“Herr Obersturmbannführer, they are crossing the field!”
“What?”
“The Americans are coming after us.”
Bauer had to see for himself and ran to the edge of the forest. Sure enough, the line of US infantry was advancing. Even three tanks had appeared and were heading for the trees where the Germans sheltered.
It was fight or flight.
With so many wounded and exhausted men, fleeing was out of the question. They would have to turn and fight.
The order was forming on his lips when Bauer realized that he had a third choice.
He drew his knife, the beautiful blade decorated with the swastika and eagle on the hilt, and used it to cut a strip from his white winter camouflage smock. He found a suitable stick and knotted the white strip to one end.
Messner came running up to him.
“Herr Obersturmbannführer, what are you doing?” asked Messner, looking horrified. As usual, he was accompanied by Gettinger and Dietzel, who had managed to survive the bloodbath.
“I am going to surrender and save as many of the men as possible,” Bauer said. He added bitterly, “With any luck, they won’t shoot us all, like you did to those American prisoners.”
“But sir, you cannot surrender!” Messner protested.
“I can and I will. It is our best option,” Bauer said matter-of-factly.
“Herr Obersturmbannführer, I forbid you from doing this!”
“You forbid me?” Bauer wondered. He felt anger, then consternation. “May I remind you that I am the commanding officer here.”
But Messner was so furious that spit flew from his mouth as he shouted, “This is a betrayal of the Reich and of the Führer himself!”
Bauer thought,
Many of the men nearby were listening to the exchange, some of the wounded slumped in the snow, so Bauer stopped short of speaking his thoughts out loud. The men had suffered enough.
Finally, he sighed in exhaustion. Messner could obey orders, or he could go to hell. “I am going to surrender, Messner. It is the best way to save some of these men.”
“Herr Obersturmbannführer, you must not do this.”
“Look around you, Messner. Do you see all the wounded? Without supplies, we can do almost nothing for them. The ones who aren’t wounded are nearly dead on their feet with exhaustion and the cold.”
“You are a traitor!”
Messner’s hand drifted to the flap of his holster. Next to Messner, he could see Dietzel grow tense, his grip tight on his sniper rifle. So far the barrel hadn’t swung in his direction, but all it would take was a word from Messner.
Bauer ignored them and began walking through the trees toward the field. He half expected to hear a shot — it would be the last thing he ever heard — as Messner moved to stop him. He kept walking, hoping that shooting his commanding officer in the back would be too much, even for a zealot like Messner.
One of the men saw him with the white flag and stopped him with tears in his eyes. It was one of the enlisted men who had been with him for a long time. The man was bleeding heavily from several wounds suffered in the attack across the field, his makeshift bandages seeping blood. “We can still fight them, Herr Obersturmbannführer!” he said.
Bauer squeezed his shoulder. “You have done enough, old friend. We will get you some help soon.”
Before moving on, Bauer looked behind him, half expecting to see Messner or the sharpshooter taking aim.
But Messner was gone, along with his henchmen and several of the more able-bodied soldiers. He caught sight of the last of them disappearing into the trees. Apparently they were not going to surrender.
It was their choice. Some part of him felt proud of them, but this would not be his own path. He would do what he could to save what remained of his men.
Bauer took off his smock to reveal his officer’s uniform, then squared his shoulders and walked out into the open, waving his white flag.
Cole and the others did not get much of a break after defeating the German attack toward Bastogne. They were pulled back after the German attack had shattered upon the hillside like waves upon the rocks. The field was littered with German dead, the snow stained red, the corpses of the destroyed panzers still smoking. As terrible as it was, no man present would ever forget the gruesome tableau before them. Decades later, it would be a story to tell their grandchildren. But for now they simply felt numb from the cold and glad to be alive.
Already more snow was falling, as if nature wished to hide humankind’s sins. If you got close enough, you could hear the snowflakes sizzle as they melted on the hot metal. If hell froze over, Cole reckoned that this was what it would look like.
“That’s a lot of dead Krauts,” Vaccaro remarked.
“Dead, stupid Krauts,” Cole emphasized. “They marched across that field like they owned it. What the hell did they expect?”
“They expected us to run, that’s what.”
“The Krauts got that part wrong.”
