by Len Levinson
Master Sergeant Tweed, the first sergeant of Charlie Company, sat inside a bunker with Private, First Class Drago, the company clerk. Drago sat in front of his portable typewriter and still was trying to get out the morning report, although it had been due at battalion headquarters several hours before. But so many men had been killed, wounded, and missing in action and so many could not be accounted for that he hadn’t been able to put together a report that would be acceptable at battalion.
The door to the bunker opened, and Captain Anderson, the commanding officer of Charlie Company, entered. He was twenty-one years old and was returning from a meeting at battalion headquarters.
“Round up all the platoon leaders and have them report to me,” Captain Anderson said to Sergeant Tweed.
“Yes, sir.”
Anderson entered his tiny office, closed the door, and sat behind the little wooden table that served as his desk. He took out a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled, feeling exhausted to the marrow of his bones. He blew the smoke out of his mouth and wished he could get some sleep, but there was work to do. He’d been up all last night, and it looked as though he’d be up all of tonight, too. He didn’t know how he could keep going, but he’d have to somehow.
Puffing the cigarette, he thought about last night, and tried to evaluate his performance as a company commander. It had been the first time he’d ever been in combat, and he’d made a lot of mistakes. He thought he should have pulled out of Villeruffec long before he did despite the orders that told him to hold out as long as he could. He’d known for several hours that a dangerous situation was developing there, and he should have ignored the orders. It was becoming clear to him that one of his biggest problems as a company commander was determining the right course of action between common sense and orders. You can’t disobey orders, but sometimes you have to. There was a knock on his door.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Corporal Cranepool entered. Cranepool advanced to the desk, saluted, and reported.
“At ease, Cranepool.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll wait for the others to arrive, and then we’ll begin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cigarette?”
“I’ll have one of my own, sir.”
Cranepool took out a cigarette and lit it up as Anderson watched him. He and Cranepool were the same age, but he was the company commander, and Cranepool was only a corporal, although Cranepool had been fighting since the landings in Sicily over a year ago. Anderson had exchanged a few words with Cranepool since taking command of Charlie Company and seemed to have nothing in common with him at all. Anderson was a college graduate and the son of a lawyer, whereas Cranepool was basically a farm boy who, according to the scuttlebutt, could get a little kill crazy in the heat of battle. They were the same age chronologically, but Anderson felt twenty years older than Cranepool. Now, after the bloody events of last night, Anderson even felt older than his father.
The other platoon leaders arrived one by one in Anderson’s office, and each of them was a sergeant. All of Anderson’s junior officers, and many of his NCOs, too, had been killed during the night. Colonel Sloan at battalion said they’d get replacements during the next few days. Anderson didn’t see how he could continue with no officers and only half a company.
He stood behind the desk. “All right, let’s get started,” he said. “I’ve just returned from a meeting with Colonel Sloan at battalion, and he told me that we’re going across the river again tonight at midnight.”
The men groaned. Anderson held up his hand.
“It won’t be like last night,” he explained, “because tonight we’ll have all the artillery preparation and support that we’ll need. We shouldn’t have any trouble at all.”
Buck Sergeant Grissom from the third platoon raised his hand. “If we can have all the artillery we need tonight, how come we couldn’t have it last night?”
“Don’t ask me,” Anderson said.
Everyone was silent because they thought a lot of their buddies still would be alive if they’d had the artillery last night.
Sergeant Rademacher of the weapons platoon scowled. “This stupid fucking war,” he said.
“Knock it off,” Anderson told him.
The door opened and Private, First Class Drago poked his head inside. “Sir, Sergeant Mahoney just showed up, and I was wondering if I should send him into the meeting.”
Cranepool twisted his head around and looked at Drago. Mahoney was back already?
“Send him in,” Anderson said.
“Yes, sir.”
The door opened wide, and Mahoney walked unsteadily into the room. He still wore the helmet with the white cross on the side, and he carried an open C ration can in his left hand and a fork in his right. His bandage was visible, and it was soaked thoroughly, but no blood was on it. He hadn’t shaved for four days and looked filthy as a sewer rat.
“Master Sergeant Mahoney reporting, sir,” he said, saluting with the hand that held the fork.
Anderson returned the salute, wondering whether to reprimand Mahoney for saluting with the fork in his hand. He decided not to because if it hadn’t been for Mahoney, Charlie Company would have lost more men than it did last night; on the other hand, Mahoney should know better than to salute with a fork in his hand.
“I thought you were at the dressing station,” Anderson said to Mahoney.
“I was,” Mahoney replied, “but I came back, sir.”
Anderson looked at the bandage on Mahoney’s shoulder. “How do you feel?”
“Fair to middling.”
“I’m surprised they let you out of the hospital.”
Mahoney shuffled his feet around. “Well, sir, they didn’t exactly let me out.”
“You’re not AWOL from the hospital, are you?”
Mahoney winked. “Ain’t I?”
“Good grief,” Anderson said, covering his face with his hand.
Chapter Four
Adolf Hitler stood in front of the red-marble map table in his headquarters in Rastenburg. It was a cold, gloomy fall day, and the heating system was set too high, making the room uncomfortably warm, but army engineers were working on it, and there was every reason to believe that the system would be fixed before the day was ended.
Hitler’s left arm still was useless due to wounds he’d sustained during the attempt on his life of July 20. He suffered blinding headaches, stomach cramps, and insomnia, and even now, as he tried to read the documents in his right hand, the print blurred, and he had difficulty deciphering the figures. His little dog, Blondi, paced the floor underneath the map table as if he, too, knew that the Reich was in dire straits.
Hitler squinted through his spectacles as he looked through the documents. They were estimates of troop and equipment availabilities for his big Ardennes offensive, which he was planning to unleash against the Allies in December. He was confident that this offensive not only would stop the Allied armies but also defeat them decisively and in one bold stroke change the course of the war and the direction of history.
Hitler looked nervously at the map. He knew that his Ardennes offensive would never be launched if his armies couldn’t stall or at least stop the British and Americans right now, before they broke through the Siegfried Line and entered Germany itself. Time was of the essence, and he didn’t know if fate would give him enough of it.
Looking at the British sector of the line, he noted that his soldiers had, in fact, slowed the British considerably. Field Marshal Montgomery had paid a heavy price for Antwerp, and the Allied ships still couldn’t use the harbor because German soldiers controlled the estuaries leading into it. Farther south, Armeegruppe Patton also had been stopped. Hitler considered Patton the best general the Americans had and never thought ragged and worn-out German soldiers could stop him, but stop him they did. Perhaps Patton had been lucky and now his luck was running out, or maybe he wasn’t the great general that he’d appeared to be. There was a knock
on the door.
“Come in,” said Hitler.
General Alfred Jodl, Hitler’s chief of staff, entered the room with a big smile on his face. “Heil, Hitler!” he shouted, throwing his hand into the air.
Hitler accepted the salute placidly. “What is it now?”
“Good news, Mein Fuehrer!” He held out a communiqué from the front.
“What does it say?” Hitler asked eagerly, his spirits brightening.
Jodl didn’t have to read the communiqué because he already had its substance memorized. “General Balck reports that he’s thrown Armeegruppe Patton back across the Moselle River!”
“No!” shouted Hitler happily.
“Yes!” replied Jodl.
Hitler pointed to the map. “Show me!”
“Right here!” Jodl replied, pointing to the section of the Moselle near Pont-Mousson.
Hitler smiled for the first time that day. “And where else?”
“Only there, Mein Fuehrer,” Jodl admitted.
“Only there?”
“Yes.”
“That small area right there?”
“Yes, Mein Fuehrer,” Jodl said weakly.
Hitler’s smile vanished. “General Patton commands an entire army group. If we’ve thrown them back across the Moselle, they have been thrown back on a much broader front.”
“Actually,” Jodl admitted, “only part of Armeegruppe Patton was thrown back.”
“How big a part?”
“Around a division,” Jodl said, not knowing that only a battalion had been defeated, but every reporting officer had exaggerated a little, and in due course the battalion had grown to a division.
“That means that a substantial part of Armeegruppe Patton still is on the east side of the Moselle?”
“Yes, Mein Fuehrer.”
“Hmmm,” said Hitler, resting his chin in his hand. “It’s not much of a victory, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Most assuredly,” Jodl agreed.
“It could mean a major change in the fortunes of this war.”
“It certainly could.”
“Who is responsible for defeating this division from Armeegruppe Patton ?”
Jodl held up the communiqué and located the name. “General Hans Dietrich Kretchmer, the commanding officer of the 217th Panzergrenadier Division.”
“Get him on the phone for me right now.”
“Yes, Mein Fuehrer.”
The former artillery officer walked in long, firm strides to the desk and initiated the series of telephone communications that would bring General Kretchmer’s voice to Rastenburg. Hitler crossed his arms and looked down at the map. He believed in the significance of omens and portents and wondered if this small victory was the harbinger of great triumphs to come. It surely indicated that even Patton’s soldiers could be defeated, and that fact alone could bolster the morale of German troops in the west as surely as it bolstered his own morale.
If only all my units would fight like the 217th Panzergrenadiers, Hitler thought, then we could stop the British and Americans and set them up for the great Ardennes offensive that will crush them utterly and forever.
General Jodl hung up the telephone. “Kretchmer is in the field inspecting his troops,” he said. “I have left word that he call you immediately upon his return.”
“Excellent,” said Adolf Hitler.
~*~
General Hans Dietrich Kretchmer stood on a hill overlooking the Moselle River and gazed through his binoculars at the American positions on the other side. He wished he had the troops and equipment to cross the river and attack the Americans again, but the German army was only now beginning to put together the semblance of a solid front in the west after a series of catastrophes that commenced with the Allied landings on June 6. Yet he’d managed, with cooks, clerks, and supply personnel, to hurl back an attack from Armeegruppe Patton and was intensely proud of himself. The Americans weren’t so great, after all. They could be defeated like any other soldiers.
The forests and roads through which he’d passed to reach this hill had been cluttered with heaps of dead American soldiers torn apart by the ferocity of the battle. The Americans hadn’t even tried to defend themselves with artillery and armor. What terrible incompetence. Kretchmer realized that the Americans had only been lucky until now. They’d managed to catch the Wehrmacht by surprise on the beaches of Normandy, but now, if the Wehrmacht could offer stiff resistance, the American army would fall apart. It was simple once you grasped the essentials of a problem.
He heard the screech of tires behind him. Turning, he saw Captain Fritz Nagle jump out of a Kubelwagen and run toward him, throwing the Hitler salute.
“What it is?” Kretchmer asked pleasantly, for he was in a magnificent mood.
“My general!” Nagle exclaimed. “The Fuehrer has called your headquarters and requested that you call him back when you return from your inspection of the front!”
Kretchmer’s jaw dropped opened, and the monocle popped out of his eye. “The Fuehrer, you say?”
“Yes, my general.”
“Calling me?”
“Yes, my general.”
Kretchmer threw forward his left foot and moved swiftly toward the Kubelwagen, with Nagle following close at his heels.
~*~
Mahoney sat in a muddy trench, protected from the rain by a tent half. He was smoking a cigar that he’d bummed off the mess sergeant, and next to him was his empty mess kit, licked clean. His belly was full, his shoulder didn’t hurt too much, and the only thing missing was a good stiff shot of cognac, but you can’t have everything.
He was looking forward to the assault across the Moselle at midnight. Although he wasn’t a particularly gung-ho soldier, he wanted to pay the krauts back for what they’d done to Charlie Company last night. They’d killed a lot of good men, and they’d even shot him in the arm. Mahoney was determined to really kick ass when he got on the other side of the Moselle. Shoot first and ask questions afterward. Fuck the Geneva Convention.
“Sergeant Mahoney?” called a voice from above.
“Yo,” Mahoney replied.
Private, First Class Drago slid into the trench, accompanied by a soldier Mahoney had never seen before.
“How ya doing, sarge?” asked Drago.
“What’s it to you?”
Drago pointed to the other soldier. “This here’s a new replacement. Captain Anderson told me to bring him to you.”
Mahoney leaned forward and looked at the new replacement, who had the sorrowful, thick-lipped face of a camel. “Just one replacement?” Mahoney asked.
“Yep.”
“What kind of shit is this?” Mahoney asked. “One replacement? I need twenty replacements.”
“He’s the only one we got.”
“Just one replacement for the whole company?”
“Actually, he was supposed to come in with the last batch we got, but he got lost.”
Mahoney looked at the replacement. “You got lost?”
The soldier blinked his bulging eyes and grinned crazily. “Uh huh.”
“How’d you get lost?”
“I dunno.”
“You been lost for a fucking week?”
“Guess so.”
Mahoney looked at Drago. “Take him back—I don’t want him.”
“You gotta have him,” Drago replied.
“Why have I got to have him?”
“Becuzz Captain Anderson said so.”
“But I don’t want anybody who can get lost for a whole fucking week. I got enough assholes in this platoon as it is.”
Drago shrugged. “What can I tell you, sarge? He’s all yours. See you later.”
Drago climbed out of the trench, leaving the new replacement alone with Mahoney, who puffed his cigar and felt himself becoming deeply depressed.
“What did I do to deserve you?” Mahoney asked.
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked.
“Not only don’t I know w
ho you are,” Mahoney replied, “but I wish you’d go away.”
“My mother is Betty Grable,” the man said.
Mahoney looked into the big bulging eyes in front of him and saw madness and delusion. This guy’s a fucking psycho case, Mahoney thought. This time they’ve given me a psycho case.
“You don’t look anything like Betty Grable,” Mahoney replied.
“My father is Charles MacDonald. You ever heard of him?”
“No.”
“He’s a famous fighter pilot.”
“That your name—MacDonald?”
“No, my name’s Riggs.” The soldier grinned crazily.
Mahoney closed his eyes and shook his head. I hope this guy gets shot tonight, he thought, because I don’t think I can take very much of him.
“Are you saying a prayer?” the man asked.
“No.”
“You look like a holy man.”
“I ain’t so holy.”
“Well, that’s the way you look.” Riggs started giggling and put his hand over his mouth.
“What’re you laughing at?” Mahoney asked.
Riggs took his hand away and became very serious. “There are good devils and bad devils,” he said, “and sometimes the good devils can help you out more than Christ.”
“Oh,” Mahoney said.
“You know, mental patients sometimes are closer to the truth than regular people because we hear voices.”
“I see,” Mahoney said, puffing his cigar. He realized that the man sitting next to him was a full-blown lunatic who’d somehow got into the army pipeline and wound up in his platoon.
“Where you from, Riggs?”
“Butte, Montana.”
“What’d you do there?”
“Worked in the mine.”
Mahoney wondered what to do with him. The man was an idiot and would have to be watched all the time. Maybe he’d be killed before long and that would solve the problem.
“You know what a walkie-talkie is?” Mahoney asked.
“Sure,” replied Riggs. “You talk into it, and it talks back to you.”
“Right. You think you could work one?”
“I could if somebody showed me how. Maybe I could get one of those little devils to show me how.”