by Griff Hosker
“Of course.”
I could see that we had set them to thinking. “Look guys, there is nothing complicated about this. Uncle Sam has trained you well. We saw that today and yesterday. You know how to fight and you have courage. That is all you need. The S.S. you are fighting are just like vicious criminals. Your Al Capone and the Mafia, they are like the S.S. They are not hard working and they have a perverted sense of values. All of you chaps want to get home to your families.” I spread my arm, “We do. The S.S.? They enjoy this. As far as they are concerned Hitler can make this war last a hundred years and they will be happy. That is the difference. Never forget that. You are fighting for something worthwhile. They are fighting because they enjoy it.”
Silence descended around the fire. Wilbur, Pfc Pitt, asked, “But can we win sir? Can we beat these guys and their weapons? When I went to get the gas from the Shermans I had a look at that Tiger. It had steel like the Liberty ship we came over on! How do you stop them?”
“You saw how. Use a bottle of gas and a match!” They nodded. “And a tip from an old soldier. Get as much sleep as you can. Trust that your comrades will guard you and when it is your turn to watch remember that you watch your brothers. We are family!”
Gordy said, quietly, “And that goes double for you, sir. Get your head down and that is an order. You were wounded today!”
I laughed “Yes mother!”
When we were woken for our duty, Hewitt and I left the relative warmth of our blankets for the icy reaches of the far end of the bridge. The sentries we had relieved had seen nothing save the white emptiness of the night. After checking that it was still all quiet I sent Hewitt back to the fire to put on a large dixie of water. Thanks to the snow water was not in short supply. By the time it was the time for our shift to be over it would be boiled. I had already decided that there would be little point in my going back to bed. I could go up to the Trois Ponts crossroads and view the situation there. There had been shots during the night. As the Americans were using captured weapons it was hard to tell who was doing the firing.
The secret of sentry duty on a freezing night is to keep moving. With the German camouflage cape covering my ears and upper body I was relatively warm and almost invisible. I kept my eyes on the road south. Although the night was silent I could hear, in the far distance, vehicles. I had no idea which way they were moving but it had to be along this road. It could either be towards St Vith or away from it. Towards would be German tanks closing in on the last of the defenders; the ones who could not get out. Away from it could either be Americans or, if it was truly all over, the Germans.
Corporal Hewitt returned. He looked happy. “One of the sentries searched one of the nearby houses, sir. He found a tea caddy. We can have tea this morning!”
Somehow that brightened the morning. I liked American coffee but morning wasn’t morning without a mug of hot sweetened tea. I took it as a hopeful sign. “That is excellent news.” I looked south again. “We won’t be home for Christmas then, John.”
“No sir. What is the date?”
“Today is the 22nd. I have no idea of the day of the week! Unless things change dramatically then we will be here.”
“At least we will have a white Christmas. Back in the Boro it gets really cold but we rarely get snow. You see a bit on Roseberry Topping or the Eston hills but that is about it.”
“Do you miss Middlesbrough then, John?”
“I didn’t when I joined up but I do now. It is daft things like going to Stockton on a Wednesday for the market.”
“Market?”
He grinned, “Don’t get me wrong, sir, I hate shopping but the pubs are open all day on market day in Stockton. When I was a young lad me and my mates would walk to Stockton and have an all day session in the pubs then fish and chips and walk home. I did it on my last leave. Half of the lads weren’t there. Some were in action and others had died.” He shook his head. “It is daft what you miss isn’t it sir?”
“No John. In peacetime, we take too much for granted. I know that I will be looking at England with different eyes when I get home.”
“You will be getting married won’t you sir? You and your young lady.”
“When the war is over, yes, but I try not to think of that.”
“Brad Dexter was due to be married when he got back to Virginia, sir. He told me. He showed me a picture of her. She is a bonny lass. She will marry someone else now.”
I began to recite. I had been forced to learn the poem at school and I had no idea that I still remembered it.
“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.”
Hewitt nodded, “That’s about right sir. Who wrote that? You?”
I laughed, “No, John, a chap who died in the Great War; Wilfred Owen. He fought all the way through it and was decorated. He was a brave soldier. He died in the last week of the war. There will be a lot of women like that. Mrs. Dean, she lost her husband in the war. It took over twenty years for her to find Reg.”
“Our school didn’t read poems like that. I had to learn Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. I liked it though. I thought how great it would be to charge with swords flashing.”
“My dad began the Great War in the cavalry. The machine guns cut down the horses. That wasn’t war, that was slaughter.” I pointed to the north east. “It is ironic really that he fought north of us on horseback and we fought there in a halftrack. A hundred and fifty years ago, British soldiers were doing the same at Waterloo. The difference was that then we were allies of the Germans.”
We finished the watch in silence. Both of us were lost in memories of a more peaceful time. That was the thing about sentry duty. You found things out about your comrades. I had no idea that Hewitt liked Tennyson.
When we were relieved I told Corporal Powers to keep an ear out for the armour. “Will it be the Krauts, sir?”
“No idea but you should be able to recognise the sound of a Sherman. If it doesn’t sound like a Sherman then prepare for the worst.”
I left Hewitt at the camp and headed, with my gun up to the crossroads. As I approached there was the crack of a German rifle and a muffled cry. I automatically crouched as I ran up to the brazier. It was shielded by halftracks and Shermans. Sergeant Major O’Rourke was handing mugs of coffee to Colonel Devine and, I assumed, Colonel Cavender.
Sergeant Major O’Rourke said, “Give me a minute sir and I will get you one.”
“Thanks Sarn’t Major.”
Colonel Cavender stood and held out his hand, “Jack here told me what you have done. It is a pleasure to meet you. I just missed you at St. Vith. Me and my guys arrived just after you left.”
“What was it like sir?”
“We did our best to hold on but we couldn’t match their armour. Our soldiers were brave enough; too brave perhaps. You can’t fight Panthers with rifles and machine guns.” He patted the nearest Sherman. “We needed more of these.”
“When we came ashore on D-Day, we had the Firefly variant. That has a 17-pounder gun. They can take a Tiger; if they are close enough.”
“If they are close enough, Major, then the Krauts will have blown them up already.”
I nodded as Sergeant Major O’Rourke handed me my coffee. “How are things here, sir
?”
“They have kept up their sniping all night. We intend to attack this morning and see if we can retake the crossroads before they bring in more tanks. According to the radio the All-American Division is still fighting its way south. As far as we know the German advance has stopped along its northern axis but in the south…”
Colonel Cavender nodded, “We heard that Bastogne is surrounded. Thank God, they have the Screaming Eagles there. General McAuliffe is a tough soldier. It will be hard to winkle him out of there but German columns are racing towards Dinant. It won’t matter what we do here if they cross the Meuse.”
“Well sir, in my experience, you fight one battle at a time. Let’s fight this battle and worry about the rest of the war afterwards.” I pointed south. “I heard the sound of vehicles, sir. They were way to the south but they may be heading up here.”
“They could be our armour. Some were still fighting when I left.”
“Well I hope it is.” I stood and said to Colonel Devine, “You know where I am if you need me sir. If any Germans do come up this road then you know that we are all dead. They won’t get through us without a fight.”
“I know, Tom, I know.”
By the time I got back to the bridge the small camp was stirring. The smell of coffee had awoken those who had been on watch first. Hewitt had managed to find a jug and he was brewing the tea. He shook his head as Gordy rubbed his hands, “Don’t get excited Sarge, it is only dried milk and there’s precious little sugar.”
“If it is tea then that will do for me. This will start the day well.”
Pfc Mason approached us, “Sir, I know that looting is frowned upon but yesterday, when I was looking for the axes, I found this.” He took from a sack a large joint of cured ham. Some slices had been taken but there was still plenty left.
I smiled, “Let us say that you were foraging, Private, and that shows initiative.”
“What do you do with this, sir? We don’t have this at home.”
“You can slice it and eat it as it is but if we can find a frying pan then we can slice it up and cook it like bacon.”
Gordy said, “There’s some stale bread, sir. If we put that in the fat when it has finished cooking then that will be a feast fit for a king.”
“Right then, John, slice it into as many pieces as you can get and don’t throw away the bone. That will make some soup!”
It is amazing how such little things can lift a soldier’s spirits. They were cold. We had little ammunition. Enemies lay all around us and yet the smell of ham frying over an open fire and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee brought everyone who was not on duty to gather around. I took on the duty of cook.
“Here Gordy, give me four slices of that stale bread.” I laid the four pieces on top of the huge skillet I was using to cook the ham. The ham had a great deal of fat on it and that rendered down so that the ham would have been almost deep fried had the bread not soaked it up. I made up the four sandwiches and gave them to Hewitt. “Take these to the guards at the bridge. It must be torture for them to smell the ham.”
“Right sir.”
Twenty minutes later the ham and the bread was all gone. Sergeant Henry had just taken a bite when he stopped, “Sir, where is yours?”
The truth was there was none left. It had not quite been the loaves and fishes but it had been close. “Don’t worry about me Sergeant, I ate with the Colonel.” He nodded, seemingly satisfied but I saw Gordy shake his head disapprovingly.
Dawn was just breaking when I heard the sound of the Sherman’s guns as the attack began. I felt guilty for we had not had a bad night all things considered. I was just contemplating going to see if we could help when Corporal Powers, who had just relieved the sentries, came running across the bridge. “Sir, tanks.”
“Stand to!”
Chapter 10
Every soldier grabbed his weapon and manned his post. I went with Sergeant Henry, Barker and Hewitt and we followed Corporal Powers back to the south side of the bridge.
“You can’t see it sir, but you can hear it.”
I listened. “That is a Sherman. Gordy come with me. I don’t want them to trip my booby traps.” We did not run on the road. It was still slick after the night. If the cloud cover returned then it might thaw but the sky looked clear for the moment. That was good for it meant we might have air cover soon. When I reached the slope, where the booby traps lay, we stopped. I saw that there was a Sherman and what looked like a Kangaroo behind. The Kangaroo and the Sherman were both covered with soldiers. The trouble was I had not seen any Kangaroos at St. Vith. A line of weary looking soldiers trudged behind. I did not know if the tanks were going slowly to preserve fuel or to make life easy for the men behind. They were less than half a mile away when the men began to run and the tanks speeded up.
“Looks like trouble.” I took out my binoculars. I looked down the road. I could not see anything at first and then I saw a tendril of smoke climbing into the sky. It looked to me like the exhaust of a German tank. Where there was one tank there could be others. I estimated that they were five miles or more behind the Americans. That would give us, perhaps, fifteen minutes. I looked at the sky. The clear skies of the morning had gone. There was a chill wind from the north and there were snow laden clouds scudding in.
“Gordy, go back and warn the men that we may have company soon and then go and tell Colonel Devine the bad news. Tell Sergeant Henry to move the barrels too.”
“Sir.”
As the tank struggled up the slope I shouted, “Keep to the centre. Turn around once you are over the bridge.”
The Sergeant nodded. I saw he had a bandage on his head, “Sir, there are Kraut tanks behind. There are at least six of them and two are Panthers.”
“We will stop them. Never fear.”
I saw that the Kangaroo was not an armoured personnel carrier. It was a Sherman that had had its turret blown off. The men began to jump off.
“Don’t go into the woods I have mined it.”
“Major Harsker!”
It was Sergeant Ford, “Sergeant, you made it. Is the Colonel with you?”
“He is in the bag sir. The last I heard they captured 7,000 of us.” He shook his head, “We just made it out.”
“Is the tank usable?”
The driver, whose head stuck out of the broken hatch shook his head, “We barely made it here, sir. This is scrap metal but at least it saved these guys.”
“When you get to the bridge I want you to turn it sideways on and block the entrance to the bridge.”
“Will do, sir.”
I shouted to the men who were trudging behind, “Get yourselves over the bridge.” I looked south and I saw the tanks a little more clearly. They had Panzer Grenadiers clinging to the huge Panthers which led the column. As the Americans marched past me I recognized the flash of an Engineer. It was a sergeant.
“Are you an Engineer, Sergeant?”
“Yes sir, Sergeant Phil Hall, 1st Engineer Battalion.”
“Do you know explosives?”
He grinned, “Does a duck quack, sir? Of course I do.”
“Come with me sergeant. I have some T.N.T, black powder and hexogen. I have some detonators from German rockets. Could you make the wrecked tank into a bomb?”
“With T.N.T. you can make anything into a bomb. The question is can you make it safely and have it explode when you want.”
“What I intend to do is to park the wrecked tank across the bridge and cut the fuel lines so that the engine and the ground is covered in petrol. The Germans will probably try to push the tank off the bridge. It is what I would do. Could you make it so that when they struck the tank it would blow up?”
He grinned, “I think I could do something, sir!”
“Good man.”
By the time we reached the bridge the driver had managed to manoeuvre the vehicle across the bridge.
“Sergeant Henry, get the barrels back in place.”
“But why sir? The tank blo
cks it just as effectively.”
“I intend to blow it up. The barrels will give us some protection. Corporal Hewitt go and fetch the detonators, T.N.T, black powder and hexogen. Give them to Sergeant Hall here and then assist him eh?”
“Sir.”
I opened the engine compartment and, finding the fuel lines, took out my dagger and slashed them. Time was of the essence. The smell of petrol filled the air. The last of the refugees had crossed the bridge. Sergeant Hall was looking for the most efficient way of making the tank into a bomb. Hewitt hurried back across the bridge, having to squeeze between the barrels. Sergeant Henry had placed them closer together. He gave the explosives to the Sergeant who nodded, “These should do the trick. If the Panther tries to push them out of the way then it will strike it here, just above the track. I will place the explosives along the top with the detonators sticking out. Four should do it.” He smiled, “You can leave this to me, sir. I know what I am doing.”
“Corporal Hewitt,” I handed him my glasses, “go and watch for the Germans. When they are a mile away you had better get back here and let us know.”
“Sir.”
Private Mason, cut down the trees!”
“Yes sir!”
It did not take many swings to bring down the snow laden trees. They blocked the road. It would only hold the tanks up temporarily but it would prevent them using wheeled vehicles. The more time we could buy the better. When they tried to move the trees then we would shoot them.
I squeezed back between the barrels and examined the bridge as I crossed. I had thought to use the explosive to blow the bridge but there was not enough. I just wanted to make a firebomb. A burning Sherman and Panther would take some shifting. Of course when the fire died down they could simply bring up the other heavy tanks and shove the two wrecked ones into the river. We had to devise some way to stop them after that.
When I reached what I now termed, ‘our side of the bridge,’ I saw that the two sergeants had organised everything well. The Sherman was in the middle of the road. It would be the centre of our defence. Sergeant Barker had taken every bit of camouflage netting he could find and the front of the tank was well hidden. With branches and snow covering it the vehicle was well disguised. There was just the top of the hatch showing. They had stripped everything from the nearby buildings to give as much protection to our machine guns as possible. We could not dig trenches and so we had to make a wall in front of us. They had been clever about it. They had taken and used everything which was metal. I even saw a huge cast iron bath. When I cocked an eye at it Sergeant Barker shrugged, “If it stops a bullet or a bit of shrapnel sir, I’ll be happy.”