Free Screaming Eagles (The Front, Book 1) by David Moody, Craig DiLouie, Timothy W. Long

him already, if the wound on his side was any indication.
    Just a sound of a gunshot and then searing pain.
    The next bullet might find his chest or skull.
    Grillo hunkered down and waited for the doctor to arrive, and prayed he wouldn’t bleed out before then.
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Fourteen
    Taylor
    C aptain Taylor drove the jeep through the woods at a fair clip. His companions--Cooper in the front and Wayne in the rear--kept watch, as well as whooped every time their Captain swerved around a tree or bounced over a hole in the ground. The fog had settled in as the morning wore on, and showed no sign of letting up. That meant that air cover wasn’t going to appear anytime soon.
    Corporal Kranz should have been driving him but Taylor didn’t mind. Tearing around in his Jeep was one of the few joys of this war, that was, when someone wasn’t shooting at him and the vehicle. So he left his orderly behind to enjoy some hot chow.
    The jeep was meant for this kind of terrain, but the weather had played foul with the engine, forcing them to take a few precious minutes to warm her up. Taylor called her Betsy, and had even painted the name on the side himself. One of the men had asked him what the name meant, but he’d kept his secret close.
    She was named after his mother-in-law, a battleship of a broad who never really warmed to him. However, she’d taken care of he and his wife one summer, while he’d been out of work following college. She’d been tough but fair, and her fiery temper had done nothing but urge him on even harder to find a job.
    Betsy strove around obstacle after obstacle. Taylor passed a line of men returning to the aid station, guns over shoulders, bandages around heads, arms, and legs. Some of the men saluted him and he nodded back, refusing to take his hands off the steering wheel for fear of the old bitch guiding him into a tree.
    Taylor asked for a cigarette, and Wayne complied by placing it in his mouth and lighting it while the Captain kept his eyes glued to the rough terrain.
    The air bit at his cheeks and forehead. Exposed to the chill, his nose had gone numb the minute he’d stepped out of his tent.
    “Here, sir. We displaced during the night. Take a left and go slow. Some of the boys were a little trigger happy with a few mines.”
    “Mines behind our line? What idiot did that?”
    “Uh, that was us, sir. We were almost overrun, but managed to repel a counterattack. Lost Johnson to a burp gun. He took a round in the leg and it didn’t look too bad. Poor fella bled out in a few minutes. Anyway, sir, we thought we were goners, so we set a few traps.”
    “If we run over a mine and my Betsy is destroyed, I’m going to be a very unhappy man,” Taylor said. Not to mention a dead one.
    “Slow here, sir. See that big oak? The one with the sign on it? Go around.”
    The sign had Mickey Mouse pointing a middle finger at a German swastika painted on a pair of old boards.
    Taylor grinned and complied.
    A minute later and they were at Charlie Company’s position.
    Taylor hopped out of the jeep and grabbed his Thompson, then followed Wayne and Taylor. A couple of bullets shattered the still, but they didn’t land anywhere near the men. Taylor pointed his gun in the direction the shots had come from, but no targets presented itself.
    Charlie Company had arrayed themselves in the snow and dug up what they could of sugar holes. A pair of men at a forward position pointed M1s at the forest and banged off a few rounds.
    “Captain Taylor, damn glad to see you. Where are the reinforcements?" Sergeant Metz asked. "I heard Baker got some rooks.”
    The man didn’t look like he’d had a wink of sleep in days. His eyes were red and the lines on his young face betrayed the look of a man aged by the war.
    He’d managed to secure a thick coat and had placed his own Army-issued jacket over the top. The villagers in Bastogne had been kind enough to send along as many jackets as they could muster up. There weren’t enough to