Order of Battle

by Ib Melchior

  The road was deserted. It looked drowsy and peaceful in the early morning light. The war had come—and gone on. It was quiet. T5 Graham was making good time.

  Like the eye of a hurricane back here, he thought. The storm is raging around us.

  He glanced at the officer sitting next to him. A captain. What the hell was his name again? Lorrimer? Lattimer? Lattimer—that was it. An officer courier. A dispatch case was slung over his shoulder, and he cradled a Thompson submachine gun across his knees. He was staring straight ahead.

  T5 Graham took a quick squint at the signpost on a side road as he barreled past. The arm pointing down the main road read: SCHWARTZENFELD 60 Km. Good! He’d be there in time for a second breakfast.

  Ahead, a small wooded area crept down a hillside on the right and straddled the road. T5 Graham didn’t slow down. He was aware that the officer next to him repositioned his submachine gun for quick action.

  They entered the little forest.

  Rounding the first bend, T5 Graham hit the brakes.

  A crude tree-branch barrier had been thrown across the road, blocking it except for a narrow passage on the side. An MP jeep was parked nearby, and two MPs were standing at the barrier. One of them flagged Emmy Lou to a halt.

  The two MPs approached the jeep, one on each side.

  “Sorry to stop you, sir,” one of them addressed the officer courier.

  “What is it?”

  “The engineers, sir,” the man answered. “They’re clearing the stretch ahead of Teller mines. The road was lousy with the damned things.”

  Impatiently the officer glanced at his watch.

  “How long a delay?”

  “Oh, you can go ahead now, sir. One side has been cleared. Just keep well to the left.”

  “Thank you.” The captain turned to T5 Graham. “Let’s go, Corporal. You heard what he said?”

  “Sure did! I’ll keep two wheels in the left ditch all the way, sir!”

  Emmy Lou had gone about a quarter of a mile, carefully hugging the left road shoulder.

  Suddenly the forest quiet was shattered by a tremendous explosion. Automatically T5 Graham stomped the brake pedal to the floorboards. Emmy Lou skidded to an instant halt. The two men ducked, as the shock wave slammed an almost visible fist into the jeep.

  For a moment neither man moved. Then the captain straightened up. He looked around. He motioned for T5 Graham to drive on, and Emmy Lou cautiously crept toward the next bend in the road.

  Beyond was a sizable clearing. Several GIs were crouched at the roadside. Near the bend a sergeant and a corporal were kneeling by a detonator. At the sound of the slowly approaching jeep the sergeant looked up. He waved for them to stop, and turned back to the clearing.

  “Fire in the hole!” he shouted. “Fire in the hole!”

  The GIs hugged the ground. The sergeant gave a quick twist of the detonator handle, and out in the clearing an instantaneous geyser of dirt and smoke shot into the air. A fraction of a second later the deafening sound of the explosion crashed across the men’s ears.

  The sergeant came over to the jeep.

  “Okay, sir, you can go ahead now,” he said. He nodded toward the clearing. “Just getting rid of a pile of Kraut mines. The road’s clear from here on.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  The captain nodded to T5 Graham.

  “Let’s go.”

  Emmy Lou started off again, down the road to Schwartzenfeld. Sure, T5 Graham thought sourly. Let’s go! . . . We’ve lost a goddamned fifteen minutes as it is. Probably miss that second breakfast now. Dammit!

  Weiden

  0659 hrs

  A door banged. Someone padded down the corridor. Don looked at his watch. It was later than he thought. He stretched. He was getting hungry.

  He pushed his wooden chair back from the desk and stood up. His bladder all at once felt uncomfortably heavy and bloated.

  He was surprised. He hadn’t been conscious of any pressing need to relieve himself as long as he was sitting down. He walked across the Interrogation Room to the window. The makeshift blackout curtain was still drawn, but newborn daylight seeped into the room around the edges.

  Don threw the curtain aside. He walked to the door and turned off the strong electric bulb hanging overhead. He shook the grill in the potbellied stove. The fire was long dead. It had been one hell of a long night. . . .

  He looked at the desk, strewn with papers and books. Erik was still poring over the OB book and Plewig’s military biography.

  Don stretched again.

  “It’s damned well done”—he yawned—“but the little things trip him up.”

  “Here’s another one.” Erik nodded. “Look at this.”

  Don walked to the desk and leaned over Erik’s shoulder.

  “ ‘Served with 173rd Engineer Battalion attached to General Bünau’s 73rd Infantry Division,’ ” Erik read from Plewig’s carefully penciled biography. “ ‘Participated in the Balkan campaigns. Also South Russian front. My Commanding Officer was Major Horst von Wetterling.’ ”

  He looked up at Don. “Right?”

  He stabbed an accusing finger at a page in the OB book.

  “Here it says: ‘73rd Infantry Division. Commander: Lt. Gen. Rudolf von Bünau (56). Home Station: Würzburg—Bavarian personnel. Composition.’ Let’s see. . . .”

  His eyes skated across the printed words.

  “Infantry. Artillery. Reconnaissance. Signal. Engineer. Okay, now . . .”

  He pointed at the words:

  “Commanding Officers: 1. Maj. Horst von Wetterling. Campaigns: Poland, Saar, France. Killed in France.”

  He looked up at Don.

  “The man was dead when our little SOB here claims he served under him!”

  Don flipped Plewig’s biographical notes with his hand.

  “Sure looks memorized to me.”

  “You can say that again, old buddy.”

  “Wonder what the guy really did, what he is.”

  “I think we’re about ready to trot him out again. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Don nodded. “You want to use the ‘good guy, bad guy’ routine?”

  “Don’t think so.” Erik stroked his nose in thought. “It’s pretty damned obvious the guy’s a phony. He’s probably wise to that kind of fun and games. We wouldn’t accomplish anything except wasting time.”

  “Okay. We’ll give it to him with both barrels!”

  Don straightened up. Again he was painfully conscious of the full pressure in his bladder.

  “How about a shower and some chow before we light into him?” he said.

  Erik stood up. “I’m for that.”

  They walked from the room. Don began to hurry. Now that relief was in sight, he could hardly wait. One good thing about always picking the biggest and best building in town to set up shop, he thought with all the gratification of a hedonist. Indoor plumbing!

  “Be with you in a minute,” he called over his shoulder. “And get a ration, will you? Pierce used the last of the soap.”

  0733 hrs

  “Two to one he’s SS.”

  “No tattoo.” Erik pointed to his upper left arm.

  “So he hasn’t got the SS tattoo. Could be many reasons for that,” Don countered.

  “My guess is he’s Gestapo,” Erik said. “From some little town about to be overrun by the Russians.”

  “Could be,” Don agreed. “Prefers us ‘decadent democrats’ to the ‘savage Slavs,’ no doubt!”

  Erik grinned. The two CIC agents were once again seated behind the big desk in the Interrogation Room. But the desktop was now clean—with the conspicuous exception of Plewig’s biography and the big OB book. The men looked fresh and somehow eager with anticipation, ready to “engage the enemy” in their own way. . . . Erik felt quite certain of the outcome. A good interrogation—like a good lay—could come to only one predictable end.

  The door opened and Sergeant Murphy ushered Plewig into the room.

  “Jose
f Plewig, sir,” he announced crisply.

  Plewig snapped to attention.

  Erik looked up from the papers in front of him.

  “That’s all, Sergeant.”

  Murphy saluted formally and left the room.

  Erik looked at Plewig for a moment.

  “Stand at ease, Plewig,” he said. His manner seemed friendly and informal. He returned his attention to the papers on the desk. Don lit a cigarette.

  Plewig stood at ease. Outwardly he seemed not the least apprehensive but he did not allow himself to relax. He studied the two Americans unobtrusively. He saw his biographical notes on the desk. He felt a quick twinge of alarm. Had he made any mistakes? No. No, he hadn’t. At least nothing the Americans could possibly know. He wondered what the big book lying open en the desk had to do with it, and he correctly guessed it was some sort of summary of information. The smoke from the cigarette wafted toward him, tantalizing him. He suddenly felt completely confident. Let them enjoy their cigarettes and read in their fat book, he thought. I’m ready for them.

  Erik looked up at him.

  “Now then,” he said pleasantly. “That biography of yours. It seems to be quite complete.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann.”

  “However . . .” He suddenly frowned. “However, there are a few questions we’d like to ask you. You don’t mind answering, do you?”

  “Not at all, Herr Hauptmann.”

  “Good. It shouldn’t take long. . . .”

  The Road to Schwartzenfeld

  0741 hrs

  Emmy Lou was purring along.

  T5 Graham enjoyed himself. It really pleasured him to let Emmy Lou run wide open down the empty country road. He was quite literally seduced by the feel of speed, the roar of the air whistling around the windshield of the open jeep.

  Shouldn’t be long now, he thought. Another fifteen or twenty kilometers. Might just squeeze in that second breakfast after all. . . . He glanced at the officer next to him. As long as he don’t come up with the wait-in-the-jeep-I-won’t-be-long bit. . . .

  He looked ahead. He squinted. The sun was still low and straight in front of them. A small stone bridge over a stream with trees and shrubs seemed to hurtle toward them. As they came closer they could see three men walking on the road shoulder in the same direction they were driving. Hearing the jeep approach, the three men stopped and turned. One of them waved an arm.

  The captain motioned for T5 Graham to stop, and he brought Emmy Lou to a halt some twenty feet in front of the waiting men.

  T5 Graham stared at them with curiosity. What the hell kind of a snafu detail is that? he thought.

  The three men were a strange sight. Two of them were German Waffen SS soldiers. Sterling specimens of the Master Race. One had his hands clasped behind his neck, the other had his right hand on top of his helmet, his left arm in a bloody makeshift sling. The third man was a GI. He was covering the two Germans with a carbine. His right pants leg was ripped open and a slipshod bandage had been tied around the calf of his leg. It, too, was bloody and wet.

  The captain carefully got out of the jeep. He covered the little group with his tommy gun. The GI took a couple of steps toward the jeep. He limped badly.

  “Boy, am I glad to see you, sir!” he said fervently. “I thought sure I was going to end up wearing a mattress cover.”

  “What’s going on, soldier?” The captain nodded toward the two Germans. “Who are these men?”

  They’re a couple of SS, sir.” The GI shifted his feet, favoring his good leg. “We flushed them out of a cellar this morning. At a farm back a ways. There were three of them. Me and my buddy were told to take them to a PW camp up the road.”

  “Where are the others?”

  The GI looked grim.

  “The lousy bastards jumped us.” He glared malevolently at the two Germans. “They got my buddy straight off—and one of the Krauts bought it, too.” He nodded toward the man with the arm sling. “That guy got a busted hand—and I got myself a knife in the leg.”

  He looked toward Emmy Lou, then back at the officer, hopefully.

  “Maybe the captain could give me a hand getting those jokers back?”

  He grinned ingratiatingly at the officer. “Sure would be appreciated, sir.”

  The officer called to T5 Graham without turning.

  T5 Graham got out of Emmy Lou and walked up to the two Germans.

  Shit! he thought with annoyance. There goes that second breakfast for sure.

  He started to frisk the first prisoner. These fucking Krauts. If they don’t get at you one way, it’ll sure be another! He turned toward the captain.

  “This one’s clean, sir.”

  He stepped in front of the soldier with his arm in the sling. The man smiled at him. He made a small motion with his injured hand at his belt buckle. . . . .

  Instantly four shots rang out in rapid succession.

  T5 Graham screamed.

  He grabbed his stomach with both hands. He was startled at the warmth of the oily fluid that oozed between his fingers. His eyes slid across the face of the German before him, as he pitched to the ground. The man was still smiling. He hit the dirt at a crazy angle. His sight grew blurred. The last thing he saw was Emmy Lou seeming to spin and spin and spin. . . .

  The captain at once brought up his tommy gun, but in the instant the shots were fired, the GI jammed his carbine in the officer’s side.

  “Don’t!” he said sharply. His voice was utterly without emotion. “Drop it!”

  The tommy gun clattered to the ground.

  Waffen SS Lieutenant Willi Richter glanced at the dead man on the ground before him. Mission accomplished. He felt nothing. He had a fleeting vision of the butchered SS guards sprawled across the Jew gold. He almost heard the protesting cries of the outraged crows. He felt strangely let down, now that it was done. But at least, this time, the bodies were not German.

  Willi turned to the “injured” German soldier. He nodded toward the courier. “He’s all yours, Steiner,” he said.

  Steiner lifted his hand from the sling and carefully closed his belt buckle. He smiled coldly to himself, remembering the last time he’d fired the gun. Back at Thürenberg. To impress that pompous little jackass from Berlin. This time there’d be no property of the Reich to account for!

  He stepped over T5 Graham and walked up to the officer courier. He smiled.

  “Your dispatches, please!”

  He held out his hand.

  Weiden

  0749 hrs

  So far so good, Erik thought. He was holding the Plewig biographical notes before him, apparently studying them. So far only routine questions—and routine answers. But good ones. Plausible. The man was good—or he really was what he maintained

  136

  he was, an ordinary discharged Wehrmacht soldier trying to get home. Erik frowned at the papers. Could it be that he just had a bad memory? Made mistakes? The beginning of a nagging doubt brushed the edges of Erik’s mind. He dismissed it. Time to drop the pleasantries, he thought grimly. Time for that elusive moment of truth. He was conscious of the familiar keyed-up feeling. Like a hound before the hunt . . .

  “Now, you say here you were a member of the 3rd Platoon, 2nd Company of the 173rd Engineer Battalion. Is that correct?”

  Plewig clicked his heels.

  “Correct, Herr Hauptmann.”

  He felt confident. He’d answered all the American officer’s questions. Without hesitation. Straightforward. He must have made a good impression.

  Erik put down the papers with deliberation. He looked directly at Plewig.

  “I see,” he said. He seemed to think for a moment. “That’s a—a partly motorized company whose main function is mine laying. Was that your chief duty?”

  Plewig suddenly tensed. He thought fast. That damned American knows more than he ought to know. Is he right? Yes. Yes, that is the TO. Suppose he wants to know where? No problem. I can always give him some location he can’t check out. P
lewig’s guileless blue eyes narrowed imperceptibly, as he met Erik’s searching gaze. There was new respect in them. New wariness. That American could be dangerous after all, he thought. Better watch what I say. Don’t volunteer anything. Aloud he said:

  “Yes, sir.”

  Erik didn’t take his eyes off him.

  “When the company was disbanded a week ago, was it up to full strength?”

  Dammit! He had to decide. Quick. Plewig’s thoughts raced. It’s the end of the fighting. Wouldn’t be logical to expect any unit to be full strength. Half? The hesitation was only momentary. He wasn’t going to be that easy to catch!

  “About half strength, Herr Hauptmann.”

  Erik looked away.

  “I see.” He made a note on the paper. “Around—uh—one hundred eighty men, would you say?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  He felt a little relieved. It’s easier when he answers his own damned questions, he thought. He does seem to know quite a bit about the organization of our army. Showing off?

  Erik looked at him again.

  “And did the company have its full complement of twelve light machine guns and two antitank guns?” he asked.

  Plewig felt his confidence return. He’d outfox them. Of course. He could give them any plausible answer. They could never prove him wrong.

  “One of the AT guns was destroyed,” he answered. “We lost five or six of the MGs.”

  “And you belonged to this company until a week ago?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Suddenly Erik’s matter-of-fact attitude changed. His face grew hard. His eyes blazed coldly at the German. His voice snapped like a whip.