The door was flung open, and men tramped in, spitting out their many crowded consonants and flashing torches about. “Niemand hier.” The four Americans cowered and held their breath. Would the intruders climb up and investigate the hay, perhaps stab into it with their bayonets? Sound military practice would have called for that; but they had had a hard day and half a night, driving, marching, fighting; also, the makeshift ladder did not look too strong. They did not climb but settled down to gulp their hard rations and get ready for the night. Their talk was of the day’s adventures, and their mood was of exultation—mind triumphing over the exhaustion of the body. They had driven die amerikanischen Schweinhunde in rout before them; this time they were really going through with it—they would cut off the enemy from his base and pin him against the sea as they had done with the French and the British four and a half years ago. Sieg Heil!
IV
The newly appointed commander of three other pig-dogs lay still and thought hard about his duty. It seemed certain that when sleeping time came—and that would be but a few minutes—some of these men would climb into the hay. Then it would be either fight or surrender. A single grenade tossed down might eliminate most of the group in the barn; but what about the greater number outside, and the tanks with their powerful spotlights and deadly machine guns? Lanny and his friends would surely die; and was that their duty? Only one of them had been trained to fight, and he had been told not to.
On the other hand, what were Lanny Budd’s personal chances if he surrendered? He had destroyed all his papers and could give a false name and might get by with it. But he had traveled all over Germany, ever since boyhood, and had known literally thousands of Germans, especially of the officer class and among the Nazis of the ruling group. He had met them at Berchtesgaden and Karinhall and in the Berlin Chancellery; he had spent a week at the Parteitag in Nürnberg the year before the war and been introduced wholesale. Everywhere he had been conspicuous as the Führer’s one and only American friend; and now, in all probability, they knew that he had been a spy and traitor to their cause. Was it conceivable that he could become a prisoner and pass under a false name? And if he were recognized, would they be content to hang or shoot him? Wasn’t it certain that they would apply all the fancy kinds of scientific torture they had devised to make him reveal the names of his accomplices? So why not die quickly and take a few highly trained enemy troops along with him?
But what about his three companions? They had a chance for their lives and might wish to take it; but he couldn’t ask them, he had to decide for them, and that was a delicate ethical problem. He had to think fast, for at any moment one of the weary Germans might decide to hit the hay. To live or not to live, that was the question. To save his companions and take a chance on being able to kill himself if and when the Nazis found him out? If only he had had one of those tiny cyanide capsules with which the OSS provided its agents when going into enemy territory!
As it happened, this decision didn’t have to be made. The door of the barn was suddenly thrown open, and a commanding voice shouted, “’Raus! Alles ’raus!” Without so much as a mutter or a groan the well-disciplined troopers scrambled to their feet, gathered up their gear, and filed out into the sifting snow. Lanny’s heart leaped; they were going away, leaving this comfortable shelter to the American pig-dogs!
But that hope lasted only a minute or so. There was another stern command, in another voice. “Herein, Ihr Hurensöhne!” Then more shuffling feet; other men coming into the barn, a great many, for the sounds went on and on, the angry voice still shouting, “Hier herein fahren!” This time the men were not silent and humble; they muttered and grumbled, and what they said was, “The goddam bastards, what do they think we are—sardines?” No difficulty in identifying those voices: the barn was being filled with prisoners of war.
After much shouting in German the Americans were packed in to the satisfaction of their captors, and then the door of the barn was slammed shut. Half a minute later came an ominous sound, unmistakably hammer and nails—the door was being nailed up. “Holy Christ!” exclaimed a voice. “They’re putting us in here to suffocate!” Then another voice, “Maybe they’re going to set fire to the place!” There was a babel of protests, cries, and curses.
The four refugees scrambled up out of their hay nests. Their impulse was to call to the men below, but Lanny cautioned, whispering, “The Germans may have spies among them.” He went to the ladder, made by nailing boards onto one of the supporting posts of the barn. He went down a couple of steps, then reached and touched one of the men on the shoulder. The startled man reached up, and Lanny took his hand and shook it, then guided it to the boards, which had not been discovered in the darkness. That was enough; the man started to climb, and Lanny preceded him.
V
Up in the loft there was a whispered conference. “What unit are you?”
“Combat Command R of 9th Armored Division. Who are you?”
“One soldier and three Monuments officers; art experts, not fighting men. But we have weapons; one carbine, one automatic, two grenades, and two knives.”
“Fighting knives?”
“Sharp as razors.”
“That’s what we need. If we have to fire a shot we’re sunk. How can we get out of this barn without waking up the whole Kraut army?”
Peter Morrison, ex-farm boy from Wisconsin, spoke up. In this “man’s Army there was always somebody who could answer any question. “Every barn has to have a hay window, to pitch the stuff in; it’s always at the front, and all I ever saw open inward.”
“You look for it,” was the reply, “and I’ll get the lieutenant.”
It took Morrison but a minute to find the window and come back and report: it was oblong in shape, made entirely of wood, and held in place by a strip of wood which turned at the center. When the strip was turned crossways the cover was fastened; when it was turned vertically the cover was loose and could be lifted down. It should be possible to perform this operation noiselessly.
The combat man came with three others, who gave their names as Lieutenant Hutchins and Sergeants Carvalho and Eckart. Lanny never saw their faces; he knew them only by voice. They talked fast, and it was evident that they knew their business down to the last detail; they had spent two years learning it and half a year acting what they had learned. With quiet competence they laid out the procedure. First, get as many men as possible into the loft and instruct the rest to climb up as fast as room was made; then open the hay window as softly as possible and listen for the sentry below. There would probably not be more than one because of the door having been nailed. The most powerful and active of the Americans, one trained in commando work, would drop upon that sentry’s back, bear him down, and slit his throat with the knife. Another commando would be a second or two behind, prepared to help.
Everything of course depended upon that first action. If the sentry succeeded in giving a cry or firing a shot, it would be all up with the project—and probably with the projectors. But the job was a simple one, a hundred times rehearsed. Other men would be dropping fast and they would look for other sentries at the sides of the barn or behind it. If you could steal up behind a man, you would grab him by the face with the left hand, pull his head back, and pass the knife across his neck. If the sentry was facing you, you said “Heil Hitler! Ein Freund!” and when he saluted you clasped him to your bosom with your left hand and cut his throat with the right. All that presupposed darkness, of which there was an unlimited quantity outside.
“And when your men have all dropped, what then?” asked Lanny. The answer was, they would scatter and run for it. But the P.A. countered, “Why not march out in good order? If the alarm is not given, the Germans won’t turn on their searchlights and won’t see our uniforms. I have listened to a thousand German officers giving orders, and I’m sure I can talk your men all the way across a barnyard and out into a forest.”
“God Almighty!” exclaimed the lieutenant, pleased but uncert
ain.
“Most of the officers will be in the farmhouse, eating supper and resting. No German common soldier dares to challenge an officer or anything he does. Their units have probably been scrambled up, just like our own, and an unfamiliar voice won’t attract attention.”
“All right, sir, we’ll put our fate in your hands.”
“One thing more: have each of your men start questioning every man around him and make sure he knows the identity of everyone he puts his hands on. The enemy may have put spies in with you to pick up information regarding units and their disposition.”
“OK, sir,” said the young officer; “and if we find a stranger we’ll make sure he doesn’t tell tales.”
VI
This was the program, and it was carried out with all speed, for who could tell at what moment a squad might appear to set fire to this barn? A horrid idea, but Lanny wouldn’t have put it past these black-clad SS men with the death’s head insignia on their sleeves. The orders were passed in whispers, and the Yanks stood in dead silence. The cover was carefully removed from the hay window. Lanny and his friends stood near, holding their breath while the commando dropped. Fortunately there was a tank running its engine near by; also, there were firing in the woods and the rumble of distant artillery—enough to drown out whatever groan or cry the sentry or sentries may have made.
The men were dropping out of the window, a steady stream of them. The lieutenant told Lanny and his friends to go; he would follow, and they would keep together. The drop was nothing, for the barn was small, and when you were hanging by your hands from the window you were only three or four feet from the ground; a pair of strong arms caught you by the knees and set you down and shoved you to one side. Lanny didn’t count the procession, but there must have been thirty or forty. When the last one was on the ground the young officer took Lanny and his friends to the front of the group. He whispered, “OK!”
So there was Hauptmann von Buddow, or maybe it was Buddenbrooks or Buddenburg, commanding: “Habt Acht, Kompagnie! Vorwärts marsch!” They started: tramp, tramp, all in step, and hitting the ground hard. And meantime the commanding officer was pronouncing an oration: “Diesmal gehts ums Ganze, zum letzten Mal gehen wir ran an den Feind! Die amerikanischen Schweinhunde sind in voller Flucht. Wir werden sie ins Meer werfen. Wir kämpfen für Führer und Vaterland. Mag der Kampf auch heiss sein, diesmal wird ein schneller Sieg winken. Sieg Heil!”
A bit flowery, perhaps, but this was a Hitlerjugend SS group, and its officers were in a mood of glory; the world was theirs, and why shouldn’t they repeat the familiar slogans to troops called upon to march out and fight in darkness and cold? We fight for Führer and Fatherland! The battle may be hot, but a quick victory will greet us! Hail victory! Thus inspired, the detachment marched across the barnyard, and over what the tanks had left of the stone fence, and out into the forest by the same track which Lanny and his group had entered by. No alarm was given, no lights were flashed, and they were left to imagine what happened when the Germans discovered how their cageful of birds had flown.
Deep in the forest, the lieutenant ordered them to break up into groups of three, get off the road, travel as far as they could in the darkness, then grope their way into the thickets. The moment daylight came they would start traveling, and collect weapons from the many dead bodies which lay about. They would try to reach the American lines, though nobody had much of an idea where the lines were. The young officer invited Monuments to come with him, but they thought that four was as large a group as could easily hide, and there was a difference of methods between hiders and fighters. They exchanged addresses and promised to write and let each other know how they had made out; but Lanny never heard from this able young shavetail. They were a rank in which many replacements were needed; they led their men into the fight and many did not come back.
VII
The P.A. had exchanged a few sentences with members of the fleeing group but had not learned very much. They did not know where they were; they could only say that there had been an overwhelming offensive. The 9th Armored had been ordered to hold at all costs and they had done so; the noncombatants—the cooks, clerks, mechanics, and even members of the band—had caught up weapons and stood fast until their last cartridges had been fired. They had fallen back, got more ammunition, and fought again. They had surrendered only when they found themselves surrounded and helpless. The Germans had taken everything they had, so they could not offer the Monuments officers so much as a can of bully beef.
Men who are well fed and well clad can perhaps dig into snow and sleep without danger; but men whose bellies are empty, and who have been floundering through snowdrifts to the point of exhaustion, dare not lie down and lose consciousness. They established a system, whereby three lay down to rest and one stood guard and kicked their feet and made them answer. After a while there would be a fresh kicker; so they all managed to keep alive until a pale, ghostly light began to spread through the fogbound forest. It was one of the most beautiful forests in Europe, but they wholly failed to appreciate it. They did not admire the snow-laden fir trees which now and then dropped loads upon their heads; they did not like the high ridges, strewn with rocks behind which snipers might hide and take potshots; they did not like the deep ravines which filled up with snow, and sometimes with treacherous ice-covered water. If you slipped you might lose all your toes when you stopped walking and started freezing.
But the Lord must have loved the Ardennes because He had made such a lot of it and kept it going for so long. It stretched well into France, covered the southern part of Belgium and the northern part of Luxembourg, and into Germany as far as the Rhine. Many thousands of square miles of it—no one could say exactly because it petered out at the edges and there were stretches of cultivated land, with scattered towns and villages. There were a few paved roads connecting these, and many bridges over the streams and gullies; now the Americans were busily blowing the bridges up wherever they could get a chance, and the Germans were establishing defense posts to prevent it.
Early dawn was the time to get started, so the fugitives figured; and evidently the fighting men had the same idea, for the sounds of battle broke out all over the region. Every kind of explosive, big and little and in between; it was like a symphony in which the sound never ceases but the instruments change and the individual notes are hardly noticed. The ignominious men who didn’t want to fight no longer knew which way to turn. They crouched and discussed the problem in whispers. They had been going west with the idea of outrunning the Panzers, but they had failed; the enemy was driving a deep wedge, and might it not be the part of wisdom to turn south, with the chance that the wedge might not be as broad as it was long, and that American resistance might be stronger at the sides?
They decided on this tactic, and for a while followed the gray needle of the Brooklyn boy’s compass. When they heard shots ahead they crouched in snow-covered underbrush and tried to peer through the heavy mist which veiled the forest all that day. It seemed like a joke to remind themselves that this was Sunday morning and that soon, when the sun got up over the States, people would be eating eggs and hot toast and coffee, and putting on their best clothes for church. “They will be praying for us,” said Georgie Bradford, the other art expert; he was real Beacon Street, and a devout Episcopalian. He believed it was the prayers of his wife and mother that had saved him last night, rather than the training of the commandos and the quick thinking of the son of Budd-Erling.
VIII
They came to a paved road and kept away from it in well-schooled dread. Anything might come dashing along that highway, and before they could make sure whether it was German or American it would have disappeared or else have wiped them out with a burst of machine-gun fire or grenades fired from a rifle. They were at a disadvantage because their overcoats were brown, and there was nothing else of that color in the forest, unless it was the hair of the deer. Lanny knew that the Russians wore white camouflage in winter, and had heard that
the Germans had taken up the practice, covering their helmets with pillowcases and their bodies with bedsheets whenever they could get them. The P.A. had asked about this at the front and been told that the doughboys had called for it but the stuff had not arrived.
They held another conference in whispers. The road led west and obviously must come to a town; should they keep just out of sight of it and parallel to it? What would they find at the end, friends or enemies, a battle between them or a siege? Manifestly they had to find something; they couldn’t stay out in the open indefinitely without food. They had had a chance to shoot a deer, but they were afraid to shoot or to build a fire, and hadn’t yet reached the stage where they could drink raw blood or devour raw meat.
“Hush!” whispered the sharp-eared Morrison. They listened and caught a new sound—axes. What did that mean? It wasn’t likely that anybody was cutting firewood—unless it was in a well-guarded strong-post. Several axes going at once, and fast—that would mean that men were cutting trees to block a road, and the chances were ten to one that it was Americans. The enemy wasn’t blocking roads, he was using them, while the GIs were trying desperately to delay him.
The sounds came from the west, where the road led, and they followed its course, but at some distance away, crouching, darting from thicket to thicket—the life of the Belgian hare, a large and meaty animal destined to make Hasenpfeffer. There had been fighting here, a lot of it; there was blood on the snow, the ground had been trampled, and branches of trees shot away and scattered. Presently, under a young fir tree, a body, covered with snow; they brushed it away with their gloved hands and turned the body over. The face had been shot away, a terrible sight; the knees were bent and frozen stiff as rocks. They took the man’s belongings and his dogtag, the little identification disk he wore about his neck. They would turn these things in when they had a chance; they would not turn in the can of K-rations they found in one of the victim’s pockets. They opened that and cut it into four parts; it was frozen hard, and they ate it like popsicles.
O Shepherd, Speak! Page 6