We were halfway between somewherestein and nowheresburg, two Kraut towns with names I couldn't pronounce. Lieutenant Eddie Burke, twenty-four, Belmar, New Jersey, rode alongside me; six dog faces were in the deuce behind us. Rain drummed on my helmet, and the thrum of the combined engines deadened my ears. But that was okay because Burke hadn't said a word all morning, even though his lips kept shaking like he might start blabbing or crying. It's only the cold, I told myself. Our fatigues were soaked black with rain and my clammy ODs hung on me like jelly.
A few weeks back in March, SHAEF got word that the Krauts were planning one last offensive, that they had built some sort of super fortress in the Alps and stocked it with crack SS troops. Word was that they could hold on for another year. That's when Third Army was called in to pull some "extreme reconnaissance," but we weren't doing much good today. With the Nazis pulling back blowing every bridge and dam they could, plus a week of rain and some wall-to-wall carpet bombing, the roads were for shit. My map was like a bad joke from HQ; we were on an imaginary road next to a nonexistent river. But we slogged on, the jeep lurching ahead in fits and starts, sometimes making more lateral progress than anything else.
"The d-delay in the mail really has me m-messed up," Eddie sputtered through chattering teeth.
His voice startled me, and I missed what he said, but I didn't have to hear. He'd been a broken record for nearly three weeks.
"I k-know the baby was born over a month ago, but the m-mail lags so far behind I can't h-help but believe it hasn't happened yet. It's only r-real to me in Laura's letters. It's crazy, but I've been a father for a month, and I haven't even seen my k-kid. I don't know if it's even a boy or a girl."
Eddie knocked up some British girl before shipping out of South Hampton. The baby was born back in late March, but we were still only getting mail from the middle of that month and the kid was still a big mystery. In a normal world, a baby is good thing, but not here. Eddie's been unraveling ever since; he's afraid he won't live to see the baby, might not even live to see a picture. He's getting so soft he's practically afraid to shave. He doesn't want to take any chances. I don't blame him, but you can't play it that way in a platoon. I don't like it, but I have to keep kicking his ass. He's a good kid--he married the girl on the double.
"Do you th-think we'll find anything?" Eddie asked. Some color returned to his lips.
I shrugged.
"I mean, they couldn't have anything left. It's got to be over soon, right?"
"That's what I said in December. Then they threw the whole damned Volksgrenadier at us. Nothing surprises me anymore."
It was the wrong answer and I knew it. He looked instantly hurt, and I felt bad for him.
"To be honest," I said. "I think all the talk about a 'super fortress' is BS. They don't need us to do recon. If command just took a look at the POWs, they'd get all the information they need. Those Krauts don't have food or ammo. They haven't seen a supply dump in a month. It's over." The rain rattled on my helmet, and Eddie kept shivering. Too little, too late. Maybe he didn't buy it, maybe he didn't even hear me. "But, Eddie, I'm an optimist," I continued. "I'm such a Goddamn optimist, that I believe this jeep will actually get us back to the Third; that's why I don't ditch it, strip it, and climb into the deuce."
"I just want a sign that we're close to the end." Eddie brushed an icy stream of rain off his nose. "Why do they keep fighting?" he asked. "Don't they have families? Don't they want to go home?"
Suddenly the jeep stuck. I gunned it, and the engine groaned. The spinning back wheels sent up a brown curtain of mud. I down-shifted and gave it another go. Nothing. The bitter smell of the clutch filled my nose. The engine whined and the whole jeep seemed to burrow into the mud. We were stuck good.
"Need help, Captain?" a private we called Eye Chart yelled from behind the wheel of the deuce. He was a Pollack out of Wisconsin whose real name was Paul and his last name looked like a losing hand in Scrabble. Through the rain he was just a helmet and a mouth.
"Yeah. Give us a kiss." I waved him on.
The big truck nudged us and I gunned the jeep hoping to catch the momentum. No dice. The .50-calibre mount on the back of the jeep creaked; its ammo chain ripped and rattled. The truck came again like an elephant nudging a donkey, but we only leaned further into the mire. Eddie fell forward, throwing out his arms to brace himself against the front panel.
"Okay. Okay." I signaled Eye Chart to cool it. "That's enough."
I stepped out of the jeep and sank to my shins. The front wheels were barely visible, the back ones suspended a foot in the air. Eye Chart was at my side.
"It's a Goddamn mess, sir."
"Sure is," I growled back. "I'm inclined to leave it, but let's see if we can get a couple of men and rock it." Eye Chart splashed to the back of the truck and returned with five dripping olive drab shapes. I recognized Dom DiMucci and Jerry Snyder, both kids out of Philly, but the other three were rookies who'd joined my squad just the day before. I wasn't convinced yet that I should bother learning their names.
"Lieutenant Burke," I said, and Eddie seemed to perk up at the sound of his name. "Hook the winch up to the back of the jeep and get ready to work it." Burke went into action; it was a good sign. "DiMucci," I barked. "I want you and those two to watch that bocage."
"Yes, sir."
"Snyder, Eye Chart, and what's-your-name,"--the kid opened his mouth, then thought better of it--"I want you guys to each take a corner of the jeep with me. Let's go!" It was shitty work, but it was warmer than sitting in the jeep doing nothing. "Okay, on three. One. Two. . .
.30-caliber machine-gun fire ripped out of the bocage. Slugs hammered the jeep, ricocheted off it. Eye Chart slumped across the hood clutching a white loop of intestine. I saw streaking tracers and hit the mud behind the jeep. Hope they aren't firing from both sides of the road.
Eddie dove next to me.
"You hit?" I yelled as a second burst stenciled the deuce. He shook his head.
"You see where it's coming from?"
More head shakes.
The dog faces crouched at the base of the deuce's cabin and responded with their M-1s. DiMucci scurried up next to me.
"Captain, two guns in a nest about one hundred yards off the road. One's a .30-calibre mount, and the other I don't know."
Bullets chewed the trees overhead. Splinters shot down like hornets and stung me through my fatigues.
"Sounds like an FG-42," I said. "Good work, DiMucci. Take two with you and run up the right flank on my signal. I'll cover you with the .50-calibre." I managed a good luck smile.
"Yes, sir." He splashed away, grabbed two olive drabs by the collar, and went to the far corner of the deuce.
I tossed Eddie my Thompson and yelled, "I'm going up when that Kraut burns out his barrels. Give me covering fire." He looked at me like I was mad. Maybe I was. A hailstorm of lead was spitting and careening over my head, and I was about to jump up into it with nothing but a machine-gun mount to protect me. I would have a few seconds to climb up, arm the gun, and aim. I prayed I didn't slip.
There was a pause. That was my cue.
"Covering fire!"
Eddie let loose a hale of stingers. I hauled myself up onto the firing platform and slid back the release. The machine-gun snout swung free. The jeep shifted in the mud. I lost my balance and stumbled against the mount. ffft. ffft. ffft. ffft. ffft. Kraut slugs hummed past my ears. I gained control of the .50-calibre and shot blindly. Rain blurred my vision. The vibrations from the machine-gun shook my teeth and nearly threw me off the slimy platform. The bitter taste of gunpowder soured my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw DiMucci and his boys cross the field in a hunched, splashing run. They disappeared into the bocage. The confident snapping of their carbines rang out. A string of .30-calibre responded. Terrible shrieks. "Oh God, I'm hit. My leg's gone. Oh God." It took me a second to register the voice as English, then I prayed it was one of the new kids and not DiMucci. Two grenade blasts shook the wet earth like jelly.
Quiet. No screams. No gunfire. Slowly the sound of the rain returned to my ears.
"DiMucci?" I called out.
"It's down, sir. One nest with a .30-calibre mount and two kaput Krauts. Fricasseed. Got what they fuckin' deserved." His M-1 fired a useless revenge shot. "They tagged both of our kids."
"Stay sharp." I yelled. "We'll be with you in a minute." I stepped off the platform and sank to the top of my boots. "How are you doing, Eddie?"
He was on his knees in the mud gasping like a sprinter. Snyder emerged from behind the deuce and went to check on Eye Chart. The blank expression on his unshaven face gave me the complete report. The last of the new kids slouched on the deuce's running board, and pulled a smoke from deep inside his jacket.
"They'll be time for that later," I barked. "Grab your piece and let's clean up." I pulled a fresh clip out of my bandolier and tapped Eddie on the helmet with it. "C'mon, let's take a walk." He didn't move, he didn't speak or sputter, but I knew he was in a bad way. "Let's go check out that--"
"There's one more!" DiMucci screamed. His M-1 spit quick three shots. "No good! Take cover. He's got--"
Snyder's head vanished in a purple spray and his body took two more steps, before I even registered the vapor trail and the sound of air being sliced. Panzerfaust: German anti-tank artillery. The world shook once with the blast, then again as half the deuce crashed and settled into the mud. A wave of heat burst over my back. Shrapnel rang past my ear and ricocheted off the jeep. For an instant I heard the no-name kid scream, then the blast of a ruptured fuel tank swallowed the sound. The hair on the back of my neck shriveled. The deuce was a smoking mass of twisted metal and black smoke. Two flat cracks echoed through the woods.
"I got the bastid," DiMucci yelled without emotion, "he was trying to run, but I plugged him."
Snyder's body continued to twitch in a brown puddle, the neck spraying a brilliant red gout.
DiMucci emerged alone from the woods, his carbine hanging low. Without saying anything he dropped two dog tags in my upturned palm.
"See if you can find anymore," I said, "and do an ammo search. Salvage what you can."
Eddie knelt shaking in the mud, submerged nearly to his thighs.
"Put your helmet on, Burke, and get your rifle out of the mud before you louse up the Goddamn action." I gave him a quick kick in the thigh. "We're moving out in ten."
We were halfway between somewherestein and nowheresburg, two Kraut towns with names I couldn't pronounce. Lieutenant Eddie Burke, twenty-four, Belmar, New Jersey, rode alongside me; six dog faces were in the deuce behind us. Rain drummed on my helmet, and the thrum of the combined engines deadened my ears. But that was okay because Burke hadn't said a word all morning, even though his lips kept shaking like he might start blabbing or crying. It's only the cold, I told myself. Our fatigues were soaked black with rain and my clammy ODs hung on me like jelly.
A few weeks back in March, SHAEF got word that the Krauts were planning one last offensive, that they had built some sort of super fortress in the Alps and stocked it with crack SS troops. Word was that they could hold on for another year. That's when Third Army was called in to pull some "extreme reconnaissance," but we weren't doing much good today. With the Nazis pulling back blowing every bridge and dam they could, plus a week of rain and some wall-to-wall carpet bombing, the roads were for shit. My map was like a bad joke from HQ; we were on an imaginary road next to a nonexistent river. But we slogged on, the jeep lurching ahead in fits and starts, sometimes making more lateral progress than anything else.
"The d-delay in the mail really has me m-messed up," Eddie sputtered through chattering teeth.
His voice startled me, and I missed what he said, but I didn't have to hear. He'd been a broken record for nearly three weeks.
"I k-know the baby was born over a month ago, but the m-mail lags so far behind I can't h-help but believe it hasn't happened yet. It's only r-real to me in Laura's letters. It's crazy, but I've been a father for a month, and I haven't even seen my k-kid. I don't know if it's even a boy or a girl."
Eddie knocked up some British girl before shipping out of South Hampton. The baby was born back in late March, but we were still only getting mail from the middle of that month and the kid was still a big mystery. In a normal world, a baby is good thing, but not here. Eddie's been unraveling ever since; he's afraid he won't live to see the baby, might not even live to see a picture. He's getting so soft he's practically afraid to shave. He doesn't want to take any chances. I don't blame him, but you can't play it that way in a platoon. I don't like it, but I have to keep kicking his ass. He's a good kid--he married the girl on the double.
"Do you th-think we'll find anything?" Eddie asked. Some color returned to his lips.
I shrugged.
"I mean, they couldn't have anything left. It's got to be over soon, right?"
"That's what I said in December. Then they threw the whole damned Volksgrenadier at us. Nothing surprises me anymore."
It was the wrong answer and I knew it. He looked instantly hurt, and I felt bad for him.
"To be honest," I said. "I think all the talk about a 'super fortress' is BS. They don't need us to do recon. If command just took a look at the POWs, they'd get all the information they need. Those Krauts don't have food or ammo. They haven't seen a supply dump in a month. It's over." The rain rattled on my helmet, and Eddie kept shivering. Too little, too late. Maybe he didn't buy it, maybe he didn't even hear me. "But, Eddie, I'm an optimist," I continued. "I'm such a Goddamn optimist, that I believe this jeep will actually get us back to the Third; that's why I don't ditch it, strip it, and climb into the deuce."
"I just want a sign that we're close to the end." Eddie brushed an icy stream of rain off his nose. "Why do they keep fighting?" he asked. "Don't they have families? Don't they want to go home?"
Suddenly the jeep stuck. I gunned it, and the engine groaned. The spinning back wheels sent up a brown curtain of mud. I down-shifted and gave it another go. Nothing. The bitter smell of the clutch filled my nose. The engine whined and the whole jeep seemed to burrow into the mud. We were stuck good.
"Need help, Captain?" a private we called Eye Chart yelled from behind the wheel of the deuce. He was a Pollack out of Wisconsin whose real name was Paul and his last name looked like a losing hand in Scrabble. Through the rain he was just a helmet and a mouth.
"Yeah. Give us a kiss." I waved him on.
The big truck nudged us and I gunned the jeep hoping to catch the momentum. No dice. The .50-calibre mount on the back of the jeep creaked; its ammo chain ripped and rattled. The truck came again like an elephant nudging a donkey, but we only leaned further into the mire. Eddie fell forward, throwing out his arms to brace himself against the front panel.
"Okay. Okay." I signaled Eye Chart to cool it. "That's enough."
I stepped out of the jeep and sank to my shins. The front wheels were barely visible, the back ones suspended a foot in the air. Eye Chart was at my side.
"It's a Goddamn mess, sir."
"Sure is," I growled back. "I'm inclined to leave it, but let's see if we can get a couple of men and rock it." Eye Chart splashed to the back of the truck and returned with five dripping olive drab shapes. I recognized Dom DiMucci and Jerry Snyder, both kids out of Philly, but the other three were rookies who'd joined my squad just the day before. I wasn't convinced yet that I should bother learning their names.
"Lieutenant Burke," I said, and Eddie seemed to perk up at the sound of his name. "Hook the winch up to the back of the jeep and get ready to work it." Burke went into action; it was a good sign. "DiMucci," I barked. "I want you and those two to watch that bocage."
"Yes, sir."
"Snyder, Eye Chart, and what's-your-name,"--the kid opened his mouth, then thought better of it--"I want you guys to each take a corner of the jeep with me. Let's go!" It was shitty work, but it was warmer than sitting in the jeep doing nothing. "Okay, on three. One. Two. . .
.30-caliber machine-gun fire ripped out of the bocage. Slugs hammered the jeep, ricocheted off it. Eye Chart slumped across the hood clutching a white loop of intestine. I saw streaking tracers and hit the mud behind the jeep. Hope they aren't firing from both sides of the road.
Eddie dove next to me.
"You hit?" I yelled as a second burst stenciled the deuce. He shook his head.
"You see where it's coming from?"
More head shakes.
The dog faces crouched at the base of the deuce's cabin and responded with their M-1s. DiMucci scurried up next to me.
"Captain, two guns in a nest about one hundred yards off the road. One's a .30-calibre mount, and the other I don't know."
Bullets chewed the trees overhead. Splinters shot down like hornets and stung me through my fatigues. "Sounds like an FG-42," I said. "Good work, DiMucci. Take two with you and run up the right flank on my signal. I'll cover you with the .50-calibre." I managed a good luck smile.
"Yes, sir." He splashed away, grabbed two olive drabs by the collar, and went to the far corner of the deuce.
I tossed Eddie my Thompson and yelled, "I'm going up when that Kraut burns out his barrels. Give me covering fire." He looked at me like I was mad. Maybe I was. A hailstorm of lead was spitting and careening over my head, and I was about to jump up into it with nothing but a machine-gun mount to protect me. I would have a few seconds to climb up, arm the gun, and aim. I prayed I didn't slip.
There was a pause. That was my cue.
"Covering fire!"
Eddie let loose a hale of stingers. I hauled myself up onto the firing platform and slid back the release. The machine-gun snout swung free. The jeep shifted in the mud. I lost my balance and stumbled against the mount. ffft. ffft. ffft. ffft. ffft. Kraut slugs hummed past my ears. I gained control of the .50-calibre and shot blindly. Rain blurred my vision. The vibrations from the machine-gun shook my teeth and nearly threw me off the slimy platform. The bitter taste of gunpowder soured my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw DiMucci and his boys cross the field in a hunched, splashing run. They disappeared into the bocage. The confident snapping of their carbines rang out. A string of .30-calibre responded. Terrible shrieks. "Oh God, I'm hit. My leg's gone. Oh God." It took me a second to register the voice as English, then I prayed it was one of the new kids and not DiMucci. Two grenade blasts shook the wet earth like jelly.
Quiet. No screams. No gunfire. Slowly the sound of the rain returned to my ears.
"DiMucci?" I called out.
"It's down, sir. One nest with a .30-calibre mount and two kaput Krauts. Fricasseed. Got what they fuckin' deserved." His M-1 fired a useless revenge shot. "They tagged both of our kids."
"Stay sharp." I yelled. "We'll be with you in a minute." I stepped off the platform and sank to the top of my boots. "How are you doing, Eddie?"
He was on his knees in the mud gasping like a sprinter. Snyder emerged from behind the deuce and went to check on Eye Chart. The blank expression on his unshaven face gave me the complete report. The last of the new kids slouched on the deuce's running board, and pulled a smoke from deep inside his jacket.
"They'll be time for that later," I barked. "Grab your piece and let's clean up." I pulled a fresh clip out of my bandolier and tapped Eddie on the helmet with it. "C'mon, let's take a walk." He didn't move, he didn't speak or sputter, but I knew he was in a bad way. "Let's go check out that--"
"There's one more!" DiMucci screamed. His M-1 spit quick three shots. "No good! Take cover. He's got--"
Snyder's head vanished in a purple spray and his body took two more steps, before I even registered the vapor trail and the sound of air being sliced. Panzerfaust: German anti-tank artillery. The world shook once with the blast, then again as half the deuce crashed and settled into the mud. A wave of heat burst over my back. Shrapnel rang past my ear and ricocheted off the jeep. For an instant I heard the no-name kid scream, then the blast of a ruptured fuel tank swallowed the sound. The hair on the back of my neck shriveled. The deuce was a smoking mass of twisted metal and black smoke. Two flat cracks echoed through the woods.
"I got the bastid," DiMucci yelled without emotion, "he was trying to run, but I plugged him."
Snyder's body continued to twitch in a brown puddle, the neck spraying a brilliant red gout.
DiMucci emerged alone from the woods, his carbine hanging low. Without saying anything he dropped two dog tags in my upturned palm.
"See if you can find anymore," I said, "and do an ammo search. Salvage what you can."Eddie knelt shaking in the mud, submerged nearly to his thighs.
"Put your helmet on, Burke, and get your rifle out of the mud before you louse up the Goddamn action." I gave him a quick kick in the thigh. "We're moving out in ten."