Then again, Brock didn’t mind the cold. He scarcely noticed it. The thought of revenge warmed him. However, the empty landscape made him feel jumpy, especially as the shadows in the distant wooded hills grew longer.
“Hurry it up,” he said to the others. “The sooner we get this over with and get back to Bastogne, the better.”
As it turned out, it wasn’t going to be that easy. Up ahead, he could hear the sound of firing — not just small arms but also heavier stuff. If he didn’t know better, it sounded as if they were headed right toward a battle.
“You hear that?” Vern asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “This is the way that Kraut and his babysitters went, so it’s where we’re going too.”
“Sounds like tanks.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get off the road if we hear anything heavy coming our way,” Brock said.
Unknown to Brock and his squad, they weren’t the only ones on the trail of the German and his escort detail. After the skirmish with the American soldiers at the farmhouse, Hauptmann Messner and the Kübelwagen with the two other Germans had continued down the road.
“Keep your eyes open,” Messner warned, shouting to be heard over the roar of the straining motor and the wind in their ears.
His words weren’t really necessary. Gettinger kept his eyes squarely on the road ahead, dodging any obstacles, while keeping his foot planted as firmly on the gas as he dared.
As for Dietzel, his gaze roamed the roadside on both sides, his grip tight on his sniper rifle. If there was any more trouble ahead, he would be sure to be the first to see it.
Messner had his pistol along with an MP 40 submachine gun — dubbed a Schmeisser by American troops — that he had picked up from the unit armorer before leaving on their quest. Officers didn’t normally carry combat weapons, but Messner had decided that the more firepower they had, the better, considering that there were just three of them.
The shadows across the woods and fields were growing longer. Messner did not relish the thought of trying to navigate the road in the dark. The sooner that they caught up with their quarry, the better.
Suddenly Dietzel called out a warning. “Tank!” he shouted, making the distinction that it was not one of their own.
Messner squinted down the shadowy road but couldn’t see a thing. He decided that the Jaeger must have the eyes of an eagle and the ears of a wolfhound.
No matter — if an American tank spotted them, the Kübelwagen might be reduced to a hunk of burning metal in an instant, and all three of them along with it.
He tapped Gettinger on the shoulder to get his attention, then pointed at a copse of trees at a bend in the road. “Quick, get into those woods!”
Gettinger did as he was told, steering the Kübelwagen off the road. There was just enough space between the trunks to get the vehicle between the trees. He started to come to a stop, but Messner swatted his shoulder and pointed deeper into the woods. “Hop, hop, hop!”
The side of the sturdy car was badly scraped and battered as Gettinger pushed deeper into the trees. Finally, the trees grew thicker and they could go no farther.
“Turn off the engine,” Messner ordered. “Get out and find some cover. If the Ami tank does see the Kübelwagen and opens fire, we will have a better chance on foot.”
Dietzel had already been getting out before the Kübelwagen even came to a complete stop. He hurried several yards away and got behind a fallen log, his rifle pointed toward the road. Messner and Gettinger got behind trees nearby.
Now they could hear the tank coming, its engine a steady roar, the tank treads clanking up the snowy road. A whiff of exhaust drifted their way. Gettinger raised his own submachine gun, but Messner pushed it back down.
“Hold your fire,” he said. “Let them go past us.”
Through the trees, they caught a glimpse of the tank moving along the road. Several logs had been lashed across the front and sides of the Sherman to thicken its armor. It almost looked as if the forest had come alive and was on the move. Some of the tree trunks were newly scarred and shattered, as if the tank had recently been in a fight for its life.
They all held their breath, not so much for fear that the tank crew could hear them, but to keep telltale clouds of their frozen breath from hanging in the air and giving them away.
Messner could see the tank commander standing in the hatch. Dietzel kept his rifle trained on the man but didn’t fire. If the tank commander had paid any attention at all to the tire tracks veering into the forest, he must have dismissed them as nothing more than a vehicle skidding off the snowy road. Besides, there was already a confusion of tire tracks and ruts. The tank did not slow down to investigate.
The main gun pointed up the road, but Messner knew well enough that the Sherman tank was also equipped with deadly machine guns. How much protection would the trees offer if those machine guns opened fire?
