Bullet Bridge

by Len Levinson

  “Mahoney,” Captain Anderson said, “I want you to take the lead truck. We won’t be able to have radio communication while we’re on the road, so basically your orders are to just keep going right into Saarlautern. Once you get there, secure that goddamned bridge so that the rest of the division can use it. Any questions?”

  “What if we have trouble on the road?”

  “Keep going.”

  “What if I can’t keep going?”

  “If you can’t go through it, go around it. If you can’t go around it, go over it. Just make sure that you’re in Saarlautern when the sun goes down.”

  Mahoney took one step backward, raised his stiffened fingers to his helmet, and threw a snappy salute. “Yes sir!” He turned and walked away.

  Captain Braxton scratched the stubble on his chin. “So that’s Mahoney, huh?”

  “That’s him,” Captain Anderson replied, looking at the map.

  “He’s supposed to be one crazy son of a bitch.”

  “He is.”

  “I never realized he was so big. He’s over six foot, isn’t he?”

  “Six-four.”

  “I pity any German whoever gets in front of him,” Captain Braxton said.

  ~*~

  “All right—everybody into these two trucks!” Mahoney bellowed.

  His men let the tailgates down and loaded into the trucks. Behind them, the other GIs in Charlie Company and those in Able Company also climbed into trucks. Private Olds, carrying the walkie-talkie, walked up to Mahoney.

  “Where do you want me to go?” he asked.

  “In the first truck with the first and second squad.”

  “You mean in back with the men?”

  “Where in the fuck else would I mean?”

  “Can’t I ride in the cab with you?”

  “No.” Mahoney grabbed Olds by his sloping round shoulders, spun him around, and kicked him in the ass. “Get going!”

  Olds flew two feet off the ground, landed, and limped toward the truck. Mahoney walked around it and jumped up on the running board to see who the driver was.

  A soldier wearing a knitted khaki cap with a little visor turned from his steering wheel and looked at Mahoney. His face was covered with three days’ growth of thick black beard that reached nearly to his eyeballs. He grinned, showing shiny straight teeth. “Hi there,” he said.

  Mahoney looked at him disapprovingly. “Who’re you?”

  “I’m Willy from Philly.”

  Mahoney did a double take. “I mean your rank and real name, asshole.”

  “I’m Pfc. William Labrizi, but I’m generally known as Willy from Philly.”

  “My name’s Mahoney and I’m going to be riding with you.”

  “Anything you say, Sarge.”

  “Since you’re driving the lead truck, I suppose you must be a pretty good driver.”

  “That’s right. I used to be a cabdriver in Philly.”

  Mahoney puffed his cigar and didn’t know whether that was good or bad. “Be ready to move out.”

  “Hup Sarge.”

  Mahoney jumped down from the cab and walked back to watch his men loading into the trucks. The rain had stopped and the mud on the road was three inches thick. He fastened the top button on his field jacket because he felt a chill. It was the end of November, and if the temperature continued to drop they might get some snow.

  He climbed into the rear of the lead truck, where his first two squads and Private Olds sat on two benches underneath the khaki tarpaulin. Mahoney crouched on the steel floor of the truck between the benches.

  “All right now,” he said, “you all know where we’re going and what we have to do when we get there. We might have a little trouble along the way so be ready for anything. You might as well try to get some sleep on the road, but keep one eye open for trouble. Any questions?”

  Private Rivers raised his hand. “When do we eat?”

  “You just ate, you fucking chowhound!” Mahoney replied.

  “But when are we gonna eat again?”

  “How the fuck should I know? In Saarlautern I guess. Maybe there’ll be a restaurant open that you can go to. Anybody else?”

  Nobody said anything so Mahoney jumped down from the back of the truck just as the four big Sherman tanks rolled by on the side of the road. Their commanders stood in the turrets looking around at the gloomy afternoon. Mahoney strolled back to the second truck and spoke with his third and fourth squads. While he was there, Captain Anderson called out his name. Mahoney stuck his head out the back of the truck.

  Captain Anderson, Sergeant Tweed, and Pfc. Drago were in a jeep parked at an angle on the shoulder of the road.

  “Move ’em out!” Captain Anderson shouted.

  “Yes sir!”

  Mahoney jumped down and ran forward to the first truck, getting into the cab with Willy from Philly. The four tanks already were rumbling down the road.

  “Move it out,” Mahoney said to Willy from Philly.

  “Hup Sarge,” replied Willy, blipping the accelerator and shifting into gear.

  ~*~

  On top of the city hall in downtown Saarlautern, Colonel Franz Wolkenstein looked through his binoculars at the armored column moving out of town across the bridge. Visibility was poor and his breath made little clouds of condensation as he followed the progress of the tanks and armored personnel carriers. At first he hadn’t had much faith in this riposte, but now that it was underway he felt a strange sense of exaltation. He’d been a frontline officer for years before being assigned to staff duty, and he missed the action and thrill of command that he used to experience in battle. Now, watching the armored column, he wished he was on it, going out to deliver a surprise blow to the Americans. He figured that the Americans were advancing cautiously and not expecting anything unusual. Then, suddenly out of the gray afternoon, the black SS panzers would strike like a whirlwind, tearing the Americans apart.

  Wolkenstein sighed, accepting the role that fate had assigned to him, and stepped toward the door that led down into the building. He could now report to General Dobbeling that the panzer column had left Saarlautern for the American lines.

  Chapter Twelve

  The American column sped down the road to Saarlautern, and the wheels of the trucks and the tank treads kicked stones and mud into the air. In the lead truck, Willy from Philly hunched over the steering wheel and bounced up and down as the truck hit rocks and holes and dips in the pavement. Next to him, leaning back with one big foot on the dash, Mahoney was halfway through a cigar. Mahoney had opened his window a few inches so that the smoke wouldn’t kill Willy from Philly.

  In front of the truck were the tanks moving along at top speed with their commanders standing in the turrets. Mahoney liked the look of the tanks because they gave him a sense of security. Each tank had one cannon and two machine guns, enough to destroy anything that might try to stop the column.

  Mahoney rolled down the window all the way and looked back, the wind slapping his neck. The column of vehicles behind him faded off into the horizon and looked like a huge metallic caterpillar. Mahoney began to feel excited to be part of this bold military expedition. He detested the war, but sometimes it turned him on.

  Behind the cab, Private Olds held his carbine and walkie-talkie, trying not to look frightened although he was in a state of total terror. He imagined death coming at him from a thousand directions: bullets piercing the canvas tarpaulin suddenly and continuing on to put a hole in his heart, bombs dropping out of the sky, land mines on the road. His face was covered with perspiration and his lips trembled. He thought everybody was looking at him, and they were.

  “Get a load of Olds,” said Higgins. “He’s shivering worse than a dog shitting razor blades.”

  “Leave him alone,” Cranepool said.

  “But Corporal—I believe that man is going to crack up over there,” Higgins replied.

  “I said leave him alone.”

  Olds closed his eyes and felt humiliated. Oh
God, help me, he said to himself. It was particularly painful to have somebody like Cranepool come to his aid, because he considered Cranepool a stupid hillbilly.

  Pfc. Morgan snorted. “I’ll bet the son of a bitch has got a pussy between his legs.”

  Olds opened his eyes and saw everybody looking at him with total contempt, and it almost was more than he could bear. “What are you pigs looking at!” he screamed. “Who do you think you are!”

  Cranepool looked at him sharply. “Calm down!”

  “You calm down! I’m tired of the way you people talk to me!”

  Higgins pointed at Olds. “The panty-waist is getting a little pissed off.”

  “It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on,” chortled Private Baker.

  Olds balled up his fists. “Who are you calling a panty-waist!” he screamed.

  “You,” Higgins replied with a silly grin that pushed Olds over the edge.

  Olds leapt at Higgins and grabbed him by the throat. Higgins grimaced and tried to pull Olds’ hands away. They fell to the steel floor of the truck, punching and kicking each other, calling each other filthy names.

  Cranepool and the other soldiers pulled them apart as the truck bounced over the road. Higgins and Olds were returned to their seats, where they wiped blood off their faces and glowered at each other.

  “There’d better not be any more of this goddamned fighting shit!” Cranepool said harshly. “The next man who tries to pick a fight with another man will have to fight me first.”

  This calmed the soldiers down because Cranepool’s ferocity was well-known. Olds wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the sleeve of his field jacket, feeling strangely exhilarated. His heart pumped wildly and his skin felt as though it was buzzing. He was certain that if he had had five more minutes alone with Higgins he would have taken him apart.

  It occurred to him that when he’d jumped on Higgins, he’d lost all concern about his personal safety. He wondered if this was what Sergeant Mahoney meant when he said you have to make your fear work for you. When Higgins had started insulting him, he’d felt afraid, but his fear had quickly transformed itself into antagonism and violence. Is that what I have to do with the Germans? he asked himself. Do I have to get mad at them? But how can I get mad at them? I don’t even know them. He took out a cigarette and lit it up. I’ll have to think about this, he said to himself.

  ~*~

  “Oh-oh,” Mahoney said.

  “Whatsa matter?” asked Willy from Philly.

  “Something’s coming at us on that road up there.”

  “I don’t see nothing.”

  “You will.”

  Mahoney wondered what to do. Anything coming from that direction had to be German. But he had no radio communications with Captain Anderson or anybody else and couldn’t warn them. He hoped the tankers had noticed the dark mass on the road ahead.

  The commander of the lead tank raised his head, the signal to stop the convoy. Willy from Philly applied the brakes as the tank commander looked through his binoculars at the mass that was growing larger. Mahoney looked through his own binoculars and saw the German armored column. He couldn’t estimate how large the striking force was, but he could see that it was considerable.

  The truck stopped and Mahoney jumped down from the cab. He looked to his rear and saw the column slowing down and grinding to a halt. The big question was who had the most tanks and men, the Germans or the Americans. Mahoney walked to the rear of the truck, looking up at heads craning out to see what was happening.

  “What’s the hold-up, Sarge?” asked Private Rivers.

  “Krauts.”

  “Where?”

  “Down the road.”

  Captain Anderson’s jeep pulled away from the convoy and sped on the shoulder to the truck beside which Mahoney was standing. Pfc. Drago was behind the wheel and Sergeant Tweed was in the back seat. The jeep stopped and Captain Anderson got out, looking ahead to the German armored column in the distance.

  “Looks like we’re going to have a little problem,” Captain Anderson said.

  “Looks that way, sir.”

  “Our orders are not to get engaged here,” Captain Anderson told Mahoney. “We’re supposed to drive on to Saarlautern and secure that bridge, so tell your driver to keep going no matter what, understand?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “If anybody has to do any fighting, let it be the tanks. You just keep on going. Saarlautern isn’t much more than five or ten miles away, and the bridge probably is ready to blow. Whoever gets there first has to dismantle the detonation system on the bridge as a first priority. Get it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Return to your truck and be ready to move out!”

  “Yes sir.”

  Pfc. Drago backed the jeep up so that Captain Anderson could give his lecture to the men in the second truck, and Mahoney looked up into the troubled faces at the rear of the first truck.

  “Everybody hear that?” he asked.

  They nodded their heads.

  “There’s going to be some fighting going on pretty soon,” Mahoney said. “Take that tarp off the truck so you can see what’s going on. When we come to that bridge and I give the word, I want you to jump down and rip up any wires you see, because the wires will be set to detonate the explosives. Your best tool for that will be the bayonets on the ends of your rifles. Any questions?”

  “Sarge,” said Private Morgan, “it sounds to me as though the Krauts might blow up that bridge while we’re on it.”

  Mahoney didn’t know how to answer that because he knew Morgan was right. “Any other questions?” he asked.

  Nobody said anything.

  “Take the tarp off and be ready to move out.”

  Mahoney puffed his cigar and walked back to the cab of the truck, climbing in beside Willy from Philly.

  “What’s the scoop?” asked Willy from Philly.

  “We’re going to Saarlautern. Move out when I tell you.”

  “Hup Sarge.”

  Mahoney heard a snarl of tank engines and saw the four Sherman tanks begin to move down the road toward the advancing German armored column. Mahoney thought the operation was turning sour already. If he’d been able to move out earlier in the day with a few tanks and trucks he might have made it to Saarlautern, but now the Krauts had found time to send out an armored column, and the plan wasn’t so good anymore. If he was in charge he’d have called it off. But he wasn’t in charge and the big military machine was grinding forward. Nothing could stop it now except the Germans, unless somebody smartened up in a hurry, and Mahoney didn’t think that was likely.

  The lead tank rolled forward down the road while the three tanks behind it pulled off the road and formed a skirmish line. The tank commanders stood in their turrets and issued commands. Seconds later their big cannons fired the first salvos of the battle, and the shells exploded in the vicinity of the German armored column advancing in the distance. Other Sherman tanks from the American convoy rolled forward, passing Mahoney’s truck and fanning out into the fields on both sides of the road. Mahoney could see that a major battle was about to take place and he’d like to get out of that truck and find someplace to hide, but his orders were to attack Saarlautern.

  “I don’t like the look of this, Sarge,” said Willy from Philly.

  “Shaddup and be ready to move out.”

  Just then Mahoney heard the first German shell whistling down.

  “Move out!” he yelled.

  “Move out where!” asked Willy from Philly frantically.

  “Get off this fucking road!”

  The shell exploded twenty yards away, its shrapnel splattering against the side of the truck. In the back, Cranepool and the others huddled on the floor, a pile of squirming terrified humanity. Private Olds was at the bottom, in a total panic. He prayed that he could disappear somehow, although he knew that was impossible. The next shell might land right on the truck and blow him to bits!

  Willy from Phi
lly gave her the gas and steered off the road. The big deuce-and-a-half rolled off the shoulder and down the embankment to the grassy field, where Willy shifted into second and stomped on the accelerator again.

  “Which way should I go?” he asked, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  “Just keep moving,” Mahoney replied. “When we see how this battle shapes up, we’ll try to go around it and make a dash to Saarlautern.”

  “Fuck Saarlautern, Sarge! Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “Do what I say!” Mahoney replied, leaning forward and holding onto the dash.

  The truck sped across the field as tanks from both sides lined up and hurled shells at each other.

  ~*~

  Captain Anderson ordered Pfc. Drago to stop the jeep in the middle of the field. Then he grabbed the field radio and called battalion. Major Cutler’s voice came over the airways.

  “Sir,” said Captain Anderson, “we seem to have run into a little road block here. The Krauts have put an armored column in front of us and I don’t think we’re going to get into Saarlautern as easily as I thought.”

  “Can’t you get around them?” Major Cutler asked.

  “I don’t think we can get around them in force.” Captain Anderson opened his mouth to explain why, but an artillery shell landed nearby, shaking the ground convulsively, and the occupants of the jeep dived out, Captain Anderson letting the radio go.

  “Hello—do you read me?” asked Major Cutler.

  Captain Anderson reached back to the jeep and pulled the radio down with him. “I read you.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “German artillery shell. Things are getting hot here. The only way to get through those Germans is to fight through them, and that means we won’t be able to make that quick advance into Saarlautern.”

  “Hmmm,” said Major Cutler. “I’ll have to talk with Colonel Sloan about this when he gets back. Stay close to your radio. Over and out.”

  Captain Anderson handed the radio to Drago. “Keep your ear glued to this goddamn thing!”