by David Healey
How had he gotten into this mess?
For the answer to that, he thought, he’d have to go all the way back to December 7, 1941, when the Japanese had launched their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Every boy in Joey’s school—and more than a few girls—had been eager to get into uniform and do what they could to get back at the Japs and Germans.
However, Joey had been too young to join up. He’d have to wait until he finished high school. Back then, the main concern that he and his schoolmates had was that the war would be over before they were old enough to fight.
How wrong they’d been. Now it was 1945 and the war was still going strong.
Joey had enlisted the day after graduating from high school. Basic training had been fine, but one thing was soon clear—Joey was not destined to be a front-line soldier.
Studious and gentle, solidly in the middle of his group of recruits, and with the rare skill among men of being able to type thanks to a high school business class, he had found himself assigned to be a clerk.
It didn’t much matter to Joey whether he was armed with a rifle or a typewriter, and no one else seemed to mind, either. He was on the front lines with everybody else, doing his part, which was all that mattered.
He had dreamed about fighting the Germans, yet when the time came, here he was, hiding in a cellar.
The soldiers of the service company had mostly been issued M-1 carbines, which looked puny compared to the full-sized rifles. No matter—they never had any use for them.
But now, he did regret that he hadn’t made some effort to keep his carbine cleaned and oiled. He should have at least fired it once in a while. Truth be told, combat readiness was lacking in the service company.
But now he held the carbine in his hands. The question was, what was he going to do with it?
A moment passed, and Joey didn’t stick his weapon out the window. Come to think of it, neither did anybody else.
Another shot fired from the steeple hit the vehicle sheltering the two Germans. The officer ducked again, but the sniper did not so much as flinch, his eye never leaving his rifle scope.
A moment later, he fired.
The steeple went silent.
Whoever that sniper was, he knew his business, that was for sure. None of the other Germans had been able to take out the American in the steeple, no matter how many shots they fired at him.
Now, the Germans moved freely about the street. The final resistance in Wingen sur Moder had fallen. All that Joey and the others were able to do was peer out the cellar windows and watch it happen, wondering what their fate would be.
Chapter Nine
For the service company men hiding in the cellar, the waiting game finally became too much.
“I’ve had enough of this,” a soldier said. “I’m making a break for it.”
“Me too.”
“You’ll get us all killed!” Serra complained. “This place is crawling with Krauts. Think about it.”
An argument broke out in hushed tones. Some were all for getting out now. Others wanted to follow the original plan and wait for nightfall. The sergeant tried to order them to sit tight, but the sergeant’s orders didn’t hold a lot of weight.
“Do what you want, Sarge, but we’re making a break for it.”
“You’ll never make it. You can’t get past all those Krauts.”
“We’ll sneak out the back door of this place. From what we’ve seen, the Krauts are all out front.”
After checking their weapons, the two men headed up the cellar stairs. Briefly, their footsteps sounded on the floorboards above as they made their way to the back of the house. The men below held their breath. They heard a slight clunk as the back door opened.
With no windows in the back cellar wall, they couldn’t see what was happening.
Seconds later, they heard a shout, then two quick bursts of gunfire.
So much for trying to escape.
“I told those dumb bastards to wait,” Serra said. “The sarge was right. We’ve got to wait for dark.”
However, they didn’t get the chance. Several pairs of boots appeared at the window grating, followed by the muzzle of a submachine gun.
Inches away, Joey felt his insides turn to liquid.
“Come out, Amerikaner,” shouted one of the Germans. It sounded like the same officer who had tried to negotiate with the sniper in the church steeple. “Come out or we will toss in a few hand grenades and see how you like that.”
The men in the cellar looked at one another in desperation, but it was clear that they didn’t have much choice.
“You saw what happened to the guy up in the steeple,” Serra said. “I think we’d better give up.”
The sergeant moved closer to the window and yelled, “OK, we surrender. You can’t shoot prisoners.”
“We will see,” the officer shouted back. “You are only prisoners if you come out with your hands up. You have one minute.”
Quickly, the men dropped their weapons. Most of the men were empty-handed, but a few grabbed blankets or spare clothes. Joey followed their example and grabbed his blanket.
They filed up the stairs and out the back door. Nearby lay the bodies of the two soldiers who had tried to escape, sprawled in the street with blood flowing from them. Joey felt sick to his stomach, but he kept moving, hands held high.
All around them stood German soldiers, submachine guns at the ready. Joey studied their faces, trying to determine if the Germans were about to shoot. Some of the Germans wore self-satisfied smiles, pleased that they had captured yet more American POWs, while others looked grim. Up close, the Germans had several days of stubble on their faces. The camouflage smocks that looked so white from a distance were actually flecked with mud and even blood.
The officer approached, the German sniper they had seen earlier trailing a few feet behind him.
“Smart Amerikaner! Very smart.”
Some of the soldiers stepped forward and quickly searched their new prisoners. Joey had expected them to be on the lookout for weapons, but aside from a small pocketknife or two—which the Germans kept—the Americans were unarmed. To Joey’s surprise, they took their wallets and money, chocolate bars, and wristwatches. Joey hadn’t known quite what to expect as a prisoner, but he sure hadn’t expected to be robbed.
A soldier looked at Joey’s wrist and nodded, so Joe had no choice but to unbuckle the strap of his watch and hand it over. He felt a pang of resentment because his parents had given him that watch as a high school graduation present, right before he had signed up.
The German sniper who had eliminated the man in the steeple was among the soldiers looking on. He stepped forward and grabbed Serra’s hand, then shucked his Timex off his wrist with such force that it seemed like he might take Serra’s hand along with it. He then started to pull off Serra’s gold wedding band, but Serra jerked his hand away. The soldier raised his rifle.
“Enough!” the officer said. “You have his watch, Hauer. Leave the man his wedding ring.”
The soldier looked as if he might shoot Serra anyway, but then he lowered the weapon. With a smug grin, without taking his eyes off Serra, he slipped the watch onto his own wrist.
Serra glanced at the officer and said quietly, “Thank you.”
If the officer heard Sera, he didn’t show any sign of it. Instead, he turned and shouted orders to the soldiers.
Joey didn’t understand a word of German, so he still wasn’t sure whether or not the Germans were going to shoot them.
Having been searched—and looted—the prisoners were marched toward the church a short distance away.
It all felt so unreal, like a bad dream. Never in a million years had Joey expected to be taken prisoner. Killed, maybe, but not taken as a POW. Their training hadn’t focused on being taken prisoner—maybe it wasn’t something the Army wanted to encourage by preparing you for it. All he knew was that they were only supposed to tell the Germans their name, rank, and serial number. That response had been
drilled into them. The funny thing was, the Germans hadn’t even bothered to ask for that information. Maybe they didn’t think the Americans were worth the effort.
The sights they passed in the street were not encouraging. Germans appeared to be everywhere, setting up machine gun nests at key points and fortifying positions. There were a hell of a lot of Germans. For weeks, there had been rumors that most of the German soldiers were now kids or old men, but that was not the case with these troops. They looked battle-hardened and went about setting up their defenses with the efficiency of men who had done it all before.
Clearly, from the effort being put into the defenses, these troops weren’t just passing through. It appeared that they planned to stay for a while.
“Hands up! No talking! Schweigen! Keep moving toward the church.”
Lined up at the edge of the street was a row of bodies. Dead American soldiers and a couple of villagers who had maybe been caught in the crossfire. Joey tried to count the bodies, but he couldn’t seem to get his mind to work right. Counting past ten was more than his addled brain could handle. Anyhow, there were at least a dozen dead bodies, if not more.
It wasn’t his first time seeing a dead man in the war zone, but the sight of the bundles lined up indifferently on the ground was upsetting. Just a few hours ago, these dead men had been very much alive.
At gunpoint, they were marched right up to the Catholic church. Most of the townspeople were nowhere in sight, except for a few who seemed to welcome the arrival of the Germans with open arms, bringing the soldiers baskets of food and bottles of liquor. That should be no surprise—this close to the German border, there were bound to be a few Nazi sympathizers.
As they approached the church, the priest was nowhere in sight. He hadn’t been seen in days. Rumor had it that he had fled the town along with the village constable.
But to Joey’s surprise, Sister Anne Marie stood at the foot of the steps leading to the church. She was apparently not intimidated by the presence of the Germans, but watched with concern as the captured Americans were marched toward the church.
Joey felt like he was in the presence of a guardian angel. Surely, even these tough-looking Krauts would find it hard to shoot down the prisoners in the presence of a nun. Joey caught her eye, and she gave him a reassuring nod. That small gesture gave him new strength.
As they reached the steps, one of the Americans at the front of the group bent down to tie his shoe. It was Sampson, the skinny kid with the glasses. Without warning, the German sniper shot him dead.
“Keep moving!” the officer warned.
Joey and the others had no choice but to step over the dead man’s body. Joey saw Sampson’s blood wetting the steps and felt sick.
Sister Anne Marie moved to Sampson’s side, but he was far beyond any help. She made the sign of the cross and began praying over him.
Still stunned, Joey spent a moment too long taking in the scene. The next thing he knew, a soldier had clubbed him in the side of the head with the butt of a rifle. When he staggered, the soldier shoved him back into line.
“Into the church!”
The Americans had no choice but to obey. Joey’s head rang and he felt warm blood running down over his ear, but he didn’t dare to stop. The rifle butt had cut a gash into his scalp and any head wound bled profusely. He supposed that he should feel lucky that he hadn’t ended up like Sampson, shot dead on the church steps.
Inside the church, they were herded toward the altar at the north end of the space. There was a door to one side that he supposed led up to the steeple where they had seen the sniper earlier. There was no other way in or out of the church that Joey noticed, except for the door that they had just walked through, now guarded by two soldiers with submachine guns. The stained-glass windows were narrow and high, decorative rather than functional, which would have made it quite difficult to crawl out of them.
Like many of the old European churches, this one had no pews, but only a flagstone floor that was cold and damp. The church had no source of heat other than the bodies it now held. All in all, the church made a perfect pen in which to hold the POWs.
To their surprise, another group of prisoners was already there, slumped on the floor or against the stone walls. Due to those thick stone walls, the church looked larger and more substantial from the outside. Inside, it felt more like a chapel than a full-sized church. With the influx of new prisoners, the interior became quite crowded. One of the guards dragged a bench around so that it separated the last third of the church closest to the door. The guards waved their weapons at the bench and then the soldiers, and though they didn’t speak English, the meaning was clear enough—anyone who passed the line would be shot.
The guards soon grew bored and slouched against the wall, smoking cigarettes—but with their nasty submachine guns slung within easy reach.
Another soldier came in and placed a couple of buckets along the wall. The buckets were going to serve as their latrine. Clearly, the Germans intended to keep them here for a while.
The prisoners looked around, getting their bearings, and talking in low voices.
Serra approached Joey and looked at him with concern. “Jesus, kid. Your head is bleeding like a stuck pig. How you do feel?”
“Dizzy, but better than poor Sampson.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe those bastards shot him for tying his shoe.”
Joey felt himself swaying. “I better sit down.”
“Let me take a look at that head,” Serra said. “I’m no nurse, that’s for damn sure, but maybe I can bandage it up.”
The guards had taken anything sharp that could be used by the new POWs as a weapon, but Serra managed to use his teeth to get a tear going in a shirttail. Once he had ripped off a rough strip, he wrapped it around Joey’s head. “That’s the best I can do,” he said. “There’s some other wounded guys in here from that first batch of prisoners, some of them shot up pretty bad, but we don’t have any kind of medical supplies. The Germans took everything.”
“Figures,” Joey said. “Anyhow, thanks for putting the bandage on my head. I feel better already.”
“You’re a lousy liar, Joey, you know that? But at least it stopped the bleeding,” Serra said.
“I sure am thirsty. Does anybody have something to drink?”
“Not that I can see. Not so much as a canteen.”
“I’m sure not gonna ask those guards for a drink. It looks like they wouldn’t mind using those Schmeissers.”
“Hang in there, kid. I hate to say it, but from the looks of things we might be in here for a while.”
Chapter Ten
The battle had been swift and one-sided. Caught by surprise, the American force had been quickly overwhelmed. The officers had made the fatal mistake of ignoring the gunfire in the hills, insisting on putting their faith in intelligence reports that there were no substantial enemy units in the sector, rather than believing their own ears.
For the most part, the people of the village had hidden away during the brief fight, cowering in cellars or simply fleeing into the night ahead of the German advance. Worried for the church and the safety of the congregation, Sister Anne Marie had stayed. Where else would she have gone?
The young nun had watched with a growing sense of trepidation as the Germans quickly moved to take over the village. Just a few days before, the war had seemed all but over, with the village safely in American hands. Now, circumstances had changed considerably.
She watched the Americans being marched into the church. At first, she had worried that the Germans would shoot them all. Instead, they had killed just one prisoner, but his death on the church steps had been harsh and brutal.
It had been the German sniper who had done it. They had all seen him eliminate the American soldier in the church steeple as well. The man was a brutal killer.
She had seen another young soldier clubbed in the head for not moving fast enough. However, even she had to admit that for the most part, the majori
ty of German soldiers had not mistreated the POWs. As for the villagers, the Germans seemed content to let them go about their business. Many villagers spoke German and a handful had even welcomed the Nazi troops with open arms.
“This is awful!” said one of the villagers, who had joined the nun near the church steps. “What are we to do?”
“Why don’t you check on some of the older parishioners and see how they are doing?” Sister Anne Marie said. “They may be afraid to go out.”
The other woman nodded. “Yes, that is a good idea. What about you?”
Sister Anne Marie had already made up her mind that while the church might be expected to remain impartial, her focus would be on helping the Americans. In her mind, they fought on the side of righteousness, unlike the troops of the Third Reich. Besides, the Germans had their own medics and medical supplies. What did the Americans locked in the church have? They have me, she thought.
“I am going to tend to the wounded Americans in the church.”
“But the guards—”
“You let me worry about the guards,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt. “Before you go to check on the villagers, come help me make some bandages.”
The two women went to the priest’s small house next door to the church. The rectory was modest, no more than a small kitchen, a study where the priest conducted church business, and a bedroom. The interior felt cold and empty.
“Should we be in here?” the woman asked. “This is Father Jean’s home, after all.”
“If he did not want us in here, then he should not have run off.”
In the bedroom, Sister Anne Marie found a chest with spare sheets and blankets. She fetched scissors from the study, and the two women got to work turning the sheets into strips of bandages. She chided herself for taking a small amount of delight in turning the absentee priest’s sheets into bandages.
