Bastogne

S01E06

So far, I like the conceit of seeing the conflict through Roe's eyes, since the way he appears to wounded men without getting wounded himself is truly amazing. There is no room for flinching in the line of fire, and there is no escaping his job, no resting.

Nightfall. Roe runs alone. Peeking into a foxhole, he's disturbed to find it empty, and darts along the line looking for others. He sees Toye sitting on the lip of his hole, depressed. "Thanks for the boots," he says quietly. Roe wants to see Toye's problematic foot, so the man displays a foot that looks dipped in flour -- it's white and powdery, and decidedly abnormal-looking. He winces when Roe touches it. "It's trench foot, Toye," Roe informs him. "If it turns gangrene, you could lose it." Toye staunchly refuses to leave the line; acknowledging his drive with silent respect, Roe finally says, "Massage your feet, change your socks every day and dry the wet ones around your neck." Toye edgily says he's working on this; Roe pats Toye's leg and leaves, then spins around and asks if Heffron has passed. "No. Why?" Toye asks. "He ain't in his hole," Roe replies.

Diving into his own hole, Roe is surprised to notice that he's sitting to both Spina and the missing Heffron, who is leaning catatonic against the medic's shoulder. Spina is hugging him gently, but very awkwardly, as though he realizes he's expected to mother this poor boy and hasn't the faintest clue how to cuddle. Roe unwraps a piece of chocolate and offers a chunk to Heffron, calling him "Edward" in an attempt to be more personal, familiar. "I promised him if he got hit, I'd get his stuff and bring it to his Ma, you know?" Heffron chokes, staring straight ahead, unblinking. "Now the fucking Krauts will strip him!" Roe tries to comfort him. "It's not okay!" snaps Heffron. "We shoulda got to him." Spina still looks like he has intimacy issues, but to his credit he doesn't try to disengage, aware that Babe isn't done mourning. The three men settle in for the night.

Another flare goes up, illuminating the sky. Babe is snoozing gently against Spina, who is wide awake. "What do you call those people again, those Cajun healers?" he asks Roe, whose eyes were closed. Roe gets up and bitch-slaps Spina for interrupting that recurring dream where Florence Nightingale and Scarlett O'Hara are spanking him with a roll of bandages. "Traiteurs," Roe says. "My grandmother was a traiteur." Spina is impressed. Roe insists that the simple touch of her hand healed cancers and sickness -- the two being somehow mutually exclusive. "Wow, you're shitting me!" Spina sputters elegantly. "I remember she used to pray a lot...talked to God about the pain she pulled out," Roe recalls. "Asked him to carry it away. That's what she did." He smiles slightly. Spina is still completely amazed. "I'm still trying to figure out why they picked me as a medic," he marvels. "God knows. Snap of a finger, and just like that, you're a medic." Spina sighs that he's sick of playing doctor. Roe stares blankly ahead, as if seeking the kind of divine guidance his grandmother received, but getting a damn hangnail instead.

Winters, perched on the upper edge of his foxhole, cracks ice with his knife in an effort to produce enough drops of water to enable a shave. That is dedication. That's the point at which I'd trade my razor for food and embrace my future as a sasquatch. As he spies Roe emerging from the fog, he also hears a suspicious noise behind him and hurriedly whispers for the medic to duck. Winters draws his rifle and points it at a very distant figure, shouting, "Kommen sie hier! Schnell!" Now, my German's a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure he's not offering the man hot strudel. Sure enough, moments later Winters is searching the prisoner's pockets, handing a wad of bandages to Roe for his supply chest.

General McAuliffe, the acting division commander because General Taylor was called to Washington -- not that we've met him, either -- arrives via Jeep to get an update on the battalion's status. Col. Strayer sighs that for every advance one spot makes, another portion of the line gets pushed back; the German artillery is mercilessly firing upon them and they have no aid station to treat the wounded conveniently. Strayer tosses the violin over to Winters, who then fiddles the "Got no ammo, got no clothes, got no food and my baby done left me" blues. He explains that the line is spread so thin that the enemy has wandered across it to, er, relieve their anuses (which is what happened above). "We just can't cover the line," Winters says glumly. Just then, Nixon pokes his hung-over head out of a covered foxhole and slurs, "Morning." He adds to the song by fretting that he paced the line at 0300 and couldn't find the 501st on their right flank, so he plugged the hole with a squad from 2nd platoon. Strayer verifies that there are, in fact, too few people stretched across too much land. Faced with this grim reality, McAuliffe helpfully says, "Hold the line and close the gaps." He goes on to cheer everyone by confirming that yes, the fog makes it impossible to drop supplies to them, and yes, there isn't much backup artillery for them, and yes, there's a whole lot of German shit headed their way. He then actually grabs everyone's morale and blows his nose on it.

Now that everyone's hopes are in the toilet, Roe quietly returns to Winters's foxhole and begs him for a comforting cuddle. Oh, wait, sorry, that was me talking. Apparently, Roe and the medics are short on bandages, and he needs to raid some individual aid kits. He got lost trying to find 3rd battalion to raid its supply chest. Winters has very little to give, but does note, "Get everything you can. You're going to need it."

Roe scrambles over to the hole of another medic, Spina. They pool supplies; Roe realizes he's got only one syrette of morphine and then fills in that 1st battalion pulled out of nearby Foy with major casualties. "If they're back, what the hell are we doing here?" groans Spina, reclined in his hole drinking water. Roe, all business, asks for scissors, but learns that Spina has none. Spying two medics in the same hole, Lt. Dike storms over and bitches at them for being careless. Donnie is with him. "Where the hell is my hole?" screams Dike. Donnie politely answers, "Right back there, sir. Maybe you missed it, huh? I'll walk you back." He obviously thinks Dike is three pounds short of a potbelly. Roe, for his part, doesn't seem to appreciate a reprimand from someone who gets to sit instead of running from hole to hole.

Boots on snow. Roe is running again, this time to Gonorrhea's hole. Gonorrhea has no morphine, but wants to talk to Roe about another problem; the medic, however, is already on the run. "How's the leg?" calls Roe. "To hell with the leg, I'm pissing needles!" screams Gonorrhea. Great -- if he could just piss a few filled with morphine, then Roe would be in business. Roe waves off Gonorrhea and promises to return.

, Roe sprints and scrambles into Gordon's foxhole. "Seen 'em?" he asks. "No, but they're out there," says Gordon's pal. Gordon offers Roe coffee, but the medic is more desperately in need of scissors. "I have to check the sewing room," muses Gordon. "They might be upstairs in the study, in that skinny old drawer in the desk...." Roe rolls his eyes, getting the sarcasm but unwilling to make time for it. Politely, he asks for a syrette of morphine. "Hide your morphine!" Gordon cheerfully shouts to the guys, but before anyone can laugh, a blast knocks them to the ground.

Nearby, Skip and Malarkey dive for cover, the former freaked because his helmet is peppered with bullet dents. He tosses Roe a syrette as the medic scrambles through the maze of holes, dodging bullets and diving onto his belly at times. He lands in a hole occupied by Babe Heffron and Pvt. Julian, a replacement; establishing that neither is injured, Roe hears Penkala screaming for him and takes off again. "It's the artery, I can feel it!" panics Penkala. Roe examines the wound, a long, ugly tear in the man's forearm. Penkala is convinced he's going to bleed to death, so Roe tries to console him; suddenly, as more shots barrage the area, Penkala begs Roe not to take him to an aid station. "I can't go out in that shit!" he yells. Roe tenses. "You don't want to go out in this shit, and [yet] you yell 'Medic'?" he bristles, stunned at the sheer disregard for the doctors' safety and at the same time resigned to the job. Tersely, he informs Penkala that there is no aid station, bandages his arm, and then pauses as the shelling finally stops. Through the silence, Roe hears more screaming; before he sprints away, he snatches Penkala's aid kit.

Meeting up with Spina, Roe orders him to grab a pal and find 3rd Battalion, begging them for bandages, plasma, and whatever other supplies they can offer. "And get yourself a hot meal, too," he adds, softly, patting his friend on the arm. Spina scampers off; Roe removes his helmet, lets out a breath, and sits for his first respite in a long while.

Heffron and Spina trudge through the snow. "You know he told me he's a goddamn virgin?" Babe marvels. Spina has no idea who "he" is. "The replacement in my foxhole -- Julian," answers Heffron. "A goddamn virgin. Just a kid." They snicker that the only virgin they know is the Virgin Mary. The only Mary I know is Bloody Mary. The men look around, confused, unable to distinguish one patch of tree-filled snow with another. Suddenly, Heffron drops right into a hidden foxhole. "Hinkel? Hinkel?" calls out a confused German soldier. Scrambling out, Babe grabs Spina and sprints in the opposite direction, as the enemy man grabs his gun to fire at the non- Hinkels.

The 3rd battalion aid station is a trench lined and supported with logs. Medics run though it and offer up bandages to Spina, but can't give away any morphine. Blasts pepper the area too vigorously for Spina to stay and make any kind of case for himself, although he does squeak that 2nd battalion has no aid station and no surgeon. He's bummed at the idea of having to backtrack to Bastogne to scrounge up morphine.

Dinnertime. A ring of NCOs and privates giggles about the Hinkel incident while they try to keep warm. Roe sits alone, off to the side, using physical distance to help keep him emotionally separated from these men he will one day see mortally wounded. "These smell like my armpit," a soldier complains of his beans. "At least your armpit's warm," counters Skip. A few Hinkel jokes ensue, as well as some disparaging remarks about the courage of Lt. Dike. Finally, someone suggests that Roe should check with Dike, who might have some extra syrettes in his relatively unused aid kit -- a condition they appear to ascribe to their commander's propensity to stay put. Not a bad solution, actually, but maybe I'm just chickenshit. And, strike the "maybe." Skip shouts that Hinkel might have a syrette for him, and the group busts up laughing; even Roe smirks.

Sure enough, Dike is snoozing in his foxhole. He's alone, which strikes me as a mistake, because shouldn't one awake person be there to make sure a German doesn't march up to the sleeping Easy CO and rip a bullet through his forehead? ["Or poo on him?" -- Wing Chun] Roe wakes him and begs for the aid kit because he's so short on supplies. Dike obliges, but does ask, "What happens if I get hit?" Roe assures him, "I'll be there, sir." Dike hands over the kit and intones, "I don't plan on getting hit." Roe smiles and dashes away. He encounters a coughing Heffron. "Hey, Heffron, you okay?" Roe asks. Heffron snaps that he's sick and tired of being called by his surname. "Edward, right?" Roe tries, confused. "'Edward,' are you serious?" screams Heffron. "Only the goddamn nuns call me 'Edward.'" And they only call him that when he calls them "goddamn nuns." Roe is very unsettled and gingerly asks whether Babe has any morphine. Babe snaps that he's already been asked that. "I don't recall," Roe says gently, and sadly. Tempers are flaring.

up is Gordon's foxhole, where Roe slides in and covers the gap through which he entered. Gordon passes him a handful of syrettes, joking that 3rd platoon ponied up its contraband. Roe is grateful, accepting the hot coffee Gordon offers and visibly brightening when the man whispers that Perconte has scissors. "And check on Joe Toye...he's missing something," Gordon adds. Roe replies that he understands, but just isn't capable of providing the love of a good woman.

Toye is stationed at the OP, a special watch post. Roe bellies up to the edge of the hole and checks on Toye and Earl McClung, whose name indicates that he should run home and open a diner that serves killer meatloaf. Seriously, Earl McClung sounds so down-home. Toye brushes off the inquiries until Roe demands to see his feet. "Where are your boots?" demands Roe. "In Washington, up General Taylor's ass," grouses Toye. Roe is irritated, so Toye gives the real reason: "I took off my boots to dry my goddamn socks, and they got blown to hell, okay?" Roe kindly asks what size he wears. "Nine, just like everybody else," he sighs. Wow, poor Toye. It's absolutely bone-cold out there, and he's forced to go shoeless because of an ill-timed blast from the enemy.

Perconte is vigorously brushing his teeth. "Keep cleaning those teeth, and the Germans will see you a mile away," jokes Skinny Sisk, his hole-mate. That sounds so saucy. It looks like wordplay is about the only fun we're going to have for the nine pages or so. Roe descends and unceremoniously grabs Perconte's knapsack, dumping out the contents until he locates the hidden scissors. Perconte is steamed, but he can't fight too hard because Roe's the doctor and his needs are generally for nobler causes. Roe should abuse his power and demand medicinal earmuffs. Before Perconte can really protest, though, Roe is already gone, bolting past Gonorrhea's hole with a quick hello. "Marlene, is that you?" he jokes, then realizes the running man is Roe, and takes off after him. Meanwhile, Alley and Liebgott are singing, trying to stay merry in the hope that merriness can beget warmth. They're singing with an almost drunk vigor; contrary to the evidence, they claim to be without morphine. Gonorrhea grabs Roe and begs for help -- he still has "the itching, and every time I pee, it's murder!" Oh, my! Could it be that Gonorrhea got gonorrhea from a nubile townswench somewhere? That would be too pretty. Roe apologizes, but says he's got no penicillin, then notices a lieutenant nursing sore feet. Gently, Roe suggests he loosen his boots but keep them on, taking care to walk on his foot whenever possible. Finally, he tells Gonorrhea that he's sorry about his crotch, but that he should drink lots of water, which is that bogus cure-all everyone suggests for cleaning the body of disease. I prefer drinking plenty of Diet Coke and moving as little as possible from my bed. Gonorrhea doesn't like that answer, either. "Water? It's pissing that hurts!" he moans.

Finally, Roe gets another moment alone. A signal of some kind -- probably a flare -- shoots up into the sky and explodes like a firework, lighting the surrounding area. Roe stares at it, and recites a prayer which, set to music and modified slightly, is also a popular Catholic hymn called "Make me a Channel of Your Peace." And I'm totally calling my mother in a second, because she will never believe that I remember all this. Roe's recitation is as follows: "O Lord, grant that I shall never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, and be loved, as to love with all my heart." Grimly, Roe tips his head back and repeats the last line, seeking some kind of guidance. If my count is correct, he's been to thirteen holes so far, back and forth and around and answering everyone's questions and risking his safety to ensure everyone else's. Fade to white.

"MEDIC!" someone screams. Roe darts lightning-quick through the maze of trees and felled branches. Explosions litter the air, and bullets pound the snow around Roe. He leaps into Perconte's hole. "Look what they did to my leg!" screams Skinny. Sharp bits of shrapnel poke through his torn shin. Roe calmly tells Perconte to call for a Jeep, and methodically yanks out the shrapnel he can see, then pours sulfur powder over the wound, to tenderize it, or season it to taste, or whatever. "Ain't that bad," Roe says, trying to calm Skinny while he wraps the wound. He groans with anguish, then jolts upright when he sees Roe about to administer morphine. "No, Doc, I can make it!" he insists. "Save it, okay?" Skinny, right now, is the hugest of men. His leg is torn up and he's yelping, yet he decides someone else might need morphine more. He's lost his mind, certainly, but in his insanity he is heroic. Perconte and Roe grab Skinny and carry him as far as they can before they trip, unfortunately dropping Skinny gracelessly atop his injury. The howl he emits is straight out of Wolf Lake, except it sounds halfway realistic. "Aw, Skinny, you got blood all over my trousers!" gripes Perconte, who is either forcing levity, or tempting fate to tear out his spleen and dump it atop someone who will complain about the inconsiderateness of leaving one's organs atop a perfectly clean shirt. Roe sends Perconte after Spina, to let the other medic know Roe has gone into Bastogne with a patient and in search of plasma.

The Jeep rolls into a burned-out town stacked with bodies. The driver exposits that the Allies have no backup beyond Bastogne, and that the German captured the 326th Medical and raided it for doctors and supplies. "We got nothing," he frets. "They're giving the boys hooch for pain!" Hey, at least it works. Roe is stone-faced. He unloads Skinny and explains his injury, then chases a nurse to ask her for supplies. She makes him wait. Curious, Roe pokes around and watches men get bandaged; inside a smaller room, a nurse washes bloodied, used bandages so they can be recycled. He is perturbed by the conditions there. "Why aren't these men evacuated?" he asks. "They can't," answers a medic. "[Transportation is] cut off. This is as far as it goes."

After she gives Skinny a pill, a young nurse with a blue head-kerchief leads Roe into the supply room and hands him a box full of bandages, to which she adds some units of plasma. He is startled to see she has torn up sheets as makeshift bandages. In French, he thanks her and asks her name. "Renée," she answers, pleased. Roe introduces himself, explaining that he's a Louisiana boy who's half-Cajun. Then they part; Roe is all flirted out. This was an exertion for him.

Outside, Roe makes a beeline for the body pile, snagging a pair of boots that might fit Toye. "Eugene," calls Renée. He turns, and she tosses him a chocolate bar with an angelic smile and The Wringing Hands of I'm Trying Not to Touch You Intimately. A grin flickers across Roe's face only briefly, because he prefers to remain all-business, and the medic turns to rejoin the 2nd battalion.

Father Maloney leads a prayer circle on a patch of snowy land identical to any other. "Fight well for your God and your country. God bless you all," he finishes. "Stay safe." Skip rises and grins, "That's it, guys, nothing to worry about. If we're gonna die now, we're gonna die in a state of grace." Spina sees Roe and relieves him of the cardboard box, informing him that this group is a reconnaissance patrol about to probe for the German line. Roe tosses Spina the boots, tells him to deliver them to Toye, and trots after the departing patrol. "Peacock is leading, right?" Luz asks. "Asshole couldn't find a snowball in a blizzard." Randleman chuckles. Hoobler and Babe Heffron are among the familiar faces in the group. Sgt. Martin is leading the patrol; young replacement Julian begs to be lead scout, but Martin orders him to fall in with the rest of the men, forming tactical columns in which to advance slowly into no-man's-land. Sensing Roe wants to trail them, Martin palms the medic's chest and orders him to stay put and, thus, intact. Fretting, Roe watches them go.

Snow falls lightly on the barren, tall trees; the men trudge through the woods, gray silhouettes against a creamy fog. Roe sits cross-legged under a tree, ears perked, waiting, watching the fog ahead of him. Back with the patrol, Martin waves the men into their positions; Julian gets sniped in the neck and drops to the snow. Chaos erupts. Martin shrieks to all within earshot that Julian is down; Babe flips out and screams that they need to rescue his pal. The blood seeps freely from Julian's neck, drenching the kid's face. German fire pounds the earth around the kid's writhing body. Roe's jaw tenses as he hears obvious distress from the distance, but he doesn't move. Martin screams for suppressing and covering fire so that they can drag Julian's body to safety, but every time Heffron strikes out to retrieve his friend, German bullets narrowly miss him and slam into the snow nearby. Blood is pooling in Julian's nostrils, bathing his whole face in crimson. Babe screams, "Don't move! If you're still they'll stop shooting!" Julian twitches uncontrollably.

Roe sees a lone figure sprinting back from the patrol site. "We're pulling back, we made contact," Lt. Peacock gulps. "I gotta get to CP [command post]." Meanwhile, bullets rain around Julian, and Heffron tearfully screams that they must save him. Martin, cognizant that the shooting won't cease, finally gives the order to fall back. Babe is devastated, but shouts to his friend, "Hold on, look at me! Stay with us! Hold on! Don't move, we're coming back!" Finally, Julian lies alone on the snow, barely breathing, oozing blood, bullets still striking the snow around his body.

As the retreating men sprint toward Roe, someone goes down with a bullet to the back. Roe runs forward and helps drag the soldier to relative safety, tearing open the man's shirt and covering the messy wound with his hand until he can wrap a bandage around it. The patrolmen scatter and hide behind different trees, guns pointed toward the German line, poised to fire but not fully able to fight back because of the ammunition shortages and lack of artillery backup. They provoked, but couldn't follow through. Nixon appears and asks whether they hit the German line or the OP (a watch post); Martin confirms that it was indeed the line, although how they knew this is unclear. Either way, it's a maelstrom of gunfire. Babe screams that he has to go back and collect Julian, but no one lets him; someone else frets that they lost Peacock, but Nixon confirms that he's already back at CP. Nixon, vocally backed by Luz, demands that everyone fall back even further. Roe won't go until he has his patient fixed up and stuck with a morphine syrette; finally, they pick up the man and scamper away.

Depressed, the men sit and gather their wits. Martin impassively notifies Winters that they couldn't save Julian despite Babe's best efforts. Winters, arms crossed, stoically registers distress and then goes to sit with his men. That's such a lovely, Winters-like gesture, wanting to share in the emotions of his men because he doesn't want them feeling alone. Roe still sits apart, cradling his chocolate bar, just as I do every day.

An explosion jolts Roe awake. Aware something vaguely resembling feces might be hitting the Allied fan, Roe scrambles out of his hole, tries to get his bearings, then staggers off into the fog to make his rounds. Suddenly, planes zoom overhead. Men sprint toward them, cheering; canisters of red smoke explode along a clearing to cover them, and I'm pretty sure that, yet again, standing behind a bright red plume of smoke is hardly the way to be inconspicuous. Donnie shouts to Roe that these are American C-47s, and they're making a drop. Aid has arrived.

Parachutes drape all over Bastogne buildings, carrying boxes crammed with cargo. Renée spots them and looks delighted. Donnie and Roe arrive in a Jeep, backed by a few other men, to grab whatever they can to reinforce their medics and their men. Roe briefly juggles a box, but stops moving when he spies Renée gently ministering to a dying soldier. She transfixes him. Good thing he's holding something large. Suddenly, he sees her respond to a frantic shriek for medical aid; putting down his box, Roe runs after her and into a large room that's empty but for Renée and a devastatingly wounded man. They speak in French, which doesn't help me to figure out what's wrong, but from what I gather, the man is bleeding out and she needs to put pressure on his chest while Roe grabs the artery. This entails slipping his hand inside a hole in the man's belly and reaching up toward the heart. Quickly, this episode has reinforced my decision to leave med school to the brave and the iron-stomached masses. I can barely look. Blood and goo leak all over his chest; Roe looks like he's in up to the elbow, reaching around for the right artery. The man's mouth froths with blood. "Anna!" screams Renée. Another nurse enters and tries to help manage the large dying patient, but it's futile: Renée looks at Roe, who sees in her eyes that it's over and then turns to the man himself for confirmation. Sure enough, his eyes are glassy and he's still. Angry and distressed, Roe yanks his hand out and curses. He and Renée stare into each other's eyes, wordless, unable to look away. Renée's lip trembles. Roe simply stares. "Get a room," croaks the dead man.

Outside -- cleaned up and seated side-by-side on a bench of sorts -- Roe and Renée continue their silent love affair. They're close, reveling in the nearness of a sympathetic soul, but still a safe enough distance apart to avoid the spread of the Almighty Cootie. He makes small talk about Anna, who Renée shares is from the Congo and came simply to offer aid: "Just like me." She whips out a chocolate bar and absently breaks it into manageable pieces. "Hmm," murmurs Roe. "Your hands." She wonders what he means. "You're a good nurse," he praises her softly. Renée shakes her head in agony and rips the blue kerchief from her brown hair. "No," she sniffles. "I never want to treat another wounded man again. I'd rather work in a butcher's shop." Roe eagerly leans forward and assures Renée that she possesses a calming touch, a divine gift that's rare and beautiful. Again, Renée disagrees. "No, it's not a gift," she whispers tearfully. "God would never give such a painful thing." This character is a bit heavy-handed for me. I can't handle getting slapped with The Point quite this hard. Roe once again gazes intensely at her hanging head. For the first time, Roe appears to be open to the emotionality of his job, the impossibility of disengaging from the patients. A man shot through the stomach arrives at the hospital, and Renée calmly returns to her job, plodding ahead despite her pain. Roe silently watches her go, then collects his gear and searches for Donnie and his Jeep.

Snowflakes gracefully blanket the woods. Compton, Gonorrhea, and Heffron peek out from under the tarp covering their foxhole, shivering. "Now we know how they felt," Compton muses. They have no idea to what he's referring. "The legionnaires, when they were watching the Huns, Goths, Visigoths," Compton lists. Gonorrhea rolls his eyes, lost and wondering where the hell Buck learned his smooth-as-sandpaper small talk. "Barbarians," clarifies Compton. "They came right through these trees, sweeping down to burn the shit outta Rome." The others laugh at what a long ride that is. Earnestly, Heffron inches toward Compton. "What's college like, Buck?" he asks. "D'you have time to hit the books with cheerleaders running their fingers through your hair?" Compton's expression remains blank. "Hell, Babe, I can't even remember," he says quietly.

Roe descends with his usual abrupt slide, making sure they're all intact. "Wrap up," he says, before departing. Gonorrhea marvels that Roe never addresses anyone by a nickname. "He once called me 'Edward,'" Heffron offers. Gonorrhea snickers. Buck suddenly looks surprised. "You don't look like an Edward," he says. Gonorrhea snorts with mirth and he and Heffron slap Compton affectionately. Compton shouldn't play that game -- his first name is Lynn, and that's the last name I'd have picked for Strapping Buck, Alpha Male.

Daybreak. Snow piles up on tree branches, the fog is still thick, the wind is strong, and the sky blends seamlessly with the pristine white land. Roe curls up in a foxhole, but the rumble of approaching tanks slices through the silence. It begins again. Donnie pops by for a quick understatement: "Hey, Doc, it's gonna get busy, pal!" He shouts for everyone to hold their fire, lest the tanks actually pinpoint any of them. "What the hell we gonna hit those things with, [Donnie]?" someone screams. Donnie again shouts for everyone to ready their guns; Gordon stands to prepare his, and a bullet whizzes through his shoulder and, I believe, out through part of his back. Gasping sharply, Gordon falls against his foxhole and drops hot coffee all over his pants. No! Gordon! He's been around since the beginning, scamming for those three Purple Hearts and reciting "The Night of the Bayonet," so seeing him struck like this affected me. I bit my nails and caught myself wincing. "Eugene!" screams Spina, rousing Roe with some difficulty. He seems reluctant to play the game one more time. Two men drag Gordon from the foxhole toward a more desolate clearing, until Roe can reach him. Gordon is conscious; he sees his pal remove a pistol and say, "I'm keeping it for you!" Gordon whimpers, "I can't feel my legs, Gene." In the distance, Winters screams, "Here they come!" and we hear tanks and gunfire with increasing volume and frequency. Roe tears open Gordon's shirt to treat the wound. Donnie appears and urges Roe to move Gordon immediately, then notices his pal is fading. "Stay with us, Smokey!" he shouts, slapping Gordon's cheek. "Stay with us!" Poor defenseless Gordon can't slap back, which seems a tad unfair. The duo drags him to a safe spot for the Jeep pickup, and Roe preps an IV for plasma infusion. Frantic to return to the line yet unable to leave until Roe has the situation in hand, Donnie tries to help. Gordon's eyelids flutter open. "You're standing on my hand," he croaks. Hey, at least he can feel his hand. Donnie anxiously promises Gordon another Purple Heart for his trouble. This will be unparalleled consolation for Gordon when he's lying immobile in a hospital bed, paralyzed forever. "At least I got a Purple Heart!" he can say. "I was tired of moving my legs anyway." The Jeep arrives to cart them away, and Donnie trots back to the front line.

Roe unloads Gordon and follows him into the hospital. The medic there somehow can't quite ascertain what the problem is; Roe flatly states, "He's paralyzed. Can't feel a thing." I thought he felt Donnie on his hand! Dang. Roe then watches a priest administer last rites to a dead man, which disturbs him a bit. "Eugene?" Renée calls to him. She's needed elsewhere, but she doesn't budge, looking quizzically at him. "Are you all right?" she asks. Roe does what he does best -- he looks at her without uttering a word. Unable to dally any longer, Renée darts away to a patient.

Back in the forest, the soldiers get hot soup ladled into metal cups. Roe still sits alone, away from the group; someone thoughtfully brings him soup, which he accepts without even the smallest flicker of recognition. Colonel Sink arrives with another message of morale-boosting cheer: "I'm sitting down to a dinner of turkey and hooch at CP." He fumbles something about missing the Easy cook's rancid beans, but the knife has been twisted. Idiot. He greets Easy and still gets a warm response. Quietly, he tells Winters that Gen. McAuliffe has a Christmas message that the men might want to hear, and Winters defers the pleasure of relaying it to Sink himself. Sink smiles and booms that the General wishes all of them a merry Christmas; he then reads from a piece of paper. "What's merry about all this, you ask? Just this: we've stopped cold everything that's been thrown at us from the north, east, south and west. Two days ago, the German commander demanded our honorable surrender to save the USA-encircled troops from total annihilation. The German commander received the following reply: 'To the German commander: Nuts!'" Easy Company snickers. I guess, in times of desperation, one draws inspiration from wherever one can -- but, whoa. "Nuts"? Crap. "We're giving our country and our loves ones at home a worthy Christmas present. being privileged to participate in this gallant feat of arms, we're truly making for ourselves a merry Christmas," Sink reads, then looks up and echoes that wish from himself. Throughout, Winters has darted concerned glances at the withdrawn and gaunt Roe; as Easy giggles and shouts, "Nuts!" amid gales of laughter, Roe's expression remains serious. He is increasingly miserable, perhaps worried about his destiny, or terrified to lose a man of his own. It's hard to say; the toll of his job is enormous in so many ways.

Winters creeps toward Roe's foxhole to check on the troubled medic. The sound of a German chorus diverts his attention; the enemy is singing "Silent Night." Winters listens, amazed that the very act of singing that song makes it a lie. Nearby, Compton and Gonorrhea huddle in a foxhole; the former plucks a photo from his pocket and shows it to Gonorrhea. "Picture of my girl," he says, a proud smile flashing briefly across his face. Gonorrhea compliments her as sincerely as he ever can: "Good-looking broad, Buck," he says. Compton drops the picture onto his friend's chest, choking, "She's finished with me." Startled, Gonorrhea stammers, "Yeah?" and looks at the photo of a pretty brunette hugging Compton. "Yeah, she's, er..." Buck begins, then trails off and stares into the distance again. "Just in time for Christmas, eh?" Gonorrhea says, regretfully. Compton wipes his face and half-laughs, half-cries, but doing both in a strangely serene manner. "Just in time for Christmas," he whispers. Aw. That about broke my heart. The vengeful part of me hopes she's still alive and watching, so she knows exactly what fresh hell he was enduring when she dumped his strapping behind. Witchy woman.

"Shit!" a shivering Malarkey curses. "Almost forgot!" He triumphantly whips cigarettes from his pocket, to the delight of his hole-mates Skip and Penkala. They inhale with orgasmic delight, as if a simple cigarette is the first sliver of warmth they've cradled in too long. Skip passes the smoke to Penkala. "I'm shaking so goddamn much, I feel like I'm dancing," he trembles. Skip slips the cigarette between his friend's grateful lips. Over in Perconte's area, meanwhile, the guys are taking lemonade powder and mixing it with snow to yield a dessert of sorts. "Merry fucking Christmas," gripes Perconte.

Winters slinks over toward Welsh and Peacock, who have lit a small fire for warmth. "Fire's not a good idea," Winters softly admonishes. "Just a couple minutes," pleads Welsh. "We're in a dell." Winters: "A dell? Where fairies and gnomes live?" Nixon approaches and whispers, "I did smell a fire. Are you out of your mind?" Winters calmly replies, "Well, we're in a dell." I love this sarcastic Winters. But before he can remedy the fire situation, mortar fire bombards them and knocks Welsh backwards. "Noooo! Oh, God!" he screams, chillingly. Shit, I just gnawed on my nails again from tension -- I like Welsh. He's friendly, and he's a friend of Winters's, and seeing a trusted lieutenant felled like that freaks me out. Winters yells for a medic while Nixon frantically phones for a Jeep, and Peacock stamps out the tiny fire. Heffron violently shakes Roe out of a stupor; the medic is completely reluctant to move, suddenly, but Heffron forces him out of his hole. In leaving, Roe steps on Babe's hand and draws blood; the young soldier swears in frustration. So, how is it that the Germans can sing "Silent Night" unmolested, but the tiniest of controlled fires on the Allied side whips enemy gunners into a firing frenzy? I guess that's the benefit of firing on a decimated line with no artillery backup.

Roe nears Welsh and stops again, staring at an above-the-knee leg wound which Winters is holding tightly to slow blood flow. "Eugene," Winters says, calmly, but not without urgency. "Ohhhhhh!" Welsh howls. "Ohhh, Jesus! No!" In a second, Roe snaps into medic mode, grabbing the wound and making a tourniquet, then sprinkling the open cuts with sulfur. He instructs Winters to administer a syrette of morphine, which promptly quells Welsh's agony. Elevating his patient's head, Roe takes a bloody finger and marks it with an M indicating that the drug has been administered. Welsh's countenance is utterly sallow. After loading him onto a Jeep, Winters returns to Roe and pats him comfortingly on the shoulder. "Get yourself into town, get a hot meal," he says. Roe, still uneasy, heads silently to the car.

But Bastogne, too, is under siege. Planes rain explosives down upon the town. People frenetically evacuate, even as Roe's Jeep plows through the burning streets. Buildings explode, raining debris upon the roads in fiery, billowing plumes of black poison. Roe leaps out of the Jeep and runs toward the hospital, getting no further than the door before realizing that the facility has been reduced to rubble. "Stay out of there!" someone screams, but Roe is deaf to it, having seen something chilling amid the wreckage. Slowly, agonizingly, he bends and withdraws a simple blue kerchief from amid the ruins, cradling it with roiling emotions in his eyes. "Hinkel, sweet Hinkel," he breathes, a single tear escaping and trickling down his dirty cheek. And, if this was Melrose Place, that last bit would've actually happened, because a Swedish plastic surgeon would've appeared to reveal that Hinkel and Renée are one and the same. "Medic!" shouts a soldier. "Get your ass out here!" Roe remains motionless for several more seconds, unable to tear his eyes from the remnant of Renée. Finally, he stuffs the hanky into his pocket and walks, then trots toward the wounded, never looking back.

Frosty forest. Roe walks purposefully across the snow, blazing past Winters's foxhole and into one he now shares with Heffron. "Everything okay, Babe?" he asks. Babe nods glumly. Roe catches sight of the man's hand wound and inquires, "How'd you do that?" Babe turns to regard him for a second, then sighs, "You did it." Roe is alarmed. He hurriedly promises to fix it up, rummaging for bandages but withdrawing only Renée's scarf. He stares at it again and decides to put it away, then changes his mind, possibly recalling the tenderness with which the wearer ministered to her patients. Or, he's just following his director's orders. I love how his inner peace, his resolution, comes from a small square of cloth. A slight oversimplification of his problem, I think. Tearing the kerchief in half, he begins wrapping Babe's hand. Heffron suddenly looks over at Roe with a wondering smile. "Hey, Gene, you called me Babe," he grins. Roe stops. "I did?" he asks, then tries it out again. "Babe," he says, his lilting Cajun accent drawing out the word. "I guess I did." Babe laughs and imitates him. "Heffron, watch the goddamn line," Roe commands, but he's chuckling too, because "Babe" is the worst nickname of all.

Flipping to a shot from behind their heads, we see their view of the line -- still a nebulous fog hiding Satan only knows what. In front of Roe's foxhole, two giant patches of red-stained snow mar the white landscape.

"On December 26, 1944, General Patton's 3rd Army broke through the German lines, allowing supplies to flow in and the wounded to be evacuated," the screen reads. "The story of 'The Battle of the Bulge,' as told today, is one of Patton coming to the rescue of the encircled 101st Airborne." A pause. Then, "No member of the 101st has ever agreed that the division needed to be rescued." A New Yorker review of the show aptly noted that what that remark is missing is the exclamation point Stephen Ambrose used to punctuate it. It's a choice that gave the statement both the emphasis the veterans would've added, but also the wink of a reader who knows that no Easy Company man would ever admit to needing assistance.