Brock didn’t have a medal yet, but he puffed out his chest a bit as he made his way through the streets of Bastogne, Vern at his side. They’d already left Boot at the field hospital, where it wasn’t looking good for his frostbitten toes. He’d looked for Charlie Knuth, to tell him that he’d found the German who had gunned down those GIs. Knuth had been too weak to ask for details, and Brock hadn’t bothered to explain that he’d let the German officer go in exchange for the captured documents.
Anyhow, like that hillbilly sniper had said, the German would get what was coming to him.
Up the street, Brock spotted a soldier carrying a bottle of wine. The GIs had gone through Bastogne like a plague of locusts, looking for anything to eat or drink, but the soldier had somehow found another bottle in the ruined town. He moved to block the smaller soldier’s path and “liberate” the wine, just as he’d done a couple of days before with a different soldier.
Beside him, Vern chuckled. “Same old Brock,” he muttered.
The comment made Brock stop and think.
In the street ahead, the soldier found Brock blocking his path. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Stick that bottle of wine under your coat before somebody tries to take it from you,” Brock said.
The soldier nodded and took Brock’s advice, then went on his way.
Vern was staring at him. “Hey, Brock, you know what? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve gone soft.”
“Not soft, just older and wiser. Anyhow, don’t push it,” Brock growled.
Days after the dismal meeting in Verdun, General Dwight D. Eisenhower surveyed the map again, feeling a sense of relief. The Battle of the Bulge was far from won, and Ike had been forced to throw everything he had at the Germans to halt the advance.
However, the map reflected that Hitler’s Operation Christrose was a fading dream. The wintry roads and lack of fuel had bogged down the German tanks. The snow-covered, rugged Ardennes didn’t play favorites, however. The weather and rough terrain had been just as challenging for the Allied forces. But it was clear that the tide had turned.
Much of that success in stopping the enemy was thanks to General Patton and his Third Army. Patton’s fighting spirit was exactly what had been needed, taking on the enemy panzers wherever his Sherman tanks and tank destroyers encountered them.
Soon the weather would clear enough for the Army Air Corps planes to resume flying. Once that happened, they would begin picking off enemy tanks and trucks like hawks swooping down on the chicken coop.
Then again, it hadn’t been just Patton’s troops who had stopped the Germans. No, each and every soldier who had shivered in his foxhole, holding his position, had done just that. Patton might get all the glory, but Ike was well aware that thousands of unsung heroes were responsible for this victory.
The stand made at Bastogne had also stopped the Germans in their tracks. They had not been able to advance any farther and had been forced to stop and fight once General McAuliffe had given his famous reply to enemy demands for surrender: “Nuts!”
Ike grinned, thinking about the consternation that response must have caused the Germans.
The Battle of the Bulge was being won, slowly but surely. Ike wasn’t quite ready to relax, but he’d actually managed to get some sleep the night before.
He looked at the map, to what was next. Beyond the Ardennes lay the Rhine River.
Then Germany itself.
Many readers have asked whether there would be more adventures for Caje Cole, to the point where I was encouraged to see if I could go back and write another story or two. There seemed to be a gap in the timeline between the end of
Much of the final section of this book was written in a period that coincided with the eightieth commemoration of D-Day. The publication date also comes eighty years after the Battle of the Bulge was fought in the snowy Ardennes Forest. My heart still goes out to the soldiers when I imagine the cold and miserable conditions they endured. (Ironically, I was doing a lot of the writing during a summer marked by several record-setting heat waves.)
