”

Tommy couldn’t help but smile. The
old Sean had returned. Whatever had transpired last night between them receded
to some obscure corner of his memory.

Now maybe I can concentrate on
not fucking up my first time out.

“You’re gonna ride with Baker
Company,” Sean told him. “That’s my company…and it’ll be leading the
battalion column. You know what you’ll be riding in?”

“They told me at last night’s
briefing I’d be in a tank destroyer with the company commander. I thought he’d
have his own Sherman, though.”

“Ordinarily, he does,” Sean
replied, “but as low on Zippos as we are at the minute, and the fact
that our brand new ASO might actually want to see something besides the inside
of a hull, we borrowed one of those contraptions just for you.” With a
sarcastic laugh, he added, “Ahh, don’t worry. You’ll love it. It’s like driving
through a shit storm with the top down.”

Tommy wasn’t sure what his brother
meant until he climbed onto the deck of the M10 tank destroyer. From the ground,
it looked just like a tank, with tracks, machine guns, armored hull, and the
tube of a big gun protruding from its turret. Once on the deck, though, Sean’s
comment came into focus: This fucking turret has no top! You’re riding in a
big bathtub…with absolutely no protection from airbursts except your damn
helmet, for all the good it’s going to do.

Baker Company’s commander—that same
captain who’d disparaged British capabilities at last night’s briefing—was
already in that bathtub. He smiled when he saw the perplexed look on
Tommy’s face. “What’s the matter, Lieutenant Moon?” he asked. “You don’t like
convertibles?”

“No, sir…I just wasn’t expecting—”

“Don’t sweat it, Lieutenant. It’s a
lot better than a jeep. At least you’ve got armor on the sides, and there’s a
whole mess of Krauts between here and Argentan just dying to bounce some
bullets off it. Now climb in and get yourself organized on the double. We’ve
got to get moving.”

Tommy swung himself into the
turret. It was a tight squeeze; besides the captain, there were two enlisted
men to man the main gun and the bank of radios. The captain offered his hand
and said, “By the way, my name’s Al Newcomb. I don’t believe we got properly
introduced last night.”

He watched as Tommy scanned the
vehicle’s radio equipment. “Got it all figured out?” Newcomb asked.

“Yeah, I think so. This one
here…this is strictly for air to ground, right?”

“Yep, that one’s all yours.”
Pointing to one of the enlisted men, he added, “DeLuca here is our radio wizard
if you need any help.”

“What about artillery, sir? I
figured one of their observers would be riding with us.”

“Negative, Moon. There’s an arty
FO riding with battalion HQ. Plus, there’s usually a little spotter plane or
two working with Division puttering around up there, weather permitting, of
course…and assuming they didn’t get shot to shit on their last mission. Down
here on point, though, we pretty much call our own artillery when we need it.
And if we need any special coordination, we’ll go through that FO up at Battalion.”

“Special coordination,” Tommy said,
“like if we don’t want to knock down our own planes?”

“Now you’re seeing the big
picture,” Newcomb replied.

There was a roar of engines from
the woodline as Shermans emerged. To Tommy Moon, each seemed a fearsome and
impregnable rolling fortress, belching clouds of exhaust smoke as it headed for
the road.

“EASTWARD HO, BOYS,” Newcomb called
out. “LAST ONE TO BERLIN’S A ROTTEN EGG.”

The column of tanks had traveled
five miles down the Mayenne-Alençon highway without a hint of opposition. As
the narrow pavement emerged from a grove, there was a sickening SLAM and
blinding flash as the lead Sherman was turned inside out by a round from a
German 88-millimeter anti-tank gun. Four vehicles back, Tommy couldn’t see much
of the carnage. It took him a few seconds to realize the thing he’d seen
shooting into the sky like a bottle rocket was the lead tank’s commander being
blown from his open hatch atop the turret. It took another second to reassure
himself it wasn’t his brother’s flaming death he’d just witnessed. Sean’s tank
was several vehicles behind Tommy in the M10.

“Fucking Krauts are in that next treeline,”
Newcomb said, scanning ahead with binoculars. Then, with surprising casualness,
he asked Tommy, “Where are the jugs?”

“About five minutes out.”

“This’ll probably be over before
they even get here,” Newcomb said.

Tommy watched as the company
commander issued a string of terse orders over the radio, each so clear even
this flyboy newcomer to ground warfare understood exactly what they meant.
Using the burning lead tank as cover, the second in the column began to pepper
the far treeline—some 400 yards away—with machine gun and 75-millimeter fire
from its main gun. The remaining two tanks of the lead platoon left the road,
took up hull-down positions amidst the trees, and added their fire.

Two more shots from the German guns
streaked toward the Americans. One hit the hull of the already flaming lead
tank, showering sparks and metal fragments on the Sherman sheltering behind it
but doing no damage.

The second shot cleaved the turret
of one of the hull-down tanks in two.

“Fuck,” Newcomb mumbled. “Three
shots, two of my tanks dead.”

The three tank platoons behind
Tommy and the M10 had fanned out wide—one north, two south—leading half-tracks
full of infantrymen to attempt a double-envelopment of the Germans. Tommy
watched as those flanking elements drew and returned fire. He wasn’t sure which
tank—or even which element—contained his brother.

The smoke of battle had grown thick
over the German and American positions. It was getting difficult to see into
the distance.

“It’s just a couple of
eighty-eights,” Newcomb said. “Once we flank them, they’re finished. They can’t
fire in three directions at once.”

The radio crackled with the voice
of the P-47 flight leader. They were two minutes from the reference point Tommy
had given them to begin an attack.

“Have them hold off,” Newcomb said.
“We’re going to put some airbursts over those Krauts.”

In the 30 seconds that followed,
two more Shermans and one half-track were turned into infernos. Airbursts from
American artillery a mile back in the column filled the air above the Germans
with gray puffs of smoke. Like low-level flak, those bursts rained shell
fragments on the ground below.

“Fuck, they’re short,” Newcomb
said. Keying the microphone, he told the artillery, “Add five-zero, up ten. Repeat.”

Another shot from the Germans
sliced through the line of American vehicles on the northern pincer, hitting
none. Its only victim was a shattered stand of trees.

The next volley of GI artillery
arrived, splashing its airbursts right on target. There wasn’t another shot
from the 88s.

Straining to see through the smoke,
Newcomb said, “They’re either pulling back…or they bought it.” Grabbing the
microphone again, he urged his two flanking elements to close in quickly. Then
he told Tommy, “Call off the jugs, Lieutenant. We don’t need our asses riddled
by the Air Force today.”

The flanking elements rolled into
the German gun position. After a few brief bursts of machine gun fire, the
radio blared their all clear. The M10—along with the two surviving Shermans
of what had been the lead platoon—advanced to join the rest of the company. As
they passed the smoldering hulks of the last two Shermans to get hit, Tommy was
almost too afraid to look at the names and artwork their crews had painted on
the turrets. But neither carried the name Eclipse of the Hun or the
sketch of a cartoon-character Hitler dangling by the seat of his pants from the
thin crescent of a nearly full lunar eclipse. That meant Sean’s tank, at least,
had survived.

Once inside the beaten position,
the tankers dismounted to flush out any remaining Germans. Tommy found his
brother briefing Captain Newcomb. Sean’s Thompson submachine gun was at his hip
like some Chicago gangster as he said, “Only two eighty-eights, sir. They were
either manned real light or a bunch of them cut and run on foot. Left all their
vehicles behind.” He pointed toward a stack of enemy bodies; there were only
eight. “You’d expect there to be twice that many manning two guns.”

Newcomb shook his head. “Ain’t that
some shit? Eight fucking Krauts…and we’ve got about thirty killed or wounded,
counting those infantry guys…and the company’s down another four tanks—four out
of the fifteen we set out with today.”

He paused, scanning the battered
German guns and vehicles. Then he asked, “Get any prisoners, Sergeant?”

Sean shrugged. “Negative, sir.
Didn’t work out that way.”

Tommy thought his brother’s answer
was a bit too vague. He’d always heard that German troops usually fought until
it was hopeless and then surrendered as if it was all just part of the game.
They’d come out with their hands up shouting Kamerad…as if to say, We’re
done fighting. We can all be friends now.

If Captain Newcomb thought his
sergeant’s answer was a bit too vague, he didn’t press the issue. He
didn’t seem concerned if his men had killed surrendering Germans or not.

Just then, a four-plane flight of
P-47s passed overhead and then circled for a better look.

Tommy said, “That’s our air cover. You
want me to have them scout up the road for us?”

“Great idea,” Newcomb replied.

Sean’s sullen gaze swept across the
open ground to the four destroyed tanks and the infantry half-track. His lips
moved silently, as if counting the dead and wounded.

Then it occurred to Tommy his
brother wasn’t counting at all—he was saying, over and over again, Just a
matter of time.

They’d been back on the highway 10
minutes when the P-47s radioed their scouting report. “There’s an armored unit
on the road about five miles ahead,” Tommy related. “They’re either stopped or
moving real slow.”

“That can’t be good,” Newcomb
replied. “Nobody’s supposed to be in front of us but Germans. Are your flyboys
going to engage them?”

“Negative, sir. They say they’re Shermans.”

Newcomb scowled. “Shermans? How the
fuck could that be?”

DeLuca, the radioman, had a theory:
“Maybe they’re captured Shermans, sir…and the Krauts are using them to
set us a trap?”

Captain Newcomb found that funny.
“Why the fuck would Germans want our Zippos? Their Panthers and Tigers
are five times the tank a Sherman is.”

Tommy asked, “What makes you say
that, sir?”

“Because every damn time we engage
one, it blows up about five Shermans before someone can finally get around the
bastard and put one up his ass. That’s about the only way we can kill them.”

“Let me ask you this,” Tommy said.
“Ninth Air Force has been telling its squadrons to hang white phosphorous bombs
when we know we’ll be going after German armor. The burning stuff sticks to the
tank and supposedly screws up their sighting systems. Plus the fumes get sucked
inside and force the crew to abandon the tank. You find that to be true, sir?”

“Yeah, it is,” Newcomb replied, “as
long as you flyboys actually drop it on the fucking tanks in the first
place. But that doesn’t seem to happen very much. Stick with putting rockets
and APIs up their asses. That seems to be a lot more reliable.” He told DeLuca
to radio Battalion. “Maybe they know who the hell that is up the road.”

Captain Newcomb had his answer in
less than a minute: Battalion didn’t know anything. But their orders didn’t
change: Continue the advance. Engage as necessary.

Chapter Eleven

Captain Newcomb figured his column
had covered another three miles down the highway toward Alençon. In the sky
ahead, he caught glimpses of the P-47s flying high, wide circles. Tommy
confirmed everyone’s suspicions as he relayed the flight leader’s transmission:
“Whoever they are, they’re stopped right on the road, but they’re not in any
kind of fight. No sign of Krauts anywhere. The pilots estimate fifty tanks and
a slew of support vehicles.”

“That’s a fucking battalion’s worth,”
Newcomb said.

Soon, his lead tanks crested a rise
in the road. It gave the M10—now third in the column—a splendid view of the
traffic jam less than a mile ahead. With binoculars, they could now identify
the tanks for themselves. They were indeed Shermans, and they bore the Cross of
Lorraine on their turrets.

“They’re Free French,” Newcomb
said, as if he didn’t believe his own words. “What the hell is the French
Second Armored doing all the way over here?” He took another disbelieving look
at his map. “They’re not even supposed to be on this road…and they’ve got it
clogged up like a stuck drain. They don’t even have any security out, like
they’re on some damn admin march.”

As they rumbled closer, they were
in for another surprise. DeLuca expressed it first: “Holy shit…they’re all
darkies.”

“Get used to that,” Captain Newcomb
replied. “Most of the Free French troops are African colonials.”

DeLuca asked, “How come, sir?”

“Because most of the white guys in France
couldn’t exactly get to North Africa to enlist,” Newcomb replied. “But there’s
got to be white guys in charge, though.” He jumped down from the M10 in search
of a white French officer, beckoning Tommy to follow him: “You said you spoke
some French, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Better come along, then. I might
need a translator.”

They found a French colonel at the
head of the column, relaxing in a jeep as he dined on American C rations. He
seemed unconcerned his stalled column was blocking the progress of 37th
Tank Battalion—and the rest of the US 4th Armored Division behind
it.

When Captain Newcomb pulled out his
map and asserted the French were not where they were supposed to be, the
Frenchman halted Tommy’s translation with a casual wave of his hand and said,
“I speak English.” Then he pulled out his own map with a completely different
set of unit boundaries drawn in. “I have been instructed by my general to wait
here for further orders.”

Newcomb was fast losing his temper.
“But you’re in our fucking way, Colonel,” he said. “You need to clear the road
immediately.”

“Just go around, Captain,” the
colonel replied. He made a sweeping motion with his arm that implied the rest
of the countryside was at the Americans’ disposal.

“Negative, sir,” Newcomb said. “The
terrain around here is like another one of your  damn bocages—tough for
tracks, impossible for wheeled vehicles.” He looked at the line of French
vehicles claiming the road—actually American vehicles in French
markings—and added, “But I guess you’ve figured that one out already.”

The colonel was more interested in
the canned fruit from his C ration box.

“Look, sir,” Newcomb said, “if you
won’t clear the road, I’ll get my colonel up here. And if that’s not good
enough for you, we’ll get the fucking division commander.”

“You can get Eisenhower himself,”
the Frenchman replied, “and it will make no difference. This is France, and I
follow only the orders of General Leclerc. And he follows only the orders of General
de Gaulle.”

“And whose orders does General de
Gaulle follow?”

“Only God’s, Captain.”

In the best French he could muster,
Tommy asked, “But Colonel, are we not allies?”

The colonel replied in English. “Do
not patronize me, Lieutenant. We both fight the Boche, so yes, we are
your allies, as you say. But we are not your servants.”

It took six hours—with many frantic
radio calls by American officers of ascending rank to Corps and Army
headquarters—to get the French off the road and the 4th Armored
moving again. The Americans covered only 10 more miles before darkness forced
them to bivouac in the concealment of a thick forest for the night. They were
still five miles from the waypoint of Alençon and 25 miles from their
objective, Argentan. “At this rate,” Sean Moon fumed, “the Krauts will be back
in Paris sipping beers before we get anywhere near this fucking Falaise
pocket, let alone close the bastard.”

“Speaking of closing the bastard,”
Captain Newcomb said, “I saw the intel report from Division. Looks like the
Brits are making worse time than we are.”

“So what else is new, sir?” Sean
replied with disgust. “Maybe they’re fighting the Germans and the
French, too, just like we are?”

“Hell of a way to talk about our allies,
Sergeant. But it’s worse than that: those frogs we passed…they’re supposed to
be covering our left flank.”

“You’re kidding, right, sir?”

“Nope. Dead serious.”

Sean threw up his hands in frustration
and replied, “Well, then…I guess it’s good night, nurse for this little
campaign.” He grimaced as he took a bite of the bitter chocolate bar—the D
bar—that came with the K ration.  “And you say those frogs were dining like
kings on C rations, while we get this subsistence shit?”

Tommy’s voice came out of the
darkness, asking, “Something wrong? Let me guess…they just called the whole
thing off and we can all go home, right?”

“Not quite, Lieutenant,” Newcomb
said. “Your brother was just expressing his lack of confidence in our French
allies.”

“Don’t forget I ain’t too crazy
about the Limeys, either, sir,” Sean added.

Newcomb asked Tommy, “Find out
anything interesting from the air liaison?”

“Yeah. It sounds like the Ninth Air
Force is pasting the shit out of the Germans pulling back from Mortain. They
made it sound like a regular turkey shoot.”

“Great,” Sean said. “Then they
won’t be needing us ground pounders none.”

“Not so fast,” Tommy replied.
“There are still plenty of Krauts to go around for everyone, apparently.” He
turned to Newcomb and added, “I need to run something by you, sir. I was
thinking about how we could’ve used the air support in that fight back up the
road, and it occurred to me that no matter how I directed them, they had just
as good a chance of dumping their stuff on us as the Krauts, close as we all
were.”

“We’d just do what we always do,”
Newcomb replied. “We’d have our artillery or mortars mark the targets with
smoke and hope for the best.”

“That’s just it, Captain…once a
fight gets going real good, all we see from the cockpit is smoke and dust. It
all mixes together and we pilots can’t tell one color smoke from another. That
stuff obscures the ground, and if there’s not some easily recognizable
reference point, it’s a crap shoot where the ordnance is going to land.”

“Hmm…so what do we do about that,
Lieutenant?”

“I’d like to try this, if it’s okay
with you, sir. Let’s put the artillery FO right with us in the M10 so he and I
can coordinate white phosphorous airbursts—up real high, above all the
battlefield smoke—to mark an approach path to the target. They’d have to be
tightly time controlled so the smoke from the bursts doesn’t drift away in the
wind before the pilots can get a good bead on it. Then they’d have a better of
chance of being lined up on—and actually seeing—the target when they broke
through all that smoke, because at the speed they’re going, they’d only get a
second or two for target acquisition. If the FO was right there with me it
would be so much easier to set up. He can call the fire missions directly,
rather than me having to pass all the coordinates for the WP bursts over the
radio first.”

As Newcomb mulled it over in
silence, Tommy added, “I know the turret’s going to get a little crowded with
an extra guy and all, but we’ve already got enough radios to handle it. Plus,
the FO can bring his battery-operated set as extra insurance.”

“Sounds like you’ve already worked
this out with the artillery, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir, I have.”

“Outstanding,” Newcomb said as he
got up to leave. “Let’s give it a try. I’ll catch up with you guys later. I’ve
got to see how the fueling’s coming along.”

As Tommy ripped open his K ration
box, his brother asked, “I’ll bet hearing about your flyboy buddies ripping the
shit out of the Krauts is making you wanna be back in the cockpit, don’t it?”

Tommy needed no words to answer. A
wistful glance skyward was all it took.

Chapter Twelve

ALLIED GROUND FORCES COMMUNIQUE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

11 AUG 44/1100 HRS

TO:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

COPY (FOR INFO):

SHAEF (EISENHOWER)

IN RECEIPT OF YOUR ELOQUENT REQUEST
DATED 10 AUG. HOWEVER, BE ADVISED THE ORIGINAL DIRECTIVE FROM THIS COMMAND
STANDS: ELEMENTS OF 12TH ARMY GROUP WILL ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN—REPEAT,
MAINTAIN—AN EAST-WEST LINE THROUGH FLERS AND ARGENTAN NLT 0600, 14 AUG. NO
UNIT OF 12TH ARMY GROUP IS TO ADVANCE NORTH OF THAT LINE, AS IT
WOULD BE UNWISE TO ATTEMPT TO BLOCK SEASONED PANZER FORMATIONS WITH UNTESTED
AMERICAN UNITS. I PREFER TO RISK A BLOODY NOSE AT ARGENTAN RATHER THAN A BROKEN
NECK AT FALAISE.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

Chapter Thirteen

It was midmorning when a radio
transmission from an aerial observer in a spotter plane sounded the warning. A
German armored force from the west was speeding toward the same wooded road
junction Newcomb’s tanks were approaching from the south. The Germans would get
there first, posing a roadblock far more potent than yesterday’s mere
inconvenience at the hands of the French 2nd Armored.

“The AO says they’re Panthers,
sir,” DeLuca, the radio operator, reported. “Six of them, with a couple of
trucks tagging along.”

Captain Newcomb, on another radio
with Battalion, replied with an impatient nod. Tommy Moon was already calling
for air support from the P-47s.

“We’ve got to stop them before they
block the junction,” Newcomb said. “That’s going to be some trick, considering
we can’t even see them yet through all these trees.” Then he turned to the
latest addition to the M10’s crew: Lieutenant Bill Baxter, the artillery
forward observer. “Plaster the junction with HE and WP,” he told the FO. “Let’s
make them stop short on the road so we can get a crack at them broadside
through the woods, before they can turn toward us.”

Baxter objected. “But, sir, I can put
WP right on the tanks.”

“How are you going to do that,
Lieutenant?” Newcomb replied. “They’re not going to stand still for you to
adjust the rounds on them…and you can’t see the fucking Krauts in the first
place.”

“Yeah…and save a couple of willy
petes for me,” Tommy added. “This fight’s going to be close in and down in
the trees again. The jugs will have a hell of a time figuring out who’s who.”

Newcomb asked, “This is just what
you were talking about last night, isn’t it, Moon? Marking an airborne approach
path to the target with willy pete airbursts?”

“Yes, sir, it sure is.”

“Well, it better fucking work, or
we’re in real deep shit.”

Once again, Newcomb deployed his
forces with a hand steadied by hard experience. As his tanks left the open killing
field of the road and fanned out into the woods, Lieutenant Baxter had just
finished calling in the artillery fire mission on the road junction. He and
Tommy settled into plotting the white phosphorous airbursts to guide the flight
of four P-47s.

“Let’s use the road junction for
the near burst,” Tommy said as he wrote down the coordinates. “Put it five
hundred feet in the air. For the far one, put it off to the east”—he touched
his pencil point to the map—“right here, about a mile out, burst height at one
thousand feet. What’s the time of flight going to be?”

Baxter did a quick calculation. “One
gun can shoot both rounds while the rest of the battery hits the road junction.
If we shoot the far airburst first, its time of flight will be about eleven
seconds. Then, allowing a little time to reload and adjust firing data, the
near one’s burst should be pretty much simultaneous.”

“Simultaneous. Excellent,” Tommy
said. “What about the time delay getting our fire command to the guns?”

“Considering they’ll already have
the initial firing data set, a few seconds, at most.”

“Great,” Tommy replied, adding it
all up. “With the usual winds from the southwest and the jugs coming out of the
sun, this should work like a charm.” He radioed the orienting information to
the fast-approaching fighters.

For a moment, Tommy Moon almost
forgot one of those men charging at the German tanks in those Zippo lighters
would be his brother.

The first artillery rounds struck
the road junction. They had the desired effect; though a few hundred yards from
the impacts, the Germans came to a dead stop on the road. But they weren’t
Panthers.

“They’re assault guns,” Newcomb
said. “Sturmgeschutz, or some shit like that. For cryin’ out
loud, you flyboys think anything with tracks is a fucking tank.”

Tommy asked, “So assault guns
should be pushovers?”

“Not exactly. They’ve got the same
main weapon but it can’t traverse very much. And there’s a lot less armor.”

No one noticed the airburst of
white phosphorous high above the road junction or the much higher one a mile to
the east.

“Okay,” Tommy said, “the jugs are
turning to the markers. Shut off the artillery.”

“Yeah, let the jugs in,” Newcomb
concurred. “Do it now.”

The German vehicles were still
motionless, engines revving, as if unsure what to do next.

“Come on, boys,” Newcomb beseeched
his tanks, “they’re showing us their flanks! Don’t wait until they turn on you.
Punch a round right through them! Take your damn shot!”

But he understood why the Shermans
hadn’t fired yet. They were bouncing and lurching through the woods; the only
way to get an accurate shot was to stop, giving the gunner a stable sight
picture before firing. But stopping meant death. You were too good a target
when you weren’t moving, and the Germans’ powerful 75-millimeter gun could kill
you before it was even in your gun’s range. The only chance of a first-round
hit on the move was if you were close—200 yards or less—and they weren’t there
yet.

Hunkered down in the turret of the
M10, Tommy told the jugs to attack with machine guns: Easier to aim, and
even if they miss, they’ll scare the living shit out of the Krauts, with their
heads sticking out like that. Rockets will probably miss.

Tommy could only visualize the
fight through the eyes of an airman. Turn, dammit, he urged the German
guns. Sitting on the road as they were, their tougher front armor was facing
the oncoming P-47s. But when he peered over the edge of the turret, a tanker’s
perspective smacked him in the face. If they turn, they’re looking straight
at my brother. Dammit…somebody make a move…do something!

All at once, Tommy got his wish. A Sherman
fired and shattered a track on the lead assault gun. She was crippled but by no
means dead, pivoting with her good track to face the approaching Americans. The
five vehicles behind her belched smoke from their racing engines and began to
pivot, trying to turn their toughest armor—and their big main guns—to the Shermans.

They never saw the P-47s streaking
out of the sun. Four assault guns erupted in flames, struck by API rounds in
their flanks. The crewmen who were still alive and able to move clambered off
the hulls, frantically trying to shed burning uniforms as they ran to seek
cover in the woods.

That left two German vehicles still
in the fight: the leader—frozen in place but her main gun very much alive—and
the last one in the column, now rumbling toward the Shermans. Her main gun spit
a wildly inaccurate round while on the move.

For the moment, the lead gun’s immobility
gave her an advantage as she took a well-aimed shot through a rock-steady
gunsight. The round penetrated a Sherman’s front armor, spraying a torrent of
hot gasses and razor-sharp metal fragments into the crew compartment. She came
to an abrupt stop. The only thing escaping her hull were multiple jets of smoke
colored the gray pallor of death.

A Sherman maneuvered for a shot at
the lead gun’s thin side armor. Firing on the move from 300 yards out, she
missed, the round burrowing into the ground yards short. The German gun replied
with a shot of her own, knocking the American’s turret askew, rendering it
useless. The Sherman began to back away; at least her driver was still alive.

“Shit,” Captain Newcomb mumbled.
“Two Zippos down.”

Baxter, the artillery FO, said, “If
that Kraut isn’t going to move, I can burn her with WP.”

Newcomb was about to agree when
Tommy blurted, “No, wait. I’ve got the jugs coming back the other way. They can
nail her.”

“When?” Newcomb asked.

“Thirty seconds. Shifting the arty
will take twice that long.”

Newcomb swallowed hard and replied,
“Okay. We’ll hold for the jugs.”

Thirty seconds in combat can be an
eternity. In the narrow lanes of the woods a hundred yards off the road, the
still-mobile assault gun was caught in a deadly game of ring around the
rosie with two Shermans. Swirling as if caught in a whirlpool—or circling a
drain—the three vehicles struggled to get a point-blank shot at their enemy’s
rear, searching for a path through the dense trees that would yield an
intercepting vector without smacking the main gun into a tree. Two more Shermans
were trying to position themselves at tangents to that circle, hoping for a
clear shot at the German vehicle without offering themselves up to her far more
deadly gun.

One of the Shermans seeking a
tangent miscalculated; the assault gun blew her apart at 50 yards.

But then she ran out of luck. Maneuvering
for another kill, her main gun struck a tree, forcing her to stop and reverse.
In that instant, she was turned into a funeral pyre as rounds struck her from
three directions at once.

On the road, the lead assault gun
exploded as a P-47 shot up her hull with API. In turn, the other three aircraft
riddled the burning lead gun and then set ablaze the two German support trucks
trying to slip away from the battle.

And then it was over—the
pants-wetting terror of combat replaced with that eerie stillness that provided
anything but closure to the mortal chaos just lived through.

“I guess that idea of yours sort of
worked, Moon,” Newcomb said. “Nice job.”

But I still lost three more
tanks. That’s seven gone in two days. I’ve got eight left—at this rate, this
company will be wiped out long before the division reaches Argentan. Shit, if
we hit heavier contact than this—and can’t get air support when we need it—we
may cease to exist before nightfall.

Regrouping his scattered tank
company, Newcomb shifted his platoons’ order of march. Tommy overheard the
terse commands over the radio that would put Sean’s tank at the head of the
column. He saw the Sherman named Eclipse of the Hun moving back toward
the road to take its place on point, his brother sitting on the ring of the
turret hatch, casually smoking a cigarette. Sean waved with little enthusiasm
as his tank drove past the M10. Tommy wished he’d been close enough to see the
look in his eyes.

Chapter Fourteen

The highway to Alençon coursed through
the woods for another 10 miles. Newcomb’s column encountered Germans only twice
in that distance, both times meeting details of infantry armed with light
weapons and panzerfaust—small but powerful anti-armor rockets carried and
fired by one man. Similar in concept to the American bazooka, but
packing a far stronger punch, its only drawback was its short range: about 110
yards, which left its operator terribly vulnerable to the infantry accompanying
and protecting the American tanks from just such a threat. If he could manage
to get close enough, though, he could kill a Sherman with one shot. But that
had rarely happened since the GIs came ashore at Normandy. It wouldn’t happen
this afternoon, either; Newcomb lost no more tanks in the woods.

“It’s going to get worse,” he
warned. “We’ll be back in the open real soon, and I’m betting we’ll be up to
our asses in panzers again. And the closer we get to this Falaise pocket
they keep talking about…well, shit—this could turn into another Kursk.”

He scanned the low-hanging gray
clouds gathering in the sky ahead, lit from within by lightning, flickering
like Chinese lanterns. “A fucking storm coming, too,” Newcomb said, shooting a
disparaging look at Tommy. “That’ll do it for our air cover. Your Air Force
can’t hit shit on the ground if they can’t see it.”

There was nothing Tommy could say
to contradict the captain’s assessment. Newcomb was right; losing visual
contact with the ground not only prevented a pilot from finding a target, it might
even prevent him from finding his way home. Thunderstorms presented an even
more dangerous problem. More than one aviator had blundered into their towering
columns of cloud to watch his aircraft disintegrate around him, torn apart by
the sledgehammer blows of the fiercely turbulent air within. If he was lucky,
he’d survive the bailout through nature’s fury. Usually, it didn’t work out that
way.

Once Newcomb’s column was clear of
the woods, a spotter plane they’d heard transmitting over the radio but seen
little of touched down in a grassy clearing beside the road. It had barely
rolled to a stop when a bulldog of a man wearing two silver stars on his helmet
jumped out and walked with great purpose toward the M10.

“Who the hell is that?” Tommy
asked.

“It’s General Wood,” Newcomb
replied.

“The division commander?”

“None other, Lieutenant. That’s ‘P.’
Wood himself.”

“What’s the P stand for,
sir?”

“I heard it’s for professor.
Used to teach college, supposedly.”

As the spotter plane’s pilot busied
himself tying down the light aircraft against the punishing winds the storm was
sure to bring, General Wood clambered onto the M10. In a booming voice dripping
with the flavor of the American South, he said to Newcomb, “Mind if I ride with
you, Alvin? That storm’s no place for a li’l ol’ airplane.”

“Sure, sir. Welcome aboard,” Newcomb
replied as he motioned for the two enlisted men to make room in the turret.

But the general stopped them from
climbing out and riding on the hull deck. “That’s okay, boys. You stay right where
you are and do your jobs. I’ll ride the deck.”

Newcomb asked, “What does the
situation up the highway look like, sir?”

“No Kraut tanks, surprisingly,” the
general replied. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t some well-concealed
eighty-eights waiting for us, though. But as long as we can flank them like
you’ve been doing all day, my boy, they shouldn’t stop us from liberating
Alenҫon by nightfall.”

Wood noticed the wings on Tommy
Moon’s chest. “You must be our ASO, Lieutenant. What’s your name, son?”

After Tommy introduced himself, the
general continued, “Do we have you to thank for that brilliant air support this
morning, Lieutenant Moon?”

“Well…I suppose so, sir. But I had
a lot of help.”

Wood gave an amused laugh. “Now
isn’t this something…we’ve got ourselves a humble flyboy here. Didn’t reckon
we’d be seeing the likes of you when your General Quesada agreed to put his
boys down here in the dirt with us dogfaces. What made you so lucky to be the
first one, Lieutenant?”

When Tommy related the story of how
he’d become ASO, Wood roared with laughter. “Wrong place at the wrong time, eh,
Lieutenant? Well, it’s good to have you, anyway. Now why don’t you and my cannon-cocker
here”—he nodded to Lieutenant Baxter, the artillery FO—“fill me in on exactly
how you marked those Kraut guns so your P-47s could find them so easy in that
damn forest.”

Tommy had heard some stories about
General Wood in the little time he’d spent with his brother. He knew he was an
artilleryman from way back, so there was no need to spoon-feed him the
technical details. When the explanation was done, the general said, “So, when
we’re talking target acquisition for you high-speed aviators, drawing a line of
approach way up in the air beats a li’l ol’ pinpoint on the ground any day?
Especially a pinpoint you probably can’t even see?”

“That’s it in a nutshell, sir.”

“Well done, gentlemen,” the general
said. “You know, I saw those willy peters popping up high but I didn’t
know exactly what y’all were up to. Excellent work. We’re going to make that method
SOP around here right quick. And it’s going to need a name. Let’s call it goal
posts.”

Wood told DeLuca, the M10’s radio
operator, to tune into the division command net. “Gotta pick up my mail, boys.
General Patton expects very timely replies.”

By the time General Wood was off
the radio, a rain cold for August was drenching the column, but it hadn’t
seemed to dampen the general’s spirits a bit. “I tell you,” he began, “ol’ Blood
and Guts Patton is fit to be tied right now. He found out why Montgomery
refused General Bradley’s request that we be allowed to advance beyond
Argentan. Turns out he considers us Yanks untested in battle. Says he’s
afraid we’ll get our necks broken if we try and push the Germans too hard. Can
y’all believe that shit? Like we ain’t been kicking Kraut ass left and right
since we got off the boat at Normandy. Untested, my sweet ass. Hell, the
only test that stick-up-his-ass Limey ever passed was the one for how long
you can wait before you get off your ass and actually do something.”

Barely visible through the murky
translucence, a high ridge line loomed a few miles ahead, dominating the road.
“I don’t like the looks of that ridge,” General Wood said. “An artillery
observer up there could see halfway to Spain on a good day. He can sure as hell
see us even in this pea soup.” He asked Baxter, “Lieutenant, do you have that
ridge plotted for fires?”

“Affirmative, sir…and the valley
behind it, too.”

“Good,” the general replied.
“Captain Newcomb, let’s remount the infantry and pick up the pace. Let’s make
ourselves as fast-moving a target as we can.”

In the lead tank, Sean Moon had his
eyes glued to the ridge line, too. The tense voice of Fabiano, his gunner,
blared in his headset: “Hey, Sarge…you think they got eighty-eights up there?”

“No…they don’t want to be shooting
down on us. Better odds of a hit if they shoot level.”

Sean’s head and torso were out of
the hatch, straining to see through binoculars a tell-tale glimpse of anything
that might indicate an observation post: an antenna, a poorly concealed
vehicle, a human form; anything that didn’t match the scrub and small, sparse
trees of the ridge. It didn’t help that he had to stop and wipe dry the
binoculars’ lenses every few seconds.

Where would I be if I were him?
I’d try to be on the front face, near the peak, so I wouldn’t get silhouetted
against the sky. But gray as everything is right now, the sky’s almost as dark
as the ground. Not much to be silhouetted against.

Over the mechanical growls and
squeals of the Sherman came a sharp THUD nearly masked in a rumble of
thunder. And then another, unmasked this time, unmistakable: Artillery!

Behind his tank, the field just
north of the highway was being churned by geysers of dirt and mud flung upward
with each round’s impact. Captain Newcomb’s voice, taut like steel wire, was in
his headphones, ordering, “Keep moving. Keep it moving. Don’t stop.”

Even on this relatively smooth
road, at top speed, the Sherman pitched like a ship in a stormy sea. A crewman
who didn’t brace himself would be viciously bounced around her cramped interior
mercilessly; he’d be bloody and bruised in no time.

The artillery impacts shifted to
the south side of the highway. We’re getting bracketed, Sean told
himself. That fucking observer’s got to be up there somewhere…

But trying to get a steady view
through binoculars in a speeding, lurching tank was almost impossible. He’d
already smacked himself soundly in the face with the eyepieces twice.

At the Sherman’s top speed of 25
miles per hour, they were closing fast on where the ridgeline closely paralleled
the highway. A bolt of lightning backlit the ridge, seeming to linger as if a
gift from the gods of weather, allowing Sean a glimpse of what he’d been
searching for:

Right there! Can’t mistake that
shape. It’s one of them Kübelwagen things.

Kübelwagen: a German “jeep.”

Stupid bastard’s sitting right
on the ridge line. If it hadn’t been for that lightning, though, I still
wouldn’t have seen him.

“Pull off to the left and stop,” he
commanded his driver.

“Why, Sarge? Ain’t we in an
artillery ambush?”

“I said stop the fucking tank,
numbnuts. Right fucking now.”

As the Sherman lurched to a halt, Sean
reached down into the turret, grabbed Fabiano by his collar and pulled his head
up through the hatch. “What the fuck are you doing, Sarge? You trying to get us
all fucking killed?”

“No, asshole. Follow my target line.”
He held his arm out next to the gunner’s head, his finger pointing to the spot
on the ridge where the German observation post was. “That’s where the fucker’s at.
Target further identified by the little break in the treeline. Sight in on that
and blow his ass up before he brackets us in.”

“But that’s at least a thousand
yards away, Sarge.”

Sean pushed Fabiano’s head back
down into the turret. “So what? We ain’t trying to kill a panzer here, just
make a few Jerries wet their pants and run away. Hurry the fuck up before the
rest of the column runs over us.”

The Sherman’s gun roared. The round
struck the face of the ridge a little more than halfway to the crest.

“All right,” Sean told Fabiano, “so
maybe it’s a little farther. Give it twelve hundred.”

Captain Newcomb’s voice blared in
Sean’s headset. “What are you shooting at, Moon?”

“We spotted the Kraut FO up on the
ridge, sir.”

“Can you handle it alone?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

The third volley of German
artillery slammed down, very close to the road this time. None of the speeding
American vehicles were hit.

Fabiano fired again. This round
seemed to hit right at the crest of the ridge. When the smoke and dust cleared,
the kübelwagen was nowhere to be seen.

If there was going to be another
volley, it would hit in about 20 seconds.

But that time came and passed.
Newcomb ordered the M10 to pull off the road. As it did, General Wood stood
tall on its deck, waving his arms in emphatic hand signals for the rest of the
column to keep moving.

Lieutenant Baxter jumped from the
M10 and ran to inspect a crater made by a German shell. He was back in the
turret in less than a minute with a jagged shell fragment in his hand. “Just
like I thought,” Baxter said. “The trajectory of those rounds is almost
straight down. The impact marks are nearly round. I’m guessing those guns are
probably right on the backside of that ridge.”

“Sounds like a good bet,” Newcomb
replied. He pointed to the shell fragment and asked, “Got a piece of the
rotating band there?”

“Yeah. I can’t tell the exact
caliber…but I’m pretty sure it’s not from an eighty-eight.”

“That’s good news,” General Wood
said. “Let’s high-tail it up to the front of your column, Captain. I want to
meet that eagle-eyed tanker of yours who spotted that FO. And while we’re up
there, maybe we locate that Kraut battery and take it out.”

The German artillery battery was
right where Lieutenant Baxter suspected it would be, on the backslope of the
ridge line. With the American tanks blocking the highway—the only escape
route—the Germans had no choice but to stand and fight. It was a losing gamble,
over all too quickly. After the tanks destroyed several howitzers with direct
hits and airbursts from Baxter’s artillery decimated their exposed ranks from
above, the survivors threw up their hands, shouting Kamerad! as they
surrendered.

A dozen or more bewildered dray
horses wandered the smoking ground that only a few minutes ago had been a
killing field. The GIs had seen such a sight before but still had trouble
comprehending it. General Wood summed it up best: “It’s mind boggling, boys,
that a technologically advanced army like the Wehrmacht is still largely
horse-drawn. Those Kraut bastards might’ve been told they were fighting a
delaying action, but it was no more than a suicide mission for them. It’s those
poor dumb animals I really feel sorry for, though. Oh well…evacuate the healthy
ones to the rear with the prisoners. Shoot any horses you find wounded…and make
it quick, for their sake.”

Wood gathered his battalion
commanders from the leading elements. “Gentlemen,” he told them, “we’re two
miles outside of Alençon and we’re losing daylight. We’re not going to enter
the town until sunrise tomorrow. My G2 tells me there may be up to a regiment
of Jerries there, with armor. Now I want to keep the house-to-house fighting to
a minimum, for our sake and the sake of the townspeople. But I also want to
keep that regiment—if they’re still there—from escaping our grasp and living to
fight another day.” He unfurled a map on the hood of a jeep. “I want the
Thirty-Seventh Tank to bypass Alençon under cover of darkness and form a cordon
here, on the north side of town. A battalion from Fifty-Third Infantry will
accompany the tanks. The terrain west of town should be quite suitable for
overland movement by tracks, even at night. Any Krauts who try to duck out the
back door, you take them out of the fight for good.”

General Wood paused, fixated on the
map as if it was still hiding some secret he desperately needed to know. Then
he shook his head and said, “Dammit. Not even two full days on this road and
between a few little delaying actions by the Krauts and the goddamn Free French
in our way, we’re already a half day behind schedule…plus we’re down seven Shermans.”

Chapter Fifteen

12TH ARMY GROUP COMMUNIQUE

FROM:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

11 AUG 44/2100 HRS

TO:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

COPY (FOR INFO):

SHAEF (EISENHOWER);
HODGES--1ST ARMY; PATTON--3RD ARMY; QUESADA--IX TAC;
WEYLAND--XIX TAC

ALL UNITS OF THIS COMMAND ARE
ADVANCING AHEAD OF SCHEDULE TOWARD FLERS-ARGENTAN “HOLD LINE,” DESPITE
SIGNIFICANT DELAYING TACTICS BY ELEMENTS OF GERMAN 7TH ARMY.
ANTICIPATE ARRIVAL AT “HOLD LINE” WITHIN TWO DAYS (13 AUG). IF 21ST
ARMY GROUP NOT IN A POSITION TO MEET US THERE ON THAT DATE, DOES IT NOT MAKE
MORE SENSE TO ALLOW 12TH ARMY GROUP TO CONTINUE ADVANCING NORTHWARD
UNTIL FALAISE-ARGENTAN “POCKET” IS CLOSED? THIRD ARMY IN PARTICULARLY GOOD
POSITION TO SEAL ANY FURTHER GERMAN RETREAT EASTWARD IF ALLOWED TO ADVANCE
BEYOND “HOLD LINE.”

SIGNED,

BRADLEY

Chapter Sixteen

The storm was long passed, leaving
in its wake a night sky clear and ablaze with stars. Lying on the hull of his
brother’s dormant tank, Tommy Moon had given up trying to count those stars.
He’d given up on a few other things, too, since the sun went down, like trying
to catch a nap, something the tankers didn’t seem to have any problem taking
turns doing. Or wondering whether he’d ever get back into a jug’s cockpit. He
checked his watch; it read 0005—five minutes past midnight. His third day with
4th Armored had just begun:

And only God knows how many days
to go. It feels like I’ve been here for a year already. Did the Air Force
forget all about me? It’s funny—when I was a kid, being around my big brother
made me feel safe. But here…

Sean’s head popped from the turret
hatch. “Hey, Half,” he called out in a muted voice, “you awake?”

“I am now.”

“Ahh, don’t bullshit a bullshitter.
I’ve been watching. You ain’t caught a wink. What’s the matter? You nervous or
something?”

“Fuck, yeah, I’m nervous. Aren’t
you?”

He climbed down from the turret and
crouched next to his little brother. “No, Half, I ain’t nervous. Just alert.”
He offered a chunk of D bar. “You want some?”

With a snap that sounded
thunderous in the stillness of night, Tommy broke off a piece and popped it
into his mouth. He wasn’t expecting the bitterness of the chocolate. His face
looked like he was sucking lemons.

Sean chuckled. “Creature comforts
got you by the ass, flyboy. But you get used to the taste of this shit.
Eventually. And it’ll keep you moving.”

Tommy sat up and scanned the velvet
darkness of moonlit French countryside all around them. He knew where they were
supposed to be on the map but had no clue if they were actually there.

“How do you guys know you’re in the
right place, Sean?”

“You saw how it works. The captain
goes off with the infantry and does his little recon, then he sends guides back
to lead us into the positions he wants.”

“Yeah, I know all that, Sean. I was
here, remember? But really, how the hell do you know where you are when you
have to go overland in pitch darkness to get there?”

“Just follow the lines on the map,
little brother. Just follow the lines.”

“I don’t know, Sean…I might have
been born at night but I wasn’t born last night. Lines on a map are one
thing, but there aren’t any damn lines on the ground. Sounds like a big crapshoot
to me.”

“Ain’t everything, Half?”

“Gee, aren’t you the fucking
philosopher all of a sudden. But tell me—do you guys fight at night a lot?”

“When we have to, Tommy. Only when
we have to.”

“I’ll bet it gets pretty crazy—a
night fight, I mean. Seems like the odds of killing friendlies are pretty damn
high.”

“Brother, you got no fucking idea.”

“Actually, I do, Sean. It’s pretty
easy to accidentally kill friendlies from the air, too. Even in broad daylight.”

Sean gave him a surprised look.
“You ever done it?”

“Maybe. I’m not really sure.”

With a bemused smile on his face,
Sean said, “You pilots get away with fucking murder. Like those assholes who
bombed the shit out of Thirtieth Division…even killed a general, I hear. I bet
they’re all swigging Guinness in some English pub right fucking now, with their
hands up some barmaid’s skirt and not a care in the world. When us ground pounders
kill a friendly by accident, though, you better believe somebody’s gonna swing
for it.”

“Oh, bullshit, Crunch. How
about…”

But he stopped himself. He’d spat
the nickname Crunch with all the derisiveness he could summon—his Irish
was up, as they’d say back in Brooklyn when someone was pissed off. But he
knew he shouldn’t say the words lining up to tumble from his mouth: How
about you standing over those dead Krauts yesterday…and Newcomb asking you if
you got any prisoners…and you said, “Negative, sir. Didn’t work out that way.”
What the hell did you mean by that, Sean? Last time I checked, killing POWs was
categorized as murder.

“I asked you not to call me Crunch,
Tommy…and I fucking meant it.”

“Why? I thought you’d like a
nickname like that, considering how you got it and all.”

Sean didn’t reply. The irritated
silence they fell into didn’t last but a few seconds. Four human shapes were
approaching up the gentle slope from the direction of the road. Two were topped
with the unmistakable silhouettes of GI helmets. “Get the password from ’em,”
Sean told Fabiano, who had already leveled his Thompson in their direction.
“Don’t shoot ’em first, okay?”

Softly, Fabiano called out, “I hear
it’s nice in Omaha this time of year.”

“Bullshit,” a male voice replied.
“I prefer Indianapolis myself.”

“Indianapolis,” Sean said. “Today’s
magic word. Let ’em in, Fab.”

The GIs were infantrymen. The two
with them were French civilians, one a young woman, the other a middle-aged
man. “Where’s your C.O., Sarge?” one of the GIs asked Sean. “These folks say
they’ve got some real interesting stuff to tell him.”

“He’s at the M10 right over
there…about thirty yards,” Sean replied as he jumped to the ground from the
tank’s deck. “C’mon, I’ll bring you over. Hey, Lieutenant,” he called to
his brother, “why don’t you join us, too? This oughta be interesting as all
hell.”

Even in the darkness, there was no
doubt the woman was attractive. Despite her youth, she possessed the composure
of one used to being in charge. But her shimmering frock seemed far too grand
for a night stroll in the fields, as did the high heels on which she tottered
across the grassy turf still soft from the rain. Most of the women they’d seen
across the French towns and countryside so far looked like weathered,
hardscrabble farm wives, pitifully plain, in old clothes mended many times over,
the harsh uncertainties of life in a theater of war etched on their faces. But
this one was wearing makeup and intoxicating perfume, too.

Kinda like a whore, Sean
Moon thought as she brushed by him.

The young woman walked right up to
Newcomb. In thickly accented but precise English, she said, “My name is Sylvie
Bergerac. You are the commander here?”

“Yeah, I’m Captain Al Newcomb,
ma’am.”

She seemed decidedly unimpressed.
“You are only a captain. We know there are many Americans just outside Alençon.
Surely someone of higher rank is in the area, too. A colonel or general,
perhaps?”

Newcomb replied, “Maybe you’d
better tell me what’s on your mind first, lady, before I waste the time of
anyone with higher rank, okay?”

“As you wish, Captain,” she
replied.

She launched into her story. By the
time she’d finished her third sentence, Newcomb was sending a runner to get the
battalion commander on the double.

As they waited for Colonel Abrams
to arrive, Sylvie and the older man with her exchanged comments in French. “Can
you understand what they’re saying, Half?” Sean asked. “You knew all that frog
shit real good back with the nuns.”

“Yeah, of course I understand. You
sure you want to know?”

Captain Newcomb pulled Tommy aside
and said, “Hell, yeah, we want to know. What’re they saying?”

“Well, sir, in a nutshell, they’re
saying we’re all dumber than sheep.”

The captain smirked as he asked,
“She mean just present company? Or all Americans in general?”

“For the moment, I think it’s just
us.”

Sylvie had overheard. She shot an
annoyed look Tommy’s way and said, “Merci pour les petite faveurs.”

That needed no translation. Even
Newcomb and Sean figured out it meant thanks for the small favors. She
and her companion wouldn’t exchange another word.

“Looks like you got yourself a
friend, Tommy,” Sean said, patting his little brother on the back. “And a real
looker, too.”

The runner returned with Colonel
Abrams and his radio operator in tow. Sylvie began her story all over again.

“The Boche will leave Alençon
before dawn, mon colonel, along this highway before us. They are a weak
force, battered from combat with the Americans at Rennes and Laval—”

The colonel interrupted her: “Just
how weak are we talking here, Mademoiselle Bergerac?”

“It’s madame, mon colonel…and
just how weak are they? No more than two hundred men.”

“Okay…maybe two companies, tops.
What about vehicles?”

“About a dozen camions,” she
replied.

“You mean trucks with
motors? Not horse-drawn wagons?”

“Ahh, oui…trucks.”

“And tanks?” Abrams asked. “Are
there any tanks?”

“Oui. Five. The Boche
call them tigre.”

All the tankers in earshot let out
a collective, “Ahh, shit.”

“But there are only five,” Sylvie
protested.

“Ma’am,” Abrams said, “we might
kill five Tigers…but in the dark, with no air support, we’ll probably lose just
about every Sherman in this battalion doing it.”

“Then perhaps we can come to an
arrangement,” Sylvie replied. “Allow the Boche to escape. You live to
fight them on better terms…and Alençon is spared the inevitable destruction.”

For a few moments, the tankers found
her suggestion quite enticing. But it was Colonel Abrams who finally shattered
their wishful thinking. “Unacceptable,” he said. “If they come tonight, we’re
going to take them on, one way or another.”

“I was afraid that would be your
answer,” she replied.

“Let me ask you something, Madame
Bergerac,” the colonel said. “How do you know all this? And why should I
believe you?”

“Because the Oberst told it
to me.”

Abrams was more skeptical now than
a moment ago. “Why would a Kraut officer be telling you anything?”

“Mon colonel, the Boche,
like all men, tell a woman many things to remain important once they are
finished inside her.”

Sean whispered in his brother’s
ear, “See? I told you that jane’s a fucking whore.”

Whispered or not, Sylvie understood
every word.

Abrams’ skepticism was faltering
fast. “And when did this Oberst tell you they were pulling out of Alençon?”

“A few hours ago, mon colonel.”
Grinning broadly, she added, “And the imbécile had no idea he was
telling it to the maquis.”

A startled Abrams asked, “You’re maquis?
The Underground? ”

“Oui, mon colonel.” She
opened the musette bag slung over her shoulder and showed him the Welrod pistol
within—an assassin’s weapon supplied by British SOE. “Perhaps now you believe
me?”

They began to hear the low murmur
of truck engines just past 0300. A few minutes later, an infantry listening
post close to the highway reported a column of German vehicles on the outskirts
of Alençon, heading north. A few minutes more, and the tankers could see the
dark silhouettes of slow-moving trucks without lights passing in single file
before them.

Colonel Abrams’ voice growled from
the battalion’s radios: “Do not—repeat—do not engage the wheeled vehicles. Wait
for my command.”

Huddled behind the M10 with her
male companion and Tommy Moon, Sylvie Bergerac felt a flicker of hope blossom
within her. “Maybe your colonel will let the Germans escape after all.”

“No,” Tommy replied, “I don’t think
that’s going to happen. He’s just trying to set a trap for the Tigers.”

“I do not follow, Lieutenant Moon.”

“The Tigers are hanging back. If we
start shooting up the trucks now, the German tankers will know exactly where we
are and cut us to ribbons before we’ve had a chance to take them out.”

“So you are waiting for the Tigers
to show themselves on the road?”

“Yeah. That way, the first hint
they’ll get that we’re here is when they start getting broadsided from our
guns. If we can get in the first shot, we’ve got a chance.”

She turned to her companion and
explained the American tactics in French.

“We can speak en français if
that would make it easier,” Tommy said.

Sylvie smiled, touching his cheek
tenderly as she would a child. “Merci, Lieutenant, but I have heard a
little of your français americain. It is better I translate for mon
papa than you. But should you not be off to fight with your comrades
now?”

He explained what his job was and
how he had nothing to do at the moment but keep the maquis visitors safe
and out of the way.

“But if you are a flyer,
Lieutenant, what are you doing here without an airplane?”

“I guess you can chalk that up to
luck, Madame Bergerac.”

“I would say it is quite the
opposite, Lieutenant.”

The sound of the trucks faded
quickly as they made their way north. After a few moments of anxious silence, a
fearsome rumble of heavy machinery began to emanate from the town. “The sound
of the tigres,” Sylvie said.

Captain Newcomb called down from
the M10’s turret: “Lieutenant Moon, take our guests and go find a hidey-hole
somewhere, on the double. This is about to get very messy.”

“Come,” Sylvie said, “we go to the
orchard.”

Surprised, Tommy asked, “There’s an
orchard around here?”

“Yes, behind us, a few hundred
meters that way,” she replied, pointing into the darkness.

As they moved quickly away from the
line of armored vehicles, they could hear the mechanical whir as gunners
cranked the turrets manually, scanning for targets. The sound of the Tigers’
engines grew louder as they left Alençon and followed the trucks north up the
highway.

Though the edge of the orchard was
well behind the tanks, it was farther up the slope and afforded Tommy, Sylvie,
and her papa a good view of the road. They counted the Tigers’
silhouettes until all five were about to pass right in front of 37th
Tank’s guns. Tommy saw the brief, repeated glimmer on the southern horizon of
artillery firing a few seconds before he heard their muted poom.

Our guns, he told himself, putting
up illum rounds.

Then the night was turned to
ghostly day as the illumination rounds popped their flares high in the air over
the Tigers, bathing them, the American tanks, and the open fields all around in
harsh glare and shadows that danced back and forth across the ground as the
brilliant balls of light swung in their parachutes.

The 35 guns of 37th Tank
fired as one, their 75-millimeter rounds streaking arrow-straight toward the
targets, trailing fiery red tails like comets.

The engines of the American tanks
roared to life. Once a tank fires a round, its position isn’t a secret anymore.
And a tank that can’t move is a metal shell asking to be turned into a furnace.
The running engines—despite the industrial racket they brought to the battlefield—could
now spell the difference between life and death.

Some rounds bounced off the
turrets of the Tigers in splashes of orange, probably causing their crews
screaming ears and splitting headaches but delivering no knockout blow.

A few rounds hit tracks and road
wheels. Crippling wounds but not mortal.

A dozen rounds missed completely,
plowing the ground short or disappearing long.

The rest struck the weaker side and
rear armor. The trailing Tiger was surrounded by a shimmering red glow for a
few moments, until flames belched from her engine compartment. Burning crewmen
struggled from her hatches, only to die quickly in a hail of American machine
gun bullets.

The second Tiger in the column
began to turn toward the Americans, trying to show them nothing but her
impenetrable front armor. But she stopped halfway. Her hatches flew open,
spewing the same red glow as her sister. If any of her crew managed to escape
the inferno she had become, the GIs never saw them.

The third Tiger suffered a
shattered left track. But that didn’t prevent her from slewing her hull about
on the good right track toward the Americans so they had nothing to target but
that thick front armor. There was nothing wrong with her main gun, either. The
Tiger fired, shooting a Charlie Company Sherman right through the lower portion
of her front armor, instantly turning her into a crematory for her five
crewmen.

The first and fourth Tiger were
very much alive and fully mobile. They, too, had turned toward the Americans and
were rumbling up the slope. The Shermans directly in their path backed
frantically away, firing shots that, even if they’d hit the Tigers, would’ve
probably just bounced off their glacis plates.

The illumination rounds were
dropping low, their light fading fast. Approaching point-blank range now, the
German tanks killed three more Shermans before they realized their mistake:
there were far more American tanks than they realized. Four Shermans from Baker
Company had circled behind them, pumping round after round of 75 millimeter
through the Tigers’ soft rear ends until all three were quickly ablaze.

Then it was over, only a minute
after it started. The illumination rounds had burned out, leaving the
battlefield lit only by gutted tanks burning like torches in the night. The
sweet fragrance of a late summer’s night was replaced by the stench of burning
gasoline, expended ordnance, and roasted flesh.

Now came the difficult task of
reorganizing in the dark a battalion of armored behemoths scattered over
hundreds of acres. Wounded would have to be cared for; the dead would have to
be collected. Vigilance against a counterattack by the German infantry—whether
in the trucks they’d let pass or still in the town—had to be maintained.

Sean’s Sherman—Eclipse of the
Hun—was stopped 20 yards behind one of the burning Tigers. She’d fired
three rounds into the German monster: Maybe we killed her all by ourselves.

But Eclipse had taken some
hits, too; nothing that took her out of action or turned a crewman into a
casualty, but the odor of gasoline inside her hull had become overpowering.
“Everybody out,” Sean ordered when Captain Newcomb radioed the cease fire
and regroup command. “Shut her down all the way, so maybe she don’t blow.”

Climbing down from the turret, Sean
saw his driver start to slide off the front of the tank to the ground. No
sooner had his feet touched down than he recoiled back onto the deck. Sean
could hear him murmuring, “Oh, fuck…oh, fuck.” He was hunched over like a man
about to be sick.

Sean peered over the tank’s
nose—and then it was his turn to recoil.

The head and shoulders of a German
tanker protruded from beneath the left track. The rest of him was crushed
beneath the treads. His eyes—bulging, wide with terror, reflecting the glow of
his burning Tiger—still blazed with the last flickers of life’s fire.

But not for long. When they glanced
over the nose again, his eyes were looking to another dimension, one only the
dead could see.

“I never saw nothing,” the driver
said. “Where the fuck did that Kraut came from, anyway?”

“He must’ve fell down or something
when he was running away, that’s all,” Fabiano, the gunner, offered. “Too
fucking bad for the poor bastard.”

As the crew put a safe distance
between them and their tank, they heard Sean mumbling, “Not again. Oh, God…not
again, dammit.”

Chapter Seventeen

Alençon was secured by 0930. The
troopers of 4th Armored found only citizens eager to welcome them.
The Boche were gone. Sylvie Bergerac was ecstatic.

“Thank you, mon colonel,”
she said as she kissed Colonel Abrams on both cheeks in the center of town.
“Thank you for sparing us the agony of liberation.”

Abrams’ only response was a smile
more solemn than celebratory. Six hours earlier, when the Germans began their
exodus, he really hadn’t been thinking of sparing the good people of Alençon
the death and destruction a house-to-house fight would have entailed. He’d just
wanted as much of the element of surprise he could garner against the superior
firepower of the Tigers.

For a tank they’re not supposed
to have a lot of, we sure seem to come up against them often enough, he
told himself. But this time, we only lost four of ours to take out five Tigers.
That’s the best scorecard we’ve had yet.

The colonel wasn’t deluding himself
that kill ratio would last: Our only hope is they run out of tanks before we
do.

Tommy finally found his brother in
the hastily set up maintenance depot on the outskirts of Alençon. Sean was up
to his waist in the engine compartment of Eclipse, supervising two
mechanics who were fixing her ruptured fuel line. “We would’ve been zippoed
for sure if this leak lit off,” he told his brother. “We’re goddamn lucky all
we took was a couple of glancing shots.”

Tommy walked around the far side of
the tank to see what the results of glancing shots from a Tiger looked
like. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw them; it looked like some giant
can opener had punched through the side armor. The thick steel had been peeled
away as easily as bullets and flak tore through the fragile aluminum skin of
his P-47. Another mechanic was preparing heavy steel patches to be welded to Eclipse
as soon as the fuel line repair was complete. Billowing smoke and showers of
sparks around several other tanks in the depot signaled their patches were
already being welded into place.

Captain Newcomb walked through the
depot, checking on the progress of his tanks’ repairs. “Take the time to do it
right, boys,” he grumbled to the mechanics, “because we ain’t going anywhere
until the fuel trucks show up.”

Sean asked, “Any word when the hell
that’ll be, sir?”

“A couple of hours, maybe.”

“They can take their damn sweet
time, as far as I’m concerned,” Sean said under his breath. He didn’t care if
his company commander heard it.

In no mood for smart-mouthing,
Captain Newcomb asked, “You got something on your mind, Sergeant?”

“No, sir. Not a damn thing.”

Newcomb let it drop; there were
bigger problems to tackle than a surly attitude from one of his best fighters.
He looked to Tommy and said, “Lieutenant. We’ve got a meeting with General Wood
in fifteen minutes at the town hall. Meet you there. Bring all your maps.”

Satisfied the engine repair was in
good hands, Sean climbed from the tank to join his brother. “You better hurry,
Half. Don’t keep his fucking highness the general waiting.”

“What’s with you, Sean? You’ve got
a bug up your ass. You had one last night, too, before the shit started to fly.”

“Fuck off, Tommy. You flyboys
wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m your fucking brother, Sean,
and flying is fighting, too. Try me.”

Sean wandered away from the
maintenance in progress to light a cigarette. Tommy was right behind him.

“You going to talk or what, Sean?”

He took a long drag on his
cigarette before answering. “Look, Lieutenant…Tommy…I don’t know…it’s
just that I keep seeing their faces, that’s all.”

“Whose faces, Sean? What are you
talking about?”

He looked at his little brother
like he’d just asked the dumbest question in the world. “That nickname of mine,
Tommy…those Krauts I ran over. I saw their faces…and I just keep seeing them,
day after day. And fuck me if it didn’t happen all over again this morning.
Crushed another son of a bitch. Saw his face, too.”

“Sean, it’s kill or be killed,
right? Shitty as it is, that’s our job. Does it really matter how you kill
them?”

The logic had no impact on Sean
Moon. “They’re gonna be waiting for me in hell,” he said. “It’s just a matter
of time. Just a matter of fucking time.”

Tommy started to put a comforting
arm around his brother just like he had that first night he spent with 37th
Tank. But Sean pushed him away.

“Knock it the fuck off, little
brother. You ain’t the fucking padre…and there’s a bunch of wise-ass douchebags
watching. I don’t need no more fucking nicknames.”

Maybe this isn’t the time to ask
him about killing those prisoners, Tommy thought.

Tommy walked the cobblestones of Alençon’s
grand-rue on his way to General Wood’s meeting. All around him, joyous
townspeople were singing and dancing with GIs keen on enjoying whatever
pleasures they could find. In all the reverie, he noticed something odd, though:
it looked like a parade of civilian couples—10, he counted—were avoiding the
celebration and converging from several directions on a quaint row house tucked
away in an alley. As they reached the house, a couple would exchange a tender
kiss. Then the woman entered the house as her man offered a wave of goodbye
that seemed heavy with resignation before walking away. Every man and woman was
wearing a wedding band.

After all the women were inside, a
smiling Sylvie Bergerac emerged, now dressed more casually in trousers,
oxfords, and a beret the French would instantly recognize as the mark of the maquis.
She walked toward the grand-rue and Tommy Moon.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” she said in
English. “You are going to the meeting now?”

“Yeah. And where are you off to,
Madame Bergerac?”

“I am invited to your meeting,
too.”

“Really? They invited you?”

“Is it so strange, Lieutenant, that
your general might want the continued advice of the maquis?”

“I suppose not, ma’am. But can I
ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“That house you just came out of.
Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it is my father’s
house, you are correct, Lieutenant.”

She knew her evasive answer didn’t
satisfy him, so she added, “And yes, it is also a house of prostitution, ever
since the Boche came.”

“But those women…they’re all
married, aren’t they? And aren’t you?”

His questions amused her. “Does
that disqualify us?”

“No, but…” He didn’t know what to
say next.

“Times have been very difficult,
Lieutenant. We all must do what we can to survive.”

Tommy looked more confused than ever.
“But I’ve seen what they did to women who took up with the Germans. The shaved
heads, the shaming parades…”

“We did not take up with the
Boche, Lieutenant. And we are not collaborators. Spying on the Boche
is never collaboration, no matter how you do it.”

“You really got a lot of
information out of your…ahh, clients?”

Sylvie rolled her eyes. “Were you
not here last night? Was the information I provided not accurate?”

Point taken, he told himself.

“So I guess your father’s house is
open for business with the GIs now?”

“The times are still very
difficult, Lieutenant. And will be for quite a while, I’m afraid.”

Trying to lighten the conversation,
he asked, “Does that mean you’ll be spying on us, too?” He meant it as a joke.

She didn’t take it that way. “Not
as long as we are on the same side, Lieutenant.”

“Okay, fair enough. May I ask where
your husband is, ma’am?”

“You are about to meet him,
Lieutenant,” she replied as they stepped into the town hall.

General Wood opened the meeting on
a somber note. “I’ve got bad news, gentlemen—” with a nod to Sylvie, he added,
“and lady. It looks like our fuel won’t arrive until late this afternoon. We’ll
be fueling most of the night, by the looks of it, so the division as a whole
won’t move out of Alençon until tomorrow.”

“What’s the hold-up with the fuel,
sir?” Colonel Abrams asked.

The general blew an exasperated
sigh before replying. “Some idiot up at Twelfth Army Group thought it would be
a good idea to refuel the French Second Armored first. By the time Third Army
could point out we were already miles ahead of the French, it was too late to
change horses.”

It was Colonel Abrams’ turn to be
exasperated. “So the damn French are holding us up again, and without actually
being in our way this time. Unbelievable.” As an afterthought, he offered a
contrite look to Sylvie and her husband Bernard, the maquis commander at
Alençon, and added, “No offense meant to present company, of course.”

When Sylvie offered Bernard’s translated
reply to the room, its cordial tone seemed quite the opposite of what he’d spat
out in French: “Of course, mon colonel. None taken.”

Tommy was pretty sure Bernard had
actually said, “Tell these buffoons if they insult us again, we are leaving.”

“Naturally,” General Wood
continued, “this blows our schedule all to hell. Twenty-five miles to go to
Argentan, against probable stiff resistance the closer we get, and a little
less than two days to do it in.”

He tapped a pointer on the map hung
on the wall. “I don’t plan for us to just sit here, twiddling our thumbs,
though. By robbing Peter’s fuel tank to fill Paul’s, we’re going to send a
recon team—in force—up the highway to Sées and, if possible, beyond. Sées is a
little more than halfway to Argentan. G2 thinks the Germans have pulled out of
there just like they did here at Alençon. If the recon team finds that to be
the case, the rest of the division, once refueled, can barrel up the road at
night and make up for some lost time.”

General Wood scanned the room,
seeking to find a battalion commander eager for the challenge he’d just
outlined whose eyes would actually meet his. Only Colonel Abrams did so, if
just for the most fleeting of moments.

“It’s yours, Creighton,” Wood said.

“Very well, sir,” Abrams replied.
“How big a team are you thinking? We can probably only scrounge up enough
gasoline for two tank companies, tops, and a platoon or so of mounted infantry
for security.”

“Sounds like an excellent start to
me, Creighton,” Wood replied. “Pick your team and be ready to move out by noon.”

Throughout the general’s map
exercise, Sylvie and Bernard were in animated conversation. Now that Wood
seemed to be bringing the meeting to a close, Sylvie begged for his attention.

“Mon général, your information
about the Boche leaving Sées is incorrect. They are not leaving.”

Wood replied, “And how do you know
that, Madame Bergerac?”

“Because there are maquis
there, as well. They informed us.”

“How’d they manage to do that,
ma’am?”

Finding it hard to control the
exasperation in her voice, she replied, “Because we have telephones, mon
général. This country is not as primitive as you suppose.”

Now it was Wood’s turn to be
exasperated. “You mean to tell me they just dialed you up and told you where
the Germans are?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“And you aren’t afraid, madame,
that the Germans might have compromised your communications system? Maybe even
used it to spread false information?”

“Again, mon général, we are
not primitives. We use a code. The Boche have never broken it. Bernard
and I stand here as living proof.”

Wood scowled. He wanted to believe
her. But an army is like a boulder rolling down a hill. Once it starts moving,
it’s impossible to alter its course without begging for disaster. Besides,
nobody contradicts a general. Not even a beautiful, gutsy young woman.

“But you won’t mind, Madame
Bergerac, if we check this intel of yours out for ourselves by running this
little mission of mine?”

“If you must, mon général.
But we have more information to share with you, as well.”

“All right, let’s have it.”

“My husband and I have received
much information about the Boche retreat through this Falaise-Argentan
pocket, as you call it. True, they are hounded by your airplanes, but the
vanguard of their column will be much farther east than you realize by the time
you get to Argentan, and airplanes alone do not stop those they do not kill.
And they do not fly at night, when the Boche are marching the greatest
distances. You are already too late to trap them if you move against Argentan.
You will merely bump into their right flank and risk being encircled
yourselves. To cut off their retreat, you must go farther east—to Gacé,
perhaps. Maybe beyond.”

Ain’t that hot shit, the
general told himself. Monty says stop at Argentan and wait for the Krauts
and his Limeys, but the Resistance says that train’s already left the station.

Wood took a grease pencil and
extended eastward the “stop” line that ran through Argentan. The town of Gacé
sat about four miles north of that line—into the zone Allied Ground Commander
Montgomery had forbidden the Americans to go.

Four fucking miles, Wood
schemed. I’ll bet ol’ Georgie Patton wouldn’t bat an eyelash at a little
“going over the line” like that.

“This is very interesting
intelligence, Madame Bergerac,” the general said. “I’ll discuss this with
higher headquarters immediately. Of course, if it turns out you’re wrong about
Sées, though, it won’t be worth spit.”

“But Gacé is beyond the stop line,
sir,” the division G2 said. “Our orders specify—”

“I know where it is, dammit,” Wood
interrupted. “I’d like to move on now, because I’ve got some good news to
share, too. More than just fuel is coming today. We’ll be getting a dozen
replacement Shermans and eight M10s to fill our losses. They’re coming partially
crewed, so we’ll have to fill the empty seats from our existing roster. This
will be a chance to move up our most promising crewmen to gunners and tank
commanders.”

Captain Newcomb raised his hand.
“Sir, will the Shermans be A1 models with the bigger gun?”

“Afraid not, Captain. But on the
bright side, all the tank destroyers will be up-gunned with the higher-velocity
seventy-six millimeter.”

“Gee, that’s great,” Newcomb
replied. “Too bad they still won’t be worth a damn in a maneuvering fight.”

“Are you telling me you don’t want
the extra firepower, Captain?”

“Negative, sir. Negative. We’ll try
and make good use of them.”

As the meeting broke up, the
division G3 called Tommy over. “Lieutenant,” he said, “I’ve just gotten word
your replacement is coming in with the new vehicles. It looks like you’ll be
back in a cockpit before you know it.”

Chapter Eighteen

Task Force Newcomb was ready
to roll at noon, as planned. Since its mission was recon, it was designed for
speed and light on firepower. Of the eight Sherman tanks left in Captain
Newcomb’s Baker Company, six were repaired, refueled, and ready to go, as was
the captain’s M10. Another four light tanks—M5 Stuarts of Dog Company—and a 40-man
infantry platoon crammed into three armored half-tracks rounded out the force.

Sean Moon’s tank, Eclipse of the
Hun, would be the lead vehicle. He wasn’t happy to see his brother climbing
aboard the captain’s M10. “You shouldn’t be coming on this mission, Half,” he
said. “You’re getting relieved. You should be packing your bags and heading
back to flyboy-land.”

“Ahh, you’d miss me if I didn’t
come along,” Tommy replied. “Especially being out of artillery range and all.
You just might need a little flyboy support.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t have to be
you. Only an idiot volunteers…and you ain’t no fucking idiot.”

Tommy winked as he replied, “I’m
not worried. I’ve got my big bad brother to protect me.” He was expecting at
least a smile in reply. But he got nothing.

The 12-mile drive north to Sées
across the verdant, rolling countryside would have seemed idyllic if not for
the constant, nerve-racking vigilance required. Given an opportunity like this,
surrounded by natural beauty unspoiled as yet by the ravages of combat, your
soul wanted to forget you were at war. But your nerves wouldn’t let it. At any
moment, an anti-tank gun could turn your armored cocoon into a white-hot cauldron
of death. Your only chance was to kill it before it killed you.

They saw the town from almost two
miles away, the twin spires of its ancient cathedral rising like signposts, its
old stone buildings varying shades of gray in the early afternoon sun. “Just
what I was afraid of,” Captain Newcomb said, binoculars pressed to his eyes.
“If there are Krauts up there in those steeples, they can see for miles. Lieutenant
Moon, how far away are your fighters?”

“Ten to twelve minutes, sir, once
we call for them.”

Newcomb shook his head. “Shit. That’s
a long fucking time.”

They rolled a mile closer. If there
were any Germans in Sées, they were well concealed. In the lead tank, Sean
Moon’s attention was drawn to several low stone buildings on the outskirts, straddling
the narrow road. Calling the captain on the radio, he said, “That’d be a hell
of a place to stash a couple of guns. How about we spread out a little?”

“Yeah, good plan,” Newcomb replied.
“Let’s get off the road.” Then, in a few brief transmissions, he redeployed his
force from column into line formation and continued the advance toward the
town. “They can’t shoot us all if we’re spread wide.”

But the Germans could easily shoot
one or two. Nobody saw where the first anti-tank round came from. It ripped
through the engine compartment of a Stuart moving through the open field west
of the highway. Tommy Moon counted all four of her crew as they quickly escaped
before she started to burn fiercely.

A few seconds later, another round
landed on the road just a few yards in front of the M10, pelting the tank
destroyer with dirt, paving stones, and shell fragments that caused no damage
and injured no one.

“Well,” Captain Newcomb said, “if
the Krauts are supposed to be pulling out of here, I guess someone forgot to
tell them.”

The Shermans were approaching those
stone structures from the east when they saw the muzzles of the German guns.
“Looks like they’ve got seventy-fives in those bunkers,” Sean reported. “At
least three. They’ve got logs piled on top, too, so don’t waste any mortar
rounds on them. They won’t do a damn thing.”

“Can you get behind them?” Newcomb
asked.

“Negative, not without showing our
flanks. Gotta keep our good side facing ’em.”

The main guns of three Shermans
fired at the bunkers—old farm buildings turned into miniature fortresses—from
500 yards. When the dust of their impact settled, the only damage was cosmetic.

There was no need to tell Tommy to
get the P-47s coming. He already had them on the radio.

“I’m gonna send the Stuarts around
the back,” the captain said, hoping their greater speed and the smaller targets
they presented would get the three remaining light tanks safely through the
killing zone to envelop the Germans. That order given, Newcomb directed his M10
and the infantry half-tracks to move right—to the east—and support the Shermans.

Churning across the open field at
nearly 20 miles per hour, the Stuarts were quickly outside the fields of fire
of the bunkers’ guns. Taking advantage of harassing fire from the Shermans’
main guns and .50-caliber machine guns, they flanked the German position within
minutes and started their turn to assault them from the rear.

The lieutenant in charge of the
Stuart platoon came up on the radio net: “How far out is the Air Force?”

Tommy replied, “Six minutes.”

“Good. Plenty of time.”

The lieutenant swung the line of
his three tanks around to blast the bunkers. They were only halfway through that
maneuver when his Stuart blew apart like a fragile toy.

“Shit,” Newcomb growled as he
pressed the binoculars to his eyes. “They’re taking fire from farther inside
the town. Can’t tell if it’s from a tank or an eighty-eight or what.”

The two surviving Stuarts—now without
their leader—kept advancing on the bunkers, looking for a soft spot—a door, a
window, any opening—where their light 37-millimeter rounds wouldn’t just bounce
off.

What they saw instead was a German
soldier armed with a panzerfaust popping up from behind a log barrier
right in front of them. He was quickly cut down by a burst of .30-caliber
machine gun fire from a Stuart.

But that burst came at the second
he’d squeezed the panzerfaust’s trigger. As bullets knocked him
backward, the rocket fired, propelling itself nearly straight up into the
air—and out of the buttoned-up tankers’ limited field of vision. For all they
knew, it would come straight back down on them—and be every bit as deadly as if
the weapon had been fired on a level trajectory.

Another soldier with a panzerfaust
popped up. He fired—and missed—before the Stuarts had a chance to train
their machine guns on him.

But where the hell is the one
coming straight down?

Both Stuart commanders arrived at
the same, instantaneous conclusion: This is too hairy. We’re driving through
infantry with no infantry support of our own. There could be Krauts on our deck
any second, stuffing grenades into the vents. Shit, they could be there right
now…

And we’re in range of that gun
that got the lieutenant.

Both tanks turned and fled in the
direction they’d come.

Like a gesture of good riddance,
the errant rocket completed its vertical trajectory just yards behind them, its
blast deeply cratering the ground and sending a geyser of dirt high into the
air.

I’m really fucking this one up, Captain
Newcomb told himself. I should have sent some infantry with the Stuarts. Or
not sent them at all. And the town is hot, dammit. The division isn’t going to
be high-balling it through this place day or night, that’s for damn sure. At
least now we can give Colonel Abrams his answer…if we get our asses out of here
alive.

Who am I kidding? If we don’t
come back, he gets the same answer.

Tommy was relieved to see how
relatively smoke-free this battle scene was. He’d given up trying to get the
mortars to mark the target with airbursts just like he and Baxter had done with
artillery; their fire direction procedures were just too rudimentary. One smoke
round on the ground would have to do. “Just put a willy peter on the
road in between the bunkers on my command,” he told the mortar sergeant.

“Once your planes hit the bunkers,”
Newcomb told Tommy, “have them hang around and keep our asses covered so we can
get the hell out of here. The Krauts won’t try a counterattack if your boys are
hanging around up there.”

“No problem, sir. They can stay
with us all the way back to Alençon, if you want.”

They could see the P-47s now, four
high and fast-moving silver specks to the northwest. “Topeka Flight, spiral
down right,” Tommy told the flight’s lead pilot. “Do not overfly Sées at low
level. The town’s hot. Repeat, the town’s hot.”

The planes did as they were instructed,
dropping in well-spaced pairs to low level in a swirling descent. As they
rolled out of the turn on the attack heading Tommy provided, the WP round from
the mortar struck the road and began to spew its thick white smoke into the
air.”

“Got the smoke,” Topeka Leader
reported.

The Shermans had been raking the
bunkers with their .50 calibers to deter the Germans from firing on the aircraft.
Once the planes began the attack run, though, Tommy ordered the tankers to cease
fire. “Thanks for the help, guys,” he added, “but let’s not have any
accidents here today.”

It wouldn’t have been the first
time target-fixated gunners accidentally shot down friendly aircraft.

Topeka Leader and Topeka
Two flashed by, releasing two bombs each along the line of bunkers. The
bombs tore the log roofs off all but one of the bunkers, kicking up a storm of
dust and smoke. The last two jugs were starting their attack run, 15 seconds
out.

“Good drop, Topeka Leader,”
Tommy said. “Okay, Topeka Three, on my mark…three, two, one, DROP.”

Those bombs struck the remaining
bunker, blowing off its log roof as if it was nothing but twigs.

“Outstanding, Topeka,” Tommy
reported, his voice turning giddy, losing the usual radio monotone. “Orbit
south, stand by.”

He needed a moment to catch his
breath. Though he’d dropped them many times, he’d never felt the swift,
earth-shaking violence wreaked by 500-pound bombs up close. From the air, they
were just all smoke and dust, with perhaps a fleeting glimpse of the circular
shock wave coursing outward from the point of impact as your plane sped away.
But viewed from the ground, they were enough to scare you shitless. All the
tank, artillery, and mortar shells he’d seen impact in the last few days paled
in comparison.

The bunkers might have been
pummeled and the Germans within dead or dazed, but the walls of those ancient
structures had hardly a stone displaced. They provided excellent cover for the Shermans
from the guns in the town as they closed in to mop up.

“Are we looking for prisoners,
sir?” Tommy asked.

“Only if they’re not already
bleeding to death,” Newcomb replied. “Let the Krauts take care of their own
wounded. Mostly, we’re looking for intel…maps, documents. That kind of stuff.”

“Can I help, sir?”

“Suit yourself, Lieutenant.”

As he walked toward his brother’s
tank, Tommy heard a man screaming in German. Hurrying to the sound, he found
Fabiano, Sean’s gunner, standing over a kneeling, frantic Wehrmacht soldier
with his hands up. The muzzle of the gunner’s Thompson was wedged under the
man’s chin.

“Kamerad! Kamerad!”

“Kamerad my fucking ass,” Fabiano
said and then took a step back. Leveling the Thompson at the German’s head, he
said, “I don’t want to get any of your shit for brains on me when I blow your
fucking head off.”

Before he could pull the trigger,
Tommy jerked the weapon from his hands.

“Better stay out of this,
Lieutenant,” Fabiano said. “This ain’t no concern of you flyboys.”

It was only then Tommy realized his
brother was leaning casually against his tank just a few yards away, watching.
He could tell Sean had no intention of stopping his gunner from murdering their
prisoner.

“Captain Newcomb says to take
prisoners if they’re not too badly wounded,” Tommy said. “This guy seems to
qualify.”

Fabiano kept looking at Sean,
waiting for him to set this annoying lieutenant straight. Even if it was his
brother. But Sean just stood there, a look of amused contempt on his face.

“We’re supposed to be better than
that, Sean,” Tommy said.

“Better than what? You ain’t gonna
give me any of that knights of the sky bullshit, are you, Tommy?
Chivalry and all that crap? Oh wait…you’re a virgin at all this. You ain’t
never even seen the Luftwaffe, right? So how the hell would you know how it
really is?”

Sean shook his head and spit on the
ground. “Get out of here, Half. Go back to dreamland.”

As he grabbed the German by the arm
and led him to Captain Newcomb, Tommy knew he’d never need to ask his brother
if he’d killed those prisoners two days ago.

He’d just gotten his answer.

Chapter Nineteen

ALLIED GROUND FORCES DIRECTIVE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

12 AUG 44/1500 HRS

TO:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

COPY (FOR INFO):

SHAEF (EISENHOWER);
HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY; DEMPSEY--2ND
BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY; CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND
TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC

RE YOUR COMMUNIQUE OF 2100/11 AUG, DO
NOT—REPEAT--DO NOT ALLOW ANY UNIT OF 12TH ARMY GROUP TO VENTURE
BEYOND THE DESIGNATED FLERS-ARGENTAN “HOLD LINE.” SUCH A MOVE BY ANY UNIT IN
YOUR COMMAND IN THE FACE OF MASSED GERMAN ARMOR RISKS THAT UNIT’S DECIMATION
AND RENDERS A SERIOUS SETBACK TO THE GREAT ADVANCES THIS COMMAND HAS MADE SO
FAR.

IF YOUR UNITS WILL BE IN POSITION FAR
AHEAD OF THE 0600/14 AUG SCHEDULED TIME AS YOU CLAIM, THEN USE THAT TIME TO
SOLIDIFY YOUR POSITIONS ALONG THE “HOLD LINE.”

YOU ARE FURTHER INSTRUCTED TO MAKE NO
MORE “SUGGESTIONS” ABOUT HOW BEST TO COORDINATE THIS OR ANY OTHER ALLIED
OPERATION.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

Chapter Twenty

Night had fallen in Alençon before
Tommy finally found his replacement, Lieutenant Charlie Webster, in the Café
Madeleine, whooping it up among scores of inebriated 4th Armored
GIs. “These tanker boys sure know how to have themselves a fine old time,”
Webster said as he drained a glass of whiskey and added it to the half-dozen
empties stacked in front of him.

“They’re celebrating,” Tommy
replied. “Tonight’s a reprieve—they could’ve been rolling to Sées right now.
What are you celebrating, by the way?”

“How about I’m glad you got back in
one piece, Half? I heard you guys got beat up a little.”

“Sure did. Two light tanks lost,
four guys dead. Our jugs did a great job, though.”

Webster’s reply dripped with the
blind certainty only alcohol can provide: “Don’t we always, Half?”

“Better lighten up on the
fire-water, Charlie. Tomorrow’s going to be your turn to shine, bright and
early.”

Webster didn’t seem to hear the
suggestion. He was fixed in glassy-eyed captivation on something at the other
side of the room. Tommy turned to see what—or who—it was and found Sylvie
Bergerac walking toward their table. She looked strikingly beautiful in that
same shimmering dress from the night before. With unmistakable delight in her
voice, she said, “Lieutenant Moon, you are still here! I thought you would have
left us by now.”

“No, you’re stuck with me one more
night. My ride home doesn’t leave until morning. May I introduce my replacement,
Lieutenant Charlie Webster?”

That was as far as the introduction
got. As Webster tried to rise for the lady, he didn’t quite make it fully
upright before keeling over and landing face down on the polished wooden floor.
When he tried to scamper to his feet, he slipped and fell flat all over again.

With the help of two tankers from
37th Battalion, Tommy got Webster back on his feet. “Do me a favor,
guys,” Tommy said, “and take this gentleman to his billet at the S3’s shop.”

“No problem, sir,” a corporal replied.
“Will do.”

“And tell my brother I’m looking
for him.”

“Sure thing, Lieutenant.”

As they sloppily waltzed the
drunken aviator toward the door, the corporal called back, “Kinda wish you were
staying around, Lieutenant. Nobody ever had to carry your ass.”

Webster out of the way, Tommy asked
Sylvie, “Can I buy you a drink?”

“No, Lieutenant, you may not. I
will buy you a drink instead. I believe you have more than earned it.
You Americans prefer whiskey, I believe?”

She returned quickly from the bar
and plunked the glass down before him. “What’s that you’re drinking?” he asked.

She swirled the clear liquid in her
glass and laughed. “It is soda water, Lieutenant. I must stay sober.”

He thought of his brother’s words
from last night: See? I told you that jane’s a fucking whore.

“Oh, are you working or something?”

Instantly, he wished he hadn’t said
it. The word working sounded so demeaning. He could understand French
women resorting to prostitution with their conquerors to feed their families.
But the whole concept of bedding German officers for the information they might
inadvertently divulge—spying between the sheets, as Sylvie claimed to be
doing—seemed a silly and dangerous game. But his tone didn’t perturb her in the
least.

“No, Lieutenant. Not tonight. Not
any night, in fact. The need has vanished along with the Boche.”

She settled back in her chair,
taking in the panorama of hard-drinking, rowdy GIs all around them. Then she
fixed Tommy in a steady, appraising gaze.

In French, she asked him, “Perhaps
I can do more than buy you a drink, Lieutenant?”

Tommy took a sip of his whiskey, running
her words through his head one more time to ensure he hadn’t misheard them.
Once convinced of the translation, he basked for just a moment in the flattery
of her proposition before rectitude and its flock of inhibitions came roaring
back like cops raiding a speakeasy.

“I couldn’t, Sylvie. Not with a
married woman. Not that it doesn’t sound wonderful, mind you…”

Her face settled into a serene
smile. “I did not realize some of you Americans are so amusingly Catholic.”

“What? You don’t have churches here
in France?”

“Of course we have churches, and
they are very beautiful. But religion is politics, Lieutenant. Nothing more. It
was Napoleon who said, religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the
rich.”

He looked genuinely shocked by her
words and could only sputter, “Regardless, but…”

She leaned over and kissed him on
the cheek. “You certainly are not like the others. But I expected as much, and
you have not disappointed me.”

“So that was just some test, Sylvie?”

“All life is a test, Lieutenant.” She
stood and took him by the hand. “At least do me the favor of walking me back to
Papa’s House.”

They walked at a leisurely pace
through the streets of Alençon, crowded with every GI not on security duty.
Content on Tommy’s arm, she said, “Your comrades can be quite a nuisance to an
unescorted woman. Thank you for your help.”

The line of GIs waiting for their
turn in the bordello wound down the alley and around the corner into the grand-rue.
Tommy and Sylvie got more than a few askance looks from GIs. “They think I’m
jumping the line,” he said.

“Nonsense. You are just being a
gentleman. They will see that soon enough.”

“Are you going in? I thought you
said there was no need for you to work here anymore.”

“That is true, and I am not going
to work in that way. But Papa will need some help with—how should I say?—administration?”

At the doorway, a towering
Frenchman in a maquis beret held the door open for her with one hand
while effortlessly holding back the queue of eager GIs pushing to get in.

“Au revoir, Tommy,” she
said, kissing him goodbye—French-style—on both cheeks. “Perhaps we will meet
again someday?”

“Yeah, I sure hope so. That would
be great.”

As he turned and walked away, he
had an inkling of what all those French husbands must have felt when they
dropped their wives off for another night of servicing their conquerors. But
the conquerors were gone; now they’d be servicing their liberators.

And I’ve got about a snowball’s
chance in hell of ever crossing paths with that lady again, dammit.

Tommy wandered back through the
streets of Alençon, in no hurry to catch some sleep or gather his limited kit
before he rejoined the fighter squadron tomorrow. He looked inside every bar he
passed, expecting to find his brother. He even looped back to the bordello, standing
on a dark corner, trying to be inconspicuous—or as inconspicuous as an airman
in khakis could be in a sea of olive drab—as he surveyed the line of restless
GIs waiting to pay for a brief encounter with a woman. Sean Moon wasn’t there,
either. There was no place left for Tommy to go but 37th Tank
Battalion HQ.

At the S3 section’s tent, he
blundered into a gathering of General Wood and his subordinates. “Come on in,
Lieutenant Moon,” the general called to him. “You’ll get a kick out of this,
too.”

Colonel Abrams pointed to an empty
camp stool. Tommy settled in, feeling like a very small fish in a very big
pond.

“Lieutenant,” Wood said, “I was just
about to give the boys here some words of wisdom from General Patton. I was
asking the general for his permission to deviate to Gacé, based on what our friends
in the Underground told us and how they’d been dead right about Sées. Now, this
huge map on his wall had that Flers-Argentan hold line drawn in bright red
grease pencil, straight as an arrow. Looks like it extended all the way to the
damn Rhine. Well, after mulling it over for a few moments, Georgie Patton walks
right up to that map, takes a rag, and erases that line. Wipes it clean off.
Then he turns around to me and everyone else in the room—we’re all standing
there open-mouthed, mind you, because we sure as hell weren’t expecting that—and
he says, ‘Fuck Monty and his fucking hold line. We didn’t come all this way so
we can stand around, waiting on him to get his ass in gear again. I’ll
embarrass that strutting little clerk just like I did in Sicily. If Brad or Ike
don’t like it, they can fire my ass.’ Then he asks me, ‘Wood, you say Gacé?’
And I tell him, ‘Yes, sir. That’s where we want to go.’ So he looks at me, real
serious, and says, ‘So why the hell are you still standing here, General? Get
moving!’”

General Wood stood there for a
moment, enjoying the same open-mouthed looks of surprise Patton had received.
“So listen up, gentlemen,” he continued, “because here’s what we’re going to
do.” He pointed to Colonel Abrams. “Creighton, you’re going to lead a combat
team—let’s call it Combat Command Fox—to Gacé. CCF will be comprised of
two armored battalions—yours and Colonel Jeffrey’s Forty-Third, plus Major
Bowman’s Fifty-First Armored Infantry with two batteries of one-oh-fives from
the Ninety-Fourth Artillery. I want to see if the situation and terrain will
really allow us to block an entire German Army. The rest of us will stay and
secure Alençon until Eightieth Division relieves us in a day or two, and then
we’ll join you up there. Or, if it’s not working out, we’ll pull you back and
try something else.”

“Just one question, sir,” Abrams
replied. “A combat command  like the one you’ve just described—shouldn’t
someone higher in rank than me be in command?”

“I believe you’re up to the job,
Creighton. Do you disagree?”

“No sir.”

“Well, then, it looks like you’re
the man,” General Wood said. “Now let’s go finish off the whole damn German
Seventh Army and get our boys home by Christmas.”

Tommy found it impossible to sleep.
He couldn’t leave things the way they were with Sean. First, he had to find
him, but wandering in the dark through the tank parks on the outskirts of town
was a great way to get shot by jumpy sentries. Maybe he’d get one last chance at
first light, right before CCF set off for Gacé.

It was just before dawn as the engines
of the American tanks rumbled to life, shredding the night’s silence with their
mechanized arrogance. Stumbling through the grayness from one platoon to
another, Tommy finally saw his brother as he was performing some final
preparations on the deck of Eclipse of the Hun. It was still too dark to
make out his face from 50 feet away, but he didn’t need the light of day to
know it was Sean.

Tommy was right next to the tank
before his brother noticed him. He never got a chance to speak; the look on his
big brother’s face stopped him cold. Sean’s expression was a kaleidoscope,
changing in split seconds from shame, to annoyance, to dismissal,
to go fuck yourself. Then he climbed into the turret, spoke commands to
his crew Tommy couldn’t hear and didn’t look back as the Sherman growled,
creaked, and clanked into its place on the ready line.

Chapter Twenty-One

The P-47 was poised on a forward
airfield every bit as new as she was, her blunt nose angled upward as if
craving the sky. She lacked only two things to make her complete: a pilot and a
name. Tommy Moon was about to provide both.

“You guys threw me a curve,” Tommy
said to Sergeant Harry McNulty, his crew chief. “I had no idea the
Three-oh-First moved to this place. We were only on the highway from Alençon an
hour, and it would have been a whole lot less if it wasn’t for all that Third
Army traffic going the other way hogging the road. I didn’t even know there was
such an airfield as A-14.”

“A lot happened in the five days
you been gone, Lieutenant,” McNulty replied. “As soon as you left, we got the
word to pack up at A-6 and move up here with unparalyzed  speed.”

Tommy was pretty sure he’d meant unparalleled.

“And when we got here, these new
birds were waiting for us, like it was all deranged ahead of time and
nobody told us. You got a name in mind for this bird, sir?”

“Yeah, Sarge. I’m going to call her
Eclipse of the Hun.”

McNulty made a face like he’d just
sucked a lemon. “With all due respect, Lieutenant, just what the fuck does that
mean?”

Tommy explained the name and its
origin. McNulty gave a what the hell shrug and said, “Okay, I get it.
Keeping it in the family, then. Two Moons driving rigs with the same name.”

“Yeah. That’s it in a nutshell.” He
reached into a pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to McNulty.
“Here’s a sketch of the nose art that goes with the name.”

The sergeant looked at the drawing—the
cartoon Hitler hanging by the seat of his pants from the tip of a thin crescent
moon—and let out a roaring laugh. “Now that’s some good shit, Lieutenant. A lot
better than what you named the last one, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah? What was wrong with Belle
of Canarsie?”

McNulty pinched his nostrils like
he’d just smelled something awful. “Don’t cut no ice outside of Brooklyn, sir.”
Waving the sketch like a victory flag, he added, “But this one’s pretty darn good.
I’ll get Vincent Van Goldbrick to paint
it on once you’re back for good today.”

Tommy began the preflight
inspection while McNulty and his crew did their final checks and fuzed the
bombs. Three 500 pounders hung from below the jug, one on each wing just
outboard of the landing gear, one below the belly between the wheel wells. He
paused reverently and laid his hand gently on the bomb below the left wing. He
was quite sure the frightening image of what bombs like this had done at Sées
yesterday would never leave him.

A mechanic held up a piece of
chalk and asked, “You want to write something on that egg, Lieutenant? A little
greeting to the Kraut bastards, maybe?”

“Nah,” Tommy replied. “No need.
They work pretty damn good just as they are.”

“Mind if I do, sir?”

“Help yourself, Private.”

Tommy noticed something strange
farther outboard on the wing’s underside. Calling McNulty over, he asked, “Is
this the hard point for the rocket tubes?”

“Yeah, but they ain’t all wired up
yet. Depot’s been a little slow getting us the mod kits. Should have it all
done in a couple of days, though.”

Together they inspected the aft
fuselage, with its high, crowned upper skin extending aft from the cockpit to
the vertical stabilizer. “I knew you wanted another razorback, sir,”
McNulty said, “and I didn’t have no trouble snagging you one. There were just a
few bubble-canopy girls to choose from, anyway, and they found themselves a
home pretty quick.”

“Good. I’d feel like I was in some
kind of fishbowl flying a bubble. And I like all that metal behind my head.”

They both knew all that metal
behind my head was false security. Bullets and flak would go through that
thin aluminum like butter. It was the armor plate on the seatback that
protected the pilot, and the bubble and the razorback were quite similar in
that respect.

McNulty asked, “But a bubble gives
you a lot better look out your six, don’t it, sir?”

“Look at what? Haven’t seen much of
the Luftwaffe lately. Have you?”

“No, sir. Not one damn plane.” He
looked worried as he asked, “But you still keep an eye in that rear view mirror
for ’em, don’t you?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Good, because you know what they
say, sir: the guy who gets you is the one you never see coming.”

When they got back to the nose of
the airplane, the mechanic was still writing on the bomb. Tommy asked him, “You
writing a novel there, Private?”

The man stepped back to show his
work. “There. All done, sir.” In neat block letters, he’d spelled out his
message to the Germans:

Come Christmas, we’ll all be
home. And you’ll all be dead.

Eclipse of the Hun—radio call
sign Gadget Blue Leader —lifted off the runway and promptly afforded Tommy
a spectacular view of Alençon just 10 miles to the north. Standing beneath the
dome of the noonday August sky, it looked more like a storybook village than a
place that was nearly a battlefield just a few days ago. His wingman, Lieutenant
Jimmy Tuttle, tucked up his jug off Eclipse’s right wing.

In a few minutes, they passed
directly over Alençon. Tommy could see the grand-rue running north-south
through the town. He even thought he could pick out Papa’s House, as
Sylvie had called it. If there was a line of GIs waiting to be serviced there,
he couldn’t tell. And somewhere on the road leading east from town was his
brother in a Sherman tank, driving toward Gacé with Combat Command Fox.

Climbing to 5000 feet, they headed
north toward Sées—just four minutes ahead—but gave it a wide berth. Tommy
hadn’t forgotten the hidden guns in the town yesterday. They’d do the same for
Argentan, another five minutes beyond Sées. If all the intel was true, there
would be plenty of unconcealed roadkill out in the French countryside to
keep them busy.

There were many planes in the air
over the Flers-Falaise-Argentan triangle, still not in sight but crowding the
radio frequencies: P-47s from the US IX Tactical Air Command supporting Hodges’s
1st Army west of Argentan; RAF Typhoons and Tempests north of
Falaise supporting Montgomery’s Brits, Canadians, and Poles; and their
outfit—XIX Tactical Air Command supporting Patton’s 3rd Army east of
Argentan. Lots of aircraft but none of them German; none of the combat reports
were of air-to-air action. Tommy and Tuttle skirted Argentan and dropped lower
to scout for German columns reported to be on the highway heading east toward
Gacé and beyond.

Tommy spotted it first: from a
patch of woods rose a wispy column of grayish-white smoke, moving steadily
eastward.

A train, Tommy told himself.
The Krauts must be getting real desperate if they’re rolling in daylight
with all these planes waiting to hit them. Of course, it might be studded with
anti-aircraft guns, too, so no more than one pass.

Tommy led Tuttle through a diving,
three-quarter circle to the left. “We’ll hit them broadside. I’ll take the
locomotive,” he told his wingman. “You shoot up as many of the cars as you can.
We’ll take them as soon as they’re out of those trees. Guns only—don’t waste
your bombs.”

Like lambs being led to the slaughter,
the locomotive began to pull its cars clear of the woods. The P-47s came in low,
hugging the flat terrain, the trees hiding their approach; the trainmen and
German soldiers on board couldn’t see them coming until it was too late. Caught
by surprise, the anti-aircraft gunners atop the two middle cars struggled
frantically to depress their 20-millimeter cannons enough to engage fighters on
the deck but lost the race; Tuttle’s eight .50-caliber machine guns demolished
one of those cars and caused the gunners on the other to jump for their lives.
His plane streaked low over the train and made her escape.

Tommy’s attack considerations were
different. Already, I’m too low and too close, with only one direction for
escape: left.

It’s got to be left. If the
locomotive blows, I’ll get caught up in the blast if I go over the top. If I go
right, I fly over a train-load of pissed-off Krauts with guns.

He squeezed the trigger, watching
the rounds land short at first and then walk right into the side of the
locomotive’s big boiler. They made tiny red flashes as they struck the curved
iron.

But this was no time to hang around
and see the results. He jerked the stick left—and she seemed so sluggish with
1500 pounds of bombs hanging under her, 2000 rounds of .50 caliber, and nearly
full tanks—that he thought she’d never turn.

Then suddenly she responded,
banking so steeply left he thought he’d bury her wingtip in the ground.
Slamming the stick right, she seemed to take forever to level off. But once she
did, it was time to climb and rejoin Tuttle.

Damn, that was close. Is this
new bird a little screwy? Or am I getting rusty?

“Did I get her?” Tommy asked his
wingman.

“Oh, yeah. Blew like a volcano. I
only got a couple of cars, though. Sure you don’t want to have another go?”

“Positive.”

With Tuttle back on his right wing,
they climbed to 2000 feet and continued eastward. In a few minutes, they were
halfway between Sées and Gacé when the call came over the radio. It was
unmistakably Charlie Webster’s voice but an octave higher. Combat Command
Fox’s ASO was calling for fighter support. He sounded scared out of his
mind.

“Halfback One-four, this is Gadget
Blue,” Tommy replied. “Tell me your troubles, over.”

Webster’s next transmission was a
breathless recitation of CCF’s predicament. They were stopped dead on the road five
miles south of Gacé, up against a roadblock making a determined stand with
massed heavy weapons.  No matter how the Americans pummeled their adversaries
with tank and artillery fire, they couldn’t break through. They didn’t even
seem to be weakening the defenders, no matter what they tried.

Shit, Tommy thought. The
lead elements must be taking a beating. He tried to force the image of
flaming Shermans from his head.

Taking a quick glance at the map on
his kneeboard, he told Webster, “On station in three minutes. Advise splash
on last rounds, over.”

As soon as the P-47s were close
enough to view the battle from above, they could see what Combat Command Fox
couldn’t: there was a stream of combat vehicles—tanks, assault guns, half-tracks,
and trucks—flowing south on the highway from Gacé. They had to be Germans,
ready to join the swirling mass of smoke, dust, and armored vehicles locked in
combat.

No wonder they can’t seem to
make a dent in them, Tommy told himself. Knock one out and another one
takes its place. But we’re flak-bait if we hang around up here, just sightseeing…and
this new ship’s still got me guessing a little.

He looked farther south and saw a
quartet of tanks blazing on the road. From this height—and through all the
smoke and haze—it was impossible to tell German feldgrau from American olive
drab.  But based on their location and orientation, he guessed they were
American…

And one of them could be my
brother’s.

Blue Flight broke left just
as an arcing ribbon of tracers rose to meet them. But a quick turn and steady
descent got them quickly out of harm’s way. Down to 300 feet, Tommy told
Tuttle, “This column is definitely Krauts. We’ll hit them from their ass end.
You trail and drop first, then break hard right and I’ll drop mine.”

Tuttle was relieved to hear that
plan. At this low altitude, he’d barely be able to outrun his own bomb blasts
without having to dodge the explosions in front of him from Tommy’s bombs, too.
But he was getting more nervous by the second: they were about to begin an
attack run which, if the American artillery was still firing, would fly them
straight into those incoming rounds.

“Blue Two to Leader,” Tuttle
called, “we didn’t get splash yet. Better abort.”

“Negative, negative. We’ve got
time.”

Time? Half’s losing his mind.
We’ve got a couple of seconds, maybe, until—

Before he could finish that
thought, Webster’s voice was in their earphones: “Splash, over.” The
last American artillery rounds were impacting. Tommy could see their blasts
well ahead of him. “Roger,” he replied. “Perfect timing.”

Over the German column now, Tuttle
pickled his bombs in sequence—One, two, three—and announced, “Blue
Two, breaking right.”

Tommy released his bombs in the
same one-two-three sequence as his wingman.

“Blue Leader, breaking
right.” Then he asked Tuttle, “That wasn’t so bad, was it, Jimmy?”

“Yes, it was. I don’t like betting
the farm against artillery rounds.”

“Maybe once you do a stint as ASO
you’ll get to trust the dogfaces a little. Now let’s see if we did any good.”

From a thousand feet, it seemed a
certainty they had. Their six 500-pound bombs had left a chain of craters
hundreds of yards long and inflicted horrific damage on the German column.

“Look at that!” Tuttle said. “We
ripped the shit out of them.”

True, vehicles were ablaze all
along the road, perhaps as many as a dozen, but they were mostly trucks,
half-tracks, and assault guns—all thinly armored or not at all. Tommy counted
seven tanks—he couldn’t tell what type they were—but only one was billowing
smoke. As best he could tell from this altitude, six German tanks were still on
the move and battleworthy.

“Let’s do another pass, same
direction,” Tommy told Tuttle. “Try and keep those panzer bastards out of the
fight. At least give them a headache.”

“But shouldn’t we hit ’em from a
different direction this time?”

“Negative. We’re down to guns, so
let’s shoot up those tankers in the ass where we might actually do a little
good. If they’re buttoned up, they won’t even see us coming.”

“Hey, Half, maybe we can skip some
rounds underneath and up through their bellies.”

“You don’t really believe that
works, do you, Jimmy? Just aim for the damn engine…and pray we knocked out all the
flak guns already.”

They came in lower this time, barely
higher than the tips of the German tanks’ antennas, flying echelon right
to stay clear of the ejected cartridges from each other’s guns. Sights locked on
the tanks, they both expended a quarter of their .50-caliber ammunition load—about
300 rounds per plane, almost 40 rounds per gun. But it seemed like wasted effort.
Tracers just bounced off the tanks’ armor, arcing into the air like stars from a
Roman candle.

Tommy wondered, Did any of that
API punch its way inside a tank?

As they climbed and circled back,
it looked like only one tank had suffered damage from the strafing; it was
being pushed off the road by another tank. That left five. At least none of the
assault guns, half-tracks, and trucks seemed to be in the fight anymore. They
sat lifeless on the sides of the highway, some burning ferociously. If there
were German soldiers around those vehicles, alive or dead, Tommy couldn’t see
them.

“Halfback One-four, this is Gadget
Blue. We’re clear. Let ’em have it.”

With their fuel and ammo sufficient,
Blue Flight could loiter in the area, standing by for any further
requests for help. But it would be hard to tell who was winning from the safe
perch of a few thousand feet until, like all battles, it reached critical mass:
the point at which one side sensed it was inflicting far more damage than it
was receiving. Then, and only then, would the winning side be confident enough
to steadily advance and overrun their enemy. From the air, it would look like a
surge of ants pressing relentlessly forward.

But critical mass still hadn’t
happened for either side. The only change seemed to be the growing number of
burning armored vehicles littering the battlefield. From Tommy Moon’s balcony
seat, it looked like a stalemate. With each tank knocked out, the odds of one
of them being his brother’s grew. He took a look at his fuel gauge: About an
hour’s worth before we’ve got to go home and tank up. If only I could tell who
was who down there...

Charlie Webster’s agitated voice
was back on the air. “Gadget Blue, Gadget Blue, this is Halfback
One-four. Do you identify red smoke, over?”

A thin, barely perceptible plume of
red smoke billowed up from the ground, right about where Tommy figured the
American line was. It looked like it came from a GI smoke grenade.

“Roger, got red smoke.”

“Okay, Gadget, red smoke is Halfback.
Repeat, red smoke is Halfback. Now look about a thousand yards east,
over.”

A thousand yards east marked the
edge of a forest. Tommy was already turning and diving in its direction as he
asked Webster, “We’re looking at the treeline, affirmative?”

“Affirmative. Krauts with big guns hiding
in the woods on our flank. Standby for goal posts.”

Goal posts: the name General
Wood had given to Tommy’s idea of marking a target line with white phosphorous airbursts.

“Splash, over,” Webster
reported, a warning the bursts were about to happen.

“There they are,” Tommy told his
wingman. “Have you ever seen goal posts before?”

“Negative, Half.”

“Those bursts give us the target
line. The lower one is over the target area. Do it echelon left this
time. We’ll probably never see the Krauts, so just stay on the line and let her
rip.”

“If they know where they are, why
the hell ain’t they hitting them?”

“They’ve only got so much
artillery, Jimmy, so they need a little help. Now are you coming or what?”

“Affirmative, boss.”

Tommy banked his ship left and
brought her around to the target line, passing just under the floating puff of
the high airburst. Then he started a steep dive aimed short of the low burst,
hoping to compensate for probable error and not overshoot.

“You still with me, Jimmy?” he
asked Tuttle.

“Affirmative. Right on your eight o’clock and dropping like a brick.”

As their altimeters spun rapidly
down, the battlefield was starting to make more sense. Tommy had a much better
idea where the Americans were—and where those invisible guns in the forest were
menacing them with flanking fire. It was hard enough for the troopers of CCF to
engage an enemy dead ahead of them. To have to fight in more than one direction
could be a recipe for their destruction.

The jugs’ .50-caliber guns worked
over the forest like crazed woodsmen, shredding the tall trees—and hopefully
the invisible Germans among those trees—with industrial efficiency. Pulling up
from the attack run, Tommy told his wingman, “Let’s pull a one-eighty and do
that again.”

“Hey, Half,” Tuttle said, “a couple
more passes like that and we’ll be guns dry.”

“That’s what ammo’s for, Jimmy…to
fire it. Breaking hard right.”

With the cushion of altitude, Tommy
banked his new ship harder than he ever had before. He was relieved when she
responded exactly as he expected.

There…that’s more like it. I
guess she handles differently with external loads than my old ship. Without the
bombs, though, she’s pretty nimble. Just like she should be.

As they streaked down for another
strafing run, Tuttle said, “Pretty easy to see the line we just shot up. Looks
like a tornado went through there. Started a few fires and everything.”

“Halfback One-four,” Tommy
called, “are we doing any good?”

“Affirmative, Gadget Blue.
We think those guns are trying to withdraw. Maybe move your next pass a smidgen
or two east.”

The two jugs slid left as requested.
Halfway down their strafing run, both ships lurched from the shock wave of an
explosion beneath them. Tommy said, “I think we found them. Feels like some of
their ammo just went up.”

“Speaking of ammo,” Tuttle replied,
“how much you got left?”

“Not much…about a hundred rounds.”

“Roger. Me too.”

One hundred rounds—12 per gun, give
or take a few. Enough for one more pass at something.

Tuttle added, “I ain’t too crazy
about trying to get home without any bullets, you know.”

And I’m not too crazy about
leaving my brother in the lurch.

“Just relax, Jimmy,” Tommy said.
“When’s the last time you saw the Luftwaffe, anyway? Those guys down there need
our help, bad.”

Webster came back on the air. “That
looked great, Gadget Blue. Looks like the Krauts in the woods are kaput.
Nice job. Now give us a little armed recon of what’s between here and
Gacé, over.”

They climbed to 1000 feet and
headed north. There were still tanks on the road—maybe 10 or 12 now—but they
were driving with great haste away from the fight, back toward Gacé. Charlie Webster
sounded thrilled to hear it.

The jugs began a descending orbit
of the road, lining up for one last strafing run. Wings steeply banked gave the
pilots a startling panorama of the ground below out their side canopies: like a
classroom’s sand table exercise come to life, CCF was surging forward on a
broad front across the battlefield. This battle’s critical mass had finally
been reached, decidedly in the Americans’ favor.

“Let’s give those Krauts a goodbye
present,” Tommy called to Tuttle.

“You mean you want to dump all our
rounds?”

“Affirmative. And make them all
count.”

It took only a few seconds of
firing before the P-47’s guns were empty. As they turned and streaked back
toward CCF, Tommy was pretty sure he’d gotten a glimpse of two German tanks
being abandoned by their crews.

A few moments later, as he sped
over the American vanguard, he got a fleeting image of a Sherman commander
standing in the turret hatch, waving to him. Waggling his wings in reply, he
wanted desperately to believe he’d just exchanged greetings with his brother.

Chapter Twenty-Two

By midafternoon, Combat Command
Fox had bypassed the German strongpoint at Gacé and taken up
defensive positions on forested high ground two miles east of the town. From
there, they could command three highways the Germans might use to flee the
Falaise-Argentan pocket. But whether or not they could exercise that dominance
was in doubt. They were low on fuel and nearly out of ammunition. The supply
convoy that was supposed to remedy that situation hadn’t shown up.

“Division doesn’t know what
happened to the convoy, sir,” the staff logistics officer—the S4—told Colonel
Abrams. “There’s been no word. But they should have been here two hours ago.”

“I know,” Abrams replied. “I’ve
been watching the damn clock, too. So what are we doing about it, Major?”

“If the first one doesn’t turn up
soon,” the S4 said, “Division can cobble together another convoy, sir. But it
won’t be here before tomorrow, when the rest of Fourth Armored moves up to join
us.”

Abrams walked off to ponder in
silence. Dammit, did I just fuck up? I didn’t dare try and take Gacé
as low on ammo as we were after that big brawl south of town. So I did the next
best thing…just drove around the place and set ourselves up as a roadblock.
That’s what we’re trying to do, right? Block the whole German army from
escaping Normandy…but one more big fight without resupply and
we’re finished.

Back in Alençon, the French
Underground already knew what had happened to the supply convoy. Sylvie
Bergerac rushed to 4th Armored HQ in the town hall with the bad
news.

“They were on the wrong road,” she
told General Wood. “Then they were captured.”

Wood looked at the map in
disbelief. “How the hell could they make a wrong turn?” he fumed. “There aren’t
that many turns to make, for cryin’ out loud.”

But one thing was certain: Combat
Command Fox was in deep trouble if it wasn’t resupplied with ammo and fuel
ASAP.

“There’s nothing we can do about
their fuel situation tonight,” Wood’s division logistics officer—the G4—said.
“There are just no more tanker trucks to get it there, even if we had the
reserve fuel on hand, which we don’t. And you don’t refuel an armored unit out
of jerry cans, five gallons at a time. Not unless you’ve got a week to
do it.”

“But we’ve got the ammo, dammit,”
the general replied. “We just need to scrape together some trucks to carry it.”

The G4 seemed shocked at the
suggestion. “Sir, if we empty our dump and send it up the road, then we’ve
got no reserve.”

“We’re not in contact with
the Germans, Colonel,” Wood replied. “They need it worse than we do at the
moment.”

“But there’s no way to get it
there, sir.”

No sooner had the G4 said those
words than five empty deuce-and-a-halves rumbled to a halt outside the town
hall. Their drivers climbed down from their cabs and began to smoke and joke
with some GIs on the street.

“Don’t tell me we can’t find the
trucks, Colonel,” Wood said, pointing out the window to the idle vehicles. “An
armored division is loaded with wheeled transport. If we can’t figure out how
to help Abrams and his boys—and I mean right fucking now—we should all be
busted down to private.”

Visibly shaken, the colonel
replied, “Very well, General. Just one question—how do we make sure this convoy
doesn’t get lost, too? By the time they’re loaded up and on their way, it’ll be
dark. And those drivers have never been where they’re going.”

Sylvie Bergerac provided the
answer: “I would be happy to lead them, mon général.”

There was time for one more sortie
by Blue Flight before sunset. It would mark the first time all four
planes in the flight would be in the air together under their new leader, Tommy
Moon.

“Glad you’re back, Half,” Blue
Three’s pilot, Lieutenant Joe Rider, told Tommy. “I was getting sick and
tired of getting farmed out to fill slots in other squadrons. How’s your new
ship?”

“A little squirrelly when she’s
bombed up, but otherwise, she flies just like a jug.”

A mechanic readying Tommy’s plane
overheard his comment. “Begging your pardon, sir,” the mechanic said, “but are
you saying she’s slow to roll with an external load?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it,
Corporal.”

Walking over to a bomb on its wing
pylon, the corporal, Marv Goldberg—the man Sergeant McNulty had referred to as Vincent
Van Goldbrick—said, “I’ve seen this before, when I was with the Fifty-Sixth
in England, sir. This is an RA bird, not an RE, meaning the
Republic factory in Indiana built it, not the one in New York.” He pointed to
the data stencil on the side of the fuselage to prove his point. “Somebody in
that factory doesn’t know how to shim the wing mounts for these pylons right.
Hang a bomb on it and it messes up the airflow under the wing just a little. It’s
an easy fix, but we need a lot of ground time, just like I’ll need that ground
time to get your artwork painted on. That’s a great cartoon, by the way.”

McNulty, the crew chief, was
listening to Goldberg’s explanation, too. “That’s real good poop, Van
Goldbrick. Why’d you never say anything about it before?”

“Nobody ever asked, Sarge. And it’s
Corporal Goldberg, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, yeah…sure,” McNulty replied.
“Now let’s get the lieutenant and his team up in the air where they can do some
good. You going back to Gacé, sir?”

“Yep. Some Fourth Armored guys
still need looking after.”

“Is that where your brother is?”
McNulty asked.

At first, Tommy couldn’t put
together an answer. He didn’t know if his brother was there or even of
this Earth anymore. Anything he said would be an expression of hope, not knowledge.
But there was no point getting into it now—and no time. He simply replied,
“Yeah.”

As McNulty helped him get strapped
into the cockpit, Tommy said, “That Goldberg sounds like he’s just as good a
mechanic as he is an artist. Maybe you oughta cut him a little slack with the
nicknames.”

“Ahh, he knows I don’t mean nothing
by it. But I tell you, he don’t swing a wrench near as good as he does a paint
brush. But maybe I did misunderestimate the lad just a bit.”

“They’re going to come soon,”
Captain Newcomb said, his binoculars trained on the outskirts of Gacé. “It’s no
secret where we are, not with all the noise we made getting here.” Since taking
up positions in the forest, they’d made it a point to continue making as much
noise as possible, or as least as much as they could within the limits of their
dwindling fuel supply. Charlie Company had been detailed to drive a platoon of Shermans
around their wooden redoubt, hoping to give the impression from the constant
sound of engines there was a far larger force nestled in these woods. Once they’d
taken careful stock of their fuel situation, a platoon of noise-making Shermans
had, by necessity, been whittled down to only two.

Newcomb handed the binoculars to
Sean Moon, who, after scanning the town, said, “I see five Panzer Fours, plain
as day…and one more who thinks he’s hidden behind that building, but his gun’s
sticking out. By the looks of the muzzle brake, it’s a Panther.”

“Yeah, but we can’t see everything
we need to from here,” Newcomb replied. “We’ll get the Air Force to have
another look when they get back.”

Sean took in the panorama of the
empty sky, still bright despite the late afternoon shadows slicing through the
forest. “Where the hell are the flyboys, anyway, sir? I ain’t seen or heard a
plane in a good hour.”

“Lieutenant Webster says they’re
beating up a column headed this way about eight miles west. Those Krauts were
headed straight for us, too.”

“Ain’t that swell,” Sean replied. “With
a little luck, maybe most of that column will never get here.”

Tommy Moon couldn’t believe his
eyes: Horses! We’re shooting goddamn horses again.

The German column Blue Flight
was decimating at the moment—even though it was led by a few tanks and had
anti-aircraft guns on a half-track at its midpoint—was composed mainly of
horse-drawn artillery pieces and supply wagons.

Two of the planes in Blue Flight—Blue
Two and Blue Four—were armed with rockets. It was wise to fire them
first, before they used their machine guns. Otherwise, there was a chance the
ejected cartridges from the .50 calibers would damage the exposed wiring to the
launcher tubes hung beneath the wings. Tommy sent Blue Two to use her
rockets against the anti-aircraft half-track and Blue Four to do the
same against the tanks. He and Blue Three followed close behind, dumping
500-pound bombs along the length of the column. After two passes, the rockets
and bombs were expended, wreaking havoc on everything but the tanks which,
despite the pilots’ excited claims of direct hits, were scattering,
apparently unhurt. Blue Flight formed into pairs and made two strafing
passes.

As the remnants of the German
column passed beneath him, Tommy tried to count the horse-drawn conveyances
devastated by his jugs. He couldn’t; there were too many. Fifty, at
least…and it looks like each one was pulled by at least four horses.

Horses. Two hundred dead or wounded
horses. Transporting what was once considered the most mechanized and deadly
army on the planet. The wounded ones thrashed in their harnesses, their agony
unmistakable even to a man in a speeding airplane.

“One more pass, guys,” Tommy
announced.

Jimmy Tuttle, flying Blue Two,
asked, “What the hell, Half. Didn’t we kill those bastards enough?”

“Not the horses, we didn’t. I said
do it again, dammit. Put the poor bastards out of their misery.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The lead deuce-and-a-half of the
ammunition convoy, inching along the road illuminated only by the faint glow of
its solitary blackout headlight, shuddered to a stop. Sylvie Bergerac was
riding in the cab with the driver and the convoy’s lieutenant-in-charge. She
jumped out and walked to a signpost, inspecting the arrows pointing to several
towns, one of them Gacé.

Just as I thought, she told
herself. This is one of the crossroad signs we tampered with to misdirect
the Germans. She ran her fingers over the gouged wood and bent nailheads,
telltale signs those nails had been pulled and hammered back into the post. Then,
after the ambush, we never undid this little mischief…and now an American
convoy has paid the price, too.

The lieutenant was standing beside
her now. “So we have to turn right to get to Gacé, Madame Bergerac?”

“No, the sign was changed to
deceive the Germans. We must go left.”

“Changed? By who?”

“We of the maquis, I’m
afraid.”

The lieutenant studied his map in
the dim glow of his blackout flashlight. “Hmm…yeah. We’re here, right?” He
pointed to an intersection about halfway between Alençon and Gacé.

“That’s correct. You see that
taking the left road is the correct way to go.”

“Yeah. Absolutely.” He checked his
watch. “So that’ll put us to CC Fox by about 2000 hours.”

“Yes, in one-half hour,” she
replied and then began tugging at the errant sign to yank it loose.

The lieutenant pulled her away. “No
time for that now, Madame Bergerac. We’ll get it on the way back. I’ve got it
marked on the map now. We won’t get fooled again.”

Their time estimate was right on
the money. Just before 2000, as the eight-truck ammunition convoy crept down a
narrow trail that bypassed Gacé and led into the forest, an American captain
emerged from the darkness.  After a brief discussion with the convoy’s
lieutenant, the captain put his fingers to his lips and blew a sharp whistle. A
team of GIs materialized, each jumping on the driver’s side running board of a
truck to guide it to the various places its cargo was needed. Before the lead
truck pulled away, the lieutenant asked Sylvie, “Where do you want your
bicycle, Madame Bergerac?”

“Right here would be fine,
Lieutenant. Could someone please lead me to Colonel Abrams?”

It was the captain who replied, “My
pleasure, ma’am. Right this way.”

Colonel Abrams was surprised to see
Sylvie. “I figured it would be a Frenchman acting as guide, but a French woman?
I’m in your debt, ma’am. Merci. But what are you planning to do with
that bicycle?”

“I’m going to ride it home to Alençon,
mon colonel.”

“But that’s over twenty miles! And
it’s nighttime! Ride back with the empty trucks.”

Sylvie found his concern funny. “My
bicycle has a generator and lights, as you can see, mon colonel. And
twenty miles is not very far at all. I am used to riding much farther. But I’ll
be traveling a much shorter distance. Tonight, I’ll be going directly to Gacé.
My grandmother lives there. I want to visit her.”

Abrams looked more concerned than
ever now. She could sense the words forming in his head: But the Germans…

“Mon colonel, we have lived
with the Boche for four long years. Do not worry about me. My papers are
in order.”

“But you’re maquis.”

“The Boche do not know that.”

“But are you carrying that British pistol
of yours?”

“Of course not. That would make me
a combatant, no?”

“Well, if I can’t convince you
otherwise, let me just say again, Merci, Madame Bergerac. Bon Voyage.”

“Just one more thing, mon
colonel. Could I appeal to you to spare Gacé as you spared Alençon?”

“Alençon was easy—the Germans
pulled out. It’ll be up to them what happens here in Gacé.”

“And it will be up to your Air
Force, too, I suppose.”

“You suppose correctly, ma’am.”

“Well, then, au revoir, mon
colonel. Bonne chance to all of us.”

He detailed a sergeant to escort
her through CCF’s position and out to the road. On the way, they passed through
Baker Company. A GI called down from the turret of a Sherman, “Hey, lady, ain’t
you the jane from that house of horizontal refreshment who helped us out
at Alençon?”

She recognized him instantly. “Ahh…the
ill-mannered Moon brother. So nice to see you again, Sergeant. Now if you’ll
excuse me…”

“Speaking of my brother, I hear you
and him were getting pretty chummy. You ain’t seen him, have you?”

“Not since last night. And I doubt
I’ll ever see him again.” She kept on walking, pushing the bicycle at her side.

“Don’t get that pretty little ass
of yours all shot up now, toots.”

“I’d be more worried about yours,
if I were you, Sergeant.”

Within 20 minutes, Sylvie was
bicycling through the darkened streets of Gacé. It hadn’t been difficult
getting past the Boche checkpoint at the edge of town. The guards were
jumpy; they knew the Americans—the Amis—were close by and coming soon. They
are so young, she thought. It was probably only recently they traded
their Hitlerjugend short pants for the feldgrau of the Wehrmacht. Les Boches
must be getting very desperate for manpower. Their trembling hands fumbled
her papers as they struggled to read them. An older unterfeldwebel
finally bellowed at them to stop pulling at their penises and let her
pass.

She smiled as she pedaled away: I’ve
certainly learned quite a lot of German in these last four years. I understood
every word they said.

Her grandmother’s old but tidy
house was at the end of Rue de Manet. Resting her bicycle against the
front steps, she knocked—a gentle knock, so no one would mistake it for the
imperious pounding of the Boche to which they had become accustomed.

“Mon petit chou!” her
delighted grandmother said as she opened the door. “What are you doing here?
Come in, come in.”

As they shared some wine, Sylvie
explained the reason for her visit. “The fighting will start very soon, Grand-mère.
I need to take you with me to Alençon.”

The old woman kissed her tenderly
on the forehead. “Dear sweet Sylvie…I will not leave. Damn the Boche and
damn the Amis, too. They cannot drive me from the home your grand-père
built…where your mother was born and grew to womanhood, may God rest their souls.”

“But Grand-mère, it will be
very bad when it happens. I need to keep you safe.”

Her grandmother smiled but was
unmoved. “This is not my first war, Sylvie…and French houses are built with
stout basements so the barbarians can kill each other all they like above us. I
will be fine.”

Sylvie wrapped the old woman in her
arms. She knew there would be no changing her mind. Just holding her close made
it seem like everything was all right, if only just for a moment.

“You will stay the night, won’t
you?”

“Of course, Grand-mère. But
I must leave first thing in the morning.”

“You must get back to your little war
games with the maquis, I suppose…and to that shit of a husband.”

Little war games: from
anyone else, Sylvie would have taken offense. But she knew she could no more
change her grandmother’s opinions on life and war than she could grow wings and
fly. And there was no denying Bernard was a shit.

Tommy had just finished writing the
mission report when Sergeant McNulty stuck his head into the operations tent.
“Hey, Lieutenant, I just lucked into another kit for the rocket mod. We got a
great chance to do it tonight, when we’ve got those wing pylons off for that
re-shim. It should make the job go a whole lot quicker, but if we run into
problems it could turn into an exercise in fertility, and she won’t be
ready at the crack of dawn like you want.”

It took a few moments to reach his
decision: I want that stand-off punch the rockets give, even if it is hard
as hell to actually hit a tank with one. But I don’t want to be stuck here on
the ground if the shit’s hitting the fan in the morning. McNulty and his boys
have never let me down before, though.

“Yeah, Sarge. Go ahead and do it.
Give me the rockets.”

“You got it, sir. You gonna be
around in case we need your opinion on anything?”

“Me and a couple of the other
pilots are going into Alençon for a while. We should be back around 2300.”

McNulty’s face lit up in a crooked
smile. “Chasing skirt beats out beauty sleep again, eh, Lieutenant?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, be sure and use a cundrum.
And nail one for me while you’re at it, will you?”

Thirty minutes later, Tommy parked
the jeep behind the MP post in Alençon. He and the three pilots in his section
spilled out: Jimmy Tuttle, Joe Rider, and Herb Clinchmore. Tuttle asked, “Why
the hell are we dumping the jeep here, Tommy? All the good bars are blocks
away.”

“Because if I ask the provost marshal
to keep an eye on it, it’ll probably still be here when we get back. And if
it’s not, you can bet some MP borrowed it, and it’ll magically reappear
before you can finish a cup of coffee.”

“Is that some New York City wisdom talking?”

“No, just common sense. And hard
experience.”

While his section mates headed off
to the bars, Tommy walked the few blocks to Papa’s House. There was the
usual line of GIs wrapped around the corner and the usual amount of grumbling
as he pushed to the head of the line, assuring the annoyed troopers this
fucking officer was not cutting in; he was just looking for someone.

When he got to the door, that same
giant Frenchman was standing guard. In French, Tommy said, “I’m looking for
Sylvie Bergerac. I’m a friend, not a customer. Maybe you remember me from last
night?”

The guard couldn’t be bothered to
look down at Tommy as he replied, “I don’t know you, soldier, and I don’t know
any whore by that name.”

“She’s not a whore, she’s—”

Roughly shoving Tommy aside, the
giant said, “Clear the way and get out of my sight before I make you wish you
had. This is not the lonely hearts’ club, you little shithead of an
American.”

The GIs in the line had no idea
what was being said, but it looked likely this huge Frenchman was about to kick
the living crap out of an officer, and they were dying to watch. It wasn’t to
be, however. Tommy turned and walked away.

What the hell did that guy mean
he doesn’t know her? He sure as hell knew her last night.

Making his way to the Café
Madeleine, he was struck by how normal everything in Alençon seemed, as if
everyone—French civilians and GIs alike—was untouched by the war raging just a
few miles up the highway.

Everything in the café seemed
normal, too: rowdy GIs being endured by the long-suffering French proprietors for
the steady flow of francs their business provided. Asking the bartender
if he knew of Sylvie’s whereabouts, he got the same answer as before: “I do not
know any woman by that name.”

“But she walked around here like
she owned the place last night.”

Dismissing Tommy with a scowl and a
violent shake of his head, the bartender replied, “I own this place. No one but
me. Thank you for speaking your almost intelligible French, Lieutenant…but now
I’ll thank you to leave my café.”

“Can I at least get a beer?”

“No. Get out.” He looked ready to
leap over the bar and throw Tommy out single-handedly.

At his Alençon HQ, General Wood
stood before the big tactical map on the wall. His fingers ran lightly over the
town of Gacé and then over to the symbol in the green area representing a
forest two miles east: a simple line drawing of a flag, representing the
headquarters of Combat Command Fox. With a ruler, he measured the
distance from the Flers-Argentan stop line to that symbol: five
damn miles.

The Division S3—Wood’s operations
officer—asked, “Having second thoughts about sending them over Monty’s line,
sir?”

“Hell, no, Colonel,” Wood replied.
“When I reported their progress to General Patton, all he said was ‘Great job.’
Then I asked how he was going to report our little trespass to the boys
upstairs, and he said, ‘I’m not going to tell them shit yet.’”

Sylvie’s head had just hit the
pillow when the snarl of tank engines shattered the night’s stillness in Gacé.
From her grandmother’s parlor window, she could see the darkened silhouettes of
German soldiers in formation running up Rue de Manet. She heard a voice,
maybe that of a sergeant or officer, shouting, “Macht schnell! Macht
schnell!”

Her grandmother was awakened by all
the commotion. Walking sleepily into the parlor, she asked Sylvie, “Has the
fighting come back to Gacé?”

“I don’t know, Grand-mère.”

“Are they leaving, perhaps?”

“Either that…or they’re going to
attack the Americans.”

“Or it’s the Americans who are
attacking, Sylvie. Come away from the window. We must go to the basement.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

ALLIED GROUND FORCES DIRECTIVE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

14 AUG 44/0100 HRS

TO:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

COPY (FOR INFO):

SHAEF (EISENHOWER);
HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY; DEMPSEY--2ND
BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY; CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND
TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC; BRERETON--9TH AIR FORCE

RE YOUR STATUS REPORT OF 2200/13 AUG,
THIS COMMAND IS ALARMED TO LEARN OF THE DEEP GERMAN SALIENT 3RD ARMY
HAS ALLOWED TO DEVELOP IN THE AREA NORTH OF SÉES. I MUST REMIND YOU THAT YOUR
CURRENT MISSION IS TO TRAP THE GERMAN 7TH ARMY, NOT ALLOW GERMANS TO
DRIVE A WEDGE BETWEEN YOUR 1ST AND 3RD ARMIES AND ALLOW
BOTH TO BE DESTROYED IN FLANKING MOVEMENTS.

YOU ARE ORDERED TO ELIMINATE THE
SALIENT AT SÉES TODAY, 14 AUG, NLT THAN 2359 HOURS. USE ALL ASSETS AVAILABLE,
TO INCLUDE TACTICAL AIR POWER, TO ACHIEVE THIS MOST CRUCIAL OBJECTIVE.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sean Moon checked his watch: 0300…are
the Krauts coming or what?

The men of CCF had been listening
to the murmur of German engines in Gacé for over two hours. In that time, not
one vehicle had left the confines of the town to show herself on the moonlit
highways or open fields.

I’m sure glad they’ve got the
gas to waste without going nowhere. Maybe we should’ve hit that fucking town
after all and taken that gas for ourselves.

When he’d last checked Eclipse
of the Hun’s fuel gauge, it read less than a quarter of a tank: Not even
enough to get back to Alençon…or get us through one good fight.

He scanned the darkness with
binoculars one more time. Not a damn thing happening. Maybe the Krauts are
just trying to keep us awake.

If that was the Germans’ plan, it
was working. Sean’s crew was exhausted, but not a man had dozed off. They broke
open box after box of K rations, eating just to stay awake. If we keep
chowing down like this, Sean told himself, we’ll be out of food, too,
before you know it. Damn, I gotta take a leak.

He slid down from the turret to the
hull deck and then to the ground behind the Sherman. For a few moments, the
physical relief of urination masked the sound of the distant German engines.
But once he was finished, something had changed. The murmur had become a
snarling mechanical chorus, growing steadily louder. The German tanks were
moving, getting closer. All along the treeline, gunners in Shermans and tank
destroyers pressed eyes to gunsights, waiting for the dark shapes to grow
larger and into range. Farther back, in clearings that afforded them fields of
fire, the mortars and artillery pieces were ready to shoot illumination and HE rounds
in high-angle fire onto predetermined target zones.

Captain Newcomb’s voice spilled
from the company radio net. “Nobody get itchy trigger fingers now. They can’t see
us for a max range shot, so they’re going to have to get close…close enough
that maybe we can kill them first.”

So they waited.

Fabiano, Eclipse’s gunner,
asked Sean, “How far do you think they are?”

“I make them at twelve hundred
yards, Fab.”

“So why the fuck ain’t we shooting?
Those up-gunned tank destroyers we got should be able to cook ’em at this
range. And with a lot of luck, these Zippos could, too.”

Sean replied, “We shoot when the
captain says so, and not before. You read me?”

“Yeah. Loud and clear. But I don’t
fucking like it.”

“Too damn bad, Fab.”

Sean tried to count those dark
shapes, advancing toward them in what seemed two ranks. He got to 17 when a
blinding beam of light rendered his eyes useless.

“THEY GOT FUCKING SEARCHLIGHTS ON
THOSE TANKS. I CAN’T SEE A FUCKING THING.”

It would take time to restore his
vision, time they didn’t have. Those searchlights were illuminating almost every
vehicle in the treeline. Within seconds, the German tanks were firing.

Sean wasn’t the only one affected.
Night-blind GI gunners all along the line—at least those whose vehicles weren’t
already knocked out in the first salvo—either fired poorly aimed shots at the
dazzling lights or didn’t fire at all. Inside Eclipse, the only crewman who
hadn’t been looking into the searchlights when they snapped on was the loader, PFC
Kowalski.

“Ski,” Sean said, “you still
got your eyes?”

“Yeah, Sarge.”

“Then this is your big chance, kid.
Take over for Fab. Squint into the sight so you don’t go fucking blind, too.”

Kowalski slid across the turret and
took the gunner’s position. He knew what to do; Sean had cross-trained all his
crewmen well. But he’d never had to do it when it was a matter of life and
death. Trying to pick out a target through the sight, he asked, “What the hell
do you want me to shoot at, Sarge?”

“Pick any one of ’em. There’s
plenty to choose from.”

Aligning the gun tube with a shape that
seemed so big—and so close it filled his sight picture—he said, “Okay, I pick him.
On the way!”

Eclipse shuddered with her
own recoil. The breech snapped open, and the acrid stench of expended
propellant filled the turret.

“Somebody gonna fucking load for
me?” Kowalski asked, his voice taking on the tone of a man relishing his first
taste of command. “Or do I have to do everything my goddamn self?”

“Easy, killer,” Sean
replied, fumbling for an anti-tank round. “I got you covered. That first shot
hit anything?”

“Fucking A it did. Hit him
right in the turret. Shoved the tube and that goddamn searchlight right down
his throat.”

Sean rammed the round in and locked
the breach. No sooner had he reported “Up!” when Kowalski yelled, “On the way!”

The searchlights were extinguished
and shattered now, their few seconds of dominance erased by main guns and .50
calibers up and down the line. Now it was the Germans’ turn to be blind. Their
line of tanks slowed and then stopped as drivers and gunners struggled to
regain orientation on the battlefield. Colonel Abrams told his artillery
observer, “Fire for effect, son.”

Volley after devastating volley of  short-range,
high-angle fire from 105-mm howitzers rained almost straight down on the
bewildered Germans. Their tanks—a mixture of Mark IVs, Panthers, and a few of
the dreaded Tigers—were impervious to being knocked out by most American
weapons when shooting at their tough front armor. But rounds plummeting onto
their decks and turret roofs were another matter. Those panzers suffering
direct hits from above were quickly turned into flaming coffins as their hulls
were breached and their ammo and fuel ignited. As this high-angle death
continued to fall, the American tankers’ vision was returning. They added their
direct fire to the chaos the artillery had caused.

Captain Newcomb’s voice was on the
radio again. “Kraut tanks don’t attack by themselves. There’s got to be
infantry with them somewhere.”

As if to prove his point, the whoosh
and flaming tail of a rocket from within CCF’s perimeter struck a Sherman,
turning it into a pyre.

“Shit,” Sean said, “we got Kraut
bastards with panzerfausts up our ass.” He climbed out of the turret
hatch to man the .50 caliber mounted on the roof. He could see the dark
outlines of running men, some of them holding short, thin tubes with one bulbous
end that could only be panzerfausts. No GI carried a weapon shaped like
that.

He pivoted the .50 caliber to knock
them down. Before he could get off a burst, he saw the silhouette of a coal
scuttle helmet of the Wehrmacht at Eclipse’s rear end. The man
wearing that distinctive helmet was climbing onto her rear deck. In his raised
hand was something that looked like a stick with a tin can stuck on its end. A
short, point-blank burst from Sean’s machine gun ripped him apart. The stick
he’d carried—a “potato masher” grenade—dropped onto the deck. Sean scrambled
through the turret hatch. He wasn’t all the way inside when the grenade
exploded.

He knew he was hit, feeling the
searing metal fragments in his arm and shoulder. But he didn’t feel wounded.
Every part of his body seemed to work just fine. He was back out of the turret
and on the .50 caliber in seconds, firing at fleeting shadows in strange
helmets, shouting into the turret as he identified panzers for his gunner to
engage. He could see the battle clearly now, the field bathed in the light of
so many burning tanks from both sides. He offered a silent prayer the foot
soldiers he was gunning down weren’t his own.

Colonel Abrams was on the radio
with a terse message: “Do not pursue. Repeat, do not pursue.” It took the
adrenaline-fueled tankers several moments to process what their colonel meant: The
battle is over. The Germans are withdrawing back toward Gacé.

Do not pursue: Sean smiled
as the full meaning of those words sunk in: We won’t have to fight house to
house in the fucking dark tonight. Thank God.

He checked his watch again: 0312.

Not even ten fucking minutes,
Sean told himself. That’s all it took.

When the sun came up in a few
hours, they’d know what it had cost.

At his HQ at Alençon, General Wood
cursed when he read the directive from General Patton. Once his entire staff
was roused from their sleep and assembled, he told them, “Gentlemen, Georgie says
we can’t wait for Eightieth Division to take Sées. We’ve got to do it our damn
selves…and we’ve got to do it today.”

“What about CC Fox, sir?” his G3
asked. “They’ve just fought off a major attack. We won’t know what their combat
condition is for a few hours yet. They’re going to need our support. We can’t
hang them out to dry.”

“Tell me something I don’t for damn
sure know, Colonel,” Wood replied. “It sounds like that little Limey clerk
chewed Brad’s ass but good for not keeping his hold line nice and straight.
Like this is some fucking parade ground or something.”

The G3 asked, “So Monty doesn’t
have a clue about CC Fox’s whereabouts yet, does he, sir?”

“Apparently not. If he did, there’d
be a hell of a lot more shit hitting the fan right now than just tidying up his
silly little line. But here’s the rest of the deal. Brad’s told Ninth Air Force
to level Sées at sun-up. Then all we’ve got to do is mop up afterwards,
he says…like he’s forgotten the rubble of shattered towns makes for terrific
defensive fortifications that just might hold us up for days.”

“But sir,” the G3 replied, “there
can’t be more than a couple of battalions left in Sées. What happened to the
directive not to indiscriminately flatten whole towns that aren’t
heavily defended?”

“Directives are made to be ignored
sometimes, Colonel. Just ask George Patton. He’s a master at the practice.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The men of Combat Command Fox
needed only the veiled light of predawn to take the toll of what had happened
just a few hours before. The burned-out hulks of a dozen German tanks—one
Tiger, the rest Mark IVs and Panthers—littered the open field between the
forest and Gacé. The GIs were surprised to find none of those beaten tanks were
closer than 500 yards; they had seemed so much closer when the fight was on.

The Shermans and tank destroyers on
the west side of CCF’s perimeter absorbed the brunt of the attack. Nine were
knocked out, with most of their crew dead. Armored vehicles on the other
sectors of the perimeter were unscathed, as was the artillery. The American
infantrymen miraculously suffered only a handful of dead and wounded, but the
German infantrymen who infiltrated the perimeter fared far worse; over 50 were
dead, a number of them in the area behind Eclipse of the Hun. A precise
count proved difficult, as they weren’t counting whole bodies, only body parts.
Fifty-caliber machine gun fire tends to crudely butcher a man rather than just
tear neat holes in his flesh. The GIs loading the noxious stew of fragmented
Germans into empty ammo trailers—men who had grown hardened to the gore of
battle—had all they could do to keep from puking their guts out.

Another dozen American tanks were damaged
but capable of fighting. Eclipse fell into that category; the grenade
explosion on her aft deck had damaged access plates and the engine’s air
manifolds. She wouldn’t be drivable very far until repairs were made, but all
her guns and radios still worked. “Don’t look like we’ll be doing much moving
until we get gassed up, anyway,” Sean told his crew as the medic pulled metal
fragments from his arm and shoulder. “Scrounge some of the dead Zippos
and see what you can come up with in the way of parts.”

Kowalski asked, “You gonna be okay,
Sarge?”

“Yeah, I’ll live. Now didn’t I just
tell you to do something? Get your ass moving.”

At his CP, Colonel Abrams was
getting bad news from 4th Armored HQ at Alençon. “They’ve got some
big change of plans they won’t talk about on the air,” he told his staff. “What
it means to us, though, is our resupply convoy is being delayed. Again.”

Dammit, Abrams thought, armor’s
supposed to be able to shoot, move, and communicate. Until I get some gas, I
can only do two out of three. Congratulations, Creighton—you’re the proud
commander of sixty some-odd steel bunkers that are stuck in place at the
moment. On second thought, bunkers my ass…they’re sitting ducks.

It was 20 minutes past sunrise when
the American bombers struck Sées. Two squadrons of B-26 Marauders at medium
altitude unloaded 90 tons of high explosives on the town. Four miles south on
the highway from Alençon to Sées, the lead elements of 4th Armored
Division’s column felt the ground shake and watched as clouds of gray smoke and
dust rose over the town. They were too far away to actually see the bombs as
they fell but were grateful their distance from it all was, at least this time,
keeping them safe. They knew those bombs were being dropped by young men every
bit as terrified and prone to error as they were. And once released, errant
bombs could never be recalled. They answered only to gravity and the wind,
caring nothing for who or what might be beneath them.

Even minus the units of Combat
Command Fox, 4th Armored was a formidable fighting force.
Despite their numbers being further depleted by combat casualties, they still
numbered nearly 9000 men in tanks, half-tracks, and trucks stretching for miles
along the highway, equal in tank strength to CCF but double its strength
in infantry and artillery. They were encouraged to see most of the bombs had
actually impacted within the town, not the usual off-target scattering ground
troops were used to seeing from high-flying bombers. No flak had been hurled at
the Marauders, just strings of tracers, representing futile attempts to hit
out-of-range targets. None of the planes seemed to be in any sort of trouble as
they turned back to the west after dumping their loads.

“That’s a good sign,” General Wood
said. “No flak means probably no eighty-eights left working in the town to tear
up our armor. All we have to do now is deal with everything left alive in there.”
Picking up the microphone of his command radio, he announced, “All units,
execute Ops Order Able. Let’s roll, boys.”

There had been no sleep for the
citizens of Gacé, not since the brief, percussive discord of battle in the
middle of the night had begun. Once the shooting stopped, the German survivors
had spilled back into the town with the roar of vehicle engines and the frenzied
shouting of men who were convinced their life and death struggle was not over,
merely paused. The people of Gacé felt certain that struggle had, at long last,
come to them, too. Those few not already in their cellars made their descent
with great haste.

In the ensuing hours, however, the
guns remained silent. Wehrmacht soldiers and townspeople alike were expecting an
attack which never came. Instead, like a cancer in remission, an uneasy
stillness settled over the town, lessened not at all by the sunrise.

In her grand-mère’s kitchen,
Sylvie could find only spoiled milk. Determined to prepare the morning coffee
as she knew the old woman preferred, she counted out some ration coupons and announced,
“I’m going to the market. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Grand-mère replied, “Very
well, but be careful, my dear girl. Very careful.”

As Sylvie rode away on her bicycle,
she didn’t notice two men in suits and ties on the street behind her. If she’d
seen them, she’d have known one was the mayor of Gacé. She wouldn’t have known
the other was Gestapo. Or that the mayor was pointing her out and whispering
the word maquis to the German.

Fifteen minutes later, Grand-mère
looked out from her parlor window, wondering what was taking Sylvie so long to
return. What she saw in the middle of the deserted street provided the answer:
a toppled bicycle and a shattered milk bottle.

When they removed her blindfold,
Sylvie knew exactly where she was: I’m at the Gacé police station. I was
only in that car for a few minutes. We couldn’t have gone very far. And now
they’re going to lock me in a cell.

As the cell door slammed behind
her, she knew two things: someone had betrayed her, and the only reason she
wasn’t already dead was they intended to torture information about the maquis
from her.

Tommy Moon looked over the briefing
papers and aerial photos for the morning’s mission. His flight would be
providing general support for Combat Command Fox once again. There was a
specific mission requirement, too: photo recon had identified the building that
housed the German HQ in Gacé. CCF didn’t have a clear view of that building
from their hide two miles to the east and was under a directive not to shoot
artillery into towns indiscriminately. Therefore, it would fall to the Air
Force to take out the HQ with as little collateral damage to the town as
possible.

“According to our intel,” the
briefing officer said, “the building functions as the barracks for the gendarmerie
national.”

Tommy asked, “You mean the police?”

“Yeah, that’s it. The police
station.”

“Hmm…all these other buildings
around it…are they all the same height?”

“Some of the ones to the east are
taller,” the briefing officer replied. “I guess that’s why CC Fox can’t see the
three-story police station from where they’re at. The ones on the west side of
the street, though, should be shorter. Two stories, tops.”

Herb Clinchmore, Blue Flight’s
number four, said, “You’re dying to try out those new rockets, aren’t you,
Tommy?”

“Yeah…but I don’t think the
approach to this target will work for rockets. Too steep. We’ll have another
look once we’re up there, but this looks like a low-level glide bombing job.”

“Swell,” Clinchmore said, “so every
Kraut with a pea-shooter gets a crack at us.”

“Keep your shorts on, Herb. I’m
going in first. One of you will have to follow up only if I miss.”

“Then do us a favor, boss. Don’t miss.”

Tommy gathered his three pilots at
the big map on the wall. “We’ll fly direct to Gacé,” he told them. “There’ll
probably be a lot of smoke and haze above Sées left over from the bomber boys.
But they’re cleared out already and on the way home, so we won’t have to dodge
them.”

Handcuffed and blindfolded again,
Sylvie was led from the cell to another room and placed in a chair. She knew
she was still in the police station’s basement; they hadn’t climbed any stairs.
Once the guards who’d brought her shuffled out, she could tell there were two
men remaining in the room from the sound of their shoes scuffing along the
concrete floor.

Shoes, not boots, she told
herself. Gestapo.

In hushed tones, the two men
conversed in German. She couldn’t understand much of what they were saying; it seemed
to be some sort of code. One word she picked out clearly, though: baumein. She
knew it meant dangle.

Then, one on each side, they lifted
her upward from the chair, pushing her against the wall, holding her aloft so her
manacled hands slipped over what felt like a hook high on the wall. When they
released her, she knew her translation had been correct. She was left dangling
from her wrists, her feet barely able to touch the floor, the metal of the
cuffs cutting painfully into her skin. With a tug that jerked her head roughly
forward, the blindfold was removed. The room they were in was little more than
a large closet.

Now that she could see them, Sylvie
was surprised how small the two Gestapo men were. Most of the other agents
she’d seen—like the one she’d once lured into a dark alley to be shot to death
in an ambush—were large, sinister-looking men, who looked undoubtedly capable
of the treachery they carried out. These two looked like bank clerks.

She remembered the instructions all
maquis had received: if captured, act terrified, proclaim your
innocence, and, most importantly, admit nothing. Since being
snatched off her bicycle, she had performed as told, with one exception: there
was no need to pretend being terrified. Her fright was genuine and barely under
control.

The blond one held up her
identification card and waved it in her face. In French, he said, “Tell us your
real name, Madame Bergerac.” The Teutonic inflection of his words made his
French sound like he was hocking up phlegm from his throat.

Her voice trembling, Sylvie
replied, “That is my real name—”

She started to add messieurs
but stopped herself. They weren’t deserving of even the modicum of respect the
title implied.

The dark-haired one stepped forward,
producing a dagger from beneath his suit jacket. She recognized it immediately
by the inscription on its blade: Mein Ehre Heisst Treue—My Honor is
Loyalty. The motto of the Waffen-SS. He made a small ceremony of slicing
the humid air in the cramped room with it, and then placed the cold, sharp
blade beneath the hem of Sylvie’s skirt, sliding it slowly up the inside of her
bare thigh. When he spoke, his French sounded no more refined than his
partner’s.

“It would be such a shame,” he
said, “if one so young and so lovely should come to such unfortunate ruin.” As
he spoke, the dagger’s slow ascent ended against the crotch of her panties, the
flat of its blade sliding back and forth against her like a cold, cruel lover,
its edges etching reddening lines on her inner thighs with machine-like
precision.

His mouth opened again as if to
speak, but suddenly he was gone, lost in a ferocious upheaval she more felt
than saw, as if a coarse, smothering blanket had been thrown over her. She was
falling, and the world was tumbling down after her.

And then, nothing.

When she came to, she was lying on
what must have been the basement floor, in the thick of a choking dust cloud she
could taste and feel. An unnatural shaft of murky light streamed in from above,
a distant spotlight trained on this netherworld, a beacon to guide her out.

Struggling to her feet, she thought
she could hear a siren, but then realized it was just the screaming of her
distressed ears. She stumbled over a man’s leg protruding from beneath a pillar
of concrete. A few feet away, another man’s head and torso lay crushed beneath
a wooden beam, his arms and legs splayed like a frog pinned to a dissecting
pan. Something shiny in the rubble beside him caught the dull light. She seized
it, not knowing for sure what it was until she held it in her shackled hands: A
key ring!

Her lungs seemed ready to burst,
like a diver down much too long. She scaled piles of rubble, struggling upward
toward the salvation of the light, each step a gamble that its foothold wouldn’t
crumble beneath her weight and send her tumbling back to the shattered hell below.
Each inch of progress was paid for in pain and blood as sharp debris sliced her
flesh. The key ring, with the promise of freedom it held, remained clenched
between her teeth.

Every upward grasp of her bound
hands became more desperate, less agile. Those hands lunged for what she took
to be a jagged beam—or perhaps a broken pipe—trying to slip the handcuffs over
it to hold her fast. But she misjudged, and in that sickening second felt
herself hanging between life and death— or maybe heaven and hell—waiting for
gravity to celebrate its inevitable victory, pull her down, and end her battle
to live once and for all.

Tommy Moon finished his orbit over
Gacé, pushed her throttle forward, and climbed to join the rest of his flight. He’d
just done his job with brutal efficiency, dropping two bombs on the police
station that served as German headquarters. But there would be no celebrating.
The feeling it left him with was bittersweet: Maybe it’s the new name
painted on her nose…or maybe I’ve gotten a whole lot better at low-level
bombing. Either way, the odds are good I just killed a lot of Germans,
maybe even decapitated one of their commands. But the odds are just as good I
killed some French civilians, too. They didn’t have it coming.

“You put ’em right down the ol’
pickle barrel, boss,” Jimmy Tuttle radioed. “Blew that building to shit. And it
looks like there’s about zeeero collateral damage to the rest of the
street.”

The other pilots in Blue Flight couldn’t
have agreed more: “Scratch one Kraut HQ,” Joe Rider said.

“Yeah,” Herb Clinchmore added, “I
knew you’d come through, boss.”

“All right, guys,” Tommy replied.
“Let’s knock off the chatter and see what else the guys on the ground need
doing.”

That one phrase Tuttle had used—collateral
damage—was sticking in Tommy’s head like a stain that wouldn’t scrub out. He
thought of his brother and wished their parting hadn’t been so contentious. But
he knew he’d made it so: There I was on my high horse judging Sean for
killing prisoners—something I’ll never be sure he even did—and here I am,
killing God knows who. What a fucking hypocrite.

He also knew he’d have to shake
these distracting thoughts on the double. Combat flying demanded 110 percent of
your attention. Sometimes more.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sylvie had no idea whose hands it
had been that reached down and pulled her those last few feet to safety. By the
time she’d coughed her lungs clear and wiped the caked dust from her eyes, the
person was gone. Looking through jagged pickets of wood that were once part of
the police station’s walls, she could see out onto Gacé’s grand-rue. Looking
up, where the roof once was, she could see four fighter planes passing overhead
in the bright morning sky.

And then it all made sense: We
were bombed. The Americans bombed us.

The Americans saved me.

She still had the key ring; it was clenched
in one of her hands. Whether it was her doing or that of her disappearing
savior, she had no idea. Wasting no time, she found the right key on the ring
and opened the handcuffs, flinging them as far as she could once she’d gotten
them off. A few cautious steps through the rubble and she was in the street.

There would be no going back to Grand-mère’s
house; those two might not have been the only Gestapo agents in town. And I
have no idea who betrayed me in the first place. Wild-eyed German soldiers
were everywhere, but she must have looked no different than the other
dust-encrusted civilians who’d been too close when the bombs fell. The soldiers
paid her no attention.

One thing she was sure of: My
only safety will be with the Americans now.

But first she had to get out of
Gacé. Walking south on the grand-rue, she saw how she’d do it. Scores of
townspeople had decided to take their chances by fleeing the inevitable battle.
They’d become refugees—piling their most precious possessions into wagons,
prams, anything that rolled—and began to walk slowly south, toward what they
hoped would be safety behind the American lines.

I should have no trouble
blending in with these people, Sylvie told herself.

By 0800 hours, 4th
Armored was in control of Sées. There would be pockets of resistance to clear
out, even some concealed armor that might not have shown themselves yet, but
the critical mass of this battle was decidedly in American hands. Even
the distraught civilians—so caught by surprise by the early morning air raid
they hadn’t had a chance to take to their cellars—could feel the Americans were
clearly in control.

An old man in the street pleaded
with General Wood: “Our dead are your responsibility, mon général. Will
you not have the decency to bury them?”

“We have no time, sir,” Wood replied,
his look of sympathy genuine but his refusal to help unbending. “We must mop up
here and move on. If we don’t, there will be many more of my soldiers and your
townspeople dead. It was the Germans who chose to make your town a
battleground, not me and—”

Wood’s radio operator interrupted.
“Pardon me, General, but there’s an urgent call for you.”

“Dammit, who is it?”

“Sorry, sir, but it’s Third Army.”

Wood nearly dropped the handset
with shock when he heard the voice coming from it. It was not that of some
Third Army staff jockey, as he’d expected. It was the unmistakably shrill voice
of General George Patton himself.

“Yes, sir,” Wood replied, “I wasn’t
expecting you here. I can meet you in ten minutes.”

“Make it nine, General,” Patton
said.

Wood’s driver made it in seven.

Parked in a grove on the edge of
town, General Patton had unfurled a tactical map on the hood of his jeep. As
Wood leaned in close, Patton said, “I realize we sent you here to Sées on very
short notice, John, and it looks like you’ve done an outstanding job, just like
your boys are doing up at Gacé. Now I’m going to tell you what I want you to do
next.”

Looking at the map, he didn’t need
Patton’s words to know what next was. Broad red arrows swept northward,
beyond Sées—and even beyond Gacé. The look of surprise on Wood’s face must have
been obvious.

“That’s right, General,” Patton
continued, “I want your division to regroup at Gacé like we planned all along.
Then, you’ll press north, all the way to Orville and Vimoutiers.”

“But sir, that’s a full ten miles
beyond Monty’s stop line.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass, John.
We’re here to kill Germans, not stroke some strutting little Limey’s ego.”

Wood needed a few moments to catalog
all the reasons he considered this a bad idea. Bending the line to Gacé was a
minor adjustment of Montgomery’s order, which—provided it didn’t cause a
fiasco—would be overlooked in the big picture. But pushing that line still farther
north was willful disobedience. Once past the insubordination of it, there were
the truckloads of tactical and logistical problems this freelancing would
create. But he could sense Patton growing irritated by his silence.

“Are you asking me to stop an
entire German army with my one division, sir?”

“No, John, of course not,” Patton
replied. “First off, they’re a badly depleted and battered German army. Finish
them off and we’ll be sipping wine in Berlin before the first snowfall. And you
won’t be alone. I’m moving the rest of Twelfth Corps to support the new line.
And I’ll move up my entire goddamn Third Army if that’s what it takes.”

“And General Bradley’s going along
with this?”

Wood could tell from the smirk on
his face that Bradley had no idea what Patton was doing. “Brad’ll get over it,”
Patton replied, “and so will Ike. Just like they got over Messina and those
other times, too. Kicking Kraut ass always beats licking Limey ass…even though
that’s Ike’s favorite pastime.”

He could understand Patton’s
confidence: He never got in trouble for winning…just for running his fool
mouth. So now he’s going for all the marbles by sticking my division’s neck out
farther than it’s ever been before.

“So we’re really going to do this
all on our own, sir?” Wood asked.

Patton replied, “Isn’t any commander
worth his salt always on his own, General?”

Blue Flight didn’t have to
wait long for another target. The leader of a P-38 section was asking for help
with a large German armored column they’d encountered near the town of Exmes,
six miles west of Gacé. “We’re down to guns,” the P-38 leader reported, “and we
can’t get close enough to do any good. They’ve got flak guns out the ass and
more tanks than I’ve ever seen all in one place.”

Tommy asked, “Which way are they
headed?”

“East, toward Gacé.”

Shit. Right toward CC Fox,
Tommy told himself.

“We’re going home for a refill,”
the P-38 leader added.

It only took a few minutes for Blue
Flight to get there. Skirting north around the German column, Tommy could
see exactly what the P-38 boys were talking about: he estimated at least 40
vehicles, mostly tanks of various marks. Interspersed were six or more half-tracks—flakwagens—with
mounted anti-aircraft guns. They spewed bright tracers in breathtaking,
treacherous arcs across the sky as they tried to chase the American planes away.

“At least there aren’t any horses,”
Tommy told his pilots. “Blue Three and Four, fly decoy on top. Blue
Two, you and me will come out of the sun with rockets. Go for the flakwagens
first. Don’t get too close and let them shoot the shit out of you.”

As Rider and Clinchmore in Blue
Three and Four orbited high over the Germans, taunting their
gunners, Tommy and Tuttle flew away to the southeast, into the sun. “Okay,”
Tommy radioed, “that sharp bend in the road—that’s the IP. Tally-ho.”
Eclipse of the Hun heeled over into a diving, 180-degree turn that would
put her on a steep attack path. Tuttle’s plane would circle the IP—the initial
point—once, and then follow.

A clarity swept Tommy’s mind,
clearing it of everything but the task at hand. He was no longer just a pilot.
He and his plane had once again become a weapons system:

Okay, looking good. Eighteen-degree
angle of descent set. Range to target four thousand yards. Thirty inches
manifold pressure. Launch rockets at range two thousand yards, two thousand
feet altitude. First half-track at outer ring, moving center, dead on the
reticle. Fire three rockets, then throttle to the stop, pull up, and turn back
into the sun and out of Tuttle’s way…and away from the bad guys. Then be ready
to do it all over again.

Damn, these Krauts got balls.
They aren’t even scattering.

His eyes in a steady, cyclic scan
over gunsight, altimeter, engine gauges, and airspeed indicator, he teased
small corrections from the stick and throttle, coaxing the targeting data
toward its solution. A ribbon of tracers sprayed far off her right wingtip: Target
still moving. It’s got to stop to shoot accurately. Coming up on release point….FIRE.

Three rockets raced from their
wing-mounted tubes a half-second apart, the glowing orange balls of their
motors’ exhaust shrinking to pinpoints as they sped away. Tommy felt the urge
to stay on the current flight path and watch where those rockets hit. It was
almost overpowering. But every second drawing closer to the flakwagens made
him a better target.

“Rockets away, pulling out,” he
told Tuttle. “Your turn, Jimmy,” he added, those last syllables sounding
strained as the g-forces of the tight turn tried to pull everything in Tommy’s
upper body to his feet.

Halfway through the turn, Joe Rider
broadcast his assessment of the rocket attack: “Close, but no cigar, boss. You
got ’em a little dirty, though. Give ’em hell, Jimmy.”

Tuttle’s approach to the target was
lower and faster. He released his rockets at a greater range than Tommy.

“Not even close, Jimmy,” Rider
reported as the rockets splashed into the ground well wide of the German
column.

Shit, Tommy thought, what
the fuck good are these rockets if you can’t put them where you need them? I
think your only chance of a hit is to empty the tubes all at once—fire all six
of the sons of bitches and hope for the best.

The rockets must have had some
effect on the gunners, though, even if it was just psychological. Their volume
of fire had dropped off quite a bit—maybe even enough to get in close for a
strafing run. That was guaranteed to be far more effective than errant rockets.

“Blue Flight from Blue
Leader. I’m going to strafe from the sun. That should keep their heads down
while you guys come in behind me and dive-bomb them.”

Tuttle replied, “You sure you don’t
want to do another rocket run, Tommy? They might not work after you fire the
guns, remember? The damn wires breaking?”

“Yeah, I’m dead sure. Save the
rockets for something standing still. I’ll worry about them not working later.”

Orbiting over the IP, Tommy
asked, “You guys in position?”

“Roger,” Rider replied, “about two
miles behind you and way up high, boss.”

He nosed Eclipse over and
began the strafing run. The approach path was almost the same as the rocket
pass, but a little faster—and she wouldn’t be pulling out until she had passed
over the entire German column. Aiming for a point ahead of the lead flakwagen,
he squeezed the trigger at 500 yards. If anyone was firing back at him, he
couldn’t tell.

I’m hitting them! Look at all
those bright flashes as the API tears through those half-tracks!

He saw bright flashes against the
forward hulls and turrets of some tanks, too, but he knew from hard experience
it was just pyrotechnics, doing no harm to the tanks or their crews.

At least it’s keeping those
tankers inside and buttoned up, where they can’t get a bead on us.

And then there was nothing but
empty highway beneath him. Tommy pulled Eclipse up and turned hard,
hoping to catch a view of the rest of his section as they dive-bombed the
column.

The timing was perfect; he had a
front-row seat. The other three jugs staggered their bombs—six 500-pounders in
all—along the flakwagens in the center of the column. Through the smoke
and dust of the explosions, only two of the half-tracks emerged, and they
weren’t firing anymore. All the others had come to a halt; one was overturned
on the side of the highway, another was on fire. Tommy could see the ant-like
figures of soldiers running from the stricken vehicles.

“Outstanding drop, guys,” Tommy
told them. “Okay…two-plane teams, now—let’s hit the tanks in the ass. Give
these rockets another chance to see if they’re worth a shit.”

But they weren’t worth a shit
this time, either. By now, most of the tanks had scattered off the highway,
seeking defilade in dips of the terrain that would shield them from every
attack angle except directly overhead. Some found it, some didn’t. Herb Clinchmore
in Blue Four loosed a sheaf of four rockets at one tank still on level
ground but scored no hits. Lining up for a broadside shot on another which had
achieved imperfect cover in a gulley, Clinchmore fired his last two. One
malfunctioned, falling well short. The other missed.

Joe Rider got off two rockets
before the rest failed to fire. One of the rockets that had actually fired
glanced off the glacis plate of a big tank—Rider swore it was a Tiger—and
exploded harmlessly in the air. The other missed.

Tommy noticed something interesting
as Jimmy Tuttle bore down on several tanks churning across open ground. They
seemed to be slowing as he closed in on them, and then, without the tanks
coming to a stop, crewmen jumped off and started running toward the safety of
some trees. They would have been better off staying in their tanks. All six of
Tuttle’s rockets missed completely, but his strafing of the crewmen a few
seconds later appeared brutally on target.

Tommy spotted a tank which appeared
to be stopped on level ground. In reality, the crew thought they had picked a
defilade with good cover. But it was too shallow, appearing flat from the air.
He fired his last three rockets at the tank’s six o’clock. It was hard to tell
how many hit, but at least one obviously did. The tank exploded, launching the
commander through his turret hatch as if shot from a cannon.

Tommy didn’t think much of the
score: Twenty rockets fired…with four duds still on Rider’s wing…all to
knock out exactly one tank. And it looks like more crews are abandoning their
tanks. God only knows why.

Blue Flight was down to guns
now, and they knew those .50 calibers wouldn’t be much use against the tanks. Tommy
and Tuttle, the two who had done the strafing, were low on ammo. They all heard
the call on their radios: two freshly bombed-up flights were on the way to
relieve them and try to beat up this German column some more. That gave Blue
Flight a few minutes to deal with some unfinished business below.

“Blue Three from Blue
Leader, you and Four still got all your .50 cal, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“Okay, then you two go finish off
those flakwagens that are still running…and anybody else on foot down
there, too. Blue Two, you and I will cover high.”

As Blue Leader and Blue
Two climbed for a better view, Tommy watched as Rider and Clinchmore rolled
into their attack on the flakwagens. It looked like a straightforward
run on a fast-moving ground target—about a 70-degree angle between the target’s
line of motion and the jugs’ direction of attack—the two planes in echelon,
with Clinchmore trailing off Rider’s right wing.

Tommy was climbing in a shallow
turn that kept his left wing down and out of the way for a better view below.
But if he kept slowly turning left, the action would be below Eclipse’s
nose and out of sight. He focused his attention back inside the cockpit just
for a moment as he steepened the turn and then reversed its direction, a move
which would yield a view of the attack once again but over her right wingtip
instead.

He finished the maneuver just in
time to watch the lead jug—Rider’s plane—as it appeared to be skimming along
the ground, still firing...and then a shriek came over the radio, a garbled
syllable that seemed a cry for help, a howl of victory, and a wail of defeat
all rolled into one. Rider’s plane merged with the flakwagen he’d
targeted, and both dissolved in the same fireball.

“NO…JOEY!” It was Clinchmore’s
voice.

Then, nothing but stunned silence
over the radio until broken by Jimmy Tuttle: “What the fuck just happened?”

Tommy had a pretty good idea what
the fuck had just happened: target fixation—the tendency of a shooter to
get so focused on his objective he forgets about everything else and flies
straight into the ground. Strange but true; he’d seen it once before and heard
about it plenty.

Sure, maybe it wasn’t that at
all. Maybe his plane got shot up and wasn’t controllable. Maybe he was already
dead…

But that scream, like he
realized too late he’d fucked up.

Tommy could hear his brother’s
voice in his head, and the words seemed terribly correct:

Just a matter of time.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The tankers of Combat Command
Fox didn’t waste much time licking their wounds. They’d spent every minute
since sunrise carting off the German dead, burying their own, and scrounging
their unserviceable tanks and tank destroyers for ammo and gasoline that hadn’t
already been consumed by fire. Now it was midmorning, and they’d managed to
collect 350 gallons of gas in five-gallon jerry cans, enough to fill up two Shermans
or parcel out one jerry can to each of the 60 surviving tanks. Those five
gallons would allow a Sherman to drive only four miles.

“Better than nothing,” Sean Moon
said as his driver poured their can into Eclipse’s nearly empty tank.
“At least it’ll give us a running start when we gotta get the hell out of
here.”

Captain Newcomb tallied the jerry
cans and said, “Make sure you set aside a couple for the ambulances.”

Sean asked, “You expecting any of
us to actually live through this, Captain?”

“Yeah, I’m hoping we all will,
Sergeant Moon. But right now I’m worried about guys dying because we couldn’t
get them to a field hospital.”

Picking through the collection of
weapons the German dead left behind, the GI infantrymen hoarded a dozen or so panzerfausts.
They couldn’t wait to see just how much better they were at killing tanks than
their less-than-impressive bazookas. The fact that they’d be carrying out this
research on German armor brought a certain ironic satisfaction.

Colonel Abrams stuffed the new
orders that had just come over the radio into his pocket and went back to
scanning the western approaches to CCF’s forest enclave. “Somebody’s got to
come gunning for us again soon,” he told his assembled staff officers. “Between
what the rest of Fourth Armored just pushed out of Sées, whatever is still left
in Gacé, and the horde that’s coming east from Argentan, we’re going to get hit
with the whole shebang smack in the face. It’s just a question of when. We’d
better all pray that Fourth Armored is already here when it happens.”

Miles to the west, they could see
the rising smoke of a battle. “That’s got to be the Air Force beating up some Krauts,”
Abrams said. Turning to his ASO Charlie Webster, he asked, “What’s going on
over there, Lieutenant?”

“There’s a couple of flights of
jugs plus some P-38s beating up a German column near Exmes, sir,” Webster
replied. “That’s probably what we’re seeing. It’s only about six miles as the
crow flies.”

“I know where the hell Exmes is,
Lieutenant,” Abrams said. “But what are those planes right over there?” He
pointed to a flight of four single-engined fighters descending out of the
north, crossing in front of CCF’s position. Their silhouettes were nothing like
the Americans were used to seeing.

“Oh, shit,” Captain Newcomb said,
“they’re Krauts! Focke-Wulfs, aren’t they? Geez, that’s all we fucking
need right now.”

“No, they’re not Krauts,” Webster
replied. “They’re RAF Typhoons.”

“What the hell is the RAF doing
down here?” Newcomb asked, before the answer dawned on him and every other
officer standing there: Airplanes go wherever they want. We’re the ones who
don’t belong here, on the wrong side of Monty’s stop line.

Abrams asked, “Can you raise them
on the radio, Lieutenant?”

Charlie Webster began to fumble
through the pages of his signal operating instructions. “Yeah…but I’ve
got to figure out the Brit frequency, sir.”

Watching as the planes began to
peel off into steep turns toward CCF’s position, Colonel Abrams replied,
“Better make it quick, Webster. If they aren’t getting into attack position,
I’ll shit in my steel pot.”

Anxious to get back to his company,
Newcomb asked, “One question, sir…if they attack, do we engage?”

Without hesitation, Colonel Abrams
replied, “Affirmative.”

On the dead run, Captain Newcomb
made it back to Baker Company. He got there in time to watch his men track the
circling Typhoons with their .50-caliber machine guns. The planes were standing
off a mile or more away, the glare of the midmorning sun off the dark wings and
fuselages making their markings nearly impossible to read.

“Are these clowns Krauts or what?”
Sean Moon asked.

“The ASO says they’re RAF,” Newcomb
replied.

“I don’t know, Captain. They look
like Krauts to me. Do we shoot ’em?”

“If they attack, yeah.”

“What do you mean if, sir?
Why the fuck are we waiting?”

Fabiano popped up through the
turret hatch. “Hogan thinks they got invasion stripes on ’em, sir. They gotta
be Limeys.”

Invasion stripes: the broad
black and white bands hastily painted on the wings and aft fuselages of Allied
aircraft for Operation Overlord, an attempt to prevent their being shot down
accidentally by jumpy Allied gunners. Now more than two months after D-Day,
those hastily applied stripes were weathered but still in place.

Newcomb took a look through
binoculars as one of the planes flashed the lower side of its wings their way.
“I can’t tell,” he said. “Can’t tell if they have stripes, roundels, or
anything.”

Sean clenched the handles of the
.50 cal tighter. “Limeys or not, if those fuckers get any closer, I’m knocking
their asses down.”

“Hang on a minute, Sergeant,”
Newcomb said. “Suppose that was your brother up there?”

“They ain’t my brother, Captain. I
know what a fucking jug looks like, and they ain’t no jugs.”

The four planes flew a few more
orbits, as if they, too, were unsure of what they saw before them. Then they
stopped turning, formed into pairs abreast, and dove down on the forest and the
waiting gunners of Combat Command Fox.

Sylvie and the refugees from Gacé
plodded slowly south, reaching the village of  Nonant-le-Pin by 1100 hours.
From the heights of the village, they could see the thick black smoke rising
from Sées, some six miles to the south. “The Amis and Boche are
fighting,” Sylvie told the others. “It is not safe to go there right now.”

The company of German soldiers at Nonant-le-Pin
could see the smoke, too. They were mostly old men and young boys, infantrymen
left in the village to guard a cache of supplies. All were fully aware that
once the American tanks rolled through Sées, they’d be the next ones beneath
the tracks of the Shermans. They seemed more terrified than the refugees
huddled in the village square, trying to decide which way to run.

“We should turn west,” one refugee woman
said.

“No,” another replied, “that will
take us straight into the teeth of the fighting. We must go east.”

“No, no, no,” an old man said.
“There is nothing but the Boche to the east.”

A group of refugees had already
made up their minds. They’d turned back north, toward Gacé, hoping to return to
the safety of the basements they’d chosen to forsake just a few hours ago.

They didn’t get far. German soldiers
blocked their path and herded them to a church, not hesitating to club with
rifle butts any civilian who protested or moved too slowly. Sylvie got as close
as she dared and stole a peek inside the church. It was already full of French
civilians under guard.

They’re going to use them as
human shields when the Amis come, she told herself, or lock them inside
and set the church ablaze in some sort of reprisal. You’d think these
frightened amateur soldiers would run for their lives…or surrender.

A squad of soldiers stomped down
the cobblestone street and began to corral the rest of the dithering refugees.
Still separated from that group, Sylvie was able to duck behind a chicken coop
and stay out of sight. She worked her way from there to behind a pig pen—and
then a German soldier noticed her, yelled Halt! and ran toward her. He
didn’t get far. Trying to round a corner of the pen, he slipped in a runoff of
pig excrement and fell hard, cursing as he went down. She heard the thunk
of his helmet like a dropped pot against a fence post, the muffled clatter of
his rifle as it tumbled into the muck. Before he could find his feet again, she
was gone. There was nothing the soldier could do but curse some more.

Running through high grass on the
village outskirts, Sylvie rejoiced in her luck: That’s twice today I’ve been
saved by fortune—once by an American bomb, once by pig shit.

Avoiding the roads for now, she headed
northeast across open fields. My only safety is with the Americans now, and
the closest ones must be Colonel Abrams and his men in the forest near Gacé.

Not before a dozen air-to-ground
rockets had smashed into CCF’s position, a score of .50-caliber machine guns
had flung long bursts at the intruding aircraft, seven GIs lay wounded, and one
of the Typhoons crashed into the forest just beyond CCF’s perimeter did the
other three RAF planes fly away to the northwest.

“I don’t think they believed we’re
an American unit,” Charlie Webster said, microphone still in his hand and on
the verge of tears after trying to convince the RAF to break off their attack.
“I think they’re just out of ammo.”

The damage assessment was
surprising short: only one vehicle destroyed, an empty deuce-and-a-half blown
up by a lucky British rocket; of the seven GIs wounded, only one required
evacuation for a chest wound—and that was from a spear-like shard of a
shattered tree.

Even more surprising, the pilot of
the crashed RAF Typhoon suffered only a broken arm and a collection of bruises.
A team of GI infantrymen freed him from his smashed cockpit and brought him to
Colonel Abrams’ CP. As a medic set his arm, Abrams asked the young pilot, “Just
what made you boys decide we were fair game?”

He replied with only his name,
rank, and service number, as the assembled Americans shook their heads in
amused disbelief.

“Son, you’re not a POW,” Abrams
said. “We’re Americans—your allies. We’re on the same side. Now tell just why
the hell you decided to attack us.”

The young Englishman repeated his
name, rank, and service number.

“Look, Pilot Officer Darby,”
Abrams said, “you’re obviously a little shook up. We’ll take good care of you
while you come to your senses.” Then he told the medic, “Put this man in the
doc’s care until he comes out of it.”

As the pilot was led away, Abrams
asked the infantry lieutenant who’d brought him in, “Did we shoot that lad
down, or did he just crash?”

“From the looks of his plane, sir,
it’s hard to tell. But we didn’t see a bullet hole anywhere.” Hesitantly, he
added, “I did have to stop my men from beating the shit out of him, though.”

“Well done, Lieutenant. Believe me,
they’re not the only guys who want to kick some Limey ass right now. But we’re
not going to do that. I’m assigning you to make sure no one else tries to
attack that pilot.”

“Yes, sir…but permission to speak
freely?”

“Granted.”

“Why are we being so nice to the
guy, sir? He did try to kill us.”

“And we were trying to kill him,
Lieutenant. I’m not sure how, but he and his buddies fucked up, plain and
simple. It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. You know your Bible,
son?”

“Yes, sir. A little.”

“Then maybe you remember this verse:
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Abrams then turned to Charlie
Webster and said, “And speaking of sinners, Lieutenant, I’m assigning you, my
ASO, to make sure an air attack on us by friendlies never fucking happens
again. Is that clear?”

The colonel went back to studying
the latest orders just in from 4th Armored. “They’ve cleared Sées,”
he said, “and they’ll start coming up the highway to Gacé in the next hour or
two. If they don’t get hung up too badly around this pissant little town called
Nonant-le-Pin, they’ll be here before nightfall. Now here’s the
thing…they want us to stage a coordinated attack with them on Gacé. We strike
from the north while they hit it from the south.”

The operations officer looked
confused. “But we’re already blocking any Germans trying to escape the town,
sir, even with our hands tied the way they are. Can’t we explain to General
Wood that—”

“It won’t cut any ice. He’s got
different ideas, apparently.”

“But, sir, if we come out in the
open and then have to fight our way into the town and our tanks start running
out of gas…”

“Tell me something I don’t already
know, Major. Let’s stop feeling sorry for ourselves and think of something
clever to keep General Wood happy without getting our asses cooked.”

The operations officer looked no
less confused.

“Remember,” Abrams added, “Fourth
Armored’s got our fuel. Let’s make it as easy as possible for them to reach us.
We’ve already been stuck in one place too damn long.”

It was 1400 hours and CCF still
didn’t have a viable plan to attack Gacé. “The only thing that makes sense,”
the operations officer said, “is for us to execute a double envelopment of the
town. Otherwise, we just squirt Krauts out of the place like a tube of
toothpaste. Maybe even get ourselves enveloped in a counterattack.”

His brow furrowed, Colonel Abrams
replied, “Maybe…but I just can’t believe there are all that many Germans left
in Gacé. I wish we could prove that, though. Those aerial photos from this
morning don’t give us much to go on. What’s the latest on Fourth Armored’s
position?”

“The lead elements are just leaving
Sées now, sir,” the operations officer said. “Even if they met no resistance at
all, it’d be almost dark by the time the bulk of the division got here.”

That was the worst news Abrams had
heard all day. “And we’ve got a German armored column of unknown strength still
bearing down on us, retreating from the west. I don’t reckon our Air Force or
the RAF is going to kill anywhere near all of them before they get here. And if
they don’t show up until dark, either…well, shit, I don’t even want to think of
the chaos that’s going to happen when all these forces collide in the night.”

Charlie Webster had information he
thought might help. “Actually, sir, all reports are that our air power is tearing
the hell out of that German column near Exmes.”

Without enthusiasm, Abrams replied,
“I’ll believe that when I see it, Lieutenant. You flyboys have a bad habit of
grossly exaggerating your kills. The fact is, your planes put on a great show
against Kraut armor, but they don’t kill all that many tanks, despite what you
think you see from the air. But while we’re on the subject, can you shed any
light on why the RAF attacked us?”

Webster swallowed hard before
answering. “Well, sir, everything points to them just being lost. As I figure
it, they were farther east than they thought. Once they caught sight of us—or
at least caught sight of those dead tanks out there and all the tank tracks
into these woods—they just assumed there had to be Krauts lying low here.”

A voice with an English accent
added, “I believe I can confirm that, Colonel.”

Pilot Officer Darby had returned to
lucidity. He stood before them, his broken arm set and in a sling, ready to
come clean. Pointing westward with his good arm, he said, “I’m told that town
over there is Gacé. We…well, we thought it was Exmes.”

“I see,” Abrams replied. “Were you
the flight leader, son?”

“Oh, no, sir. I’m quite junior.”

No shit, every one of the
Americans thought. You look about twelve years old, kid.

“We really didn’t see how there
could be any cock-up, sir,” Darby added. “You Yanks aren’t supposed to be here.”

Abrams asked, “How do you know
that?”

Darby pulled a map from his flight
suit and handed it to the colonel. A thick red line, straight as an
arrow—Montgomery’s stop line—had been drawn from west to east across the
map. Where they stood at the moment was a good six miles beyond that line.

“You’re well north of Monty’s line,
sir,” Darby said. “Like I said, you aren’t supposed to be here.”

“But dammit, Darby,” Abrams
replied, “we had panel markers out, clearly marking us as an Allied unit. Didn’t
you see them?”

“Yes, sir, we did. But the Krauts
have used our panel markers to mislead us before. We’ve been instructed to
ignore them.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, sir. Those are our
instructions.”

“Well, ain’t that fucking great?”
Abrams said, studying the map. Then he asked, “These markings for the British,
Canadian, and Polish positions—are they current?”

“As of this morning, sir.”

Abrams whistled in disbelief.
“That’s as far as they’ve gotten? They’re not even past Falaise yet? You could
drive the entire Wehrmacht through the gap between us and them.”

Darby shrugged. “They’re doing
their best, sir. We all are.”

“I’ll tell you what, Pilot Officer
Darby…we’ll get you out of here just as soon as we can, okay?”

“Take your time, sir,” the young
Englishman replied, rocking the broken arm in its sling that made him useless
as a pilot. “I’m in no bloody hurry.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Blue Flight, minus the
fallen Joe Rider, was back in the air again, covering 4th Armored’s
right, or eastern, flank as they rolled north up the highway from Sées. There
were intelligence reports of a German infantry division on the move from
L’Aigle toward Gacé on a roughly parallel highway along that flank. Several
flights of P-47s and P-38s had mauled it already. Now it was Blue Flight’s
turn to join the fray.

Tommy played Eclipse’s throttle
and prop lever, trying to coax a little more speed from her. Lots of drag
with all these bombs and rockets hanging off the wing. I should’ve had them
take the fucking rocket tubes off. You can’t hit a tank with them worth
a damn, anyway. But this mission’s supposed to be against soft
targets—no armor to speak of—so I’ll give them another try. Especially since
the last guys in reported the Krauts were loaded with flakwagens. Nobody’s said
anything about eighty-eights, though, thank God.

They were over the highway now, and
dispersed groups of German trucks and horse-drawn artillery were clearly
visible. But a little farther to the east, Tommy noticed something even more
interesting: Holy shit! Am I seeing things? There must be half a dozen
Ju-52s on the ground, with trucks backed up to their loading doors. Are they flying
in supplies or pulling troops out?

“Blue Flight from Blue
Leader, how about we shoot up some Iron Annies on that makeshift
airfield over yonder?”

“Count me in,” Jimmy Tuttle
replied, “but don’t forget the cardinal rule, boss.”

“Yeah, I remember: make only one
pass at an airfield. Okay…Jimmy, you’re with me. Herb, give us top cover.”

“Roger,” Clinchmore replied, “but
if any Kraut fighters pop up, I’m sounding the alarm and diving straight for
the deck. I’m dead meat without a wingman covering my ass.”

Tommy replied, “Sounds like a plan,
Herb.”

Together, Tommy and Tuttle dropped
lower, lining up to attack the landing field from the east. “They’re parked in
such a nice, straight line,” Tommy said. “I’ll go for the far three. Jimmy, you
take the near three.”

“Roger, boss. Tally ho.”

“Okay,” Tommy replied, shoving her
throttle forward, “let’s pour the coals on and be bad targets.”

“Hey,” Tuttle said, “flakwagen
at two o’clock.”

“Good eyes, Jimmy. I’ll get him.
You stay on the planes.”

The German gunner spit a
line of tracers in his direction as he struggled to find the range. That gave Tommy
an idea: No point getting too close. Seems like rockets might be perfect for
this job. He swung Eclipse’s nose dead onto the target, and squeezed
off two rockets. Rolling hard right and diving for the treetops, Tommy couldn’t
see the ribbon of tracers chasing his tail, failing to keep up with him. He
couldn’t see if the rockets had done any damage, either, until he’d turned
almost 180 degrees and gained some altitude again.

Once Eclipse came around,
Tommy saw the billowing black smoke of a burning vehicle. Through the smoke
came the rapid sequence of flashes from ammunition cooking off in the blaze.

Damn, I guess I did hit it. No
time to pat myself on the back, though. Where the hell are the rest of my guys?

Clinchmore was just a voice on the
radio, unseen but still in position high above as top cover. Tommy found Tuttle’s
plane, just a speck to the south after finishing his attack on the Ju-52s. All
six of the German planes were still on the ground, two of them consumed in
flames. Tiny figures of men were scurrying to get away from them.

Looks like Jimmy had a great pass—two
destroyed, three damaged, maybe.

But one of the planes—the first in
the parking line—was moving, taxiing to the edge of the broad clearing serving
as an airfield.

She’s trying to take off.

By the time Tommy had wheeled his
ship around and dove on the Ju-52, she was off the ground, struggling for
altitude, and flying so slowly Eclipse would streak past her in a matter
of seconds. But the big, cumbersome Junkers was filling Eclipse’s
gunsight. He squeezed the trigger.

Bullet strikes twinkled along the top
of the Ju-52’s wings and fuselage. Big chunks of her corrugated metal skin flew
off. With Tommy’s second burst, the left wing folded at its root and the
Junkers plunged to the ground. She became a ball of fire on impact.

Holy crap! I just got an air-to-air
kill! Those gun cameras better be working.

He was so wrapped up in the
adrenaline rush he didn’t hear Jimmy Tuttle’s first mayday call. But the
second call, in the high-pitched screech of a man scared half to death, was
impossible to miss.

“I’m losing her,” Tuttle wailed.
“Prop’s running away…too low to bail out.”

Tommy replied, “I’m coming, Jimmy.
Try switching tanks.”

There was no reply for a moment,
and then Tuttle’s voice—sounding embarrassed and relieved—said, “Ahh, shit…I
didn’t switch tanks before we went hot. Rear one’s reading about zip now.
Forgot how long we’ve been up.”

“So everything’s okay now?”

“Roger, boss. Back to normal.”

“Great. Hate to have you pack it in
now, after you just chalked up two destroyed and three probables damaged.”

“Really? I did that good?”

“Affirmative. You did a great job.”

“That only adds up to five, Tommy.
What about the other one?”

“I got him in the air.”

“No shit! Looks like ol’ Vincent
Van Goldbrick’s gonna be busy tonight. He’d better have a stencil for those
German crosses.”

“He does. Now let’s show some radio
discipline and get back to work.”

Tommy and Tuttle climbed to 8000
feet to rejoin Clinchmore. With Blue Flight re-formed, they turned their
attention back to the German column moving north on the road to Gacé.

“You see that thunderstorm coming?”
Clinchmore said. “Been getting bumpy up here for a while. Maybe we ought to
abort and get behind it.”

“Negative,” Tommy replied. “We’ll
finish up here first. We’ve got time.”

Tuttle added his two cents:
“T-storm’ll kill us as quick as the Germans, boss.”

“Both of you, keep your drawers on,
dammit. The guys on the ground don’t get to take weather breaks.”

Tommy took another look at the
approaching storm. The towering column of cloud, lit from within by flashes of
lightning, suddenly seemed so much closer.

We’ve got time, he told
himself, not quite as sure as when he’d said it out loud a few moments ago. Then
he said, “I’ll do the drop, you guys do the sweep. Break…now.”

Tuttle and Clinchmore banked hard
and pulled away, reversing direction while diving lower to get into attack
position. Tommy orbited as he prepared to dive-bomb the highway, targeting what
appeared to be the command element of the German column: a collection of small
vehicles—probably kübelwagens—and larger trucks. Since experienced
troops and vehicle drivers scattered when they were about to be bombed, Tuttle
and Clinchmore would sweep in right behind his bombs, one over each shoulder of
the highway, making a low strafing or rocket pass as needed. There would be no
safe haven on or off the road for the Germans.

“Blue Team in position,”
Tuttle reported.

Tommy throttled back, nosed Eclipse
over, and began the downhill run. He was focused on only two things: keeping
the gunsight’s pipper on the truck he’d picked as the aiming point and the
altimeter as it wound down like a clock running rapidly backward.

Seven thousand…six thousand…five
thousand…four thousand…three—

“Bombs away.”

He pulled the stick back with
gentle urgency and shoved the throttle forward. A prime target in level flight
now at 1500 feet, it was time to make good his escape. Somebody had to
be shooting at him, even if he couldn’t see it. He banked hard right, away from
the highway and the coming storm.

There was a sharp thump…and
then another, like the sound of snowballs hitting a car. Or large-caliber
bullets hitting an airplane. Gingerly, Tommy moved the control stick, first
left and right, feeling Eclipse respond with gentle banks, and then back
and forth, feeling the nose rise and fall. All perfectly normal. Her
instruments reported normal readings, too. He checked for the tell-tale whiff
of smoke in the cockpit. Nothing.

Sounded like they hit the tail,
or maybe the aft fuselage. Everything feels okay—probably just tin damage.

Tuttle and Clinchmore were about
half a mile ahead. They slowed to let Tommy catch up. As he did, he could see
both planes still had their bombs underwing, as he expected. But the coming
storm left them little time to climb back to altitude for another dive-bombing
run. “You guys got enough fifty cal for another low-level pass?” he asked.

“Just barely,” Tuttle replied.

“Then let’s do it. Jettison the
bombs in the general direction of the Krauts first.”

The bombs dumped, they turned back
for one more attack on the German column. The low sky to the southwest had
turned almost black from shafts of torrential rain. The low-hanging base of the
thundercloud was a deathly gray, morphing slowly to sun-bleached white at a top
so high no airman could reach it. Within and below the cloud, lightning flashed
like the handiwork of vengeful gods.

Darkness at ground level made the
Germans almost impossible to see from their cockpits. The wind blew fiercely
from right to left across their path of attack, constantly trying to blow the
jugs off their target lines.

But they pressed the attack in a
ragged line abreast, firing burst after burst until their guns were empty. When
they reached the head of the German column, driving rain turned their
windshields and canopies practically opaque.

Breaking right at five-second
intervals so as not to crash blindly into each other, they turned away from the
blinding storm. Within moments, the slipstream had wiped their cockpit glazing
clean. It was time to head for home.

Tommy could see Tuttle’s plane ahead
to the left, but there was no sign of Clinchmore. Radio calls to him received
no reply, only the crashes of static. They were in clear air now, the storm an
ominous sideshow off their right wingtips, flying a circuitous path around it
to get back to A-14. Climbing higher, Tommy could see for miles. But there was
no sign of Herb Clinchmore.

Sylvie waited out the storm in a
farmhouse, the unexpected but nonetheless welcome guest of the elderly farmer
and his wife. They offered her a bite to eat and a chance to wash up; the
reddish-gray grime from the bombed-out police headquarters earlier this morning
still clung to her skin and clothes. By the time the heavy rains and vicious
lightning of the thunderstorm had swept through, she was as refreshed as the
day’s ordeal allowed and ready to complete her walk to Combat Command Fox.
It was two hours until nightfall. She felt sure she could make the journey in
one.

From the crest of a small hill, she
could see one of the roads on which she’d led the ammunition convoy to CCF.
Surprisingly, no troops—Boche or American—were on it, so she took it.

I’ll make better time on the
road than plodding through these thickets.

Soon she was at the crossroad with
the sabotaged signpost, the one the maquis had altered to ambush the Boche
but had brought an American convoy to ruin as well. The switched signs still
hadn’t been put right, despite that American lieutenant’s assurances he’d get
it done.

Americans…they have such short
memories, if any at all.

She was still a few hundred yards
from the edge of the forest when a GI popped up from the high grass as if out
of nowhere, pointing a rifle in her face while demanding the password.

“I have no idea what your silly
password is,” Sylvie replied. “I am here to see Colonel Abrams. I was here just
last night, in fact, guiding your trucks to you. Please, take me to your
colonel.”

A sergeant materialized from a
well-camouflaged hide. “I remember her,” he told the rifleman. “She was the
jane with the bicycle. What brings you back to these parts, lady?”

“I have information for Colonel
Abrams.”

“What’s your name, miss?”

“My name is Sylvie Bergerac. Madame
Sylvie Bergerac.”

“Keep her here a minute,” the
sergeant told his trooper. Then he vanished back into their hide. She could hear
the whir of a field telephone being cranked and then his muffled voice
in conversation.

In a few moments, the sergeant
reappeared. “Go ahead, Bickerman,” he said. “Take
the lady to the CP. Then get your sorry ass right back here on the double.”

As Sylvie and her escort walked
past the outpost, she was startled to see it contained two more GIs manning a
machine gun. Although this spot had been in her field of view the last few
minutes, she’d been oblivious to the outpost’s presence.

They’re learning, she told
herself. Flawless concealment.

Inside CCF’s perimeter now, they
walked through Baker Company’s position. Sylvie came face to face with Sean
Moon. “If it ain’t our favorite little French lady,” he said. “You just can’t
stay away, can you? Seen my brother?”

“I haven’t seen much of anything
since yesterday.”

“Well, if you do, tell him I said
to go fuck himself.”

Sylvie replied, “I think not,
Sergeant Moon. It would sound so much better coming from you.”

At the CP, Colonel Abrams was
surprised and delighted to see her. “Have you been inside Gacé, madame?” he
asked.

She told him of her odyssey. He was
amazed at how matter-of-fact her manner was as she listed the details.

Abrams asked, “Can you tell us the
German strength and disposition inside the town?”

“Of course. There can’t be more
than two or three companies of infantry left. Tanks number no more than six.”

“Maybe that’s why the aerial photos
showed so little,” Abrams said. “There’s just not much to show.”

“I can also tell you of the Boche
at Nonant-le-Pin, if that will help.”

When she told him that village
contained nothing but a company of third-rate infantry, Abrams sent a staff
officer running to the radio to relay that intel to 4th Armored.

“Not sure why, but they’ve been
poking around Nonant for hours,” the colonel said. “Now maybe they can just
steamroll the place and get their tails up here. Once again, Madame Bergerac,
your help has been invaluable. What are your plans now?”

“I’d like to get back to Alençon,
if I could, mon colonel.

“Consider it done. We’ve got an
ambulance headed down there within the hour. You’re welcome to ride along.”

“Thank you, mon colonel. But
if I may—and I know I’ve asked this before—may I ask you again to be merciful
with the town of Gacé?”

“Your grandmother?”

“Yes…among others.”

“I give you my word, Madame
Bergerac. My men will be as merciful as the Germans permit.”

“That is all I ask, mon colonel.”

At an RAF airfield just south of Caen,
the senior officers had just sat down to supper in their elegant chateau when
an agitated intelligence officer burst into the dining room. “Sir,” he
addressed the group captain, “excuse the intrusion, but Taffy Flight
reports attacking an armored unit in the vicinity of Gacé that identified
itself on the wireless as a Yank unit.”

“And what is your assessment of
that claim, Leftenant?” the group captain asked before taking another
sip of wine.

“We feel it’s just another German
ruse, sir, especially considering how far it is beyond Monty’s stop line.
A very well-executed one, though.”

“Was Taffy’s attack a
success?”

“A brilliant success, sir. Numerous
armored vehicles destroyed. One Typhoon was lost, unfortunately, shot down by
vicious flak.”

“Ahh, bad luck,” the group captain said.
As he sliced into his steak, the product of freshly butchered cattle his
officers’ mess had appropriated from a nearby farm, he added, “Well-executed
ruse or not, Leftenant, it wasn’t good enough to fool this command. Tell
your shop to keep up the good work.” He then told Taffy Flight’s
squadron leader, “And give your boys a hearty good show, as well,
Oliver.”

When the intelligence officer was
almost to the door, the group captain called after him. “We are planning to hit
those faux Yanks again, are we not, Leftenant?”

“Yes, sir. As soon as possible.”

Chapter Thirty

ALLIED GROUND FORCES DIRECTIVE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

14 AUG 44/1900 HRS

TO:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

COPY (FOR INFO):

SHAEF (EISENHOWER);
HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY; DEMPSEY--2ND
BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY; CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND
TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC; BRERETON--9TH AIR FORCE

RE YOUR STATUS REPORT OF 1800/14 AUG,
YOU ARE AGAIN REMINDED TO HOLD YOUR UNITS ALONG THE DESIGNATED FLERS-ARGENTAN
LINE. 21ST ARMY GROUP CONTINUES ITS APPROACH TO THAT LINE FROM THE
NORTH AND WILL BE IN POSITION WITHIN 48 HOURS TO COMPLETE THE ENCIRCLEMENT OF
GERMAN 7th ARMY.

DO NOT--REPEAT, DO NOT--MOVE NORTH OF
THE LINE DESIGNATED FOR YOU. THE CHANCES FOR FRATRICIDE COMMITTED BY YOUR LESS
BATTLE-HARDENED TROOPS WHEN EXECUTING A PINCER MOVEMENT REMAINS A GREAT RISK
WITHIN THIS COMMAND.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

General Omar Bradley, 12th
Army Group Commander, threw down the directive from Montgomery in disgust.
“Bullshit,” he said to his chief of staff. “Patton’s just told us Monty’s boys
aren’t even past Falaise yet, so forty-eight hours, my sweet ass. The Germans
will be long gone by then, and we’re sitting here with our thumbs up our asses
on this damn line of his, waiting for him to play the big hero.”

He tried to say out loud that last
sentence in Monty’s directive with all the mocking inflection of a British
accent he could muster, but as he got to fratricide by your less
battle-hardened troops, the words dissolved on his tongue like a bitter
pill.

“Bullshit,” Bradley repeated.
“Absolute bullshit. Who the hell does he think he is? If Ike wasn’t so scared
shitless of Winston Churchill, none of this would be happening.”

Chapter Thirty-One

The thunderstorm had slowed 4th
Armored to a crawl on the highway to Nonant-le-Pin, delaying their arrival on
its outskirts until twilight. Armed with the intelligence Sylvie had provided
Colonel Abrams, though, taking the village was breathtakingly easy. A single Sherman
rolled down the deserted and still rain-slicked main street, only to be
confronted by a kübelwagen that had raced up in front of a church. When
they saw the tank before them, the three German soldiers in the vehicle
hesitated for a moment, as if not quite sure what to do next, and then lit the
crude gasoline bomb they’d made from a wine bottle. The GIs in the tank were
far more certain what to do: they riddled the kübelwagen with the
bow-mounted .30-caliber machine gun until the three occupants were dead and
their vehicle turned into a mighty bonfire.

When the squad of GI infantrymen
accompanying the Sherman found the doors of the church barred from the outside,
they broke those doors open, liberating the townspeople inside who’d been
seconds from incineration. It didn’t take much deduction to know the flaming
wine bottle full of gasoline was meant to torch the church and its occupants.

In short order, the lead element of
4th Armored rounded up the rest of the hundred-odd Germans in the
village, who were all too eager to surrender. The German commander—a hauptmann
whose attempts to sneer at his captors were foiled by the facial tremors of
one scared for his life—was asked by an American major why his men were trying
to burn civilians alive.

His reply: “They must be made to
pay for dishonoring my brave soldiers.”

The American major looked at the
sorry collection of terrified teenagers and old men in Wehrmacht uniforms being
herded away to a POW collection pen. “Your men aren’t brave,” he told the hauptmann,
“they’re just lost sheep being led around by murdering pieces of shit like
you.”

By the time General Wood’s jeep
made it to the village center, it was nearly dark. “We’ll stay here for the
night,” he told his staff. “Tell CC Fox to hang on until morning.”

Tommy felt nothing but defeat as he
and Tuttle touched down at A-14. Skirting the thunderstorm to get home had
given him too much time to dwell on the day’s events: I’ve lost two of my
guys in one day. Do I even know what the hell I’m doing as a flight
leader?

Still, a voice in his head was
telling him, It’s not your fault. It wasn’t you who got target fixated and
flew Rider’s plane into the ground. He did that all by himself. And
Clinchmore…well, you’ve got no idea what happened to him yet.

I don’t think the storm got him,
though. Me and Jimmy came through it okay. Still, how’d he go down without us
knowing?

His dejection turned to elation and
then puzzlement as he and Tuttle taxied past Clinchmore’s plane, safe and
perfectly intact on the ramp. Eclipse’s prop had barely stopped spinning
when Tommy asked Sergeant McNulty, “Lieutenant Clinchmore…how long has he been
back?”

McNulty, his eagle eyes scanning Tommy’s
airplane, didn’t answer the question. Instead, he puffed up with mock
indignation and asked, “Why the hell has my airplane got holes in its tail,
Lieutenant? Big ones, too, dammit. You’re gonna have my tin-peckers up
all night again, ain’t you?”

“Yeah, real sorry about that. Now
how about answering my question about Lieutenant Clinchmore?”

“He’s been back about twenty
minutes, give or take, sir.”

“Is he okay?”

“He walked away on his own two
shaky legs. I guess that makes him okay.”

McNulty called to the mechanic
working in the cockpit of Clinchmore’s ship. “What do you think, Sparky…anything
wrong over there?”

Sparky—the nickname given to
all the squadron’s radio technicians—replied, “Ain’t a damn thing wrong with
this set, Sarge. It’s working perfectly. I’m talking to ground stations five
miles from here, for cryin’ out loud. Airborne, he could’ve worked stations
fifty or sixty miles away, easy.”

“Wait a minute,” Tommy said.
“Clinchmore said there was something wrong with his radio?”

“I don’t know none of the perpendiculars,
Lieutenant…I mean, I ain’t his crew chief, am I?—but he did collude
that his radio wasn’t working up to speculation.

That’s a record, even for
McNulty, Tommy told himself. Three abuses of the King’s English in one
sentence. But malaprops aside, what his crew chief had just divulged was
interesting fare.

Colonel Pruitt, the squadron C.O.,
thought it interesting, too. He told Tommy, “I think you’d better remind your pilots
that there are SOPs you follow when your radio craps out. Cutting and running
isn’t one of them. Get to the bottom of what happened and advise me.”

“Will do, sir,” Tommy replied, “as
soon as I find him.”

Herb Clinchmore hadn’t even bothered
to debrief once back at A-14. Tommy retraced his movements from Operations to
his quarters, a tent Clinchmore shared with three other pilots. Only one of
them was there. He said his tentmates had left for Alençon in a jeep five
minutes before.

That’s convenient, Tommy
thought, because that’s where I’m headed, too.

The streets of Alençon were crowded
with GIs looking for alcohol and women. The ambulance driver followed Sylvie’s
directions, snaking through the milling throngs until she told him to halt in
front of Papa’s House. He knew the place well. He’d frequented it
himself.

“You live here, ma’am?” he
asked.

“That’s not so surprising, is it,
Private? Considering the man everyone calls Papa is my actual father.”

“Well…it’s just…just that—”

“Just what, Private? That it’s a
whorehouse?”

Even in the darkness she could tell
he was blushing. She said goodbye with a chaste kiss on his cheek and stepped
from the ambulance. The line of GIs awaiting admittance parted like the Red Sea
for her entrance.

She went first to the back room
that was Papa’s office. After kisses of welcome, her father wrapped her
in his arms and said, “Well, my prodigal daughter returns once again, praise
God. You look a bit tattered, little girl, like you’ve been off playing war
again. Did you win it single-handedly this time, too?”

“Not quite, Papa.” She decided to
spare him the details of her brief imprisonment and lucky escapes for now.
Instead, she asked, “Have you seen my husband?”

Papa rummaged through a desk
drawer. When he found what he was looking for, he handed it to her, saying,
“Here…he left you a note.”

Some women would have burst into
tears reading what Bernard had written. Sylvie just smiled, breathed a sigh of
relief, and stuffed the note in the pocket of her skirt.

“My husband, along with all the
other young men of the maquis, has been called into the French Army,”
she said. “We knew that was coming from the day de Gaulle started referring to
the Resistance as the French Forces of the Interior. He’ll be leaving in
the morning for induction at Le Mans.”

“Should you not go to him, child?
Show him some tenderness and mercy on his last night?”

“I’m sure he’s quite busy saying
goodbye to his many lovers. I think it’s better I wish him good riddance, at
least for now.”

“I can’t say I blame you, little
girl. I never did understand why you married that communist scumbag.”

“For the thousandth time, Papa,
Bernard is not a communist.”

“A man is who he associates with,
my child.”

“I’m so tired of arguing about
this. Let’s just call my marriage a romantic mistake in the confusion of war,
Papa. To hell with him. Right now, what I need most is a bath and some clean
clothes.”

Tommy found Herb Clinchmore at Café
Madeleine, already under the influence of the alcohol he’d slugged down.
When asked why he returned to base without so much as a wing waggle, Clinchmore
replied with a slurred, “I don’t think I like your tone, Moon.”

“Just answer the damn question,
Herb. You work for me, remember?”

Clinchmore began to mumble
something about the radio.

“There was nothing wrong with your
radio, Herb. I was there when the radio tech checked it out.”

“I’m the goddamn pilot, not some
little greaseball wrench bender. If I say the radio didn’t work, it didn’t
fucking work.”

“Radios don’t fix themselves, Herb.
And did you forget the procedures for flying with a radio out?”

Clinchmore was getting loud and
attracting attention. “You know, Half, I don’t have to take this shit
from you, you little pipsqueak. If you want to have me court-martialed, go
right ahead. I’m betting no court in this man’s army is gonna convict a pilot
for bringing his fucked-up plane home safe and sound.”

“You want a court-martial, Herb?
That can be arranged. I’d say you’re racking up a pretty impressive list of
charges right now.”

“You don’t have the balls, Tommy,”
Clinchmore replied, still louder. “And everyone knows you’re all sweet on those
fucking ground pounders and how you’re all fucked up because you got a brother
down there and how that’s been affecting your judgment and all. Well, I’m here
to tell you, if you don’t fly, you ain’t shit. I don’t give a fuck about any of
them ground pounders. The only ass I care about is—”

Clinchmore’s words were cut off by
the beefy hand of an infantry lieutenant clamped around his throat. That hand
jerked him from the chair, spun him around, and was now cocked to deliver a
killer jab to the drunken pilot’s startled face. Behind the infantryman, a
crowd of fellow ground pounders had gathered, eager to join in and do a
little pounding of a different kind.

“Hang on there, buddy,” Tommy said
to Clinchmore’s assailant. “This isn’t your fight.”

“Him and his big fucking mouth just
made it my fight, pal.”

Everyone knew Herb Clinchmore was a
split second away from being beaten to within an inch of his life. The bar
owner and his bouncers were already moving in to break up the imminent mauling.
They liked the whopping increase in business the Americans brought. Too much
fighting on premises would cause the Army’s Provost Marshall to designate Café
Madeleine off limits to GIs.

But it was a woman’s voice which
provided the antidote to the poisoned atmosphere. “Mes amies,” Sylvie Bergerac
pleaded, “isn’t it enough that you have to fight the Boche? Can’t you
see this is not the time for fighting? It is the time for drink, for
fellowship…and to spend some time around the corner at Papa’s House in
the warm comfort of a woman.”

Her words worked like a soothing
salve. They gave Tommy the second he needed to get Clinchmore out of the bar
alive. His two tentmates were already out in the street, having fled the moment
they saw the odds stacked badly against anyone wearing aviator’s wings.

“Get him the fuck out of here,”
Tommy told them. “If anybody’s going to kill him, I’ve got first dibs.” There
was no argument from Clinchmore’s tentmates as they scuttled him off down the
street.

Tommy walked back inside the
pacified café. Sylvie was sitting at the bar, chatting with the owner. She
beckoned him to join them.

“Lieutenant Tommy Moon, I’d like to
introduce the proprietor, my uncle Honoré,” she said in English.

Tommy shook his hand, wondering if
there’d be any glimmer of recognition from the night before, when this same man
had claimed not to know her and thrown him out of the bar, to boot. But there
was none.

In French, Tommy asked, “Don’t you
recognize me? I was in here last night, looking for Sylvie.”

The uncle smirked as he replied,
“Americans all think they are so unforgettable. But at least he speaks almost
intelligible French.”

“Be nice, Uncle. This one is a
gentleman.”

His smirk turned to a smile. “Ahh,
she likes you, airman. Be careful, before she steals your wallet as well as
your heart. Now, if you two will excuse me, I have a business to look after.”

“What did he mean by that, Sylvie?”

She smiled and said, “Uncle Honoré
is always teasing me about how I drum up business. He says I have a nose for
money.”

“Yeah, I noticed when you broke up
that fight, you managed to hawk the bar and Papa’s House all in the same
sentence.”

“Hawk?” she asked. “What
does that mean?”

“Promote…build up.”

“Voilà,” she replied,
smiling triumphantly.

“And by the way, thanks a lot for
doing that.”

“Doing what, Tommy?”

“Breaking up the fight.”

She shrugged, like it was something
she did 10 times a day. “Come, Tommy. Let’s get you another drink and find a quiet
place to talk.”

Tucked at a table for two in a dark
corner of the bar, she said, “I saw your brother this afternoon—”

“You saw Sean? Where? Is he okay?”

“Near Gacé. And yes, he is well.”

“Wow, that’s great! My brother’s
okay! But what the hell were you doing in Gacé?”

She told him of leading the
ammunition convoy to CCF, of visiting her grandmother, her capture by the
Gestapo…and her liberation courtesy of an American bomb.

For a moment, Tommy was stunned
into silence. He finally managed to ask, “The place you were being held…you
said it was the police station?”

“Yes.”

“On the grand-rue?”

“It’s not a large town, Tommy.
There is only one police station.”

He fell back into silence again.
She watched the expression on his face change from surprise, to guilt, to
horror, and back to guilt again.

“It was your plane, then?”

“It…it must’ve been.” He felt—and
looked—like he’d just confessed to breaking every one of the Ten Commandments.
The feeling lasted the few seconds it took her to lean across the table and
kiss him full on the mouth, a deep, open-mouth kiss that felt wonderful and
deliciously guilty. In the back of his mind, a chorus of priests and nuns from
his school days in Brooklyn ranted on and on about the first step on the path
straight to hell being the French kiss.

Like they’d ever know.

She pulled him to his feet and
said, “Come with me, my savior.”

As they stepped from the Café
Madeleine, they came face to face with Sylvie’s husband, Bernard, his arm wrapped
around another woman. Both couples seemed to freeze in place as husband and wife
exchanged looks of contrition without any hint of apology. Their marriage
dissolved in one final glance of dismissal. And then both pairs made off in
opposite directions, just as their lives were doing.

Tommy knew Sylvie was leading him
to Papa’s House. He tugged her to a halt and said, “Nothing’s changed,
you know. You’re still married.” It sounded less a statement of fact than an
attempt to convince himself.

She pulled him close and replied,
“You’ve used that excuse already, Tommy. You’ll have to think of another one.”

But as their mouths melded into
another exquisite kiss and their bodies pressed tightly together, she could
feel he’d already stopped thinking.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The field telephone from Listening
Post One-Eight clattered its muted ring as the call came in to CCF’s CP.
“We’ve got company coming,” the sergeant at the LP reported in a hushed voice.
“No idea how many. Not enough moonlight to see good.”

The captain at the CP asked, “Which
road are they on?”

“I’m not real sure. They may not
even be on a road. They’re going slow. I’m guessing they’re moving at the pace
of foot traffic.”

The captain told his runner. “Get
Colonel Abrams, on the double.”

Abrams was at the CP within a
minute. “Which LP is reporting?” he asked.

“One-Eight, sir.”

“Hmm…the south side,” Abrams said,
his eyes glued to the dimly lit map. “How much you want to bet this is the
remnants of that infantry division our flyboys beat up right before the storm?”

“I’d say it’s a real good bet,
sir,” the captain replied. “But remnants or not, I’m worried if they’re
not on either road they could be walking right into us.”

“Yeah,” Abrams replied. “I see your
point. Take an artillery FO with you and get out to the LP. We may have to
light them up.” Then he told the operations sergeant, “Tell every unit the
shit’s about to hit the fan.”

His words couldn’t have been more
prophetic. No sooner were they spoken than another phone in the CP began to
ring. It was Captain Newcomb on the line from the west side of the perimeter.
He reported, “We’ve got heavy engine noise from Gacé. Sounds like the Krauts
might be on the move.”

The phone from the tankers on the
north side rang, too. “We hear vehicles...sounds like a lot of them. Can’t tell
yet if they’re moving across our front or toward us.”

Only the infantry and artillery on
the east side of the perimeter had nothing to report.

Colonel Abrams said, “We’re either
about to get hit on three sides, or there’s a mass exodus of Germans passing us
by.”

“Should we fire the illum now,
sir?” the operations sergeant asked.

“Negative, negative,” Abrams
replied. “Let’s let the darkness be our friend a little bit longer.”

It only took a few minutes for the
darkness to change from friend to enemy. “I can hear them breathing,” the sergeant
at LP 1-8 whispered into his field phone. “I think they’re going to pass just
west of the LP. A hundred yards away, more or less. They sound like they’re on
an admin stroll or something. I can hear ’em yakking, like they don’t have
a clue we’re here.”

“That’ll put them right smack in
front of our west sector,” Abrams said, “in an open field with no cover or
concealment, except for those few tank carcasses. Ask him if he can tell how
many there are now.”

The LP sergeant’s reply: “I have no
fucking idea. I’m seeing a lot of silhouettes and hearing a lot of boots
shuffling along. Could be fifty…could be five hundred. I don’t know. Permission
to pull back?”

“Permission granted.”

“So what’s the plan, sir?” the
operations officer asked Abrams.

“We’re going to let them march
right in front of us and then cut them down.”

The colonel could tell that wasn’t
what the operations officer was expecting to hear. “What would you propose
instead, Major? Let them pass? Maybe try and capture them?”

“No, no…of course not, sir. But what
about the tanks in Gacé…and whatever it is we’re hearing on the north side?”

“What about them, Major? If they
come out to fight, we fight them. If they try to break out, we try and kill
them. Get the preplanned fire missions laid in on the artillery and mortars. Just
make damn sure nobody starts shooting until I say so.”

Midway down the western side of
CCF’s perimeter, Sean Moon was poised on Eclipse’s .50 caliber as the
rest of his crew stood ready on her .30 calibers and main gun. The leading
element of the German infantry had just ambled across their field of fire,
looking more like phantoms in the darkness than human forms. Sean offered a
silent plea: Let’s not wait too damn long now and let them get away. Just a
couple minutes more and we’ll have a maximum kill zone. They won’t know what
hit them. This is gonna be fucking slaughter.

Seconds seemed like minutes,
minutes like hours, as the unsuspecting Germans trooped past. Yet, with the
enemy practically close enough to hit with a rock, the GIs waited as ordered.

Yeah, keep ’em coming, Sean
thought. I can hear the vehicles crawling along in the column now, too.
Nothing but light trucks, thank God.

A whispered command over the radio:
“Stand by for illum. Hold your fire. Repeat—hold your fire.”

Sean could hear the dull ploompf
of the mortars firing the illumination rounds. Let’s see what the Krauts do
when they hear that. Do they freeze in place or do they run?

The Germans did neither; they kept
walking. No sooner had the flares begun to pop high over their heads, bathing
the startled Germans in their pale, surreal light, than the command spilled
from CCF’s radios: “COMMENCE FIRE.”

Whether they froze or ran made
little difference now. A hail of machine gun bullets from two companies of
tanks sliced them down in the open field like wheat at harvest. The only
direction for them to run was west, toward Gacé. But there was no outrunning
the grazing fire of all those machine guns. Some threw up their hands; it was a
futile gesture. There would be no mercy in the vagaries of night. Bullets
accepted no surrender.

In less than a minute, it was over.
As the killing zone fell dark again and the American machine guns fell silent,
the only sounds on the still night air were the wails of dying Germans lying in
the field and the distant growl of tank engines coming from Gacé.

“I think those tanks are moving
out,” Captain Newcomb reported over the field telephone to Abrams’ CP. “Can’t
tell which way they’re going, though. Request we light them up.”

Colonel Abrams agreed. In less than
30 seconds, the artillery fired a spread of illumination rounds to light the
highways running north and east out of Gacé, some two miles from CCF’s
position. Binoculars pressed to their eyes, both the colonel and Newcomb watched
five tanks assemble on the north side of town. They appeared to have no
interest in engaging CCF.

“They’re running,” Abrams said. “If
Madame Bergerac’s info is right—and when hasn’t she been right?—that’s all the
armor they have in Gacé.”

“Shall we engage them with
artillery, sir?” the operations officer asked.

“I’d like to, Major. I really would.
But I don’t think we’ll do much damage to them at this distance. They’re sure
as hell not going to stand still while we shoot them.”

Sean Moon entered the CP. “Begging
your pardon, sir, but Captain Newcomb told me to come talk to you. I’ve got an
idea how to take out those tanks leaving Gacé.”

“Go ahead, Sergeant,” Abrams
replied. “Let’s hear it.”

“I think I can take them by
surprise, sir,” Sean began. “I’ve got two jeeps already lined up with enough
gas in ’em to cover about ten miles, plus five GIs and all those panzerfausts
we picked up last night. We can intercept them here”—he poked the map at a
point on the north highway a few miles down the road—“and set up an ambush. If
these Kraut rockets are as good as everyone thinks they are, we can knock out
all those tanks before they know what hit them.”

Abrams wasn’t convinced. “How are
you going to find that spot in the dark, Sergeant?”

“There’s a trail out of these woods
that heads that way, sir. It’s got to go to the highway…and if it
doesn’t, we’ll take the jeeps overland. It’s pretty easy terrain around here,
and I can sure as hell read a compass. We’ll be moving faster than the tanks
over a more direct route, so we’ve got a little bit of time to play with. And
they’ll never hear the jeeps over the noise of their own engines.”

“All right,” Abrams said, “let’s
assume you get where you want to be. Have any of you ever used a panzerfaust
before?”

“Yes, sir. Me and Sergeant Algood
fired a couple of captured ones for practice when we were back in the Cotentin.
It’s pretty simple, sir. Simpler than a bazooka, even. No wires to screw with.
Just point, shoot, and then chuck the launch tube away.”

“And you’re actually volunteering
to lead this ambush, Sergeant Moon?”

“I never volunteer for shit, sir.
But it’s my idea, so I guess I’m the guy to lead it. And I figure us tankers
know where to hit Kraut armor better than some infantry-types, anyway.”

Colonel Abrams looked around to
gauge the reaction of his staff. Only the operations officer looked skeptical.
“If you’ve got something to say, Major, say it fast. We’re running out of
time.”

“I’m worried about those vehicles
we heard to the north, sir. We don’t know what they are or where they’re going.
If they’re coming to reinforce the ones leaving Gacé, our men just might end up
caught between them.”

Sean replied, “I like my chances in
the dark all the same, Major.” Then he checked his wristwatch and asked Abrams,
“What’s it going to be, sir? I’ve got to get moving if I’m going at all.”

Abrams patted Sean on the shoulder
and said, “Do it, Sergeant. And good luck to you. Just do me one favor…take
some bazookas for backup.”

“With all due respect, sir, we’ll
be carrying enough as it is. So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll leave those
stovepipes behind.”

Just as Sean suspected, the forest
trail led them straight to the highway. The narrow ribbon of pavement—a darker
shade of gray than the surrounding fields in the colorless night— meandered
like a calm river across the rolling countryside. The GIs stashed the two jeeps
behind a patch of scrawny trees which wouldn’t have provided much in the way of
concealment in daylight. But this was the middle of the night; though only 50
yards from the highway, the jeeps were as good as invisible.

Once they shut off the jeeps’
engines, they could hear the rumble of the tanks moving slowly up the highway,
still hundreds of yards to the south. “Looks like we got here just in time,”
Sean said. “Now listen up…me and my guys will take the other side of the road
and spread out good. When the lead tank gets even with this trail here, my guys’ll
knock out the first and last tank. As soon as we do that, Sergeant Algood’s
team will take out the three in the middle from this side of the road. Got
that?”

The five men nodded.

“Remember what I said about where
to hit them bastards,” Sean continued. “No matter what type they are—and you
may not be able to tell that for sure in the dark—hit ’em high on the hull just
aft of the turret. If you happen to end up behind one, put it right up her ass.
Do not waste rounds shooting at the front. If they’ve got shit hanging off the
sides and turret for extra armor, hit it twice. The first one will knock
all that shit off. Then you’ll have a clean target for the second shot. We’ve
got a dozen of these panzerfausts—that’s two per tank with two in
reserve if we need ’em. We’ll be too fucking close to miss, so don’t waste
them. And for God’s sake, don’t shoot them in the sprockets or road wheels.
That’ll stop them from moving but all their guns’ll still work. Go for the
quick, clean kill. Those crews’ll be driving with the hatches open, for sure,
so blow them right out of them fucking hatches like Fourth of July fireworks.
Any questions?”

There were none.

“Oh, yeah…one more thing. Don’t
fuck up, okay?”

Once satisfied Algood’s team was
positioned properly on the near side of the road, Sean led his men across the
pavement. Still unseen in the darkness, the blacked-out German tanks lumbered
closer, the clanking and squeaking of their tracks now as plain as the
thrumming of their engines. Slow going with no headlights, Sean told
himself. Take your time, Adolph…we got all fucking night.

But it didn’t take quite that long.
In a few minutes, the Germans rolled into the gauntlet. The GIs held their
fire—just like they’d been told. As soon as the leader—a Panther tank—was even
with the trail, Sean let his rocket fly.

The tank commander, standing
steadfast and imperious in his turret hatch, began screaming to his crew when
he saw the glow of the rocket streaking toward him. But there was no time for
the Germans to convert commands into action; the trap was sprung. The sound of
the rocket’s explosion on impact with the aft hull was surprisingly weak, but
its effect was surprisingly deadly.

The rest of the GIs let loose with
their panzerfausts. In an instant, the first four tanks brewed up and
spit their flaming crews through the hatches just like the fireworks display
Sean had envisioned.

But the last tank in the column—another
Panther, obvious from its close silhouette—caught a break. It was lagging
behind the one before it, and that gave PFC Farley a
longer shot with a poor angle, more head-on than lateral. Still trying to
target the vulnerable spot on the aft quarter of the hull Sean had dictated, his
first rocket missed, skimming over the tank and flying harmlessly into the
night.

The glowing trail of the rocket
motor painted a line in the air that pointed back to Farley like an accusing
finger. The tank turned toward him; the crew ducked into their hatches and
buttoned up. His second rocket struck the front armor, exploded, but hurt
nothing other than the tankers’ eardrums. Their machine gun fire raked the tall
grass, hitting Farley in the legs without their even knowing it.

They’d seen the rocket trails that
killed the four tanks in front of them, too, so they knew they faced a team of
killers lurking invisibly in the darkness. And they had no infantry support of
their own to keep those killers off their back. The tank lurched to a halt and
then reversed, backing away from the killing zone. She kept spitting machine
gun fire blindly to cover her escape.

“RAKOFSKY,” Sean called to his remaining
team member, “GIMME THAT FUCKING ROCKET AND GET FARLEY BACK TO THE JEEP! I’M
GONNA GET BEHIND THAT BASTARD.”

Sean sprinted through the
waist-high grass, his Thompson in hand, two panzerfausts slung over his
shoulder. He heard the staccato bursts of Thompsons from Algood’s team behind
him and thought: Maybe every crewman in those brew-ups didn’t get roasted
after all.

As he ran, he’d watch the turret
traverse and then dodge left or right to avoid its next burst of blind machine
gun fire. Forget the bow gun, he told himself. It can’t get me. Just
keep watching that fucking turret.

Running through a field in the dark
is always a risky game. Sean stumbled and fell several times, each one sending
his weapons clattering along the ground. With each tumble the tank’s lead on
him increased.

Gotta stop him…but it’s a bow
shot. All I can do from this angle is knock off a track.

Dropping to one knee, he fired a panzerfaust.
It hit and shattered the right track’s drive sprocket. The tank began to pivot
as the severed track fell off its road wheels. The pivoting stopped with its right
side facing Sean.

He fired his second—and
last—rocket. He was too close to miss that vulnerable aft quarter.

But even with its hull breached,
the tank refused to brew up. Someone was trying to crawl out of the commander’s
hatch. Sean sprayed the turret with Thompson fire. The crewman dropped back
inside.

Did I hit that son of a bitch…or
does he want to play hide and seek?

The turret began to swing Sean’s
way, but he had no trouble scrambling out of its field of fire.

I’ve got to smoke these bastards
out.

He climbed onto the rear deck,
pulled a thermite grenade from his belt, and stuffed it against a vent grille.

That oughta do it. Now we’d
better get our asses clear.

Sean caught up with Rakofsky, who
hadn’t made it far with the wounded and wailing Farley draped across his
shoulders. They watched as the thermite grenade began to do its job, its
intensely hot fireball melting its way through the tank’s ventilation system. “Anybody
still alive in there will be trying to get out in a second or two,” Sean said,
readying his Thompson.

The thermite grenade’s fire was
bathing the dying tank in light as bright as a welder’s torch. “No matter which
way they try to get out, we’ll see ’em, for sure,” Sean said.

They waited 10 seconds, 15, 20—and
then a man slithered from the driver’s hatch on the bow, slid down the glacis
plate on his belly, and hit the ground face first. He was trying to get to his
feet but not succeeding. At least not at first.

Sean leveled his Thompson at the
tanker. But then he jerked its barrel skyward.

“What the hell are you doing,
Sarge?” Rakofsky asked. “He’s dead meat.”

Sean didn’t reply. There was something
about this tanker. He couldn’t say what it was, precisely. Maybe it was the
fact the young man was short—very short. Like his brother. Maybe it was because
he’d been fighting to escape a fiery hell—just like a tanker would or a pilot
trapped in his burning cockpit would, too. Maybe it was the earnestness in his
face when, once on his knees, he raised his hands over his head and pleaded Kamerad!

Or maybe Sean Moon had had enough
killing for one night.

Flames were now licking from all
the Panther’s hatches. There couldn’t be anyone left alive inside. Slowly, Sean
approached the surrendering tanker.

“Careful, Sarge,” Rakofsky said, “it
could be some Kraut trick.”

“It ain’t no trick, Rak. This poor
fucker’s finished.”

He pulled the tanker to his feet
and led him away.

“I’ll bet this night didn’t go like
you planned,” Sean said to his prisoner as he prodded him toward the jeeps, not
knowing or caring whether he understood. “You watched your buddies get cooked
by your own weapons, and you—the sole survivor of this little fight—end up a
guest of Uncle Sam for the duration. Congratulations, pal, you just beat the
odds. But for the rest of us bastards, it’s just a matter of time.”

“Hey, Sarge,” Rakofsky called,
“speaking of a matter of time, you hear those engines?”

“Yeah, Rak, I hear them. That’s why
we’re getting the hell away from this road, on the fucking double. We need to get
Farley here to the doc but quick, too.”

They were halfway back to CC Fox
when Sean brought the jeep to a halt. Algood, driving the jeep behind, couldn’t
understand why.

“What the fuck’s the deal, Sean?”
Algood asked. “Ain’t we done enough for one night?”

“I want to see who’s making all
that noise. You take Farley and your guys back to Fox. And make sure you
loosen his tourniquet in five minutes. Don’t lose the Kraut, either.”

“Yeah, sure…but  Sean, you’re going
to be out of gas before you know it. This ain’t no time to play recon. Let’s
all just go the fuck home.”

“No can do. Home could turn into a
pretty shitty place if we let some Krauts waltz right in on us. Now load up
Farley and the Kraut in your jeep and get the hell out of here. That’s an
order.”

“That jeep’s gonna be pretty damn
full, Sean. Too damn full.”

“We’ve done worse. Get a move on.”

“Suppose the Kraut makes a run for
it?”

“He ain’t going nowhere, Algood.
Look at him…he’s happier than a pig in shit. He knows his war’s over.”

“I don’t know, Sean…he may have a
little accident or something on the way back.”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Algood.
He’s my catch, and we’re gonna turn him over to the S2 upright and breathing, so
keep your hands off. Now why are you still here?”

It didn’t take much driving to find
out what all the racket was. Sean parked the jeep behind a small hill, and then
he and Rakofsky climbed to its top. Half a mile to the north they could see the
shadowy outlines of at least two dozen German tracked vehicles, with long guns
mounted on their hulls. They weren’t tanks; they were tank destroyers.
Despite having to overcome the disorder of the darkness, the destroyers
were being noisily positioned as a defensive stronghold.

“Fuck,” Sean mumbled, “I think
they’re Ferdinands.”

“What the hell is that, Sarge?”

“A Tiger chassis with an
eighty-eight mounted on it. Never seen one before, just heard stories. They can
turn a Zippo inside out from way off.”

“But they’ve got no turret,”
Rakofsky said.

“Right,” Sean replied, “that’s
their weakness, just like our M10s. The crew’s got armored shields on the front
and a little on the sides, but they’re wide open on top to airbursts. Come
on…we gotta get to the radio.”

Back at the jeep, Sean unfurled his
map across the hood. “Okay, we’re here,” he said, marking the spot with a
pencil, “and they’re there.” Jotting down the coordinates, he went to
the jeep’s radio and called in the fire mission to CCF’s artillery. That call
ended with the following: “Tank destroyers with exposed crew. Shell HE, Fuze
Time, Adjust fire, over.”

“Stay with the radio, Rak,” Sean
said. “I’m going back up to the top. I’ll yell the corrections down to you.”

“How the hell are you gonna see
anything without illum rounds, Sarge?”

“I’ll do it by sound. Maybe if they
start running we’ll light ’em up. But for now, let’s not ruin the surprise.”

The first adjustment round seemed
at the perfect burst height—about 40 yards high—but a little long.

“Drop one hundred,” Sean said.

The next airburst was a little
short, just as Sean hoped it would be.

“Rak, tell ’em add five-zero, fire
for effect.”

For the next few minutes, the
Germans’ disorderly attempt to establish a position collapsed in the relentless
steel rain as Sean raked the artillery fire back and forth across their
position. A few crews abandoned their guns and ran. Some tried to drive their
vehicles away. A few made it; most didn’t.

After the last rounds fell, the
only sound was the murmur of idling engines from a few abandoned Ferdinands.
Sean thought about calling for some illumination rounds now and trying to
finish off those crewless vehicles with direct hits from HE rounds with Fuze Quick,
but he let the idea go.

There’s gotta be a few of them Krauts
still around who ain’t dead or dying. And I’ve been in one place too damn long
already.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Tommy awoke with a start and
checked his watch. Ahh, shit! It’s almost 0500. I’ve got to get back to
A-14.

Sylvie was still asleep beside him,
her naked form half-covered by the rumpled bedclothes. She stirred as he rolled
out of bed.

“Wait, Tommy,” she whispered. “I’ll
make you breakfast.”

Stepping into his trousers, he
replied, “I don’t have a lot of time.”

“That’s okay. We don’t have a lot
of breakfast, either.” She pulled on a robe and shuffled from the tiny bedroom.

In a few minutes, she returned, a
cup of bitter ersatz coffee in each hand. Handing one cup to him, she retrieved
a hunk of bread from the crook of her arm and handed that to him, too. Then she
sat on the bed, patting the mattress beside her in invitation. “Come back to
bed, lover,” she said with an inviting smile. “Talk to me before you run off.
Will you be flying today?”

“Yeah, probably.”

She waited for him to say more, but
he’d filled his mouth with bread.

“You don’t speak much in the
morning, do you, Tommy?”

He held up a finger as if to say wait
as his teeth worked on the chewy crust. When he finally got it all down, he
said, “Actually, there are a few things we need to talk about.”

“Like what?” she asked, hoping the quaint
Catholic morality he’d dismissed last night was not about to make a comeback.

She breathed a sigh of relief when
his first question was, “Why’d your uncle deny knowing you the other night?”

“Perhaps you would prefer every
stranger inquiring about a member of the maquis be given detailed
instructions where to find her?”

Tommy felt silly for asking. “No, I
suppose not,” he replied. “I should have figured that was the case.”

She tousled his hair and said, “I
think you are afraid that maybe I am a woman of great mystery—a prostitute, a
spy, an assassin—with many false names.” She threw her head back and cackled
with gusto. “I’m laughing at myself, Tommy, not you.”

He wouldn’t have cared if it was
directed at him. He’d never heard her laugh like that before. It sounded so
wonderful, so carefree.

With what she’d been through in
these years at war, he admired—no, he was jealous—that she could still
laugh at all. And he still knew so little about her. She may have been through
so much more he didn’t know about. Not yet, anyway.

He had another question. “With your
husband and all the others getting pulled into the Free French Army now, where
does that leave the maquis?”

“We knew this was coming for a
while, Tommy, ever since you Americans and British managed to not get thrown
back into the sea. True, now the maquis will more and more be nothing
but old men and young women, but we’ll still have our job to do behind the Boche
lines.”

“But you’re not behind the Boche
lines anymore, Sylvie.”

She smiled wistfully and replied,
“Today, perhaps. I cannot speak for tomorrow.”

Time was too short. He gulped the
rest of his coffee and said, “You’re safe now. Stay here in Alençon. Don’t go
doing anything stupid.”

Kissing him, she replied, “I never
do anything stupid, Tommy.”

She’d meant it to be comforting. He
found it anything but.

At the door, he told her, “If you
happen to see my brother again, tell him I’m going to kick his ass all the way
back to Canarsie.”

“I don’t understand, Tommy. Is that
a joke?”

“Not really. But don’t worry. He’ll
understand.”

“That little POW of yours is
singing like a canary,” Colonel Abrams said to Sean Moon. “According to him,
the Krauts got one hell of a FUBAR circus going on. They’re trying to
pull back and consolidate to keep us from closing off this gap, but we’re
creaming them every time they make a move—like bringing up those Ferdinands
you knocked out.”

“That’s the thing, sir,” Sean
replied. “We didn’t knock out the Ferdinands, just took out a lot of their
crews. I think we oughta go back there right now with a crate of thermite
grenades and put them all to the torch before more gunners show up and make
them operational again. I was just lining up some—”

“Whoa, Sergeant! Take it easy.
You’ve done enough for one night. Get yourself some chow and let someone else
do the demolition work. The infantry boys will handle it. And grab a little sack
time while you can.”

“Sleep, sir? I don’t think I’ll be
getting much of that. Why should today be different from any other? Anyway, I
want to check on my guy who got wounded.”

“Better hurry, Sergeant. I just got
the morning casualty report. Your man is Farley, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I believe PFC Farley’s war
is over. He’s being evacuated. Probably all the way back to the States. The doc
says he’s trying like crazy to save his legs, but…”

“Farley’s a fighter, sir. All us micks
are. He’ll make it.”

“Let’s hope so. By the way,
Sergeant…how do you rate the panzerfausts?”

“If I was an infantryman, sir, I’d
grab every last one I could and ditch the bazookas.”

The sun was up, and the few German
troops left in Gacé—little more than a company or two of infantry with no heavy
weapons support—capitulated quickly to the overwhelming force as CCF moved in
from the north and the rest of 4th Armored approached from the
south.

With 4th Armored came
the fuel tenders, a long-awaited blessing as dozens of CCF’s Shermans ran out
of gas as they swept the town’s streets clear of surrendering Germans. Colonel Abrams’
rolling stock would finally get their gas tanks filled, but slowly; the process
would take all morning as the scant fleet of tenders worked their way through
the thirsty tanks and trucks.

General Wood gathered his
commanders alongside the highway just north of Gacé. Spreading a map on the
hood of his jeep, he began, “Colonel Abrams, you’ve done one hell of a job up
here, despite your hands being tied for lack of fuel. Besides the forces you’ve
fought and destroyed around Gacé, your presence has forced the Germans pulling
back from the west to swing their retreat to the north. So, as Patton says,
we’re doing Monty a big favor by pushing the Krauts to him, instead of him
having to move his forces rapidly south to engage them.”

“Yeah, rapidly is the key
word there, sir,” Abrams added. “You know what they say: if you want something
done quickly, don’t give it to Monty.”

After the chuckling died down, Wood
continued, “But here’s the problem: General Bradley’s just had himself a fit
when Patton finally told him what we’ve been doing here. He went running to
Ike, and as usual, Ike’s hemming and hawing, trying to find a way to politic
his way out of the fact that we all just stepped on Monty’s toes in a big way
and Churchill’s going to climb up his ass. But Ike knows full well if he or
Brad orders us back to that silly stop line, we might as well kiss
goodbye our chance to finish off an entire German Army right here and now. And
of course, that means we’ll just have to fight them somewhere else—a whole lot
closer to their homeland, if not actually in their homeland, and for God
knows how long.”

An infantry colonel asked, “But,
sir, how is it possible Monty and the Brits don’t know we’re here?
They’ve been flying recon, haven’t they?”

Wood replied, “I think I’ll let
Colonel Abrams answer that one. Creighton?”

“My boys got attacked by the RAF
yesterday,” Abrams said. “We might’ve even shot one of them down. We rescued that
pilot, and he said they thought we couldn’t possibly be Yanks, as though
no one would have the balls to cross Monty’s line. I’ll bet they still don’t think
we’re Yanks.”

Wood added, “That’s probably very
true. In fact, Patton said Monty’s communique from last night was bragging
about a devastating RAF strike on a German armored unit just east of
Gacé. Gentlemen, they could only be talking about CC Fox. They were the
only sons of bitches there.”

“Where’s that pilot, anyway?” the
infantry colonel asked. “He knows better now. He could spill the beans on us.”

“Don’t worry,” Abrams replied.
“He’s convalescing in Alençon, at the field hospital there. And we’ll keep
him there as long as necessary.”

“So, gentlemen,” General Wood said,
“you’re probably wondering what all this means for our future plans. Well, I’m
here to tell you it don’t mean jackshit. While the politicians play their silly
games, Patton wants us to keep moving north until we meet up with some Brits—wherever
the hell they are—and close this trap. Then maybe we can end this fucking war.
After all his foot-dragging at Caen, we can’t afford another Montgomery
victory.”

Tommy made it to the flight line
just as Jimmy Tuttle was climbing into the cockpit of Blue Two. Sergeant
McNulty had Eclipse of the Hun armed, preflighted, and ready. Staring
down from his perch on her wing, the crew chief patted the freshly painted swastika—a
“kill” symbol—below the canopy rail. Then he said, “Don’t rush yourself none,
Lieutenant. The war’s gonna wait for certified knights of the sky like
you.” His voice dropped a few decibels before he added, “Irregardless
that it was just a li’l ol’ Junkers you knocked down.”

As he hoisted Tommy’s flight kit into
the cockpit, he added, “I figured you’d be a little late and all, busy as you
were with celebrating your kill and all that cherchez the femmes jazz.
Not to mention the drumming out of Lieutenant Clinchmore.” He pointed to Clinchmore’s
plane, sitting idle in its parking spot, as evidence. “It’s a shame. A perfectly
good airplane going to waste.”

“Wait a minute, Sergeant. Nobody’s drumming
out Lieutenant Clinchmore. Colonel Pruitt decided he might benefit from
some time with the ground pounders as an ASO—maybe get a little better
appreciation for what the guys he’s supposed to be helping are up against.”

McNulty gave him a sly smile and
replied, “I don’t suppose you made that preposition to the good colonel,
did you, Lieutenant?”

“You mean proposition?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

“Well then, Sergeant—maybe I did,
maybe I didn’t. And I’m depending on you to dispel any rumors among the
enlisted men about Lieutenant Clinchmore getting drummed out, is that
clear?”

“Absolutely, sir. Now let’s get you
airborne before them other squadrons steal all the good pickings.”

A note for Sylvie had arrived at Papa’s
House right after sunrise. She read it, burned it, and then began to pack
her musette bag.

Her father, passing in the hallway,
asked, “Taking a trip, little girl?”

She smiled, said nothing, and then
took her Welrod pistol from its hiding place in the wall. Placing it in the
bag, she said, “Papa, I need to borrow a bicycle.”

“Of course. Take Claude’s. May I
ask where you’re headed?”

He expected her answer: “No, Papa.
You may not.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

The morning sky was a crystal dome
of brilliant blue. It had seemed empty and tranquil when they first left the
ground, but once Blue Flight climbed above 3000 feet, it looked like
every aircraft in the American and British inventory was in the air, darting
about like the specks in a shaken snow globe.

Just so none of those planes are
Krauts, Tommy told himself.

The radio frequencies were buzzing with
constant exchanges between airmen and ground liaisons coordinating their fires.
On the receiving end of those bombs and shells, the retreating columns of the
German 7th Army—sandwiched in that 12-mile gap between Falaise and
Argentan—were being hammered by Allied artillery and air power. From the air,
it seemed the perfect representation of how this morning’s briefing had
summarized the grand strategy: bottle them up and let the artillery and Air
Force finish them off.

Except the Germans weren’t bottled
up quite yet. Despite enormous casualties and destruction of combat equipment,
they were still flowing slowly but steadily eastward, trying to reach the River
Seine and become part of a coherent defense which would deny the Allies Paris
and beyond.

For Tommy, Tuttle, and the other
pilots of the 301st, their business was some 16 miles farther east,
providing recon and flank protection for 4th Armored. The division’s
long, slender column poked north like a probing finger reaching for the
British, who were still too far away to touch.

The voice of Charlie Webster, ASO
with Colonel Abrams’ 37th Tank Battalion, was on the radio,
directing elements of the 301st—including Blue Flight—to an
area northeast of Gacé. German armored units were heading west—toward
the exodus of their comrades fleeing east—in an attempt to ensure their
breakout from the Allied trap.

This must be part of the Kraut
counterattack the brass have been worried about, Tommy thought. He had to
push the thought of last night with Sylvie from his head. But as he did,
though, another thought tried to take its place, a far less pleasant one: If
Webster’s calling the shots on Fourth Armored’s line of advance, that means
Sean’s outfit is in the lead again.

Webster transmitted, “Heavy armor
reported on the Gacé-Bernay highway. Repeat, heavy armor.”

That puts them on Fourth
Armored’s right flank, Tommy told himself as he glanced at the map on the
clipboard strapped to his thigh. Our guys are pushing straight north, up the
Gacé-Vimoutiers highway. That’s all they need—Kraut tanks hitting them
broadside, trying to slice their column to pieces.

They passed over Gacé and started
to descend, looking for the German armor Webster had called out. It didn’t take
long to find a column of tanks, half-tracks, and trucks stretching along the
arrow-straight Gacé-Bernay highway like an ominous dotted line, with one end
aimed straight at 4th Armored.

“Halfback One-four, this is Gadget
Blue,” Tommy called to Webster. “We got ’em, about two miles east of you.
Got to be at least fifty vehicles. Vector a couple of more flights this way. We’re
going to need some help.”

They flew abreast of the column to
its rear before reversing direction to attack. “Some of those half-tracks look
like they might be flakwagens,” Tommy said to Tuttle. “We’ll hit them
first. Looks like four or so in the front half of the line. I’ll take them, you
take the back half. Any trucks we take out in between will be a bonus.”

“Roger. You gonna use guns or
rockets, boss?”

“I think I’m going to save the
rockets for the tanks. Give them one more chance to see if they’re worth a
shit.”

They swept in low and fast, just a
hundred feet above the treetops, zigzagging up the highway to keep the flak
gunners’ sight pictures constantly shifting. Tuttle hung well back to give
himself a split second to dodge any explosions Tommy’s shooting might leave
directly in his path:

It’d be a crying shame to get
knocked down by flying chunks of the thing your buddy just blew up.

Attacking at such high speed, the
ground below was just a blur. Tommy did his best to align his gunsight with his
targeted halftrack, still hundreds of yards ahead. He squeezed the trigger on
his stick, tapping his rudder pedals left and right to sweep the road with .50 caliber.
The scene before him dissolved into a blurry canvas of dirt and pavement being
hurled into the air, bright flashes of bullets striking metal, licks of flame,
and moving shapes that could only be men running away from the vehicles being ripped
apart by API rounds.

He counted the four half-tracks
he’d assigned himself as they slipped beneath Eclipse’s belly and then
pulled hard left, clinging to the treetops to escape the German column’s fire. Am
I too low? he wondered. I don’t want to have to bring her home like Dunphy
did that time, with his prop tips all green and mangled from skimming trees.
That beat-up prop damn near shook the engine off her mounts.

But Eclipse’s big radial was
still snarling with her usual smoothness, all 18 cylinders working in perfect
harmony. Far enough away from the German guns now, Tommy climbed to get a good
look at what Blue Flight’s attack had done so far. He expected to see
Tuttle’s plane over his left shoulder, but there was nothing there.

“Blue Two from Leader,
where the hell are you?”

“I’m on your six, boss.”

Tommy checked the rear view mirror
on top of the windshield frame but could see nothing but a dull sheen. The
mirror had frosted over. Again.

“Get on my wingtip where I can see
you, Jimmy. Damn mirror’s fogged up again.”

“Yeah, what else is new? Coming up
on your right side. Looks like we’ve wreaked a little havoc down there, boss.”

Jimmy Tuttle’s last remark was
something of an understatement. Tall flames and thick black smoke were
billowing from the middle of the German column, a sure sign of burning fuel.
“One of us must’ve set a gas truck on fire or something,” Tuttle added.

“Yeah, great,” Tommy replied, “but
with the wind the way it is, that smoke’s going to ruin visibility if we attack
from the north or east. You see any flak?”

“Too busy to notice. I don’t think
anything hit me, though.”

“Me either. How about we go high
and do a little dive-bombing on the tanks up front? The smoke won’t bother us
then.”

“Tally-ho,” Tuttle replied.

It took a few minutes to climb to
8000 feet, where they’d start the dive-bombing run. From that altitude, the war
below seemed an abstract, nothing but plumes of wind-whipped smoke in a palette
of grays and black hugging the rolling hills, now flattened by the perspective
of height. The German column was almost invisible. The highway they drove on
was just a pencil line sketched through fields of brown and green.

“Hey, boss,” Tuttle transmitted,
“let me go first this time.”

“Sure. Have at it.”

“Okay, then. Meet you downstairs.”

Banking Eclipse left, Tommy
set up an orbit that would give him a clear view of Tuttle’s downhill run while
allowing himself to keep an eye on his own tail. That’s all I’d need: to get
jumped while I’m fat with bombs and rockets…and all alone.

By the time Eclipse
completed one circle, Tuttle had released his bombs, pulled out of the dive,
and was making his escape to the south. From Tommy’s perspective, the bomb
strikes were almost imperceptible: But they look damn close to the lead
tanks. Maybe he even hit one? Or at least came close enough to scare the crap
out of its crew?

“All yours, boss,” Tuttle reported.

Tommy rolled out of the orbit and
throttled back, ready to start his dive. There was something he always found so
unnerving—almost sacrilegious—about nosing over and starting down, as if he was
turning this magnificent flying machine into nothing more than a brick. But it
was the best way for a single-seat fighter to accurately deliver a bomb—provided
the plane and its pilot could withstand the merciless aerodynamic forces
involved in diving and pulling out. You know what they say, Tommy
reminded himself, if there’s one thing a jug can do, it’s dive. It had
better—because it certainly won’t climb. He swallowed hard and pushed the
stick forward, like he’d done so many times before.

Halfway down this roller-coaster
ride, Tommy was locked on his target: two tanks pulled up next to each other,
moving slowly if at all. Hell, if I can’t hit at least one of them, I’d
better turn in my wings.

He caught a quick glimpse of what
Tuttle’s bombs had done; a tank hull spewing smoke and flames was straddling
the road, its turret blown off and laying upside down on the roadside.

But this was no time to sightsee.
His own targets were rapidly filling his gunsight reticle. The wildly spinning
altimeter would pass through 3000 feet in a brief moment. He punched off the
bombs and began the pull-out, straining against the g-forces pushing him hard
into his seat.

Level at 1500 feet, he found his
wingman orbiting a few miles to the south. “Did you hear Halfback
calling us?” Tuttle asked.

“No, I was a little busy. What’s
up?”

“Don’t know. Something strange
going on. They’re calling for air-to-air help.”

“Any of the P-38s responding?
They’ve got top cover today.”

“Negative. They’re tied up.”

“Then let’s get over there.”

They picked up the Gacé-Vimoutiers
highway and flew north along 4th Armored’s column at 4000 feet, low
enough to give nervous GI gunners a clear view of the P-47’s distinctive
silhouette; high enough that those gunners probably couldn’t hit them. Not at
the speed they were traveling.

“Shit, we’ve got company,” Tuttle
said. “Check your three o’clock low.”

It took a few moments for Tommy to
fully grasp what he was seeing. There were what looked like a dozen fighter
aircraft—maybe more—below them, their mottled green wings and fuselages
difficult to see against the backdrop of the terrain. They seemed to be
swarming to attack the spearhead of 4th Armored.

“I think they’re FWs,”
Tuttle said, meaning the planes were Focke-Wulf 190s, the Luftwaffe’s
formidable multi-role fighter.

“No,” Tommy replied, “I don’t think
so. The noses aren’t right for FWs—too long. They’re Typhoons. It’s the
RAF.”

“Then they’re fucking lost, boss.
The bad guys are east of here.”

“Halfback One Four, this is Gadget
Blue. You got those Brits on the horn?”

“Negative. They don’t respond.”

“Swell,” Tommy replied. “Let me
try.”

He thumbed frantically through his
signals booklet to find the RAF’s frequencies. Tuning to one, the voices of
British pilots began to spill from his earphones, all sharing a common Taffy
call sign.

“Taffy Leader, this is Gadget
Blue Leader. We’re the P-47s just to your west. Do you copy? Over.”

“Hello, Gadget Blue,” came
the cheery reply. “Care to join us while we bash the Jerries down below?”

“Negative, negative, Taffy
Leader. Those are not Jerries. Repeat—they are not Jerries. The Krauts you
want to bash are a couple of miles east, on the Gacé-Bernay highway.”

“Gadget Blue…if they’re not Jerries
then who the bloody hell are they? There are no Yanks or frogs this far north.”

“And there are no Krauts who speak
English like they do, either. Did you ask them to authenticate?”

“Negative. We don’t ask the enemy
for permission to attack.”

“Look, friend,” Tommy pleaded,
“we’re all wasting gas like crazy up here for nothing. Try authenticating with
them. Is that too much to ask? Or are you big fans of own goals?”

“Perhaps I should ask you to
authenticate, friend.” All the cheer was gone from his voice.

“Go ahead. Lay it on me.”

The frequency fell silent. I
guess they switched over for a private chat, Tommy told himself.

Two of the RAF planes had climbed
to Blue Flight’s altitude and formed a Lufberry—a defensive
circle that made it difficult for any plane outside the circle to attack those
within.

Okay, Tommy thought, if
that’s the way they want to play it. He signaled Tuttle to form a Lufberry
of their own.

Taffy Leader was back on the
frequency. “Gadget Blue, authenticate mike victor.”

After a few more flips through the
pages of the signals booklet to find the day’s code sheet, Tommy had the
answer: “I authenticate queen.”

The cheerfulness returned to Taffy
Leader’s  voice as he said, “Very good, Gadget Blue. I suppose that
makes us officially mates.”

“Damn right it does. Now how about
doing the same for those boys down there?”

“Negative, Gadget Blue.
We’ll take your word for it. But this is highly irregular. Some Yank down
there’s asking for a good hiding from Monty.”

“How about we save the hidings
for the Krauts? Like I said, there’s that armored column a couple of miles east
that could stand another dose.”

“We’ll see what we can do. Cheers.”

All but two aircraft of Taffy
Flight turned and headed east. The two that didn’t flew away to the
northwest.

“Where do you think those two are
going?” Tuttle asked.

“I’m betting they’re heading home,”
Tommy replied. “Maybe they can’t wait to spill the beans on this highly
irregular situation they found.”

Webster was back on the frequency.
“Thanks for the help, Gadget Blue,” he said. “You guys still loaded for
bear?”

“Affirmative.”

He read Tommy the coordinates of
German tanks attempting to block the highway in front of 4th
Armored. “We don’t have a good line of sight on them. They keep ducking behind
a rise.”

“Mark the target line with willy
petes,” Tommy replied.

“Will do. Stand by.”

The radio fell silent for almost a
minute until Webster reported, “Shot, over.”

Tommy dropped her left wing to get
an unobstructed view of the target area. Fifteen seconds later, Webster said,
“Splash.”

Five seconds after that, two white
puffs appeared in the sky to the north, about a thousand feet below Blue
Flight’s altitude.

“Got it,” Tommy said. “Shut off the
artillery. We’re going in.”

“Time for some rockets, boss?”
Tuttle asked.

“Afraid so.”

Circling behind the target line in
the sky, Tommy counted eight tanks.

Where the hell did they come
from? Were they supposed to be the roadblock while those other guys we hit
sprung the ambush? Looks like the Krauts are throwing in the kitchen sink to
stop this trap from closing.

“Let’s work the line from both
ends,” Tommy said. “I’ll take left, you take right.”

“Roger, boss. How many you gonna
salvo?”

“Two at a time.”

In a shallow descent for the rocket
attack, Tommy lined up the left-most tank in his gunsight. I’ve got a clean
shot right up his ass, but he’s moving, dammit. Just so he doesn’t turn.

A little closer...a little
closer…Now!

Two rockets streaked from their
launcher tubes, one from each wing. He pulled Eclipse up and rolled her
left. As near as he could tell, no one was firing at him. With the target
hidden beneath the belly of his turning aircraft, all he could do now was pray
the rockets were on the mark.

Once Eclipse had come around
full circle, he could see they’d missed. The tank looked perfectly intact. And
it was still moving.

Tuttle’s luck wasn’t much better.
“Well, maybe I got it dirty a little,” he said. “Gonna try again.”

They made two more passes apiece until
the six launcher tubes on each plane were empty.

Not one of the German tanks was hit
by a rocket. What Blue Flight did accomplish, though, was to force those
tanks into 4th Armored’s field of fire, where rounds from artillery
and tank destroyers proceeded to chew them to pieces. But not before the
Germans had knocked out three Shermans.

“Close but no cigar with those damn
rockets,” Tommy reported to Webster. “Got something that needs strafing? That’s
all we’ve got left.”

“Negative. But maybe you could do a
little recon up north? See what else is in our way?”

“Roger. We can do that.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Blue Flight climbed to 5000
feet and headed north up the highway toward Vimoutiers. They’d have about 30
minutes for the recon Webster had requested before needing to return to A-14 and
refuel. But they could cover a lot of ground in those 30 minutes.

And as soon as I land, Tommy
vowed, they’re taking these fucking rocket launchers off this airplane. I’d
rather carry an extra bomb than those useless stovepipes. At least I can hit
something with that.

There wasn’t much to see at first.
As they flew farther north, the gently rolling terrain was becoming hillier,
almost mountainous in spots. If it looks craggy to me from way up here,
Tommy thought, the ground pounders are going to feel like they’re going up
and down Mount Everest…

And there’ll be more good hiding
places—on high ground—for the Germans to defend from. This won’t be getting any
easier for us or the Brits, wherever the hell they are.

Something caught his eye down
below: a cloud of dust hugging the ground. Beneath it, a small convoy—Tommy
counted five vehicles—was moving along a dirt road that wound its way to the
peak of the highest hill in the area. His first impression was they were
Germans; he dropped lower for a better look, with Tuttle wide off his right
wing.

Once down to a thousand feet, the
convoy looked anything but German. The lead vehicle was an American-made jeep
with mounted machine gun. The next in line was an armored car—a British Humber,
I think—and the rest were light trucks, also British. The vehicles’
occupants were waving enthusiastically at the P-47s.

Tommy marked the spot on his map: a
place labeled Hill 262.

“You really think they’re Brits?”
Tuttle asked.

“Maybe…but based on how far east we
all are, they’re probably Canadians. Or maybe Polish. But it’s all the same
British Army. Looks like some kind of recon party.”

“Yeah, just like us,” Tuttle
replied with laughter in his voice. But that voice tensed and raised in pitch
with his next words: “We got company again, Tommy…and it ain’t the RAF this
time.”

Tommy’s head swiveled to find the
threat, but he could see nothing. Tuttle’s next shriek told him why: “One on
your tail!”

A look in Eclipse’s rear
view mirror did no good: Damn thing’s fogged up again! Happens every time
you descend, dammit!

There weren’t many options what to
do next. Their lack of altitude was hemming the jugs in, forcing them to fly
into narrow channels between the hills.

And the guy on your tail always
has the advantage.

“Can you get him off me, Jimmy?”

“I’m trying, boss. Can’t maneuver
much in these damn hills, though.”

And there was the problem: they’d
have to climb—the one thing any German fighter could do better than a jug.
Especially one with six rocket launcher tubes hanging below its wings, creating
loads of drag.

Tommy had no choice but to stay low.
He told Tuttle, “Just keep turning with me. How many others are there?”

“At least two more, waiting up
high.”

Waiting to pounce as soon as we
do something stupid, in other words.

Tommy pulled a tight left turn
around a hill and stole a quick glance over his shoulder. The plane on his tail
was an Me-109, its long, square nose, fat prop spinner, and slab-sided
canopy impossible to mistake.

I haven’t seen any tracers
whizzing past me, so if he’s fired already, he missed by a mile.

Or maybe he’s just biding his
time while he lines me up.

Close as he is, if he gets me in
his sight I’m in big trouble.

Another peek over his shoulder: the
109 wasn’t in the same position now. The warmer air at low level had
cleared Tommy’s rear view mirror and he could see the German behind him,
struggling to match Eclipse’s steep turn. But he still didn’t have a
good shot—he fired, but the tracers sailed over the jug’s right wing.

Tommy throttled back a little and
tightened his turn. The 109 tried to match the move but swung wider to
the outside.

I don’t think this guy’s much of
a low-level flyer, Tommy thought. Maybe I’ll give him a little test.

He rolled Eclipse level,
dove to the treetops, and aimed her at a narrow notch between two hills.

Tuttle’s anxious voice was in his
earphones immediately: “What the hell are you doing, Tommy?”

“Just follow me, Jimmy.”

Tommy ignored the green blur of
trees just feet below him as he focused on the notch. They hadn’t even reached
it yet when Tuttle screamed, “Holy shit! The Kraut just went in! He bought the
farm!”

Tommy’s first thought: One down,
two to go.

His second thought: Or maybe we
let sleeping dogs lie and get the hell out of here. We’re not configured for
dogfighting with these damn launchers hanging out.

Blue Flight stayed down on
the deck and headed south with throttles to the stops. The German fighters
followed, but stayed high. After a few minutes, they were nowhere to be seen.

Tommy radioed in what they’d seen
on the recon to 4th Armored: little evidence of Germans on the
ground but an apparent British Army recon party on Hill 262. His elation over
besting a foe—without even firing a shot—didn’t last long: It was just luck
I was up against a rookie who couldn’t handle his airplane very well. A veteran
pilot on my tail like that would’ve made mincemeat out of me. Maybe the brass
are right when they insist the Luftwaffe is running out of experienced pilots.
They sure seem to be running out of airplanes, few as we’ve seen.

There was a call for air support.
Another P-47 squadron had caught a retreating German column near the crossroads
town of Chambois, eight miles west of Gacé. “It’s a turkey shoot, boys,” the
flight leader reported. “Nothing but soft-sided vehicles. We’re empty now, so
come on over and help yourselves.”

Tommy checked his fuel gauge and
then told Tuttle, “I’m getting low, but I’ve got enough for a pass or two. And
it’s only about eight minutes back to base from there. How’re you looking?”

“I’m good. I figure we could do
it.”

Two highways and a number of
smaller roads crisscrossed at Chambois. Every one of them was packed with
slow-moving traffic: German soldiers on foot, horse-drawn wagons, trucks that
would be traveling much faster if not engulfed in this sluggish parade.

The jugs that preceded Blue
Flight had made it a point not to shoot up the town; if a German soldier made
it there, he’d be safe for a little while. But he had to make it there first, and
many hadn’t been able to do that.

The roadways just west of town were
a slaughterhouse. Bodies of soldiers by the hundreds lined the roadsides,
intermixed with scores of dead horses, shattered wagons, and burned-out trucks.

Those guys weren’t fighting
anymore. They were just running.

The stench of death had risen high
into the sky. It filled their cockpits; Tommy struggled to hold down the vomit
rising in his throat. Even his oxygen mask didn’t protect him from the damning
odor. He pulled it off, more afraid he’d puke into it and choke.

More Germans kept coming down those
roads. How they were able to make their way through all that carnage, Tommy
couldn’t imagine.

They’ve got to be running on
pure fear.

The urge to just leave them
alone—to fly on home without firing a shot—was almost overpowering. But he knew
they had to be stopped. Otherwise, he—and his brother—would just have to fight
them someplace else.

And maybe then the odds wouldn’t
be in our favor. Not like they are now.

He forced down the nausea once
more—and with it, swallowed any hint of mercy.

“We’ll do it two-abreast,” he told
Tuttle. “Keep our rounds spread wide so when they try and run off the road…”

He didn’t need to finish the
sentence. Tuttle knew he was going for the maximum kill zone.

Minutes later, out of bullets,
fuel, and any sense of remorse, Tommy turned Eclipse to final approach
at A-14. His only thought:

I hope and pray I can forget all
this once it’s finally over.

But as her wheels touched safely
home, he knew that could never happen.

Chapter Thirty-Six

ALLIED GROUND FORCES DIRECTIVE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
ALLIED GROUND FORCES

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

15 AUG 44/1800 HRS

TO:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP

COPY (FOR INFO):

SHAEF (EISENHOWER);
HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY; DEMPSEY--2ND
BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY; CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND
TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC; BRERETON--9TH AIR FORCE

THIS COMMAND POSSESSES IRREFUTABLE
AERIAL RECON EVIDENCE THAT ELEMENTS OF YOUR 12TH ARMY GROUP HAVE
CREATED A DANGEROUS AMERICAN SALIENT IN THE AREA OF THE GACÉ-VIMOUTIERS HIGHWAY
PROJECTING SOME 12 MILES NORTH OF YOUR ASSIGNED POSITION.

THESE FORCES OF YOURS ARE DANGEROUSLY
EXPOSED TO SUPERIOR GERMAN FORCES FROM THREE DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS
SIMULTANEOUSLY. WHATEVER FOOLHARDY VENTURE YOU ARE UNDERTAKING RISKS THEIR
ENCIRCLEMENT AND COMPLETE DESTRUCTION AS WELL AS EXHIBITING AN INSUBORDINATE
DISREGARD FOR THIS COMMAND’S ORDERS. WE CAN ONLY PRAY IT HAS NOT ALREADY COME
TO CATASTROPHE.

YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO IMMEDIATELY
WITHDRAW THESE FORCES TO THE FLERS-ARGENTAN LINE.

THIS COMMAND WILL EXPECT A COMPLETE
ACCOUNTING IN WRITING OF THE ACTIONS THAT CREATED THIS RECKLESSLY UNWISE
SITUATION, WITH THE NAMES OF THOSE RESPONSIBLE, NLT 1200 HOURS OF 16 AUG 44.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

Omar Bradley read Montgomery’s
directive in a state of furious silence. When he was finished, he ripped it
into little pieces and told his chief of staff, “Well, the cat’s definitely out
of the bag now. Get Ike on the landline right this damn second.”

It wasn’t Bradley’s phone call that
set Dwight Eisenhower stewing. It was the cable he’d received from Washington earlier
that afternoon. Its author was General Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff. The
words in its closing paragraphs had stung like sand flung in his eyes:

You would be wise to remember,
General, that political talent can be a great asset to a soldier, but not when politics
interferes with his soldierly duties. Churchill only leans on you because he
realizes he can expect no further favors from the President and reckons you are
more easily bent to his wishes. But never forget it is the President and not
the British Prime Minister who is your commander-in-chief. Political expediency
must never be portrayed as a substitute for the strategic initiative your
commander-in-chief demands. Such expediency is what you’ve succumbed to, I
believe, by placing Montgomery as overall commander of your
ground troops.

Now his proven sluggishness is
once again threatening to let a golden opportunity slip through our fingers,
something your American subordinates have had no difficulty recognizing and are
taking the initiative to correct. It is no surprise that Patton has once again
“interpreted” an order in a way more to his liking. I suggest you should choose
not to punish his success, even if that choice means ruffling some British
feathers.

You’ve successfully dealt with
conflicts between the personalities involved several times before in the past two
years. It has never been more important that you do so once again, without
delay.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

SHAEF DIRECTIVE

FROM:

EISENHOWER--SUPREME
COMMANDER, SHAEF

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

16 AUG 44/0001 HRS

TO:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
21ST ARMY GROUP

COPY (FOR INFO):

BRADLEY--12TH
ARMY GROUP; HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY;
DEMPSEY--2ND BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY;
CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC;
BRERETON--9TH AIR FORCE

EFFECTIVE THE DATE AND TIME OF THIS DIRECTIVE,
THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES YOU EXERCISED AS COMMANDER, ALLIED GROUND
FORCES, REVERT TO SUPREME COMMANDER, SHAEF. YOU WILL RETAIN THE DUTIES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES OF COMMANDER, 21ST ARMY GROUP, UNTIL OTHERWISE
ADVISED.

SIGNED,

EISENHOWER

SHAEF DIRECTIVE

FROM:

EISENHOWER--SUPREME
COMMANDER, SHAEF

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

16 AUG 44/0100 HRS

TO:

BRADLEY--COMMANDER,
12TH ARMY GROUP; MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER, 21ST ARMY GROUP

COPY (FOR INFO):

HODGES--US 1ST
ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY; DEMPSEY--2ND BRITISH ARMY;
CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY; CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND TAF;
QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC; BRERETON--9TH AIR FORCE

THE DIRECTIVE FROM COMMANDER, ALLIED
GROUND FORCES, DATED 15 AUG 44, 1800 HRS, IS RESCINDED. 12TH ARMY
GROUP WILL CONTINUE ALL EFFORTS TO CLOSE THE FALAISE GAP. THE FLERS-ARGENTAN
“HOLD LINE” PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

21ST ARMY GROUP IS DIRECTED
TO CLOSE WITH 12TH ARMY GROUP FORCES IN THE VICINITY OF VIMOUTIERS
WITH ALL DELIBERATE SPEED. ANY FURTHER DELAY IN OBTAINING THIS OBJECTIVE WILL
RESULT IN SIGNIFICANT PORTIONS OF THE GERMAN 7TH ARMY ELUDING THE
TRAP WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO SET.

SIGNED,

EISENHOWER

George Patton seemed ready to bite
off the head of the aide who woke him. “Another of Ike’s goddamn directives? That’s
what you woke me for?” After he read it, though, a relieved smile settled on
his face. It was the look of a man who knew he’d just escaped the hangman’s
noose. Again.

“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,”
Patton said. “Looks like Ike’s little love affair with the Brits just might be
hitting a rough patch. Or maybe he finally decided to stop playing diplomat and
grow some balls.”

Bernard Law Montgomery had made it
a standing order never—repeat, never—to wake him with administrative details.
Eisenhower’s directives, arriving in the dead of night as they did, fell into
the strictest definition of that category, despite the fact one relieved him of
a command and the other countermanded an order he’d given. So instead of
immediate delivery, the directives arrived at his caravan on the breakfast
tray. They destroyed far more than his morning meal.

His aide had never seen the usually
self-satisfied general so upset. He paced the caravan like a petulant schoolboy
for a few minutes, shaking his head in bewilderment, muttering things like bloody
Yank idiots and clueless amateurs playing at soldiering. Finally, in
a sputtering voice, he told the aide, “Get Field Marshall Brooke on the line. No,
no…wait. Make it the Prime Minister.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Even though it arrived in the dead
of night, the welcome news they no longer worked for Montgomery spread through
the American ranks like wildfire. For the next 36 hours, 4th Armored
continued its plod north toward Vimoutiers, slowed by frequent but brief skirmishes
with exhausted German troops fleeing eastward. Having little ammunition and
even less will to fight, the shouts of Kamerad! usually came fairly
quickly after contact was made. Wehrmacht prisoners by the thousands clogged
the highway as they were marshaled south, further slowing the American advance.

“Our success is our own worst enemy
right now,” Colonel Abrams reported to 3rd Army HQ on his command’s
sluggish progress.

The afternoon of 17 August brought
a new, more dangerous enemy: the 2nd SS Panzer division, moving
swiftly westward with heavy armor to open a path for the German breakout,
collided with 4th Armored’s right flank. Sean Moon and the rest of
37th Tank Battalion, at the leading edge of the American advance,
found themselves fighting very different foes on two fronts simultaneously.

As his tank was off the line being
refueled and rearmed, Sean fumed over the contrast. “The Krauts on the left
can’t wait to surrender, the ones on the right want to slug it out like it’s
the end of the fucking world.”

Captain Newcomb replied, “It’ll get
better once Fifth Division moves in on our right flank later today.”

“Yeah, if we’re still alive by then.”

An hour later, Sean’s tank was back
with Baker Company as they advanced toward Hill 262. Elements of the Polish 1st
Armored Division—part of 1st Canadian Army and the eastern flank of Montgomery’s
21st Army Group—held the hill and its commanding view of the French
countryside and the Germans hell-bent on retreat. But they were an isolated
force, unsupported by any other British or Canadian troops.

For the Poles, just getting to the
hill had been difficult, slowed by fighting the same brief but frequent
struggles with fleeing Germans just like the Americans were doing to the south.
But holding the hill, with its spectacular vantage point for artillery
observers and air support officers, was proving far more difficult. The same 2nd
Panzer Division that was trying to drive a wedge through 4th Armored
wanted that high ground, too.

If the Americans from the south and
British from the north could link up with the beleaguered Polish outpost on
Hill 262, the Falaise Gap would be closed. Tens of thousands of German
troops—maybe as many as a hundred thousand or more—would be caught in the trap
and, whether killed or captured, out of the war for good.

Sean Moon felt a flicker of hope
rekindle in his war-weary soul: Maybe if we bag all these Krauts we’ve got a
chance to wrap this up by Christmas after all?

That hope blazed for only a second.
A round from a German gun struck the tank to his left, the unspeakable violence
of the impact like the blow of a gigantic hammer. The Sherman’s front armor
peeled open as if made of paper; her interior became a crematory’s oven for the
five men within. Sean’s flame of hope died just as quickly as the men in that
tank.

And they were still three long
miles from Hill 262. Through that three-mile gap, the Germans kept flowing like
a raging river.

Captain Newcomb’s M10 pulled up
behind Sean’s tank. “We’ve got to get behind these Krauts coming to rescue
their buddies,” the captain yelled. “Sergeant Moon, take your platoon and find
a way.”

“My platoon?” Sean said. “What
platoon? I’m down to two fucking tanks, Captain. Didn’t you just see Hammond get blown to shit?”

“Two’s all you need, Sergeant. It’ll
be easier for you to move faster that way.”

Easier, my ass, Sean told
himself. It’s just a matter of time…and I can feel mine running out real
quick.

“Get moving before it gets dark,
Sergeant,” Newcomb said. “Everybody’s got weak spots in a free-for-all like
this one. I’ll plug up ours. You go find theirs.”

Sean led his platoon eastward,
probing for that elusive weak point in the German lines along the hilly
terrain. Some fucking platoon, he thought, because it was down to just
his tank—Eclipse of the Hun—and Sergeant Iggy Sposato’s Anytime,
Baby.

Sometimes, they dashed quickly
along open ridge lines, dropping into defilade when German guns looked within
killing range. Other times, they were forced by the terrain to crawl
single-file down winding trails barely wide enough for the Shermans, where an
enemy tank or gun—or even an infantryman with a panzerfaust—could be
around the next twist at point-blank range. It had taken them over an hour to
travel two miles, and in that time Sean still hadn’t found an avenue of attack
the Germans couldn’t easily counter. He brought his two tanks to a halt in the
little village of Survie, which was occupied by a company of American infantry.
The red diamond insignia on their shoulders marked them as members of 5th
Infantry Division.

“Nice you guys from the Fifth could
stop looting long enough to give us a hand, sir,” Sean said to a lieutenant as
he climbed down from Eclipse’s hull. “I’m Moon from 37th Tank.”

“Wasn’t much to loot, Sergeant
Moon. Looks like you Fourth Armored guys got to it all way ahead of us.”

Sean laughed. “So what’s the story,
sir?”

“Don’t really know yet,” the
lieutenant replied. “We just got here ourselves. I’m Peterson, C.O. of Easy
Company, First of the Tenth Infantry. Are you the tank support they’ve been
promising?”

“If I am, that’s news to me, sir.
I’m running recon, looking for the back door into these Krauts trying to throw
the Brits or Poles or whoever the hell they are off Hill Two-Six-Two.”

“Hell, we’re recon, too,”
Lieutenant Peterson said. “I guess we ought to compare notes.”

“Sure, just let me get my guys
positioned. Any place special you think we should be, sir?”

“There’s only one paved road
running through here. How about a tank at each end?”

“That’ll work.” Shouting to Sposato
in the turret hatch of Anytime, Baby, Sean said, “Iggy, spin around and go
cover the southern approach.”

“Hook up with Sergeant Bostick,”
the lieutenant told Sposato. “I’m sure he’s got a good place picked out for you
already.”

With a roar of her engine and the clatter
of tracks on cobblestones, Anytime, Baby about-faced and headed
off down the street.

“There’s an alley by the church on
the north end, Sergeant Moon,” the lieutenant said. “That would be a great
place for your tank, I think.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Sean replied. He
yelled to Fabiano to make it happen.

As Eclipse rumbled away,
Sean and the lieutenant entered a bar-tabac and spread a map across a
small table. The barman looked nervously on, apparently convinced the presence
of the Americans would bring death and destruction down on the people of
Survie.

Trying to soothe the barman,
Lieutenant Peterson said, “Ça va. It’s okay. You’ll be all right.”

The barman looked skeptical. So did
Sean, who asked, “You sure about that, sir?”

“No. But what do you want me to
tell the guy? That five minutes from now his town could be a pile of rubble?”

“That might be a little more
honest, Lieutenant.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves
here, Sergeant Moon.” Peterson traced a finger across the map and asked, “Now
where’d you guys come from?”

Sean sketched the route they’d
already reconned. “There’s no good way around there to flank the Krauts. We’ll
either get the shit blown out of us in a big slugfest on one of these ridges or
we’ll get trapped in some gully, all lined up like cattle at the
slaughterhouse.”

“What about the Air Force?”
Peterson asked. “You tankers have direct radio links to the jugs, don’t you?”

“Yeah, we do, sir. And they’ve been
blowing the shit out of the Krauts around this Hill Two-Six-Two all damn day,
but it’s been like the loaves and the fishes: the more you
eat, the more there are. And it’ll be dark soon. Them pilots will be boozed up
and shacked up until morning. And a lot of shit can happen out here in the
dark.”

They hadn’t realized the barman was
standing over them with another Frenchman at his side. “What kind of shit
do you have in mind?” the barman asked, in near-perfect English.

“You speak English,” a surprised Peterson
replied. “Sorry, but I never thought to ask.”

“Ça va,” the barman replied.
He pointed to the man beside him and said, “Marcel has information that might be
of great use to you gentlemen.”

Sean pointed to the lieutenant and
said, “Hey, he’s the only gentleman here. I’m a sergeant. I work for a
living.”

“Forgive me, Sergeant. I didn’t mean
to insult the working class.”

“No offense taken, pal. And I
didn’t mean that you wasn’t—”

“All right, knock it off,” Peterson
said. “You can work on your Alphonse and Gaston act some other time. Can
we get back to what Marcel has to say?”

“Of course, Lieutenant,” the barman
replied. “Allow me to translate.”

Marcel wove a detailed description
of 2nd SS Panzer’s headquarters, which was concealed in a wooded
area two miles to the north, near the village of Champosoult. He carefully
prepared a drawing of the camp’s layout, right down to the defensive positions
and the van in which the brigadeführer commanding the division lived. He
even outlined the latrine’s location. The barman translated Marcel’s final
sentence: “Cut off the head and the snake dies, no?”

“Damn right,” Lieutenant Peterson
said. “Now, Sergeant Moon, couldn’t we get the Air Force to blow this place to
holy hell at first light? That’ll throw the Krauts into a tizzy, and then you
tankers should be able to roll right through Champosoult and right up their asses.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sean replied, without
optimism. “All we gotta do is get our tanks over to here”—he pointed on the map
to the highway near Champosoult—“in the middle of the fucking night. Half of
’em will get lost. The other half just might end up shooting it out with each
other.”

Peterson grimaced; he knew exactly
what Sean meant. He’d blundered through night moves, too.

“One more thing,” Sean said. “We’d
have to make sure that fucking HQ itself don’t move in the middle of the
night.”

“I think that’s something me and my
boys can handle,” Peterson replied. “You can even help, if you like, Sergeant
Moon. How good are the radios in your tank?”

“This village is down in a valley,
sir. We can get maybe five miles out of our set right now, enough to get this
intel back to my unit. Range should get a little better after dark.”

“That’s better than what I’ve got,”
Peterson replied, “so I’m going to have to lean on you for the commo.” He rolled
up the map. “Come on, let’s get up on the high ground outside of town and take
a look where we’re going…before we lose the daylight.”

Sean radioed the intel back to 37th
Battalion. Then he, Lieutenant Peterson, Marcel, and the barman scaled
the ridge just east of Survie. At the top, they found the artillery lieutenant
who was Peterson’s forward observer. He had the boxy batteries from his radio
spread out on a broad, flat rock open to the sky, as if baking in the waning
sunlight.

“Best I can do for a recharge,” the
FO said. “Warming them up gives them a little more juice, keeps them going a
little longer. Got to try and make them last until the next resupply, whenever
the hell that’s going to be.”

Marcel pointed to the woods
concealing 2nd SS Panzer’s HQ. Peterson asked his FO, “Those
woods…are they in range of any of our guns?”

The FO checked his map, and then
replied, “Nope. It’s about a mile too far.”

Peterson asked Sean, “What about
Fourth Armored’s artillery?”

The answer: “No, I don’t think so.
They can barely reach Hill Two-Six-Two.”

“How come they didn’t move up with
you tankers?”

“Because they ain’t got the gas to
do it yet, sir.”

“Well, then,” Peterson said, “it’s
the Air Force or nothing. Do you think the rest of your tanks will be joining
us tonight, Sergeant?”

“If the colonel says so, they’ll
sure as hell try,” Sean replied. “They’ll let us know what they’re gonna do
real soon.”

Lieutenant Peterson began to draw
his plan on the map. “Okay…if we’re going to do this, I’ll infiltrate my men
around the Kraut’s HQ at sunset. Our friends here say there are only a couple
of roads heavy vehicles can use to get in and out. It won’t be too tough in the
dark to slow them down if they try and make a move. We can make it sound like
we’re a whole damn regiment if we have to.”

Looking down into Survie, they
could see Fabiano standing on Eclipse’s turret, waving his arms to catch
their attention.

“Maybe that’s the news we’ve been
waiting for,” Sean said as he started down the hill toward the village.

“We’ll be right behind you,”
Peterson replied. “I’m almost done up here.”

When he got back to Eclipse,
he found his crew chowing down on food supplied by the people of Survie. The
meal came with a bottle of wine, too.

“No drinking,” Sean said, “not even
wine. We’re gonna get real busy one way or the other real soon. I don’t need any
of you assholes seeing double.”

Fabiano shrugged and handed over
the wine bottle, still without a drop missing.

“You did save me some of that grub,
though, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” Fabiano replied.
“Nothing’s too good for our fearless leader,” he added, pointing to a satchel
full of bread, fruit, and cheese. “But maybe you want to look at this message
from battalion first. We just finished decoding it.”

The message was short and simple:
his recon party was to meet Combat Command Baker—CCB—at a highway
intersection two miles south of Survie. Sean was then to guide CCB to the
jump-off point for the assault of 2nd SS Panzer’s rear. All this was
to be accomplished in the dark of night, exercising total blackout discipline.

Sean stuffed the message in his pocket.
“Well, at least they didn’t tell us to take the Krauts on all by ourselves.” He
asked Hogan, his driver, “How’s our gas holding out?”

“Three-quarters of a tank, Sarge.”

“Okay. Should be enough. Give me a
couple of minutes to fill the lieutenant in on the plan, and then we hit the
road again. Fire the old girl up.”

In the fading light of day, Sean
could see Peterson and the others still descending the ridge. He was walking
down the street to meet them when three women on bicycles approached. The
youngest and prettiest of the trio was staring at him with a big smile on her
face.

Holy shit! It’s that Sylvie
what’s-her-name.

“Hello, Sergeant Moon,” Sylvie called
out as she rode in a circle around him. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“How about that! You seen my brother?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. Two
days ago.”

“So he’s okay?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Quite fine,
in fact. He gave me a message for you. Isn’t this strange I can deliver it now?”

“What’d he say?”

“He said he was going to kick
your ass all the way back to Canarsie, whatever that means.”

Sean laughed gleefully, and then
stopped suddenly. His face turned serious as he asked, “You didn’t tell him
what I said, did you? You know, about him fucking himself and all.”

“Of course not.”

He smiled again, breathing a sigh
of relief. “Oh, good. Thanks. But let me ask you… just what the hell are you
ladies doing in this hellhole, anyway?”

She stopped and dismounted, calling
to the other women in French to go rest for a few minutes. Then she told Sean,
“We are riding north, to Vimoutiers.”

“Ain’t this a little out of your
way?”

“Yes, a bit. But we thought it
might be less”—she searched for the right word—“less turbulent on this
highway. But I see we may have misjudged.”

“Yeah, this ain’t a good place to
be right now.”

“Sergeant, no place beyond
the American lines is a good place right now.”

“You weren’t planning on riding at
night, were you?”

“Why not? Our bicycles have
lights.”

“But…but you might not want to go this
way. Not this night.”

Sylvie regarded him thoughtfully—kindly—before
saying, “I understand. Thank you for the warning.”

He leaned closer and whispered,
“You ladies ain’t up to any of that maquis stuff, are you?”

She gave him a withering look that answered
his question yet implored him to shut up.

“Oh, I get it. Just between you and
me then, right?”

She nodded. The withering look
hadn’t faded.

“Hey, I gotta go,” he said. “Good
seeing you again, Sylvie.”

“Yes, we must go, as well.” Her
face softened to a smile, and she kissed him on both cheeks. “It was good
seeing you, too, Sean. Good luck to you.”

Sean got his two tanks to the intersection
south of Survie as the sun set, giving him just enough light to find good
places to conceal them. Once the Shermans were tucked among the trees well off
the highways, they shut down their engines so they could listen for the
approaching Combat Command Baker.

“When they get here,” Sean told
Iggy Sposato, “I’ll take the lead element north to the staging area past
Survie. You stay at this intersection and make sure every last vehicle in the
column doesn’t miss the turn.”

“So I’m the road guard?”

“Gee, you catch on fast, Iggy. Now
don’t fuck this up. We’re gonna need every swinging dick in the right place
when the sun comes up.”

Three hours later—2200 by their
watches—there was still no sign of Combat Command Baker. Sposato said, “They
should’ve been here a fucking hour ago.”

Sean replied, “No shit, Iggy.”

“What do we do if they don’t show?”

“What do you think? We find a way
to get our asses back home…wherever the hell that turns out to be.”

It was another hour before the
sounds of night—the wind in the trees, the din of insects, and the constant
thunder of distant artillery—began to yield to the sounds of motors. Lots of
motors.

“Looks like they made it after
all,” Sposato said as he picked up his red-lensed flashlight to play traffic
cop.

“Not so fast, Iggy,” Sean replied.
“Them engines…they don’t sound like something with Uncle Sam’s initials on ’em.
They’re Maybach engines, I’m betting.”

“Maybachs? You think it’s Kraut
tanks coming?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck, Sean…what the hell are we
gonna do?”

“We’re going to stay real quiet and
out of sight and let them pass.”

“But what if they spot our Zippos?”

“That’d be some trick in the dark,
Iggy. But if they do, we’re fucked, ain’t we?”

The intersection of the two
highways formed a cross like the cardinal points of a compass. CC Baker was
expected from the west. The German column was coming from the south.

“How could they be coming that
way?” Sposato wondered aloud. “I thought we held everything south of here.”

“Apparently not. Or maybe they’re
part of the big Kraut pullback from the east…and they’re lost as shit.”

Sean’s theory seemed to have some
merit. The blacked-out lead vehicle—its silhouette in the moonlight
unmistakably a Panther tank—drove halfway through the intersection before
juddering noisily to an abrupt stop. In the darkness, the Americans couldn’t
see the line of vehicles behind it, but the sudden hush of their idling engines
made it a certainty they had stopped, too.

Standing on the ground in front of
his powered-down tank, Sean could hear the soft mechanical whir of its
turret as Fabiano manually traversed the main gun onto the German tank, waiting
for his commander’s order to fire. But everyone knew if they had to fire, they
were as good as dead, anyway. That was enough to keep fingers off the triggers
and impulses in check.

A kübelwagen pulled
alongside the Panther. The man in the passenger’s seat climbed onto the tank’s
deck and began arguing with its commander in the turret hatch. Each man
unfolded what appeared to be a map. Then they argued some more.

“Come on, come on,” Sean whispered,
imploring the Germans too far away to hear. “Make up your fucking minds. Just
don’t go west.”

West: right into the face of Combat
Command Baker.

“Why don’t we just call in
artillery on them?” Sposato asked. “We’re well inside their range here.”

“Iggy, has it crossed your mind
that the Panther might be the lead vehicle of a battalion, maybe? Or
even a division? Unless we light the place up with illum, we won’t know
how many we’re dealing with. And if we light the place up—”

Sposato finished the sentence for
him. “If we light it up, then they’ll see us, too.”

“Damn right they will.”

“Okay, Sean. You win.”

“Experience before youth. Wins
every time, Iggy.”

The German from the kübelwagen
walked over to the road sign marking the intersection. He lit it with his
flashlight, and then yelled something at the Panther commander, who yelled
something right back. Their disagreement, apparently, wasn’t over yet.

“I guess they don’t believe the
signpost,” Sposato said.

“Or their maps, either. Face it,
they’re fucking lost, Iggy. Just sit tight and watch what they do.”

It took the Germans several minutes
more to come to some sort of agreement. Then the Panther revved its engine and
continued north. The rest of the column—all driving without lights like their leader—rolled
by in what seemed an endless parade. When the last vehicle finally passed
Sean’s position, they had counted 46 tanks, 10 assault guns, a dozen half-tracks,
21 trucks, and a handful of kübelwagens. Whether it was their intention
or not, they were all headed straight into the boiling cauldron of Hill 262.

“Where the hell are all these Kraut
bastards coming from?” Sean said. “We’ve got to get the word to battalion what
we just saw.”

“But ain’t we still supposed to be
keeping radio silence?”

“Fuck radio silence. They’ve got to
know this.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sposato replied, not
sounding at all convinced. “But I’d still like to know where the hell CC Baker
is.”

“Wouldn’t we all, Iggy?”

It was going to be a long night for
Sergeant McNulty at airfield A-14. Shaking his head, he asked Tommy Moon, “I’m
not sure I see the necessarity in all this, Lieutenant. You really want
them rocket tubes off?”

“Yep. I can’t hit shit with those
damn things. Get rid of them.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so self-defecating,
sir, just because—”

“Deprecating, Sergeant. Self-deprecating.
But I’m not blaming myself—it’s the whole design. Those rockets are more
wishful thinking than an effective weapons system.”

“I could have sworn just the other
day you thought them rockets were the answers to a virgin’s prayer,
Lieutenant.”

“Then I guess I’m not a virgin
anymore, Sergeant. And I sure as hell stopped praying a long time ago. Even if
I did pray, I’m pretty sure no one’s listening.”

“As you wish, sir,” McNulty
replied, “but what about the rear view mirror? You really want to lose that,
too?”

“Yep. Good riddance to it.”

“Look, Lieutenant…the rockets are
one thing, but I sure wish you’d reconnoiter the mirror.”

“You mean reconsider, don’t
you, Sarge?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it? And
you ain’t gonna get much more speed out of her by taking it off.”

“I know that,” Tommy replied, “but
every time I need the damn thing, it’s fogged up. They either need to put a
heater in it…or just throw it away. I’ll take the measly couple of miles per
hour extra it’ll give me when it’s gone.”

McNulty shook his head once more
and asked, “So you’re planning on lugging three bombs and eight guns for the
duration?”

“Until something better comes
along, you’re damn right.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

At his CP a few miles south of Hill
262, General Wood felt like punching the map hanging on the tent wall. It had
only been 24 hours since being freed from Montgomery’s chains. That freedom had
plunged them headlong into a ferocious battle with a German Army that didn’t
seem to know it was beaten.

Wood still held in his hand the message
Sean had sent, the one advising of a battalion-strength panzer force moving
north near Survie, probably to add to the formidable forces already facing 4th
Armored and the Poles on the hill. The general told Colonel Abrams, “Those boys
of yours…they did a great job.” He sounded like he was paying tribute to the
dead.

“Sergeant Moon’s an old hand, sir,”
Abrams replied. “If there’s a way for him to get out, he’ll find it.”

“All right, gentlemen,” Wood
continued, “as you’ve already figured out, Combat Command Baker isn’t
going to happen tonight. We got to hold on to this position, and it’s going to
take every ounce of strength we’ve got to do it. It was a good idea in theory,
but we can’t afford to disengage any of our forces right now to make up an ad
hoc maneuver unit. The rest of the whole damn Twelfth Corps is trying to
get up here and help us out, but the Germans have held them up, too. And
there’s still no sign of the Brits coming to the rescue, either. By all
accounts, they’re still ten miles away. Maybe more.”

Abrams had a question. “Sir, did we
find out why those Poles were in such a damn hurry to sacrifice themselves on
that hill?”

Wood shook his head. “We still
don’t know, Creighton. Maybe they believed Monty’s bullshit, too. Damn shame,
I’d say. They seem like the only outfit in Twenty-First Army Group showing any
initiative at all.”

“And they’re paying one hell of a
price for it,” Abrams replied.

General Wood smacked his pointer
against the map. It made a sharp, electrifying sound, like the crack of a bullwhip.

“Listen up, gentlemen,” he began. “This
is what we’re going to do. General Patton sees this fight we’re in as a grand
opportunity. Monty might be slow as molasses coming to meet us, but we can sure
as hell push the Germans to him. Once we do that, this thing we call the
Falaise Gap will be closed, whether the Brits move another mile closer or not.
Now, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of artillery and air power to help us
do that. Patton’s ordered all corps and division artillery units to be on the
road tonight.”

An infantry commander asked, “You
mean they finally got some gas, sir?”

“Affirmative, Colonel. By sun up,
our guns will be much closer than they are today and should be able to reach
well past Hill Two-Six-Two. That’ll be a big help. And the heavy bombers of the
Eighth Air Force will be helping out our Ninth Air Force boys by flying
multiple sorties against targets we’ve specified, starting at dawn.”

A collective groan rose from his
officers. “What’s the matter?” Wood asked. “You don’t want their help?”

“No, sir,” Abrams replied, “it’s
not that at all. It’s just that every time the heavies agree to lend us a
hand…well, you remember what happened during Cobra. And all those other
times, too.”

“That’s the risk we’re going to
have to take, gentlemen,” Wood said. “We need the firepower, and we need it
bad. If we take a few errant bombs in the process, well…”

There was no need to finish the
sentence. The assembled officers all knew what those next words would be: tough
shit.

Wood continued, “Patton said something
I think you’ll all get a kick out of. He supposes that Monty’s dragging his feet
at Falaise is just the Brits paying back the favor Hitler did them at Dunkirk.”

The general waited a few moments
for the smirks and laughter to fade. Then he said, “All right, let’s figure out
how we’re going to save these Polish fellows come morning…and where we’re going
after we do.”

Sean wasn’t lost; he could tell you
the exact coordinates of his two tanks on the map. The trouble was, he couldn’t
figure out how to retrace his steps in the dark. The roads and trails they’d
used in yesterday’s late afternoon recon couldn’t be found with any certainty
in the blackness of night. They’d already had to double back on a dead-end
trail taken in error and nearly gotten Sposato’s tank mired in a mucky
depression in the process. Now, at 0230, he decided the best course of action
was to lay low off the highway until dawn and take his chances finding the way
back in broad daylight.

“We got about four hours until sunrise,”
he told both tank crews. “That’s two-hour shifts. Half of us on guard, the rest
catch some shut-eye. Everyone stay in the vehicles.”

“Ahh, come on, Sarge,” Fabiano
whined. “It’s hot as a bitch in there. And you guys all smell something awful.
A little fresh night air might be nice.”

“Too fucking bad,” Sean replied. “I
don’t need to have to come looking for any of you if things go tits up. And if
things get crazy all of a sudden, I don’t want to accidentally run over
anybody, either. So you’re all staying inside the Zippos.”

Fabiano thought about saying, Hell,
Crunch, you never worried about running over people before. But he thought
the better of it. They were in deep enough shit already. No sense making it worse
by antagonizing the man in charge.

And they could hear another parade
of armored vehicles rolling down the highway, the sound of their engines
decidedly not American.

Sylvie hadn’t told Sean the whole
truth about where she and her companions were going. They weren’t headed to
Vimoutiers. They’d just arrived in the dead of night at their real destination,
a small village called Orville on the main rail line. Cautiously, they cycled
past the maquis safe house, looking for the blue light in the upstairs window
that meant all is well.

“The light…I see it,” Sylvie said.
Per their instructions, they rode into the courtyard behind the house, hid the
bikes in the storage shed, and knocked on the back door. A man in late middle
age opened it just a crack, allowing the women to see the long scar running
down a cheek of his weathered face. He held one arm in an awkward pose that
made them sure he was concealing a pistol behind his back. Who the bullets in
that pistol were meant for—himself or the Germans coming to arrest him—was
better left a mystery.

Sylvie asked him, “How much is the
price of milk today?”

“More than you can afford,” the man
replied. “Would you prefer wine instead?”

“I never drink wine on an empty
stomach.”

The password ritual completed, he
swung the door open and beckoned the three women to come inside as he tucked
the pistol—an ungainly Walther broom-handle no doubt taken from a dead
German—into his waistband. “I am Pierre,” the man said with an air of great
authority. “I am your capitaine now.” He directed the women to seats
around a large, bare table.

Pierre launched into what the Brits
and Americans called a pep talk. “You’ve been chosen because you are all
thought to be reliable—”

Sylvie interrupted, “And all the maquisards
in your unit have gotten themselves foolishly killed one way or another. Spare
us the words of praise and encouragement. They aren’t necessary. Just tell us what
we are to do.”

The other women smirked and nodded
in agreement. They were no more willing than Sylvie to be patronized. They’d
been through too much to put up with that.

“Very well,” Pierre said, his tone
now dispassionate but no less commanding. He unfolded a map. “We are to sabotage
the rail line here”—his fingertip traced a pronounced curve in the tracks
halfway between Vimoutiers and Orville—“at the foot of this downhill bend. The
Allies try to bomb the tracks in daylight but have yet to cause any serious
damage. At least nothing the Boche can’t quickly repair. As a result,
far too many of them are reaching the fighting each night, when the troop and
supply trains move without fear of attack from the airplanes.”

Eva, the oldest of the three women at
32—and the coarsest and most cynical by far—asked, “And you need three vagin
from Alençon to do this for you? Are you afraid of loud noises, scarface?”

“No, madame, I certainly am not.
But no matter—the only loud noise you will hear is the crash of a train
derailing.”

The three women looked at each
other quizzically. Surely he’d meant they were to blow up the tracks with
dynamite, as they’d done a few times before. And those times, each step of the
process—from detonation to derailment—had been plenty loud.

“Ahh, I see you don’t understand,” Pierre
said. He grabbed a satchel from beneath the table, lifted it with a mighty
grunt, and placed it before them. “You will not use explosives. You will use
these instead.”

He turned the satchel over,
spilling its contents. An assortment of long, stout wrenches clattered out and
came to rest on the tabletop. He watched as recognition of their meaning quickly
lit the women’s faces.

“We’ve found this to be a much more
effective method,” Pierre said. “We remove key bolts holding the track sections
together. When the locomotive hits those sections…voila. The track separates
and the train runs off the rails to ruin.”

Sylvie asked, “And you will show us
where these key bolts are?”

“Yes. It will take two of us to
remove the bolts while the other two act as lookouts.”

“So there will be Boche guards?”

“Occasionally. That’s why we need
lookouts. But lately, the Boche don’t seem to be able to spare the
manpower to guard miles and miles of track. The speed of the train becomes its
primary defense…and our greatest ally.”

The old grandfather clock in the
next room chimed three.

“When will this operation take
place?” Sylvie asked.

“Immediately,” he replied. “The
bend is only two miles from here, as you can see. That give us plenty of time
to cycle there and do our dirty work under cover of darkness. Are you all
armed?”

Sylvie replied, “With pistols, yes.
But perhaps you can supply submachine guns for us?”

“Of course,” Pierre replied as he
loaded the wrenches back into the satchel. “Follow me, vagins.”

They were at the tracks in less
than half an hour. Stashing their bicycles among the trees lining the tracks,
they walked to midpoint of the curve. Pierre pointed out the bolts on four
rails—32 bolts in all—that were to be removed. “Get them all off and we’ll have
maximum results,” he said.

At the women’s insistence, they
drew sticks for who would be the lookouts. Eva and Pierre drew the short ones
and trudged off to stand guard from the woods near the top of the curve. Sylvie
began to work on the tracks with Dominique, a quiet woman of 26. It took a few
minutes to find the correctly sized wrenches and figure out how to exert the
necessary torque without the cantankerous tools slipping off the bolt heads and
nuts. They quickly realized their arms lacked the strength for the job, but the
solid push of a foot, with one’s entire body weight behind it, succeeded in
breaking the first bolt free. “Thirty-one more to go,” Sylvie muttered. “The
rest will be much easier, now that we know how.”

She was mostly right. Ten minutes
plus several bruised knees and knuckles later, they had 12 of the bolts
removed. As they moved on to the 13th bolt, Dominique startled
Sylvie by asking, “So your marriage to Bernard is finished?”

“Merde! Is that common
knowledge already?”

Dominique nodded and then added,
“And so is your American lover, that flyer.”

Merde, Sylvie repeated to
herself. In a world where keeping secrets means staying alive, how could
these secrets of mine be shattered so easily? Then she laughed at herself,
for on one count, the blame was solely hers. At least as far as Tommy Moon
is concerned, I should have expected as much, bringing him to Papa’s House like
I did. But how did she know about Bernard and me, unless…

“Dominique, are you sleeping with Bernard,
too?”

Her silence provided the answer.

“Does your husband know?” Her words
were sisterly, not harsh.

“I don’t think so,” Dominique
replied, more in hope than conviction.

Either the bolts were getting
tighter or the two women were tiring faster than they realized. Each stomp on
the wrenches was now accompanied by a loud grunt and followed by the need to
catch their breath.

As the 16th bolt broke
free, Sylvie said, “Don’t worry, Dominique. Your secret is safe with me, at
least.”

They loosened two more. Dominique,
who was kneeling with one knee against a rail, suddenly stood up, ramrod
straight. “The track,” she said. “It’s shaking. Feel it.”

Sylvie laid her hand on the rail,
feeling the faint but steady vibration, like a mild electric shock running up her
arm. She strained to hear the metallic clacking of the approaching
train, but only the constant murmur of big guns miles to the west rode the
night breeze.

“We must work faster,” Sylvie said.

“I don’t think that’s possible,”
Dominique replied, struggling against the dead weight of the wrench to engage
the next bolt. With all the exhausting effort, their tools now felt like they
weighed a hundred pounds each. “We’ll never get all four sections loose.”

“But we can finish three, I’m
sure,” Sylvie replied.

“Is that enough?”

“It’ll have to be.”

Three sections, Sylvie told
herself. That’s twenty-four bolts. Only five more to go.

Adrenaline had kicked in, giving
both women strength they hadn’t realized they possessed. They’d loosened three
more bolts when Eva came running from the trees, waving her arms in warning.
“It’s coming,” she said. “We can see the glow of its headlight down the
straightaway.”

Sylvie asked, “How far?”

“A mile. Maybe a little more.”

Dominique dropped her wrench into
the satchel. “Wait,” Sylvie told her, “We’ve got at least two minutes before it
gets here. And we only need a minute to get away into the woods.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“If you’re not going to help me, at
least leave me your fucking wrench.”

Dominique was about to do just
that: drop the tool at Sylvie’s feet and run off. But she hesitated and then
changed her mind. She returned to their work, her wrench once again in concert
with Sylvie’s. Together, they quickly broke another one free.

“Last one,” Sylvie said as they
moved to the final bolt. But it wouldn’t budge.

The sections they’d already
loosened weren’t just vibrating anymore; they were rattling loudly as the train,
still invisible somewhere beyond the curve, grew closer.

Eva was pacing frantically in place,
casting nervous glances up the track. “Come on, you stupid cows! Run! There’s
no need to die for that shithead Pierre!”

The rattling of the loosened
sections grew louder, more urgent, like the angry drone of a buzzer announcing time’s
up.

“SHUT YOUR BIG MOUTH AND HELP US, EVA,”
Sylvie said, straining as their feet pushed against the unyielding wrenches.

For a moment, they thought Eva
would simply abandon them and seek the safety of the woods. But to their
surprise, she suddenly lunged at Dominique’s wrench, hurling her body weight
full against it. The collision sent all three women sprawling.

But it did the trick: Sylvie spun
the loosened nut off the bolt. When it came free, it dropped to the track bed
and began bouncing about like dice in a shaken cup. It wasn’t just the loose
track sections rattling anymore; the ground was trembling beneath their feet.

They could hear the screech and
growl of steel against steel now, but the wooded curve prevented them from
seeing the locomotive. “Go! Go!” Sylvie said, scooping up the two wrenches as
if they were suddenly feather-light. On the dead run, she was the last to make
it to the cover of the trees, getting there just as the train entered the
curve.

It popped into view like a one-eyed
phantom, its headlight piercing the night, the dark outlines of the locomotive
and cars creating an ominous sense of invincible power. It seemed to be
hurtling much too fast, closing the distance to the loosened track sections in
the blink of an eye.

When it reached those sections,
there was no discernible change in the locomotive’s momentum; the only sign
something might be awry was a brief shower of sparks from beneath the drive
wheels. It kept plowing forward as if the sabotaged rails were nothing more
than a mere inconvenience.

But then, as the three women looked
on in wide-eyed amazement, the silhouette of the locomotive began to shift,
growing inexplicably shorter until they realized what was happening: the
locomotive was heeling over like a sailboat in a strong wind. It hung in that
angular limbo for a moment that seemed like an eternity, and then it crashed on
its side to the earth beside the track, sliding along like a felled behemoth on
ice, tearing down sturdy trees in its way as if they were matchsticks. If it
was slowing, the women couldn’t tell.

The cars behind the locomotive
fared no better. Following the locomotive’s ruinous course, the first few in
trail were dragged from the tracks, the wooden superstructure of the cars
shredding themselves to the timbers from which they were built as they toppled.
The rest of the train uncoupled from the forward contingent and, as they
reached the sabotaged rails, each car derailed in turn. They piled into the
accumulating wreckage at trackside and flew apart, disassembled by violent
forces of impact they were never intended to withstand. To Sylvie, the hiss
of escaping steam and the crunch of the cars’ sequential disintegration
sounded just like the ancient thresher on her uncle’s farm as it slashed
through the wheat—only a thousand times louder.

Pierre joined the women midway
through the train’s orgy of destruction. Once the entire train had left the
tracks, he asked, “How many cars?”

Sylvie replied, “Who knows?
Fifteen? Twenty? All we know is they are all destroyed.”

“I guess three sections of track
were enough,” Dominique said.

“Three was all you women could
manage?” Pierre said, as if scolding children.

“Yes,” Sylvie replied, her tone
defiant. “Is there some problem with that?”

“No, there’s no problem because you
were very lucky, madame. Very lucky, indeed.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,”
she replied. “It was simple physics.”

They lingered for a few minutes to
see if any survivors emerged from the rubble. If there were, though, the
darkness was protecting them. The symphony of demolition which had filled the
air as the train wrecked itself was reduced to nothing more than a one-note
postscript: the shiiissshhh of steam escaping from the mortally wounded
locomotive. “Let’s take our victory and get out of here,” Pierre said.

Back at the safe house in Orville, Pierre
said, “Try and get some sleep, ladies. There’ll be much more for you to do in
the coming days.”

“Good idea,” Sylvie replied. “Where
should we sleep?”

“There are mattresses in the
basement for—”

“No, absolutely not,” she replied.
“Basements are traps if the Boche come. We’ll sleep on the main floor.”

Eva and Dominique stepped behind
her, the three forming a phalanx of defiance.

Pierre adopted a defiant pose of
his own. “Are you women always so impertinent to your capitaine?”

“It’s not a question of
impertinence,” Sylvie replied. “It’s one of experience. We women have
been killing the Boche for four years now, and we’re all still alive.
That’s more than we can say for the men of your unit, I believe.”

Eva added, “And Sylvie has given
more of herself for France than any man ever could, scarface. Unless, of
course, you like the Boche up your—”

Sylvie cut her off. “That’s enough,
Eva. Let’s not spit on the capitaine’s hospitality before we’ve had a
chance to enjoy it.”

Pierre began to worry he’d need to
sleep with one eye open. He’d been expecting novices, women who wore the black
beret and but did little more than clean up after the maquis men. These women,
however, possessed the poise, confidence, and knowledge of experienced fighters.
And they appeared to have no qualms at all about killing; they’d been baptized
in blood long ago. They’d be just as adept at knifing him in his sleep as
killing the Boche. Perhaps the question of sleeping quarters wasn’t so
important, after all.

“Fine,” he said. “Sleep wherever
you like, mesdames.”

Chapter Forty

The dawn was breaking, allowing
Sean Moon the first real look at the place he had decided to lay up his tanks
for the night. He was shocked to find the trees he’d considered good
concealment in the darkness of night were little more than ornamental. Both of
his tanks were in plain view from all directions, including the sky. They were
much too close to the highway, as well.

This whole damn thing looks like
some rookie mistake, he told himself. But he couldn’t beat himself up too
badly; lots of experienced troopers had made breathtakingly bad errors in the
dark: Like that artillery battery on the Cotentin that had one
gun laid backward from the other five. Damn thing had to fire a round for them
to realize their mistake…and that round landed right in the middle of our
bivouac. We were damn lucky nobody bought it.

“Drop the cocks and grab the socks,
boys,” he said as he roused those crewmen whose turn it had been to sleep and
one whose turn it hadn’t been, his assistant driver, Linz.

“Welcome to Sergeant Moon’s shit
list, Linz,” Sean said as he shook the man awake.

“Gee, Sarge…I must’ve just dozed
off. Really, I—”

“Save it, Linz,” Sean replied.
There were so many more threatening things he could say right now about the
punishments for sleeping on guard duty, but they all seemed to pale in
comparison to the danger they were in. He was sure every man in his
crew—himself included—would rather be in the stockade than where they were at
the moment, alone in this no man’s land.

And there was the sound of more
vehicles coming up the road. “We gotta get the hell outta here, Sean,” Iggy
Sposato yelled. “We’re wide open to get creamed.”

“Calm down, Iggy. Just listen.”

There was something about the sound
of the engines. They weren’t German.

“Sounds like Dodge
deuce-and-a-halves to me,” Sean said.

“Are you sure?”

“Let’s fucking hope so.”

Sean climbed onto his tank’s
turret. “Hogan,” he said to his driver, “pull her onto the road, with her right
side facing that oncoming traffic.”

“Are you sure, Sarge?” Hogan
replied. “You want to show ’em our flank? Friendly or not, they could put a
round right through us that way.”

“I want ’em to see that big white
star on her side. Now get moving.”

Hogan did as he was told, but his
fears made it far from easy. He ground her gears badly before Eclipse started
to move. Once he stopped her in the middle of the road as Sean had ordered, he slid
down in his seat and pulled his hatch closed, putting as much steel as he could
between himself and the mayhem he expected any second.

Linz, manning the machine gun
across from the driver, asked, “What are you doing, Charlie? They ain’t gonna
shoot. They’re waving like they’re real happy to see us, for cryin’ out loud.”

An American captain came bounding
from the column to the tank. “Sure am glad to see you, Sergeant,” he yelled up
to Sean in the turret. “You must be from the tank support we’re to meet up the
road.”

Sean eased himself through the
hatch and onto the deck. “You’re the second officer who’s told me that since
yesterday, sir. But I’m here to tell you the answer’s still no. We ain’t those
guys.”

Sean couldn’t decide if the captain
was annoyed or confused. As if unsure what to say or do next, he glanced back
at his trucks stopped on the road. They were just a long line of soft targets,
full of infantrymen and supplies, vulnerable to just about everything.
Thirty-caliber machine guns were their heaviest weapons. A few panzers could
decimate them.

“Maybe you could come along and
help us out, anyway, Sergeant.” It was spoken as a statement, not a question.

“No can do, sir. We’re a recon
team, and we were supposed to be back with our unit hours ago. Love to help you
out, but—”

“Hang on just a damn minute,
Sergeant. If you’re recon, what can you tell me about the road ahead to
Vimoutiers?”

“I can tell you it’s crawling with Kraut
armor, sir. Couple of battalions passed this way during the night.”

The captain unfurled his map
against Eclipse’s sloping front armor, using his fingers as a ruler,
sliding them from the scale in the corner to a point on a road. Looking over
his shoulder, Sean knew it was the wrong road. He leaned in and planted the tip
of his forefinger on their actual location.

“This ain’t the Gacé-Vimoutiers
highway, sir. You’re way the hell over here.”

Now the captain really looked
confused. “That can’t be, Sergeant.”

“Afraid it is, sir. You missed a
turn back there somewhere.”

The captain puzzled over the map
for a few moments, and then said, “But this road goes to Vimoutiers, too. How
many tanks have you got?”

“Just two, sir, and like I said,
we’ve gotta get—”

“Never mind that, Sergeant. Put
your tanks at the front of my column and lead us up the road.”

“Sir, I just told you this road’s
crawling with Kraut tanks. Two li’l ol’ Zippos ain’t gonna help you a
damn bit.”

“I’m giving you a direct order,
Sergeant.”

Sean climbed onto Eclipse’s deck.
“Ain’t gonna happen, sir.”

“Goddammit, Sergeant, I said I just
gave you a direct order!”

Sliding into his turret hatch, Sean
replied, “Then I guess I’m giving you a direct refusal, Captain.”

“What’s your name, Sergeant? I’m
going to have your ass court-martialed.”

“The name’s Mouse, sir. Michael.
No middle name.”

“Spell that, Sergeant.”

“Standard spelling, sir. M-O-U-S-E.”

The captain had written down the
first few letters in his little notebook before he realized just how hard his
leg was being pulled: Michael NMN Mouse. Mickey Mouse.

Eclipse was already backing
away, the captain chasing after her, yelling over the roar of her engine, “WHO
IS YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER, YOU INSUBORDINATE SON OF A BITCH?”

“SAME AS YOURS, SIR,” Sean yelled
back. “FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT.”

In the light of day, Sean quickly
found the trail that had eluded him in darkness, the one that would lead them
back to 4th Armored. He told his crew, “Now we’re cooking with
gas. We’ll be home before you know it, boys.”

He expected an enthusiastic
response from his crew but got none. For a moment, he wondered why. And then it
hit him: Maybe my choice of words wasn’t that great. A Zippo can turn into
an oven in a heartbeat. Nobody who rides around in one wants to think about
cooking or gas…or any of that burning shit.

At 4th Armored’s HQ,
General Wood looked up at the sky with a growing uneasiness. The heavy bombers
of the 8th Air Force were coming—they should be overhead any
minute—and the low cumulus clouds which hung overhead would be anything but
conducive to accurate, high-altitude bombing. The general thought those clouds
resembled broad, flat swaths of cotton bandage roughly torn from a roll, leaving
them with jagged holes in many places. Maybe those holes would be enough for
the bombardiers above those clouds to see the ground clearly and drop their
bombs on target.

Or maybe not.

He turned to Colonel Abrams and
said, “I hear tell Monty asked to have this bombing raid called off because of
the cloud cover. Ike gave him a flat out no. Said his Brits would
actually have to be close enough to be in danger from an off-target drop…and
they certainly aren’t close. The Supreme Commander got that one dead on
the mark.”

His head bowed as if at a funeral, Wood
paused before adding, “But those poor Polish bastards…they’re certainly close
enough. Hell, they’re right in the damn middle of it all.”

Abrams replied, “We might be, too,
sir, depending on how bad their aim is.”

Sean figured they were halfway to 4th
Armored when the sky began to darken. It wasn’t due to the weather; there
seemed to be an armada of aircraft—an aluminum overcast—above the layer
of patchy clouds. He couldn’t hear the low-pitched hum of their engines over
the noises of his tank. But he could see them—a big B-17 here, a few more there—through
the gaps in the cloud deck. Some of those planes would pass right overhead.

“They’re our guys,” he told his
crew. There were cheers in response.

They were still cheering when Sean
saw the first sticks of bombs plummeting downward. It was too late to do
anything but button up the tanks. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Each collision of bomb with earth
felt like the tank was being struck by a giant mallet. Shrapnel bounced off her
hull, sounding like driven rain on a tin roof to the tankers inside. They
clamped their hands against the earphones of their helmets to keep the pressure
surge of the blasts from rupturing their eardrums. They wished they had third
hands to clamp over their crotches, because it felt like they were being kicked
in the testicles by a mule. Squeezing their thighs together would have to
suffice.

It all lasted less than a minute.
The blasts became distant; a drumbeat of death by steel marching quickly away.
Sean popped open his turret hatch to have a look outside.

Eclipse looked like she’d
been sandblasted, the surfaces of her turret and hull scored deeply in countless
places. Some of the track sections they’d hung on her front and sides—both as
spare parts and a little extra steel between themselves and enemy fire—were
either badly mangled or gone completely, having sacrificed themselves to save
the hull beneath.

But when he turned rearward to
check on Sposato’s tank, his stomach gave a sickening lurch. Anytime, Baby—or
what was left of her—was stopped dead about 100 yards behind. Her scorched
turret lay nearby, upside down like an overturned turtle. The foredeck of her
hull looked like it had been cleaved open by an ax. Flames roared from that
rupture and the big, empty ring where her turret had once been attached. Every
few seconds, the flames would yield to a fireball which shot dense gray smoke
and sizzling metal fragments skyward as more of her ammunition cooked off in
the blaze.

Sean knew what had happened to her:
Some fucking bombardier got himself a direct hit. A one-in-a-million shot,
but on the wrong damn target. What the Brits call an “own goal.” They’ll probably
give that fucking bomber jockey a medal for it, too.

As Eclipse plowed onward
toward her unit and Hill 262, Sean fought back his tears. A bitter voice in his
head said, Like it ain’t hard enough just fighting the fucking Krauts…

But what’s the damn difference?
It’s just a matter of time.

The heavy bombers had done their
worst and were headed back to England. Now it was time for the fighters to
reclaim the sky over Hill 262. Tommy Moon slid into Eclipse of the Hun’s cockpit
as Sergeant McNulty completed the last of the preflight checks.

“Okay, sir,” McNulty said, leaning into
the cockpit. “You’re good to go.” He thrummed his fingers against the top of
the windshield frame, where the rear view mirror Tommy had insisted he remove
used to be. “Keep an eye on your six,” he added. “With that mirror gone,
you’re gonna have to do a whole lotta head swiveling. And you’d better, too,
because I’d like all that hard work me and my boys put in on this bird to last
a while.”

“As do I, Sergeant. As do I. Who’s
going to ride the wing for taxi-out?”

“I thought I’d do it myself today,
if that’s okay with you, sir.”

“It’d be my pleasure to have you
along,” Tommy replied.

The safety man gave the clear to
start signal as McNulty lay prone on the wing, his head over the leading
edge. Tommy completed the pre-start checklist and engaged the starter. The big
radial chugged to life with the usual cloud of bluish smoke. Chocks were pulled
from the wheels, the throttle bumped up, and she began her slow roll. With a
sharp left turn on McNulty’s hand signal, Eclipse took her place in line
on the taxiway.

It had been SOP for quite some time
to have a guide ride the wing while taxiing. The pilot of a P-47 couldn’t see a
blessed thing over the ship’s nose with the tail wheel sitting on the ground. Once
some speed was gained on the takeoff role and the tail came up, he could
finally see straight ahead. But a man on the wingtip during taxi always had an
unobstructed view forward. Using hand signals, he’d guide the pilot to the
runway threshold, then drop off and join the other ships’ guides in the truck
that shuttled them back to the ramp.

Before they began using the wingtip
guides for taxi, the old procedure had been for the ship to s-turn back
and forth across the taxiway as she moved forward. It afforded some semblance
of a forward view at the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock positions. But even then,
there were big blind spots. Occasionally, a pilot got his rudder slashed to
ribbons by the now-mangled prop of the plane behind, scrubbing both ships from
the mission. Even more pilots put a wheel off the taxiway while zigzagging and
got stuck in the soft mud, holding up the conga line of trailing ships
as grumbling ground crews dug the mired plane out. And all that weaving back
and forth wasted a lot of precious aviation gasoline. Tommy’s squadron—the 301st—hadn’t
used the s-turn procedure since their first months in England.

Eclipse was at the runway
threshold now, the next to take off. Tommy braked Eclipse to a stop so
his wing rider could hop off. Rather than give the customary salute before
leaving, though, McNulty offered what seemed a melancholy wave goodbye, as if
he wasn’t expecting to see Tommy for a long time. Or ever again.

At first, Tommy was amused, as if
it was all some act the ground crewmen had cooked up. What’s Sarge playing
at? he asked himself.

All of a sudden, it wasn’t funny at
all. A little unnerved, Tommy asked himself another question: What does that
son of a bitch know that I don’t?

But there was no time to ponder
unanswerable questions. He steered Eclipse onto the runway, locked the
tailwheel, opened the throttle, and began the mad dash to get his heavily laden
ship airborne.

Chapter Forty-One

10, Downing Street,

Whitehall

August 18, 1944

MOST SECRET

My Dear Montgomery,

I feel the need to supplement our
telephone conversation of August 16 with a few heartfelt thoughts that I am
sure are in the best interests of this critical allied endeavour in which we
are all so deeply involved. As I stated at that time, your opinions of General
Eisenhower’s abilities as Supreme Commander are well noted. But I must remind
you once again of the significance of the word “supreme.” Your statement that
Eisenhower’s “ignorance on how to run a war is absolute and complete” is far
too easy to discount and does our collective cause no favours.

I urge you, dear fellow, to take
whatever pains necessary to appreciate that there are often higher priorities
than the ones in which we toil day to day. In those higher priorities, we often
find political factors that are every bit as important as those of pure
military consequence.

Field Marshall Brooke shares my
opinion that in the campaign you are currently waging the initiative has passed
from your command to the forces of our American allies. While we may not always
agree with the direction our American friends take, and we may occasionally
have no choice but to reward their failures, we must never be seen as trying to
punish their successes.

Therefore, your request to initiate a
review of the Supreme Commander’s stewardship at the highest levels of state
will not be pursued by His Majesty’s government. But take heart, Monty, and
remember that while all good things come to those who wait, your wait may not
be as long as you fear.

Winston Churchill

Chapter Forty-Two

The clouds that had hindered the 8th
Air Force heavy bombers just an hour earlier were breaking up now, their
remnants pushed eastward toward Germany by the steady prevailing wind. The
pilots of Blue Flight had a far better view of the ground—and the
fleeing Germans—than the bombardiers who came before them had experienced.

The eager rookie flying Blue
Three—Lieutenant Bobby Sample—could barely contain his excitement at the
spectacle unfolding below. “Look at those Krauts!” he blurted into his
microphone. “It’s like a traffic jam down there! You won’t even have to aim. You’re
bound to hit something. That briefing officer wasn’t kidding when he called it the
triangle of death.”

That name was proving quite
appropriate. The triangle was 10 square miles bounded by two towns—Trun and
Chambois—and Hill 262. Within that three-sided hell, the fleeing Germans seemed
bumper to bumper, shoulder to shoulder. Their exodus looked like a river
of feldgrau surging eastward, being decimated by Allied artillery and
then slamming against the dam of ever-strengthening American forces and the
battered Poles still clinging to the hill.

“Knock off the chatter, Three,”
Tommy scolded, “and don’t get any ideas about shooting them up, either. They’re
the artillery’s job, not ours. Stay well clear of the triangle unless you want
to get knocked down by our own guns. Those shells won’t care what they hit.
We’ve got other fish to fry, anyway.”

Other fish to fry:
protecting Patton’s wide open right flank. His headlong advance to close the
Falaise Gap had turned 3rd Army into a narrow salient over 10 miles
long, curving north toward the British lines still miles away. The left flank
of that salient faced the fleeing and panic-stricken former defenders of Normandy.
They were still a formidable fighting force, just like any cornered creature,
but they were quickly running out of ammunition and hope.

The Germans the 3rd Army
faced on their right flank, where Colonel Abrams’ 37th Tank
Battalion was one of the units holding the line, were a different story
entirely. Heavy in armor, well supplied and with room to maneuver, they were
determined to slice through the American offensive and allow the breakout of
their trapped comrades. Only the fighters of XIX Tactical Air Command were
available to cover Patton’s right flank. The four P-47s of Tommy Moon’s Blue
Flight were just a small part of that covering force.

The radio was alive with the
familiar voices of 301st Fighter Squadron pilots serving as ASOs.
Herb Clinchmore was one of them. He would’ve been flying Blue Four right
now had not his loudly expressed lack of empathy for the ground troops singled
him out for some on-the-job training. I don’t care if he was drunk when he
said it, Tommy told himself. He had it coming…and it’ll do him good.

It sounded like Clinchmore’s
education was progressing nicely; he was already hard at work directing air
support for 5th Infantry Division, guiding jugs from another
squadron to attacks on the highway junctions south of Survie.

Charlie Webster was on the air,
too. The sound of his voice sent a chill down Tommy’s spine: Where Webster
is, so’s my brother. And voices don’t lie…when the pitch goes up an octave,
they’re in one hell of a fight.

“Roger, Halfback,” Tommy
transmitted, “copy your coordinates, target concentrated vehicles with armor.
Can you mark me a target line?”

“Negative, negative on the line, Gadget
Blue. Things are a little crazy right now. Point marking only, yellow
smoke. Come in top to bottom, okay?”

Top to bottom: attack out of
the north. Less chance of hitting the GIs to the west that way.

With one terse transmission, Tommy
organized Blue Flight for the attack run. Samples, the rookie flying Blue
Three, would stay on his wing. Jimmy Tuttle, in Blue Two, would lead
the other rookie in Blue Four, Lieutenant Ray Esposito.

Tommy and his rookie flew one high
orbit over the target area to get oriented. Tuttle led Esposito around a wider
orbit to buy time and distance behind Blue Leader’s run. But Tommy’s
view of the melee below was troubling. Every tank and truck—American or
German—looked alike from the air. And Webster’s target marking wasn’t helping
distinguish them: Yellow smoke, my ass. The only smoke I see is gray or
black. I wish to hell they had the spare guns to give me a line in the sky.

“Halfback, this is Blue
Leader. I need more smoke, and with a splash this time. Can’t tell
you guys down there apart.”

“Roger, coming right up. Stand by.”

Tommy banked Eclipse hard
for a wider view of the ground. Any second now…

It took almost another full orbit
before Webster reported, “Splash, over.”

One one thousand, two one
thousand, three—

There it was, a tiny puff of smoke barely
distinguishable as yellow.

If I take my eyes off it, I’m
going to lose it.

“Blue Three from Leader.
Stay with me, Bobby. We’re going in. Pickle ’em all at once on my mark.”

“Roger.”

Tommy nosed her over into a descent
for glide bombing, a brisk enough downhill ride but not as breathtaking as the
screaming plummet of dive-bombing, where the pointers of the altimeter seemed
to be spinning right off the post. He figured it would be a safer initiation
for a rookie: I shouldn’t have to worry about him getting so target fixated
he doesn’t remember to pull out until it’s too late.

Passing through 3000 feet, the
sunlight began to play off the battlefield smoke, turning it a satiny gray that
masked the yellow marker and obscured Tommy’s view of the ground. He could
still make out the shapes of vehicles—but they could be anyone’s vehicles now. I
think I’ve got a good enough reference point for the drop, though. And Webster
says we’re right on the target line…so even if I miss, I won’t kill anyone I’m
not supposed to.

That last thought echoed in his
head, a troubling question now instead of a statement: I won’t kill anyone
I’m not supposed to?

But there was no time for questions
like that, only decisiveness. “On my mark, Bobby…three, two, one, RELEASE.”

He pushed the button on the control
stick that salvoed her bombs—the pickle switch. Eclipse lurched upward,
suddenly 1500 pounds lighter as her three bombs fell away.

Climbing out, Tommy asked, “You
still with me, Three?”

A breathless voice replied, “Roger,
still here.”

Tommy looked over his right
shoulder, where Sample was supposed to be. But he saw no one.

“Where exactly are you, Bobby?”

“I’m back here on your six.”

“Get up on my right wingtip, where
you belong, dammit. We ain’t playing follow the leader.”

A few seconds later, Sample’s voice
went from breathless to terrified. “OH MY GOD, THEY’RE EVERYWHERE! SHIT! SHIT!
GET ’EM OFF ME!”

Then it was Tuttle’s voice in
Tommy’s earphones, agitated but at least not panicking. “We’ve got bandits,
Tommy. FWs are all over the place.”

His head swiveled from side to side
but he couldn’t see anything behind him, not a jug, not a Focke-Wulf 190,
either. He instinctively glanced up to where the mirror used to be, forgetting
for a moment he’d ordered it removed. Then he cursed it and himself: “Fucking
thing would’ve been fogged up, anyway.”

Getting caught in a climb was the
last place he wanted to be. He reminded himself that jugs better be able to
dive because they certainly won’t climb.

And his out-of-position wingman had
put himself in a trap from which neither he nor Tommy could provide easy
relief.

“Bobby, are you still climbing?”

In the high-pitched shriek of a
frightened child, Sample replied, “Yeah, yeah, I am.”

“Do a split-s out of there
right fucking now.”

Tommy put Eclipse into a
diving right turn, hoping for a better view and a chance to help his hapless wingman.
He never picked up Sample’s diving plane, but he didn’t have to look very hard
for the Focke-Wulf. It sped right over his canopy, apparently trying to
match Eclipse’s turn but going too fast to achieve it.

That put Tommy right on his tail,
but only for a second. The German kicked his rudder left and right a few times,
fish-tailing his ship in an attempt to create confusion which direction he’d
turn. Then he broke hard right.

This guy’s no rookie. But
I think I can keep up with him.

“Blue Three from Blue
Leader, what’s your status?”

There was no response.

“Blue Two from Blue
Leader, are you guys okay, Jimmy?”

“Affirmative,” Tuttle replied. “I
think we scared a couple of ’em away.”

“Any sign of Sample?”

“Negative. You need help?”

“Could sure use some, but find
Sample first.”

“Roger. Where are you, Tommy?”

“I’m not sure. East of you, I
think, at angels six. Working my ass off trying to get a bead on this
guy.”

“Don’t see you. You going up or
down?”

“Up, at the moment.”

Up took Tommy and the Focke-Wulf
into a lingering deck of patchy clouds. The German plane could outclimb a P-47,
but this pilot seemed reluctant to try, instead leading his pursuer on a
twisting, turning rollercoaster ride across the sky.

Maybe he’s their leader, and
he’s afraid to get too far from his rookies and leave them to the wolves. Good
thing these clouds aren’t too thick or I’d lose him for sure.

So far, Tommy had squeezed off
three short bursts, to no apparent effect. Wasted rounds, dammit. I’m not
close enough.

The Focke-Wulf broke left.
It only took a second for Tommy to realize why: there was a bank of cumulus building
in that direction, fluffing higher and wider by the minute. Once a stalked
plane vanished into those clouds, its pursuer would have no idea where it might
come out.

Gotta cut off his turn.

He pushed her throttle to the stop.
Then he gingerly grabbed the supercharger lever.

I know I’m not supposed to do
this, but…

He inched the lever up, watching
the supercharger and prop rpm gauges climb to their red lines.

The roar of her engine took on a frightening,
higher-pitched tone Tommy had never heard before. Eclipse leaped ahead
like a scalded cat, closing the distance on the German in seconds.

Tommy fired another burst. He could
see the flashes of bullet strikes on the Focke-Wulf’s aft fuselage. She
didn’t falter, just reversed direction rapidly and headed up toward the peaks
of the clouds.

It was all stick-and-rudder
instinct from that point on. The two planes twisted and turned, vanishing for a
second in downy puffs of cumulus, only to reappear and the dizzy dance
continue.

The German kept going higher. I
guess he’s finally trying to outclimb me, Tommy thought. He fingered the
supercharger lever again: Do I dare?

They must have been climbing almost
straight up. There was no reference to judge the aircraft’s attitude, and the
airspeed was bleeding off rapidly. The clouds had erased the Earth’s horizon;
the artificial horizon in Eclipse’s cockpit was pegged uselessly against
its stops.

The only thing that matters now
is I get a good shot at this Kraut before we both stall.

Eclipse’s controls were
getting mushy, making it almost impossible to line up the German in his
gunsight. He’d never seen an airspeed indicator read that low on an aircraft
that was still—technically—flying. But she wouldn’t be flying much longer; the
pre-stall buffeting had begun.

Just give me one damn shot!

He thought he had it. The Focke-Wulf
slid into the gunsight’s reticle. Before Tommy could squeeze the trigger,
his prey suddenly went straight up and out of view.

UP? What the fuck is going—

And then the answer struck him like
a brick between the eyes:

We’re inverted. The Kraut
stalled first. He didn’t fall up. He fell down…just like I’m
about to do if I don’t get this nose level and roll upright.

By the time Tommy recovered his
plane and broke out below the cloud deck, he was alone in the sky. The Focke-Wulf
was gone.

“Blue Two from Blue
Leader, you guys okay?”

“We’re good. We got Sample back in
the fold, too. Did you score?”

“Negative,” Tommy replied. “You
still in the target box?”

“Affirmative. Where are you?”

That was a good question. He’d been
trying to figure that one out since the ground came back into view. But at
least now he could see the smoke from the battle around Hill 262. “Looks like I’m
about ten miles east. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes. How’d we do with
the bombing? I haven’t been paying attention.”

“We did outstanding work,” Tuttle
replied. “The dogfaces will be buying our beer tonight, that’s for damn sure.
Got any rounds left?”

“About half a load.”

“Good. There’s still a little
mopping up to do. Hurry on back…and watch your six, Tommy.”

The tankers of 37th
Battalion quickly exploited the successes of the P-47s. By 1000 hours, they had
pushed the few miles to the southern and eastern base of Hill 262. They left a
killing field of dead soldiers and shattered vehicles from both sides. Once the
GIs secured the north side of the hill, the Poles who’d survived the carnage
would be rescued and the enemy’s escape route to the east would be sealed. The
Germans still fighting to keep that route open were being dealt the full wrath
of the American fighter support.

Now that his tank had
returned—alone—to Baker Company, Sean Moon found himself leading a different
unit. Captain Newcomb told him, “With the Second and Third Platoons wiped out,
we’re down to two. Smitty will take the Second, you take the Fourth.”

“No lieutenants in charge, sir?”

“Nope. They’re all gone,” Newcomb
replied. “Simpson’s still alive but his war’s over. He’s burned real bad. It’s
down to you four-stripers now. By the way, neither one of you has all his tanks,
either. The B-17s knocked out three of our Shermans, counting Sposato’s. The Krauts
got the rest. But what the bomber jockeys did manage to actually drop on the
enemy did a pretty good job. Of course, most of their fucking bombs didn’t hit
a damn thing, but that’s par for the course, I guess.”

“That’s for damn sure, sir,” Sean
replied.

“But the P-47s put those eggs right
where we needed them. Tell your brother thanks for me when you see him again.
Opened up the playing field like a crowbar.”

“My brother? You know he was flying
one of those jugs?”

“No, I have no idea. Just guilt by
association, I guess. Maybe Lieutenant Webster can tell you for sure.”

“Do you know where the lieutenant
is, sir?”

“Yeah. He and some of the artillery
FOs are headed up Hill Two-Six-Two for a better view. You’ve got some work to
do, though, don’t you?”

“Where the hell are we going now?”
Fabiano asked Sean as Eclipse led the two other tanks in Fourth Platoon
along a ridgeline road. “Ain’t we done enough for one fucking day?”

“Apparently not, pal,” Sean
replied. “The colonel wants that road junction at the northeast corner behind Two-Six-Two
sealed up. He don’t want no surprises when the whole damn division moves up
this way. There’s already a couple of infantry companies holding it down, but
they’re gonna need some Zippo support if any panzers show their faces.”

Fabiano shook his head in disgust.
“I’ll bet you volunteered us for this shit detail,” he said.

“I don’t volunteer for nothing, fuckhead.
But you and that big mouth of yours just did.” He called to his driver. “Hogan,
stop the vehicle.”

Eclipse clanked to a halt
near three abandoned German tanks.

“Now, Fab,” Sean said, “take a
bucketful of them thermite grenades and roast all them tanks the Krauts were so
thoughtful to leave unattended.”

Fabiano didn’t like the sound of
that one bit. “I ain’t getting out of this tank. We’re in fucking Indian
country. No place to be strolling around with my dick in my hand.”

“You got a real taste for shit,
Fab. Here’s the deal: you can do it the easy way...or you’re gonna do it with
my size twelve up your ass. Your choice.”

Fabiano’s defiant expression and
body language would indicate he had no intention of complying. Yet, he was already
climbing out of the turret, mumbling, “This is bullshit, Sarge.”

“Everything we do is bullshit, Fab.
You oughta be used to it by now. Now hurry the fuck up. We ain’t got all day.”

Fabiano opened the case of thermite
grenades tied to the aft deck. “And ain’t it unsafe to have these fucking
things sitting on the hull like this?”

“Would you rather have them inside
with us? So they can roast our asses before we even have a chance to get out?
Keep thinking like that and you ain’t never gonna get your own tank.”

“I don’t want my own fucking tank,
Sarge.”

“I can live with that, too, Fab. No
sweat off my nose.”

Fabiano walked toward the nearest
panzer, his Thompson strapped over his shoulder, his arms laden with grenades.

“Uh uh, Fab,” Sean called out. “Not
that one. Start with the farthest and work your way back, so you don’t have to
walk through a firestorm on the return trip. Let’s use a little common sense
here.”

Sean couldn’t hear what Fabiano mumbled
in reply over the thrum of Eclipse’s engine, but he imagined it
was something like, If you had any common sense, we wouldn’t be doing this
shit in the first fucking place.

Sean called out, “Fabiano, you just
volunteered again, didn’t you?”

Hogan stood up in the driver’s
hatch, turned to Sean, and asked, “These Kraut tanks ain’t even damaged. Why
the hell’d they just leave them here?”

“It’s the latest thing, Private,”
Sean replied. “They see fighter planes coming, they jump out and take a powder.
They’re scared shitless of them planes. Not sure why, though. To hear my
brother talk, them flyboys only score hits on stuff by accident.”

Hogan replied, “I wish they’d take
a powder when they see us coming.”

“Me, too, Hogie. Me, too.”

Chapter Forty-Three

General Patton seemed more fired up
than usual. Enthusiastically slapping General Wood on the back, he said, “I’ll
be a son of a bitch, John. Once again, your Fourth Armored has done one hell of
a job.”

Glad for the praise but in no mood
to celebrate quite yet, Wood replied, “Thank you, sir, but we haven’t turned
the north corner of Two-Six-Two yet…and we’ve gotten the shit kicked out
of us just getting to where we are.”

He might as well have been barking
at the moon. Patton’s enthusiasm was undamped as he spread a map across the
hood of his jeep. “Ah, but you will, John…and very soon. And when you do, that
German exodus is going to turn north like diverting a great river, straight
toward Monty. It’s got nowhere else to go. We’ve got them blocked, Bradley’s
kicking them in the ass…and Monty’s taking his sweet fucking time joining the
fight, as always. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he started backing up when
the Germans start coming at him. It’d be just like him.”

Wood replied, “You really think
that would happen, sir?”

“Hell, yes, I do. That little Limey
clerk doesn’t know a damn thing about pursuit. Hell, Ike doesn’t, either, but
at least he’s learning. But Monty’s so convinced the sun rises out of his
asshole, he’ll never learn a damn thing.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more on
that score, sir,” Wood said.

“Now listen up, John. You’ll be
taking more prisoners than you ever dreamed possible. We’re setting up POW
camps outside every town along the Argentan-Gacé highway. The one we set up at
Nonant-le-Pin is already full to the gills. Over fifteen thousand of Hitler’s
finest in that camp alone. It’s the same story at the camps First Army set up,
too. Our engineers are doing nothing but building corrals for them right now.”

“How many POWs are we expecting,
sir?”

“At least one hundred thousand,
John, when all is said and done. Maybe a whole lot more. Hell, we’re talking
about a whole Kraut army here…and maybe more. I’m hearing rumors we may bag
some of Fifth Panzer Army, too.”

Wood blew a whistle of surprise,
like the sound of a bomb falling.

“Just keep those POWs out of your
way, John, and don’t slow down for anything. Use every admin trooper you got to
play prison guard. Don’t you dare take one man off your front line to babysit
prisoners, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir. I understand,” Wood
replied.

Blue Flight was on their
third sortie of the day. Their mission remained the same: protect the right
flank of 3rd Army. Despite the abundance of targets on their first
two sorties, they’d been lazily orbiting their area of responsibility for 30
minutes with no calls from the ASOs and no Germans in sight.

“Maybe the war ended and they
forgot to tell us,” Jimmy Tuttle offered.

Their headsets spit the reply, “In
your dreams, Blue Flight.” It was the voice of Charlie Webster with 37th
Tank. He read off a string of coordinates and then added, “Something strange
going on over that way. How about doing a little recon for us…and whatever else
you feel is righteous?”

Two minutes later, Blue Flight
was over the area Webster identified. At first, Tommy and his pilots saw
nothing out of the ordinary, just another patch of hilly French farmland
crisscrossed by a few narrow roads that were little more than trails. As Tommy
dropped Eclipse lower for a better look, he told his pilots, “Don’t
forget—if we get jumped again, pickle those bombs before you try to tangle with
them.”

Despite the tinny, filtered audio quality
of their aircraft radios, the tone of an indifferent adolescent came through
loud and clear in Tuttle’s voice: “Yes, mother. You really don’t need to tell
us that, you know.”

Descending below a thousand feet,
something began to look very strange to Tommy: a mass of gray was flooding over
one of the roads, surging to the south like spilled oil.

At 500 feet there was no doubt what
that mass was: German soldiers, hundreds of them, walking slowly—reluctantly—as
if on some forced march. Their faces were looking up at Tommy. Some waved their
arms. Others waved white flags of surrender.

“You aren’t going to believe this,
guys,” he said, “but there are a bunch of Krauts surrendering to us.”

“You’re right,” Tuttle replied, “I
think you’re pulling my leg. Gotta be some kind of Kraut trick.”

“I don’t think so, Jimmy. They look
pretty keen on surrendering. I’m going to try and wrangle them south. Once they
hit the highway, there’s bound to be an American unit to reel them in.”

“How the hell are you going to wrangle
them?”

“Just watch me.”

Tommy brought Eclipse around
in a full circle that encompassed the Germans. Then,  heading south, he flew
low over their heads straight down the road, waggling his wings the entire pass
as if he was waving back. “There,” he said, “complete with a gesture of good
will. Let’s see if they got the message.”

They did. The Germans trudged off
toward the highway, white flags flying. When Tommy advised Charlie Webster of
what was coming down the road toward the GIs, the ASO thought his leg was being
pulled, too.

Fifteen minutes later, Blue
Flight was back on station with 37th Tank, dropping their bombs
on Germans who were definitely not surrendering. In the middle of it
all, Webster relayed a message from General Wood: Congratulations! Before
today, I’d never seen with my own eyes a case of ground troops surrendering to
aircraft. It’s a sure sign we’ve got them beat. Well done!

The trip would take all afternoon,
they were sure. The four maquis—Pierre, Sylvie, Eva, and Dominique—were
bicycling from Orville to Vimoutiers. Not that the distance was great—it was
just a little over six miles, a trivial stretch to people who pedaled
everywhere—but the Boche had the highway totally clogged with men and
vehicles in both directions, often forcing them to walk their bikes along the
rough shoulder rather than ride. Fresh troops and tanks were trundling toward the
fighting just a few miles west, what the Americans were calling the fight for
Hill 262. Haggard, exhausted soldiers—the once-proud defenders of Normandy—staggered
in the opposite direction, grateful for a moment to have escaped what they,
too, had termed the triangle of death. But they knew their salvation
would be a short one, for they’d be reorganized into surviving units and thrown
back into battle against the Allies somewhere else.

“Look at them,” Eva said of the
escapees, “they’re nothing but tired old men and terrified little boys.” To the
annoyance of the other maquis, she hadn’t bother to keep her voice down.

“Are you trying to get us all
killed, woman?” Pierre whispered angrily in her ear.

“No, I believe that’s your job, monsieur,”
she replied, without a hint of the respect the term usually implied.

“Both of you, be quiet,” Sylvie
said. “Why don’t we rest in the shade of those trees over there for a little
while?”

Eva and Dominique liked that idea
very much. They were already pushing their bikes that way when Pierre
protested, “We cannot stop. We’re already late.”

Sylvie faced the highway and spread
her arms wide, a gesture meant to take in the scope and impassibility of the
traffic snarl before them. “There is nothing we can do about being late,”
she said. “If they can’t wait for us, let them do whatever they have in mind
without us.” She looked up at the gathering clouds and said, “I’m a bit
surprised the American planes haven’t attacked. Once it gets overcast, they’ll
have missed their chance. Such a shame…the Boche look like such easy
targets on this road.”

Finding a shady spot to her liking,
Eva parked her bike against a tree and lay down in the grass, luxuriating in
the refreshing coolness. Sylvie and Dominique quickly joined her. Pierre
remained standing, nervously smoking a cigarette. He cast an eye skyward and
warned, “Sylvie is right about one thing—the weather will change very soon. You
know how summer afternoons can be.”

“So what? We’ve been wet before,”
Eva replied, cackling at her double entendre.

Sylvie and Dominique couldn’t help
but smile.

“You’re disgusting,” Sylvie said,
pretending to scold but failing miserably to sound serious.

Eva suddenly stopped laughing. Her
head reared back like a snake about to strike. “Is that so?” she snarled.
“That’s a very interesting comment from someone who whored for the Boche.”

Dominique slid between them.
“That’s not true, Eva. You know she was—”

“Shut up, Dominique,” Sylvie
interrupted. “I can fight my own battles.”

“Pretty young thing,” Eva taunted.
“Those Boche couldn’t keep themselves from planting their filthy pricks
between your legs, could they?”

“I played the part I was told to play.
Nobody was at greater risk than me. And you’re all still alive because I played
the part so well.”

Eva spit on the ground in disgust.
“Such merde. You loved every minute of it.”

“I hated every minute of it, Eva.”

“Rubbish. Your connard of a
husband loved every minute of it, too, I’ll bet.”

Sylvie thought that one over for a
few moments. Then, without a hint of anger, she replied, “You’re probably right
on that score, Eva.”

They realized Pierre was looking
on, his mouth agape, his face a ghostly shade of white. He’d overheard the
entire exchange. He looked so shocked, so scandalized, so ridiculous, that they
couldn’t help themselves. The women collapsed flat on the ground, laughing
hysterically.

Once she could catch her breath,
Sylvie said to him, “War is hell, no? Or didn’t you realize?”

Pierre had no reply. He just walked
away into the woods, hoping, perhaps, not to hear any more.

Eva asked, “So tell me, Sylvie,
with all that fucking, did you ever get pregnant?”

“No, not once.”

“You must have used some very good prophylactiques,
then. Certainly not those Boche or French abominations that feel like
barbed wire scraping out your vagin.”

With an air of embarrassment,
Dominique asked, “What’s wrong with French prophylactiques?”

Sylvie snapped her reply: “Oh, is
that what my husband used with you?” She watched the look of alarm spread
across Dominique’s face, letting the thunderous silence grow for a moment
before adding, with an apologetic smile, “I’m only joking with you, Dominique.”
She leaned over and gave the trembling woman a hug. “No hard feelings, please?”

“Only men get hard
feelings,” Eva chimed in, reveling in the double entendre once again, “and the
bastards get them all the fucking time. But you never answered my question
about the prophylactiques, Sylvie.”

“There is no answer. I didn’t use
any. It wasn’t necessary. Not for me.”

The silence loomed between the
women once again until Eva took Sylvie in her motherly arms. “Oh, I’m so sorry,
mon amie. Are you positive you can’t conceive?”

“Three doctors say so.”

On the verge of tears, Dominique
whispered, “That is so sad.”

“No, it really isn’t,” Sylvie
replied. “For now, it’s been a blessing. But I don’t know how I’ll feel about it
later, though, when everything is different.”

Blue Flight wouldn’t get to
fly a fourth sortie that day. Thunderstorms were sweeping across Hill 262 and
the battlegrounds surrounding it. All the squadrons supporting 3rd
Army were grounded until they passed and the skies cleared.

“It’s a damn shame,” Colonel Pruitt
told his pilots. “Patton had his sights set on securing Hill Two-Six-Two before
sunset today. But since the weather’s preventing us from flying maximum
effort in support, that one final push is going to have to wait until
tomorrow. Be ready for wheels up at sunrise. Have a good night,
gentlemen.”

“Ain’t that great news?” Jimmy
Tuttle said. “We’ve got plenty of time to go have supper and a few beers in Alençon
and still grab a couple of hours’ sleep before breaking ground again. The hell
with the officers’ mess.”

“Yeah,” Tommy replied, “sounds like
a great idea. I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit. I want to check a couple of
things over with Sergeant McNulty first.”

He found the crew chief at the
supply shed, rummaging through stacks of sheet metal. “Your Lieutenant Sample
is a lucky man,” McNulty said. “There are exactly seventeen holes in his aft
fuselage. It’s a fucking miracle nothing important got hit. It’s all just tin
damage. I trust you gave him a right earful, sir?”

“Yeah, I don’t think he’ll be leaving
our ass end uncovered like that again. Not if he can help it, anyway.”

McNulty was holding out something
in his hand. Tommy didn’t recognize it for a few moments. Then it hit him: It’s
my rearview mirror.

“You sure you don’t want me to
stick this back on, sir?”

“No, Sarge. I’m fine without it.
Really.”

McNulty tossed the mirror back onto
a shelf. “As you wish, sir. You still happy with the extra bomb instead of the
rockets, too?”

“Blissfully happy, Sarge. They
actually land pretty damn close to where you’re aiming.”

“You know, Lieutenant, I saw the
tech specs for the new five-inch rocket insulations coming down the
pipe.”

“You mean installations,
right?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. I’m
telling you, sir…they look slicker than snot. Got the imprint of a
one-oh-five cannon, too.”

I’m sure he means impact…but
I’ll let it go.

“That may be, Sarge, but can you
actually hit what you’re aiming at? Do the tech specs say anything about that?”

McNulty just shrugged. Then he
asked, “You see your gun camera film yet? Did you hit that Kraut bastard?”

“Yeah, it looks like I did. But he
must’ve been lucky like Sample. My rounds hit nothing important,
apparently. The son of a bitch flew away.”

“Maybe you can claim a probable?”

Tommy laughed. “I don’t think so,
Sarge. He’s got to actually go down. Close only counts in horseshoes and
hand grenades.”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant…if you
can get a credit, I say take it. Don’t cut off your nose despite your
face.”

Jimmy Tuttle was looking for a good
meal. He led the two rookies of Blue Flight—Sample and Esposito—to his
favorite bistro on Alençon’s grand-rue. Tommy Moon was looking
for something else, though.

“Where’s the boss going?” Esposito
asked as Tommy hurried away toward Café Madeleine.

Tuttle replied, “He’s looking for a
little horizontal refreshment, Espo.”

“You mean he’s going to that
whorehouse? They told us that place was off limits. We’d get court-martialed if
we got caught there.”

“Kid, if they did that, every
swinging dick in Third Army—and the Nineteenth Tac Fighter Command—would be in
the stockade. They’d have to call off the war, and that’s certainly not going
to happen. No, laddie…our fearless leader’s got himself a much sweeter deal
than what you buy in a cathouse.”

Sample asked, “You mean he found
himself a hershey bar?”

Tuttle shook his head, like a
schoolmaster disappointed with his naive pupil. “No, son. Hershey bars
are so desperate they’ll do it for candy. Maybe even cigarettes. Nothing
desperate about the lady Tommy’s shacked up with, believe you me.”

From his station behind the bar, Sylvie’s
uncle Honoré had been on the lookout for Tommy the past four nights. He had no
trouble picking out the diminutive man wearing pilot’s wings from the sea of Americans
flooding Café Madeleine. Catching his eye, he motioned for Tommy to come
to the bar.

Without saying a word or offering a
smile, the uncle poured Tommy a beer and set it in front of him. Next to the
glass, he placed an envelope. “This has been waiting for you, Lieutenant,” he
said in French, and then walked away to tend to some other GIs crowding the bar
rail.

He didn’t want to open it at first.
It’s a goodbye letter. She’s going to say how sweet and tender it was, how
she’ll never forget me, blah blah blah…but the bottom line’s going to be she
really can’t, she really shouldn’t…

So fuck off.

But he opened it anyway. In
English, she’d written:

My dear sweet Tommy,

I’m counting on you to destroy
this note as soon as you’ve read it.

I’ve been called away. I don’t
know what I’ll be doing or for how long. I couldn’t tell you even if I did
know. You understand why.

I hope with all my heart you’ll
still be at the airfield at Alençon when I’m able to return. In the meantime, I
beg you not to worry about me. Let it be enough for us that I worry constantly
about you.

It’s only been a few hours but
already I miss you terribly. Until we meet again,

Love,

S

Beneath her name was the lipstick
impression where she’d kissed the paper.

His elation only lasted a few
seconds, pushed aside by the dread of whatever unknown jeopardy she was in right
now. He had to flee the café; he was in no mood to be surrounded by boisterous
GIs, celebrating that, for at least this one night, no one was telling them to
kill or be killed.

But somewhere—probably not too far
away, either—he was sure someone was telling that very thing to the woman he
loved. And all the begging she could muster couldn’t stop him from being worried
out of his mind.

Chapter Forty-Four

Sean had thought about it all night,
and now that the sun was coming up, he was more convinced than ever: We’re
screwed. When our guys try to round the north end of Two-Six-Two, this
road we’re sitting on is the one the Krauts are gonna come barreling down to
stop them. And all we’ve got to hold them off is three Zippos and what’s left
of two infantry companies.

This terrain ain’t even good
tank country…too hilly, too wooded, narrow roads running through valleys, trees
cutting visibility in every direction. Our tanks are just fixed guns in steel
tubs, with nowhere to maneuver. At least if we gotta go head to head with the Kraut
armor, it’ll be at real short range, so we might have a chance of a first-round
kill. But if we miss, they’ll turn us inside out. And with high ground all
around us like this, these radios don’t work for shit. Our only commo with the
outside world is a relay through the artillery FO on that ridge behind us.
Something happens to him, it’s all over.

Kowalski, the loader and backup
gunner, was the only man in Eclipse’s crew who’d managed a nap during
the night. Everybody else passed up their turn. They were too keyed up to
sleep. “Hey, Sarge,” Kowalski said, “now that the sun’s coming up, how about I
go outside, start a little fire and heat up this coffee?”

“No, Ski. No one’s getting
out of the fucking tank.”

“What if I gotta take a leak?”

“Piss out the escape hatch on the
bottom like everyone else.”

“Ah, come on, Sarge. Just for a
couple of minutes. I need my joe.”

“I said negative, Private.
For all we know, there are Krauts fifty fucking feet away in those woods. They
had all night to sneak up here.”

Sylvie slid the baker’s peel into
the stone oven, slipping it beneath the big round loaves of bread called boules.
With a smooth motion, she pulled the peel from the oven and deposited the
boules on a waiting cart. The bakery’s owner, a woman in her fifties named
Angelique, nodded her approval. “You’re getting the hang of this, young lady,”
Angelique said. “Très bon.”

The owner cast a wary eye to the
old German sergeant lounging in a corner. He was a mess steward by trade,
detailed by the local Wehrmacht commander to ensure maximum output and no
trickery from this commandeered bakery at Vimoutiers. He’d found the duty most
pleasing, since all the bakers were women. With the exception of that crone
Angelique, most weren’t too bad looking, either, in his estimation. Especially
those three new ones who’d joined the staff just this morning, signing on to
help keep the Wehrmacht fed. He’d written down their names to help him
remember: Eva, Dominique, and Sylvie.

There were other benefits of this
posting, as well. His supervisory duties weren’t very taxing; the women
required little oversight, since they’d worked as bakers even before the
occupation. Free from the prying eyes of the officers, the sergeant could take
a nip of schnapps whenever he wanted. Much more than just a nip, usually. Once
he got to feeling really happy, he found it great sport to stroll among
the women as they toiled, pretending to take interest in what they were doing
so he could rub against them, sneaking peeks down the front of their work
dresses, unbuttoned to their brassieres in the sultry heat of the bakery. He
found the rivulets of sweat running down between a woman’s breasts to be a
thing of fascinating beauty. Once he’d downed half a bottle, he’d be concocting
schemes to convince one of the women to let him lick that sweat off. He didn’t
care who, just so it was anyone younger than that old cow Angelique.

Sylvie was pushing another cart of
bread onto the delivery van when she saw Pierre standing across the alley
behind the bakery. He wore a white flower in the lapel of his worn suit jacket.
“That’s the signal,” Sylvie told Angelique. “The plastique has arrived. Opération
Pain Chaude happens tomorrow.”

When she walked back inside the
bakery, Sylvie nodded to Eva and Dominique. Each woman grabbed a full cart and
pushed it out to the delivery van. The German sergeant didn’t notice; the
bottle of schnapps was nearly half empty. Very soon, he’d be in his happy
frame of mind.

“We’ll need to distract that old Boche
bastard when the time comes,” Eva said.

Sylvie replied, “That shouldn’t be
too difficult.”

Eva gave her a leering look. “Oh, I
see. Your specialty, is it not?”

Before Sylvie could say a word,
Dominique spoke up: “No. I’ll do it. You two are better with the explosives,
anyway.”

“Fine,” Sylvie said, pulling
Angelique into their circle. “Now remember,” she told the old woman, “none of
the other women—and I mean absolutely no one—must know what we’re doing.
We can’t trust any of them to keep their mouths shut, especially if they’re
interrogated by the Boche. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Angelique replied. “Quite
clear.”

Sean’s tankers had been hearing the
distant rumble of engines since dawn, but not one vehicle had challenged them.
From Eclipse’s turret, Sean could only see about a quarter of a mile
ahead, to the bend in the road. He’d asked the captain commanding the infantry
to put an observation post at the bend or even beyond, to give at least a few
extra moment’s warning of the Germans’ approach. But the captain had refused,
claiming he didn’t have enough field telephones or working radios to stay in
touch with an OP. “Besides,” the captain had said, “that’s what the FO on the
ridge behind us is for.”

Sean protested; he’d already talked
with the FO and knew that from his position he couldn’t see the road beyond the
bend, either, just the tops of trees flanking it. “Maybe he’ll see the smoke
from their exhausts, sir,” he’d told the captain, “but that’s about all.”

“That’ll have to be enough, then,
Sergeant,” the captain had replied.

It wasn’t enough. The first
panzer—a Panther—rounded the bend unannounced. They’d heard her coming, but
judging distance and direction as the sound echoed around the hills and valleys
proved impossible. It was like watching a bad dream unfold as the muzzle of her
main gun appeared first, quickly followed by the ominous gray bulk of her hull.

“You got him, Fab?” Sean asked,
practically breathing down his gunner’s neck.

“Yeah,” Fabiano replied, his finger
on the firing button. “On the way.”

Eclipse rocked with the
recoil of her own shot.

The round hit the Panther squarely
on the split line between hull and turret. Her commander, standing in his
turret hatch, was launched high into the air like human fireworks. She came to
an abrupt stop, her main gun slightly off-center but not traversing, its tube
sagging below the horizontal.

“Crank the engine, Hogan,” Sean
said. “Fight’s on.”

An infantry lieutenant was running
toward Eclipse. From the corner of his eye, Sean saw him coming and
watched as the bullet struck him in the chest, knocking him backward off his
feet. He couldn’t hear a sound over the roar of Eclipse’s engine coming
to life, but he felt that sickening phftt-splat of the round streaking
to and hitting its target all the same.

Shit! They really do have
snipers in the woods.

Sean felt sure he knew what the
lieutenant was planning to tell him: It’s too hot! We’re pulling back!

He told his crew, “I think our
infantry’s gonna pull out, if they haven’t already. Kowalski, get on the horn
and tell the other two Zippos to circle the wagons and button up.
We’ve got snipers out there somewhere. Then get the FO to relay to Lieutenant
Webster so he can call in the jugs. Hogan, pull up behind that Panther we just
knocked out.”

Eclipse lurched forward as
Hogan asked, “You really sure we knocked it out, Sarge?”

Thick smoke was starting to waft
from the Panther’s hatches and vents. The commander who’d been launched from
his turret had been the only man seen to leave the tank.

“Yeah, Hogan, I’m pretty damn sure.
Get us there, right fucking now.”

“Hey, Sarge,” Kowalski said, “the
FO said he’d relay the message, but he’s pulling out, too.”

Sean replied, “Well, ain’t that
just fucking ducky? You’d think these guys have never been in contact with the
enemy before.”

Hesitantly, Fabiano joined the
discussion. “If everybody else is leaving, maybe we should be pulling back,
too, Sarge?”

“Bullshit. We don’t take orders
from some scared-shitless infantry captain. The colonel wants us to hold this
road, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Eclipse lumbered ahead. When
it reached the dead Panther, Sean told his driver, “Okay, turn into her so the
main gun’s over her foredeck. Yeah, that’s good. Just like that.”

“You don’t want me to push her out
of the way, do you, Sarge? I don’t think we can.”

“Fuck no. We’re gonna use her for
cover. If their armor’s so damn good, let’s take advantage of it. Any Kraut
coming up the road’ll have to shoot through her to get to us.”

“But she’s already burning, Sarge.
What if she blows up?”

“We’re in a tank, numbnuts. Who
gives a shit?”

Sean poked his head out of his
hatch to check the positioning of the other two Shermans. They’d circled the
wagons like he’d commanded, forming a close, three-pointed star with their
aft ends facing each other and all their firepower facing outward. “Good job,
guys,” he said over the radio. “If our own infantry won’t keep the Kraut
infantry off our backs, we’ll do it ourselves.”

He didn’t bother adding, Of
course, if we get smacked by aircraft while we’re bunched up like this, we’re
fucked. But we ain’t seen much of the Luftwaffe since hitting France, anyway,
so what the hell?

A second Panther rolled into view
around the far bend, climbing the road toward her shattered sister. Watching
the approaching tank, Fabiano asked, “She don’t look too concerned. I can count
their heads. All the hatches are still wide open.”

Sean replied, “I don’t think they
can even see us, unless they got some clown up a tree somewhere. With this dead
panzer in front of us and all the smoke she’s making, we might as well be
invisible.”

“When do you want me to plug her,
Sarge?”

“Take her at three hundred yards,
Fab.”

“That’s cutting it awful close,
ain’t it?”

“Just want to be dead sure we kill
her with one shot.”

At 300 yards, that’s exactly what
Fabiano did, forsaking the thick frontal armor to knock another turret askew.
“That’s two,” he muttered, as he watched the enemy tank brew up through his
gunsight.

By the time the third Panther
appeared, the German tankers had figured out the game. She was still nearly a
thousand yards away when she stopped and fired. The round struck the dead
Panther right in front of Eclipse, showering her harmlessly with sparks
and metal fragments. The concussion made Sean’s crew feel like they’d been hit
in the balls with a hammer. But that was the extent of the damage.

“Should I take the shot?” Fabiano
asked.

“Don’t waste it. Let her get
closer.”

“Maybe she’s not gonna, Sarge.
Maybe she’ll just sit there and lob rounds our way until this carcass in front
of us blows itself apart.”

“And when that happens, Fab, it’ll
be our cue to scram.”

Blue Flight didn’t recognize
the voice of the ASO giving them the mission. It wasn’t Charlie Webster or Herb
Clinchmore; they were sure of that. But the authorization was per the code
list, so they proceeded to the coordinates a few miles to the northeast of Hill
262. The target, they were told, was a column of German armor threatening this
crucial pivot point in the push to surround and secure the hill.

Tommy wasn’t happy the ASO didn’t
have eyes on the target. Even worse, there would be no smoke marking by artillery.
Blue Flight would have to locate the target, identify it, and then
attack it. That would be no easy task in the uneven terrain below, where an
object might only be in plain sight for a brief moment in the constantly
shifting view of a low-level pilot. In the next moment, that object could very
easily have vanished into the shadows of a defile or the cover of trees.

I hate this shit, Tommy told
himself. This is how mistakes get made.

He caught a hint of smoke rising
from a road winding through the hills.

Exhaust smoke? Or a burning
vehicle?

A hard bank, a quick change of
direction to keep the smoke in view.

Holy cow…there’s a shit-load of
tanks down there on that road. But whose are they? The road runs north-south.
Anybody could be coming from either direction.

Wait…there are some trucks way
back in the column that don’t look anything like GI deuce-and-a halves. And
something small that looks like a jeep…but it’s too angular. Probably one of
those kübelwagen things.

These got to be the Krauts.

“Blue Flight from Leader.
Target identified. Let’s get ’em.”

The third panther hadn’t moved an
inch from where it had fired its first shot. It had just put its fourth round
into the carcass of her sister, Eclipse’s first victim, now serving as
her shield. “C’mon, Sarge,” Fabiano pleaded, “let me take a shot at that
bastard.”

“No,” Sean replied. “Bouncing one
off her ain’t gonna change a damn thing. Just hold your water a little longer.”

There was a call on the radio from
one of the other Shermans: “Hey, looks like the jugs are here, at your three o’clock. Keep your head down, though…that fucking sniper just dinged one off
my turret.”

Sean spun around for a better look
through his open hatch. Sure enough, four aircraft began to orbit high
overhead. He couldn’t pick up a definitive silhouette as they banked steeply in
the circle, showing only side views. But he told himself, They sure look
like jugs. Too bad I can’t talk to them and tell them what’s going on, because
they’ll never be able to figure out who’s who in this little standoff we’ve got
going on here. They need to be looking for Krauts farther up the road, anyway.

One plane broke the circle, rolling
hard on her back and plummeting almost straight down toward him.

Holy shit…it looks like she’s
attacking. What the fuck would a jug be doing that for?

Showing only her front profile, the
plane seemed almost stationary in the dive for interminable seconds—until she
pulled out. Then Sean could see the planform of her wings clearly for just a moment
before she streaked past.

Ain’t that shape all wrong for a
jug? The wings should look like butter knives. That plane’s are kinda squared
off...

Maybe she’s British?

Nah. There’d be invasion stripes
on those wings if she was, just like every other Allied plane’s got. And I sure
as hell didn’t see any.

Or maybe I did?

The aircraft had left a reminder of
its dive behind: a small, almost invisible dot at first, growing larger with
each rapid heartbeat as it fell straight toward him like a fly ball to a
perfectly positioned center fielder.

Like Coach used to say, it’s got
my name on it.

But there was something Sean used
to say, too, and he spoke it out loud in those last seconds when everything that’s
ever happened before was replayed and then erased forever:

“Just a matter of time.”

Chapter Forty-Five

Blue Flight left the column
of vehicles they’d bombed and strafed ablaze and battered. Circling so the
other three jugs could form back up on him, Tommy felt the elation of the
successful strike quickly draining away. It was being replaced by a vague
dread: If anyone asked me right now what kind of vehicles we just attacked,
all I could answer is “German.” And I wouldn’t even be certain of that.

We won’t know what we hit until
the intel guys see the gun camera footage later…and maybe not even then. I’m
not looking forward to that debrief. Not one bit.

Sample had just tucked up on
Tommy’s left wingtip. For a split second, Tommy thought he could see Tuttle and
Esposito climbing out after their final pass—but then he realized it couldn’t
possibly be them. There were more than two planes closing on him…Three. No,
four. And though he could only see them head-on, there was no mistaking
them for P-47s, Tempests, Typhoons, Mustangs, or any other single-engined
fighter in the Allied inventories: They’re Focke-Wulfs. FW-190s.

He didn’t recognize his own shrill
voice as he said, “SAMPLE, BREAK LEFT NOW. BREAK, BREAK.”

Sure the Germans would overshoot,
Tommy banked and pulled Eclipse hard to try and come around on their
tails. He was relieved to see Sample doing the same, holding a perfect
wingman’s station off his leader’s wingtip.

What he didn’t see, though, was the
trailing two FWs had pulled straight up, trading speed for altitude and
advantage. Pulling hard over the top, they swooped down onto the Americans’
tails. Two quick bursts sent Sample’s plane tumbling down. If there was a
parachute, Tommy never saw it.

But he couldn’t help but see the
flashes of bullet strikes on the top of his own wing, their sound like marbles
being dropped on a hard floor.

He called to Tuttle, “Sample’s
down. Can you get this guy off my tail, Jimmy?

“Love to, Half. As soon as I get
these two off mine.”

Tommy’s head swiveled rapidly, one
side to the other and back again, trying to put eyes on his attacker. But he saw
nothing but the sky swirling behind him.

He looked up to where the rear view
mirror used to be. Whether it would have done him any good didn’t matter now.
All he knew was that it wasn’t there, and he wished it was.

The Kraut must be underneath me
now. I’ll have to—

It was all happening too fast. Before
his brain could tell his hands and feet what to do, bullets announced
themselves with a rapid thunk-thunk-thunk as they punched holes in the
aluminum of the fuselage. Those bullets had done their job: thunk-thunklves with a rapid ds and feet what to do, then,
trying to put eyes on his attacker. or any other plane in the Afinding
the range for the cannon shells which followed in the blink of an eye. Their
much louder POOM-POOM-POOM sounded like death breaking down your door.

Eclipse’s engine began to
sputter as flames licked from beneath the cowl flaps. The control stick in
Tommy’s hand didn’t seem to be controlling very much of anything anymore. She’d
begun a slow roll that no amount of aileron input corrected. Her nose was
dropping steadily. Her rudder pedals had gone limp against his feet.

He was already pulling the
emergency release on the canopy. It was time to get out.

Just before noon, the lead elements of 4th Armored fought their way to the north side of Hill 262,
pivoted west, and sealed the Falaise Gap. The rest of Patton’s 3rd
Army began to push in behind them, forcing the German counter-attackers away.
The hundred thousand or more German soldiers now completely surrounded had
three choices: surrender immediately to the Americans west, south, and east of
them; stagger north until they met the British, whose lines were still some
five miles away; or fight to the death.

Very few elected the final choice.
But a surprisingly large number turned north, toward the British.

Colonel Abrams pondered a possible
reason: “Maybe they think they still have a chance for a breakout through
Monty’s boys?”

“That’d be my guess,” General Wood
replied, “although it’d be just wishful thinking at this point. But I’m
guessing ol’ Georgie Patton is enjoying the hell out of this. He did say that
if Montgomery wouldn’t come to the Germans, he’d push the Germans to him. And
that’s exactly what’s happening.”

Wood turned serious as he asked, “Your
boys did a real fine job turning that corner, Creighton, but I know it was a
hell of a rough ride. In your estimation, is your 37th Tank
Battalion a viable combat unit at this time?”

“Negative, sir. We’re little more
than a glorified company now. I’ve got more dead and wounded than I’ve got
able-bodied troopers.”

It was difficult for him to speak
that last sentence. Colonel Abrams turned away so the general might not see the
tears welling up in his eyes. Softly, he said, “I just hope to God we bagged
enough of those bastards to make this all worth it.”

The door to the cellar slammed
open, startling Lieutenant Peterson awake. Another American officer—a pilot—was
being pushed down the stairs at gunpoint by his German guard. The pilot’s arm
was in a sling. He looked like he’d been through hell.

The guard departed, slamming the
cellar door behind him. Peterson heard the sliding bolt on the upstairs side of
the door clank into place. The pilot, his slight frame now slumped into
a corner, forced a smile and said, “My name’s Tommy Moon, Three-oh-First
Fighter Squadron. What are you in for?”

Peterson found himself smiling,
too. This poor bastard looks like he’s had the shit beat out of him, and yet
he can still manage to crack wise. Gotta respect that.

“I’m John Peterson,” he replied, “I’m
a rifle company commander with Fifth Infantry Division…or at least I used to
be. Moon, you say your name is? You wouldn’t happen to have a brother who’s a
tanker, would you?”

Tommy sat straight up, as if the
pain of his injuries had been suddenly overridden by a far more important
consideration. “Yeah, I do. His name’s Sean. He’s with the—”

“That’s the guy I’m talking about.
Staff Sergeant Sean Moon.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“As a matter of fact, I ran into
him two nights ago in the village of Survie. We were both part of a clever
little plan to hit Second SS Panzer’s HQ in Champosoult, which is exactly where
we are right now. He was supposed to come back with a whole damn armored
command—CC Baker, they called it—but they never showed. Now I ain’t
blaming your brother—I know a staff sergeant doesn’t run this damn war—but
those tankers left me and my guys high and dry.”

Peterson’s head dropped back against
the wall, and he stared at the wood-beamed ceiling, bracing himself for the
pain that would accompany the words coming next.

“I can only pray some of my guys
got away,” he whispered.

“What the hell happened, John?”

“We got cut to ribbons in a night
fight. My own goddamn fault. I walked us right into a trap. At least twenty of
my men were captured, though, along with me. The Krauts marched them off to
someplace else. Can’t put the officers and enlisted men together, you know.” He
raised his hand in a mock toast before adding, “So welcome to the officers’
quarters, Tommy Moon.” He shook the slop jar that served as a toilet.
“Real deluxe accommodations.”

“But Sean was okay when you last
saw him?”

“Yeah. Fit as a fiddle. He’s a
tough cookie, your brother.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I
know he is. So we’re in Champosoult? At a panzer division HQ?”

“That’s right. Second SS Panzer. I
keep expecting to get hustled off any minute to Germany and some POW camp, but
the Krauts seem to be pretty busy with other matters at the moment. Can’t see a
damn thing from down in this cellar, but I can hear them upstairs yelling
orders all hours of the day and night. And about every ten minutes, this whole
building shakes when some tanks roll by. I guess you got shot down?”

“Yeah, this morning. I think I
broke my arm bailing out. Must’ve hit the stabilizer or something. Hurts like a
son of a bitch. And let me tell you, it’s pretty hard operating a parachute
with only one good arm. Ended up in a damn tree. By the time I got myself down
on the ground—and that was no small feat, either—they were all over me. I know
my wingman got shot down, too. Don’t know how the other two guys in my flight
made out.” It was Tommy’s turn to forlornly contemplate the rafters in the
ceiling as he added, “And I’m not real sure what the hell we were attacking.”

“But are we winning, Tommy? Do we
have those Krauts in the Gap trapped yet?”

“As of a couple of hours ago…no, I
don’t think we do.”

“Shit. Another golden opportunity
slipping through our fingers. It’s all that slowpoke Montgomery’s fault. That
man’s going to be late to his own funeral.”

Lieutenant Jimmy Tuttle walked
across the ramp at A-14, trying to ignore the two empty parking spots where
Tommy’s and Sample’s planes should’ve been parked. The mission debrief had been
torture; he hadn’t known the answers to so many of the intelligence officer’s
probing questions. Everything had happened much too fast, and there was so
little of which to be certain.

To a debriefing officer,
uncertainty smelled like negligence, carelessness—even guilt. He harped on the
fact that Blue Flight had initiated an attack without positive
identification of its target. “You do understand, Lieutenant, that there are
procedures in place to prevent friendly fire incidents, and from what
you’re telling me, your flight didn’t comply with any of them.”

“Of course I understand that, sir,”
Tuttle had replied, “but they don’t call it the fog of war for nothing,
you know. How it was today is what it’s like a good part of the time. We did
the best we could with the little info we got.”

Tuttle desperately needed the
vindication of the gun camera footage. He swore the evaluation of that footage
had never taken so long. When he saw Colonel Pruitt heading his way, he braced
himself for the verdict.

“You took out a whole column of
Tiger tanks and Ferdinand assault guns,” the colonel said. “Excellent results.
The intel boys are giving Blue Flight credit for seven armored vehicles destroyed
outright and at least half a dozen more damaged and out of action.”

Pruitt cast a solemn glance to the
empty parking spots. “Hell of a price, though.”

Across the ramp, Sergeant McNulty
was searching for something in the parts shed. His eyes fell on the rear view
mirror he’d removed from Tommy’s plane. Reverently, he removed it from the
shelf and placed it on the workbench. Then he picked up a heavy crescent wrench
and began beating it into oblivion.

He’d struck the mirror a dozen
blows already—the glass was long shattered, the fairing mangled almost beyond
recognition—before Colonel Pruitt appeared in the shed’s doorway.

“AT EASE, SERGEANT,” the colonel
said.

McNulty turned to him, arms
outstretched, a teary-eyed child in a man’s body.

“Do you realize the penalty for
willfully destroying government property, Sergeant?”

McNulty laid the wrench down.
Lowering his head, he clasped his hands before him in an act of contrition.
“I’m well aware, sir. I’m ready to take my medicine.”

“Very well. Come with me,
Sergeant.”

They walked in silence to the
officers’ mess. The colonel directed McNulty to take a seat on a bench outside.
“I’ll be right back,” Pruitt said. “Stay put.”

When he returned, he took a seat on
the bench, produced a flask from his pocket, and placed it in the startled
sergeant’s hand.

“This is the only medicine I know
for times like this,” the colonel said. “Bottoms up, Sergeant. And when you’re
done, pass that thing back.”

Chapter Forty-Six

21ST ARMY GROUP COMMUNIQUE

FROM:

MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER,
21ST ARMY GROUP

DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

19 AUG 44/2130 HRS

TO:

EISENHOWER--SUPREME
COMMANDER, SHAEF

COPY (FOR INFO):

BRADLEY--12TH
ARMY GROUP; HODGES--US 1ST ARMY; PATTON--US 3RD ARMY;
DEMPSEY--2ND BRITISH ARMY; CRERAR--1ST CANADIAN ARMY;
CONINGHAM--RAF 2ND TAF; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC;
BRERETON--9TH AIR FORCE

I AM PLEASED YOU HAVE SELECTED ME TO
RECEIVE THE SURRENDER OF THE GERMAN FORCES NOW SURROUNDED IN THE
FALAISE-ARGENTAN POCKET. THIS IS ONLY FITTING, SINCE IT IS UNITS UNDER MY
COMMAND THAT HAVE FOUGHT OUR ENEMY TO A STANDSTILL AND BROUGHT THIS EXODUS TO A
STOP.

BE ADVISED THIS SURRENDER WILL TAKE
PLACE TOMORROW, 20 AUG 44, 0730 HRS, IN THE VILLAGE OF HORDOUSEAUX.

BE FURTHER ADVISED THAT ALL POW
COLLECTION RESPONSIBILITIES SHOULD REST WITH BRADLEY’S 12TH ARMY
GROUP, AS THIS COMMAND WILL BE IMMEDIATELY ADVANCING TO SECURE THE
VIMOUTIERS-LISIEUX HIGHWAY. THERE IS NO NEED TO REMIND YOU, I AM SURE, THAT
SPEED IS OF THE ESSENCE IF WE ARE GOING TO PREVENT A FORMIDABLE GERMAN DEFENCE
AT THE SEINE.

SIGNED,

MONTGOMERY

Chapter Forty-Seven

His staff had seen plenty of
Patton’s fits of rage, but this one was setting a new standard. He’d begun to
boil over at the very first line of Montgomery’s communique, and it was all
downhill after that:

“That little son of a bitch. Ike selected
him to receive the surrender? Selected? I’m not sure what’s
crazier, gentlemen…that the Limey procrastinator might actually believe it’s
true he was selected, or that Ike is so much more a kisser of British ass than
we all realized—and it actually is true. I closed the Falaise
Gap—me and my men did. Not some fucking little English clerk. And he can’t be
bothered collecting POWs because he’s too busy rushing off to do battle with
the Germans at the Seine? What balls, gentlemen…what balls. Bernard Law
Montgomery has never rushed off anywhere in his life. He doesn’t know
how.”

He stepped over to the map on the
wall. “Where the hell is this Hordouseaux, anyway?”

When his G3 pointed the village
out, Patton said, “Really? Monty himself couldn’t possibly be that far south
yet, unless he’s playing point man for his whole fucking Army group. I’ve got a
good mind to beat him there, just like at Messina.”

“I’m not so sure about that, sir,”
the operations officer replied. “You’d either have to trust your security to
Monty’s forces or cause a major flap by having a unit of ours crossing army
group boundaries. Again.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what
kind of flap I cause, Colonel. I will not let Montgomery claim honor and glory
that rightfully belongs to my men…and those Polish troops of his he sacrificed
on that hill.”

“And we’d have to do it in the
dark, too,” the G3 added. “That could easily lead to confusion and friendly
fire incidents. Hell, we might not even find the place. We don’t know the roads
north of here.”

That seemed to take some of the
wind out of Patton’s sails. “I see your point, Colonel. But I don’t like this.
Not one little bit. And I won’t forget about it, either. No matter how Ike
tries to smooth over the fact that he’s knelt down to his British pals once
again.”

Dawn was still an hour away. The
first boules were already coming out of the oven at the Vimoutiers
bakery. Angelique’s staff had baked them in the extra-large style the Germans
demanded; the domed, round loaves were each big enough to feed a dozen men.
They were also big enough to bisect through their circumference, hollow out,
and place plastique explosive inside.

As Dominique went looking for the
German mess sergeant, Sylvie and Eva rigged the bread bombs for Opération
Pain Chaude—Operation Hot Bread in English—in the corner of the bakery
behind the storage shelves. “Ten pounds of plastique, a dozen timers,
each with a small battery, and four cartons of nails,” Sylvie said as she
inventoried the crate Pierre had delivered in the dead of night. “These bombs
should clean out the Boche headquarters mess at Champosoult very nicely.”

Eva checked the clock on the wall.
“We need to hurry, Sylvie. If the van arrives late, the mess may be empty.”

“Don’t rush me while I’m wiring
explosives, Eva. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“Speaking of time,” Eva said, “are
you sure it’s a good idea to set the timers to just a few minutes and wait
until we’re almost there to start them running?”

“Yes, I’m very sure. If we got
delayed on the road for any reason, we’d have to rip the boules open and
set the timers all over again. Then we’d have to paste them back together
again, and there wouldn’t be enough time for it to dry. The tops could fall off
the loaves as we’re pushing the cart inside the headquarters, and the whole
world would see our handiwork…and we’d be dead. You remember how rough the
walkways are there?”

“I suppose you’re right. But that
means you’ll have to ride in the back with the bread.”

Sylvie smiled. “That would be
wonderful. I’m feeling very hungry this morning. I can munch on bread while I
twist together these little wires sticking out of the boules.”

“Actually, what would be wonderful
is if your American boyfriend and his pilot buddies just bombed the fucking
place. Then we wouldn’t have to be doing this at all.”

“I’m sure the people of Champosoult
don’t agree, Eva. Bombs don’t seem to be very discriminating who they kill.”

Angelique tiptoed into the space
behind the shelves, checking nervously over her shoulder. “I don’t know where
Dominique or the Boche sergeant are. I’m very nervous about the other
women, too. They’re growing suspicious—I hear them whispering you’re up to
something.”

Sylvie replied, “Of course they
are. That’s why once the van has left for Champosoult, you’re all going to vanish
and not come back until the Americans are here. It should only be a matter of a
few days.”

“But that will make them all the
more suspicious.”

Sylvie pulled a fat envelope from
the crate, stuffed full of 10-franc notes. “Here,” she said as she placed the
money in Angelique’s hands. “The amount we agreed to is all there, with our
thanks. Spread the rest around among the ladies. That should keep them quiet.”

Angelique replied, “You think of
everything, don’t you?”

“Let’s hope so.”

It hadn’t taken much for Dominique
to lure the old mess sergeant to the basement. A quick flash of breast and a
beckoning finger had him flying down the steps. But he posed a bigger challenge
than she’d imagined; his resistance to the choral hydrate—knockout drops—she’d
slipped into the bottle of schnapps seemed extraordinary.

There was enough in there to put
a horse to sleep! He must’ve eaten an enormous breakfast, and that’s delaying
the process. Maybe that will help him sleep longer once the drug takes effect.

Worse, he kept offering her the
bottle. To forestall taking that drink, she’d sat him in a chair and begun
dancing a seductive striptease around him, humming the music she’d heard
spilling from the cabarets of Quartier Pigalle in Paris for musical
accompaniment. It would take considerable skill—and a bit of luck—to avoid ending
up naked in short order, since her simple work uniform consisted of very few
garments, with no garters, jewelry save her wedding ring, or other accessories
to dawdle over as a true folies girl would. She labored to come up with
lengthy, theatrical ways to drag out the shedding of head scarf, shoes, and
socks. Each of the nine buttons down the front of her dress was worth several
verses of a tune before it managed to become undone.

But good entertainment is
infectious. Eventually the sergeant was humming along, sloppily out of tune
like a drunk, as he drifted ever so slowly into unconsciousness. She breathed a
sigh of relief when, down to just her panties, his head finally slumped forward
against his chest. In seconds, she put her clothes back on and was bounding up
the stairs, leaving the sergeant to his slumber.

When Dominique finally rejoined
Sylvie and Eva, they were nearly finished loading the bread—most of the boules
edible, but 12 deadly—into the delivery van. “We thought we’d have to come
rescue you,” Sylvie said. “You didn’t have to...?” Her eyes widened as her
voice tapered off, leaving the unfinished question hanging in the air.

Dominique asked, “Do you mean fuck
him or kill him?”

“Either one.”

“No, neither one,” Dominique
replied. “It just seemed to take forever for him to pass out. But he should
sleep soundly enough for everyone in this place to be long gone by the time he
wakes. Are we ready to go?”

“Yes,” Sylvie replied. “Ride in the
back with me and watch for planes out the rear windows.”

The guard roused Tommy Moon and
John Peterson from sleep earlier than usual. There was an officer with him this
morning, a Wehrmacht leutnant, who informed the American captives they
would be transported to camps in Germany immediately after the morning ration.
Peterson’s destination would be an oflag, where ground forces officers
were held. Tommy, as a flyer, was being sent to a stalag luft.

The morning ration was the usual
offering: a slab of round bread—quite fresh and delicious, actually—washed
down with horrible ersatz coffee that tasted like it was brewed from the
sweepings off a workshop floor. Perhaps as a going-away present, there was a
special treat: each man received an apple. “Good for your teeth,” the leutnant
said as he climbed the stairs. “Have a pleasant journey.” The door at the top
of the stairs slammed closed behind him.

They hadn’t finished wolfing down
their food when a rapid series of explosions from the floor above knocked them
to the floor and instantly filled the cellar with a thick cloud of dust. One
final blast splintered the door at the top of the stairs and propelled the leutnant
down into the cellar. His body lay motionless on the floor like a charred and
broken toy soldier. If the blast hadn’t already killed him, the plummet certainly
had. Through the doorway above, the morning sun blazed down like a beacon.

Tommy and Peterson looked at each
other in amazement. “What do you think?” Tommy asked. “Sign from God?”

“Only one way to find out.”

They climbed the stairs. When they
stepped out into the sunlight at the top, they saw the entire front wall of the
building was blown out. The only Germans inside were lying dead in the debris.

Peterson asked, “I say we make a
break for it. You with me?”

“Absolutely,” Tommy replied. “Let’s
go.”

When they got to the rubble-strewn
street, the only Germans they saw were a few soldiers, dazed and bloody from
the blast, who didn’t seem to notice the Americans stealing away right before
their eyes.  “We’ve got to go southwest,” Tommy said. “That should be the most
direct route back to our lines. They couldn’t be more than a couple of miles
away unless something went really fubar during the night. C’mon…let’s
cut down this alley.”

They’d barely made the turn when
the strangest contraption on four wheels they’d ever seen came barreling down
on them. It was a boxy delivery van, at one time conventionally powered by
gasoline, no doubt, but its nose had been extensively modified. Mounted
alongside the engine bonnet were two cylinders, one much taller and wider than
the other, resembling upright boilers with a maze of interconnecting plumbing.
All together, it made the van look like a locomotive.

If they hadn’t jumped aside
quickly, it would have run over them.

They expected to see German
soldiers in the cab. Instead, there were two women, one behind the wheel, the
other looking at them with a startled look of recognition. She screamed
something to the driver, and the ungainly vehicle rattled to a halt.

“TOMMY,” Sylvie cried as she jumped
from the cab to the ground. There was no time for a kiss, an embrace, or
questions. She swung open the van’s rear doors and said, “Get in. Hurry!”

They scuttled into the back of the
van, joining another woman who seemed even more surprised than Sylvie had been
when first laying eyes on the Americans. “We’ll talk once we’re clear of here,
Tommy,” she said. Then, switching to French, she told Dominique, “This is a
total surprise, but they can be trusted.” Sylvie slammed the doors closed. In a
few seconds, the van was moving again.

Speaking French, Tommy introduced
himself and Peterson to Dominique. He explained to her how they’d come to be
prisoners at the German headquarters. She explained how they’d just blown up
the place.

“Holy shit,” Tommy said. “You blew
the Krauts to kingdom come with bread?”

“Pain Chaude,” she replied,
with the coy wink of an eye. “Hot bread. We had no idea we’d be freeing Ami
prisoners as well.” Then she explained what her job was now: to be the rear
lookout for the American aircraft that tended to strafe anything that moved on
French roads. He didn’t miss her sneer at the pilot wings on his jacket as she
said it.

Speaking little French, Peterson
was getting more confused by the minute. “Am I getting this right? You mean they’re
the ones who blew the place up? And where the hell are they taking us?”

“Hang on, John. I was just about to
ask that.”

They were both thrilled by her
answer: “We’re going to the American lines.”

“Great,” Peterson said. “Why walk
when you can ride?”

They were well clear of the town when
the van came to a halt on the narrow road. The rear doors flew open again as
Sylvie climbed in. “Switch with me,” she said to Dominique, “so I can talk with
our American friends.”

With a shrewd smile, Dominique
pointed to Peterson and asked, “Would you like me to take him, too, so you and
your pilot can be alone?”

“Don’t be such a pain in my ass,”
Sylvie replied. “We’re not in the clear yet. Get up front with Eva and be her
lookout.”

“Mais oui, mon général,” Dominique
said, and even Peterson understood enough to catch the snarkiness in her
compliance. They heard the cab door slam, and then they were moving again.

“Your arm…is it broken?” Sylvie
asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Does it hurt very much?”

“Only when I laugh…or move…or
breathe.”

“Well,” she said, “the important
thing is you’ll be safe soon. We’ll all be safe soon.”

Peterson chimed in, “I sure hope
you’re right about that.”

“You know, Tommy,” she said, “I was
just thinking how coincidental this all is.”

“Coincidental? What do you mean?”

“When I was being held prisoner by
the Gestapo in Gacé, your bomb rescued me without you even realizing you were
doing it. Now, I’ve returned the favor…in exactly the same manner. That’s a
coincidence, isn’t it?”

The van gave a shudder and began to
slow down.

“Something wrong?” Tommy asked.
“This thing runs on wood gas, right?”

“Yes, and we may be pushing its
fuel supply a bit too much. This van only gets about thirty kilometers to a
tank…and that’s about how far we’ve driven since we last stoked the gas
generator. It would be so much easier if we just had some petrol.”

The van lurched a few times as its
engine sputtered. Then it fell silent, and they rolled to an unceremonious stop
in the middle of the road.

“Merde,” Sylvie said, “I
guess we’ll be walking after all.”

“And we’d better walk pretty damn
fast, too,” Peterson said, his face drawn, his voice agitated. “We’ve got some
jugs circling overhead like vultures.” He jumped out and ran to the cab to warn
Eva and Dominique. Soon all five of them were on the run, looking to put as
much distance between themselves and the van as possible.

With the pain of his broken arm,
Tommy found it impossible to keep up. He dropped to his knees, hoping the
blinding pain would subside just enough to let him continue. But he knew he was
still much too close to the van—and he could hear the rasp of a jug’s prop as
it began its attack dive.

“NO! KEEP GOING,” Tommy called to
the three women as they raced back to him. “DON’T WAIT FOR ME.”

They didn’t listen. “Sorry, Tommy,”
Sylvie said, “if it’s going to hurt either way, let it be this way.”

The women picked him up and started
jogging toward Peterson, who was watching them, stationary and dumbstruck. “You
could help, you know,” Sylvie told him as they passed.

He knew he should be
helping. The three women never stopped running with their wounded cargo.

But the jug was so close. The
roar of her engine blotted out everything but the instinct to survive. Peterson
threw himself on the ground, hoping any rock, any blade of grass might save
him.

And then .50-caliber bullets ripped
their world to shreds.

At 0725, the German staff car
pulled into the cobblestoned village square of Hordouseaux, white flags of
truce flying from its front fenders. When it rolled to a stop, the ranking
general of the vanquished German forces, General der Panzertruppe
Heinrich Eberbach, climbed from its back seat. He found no Allied officer
waiting to take his surrender.

“We are five minutes early,” the
general fumed to the aide standing beside him. “You would think they’d be just
as eager as we are to get this business over with as soon as possible.”

“Jawohl, Herr General,”
his aide replied. “One would think.”

But they had to wait four more
minutes until a small convoy of light armored vehicles rolled into the square,
forming a cordon around his staff car. They were obviously British. General
Eberbach was expecting Yanks.

An American jeep with British
markings rolled into the square and came to a stop nose to nose with the German
vehicle. A slight, wiry man stepped from its passenger’s seat. Eberbach had
seen enough pictures to instantly recognize him as Bernard Law Montgomery.

“What is your name and title?” Montgomery
asked.

“I am Eberbach, commander of Panzer
Group Eberbach, representing all forces currently contained in the
Falaise-Argentan encirclement.”

“Very well, I am—”

“I know who you are,” the German
interrupted, and then turned to his aide and said, loud enough for everyone in
the square to hear, “I will not surrender to this spectator.”

Switching to German, he told his
aide, “Tell this man I will only tender our surrender to a man who actually
defeated us.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Lieutenant General Walter “Beetle”
Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, found the situation in SHAEF’s London
headquarters that morning quite frustrating: Things around here weren’t this
screwed up when disasters were going on. Now we’ve got a victory on our hands,
and we’re all running around like chickens without heads.

Yelling into the telephone carrying
his call to General Bradley in France, Smith said, “We can’t order a
German general to surrender to Montgomery, Brad. If he wants an American, we’ll
give him an American. Who’s closest—you, Hodges, or Patton?”

“None of us,” Bradley replied. “The
only American general in the area is John Wood, Fourth Armored commander.”

“No good,” Smith said. “Only two
stars. This Eberbach guy is equivalent to three, right?”

“That’s what I understand, Beetle.
But Monty’s got four and he wouldn’t surrender to him.”

“A different kettle of fish
entirely, Brad. Monty could have ten stars and it wouldn’t make any difference
now. Let’s not fuck up something as momentous as this by insulting this Kraut
twice in the same day. It’s got to be you, Hodges, or Patton—and it’s got to be
quick.”

There was silence on the line for a
few long moments, so long that Smith thought the connection might have been
broken. “Brad, are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here, Beetle. My
people are checking the latest command post reports.”

“Come on, Brad, we don’t have all
fucking day. Ike’s breathing down my neck. Who’s going to take this surrender?”

Bradley sighed, loud enough to be
heard through the telephone line. Then he said, “If we need it done fast, we’d
better give it to Georgie.”

Bradley’s instincts were correct:
Patton had hit the road as soon as he caught wind of Montgomery’s humiliation.
He was only a few miles from Hordouseaux when Bradley’s call was patched to his
jeep’s radio directing him to take Eberbach’s surrender. It put a smile on his
face that lasted all the way to the village outskirts. Now it was time to get
serious. A major event in history was about to take place in this village, and
no one felt more entitled to play the starring role in that event than George
Patton.

I took the gamble, when everyone
else was cowering in caution, held back by imaginary lines. Don’t those fools
know that good things never come to those who wait?

I risked everything…

And now my brave men and I will
be forever known as the ones who brought down that paper-hanging son of a bitch
Hitler once and for all.

He found Heinrich Eberbach waiting
in the tiny café on the village square. The German rose and offered a slight
bow as he asked, “Ah, you are Patton, are you not?”

“Yes, General, I am. Am I correct
that it’s general and not field marshal?”

With an amused smile, the German
replied, “Are you referring to Paulus at Stalingrad, General?”

“Yes, I am. We understood it was
Hitler’s standard procedure to promote a general who was about to surrender.”

“Apparently, Der Führer is
no longer enamored with the practice, since it didn’t yield the desired result
at Stalingrad. You understand the point of such a promotion, don’t you,
General?”

Patton understood fully: No
German field marshal had ever surrendered, so in Hitler’s mind, promoting a
general intent on surrendering to field marshal was a mandate for that man to
commit suicide.

There was no point saying that out
loud, though. Instead, he said, “I understand, General. Completely.”

“Good,” Eberbach replied. “Then let
me make it clear: this surrender will feature no promotion. And no suicide.”

Patton looked around the establishment
and asked, “Has Montgomery decided not to join us?”

A British major replied, “No, sir,
the general has other business to attend to.” Placing a document of several pages
on the table, he added, “These have been left for you.”

“What a pity he can’t be here,”
Patton replied, a smirk on his face as he riffled through the pages. “But we’ve
never gotten his help before. We certainly don’t need it now. Would you like to
look these papers over before you sign, General Eberbach?”

“No need. I’ve had ample time to
read them pending your arrival. But before I sign, I must remind you, General
Patton, that the document indicates my men will be afforded the full protection
of prisoners of war as provided by the Geneva Convention. The barbaric
reprisals your troops and airmen have been committing against my men are to
cease immediately.”

Patton’s face hardened into a
narrow-eyed glare. “What reprisals are you referring to, General?”

“I refer to the wanton slaughter
you’ve been inflicting on troops that are no longer a threat to you. Again, I
use the term barbaric to describe the Allied behavior.”

Patton leaned back in his chair and
shook his head. “General, I can assure you that surrendering troops have been
treated with all due military courtesy and will continue to be treated as such.
I further assure you that troops who resist, however—and there have been vast
numbers of them right up to this moment, based on my casualty reports—will be
neutralized by all means possible.”

“And I can assure you, General
Patton, that all troops within the encirclement have ceased resistance. The
troops to the east, however, beyond the encirclement, are not under my control
and are not surrendering. You do understand this, do you not?”

“Yes, General, I do. But I’m sure
once your surrender is complete, the capitulation of the remaining elements of Germany’s
forces will follow in short order. There will simply be too few of you left to
stop us from celebrating Christmas in Berlin.”

Now it was Eberbach doing the
head-shaking. “Talk like that is delusional coming from a general who has not
yet reached Paris, let alone Berlin. I must be sure you understand the scope of
this surrender document before I sign.”

“Oh, I understand fully, General.
But allow me to remain convinced your signing marks the imminent end to this
war.”

Eberbach laughed dismissively as he
put pen to paper. “I suppose, General Patton, that will depend on your
definition of imminent.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

I need this place like I need a
hole in the head. All I’ve got is a broken arm and the holes left by a bunch of
wood splinters the size of pencils in my ass. But that damn doc won’t release
me…got to hold me a few days more to make sure there’s no infection. Hell,
aren’t the three days I’ve already been here enough for that?

Haven’t slept much in all that
time, either. Maybe that’s why I’m getting so cranky. Can’t sit down or lie on
my back because my ass hurts. Can’t lie on my stomach or my side because of
this damn cast on my arm. So I’m wandering around this hospital like some sort
of zombie. Sure, I can’t fly for a while—not with one arm, anyway. But there
must be some way I can be of use back at the squadron.

Half the GIs in this place aren’t
even wounded…they’ve got VD. “Whores de combat,” the nurses call them. With
smirking delight, I might add.

Speaking of nurses, here comes
one now. She looks all cranked up about something, too. Probably just can’t
wait to tell me I’ve wandered out of bounds again.

Nearly breathless from running, the
nurse said, “Lieutenant Moon, there’s someone back at the ward waiting to see
you.”

Who the hell could it be this
time? Another personnel officer, trying to figure out if I actually qualified
as a POW or not?

But the nurse shook her head when
he asked. Then she replied, “No, Lieutenant. It’s another patient. He says he’s
your brother.”

There was no pain that could keep
him from running back to his ward. Sure enough, Sean was parked next to his bed
in a wheelchair, thumbing through the months-old copy of Life magazine
that had been Tommy’s only reading material the past three days.

When his brother rushed in, Sean
smiled as best he could with a head swathed in bandages and said, “So what’s
all this shit about you kicking my ass all the way back to Canarsie?”

Despite the hindrance of their
wounds, they managed some semblance of an embrace. That done, Sean said, “Have
a seat, little brother. Let’s talk a while.”

“Mind if I stand?” He explained
about the splinters in his ass and how they’d gotten there.

“You got strafed by your own guys,
Half?”

“Some jug outfit did it, that’s for
sure.”

“Maybe we’ve got something in
common then, little brother.”

If it hadn’t been for Colonel
Pruitt’s visit yesterday, Tommy might have died a little right then and there. But
what Pruitt had told him left no doubt he wasn’t the one who’d nearly killed
his brother.

Sean told his story, or at least as
much as he could remember. When he got to the part of watching the bomb coming
down, he said, “It got like slow motion, you know? And then…well, you remember
being in the movies when the film gets jammed? It got kinda like that—like
watching that real bright light burn that film up from the inside out, real
quick. I don’t remember nothing after that. I come to find out my Zippo
got flipped upside down.”

As his eyes began to glaze with
tears, he continued, “Two of my guys bought it—my driver and bow gunner. The
rest of us up in the turret got our brains beat in bouncing around inside.”
After a deep sigh, he added, “Hey, at least we didn’t fucking burn.”

Tommy let his brother compose
himself before asking, “You think it was a jug that hit you?”

“Half, I ain’t fucking sure of
nothing. Maybe it was a Kraut. I don’t know. But it wasn’t you, right?”

Tommy took the copy of the
after-action report Colonel Pruitt had given him from under his pillow. Like
the piece of evidence that sets the defendant free, he held it up for his
brother to see. “I got it in writing, Sean. It wasn’t me.”

“Well, ain’t that good news?” Sean
replied. “And those French skirts…they’re all right?”

“Yeah. They got a little scratched
up, but nothing serious. I was glad to see the Army treated them like the
heroines they are. Gave them a limo ride back to Alençon and everything.”

“Great,” Sean said, “but I still feel
kinda bad about that Lieutenant Peterson, the way he got left out on a limb that
night. But hey…it wasn’t my call. At least he’s all right. Too damn bad about
the rest of his company, though.”

“Yeah, he feels the same way,
believe me.”

Sean leaned closer to read the
writing on Tommy’s cast. It seemed every nurse in the ward had signed it. But
standing out prominently was a message in French. It was signed, simply, Sylvie.

“What’d she write, Half?”

“It says you’re a real swell guy
and I wish you luck.”

“Bullshit. That ain’t it. Tell me
what it really means.”

“Nope.”

“C’mon, you little asshole. Tell
me.”

“That’s lieutenant asshole
to you, Sergeant. And the answer’s still nope.”

“Okay, suit yourself, sir.
But it ain’t gonna matter a rat’s ass because this is all gonna be over before
you know it. It’s just a matter of time, Half. Just a matter of fucking time.”

When Tommy had first heard his
brother speak those words two weeks ago—Has it really only been two weeks?
It feels like a lifetime—they’d sounded like a death sentence.

“It’s good to hear you say it like
that, Sean.”

“Damn straight,” Sean replied.
“This war’s as good as over, Tommy. Everybody knows it.”

Chapter Fifty

10, Downing Street,

Whitehall

August 25, 1944

MOST SECRET

My Dear General Eisenhower,

I was aghast to learn that word of
Montgomery’s promotion had somehow come to be known to the press before I was
able to inform you personally. We in His Majesty’s service fully understand the
rumours and suppositions which could come to life if such information was not
dispensed within the proper protocols. Unfortunately, and as you are well
aware, those rumours and suppositions have indeed come to life with  a tenor
and ferocity that have astounded even those of us accustomed to being under the
scrutiny of the fourth estate every second of our lives. For this accidental
but inexcusable breach, I offer my most sincere apologies.

Please read nothing into the fact that
Montgomery, now a field marshal, technically outranks you. I can assure you
that I, as well as every last man in His Majesty’s government, continue to look
to you as the Supreme Commander of our allied effort in Western Europe, just as
we always have. Montgomery remains your superbly experienced subordinate in all
matters tactical and strategic. He understands his position completely, as I
know you do yours. He looks forward to providing his wise counsel in the same
manner you have always enjoyed.

The decision to promote did not come
easily, I can assure you. But I beg you to remember you are not the only one
expected to perform a delicate ballet to keep all aspects of the Allied effort
moving forward in concert. You must understand the position I am in as the
elected leader of the British people, who have suffered far greater hardships
in this conflict than our American cousins across the sea and for far longer.
For the sake of morale, they need to be reassured from time to time that all is
going according to plan, effort is being rewarded, and the end of this terrible
ordeal is in sight. Would it not be unfair to deny them some token of this
final victory, inevitable but not quite upon us yet, which we all so
desperately crave? That token is what we have provided with Montgomery’s
promotion. As to the ravings of the press as to what it all actually means to
the running of the war, I will do everything in my power, as will every member
of His Majesty’s government, to keep speculation in check and expectations
realistic.

Of course, it is the nature of things
that none of this will happen overnight, so I beg you, dear Eisenhower, to face
this unfortunate episode with the wisdom, patience, and fortitude you have
never failed to show in the past.

With an undying commitment to our
collaboration, I remain,

Winston Churchill

Kay Summersby couldn’t pretend to
be asleep any longer. The American general in bed beside her—the
American general in the war for Europe—was so agitated by what he was reading
their entire bed seemed to be trembling. When the aide had delivered the
envelope to the cottage on the Thames late that evening, she had hoped the
general wouldn’t bother to open it until morning. But she knew better. He’d
promptly switched on the reading light clamped to the bed’s headboard and
unfolded what looked like a typewritten letter.

Now that he’d read it, over and
over again, she knew that whatever it said, it wouldn’t do a bloody thing to
calm the tensions that had gripped SHAEF Headquarters since the Daily Mail’s
morning delivery.

“What bullshit,” Eisenhower said, addressing
not her but the author of the letter in his hand. “You actually had the balls
to write, Somehow come to be known to the press. Somehow, my ass.
That was no accident. You deliberately leaked it.”

She was sure his blood pressure
must be through the roof. Pretty dangerous for a man who hadn’t had a normal
reading in months. Even with his head in shadow, she could see the blood
vessels at his temple pulsing their rapid cadence. Gently, she touched his
shoulder and  asked, “Maybe I should call for the doctor, Dwight?”

He snarled his reply: “That’s the
last person I need to see right now, Kay.”

She hated this position, the one
she’d been thrust into all too often: the de facto shield between the Supreme
Commander and a stroke.

But it’s all part of the job,
she supposed, right in there with driver, secretary, confidante, companion…

“You know, Dwight, maybe this is a
good thing. Now they’ll have to promote you, too.”

“You know that’s impossible.
There’s no general rank above four-star in the US Army. This is just the clever
little British way of pissing in my face all over again.”

“Then maybe your army should create
such a rank.”

“That’s not the point, Kay. Bad
enough I have to put up with that pompous little ass Monty, but your Prime
Minister is a duplicitous son of a bitch.”

That made Kay Summersby laugh.
“Darling, all you brass hats are sons of bitches. That’s how you came to be
brass hats in the first place, isn’t it?”

Whether it was the Irish lilt of
her laughter or the words she’d spoken, it didn’t matter. The desired effect
was achieved. She could feel the tension drain from his body.

“You’re probably right…on both
counts,” he said. “Maybe this is just the incentive the War Department needs to
slip a five-star authorization bill through Congress. We can’t have our allies
one-upping us now, can we?”

“Now you’re talking, Dwight. With
clever thinking like that, you might want to consider going into politics when
this is all over.”

Chapter Fifty-One

The atmosphere in the Paris café
was surprisingly subdued, considering it was full of GIs on leave and a week
before Christmas 1944. Each man’s disappointment centered on one shattered
dream: the holidays were here, but they were in Paris. Not Berlin like their
leaders had promised.  Not Chicago or Wichita or Boston, either—or any other
place a GI might call home.

And the war was nowhere near over.
Four months after crushing the Germans in the Falaise pocket, no Allied army
had so much as a toe-hold across the Rhine.

Tommy and Sean Moon shared a table
in a dark corner of the café, nursing the bottle of whiskey between them. It
was Sean who finally broke the dispirited silence.

“What the hell happened, Tommy? We
had it knocked…and our generals threw it all away.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,
Sean.”

“Yeah, I know. But it just pisses
me off so damn much. After we sewed up The Gap at Hill Two-Six-Two, we
could’ve pushed them right back across the Rhine…”

“Easy does it, Sean. We had to push
them across a bunch of other rivers first.”

“But you and I were there, Tommy.
We both saw it. You up high, me down low. The Krauts were ready to throw in the
towel. And we let them get back on their feet.”

“There? What do you mean by there?
I was shot down and a prisoner there. And you, well—”

“Hey, I did my fucking job. Not one
of them Kraut bastards got past me. Not then, not ever.”

Tommy raised his whiskey in a
toast. “All right, then—to my brother, and a job well done.”

They clinked glasses and drank them
dry.

Sean wasn’t finished spewing his
displeasure, though. “But really, Half, ever since—when we should have been
steamrolling straight to Berlin—we’ve been fucking up left and right. Up north,
that stupid Montgomery tries to push a bunch of divisions up one fucking
road in Holland, gets a lot of guys killed to accomplish exactly nothing. One
fucking road for a column thousands of vehicles long—and this guy’s
supposed to be some kind of tactical genius? Any fucking traffic cop in Brooklyn
could tell you that was never going to work. In the middle, First Army got
tired of looting and catching the clap in France, so now they’re doing
the same damn shit in Belgium and Luxembourg.”

“And what about Patton?” Tommy
asked. “That obsession with taking Metz didn’t make any sense. Why were we
wasting time attacking old forts like it was the Middle Ages? He got a lot of
GIs killed for nothing.”

“Now you’re preaching to the
choir, brother,” Sean replied. “So here we sit, still in France, almost out of
gasoline again and freezing our asses off without proper winter uniforms.”

“And no Christmas presents from
home, either,” Tommy added, “since the brass figured we wouldn’t still be here
come Christmas.”

“I coulda really used those socks
Mom sends me, too,” Sean said.

“You get socks? You lucky son of a
bitch! Hell, all I get are books. And soap.”

Sean laughed. “I guess she knows
her boys pretty well then, eh?”

The waiter brought another bottle.

As Sean poured, he said, “But you
know, Half, I ain’t understanding why the hell you’re still here. Ain’t it a
rule that an escaped POW pilot gets shipped home?”

“Not home, Sean. He gets shipped to
the Pacific. Or at least he used to, because he supposedly knew too much about
the maquis who helped him escape, and if he got shot down again and
broke under interrogation, that knowledge could put them in danger.”

“So? Ain’t that exactly what
happened to you? You were a POW, your maquis girlfriend saved your ass,
right?”

“True, but the maquis is
pretty much out of business now, so by the time my arm was healed and my
paperwork got to the adjutant general’s desk, there wasn’t much reason to ship
guys like me out anymore. Most of the maquis men are in the French Army
now, and the women, well…they just went home. Besides, I was never technically
declared a POW.”

“Speaking of the women, Half, when
is Sylvie supposed to show up, anyway?”

“Later tonight.”

“She ain’t riding her bicycle all
the way from Alençon, is she?”

“No, she’s coming on a bus, I
think.”

“And you’re gonna make that long
trip worth her while, right?”

“Hope so. Got a cozy little garret
reserved at the hotel. Cost me a bundle.”

“You pay for it one way or another,
brother. But you’re an officer. You can afford it.”

There was a commotion by the door.
Several MPs entered the café, a lieutenant in the lead.

“ALL PERSONNEL ARE ORDERED TO
RETURN TO THEIR UNITS AT ONCE,” the lieutenant said. “ALL LEAVES ARE HEREBY
CANCELED, BY ORDER OF SUPREME COMMANDER, SHAEF. PROCEED TO YOUR DESIGNATED
TRANSPORT POINT IMMEDIATELY.”

A voice called out from the throng,
“What happens if we don’t, Lieutenant?”

“THEN YOU’LL BE ROUNDED UP AND
CHARGED WITH DESERTION IN THE FACE OF THE ENEMY.”

Desertion in the face of the
enemy: a guilty verdict could get you a firing squad.

Sean walked up to one of the
enlisted MPs and asked, “What the hell’s going on, buddy?”

“Krauts got a breakthrough going on
in the Ardennes Forest, Sarge,” the MP drawled. “I hear tell they just about
wiped out the Twenty-Eight Division, and there ain’t no stopping them, neither.”

Tommy was already standing on
unsteady legs when Sean returned to the table. “I got to stop by the hotel,” he
said, “and leave a note for Sylvie.”

“I’m real sorry this little rendezvous
is all going to shit for you, brother.”

“Not as sorry as I am, Sean.”

They tried to shake hands, but
halfway through that awkward gesture, it collapsed into a long hug as they
sought refuge—even just for a moment—from the torrent of emotions neither of
them could verbally express.

As they broke apart, Tommy offered
the words that had always been Sean’s to say, at first as a somber fait
accompli and later as a triumphant certainty. Now those words would be only
a wish for a brighter tomorrow, where joyful plans could be made and kept,
where the odds this wasn’t your last goodbye would be a bet anyone would take:

“Just a matter of time, Sean,”
Tommy said. “Just a matter of time.”

* * *

About The Author

History is a parade of chance outcomes,
influenced by any number of natural forces and human whims. As a lifelong
student of history and lover of alternative historical fiction, William Peter
Grasso’s novels explore the concept change one thing…and watch what happens.
The results are works of fiction in which the actual people and historical
events are weaved into a seamless and entertaining narrative with the imagined.

Focusing on the WW2 era, Grasso’s novels have
spent several years in the Amazon Top 100 for Alternative History and War.

Retired from the aircraft maintenance
industry, Grasso is a veteran of the US Army and served in Operation Desert
Storm as a flight crew member with the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). These
days, he confines his aviation activities to building and flying
radio-controlled model aircraft.

Contact the Author Online:

Email: William
Peter Grasso

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More Novels by William Peter Grasso

Operation Fishwrapper

Book 5

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

June 1944: A recon
flight is shot down over the Japanese-held island of Biak, soon to be the next
jump in MacArthur’s leapfrogging across New Guinea. Major Jock Miles, US
Army—the crashed plane’s intelligence officer—must lead the handful of
survivors to safety. It’s a tall order for a man barely recovered from a
near-crippling leg wound. Gaining the grudging help of a Dutch planter who has
evaded the Japanese since the war began, Jock discovers just how little
MacArthur’s staff knows about the terrain and defenses of the island they’re
about to invade.

The American invasion
of Biak promptly bogs down, and the GIs rename the debacle Operation
Fishwrapper, a joking reference to their worthless maps. The infantry battalion
Jock once led quickly suffers the back-to-back deaths of two commanders, so he
steps into the job once again, ignoring the growing difficulties with his leg.
When his Aussie wife Jillian tracks down the refugee mapmaker who can refine
those fishwrappers into something of military value, the tide of battle finally
turns in favor of the Americans. But for Jock, the victory imparts a
life-changing blow.

Operation Blind Spot

Book 4

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

After surviving a
deadly plane crash, Jock Miles is handed a new mission: neutralize a
mountaintop observation post on Japanese-held Manus Island so MacArthur’s
invasion fleet en route to Hollandia, New Guinea, can arrive undetected. Jock’s
team seizes and holds the observation post with the help of a clever deception.
But when they learn of a POW camp deep in the island’s treacherous jungle, it opens
old wounds for Jock and his men: the disappearance—and presumed death—of
Jillian Forbes at Buna a year before. There’s only one risky way to find out if
she’s a prisoner there…and doing so puts their entire mission in serious
jeopardy.

Operation Easy Street

Book 3

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

Port Moresby was bad.
Buna was worse.

The WW2 alternative
history adventure of Jock Miles continues as MacArthur orders American and
Australian forces to seize Buna in Papua New Guinea. Once again, the Allied
high command underestimates the Japanese defenders, plunging Jock and his men
into a battle they’re not equipped to win. Worse, jungle diseases, treacherous
terrain, and the tactical fantasies of deluded generals become adversaries
every bit as deadly as the Japanese. Sick, exhausted, and outgunned, Jock’s
battalion is ordered to spearhead an amphibious assault against the well-entrenched
enemy. It’s a suicide mission—but with ingenious help from an unexpected
source, there might be a way to avoid the certain slaughter and take Buna. For
Jock, though, victory comes at a dreadful price.

Operation Long Jump

Book 2

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

Alternative history
takes center stage as Operation Long Jump, the second book in the Jock Miles
World War 2 adventure series, plunges us into the horrors of combat in the
rainforests of Papua New Guinea. As a prelude to the Allied invasion, Jock
Miles and his men seize the Japanese observation post on the mountain
overlooking Port Moresby. The main invasion that follows quickly degenerates to
a bloody stalemate, as the inexperienced, demoralized, and poorly led GIs
struggle against the stubborn enemy.

Seeking a way to
crack the impenetrable Japanese defenses, infantry officer Jock finds himself
in a new role—aerial observer. He’s teamed with rookie pilot John Worth, in a
prequel to his role as hero of Grasso’s East Wind Returns. Together, they
struggle to expose the Japanese defenses—while highly exposed themselves—in
their slow and vulnerable spotter plane. The enemy is not the only thing
troubling Jock: his Australian lover, Jillian Forbes, has found a new and
dangerous way to contribute to the war effort.

Long Walk to the Sun

Book 1

Jock Miles WW2
Adventure Series

In this alternate
history adventure set in WW2’s early days, a crippled US military struggles to
defend vulnerable Australia against the unstoppable Japanese forces. When a
Japanese regiment lands on Australia’s desolate and undefended Cape York
Peninsula, Jock Miles, a US Army captain disgraced despite heroic actions at
Pearl Harbor, is ordered to locate the enemy’s elusive command post.

Conceived in politics
rather than sound tactics, the futile mission is a “show of faith” by the
American war leaders meant to do little more than bolster their flagging
Australian ally. For Jock Miles and the men of his patrol, it’s a death
sentence: their enemy is superior in men, material, firepower, and combat
experience. Even if the Japanese don’t kill them, the vast distances they must
cover on foot in the treacherous natural realm of Cape York just might. When
Jock joins forces with Jillian Forbes, an indomitable woman with her own
checkered past who refused to evacuate in the face of the Japanese threat, the
dim prospects of the Allied war effort begin to brighten in surprising ways.

Unpunished

Congressman.
Presidental candidate. Murderer. Leonard Pilcher is all of these things.

As an American pilot
interned in Sweden during WWII, he kills one of his own crewmen and gets away
with it. Two people have witnessed the murder—American airman Joe Gelardi and
his secret Swedish lover, Pola Nilsson-MacLeish—but they cannot speak out
without paying a devastating price. Tormented by their guilt and separated by a
vast ocean after the war, Joe and Pola maintain the silence that haunts them
both...until 1960, when Congressman Pilcher’s campaign for his party’s
nomination for president gains momentum. As he dons the guise of war hero, one
female reporter, anxious to break into the “boy’s club” of TV news, fights to
uncover the truth against the far-reaching power of the Pilcher family’s
wealth, power that can do any wrong it chooses—even kill—and remain unpunished.
Just as the nomination seems within Pilcher’s grasp, Pola reappears to enlist
Joe’s help in finally exposing Pilcher for the criminal he really is. As the
passion of their wartime romance rekindles, they must struggle to bring Pilcher
down before becoming his next victims.

East
Wind Returns

A young but veteran
photo recon pilot in WWII finds the fate of the greatest invasion in history--and
the life of the nurse he loves--resting perilously on his shoulders.

“East Wind Returns”
is a story of World War II set in July-November 1945 which explores a very
different road to that conflict's historic conclusion. The American war leaders
grapple with a crippling setback: Their secret atomic bomb does not work. The
invasion of Japan seems the only option to bring the war to a close. When those
leaders suppress intelligence of a Japanese atomic weapon poised against the
invasion forces, it falls to photo reconnaissance pilot John Worth to find the
Japanese device. Political intrigue is mixed with passionate romance and
exciting aerial action--the terror of enemy fighters, anti-aircraft fire,
mechanical malfunctions, deadly weather, and the Kamikaze. When shot down by
friendly fire over southern Japan during the American invasion, Worth leads the
desperate mission that seeks to deactivate the device.