Screaming Eagles

^THREE COLEY

Lieutenant Joseph Coley of the 394th Regiment, 99th Infantry Division was rocked out of a deep sleep by the world going up in flames. He rolled over, right into Corporal Travis Tramble. The next round landed in front of their position, and sounded like the end of the world.

Tramble pressed his hand to the side of his helmet and put his head in the dirt. Coley got a look at his Corporal’s shell-shocked face and wondered if he had the same terrified look on his own.

“What the hell is that artillery fire doing here?”

“Trying to kill us, I suspect,” Coley yelled over the din of exploding rounds.

They were in a dugout made a few days ago. Lieutenant Coley had overseen and helped his men dig the holes himself. They’d had to maneuver tree trunks over the openings to provide slits to shoot through.

As an Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon, their job was to dig in and watch for enemy movement. This far in Belgium and close to the German border, the allies had enjoyed total supremacy, so this was supposed to be easy duty. He’d been asked to sit out here for just a couple of days, but that had stretched into four, and now they were under attack.

Trees blew apart, scattering chunks of wood at high speed, impacting the earth and the dugout. Pieces of debris struck the log shelter above and rained down on the two men.

Coley found the radio and pulled it out of the canister. He rang up regimental command and reported that they were under an artillery barrage.

“Say again?”

“We’re getting pounded here. It’s like every gun on the other side of the Siegfried opened up on us.”

“That can’t be right. We don’t have reports of any German movements in that area.”

“Does this sound like I’m playing a fucking prank?” Coley held the radio receiver up in the air for a few seconds.

Lieutenant Coley argued with the radio operator before being told to call back in fifteen minutes, when they’d have a better idea of what was happening.

He relayed the words back to Tramble.

“How ’bout we go back and put our boots up someone’s ass and see if they know what’s going on?” Trample yelled.

The explosions marched a chaotic pattern behind the men in the direction of the small town of Longvilly. Coley took the moment to dive out of his dugout and issue orders.

The eighteen men under his command were spread out in a long line, two hundred yards from the village. They’d been digging in and stockpiling ammo for half a week.

He found Private Shaw and Corporal Harpham and told them to go back to town and find a house to gather intelligence from. The men shot him quick salutes. When the artillery let up for a moment, they rolled out of their dugout and made their way through the knee-deep snow toward the barbed wire fence that cut a line across the slope leading into town.

Artillery fire went on for over an hour. At any second, Lieutenant Coley expected it to find their hole. It would be over quick; that was the only saving grace.

THE BOMBARDMENT HAD CEASED, and somehow, they were still in one piece. Holes the size of tanks were left over the field, and trees around them—once tall and proud—had been lopped off and tossed to the earth.

“Lieutenant. I see movement near the town,” Tramble said.

Coley took the man’s binoculars to assess the situation, and in the process got a look at the tank destroyers that had guarded the rear of Longvilly.

“Are they deserting us?” he wondered out loud.

The machines heaved over mounds of snow and disappeared into the tree line.

“Guess that answers that question,” Tramble said.

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Coley said.

The slope of the German soldiers’ helmets gave them away. They faded out of the mist and streamed toward the town. It wasn’t just a single German patrol either; there were at least a hundred men moving in a column.

He tried the radio repeatedly, and finally got through to command.

“You must be seeing things,” they told the Lieutenant. Again.

“Respectfully, we just hunkered down during two hours of artillery barrages. The entire goddamn Sigfried line just opened up on this location. Something big is brewing and we need orders.”

“Wait one,” the radio operator said, and clicked off.

“Son of a bitch. They’re still saying we’re just seeing things and the barrage isn’t happening,” Coley relayed the words.

“That’s a fine way to say good morning. What do we do?”

Ten minutes later, Coley got back on the radio, and repeated his requested his artillery support.

Explosions and gunfire came from the direction of the village. The men dug in around Coley, set up weapons and pointed them toward the houses below. They had a .30 caliber machine gun, as well as a .50 cal mounted on the back of a jeep. The jeep had been placed in a dugout and covered with logs and foliage, to keep it hidden from view.

That left them with five jeeps that had been hidden in the woods behind their position.

Coley and his men turned their gunsights on the town, and waited.

A pair of figures that had to be Private Shaw and Corporal Harpham dashed across the field, maneuvered under the barbed wire fence, and ran like the dickens. They wove through trees and ducked behind natural cover.

Coley lifted an M1 and aimed at the mass of soldiers near the village.

“Get ready to fire, men,” Coley called. “Pick your targets and drop as many as you can before they get wise to us.” His orders were relayed across the half-dozen dugouts. “Hold your fire until I say.”

“They ain’t seen us yet,” Tramble said.

“Yeah, and maybe they won’t.”

Coley wondered how they were going to fight off a force nearly twenty times their size without artillery support. He used his binoculars to watch the men gathering below.

A Belgian woman approached the Germans. She was young and pretty, and reminded Coley of one of his sisters. She spoke to a commander for a few seconds, and then pointed at the 99th’s position.

“Oh Christ. I’m gonna take her out,” Tramble said.

But he didn’t fire.

Coley held his breath while the two spoke.

Suddenly the German commander belted out orders, and his men dove into ditches on either side of the road.

A jeep roared up behind Coley’s position, and out spilled three men. They quickly unloaded a 60mm mortar and started getting set up in a dugout behind them.

“Guess our request for help was heard?” Coley asked the mortar team.

“Sir. We heard there might be some action here. Captain Phillips asked us to check it out, so we brought along help, just in case.”

The addition of the mortars was a big help, but it wouldn’t be enough to cause serious damage to such a strong force.

The Germans didn’t waste any time. Small arms fire erupted from their position. They were stretched out across the road, and had decent coverage. But Coley could make out figures. The minute they set up a flanking maneuver, the well-trained Krauts would take them out.

“Pick your targets, men.” Coley said, and his orders were relayed from dugout to dugout. “When I fire, give ’em hell.”

As far as motivational speeches went, it wasn’t the best. His men had trained with him for months, and they were a tight outfit. If he’d felt he’d need to stand up and shout orders like Patton, he’d have been a poor commander.

“Fire!” Coley yelled.

Coley picked out a figure dressed in white and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck and the soldier rolled away, grasping his back. Tramble had opened up with the .30 caliber machine gun and sent Germans scrambling. Bullets kicked up snow and found targets.

The Germans returned fire, and the fight for the hill was on.