by Leo Litwak
The lieutenant pushed the promotion, and by the time we moved out of reserve and crossed the Sauer, Maurice had recovered three of his lost stripes.
Dear Mom and Dad,
My French is improving. Have contacted the natives and they are friendly. I’ve eaten the local cuisine, which is a great improvement over our rations. Terribly cold. One of the worst winters on record. My buddy Sergeant Lucca made me a face mask and that helps keep me warm. I’d appreciate more salamis and honey cakes. They make me popular with the boys. Will soon be in Germany to liberate our people.
Love, Leo
By that time I wasn’t thinking of a world that extended beyond my platoon. The men of my platoon had become my people. I had lost sight of others.
CHAPTER 4
< ACROSS THE RIVER >
Late one afternoon, the day warming, snow melting, we stripped our packs, dumped surplus gear into jeeps, and moved from reserve.
Trucks brought us to a mushy field outside a river town. The quartermaster handed out supplies to be carried to units up front. There were mortar and bazooka shells, rifle and machine-gun ammo, grenades, medical supplies, rations. Everyone, except officers and noncoms, was loaded down. Billy, who seemed made for bearing, hoisted a case of thirty-caliber ammo. Nagy carried mortar shells. Van Pelt, slight, almost girlish, staggered under a box of C rations. He complained that it was too much, he’d never make it. Lucca said, “You’ll make it. Everyone’s going to make it. I’ll see to it.”
We waited till night to enter the ruined town.
Shells whooped in, hot after each other, slamming the stone buildings that lined the river. Traffic massed in the side streets—jeeps, tanks, tank destroyers, weapon carriers, command cars, ambulances, three-quarter-ton trucks, two-and-a-half-ton trucks. MPs crouched in doorways near the intersections, controlling traffic with taped flashlights.
Lieutenant Klamm moved from squad to squad. He told us we were waiting for an artificial moon to rise and light our way across the pontoon bridge and through the minefields on the other side.
Nothing in that sound-blasted night made sense. If they claimed to make moons I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a full moon rise at command.
Phosphorous shells lit up the dark hills across the river. The phosphorous blossomed white and intense then slowly faded.
Far to the rear, two searchlights ignited and thrust a giant V against the cloud-choked night sky. The reflected light revealed the path on the other side of the river. That was our moon. MPs waved flashlights like semaphores. “Go! Go! Go!” and the crossing began.
The vehicles went first, followed by artillery. When our turn came we moved onto the bridge with our loads. We jammed up and the lieutenant yelled at us to keep our intervals.
We could hear the river beneath us, pontoons groaning. Shells crossed overhead, ours going out, theirs coming in. We saw the skeleton of the old bridge upstream.
On the other side the vehicles turned onto the river road while we headed straight into the hills. The men struggled with their loads as we started climbing.
Billy climbed in front of me, the case of ammo first on his left shoulder, then his right, then in his arms, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He wavered from one side of the trail to the other. Lucca told him to keep going. “Show ’em what a rebel’s made of.”
They wanted us at the top before dawn and we scrambled without stops. Van Pelt, who was struggling, begged for a break. He’d lost the job as messenger when the captain was found going under his covers and had been returned to his role as rifleman. He was frail; the pace was killing him. Lucca told him to shut up and keep moving. Van Pelt fell into step alongside me. He said, “Get me out of this, Leo.” I told him I couldn’t. He pleaded with me to be sent back. He was never meant to be a foot soldier. He’d had a job in headquarters. He’d offended the captain through no fault of his own and now he was up front. “I can’t do this, Leo. You got to get me out.”
I stepped up my pace to get away from him.
A quarter mile up the hill, he dropped his load and knelt down. He said, “I can’t.” Lucca said, “Yes, you can,” and started kicking him, sharp jabs to thighs and hips. I bent for Van Pelt’s load but Lucca shoved me away.
“You do your job, he’ll do his.” He told Van Pelt, “I’ll kick you to the top if I have to.”
Van Pelt, weeping, picked up his load.
“He doesn’t belong here,” I told Lucca.
“Nothing belongs here. Not you, not me. They use fake moons. Tough shit.”
WE REACHED THE summit before dawn, dropped off the supplies, and moved into the forest. B Company had passed through the day before and the ground was littered with used ammo and abandoned gear and discarded toilet tissue and empty ration cartons. Shells with delicate snouts had exploded in the trees, raining shrapnel straight down. The trees were bared and splintered, tops sheared away. We passed four GIs standing in an uncovered foxhole, braced against the sides of the hole, rifles still aimed toward the front, all dead, one cut off at the forehead, his brain in the bottom shell of his skull.
We moved through the blasted forest into undamaged woods. Here fir and pine and spruce shot straight up, clear of underbrush, the morning sky only visible in broken pieces.
At some point we entered combat. Small-arms fire came from all directions. German machine guns—burp guns, we called them—fired in distinctive quick bursts. M1s and BARs returned fire. We ran doubled up, trying to stay behind trees. We reached an intersection of narrow paved roads where incoming artillery brought us to a halt. We took cover in the woods and lay there while the barrage intensified. Lucca called me up front. There was a casualty on the other side of the road and I was needed. I waited for a pause in the shelling and ran across. Cooper and Grace were already there. The wounded man was Sergeant Schwarzkopf of the Third Platoon. He lay in the snow off the road, an old-cadre noncom, weathered and ruddy, fast losing color, blood welling from a hole in his throat.
Cooper said, “Nothing we can do.”
I squeezed between him and Grace, jammed my gloved thumb into the wound. Blood seeped from his mouth. I pulled my thumb away, blood pulsed from his throat and spread into the snow. My gloves and sleeves were soaked.
A shell hit close. The captain yelled, “Get out of there!”
Cooper said, “He’s gone, let’s go,” and we ran for cover.
When the shelling was over we found Schwarzkopf in bloody snow, entirely gray, finished bleeding.
WE MOVED IN LINE with the battalion through the forest—light, crusted snow beneath the trees, the snow more dense in clearings. We were on high ground. C Company was below on our left. Someone from C Company spotted my red cross brassards and called out, “Aid man!”
I yelled that I was with A Company.
“Our medic’s been hit and we got a man wounded here.”
I was at the rear of the platoon and I don’t know if anyone heard me yell that I was going down the hill to C Company. I slid down the icy slope. The wounded GI was propped against the hillside, a plump kid, a beard beginning to come through, tended by a buddy. He squealed, “I’m hit,” and pointed to his chest. There was a fleck of blood on his jacket, more on his sweater and shirt and long johns. I pulled his clothes aside. His nipple was sheared off. I sprinkled on sulfa powder, taped gauze over the wound. I told him it wasn’t bad, to keep going until he had a chance to get to the aid station, no special trip.
I scrambled back up the hill and saw Nagy and Maurice, the last of A Company, vanish into the trees. I started after them but there was another call from C Company and I slid down the hill again. A skinny GI writhed on the ground, held by two of his buddies. He was hit in the ankle either by a bullet or shrapnel. I gave him morphine, strapped his boot and ankle in a figure eight, told his buddies that litter bearers would be along and they didn’t have to hang around. I rushed to get back to A Company but there was no one in sight. I ran toward the sound of small-arms fire, not sure where our line
s were.
Lucca yelled, “Over here!” He’d come looking for me. “Where you been?”
“I had casualties in C Company.”
“You got casualties at home.”
“Their aid man is wounded. They needed help.”
“The captain’s shot.”
We found Captain Roth kneeling behind a tree, sighting a carbine up and down, left and right. “Take cover,” he said. “There’s a sniper out there.”
I pulled away his jacket and sweater, his scarf and pleated olive drab shirt while he scanned the trees for the sniper. I pushed aside a neck chain with a St. Christopher medal and cut open the upper sleeve of his long johns. There was a gouged furrow on his right arm at the shoulder. I swabbed the wound with Merthiolate, dusted it with sulfa, covered it with a gauze patch.
He asked, “Can I go on?”
Lucca told him no problem, he was fine.
He ignored Lucca and spoke to me, “Can I make it?”
“It doesn’t look bad. You’re okay.”
“Then I’ll go on.” He straightened his clothes and took off running. We jogged after him.
“He asks if he can go on,” I said to Lucca. “I should have said, no, Captain Sir. If you drop out we’ll be better off.”
“Lay off. The man’s been shot.”
“It’s a scratch. He’s been hurt worse shaving.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Lucca said, and stepped up the pace to leave me behind.
IN LATE AFTERNOON we emerged from the forest into the sun and had our first clear view of Germany. We stood on the rim of a spectacular valley, the air crisp and clear. This segment of the border was all hills and valleys, meadows dimly greening around patches of snow, no pillboxes or tank barriers visible.
The lieutenant said, “Welcome to beautiful Germany.” He told us to start digging and we dug until the captain came by. He said his shoulder was fine. He told the lieutenant, not looking at me, “The medic says it’s no problem, I can keep going.”
He ordered our platoon out on patrol. We’d come through the Sauer crossing with light casualties and he wanted to keep it that way. “Locate but don’t engage,” he told the lieutenant.
I asked Lucca why the whole platoon for patrol. Why not a squad?
“Wouldn’t you like it to be a squad.”
“Why would I like it to be a squad?”
“Medics don’t go out with squads. You could stay home while we did the dirty work.”
“There’s no use for a medic on patrol,” I said. “There isn’t time for first aid.”
“Did I miss something? Did someone make you the CO? They must have promoted you when I wasn’t looking. I thought Captain Roth was in command and you were just the medic.”
“Maybe we’d be better off if we switched jobs.”
Our resentment for each other had been building. He didn’t want to hear my complaints about Captain Roth. He didn’t want me carrying Van Pelt’s load. He wanted me to stick to my job and follow orders. I wanted him to recognize how good a job I was doing and to get off my back. We were tired and hungry and sick of each other.
Lucca moved to the front of the patrol and I stayed at the rear.
THE DAY WARMED. We stripped off gloves and scarves and sweaters and jammed them into our pistol belts. We patrolled along a hillcrest, valley on our left, forest on our right. Lucca told us to stay spread out, no talking, equipment muffled. Krauts were said to be everywhere. After an hour we’d seen no one and the lieutenant finally said, “Okay, let’s call it a day.”
He reported to the command by walkie-talkie that we’d ranged the company perimeter without sight of the enemy. The captain said, all right, come on home. We dropped our gear and opened our rations and took our first break. Then a scout came running to report a pillbox on the hillside below.
WE LAY IN a platoon front behind two strands of barbed wire at the forest edge. The pillbox was a small concrete bunker fifty yards down the flank of the hill. There were no apparent defenses, no tank traps or coils of barbed wire, no evidence of mines or guns.
The lieutenant asked Lucca, “Why not take it?”
“The order was to reconnoiter, not engage.”
“We don’t know what we got here. Could be it’s just a storage facility, not occupied.”
The lieutenant called the command post to report our find. “Not formidable,” we heard him tell the captain, “the size of a large shed, only a couple strands of wire between us and the pillbox, no need for a full-scale assault.”
The captain said, “Then take it.”
We were armed with rifles, grenades, a BAR, a bazooka, a light machine gun. We lacked the equipment for storming pillboxes—no flamethrowers or explosives or artillery.
Lucca said, “Let’s give them a chance to surrender. At least we’ll find out if anyone’s home.”
“Who knows the command for surrender?”
“The medic speaks German.”
I had had a year of college German and “surrender” wasn’t in my vocabulary. I put together what I thought might serve. I told the lieutenant, “Geben sie auf.”
“Geben sie auf?”
“It sounds right.”
“Let’s try it.”
The lieutenant stepped over the wire into the open. He funneled his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Geben sie auf!” There was no answer and he shouted again, “Geben sie auf!” After a couple of minutes he repeated the call. “Geben sie auf!”
Finally a small door opened in the side of the pillbox. A tall, paunchy German unfolded through the opening, unarmed and helmetless. He had limp, mousy hair, wore a shoddy gray uniform.
“Geben sie auf!”
He was forty or fifty yards away and must have heard but he paid no attention. He turned to face the pillbox, unbuttoned, pissed, buttoned up, and stooped to reenter. The lieutenant yelled, Son of a bitch! and then something like, Charge! Everyone but me charged over the wire into the field, all weapons firing, rifles, carbines, BAR, light machine gun. I stayed pressed to the ground and didn’t budge.
A slide opened in the dome of the pillbox. A stubby gun muzzle emerged. It made a sound like a play gun—pop, pop, pop. A line of explosions crossed the platoon front. The countryside ignited. Tracers came at us from surrounding positions. Someone called, “Aid Man!” The men tumbled past me back into the forest. Powell, who carried the BAR, lay on his back, twenty yards from the wire. I ran for him, marked with red crosses on shoulders and helmet to show I was a noncombatant. Long lines of tracers came at me anyway. I dived for Powell. I lay on my belly in slushy snow to check him out. I couldn’t feel his pulse or breath. There was no blood. I couldn’t find the wound. He was a big man, beefy, with a serene moon face. I tried dragging him but he wasn’t easily dragged. Maurice crawled over to help.
“Where’s he hit?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s dead.”
We pulled him to the wire. Lucca waved to me from the other flank of the platoon, motioning me to come fast.
“Turner’s out there.” He pointed toward the right flank.
I spotted Turner, a skinny, gloomy, humorless kid who always feared the worst. He lay at the bottom of a rise off to the right. I ran and hit the ground and crawled to him. There was blood on his chest and I opened his jacket and shirt. His chest was punctured. I crammed gauze into the wound. We carried him into the woods where the platoon had reassembled.
Lucca checked the platoon.
“Where’s Billy?”
Maurice pointed toward the pillbox. Billy Baker was still out there, crouched at the base of the pillbox, right where he should have been if he were carrying a butterfly charge, in plain view to us but invisible to the Germans.
Lucca yelled at him not to move but with shells hitting everywhere, who could hear? “That asshole bed wetter! He’s done for if he comes into the open. The whole kraut army’s zeroed in.”
Shells hit every part of the field we’d just abandoned. A few pas
sed overhead and landed in the trees behind us.
The lieutenant called Captain Roth on the walkie-talkie and described our position. “He wants us out. Right now. No more casualties.”
“What about Billy?”
“Tell him to stay put. We’ll come for him after dark.”
Lucca yelled to Billy, “Stay where you are!”
We couldn’t tell if he’d heard. Lucca patted the ground to signal him to stay put. “We’ll come for you after dark!”
The lieutenant hustled the platoon out of there. Lucca and two others remained to help me with the wounded.
I decided Powell was dead and we left him.
We snapped ponchos over a frame of rifles to serve as a litter for Turner. The brush was thick and there was only room for two of us to carry him and we traded off. We worked around trees and through brush, got stuck, wrestled free. The improvised litter folded and sagged. Turner spasmed, groaned, made no other sound. It was after dark when we reached the company. Litter bearers waited for us.
Lucca wouldn’t give us a chance to rest. “Let’s go back for Billy.”
I said Billy was safe where he was and we’d do better if we waited till daylight.
“I told him we’d come for him. We’re going back now.”
Six of us went back for Billy.
There was no moon and we could move in the open, but the night terrain was unfamiliar and it took almost two hours to reach the pillbox. On the way we heard traffic in the valley—tank treads grinding, motors of big trucks, the sound of troops on the march.
The pillbox looked bigger at night, a dark hunkered-down space, nothing visible. I couldn’t find the spot where I’d left Powell. Lucca called Billy keeping his voice down but there was no answer. He told us to wait while he crawled to the pillbox. He came back alone. “Let’s look for him in the woods.”
