I was losing my nerves and on the verge of going AWOL, jumping off the train in enemy territory and fending for myself in winter with nothing but the clothes on my back and in my rucksack, a Walther P-38, some K-rats, and a half-empty bottle of Cognac. The rocking of the train we sneaked onto didn't help to assuage a fear that was veering into terror, nor did the fact that it was black as Hitler’s soul in our ass-numbing and kidney-tenderizing box car, a palpable darkness illuminated only when the ruddy glow of a cigarette flared up to reveal the floating head of a devil staring vacuously into perdition whenever one of us took a drag. My platoon was heading into Axis-held territory, given the task of halting the retreat of local Nazi command and its escort forces; we were part of a brigade advancing up Italy that met with unexpectedly fierce resistance as we approached Tyrol. We haven’t had any leave time since that weekend we spent pillaging and fornicating in the Eternal City nearly six weeks ago and as a result our morale was straddling the edge of a bayonet, mine especially because the mantle of command had just recently fallen on me and I was reeling under the burden of responsibility. Bedraggled and bleary-eyed we stared at each other, faces sunken into hapless ghouls radiating sullen resignation, smoking cigarettes and sipping on flasks and bottles. I was sharing my sergeant's flask of whiskey, my psyche gritting its teeth while with eyes the color of dragons’ scales I tacitly made a pact with him that I'll somehow keep it together long enough for us to piss away our filthy lucre on whores in Venice. Or long enough to die.
Dawn didn't so much break as it desultorily slunk over the Alps, creeping through a thick slate-colored mist that congealed in white pools on the ground — and froze our asses off. It wasn’t even the end of the year and already it felt like February: to stave off frostbite I commanded the platoon to do jumping jacks for five minutes at the top of every other hour. We deboarded the train last night in the inglorious manner of tramps and marched overnight to set up an ambush at a sprawling country estate adjacent to one of the roads the Nazis were expected to retreat along when our parent battalion attacked Verona to the south. The world was a forlorn shade: white with frost and mist, bleak, cheerless, and still and cold as death itself. But things were going to heat up and liven up soon enough and I wasn’t going to live long, let along make first lieutenant, by staring idiotically at impromptu German military parades: weapons and ammo had to be distributed and squads concealed in tactically advantageous positions. The tactical bit was a frustration because our intelligence was nigh useless: two hour's of a gaggle of brass in starched uniforms and smelling of Old Spice® delivering in crisp militarese in front of maps something to the effect of "You're fighting Germans! Somewhere! Who have guns, and maybe other stuff!". My mind’s horizons were darkened by images of us getting run down by a mechanized infantry troop. To make matters worse, we were running low on rifles and ammunition and only had two bazookas with five rockets between them, so even two tanks — or just one Panther — could roll over us and chew us back into primordial soup with their machine guns. But, no time for morbid ruminations, especially since the Krauts would certainly oblige me. I sent alpha squad to a position behind two abandoned trucks and a low stone fence in front of the manor, armed with a Beretta, a Tommy gun, and one of the bazookas with two rockets; command squad bravo lay in wait closer to the road in a small stone building, wherein I was armed with my Walther P-38 while the other two each had a Beretta sub-machine gun; in an old stable on a low rise farther out from the road squad charlie lurked in an old stable with the last of our Garands and a bazooka with three rockets.
After we finished our preparations — clearing fields of fire and setting up obstacles in the road to slow the enemy down — we sat down for a break to eat some rations and have a smoke, when a bird call signaled us approaching enemy forces. One: good, just infantry. Those Krauts were no fools, though: a small platoon of them flitted like riled hornets from cover to cover in twos, wisely operating under the assumption of a trap. Despite their vulpine tactics it was just a protracted skirmish and we prevailed without suffering any casualties. At its conclusion I assembled squad leaders around me, about to assign men to strip the bodies of weapons and ammunition, when I heard two bird calls just as I made out the telltale rumbling and squeaking of tanks. We wasted no time in returning to our positions, and just in time: as soon as my squad settled into our firing positions the dark silhouette of a tank became visible in the mist not more than fifty yards ahead. A moment later a jet of smoke lanced out from alpha’s position followed by a thud and an explosion, igniting a chattering furor of small arms fire and sending soldiers scurrying into my line of sight. We shot them down as soon as they rounded the burning Panzer IV. My elation drained down into my boots, however, the instant I saw a Panther bypass the wreck and head in our direction while firing its machine guns at alpha’s position. I had to keep my squad mates from fleeing, knowing full well they’d get cut down before they made it halfway to any cover: “Wait, damn it!” I screamed at them as I hastily tied a couple grenades together and slathered mud on them. I instructed the them to circle the building opposite the Panther as soon as it was about to pass our position, to attack the inevitable soldiers advancing behind the rolling cover. After they left I leaped and ran up to the Panther — pissing myself as I saw a machine gun swivel toward me — pulled the pin out of one of the grenades and shoved the bundle into a space between one of the rollers and the tracks, then leaped immediately back to follow my squad mates just as a burst of machine gun fire struck the ground where I stood just a second ago. Time froze and a wall of sound struck me numb as I almost tripped over one of my squad mates holding his leg with one arm and trying to raise himself up on the other, teeth chattering and eyes already glazed over like a marble head stone, thrashing his other leg in vain to gain purchase on a ground made slick by a steaming pool of blood; beside myself with fury I roughly shoved the surviving squad mate aside and emptied a clip into two Germans directly in front of me, my heart beating in time to the flashes erupting out of the muzzle of my gun. I glanced back at the Panther and saw smoke explode out of its cannon just as a bazooka from squad C's position slammed into it; my adrenaline dove from fight to flight like an attacking Thunderbolt when I saw the stable collapse into a smoldering heap at the same time as a wall of flame blossomed up the front of the Panther. Just as I was about to break into a run I saw another arc of smoke crawl out from the rubble of charlie's position and slam into the Panther. Secondary explosions in the Panther hurled the main turret into the air like a crumpled paper cup toward the road and opened up a chasm of towering flames wreathed in diesel smoke, flinging me into the stone building behind me; “Someone survived!” I thought giddily as I blacked out.
I came to feeling arms hoisting me up onto my feet and turning me around to a corporal’s beaming visage. Men were pouring out of the manor and from the now-burning stable; I counted, only one casualty! And we took out a Panther! Looks like we’ll be drinking up my Cognac tonight. We sat down and slapped each other on the back as we opened up our rations and passed around cigarettes, white as sheet rock, covered in grime and soot, but grinning like kids at a baseball game. As the ringing in my ears subsided and the blood started returning to our faces I was about to review the tactical situation and resume our interrupted corpse-pilfering, for though the sun was already westering (where had all the time gone?) there was at least two hours of daylight left — the day was by no means over — when out of the corner of my eye I detected movement. Without thinking I crouched behind the burning Panther to fire on ... oh, my God! What have I done? There was four of them, perhaps the owners of the commandeered estate stealing away the moment they deemed it safe to; a young man in a black coat crumpled at once to the ground, causing the rest of the family to run across the road toward the field, the keening despair of a woman splitting the air like a knife tearing through a burlap sack while I stood dumb with incredulity and rapidly escalating remorse, my arm still outstretched holding my smoking Walther P-38. A hand fell on my shoulder and when I slowly turned and saw the mournful expression on my sergeant’s face the dam of self-reproach broke, its waters pulling my body down onto a bale of hay as they flowed in rivers out of my eyes, wracking my body with sobs as I dropped my gun and covered my face. Sweet Jesus, I shot a child! More refugees filed past us down the road, most of them on foot but a few piled onto horse-drawn carts, not even noticing us. When I pulled myself together enough to look up I could see columns of smoke in the distance where our battalion was advancing. Suddenly, among the refugees I spotted a silver Mercedes laboring through the muddy ruts followed by a couple SS officers on motorcycles, whereupon I immediately picked up my Walther P-38 and turned to fire on them. As did my entire platoon; this is what we came here for.
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