Chapter Sixteen
July 1944
The waves outside Tom’s window lapped gently, impervious to the devastation that had occurred on the shores mere weeks ago. The military hospital had moved from battlefield tents into vacated hotels in Cherbourg, and Tom was lucky enough to have been assigned a room that looked out onto the Channel.
His hand hesitated over the paper and he struggled to grip the pen. The cast had been off for a few days, but his muscles had atrophied and the exercises the nurse showed him were strenuous and painful. But he kept at them. He had to get back to his men.
And he had to write to Margaret.
The hand was the least of his injuries.
Seven weeks had passed since that day in Normandy. And even though all he wanted to do was forget, it was the only thing he could think about.
The weather. The jump. The bodies.
When he and William realized that they’d been dropped miles off course, they knew that each step was precarious. They crouched below the tall grasses, inching along and stopping whenever they heard the crunch of footprints.
Click. Click.
Every time they heard the signal, they responded in kind, and by the time they’d walked a mile through a field of yellow rapeseed, there were seven lost soldiers who had banded together.
Not knowing how to get to Sainte-Mère-Église from wherever they were, they decided to head toward their ultimate destination, Utah Beach. They could hear it in the distance from the amount of gunfire.
There were two suspected guns aiming at Utah Beach, and their company would have to take them out so that the armada of boats arriving would land safely.
But then, shots. Much closer than the beach.
They fell to the ground and crawled to the side of the gravel road they were traveling on. The gun was close. Close enough that Tom could feel his ears ringing.
It was ahead of them.
And as they approached, they heard commands shouted in German.
A chill shot through Tom like a Virginia winter. This was what they’d trained for. But nothing had prepared him for hearing the staccato words of the enemy’s language.
William assumed leadership of their group and gave the hand signals for them to advance. Rifles up.
They’d arrived at a clearing. It was nearly impossible to see the German soldiers amid a sea of netting and sandbags. They’d certainly mastered the art of fortification. But Tom could see the flashes of their rifles, and their positions would be momentarily lit up.
He looked at William, who was gesturing for them to flank the Germans on the left.
Tom turned around and repeated the motion to the men behind him.
They crouched low as they approached a bunker.
Tom watched as William held up his hand for the rest of them to stop. William pulled something from his pocket.
A grenade.
He pulled the pin and Tom’s heart seemed to stop as he watched. The Germans in the bunker were firing through the clearing at an alarming rate, and Tom assumed that the Americans on the other side of it must be advancing.
William crept forward and threw the grenade into the slim opening on the side of the bunker and started running back toward the woods.
The bunker exploded with spectacular force that could be felt even at this distance, leaves and branches and debris falling like rain. Tom didn’t see any way that the men could have survived. For a second, he knew victory. And as he looked to his right, he saw that William’s actions had opened a way for some of the American troops to move into the clearing.
His instinct was to run toward William, but he’d been given the order to stay. William suddenly stopped. And turned. Away from their direction.
He’d seen something. Someone. And he didn’t want them to know that there were others.
Then—a shot.
Even among the many others, Tom seemed to hear this lone bullet zip through the air. He could almost see it, its gold casing creating a trail of smoke behind it.
All the sounds around were muffled to near nothingness.
He wanted to shout. To warn William. William, who was running away from them to protect their position. But he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. To do so would negate the sacrifice William had made.
Because the bullet caught up with him.
Tom heard and saw the bullet over and over through the slow and agonizing days since. In reality, it had happened in a mere second.
And what seared in his memory most was watching William fall.
What made his ears ring was the silence, the terrible silence of William not getting up.
Tom bit down on his hand to keep from crying out. And if it had not been for the soldier holding his shoulders down to restrain him, he might have gone to his side.
The battlefield held no harbor for grief. One man among many had fallen, but there was no time to mourn them if you wanted to keep from losing others. Emboldened with anger, Tom assumed the leadership of their menagerie of six and sent two of them to find the sniper who had killed William while he took the others around to the right side of the clearing.
There, they spotted another bunker. Better camouflaged than the first because it was painted the color of its surroundings.
Tom put his hand up to halt his troops.
He pulled the grenade from his pocket, just as he’d seen William do. He crept forward, holding it gingerly, inching toward the bunker.
A bullet whizzed past him. Then another. He dropped to the ground and pulled himself on his belly until he was close enough to throw the handheld bomb.
He took a breath. William just did this and he would too.
Hank. Dr. Weinstein. The McClintocks. William.
Margaret.
He repeated their names under his breath. They were why he was here. They are who he would die for if the price of his life demanded it.
It was strangely liberating to accept that an action might take your life. Energy to do things he never would have imagined doing before surged through him.
He pulled the pin and tossed it.
Bull’s-eye.
A rush of adrenaline pulsed through him.
They’d been taught to have the will to kill, the skill to kill, but not the thrill to kill.
That’s what separated man from the animals.
But in that moment, it was a terrible temptation to let himself feel such satisfaction at killing those who had murdered his friend.
He ran back to his men and motioned for them to run.
They made it past the German line and rejoiced when they found Americans on the other side.
He’d done it. A small thing in light of William’s sacrifice, but in that one action, he felt like he’d earned his father’s regard.
He scooped up a handful of dirt and deposited it in his pocket. This was hallowed ground, the resting place of martyrs. It would remind him of William and bolster him through what lay ahead. And when this war was over—as it had to be someday—he would send this dirt to William’s family and tell them about his sacrifice.
Hours later, they’d all made their way to Utah Beach. Muddy. Tired. But grateful to be alive.
Until it started up again.
It was only after Tom woke up in the hospital days later that he recalled the rest. His right hand had been broken when another soldier’s bullet-riddled body fell and the butt of his rifle hit Tom’s hand like a stone. Likewise, his femur and collarbone had snapped. He called for a medic, but there were too few of them to attend to so many.