Kennet shared the shift with Ralph Ingle, and they hadn’t been on watch an hour when a German reconnaissance plane swooped low over the camp. Lieutenant Jorgensson, the platoon leader, came to stand by the privates and regard the aircraft.

“Bed Check Charlie,” he said. “Listen. He’ll bank around and take another look.”

Kennet squinted and turned his ear toward the sky. Sure enough, the plane came back around.

“He’s flying low, sir.”

Jorgy grunted.

“Will he shoot?” Ingle asked.

“Nah. If he fires, we’ll take him out. And if we take him out, we give away our position and risk getting shelled. This flyby is nothing but a game. And it’s already a draw.”

“Hijo de puta,” Ingle said to the sky. “Me cago en tus muertos.”

Jorgy gave a terse chuckle. “I caught whore and shit,” he said. “I can extrapolate the rest.”

“Bravo, sir,” said Ralph Ingle, who’d been born Rafael Íñiguez in Cuba.

All during the watch, American artillery occasionally fired on the enemy rear, shells lighting up the sky and making the ground rumble. When relieved, Kennet headed back to camp. It took a few tries to remember which heap of straw was Hook. He retrieved his bedding, which Hook had managed to keep toasty, and piled hay on himself as best he could. He didn’t so much sleep as catch brief catnaps between shelling. As it neared dawn on the 30th of December, the frequency of the attack increased and no more sleep was to be had.

30 December began with a wrong turn, Kennet wrote. Our B Company was supposed to follow the Baker of the 22nd Tank Battalion. But our platoon lost contact with the tank column. We asked the battalion commander which way they went. He pointed down a road. Confidently. He’s the goddamn commander, right?

It was the wrong road.

We ended up in no man’s land with the German artillery laying down a bombardment. Lt. West was trying to make radio contact, meanwhile we’re sitting on the road, asses exposed, and the shells are exploding in the distance but they sound right next to us and coming closer.

A farmhouse was on fire not ten yards away and shrapnel was making a high-pitched whine as it flew through the air. West went back to the crossroads to figure out where we were. We stayed in the track, huddled down below the line of the plate armor, trying to hide inside ourselves…

Boots came running along the side of the track and Lieutenant West flung himself into the passenger seat. “We’re turning around, move it,” he said to the driver. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

It took an excruciating amount of time for every vehicle to three-point its nose in the other direction, but once the column was moving, everyone in the half-track exhaled at once and sat up a little.