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

by Anthony A. Goodman

  The man placed a calming hand on Schneider’s shoulder and motioned to Hamm. “Er wird in ordnung sein?” He will be all right?

  “Ja,” Schneider replied to the man, “Ja, Er wird in ordnung sein.”

  The old man stood and nodded sympathetically toward Hamm. Then he moved off to look for something to eat.

  When Hamm recovered his control, they went to find McClintock. They found him leaning against the fence, breathing hard and white as a ghost. Tears were streaming down his face. Hamm and Schneider each put a hand on McClintock’s shoulders, but he didn’t move.

  Hamm took some water from his canteen and soaked his handkerchief. He wiped the remains of vomit from his own lips, then used what was left of the water to wet down his neck. He nodded to Schneider.

  “I’m OK. I’m OK.” Then, after a deep breath, he said, “Alright. Let’s do it. Let’s do what they pay us for.”

  Schneider said, “We need to find the commanding officer here. Seems to be a command post setting up over there.” He was pointing to the main wooden building in the compound where GIs were moving furniture.

  McClintock quickly pulled himself together and the three of them set off across the open space toward the building, weaving to avoid some of the inmates who were still wandering around in their perpetual daze. So far, Hamm had touched no one.

  Several times, people came toward them with their hands outstretched, begging for food. After only a few yards, the three doctors had emptied their packs and jackets of the scant rations they had on them. Candy bars. C rats. K rats. Some cigarettes. Hamm watched one man open the pitiful beaten up green K ration with the little metal opener that came with it, then carefully divide its contents with another man whom he supported with an arm around the waist. After that, the doctors could only shake their heads sadly as they walked past the starving masses with nothing left to give them.

  As they neared the compound headquarters, they came upon a small gathering in the middle of the yard. Noisy inmates, not naked, but wearing some semblance of clothing, although rags by any definition, were milling around a tall stocky American officer, whose back was turned. The officer was very calm, but the crowd was visibly agitated.

  When the three approached the officer, they saw that he was a major, wearing the medical corps insignia on his lapels. The major took no notice of Hamm or his men, or of anything going on around him. He was completely focused on the man in front of him.

  Standing directly in front of the major was a German officer wearing the black uniform of the hated SS. Hamm couldn’t recall the German insignias of rank, but the paired lightning bolts of the Waffen-SS were clear in his mind. The man still wore his long black leather coat, opened so that the battle decorations across his chest were plainly visible. There were dozens of ribbons and medals. His high stiff collar was neatly buttoned and dressed with a ribbon bearing the Knight’s Cross. The shining leather holster on his wide black belt was unclipped and empty.

  The major was saying something to the German officer, they could not make out the words. What was clear, however, was the fury in his voice. The contempt. The utter outrage. His control was only contained by sternest discipline. The crowd pressed closer and closer until the major waved them back without taking his eyes off the German.

  Hamm’s trio stood in a wide circle, spotlighted by the sun as if they were on stage at an outdoor theater. Hamm pushed his way to the front of the crowd of inmates, who were now totally silent.

  “Keep smiling, Fritz,” the major said in a cool level tone. “Your time is coming.” Hamm suspected that the SS officer understood every word, though he did not respond at all.

  “Where is your Reichsführer Himmler now when you need him?” the major said. “Eh? And little Adolph. Took some cyanide and left you holding the bag, didn’t he, the little prick?”

  No response.

  “One more time, Fritz. Your name, your rank, and your serial number.”

  The SS officer stepped forward, straightened his back, and said, “Schwein!”

  Without warning, the German spit a huge gelatinous glob into the major’s face. The yellowish fluid rolled down the officer’s cheek and began to hang toward the ground in a thin disgusting string.

  Hamm and Schneider winced. McClintock moved back a step.

  The major carefully wiped the spit from his face with his handkerchief. He dropped the soggy rag to the ground. Then he unclipped the holster of his sidearm, chambered a .45 caliber round, and pressed the muzzle of his gun deeply under the German’s chin. The German refused to yield an inch.

  A small smile turned into a sneer on the major’s lips. Finally, he shoved the muzzle forward with extraordinary force, knocking the German backward into the mud. Before the fallen man could move, the major fired his gun, missing the German’s head by inches, throwing a small geyser of mud up onto the German’s face. The blast caused everyone in their little tableau to jump and step backwards.

  The German rolled to his side, curled into a fetal position and stayed that way, waiting for the final shot.

  The major holstered his weapon, and said, “Get this piece of shit out of my sight before I kill him. Take him over there, and turn him over to the MP company commander.” He motioned to the area where some of the MPs had the remainder of the German staff cordoned off behind some barbed wire, “and make sure I never see his pathetic ass again!”

  “Holy Shit!” Gwerski had appeared out of nowhere and was now standing behind Schneider. “That Kraut just fucked with the wrong boy.”

  “I guess he did,” McClintock agreed. Then he turned to Hamm and Schneider and said, “I like this guy. Let’s go introduce ourselves.”

  As they left to follow the major, the crowd closed in on the still cowering SS officer and began to strip him of his boots and clothing. Then, when he was naked, they began kicking and beating him until—after several minutes of just watching—the MPs intervened. All the time the inmates beat him, they never made a sound.

  When Hamm’s group entered the wooden command post, they found the major scrubbing his face with soap and water at a small basin. His skin was inflamed with the friction of his effort. He dried himself with a khaki towel and looked up, surprised to see three new medical officers.

  “I’m John Hammer,” Hamm said, holding out his hand. Hamm probably should have presented himself in a proper military manner, but he thought: What the hell? The war is over, and we’re all just doctors.

  “This is Steve Schneider and Ted McClintock. We’re from the Evac Field Hospital. Detached for the moment to help you guys over here.”

  Hamm motioned to Gwerski, who still had a stupid grin on his face, and added, “This is Corporal Gwerski, our driver, who will do whatever you need him to do.”

  Gwerski nodded his agreement, standing from habit at stiff attention.

  “Gentlemen,” the major nodded, “Good to meet you. I’m Jerome Green.” He shook hands with the three of them, and then motioned to Gwerski. “Go on out there, son, and organize that chaos in the courtyard. And help the MPs keep all those Krauts away from the dead inmates. I plan a decent burial for those poor souls.”

  “Yes, sir!” Gwerski said and left the room.

  Green motioned for everyone to sit down. No further mention was made of the mock shooting as Green brought them all up to date. Hamm noticed that the major was wearing a sidearm. He wondered where Schneider’s had finally ended up. Not on his hip, anyway. He reminded himself to ask later but never did. Hamm shrugged to no one but himself.

  “Well, as you can see, this is one major SNAFU. I don’t know what we’re going to do for all these poor people. Most of the guards took off about three days before we liberated the place. And we’ve only been here less than two days, ourselves. Some of the healthier inmates, the ones who’ve been here only a short while, went out and captured some of the guards. Tore most of them to pieces out there; they brought back a few live ones and hanged them while we were still getting organized. They borrow
ed some weapons from us and shot the rest. So, we don’t have to deal with any of them now. There were a few collaborators inside the camp. Sondekommandos. They’ve disappeared, too. And I don’t have the time or interest in finding them or wasting manpower on finding out what happened. That’s over now. Period.”

  Hamm and his group sat in silence, waiting for Green to finish. From outside came the muted sounds of disparate activities. Men wandering the grounds; soldiers organizing the camp; and from far off, voices rising from the streets of the nearby town.

  “The biggest problem is that this is a pretty mixed bag of prisoners. Some Jews, some politicals, and a whole bunch who want to kill each other for some damned reason I haven’t figured out yet. But, that’s not my problem. The Third Army MPs will deal with that. We have to set up mechanisms to save the ones who’re still alive, though I don’t think many are going to survive no matter what we do for them. We’re still losing a couple of hundred a day.”

  “What’s the prevailing medical problem here?” Hamm asked.

  “Well, of course there’s plenty of cholera. But the biggest problem right now is typhus. Place is crawling with lice. Every damned one of the inmates is infested with ‘em. It’ll be amazing if we don’t get lice ourselves. I’ve got a pretty good supply of DDT and ordered some more, for all the good that’ll do, but we’ve got to organize the enlisted men to get out there and burn most of the bedding and mattresses, scrub out the barracks, and delouse the people by shaving them and spraying every damned one with DDT. And there are thousands of them out there. The barracks aren’t worth shit, but it’ll keep them out of the rain and the cold for the time being. Do the best we can, anyway, until we get some more good tents.”

  Schneider said, “You know, we’re actually surgeons, sir, Hamm and me. McClintock here is an anesthesiologist. Where do we fit in?”

  “You’re all doctors and you’re warm bodies. As far as I’m concerned, everyone here is qualified to do everything. Christ, I was a gynecologist myself before this war started! Now I do just about anything. If we have any surgical cases, of course, you’ll do those. Amputations, debridements, and so on. But, mostly, we’ve got to get this place cleaned up. There are thousands of infected ulcers. Most of these people have bones exposed, so there’s a heap of osteomyelitis; oozing pus everywhere. It’s awful. It’s a medical nightmare. I’ve seen some pretty bad shit in my lifetime, but nothing I could have dreamed of comes close to this. The people who did this…” Green stopped. He shuddered and his voice choked. He suppressed what might have been a sob, then balled up his fist and said, “Goddamn them! Goddamn them!”

  He hesitated a moment more, then slammed his fist into the desk. “You know those Jews out there? It ain’t about Jews. They just happened to be handy. They had any Negroes in this country, they’d have been in here instead. Makes no difference to the Nazis. Right now, I could kill every fucking one of them Krauts….” Then he collected himself and took command again. He let out a long breath.

  Schneider said, “Well you sure scared the crap out of that SS officer.”

  “Scared him? I missed. I’m lousy shot. I was shootin’ to kill.”

  “What!” Schneider said. Then he smiled as he saw Green’s pursed lips and the laughter in his crinkling brown eyes.

  “Easy, son. Keep your sense of humor. I never miss.”

  “They’ve got a little hospital over there,” he said pointing behind the barracks. “Most of the patients there have died since we got here. It seemed to be just a holding area for the nearly dead. There is a doctor, too. We found him sitting in a chair when we got here. Just sitting there like he was waiting to make rounds. So far, he hasn’t spoken. Seems healthy enough. Maybe one of you guys could try to talk with him. One-on-one. Major Hammer?”

  “Yessir, I will. Right away. Steve Schneider here speaks German, so we’ll send him in to give it a try.”

  “And see if you can get him to eat something. Won’t react to us. But his food seems to be gone a while after we leave it for him. I don’t know whether he eats it or the inmates come along and steal it. Anyway, see if you can get him to talk to you. I’d hate to lose him after he survived all this.”

  “We’ll try, major,” Hamm said.

  “Good. And, oh yeah, I found a notebook when we cleaned out this place. I think the doctor was keeping a record of all the deaths. He made notes of who killed each inmate. I’m going to hang on to it. Never know when we might get the chance to settle some scores around here. Nice to have a little documentation, know what I mean?”

  Green looked wistful for a couple of seconds, and then snapped back to the present. He just stared.

  After a minute of strained silence had gone by, McClintock asked, “What about nutrition?”

  “What nutrition? You ever in your whole life seen anything like this? Most of those folks are going to die of malnutrition in the next few weeks no matter what we do. We’ve got barely enough to sustain them. I hate to talk this way, but as soon as a few thousand more die, the rations will go farther. For now, we carefully dole out everything they send us and hope for the best.”

  “What else are we dealing with here?” Hamm asked.

  “Well, aside from the typhus and the cases of cholera, as if that isn’t enough, we’ve got TB everywhere. Every one of ‘em seems to cough up blood sooner or later. Then there’s some scurvy. Scurvy!

  “We’ve got dysentery. Diarrhea everywhere. I think that’s why some of them don’t wear pants even when we give them some. I mean this is your worst medical nightmare. Who the hell’s ever equipped for something like this? Don’t forget the Third Army is trying to take care of all the German civilians down here, too. Civilians got nothing to eat either. Son-of-a-bitch Hitler and his pals all killed themselves, so they get off easy. We gotta clean up their fuckin’ mess.

  “MP’s are doing a great job keeping some semblance of order. Their company commander is doing all the right things. Best he can with the manpower he’s got.

  “So, you guys find a billet outside the camp. We’ll set up some medical tents and ORs. Don’t want to use the crappy little hospital at all. Too many germs in there we don’t want to be mixing with our clean cases. Engineers arrived this morning to try to get a clean water system going and a latrine that’ll isolate the feces from the water supply. Maybe control the cholera epidemic. We sure don’t need any more of that on top of all this.”

  Gwerski came back into the room and stood at attention. Green nodded in his direction. “Yes, son?”

  Standing at attention, Gwerski said, “The scum bag has been placed with the other scum bags as ordered, sir.”

  Green smiled. “OK. Good. Now, Sergeant—I’m giving you a field promotion. I’ll put in the paperwork later. Find yourself some stripes.” Then he turned to Hamm, McClintock, and Schneider and said, “Gentlemen, as of now I am the senior ranking medical officer here. In all matters that pertain to the health and well being of everyone in this area, my word is the law. So there will be no need to get higher approval for anything, if it’s a medical matter. MP commander takes care of everything else.”

  He turned to Gwerski and said, “Get a detail of at least twenty men. All armed. Round up every civilian you can find in this goddamned town and make sure the mayor and the city councilmen are among them. Get someone who speaks German to go with you. The Krauts have known about this place all these years, and by God, and I am going to shove their noses in it. Bring them all into the camp with shovels and any wheeled vehicles you can find. No exceptions. Men and women. Old and young. Nobody who can walk gets out of this. Bring them in here and make them take every one of those bodies out there—there have to be thousands of them—and dig regulation military graves. I want the bodies cleaned and wrapped in sheets. Take sheets off the beds in their homes if you have to. Every last body will get a resting place and a head marker. The townspeople will make the crosses and the Jewish stars themselves. Every damned one of them. I’ll arrange for the chaplains to p
erform appropriate services. Graves Registration will try to identify as many as they can….” His head drooped. “For their families. Now, get on it, Sergeant.”

  “Yessir!” Gwerski turned and left the room.

  Green turned his attention back to Hamm, Schneider, and McClintock. “Questions?”

  “Guess not, Major,” Hamm said, trying to suppress a smile, thinking, I really like this guy.

  They picked up their gear and started to leave. Green sat at his desk and attacked the pile of supply requisitions that he had spent most of the night filling out, without saying another word.

  “I’m going to see what’s ready in those medical tents,” McClintock said, setting out across the main compound.

  Hamm and Schneider picked up their kits and started across the dirt enclosure toward the hospital.

  “What a pitiful excuse for a hospital,” Schneider said, looking at the ramshackle building in front of them.

  “Yeah, but it’s better than nothing, I guess. Imagine trying to treat patients in there?” Hamm said. “It’s the stuff of nightmares. Well, let’s see what we can do for this old guy.”

  The two climbed the rickety steps and pushed through the door into the anteroom.

  Schneider stopped so quickly that Hamm nearly ran into him.

  Berg looked up from his desk where he had been staring into space. His eyes widened, somewhere between fear and wonder.

  “Stephen,” he said, “meine Neffe!”

  “Dear God!” Schneider gasped. “Onkel Meyer!”

  Schneider ran to the desk and dropped to his knees in front of Berg. He took the old man’s hands in his and kissed them as he broke into tears. Schneider’s head fell forward onto his uncle’s knees and Berg caressed his nephew’s hair. Then Berg began to cry as well, staining his coat with his tears. He shook with long gasping sobs that left him unable to speak.

  Hamm stood watching for only a few seconds, then backed quietly out the door and left the two men alone.

  After several minutes more, both Schneider and Berg fought back their tears. Schneider rocked back on his heels and looked at the remains of his once robust and powerful uncle.