With the three bazooka men, I climbed to the loft of the barn, hoping for a shot at a self-propelled gun in the field that was pounding the bejesus out of us. Only a hundred yards away, it offered a magnificent target, and convenient shell holes in the roof of the barn provided good firing positions. I told the three men to fire together on my signal so we could get out of the loft before the Germans returned the compliment. Three bazooka rockets emerging from a hayloft would surely invite the Jerries to belt hell out of the barn in reply.
Two of the men fired before I’d counted to three, and the third man fled in panic, neglecting to fire at all. In the race for the ladder, someone shoved me over the edge of the loft and I landed heavily on the barn floor below. There was no balm for my bruises in the discovery that we had only scratched the S.P., and it continued to fire at us with unflagging enthusiasm.
One of the bazooka men went back to the loft a little later. Shamed by the fiasco of the earlier attempt, he was determined to finish off the S.P. and from somewhere acquired another rocket for the purpose. He told no one of his plan—this was a private feud. The Germans, however, had been expecting another such attempt and were watching the hayloft closely. They got him before he had a chance to discharge his rocket, and we learned of his foolhardy and gallant gesture only when he staggered across the courtyard, his hands clasped to an ugly head wound and the blood streaming red rivers between his fingers.
We were in a little bitch of a spot. The artillery was pasting hell out of us, tanks and infantry were laying it on from three sides, and we had to lie there and take it. We fell back to the main road, to the solid comfort of a concrete wall. We were almost safe there, and we had a good field of fire. Again the platoon was split, most of the men huddling behind the wall and three men and myself in a muddy ditch on the other side of the road.
Maybe if I’d been a little more experienced at this business of leading a platoon I could have stopped what happened next. I was damn well conscious of my lack of experience, my lack of knowledge. I remember a moment when I grabbed Shorty’s arm and my voice was shaking because I was shaking inside and I said, “Shorty ... Christ, I’m too damn green ... it’s too short a time and I don’t know what to do!”
It was decided for me. Across the road the platoon began to waver, the men calling out, asking why we didn’t fall back farther. Helplessly, I watched the panic flare up like a sudden grass fire and I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t get across the road because the Germans were laying a carpet of lead between us.
They were good guys, most of them, but they couldn’t stop this thing that was happening to them. And maybe it’s unfair, but I blame one man in particular for our shame that day. He was a big guy, a former star basketball player and a large hunk of man, but his voice was the loudest of all in pleading for further retreat. Between bursts of fire I could hear him cajoling the others: “We can’t hold out—they’ve got us nearly surrounded! We’ll all be killed. Why should we stay and be killed?” And he yelled to me that we were suckers, we were holding the bag. “Headquarters and all the officers have pulled out!” (He was wrong.) “The weapons platoon took off!” (He was wrong. Most of the men in the weapons platoon were killed, wounded, or captured.) “The whole damn company’s run out on us; they’re taking off over that hill!” (He was wrong: a group of men from the lower town had taken off and fled to the safety of the hills, but the group was not large. The rest of the company stuck it out.)
I didn’t know what to do ... and this joker across the road could see the hills and I couldn’t; he could see where the weapons platoon had been stationed and I couldn’t. Maybe he was right, maybe we were deserted, maybe our stand was a futile and Quixotic gesture. I yelled to them to stay where they were until I returned, and I hightailed down the road toward the center of town, hoping to locate the captain and the rest of the company. I’d gone only a couple of hundred yards when I saw Rodney, (the captain’s radioman, placidly seated at the door of the barn that held our wounded. When I asked where the other platoons were, he replied laconically, “All mixed up
and all f-----d up! Some of ’em are here!” He pointed to the
men lying on the bloody hay. “Some of ’em went over the hill, and I don’t know where the hell the rest of ’em are!”
In this instance his use of the phrase “over the hill” was literal. The men who deserted in Geisbach did, in truth, go “over the hill.” When they crawled back to us that night, shamefaced and voluble with explanations, they were met by a grim-faced captain who coldly informed them he intended to press court-martial charges against them. He did not—a wise and humane soldier, he gave them a chance to redeem themselves.
I went back to my platoon. It was in a bad way, and some of the men had already deserted the concrete wall and retreated to a walled courtyard. A few stubborn ones continued to fight, but most of them abandoned the job they were there for and devoted their energies to pleas for further withdrawal. Sick at heart, I gave the command for the platoon to fall back to the courtyard and we slipped across the road, a few men at a time.
I assigned new positions, but I had already made the big mistake I could not now undo. By yielding to their pleas, I’d given fresh impetus to their fears, had tacitly admitted the rightness of their desire to get as far as possible from the danger that threatened to overwhelm us. They continued to urge further retreat, and when two self-propelled guns appeared on our left flank, heading for the field behind us with obvious intent to cut us off, the panic was on. Without waiting for an order, the men began to run for the hills. When only four of us remained in the courtyard I said, “Okay, Shorty—let’s go! Maybe we can build up a line at the creek.” And we took off, leaving the courtyard just as another S.P. drew up in front of the house and began to fire point-blank into the lower town.
Reaching the creek, we lowered ourselves into it, standing knee-deep, waist-deep, throat-deep in the cold, muddy water. We were safe now, but we continued to look longingly at the hills behind us. They were so near... so damned easy…
I couldn’t find Shorty. No one had seen him arrive at the creek, and I decided, hopefully, that he must have cut straight across the fields and struck the creek farther down.
Defensively, we were in a good position. The twisting stream and the hills behind us made a flanking attack impossible, and two hundred yards of open field before us were adequate insurance that the enemy would not attempt a frontal assault. From my place on the end of the line I called to the man next to me and told him to pass along an order: we would hold the line here; we would move no more. I heard the words repeated as they passed from man to man, down the creek. But it didn’t work; the men far downstream, seeing how seductively the creek curved toward the still secure heart of town, could not control their restless feet. It required only one man to start the new retreat: each man, seeing his neighbor departing, followed suit, and once begun there was no stopping. My commands, my futile rages, had no effect, and we moved farther and farther from the sector we’d been ordered to hold.
It was a treacherous passage, hazardous with sudden, deep potholes and the false solidity of slimy clay. Men floundered and went under, came sputtering to the surface with weapons dripping. But we dared not leave the stream: the Germans had found us out and were spraying the bank with bullets. Seeing the man before me up to his chin in water as he waded through a particularly deep pool, I rebelled at the prospect of ruining my camera (acquired in Soven) and my fine new pocket watch (a tribute from Aegidienburg). The rear bank seemed a few inches lower at that point, so I crossed the stream, snaked along the bank until I’d passed the pool, and slid back into the water once more. It was a foolish and stupid thing to do, and I was lucky. Another foolish and stupid man wasn’t. I saw his body on the bank when I was still some distance from him, and the frozen absurdity of his position told me he was dead. He’d fallen on his knees and there balanced, the weight of his body resting on his face, his buttocks rounding skyward and his arms lolling brok
enly under the arch of his body. A red neckerchief flamed incongruously about his neck. He lay on the bank nearest the enemy, dead because he’d deserted the slow safety of the creek. He couldn’t have run very far.
I had pushed past, not really seeing him, when I remembered something and splashed back for another look. Only one man in the platoon had been wearing a red neckerchief; only one man had scoffed at warnings and insisted on wearing, in the guise of adornment, a target that only a color-blind sniper could miss. I looked sadly at the foolish dead face, the sightless eyes, the neat pattern of bloody holes stitched from neck to rump, and I remembered the boasting, the loud talk, the deserted post... the wife and six children at home. It was the Combat Soldier.
The aimless meandering of the stream resolved to a long curve that bent toward the town. We heard a shout, “Hey! Over here!” and saw a doggie beckoning from the corner of a shed fifty yards away. He seemed to us more beautiful than angels—we weren’t alone in Geisbach after all. He told us that the company was still hanging on but taking a terrific beating. He pointed to a nearby farmhouse when I asked the whereabouts of the captain, and with a heart heavier than my water-soaked shoes, I set off to make my report. I found Captain Wirt bending over a map, and he looked calm and unhurried.
It’s not easy for a man to bare the love and respect he feels for another man: the confession is somehow unmanly. And this stripping of self is doubly hard because Captain Charles Wirt was younger than I, younger and stronger, and it’s not easy for me to admit to weakness and how I took strength from his strength.
He did not blame me for what happened that day; he never blamed me for it. When he saw me standing there, wet and shamed, his eyes seared me for a moment but he said simply, “What’s the meaning of this?” He did not raise his voice. I answered, also simply—for how could I elaborate?—and my words were the measure of my degradation. “I couldn’t hold them, sir.”
For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “Go back and tell those men that they’re going back up there. What’s left of the company is in trouble and they need help.”
Sometimes, at rare moments, the heroic action was matched by the language of heroism, though such felicity may seem unreal now. My reporting of this incident is accurate, however, and I’ve never forgotten the captain’s words. They were right for the moment, and I was deeply moved by them.
I returned to the wet, shivering men. John Albert had an arm wound and could not go back with us; two others would not go back, pleading “battle nerves,” and the captain contemptuously waved them to the rear. I never saw them again and I don’t know what happened to them. Either they were captured when the Germans took our C.P. later that day, or they were quietly transferred out of the company when the day was over. I did not inquire about them.
The platoon now consisted of fourteen men, and I formed two squads of seven men each. The captain and I walked to the edge of the road and he pointed out where he wanted us to go. He talked easily and warmly, saying it was a dirty job but it had to be done, and the curse on my conscience lightened a little. I had the choice of returning by the road, risking fire from the enemy-occupied buildings, or going back the long way, up the creek. The road was the shorter route, and I chose that.
A last checkup of weapons and ammo and we were off, snaking from building to building and moving steadily back to the junction and the walled courtyard. It was a happy return: Shorty was there. He was in the cellar of the house with a weapons platoon survivor named Johns who was a helluva good Joe. It was good to see Shorty. En route to the creek he’d found his way blocked by the guns of an S.P. and he’d been forced to crawl back to the house. He and Johns had stuck it out alone there, almost entirely surrounded by Germans.
We maneuvered into position, a few men at this vital point, a few men at that. We were back at our old stand on the company’s left flank. The remnant of the third platoon was on our right
The hours that follow are blurred and lost. The things I remember are vivid with the clarity of nightmare, real enough in the physical terms of their expression but terrifying through distortion, twisted and hideous because some fundamental discipline had been violated. There was shelling and there were tanks and self-propelled guns, the rattling cough of machine guns and burp guns, the high staccato of rifles. These provided the orchestration for certain tableaux: dusty glimpses of gray uniforms, green uniforms the flicker of movement in the window of the house across the street, and your hands swinging the rifle to your shoulder in a single fluid motion ... the patient resistance of the trigger under your tightening finger, the sudden punch of recoil... the stone barn and the thorny hedge... the dead soldier who lay on his face in the ditch, his hand stretched to the gray stone, the blackthorn. His head was bare and he was very blond, very young ... the nape of his neck as defenseless as a child’s. On the edge of the road lay his bazooka... so near... only a grave’s length away.
The Germans were all over: in the houses across the street, in the house next door, in the fields and orchards. They were sure of their victory now, and a little careless. Glancing up the road, I spied two Germans less than a hundred yards away. They were sprawled carelessly in the ditch near fee junction, a light machine gun mounted beside them. They were smoking cigarettes wife an air of indolent assurance. At my wave, Lieutenant Freeman joined me at the corner of the barn; we chose targets wordlessly and fired.
The enemy was now solidly entrenched in the houses across the road. A little below us the road bent sharply, curving into the heart of town, and the large building at the bend in the road was infested with snipers. Peering around the dung heap that sheltered me, I studied the windows of the house, hoping for an incautious German to show himself. Suddenly a German soldier ran from the courtyard, disappearing around the bend in the road before I could raise my rifle. Cursing my slowness, I waited for another German to make a move. Fifteen seconds later a second man sprinted from the courtyard, and my finger was already tightening on the trigger when I realized that this man was American. He was empty-handed and his head was bare, and before he vanished around the bend in the road I recognized him as Weymeyer, a third platoon man. But what the hell...? As I blinked in startled wonder, another German darted from the courtyard and after Weymeyer, and again I was caught with my sights down.
I heard the story later: Weymeyer had been captured, disarmed, and ordered to follow the first German to the place where American prisoners were being collected. Somewhere beyond the bend in the road Weymeyer had overtaken the first German. Seizing his erstwhile captor’s rifle, he beat him to death with it and escaped before the second guard reached the scene. (Weymeyer was sent to OCS in Paris, and his boldness became a company legend.)
Another incident of the day: a German tank rolled up to a house where a few stubborn Americans still held out and thrust the muzzle of its 88 in the front window. The tank commander stood in the open turret and in perfect English made a speech to the doggies within, advising them in tones of good-humored cajolery to come out and surrender peaceably “because you’re already whipped and you’ll only get killed if you continue to fight” While he wooed them, they left quietly by a rear window, crawled to the house next door, and shot him as he harangued the empty building. I talked with some of these men later: they were cocky with triumph but still bristling at the recollection of the German officer’s arrogance. “The nerve of that sonofabitch!” they said. “The nerve...!”)
In one rush the Germans captured the barn where our wounded lay. Most of them we recovered before the day ended, but some did not return to us until long after the war was over. Some I never heard of again.
The full fury of the counterattack was now directed against the north end of town, and Captain Wirt joined us there. He told me to take a few men across that deadly main road and knock out an S.P. that was chasing us in circles.
We were about to start out on this mission when the captain ran up and halted us. He wanted my one remaining bazooka man, Frank Eifler, to ta
ke a crack at an S.P. who was prowling around in the lower field, and he and Frank hustled off. When Frank failed to return, I set out to look for him. As I crossed the yard toward the large farmhouse that had become Company HQ, an S.P. scored a direct hit on a nearby building. I ducked, but not quickly enough: debris pounded my shoulders and rattled on my helmet and I felt sudden sharp pain in my leg. I had time to think, This is it! and then something tremendous slammed me against the ground. I was out only a short time, I think, but I was shaken and dizzy when I sat up. God loves fools and great sinners, and obviously I am either well-damned or witless: a hasty checkup revealed only a cut elbow, a trouser leg slashed as though by a razor, and a small leg wound. The knockout blow had apparently been delivered by the two-foot slab of masonry lying beside me. (At least it hadn’t been there before.) For two weeks my leg was to be a green and purple rhapsody, from knee to vital zone. Curiously, it was my inner thigh that had been hit: I had half turned and crouched when the shell struck. Blessed fortune—the family jewels were spared.
Shakily resuming my search, I found the captain in the cellar of the house, together with another officer, ten doggies, and twelve civilians. Learning that Eifler was in the nearby stone barn, I started off for him, but the captain told me to hold up: he’d ordered an artillery barrage, which would be starting at any moment While I waited, I explored the kitchen, found a loaf of bread and a jar of jam, and ate. It had been a long time since I’d eaten.
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