I Heard The Crunch Of Feet In The Snow And Turned To See Roe Coming My Way. I Could Tell By The Look

I heard the crunch of feet in the snow and turned to see Roe coming my way. I could tell by the look on his face that this wasn’t a social visit. “Malark, I’m sorry, but it’s Skip,” he said. “He’s dead. Penkala, too.” I simply sat on the edge of a slit trench like a man who’d been out in the cold too long. Numb. My brain told my mouth to speak but it was like the words were frozen in place. “How’d … it… happen?” I asked, my voice but a whisper. “‘Bout a hundred yards down the line. A major shelling. Muck and Penkala were caught out in the open, then finally found a hole. George Luz had been scurrying around during the blitz, too. Muck and Penkala yelled for him to get in their foxhole.” Roe paused. I kind of nodded, rocked forward and backward a bit. Put my hands over my face, fingers as numb from the cold as my brain from the news. “Luz is down on the snow, snaking his way toward them, and—boom—direct hit on the foxhole. Shell found them as if it had eyes.” I looked away, toward nothing.

~ Don Malarkey

A 5.5-inch gun from the battleship HMS Hood defend Georgetown at Fort Bedford on Ascension Island (an isolated volcanic island in the South Atlantic). The guns were salvaged from the vessel during a 1934 refit. They are now the only parts of HMS Hood that exist (above sea level).

Parachute Regiment gunner firing a Bren from a ditch during Operation Market Garden, Sept 1944

Canadian soldiers examine a German Mauser T-Gewehr. Behind them is a Male Mark V tank. August 1918.

Kriegsmarineman climbing the fjords with Tirpitz in the background, WWII.

EUGENE ROE & BABE HEFFRON: BASTOGNE