Doom Platoon

by Levinson, Len

  The lights went out in the barracks and everybody went to bed. That is, everybody except Mazursky. He crept to the window and looked outside. Guards walked around outside the barbed wire, and on high towers there were machine guns and searchlights that crossed back and forth over the barracks and the yard.

  “What are you looking for, sergeant?” Lieutenant Wells asked.

  “Just looking.”

  “You wouldn’t be thinking of escaping, would you?”

  “Who me? Naw, I don’t think anybody could get out of here.”

  “If you decide to try, let me know. I’d sure like to go with you.”

  “I’ll sure tell you, sir. You can rely on it.”

  Mazursky returned to his bunk, but lay with his eyes open, ready for trouble. The beaten corporal dragged himself off the floor and went to bed. Soon there was snoring. Some of the men, in the grip of combat nightmares, screamed for mortar support, asked for more ammunition, or just howled in terror. After a while Mazursky slipped down from his bunk and knelt beside Deesing, who was fast asleep.

  Mazursky nudged him. “Wake up!” he whispered in Deesing’s ear.

  Deesing awoke with a jolt. “What’s happening!” Since becoming a front line soldier, he always expected the worst.

  “Listen to me,” Mazursky whispered. “I’ve got a feeling something bad is going to happen to me tomorrow. If they don’t kill me, and if they just take me away, try to find out where I am, and come see me, understand?”

  “Okay.”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  Mazursky crawled back up to his bunk, closed his eyes, and wondered what the morning would bring.

  Chapter Six

  The whistles blew and the front door of the barracks was thrown open. A group of guards led by the one with the scarred face stormed in and began throwing men out of their bunks.

  “Wake up, American soldiers!” Scarface shouted. “Everybody outside!”

  Scarface grabbed Mazursky by the front of his jacket and pulled him out of bed, letting him go at the last crucial moment so Mazursky would fall painfully to the floor. Mazursky wanted to kick the bastard into hamburger, but the consequences of that act would be too hideous to contemplate. Instead he brushed himself off and walked out the door to the formation.

  All the prisoners in the camp stood in ranks in the yard and were counted by the guards as the sun made a faint glow on the still cloudy horizon. A young SS Lieutenant with the face of a baby told them that after breakfast there would be another formation. Mazursky deliberately stood in one of the rear ranks, so he could keep an eye on the corporal he’d beaten up last night.

  After the formation was dismissed, Mazursky stood in the shadows of the barracks as the corporal, after looking furtively around, walked back to the latrines, talking in low tones with Lieutenant Wells and two privates.

  Mazursky followed them, took a crap, and washed up. He saw the corporal and some other men walking toward the administration compound. Mazursky sidled up to one of the old time prisoners. “Where are they going?” he asked.

  ‘To get the food.”

  Then Mazursky remembered that the corporal had been one of the ones who’d brought the soup and bread last night. So that was how they passed on their messages. They just went over to the main kitchen and waiting for them were guards to whom they passed on information. Mazursky was more sure than ever that he was in for hard times.

  He and the others went to the barracks, and after a while the corporal and his cohorts showed up with the morning’s bread and coffee. Everyone got in line like the night before for their morning rations, then sat and dipped the tasteless break into the so-called coffee.

  “I see you’re still here,” Deesing said below his breath as he sat beside Mazursky.

  “But not for long, I don’t think. These barracks are crawling with spies, and I’m sure that corporal is one of them. He passes his information on when he goes to pick up the food. At the next formation, I’m sure they’re going to call me out.”

  “The moral of this story,” Deesing said, “is to keep your fucking mouth shut from now on.’’

  “It’s too late for that, and besides, somebody had to step forward.”

  “No, they didn’t. So what if the Germans pick up a little information? It’s no skin off your ass. We’re going to win the war anyway. The Germans don’t stand a chance.”

  “You don’t pass information to the enemy. That’s one of the rules of war.”

  “I didn’t pass any information on. And neither did you.”

  “But I’m a non-commissioned officer, and I can’t let anybody else do it either.”

  Deesing shook his head. “You fucking regular army soldiers are all fanatics.”

  “We just take things a little more seriously than you fucking draftees.”

  “But we’re prisoners now. Nothing matters anymore. We’re out of the ballgame.”

  “You’re not out of the ballgame until you’re dead, Deesing. Remember that.”

  “Okay, Sarge.”

  Mazursky looked up and noticed the corporal glowering at him. His face was badly bruised and he couldn’t get hospital attention because that would blow his cover as a spy. Mazursky could see the loathing in his eyes, but also a touch of triumph. Mazursky knew his goose was cooked.

  After breakfast, the whistle blew. The men piled out and got into formation. It was brighter out now, but there was still a thick cloud cover. Mazursky wondered whether the Allies had checked the German attack without the aid of the Air Corps. He took his place in the formation, as dread crept over his body and penetrated his mind. What if the Allies lost the war? He gritted his teeth. That could not be permitted to happen.

  The formation was similar to formations in the peacetime Army, where there’d be four ranks of men in front of each barracks. Before Mazursky’s formation there were an SS officer and a dozen guards. Mazursky looked out the corner of his eyes to other formations, and heard the SS men screaming and hollering at the prisoners.

  In front of Mazursky’s formation, the SS officer and guards were looking at the prisoners, mumbling among themselves. Then they started walking around the formation toward the back where Mazursky was standing in the last rank. Although it was twenty-five degrees that morning, sweat broke out on his forehead as they approached him. He heard them stop behind him. Two of the guards grabbed him by the arms and turned him around so that he faced another SS guard.

  The guard punched Mazursky in the mouth, and Mazursky’s head snapped back. The lights went out for a few seconds. They came back on and Mazursky straightened his head. The guard punched him again, and Mazursky felt his lips rip against his teeth. Groggy, he felt the two guards dragging him across the exercise yard.

  Halfway across it, he regained consciousness fully. He tasted blood and felt the pain of his cut lips. He heard more guards marching behind him. He wondered if they were going to kill him.

  They took him to the administration compound, and a guard opened the gate to admit them. He was dragged through the alleys between the wooden buildings and soon they came to a long squat building surrounded by guards and barbed wire. The only widows were in the front of the building.

  A guard opened the barbed wire gate and Mazursky was dragged up the steps, through the door, and into an orderly room, where some SS guards were sitting around on benches or behind desks. This was the only room of the building that had windows. The guards spoke German to each other and threw hostile glances at Mazursky, who was still held by his arms, dripping blood onto his field jacket. Then one of them took keys and opened a door at the rear of the orderly room. Mazursky was dragged behind them into a cold darker corridor lined with tiny cells. Mazursky peered through the darkness and saw men huddling in the cells, their eyes gleaming. Halfway down the corridor a cell door was unlocked and Mazursky was thrown into it. The door was locked behind him.

  The guards stood on the other side of the bars and glowered at him. “If you make any trouble
in here, American, we will shoot you,” one of them said. Then they turned and walked away.

  Mazursky looked around his cell. In the dimness he could perceive a wooden cot bolted to the wall and a slop bucket in the corner. There was no mattress on the cot. There was no heat in the cell. The air smelled faintly of piss and shit. His head ached and he knew the bandage should be changed. It occurred to him that this was the worst off he’d ever been in his life. He sat on the cot and leaned back against the wall. He hoped they wouldn’t keep him there too long, because he was afraid he might go out of his mind. The cell was only eight by six, and he knew they didn’t show movies.

  He heard the guards leave the cell area and slam the door behind them. Then he heard movement and muffled voices in the cells around him. There were probably spies in here too. He’d have to be careful. If only he could be home eating a plate of his mother’s pirogen and drinking a bottle of Knickerbocker Beer.

  “What’s your name, fella?” asked a voice in the cell to the left.

  Mazursky got up and stood by the bars in front of his own cell. “Mazursky.”

  “What’s your rank?”

  “Sergeant. Who’re you?”

  “Sergeant Bull Moose Dexter, of the Seventh Cav.” He had a New England accent. “What outfit were you with?”

  “The 25th Infantry Regiment.”

  “No kidding? An old buddy of mine is with the 25th. He’s a mess sergeant, with George Company of the 2nd Battalion. Name’s Fenwick, Arthur Fenwick. Ever hear of him?”

  “Artie Fenwick? Sure I know him. I used to drink with him from time to time at the NCO Club in Fort Benning. How do you know him?”

  “We were in boot camp together at Fort Leonard Wood, and kept bumping into each other ever since. The Army’s a small place once you’ve been in it for awhile.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “What’re you in here for?”

  Mazursky hesitated to tell him, because he thought Dexter might be a spy. It was possible that the Germans had Fenwick a prisoner someplace, and had found out that he’d been in boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood.

  “I don’t know what I’m in here for,” Mazursky said.

  “How can you not know what you’re in here for?”

  “I don’t know. They just pulled me out of formation and brought me here.”

  “You must have done something.”

  “I guess so, but I don’t know what it was.”

  “When’d you get here?”

  “Yesterday. How about you?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “What’d you do to get put in here?”

  “They thought I was planning to escape,” Dexter said.

  “Were you?”

  “What do you think?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “Well I was. I got a few people together to break out with me, and one of them must have been a spy, because the next thing I knew I was thrown in this cell.”

  “How do you know I’m not a spy?” Mazursky asked.

  “Are you?”

  “If I were, do you think I’d tell you?”

  “No. But I don’t think you are.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what could a spy find out in here? This is where all the hardasses are, the guys who make trouble out in the camp. This is where they put us on ice so we won’t make any more trouble. They know they’ll never get anything out of us except a hard time, so they lock us in here and hope we’ll die, which we probably will because from what I’ve seen so far, the rations ain’t much. Just a piece of bread in the morning and another piece of bread at night, with a cup of water each time. We won’t last long on that.”

  “About a couple of weeks, I guess. Is there any way to get out of here?”

  “Not unless you’ve got a gun, and I doubt if even that would be enough.”

  “Do they ever let us out for a little air?”

  “The only way to get out of here is on a stretcher.”

  “You could pretend to be sick,” Mazursky said.

  “If you get sick, they keep you right where you are. They only take you out on a stretcher when you’re dead.”

  “Don’t look too good, does it?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I ain’t going to do nothing about it, because there ain’t nothing to do.”

  “There’s got to be something.”

  “When you find out what it is, let me know, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Mazursky looked around his cell. Possibly he could bore his way through one of the walls, but there was barbed wire and guards outside. You couldn’t dig your way out because the building was on stilts and the guards could see underneath it. Maybe there was no way out. Maybe he was going to starve to death in this little fucking cell.

  “You still there?” Dexter said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you say you were in here for?”

  “I didn’t say.”

  “Well, why don’t you say?”

  “I hit a guy last night.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “The guy was a spy.”

  “Oh, so that’s why you’ve got spies on the brain.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So have I. They’re everywhere.”

  “Maybe even in here.”

  “I don’t think so. If you were a spy, would you want to be locked up in here on bread and water, without any heat.”

  “No, but |’m not a spy.”

  “I don’t think any spy would, and besides, what are they going to figure out from guys like us?”

  “Nothing I guess. But if you start asking me about where my regiment is, I’m going to kill you first chance I get.”

  “I don’t give a fuck where your regiment is. They’re probably back in Belgium by now anyway. Those Germans were pushing hard when they overran my company, and there were a whole of them. They tore a big hole in our line where we were, and I imagine they did the same thing where you were.”

  “Stop trying to get information out of me, you Nazi cocksucker!”

  “I’m not trying to get information out of you.”

  “Oh yes you are!”

  “I think you’d better lie down.”

  “Who can lie down on that slab of wood over there?”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  Mazursky sat on his wooden slab and rested his chin in his hand. Around him he could hear prisoners mumbling like he and Dexter were. He wondered if Dexter was a spy. He wondered if it mattered if Dexter was a spy. He thought about the Second Platoon and all his buddies who’d been killed on the Dillendorf Road.

  “Hey Mazursky,” Dexter hissed.

  “What?’’

  “Where you from?”

  “Mazursky got up and leaned against the bars again. “New York City.”

  “No wonder you’re such an asshole.”

  “Where you from?”

  “A little town in Maine called Houlton. Ever hear of it?”

  “I don’t know anything about little hick towns.”

  “It ain’t no little hick town.”

  “It’d have to be if you came from there.”

  “You guys from New York think you know everything.”

  “At least we’re not corny like you hicks.”

  “What’d you do before you joined the Army?” Dexter asked.

  “I didn’t do anything. That was during the Depression.”

  “What’d you do for food?”

  “Scrounged around, mostly. What did you do?”

  “I was a lumberjack.”

  “Oh, you must be a tough guy, huh?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Then what’re you doing in here?”

  “Fuck you, Mazursky.”

  “Up your ass, Dexter.”

  “You guys from New York make me sick.”

  “You cor
ny bastard. You stump jumper.”

  “You horse’s ass.”

  “You scumbag.”

  Mazursky spent the rest of the afternoon pacing his cell, arguing with Dexter, and worrying about his bleak future. He became hungry, but the hunger became a dull ache that he got used to. There had to be a way to break out of this joint.

  The doors opened and he heard a commotion in the hall. Pressing his head against the bars, he peered down the corridor but couldn’t see anything for a while, and then the guards came into view, pushing a wagon on which was the water and bread. When they were abreast of his cell they gave him a chunk of bread no bigger than a fist, and a wooden cup of water.

  “Don’t lose that cup,” the guard said, “because it’s the only one you’ll ever get.”

  Mazursky sat on the cot and ate the bread slowly to make it last. Then he washed it down with water, saving half the cup in case he got thirsty later. His hunger still wasn’t satisfied. He’d rather be on the front lines dodging mortar shells than in this miserable situation. He began to feel lonely. He walked to the bars.

  “Hey Dexter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I was thinking about jerking off. What’re you doing?’’

  “What could I be doing?”

  “Are you married, Mazursky?”

  “Not now.”

  “You mean you don’t want to talk about it now?”

  “I mean that I used to be married, but that I’m not married now. Are you married?”

  “Yes. Her name’s Trudy. She was a good old gal.”

  “I wonder who’s fucking her right now.”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “What a rotten fucking thing to say.”

  “You don’t think somebody is fucking her right now? Are you kidding? What do you think she’s doing? Twiddling her thumbs and waiting for you to come home? She probably thinks you’re missing in action, probably dead, and you know she’s not going to let her cooze go to waste.”

  “Mazursky, if we ever get out of here, I’m going to whip your fucking ass.”

  “Look at it logically. You’re sitting here horny as a billy-goat and she’s sitting up there in Maine horny as a cat in heat. Some big handsome 4-F lumberjack who’s probably smarter than you puts her hand on his cock, and what’s she going to do? Say no? Are you kidding? Would you say no if some babe took off her dress in front of you right now.”