by Len Levinson
French tanks and trucks were parked on the street, their doors and hatches open. Mahoney walked past the lead truck and saw a French soldier and a girl cuddled up together on the front seat. This is a helluva way to fight a war, he thought.
He walked past the trucks and tanks and saw soldiers and women sprawled everywhere. If General Eisenhower or Bradley saw this they’d court-martial everybody.
But you only liberate Paris once, he thought.
Finally he came to the old deuce-and-a-half. The two front doors were open but nobody was in the cab. Walking around to the rear of the truck, he saw that it was empty too. Even the radio and the C rations were gone. The codebooks weren’t there either. Mahoney figured that Major Denton had removed everything to a safe place.
He decided that the only thing to do was smoke a cigarette and wait for everybody to come back. The sun was coming up and they’d awaken sooner or later. He wondered who was doing the fighting he heard in the distance. He figured it must be the maquis who’d been fighting all along. They were waiting for help and they’d have to wait a little longer.
Mahoney lit a cigarette and scratched his balls again. He climbed over the tailgate of the truck and sat on one of the benches. He felt hungry and wished he had grabbed a loaf of bread from someplace. He didn’t even have a Hershey bar to munch on.
He was halfway through the cigarette when he heard footsteps on the street. Peering around the canvas, he saw French soldiers staggering back to their tanks. The door to a house opened and Cranepool walked down the steps. The young corporal walked jauntily toward the truck, whistling a little tune. His shirt was tucked in and all his buttons were buttoned. Mahoney wondered how Cranepool could be in such good shape while he felt so awful.
“Hiya Sarge,” Cranepool said cheerily as he approached the back of the truck. “Where the hell is everybody?”
“How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
Cranepool climbed into the truck and sat on the bench opposite Mahoney. “Where’s the radio and stuff?”
“I think Major Denton hid it someplace. Where’ve you been?”
“Who me?”
“Yes you.”
“I was sleeping someplace.”
“Where?”
“One of those houses over there.” Cranepool waved his hand vaguely.
Mahoney puffed his cigarette. “I bet I know where you were, scumbag. You were seducing some nice French girl who probably was religious and has a sweetheart someplace. I think I’m gonna start calling you Cesspool again.”
“Oh no, Sarge. It wasn’t nothing like that. I didn’t take advantage of her. She invited me into her house.”
“Sure she did, Cesspool.”
There was the shuffling of feet outside. “Anybody home?”
Mahoney looked out the rear of the truck and saw Rossi. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Where is everybody?”
“All the assholes should be showing up pretty soon.”
“Toss me a can of C rations, willya Sarge?”
“There ain’t no C rations in here.”
“Where are they?”
“You tell me.”
“Aw shit,” grumbled Rossi, walking toward the cab of the truck, where he made himself comfortable behind the wheel.
After a while Sergeant Goldberg returned, his eyeglasses streaked with dried champagne and his tongue hanging out like a red necktie. “I’m sick,” he croaked. “I need a cup of coffee.”
“What do you think this is, a diner?” Mahoney asked.
Goldberg crawled into the truck. “Where’s all our gear?”
“That’s a good question.”
“I think I’m gonna die,” Goldberg moaned.
“No such luck,” Mahoney snapped.
Sergeant Bates was the next to return. He was a cotton farmer in Mississippi before the war and was lanky as a scarecrow in one of his father’s fields. Like Cranepool, he had a big smile on his face. “Hi y’all,” he said, climbing into the truck. “When’s breakfast?”
“Do I look like a cook to you?” Mahoney snarled, wondering why country boys always were so happy-go-lucky.
They sat around and smoked cigarettes for an hour, occasionally looking out the rear of the truck and seeing Frenchmen returning to their tanks and vehicles.
“Sarge?” asked Cranepool. “Do you think I should go out and try to scare up some food?”
“Stay put. If you go out you’re liable to rape some little French girl again.”
“I didn’t rape no little French girl.”
“Shaddup Cesspool!”
A few minutes later Major Denton showed up. His uniform was mussed and he had several suspicious stains on his pants, but he was trying to be diplomatic as usual.
“Good morning, men!” he said, attempting to imitate the booming voice of General George S. Patton.
The soldiers grumbled and growled in reply.
“Lovely day!” said Denton, patting his stomach and looking up at the sky.
“We’re hungry, sir,” Mahoney told him. “Do you know where we can scare up some rations?”
“What happened to our C rations?”
“They’re gone, sir.”
“Gone?” Denton narrowed his eyes and peered into the dimness of the truck. “Where’s our radio?”
“You mean you didn’t take it someplace?”
“No. Did you?”
“Of course not,” Mahoney said.
“Then I wonder what happened to it.”
Suddenly everybody had the same thought at the same time.
“The code books!” they cried in unison.
They looked at each other and went pale. The codebooks were gone. If the Germans had gotten their hands on them they’d be able to read the American codes.
“Oh my God,” groaned Denton, placing his hand on his face.
Sergeant Bates chewed his lips. “I reckon there’ll be some court-martials over this.”
Cranepool looked at Mahoney. “What’ll we do, Sarge?”
“Shaddup and lemme think.” Mahoney took out another cigarette and lit it up. He puffed it, his brow furrowed with cogitation. “I’ve got it,” he said after a few minutes. “We’ll blow up the truck and say it took a direct hit from the enemy. All our equipment and codebooks were completely destroyed. We escaped miraculously with our lives.”
Denton smiled. “I like the ring of that, Mahoney. When do we do it?”
“First chance we get.”
“What do you think really happened to the code books?”
Mahoney shrugged. “Some French kids probably are cooking their breakfasts over them right now.”
“Tell Rossi to drive down a quiet side street and stop.” Mahoney said. “Better yet, I’ll tell him and you sit up here with the men.”
“With the men!” Denton replied, aghast.
“Yeah.”
Mahoney jumped down from the truck and walked toward the front cab. He opened the door on the passenger side and got in. Seeing Rossi asleep, Mahoney smacked him in the mouth.
“Wake up asshole.”
“Huh?” said Rossi, reaching for his .45. “Whatsa matter?”
“Start this piece of shit up and turn right down that street there.” He pointed to the intersection straight ahead.
Rossi started up the engine. Shifting into gear, he drove toward the intersection and turned right.
“Where should I go now?” he asked.
“Slow down at the next intersection.”
Rossi applied the brakes and the truck crept into the intersection. Mahoney looked to the right and saw a quiet little tree-lined street. He chuckled darkly as he thought it wouldn’t be quiet much longer. “Take a right here.”
Rossi turned right and accelerated onto the street.
“Stop about halfway down.”
“What the hell are we gonna do?”
“We’re going to blow up the truck.”
“Blow up the truck?”
&nbs
p; “That’s right. All our code books and equipment are missing, and we’re going to say that everything was destroyed when the truck took a direct hit from an artillery shell.”
“I get the picture, Sarge.”
Rossi stopped the truck halfway down the street and pulled up the emergency brake. Mahoney got out of the cab and walked to the back of the truck, where Major Denton and the others were looking down.
Mahoney looked at Cranepool and saw that he had two hand grenades pinned to his lapels. Mahoney had three hand grenades and he figured that between them they’d have enough to demolish the truck for all time.
“Major Denton,” he said, “I think maybe you should take the rest of the men back to General Duloc’s headquarters, while Corporal Cranepool and I take care of the truck.”
“Hmm. Good thinking, Sergeant.” Denton puffed out his chest and looked at the others. “All right, men. Let’s move it out.”
The others fell in behind him, and they marched back in the direction they had come. Mahoney and Cranepool watched them turn the corner and disappear from sight.
“I can’t stand those fucking assholes,” Mahoney snarled.
“They weren’t so bad,” Cranepool said. “I wonder what happened to Pfc Washington.”
“He’s probably screwing some white girl. All niggers want to do is screw white girls.”
“Aw Sarge,” Cranepool said. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“C’mon, let’s blow up the truck.”
They dumped all their grenades except one each onto the bed of the truck, then stepped back, pulled the pins of their last ones, and looked at each other. Mahoney counted to three and they threw the grenades into the truck, then spun around and ran like hell. They dived into the gutter and pressed their faces against the cobblestones, waiting for the grenades to explode.
They went off in a violent peal of thunder that made the street tremble. The truck was torn apart and its debris flew through the air, landing all around Mahoney and Cranepool and bursting through the windows of the homes that lined the street. Mahoney looked at the truck: it was a pile of smoldering junk.
“We’d better get the hell out of here,” Mahoney said, standing up.
He and Cranepool ran down the street like thieves, as the residents of the street opened their doors and looked out their windows to see what had happened.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Hey Cranepool,” Mahoney said when they stopped running, “I don’t feel like going back to Major Denton and all those other assholes.”
“Neither do I, to tell you the truth, Sarge.”
“Why don’t we go to a whorehouse, kid?”
“Do you know where there’s a whorehouse, Sarge?”
“No, but we can ask somebody.”
They headed toward the center of Paris and away from General Duloc’s headquarters vehicles. It was eight o’clock in the morning and fighting could be heard in the distance. They were in a residential neighborhood and soon came to a tree-lined boulevard on which there were cafes and shops.
“I’m starved,” Mahoney said. “Let’s get something to eat.”
“All these places are closed, Sarge.”
“We’ll open one up.”
The closest shop was a bakery. Mahoney moved toward it and tried the door, which was locked. He unslung his carbine and was about to blow the lock away when a group of Frenchmen armed to the teeth came around the corner.
“Hey—what are you doing there!” one of them shouted.
“I wanna get something to eat,” Mahoney replied.
“You are Americans?” asked a rotund man wearing a suit without a tie.
“Well, we sure as hell aren’t Japs.”
“We have food,” said a Frenchman with a Fu Manchu mustache. “Come with us—we’re going to the Avenue Foch.”
“What’s there?”
“The Gestapo headquarters. Many of our friends are imprisoned there, and some American pilots too.”
“No shit,” Mahoney said.
“It is the truth.”
Mahoney looked at Cranepool. “You think we should help them out?”
“Sure, and afterwards maybe they can tell us where to find a good whorehouse.”
“Now you’re thinking, Cranepool.”
Mahoney looked at the rotund Frenchman. “We’re with you.”
Mahoney and Cranepool joined them and they walked toward the center of Paris. Some of the Frenchmen distributed bread, sausages, and wine from knapsacks they carried. Mahoney and Cranepool ate breakfast as they made their way toward the Avenue Foch. The Frenchmen sang the “Marseillaise,” and as they continued through the city they were joined by more armed men and women. They had begun with twenty men, but by the time they neared the Avenue Foch they numbered sixty people of both sexes.
Mahoney finished his breakfast and lit up a cigarette, feeling a pleasant glow. He heard the sound of battle up ahead and thought, Here I go again. He looked at Cranepool, who was talking to a young girl no more than sixteen who was carrying a German rifle at sling arms. Mahoney felt jealous because young girls generally didn’t like him very much. In fact, they appeared to be terrified by him.
They turned a corner and came onto the Avenue Foch. The French had thrown up barricades in front of a building and were firing from behind them at the occupants. The Germans fired back from the windows and roof of the building. Neither side had artillery or grenades, so the battle was at a stalemate. Mahoney figured it might stay that way until the Germans ran out of ammunition, and that might be weeks.
The Germans spotted them and tried to pick them off. Mahoney and the others crouched down and ran toward the barricades as bullets whistled over their heads. They dropped behind the barricades, which consisted of wagons rolled onto their sides and debris taken from destroyed tanks and trucks. Mahoney looked up and saw the big three-storied old building in front of them. It was made of stone, which meant they couldn’t burn it down. He saw SS men in black uniforms and helmets firing from behind the windows. A nearby Frenchman screamed and fell to the cobblestoned street, clutching his throat which was spurting blood. A couple of women ran over and tried to bandage him up, but the blood was like a geyser and Mahoney knew the poor son of a bitch wouldn’t last very long.
“How did we get into this mess?” Mahoney said to Cranepool.
“I think it was your idea, Sarge.”
“No it wasn’t—it was your idea!”
“Okay, it was my idea,” said Cranepool, who often went to great lengths to pacify Mahoney.
“This is bullshit,” Mahoney said. “The only way to take that building is to blow down the door and go inside.”
“But we used all our hand grenades on the truck. Maybe we should have saved a couple, huh?”
“Huh your ass.” Mahoney sat behind the barricade and tried to think. Men and women with guns ran back and forth, and Mahoney felt strange to be fighting alongside women. He didn’t think they knew one end of a gun from another and they’d probably all get their asses shot off.
Mahoney crouched low behind the barricade and made his way to the rotund Frenchman whose name was Pierre. “Do you know who’s in charge here?” he asked.
“No,” said Pierre, firing a round at an SS man behind a window and missing.
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea if we found out?”
“What for?” asked Pierre.
Mahoney crept away from Pierre as German bullets zanged into the barricades. “Bunch of fucking frogs,” he muttered. He headed toward the people who were there when he arrived and sidled up to a young dark-haired girl around twenty years old who was firing a rifle at the building.
“Hi there,” Mahoney said.
“What do you want?” she asked, ejecting a spent shell and taking aim again.
“Who’s in charge here?”
She fired another bullet at the building, then said, “I am.”
Mahoney blinked. “You?”
“That
’s right.”
Mahoney curled his upper lip. “What the fuck do you know about fighting?”
She took aim and pulled her trigger again. The rifle fired, and Mahoney saw an SS man topple slowly off the roof. “I have been in the Resistance for five years.”
Mahoney thought for a few moments about how to deal with this little chickie. “Listen,” he said, “the only way to take that building is to blow down the door. Do you have any explosives?”
She kneeled behind the barricade and wiped away a few strands of hair that had been hanging in front of her eyes. “If we had explosives we would have used them long ago.”
“Can you get a tank or an artillery piece over here?”
“No, we have no radio.”
Mahoney shook his head. “You don’t have shit here, lady.”
She raised her chin in the air. “We have guns and French courage!”
“Do you know how to make Molotov cocktails?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you make some. What are you waiting for?”
“Is there a drugstore around here?” Mahoney asked.
“There are a couple on the Avenue St. Jacques.”
“Where’s that?”
She pointed. “A few blocks that way.”
“I’ll be back in a little while,” Mahoney told her, tipping his helmet.
Crouching low, he made his way across the barricades to Cranepool, who was calmly firing his carbine into the SS building.
“Cranepool, come with me,” he said.
“Where to?”
“We gotta go to the drugstore.”
Deep in the bowels of 74 Avenue Foch, Major Kurt Richter paced back and forth in his office, chain-smoking cigarettes. He knew that the Battle for Paris was raging around him, and he knew the German troops could not hold out for long. That meant he’d be killed or captured, and he didn’t relish either alternative.
He wondered what had gone wrong. The German Army had been victorious for so many years that it appeared Hitler would rule Europe forever. But now, only a few years later, the Reich was sinking into the pit of defeat and despair. How can this be? he wondered.