21 December, 1944
Bois Jacques, Bastogne, Belgium.
AKA Hell on Earth
It's official. All roads are cut. The Germans, as well as our side, recognise the US airborne and armoured infantry as surrounded. Bastogne is under siege. 1st battalion pulled out of Foy with heavy casualties. We're spread thin. Too thin to properly hold the perimeter. A German soldier got lost and ended up wandering into Fox's CP this morning. Word has it that "a lot of shit" is coming our way. Tanks included.
At least the snow has let up for the first time since yesterday morning. I had hoped that it might get at least a tiny bit warmer. But it only got colder. I have never experienced such freezing temperatures. Mia thinks that it's around -20 degrees Celsius. I don't know how much that is in Fahrenheit, but it doesn't matter. It's just extremely cold.
Nobody gets any sleep around here. Firefights break out at the drop of a hat and are over just as quickly. And then, there are the mortar attacks. The Germans seem to take a sadistic pleasure in shelling us, especially during the nights. And in these woods, the trees are just as dangerous as the shells. A falling tree trunk is easier to avoid than a tree that gets blown apart. Those flying pieces of bark and wood are like javelins. We've already lost a good dozen men to mortars and trees alike.
On top of that, we've pulled five people off the line for trench foot and a number of guys have developed a cold. I'm not surprised. With our bodies just warm enough to melt the snow, we're not only freezing all the time, but also constantly wet. Wet shoes, wet socks, wet everything.
We don't have an aid station any more. Artillery fire destroyed it last night. There were a few survivors, luckily. Mia saw to it that they were all evacuated to the aid station in Bastogne. Thankfully, she wasn't hurt.
We're running out of supplies. I doubt that the other battalions are faring much better. Right now, Gene and Mia are out scrounging for bandages and whatever else they can find. Between the four of us, we only have two morphine syrettes left. Gene tried to get to 3rd battalion last night, but he lost his way. No wonder in this fog.
If only the weather cleared up. A supply drop would solve at least some of our problems. But wishful thinking won't get us
A frantic call for a medic pierced the fog, interrupting the soft scratching of a pencil on paper. Catherine dropped her diary into her pack and was out of the foxhole in seconds, slipping on the thin sheet of ice glistening atop the snow. Cold bit into her palm as she caught herself. A spray of snow fell down onto her pack when her feet found purchase.
"Medic!"
Her lungs burned with each breath. Her nose stung from the dry cold air. Catherine didn't let it stop her. She raced through the trees, mind buzzing as it tried to come up with an explanation for the call.
There had been no gunfire. No mortars.
She passed a number of foxholes on her way to answer the cry. They all looked the same, just as the forest always looked the same. There were no points of reference apart from the men inside the foxholes and the knowledge of which way the CP and the enemy were.
.
Her destination was another foxhole. Her trained medic eyes needed barely the fraction of a second to assess the situation. The clump in her chest – sadness, tiredness, helplessness, anger – hardened a little more. The thrum of alarm faded from her nerves. There was no need for urgency.
Robbins, a replacement as green as they come, stared up at her, all wide-eyed and frazzled confusion. "It's Neill! You gotta help him!", he cried, gloved hand gesturing to his buddy. "He won't wake up!"
Catherine blew out a mournful breath and shimmied into the hole. "I can't help him, private", she told him softly. "There's nothing I can do."
He stuttered and sputtered, irrational in his shocked state. "But, but...but..." His wrist flicked with an aborted gesture.
The mother of two shook her head. "It's too late, Robbins", she said as gently as she could. "He's gone."
Robbins shook his head. "No, no, that...that can't be right...he was asleep!"
"I know", she soothed, carefully prying a rifle from stiff hands and setting it aside. She'd have to get a jeep to get him transported to the aid station. There wasn't anything they could do either, but they couldn't leave a body here. "For what it's worth, Robbins, he didn't feel a thing."
.
Johnny, who had come to gather Neill for his turn out on the OP, had to take only one glance, too. He briefly closed his eyes, mumbled a sotto voce "Fuck" and heaved a burdened sigh.
Catherine could empathise. She climbed out of the foxhole and they moved a few steps away from the devastated Robbins, who had progressed to the second stage of grief and was currently berating the dead body in front of him.
"He froze to death." Johnny didn't phrase it as a question, so Catherine didn't treat it like one.
"He probably didn't even notice."
The squad leader scrubbed a weary hand down his face. "Damn it." He tilted his head towards Robbins. "I'll take him to the OP."
Catherine nodded. "Tell Perconte to get me a jeep", she requested. "I'll report it to Lip and Buck."
"Thanks Mom."
She gave his arm a short squeeze because what could she say?
.
Stepping back over to the foxhole, Johnny said: "C'mon, Robbins, let's go. Your turn for watch."
The private grabbed his rifle and followed his squad sergeant without protest. Apparently, he didn't know that it would have been Neill's turn.
Catherine watched them melt into the fog, then turned to the frozen man. "I'm sorry", she whispered before hauling the unyielding body out of the foxhole, preparing him for transport off the line.
Meanwhile, the rest of Easy's medics converged at the foxhole Spina and Roe shared. Though sharing might be the wrong word seeing that none of the medics ever really spent much time in their foxholes, too busy doing rounds, checking on the men, scrounging for supplies and reminding people to keep moving and their feet dry.
"Hey Mia", Spina greeted the slim woman that appeared out of the greyness, shoulders pulled high, hands hidden in the slightly too long sleeves of her jacket.
She responded with a quiet "Hi guys", crouching down at the lip of the recently dug hole, right knee on the ground, the leg tucked under her. She took off her helmet to ruffle through her hair and brush a few overlong locks out of her face.
"Any news?" Gene eyed his friend critically, taking note of the slight shivers wracking her body, the dark rings under her eyes, the snowflakes and tiny ice crystals that sat in her tousled hair.
"I got a few blankets", Mia replied, not going into detail as to how and where she had got them. "I gave them to those out on the OP. And" – she fished a small container from her pocket – "I found a burn kit. Not much use, but there's sterile gauze inside."
"Morphine?", Gene asked hopefully.
Mia mutely shook her head.
"Damn", he muttered, producing a syrette from his satchel with an agitated, clipped motion. "This is all I got."
Spina didn't have any either. "Catherine has a syrette", he said.
Gene's mouth curved into a frown. "Yeah, so we got two doses of morphine and over a hundred men..." He cut himself off with a jerk of his head and, turning to other pressing matters, questioned: "You got extra scissors?"
"Nu-uh, just the one", Spina answered.
Mia also shook her head, but promised to ask around. "If nobody has one, I'll ask Cassandra in Fox."
.
"First Sergeant Lipton?"
They traded puzzled glances, Spina raising his eyebrows in silent judgement as the anxious voice of their not-so-fearless leader rang out somewhere nearby in the whiteness surrounding them. Dike looked confused and lost as ever as he stumbled out of the fog. His expression rapidly changed to one of disapproval when he spotted the three medics.
"Sir?", came the disembodied voice of their harried First Sergeant from the left.
Dike didn't seem to have heard it, too focused on staring at the two men in and the woman at the edge of the foxhole. "What's this? Three medics in one hole?"
Spina, the most talkative out of them, answered: "No sir, only two, sir."
"What do you mean?", Dike blustered, gesturing irately at their hole. "There's obviously three of you here! What's gonna happen to us if you take a hit?"
Completely unfazed by the CO's outburst, Mia explained: "I share my foxhole with Sergeant Wilson, sir."
The man puffed up in a fascinating imitation of a set of bellows.
Lipton's timing proved impeccable as he showed up, just the right amount of helpful concern on his face. "Sir?", he repeated, sparing the group of medics a brief but friendly smile.
"First Sergeant Lipton", Dike demanded, "where is my foxhole?"
To his credit, Lip's expression and tone didn't betray any of his thoughts as he answered: "It's back there, sir." But he did sound tired, just like everybody else.
"Maybe you missed it, huh?", he suggested, never one to point out another person's flaws, no matter how obvious they were. "I'll walk you back, sir, you're a bit close to the line here."
"God damnit", Dike huffed, stalking off into the fog-shrouded forest.
Lipton had a look of mild exasperation on his face, but he didn't say anything as he dutifully followed their commander to guide him to his foxhole.
.
Blowing out a quiet breath, Mia straightened, knees giving off an impressive pop as she did so. "I'm going to see if first platoon has any morphine. I couldn't find them last night." She donned her helmet and tugged the zipper of her jacket up even though it was already closed as high as it could go.
Spina's head jerked up as he suddenly remembered: "Oh, yeah, that reminds me, Frances was looking for you earlier."
The messy-haired girl nodded in acknowledgement and walked away.
Pulling his eyes off the figure that blended into the mist, Spina turned to his foxhole buddy. "She alright?", he asked, seeing the furrow in Gene's brow as the Cajun stared after their colleague.
He shrugged. "Hard to tell with her", he said, slight frustration in his voice.
First Platoon didn't have any morphine.
Mia hadn't held onto too much hope anyways. Her mind felt fuzzy, the biting cold, lack of sleep and general strain of their situation somehow translating into a creeping numbness that slowly began to spread inside her. Similar to the ice forming fractal patterns on their helmets, only less pretty and more exhausting.
She found Frances tinkering around with a dented canteen.
"Maybe I can rig this into a small heater", the North Carolinian explained, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she twisted her knife to drill a hole into the metal.
Mia hummed a pensive, half-longing noise. "Don't cut yourself", she cautioned absentmindedly. "Spina said you were looking for me."
"Yeah, Maxine and I got some more blankets and a couple a' coats from battalion HQ." She looked up from her tinkering, a wicked smile curling the corner of her mouth. "They sure got a cushy place there."
The younger woman pretended not to hear (or share) the resentment in her friend's voice and smiled. The set of her thin shoulders eased minutely. "That's great, thank you, Frances."
Frances' smile softened and warmed. "Any time", she replied.
.
Wishing Frances good luck with her craftwork, Mia headed for the OP. Staying as low as she could, she moved through the woods, crawling the rest of the way when the shelter of the trees grew sparse.
"Doc", she was greeted by Christenson's hoarse rasp. He was susceptible to bad colds and often developed a cough along with a sore throat, blocked sinuses and a fever when the temperatures dropped towards the single digits.
Sawosko kept his eyes on the line.
Mia was glad to see them both bundled up in coats and under a thick blanket. While everyone else had the chance to move around a little, keep the blood flowing and warm up, those in the outpost had no such option. They were stuck in that trench, mostly protected from the snow, but only partially shielded from the wind and cold.
"Everything alright?", she asked, leaning on her arms to create at least a small barrier between her chest and the snow.
The machine gunner grunted, which quickly turned into a series of rattling coughs that had Sawosko looking faintly alarmed. "Been quiet", Christenson answered after he'd gotten his lungs under control again. "Krauts have mostly been harassing our left flank."
As if on cue, a spurt of machine gun fire erupted from the enemy line. It was too distant to elicit any reaction from the veteran soldiers.
Mia dug into her jacket and produced a chocolate bar. "Here", she said, handing the precious commodity to Sawosko.
"You're an angel, Doc", Christenson rasped.
She just smiled and whispered: "Stay warm" before shimmying backwards and making her way back to the line.
When the artillery hit, everyone dived for the nearest foxhole and ducked low, while keeping an eye on the line.
Everyone except the medics, that is.
The ground trembled as the first shells struck and yet the medics were on their feet, running as fountains of frozen dirt and splintered ice sprayed up around them. They checked on the soldiers, one quick glance enough for their trained eyes. And when somebody shouted for a medic, they took off towards the call, even when the trees blew up next to them, left and right.
Catherine fell when half a tree came crashing down less than a foot away from her. Her startled cry, more of a yelp than anything else, was lost in the din of explosions and the whine of incoming mortar shells.
Before she had time to get back up, hands seized her by the shoulder and practically dragged her into a foxhole. She tumbled in, hands instinctively rising to break her fall. A mushy slop of melted snow and charred earth splattered down.
Blinking, the ranking medic orientated herself. Buck Compton was half-bent over her, one hand still holding a fistful of her jacket. "You alright, Mom?", he asked, managing to flash her a smile that was only a husk of his signature wide grin.
"Yeah yeah", she assured him, waving a hand in a roundabout way, "just needed a moment to remember which way was up."
A bark of laughter burst out of him, evidently surprising him a little.
.
Thankfully, only two people had been wounded in the barrage and none of them seriously.
Penkala had been struck in the wrist by shrapnel. Despite his staunch insistence that it had hit the artery, he refused to go to the aid station. The injury turned out to be minor, nothing a couple of stitches, a bandage and time couldn't fix.
Louise had also been hit by fragments of a shell. The blistering hot metal had found its way down her collar, leaving her with a fist-sized burn on the back of her neck. She made her displeasure known in her usual way – with lots of swearing and hissing.
Liebgott, who'd had quite a fright when his foxhole partner suddenly screamed and flung a piece of shrapnel away from her, had immediately hollered for a medic. Now, he was braiding up the sniper's hair at said medic's request while Louise cursed their miserable situation under her breath.
"By the way", the blonde interrupted herself mid-grumble, "I will not go to an aid station."
Liebgott observed as the left corner of Mia's mouth ticked up at the declaration. "I know, Louise", she said, dabbing ointment onto the red patch of skin. "Don't worry."
Louise huffed, but Liebgott could hear the smile inside it. Apparently, Mia could too, because she smiled, eyes briefly shifting over to him.
Catherine found Gene in his hole. "Mind some company?", she asked around the shivers that made her speech choppy. Landing flat on her behind in the snow had syphoned away what little body warmth she'd still had, leaving her muscles trembling to compensate.
"No, course not."
She slumped down beside him, too cold and tired to care about dignified posture. She let her head tip back, helmet meeting frozen earth with a quiet thunk.
"I sent Spina to find 3rd", Gene told her, perceptive eyes studying her. "Told him to beg whatever he could."
Catherine nodded her approval. "Good call. Found some scissors yet?"
He shook his head, frown scrunching his brow. The only way he could explain the mysterious and sudden disappearance of his pair of scissors was that he must have lost them while he tried to find 3rd Battalion last night. In the darkness, with the thick fog caught under the trees, visibility had been reduced to about three feet and the snow masked most of the bumps in the ground. He figured the scissors must have fallen from his pocket at some point.
He put it out of his mind. No use crying over spilt milk, after all. "Mia said she'd ask around", he mentioned.
"Then you'll have some by tomorrow", the Hawaiian determined with a chuckle. It was an open secret among the medics that Mia was almost as good at scrounging as Luz or Hoobler.
"Yeah." Gene rubbed at his burning eyes, blinked a few times.
And of course, Catherine – being the mother that she was – noticed. "Get some sleep", she said, "you were up all night."
His eyes had slid shut before he could even consider protesting.