Screaming Eagles

^TWENTY-FOUR COLEY

“We’re about to be overrun! What do we do, sir?” Tramble screamed.

Coley considered sinking into his hole and calling it quits. The problem was that it wasn’t in him to give up. Still, with the mounting horror, it would be a fitting way to call it a day.

He and his men had been stuck in the snow for days. Then they’d faced several assaults and managed to turn back the German advances. But just when they’d been preparing for another one, the rules had changed.

Now they were faced with something unspeakable: German soldiers who could take multiple rounds to the body and still get up and trudge up the hill.

Even in normal clothing and with knee-high boots, the snow was a hindrance. The men coming at them shrugged off the cold and ignored the freeze. They slogged upward and closed on the line of dugouts.

His men were down to their last few clips and magazines. The .50 cal had been silenced, and the .30 cal was out of ammo. The mortar team had dropped their last round. Soon the men would be fighting with bayonets and knives.

The Germans didn’t even bother shooting back. They just came on in waves, some running, others sprinting, and some dragging shattered limbs.

A man covered in blood and missing part of his jaw made it to Coley’s dugout. He staggered over the wooden defenses and fell into the hole. Coley pulled his .45 and shot the man several times in the head. Blood and brains splattered over the cold hard ground.

They wouldn’t be able to hold this back, but he had a plan.

Coley shouted orders, and four or five of his men jumped out of their holes and ran toward the woods behind the dugouts.

Tramble shot a German dressed in white camo that was splattered with blood—his own or someone else’s? There was no way to be sure. The Wehrmacht soldier lifted a handgun. Rounds went wild, and nowhere near Tramble.

Tramble finished the man off by shooting out most of the German’s throat. He dropped to the ground and fell face-first into the red-splattered snow.

They just kept coming by ones and twos. Then threes and fours.

Some had become hung up in the barbed wire. They tried to rip free, and tore flesh to the bone.

A large German wearing Fallschirmjaeger insignia leapt into Walder’s dugout. The men fought each other with fists. Walder shoved the attacker to the ground and ripped his knife free. He stabbed, driving his blade through the soldier’s hand and into his chest. Blood sprayed, but the German fought on.

Walder tried to rip the knife free, but the German grabbed with his good arm and pulled Coley’s man on top of him. The two rolled around until Walder got the upper hand and bashed the man’s head into the hard ground until it was pulp.

“Son of a bitch tried to bite me, sir,” Walder called.

Tramble had been trying to get a bead on the Fallschirmjaeger that had taken down Walder. “I tried to get him, but I thought I’d end up hitting you.”

“Thanks for not shooting me. Damn, that guy was out of his head.”

Coley shot an approaching German three times and the clip flew out of the M1. He dug for another, but he was out. He’d meant to get a few more out of the replenished ammo box, but forgotten when they’d been attacked in force.

Bodies lay all around the dugouts. Most were still, but a few shapes moved around.

Engines rumbled behind them.

The next wave arrived, and men had to get out of their dugouts to fight.

Tramble went for his sidearm and put a .45-sized hole in a Kraut. The man fell backwards but struggled to roll over, so Tramble blew the back of his head off.

Coley looked up and choked back a gasp. They were everywhere!

“Alright men, I want an organized withdrawal,” Coley said.

Hold at all costs didn’t include shooting unarmed and seemingly unstoppable psychotic Germans.

He’d started the day with eighteen individuals under his command; men he’d trained with from the beginning. The three mortar men had been late arrivals, bringing his force to twenty-one men.

Now he was down to twelve.

Five were working on the jeeps, but the rest of his men were about to be overwhelmed.

A pair of men with working M1s paused to drop a couple of slathering Krauts. Blood flew and bodies fell—bodies that didn’t convulse or fall still. Bodies that continued crawling toward their location.

“It’s not possible, sir. Those guys can’t be moving.”

“I agree, but it doesn’t change the fact that there is something seriously FUBAR with those Krauts,” Coley said.

A second group of Germans moved erratically toward them—a second group that was twice as big as the first. Heaven help them.

COLEY AND HIS men reached the line of trees and the rumbling jeeps hidden behind them. It would be a tight fit, but everyone would have a seat. Tree branches hung over the jeeps, creating good camouflage from aircraft. They’d created a barrier of fallen foliage to obscure them from patrols as well.

The men had cleared a path out. Coley waited for all of his men to arrive. They were struggling through the snow and fighting when they had to, but it was a retreat. There was no way around the word.

“Lieutenant. You gotta see this. Some of the Germans are shooting at their own guys,” Tramble said when he arrived, breathing heavy puffs of steam like a bellows.

“Maybe they think the war’s over and decided to shoot each other,” Coley joked.

“Less for us to shoot, sir. I wish this was over. I’d love to go home and have a turkey dinner for Christmas,” Tramble said.

“Speaking of turkey, what’s going on there?” Coley pointed.

The two men stood next to a running jeep. Coley lifted his binoculars to make out what was happening.

A group of Germans pursued another group; that didn’t make a bit of sense. The main group was at least a hundred strong, and they fired wildly, rounds sailing into the air. Some ran, but most moved almost mechanically.

Tramble grabbed a Thompson from the back of a jeep and swung it around to fire at the Krauts.

“Hold up. Something isn’t right,” Coley said. “I think they’re giving up.”

Sure enough. Three Germans ran toward them. The men had their hands in the air, and weapons stowed over their shoulders. One of the men’s helmets flew off, revealing unkempt brown hair that was far from the Aryan blonde so desired in the Third Reich.

One of Coley’s men fired, and dropped a German in his tracks. The bullet hit the soldier in the chest, and he was practically blown off his feet. The others shouted “Surrender, surrender!”

Coley motioned for his guys to drop their weapons.

“Sir, what in the hell?”

A half dozen other soldiers pounded over the snow toward Coley’s position, breaking through snow and brushing past tree branches. They also had their hands in the air.

A man who was clearly in charge approached Coley.

“Surrender,” he said, simply, but glanced over his shoulder, eyes wide, fear etched on his face.

“We don’t have room for you,” Coley said, looking over his pitiful transportation.

The advancing army of snarling Germans came on. One of the Germans spun, went to one knee, and fired into the mass with a submachine gun. His comrades dropped.

“Good, Christ, sir. Let’s go and let the Krauts kill each other.”

“No, no,” the man in charge said in heavily-accented English. “We have information. There is great danger coming.”

“Great danger? Like a bunch of Germans launching an assault?” Coley said.

The rest of his men milled around, some piling into the jeeps and moving guns and ammo out of the way.

“Fine. Tramble, collect guns and get them situated. They can sit on each other’s goddamn laps for all I care. We’ll get them to command and let them sort this out.”

“Thank you, meinn Herr. Thank you,” the officer said, and saluted.

Coley snapped a salute in return, and turned to get into his own jeep.

The whole damn world had gone crazy this morning.