To his front the deciding blow and echoing shot came, but it was not the 9mm bullet that Max had resigned himself to. Instead, the small chunk of lead burrowed itself harmlessly into the dirt shoulder making up the approach to the bridge. Max remained standing, still very much alive and unharmed. It took him a moment to fully comprehend what had happened.
He refocused on the scene. Strieberer was sprawled out haphazardly in front of Max, the driving hate that dominated his face a second before now changed into sudden shock and sheer terror. His left hand was clasped tightly over the radial area of his lower right arm. The SS officer was crying out in pain and looking wild eyed at the Wehrmacht Herr senior sergeant looming above.
The unterfeldwebel had sprung forward in the manner of a large cat, swinging down hard with the fore end of his Mauser rifle. The weapon had smashed into the obersturmführer’s outstretched arm, deflecting the shot and knocking the pistol from Strieber’s hand. Still moving forward in the aggressive fashion of a man well versed to close combat, the sergeant changed his angle of attack. The butt of his weapon knocked the SS officer to the ground in an awkward heap.
Standing over the stupefied, cowering figure in the black uniform, the senior sergeant looked down on him with a cold, ready-to-kill expression. This time he did work the bolt on his 98K, sending a steel cased 7.92mm round into the chamber. Its muzzle was pointed squarely in the SS man’s face.
“I will not allow a German officer who wears the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves to be murdered by the likes of you, Obersturmführer” spat out the sergeant. “There will be no shooting of anyone here today with the possible exception of you. The Hauptmann is right, we have lost. What you were preparing to order us to do is insanity.”
“That will be enough, Unterfeldwebel ” Max said emphatically. He walked over to stand beside the senior sergeant, who was still looking through his rifle sights at the cringing SS officer. The unterfeldwebel’s eyes were dark with fury, and his index finger had gathered up all the slack in the Mauser’s trigger.
“He is nothing but a vicious thug, Hauptmann. Sewer vermin, and he was ready to murder you in cold blood” replied the sergeant, his words clipped with anger.
“Yes Unterfeldwebel, you are undoubtably correct. However, you have stopped him from doing so and killing him now would only complicate matters further. Besides, he is not much of anything without this.” Max picked up Strieber’s Luger from the muddy ground, inspecting it closely. He cleared the round from the chamber and wiped the pistol clean as best he could.
“I will take possession of this weapon though, for good measure.” Max bent down, removing the leather gun belt from the waist of the grimacing SS officer. The obersturmführer gave no protest or resistance as Max inserted the Luger into the holster and put the belt and gear around his waist. Somewhat reluctantly, the senior sergeant brought the muzzle of the Mauser up and methodically made his own weapon safe. After doing so, he ordered the other soldiers to do the same.
Looking down on the SS officer, the Luftwaffe hauptmann spoke to him. “I have a suggestion for you, Obersturmführer Strieber. If you are so determined to shoot enemies of the Reich, you can begin walking to the east to meet them. They are called the Red Army and they are coming by the millions.” Max paused a moment to let it all sink in for the other man. “Be forewarned, though. I can tell you from personal experience that unlike helpless civilians, they have the disconcerting habit of shooting back.”
Max turned away from Strieber, confident the senior sergeant was still watching the obersturmführer. He moved closer to the mixed crowd of both civilians and soldiers who stood there, still processing what had occurred in their presence. Stepping up to the top of the dirt embankment, Max addressed them all in a loud, clear voice.
“I am Hauptmann Maximilian Friedrich Grephardt, lately of Jagdgeschwader 52 of the Luftwaffe.” A murmur stirred through the throng as some recognized his name and accompanying fame from the recent past. Max motioned to the SS officer still sitting woodenly in the middle of the narrow road. “That man will no longer constitute a threat to any of you. You are free to come or go as you please. Do know the Bolsheviks are indeed behind us and the Western Allies are to our front. I would advise you to continue west if you are going anyplace, but that choice is yours.
“We Germans have lost this war,” continued Max, “and in a far more telling way than we lost the last. The time for fighting is over and I pray it never comes to us again. What you must do now is take care of yourselves, your families and what is left of our Fatherland. Do not forget this because from this point forward, that is what it means to be a good German. Mach’s gut, and may God go with each and every one of you.”
The crowd milled around astray for a while more, undecided about their next move. Then slowly, gradually, the vast majority started trekking west again while others sought shelter nearby. Max made his way back to the rickety chair for a bit more rest, and to look around for that errant tar shingle before he continued on. He found his path blocked by the senior sergeant, who placed the Mauser butt down smartly to his side and saluted.
“Herr Hauptmann, what do you require of myself and my men?”
“The same as of our people, Unterfeldwebel” Max replied. “Your men can go as they please, individually or as a group. They may return to their unit, if they have a mind to do so. But whatever they do, remind them that as long as they wear the uniform of the Wehrmacht Herr, they will conduct themselves accordingly.”
For the first time, the senior sergeant appeared a bit unsure of himself but persisted nonetheless. “Hauptmann, if I may be so bold, might I inquire into your own plans?”
Max studied the hardened veteran who had saved him from certain death only seconds before. “Unterfeldwebel, I plan to continue west and to surrender myself to the Americans at the earliest opportunity. For me, I am done with this war.”
The senior sergeant was thoughtful for a moment, still standing at attention. “Hauptmann, if possible, it would be an honor to accompany you. I started as an obersoldat with Field Marshal Rommel in North Africa, in 1941, and it seems I have been fighting ever since. The time has come to stop.”
Max quietly considered the request and then nodded affirmatively. “You are welcome to come along, Unterfeldwebel, as are any of your men who choose to do so. It will probably go better for them to surrender as a group than to try to go home at present.
“Tell the men who choose to accompany us to make ready. They will be required to keep their weapons for defensive purposes and are to behave as German soldiers. We are still in the middle of this wretched war and all which that entails. Moreover, I am certain there are more Obersturmführer Striebers lurking about.” At the mention of the name, both men looked down the road. The SS officer had finally picked himself up and was walking unsteadily to the east against the rising tide of refugees.
“Jawohl, Hauptmann.” The senior sergeant saluted again, bringing his Mauser up to port arms. He conducted a sharp about face and started back to the other soldiers. The unterfeldwebel had gone no more than five paces when he stopped abruptly, did another about face and brought himself back to the position of attention.
“Hauptmann, if I may ask, would you by any chance be from the Meiningen area?” he queried respectfully.
“Yes, my home was north of there, along the banks of the Werra.”
“Were you familiar with a Willy Grephardt, an officer in the 267th Regiment of the Wehrmacht Heer?”
“He was my brother, Unterfeldwebel.” Max replied evenly.
“I knew him in Italy”, the sergeant said. “He was a good soldier.”
Max looked at the unterfeldwebel, his face an impassive mask. “Weren’t we all, Senior Sergeant?” he asked. “Weren’t we all?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As the end of the summer of 1945 drew near, Max was in a disarmed enemy forces camp in the western part of Germany. He had managed to safely surrender both himself and his inherited command to th
e first American soldiers they could find. The war ended soon thereafter and the long nightmare for tens of millions had finally come to an end. Hitler was dead, and his inhumanly ruinous Reich had joined him in his incinerated grave.
Being a former German officer, he and others like him were being held until an exact determination could be made as to who he was, and what was to become of him. Life was better than it had been for a long time; he ate well, he slept well, and in the meantime his burns had fully healed with the assistance of American medical care.
He also had ample time to read his small Lutheran Bible, and to think about what he should do with his life from this point forward. Max had even begun wearing a small silver cross around his neck, a reminder to himself as to his new path.
The detainee camp was on a former Luftwaffe airbase, one he had flown out of many times during the war. The Americans had appropriated it for their own use and situated the camp near the end of the longest runway, which was used primarily by multi-engine aircraft. Max and his fellow Germans would sit for hours and marvel at the sheer numbers and types of aircraft flying in and out, signifying the overwhelming might of their erstwhile enemy.
‘How could we have ever hoped to defeat the British and the Bolsheviks at the same time?’’ he had wondered. ‘Much less these Americans with their endless stream of aircraft, men and equipment? Hitler and those closest to him must have been completely out of their minds.’
And so time passed day by day; time to heal, time to reflect and time to ponder. Two years ago the younger Max Grephardt had been so assured of himself, believing that he alone possessed all the necessary answers. Now his older reincarnation realized that not only had he not possessed any of the answers, he had never posed any of the proper questions. This place, this environment, this situation finally allowed Max the opportunity to do so.
Security at the camp was rudimentary at best, the hard corps Nazi party types had already been identified and carted away in the weeks before. The remaining former members of the German war machine were pretty much given free rein of the area, as long as they stayed in the general vicinity and away from the parked aircraft, along with the command and control facilities. The Americans knew what these German officers also knew: the war was over, Germany had lost. There was no reason to continue skirmishing in hopeless fashion against someone who no longer behaved as your enemy.
One obliging afternoon Max was sitting in a canvas folding chair, dozing after the noon meal. He had been watching the countless Allied aircraft coming and going until even that had become too much effort for him. The hauptmann pulled his uniform hat over his eyes, leaned back, and let the warmth of the sun and the surrounding peaceful sounds soak through his soul. Together, they served as a remembrance that just being alive was a very good thing indeed.
That was when he heard it, the noise of an airplane in trouble. Big trouble. The disconcerting sound shocked him rudely back into full consciousness, and he tipped his hat up to see a C-54 Skymaster trying to claw its way into the sky.
The C-54 had just become airborne and was struggling to gain altitude against an unseen giant hand that enveloped the transport craft, trying to shove it back to the ground. The plane slewed from side to side as the engines screamed futilely to keep it in the air. The young Luftwaffe pilot watched as the starboard wing began to dip, and he knew with a sickening certainty what was to occur next.
Max Grephardt was already out of the chair and bolting in the Skymaster's direction when that same wing dug into an earthen berm, and the American cargo plane began cartwheeling violently along the ground. He sprinted onward as hard as he could go, his legs propelling him at a speed he had not known since those Soviet bullets had cracked and hissed around him months before. That was when trying to save his own life, now he was trying to save the lives of others.
Nearing the scene of the horrific crash, Max was confronted with circumstances that would have prevented most men from going any further. A heavy acrid smoke assaulted his eyes and lungs, while the odor of melting rubber and electrical wiring filled his nostrils. A mostly solid sheet of flame from the ignited avgas blocked his way but he plunged on through, making for what was left of the cockpit and main fuselage ahead.
He could hear something of remaining life from inside, the sounds of confusion, of pain and of terror. Every man who had ever challenged the skies shares one thing in common with all others, the fear of fire and of being burned alive. This uncommon kinsmanship with those trapped within kept Max going, and he entered through a ruptured part of the fuselage near where the wings had once been.
In the smoke-filled interior of the shattered aircraft, the odors and the intense heat were all magnified to the level of being nigh unbearable. The first man Max came across was dead, eyes wide open but not seeing anything ever again. Max silently prayed the shortest of prayers for the man's soul and a slightly longer one for the strength to keep pushing forward, as he tried to shield his freshly healed face from the consuming flames.
The next American he came upon in the confines of this particular hell on earth was unconscious, his upper right leg bent at an awkward angle and marked by the broken bone protruding through his flight suit. But he was alive, and Max grabbed him under both armpits and began dragging him to safety. Once outside and away from the fire the Luftwaffe officer placed the man down as carefully as he could, gulped a few precious breaths of the fresh summer air and headed back into the fiery conflagration again.
Three more times the young German made that trip, each time bringing out another man from the clutches of a certain death. Max’s lungs felt as if all the air had been sucked out and replaced by blackened soot and ash. His vision was blurred and the exposed parts of his hands and arms were red and blistered from the heat. The Luftwaffe captain’s hair and eyebrows were singed or partially burned off, and his knees were wobbly and unsteady as he turned back toward the crashed Skymaster yet once again.
Max Grephardt took a couple of steps that direction and then stumbled, wondering why the grass was suddenly rushing up and forward to meet him. He hit hard face down on the ground and laid there, coughing and retching up a vile mixture of spit, phlegm, vomit and ash. Max tried to get back to his feet but strong hands had taken hold of him, easing him down again and rolling him over to his side.
"Easy now, fella, just take it easy," implored a voice that seemed faraway. "You've already done your part and then some, there’s plenty of help now."
Max looked up, his vision cloudy and unfocused as his eyes tried to find the source of the faraway voice. He could barely make out a big man looming over him in the olive drab of an American Army Air Force uniform, and the bold tech sergeant stripes on both upper arms.
"Hey! How about it over here!” The burly tech sergeant bellowed over his shoulder, "This Kraut officer is about half dead himself!"
"How is he, sergeant?" another faraway voice asked. Max blinked several times, attempting to clear his vision and found himself staring into the greenish-grey eyes of an American major with pilot wings on his chest. He looked to be about Max’s age.
"He's pretty bad off, major," the tech sergeant replied. "When we drove up, he was bringing the fourth guy out of what's left of that Skymaster. There’s no telling how much smoke and trash he's breathed in."
“Did you see what happened?” asked the major.
The sergeant shook his head. “Not before the Skymaster went in, sir. But I did see this guy take off like he was shot out of a cannon. Major, he went through those flames like they weren’t even there. He’s a man, alright, Kraut or otherwise.”
Amid the small crowd of medical personnel now gathering about to help, the young major knelt down, fingering the small silver cross on the exposed part of Max's blackened chest. To no one in particular he murmured the words: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
“What’s that, major?”
“A quote from
the Bible, Sergeant. It seems to fit the circumstance.”
Looking up from the cross, Major Ezekiel Templar reached over and patted the German officer on his shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. You saved lives today."
Max stared again into those same greenish-gray eyes, now reflecting gratefulness and even admiration. The Luftwaffe hauptmann did not understand much English but he could tell from those eyes, as well as the American officer’s tone of voice, that he had done well. With that lingering thought of having made a difference Max felt himself drifting, and the light from the bright sunny afternoon went away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sometime later he had awakened in one of the wards of the base hospital, his hands and arms freshly bandaged with a greasy salve for his burned ears and face. Each day he was held to a strict regimen of breathing treatments and bandage changes, accompanied by good food and plenty of rest. The bandage changes were especially painful. Yet each time the dressings were replaced it reminded him that he was still alive, and with the real promise of getting better.
The young American major who had been at the crash scene was also part of that daily routine. He became a regular fixture by checking in on Max and making certain he was being properly cared for. When the field ambulance had brought the Luftwaffe officer to the facility, the major had ridden alongside, speaking to him in words of encouragement.
Later, while going through Max's personal effects he had secured his identification papers, a few old photos and his small Lutheran Bible. With the assistance of the Army Counterintelligence Corps as well as his fellow German detainees, Major Templar learned more about the Luftwaffe hauptmann, including his many combat decorations. The Iron Cross with Oak Leaves made a real impression on everyone involved. Through an interpreter, the major returned those personal effects and thanked Max again.
The Uvalde Raider: A Templar Family Novel: Book One Page 10