Bullet Bridge

by Len Levinson

  Mahoney picked up the officer’s pistol, saw a German soldier running toward him, his bayonet aimed at Mahoney’s face, and Mahoney pulled the trigger, hoping the pistol was loaded.

  It wasn’t, and the bolt went click. Mahoney gritted his teeth and threw his left forearm to the side, slamming the bayonet away. The German soldier’s momentum carried him forward, and Mahoney, still on his knees, punched him with everything he had in the balls.

  The German howled pathetically and gripped his groin, dropping to his knees. Mahoney jumped up, kicked him in the face, and picked up the German’s long Mauser rifle and bayonet. He slashed sideways with the bayonet, tearing open the German’s throat, and blood gushed out like water from a hose.

  The German soldier fell backwards and Mahoney looked around for someone else to kill. A faint buzzing sound was in his ears and his chest felt as if a hydroelectric plant was inside producing incredible quantities of energy. He saw a German soldier stabbing his bayonet into the chest of Pfc. Horn, and Mahoney dashed toward the German soldier, lunging and pushing his bayonet through the German’s kidney. Blood spurted out and the German screamed at the sudden pain.

  Mahoney heard a sudden shout and turned to face it. A German soldier was rushing toward him, his bayonet aimed at Mahoney’s throat. Mahoney stepped forward and put all of his two hundred and forty pounds into a parry, pushing the German’s rifle to the side, and followed with a vertical butt stroke, whacking the German on the chin. The German’s head snapped back and Mahoney gave him a horizontal butt stroke on the nose, flattening it and sending the German flying through the air. When he landed Mahoney was on top of him, plunging his bayonet through the German’s heart.

  Fifteen yards away, Corporal Cranepool was surrounded by Germans with bayonets, but he dodged, ducked, and lunged, breaking out of the circle and leaving two dead Germans behind him. Then he turned around, smelling blood and feeling crazy, and let the Germans attack him. He parried the thrust of one, smacked another alongside the head with his rifle butt, stabbed a third through the chest; but as he was struggling to pull his bayonet out, because it was stuck in the German’s ribs, another German pushed his rifle and bayonet forward toward Cranepool’s stomach. Cranepool stepped to the side, leaving his rifle and bayonet inside the dead German, and grabbed the rifle belonging to the German who was attacking him.

  A furious tug of war began as the two soldiers struggled for possession of the rifle. They pushed and pulled, spit in each other’s faces, and tried to kick each other in the balls. The German soldier managed to kick Cranepool in the shins, and Cranepool let go of the rifle, yelping and jumping up and down on one foot. With a victorious smile the German lunged forward with his rifle again, certain that he would finish his stubborn adversary for once and for all, but Cranepool regained control of himself quickly and grabbed the rifle again, bringing his right knee up swiftly. The German soldier was so surprised he wasn’t able to get out of the way, and Cranepool’s knee mashed his testicles into his stomach. The German screeched and fainted from the sudden horrible pain. He fell onto his back and Cranepool snatched the rifle out of his hands.

  Cranepool felt as if something had snapped in his brain. Shouting obscenities, he bashed the German in the face again and again. The German’s face disintegrated beneath his blows, his teeth were knocked into his mouth, and his skull was fractured in numerous places. Cranepool continued mauling him in a wild frenzy when suddenly he became aware of rushing footsteps.

  He turned and saw a bayonet streaking toward his heart. He jumped back in time and the bayonet missed his flesh but ripped open the front of his field jacket.

  “YAAAAAHHHH!” Cranepool screamed, slashing down with his bayonet. The blade caught the German on the neck and nearly took his head off. The German’s knees buckled and Cranepool delivered a precise vertical butt stroke to the German’s chin. The German’s head, which was attached to his body only by a few tendons, was knocked loose by the fury of this blow and it went flying through the air like a basketball.

  ~*~

  Private Olds ran through the trench trying to avoid fighting. Whenever a German soldier with a bayonet loomed up in front of him, he turned and ran the other way. He’d dropped his rifle and hoped the Germans would have pity on him because he was unarmed. Men clashed all around him, screaming curses and ripping each other apart. Shots rang out and men went crashing into the mud.

  Olds thought he’d died and gone to hell. Never had he seen such terrible brutality and never had he realized that such slaughter could exist. A German officer with a pistol fired at him and Olds thought it was all over, but the German officer missed. Olds turned and ran the other way and almost impaled himself on the bayonet of a big German sergeant with teeth like fangs. The sergeant thrust his bayonet at Olds, and Olds ducked underneath it, running past the German sergeant into another German soldier with a bayonet.

  The German tried to plunge his bayonet into Olds, who dodged to the side just in time. He stepped back, heard a growl behind him, and turned to see the big German sergeant with fangs. The German sergeant lunged at Olds, who had no place to go except out of the trench. Jumping into the air, he clawed at the mud on the wall of the trench, and the bayonet narrowly missed his ass.

  Olds leapt out of the trench, wrung his hands, and wondered where to go. Looking behind him, he was terrified to see the German sergeant aiming his rifle at him. Olds ducked and the German fired his rifle. The bullet whistled over Olds’ head.

  I’m going to stay right here and pretend that I’m dead, Olds thought. I’m not going to move a muscle until the battle’s over. Then I’m going to pretend that I’m a psycho case. If that doesn’t get me sent back to the rear, I’ll shoot myself in the leg.

  ~*~

  Captain Anderson saw the big German sergeant shoot at Olds, and he saw Olds go down. But he didn’t know that Olds was faking. He thought Olds was dead. Holding his Colt .45 with both hands, Captain Anderson aimed at the German sergeant, pulled the trigger, and brought him down. Then he aimed at the next German soldier he saw, pulled the trigger, and blew him away too.

  He heard footsteps behind him and turned around. A German soldier with rifle and bayonet charged toward him, but Captain Anderson took aim again, calmly pulling the trigger. The bullet hit the German soldier in the chest with such force that it lifted him off the ground and hurled him through the air.

  Captain Anderson looked around but could see no more German soldiers nearby. He was glad because he thought he might be out of bullets. Kneeling in the trench, he ejected the clip from the handle of his Colt .45 and saw that he only had one bullet left in it. Looking around to make sure no German soldier was sneaking up on him, he fed bullets into the clip, filling it up again. Then he rammed the clip back into the handle and stood up. His men were cheering, and he realized that evidently the hill had been taken. Climbing the side of the trench, he stood at its edge and scanned the top of the hill. The fighting appeared to be over. The only Germans standing had their hands in the air and were trying to surrender.

  Corporal Cranepool ran through the trench, holding a German rifle with a blood-soaked bayonet in the air. “WE WON!” he yelled. “WE WON!”

  Captain Anderson felt exhausted. He put his Colt .45 back into its holster, took out a cigarette, and lit it up. Then he turned and began to look for Pfc. Drago so he could report his little victory, and the death of General Donovan, to battalion.

  Chapter Nine

  General Patton looked at the maps in the conference room of his headquarters, pleased to see that his Third Army was rolling again. If it continued at this pace it would be out of the countryside in a few days and hammering at the gates of the cities and towns in the Saar.

  General Maddox approached him. “Sir?”

  Patton looked up. “What is it.”

  “I’m afraid I have bad news, sir. General Donovan has been killed in action.”

  Patton blinked. It was a rare thing when a general was killed in action. “Are you
sure?”

  “Yes sir. They have his body at his division hospital, and it’s been identified by his chief of staff, General McCook.”

  Patton took a deep breath. He’d known Donovan well, and they’d hoisted many a glass together for their paths had crossed frequently in their long Army careers. “How’d he die.”

  “It’s rather strange, sir. He was leading an attack on a hill in his front.”

  “That crazy son of a bitch,” Patton said.

  “McCook said General Donovan went to the front to get his men going. A company commander saw him fall. Evidently, he was right out in front of everybody.”

  “Well,” Patton said softly, “I guess you can’t keep an old soldier down. I’ll be in my office if anybody wants me for anything.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Patton picked up his helmet, put it under his arm, and walked to his office, hanging the helmet on a peg and sitting behind his desk. He looked at the papers, the picture of his wife, and a trophy he’d won for playing polo. General Donovan was almost like a member of his family because he’d known him for so long. They’d even been at West Point at the same time, although Patton had been two years ahead of Donovan.

  At least he died fighting, Patton thought. I hope I go the same way when my time comes. He hoped Donovan’s wife wouldn’t take it too hard, but every soldier’s wife had to know that her man could get hit at any time.

  Patton took out a piece of paper and positioned his pen—he wanted to write the letter to Mrs. Donovan before very much time elapsed. He wrote the date in the upper right-hand corner and then had a thought that stopped his hand cold.

  He realized that Donovan probably had died because of him. If he hadn’t chewed out Donovan in his office earlier that day, Donovan probably wouldn’t have gone out to the field to lead his troops personally, and he wouldn’t have got himself shot.

  “Damn!” said Patton, banging his fist on the desk. “Damn!”

  But he knew that if he had it to do over again, he would have done the same thing. The only way to win a war was to keep attacking, and the side that was winning usually suffered less casualties than the side that was losing. Statistics showed that the German army opposite him was suffering six times the casualties he was. You had to keep attacking.

  Donovan shouldn’t have tried to be a young officer again. He’d probably had a few too many drinks under his belt and took his nickname “Bayonet” Donovan too seriously. I didn’t kill him, Patton thought. The dumb bastard killed himself. But nobody has to know that.

  Patton picked up his pen and again started the letter to General Donovan’s widow.

  ~*~

  Mahoney was proven right. With control of the hill, the front in that area opened up. Armor poured through the gap and raced toward the German rear, cutting communication lines, blowing up ammunition and fuel dumps, and encircling large numbers of German troops.

  The American infantry soldiers followed, mopping up pockets of resistance and taking hordes of German soldiers prisoner. But the bulk of Army Group G was able to retreat and regroup. By the end of the day the American tanks and troops were meeting stiff resistance again.

  “I don’t know how they do it,” Captain Anderson told his platoon leaders at a meeting that night in his command post foxhole. “I thought we had them on the run, but I guess they’re not licked yet.”

  Sergeant Guffey of the second platoon grunted. “We’ll have to kill a lot more of the bastards before they’re licked.”

  “I guess so,” Anderson replied. “Anyway, we’ll have another chance tomorrow. If we keep moving the way we have, we ought to reach Saarlautern in a few days. Our orders are to move right into the city if the bridges are intact. Otherwise we hold up and wait for engineers. Any questions?”

  Mahoney spoke. “I got a man in my platoon who’s acting weird, sir. I don’t know if he’s a psycho or if he’s just trying to get sent to the rear.”

  “Olds?” asked Captain Anderson.

  “How’d you know?”

  “I saw him running away from the enemy today. Maybe I should court-martial him. When he doesn’t pull his weight he endangers the lives of everybody around him.”

  “If it was up to me,” Mahoney said, “I’d put the son of a bitch in front of a firing squad.”

  “I don’t know,” Anderson replied. “I guess before we do anything we should make an effort to shape him up. We might be able to turn him into a soldier.”

  “I doubt it,” Mahoney said.

  “We should try at least. We need every man we can get. See what you can do, Mahoney.”

  “Yes sir.”

  After the meeting, Mahoney returned to his platoon area. He checked in with Pfc. Knifefinder, then made his way to the first squad. He spotted Olds right away. Olds was hopping around with his hands held in front of him like a kangaroo, making the sounds of a rooster crowing.

  Mahoney walked up to him, reared back his fist, and punched him in the mouth. Olds collapsed into the mud, out cold. Mahoney turned around and walked back to his foxhole, stepping inside and sitting down. He threw away the cigar butt in his mouth, took out a cigarette, and lit it up.

  Knifefinder was looking at the prostrate body of Private Olds. “Gee Sarge, he still out cold. You must have hit him pretty hard.”

  “I didn’t hit him that hard,” Mahoney replied, “but if he keeps up that cock-a-doodle-doo shit I’ll break his fucking head open.”

  A few minutes later, Private Olds raised his head from the mud. He spit out some blood, shook his head, and remembered what had happened. Groaning, he got to his feet and staggered to his foxhole. He didn’t feel like playing kangaroo anymore because he was afraid Mahoney would hit him again.

  He dropped into his foxhole and sat with his back against the wall. He was all alone in the foxhole because nobody would have anything to do with him anymore. He’d been seen by too many men running away from the enemy. He thought that the only thing to do now was to shoot himself in the leg, but he’d have to wait until a battle was going on and he’d have to make sure nobody would see him, otherwise he’d get a one-way ticket to a court-martial and the stockade. Self-inflicted wounds were a serious offense in Patton’s Third Army.

  These men around here are all like animals, Olds thought. They’re a bunch of filthy brutes and that Mahoney is the worst of the lot. If it weren’t for the war, most of these people would be in jail because they couldn’t function in civilian life.

  Olds scowled and lit a cigarette, trying to remember the happy days before the war when he was a rich young playboy living it up in Los Angeles, his hometown.

  ~*~

  Directly in front of the Hammerhead Division, in a bunker covered with sand bags, was General Otto Dobbeling, the commander of the German 44th Infantry Division. Beside him was Colonel Franz Wolkenstein, his chief of staff. Frowning, they studied the map of the front.

  “It appears,” said Dobbeling, “that our most intelligent move would be to fall back to Saarlautern, blow the bridges, and fight the Americans there. The position would be much more favorable for defense than what we have now.”

  “That’s true, sir,” Wolkenstein replied, “but you’ll never get permission to move back.”

  “There’s no harm in trying,” Dobbeling said, picking up the field telephone.

  He told the operator to connect him with General Balck and then leaned against the map table, weary from commanding his division throughout a disastrous day. Dobbeling was forty five years old, with a square youthful face and close-cropped brown hair. An Iron Cross first class hung from his collar, and he was a short man, five feet six inches tall. Finally General Balck’s voice came over the wires.

  “Sir,” said General Dobbeling, “after a careful examination of my situation, I am herewith requesting permission to move back to Saarlautern, blow the bridges over the Saar River, and establish a strong defensive position there.”

  Balck didn’t hesitate a moment before making his reply. “No,�
� he said. “I forbid you to retreat.”

  “But sir, the terrain here is too open and difficult to defend. If I could get to Saarlautern and blow that bridge, I could make Saarlautern an impregnable fortress.”

  Balck laughed. “Like Metz?”

  “The Americans paid a heavy price for Metz,” Dobbeling reminded him.

  “You should make them pay a heavy price for the ground you’re fighting on right now.”

  “But I’m short of men and material. I have received no replacements for a month.”

  “I’ll have some headquarters troops for you in a few days.”

  “A few days may be too late,” Dobbeling said.

  “They’d better not be too late,” Balck replied.

  “I can’t fight if I don’t have anything to fight with.”

  “You do have something to fight with,” Balck retorted. “Your division is still intact, isn’t it?”

  “Yes but...”

  Balck interrupted him. “You should know by now, my dear Dobbeling, that numbers are not everything in battle. The victorious field commander is the one who knows how to apply decisive force at the decisive point at the decisive time. Surely you’re aware of that.”

  “Yes but...”

  “Then do it, General Dobbeling. Do it. Times like this call for ingenuity. The Americans are under a great strain too, you know. They’ve been attacking for days on end, their supply lines are stretched to the maximum, and they’re taking huge casualties. This might be the right time for a cleverly planned riposte. If you don’t think you’re up to the task, I’ll find somebody who is. Do I make myself clear?”