Roll Me Over

by Raymond Gantter

  I took up quarters in the tiny home of an aged spinster. She lived alone, doing her own work and caring for a garden, two cows, three goats, and several score of chickens. She was gentle, kind, and frightened. When we went to bed that night most of us slept on the floor. There was but one bedroom, and I assured her that no one would rob her of it. She dragged from her room an enormous mattress filled with flax seed. When we stretched upon it, the seed slithered under our bodies like something live. But for all that, it was a luxurious bed, and we soon grew used to the sibilance of the whispering seeds. Four of us slept on it that night, and I had ten beautiful hours of sleep.

  In the morning the old lady clucked distressfully over the hacking coughs of some of the men. She trotted into her bedroom and returned beaming, wielding a tablespoon and carrying a large bottle of a virulent-looking red syrup that she administered to the ailing men, all of whom had turned suddenly shy, scuffing their toes like schoolboys. I had a spoonful, too, and it was sweet and pungent and soothing to my raw throat. (I know, I know—back home the writers were screaming about the innocent American soldiers who died of poisoned food and drink proffered by kindly German civilians. And I guess it did happen. But you had to make a decision one way or another and then take your chances. It just happened that my decision was always, ‘This is an innocent gesture, well-meant. Accept it.” And I guess I was right each time.)

  We spent the day of March 28 resting. We sat in the timid sunlight and took the peaceful village into our bones and swapped rumors. The news of the big push was good and our hopes were burgeoning. I had leisure to reflect on Geisbach and wonder how I would ever sort the pieces of that jigsaw puzzle and fit them together to make a picture.

  During the afternoon we became motorized infantry for a short time. Mounted on tanks, tank destroyers, and half-tracks, we roared through seven towns, sweeping the area for German stragglers. It was a cold and dusty ride. We took no prisoners, but it was an exciting afternoon. We were swift and invincible. Careening through the unobservant countryside, we assumed careless, rakish poses, but when we entered a village we stood martially erect, donning a stern demeanor and frowning the frown of conquerors on the sullen townspeople. It wasn’t like Belgium or France—the women didn’t smile and they didn’t throw flowers at us and blow kisses. Only the kids were happy to see us. We were soldiers, we wore uniforms and carried guns, and that was enough for them. They stared at us, roundeyed, and scampered into doorways with happy squeals of terror.

  We slept again that night at our gentle spinster’s.

  March 29.

  We moved out and rode the armor to Holzhausen. A misty wet day, and yesterday’s exhilaration was lacking. A brief pause in Holzhausen and on to Wurgendorf, arriving shortly after five. We set out at once for Wilgersdorf, this time on foot. The captain wanted to take our objective before dark.

  The first platoon spearheaded, followed by the rest of the company and our escort of armor. Two miles out of Wurgendorf we hit a bad roadblock. It was a skillfully contrived double barrier: a roadblock followed by a minefield, then another roadblock and still another minefield. For more than two hundred yards the road was impassable.

  Most of the roadblocks we encountered during the swift last weeks of the war were hasty affairs, feeble barriers thrown up in whimpering frenzy. But some of them were little bitches. The best ones were to be found in heavily wooded areas where the trees on both sides of the road could be felled—usually by dynamite belts—to form an interlacing barrier too massive for our tanks to smash. That was a good roadblock.

  On the low end of the scale were the pathetic barricades erected against us at the gates of tiny villages—hand-hewn beams and heavy logs woven into a barrier that seemed medieval and a little silly when nudged by the steel snout of a tank.

  I remember such a little town, such a barricade. The infantry climbed over the barriers, which blocked every entrance into the town, but the timbers were so stout, so well-emplaced, that our armored escort could not effect an entrance. The roadblock across the principal street was particularly effective, a solid wall of heavy timbers stretching between a house on one side of the road to a high bank of earth on the other. House, logs, high bank—it looked impregnable. I set a squad of men to work on the barricade and went on with the rest of the platoon to secure the town. Returning a little later, I found the men sweating and angry, and the roadblock still standing. The timbers had barely been scratched by our toylike hatchets, and a little group of civilians had gathered on the bank to watch. They murmured among themselves and smiled secretly.

  The malice of their pleasure was an intolerable humiliation, and I went out to have a quiet word with the commander of the leading tank, an officer I knew. Firm and impregnable, huh? The officer accepted my whispered proposal as the proper solution to our difficulty, and I sent two men to clear all civilians from the house that anchored one end of the barrier. I nodded to the tank commander, he disappeared within the tank, and the turret slammed shut. There was an inexorable grinding of gears ... then slowly, implacably, the tank moved forward, pushed the house gently with its steel nose ... nudged a little harder, and now a crack leaped crazily up the pale plaster wall... harder now, harder... the crack widened, became a hole, and the tank lunged forward, smashed and crushed, tore at the hole with grim shoulders, snarled ironlike through a curtain of dust ... disappeared from our sight A moment longer we waited unmoving, hearing with our bones and our blood the sounds within the house. Suddenly, triumphantly, the tank appeared in the street. It was in the village, it was beyond the mocking, useless barrier.

  Turning to strut into town, I glanced at the civilians on the bank, wanting them to see my pride. They had drawn together against the steel thrust of the machine, blindly seeking the ancient comfort of flesh. The secret smiles were gone now, and the malice, and the white faces were empty. There was no anger ... not yet. Only shock and fear, a naked agony of bewilderment. I turned away and went into the town, feeling sick and angry, needing to do something useless and infuriating so that I would no longer see their faces.

  The roadblock in the forest stalled our advance for nearly four hours. Regarding the dark forest and our tangle of men and machines, I reflected uneasily that this was a helluva good

  time for an ambush. But nothing happened, and eventually we moved forward again. After a while another platoon relieved us of point duty and we fell back to second place.

  It was a weary march, mostly uphill. A second roadblock and an enemy machine-gun nest relieved the dullness briefly, but our tanks smashed through this barrier and knocked out the machine gunners, and we kept walking.

  We had a lot of respect for armored outfits, respect well salted with envy. We envied them because we walked and they rode, because we were naked before the enemy and they had protection—or at least the feeling of protection. We had a particular regard for T.D. men. They were a hard-fighting, hellfire bunch, and they enjoyed hardly more protection than the infantry.

  We had no quarrel with the High Brass strategy, which decreed: “It’s easier to replace a company or two of infantry than to get a new tank.” We were the expendables and we knew it, but we didn’t blame the tankers for that. We were cheaper than a steel juggernaut that groaned dollar signs every time it warmed up. When we started out on a push and the order of march read: “A company of infantry spearheading, followed by two companies of infantry; tanks and tank destroyers attached”—we accepted the official wisdom and stepped out with wry-faced bravado, feeling naked in front but conscious of a sense of warm protection behind, like a hot water bottle on our backside.

  But a few things were hard to take. With the bitter eyes of habit, for instance, we’d watch the tanks roll into the town we’d just stormed and taken, watch them roll in, whooping and hollering ... and late. Dreary with exhaustion, we would stand at our guard posts, waiting for counterattack, and watch the tankers race from house to house in search of loot, watch them drink our wine and cognac and schnapps, watc
h and listen while they celebrated “their” conquest, and then—too damn many times!—watch the tanks roll out of town again, loaded with our loot, and the riotous crew members waving our bottles in drunken greeting as they passed.

  But more than that, though we didn’t forget the towns where the tanks had saved our necks, we could not forget the occasions when we needed the tanks, when we asked their help and they crawfished. One tank outfit in particular drew our ire, because of what happened on that dark forest road near Wilgersdorf.

  As I said, the machine gunners at the second roadblock had been “knocked out” by our tanks. In fact, we had to coax, beg, and implore before the tanks reluctantly went to the aid of the spearheading platoon that was pinned down. A short time later there was another machine-gun nest, and once again the column halted. I sent a runner to tell the tanks to pull up so I could direct them to the aid of the platoon ahead, but five minutes passed and the tanks remained silent and motionless. A runner came up from the beleaguered platoon with a message asking for help, and I walked back to the first tank.

  In the thick darkness I could barely discern the figure of the tank commander standing in the open turret. I told him of the call for help and he listened without comment. When I finished, he said flatly that he wasn’t going up. After a moment of strained silence I told him that it wasn’t a bad ambush— only a couple of machine-gunners in the woods. He repeated that he was not going to risk his tanks and crews by leading them into a mess they “couldn’t even see.” (I refrained from pointing out that it was equally dark for the infantrymen up there.) He put an emphatic period to the conversation by withdrawing into the dark guts of the tank, and I heard the hatch cover slam shut.

  Turning away, I encountered Captain Wirt, who was angrily swinging a German walking stick he’d lately affected. He was in a vicious temper and wanted to know whythehell the delay. I mentioned the enemy machine-gun nest and he started to ream my tail for not sending the tanks up to clean it out, but I interrupted and told him of my exchange with the tank commander. I didn’t strain after polite phrases in my report, and I followed him hopefully when he turned and stomped toward the tank. Standing beside it, he called—at first softly, then louder, at last furiously. No response: the tank was buttoned up like a temperance worker. He rapped with his stick on the metal skin of the tank... tapped, then hammered, then pounded with such violence that it seemed doubtful whether even steel armorplate could withstand it. At last the hatch cover creaked open and a sleepy head appeared, yawning, “Whatsa matter?” I leaned forward expectantly, and was not disappointed: the reaming that followed was an example of prose so pungent, rank, and vigorous that my admiration for the captain rose to a new high.

  The effect was immediate: the first tank moved forward, the others followed, the machine gunners joined their companions, and the column lurched ahead. Unfortunately for the repute of tankers, the story of the reluctant tank commander spread through the company and even infected the other companies in the battalion.

  We arrived at Wilgersdorf shortly before dawn. There was a brief skirmish, prisoners taken, and the town was ours. I picked a good house for a C.P. and went to sleep.

  March 30, Wilgersdorf.

  Twice as I walked through the town today a sniper selected me for target practice, one shot splintering a slate shingle three inches above my head as I stepped through the doorway of my C.P. We searched the neighboring buildings with grim thoroughness but could not find him. He continued to fire at intervals throughout the day, but fortunately he was a poor shot and hit no one. Probably a civilian, but we wanted him, civilian or no. We weren’t fond of snipers.

  Late in the afternoon came the usual bad news: we were moving out Although Wilgersdorf was our objective and we’d attained it E Company had run into trouble and F Company was rushing to the rescue. That left F Company’s objective still wanting, and we were the babies elected to take that and keep the battalion record spotless. So we started out for Gernsdorf, first platoon leading again.

  Gernsdorf was some distance away, and Captain Wirt decided that our only chance of reaching it before dark was to go cross-country, through the mountains. Equipped with compass and maps, I stepped out with a brave show of self-assurance, but secretly I was a little shaky about the whole proposition. My bump of direction was hardly more than a bruise, and I felt uncomfortably ill-chosen for the role of trailblazer.

  I soon made a discovery at which my uneasiness spiraled to the tizzy stage in no time flat. The maps I carried inside my jacket were copies of German maps of ten years ago. Since mountains and valleys change little in the space of ten years, that would seem to be small cause for alarm, but this was a country where forestry was akin to farming and trees were a cultivated crop, grown and harvested like corn and potatoes. Time after time my map would indicate coniferous trees when before me would be only an open, windswept space of scraggly undergrowth or harsh grass. In symbol language the map would vouchsafe, ‘This is grass, low shrubs,” and a moment later I would spit out a mouthful of pine needles and close my eyes as I clawed through the tightly interlaced branches of pine trees taller than a man, muttering, “Buster, one of us is wrong!”

  Anxious to reach our destination before night trapped us in the hills, we stepped up the pace. We saw no houses, no roads: only trees and, rarely, the grass-grown ruts of forgotten logging trails. The hills were bitterly steep, the woods so thick that sometimes we had to hack our way through with bayonets and entrenching tools. We had six miles to cover. If we failed to reach Gernsdorf before dusk, men would get lost in the dark, and the units of our task force would lose contact (As it turned out we did lose the third platoon for an hour, but they found our trail again and caught up with us. The weapons platoon we lost permanently. They wandered forlornly in the darkening woods for a while and finally retraced their footsteps to Wilgersdorf.)

  By hook and by crook, by means of compass and map, the captain’s help, the assistance of friendly angels, and simple dumb luck, we got there. And the precious minutes we’d wasted during our fumbling and erratic progress through the forest saved our hides: we reached the crest of the hill overlooking Gernsdorf just in time to see the Jerries leave the village, accompanied by tanks, self-propelled guns, and armored trucks. An hour earlier and we’d have walked smack into another Geisbach—three platoons of infantry against an incalculable weight of men and machines. Hidden in the deep shadows under the trees, we listened to the sounds in the village. We could hear the conversation of the enemy clearly, hear them shouting to each other, uttering the German equivalent of “Get the lead out of your tail!”

  Lacking attack strength, the captain tried to contact Battalion HQ by radio to request an artillery barrage. This was mountain country, and HQ was many hills and valleys behind us, too distant for easy radio contact We watched tensely, listened to the monotonous, low-voiced calling of our operator, and our lips moved in soundless, profane prayer: “Christ, we gotta have that artillery ... if we don’t get it he’ll send us in anyway ... we gotta have it!” And at last Battalion answered, in thin, crackling syllables that wavered and died and rose again. We sagged in exquisite relief, trying to ignore the hollowness in our stomachs, which reminded us that this was only a reprieve. First platoon was to spearhead the attack on the town following the barrage.

  From our private grandstand seats we watched the shells burst in the town below, and not all the sweat on our hands sprang from the spectacle of that bright flowering. We had to go in there in fifteen minutes, and we didn’t know what might be waiting. Fifteen green men in the platoon, untried by combat, unfamiliar with the grim business of storming a town...

  We moved in fast, and Joe and I out-Simoned Legree, whipping the men with the lash of our tongues, keeping them moving, preventing them from bunching up, jacking up the laggards, the timid, the looters who wanted to dawdle in the first house and search for diamonds instead of German soldiers. Without Joe Hudziak, the platoon would have fallen apart, but Joe whipped one
end of the line forward while I snarled at the other.

  We were lucky. The artillery barrage had sped the parting guests, and we had only to pick up the stragglers and the wounded. We got by without serious fighting and were very happy.

  I split the platoon between four houses, and we sat down to wait for further orders. We were ravenous with hunger, but the captain said our chow truck would arrive in a couple of hours. That familiar refrain offered no satisfaction in our stomachs, and we started skonavishing. Howie Dettman found a basket of eggs; we built a fire in the kitchen stove, raided the cupboards for lard, bread, and canned fruit, and had a feast. It was three a.m. of March 31, and I slept for an hour.

  The captain’s runner woke me at four to give me fresh orders. We walked a mile to where trucks waited for us and drove back to Wilgersdorf. We had chow upon arrival— official GI this time, and not nearly so satisfying—and collapsed for two more hours of sleep.

  Gernsdorf remains curiously dreamlike to me. We never saw the town in daylight, and the few hours we spent there were so frenzied, so packed with movement and sound and tension, that the place never seemed real at all. My memories are few, and sharply brief: I remember the muddy road down which we raced as we stormed the first buildings ... a village street, cobbled, and smelling strongly of cow, and the tiny wooden bridge over the tiny creek that parted the town in the middle ... the house that was my C.P.—white plaster gleaming silver in the moonlight, and the black cross beams, set at rakish tilts, which checkered the face of the house with bizarre lozenges and squares, a backdrop for the medieval caperings of Till Eulenspiegel. I remember the kitchen, crowded with men and shadows and warm with fire... the smoky sputtering of the solitary lamp on the kitchen table ... the rich and satisfying smell of frying eggs, and someone striking a match in the dim room and leaning close over the stove to see if the eggs were done. That’s all. Nothing else remains.