They jumped at gunfire in the distance. Discordant, like some jazz music he’d heard. The bullets made a high-pitched sound as they breezed by that might have been music in a different circumstance.

He tried to wiggle his fingers as a piano player might, but they were stiff and black and had no feeling. He stretched his legs, but they, too, felt as if they might crack with movement.

He heard the rumble of tanks in the distance. Someone was coming and they had to find safety.

He and Malarky grabbed some branches and covered themselves, leaving just enough space to point their rifles out when the enemy came closer.

The roar became louder and louder as it neared. Engines grinding. Brittle tree branches snapping as the treads rolled over them.

Then—an American flag. Tom wanted to yelp with relief, but his paralyzed lungs could hardly muster breath, and what little he had crystalized as soon as it hit the air. The capillaries in his face warmed with anticipation, and he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

Forty-eight stars. Home.

The 37th Tank Battalion had broken through the German lines and were there to relieve them.

Soldiers hopped out of the tanks carrying sacks of food, clothes, cigarettes, and ammunition. Newspapers too.

Never again would there be a better Christmas present than this!

There were no mail sacks, but Tom was too starved of the basics to give that much thought. Besides, he’d had no opportunity to write the letter to Margaret that he knew he needed to write.

So it was just as well that he hadn’t received anything to respond to.

He did, however, grab a few pages of air mail paper and jot notes on everything he wanted to tell her. He didn’t trust that in this exhausted state, he would remember.

Dearest Margaret, he started.

The headlines are ringing with Allied victories across the continent. I’m sure you’re hearing about them too. Metz and Strasbourg were liberated by French troops and Albania was freed by local partisans. Americans have driven Himmler to dismantle the gas chambers at Auschwitz and Hitler has retreated to Berlin.

We soldiers are warmed by victory in our reach even as our extremities are frozen solid.

The ball has dropped and 1945 was surely met with fanfare in Times Square but we have scarcely noticed here. Calendars only mark one more day of existence. And too many days of uncertainty ahead.

I spent all of 1944 in Europe. Away from American soil. A lot of good men have been lost—Julian, Penkana, Sawoski, Webb, and the other Webb. Names that will be forgotten to history but forever remembered by those of us who still have breath.

Tom didn’t think he could ever tell her about Muck. Muck had died when his foxhole was hit by a German 88 mm flak. Just one over from where he and Malarky had been.