Death Train

by Levinson, Len

  “Oh-oh,” Cranepool said. “We’d better get the fuck out of here.” He looked quickly to his right and left. “Get ready to fall back!” he shouted. “The Krauts are bringing up heavy weapons!”

  Cranepool checked over his equipment and tried to plan a reasonable path of retreat. So preoccupied with this was he that he didn’t notice Jacques next to him, staring at the photograph, his face white as a sheet. Jacques’s heart was pounding and there was a terrible roaring in his ears. His beloved little Louise was unfaithful to him, and the pain was nearly unbearable. He turned the photograph over and read the inscription:

  To my darling Cranepool

  With all my love forever

  Louise

  “Mind if I take that back?” Cranepool asked, snatching it out of Jacques’s fingers.

  “Sure,” Jacques said weakly, seeing the photograph disappear.

  “Get ready to move out.”

  Cranepool moved back and forth behind the barricade, giving orders, checking equipment, and taking command. Jacques watched him through heavy lidded eyes and thought of killing him, but Cranepool was so young, so good-looking, so brave, and so vital, that he couldn’t do it. His heart wrenched as he realized that it was reasonable for Louise to fall in love with such a young man, in preference to the old elephant he’d become. Louise was still young, and he shouldn’t have married someone so much younger than he, though he had been madly in love with her, and still was. He pictured her naked in the arms of Cranepool, doing all the things she’d done with him when they’d first been married, and almost keeled over from the pain.

  “Hey Jacques—whatsa matter?” Cranepool said.

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t have your stuff together yet. Come on—let’s go—we’re pulling out!”

  Cranepool moved away. Jacques’s head felt as though it was filling with hot tar. A tear rolled down his right cheek, and he grabbed his rifle in his right hand. Looking around, he saw the others waiting for Cranepool’s signal to move out. He stood up and climbed over the barricade, and then began to run, screaming at the top of his lungs, toward the Germans.

  Cranepool saw the movement in the corner of his eye and looked at him going. “Hey!”

  Jacques howled in misery as he ran toward the Germans, his rifle in his right hand. They opened fire on him and sent him spinning backwards, his blood squirting spirals all around him, as he went down in a gory heap.

  Cranepool blinked. He couldn’t believe his eyes! One moment he’d been talking to the guy, and the next moment he was dead. I wonder what the fuck was the matter with him, Cranepool thought.

  “Are we ready to move out?” somebody asked.

  “In twos just the way I told you,” Cranepool shouted, “move out!”

  The tiny group pulled back to another line of rubble, and then disappeared behind a row of houses before the machine gun and mortar squads had time to set up.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Mahoney was high up in the steeple of the church, standing behind the bell, viewing the battle through binoculars. A huge area about five hundred yards in diameter was leveled in the center of town, and from his vantage point he could see what the enemy’s plan of battle was. The SS were headed toward the church. That’s the way their tanks, and most of their men, were facing. Mahoney couldn’t understand what military significance this part of town had, unless the SS knew that the church had become the base of operations for the defense.

  He frowned, looking back and forth at the enemy line. The situation was deteriorating rapidly. The bazooka crews had been already knocked out of action, most of the hand grenades were gone, and the regular ammunition was running low. There weren’t enough townspeople to maintain a stable battle line against the SS, and their guerilla actions weren’t sufficient to defeat the Germans. Most of the town’s occupants who hadn’t been killed had already fled, leaving behind only the hardcore patriots and Resistance fighters, who couldn’t get away now because the SS was pressing them too closely.

  Mahoney knew he could get away. He could take Cranepool and his people from St. Pierre—those who were left of the original combat team—and move them out, leaving the citizens of the town to defend themselves, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Am I going to die defending a town I never heard of before in my fucking life? he wondered.

  There was no good reason, moral or military, why he should fight for the damned town, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to tuck in his tail and run away.

  “Aw shit,” he mumbled, descending the spiral staircase into the church. The sick and wounded were cramped side by side in the pews and on the floor. Doctor Lambert went from one to the other, tying bandages made of torn sheets, offering encouragement in place of medicine he didn’t have. Father Henri administered last rites to the dying and Sister Marie helped Sister Nathalie in caring for the sick.

  Mahoney wandered through the church, his submachine gun slung over his shoulder, a cigar sticking out of his mouth, trying to figure out how to hold off the Germans. Somehow they had to knock out the remaining six tanks, but there seemed to be no reasonable way to do that. He had no artillery or anti-tank weapons, and no explosives whatever, except for the few remaining hand grenades. He didn’t even have gasoline for Molotov Cocktails. The situation looked grim. I’m gonna die in this little fuckin’ jerk town, he thought.

  The front door of the church flung open, and Cranepool entered at the head of his little band of fighters. The kid was smiling and looking proud as he strutted up to Mahoney. “Hi, Sarge.”

  “Where the fuck have you been, asshole?”

  “On the other side of town. We had us a little war going on, but it got too hot and we had to get out.”

  “It’s gonna get pretty hot here too in a little while.”

  “We can hold em, Sarge,” Cranepool said confidently.

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “I gotta go downstairs and get some more ammo. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  “Don’t take too long, because I might need you for something.”

  “I told you I’d be right back.”

  “Yeah, but for you right back could mean next Tuesday, asshole.”

  “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  “We’ll see.” Mahoney looked at his watches.

  Cranepool walked away cockily and approached the altar. The hidden door was wide open now, and he went down the stairs to the basement, where he found more of the wounded. He knew many had died already, but he wasn’t going to let that get him down. He believed that high morale could win battles, and he wasn’t going to let his drop one bit. Besides, Sergeant Mahoney had been looking a little mournful up there, and Cranepool would have to help his old buddy see the sunny side of the situation. Cranepool didn’t realize there was no sunny side to the situation.

  Entering the hallway where the arms and ammunition had been stored, Cranepool saw that there were no grenades left, and only a half crate of ammunition.

  He heard footsteps and turned to see Louise entering the tunnel. “I heard you’d come down here,” she said. “I’ve missed you so much!”

  They enveloped each other in their arms, kissing passionately, hugging feverishly. She lay her head on his chest.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” she said.

  “Shit—nothing’ll ever happen to me,” he replied. “Sergeant Mahoney said I lead a charmed life, but I was afraid something might have happened to you.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “Were you really thinking about me?”

  “Yes.”

  She rested her head on his chest. “I’m so glad. I’ve been thinking of you every moment. I’ve never been so much in love in my life.”

  “Neither have I,” Cranepool said. “I thought I was in love before, but it’s never been like this.”

  “Ah, what a shame, cheri, that we love each other so much, and that we shall be dead soon.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?
”

  “The Boche outnumber us and they have tanks. We’re running low on ammunition, and we won’t be able to stop them.”

  “Sure we can,” Cranepool said confidently. “Something will happen—you’ll see.”

  “But what could happen, cheri?”

  “Something will come up.”

  She kissed the button of his shirt. “If we die, at least we’ll die together.”

  “We’re not going to die. Stop talking that way.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to die with me, cheri?”

  “If I had to die, I’d rather die with you than anyone else, except maybe Sergeant Mahoney.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Sergeant Mahoney? I can’t imagine why you think so highly of him. He’s such a swine—no manners or refinement at all. And he’s so cruel to you—I don’t know how you can put up with him.”

  Cranepool grinned. “Sergeant Mahoney and me have been through a lot together.”

  “I don’t envy you that.”

  “He’s really a great guy; you just don’t know him as well as I do. He’s the best soldier I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen a lot of them. He’s a tough son-of-a-bitch, that Mahoney.”

  She frowned. “I think you love that filthy pig more than you love me.”

  “He ain’t no filthy pig. You just don’t appreciate old Sergeant Mahoney.”

  “He treats Odette like a dishrag. It’s disgusting.”

  “He has a strange way of dealing with women, I admit.”

  “He’s an animal!” she said with vehemence.

  “You just don’t understand him, Louise.”

  She pushed him away and looked coldly at him. “Yes, I do think you love him more than you love me.”

  “I don’t love him,” Cranepool said, holding out the palms of his hands, “but I like him. He’s my sergeant.”

  “I’ll bet you and he go to bed together, like queers.”

  “Now wait a minute ...”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised—I know you love him more than you love me.”

  “That’s not true,” Cranepool protested. “I love you more than anybody.”

  “Hah!”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, crossing her arms and raising her chin in the air.

  “I really do love you,” he said sincerely, “and in fact, at the barricades I was showing everybody your picture.”

  “You were?” she smiled a little.

  “Yes.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They said you were very pretty.”

  “You’re just making that up.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “But it’s true!” he insisted. Then a strange memory fluttered into his mind. “You know, something very weird happened up there on the barricades.”

  “What was that, cheri?”

  “There was this guy who climbed up over the barricades and ran straight at the Germans for no reason at all. It was as though he’d gone crazy or something. They shot him down, and you know, I think that’s what he wanted to happen.”

  “That is strange,” she agreed.

  “Yeah, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Did you get his name?”

  “He told me his name was Jacques, but I didn’t get his last name.”

  A sudden chill passed over her. “Jacques, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was a big fat guy, around forty-five years old. It was the strangest damn thing, because he’d seemed so normal to me. We’d had some wine and I showed him the picture of you, and then, when I was trying to figure out a way to pull back from the position, suddenly this guy is up and over the barricades, running at the Germans and screaming at the top of his lungs.”

  Louise clasped her hands to her face and began to shriek.

  “Hey—whatsa matter!” He reached out to touch her.

  “Get away from me!”

  “What’d I do?” Cranepool asked, bewildered.

  Louise leaned against the wall and sobbed loudly. “Oh my God!” she wailed.

  “Have you gone nuts, Louise?”

  “Oh, my God!”

  Mahoney stuck his head into the tunnel. “What’s goin’ on here?”

  Cranepool shrugged. “I don’t know!”

  Mahoney looked at Louise. “What’d you do to her?”

  “I didn’t do anything to her.”

  “Then why’s she cryin’?”

  “I don’t know why she’s cryin’!”

  “Did you hit her?”

  “Of course I didn’t hit her!”

  “Then why’s she cryin’?”

  “I told you I don’t know!”

  “You musta done something.”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  Mahoney pointed his forefinger at Cranepool. “Your problem, asshole, is that you don’t know how to handle women.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!”

  “You must’ve done something—you’re just too stupid to know what it is.”

  Louise removed her hands from her face, looked at both of them, shrieked, and ran from the tunnel.

  Mahoney shook his head. “Crazy fuckin’ broads.”

  Cranepool started to run after her, but Mahoney grabbed him by the shirt and stopped him cold. “Where you goin’ asshole?”

  “I’ve got to talk to her!” Cranepool yelled, squirming and trying to get away.

  Just then there was a terrific explosion and the entire church shook. Cranepool and Mahoney dropped to the floor of the tunnel and looked around.

  “Oh-oh,” Mahoney said. ‘They’ve come within range of the church.”

  “What are we gonna do, Sarge?” Cranepool asked as a stream of dirt fell from a crack in the ceiling.

  “There ain’t a fuckin’ thing we can do.”

  “There must be something, Sarge.”

  “There ain’t. I already thought the whole thing through. We’re stuck here. But you can leave if you want to.”

  “Are you leaving?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m not leaving either.”

  There was a commotion in the outer room. The wounded were being carried down the stairs to the basement to get away from the bombardment. Another shell hit the building with a big boom, and it shook again.

  “Those fuckin’ tanks,” Mahoney said through his teeth.

  Father Henri and Leduc came down the stairs.

  ‘They’re shelling the church!” Father Henri said excitedly.

  “It looks that way,” Mahoney agreed.

  “Can’t you do anything?”

  Mahoney shrugged. “I’m afraid not.”

  “But they’ll destroy the church!”

  “It’ll be worse when they get closer.” Mahoney held Father Henri by the shoulders. “I think you’d better prepare everybody for a very serious situation.”

  “A serious situation . . .?”

  “The most serious, if you know what I mean.”

  Father Henri’s jaw dropped open. It finally occurred to him that Mahoney was referring to their total annihilation.

  Leduc stepped forward. “Perhaps we can stop the tanks with hand grenades.”

  “We won’t be able to get that close. The tanks are fitted with machine guns and supported by infantry.”

  “Maybe we can hit them on the flanks.”

  “You can kill some infantry that way, but you won’t be able to get within throwing distance of the tanks.”

  A shell missed the church and landed in the graveyard beside it, sending headstones and old bones flying into the air.

  Mahoney looked at Leduc. “When they get closer, they’re going to blow this building down.”

  “We can’t let them get any closer!”

  “We can’t?” Mahoney asked. “How’re we gonna stop them?”


  Leduc pinched his lips together and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  They all looked at each other solemnly. The end was in sight. When those tanks rolled closer they could fire at the church at pointblank range; it was only a matter of time.

  Mahoney didn’t know whether to stage a last futile attack on the German position, or organize a last futile defense of the church. He looked at Sister Marie bending over a wounded boy no more than thirteen years old. We’re all going to be dead soon, Mahoney thought, unable to imagine that the sun would rise tomorrow and he wouldn’t be around to see it. He wondered where Odette was. There were a few things he wanted to apologize to her about.

  “Sergeant Mahoney,” said Father Henri, “did you say you might be able to stop the tanks if you could get close enough to them to throw hand grenades?”

  “It would be a possibility if we could get close to them, but we can’t get close to them.”

  “There might be a way,” Father Henri said, pointing his index finger into the air.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That tunnel there.”

  Mahoney looked at it. “What about it?”

  “It’s an escape tunnel we dug long ago when the war first began. We thought we might need it sometime to escape from this hideout.”

  “Where does it go?”

  “It goes to a basement of a house in the general direction of where the Germans are.”

  Mahoney grabbed Father Henri by the arm. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “How long would you say the tunnel is?”

  “A couple of hundred meters at least.”

  Mahoney closed his eyes and tried to think. If the tunnel was two hundred meters long, it might lead right to the middle of the German position. All the houses in that area were knocked down, but perhaps they could somehow break through to the surface and knock out those tanks. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was the only chance they had.

  He looked at Leduc. “Get me ten good men and all the hand grenades you can find. Hurry, we don’t have much time.”

  “Yes, Perroquet.”

  Mahoney turned to Cranepool. “You go help him.”

  Leduc and Cranepool ran off up the stairs to the main floor of the church. Mahoney looked at Father Henri. “I think you’d better pray for us.”