Fire and Steel, Volume 1

by Gerald N. Lund

  • • •

  The doctor came out shortly after noon. Instantly they were all on their feet. The doctor broke stride for a moment when he saw a man in uniform, but then his face was wreathed in smiles. “Ah,” he said. “Sergeant Eckhardt. Welcome, welcome. Your mother was afraid you would not be allowed to come.”

  “I was given a four-day pass, sir, for which I am most grateful. How is my father?”

  Motioning toward the bench, he said, “Sit down.”

  As they did so, he walked over to the nurses’ station and retrieved a chair. He brought it back and set it down in front of them. As he sat down and faced them, Inga saw the deep lines of exhaustion on his face. But she was relieved to see no pain in his eyes.

  “The operation went well,” he began. “Everything went as planned, with the exception that the tumor was slightly larger than we expected. However, the good news is that it seemed to be pretty well contained in one place. We could find no sign that it had spread to other organs.”

  Inga’s head dropped and tears came. “Danke schön,” she whispered.

  “However, Frau Eckhardt, I must warn you that sometimes the cancerous cells spread unseen to other places in the body. We’re not sure how that happens, but it does. But I am very optimistic that we got it all. And that is very good news.”

  Hans reached out and took his mother’s hand and then tipped his head down to rest against hers. “Oh, Mama. That is wonderful.” Then he looked up at the doctor. “How soon can we see him?”

  The doctor shook his head. “Not for several more hours. He is still heavily sedated, and he will be in a lot of pain.” He held up his index fingers, holding them apart to demonstrate. “The incision we made to get in and take out the tumor is about six inches long.” He smiled briefly. “And, sadly, as we grow older, we do not heal as fast. But perhaps by this evening he will be awake enough for you to visit for a few moments.”

  He stood, and they all stood as well. “When do you have to return, Sergeant?”

  “I can stay through tomorrow afternoon and then I must start back.”

  “You will be able to talk to him by then,” he said.

  They thanked the doctor profusely, and then he excused himself and walked away. After a moment, Hans turned to his mother. “We can do nothing here for now. I didn’t get much food on the train. Let’s go find somewhere to eat. Do you know how good it sounds to have something other than army chow?”

  Wolfie laid a hand on his shoulder. “It shall be my treat. I know just the place. But I warn you, we are on food rationing due to the war. It won’t be much.”

  Hans slapped his uncle on the arm. “It won’t take much to beat army food.”

  Smiling, Inga touched her son’s arm. “You go. I will stay here just in case something comes up.”

  Paula was immediately nodding. “I’ll stay with Inga. Bring us back something.”

  As they sat down again, Paula laid a hand on her sister’s arm. “Before I forget, Inga. I did talk to President Hoffman. He is happy to come and give Hans a priesthood blessing. Would you like him tonight or tomorrow?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “Good, I’ll have him come tonight. Hopefully, Hans will be awake by then.” She gave her sister a questioning look. “How will young Hans feel about that?”

  Inga’s head came up slowly. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. It is not his decision.”

  “Good.”

  But Inga was clearly irritated by the question—not at Paula, but at her son. “I talked to my Hans about it. I explained what it was and what it was for. I told him that we would only do it if it was something that he wished to have done.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he would be glad for any prayers in his behalf —Mormon, Lutheran, or Catholic.” She sighed. “So if young Hans doesn’t like it, he can step out of the room.”

  August 2, 1917

  Hans put his arms around his mother. “Mama, it’s all right. Come in with me. Papa will want to see you again, too.”

  She shook her head. “I have plenty of time to be with him. This is your last chance.”

  Hans Otto glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 1:10 in the afternoon. Finally, he nodded. “I would like that. Thank you, Mama.”

  When he went in, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim room. As he approached the bed, he couldn’t tell whether his father was asleep or not. But then he saw a hand rise and wave weakly before dropping back again. He moved to the bed and took that hand in his. “Hello, Papa.”

  He felt a squeeze in response. Still holding onto his hand, he pulled a chair closer and sat down beside the bed. “How are you feeling today, Papa? You’re looking much better.”

  Hans Senior turned his head back and forth and pulled a face. Hans smiled. “You’re looking much better than you did last night, anyway.”

  There was a slight tug on his hand. Hans scooted his chair closer and leaned in so his face was just a few inches from his father’s. It was hard to look at him this closely, even with the curtains drawn. He was shocked to see the toll the disease had taken on him. His skin was a sickly gray and sagging around the cheekbones. The luster was gone from his eyes. One corner of his mouth sagged a little, but the doctor said that was probably from the anesthetic. What hurt the most was that there was so little left of the robust, energetic man who had been his father, his mentor, his model, his advocate, and his best friend during his childhood years.

  “How soon?” It came out as a barely audible croak.

  “How soon? Oh, do you mean how soon do I leave?” His father nodded. “I have to be back to my unit by tomorrow night. My train leaves at 3:15 this afternoon. Wolfie will drive me to the train station. I have about half an hour before I have to leave.”

  Another barely perceptible nod.

  “Did you know that Wolfie bought a motorcar?”

  To his surprise, his father rolled his eyes. Hans laughed. That was more like the father he knew. With the war on, Wolfie had progressed rapidly in his civil service job and was now making a comfortable salary. Everyone liked Wolfie, but his father had always groused about how he liked to put on a show.

  Another tug. Hans leaned down again. “Yes, Papa?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Tell you what, Papa?”

  “About war.”

  “Ah,” he whispered.

  “War is hell,” he croaked.

  Hans was surprised by the vehemence in his father’s voice. He reached in with his other hand and clasped his father’s hand in both of his. “How long was Grandpapa on the front lines, Papa?”

  His other hand came up and he held up one finger.

  “A year?”

  He nodded.

  “He never talked about it, Papa. Remember how I would pepper him with questions? But all he would talk about was being a soldier, never about combat itself. Now I understand why.”

  “Tell me.”

  And so, Hans leaned in and began to talk, softly and calmly, as though he were describing someone else’s life. He talked about basic training, about the injustices and hardships. He talked about driving trucks and the interminable boredom. Then he recounted how the major had come to him when he was shaving and ripped him and Franck from boredom to battle.

  He talked for several minutes, almost forgetting that he was speaking to his father. Suddenly, he stopped, thinking his father had gone to sleep again. But his eyes were opened, and filled with understanding.

  “Don’t tell Mama, Papa, but after I won the Iron Cross, they asked me if I wanted to go back to the Transportation Brigade.” He shook his head in wonder. “I told them no. Part of that was because I thought that it would be a betrayal of Franck. And by then, I was a platoon sergeant and I thought, ‘How can I go back to driving trucks when the others in my platoon don’t have that choice?’ So I told them no.”

  “More though.”

  He looked up in surprise. “More? You want me
to tell you more?”

  Hans Senior shook his head. “No. More than honor. In the blood.”

  For a moment, Hans wasn’t sure what his father meant, but then he understood. “Yes, that too. It was unbelievably awful—the mud, the rats, the rancid food, the mold, the latrines that smell so bad you have to wear your gas mask when you go, the never-ending stench of death. But soon I began to dread the down times, the endless waiting, more than combat itself. When you’re on patrol, or in a firefight, you feel alive in no other way I’ve ever experienced. I hated it. I dreaded it. And yet . . .” He rubbed his eyes. “I longed for it. Hoped for it. Volunteered for it.” Almost in awe, he continued. “Even loved it, in a way. And they keep giving me medals for that. How’s that for irony?”

  “I know. I know.”

  “Papa, I have to go soon, but I want to talk to you about something. You don’t need to respond. But I need to say it, okay?”

  Another wan nod.

  “I . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t say this to anyone else, Papa, but I think we are going to lose the war.”

  “Yes!”

  “With the Americans in now, the tide is turning against us. We were told that they are coming in at a rate of ten thousand per day. And we have lost so many men. Many of our units are at half strength or less, with virtually no reserves.” He shook his head. “It is bad luck to think about the future, because I may not have a future, but sometimes at night, I cannot help myself.”

  “I understand, son.”

  “I made a huge mistake when I turned my back on the University of Berlin. You and Mama saw that immediately. Now, at last, I see it too.”

  “Good.”

  “I want to make something of myself, Papa. But . . . I can’t do that on the farm. I can’t do that milking cows. If I go to university, you know that I’ll never come back, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I’ve known that for many years.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa. But you have good sons-in-law who will help you. They love it like you do, Papa. It is only right that it should go to them.”

  He nodded, obviously tiring rapidly now.

  “The war has robbed my generation of our lives. On both sides. As I see the dead bodies strewn across no-man’s-land, I want to weep. Where is their happiness? Where is their opportunity? Where are their wives and children? So if I am spared, if I come out of this alive, I must seize life while I can. I must make something of myself. And when I do, I will take care of you and Mama in your old age. And Grandmama and Grandpapa, too.”

  As he looked down, he saw that his father’s eyes were glistening, and he stifled a sob as he stood up. “I have to go, Papa. I love you so much. I am so glad I got to see you.”

  His father squeezed his hand but couldn’t speak for his emotions.

  “You’re going to get better, Papa. I feel it.”

  “Yes. Many prayers.”

  “Including mine.”

  As he bent down and kissed his father’s forehead, a sudden dread swept over him. Would he ever see this man again? The thought was more than he could bear. The sobs began to shake his body. “Auf Wiedersehen, Papa. I love you.”

  October 28, 1918—The Siegfried Line—Northern France

  Sergeant Hans Otto Eckhardt’s first sight of the Siegfried Line stunned him into awed silence. He had heard about it, of course. Anyone fighting in France or Belgium knew about the massive defensive line erected by the Germans after their defeat at Verdun.

  With serious losses at places like Ypres, the Somme, and Verdun, the German High Command knew that they could no longer throw an endless stream of men, equipment, and supplies against the growing power of the Allied Forces. They were a long ways from being defeated as 1917 began, but they needed a place where they could more easily defend themselves while they consolidated their forces and resupplied their armories.

  So they chose a line that started near the northern coast of France and ran all the way south past Verdun. Under General Ludendorf’s direction, 500,000 contract workers from Germany, along with thousands of Russian prisoners of war, were brought in. In five months’ time, they had destroyed the infrastructure and demolished all civilian bridges and roads, leaving a “desert” behind for any invading armies.

  Thousands of small concrete bunkers called stollens provided secure firing positions for the German machine guns. Each of these was fenced in by thousands of rolls of the dreaded concertina wire. The whole area was crisscrossed with trenches and tank traps. To the far west, along the line that the Allied forces would have to cross first, no-man’s-land was strewn with tens of thousands of mines. When finished, the Germans had a swath of defendable ground that was a hundred miles long and 6,000 yards wide.

  As far as Hans could see, it looked more like a scene from Dante’s depiction of hell than a piece of earth where people had once lived and worked and laughed. Here and there he could see stands of trees, but most of these had been shredded by shelling. Sunlight glinted off thousands of pools of standing water, mostly shell holes filled in by the rain.

  Hans felt a strange melancholy come over him as he contemplated what war had brought and what men were willing to do to prolong it.

  And now, with the Germans still entrenched behind the Siegfried Line, the Allied Forces were massing, bolstered by a huge infusion of American troops. Things were looking more and more grim for the German Empire.

  “You seen enough, Sergeant?” the corporal, who looked like he might be all of fourteen years old, asked. “They are going to start the meeting in five minutes, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir,” he barked. “I am a noncommissioned officer. I work for a living.”

  “Uh . . . yes, Sergeant. Sorry, sir. Uh . . . I mean, Sergeant.” Face flaming, he turned and hurried down the steps of the observation tower.

  Hans actually smiled for a moment, remembering his first day in the army and Sergeant Jessel. He wondered if Jessel was somewhere in France screaming his lungs out at anyone who wore a uniform and was of lower rank than he was.

  • • •

  The colonel, whose name Hans could not recall, came to the front and stood behind the small table. He took a moment to survey the fifty or more men in the room. As usual, the officers were in the chairs while the noncoms—all platoon sergeants like Hans—stood in the back.

  “Men,” he began without preamble. “I don’t need to tell you that our situation is grave. I have come from army headquarters, where General Ludendorf had called in all corps, division, regiment, battalion, and brigade commanders. He did so because, to put it bluntly, we have reached a position where we can no longer win this war.”

  He stopped as the shock rippled through the group. Hans guessed that the shock was not from hearing that they were not going to win, but that the high command was acknowledging that fact publicly. That spoke reams about where the situation stood right now.

  “But,” he roared, stabbing a finger into the air, “neither can we afford to lose it.”

  That brought a smattering of applause and a few cheers. He went on without acknowledging it. “General Ludendorf is now in negotiation with the Allied commanders for a cease-fire and eventual peace.” More murmurs, mostly of approval now.

  “But,” he went on grimly, “so far, the Allies are not responding. They believe that the stag is down and they have the scent of blood in their nostrils. They are pressing for an unconditional surrender and an armistice to follow.”

  No surprise. If the situation were reversed, the Fatherland would do the same thing.

  “The purpose of this meeting is to help the Allied commanders change their minds. We need something to bring them to the bargaining table. As you know, the British First, Fourth, and Fifth Armies, joined by the French First Army and the American expeditionary forces, supported by as many as eight hundred tanks, are currently attacking up and down the full length of the Siegfried Line. Our troops are putting up a fierce resistance, but they are advancing.”

  Hans was staring
at the man. So the rumors were true. For a week now, word on the front line was that since August their losses had been staggering. Some were saying that the Allies had captured over a hundred thousand German troops—roughly ten divisions. No one spoke of how many dead, wounded, and missing had also been lost. The stag was not just down. It was being devoured by the hounds.

  “Therefore, our orders are to make them pay dearly for every inch, every foot, every yard of terrain. You all know that we do not have the tanks to stop eight hundred of theirs, but we can slow them down, make them pay.”

  His eyes lifted to the back of the room. “This is why you platoon sergeants have been invited to this staff meeting. It will be on the platoon and company level that this occurs. It will be your men fighting in the trenches and enduring the artillery barrages. General Ludendorf asked me to have you tell your men that he has never been more proud of them than he is on this day. It will be in the trenches that we will save the Fatherland.”

  And it will be in the trenches that we will die.

  Hans shook it off. Or tried to. That day when he had said farewell to his father in the hospital, Hans had experienced a momentary premonition of death. He thought it was because his father had cancer and he might never see him again. Now . . . ?

  • • •

  He filed out after the others, not joining in their hushed conversations. The melancholy he had felt earlier was back. Worse, the feeling of dread that he had felt at his father’s beside was also back. And he now knew why. It wasn’t because his father was going to die. According to his mother’s latest letter, though his father’s recovery was slow, he was steadily progressing.

  Angrily, Hans reached in his pocket for his cigarettes. As he stopped and lit one up, he realized something else. That familiar tingle that preceded a coming battle was not there today—only an overwhelming sense of dread and a profound sorrow.

  November 1, 1918

  They felt them even before they heard them.

  At first it was barely perceptible. Then the earth began to visibly tremble. Inside the dugout that served as their platoon armory and supply shed, the ground was dry. Pebbles started to dance along the ground. The puddles outside, whose surfaces only moments before had been as smooth as glass, were now covered with concentric rings of ripples.