None But The Brave: A Novel of the Surgeons of World War II

by Anthony A. Goodman

  “Jesus! How bad is it?”

  “Bad! Very bad. Get going.”

  “Well, how? Shouldn’t I be here for the wounded guys we’re gonna get from the offensive?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Antonelli’s already on that. You’ll get plenty of work. Just pack up and help evacuate the place. Everyone’s moving. Nobody stays here.”

  Donovan turned and went to the next room, rousting everyone who hadn’t been awakened by all the racket. Marsh grabbed his gear and packed what he could carry. He had to leave a lot of stuff behind. More than usual. Something told him he wouldn’t need it.

  In a few minutes, Marsh was outside with everyone else, packing the gear. They were getting very good at bugging out of places. The trucks were loaded and ready to go in no time. They loaded the sickest first and sent them directly over to Malmédy. It was an easy uphill drive along the N32 to the Baugnez crossroads, and then a few miles to the Malmédy Field Hospital. Marsh, Antonelli, and the other medics had been back and forth between Waimes and Malmédy dozens of times ferrying supplies and wounded GIs. It was no big deal. So, Marsh stayed at the field hospital site until everyone was gone and all the supplies with them. By noon, the place was nearly empty, and Marsh was left with a jeep and one GI, named Jordan. Jordan was a new guy, and Marsh didn’t know him very well. He was mostly a driver for trucks, jeeps, and even a half-track every now and then. But he liked Jordan, who was—in his own way—a lot like Marsh. Jordan was energetic and very conscientious. Not easy traits to find after so many months of slaughter and hardship.

  They looked around one last time, and then Marsh said, “OK, man. Let’s haul ass!”

  Jordan was happy to be leaving. Marsh was too. Although his job was often solitary in the most dangerous circumstances, Marsh never liked being alone. It felt too spooky, and though he would never tell the guys in the unit, it was no different than when he was a kid and got left behind playing Hide ‘n’ Seek.

  Marsh had been such a good hider, and so determined to win, that he would get into a hiding place and stay there as quiet as a mouse for hours. Meantime, the other kids would go home for lunch. The afternoon would roll by, and there Marsh would be, all tickled about winning the game, not knowing everybody had gone home. Then it started to get dark, and it wasn’t so funny anymore. As soon as he found out he was alone, the fear took over. He would run home to his mom, crying until he was within sight of the house, where he would wipe his face and put on a show of being a big boy. Funny, he thought, it was no different here in Belgium. Or France.

  The two men jumped into the jeep and set off up the N32 west toward the Baugnez crossroads. It was a hard-topped road, so they made good time. Marsh looked into the far distance whenever he could, but none of the other trucks or jeeps were in sight. The road was a long, gentle, uphill grade all the way to the crossroads, so neither Marsh nor Jordan could see very far ahead. Marsh’s watch showed 1300 hours, so they still had more than three hours of daylight, even at this time of year. And at least they had each other for company.

  They drove a few more miles, and, as they neared the top of a hill, Marsh spotted a huge convoy of American half-tracks and trucks in the distance. He had heard that B Battery, of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, was moving down to Ligneauville, somewhere south of them.

  He liked seeing the long line of his guys down there. He didn’t feel so alone any more. As they drove on, Marsh complained to Jordan that they might be in for a long wait.

  “That big convoy will probably tie up the crossroads. Maybe we can cut across a field down there. If it gets crowded, you might be able to cut around that Café right at the intersection. The old Frau will probably shit a brick when we drive across her field, but fuck her and the horse she rode in on. Never liked her anyway.”

  They continued down the N32 and were just coming up on the intersection, some two hundred yards away. Marsh was getting ready to wave to the troops when an earsplitting boom shook the ground and the jeep beneath them. It came from behind them, from the fields at the left of the road. Marsh turned in his seat, and his mouth fell open.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said quietly, in complete awe of the scene he saw below him.

  Jordan turned too, and nearly drove off the shoulder of the road. He slammed on the brakes and skidded, throwing up sand and pebbles as he hit the shoulder.

  Below them in the fields were German Panzer tanks—“Tigers”—in battalion strength. There were so many of them, Marsh couldn’t count them. They were cutting over from the N32, crossing the snow-covered field behind Marsh to attack the B Battalion convoy.

  The Panzers had been right behind them below the road, but their eyes had been glued to the road ahead, trying to avoid the scattered snow drifts and puddles of snow-melt. No more than ten minutes separated the Germans from them. Jordan was driving faster than the tanks, but they had caught up by crossing the field to their left, attacking the B Battalion on the road going south.

  Marsh and Jordan could see the whole battle now. B Battalion never had a chance. They were outgunned and outmaneuvered from the first shot. The barrage continued without stop. The tanks never even slowed down. There was nothing the GIs in the convoy could do. They had stumbled into the path of one of Hitler’s most powerful Panzer forces, and they were doomed.

  Marsh slapped Jordan on the back, and shouted, “Get the fuck out of here, man! Haul ass! Go! Go! Go!”

  Jordan hit the accelerator and swerved back onto the hard-top. He careened right up to the intersection, where they then came under attack themselves. Shells from the Panzers burst everywhere around them. Because the B Battalion vehicles hadn’t cleared the intersection yet, Marsh and Jordan were pinned down. Jordan turned hard and gunned it around the trucks, heading for the café, when a shell burst to their left and upended the jeep. Marsh leaped clear, his body crashing through the brush and splashing into a ditch full of snowy, mushy mud. Jordan tried to roll out but was scraped along the hard-top, shredding his uniform and badly abrading his palms and shins. Fortunately, since it was winter, he was dressed heavily, so the uniform absorbed much of the damage. The fall at such speed would otherwise have just about skinned him alive.

  The Germans had stopped the American column completely, and the American GIs were surrendering or hiding in ditches and culverts at the side of the road. The Panzers lined up along the roadside, machine-gunning everyone who continued to resist or tried to run away. The American GIs were falling everywhere Marsh could see. It was a slaughter.

  A German half-track pulled up alongside Marsh’s jeep. Two officers aimed their automatic weapons, motioning for Marsh and Jordan to raise their hands. Marsh got to his knees with his hands straight up over his head; not a half-hearted sign of surrender, but truly reaching for the sky. There was no question about his surrender. And he was clearly unarmed. There were red crosses all over his helmet, and a red-cross armband on each arm. Still, he held them high.

  The Germans had blood in their eyes. They wore the gray field uniforms of the Schutzstaffel and he was not about to fuck with them. He had been under fire day in and day out for six months, but he was never as afraid of anyone as he was of these SS men. After the short period as POWs in their own field hospital, Marsh had gotten religion when it came to the SS. He knew better than to cross them now.

  One of the soldiers kept his muzzle trained directly at Marsh’s chest, even though Marsh was unarmed. The other was screaming at Jordan to get up, or so Marsh guessed. The German kept shouting, “Händen Hoch! Händen Hoch!”

  Jordan was dazed, and the pain of his extensive abrasions was keeping his attention. With nearly no skin left on the palms, he couldn’t use his hands to help himself up, and his knees were hamburgers. So he was rolling around trying to get to his feet, when the SS man shot him with a short burst from his automatic rifle. Jordan flew backwards and splayed out in the middle of the road. The German laughed and called to his partner, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Marsh.

  All M
arsh understood was “scheiss,” the German word for shit. Schneider had taught him that. Marsh had been kidding around with Schneider, yelling “Scheiss nicht! Scheiss nicht!” He told Marsh, “You mean, ‘Shiess nicht.’ You just said, ‘Don’t shit!’ not ‘Don’t shoot!’”

  They laughed a lot about that, and afterward Schneider was always yelling to Marsh, “Hey, Marsh. Scheiss nicht!”

  Well, Marsh didn’t know what that German was saying, but Jordan was clearly dead, half his chest blown to bits right over his heart. Marsh didn’t move a muscle. He was helpless. The SS knew it, and they were enjoying it. The four of them were almost dead center of the crossroads at this point. The Kraut motioned with his gun and said something to Marsh in German. He was moving toward the café and the field beyond it.

  Marsh didn’t know how long the battle took from the beginning barrage to his surrender, but it all felt pretty quick. By the time he could see his watch, it was 1330, so it hadn’t been more than twenty or thirty minutes from start to finish. As they walked to the field with the Kraut prodding the muzzle of his gun into the small of Marsh’s back, he noticed that there was only sporadic firing now. None of it was from his side.

  The fight was over and he was an SS prisoner. Again.

  Fuck!

  Marsh wasn’t sure just how many GIs made it alive into the little field just southwest of the intersection, but it seemed like a hundred or a hundred and fifty. He had no idea how many bodies were lying out there in the ditches and the road. More than were now standing in the field. Even though the fight had ended quickly, the Germans kept shooting a hell of a lot of GIs, and Marsh could only think that he was damn lucky they were taking prisoners at all.

  This could have been a real massacre, he told himself. These fucking Krauts.

  The Germans herded everyone into the field. There was a barbed wire cattle fence four feet high, so climbing into the field with their hands over their heads was very hard. Many of the men were wounded and were being helped by their buddies. Some were being dragged, barely alive. One man was actually dead when they got him over the fence, but the GI dragging him just kept moving along, never looking back. Marsh saw it and had the feeling that the GI knew the man was dead, but he would not leave his buddy out there at the side of the road in the melting snow and mud. Marsh nodded to himself, knowing he would have done the same thing.

  Sometime before 1400 hours, they were standing there in the field, a confused and defeated group of GIs still holding their hands high in the air. Marsh’s shoulders were killing him, but there was no way he was going to lower his hands.

  About twenty Germans came into the field and searched them. They took away guns, ammunition, almost everything. Then they began pulling off watches and dipping hands into pockets for wallets and money. Most of them were laughing the whole time and joking among themselves.

  Big fucking joke, you cocksuckers. Your day’s comin’….

  Marsh was foundering in his fear, supporting himself only with hopes of revenge for the terrible slaughter that had taken place on the road in front of him, and hopes of getting revenge for Jordan.

  The SS officers around the field were even grimmer than the enlisted men. They gave Marsh the creeps. Marsh never could locate the one who shot Jordan, but he didn’t know what he would do if he did. He wasn’t about to be a hero and attack the bastard. Jordan was already dead, and Marsh wanted to live. No matter what, he wanted to live. That thought didn’t make him feel very brave. He wondered to himself what he was prepared to do to survive; who might die so that he could live?

  Then, from nowhere, came that terrible feeling he had when the sergeant woke him up that very morning: the same tightness in the pit of his stomach. It was more than losing a battle, more than being taken prisoner for the second time, though that was bad enough. It was something else, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

  While they stood with their hands still high in the air, another convoy of Panzer tanks pulled up in the road alongside the field. The lead turret was open, and Marsh could see the commander dressed immaculately, almost as if he had just stepped onto the parade ground. His uniform was clean and pressed. He was the very model of a German officer. Hanging from his neck was one of those black iron crosses. From the way the other German officers ran up to him and saluted, Marsh knew this man was in charge of this whole outfit. He heard the name Piper or Peiper.

  “Jawohl, Obersturmbannführer Peiper!” they said again and again, clicking their heels and snapping their idiotic stiff-armed Nazi salute.

  So, Marsh thought, that’s his name. Marsh couldn’t remember the ranks of the German officers, but he knew from the insignia that the man was a lieutenant colonel.

  Peiper’s eyes scanned the prisoners standing in the field, staring for a long time as if he were considering what he should do with them. There were so many.

  By then, Marsh was hopping from foot to foot. His heart was racing and he was sweating in spite of the cold. He was nearing all-out panic. It was all he could do not to cut and run, anything to get away from the intolerable uncertainty. Here is this lieutenant colonel of the Panzers and a whole army full of the fuckin’ SS with him, and Peiper obviously is hell-bent-for-leather going somewhere, shooting and Blitzkrieging all over fucking Belgium. So what the hell is he going to do with a hundred or more American prisoners, Marsh wondered?

  While Peiper considered all of this, Marsh remained with his arms high in the air. The pain in his shoulders was superseded by that terrible knot in his stomach. He just knew he was going to die there that day unless he did something about it.

  A GI stood right in front of him. Marsh edged a bit to his own right, taking cover in the man’s shadow, as if he were hiding behind a tree. Then he said in a very low whisper, “What do you think that Kraut Colonel’s gonna do?” He didn’t move his lips, imitating his favorite ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen, and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy.

  The man in front of him didn’t turn his head, but Marsh heard him whisper, “I’ll give you one guess, pal.”

  “But, we’re prisoners, for Christ’s sakes,” Marsh said through his teeth, trying to argue his way to a better outcome. “We aren’t even armed anymore.”

  “Fuck that, pal. What’s he going to do? Stop the whole offensive and baby-sit us here until reinforcements arrive?”

  Marsh started to argue, but realized that it didn’t matter what he reasoned out. All of their lives were in that colonel’s hands, and Marsh didn’t like the looks of any of it. If anything, he hoped that Peiper would stay in command rather than leave them to the SS grunts.

  Another officer, this one also from the SS, walked over to the tank and climbed up onto the tread. Peiper leaned down and spoke quietly into his ear. Marsh really didn’t like that. Most officers boomed out their orders in front of everyone. They loved command and the way they controlled everyone around them.

  It was exactly then that Marsh was certain he was a dead man, and a dead man had nothing to lose. He was no less afraid. His stomach still roiled and knotted, threatening to spill his undigested breakfast over the snow and mud. Yet he maintained his reason and his ability to act. He had to have a plan. Make a plan and stick to it, he told himself.

  He started to inch his way back toward the fence line as far from the road as he could. There were lots of men between him and the guards, and he thought they might not notice him if he moved very slowly, screening himself with the men in front of him. Yes, he felt shitty about that.

  I didn’t come all this way to lie down and die in some fucking field in Belgium.

  He thought of his big brother dying on that beach in the Pacific (he still couldn’t remember the name of the damned place) and he wasn’t going to go down easily.

  “Halt! Hände Hoch!”

  The voice almost made Marsh shit. There was a Kraut guard, SS, right behind him. He had a machine pistol pointed right at Marsh’s back, and he screamed in his ear. So much for haulin’ ass.

  Marsh
moved a step away and stared straight ahead.

  Just about the same time, the tanks started revving up their engines. The field filled with diesel fumes. All the tanks and some of the half-tracks started to move out down the road toward Ligneauville. It was very cold and damp, with mushy snow all over the field and mud everywhere. But the air was still, and the fumes of the tanks just hung in the air all around the prisoners. A few GIs started coughing. As soon as the main tank force was on its way, a half-track moved in along the road almost on top of the field. There was a seventy-five millimeter cannon mounted on it, and the gunner was lining up the muzzle right at the prisoners. Point blank range.

  Marsh thought, oh fuck, here it comes.

  Now there was a machine pistol at his back and some Kraut asshole was going to fire that big cannon right into the center of the mass of unarmed prisoners. FUBAR!

  One officer jumped down from the half-track, shouting orders, waving his arms to his men. The enlisted men started to load the cannon. The seventy-five millimeter shell looked like a monster to Marsh. But what really scared him was that he saw the German guards, the SS who were in the field, including the one behind him, start to drift away and climb over the fences onto the road. They took up positions around three sides of the field, but were now out of the range of fire of each other and the seventy-five millimeter cannon.

  The cannon—a totally inappropriate overkill weapon for close combat—was aimed over the heads of the prisoners, but the Germans were slowly depressing the muzzle. Then it stopped. It was still too high, the mechanism set so it could not be lowered any further. The German officer got very agitated and started yelling at the men on the half-track. They scrambled around a bit, but they still couldn’t lower the muzzle enough to aim it at the prisoners.

  Thank God.

  Marsh knew they all should have started running right then and there. At least some of them would get away. But they didn’t. There was no command structure. No one to give orders. No plan.