No Less Than Victory (World War II: 1939-1945, #3)

by Jeff Shaara

likely to fill your boots now than before, no freezing nights to stiffen the ground where the men might have to sleep. Benson wasn’t complaining. They marched only in daylight, advancing on an enemy who still kicked up a fight, who staged ambushes and laid booby traps with frightening efficiency. At night, the work was left to the artillery, American units blanketing the ground all out in front of their own infantry, what the foot soldiers considered to be a perfect substitute for night patrols. Benson didn’t complain about that either. The mud was not the worst part of the early spring. As the snow disappeared, the ground gave up the bodies of so many who had died throughout the winter’s battles, some from well before the German thrust in mid-December. As the soldiers marched eastward, any open field could offer up a fresh wave of stink, the sickening smell of once-frozen men whose bodies now were opening up to every kind of biological violation. The smells came from other sources too, of course, immense numbers of farm animals, cattle mostly, carcasses upturned, some scattered among the faceless corpses of soldiers. Benson had noticed more of the horrific green skin of the German dead, what someone said was caused by the poor diet of their soldiers. After so many days, the sights failed to sicken, too many to notice, Benson’s brain masking it all. But there was no escaping the awful smell, though after a time even that became acceptable, a strange kind of normal that inf...