Four Weeks Earlier

      December 25, 1943

      1300 Hours

      Mount Sammucro, Italy

      The battlefield was quiet for the first time in nearly six weeks, when the first of the Allied offensives had begun against the series of German winter lines. It wasn’t entirely quiet—distant artillery boomed out from time to time, and an occasional rifle shot could be heard, as could the sounds of hundreds of thousands of men in the mountains and valleys of central Italy—but as battlefields went, it was deadly silent.

      A cold wind from the northwest kept everyone’s head down and three officers huddled in the lee of a collection of rocks—the location of fierce fighting only that morning.

      First Lieutenant Sam Taft had a broad smile on his face as he handed a flask of T. W. Samuel’s bourbon to his cousin, Captain Perkin Berger.

      “You’re sure?” Sam asked.

      “I am,” Perkin replied with a smile in return.

      “So it’s over?”

      “Yep. It’s over. The great battle of San Pietro, which no one will ever hear about again, is over. Finished. Fertig. Finito.” Perkin took a long pull on the flask and handed it to his battalion commander, Major Bill Spaulding.

      Spaulding also took a long pull on the flask, then handed it back to Sam nearly half-empty. Following the shot of bourbon with a wad of tobacco into his cheek, Spaulding said, “The scouts are reporting the Kraut positions on this pile of rocks have been abandoned. Completely abandoned: weapons, equipment, wounded. Everything. Looks like they’ve finally withdrawn to the Gustav Line, and our work here is about wrapped up. I’m thinkin’ no more counterattacks . . . So I reckon we’re in defense while the army figures out the next step. Maybe we go into reserve for a while.”

      “Thank God!” Sam said, and he smiled again as everyone nodded in agreement.

      As the other two officers remained reclined against mountain rocks, Sam was inspired to stand up, and in a deep, carrying voice, he began to sing:

       God rest ye merry, gentlemen,

       Let nothing you dismay,

       For Jesus Christ our Savior

       Was born on Christmas Day,

       To save us all from Satan’s power

       When we were gone astray.

       O tidings of comfort and joy,

       Comfort and joy,

       O tidings of comfort and joy.

      Several nearby soldiers grinned when Sam started the second verse, then forgot the words and began to hum. Coming to his rescue, Major Spaulding stood up, grasped Sam’s shoulder, and enthusiastically finished the song by himself in his raspy smoker’s voice. Perkin didn’t sing, but instead directed the impromptu concert from his seat on the ground with a vaguely incoherent wave of his hands and a contented smile on his face. It was Christmas Day, after all, and the bourbon was beginning to have an effect, but the holiday spirit was less influential than the realization that a battle had been won—a terrible, nearly Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless.

      Sam and Bill sat down again, and Sam surveyed his small group with deep affection. It was one of the few occasions that Sam enjoyed being a soldier, and it was due entirely to the company he was keeping at that moment in time.

      Bill Spaulding had been his friend and comrade for over three years; there was no soldier whose judgment he trusted more. The vision before Sam wasn’t that of a recruiting-poster soldier, though. Spaulding’s uniform was filthy. One leg of his trousers was torn at the thigh, showing a dingy nonregulation union suit, and Spaulding’s leggings were covered in mud, as was his pitifully inadequate jacket. A dented helmet covered an unshaved face, which bore the still-raw scars of a terrible artillery wound from only months before. That he looked as good as he did was a testament to the skills of the two medics who had feverishly sewn his face together again in the midst of the ferocious barrage. To Sam, the major was a soldier’s soldier and the iconic picture of a combat veteran.

      Sam’s cousin, Perkin, looked little better than Major Spaulding. Perkin was closer to Sam than anyone but Sam’s wife, Margaret. They had been raised almost as brothers along the Gulf Coast of South Texas, and they still regarded each other as such years later and far away on the distant shores of Italy. Despite his relaxed smile, Perkin looked desperately tired to Sam, but then so did everyone else.

      Sam studied his cousin for a moment. His uniform was slightly cleaner than either Sam’s or Spaulding, but not by much. His three-quarter shoes and leggings had been recently replaced by a pair of highly coveted jump boots—the original owner had been killed at Salerno and the boots had been used as trading currency until they found their way to Perkin, who had paid a premium price in cash and cigarettes. As Sam looked at his cousin’s normally handsome face on this Christmas Day, he saw it was smudged with dirt and bore fading yellow and blue bruises that were accentuated by deep circles under his eyes. He also bore scars on his face—less extensive than Spaulding’s but more recent.

      Without saying so, Sam reflected that he had seen hobos during the Depression who looked in better shape than his cousin. Seeing something unexpected, Sam leaned forward and with his fingertips pushed Perkin’s helmet back slightly on his cousin’s head. To his cousin’s annoyance, Sam exclaimed gleefully, “Gray hair! Bill, look at this! He’s got gray hair!”

      The major leaned forward as well and studiously examined his friend’s hair. He nodded with an amused grin, “I’ll be goddamned, Perk! You got a dozen or so of ’em and you ain’t even thirty yet.”

      Perkin removed his helmet and ran his hands through his hair. As he looked at his hands to see if any of the gray had rubbed off, he said, “It’s a sign I’m overworked. You ought to give me some time off. But look close—if they’re movin’ some, maybe they ain’t gray hairs. I think I got cooties. I’ve been scratchin’ up a storm.” He grinned as the other two officers wiped their hands subconsciously on their coat fronts.

      Spaulding snorted slightly and said, “Your personal hygiene’s the least of my worries. Half the battalion’s lousy and the other half’s got trench foot. And using Aggie math, the third half’s got the clap. Had the clap—but I suppose we’ll have to deal with it again after we get some R&R.”

      “Any idea when that might be?” Sam asked.

      “Nope. May be awhile. I was hopin’ that we’ll get the chance to come off the line for a spell but I don’t know who relieves us. We’re in sore need of replacements and they’ll need to be trained before we move forward again. I gotta think that someone else gets the point this time, but I don’t know who,” Spaulding repeated.

      The three officers nodded. They were all of the same mind: it was someone else’s turn.

      2100 Hours

      1st Battalion Headquarters, NW of San