Screaming Eagles

^FORTY-THREE GRAVES

Graves and his men dug out ammo cases from the back of the German half-track. They found a box of potato mashers and put it on the edge of the vehicle. GIs snatched them up and turned the explosives against the men who’d planned to carry them into battle against the Allies.

When they’d arrived, a couple of soldiers had placed Big Texas’s body on a stretcher and carried him away to join rows of others who lay next to the remains of an aid station. Cold lumps under the blankets and snow. Graves and his men didn’t have time to offer a proper goodbye. The battle was already under way.

Explosions ripped holes in the lines, but it was too little to stop the force.

The unmistakable sound of tanks came from the direction of the city. He turned and grinned as a pair of Shermans rolled onto the battlefield.

The vehicles tore across the ground and right into a group of Germans, then kept on going. The two machine gunners worked the front guns while a tank commander sticking out of their hatches laid into the Krauts with the .50 cal.

“Wish we were in one of those tanks. I’d do some serious ass-kicking and then hightail it back to the front,” Murph said.

“This is the front,” Graves observed.

“Ain’t no front like I ever seen,” Murph said.

Gabby worked on the Kraut machine gun mounted on the half-track until he figured it out, then fed it ammo. He opened up and ripped a forward line of Germans to shreds. The gun jammed, so he fought it with curses and then got it firing again.

“We’re falling back,” someone yelled.

Graves and Murph took one look at each other.

“Get us rolling, Gabby, Murph you’re back on the machine gun. And leave that American flag draped over the front so no one mistakes us,” Graves ordered.

“You got it. No sense in giving up a fine military machine like this beast,” Gabby said, and slapped the top.

The half-track backed up, then followed the Americans retreating back to the city.