The Undaunted

The Perfect Circle of Hell

Author's Note: This chapter contains disturbing scenes and descriptions.

"It was the perfect circle of hell..." - Martha Gellhorn describing Dachau

Belgium, January 1945

The new year was celebrated with yet another Allied victory, but as Jenny drove into Bastogne with Martha Gellhorn, newly freed from her temporary incarceration, they passed tanks that had been torn apart, jeeps pulverized into the ground, and trucks dragging trailers with neat stacks of dead bodies that looked, from a distance, like firewood.

The siege of Bastogne had lasted for a week, and from what Jenny could gather, the siege meant that Jack's division had been encircled and ceaselessly bombed, shelled and shot at by the Germans, who had outnumbered them four to one. It meant that the men, against all the odds, sustained only by prayers and a stubborn implacableness of spirit, fought their way out and the Germans fell back. Bastogne, a stew of blood and bodies, surrounded by snow that was stained pink with the life force of Americans and Germans alike, was back in Allied hands and the press were allowed to return.

When they finally found the battalion headquarters, Jenny's heart leaped into her throat and her legs almost ceased to function. Because she knew that in that building with only two walls and half a roof was Jack, alive. Thank God!

He was standing beside a wall map scribbled with red and blue marks signifying areas of heavy mortar or ferocious small arms fire, and relaying orders on the phone to his men out in the field. She watched him in silence as he asked a team of engineers to sign post and clear a road studded with mines, heard him say in a soothing voice to someone on a field phone that Company B was on its way in to help, and at last she smiled.

Every man who conferred with Jack did what Jack asked of him willingly. Every man spoke to Jack with respect, even a little hero worship. That was what had kept Bastogne in Allied hands: the leadership of men like Jack, who knew not just how to maneuver companies and battalions, but how to make men believe what they were doing meant something to them when, all around, the evidence of obliteration suggested otherwise.

Martha, however, was not at all shy. She walked over and kissed him on both cheeks. "Thank God, Jack. It's good to see you again. I know someone else who will be glad to see that you made it," she said, indicating Jenny, who hung back awkwardly, fiddling with her cameras as if they needed her attention, unable to follow Martha's lead and kiss him too even though it was all she wanted to do.

"Sir," Casey appeared from behind them and claimed Jack's attention before he'd had time to offer Jenny more than a smile. "You're needed out there."

Jack nodded, serious again. "Want to come?" he asked Martha and Jenny, who both nodded eagerly, knowing they couldn't venture out to the front without someone who knew exactly where the front was and how hot the hotspots were.

"Jenny!" Owens's voice broke into the conversation and Jenny turned to find her cheek kissed by the perennially smiling Owens, wearing a new insignia...now adjutant, Jack's administrative assistant.

Jenny's eyes met Jack's and she gave him a small smile, knowing he had found a more permanent solution to his personal mission to keep Owens alive and her heart hurt as if it wasn't quite big enough to contain everything she felt in that moment. Now she wished she had kissed his cheek because Jack deserved at least that much.

"This way, sir." Casey led the way to the jeep, more serious than Jenny had ever seen him, and she noticed he bore a new insignia as well. More corporal now than joker, a promotion he had gained as well as landing the job of Jack's driver.