Mark Frost - The Second Objective

The trail of blood continued ahead of him on the smooth stone floor. The reservoir seemed to have no end, extending into infinite darkness. He advanced slowly, following the blood from pillar to pillar with the light. His right arm felt dead, hanging as if by a string, its every involuntary movement shooting pain out through his upper body that took his breath away. He crept forward, half a step at a time, cautiously approaching the edge of each pillar before inching into the open again.

He heard footsteps moving ahead of him in the dark, then the sound of a scuffle, followed closely by two booming gunshots and a groan. He heard something heavy hit the ground.

“I got him!” he heard an American voice yell. “I got the son of a bitch!”

The fragile beam of the flashlight caught the edge of something moving two pillars ahead. Grannit leaned out, took the light into his good hand, focused it along the trail of blood, and followed it. His eyes blurred, refusing to focus, and he knew he was going into shock.

“Can I get some fucking help down here! He’s still alive, I got him!”

Grannit saw the soles of a man’s boots around the corner of the pillar. He took another step forward and saw the man in the overcoat moaning in pain, writhing on the ground in a spreading pool of blood. An MP stood over Von Leinsdorf, holding his gun pointed down at the body with both hands.

“Anybody there, god damn it! I need help!”

Grannit rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, trying to will them to work. He took the gun back into his left hand, held it along with the light, and stepped forward with the barrel raised. It looked as if Von Leinsdorf had been shot in the face; he was covered in blood, his hands reaching up frantically to his head as he moaned in pain.

“Don’t fucking move again!” said the MP, lowering the gun at him.

“Where’d you hit him?” asked Grannit.

“Head and neck, I think. I had patrol down here,” said the MP. He pointed deeper into the darkness. “There’s a door connects to the basement inside. I heard the shot outside so I came through. He jumped out at me; I was lucky I got some shots off.”

“Is the general all right?” asked Grannit.

“I think he is, I think they got him back inside. Who the fuck is this guy? One of those Germans?”

“That’s right,” said Grannit, staggering as he leaned toward one of the columns.

“Jesus, you’re hit, too. Cover him, I’ll get help. Where the hell is everybody?”

Grannit rubbed his eyes again. He thought he saw a bloodstain on the back of the MP’s left leg as he took a step toward the door in the darkness.

“Hold up,” said Grannit.

“Come on, man, you’re hurt-”

“Who plays center field for the Dodgers?” asked Grannit.

“What, are you fucking kidding me?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Joe DiMaggio.”

Grannit pulled the trigger. Von Leinsdorf spun around and dove to the ground, squeezing off three shots from his.45, deafening in the enclosed space. The first bullet caught Grannit just above the hip and drove him to the ground. His good arm braced to break the fall, his elbow cracked as it hit the concrete, and his gun and flashlight skittered a few feet away from his hand.

Von Leinsdorf stepped forward into the light, holding the Colt in both hands. Grannit’s shot had grazed his ribs. He touched the blood, assessing his injury as he advanced slowly toward Grannit, staring at him with a mix of rage and curiosity. Grannit tried to inch his left hand toward his gun, but his legs wouldn’t work properly and the area under his hip grew slick with blood, preventing any traction. Von Leinsdorf stopped three feet away.

“What do you want?” he asked. “What do you want?”

Grannit didn’t answer, but didn’t look away.

Von Leinsdorf raised the gun to fire point-blank at him when the reservoir exploded with a series of deafening shots that merged into one long, continuous blast.

Bernie advanced steadily toward Von Leinsdorf as he emptied the clip, and every shot caught him square in the back. The German jerked forward, spun to his left as he dropped the gun, tried to grab a pillar to hold himself up, then slid to the ground and onto his side. He looked up at Bernie in disbelief. Bernie stood over him, held his look without flinching, pointed the gun at his forehead, and the trigger clicked again, the clip empty. And in that instant the dark light in Von Leinsdorf’s eyes finally went out.

Bernie tossed the gun away and knelt down beside Grannit. He didn’t like what he saw.

“They’re coming,” he said. “You’re going to be all right. They’ll be here soon.”

“How’s the other guy?”

Grannit nodded toward the man in the overcoat. Bernie went to check on him, a young military policeman.

“He’s gone,” said Bernie.

“Get out of here now,” said Grannit. “Before they find you.”

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“Go on-”

“Forget that. Forget it. I’m not leaving you alone.”

Grannit closed his eyes and struggled to breathe. They could hear shouts and footsteps entering a far end of the reservoir, voices echoing over the stone. Grannit pointed toward the left pocket of his coat.

“Here. In here.”

Bernie helped him reach in, and they pulled out Ole Carlson’s dog tags. Grannit pressed them into Bernie’s hands, held his hand over them, and squeezed hard.

“You’re with me, Bernie,” said Grannit, fading away. “Tell ’em you’re my partner. We came here together. We finished the job. You tell ’em that.”

“All right.”

“He dropped a case near the water. Make sure you get it first. There’s papers in there you can use.”

“Okay, Earl.”

“Promise me you’ll do that.”

“I promise.”

Grannit closed his eyes, but didn’t loose his grip on Bernie’s hand until the first soldiers arrived.

Late on the morning of December 22, General Eisenhower issued his Order of the Day to all the Allied troops in Europe, his first public acknowledgment of the seriousness and scale of the Battle of the Bulge.

The enemy is making his supreme effort to break out of the desperate plight into which you forced him by your brilliant victories of the summer and fall. He is fighting savagely to take back all that you have won and is using every treacherous trick to deceive and kill you. He is gambling everything, but already, in this battle, your unparalleled gallantry has done much to foil his plans. In the face of your proven bravery and fortitude, he will completely fail.

But we cannot be content with mere repulse.

By rushing out from his fixed defenses the enemy has given us the chance to turn his great gamble into his worst defeat. So I call upon every man, of all the Allies, to rise now to new heights of courage, of resolution, and of effort. Let everyone hold before him a single thought-to destroy the enemy on the ground, in the air, everywhere-destroy him. United in this determination and with unshakable faith in the cause for which we fight, we will, with God’s help, go forward to our greatest victory.

Later that same day, for reasons that have never been adequately explained, the extraordinary security detail surrounding General Eisenhower at the Grand Trianon in Versailles was ordered to stand down. He soon returned to his former patterns of free movement behind the lines and among his forward troops.

On the morning of December 23, the weather over Belgium and the Ardennes Forest cleared. For the first time in the week since the battle had begun, combined Allied air forces took to the sky and entered the fight against the invading German armies with devastating effect. Within three days, elements of Patton’s Third Amy reached the exhausted American defenders who had resisted the ferocious siege of Bastogne. Hitler’s last gamble had reached its high-water mark. Within days, his bold offensive would devolve into a desperate retreat toward the German border to save what remained of his battered divisions from utter destruction. Although intense fighting would continue for weeks into the New Year, generating for both sides the highest casualty rate of the entire war, initiative and momentum had shifted back toward the Allies for the final time. Less than five months later, at SHAEF’s field headquarters outside Reims, German field commanders signed the official articles of surrender.