by Audie Murphy
The German is badly wounded in the back, but he tries to lift his arm and shoot me with his Luger. Jumping forward, I stamp his pistol hand with a heavy boot. But even after that, the gun has to be twisted from his grip. I put the weapon in my pocket and remove my foot from his arm. His lips are flecked with foam and blood. He slobbers like a mad dog. As the medics enter and examine his wounds, he curses them heartily in English.
Swift encircling movements by divisional units trap a large number of the enemy in the town of Montélimar. The city is an important communications center, but the Germans would willingly let it go if they could escape to the north. As the ring closes about them, they counterattack fiercely. An entire regiment of infantrymen hits my battalion. They are stopped by a heavy concentration of artillery and mortar fire.
We are ordered to drive straight into the resistance, by-pass the town, and enter it from the north. My company moves into the battle area just before daylight. As we advance over the flat, open fields, we nervously study the eastern sky which will signal the lifting of our cover of darkness.
Dawn breaks slowly; and in the dim light, we find ourselves faced by two 88-millimeter cannon and a strong detachment of men. Silently we drop to the earth. The Germans crawl out of their holes, stretch themselves, and start preparing breakfast. They are not aware of our presence until we open fire.
Though taken by surprise, they decide to fight. Quickly yanking the camouflage nets from the cannon, they commence firing. The projectiles whistle overhead. The barrels cannot be lowered sufficiently to fire directly into our midst. Fortunately we are too close to the guns.
But the krauts quickly wise-up and change their fire to air bursts. Slivers of steel shower our position. We crawl forward. In the open fields retreat would be suicidal.
Two of the tanks assigned to support our attack lumber up, but they hastily take cover behind a farmhouse. One glance at the situation was enough for the crews. Against tanks on such terrain, the 88 is a deadly weapon. The armor is not strong enough to deflect the shell. With one direct hit, the tank would likely be put out of action and most, if not all, of its crew members killed.
We understand this, but our present situation is not conducive to rationality. We shout curses and taunts at the tankmen, who remain notably undisturbed by our opinions of them.
Now from a score of foxholes flanking the big guns, the enemy unleashes his small-arms fire. The air is filled with whistling lead and foul language which we divide impartially between the krauts and our tank crews.
A man with a stubble of beard on his face is hit in the shoulder by a shell fragment. With a bewildered look on his face he rises to his feet, directly in the line of fire. The krauts cut him down, but before he falls, he turns slowly about as if for a last view of the familiar sky and fields. His body flinches as more lead is poured into it. When he hits the ground, he flexes his knees and rests his head in the crook of his arm as if going to sleep. I try to recall his name, but cannot.
Within a moment I am involved in a duel with a German who climbs upon a cannon to get the advantage of elevation. I see him as he lowers his rifle upon me and whip up my carbine. He fires. The bullet kicks dust in my face as my carbine goes off.
Frantically I try to blink the dirt from my eyes, knowing the German will likely not miss again. It is only a few seconds, perhaps, but it seems much longer before I can see. The kraut is sprawled in front of the gun. Later I discover that my lucky shot got him in the heart.
Piles of ammunition are stacked behind the gun. Suddenly I see the solution of our problem. Securing a bazooka, I move forward fifty yards and throw three shells into the ammunition dump. When the shells begin to explode, the Germans leap from their holes and start running for a ditch in the rear. As they race crouching over the ground, their buttocks stand out prominently; and we bore into them with small-arms fire.
With the big guns out of action, our lieutenant goes back to get the tanks into the field. My platoon is in the lead position, We rise to our feet, form a skirmish line, and stroll forward, shooting.
The Germans have not yet had enough. From the ditch, they bitterly return our fire. Bergman, who walks beside me, is hit in the upper leg. He casts a startled glance at the wound and says, “Well, what do you know? Looks like I’ve been hit.”
I cannot stop now. “Wait here for the doc,” I say.
“With a fight like this going on,” the Swede snorts. “I hear you talking, but I don’t get what you say.”
Calmly inserting a fresh clip of ammo in his tommy gun, he limps forward while the blood soaks his trouser leg.
The tanks are backing us now; and the Germans see that the game is up. Around thirty throw down their weapons and hoist their hands.
One tries to escape on a motorcycle. As he dashes down the road, Kerrigan lisps, “You naughty, naughty boy. Trying to get out of taking your medicine.” His rifle cracks. The motorcycle turns a flip, tossing the rider yards into the field.
While the prisoners are being frisked, we take a brief break and munch on breakfast rations.
On the outskirts of Montélimar, a huge enemy convoy has been caught by our artillery fire. In their haste to escape, the doomed vehicles had been moving two and three abreast. Our artillery zeroed them in. The destruction surpasses belief.
As far as we can see, the road is cluttered with shattered, twisted cars, trucks and wagons. Many are still burning. Often the bodies of men lie in the flames; and the smell of singed hair and burnt flesh is strong and horrible.
Hundreds of horses, evidently stolen from the French farmers, have been caught in the barrage. They look at us with puzzled, unblaming eyes, whinnying softly as their torn flesh waits for life to drain from it. We are used to the sight of dead and wounded men, but these shuddering animals affect us strangely. Perhaps we have been in the field too long to remember that innocence is also caught in the carnage of war.
A horse, trailing entrails from a split stomach, staggers down the side of the road. Mahler, a gentle Texan who lived on a ranch in civilian life, stops; and I hand him the Luger which I took from the German colonel.
He goes over to the horse and pats him on the neck. “What did they do to you, boy? What did they do?” he croons. Then he raises the pistol and shoots the horse behind the ear.
He hands the pistol back to me without speaking.
“Keep the gun for a while,” I say. “You’ll need it further on.”
As we move up the road, he begins to talk. “I’ve known horses all my life,” he says; “and there’s not one dirty, mean thing about them. They’re too decent to blast each other’s guts out like we are doing. Makes you ashamed to belong to the human race.”
“Yeah. I know horses too. For a time they were the only real friends I had.”
“You couldn’t have had better. If I ever get out of this war, I want to live so far back in the hills that I’ll never see another human being.”
During our advance, he steps stoically over the corpses of Germans to put horses out of their agony with the Luger.
I am with Kerrigan when we enter Montélimar. The krauts still hold part of the city. A freight train burns in the railroad yards; and though this section is clear of the enemy, one of our planes is busily strafing it. We keep under cover until the flyer has thrown all the lead he wants, and buzzes off into the blue.
Cautiously moving from house to house, we search for snipers. Leaping from the sunlight into the dim rooms, we must wait for our eyes to become adjusted to the change. As we stand in one house, the door of a room creaks open. Suddenly I find myself faced by a terrible looking creature with a tommy gun. His face is black; his eyes are red and glaring. I give him a burst and see the flash of his own gun, which is followed by the sound of shattering glass.
The horrible being that I shot at was the reflection of my own smoke-blackened self in a mirror. Kerrigan doubles with laughter. “That’s the first time I ever saw a Texan beat himself to the draw,” says he.
In the late afternoon our job is done. My company is ordered to hole-up and wait for further orders. In a section of the city, a brisk fire fight continues. From another part of the town, an enemy artillery piece lobs occasional shells. But we are not disturbed. The chances of our receiving a direct hit are not worth considering.
I take over part of a house to serve as quarters and command post for the night. A machine gun is set up outside the door; a field telephone connecting us with headquarters is moved in; and we relax.
Bergman has refused evacuation. His wound has proved to be only superficial. He lies on a pallet, smoking and swearing cheerfully.
Kerrigan stands at the door with his eyes turned toward the sky. Over the rattle of distant fire comes the sound of a striking clock. A shell explodes; the house trembles.
“Afternoons like this make me homesick,” says Kerrigan, turning from the door.
“Homesick fer what?” asks Snuffy. “You never had it better.”
“Didn’t I? Well, I used to know a girl, a real, decent girl. We–”
“Haw!” exclaims Snuffy. “You’re suffer’n from shell shock.”
“We used to spend this kind of afternoons on a river.”
“On who?” says Bergman.
“What’s the use?” says Kerrigan wearily. “After associating with you rumdum bastards, I couldn’t make the grade in a two-bit whorehouse.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” says Snuffy.
Footsteps sound, and our mouths gape as a girl enters the room.
“Where’d that come from?” asks Kerrigan.
“That ain’t the point,” says Snuffy, “where’s it goin’?”
She holds a bowl of grapes in her hands, and her glance roams uncertainly from one of our faces to another. Apparently in her early twenties, she is not bad looking at all. Her face is of a smooth olive color; and glistening black hair tumbles to her shoulders. At first I mistake a slight scar near the corner of her mouth for a dimple.
Kerrigan recovers from the shock of seeing her and bows from the waist.
“Mademoiselle,” says he, “what can we do for you?”
“The question is what can she do for us,” says Snuffy.
“Quiet, fool. This is a situation calling for tact and finesse.”
“Then you’d better send for the chaplain.”
“You speak French?” Kerrigan asks the girl.
“Get that,” says Snuffy. “What’d you think she spoke? Chinee?”
Kerrigan eases toward the girl like a cat stalking a bird.
“You speak French?” he repeats.
“Oui, m’sieu.”
“Honey, we miss you too,” exclaims the Irishman, embracing her wildly.
“Mais non,” sputters the girl, shoving him aside. “The seek soldier. Blessé, n’est-ce pas?” Her eyes turn upon Bergman.
“Him?” snorts Kerrigan. “He’s about the most unblessed man you’ll ever hope to meet. We call him the Milwaukee misfit. At the age of eight he was put in the pokey for horse stealing. At ten, he turned alcoholic. By the time he was twenty he’d served seven raps for murder. I wouldn’t trust him with my aunt Lizzie even if he was in a straight jacket. Stay away from him.”
The girl obviously does not understand. The Swede, grabbing the cue, closes his eyes and groans piteously.
“Ah, pauvre, pauvre,” exclaims the girl, rushing to Bergman’s side.
“Well, I’ll be a suck-aig mule,” says Snuffy. “Better haul out that tack and start fur-nessing.”
Bergman feigns delirium. Threshing around on the blanket, he mutters curses at Kerrigan and proclaims that his own sexual prowess is unsurpassed.
The girl claps a hand to his forehead. “Fièvre,” she declares. “Chaud. Chaud.”
“Sho, sho, baby,” Kerrigan replies disgustedly. “He’s sho going to cop a feel if you’re not careful.”
“She says he has fever. His forehead’s hot,” says Kohl.
“He’s got brain fever.”
“You Irish bastard,” mumbles the Swede. “I can get more women with my eyes shut than you can with them open.”
“Qu’est-ce qu’il dit?” asks the girl in alarm.
“He’s speaking–how do you say–of his dear old mother,” explains Kohl. “Il parle de sa mère. C’est la fièvre.”
“Ah. Sa mère. Pauvre. Quelle triste.”
“She says it’s a sad situation.”
“He’s a sad sack; and that’s no mistake,” says Kerrigan. “Think I’ll go out and step into a bullet.”
“Make it an 88,” mutters Bergman.
“Qu’est-ce qu’on fait?” asks the girl.
“She wants to know what we should do with this dying soldier.”
“Give him a drink,” gasps Bergman.
“Cognac, mademoiselle. Vite.”
“Oui. Mama, cognac. Vite.”
The kitchen door flies open; and a middle-aged woman darts into the room with a bottle in her hand.
Grabbing the cognac, Kohl takes a healthy swig of it himself. The woman casts a puzzled look upon the proceedings.
“Pour le blessé,” she insists.
“I was just testing it for vitamins,” Kohl explains. “Pour voir s’il bon.”
“Il est bon,” says the woman.
Sighfully Kohl turns to Bergman. “This is going to hurt me far more than it’ll hurt you,” he says. “Go easy on the stuff, you sonofabitch.”
“Quit stalling, and throw me a slug,” mumbles Bergman.
“Qu’est-ce qu’il dit?” asks the girl.
“His mother again. La mère encore. Toujours la mère.”
“Ah, pauvre.”
During the war, I saw many strange things, but few were stranger than the sight of the Swede’s lying flat on his back and downing a quarter of a bottle of cognac without coughing, sputtering, or strangling. Even Kerrigan admitted that it was a noteworthy achievement.
The next day Mahler is hit. He is on a routine patrol when he is struck in the back by a fragment from an air burst. His spine is injured; and I hear that his legs are paralyzed. Remembering his face as he patted and shot the horses, I wonder whether he will ever ride again.
16
SNUFFY’s rear-end hangs over the edge of a medical jeep. A sniper caught him in the hip as we fought our way toward Besançon. Kerrigan and I arrive on the scene just as the jeep is pulling out. Seeing us, Snuffy hoists his buttocks in our direction and lovingly pats the large bloody bandage.
“So long, you miserable sonsabitches,” he yells. “I just got that million-dollar wound.”
The jeep bounces off down a road; and we never see Snuffy again.
“Wouldn’t you know he’d get out the easy way,” says Kerrigan.
“I’m glad he did.”
“So am I. If that wound’s bad enough, he’ll never see any more action.”
“He saw enough.”
“Yeah.” Kerrigan pulls a dirty fold of paper from his pocket. “Snuffy’s poker debts,” he explains. “Forty-five dollars, two thousand lira, seventeen hundred francs gone to hell.” Grinning, he tears the paper to bits and casts the pieces to the wind.
We look at each other, but find no words to continue the conversation. Of our original gang only we two remain.
In a short while we are again in the thick of battle. Our forward units knife through the enemy lines, leaving pockets of resistance for mopping-up crews. The noises of combat come from all sides.
The swift advance has drained our energies and most of our supplies. Now hungry and sleepy, we rest on a roadside waiting for orders. Our artillery fires over us. We lie on our backs, listening to the crash of the shells.
A motor roars up the road.
“It’s a tank,” somebody yells. We leap to our feet, with our ears cocked in the direction of the ominous noise.
“It’s a truck,” declares Kerrigan.
“The hell it is. That’s a tank, and a big one.”
We scramble for cover. If it is a ta
nk, we have no weapons powerful enough to cope with it. I grab a BAR and run for a clump of brush on the edge of the road.
A German truck lumbers around a curve. For a moment I do not move as the wonderful feeling of relief floods through my body. Then I set my sights on the windshield and pull the trigger. The truck lurches from the road and hits a tree. I keep down long enough to see if anything develops. Nothing does. The stalled motor coughs and dies. I pour another burst into the cab and move toward it cautiously.
The two krauts in charge of the truck lie slumped to the sides. I poke them with my BAR, but they do not react. The vehicle is loaded with supplies. I kick aside what appears to be a strong box, grab an armload of cognac and bread for the men, and take off. The steel box, I later discover, contained a small fortune in francs. But right now money is without meaning to the famished men who sit gulping cognac and bread.
Giddy on the liquor, Marsh begins to sing, “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” The rest of the platoon takes up the tune, and our morale gets a hefty boost.
That night we crash into Besançon and fight until morning. Within a few days, the city is secured; and once more we take up the pursuit of the Germans.
My platoon is bringing up the rear when a road block halts the company. It is a very minor action; so I start walking to headquarters for instruction. My platoon may be needed for a flanking movement.
Mortar shells begin to pepper the earth; and I halt to talk to a group of men until the fire eases up. From their pallid faces, I can tell that several of them are replacements.
Their sergeant grins at me. “I’ve been telling ’em there’s nothing to be afraid of,” he says. “They ain’t seen nothing yet. This is practically the rear echelons.”
“They’ll get used to it. What’s the old man going to do about the road block?”
“If he asked my advice, I’d say call out the air force. A couple hundred bombers should be able to take care of that little old road block in a matter of a few hours.” He winks at me, while his hand traces the motions of a diving plane. “Zoom. Bawoom! Zoom. Bawoom! Right, sergeant?”