“Them’s my boys,” Mazursky said proudly from his cave.
The men of the second platoon cheered wildly at the retreating Germans, but their joy was short lived. The German tanks and machine guns started firing again, pinning down the second platoon once more. The men of the second platoon knew that the German soldiers below were getting ready for another assault.
Private Winfield looked up quickly to see what the German soldiers were doing below. He wanted to grab another one and cut him up. Just then a shell exploded directly in front of him. A piece of shrapnel cut his head in half lengthwise. MacDoodle watched calmly as his buddy was thrown backwards against the hill that led to the caves.
“You shouldn’t stick your head up like that,” he said to the corpse.
A shell from a German tank landed a miraculous direct hit in the second cave, killing instantly all members of the anti-tank crew, and wounding Corporal Banes. Private Robinson, the New Yorker who’d flunked Officers Candidate School, somehow had not been touched at all.
When the smoke cleared he looked around him at the smoke and carnage. Blood and meat were on the walls, ceiling, and floor. His ears were ringing and when he touched them he had blood on his hands. He realized with horror that something had been ruptured inside his ears.
“Hello,’’ he said aloud, wondering if he were deaf. But he heard himself, and knew he wasn’t.
“Medic!” called out Corporal Banes weakly.
Robinson crawled over to him. “We don’t have any medics.”
Banes had a wild crazy look in his eyes. “Medic!”
Robinson realized Banes was shell-shocked. He looked him over and saw blood pouring from his right hip.
“Just lay still there, Corporal,” Robinson said. “I’ll fix you right up.”
“Medici-Robinson removed his bayonet from his rifle and cut away Banes’ pants. It was a big ugly shrapnel wound; it looked like Banes’ hip was crushed. Every soldier carried a wound dressing on his belt, but this wound was too big for that. Robinson opened Banes’ pack and took out a tee shirt and a pair of pants. Folding them, he pressed them against the wound. He knew it wouldn’t help much, but he had to do something. Banes eyes were closed and he was turning white. He’d gone into shock.
In the other cave, Mazursky peered between the two boulders in front of him at the road. One tank had attempted to go around the destroyed tanks by driving down the gully beside the road, but it went down at an angle and tipped over. Another tank turned around in the road and attempted to go down the gully straight, but in the bottom there wasn’t enough room to turn around so it had to go up the other side. That landed it in the woods, where it was trapped by the thick old trees. Mazursky figured that the next step would be to blow the trees out of the way. Sure enough, a group of Germans with explosives came running from back down the column. Mazursky took aim with his carbine and fired at them, but missed. He fired again and brought one down. Albright fired his M-l and brought another down. On the ridge, one of the BARs opened up on them, and the Germans scattered for cover. But a German mortar round landed next to that BAR man, and after the explosion he was all over the hill.
Winograd calmly took aim through the sight of his anti-tank gun, pulled the trigger, and blew the treads off another tank. His crew re-loaded, he fired again, and demolished the turret of a different tank. The road was becoming a mass of ruined tanks.
Mazursky looked at Winograd and grinned. “You’re a good fucking man, you know that?’’
Winograd looked through his sight. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He pulled the trigger and knocked out another tank.
But the tanks and artillery pieces were zeroing in on the embattled second platoon. A shell burst tore a huge hole in the defensive perimeter on the ridge, killing four men. Another blew in the flank, killing Private Levin-son.
The German infantry soldiers came out of the woods and charged the hill once more. The men of the second platoon couldn’t see them, but when the shelling stopped they knew trouble was on the way. They looked up and saw the Germans scrambling up the hill. The Germans fired their rifles as they came; some of them threw hand grenades. One of the Germans, a burly fellow over six feet tall, threw one with all his might, and it went into the opening of the cave above the ridge.
The hand grenade landed next to Private Albright. Albright was between Mazursky and the hand grenade. On the other side of Mazursky was the anti-tank crew. Albright stared at the hand grenade for an eternity that really lasted only a split second. Then, quick as a fox, he took off his helmet, dropped it over the grenade, and covered the grenade with his body.
The grenade exploded with a deafening roar. Albright went flying into the air, and landed on his back. His stomach was a huge mass of blood and guts. But no one else was hurt in the cave.
Mazursky, his head reverberating from the sound of the explosion, crawled to Albright and bent over him. Albright was still alive, but just barely. He blinked his eyes. Blood foamed out of his mouth.
“How’d . . . you . . . like . . . that . . . one, . . . Sarge?” Albright asked.
“It was real good, kid. Real good.” Mazursky patted him on the head and looked at the gut wound. There was nothing that could be done. Not even if there were four doctors and a hospital room.
“It’s . . . getting . . . dark . . . Sarge.”
“Well, it’s almost night, kid.”
“Will ... I ... be .. . okay?”
“Sure you will. It’s only a little wound.”
“I . . . can’t . . . feel . . . anything.”
“That’s because I just gave you a shot of morphine.”
“You . . . ain’t. . . got. . . no . . . morph . . .”
Albright coughed, and a gob of blood came out of his mouth.
“Listen kid, I’m real sorry I hit you today, got me?”
Albright turned his face away and closed his eyes. Mazursky bent over and pressed his ear against Albright’s chest. He could hear no heartbeat.
“How is he?” asked Winograd, looking back from his prone position behind the anti-tank gun.
“He’s dead,” Mazursky said, his eyes closed. “He always was a stupid little fuck. He should have thrown the hand grenade out instead of jumping on it like an asshole. Goddamn Fuckbright. Stupid little bastard.” Mazursky made his eyes tighter, but the tears came out anyway.
Below him, the Germans were advancing up the hill before the murderous fire of the second platoon. A German officer shouted orders as he led his troops upwards, a Luger in his right hand. Nowicki took a bead on his chest and pulled the trigger of his BAR. It bucked against his shoulder as it spit out hot lead. The German officer went flying backwards, blood spurting from a hole in his chest.
But the Germans kept coming. They poured out of the woods, crossed the swamp that now was a mass of broken ice, dead bodies, blood, and mud, and charged the hill. The men of the second platoon rolled hand grenades down at them and fired fusillade after fusillade. The Germans kept coming, and there were a great many of them. They came through the grenade blasts and they came through the hail of bullets.
A German tried to climb over the ridge but MacDoodle stood up and hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle. Another German vaulted over the ledge but before he could land, Mac-Doodle ran his bayonet through his guts. A third German made it onto the ridge and charged Private Morelli, who shot wild and missed. The German shot straight and hit Morelli in the chest, and as Morelli slumped to the ground, the German grunted and rammed his bayonet into Morelli’s heart. As the German was pulling out his bayonet, he was slammed over the head with an entrenching tool in the hand of Private Deesing. The German had his helmet on, so was only stunned. Deesing darted to the side and swung at the German’s face, but missed, hitting him in the neck instead, and nearly decapitated him. The German fell in a spray of his own blood.
A dozen Germans were on the ridge now, fighting hand-to-hand with the men of the second platoon. Mazursky looked down from
his cave at the action, took a quick measure of the situation, and decided that’s where he belonged. Throwing off his steel helmet because it slowed him down, chewing the butt of an unlit cigar, he slid down the side of the cliff, carbine in hand, and joined the men fighting on the ridge.
“PUSH THE FUCKERS BACK!” Mazursky yelled. “RIP OUT THEIR FUCKING GUTS!”
Mazursky let go his carbine because it was too light for hand-to-hand combat, and took the M-l from one of his dead men. Removing the bayonet, he took it by the barrel and began swinging it like a baseball bat, crowning Germans over the head and swatting them across the face, kicking them in the balls, knocking the wind out of them, breaking their spines. He was bellowing like a madman, spittle flying from his lips, his eyes bulging like a madman. German after German fell before the fury of his attack, and meanwhile, the men of the second platoon were rolling hand grenades at Germans coming from the swamp and managing to prevent any more Germans from gaining access to the ridge.
The last three Germans on the ridge fled before the advancing Mazursky and jumped away to the steep slope of the hill, where they went tumbling asshole over teakettle to the swamp. Mazursky ran back to his carbine, put it on automatic, leaned over the ledge, and pulled the trigger. A carbine can spew forth 900 rounds per minute, and Mazursky sprayed the Germans with hot lead. When one clip was empty, he rammed another into the body of the carbine, all the while chewing his cigar. Nowicki and the other BAR men still alive swept back and forth across the Germans, who were falling back. Other soldiers threw hand grenades or pumped off rounds in their M-ls. It was too much for the Germans. They turned and ran.
When the Germans in the tanks saw their infantry retreating, they opened fire again with machine guns and cannon. The second platoon ducked behind their barricades as hell broke loose around them. One shell scored a direct hit in the cave where Winograd’s first anti-tank squad was. Mazursky put on the helmet of a dead soldier lying beside him and looked up to the cave where he’d been only minutes before. Smoke was pouring out of it. If he’d stayed there he’d be in that smoke rising up to the thick oatmeal clouds. But he hadn’t stayed there. He’d been lucky, and he wondered how long his luck was going to last.
He looked at his watch. It was 1130 hours.
They had a half hour to go. Shells exploded all around him and bullets whizzed over his head. In a half hour he could pull out or surrender. There was no possible way to pull out, so it would have to be a surrender. He wondered what German POW camps were like. Maybe it’d be better to die here, but he didn’t have time to make up his mind. There were too many things to do.
Crouching, he moved to the center of the ridge, crawling over dead Germans and his own dead and wounded. “How’re you doing?” he asked each of his men.
“I ain’t got no more hand grenades,” said MacDoodle.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Just thought I’d tell you.”
“Okay, you told me. If you don’t have hand grenades, throw stones.”
Moving along, talking to each of his men, Mazursky realized the situation was even worse then he’d thought. There were only four hand grenades left, and most of the men were nearly out of ammunition. He knew that with the next German charge, it would be all over. He looked at his watch. It was 1135 hours. Taking a quick peek over the ledge, he saw tanks in the rear trying to push the damaged tanks off the road. He figured in another fifteen or twenty minutes the Germans would clear the road, and what the hell, that was close enough to 1200 hours. The artillery barrage was intense. Machine gun bullets stitched back and forth and up and down. Mazursky made the signal to assemble on me.
The remnants of the second platoon gathered around, their faces streaked with dirt, their eyes white and staring, some limping, others bleeding from cuts and gouges. They were Private Nowicki, the BAR man; Private Stein, the former runner for Lieutenant Smith; Private Mac Doodle, the homicidal maniac; Private Hartman, who dreamed of a few hundred acres of good bottom land; Private Robinson, the New York playboy who’d come down from the second cave; Private Whitney, a drunkard who mostly kept to himself; Pfc. Ballard, a grizzled old professional like Mazursky who’d been busted up and down the ranks many times, and Private Deesing, the sex degenerate. These men, and Mazursky, were all that was left of the second platoon, which had numbered 29 men that morning, and which had been 42 when they went into the Hurtgen Forest two weeks ago.
Mazursky motioned for them to come close, so they could hear him above the sound of shell bursts and machine guns. He spoke loud, his spittle flying into their faces, but they didn’t seem to care.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you,” Mazursky said. “ We’ve just about had it. We can’t retreat the fuck out of here, and we’ve just about completed our mission. We got two choices: we can either surrender, or keep on fighting. I’d rather keep on fighting, because I’m afraid the German POW camps might be no better than dying here. But I’ll leave it up to you. What do you want to do?”
“I think we should surrender,” Robinson said. “In a POW camp we’ll have a chance, but here we’ll have no chance at all.”
Whitney shook his head, and everybody was surprised because he so seldom expressed himself. “I don’t wanna be no damn prisoner,” he said, his eyes downcast.
“Me neither,” added MacDoodle. “Fuck it, let’s go out in a blaze of glory.”
Stein looked at him. “Blaze of glory? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
MacDoodle rolled up his sleeve and showed a tattoo that said DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR. “I ain’t afraid to die,” he said.
Stein shook his head. You couldn’t reason with maniacs.
“I’ll do whatever Sergeant Mazursky does,” Hartman said.
“Me too,” added Nowicki.
Ballard cleared his throat. “I say fight.”
Deesing shrugged. “I don’t see where it makes any difference. We’re going to get killed no matter what we do.”
Mazursky moved his cigar to the other side of his mouth. “Well, I guess we’re going to fight it out. Okay, gather up all the ammo and goodies lying around here and let’s give the bastards something to remember us by. Hurry, because they’ll probably attack again damn soon.”
They forged around on the ridge, taking weapons and ammunition and hand grenades from the bodies of the dead. Mazursky found a Luger and two extra clips of ammunition on the body of a German officer, and another Luger on a dead German sergeant. He worked the mechanism on both of them to make they were okay. Then he slid full loaded clips into each of them and jammed them into his cartridge belt. Five German hand grenades were found and Mazursky showed his men how to use them. Then he walked up to Stein.
“C’mere Stein,” he said. “I want to talk to you alone.”
Stein went with Mazursky to an end of the ridge. He was a small man with soft brown hair and a brown mustache. He reminded Mazursky of a squirrel. They crouched behind a boulder near the dead staring body of Private Johnson.
“You’re a Jew, aren’t you Stein?”
Stein was taken aback. “Yeah.”
“Well let me tell you something. If through some miracle you don’t get killed up here, and get taken prisoner instead, those krauts are going to be awfully hard on you once they find out you’re a Jew. I think you should exchange dog tags and I.D. with one of the other guys lying around here dead, like Johnson over there. That might be better for your health.”
Stein nodded. “I think you’re right, Sarge.”
Mazursky slapped him on the shoulder. “Get cracking.”
Stein bent over Johnson, unbuttoned Johnson’s jacket, and pulled off his dog tags, exchanging them with his own. He tried not to look at Johnson’s staring eyes, which scared him. He’d known Johnson quite well; they’d played chess and drunk beer together in the PX at Fort Benning. Rolling Johnson over, he unbuttoned Johnson’s back pocket and took out his wallet. Stein had a better wallet, so he just exchanged all his various I.D. cards for all of Johnso
n’s, and put Johnson’s wallet back. Johnson had had some money in his wallet and Stein had been tempted to take it, but he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to rob money from the dead. Next he went through Johnson’s pockets and found two letters. He took them and exchanged a letter he’d got from his sister. Finally Stein went through his pockets to make sure he had nothing that could possibly identify him as Jewish. They weren’t going to put him into any fucking concentration camp if he could help it.
Farther down the line, Nowicki and Deesing crouched behind a boulder. Nowicki was cleaning the chamber of his BAR.
“Hope it doesn’t jam,” Nowicki said.
“It hasn’t jammed yet today.”
“But I’ve done a lot of firing. That hole might be clogged.”
“At this point it doesn’t matter much, Nowicki.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know fucking well what I mean,” Deesing said bitterly. He wasn’t exactly enchanted about dying.
Next down the line was Private Robinson, sitting with his back against the rock barricade, thinking about the parties he attended on Park Avenue, and the debutantes he used to screw. He spent his summers yachting off Easthampton on Long Island and his winters skiing in the Laurentian Mountains of Canada. He still didn’t understand why he’d let himself flunk out of Officers Candidate School in order to join the Infantry. What had he been trying to prove? That he was a man? He shook his head ruefully. Soon he was going to be a corpse.
Beside him, MacDoodle was sharpening his bayonet, his skin tingling with the thought that he was going to die in a bloody all-out hand-to-hand rampage. A few feet away, Private Hartman was trying to come to terms with the fact that he’d probably never see another farm in his life. On the far right, Private Whitney dozed, his mind blank, while Pfc. Ballard, the old professional soldier, chewed a plug of tobacco and actually thought he was going to get through this alive somehow, because he’d been in so many tight spots before, and had come out alive each time.
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