I guess he got the view he needed of me, because when I came back in close once more, waving my arm at him, he raised his machine gun at me. I saw his mouth move in a shout, but the words were sucked away by the wind.
The train track was slightly higher than the ground next to it, and my wheels were slipping down the icy slope. I was below the train, with the SS officer looking down on Yutz and me. He shouted again, and this time, he fired his gun. I heard a bullet whizz over my head.
My plan wasn’t going at all like I’d planned it.
But if the train got away, Goldsmith and all those prisoners would be lost. I had to stop this train. I had to stop it now.
I steered the motorcycle alongside the train, going slower and then faster and then slower again so that the SS man couldn’t aim at me easily. I knew I would have only one chance at this. Using all the power I could get from the motorcycle’s engine and leaning hard toward the side, I skittered up the slope until we were right next to the train, right below the barrel of the Nazi’s gun.
“Nicht schiessen!” I yelled up at him. The SS man hesitated. He understood “don’t shoot.”
But so did Yutz. And he knew it meant I was in danger.
With a bark, Yutz took a flying leap from the sidecar of the motorcycle, up over the railing of the train.
The SS man screamed as Yutz landed on top of him, snarling and snapping and pressing the man flat on his back while his gun clattered away. Sparks flew from the train tracks beside me as the train driver pulled the brakes.
Although I couldn’t hear the SS man above the screeching brakes, I could see him struggling and writhing to escape Yutz’s grasp.
I knew darn well that he couldn’t.
I had to pull away as the train slowed, my motorcycle sliding down the small slope, but I stayed parallel to the train.
It took a long time for the train to come to a full stop, and once it did, I could hear shouts from a cattle car in the center, and the yelling and grunting of the officer struggling beneath Yutz. I heard the dog’s growls and snarls, and for the first time, they made me smile.
Yutz was on my side after all.
I climbed off the motorcycle and pulled my rifle with its one bullet from the sidecar. Then I ran up to the engine car and hauled myself over the railing. Yutz didn’t even look up at me, he was so focused on his attack. I realized then that I had no idea how to call him off. He would do what he wanted.
I looked to the forest behind the train and I didn’t see Michel, little Hugo, or any of the other Resistance fighters. They had left before the train started moving and Hugo had led them to a shortcut, but still, we had gone farther than I’d planned and it would take them some time to catch up. I didn’t know how long it would be before the other SS soldiers came forward to find out what was going on and discovered Yutz and me. We couldn’t fight a whole squad of armed Nazis on our own, and when the one with the big German shepherd dog showed up, I wasn’t even sure if Yutz would stay on my side. Dogs were pack animals, after all, and the SS dog handler would know all the right commands for a Nazi war dog. All I knew how to say was “don’t shoot.”
“Ach! Hau Ab!” the SS man on his back yelled, struggling to get Yutz to release him. “Hilfe!” he yelled. “Hilf mir!”
I didn’t need to speak German to know he was screaming for help. He wanted me to call the dog off. He wanted to be released. I almost felt bad for the guy, until I remembered that he had just shot at me and that he was taking my friend to a death camp just because he was Jewish.
I turned away from him and tried to open to the door to the engine so that I could demand that the driver tell me which car held the Americans, but the driver had locked the door.
I pounded on it, but he didn’t open it. Listening to the SS officer’s screams, I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t open the door either.
I jumped down from the engine and ran along the stopped train, shouting.
“Americans! Where are the Americans?” I pounded on the outside of the cattle cars. I ran and I yelled.
“Here!” someone shouted in English from the fourth car. “We’re in here!”
“Hold on, guys,” I yelled back, feeling heroic, like John Wayne in Flying Tigers. I wanted to say something heroic. “Private Miguel Rivera of the Ninety-Ninth Infantry is here to get you out of there!”
A cheer went up inside the cattle car and I smiled. My smile vanished as soon as I heard the shrill voice behind me shout “Hände hoch!” which I guess was one more bit of German that I knew. I’d heard it enough lately. It meant: “Hands up.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw the whole group of SS men, including Obersturmführer Schultz, had disembarked from the passenger car near the caboose. There were five of them in all, pointing their guns at me.
Five more that I hadn’t seen at all during my recon appeared from a car near the front of the train, pointing their guns at me as well.
“Hilfe! Hilfe!” shouted the SS man by the engine, still at the mercy of the big Doberman pinscher I’d set on him.
One of the soldiers nearby approached with his gun raised, taking aim at Yutz.
“Nein! Halt!” The SS dog handler shouted at him. He and his German shepherd moved in their direction to take control of Yutz and stop his attack.
“Hände hoch!” Schultz commanded me again. He held his Luger pistol steady. It was the same pistol he’d used to shoot Mike in the town square. I had no choice. I had to surrender. As my hands went up, my heart sank.
I’d come so close, overcome so many fears, only to fail. I wondered if they’d just shoot me out here and drive on, or if they’d load me into the cattle car with the rest of the Americans and send me off to the death camps as another prisoner. I wondered what would happen to Yutz, assuming he ever let go of that SS soldier. Would the Nazis shoot him as a traitor? Would they take him back into their ranks? Would he miss me when I was gone?
“Hilfe!” the SS man underneath Yutz shouted.
The other soldier raised his gun at Yutz again.
“Nein! Verstehst du nicht?” The dog handler yelled. “Nicht schiessen!”
That was his mistake.
I guess I’d taught my dog a new trick, because in a flash, he’d jumped off his victim and down from the engine, charging away into the woods. The soldier fired after him, but he missed. The German shepherd barked after Yutz, but his master held him back. They did not chase the dog down.
I felt some relief. At least one prisoner escaped today, even if he was my prisoner. He’d earned his freedom, after all.
“American?” Schultz asked me, with hardly a trace of a German accent.
“Private Miguel Rivera, United States Army, Serial Number 38 694 022,” I said.
According to our training, if we were captured we were just supposed to say our name, rank, and serial number, nothing else. I slammed my mouth shut and I waited. I wondered if I would hear the bullet before it killed me. I felt my lip quivering. It was embarrassing, but I couldn’t help it. I was about to die and I was afraid.
“You are all alone?” The SS officer laughed. “You think you can stop this train all by yourself?”
“Private Miguel Rivera, United States Army, Serial Number 38 694 022,” I repeated, but my voice caught in my throat. I was about to cry. I could feel it coming.
“You have dressed in a German Army uniform,” Schultz said calmly. “Under the laws of war, I am permitted to shoot you right now.”
“Since when do Nazis care about the laws of war?” I snapped at him. It felt good to be defiant. It kept me from crying.
He poked a finger and opened my jacket, looking at my uniform.
“You fight with the Ninety-Ninth Infantry Division,” he said, seeing the checkerboard insignia on my sleeve. “I believe your own people call you the Battle Babies.”
I said nothing.
“I have killed many of your division,” he told me. “Many more will die before you ever reach the Fatherland. You mongrel rac
es are too weak to fight us. That is why you dress up in disguises. That is why your dog ran off. That is why you cry. Perhaps, if you had brought a real soldier with you, you might have lived. But now …” He shrugged and then he raised his pistol level with my head. I closed my eyes.
And then, I heard Yutz barking.
I opened my eyes and saw that big Nazi war dog of mine leading the Resistance fighters right to us.
When the SS men turned to look, I dropped to the ground and threw myself under the motionless train. The SS officer fired a shot into the dirt as I scrabbled over the tracks and to the other side.
I heard the crack of gunfire as the Resistance and the SS broke out into a firefight.
I hoisted myself out from underneath the train car on the opposite side.
“You’ve got to come out on this side!” I shouted up to the Americans in the cattle car. “Can you break through the car?”
I saw the wood bulging and heard the crunch of men kicking it, throwing their whole bodies into the wood, but it wouldn’t budge. It was built to hold cattle. A few wounded Americans wouldn’t be able to break the walls down.
“Ruff! Ruff!” I heard at my feet, and I looked down to see Yutz crawl from beneath the train, panting at my heel.
“Good boy!” I said, patting his head. He let me.
A bullet buzzed over me and I dove to the ground again, pulling Yutz beneath the train once more. I saw the boots of the Nazi SS men moving backward and the boots of the Resistance fighters moving forward. We had them on the run.
We.
I swallowed hard. Here I was again, in battle, and all I could do was hide underneath a train, like a yellow-bellied chicken. A coward. But I was done with that. No more weakness. I’d be as brave as my dog.
My dog.
That’s what he was now.
My rifle lay in the dirt beside the train, almost close enough for me to reach. It only had one bullet, but I knew I could use the one bullet for some good. I had to.
I rolled out, throwing myself on top of the rifle and jumping to my feet. Like a good soldier, Yutz was right there beside me. Bullets hit the wood above my head, sending hot splinters through the air. I felt the sting of one slicing my ear. That was just like me, to get wounded by a splinter during a gunfight.
I crouched down below the big latch on the cattle-car door and I aimed my rifle up.
“Stand back!” I yelled, and fired my one and only bullet. My first shot of the war.
The latch blasted off, and I heaved the door open. Inside, men in US Army uniforms huddled together.
A rattle of machine-gun fire sent them diving away from the door and sent me hurling myself back to the ground.
“You must find cover!” Michel yelled at me from between two train cars. He fired a few blasts from his rifle toward the Nazis by the front of the train, who returned fire just as eagerly. I was stuck in the middle with the American prisoners. If they got off the train now, they’d be cut down in the crossfire.
Michel signaled another of his fighters, who was off to the side of the tracks, firing from behind a tree. The man opened fire at the Nazis to give us some time to get to the woods.
“Go, now,” Michel said. “You must —”
Suddenly, he fell forward to his knees from his spot between the train cars. A dot of blood grew on his chest. His mouth opened slightly and a puff of thin, gray smoke came out. He fell on his face into the snow by the tracks, dead.
SS Obersturmführer Schultz stepped from between the cars. He’d snuck around the far side. The fighter by the tree had been flanked as well. Two regular German Army guys had him at gunpoint with his hands in the air. I recognized them — they were the kids from the train depot. With a nod from the SS officer, the boys shot the Resistance fighter.
I looked around frantically and I saw the bodies of the other men who had been with Michel, all of them lying in the snow, dead. All of them but Hugo. I couldn’t see the boy. I hoped he had gone. I hoped he had not seen his father killed in battle.
The other SS soldiers moved back down the train and pointed their machine guns into the open train car, where the American prisoners put their hands up. They were helpless inside there. A single machine gunner could mow them all down.
The SS officer thrust his gun into my face.
“Where did you steal this dog?” he demanded.
“I didn’t steal him,” I said as calmly as I could. “He came with me. He wants to be on the winning side.”
The SS officer said something in German to others, who grumbled and chuckled derisively.
The dog handler called out a command in German, and Yutz lowered his head, pressed his ears flat back.
“Hier!” the SS man yelled. “Komm.” He snapped his fingers.
Yutz looked up at me. I could have sworn it looked like he wanted to apologize, but dogs aren’t like that. Instead, he trudged away, over to the SS dog handler and his big German shepherd. Yutz was a soldier and he’d been given a direct order. He had to obey.
“It’s okay, Yutz,” I told him. “It’s okay.”
My dog sat beside the German shepherd, and somehow, he looked tiny.
“Where in America do you come from?” Obersturmführer Schultz asked me.
“New Mexico,” I said. It couldn’t hurt to tell him. I was going to die anyway.
“You are Mexican?” he sneered.
“He’s American!” a voice above me said. I looked over my shoulder to the cattle car, and saw Goldsmith limp out to the front of the group of prisoners. He didn’t have his hands raised. His fists were clenched into angry balls, like he was going to punch his way to freedom. He looked down at me and smiled sadly. “You named your dog Yutz?”
I shrugged. “You should have seen how he was acting, afraid to get out of his foxhole.”
“Afraid or smart?” Goldsmith chuckled. We both knew who we were really talking about.
“Touching,” said the SS officer. “The Mexican and the Jew will die together.”
“We are prisoners of war!” Goldsmith yelled. “Under the laws of war, you cannot simply shoot us and —”
A sound cut him off, a high-pitched whine, like a giant dog calling for his master. The whine grew louder and higher pitched. It came from above and more whines joined it.
The Germans looked up toward the sunset, shielding their eyes. Even Goldsmith looked up, though all he could see was the roof of the cattle car.
“Achtung! Jabo!” one of the SS men shouted and pointed at the sky.
I didn’t know what a jabo was supposed to be, but the German pointed at a squadron of American Mustang fighter planes coming our way at full speed, guns blazing.
They were over us in seconds.
A few of the SS soldiers scrambled toward the big antiaircraft guns in the center of the train, but they didn’t make it in time. The first line of bullets sliced right through them. The hail of fire that followed sent the cluster of German soldiers in front of me, sprawling and scattering in every direction. For a moment, I thought we’d been saved.
A bomb struck the caboose and sent dirt, snow, and flames flying into the air, knocking the back of the train sideways off the tracks. The planes swept by overhead and made a wide arc in the sky, coming straight back at us for another attack run, opening up with their big machine guns and slicing the wood of the train cars to pieces. The GIs hit the deck as the top of their cattle car was turned to Swiss cheese.
That was when I realized that the pilots didn’t know that there were Americans down here. They just thought they were shooting up a German military train. We were under attack from our own countrymen and they weren’t going to stop until the whole train was destroyed.
“Run!” I yelled. “To the woods!”
The Americans started climbing down out of the train car. The SS men were already running away to take cover. A few of them fired their guns back in our direction, but they didn’t take the time to aim, so the shots didn’t get anywhere near us.
/> I grabbed Goldsmith to help him down as the other prisoners were jumping from the train and scattering, just like the Germans. Everyone ran for the woods.
With bullets and bombs all around us, I put Goldsmith’s arm around my shoulder and carried him as we scurried for the safety of the forest.
I glanced back at the burning train. SS Obersturmführer Schultz was flat on his back on the ground. At least the upper half of him was. It was anyone’s guess where his legs had gone. He’d been blown to bits.
Then I saw the dog handler and his German shepherd. He was running after a small group of Americans. His dog raced ahead and knocked one of them down. The handler ran forward and, without hesitating, shot the American on the ground in the back of the head. Rage boiled inside me. I wanted to chase that Nazi thug down. I wanted him to pay for his cruelty.
But the planes were coming around again and I had to get into the woods and find cover with Goldsmith. They started firing again, their bullets kicking up the snow in long lines, like a giant flaying the earth with a whip. Before I lost sight of the Nazi and his dog, I realized that Yutz was nowhere to be seen.
I hoped that he had run for safety. What if he was wounded? But I had to stay with Goldsmith. He couldn’t walk on his own. I saw how black and bruised his bare feet had become. Severe frostbite.
“Come on,” I said as we staggered into the forest together.
I’d done what I said I would, anyway. I got Yutz back to his masters. What happened now was up to him. He was a big, mean Nazi war dog, after all.
Still, I wished I’d had the chance to say good-bye.
We rested by a thick growth of fir trees. I set Goldsmith down and caught my breath, glancing back at the black smoke rising from the wreckage of the train and listening to the engine sounds of the American fighter planes fade away as they flew off. Every few seconds, there was a new blast and a pop, like fireworks on the Fourth of July. It was the antiaircraft shells on the train exploding unused in their crates.
Prisoners of War Page 9