The Losing Role

by Steve Anderson

  “Okay, it’s okay,” Max said—

  A boot struck the kid in the face and he toppled out the jeep. Rattner’s boot. Rattner was standing, clutching at the back of Max’s seat. “See that Ami half-pint?” he shouted in German, “That’s all they’re fighting with?” He cackled and fumbled for his bottle, but Felix pulled him down.

  “Will you stop with the German?” Zoock shouted.

  The horizon turned purple. Dawn. Up ahead a dead GI lay on his back, still clutching a pack of cigarettes. They slowed to nab the pack. Inspired by the prize, Felix suggested plundering the wreckage and dead for American gear but Max argued it was too risky. The rest agreed. Rattner mumbled thanks to Zoock for his fine driving, then nodded off. Up front, Max and Zoock smoked the American cigarettes. They were Pall Malls. Max had smoked the very same in New York City. For a moment the fine musky aroma took him back to his apartment on the Lower East Side, back to the stoops and drug store diners and salary men in the elevators, and even back to that strange automat where he ate pie with a slice of cheese. And then the moment was gone. It didn’t take him back to Lucy. She smoked Camels.

  The sky became a heavy, dark gray mass. The morning mist formed drops on their olive green wool. It was time to consider the mission, and Felix took the lead. He checked the maps as they drove on. As planned, they had been dodging the major crossings and villages. They passed only minor crossings and checkpoints. At every signpost Felix had Zoock stop so he could jump out and switch the signs backward. Ideally this would send any unwary or retreating Americans right back into the advancing Germans and, similarly, any counterattacking Americans far to the rear. It was vaudeville to the death. And with every switch Felix jumped back into the jeep giggling.

  They headed downhill, and the fog thickened. A stream had washed out part of the road, revealing the tops of rocks through the mud. Zoock shifted down to cross the water. Max peered through the fog. Something was ahead, at the base of the hill. He grabbed the binoculars.

  It was a roadblock. Two jeeps, an armored car, and a squad of roughly ten American soldiers stood ready. The silhouettes looked unreal in the fog, like two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Seeing them, Felix cocked his Colt pistol. Max shook his head at Felix. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’m all right,” Felix said.

  “Good,” Max said, and to Zoock, “So. We’ll just proceed slowly.”

  Zoock nodded, slowly.

  This was the first semblance of order they had seen. It meant they had to be well behind American lines. I could end it here, Max thought. Just step out of the jeep, stroll over and tell these Americans that German soldiers were with him. Then he’d be free. Wouldn’t he? He looked again with the binoculars. The Americans’ helmets had horizontal white stripes. They were Military Police—MPs, they called them. Could it be that easy? Max wasn’t sure. Logic and sentiment clashed and sputtered in his head.

  Felix passed around American chewing gum—Black Jack gum. Zoock refused it, but Felix and Max chomped on theirs, smacking and sucking down its weak licorice sap. Any prop would help. Luckily, Rattner was still passed out, his head hanging to one side.

  The MP jeeps were parked angled into the road, creating a narrow passageway. The armored car stood behind, its gun aiming down the road. “Easy,” Max said, “easy.” As they approached, slowing, an MP each moved to the hoods of the two jeeps. They had Thompson submachine guns—“tommy guns” like Chicago gangsters used. They raised arms to halt the jeep. Zoock came to a stop.

  One MP was a lieutenant and the one on Zoock’s side was a corporal. The MP corporal stepped forward. Seeing Zoock’s Confederate hood flag, he rolled his eyes. Then he gave Max a lazy salute, which Max returned with only a nod and a smack of gum. Only now did he realize he was smoking and chewing gum. Frightful.

  “Kill the engine, please,” the MP said to Zoock. Zoock did so, and they heard the distant thudding of battles. It was much louder without the whine of their jeep. Zoock and Felix straightened in their seats. The MP winced at the loudest bursts. He had thick eyebrows. “Man, you boys look lost,” he said.

  “Yes, yes,” Max began. Zoock blurted:

  “Ah wreck-on we done gone da wrong dang way.”

  The Chinese Southern accent had returned in force.

  “What?” the MP said. He pushed back his helmet and cupped a hand to his ear.

  “Ah sayde, we done—”

  “He thinks we’re misplaced,” Max shouted over Zoock.

  “Come again, sir?” The MP stepped closer.

  “Go lay an egg,” someone blurted. It was Rattner. His head was down, his chin at his chest. He was so stoned he hadn’t sounded German but simply drunk.

  “Excuse me?” The MP stepped back and glanced over at his lieutenant.

  “Real fuckin egghead,” Rattner said, snickering.

  The MP glared at Max. “Where does he get off? Sir?”

  Max glared at Rattner. “Shut your snout, Corporal.”

  Zoock added, “Ah, doen mine heem, massa Joe. He’s mahty fine.”

  “Jesus,” said the MP, glaring at Zoock now. “You sure speak a funny kind of English.”

  Rattner’s head had raised up. He was grinning. His mouth opened. Felix slapped him, hard, and then again. Rattner groaned and slumped back.

  “It’s the goddamn shell shock, see,” Felix said in fine American English, “thinks the war’s a gas. Imagine that?”

  “Yeah, imagine,” the MP said. He rubbed at his chin. Felix offered him some gum. The MP took a stick and slid it in his breast pocket. He patted the pocket, staring at the four of them.

  “Look here, corporal,” Max said, “I can explain.” He stepped out of the jeep, and to his relief, no one made a move from the jeep or the roadblock. He felt the power of the stage now, infusing his brain and heart, a poise he could only know while performing. Hearing the rhythm of real American English stirred him. He understood these Americans. Sure, they wore olive drab wool and steel helmets, yet weren’t they still the men on the streets he’d passed day in, day out for years? And now? He was an American lieutenant. A salary man. He strode around the hood of the jeep, tossing his cigarette butt in the mud.

  Over at the MP jeeps, the MP lieutenant nodded. Max walked up to the MP corporal, handed over his papers and took the corporal aside, a yard or two away. They had their backs to the jeep. As the corporal checked the papers, Max stared off into the woods. More GIs were gathering in there, staring back from the branches and trunks like so many wolves and owls.

  Max spoke softly. Fatherly. “We are a long way from our unit, as you may read in my papers here.” A sigh. “We became cut off, and we lost a good deal of men. In an instant, they were all gone. Cut down. We are among the few left.”

  The MP corporal stopped reading. He looked up. “I lost two pals this morning.”

  “I’m sorry about that, son. Truly. However, we are going to find our way back, aren’t we? Aren’t we, son?”

  The MP stared, his eyes wet.

  “Yes, we are. As for our driver, old Bert Ignatius over there, well, there is no explaining his type. He is from Louisiana, you see, and he took too many bombs too close to the head. And, he always was a little, well, let us say, cuckoo. A fair driver though. And as for the one in back? Pity.” Max added a smile. He drew his plundered pack of Pall Malls and, careful to smack it against the back of his hand American-style, slid one in his mouth. He lit it and offered one to the MP.

  “No, thanks, sir. I’ll bet he is that—your driver, I mean. The loony ones can always drive.” The MP handed Max back the papers and gave his lieutenant a thumbs-up. He shook his head at Max’s jeep, at their mud-caked windshield and dented fenders. “You saw some tough stuff this morning, didn’t you?”

  “We did, yes. I’m afraid the Germans are coming in fullest force.” Max started back for the jeep. The MP followed.

  Felix was leaning out the rear seat waving at them. “Say, Corporal,” he said to the MP. “We’re a bit lost. We’re in Belgium? Ho
w far we from the front lines?”

  “About twenty miles. It’s definitely Belgium. You’re good and safe now—for now. Krauts are throwing everything they got at us. Say they even got planes in the air. Trying to split us north and south, we’re hearing. Making lots of headway too.”

  “Gawdang bastahds,” Zoock said.

  “Fuck it, I’m leaving,” Rattner muttered.

  The MP turned to Max. “For your shell-shock case there? There’s a field hospital up the road a stretch, take the first right. Then look for the signs.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “And good luck, sir. Hope you make it back safe.”

  “Thanks, son. You as well. I’m guessing we’ll all need much luck in the days to come.”

  Eleven

  Ten o’clock in the morning. They had infiltrated over forty miles behind American lines yet had another forty to go, ever westward, toward the town of Huy on the Meuse River. Huy’s bridge was their goal. They were to confirm the bridge was intact, cross it, and report back on conditions. Seizing the Meuse bridges was supposed to be crucial. By the end of this first day, the surprise panzer columns were to cross the river and race onward for the Belgian city of Antwerp. After Antwerp the countryside opened wide, and France beckoned. It could be 1940s’ Blitzkrieg all over. A German Europe. Fortress Europa. Wine, women, and song. It was all crazy talk. The successes of 1940 had also been a delusion and would never come again. Even taking Antwerp was a pipe dream.

  All Max needed was to get over that river. Once their jeep crossed that bridge at Huy, he’d make his move and be long gone. It was a good thing he hadn’t tried to defect at that MP roadblock. The Americans were rattled. So why would they reward him for turning in his friends? Wasn’t he one of them too, and wearing the uniform of a US lieutenant at that? Once a kraut, always a kraut—hadn’t he heard people say it in America? Besides, how could he betray Felix and Zoock like that? He was no traitor, not to his comrades. Until he got over that bridge, perhaps he could help them help themselves. He certainly couldn’t let them destroy themselves. He’d already let that kid Braun destroy himself. He would make his own way but only when the time was right. In the open country west of the Meuse he’d go on the lam. He knew enough French, and Paris was not far. If only they could get there. The Ardennes was proving a tangle of thick woods and craggy ravines. The roads were so narrow and tricky and the main crossroads so clogged that every jammed mile seemed to take an hour.

  At the same time, Max couldn’t help but get engrossed in his new role. After they made it through that MP roadblock they raved about it like school kids who’d just visited the zoo. They compared the ways the MP GIs walked, talked, stood. They analyzed the fit and wear of the uniforms and debated whether the repainted olive green on their jeep was close enough to the real thing. Mostly, they raved about Max’s performance. Fantastic yet balanced, they called it. “Subtle, you know?” Zoock said, abandoning his Chinese Southern English for the moment. Subtle—there was no better compliment for an actor. Max took great pride in that. Even Rattner came around. “Nice work, truly,” he said in German and added a careful pat on Max’s shoulder. Then there was Felix—Felix the Sphinx. For the first couple miles after the roadblock, he had grinned at Max, smacking his gum.

  “You really went out of your way there, didn’t you, von Kaspar?” he said finally. “For the team. I am truly in wonder.”

  “Thank you. Thank you,” Max said. “I do what I can.” It was a grand scene, he had to admit. He had changed the mood of that MP corporal completely.

  And yet, as with all great performances, the thrill could not last. A few miles down the road and Max was regretting his bravado, his recklessness. He had totally ad-libbed his lines. What if the MPs had checked them out closer? Zoock’s cover identity wasn’t even from Louisiana—his papers said Delaware. It might have been a slaughter. Only by accident had it succeeded.

  By noon, Felix had led them in switching five signposts and cutting two telephone lines. He boasted of blowing up a transmitter station or a munitions depot—if only they could find one. They passed a minefield along one side of the road. Felix asked Rattner if he could remove the warning signs. Rattner consented. He then ordered Max to help and Max had no choice. Rattner was sobering up. He tried radioing HQ but the weather and battles, ravines and hills made it impossible. With each failed try he grew darker. He slumped in his back seat and scowled at the trees rushing past, his left temple twitching. Max liked him better drunk and violent.

  Felix came up with a new con. In one village they pulled it off brilliantly. The place was little more than a fork in the road. A team of GIs stood guard there. Zoock raced up and started honking, and the four of them were waving their arms before the jeep had stopped. The GIs raised their guns. Zoock screeched to a halt and they yelled:

  Zoock: “Thangs at the front, they jawst gown apeshit boy! Gown apeshit!”

  “Huh? How do you mean?” said one GI, his cigarette trembling between fingers.

  Felix: “You heard him. Those krauts are nuts. Crazy!”

  Zoock: “Fixin’ to scalp us, they are.”

  (Rattner mouthed along, stammering “R, R, R . . .”)

  Felix: “Hey what outfit you from? How many strong are you? Where’s the front?”

  Max sat tall and looked official as the GIs answered to the best of their knowledge.

  Zoock: “You got that wrong, boys, all wrong. Thaw front’s thataways.”

  Max: “Men, we must find our way to the Meuse. Are we still holding it?”

  “Better be,” said one GI, his voice breaking. “If not we’re surrounded already.”

  They did the routine at four junctions. It was a hit every time. They accumulated lots of minor, constantly fluctuating information, of which Rattner took copious notes. Any sign of officers or MPs and they’d speed off.

  Around one o’clock in the afternoon, they came to a crossing blocked by a long ragtag column retreating from the front. MPs lined the crossing. One stood in the road directing traffic. Before Zoock could turn around the MP waved them on into the stream of vehicles. Zoock merged in behind a troop truck. Traveling behind them was an armored car. More MPs guarded the turnoffs ahead, crouching with their guns slung low in their hands.

  “At least we’re heading west,” Max said. No one laughed. Behind them, the armored car’s cannon extended only a few yards from Felix and Rattner. The truck ahead was so tall Max’s eyes were level with its muddy taillights.

  Zoock tapped Max on the knee. Crammed in the back of the truck were German prisoners. They’d rolled back the canvas top’s rear flap and were staring out. Some were bandaged and bloodied, their eye sockets dark and hollow.

  “They’re ours, the poor dogs,” Felix muttered. Rattner sat up, silent with rage.

  Most were old men and kids. Max tried nodding at a middle-aged private. The private gave Max an American-style middle finger. An SS captain appeared wearing a thick dirty bandage wrapped around his head like a turban. Seeing him Felix removed his helmet, pulled out his blue handkerchief and tied it around his neck. Zoock, meanwhile, pointed to the telltale white X on the corner of their hood. The SS captain grinned and whispered to the men around him, and they stared now too, incredulous. They smiled and pointed.

  “This is no good,” Max blurted in German, “They’re going to give me away—”

  “Give us away,” Zoock said.

  “They can’t help it,” Rattner said. “We are heroes to them.”

  Still grinning, the SS captain ran a flat hand across his throat, like a knife cutting a jugular. Then the truck hit a bump and the captain toppled back, never to appear again.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Felix said. “He can go to hell.”

  “Just find an open road, goddamnit,” Rattner growled.

  Soon Zoock found an unguarded turnoff onto a forest road. A heavy wet snow started falling and they stopped to put the roof up, saying nothing.

  With twenty
miles left to the Meuse, the sounds of battle had dimmed. This was not a good sign. It meant the lead panzers were falling far behind schedule. As Zoock drove on they watched the snow fall in silence, each considering, in his way, what total failure might bring. They smoked their German Ernte 23 cigarettes with care, breathing deep, smoking them right down to the end.

  The snow thickened and stuck to the windshield. They saw the sparkles of ice forming on the road. The cold ached in Max’s knuckles and in his knees. He put on his gloves and sat on his hands.

  Rattner tried the radio out in a field, atop a hill, and in a ravine. Zoock drove straight inside the woods so he could try it there, the tires whirring on freezing earth. Among the static Rattner could hear the cries of desperate Germans in battle but they couldn’t hear Rattner, who pleaded with them to hear him.

  They stopped to eat rations along a raging stream. On the opposite bank a steep wall of ravine rock rose up, blending into the thick branches above. On the other side of the road stood a wall of broad fir trees. It was like they were in a cave. Their voices seemed to echo and the water made a hollow roar.

  Rattner tried the radio again. All he got was static. He burst out of the jeep, ran down to the stream, crouched before the violent current, and got on his knees as if praying.

  “Maybe he’ll jump in,” Zoock said.

  Felix went down to Rattner. Max and Zoock watched from up in the jeep. Felix spoke softly and put his arm around the captain. Zoock looked away, but Max had to watch it. After a couple minutes Felix trudged back up to the jeep.

  “The captain, he wants us to turn back,” he said, almost whispering it. “Just head home. He’s losing it, gents. Losing faith. So much for the vaunted SS.”

  For Max, heading back now was as bad as being caught spying. He got out of the jeep, stood in the road, and shook his head—pondering the right response.