Bauer now had little choice but to plod along at the head of his men. He even carried a rifle taken from one of the wounded.
They left the open ground and moved back into the forest. As the trees closed in around them, Bauer felt a sense of uneasiness. He’d been told that there shouldn’t be any Allied troops between here and Bastogne, but who really knew?
Something flickered just at the corner of his vision. He turned that way, rifle at the ready, but there was nothing to see. Perhaps it had been some winter bird or foraging animal? Looking at the barren trees, he couldn’t help but think that they resembled the rib bones of the dead he had seen piled up in Russia.
He recalled hearing stories about the old days and how there had once been wolves roaming these woods, preying on the local peasants during the coldest months. Men went off to cut wood and did not return. Children went to bring the cows home and disappeared.
The wolves grew fatter.
Stories to scare children, not soldiers.
He shook his head and turned his attention back to the road.
He set a brisk pace, and after an hour his men were strung out along the road despite the efforts of the sergeants and corporals to keep everyone moving. He had lost sight of the end of the column around a bend in the gloomy road.
Bauer was about to call another halt so the column could regroup when he heard a burst of automatic weapon fire toward the rear.
His first thought was that the Americans had found them after all. He shouted orders for the men to get off the road, but it was unnecessary. His men knew what to do. They were already sprinting into the underbrush, getting behind trees, pointing their weapons toward the rear.
Bauer strained to see what was happening, but whatever was going on back there was hidden from sight. The flurry of gunfire was followed by a series of pistol shots, spaced apart like the ellipses at the end of a sentence.
It didn’t sound like an attack, because there was no return fire. He had been in this war long enough to know the different sound that American weapons made, and he had heard only what sounded like German weapons. Then he remembered that Messner was back there bringing up the rear and shepherding the prisoners.
Frustrated by the fact that his view was blocked, and with a growing sense of anger, Bauer jogged back along the column. Of course, the rest of his men were now on edge and watching the woods nervously.
When he finally reached the rear, he saw the curtain closing on the massacre.
Most of the prisoners lay dead in the snow. Hauptmann Messner walked among the bodies like he was out for a stroll, inspecting the cabbages in his garden with delight. When he came to a prisoner who was still moving, a cabbage ripe for the picking, Messner paused and shot the American in the back of the head with his pistol. The sharp crack echoed across the snow-covered hills.
Messner wasn’t the only one with unfinished business. Miraculously, one of the prisoners seemed to have gotten away. Bauer could see him in the distance, running through the trees. He was limping badly and probably wounded, but he had somehow managed to get away from the road.
But he would not escape. One of his men raised a rifle equipped with a telescopic sight.
Bauer found himself holding his breath as the Jaeger took aim, even surprising himself by willing the prisoner to run deeper into the trees. Yes, the man was an enemy soldier, but he had so much fight in him.
Then the rifle fired, and the fleeing man tumbled into the snow and did not move again.
Bauer stood alone in the abrupt silence, clenching and unclenching his fists. He had the odd sense that the wintry hills and trees were somehow looking on in disapproval.
Hauptmann Messner walked toward him, brandishing a happy smile. Behind Messner came two soldiers. One was Obergefreiter Gerhard Dietzel, holding his sniper rifle, and the other man carried an automatic weapon. He recognized him as a soldier named Gettinger. Both were men who had found the Hauptmann’s favor and had become quite loyal to him. In their sullen eyes, Bauer saw mirrored Messner’s disapproval of their commander.
Over the Hauptmann’s shoulder, Bauer could see the prisoners’ bodies sprawled at the edge of the road. Several soldiers had come from the front of the column to see what all the shooting was about.
“They could not keep up, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Messner said. Even Messner seemed to hear the lie in his voice, because he shrugged dismissively.
“Is that so?” Bauer fought down the anger that he felt because he did not want to shout at his second-in-command in front of the men. It was not the prisoners that Bauer cared about so much as the fact that Messner had intentionally thumbed his nose at Bauer’s orders.
