As its title, derived from the opening line of the well-known carol, ironically suggests, William Wharton's (1925- ) A Midnight Clear (1982) is set in the Ardennes Forest during the Christmas season 1944. The action focuses on an I-and-R (intelligence and reconnaissance) infantry squad. Although written in the present tense, the novel periodically flashes back to basic training experiences in Mississippi, where the squad--its members, teenagers fresh out of high school--is formed. The distinctive feature of this squad is that its members are unusually intelligent, originally assigned on the basis of their IQ scores, for specialized army training at American universities. But the army suddenly scuttles this program, and the men are assigned as intelligence-gathering infantry soldiers.

On the Ardennes line, the squad is ordered to occupy an abandoned chateau in a forward position. There they make a series of tentative contacts with a small group of German soldiers, who signify their desire to surrender and be taken out of the war. (One of their peacemaking signs is a Christmas tree, which the German soldiers set up, singing carols in front of it.) The squad's reaction is at first cautious, fearful that the Germans are setting a trap, but eventually they formulate a plan to accept the surrender. The plan tragically misfires, providing its surviving members with an induction into maturity that is both savage and haunting.

The novel's capacity to induce tension, fear, and the anxiety of uncertainty is truly impressive, as is the glimpse it offers of the brightness of youth trapped in the degrading horror of war.

In 1988, Paul Watkins (1964- ), a 23-year-old American graduate student at Stanford, published his first novel Night over Day over Night, remarkable in many respects, not least in its choice of protagonist, a young German who joins the Waffen SS (Adolf HITLER's elite troops) in 1944 and is sent to fight in the Ardennes. Sebastian Westland is 17 when he enlists as a private in the SS. He could have joined the regular army, but he chooses the SS because it's the natural move for someone who has spent his early years in the Hitler Youth. But behind his choice is an unacknowledged despair over the death of his father earlier in the war and the need to quash the realization that Germany cannot win the war.

In his basic training he is introduced to wanton cruelty by his platoon sergeant Voss, a man whose chief satisfactions derive from sadistic behavior. After the completion of training and a short home leave, the new troops are sent to the Ardennes, opposite the American lines. During the attack, Sebastian's company comes under heavy fire from American artillery, which all but wipes out every man. Sebastian survives in order to avenge the betrayal of his dead comrades' honor by the sadist Voss. The novel concludes with Sebastian racing toward enemy lines to his death.

A Midnight Clear and Night over Day over Night pose an interesting contrast to each other. Both focus on soldiers in their teens. Both groups belong to special forces, an American intelligence squad and the SS, who were considered to be Hitler's shock troops. The Americans share a sense of intellectual superiority, reflected, for example, in the fact that one of their diversions is reading the same book and discussing it. The book they are currently reading is Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms; the book before that was Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, the two most famous novels of World War I. (Like Night over Day, All Quiet deals with a group of young German soldiers; like A Midnight Clear, it is narrated in the present tense. The Germans' sense of superiority is symbolized by the inscription on the dagger that each SS soldier receives on completing training: "My Honor Is Loyalty." The Americans, despite their youth, are skeptical of heroic rhetoric and deeply distrustful, with good reason, of their immediate officers. The Germans detest their hateful noncommissioned officers, but their respect for their indoctrination as Hitler Youth still persists in the belief that their honor is loyalty. Despite these differences, however, once in battle, both groups do their duty, while trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to stay alive.

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