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William Sharper, the American.
    “In which army?” asked Schmidt.
    “Fuck you, Schmidt. There’s an old movie house here, on an old square on the east bank of the canal,” said Sharper, pointing to the area. “The Wehrmacht showed films during the Occupation. GIs are using it now.”
    “Mark it on your maps. Meet at this cinema between nine P.M. and midnight on the nineteenth,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Wait no longer than that. Even if you’re the only squad, move forward on your own initiative.”
    Von Leinsdorf shook each man’s hand before they all exited the cottage and went their separate ways. He placed a hand on Schmidt’s shoulder, holding him back.
    “I realize that in our former positions we hold equal rank,” said Von Leinsdorf, once they were alone. “And that you’ve held yours slightly longer than I have mine.”
    “That’s correct.”
    “Be that as it may, Colonel Skorzeny has put me in charge of this mission. I take that responsibility seriously. If you ever question my authority again, I’ll kill you.”
    Von Leinsdorf stared at Schmidt until he recognized the terror he had over the years grown so accustomed to seeing in weaker men’s eyes, then walked outside.
    The men of his squad, Bernie Oster, Marius Schieff, and Gunther Preuss, were waiting for him near their own jeep, loading in supplies.
    “Good news, gentlemen,” said Von Leinsdorf. “We’re going across to night.”

 

    5

    Northeast Belgium
    DECEMBER 14, 1944, 8:40 P.M.

    S hivering under a sky thick with stars, three GIs manning the Frontier Control Station lit a fire in a discarded oil drum, in violation of blackout orders. Their tin-roofed hut offered no relief from the arctic air riding in behind a storm front. Winter hadn’t officially arrived, but the season’s first storm had dropped six inches of snow the night before. Although they were less than four miles from the German border, and occasionally heard engines gunning in that direction, only sporadic skirmishing had broken the calm during the weeks they’d been stationed there. So each night after dark they lit a fire behind their hut and took turns warming their hands, while the others sat inside, playing cards by the light of a Coleman lantern.
    They were green recruits—a sergeant and two privates—drafted in the last six months and hastily trained. Their 99th Infantry Division had deployed in the Ardennes only a month before, thrown in beside new units too raw for combat and veterans too beaten down for more. The men’s regiment, the 394th, had dug in along a twenty-mile perimeter that paralleled the Belgian-German border, a craggy, forested gap between two mountainous ridges. Stationed at thousand-yard intervals, the soldiers of the 394th spent their days and nights in bone-chilling foxholes, staring at a silent forest, protected from the elements only by rough ceilings of pine branches.
    By comparison these three men of Rifle Company F, Squad “D,” had drawn a plush assignment, guarding this checkpoint on an old logging road a mile north of the village of Elsenborn. Ten miles to the rear their base camp offered hot meals and showers, Hollywood movies, and touring swing bands that played weekly USO dances swarming with grateful Belgian girls. A conviction had spread through their barracks that the war was all but over. A month of frigid nights hunkered down in the Losheim Gap seemed an easy way to work off your part in the war effort. They might even sail home without firing a shot in anger.
    “Sarge,” said Private Anderson, from behind the block house.
    “What is it?” answered Mallory from inside.
    “Something coming.”
    Headlights washed over the block house window. Sergeant Vincent Mallory of South Boston grabbed his Garand M1 carbine, and Private Jack Ellis followed him out the blanket hanging over the open doorway. Private First Class Chick Anderson stationed himself at the gate beside the striped wooden arm that crossed the dirt road.
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