Under False Flags

by Steve Anderson

  “Capital of Maine, huh?” Lett said.

  “I was a merchant marine sailor too. Ports up and down your East coast.”

  They reached a farm. Animal carcasses, stripped of meat, lay in the iced mud around the main yard. The house was a jagged, sooty pile of wreck. The barn was untouched. They hunkered down inside. Frings stripped the chicken like a veteran butcher, leaving feathers and entrails in a neat pile. Lett did his best to make a spit out of sticks, perching it over their cylindrical little stove. After they ate Lett and Frings relaxed on straw, sucking the meat and fat off their fingers, and kept warm around a kerosene lamp.

  Frings stared at Lett, and Lett knew why; Lett’s face had gone pale and stretched with worry. A wave of despair had fallen over him. How the hell was he going to make this work? Create a new identity? Even if he made it, someday, someone would find out and take him from Heloise. When he least expected it. What was he even thinking? This all assumed that Stromville still stood, that it hadn’t been devoured by bombs and flame like Frings’ Cologne.

  Frings, humming a tune, reached deep in his haversack and set out a wad of money. Lett gazed at it. There were big British pound notes, and crisp compact dollars.

  “It’s tip-top quality,” Frings said. “We have expert counterfeiters.”

  “Thank you. It might help.”

  Frings reached over, placed his big hand on Lett’s shoulder, and squeezed. “Wendell, you must listen to me. It will be there. She will be. I know this like I know that mine is not anymore.”

  “Thank you. Maybe you’re right.” Lett sat up. He fingered inside his field jacket, and produced the enlisted man’s temporary pass. He held it up for Frings to read. He told Frings how to fill out the rest, with only a name, date, and place. Using a typewriter was best.

  Frings smiled.

  “Now, it’s not as useful as it could’ve been before you guys attacked,” Lett added. “No one around here’s on leave, not till the war moves further east. That’s why I haven’t used it yet. But, soon. And I will need a typewriter.”

  Lett saw Frings averting his glance, like a boy up to no good. “Wait—you saw the pass?” Lett said.

  Frings nodded.

  “How?”

  Frings smiled. “You’re a deep sleeper for a land soldier. I had to be sure that you are who you say you are. I had to know, that you really are like me. That you really do break the chain.”

  ***

  December 18. Afternoon: In a well-equipped infirmary tent just close enough to the front to be called a field hospital, Auggie lay bandaged up on a bed surrounded by cots of horribly wounded men. He had found himself in a morphine fog, wasn’t sure when it would end, and wasn’t sure he cared. He was missing one arm, the blood still soaking through layers of gauze. The morphine somehow made it fine. He was alive, and wasn’t it wonderful?

  The next time his eyes opened Archie Archibald, Captain Selfer, and a two-star general stood over him. The general looked old and kindly. Auggie stared up at them. Archie squinted with excitement, while Selfer eyed Auggie like a discerning doctor.

  “Now here’s our good man,” Archie said to the general. “The one in my latest field report.”

  “Huh?” Auggie looked to Selfer, who smiled and nodded. Roll with it, son, he seemed to be saying. So Auggie did. He smiled back.

  The general placed a hand on Auggie’s surviving arm. “You did well, son. Real well.”

  “He took out the kraut spy team,” Archie said, touching Auggie in the same spot. “A true hero, he is.”

  Selfer said, in the general’s ear: “These were kraut spies, let’s not forget, who were gunning for Ike himself.”

  The general sighed with relief, and shook his head. He placed a Purple Heart and a Combat Infantryman Badge next to Auggie’s head on the pillow. “There’s a citation in the works for you,” he said.

  Auggie didn’t remember. He only recalled bullets coming at him. “I don’t remember. Did I?” he muttered. He tried to think but the morphine stoned him. No one answered him. Through a haze he saw the general and Archie move on, a proud smirk on Archie’s face.

  Selfer stayed with Auggie. He leaned down close to him, waited till he came back around. “They’re sending you stateside,” Selfer said. “How about that? A publicity team will cover you.”

  “Someone helped me. Saved me,” Auggie said. He could see the man. A square face, and stern. “Was he a German?”

  “No. Listen. You helped yourself. Hear me? Now there’s a good fellow,” Selfer said.

  Auggie remembered the night would have to come again, and his chest tightened up with fear. “I have dreams about it—nightmares,” he said.

  “Those will go away,” Selfer said. He took a good look around the room. He whispered into Auggie’s ear: “Where’s Lett? Do you know? You can tell me.”

  “He’s gone,” Auggie said.

  “Gone how?”

  “Lett, he tried—he had us all talking. No one shooting . . . Then? I can’t remember. I just got shot, I guess.”

  Selfer was patting him on the head. “Okay, okay. Just, forget about Lett. Forget all about him. Lett’s gone. We’ll be back to talk about exactly what you did. You did more than you think, son. A hero’s work, to be sure. You heard the general.”

  “Me? A hero?”

  “Sure. Why not you?” Selfer said, but he was gone before Auggie could think of any good answer.

  ***

  The light between the trees grew dark as dusk neared. Lett and Frings walked a high road. They came to a sign battered with scrapes and bullet holes: “Stromville, 3 km.”

  Lett grinned. He couldn’t stop grinning. “It’s right in the middle of this lush little valley. I’ve never seen it with this much snow. Come on. There’s a ridge this way, we can look down in. Say, you know what we’re gonna do? Most deserters live for the moment, just to live. Not me. I’m in it for the future . . .” He couldn’t believe how hopeful he sounded.

  Frings nodded. He had gone quiet. As they marched through forest, Frings said, “That pass you have is enough? You don’t need more?”

  Lett shook his head. “We GIs travel light. The company clerks, they keep our papers, paybooks, personal goods near the rear.”

  Frings stopped walking. “Wendell, I didn’t tell you something,” he said. “I have no American dog tags. Sure, they taught us how to act like you—chew your gum even. But they gave us no dog tags. So much for the thoroughness. Our plan could never work. The other three in my jeep? Hopeless. And the one I shot, he probably deserved it.”

  “What about Ike—General Eisenhower? Were your teams really sent to kill him?”

  Frings smiled. “We? This is a joke, correct?”

  “I’m sorry it’s not. Listen, don’t worry about dog tags. They look for those when we’re caught, injured or dead, and we’ll be none of the above. What I’ll do is, I’ll go in first. You’ll hole up nearby and we’ll sneak you in. She has contacts, knows forgers. Got me? Vive la Résistance.”

  “Very well. But when she hears me? Sees? A German . . .”

  “She won’t care who you are. I promise. As long as you’re with me. You helped me. Us.”

  They found the ridge. The tree trunks spread out and let in the remaining light as they scrambled up a rise. They looked out. For a moment Lett thought he’d found the wrong valley. He saw a snowy white plain almost a mile vast, pocked with craters and the lumps of destroyed vehicles. The one road cut through the valley, but it led to a blackened, flatter version of Stromville. “Give me those,” he said to Frings, who handed over his binoculars. Lett focused on the dark and smoldering village. Most red roofs and spires were gone, replaced by gray rubble mounds and black charred patches. People and details weren’t clear from this distance. He thought he could make out one of the lampposts still standing.

  His face had slacked, in dread. Grief. His chest thumped and wanted to burst open yet compress down tight. Frings watched him with a pinched face. No way to sugarcoa
t this. A battle had raged at Stromville.

  Lett had to run. If he didn’t move his heart would explode. He tossed the binoculars at Frings and took off down the ridge, pushing off tree trunks and trampling over bushes and rocks, and reached the lower road into the valley. The snowy meadow stretched out on either side of him. Signs lined the road: “Danger! Mines!”

  Frings had followed. He caught up, walking step in step with Lett. “I’m supposed to hole up,” Frings said. “Wait for you.”

  “To hell with that. Who knows what will happen.”

  They marched along the valley road, the village less than a half-mile off, a ragged horizon before them.

  “Her name is Heloise,” Lett said. “Remember it.”

  “I like this name. Yes, I will.”

  Lett jerked to a halt. “Listen. Hear it?”

  “I hear it.”

  It was the whining drone of a US Army jeep, coming up the road behind them.

  Lett’s despair yielded to a hardness, infusing him. That machine-like purpose kicked in, forged by combat. He sensed no panic in Frings. His comrade still matched his stride. They had the focus.

  “So it’s just like before,” Lett said. “We’re two Joes—we’re lost. Same unit.”

  “Got it,” Frings said.

  The jeep passed, an MP jeep, its two occupants wearing the white-stripe helmets and MP armbands. The two didn’t look back at Lett and Frings.

  Lett and Frings kept an even pace. The jeep pressed on, nearing the village.

  The jeep stopped. It was turning back around.

  Lett felt Frings seize up a little, falling out of step.

  “No shooting,” Lett said. “Then they really have us.”

  “What about the money? We could use it,” Frings said.

  “Only if we have to,” Lett said.

  Up ahead the jeep slowed, turned at an angle and parked sideways, blocking the road. The two MPs stepped out and stood tall, waiting.

  “This is not good,” Frings said.

  But they had to walk onward. As they neared, they saw that the MPs were young, a private and corporal, the corporal wearing only a Colt holster and the private a carbine slung on his shoulder.

  Frings picked up his pace. He walked ahead of Lett. Lett couldn’t stop him. What could he do? It would look more suspicious. Lett strode faster but only caught up with Frings as the German approached the MPs smiling, his arms out wide as if to hug them.

  The MP corporal had his hands clasped around his belt buckle and was so young his smooth neck could have been a woman’s. “Afternoon,” he said, in a voice that imitated the gruffness of a father.

  “Afternoon, boys,” Frings said. “But it’s evening.”

  “No—‘afternoon’ what?”

  “Ah, it’s a password?”

  Lett had stopped just behind Frings. The MP private eyeing Lett had a boy’s face full of teenage freckles. “Afternoon,” the boy MP said to Lett.

  “Fellas, lookie here,” Frings continued. “I’m trying to find my unit. I don’t even know this Joe here with me—we just met. But he keeps hangin’ on.”

  Lett bristled at Frings’ sacrifice but couldn’t stop it. What could he say? It would only confirm Frings’ accusation.

  “What’s with your accent?” the MP corporal said to Frings.

  “Mine? What’s with yours?” Frings said.

  “The man’s an immigrant,” Lett said. “What’s wrong with that? It’s what we’re made of, remember?”

  “A daily password’s been issued all along the line,” the MP corporal said. “If you came from that way, you should know it.”

  Frings stomped his feet. “Man, I hide out from krauts for three days, this is what I get? Hell.”

  “Listen, I can vouch for this man,” Lett said.

  “I thought you didn’t know him,” the boy MP said.

  Frings had used his stomp to move to the side, putting him at an equal distance to the jeep as the MPs. They had left the jeep idling, Lett could hear.

  “We’ll have to run you in, vet you,” the MP corporal said. “That’s the drill. They’ll get you back to your unit. It’s what you want, right?”

  “Just one second,” Frings said. “I think you dropped this.” He held out a wad of American dollars, his eyes pleading.

  The MP corporal and boy private exchanged looks.

  “That’s a lotta dough,” Lett added. “Maybe, you dropped more even.”

  The MP corporal drew his Colt.

  Lett pushed the MP corporal off the road, out into the snow past the mine signs. The Colt fell away. Frings knocked the private’s carbine loose and pushed him off into the whiteness, the private tumbling backward.

  Frings sprinted for the jeep. Lett followed fast behind.

  The private and corporal stumbled to their feet, found their weapons in the snow. They lumbered back toward the road from either side, trying to match their footsteps. They raised their weapons.

  A crack split the air, the earth rocked. A mine exploded and hurled the private in shreds.

  Frings revved the jeep, slammed down the clutch. Lett reached the passenger side. He glanced back. The corporal had hit the deck. He aimed and fired at them, three flashes.

  A bolt of pain seared through Lett’s torso. He felt nothing a moment. Then his insides seem to erupt and boil, like a hot lava.

  ***

  Heloise’s fellow villagers managed the destruction as best as they could. Piles of salvageable belongings lined the street of half-standing buildings, a heap of clothing here, a cluster of furniture there. They had rescued some of their townsfolk from rubble but a few were still missing. Surviving farm animals stood watching from a makeshift pen of chicken wire, while cats and dogs stayed close to their owners’ ankles. Heloise stacked loose bricks. Her father helped. Young Ruben did his best. They heard the chug-chug sound of an engine. Ruben stopped to listen, looking to Heloise.

  “Belgian,” Heloise and her father said at the same time, daring a little laugh. An old tractor entered the street and, as neighbors directed it, pulled up to a mess of debris.

  As sundown neared, Heloise was lugging pails of water from a well. She made her way down the main street, past the town’s one remaining lamppost, the heap of rubble blocking her view.

  A boom and three pops ripped through the air. From out in the valley.

  She stopped to listen as neighbors emerged from ruins and doorways. Her father joined her.

  “What was it?” she said. She had set down her pails.

  “A mine blast? It has to be. The front’s moved on,” Jean said. “Probably just a stray cow.”

  “I mean the shots. There were shots. I heard three.”

  “Poachers? GIs hunting? Here, you should not carry these.” Jean ambled off with the pails.

  Heloise’s feet felt light, drifting, as if on shifting sand. She hugged at the lamppost. She threw up again, but this time it wasn’t from the baby inside her.

  ***

  The MP’s shots had propelled Lett into the jeep, slamming him against dash and windshield, unconscious. Frings pulled Lett all the way in and linked his right arm tight under Lett’s to keep Lett in as he sped on out of the valley. He drove on, down narrow forest lanes and crossing firebreaks, steering them deep inside woods and away from any patrols, pursuers, predators. He kept driving on the narrowest lane he found, just two mud-filled ruts, navigating the plunging, rising path that lurched and jostled them and made Lett moan. The lane led to an abandoned forest shack, its plank siding gray and mossy. The jeep’s motor clunked to a stop, the radiator pinging. Frings found the first aid kit behind the starboard seat. He grabbed blankets.

  He hauled Lett into the shack. He lay Lett on the floor, ripped open his field jacket, saw dark blood, and tore at packets of sulfa powder. He doused the wounds with canteen water to clear blood, located the dark punctures, and dumped on the sulfa. Lett groaned. Frings slapped on bandages, and ripped apart a blanket and wrapped a strip around Le
tt to compress the bandage tight. He was no Sani, no medic. It was all he could do.

  He glared out a window of the shack, his combat senses still set and buzzing inside him, making him hyper alert and ready for more. Outside the stolen MP jeep sat empty, the windshield shattered. Blood had smeared on the starboard side, and as handprints on the fender. Frings went to work. Soon he had fir boughs and branches covering the vehicle. Any new snow would help blanket the camouflage. He had done such concealment many times. It was how an S-boat hid along a rocky forested coastline or moored next to their camouflaged tender ship.

  He wanted someone to scout him out. He would take them on, and make them fix Lett. Put them down if he had to. But this shack was too secluded. It bordered a steep ravine, the sky all but blocked out. Evening had fallen early here.

  Lett lay on the earthen floor, his torso swathing soaked through with blood. Lett’s face was white. His eyes, still closed. Frings knelt next to Lett, to check his pulse. Lett’s eyes opened. Frings started.

  “You thought . . . I was dead,” Lett said, his voice a thin creak.

  Frings held up a canteen for Lett. Lett, somehow, raised an arm and pushed it away. Frings tried again. Lett pushed it away. “Save it,” Lett said.

  “Okay.”

  Lett stared up at him, his eyes glossy yet cloudy too.

  “I’m sorry,” Frings said. “Those MPs, they weren’t going to let you get to her.”

  Lett lowered his chin, a nod. “My dog tags. Get them,” he said.

  Frings felt his throat seize up, and constrict, like someone was choking him. A heat burned behind his eyeballs. He swallowed down his sorrow, if only so that Lett couldn’t see it.

  Frings shook his head, no, no.

  Lett reached for his dog tags at his chest but let out a piercing wail. His arm dropped away. Frings lifted the tags from around Lett’s neck. They came up red and glistening from blood.

  “And, the pass,” Lett said.

  Frings wanted to slap Lett for being so obstinate, but he could only nod. “This means, you forgive me?” he muttered.

  Lett nodded. “Don’t hide out too long. Soon they won’t even bother looking. Our tanks will be over the Rhine soon enough. A month should do it easy. Use a typewriter if you can. Can you do it?”