“All right,” Staley told them. “We’ve been ordered to abandon the sleds and move forward. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
Kafak rolled out of his sled. He lay hugging the earth. Marshak crawled up right beside him.
“All those weeks training with these fucking things,” he said, “and now we ain’t even gonna use ’em.”
“Fucking army,” Kafak said.
“Get us killed, they’re so fucking fucked up, these motherfuckers.”
“Fuckin-A right,” Kafak said.
“Where the fuck are we, anyway?” Marshak said.
Kafak didn’t know. All he could see was a field of what looked to be wheat. Kafak kept himself buried against the ground. German machine gun fire was snipping the shafts of wheat apart just above his head. He started to crawl forward. He could feel Marshak right behind him, crawling as well. Kafak suddenly stopped.
“Shit,” he said.
“What?” Marshak said.
“We’re in a fucking mine field,” Kafak said. He pointed. “Look.”
Wooden antipersonnel mines. The rain had run off the dirt around them so they were visible. That didn’t mean they all were, though.
“We got to get the fuck out of here, Dash,” Marshak said.
German artillery was zeroing in on the abandoned sleds. Mortars and 88s. They would be pounding them, slicing them to shreds soon. They couldn’t stay out in the open ground where they were. Moving forward, though, held its own perils. Kafak didn’t want to be blown to shit by a mine. He didn’t mind getting killed so much. At least, he told himself so. Something fast and if he never knew what hit him, he thought that might be fine. Good enough, anyway. What he feared, though, was being wounded. Maimed, specifically. He didn’t want to lose an arm or a leg or something else. He’d seen a picture once of a World War I vet, a French guy, he thought he remembered, and the guy had somehow lost his nose in the fighting. He had to wear a leather patch over the empty space where his nose should have been. It was just a hole there. Kafak didn’t think he could live with something like that. A fucking hole in his face. No. No, he would rather just be dead.
He started crawling forward because there was nothing left to do. The Germans were marching their artillery fire toward his position. He couldn’t see anyone else but Marshak right off to his side and slightly behind him. Letting him go first. My buddy, Kafak thought. Only he didn’t hold it against Marshak either. He completely understood the thinking. He’d have done the same if Marshak had been in front to begin with. Kafak didn’t know where he was, where they were. He knew where the front was, though. He could hear the fucking German MG42s spitting out their constant barrage.
Kafak just kept crawling forward. Looking for mines. Keeping his ass down as low as he could make it go. Until you heard a bonecutter slicing the air right above you, you didn’t know what it meant to hug the ground, Kafak figured. He knew, though. He saw a few more of the treacherous mines that had been washed clear of the dirt. Those were the easy ones to avoid. He hoped he didn’t come across any that were hidden. Kafak had slung the Springfield and carried the tommy gun. Mortars kept dropping and exploding but nothing too close, now he was moving. Kafak came out of the wheat field, and there was a patch of ruined ground, so he knew any mines that had been there had been blown already. Or mostly, anyhow. He leaped up into a running crouch and darted forward. He reached a drainage ditch and slid down into it. Kafak saw a group of US soldiers there, in the ditch, hunkered down. Their faces were grimed, and they had smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder all over them. He knew he wouldn’t smell that difference between them for very much longer since the same odor was beginning to cover him as well.
“Hey, Smitty,” Kafak said, recognizing many of the faces. “Hey, Barstow. Guys,” he nodded. “What’re you doing here?”
One of the guys said, “We’re all that’s left of the Third Battalion of the Fifteenth, Dash.”
That had been Kafak and Marshak’s battalion; their regiment. Kafak and Marshak exchanged a look. If not for the sleds, they might not even be here now. Volunteering saved my ass again, Kafak thought, but he didn’t say anything about it. That kind of thing caught up with you, he knew. He stopped thinking about all that.
“That’s all?” Marshak said. “Just you fuckers?”
“It ain’t been easy,” another guy told them.
“Well,” Marshak said, “we’re here now.”
“Good fucking luck with that,” somebody said.
Marshak grinned.
“Hey, I’m just saying we’re here to keep you company, Mac. I don’t plan on winning the goddamned war for you, or anything.”
Some guys laughed. It eased the tension in the ditch, but only a little. Kafak saw Staley slide down into the ditch further along. Some of the other guys from the sled team had arrived there as well. They had maybe a hundred guys or so in that ditch. Kafak wondered what they were supposed to do now. The ditch was taking heavy fire, though they were safe as long as they kept beneath its lip. Kafak watched as the company commander told Staley something. Staley frowned but then crawled up the side of the ditch facing the enemy position. He gingerly stuck his head up above the lip to see what they were facing. Kafak saw a flamethrower erupt. The fire shot forward, toward Staley. It fell a good ten or twenty feet short of him, but he ducked back down, quick. He wiped his face. He felt the heat, Kafak knew. He felt bad for Staley, hoped he’d survive. He was OK, Kafak thought. Kafak took his own peek then, just out of curiosity. He saw a terrain that had been wrecked by months of shelling. A broken farmhouse, some ruined trees. Pockmarked earth everywhere. He thought he saw the German position, a trench, maybe forty yards away. A couple of slugs skidded in the dirt nearby. Kafak dropped back down. Quick.
“Curiosity satisfied?” Marshak said. His voice sounded mocking. He was hunkered down with no intention of moving.
“Sure,” Kafak said. “Good enough for now.”
“Just so you fucking remember what that fucking shit did to the goddamned cat, right.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
Kafak waited for orders. He didn’t intend to do anything until somebody in charge told him he had to. No use taking chances, he figured. He saw a guy he barely knew, one of the men from the battle sled team, push himself up over the edge of the ditch and begin crawling forward. Kafak figured he must have gotten orders to do it. No one would have done something like that without being told to. So Kafak followed him. He assumed they were moving forward, attacking the German position. He kept crawling along, firing his tommy gun at nobody, just trying to keep the Kraut heads down. Machine guns were firing, but the slugs were ripping the air above his head. Some splashed up dirt a few yards ahead of him. He heard Marshak yelling something, couldn’t make it out. He kept crawling, fast as he could. He figured if he made it to the German ditch, he could stop those machine guns from rattling his ass. Of course, he’d have a whole different set of things to worry about then. Still, he kept going. Right behind the guy from the team. He figured everyone else was right behind him, but he didn’t know. He couldn’t take the time to look back. Forward, he thought, keep moving forward. He reached the German trench and poked his Thompson over the edge. Shot a burst. This section of the enemy position held no troops. He slid down into the ditch. Looked both ways. Every ten or fifteen feet, the trench made a turn. Germans could come at any time from either side. He’d lost sight of the other guy, the guy he had followed. Kafak crouched in the trench, catching his breath, keeping himself ready to fire in either direction. Long seconds crawled by and nothing happened. No Germans attacked. But then, no help arrived either. Where were the other guys, Kafak wondered. They should have been here, in the trench, with him, by now. He took a chance and looked back over the lip of the trench. The ground was empty. No one was coming. Kafak ducked back down. A tremor ran through him.
“What the fuck?” he said in a low mutter.
He kept looking for Germans to attack him. He wonder
ed what he should do. Going back didn’t seem a likely alternative. There was still gunfire coming from every direction, both from the Germans manning another trench line forty or fifty yards farther on as well as from his own fellows who were shooting toward the Germans. He’d stuck himself in the middle of a cross fire without realizing it. He thought about the guy who’d gotten him into all this. Where was that fucker now? What was he doing?
“Fuck me,” Kafak said.
Out loud but in a hissed whisper.
Kafak thought he might wave to his own guys, let them know he was here in the German trench line and still alive. That might alert the Germans, though. They could converge on him. He’d be in the shit then. Hell, he was already in it, for that matter. Kafak heard some feet scrabbling in the dirt of the trench, off to his right. He swung the tommy gun in that direction. He plopped down on the ground. Flat. A guy came around the bend in the trench, firing a machine gun of his own. The slugs cut a line in the side of the trench, right where Kafak had just been standing, crouched and waiting. Kafak nearly pulled the trigger to fire back, but held up.
“I’m American,” he said. Shouted. His voice raw and edged. “Stop fucking shooting at me, goddamnit!”
“Holy shit,” Staley said. “How’d you get here, Kafak?”
“Same’s you, I suppose,” Kafak said.
He got back to his feet. That’s the second son of a bitching GI’s life I’ve saved, he thought. Maybe I am doing some good in this goddamn war. A couple more guys followed Staley into this section of the trench. There were five of them total now. Kafak felt better about things.
“You OK?” Staley asked. He sounded worried that he might’ve accidentally killed Kafak. It wouldn’t be the first casualty of friendly fire in the war, nor the last.
“Yeah,” Kafak said. “Thank God you shoot for shit.”
Staley grinned.
“Thank God for small miracles,” he said.
“Yeah.” Kafak paused. He looked back over their shoulders. “Anything back that way?”
“It’s all cleaned out,” Staley said. He nodded behind Kafak. “What’s there?”
“You got me,” Kafak said. “I ain’t looked yet.”
“Well, let’s take a gander now, shall we?”
“You’re the boss, Sarge.”
Kafak fell in with the rest of the guys, and Staley led them through a couple more turns. Staley shot a German in one of them, lacing the guy in the back with his tommy gun. They all passed the man by, and Kafak paused to make sure the soldier was dead and then plucked the soldier’s Luger from him. He stuck it inside his field jacket. Lugers made the best souvenirs. He followed just in time to curl around another corner in the trench, right next to Staley and another guy. A German with a burp gun was there and fired at them. He fired too quickly, though, and his bullets all dug into the ground at their toes. Kafak opened fire with his Thompson. A reflex. Staley and the other guy pulled their triggers at the same time. Bullets went everywhere, a bunch of them kicking up dirt in front of the German, a bunch more pocking holes out of the sides of the trench to either hand of the German, and a bunch more stitching new lines into his chest and stomach. The German jerked around from the impact of the slugs that hit him, banging back against the side of the trench, and then just dropped straight to the ground once the bullets stopped hitting him and there was nothing left to hold him up.
“Fuck,” Kafak said.
“Son of a bitch, that was too fucking close,” the other guy said.
“Shit,” Staley said, a mutter.
They moved forward again. Kafak noticed that Staley had searched the latest dead Kraut for a Luger. He figured Staley must’ve forgotten with the first guy he’d killed. Too much adrenaline or something. This time, though, he remembered. In the end, though, Staley passed on this German’s pistol because it was covered and sticky with blood. One of the other guys didn’t mind so much. He picked up the gun and wiped it clean on his pant leg, then tucked it into his belt. They crouched along, and more of their fellows were joining them now, sliding down into the trench, the American line moving forward. They came first in dribs and drabs and then, all of a sudden, a slew of guys dropped into the trench all at once, up and down the line. Staley gathered up all the men so they had some semblance of organization. A captain jumped down into the trench and took command. He led the entire group up over the top and on toward the next line of defense. They took heavy fire for a minute or so, then peppered the Germans with grenades and small arms fire, Thompsons, M1s, BARs. It took only maybe a minute and a half, and then they saw a Kraut raising his arms, holding up a white handkerchief. Dozens more hands followed in the same way. One of the Americans hollered something in German. It must have been an order to come on out because the Germans climbed out of the trench. The captain assigned Staley and some others to take the prisoners back behind the lines. Staley didn’t take Kafak or Marshak with him.
“Fucking bastard,” Marshak said. “We coulda been out of this shit, Dash.”
“Well,” Kafak said. “Staley is.”
“Fucking Staley. A newbie like that and he’s out after an hour or so. We’ve been in this fucking hell for months, and we get stuck with more of the same. Always more of the motherfucking same.”
“Fucking soldiers, is what we are,” Kafak said, and grinned.
“Aw, fuck you, Bobby,” Marshak said, but he smiled back.
Kafak saw the captain speaking rapidly into the radio. Then he cleared the line and ordered the men to follow him. He led about fifty guys or so down the trench line, heading east, mostly. Marshak, always wanting to know what was happening, skittered up close to the officer and said, “What’s going on, Cap? Where we headed?”
“There’s a farmhouse near here. It’s holding up the advance. We’ve been ordered to remove that obstacle.”
“Attack a farmhouse, huh? A dug-in, fortified position.” Marshak looked at Kafak and all he said was, “Fucking Staley.”
Kafak heard the machine guns then. Sounded like maybe four or five of them, overlapping. And then he heard one of the worst sounds any GI could hear coming from a German position. The sound of their 20 mm gun. The 20 mm flak wagons. Machine guns sort of rat-a-tat-tatted, with just the smallest of pauses between shots. But the 20 mm, belt fed, fired so fast that it just sounded a brrrrrrrrrrt because all the shots sounded as if rolled into one long shot. Every GI who’d ever heard one recognized the sound immediately. And hated it. The huge slugs were devastating. Kafak had seen guys torn up by them before. One guy took one of the bullets high in the bicep, and his entire arm went flying off behind him. The guy actually took a few more steps before he understood what had happened and fell to the ground screaming in horror and pain. Kafak didn’t think he’d ever forget that. One of those 20 mms hit you in an arm or a leg, and you could count that limb gone, and gone for good. Hit you in the body full, you were just dead meat. Kafak had seen one guy who’d taken a 20 during the first assault on Cisterna. The soldier had been lying in a field as Kafak duckwalked past. The man had been hit in the belly. A hole the size of a fucking softball. Kafak could actually see the ground underneath the guy, through the hole. It had rattled him at the time.
“Fucking twenties,” he said then to Marshak.
“Fucking Germans. They got more and better ways to kill a guy then anybody I know.”
“Inventive sonsa bitches, you gotta give them that.”
“I ain’t ready to give ’em nothing but a bullet up the ass.”
“Let’s do that, then.”
The farmhouse stood about twenty yards from the edge of the trench where the line drew nearest to it. That’s where the captain set up for the assault. He pointed to five guys, including Kafak and Marshak. “You guys go left,” he ordered them. “Flank that house.”
The five men all nodded simultaneously and looked at one another.
“We go up together,” Marshak said. “Right?”
“On three.”
“Wait,�
�� Kafak said. “Let me shoot these first.” He still had his rifle grenades. He unslung the Springfield and loaded it with the blank cartridge that would explode the rifle grenade out of the barrel without blowing it to hell at the end of the gun, sending Kafak and everyone near him straight to hell. Kafak rose up to fire over the lip of the trench, but German machine guns pushed him back down. “Shit,” he said, “fuck.” He held the gun just above the edge of the trench and fired it. “I hit anything?” he asked.
“What the fuck?” Marshak said. “None of us are gonna stick our asses up to take a look.”
“Your grenade missed the house,” the captain said. “Try looking when you aim.”
“Try go fucking yourself,” Kafak said, but under his breath so the captain couldn’t hear.
Marshak heard, though, and said, “You got that one right on the money, partner.”
Kafak grunted, then reloaded with a second grenade. He moved along the trench to his left, in case the Germans had zeroed in on his position. He took a deep breath, got himself ready. Then he popped up, placed the gun on the house, and fired. He jerked back down without getting shot at.
“That one was a hit, soldier. Good shooting,” the captain said.
Kafak grunted to him, then said to Marshak, “Yeah, blow it out your ass, you asshole son of a bitch.” Marshak laughed, and Kafak repeated the action with his last grenade, moving down the trench to a new firing position again. This one, too, hit the farmhouse. Kafak didn’t know if any of them did any damage. Other guys were firing rifle grenades at the house as well, but there weren’t that many guys who had the Springfields along with their main weapons. Only a handful besides Kafak. When he’d finished with the rifle grenades, he abandoned the Springfield in the trench. It was useless to him now. He looked at Marshak and the others. “OK,” he said. “Now we can count this fucker off.”
Marshak nodded, then counted it off, and they all sprang up over the edge of the trench. Marshak immediately flew backward, back down to the bottom of the ditch. Kafak slid back down after him.
One Man's War Page 14