Under False Flags

by Steve Anderson

  Selfer took the page and slid it into a folder marked, “Detritus: Non-read.”

  ***

  Wendell Lett started awake. The barn door rolled open. The thin light of dusk showed sparkles on the frosted ground, and a few swirling snowflakes. Their sentries were now MPs, with the white-stripe helmets and armbands. They let in Archie and Captain Selfer, who wore fur-lined coats, Archie’s in brown leather and Selfer in spotless OD.

  “As you were. Don’t get up,” Selfer said, though no one had tried to stand or salute, not even Auggie. Lett stayed down in his corner. Selfer set a bottle of Johnnie Walker and a box of cigars on the table. Weber grunted.

  “Where’s the other teams, sir?” Auggie said to Selfer.

  “I’m afraid they didn’t make it back,” Selfer said.

  “Why you keeping us here?” Weber said.

  “Security. It’s S.O.P.,” Selfer said. “Don’t forget, this all remains confidential.”

  “So, my good commandos—all the way to Cologne, eh?” Archie said, rubbing his gloved hands together. “That’s one fine heck of a marvelous run. You really went beyond the call.”

  “In a literal sense,” Selfer said. “It’s far beyond our sector.”

  Weber and Auggie eyed each other. “We thought we were done for,” Auggie said. “But Lett here, he took care of this kraut sentry for us.”

  “Yeah, the kraut had our number. Lett did what he had to. He really saved our behinds,” Weber added.

  Each had said their sentences mechanically, as if reading from idiot cards. Lett bristled inside at their omission. Why didn’t they just say it? And why had he let them talk him out of stating it for Selfer’s report? He had killed a girl. He had done it to save the team. Done it to save his cold behind. The mission nor the Allied Cause had a thing to do with it. He might as well have been John Dillinger covering his tracks from feds hot on his trail. So what did that make Selfer and Archie?

  Archie beamed at Lett. “That one over there’s a hero,” he said.

  “Hear that, Lett?” Selfer said. “The Horseback Hero himself is calling you a hero. That’s something you can take back with you.”

  “I heard it,” Lett said, to Archie. “You know that German I killed was Volkssturm, their civ Home Guard? I killed an old man.” He stood, the words tumbling out of him, spittle shooting off his tongue. “And you know what? I was only getting warmed up too, I—”

  Weber bounded over and grabbed Lett and turned him away from Selfer and Archie, leaving Archie squinting again, throwing up his hands.

  “Very well. No one like a cigar?” Selfer said. “They’re cream of the crop.”

  “If he mentions a medal I’m gonna walk,” Lett muttered to the barn siding.

  “All right, easy,” Weber whispered. “Easy.”

  Archie and Selfer were whispering to each other.

  “Now, listen up, men,” Archie said finally, raising his voice. “Your after-action report, it just won’t do—”

  Selfer cleared his throat, interrupting. “The report, it’s simply not complete,” he said.

  Lett turned back around, and walked over to face Archie. Archie stood tall, with his chin up, but it looked hard to keep it there above all that fur.

  “There simply could not be a whole army, division, whatever you saw in that forest,” Archie said. “Inside woods, you say? It’s so dark in there. Who knows what it was? And you only passed by. So quickly. Did you even go in the forest? They could’ve been dummy troops, even.”

  Selfer added: “We’re going to let you in on some other intelligence that, you’ll be pleased to know, corroborates many of the rumors you’ve been hearing. The German war machine is finished.”

  “Kaput!” Archie said. “People are saying it’s just around the corner.”

  The realization hit Lett straight and hot in the face, an imaginary slap. “Hold it right there,” he said. “You’re sending us back?”

  “Oh, no they ain’t,” Weber said, “Not on my—”

  “Shut your snouts!” Archie shouted. “Do you know how many lives this could save? Any idea?” He turned to Lett, and took one step forward. “Some hero, you—it should be an honor, and you question it?”

  Lett charged at Archie. Weber lunged and turned Lett around again.

  “Stop. Everyone, please,” Selfer said. “Everyone, just take a moment.” He placed a hand on Archie’s shoulder. Archie shook it off.

  The room was stuffy from the stove, and moldy, the stench of wet hay and grimy equipment mixing with the aromas of too much smoke and over-fermented cider. Auggie had set his forehead to the table, as if wanting to headbutt through it. Weber kept a hand on Lett’s shoulder.

  Selfer sighed. “You now know the lay of the land over there. We just need our own corroboration. Everything else you told us fits . . . The kid soldiers, the civ sentries. Retreating troops, disarray. It fits—it confirms—all that we know. It’s what we would call the truth.”

  “Horses!” Archie said. “By god, they’re using horses. If only we could.”

  Weber sighed too, but it came from deep down, like a stomach ailment. His hand left Lett’s shoulder, and he paced the room as he spoke to Archie and Selfer. “Here’s the thing, sirs. We were tired, see. We were drinking schnapps. We made it all up about the woods. We did. We thought it was what you S-2 types wanted to hear. But it was all fairies, gnomes, pink elephants. See? So, there’s really no need for us to go on back. We’ll corroborate anything you got, sure, any damn thing at all. Tell you what, sirs, get your note pads out toot-sweet and we’ll do the deal right here.” Weber showed lots of teeth, and it wasn’t the smile he wanted. He would have made the worst brush salesman ever known.

  Archie shook his head. “Pathetic. Craven . . .”

  “You men need rest,” Selfer said, as if Weber hadn’t said a thing. “Do get some rest. All right? There’s hot chow inside the farmhouse next door. It’ll be your billet.”

  “Won’t that be fine?” Archie said. “Fine!”

  Weber and Auggie looked to Lett with the same begging look they had when they wanted him to kill a girl to save them. Archie and Selfer looked to Lett too.

  Lett let them all sweat it out a moment. He glared at them. “I have one request,” he said finally. “We would like our own dog tags, from here on out.”

  December 15: Evening. The farmhouse was a block made of many sturdy stones, easily centuries old. Inside, its unvarnished wood floors and furniture seemed cut from the same knotty tree. It had three rooms and an attic and a cellar. No personal touches remained; whoever had left this place, had left for good. The main room had a tiled stove that heated the whole. Lett sat on his simple wooden bunk in the communal bedroom, staring out a dark window into nothing, his real dog tags hanging outside his field jacket—Selfer and Archie had given them back. He could hear the muffled talk and laughs of Weber and Auggie in the main room.

  Lieutenant Tom Godfrey sat at a small table watching Lett. He had his own bottle of Johnnie Walker, and two glasses. Godfrey had found his way to the farmhouse after greasing a few palms at battalion S-2.

  Lett hadn’t talked much. What was there to say? He was still sorting out the hideous secrets in his head. Weber and Auggie had insisted he not mention the girl, sure. Yet he was the one who let himself be convinced. Why? Was he that ashamed? Or did he think it could hurt his chances of finding his way back to Heloise? He reckoned it was somewhere in between.

  He didn’t want Godfrey to see him like this. So adrift. Worse than Godfrey ever was. An eyelid kept twitching. A buzzing deep in his nerves had given him another bout of diarrhea after eating the hot chow. The absurdity of it all ate away at his wits, at his reasoning, and wrenched his gut. If he had been able to get that old German guard or his granddaughter to a medical team behind his own lines, then those two enemies he’d had justification in killing suddenly became patients to be saved at all costs. Of course none of it made sense. Heloise was right.

  Where could he go? H
e couldn’t confess to the MPs or even Criminal Investigations Division. It would be like turning himself in for murder after combat. He had been on a secret mission for S-2. They’d probably only lock him up for divulging a covert operation, then throw him back into another front-line outfit as a private.

  Godfrey threw back another drink. “What am I going to do with you?” he said. “You keep playing the hero, they’re going to go and make you one.”

  Suddenly Lett remembered what he’d seen in the German woods. He rushed over to the table. “Listen to me. Tom. You have to get off the front line. This is all far from over—”

  Godfrey held up a finger. “Ah-ah. Loose lips and all that. Besides, I don’t like scary stories . . .” His finger was trembling. He yanked it down.

  Lett stood at attention. “Lieutenant, I’d like to request transfer into a noncombatant role. I hereby ‘formally object to warfare as a means of settling international disputes.’”

  Godfrey took another drink. “Cut it out before I split my sides. And sit down.”

  Lett sat.

  “What, you’re a conscientious objector? It’s too late for that. You know I got no authority here,” Godfrey said. “It all goes through division S-2. Besides, you really don’t want to go conshie—despite what those Mennonite nuns told you growing up. Back home, maybe. But over here? We got so many master killers in the stockade these days, those sickos make stew with the bones of pacifists.”

  Lett reached for a glass. Godfrey poured. “Always ready with a joke, aren’t you? You got it all figured out,” Lett said, shaking his head.

  Godfrey let a little smile curl up one side of his mouth. “Your girl is the one who’s got it figured. Take it from me.”

  “Wait,” Lett said. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Godfrey let the smile take over.

  “You saw her? She saw you?!” Lett said, bouncing on his chair. “She got to you? She did. Tell me she did. But you can’t say anything? Okay, I get it. Loose lips.”

  “Sometimes, the locals will go and wander into our billet unnoticed,” Godfrey said and kept smiling.

  “That’s my girl. She’s got some pluck.”

  “To be sure. Now. Here . . .” Godfrey slid a card across the desk to Lett. It was an enlisted man’s temporary pass. All the fields were left blank, but it was signed. “She said you needed something Army-like to help you get there. Said she’d take care of the rest.”

  “How is she? Is she well?”

  “Positively glowing. You’re a lucky man.”

  The whisky and the thought of Heloise and Godfrey conspiring together warmed Lett’s heart. He let out a happy sigh. He picked up the card. “This isn’t your signature on here.”

  “No, I made it up—a Captain Beauregard. I always did want to be a writer.”

  Lett pushed the card back to Godfrey. “No. You could get the stockade for this. Besides, you don’t even know her.”

  “I know you. And, let’s just say that she spoke to me in a language I understand.”

  Lett took the card. “I’m never leaving her alone again,” he said.

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “Thanks, Tom. Thanks.”

  Godfrey poured another, toasted Lett, downed it and stood. “I’ll miss your special courier deliveries. If you ever find a good magnum of good prestige cuvée out there? Don’t you spill a goddamn drop of it.”

  Lett stood. He came around the table to Godfrey. “I won’t. I mean, I wouldn’t hear the end of it, would I?”

  “No, you most certainly would not.”

  Godfrey left just before midnight. Lett stood with him outside, in the doorway, the cold stinging their cheeks. “You know what happens to a German soldier who gets free, even for a short time?” Godfrey said. “Shot on sight, I’m guessing. Not so in this man’s Army. At least officially. And that’s one of the big things this war is supposed to be about, I guess.”

  They shook hands, and did so a good long time.

  Lett went back inside to find Weber and Auggie playing cards in the main room, their backs to Lett. The farmhouse had a record player too but older than Godfrey’s and it had only one record, a gloomy thundering symphony. They kept playing it. Their S-2 prize bottle of whisky was almost empty. It had just turned Saturday, December 16.

  Weber said: “Tell you one thing—that Selfer and the Horseback Hero? I run into ‘em stateside? Right upside the jaw. If only for all the goddamn riding they give us.”

  “Way I see it? The krauts put us in this spot,” Auggie said. “Making us kill an old man. Know what? I want back over, sure I do, really let ‘em have it.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something?” Lett said.

  Weber and Auggie kept their cards up, trading worried glances.

  “They need intel that fits their need,” Lett said. “That’s heaps more important than some kraut girl. Wrong place, time, wrong granddaddy—tough break but that’s war, right? Fact is, it’s why we strangle—for whatever it is they need.”

  Weber and Auggie lowered their eyes. The record had ended, leaving only the scratching needle to break the silence.

  “You’re mixed up,” Auggie said. “Sounds like the enemy you’re talking about.”

  Weber got up and pulled the needle, turned off the player. “Never mind Auggie here. He’s drunk. You were doing it for us. You saved us. That’s what a Joe does. You got the guts.”

  “It’s not guts. It’s something else,” Lett said. “And as for saving you, we don’t know that yet.”

  Weber sighed. He found his seat. He and Auggie held their cards up. After a couple hands, Auggie said, “It’s easy. All we do is, we go over like they ask. But we hole up and good. Then we come back and tell ‘em what they want to hear. We saw nothing. And it wouldn’t even be like lying.”

  Weber slapped down his cards. “Suddenly you’re the expert, kid? Don’t you get it? Then we take the fall for sure. That’s no way out, not like that.”

  “Forget it,” Lett said, “just forget it.”

  He knew what he had to do. He went into the bedroom. He pulled the temporary pass from his GI haversack. He opened his field jacket, raised his trench knife, and cut a small slit in the jacket’s inside liner. He slid the pass card inside. Then he lay down to sleep. He had most of his gear on, including his boots and gloves, but that was not surprising for a GI near the line.

  4:30 a.m., December 16. Lett lay in darkness, his eyes open. Weber and Auggie slept in their bunks. Auggie snored. Weber faced the wall, away from them.

  Lett sat up. He moved to the edge of the bunk, and it squeaked. Auggie snorted. Lett waited, till Auggie snored again. Lett slung on his haversack, and his carbine. He tiptoed over to the door, watching Weber and Auggie sleep, inching along so his gear wouldn’t jangle.

  Out in the main room, a floorboard creaked under his foot. He stood still in the darkness, and heard another creak. He pivoted, in slow motion.

  Weber stood in the hallway. “I know what you’re doing,” he whispered to Lett. “Me, I just can’t do it.”

  “I know. It’s all right,” Lett said.

  “I want to. I’m a coward.” Weber stared a long moment, and a look of horror widened and paled his face. Then, as if sleepwalking, he turned and wandered back down the hallway.

  Lett cracked open the front door. Some new snow had fallen. He made his way into the forest, moving among the tree trunks and over the frosted underbrush as light snowflakes fluttered down, mixing with more frost from branches above. A few minutes passed. The fog thickened. He stopped at a tree to check his map and compass, making sure he was heading west, toward the rear. Stromville couldn’t be too far, but it would be slow going.

  At 5:15 a.m., artillery boomed in the distance. The intensity of it made Lett stop, listen. His gut squeezed up. He didn’t like what he was hearing. He headed onward, to the forest edge. The booming came closer, and the screeching of rocket launchers joined in. He ran to enter the open field.

  S
hells ripped through the forest behind him in flashes. Shrieks and thumps shifted the earth. He dropped to the snowy ground for cover. The trees crackled and toppled with horrid crashes. He heard screams and wailing that seemed to mimic the rockets screeching.

  The flashes lit up a sign before Lett: “Danger! Mines!”

  The sign lined his field. Behind him, GIs fled the forest for the field and mines burst, flinging bodies and parts of bodies and spraying blood and earth through the fog.

  Lett rose and leapt beyond the sign and found himself on a road. He sprinted down the road as the forest beside him burned, toppling onto itself. More men screamed and he saw the silhouettes running about inside the bursting inferno as if mad, trapped, held on leashes. Vehicles raced by him, spinning in the mud and ice, some burning. Jeeps and trucks hurtled into one another.

  Lett kept sprinting, his chest heaving with pain, his legs burning from the effort. He stopped, stood in the road panting, and turned to face the front lines erupting on the horizon.

  What was this? A full counteroffensive? The new boys in his unit wouldn’t stand a chance in this. He couldn’t get to them, but he could get to Weber and Auggie. It was what a Joe did. You saved your squad.

  He turned back for the farmhouse, sticking to the road, crouching low as he made his way.

  Lett burst through the front door to find Weber only now scrambling to put his gear on. They had a field radio in the main room. Weber had wasted time with it. It blared static, interspersed with American pleas for help from forward observers, command posts, units on the run. Lett’s ears still rang and the sound was muffled, but he knew what it all meant.

  Seeing Lett, Weber looked to the ceiling in relief. “I can’t raise anyone on this thing.”

  “Where’s Auggie?”

  “Passed out. Can’t wake him.”

  Lett grabbed Weber by an arm. “Were you going to wake him?”

  “Says the Joe what took a hike,” Weber said.