Doom Platoon

by Levinson, Len

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “Well, not all the time,” Hartman said indignantly.

  “What’s pig pussy like?”

  “I ain’t never screwed no pig.”

  “How about a sheep? I hear they’re just like women.”

  “We ain’t got no sheep around where I live.”

  “Cows?”

  “Yeah, I done it to a couple of cows in my day.”

  “What’s it like.”

  “Well, you got to be careful you don’t fall off the stool. You see, you gotta stand on a stool if you wanna do it to a cow. My favorite screwing, outside of women of course, is chickens. You ain’t lived until you screwed a chicken.”

  Braithwaite looked at him blankly. “A chicken?”

  “Yeah, a chicken.”

  “You’ve done it to chickens?”

  “Ain’t nothing like chicken pussy.”

  “No shit?”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “Chicken pussy?”

  “That’s right. After this war’s over, you come down to Dillyn to see me, hear? I’ll take you out to the chicken coop and show you a real good time.”

  “Okay,” Braithwaite said weakly, wondering if he was dreaming.

  “Hey, what are you going to do after the war, Braithwaite?”

  “Who me?”

  “I don’t mean your brother.”

  “I’m going into the banking business,” Braithwaite said. “That’s where the big money is.”

  “Your family own a bank or something like that?”

  “No, but when I get out of the Army I’m going to get a job in a bank and work my way up to the top. You said before that the good thing about farming is that a farmer never has to worry about going without food. That’s not always so, because sometimes farmers have bad years and the banks have to foreclose. But nobody ever forecloses on banks, because banks own everything. You see, farmers think they own their land, but they seldom do own it free and clear. Usually they have to take a loan from the bank to buy the land, so the bank really owns it. In the same way, the banks own just about everything else in this country, like houses, stores, even factories. Banks are always collecting money from everybody. When times are bad and people can’t pay the banks, then the banks just take all the houses, farms, and factories. They wait until times are good and then sell them for more money. So you see, if you got to work for a living, it doesn’t make sense to work for anybody else except a bank.”

  Hartman shook his head. “Well, I don’t know. I’d rather be out working in the fresh air.”

  “I’d rather be where the money is,” Braithwaite replied.

  At the right flank of the ridge, Private Johnson of Baton Rouge, Louisiana was on sentry duty. He’d had to eat standing up and watching the road. It occurred to him that he always seemed to pull more guard duty and more K.P. than anybody else. A pug nosed young man with a shock of unmanageable flaxen hair, he’d regretted enlisting in the Army since his very first morning at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The Army wasn’t fun, as he’d thought it would be. It was hard work, not enough sleep, lousy food, sadistic sergeants, and bullets flying at you all the time.

  While thinking of how much he hated the Army, he noticed that in the distance the road had somehow gotten shorter. Before it was shining with ice and snow, but now it was dark. He squinted his eyes and bent forward over the boulder. The road had become dark because there were vehicles on it, he realized. And those vehicles were coming from the direction of the enemy lines. It was the panzer division.

  Turning, Johnson climbed ten feet up the rocky ledge to the cave where Mazursky was leaning back, smoking his next-to-last cigar near the anti-tank squad. Albright was a few feet away, cleaning his M-1. The dog lay sleeping at Mazursky’s big feet.

  Johnson burst into the cave. ‘Sergeant Mazursky—they’re coming!”

  Mazursky grabbed the binoculars lying beside him, jumped up, and ran to the opening of the cave. Bracing his shoulder against the wall, he peered through the binoculars. Sure enough, down the road he saw the panzer division coming. In front were two tanks with their tops open and their tank commanders standing there, looking around. Mazursky could make out their black berets and their radio headsets. He lowered the binoculars and turned around.

  “Here they come,” he said. “Let’s get ready for them.”

  Then he glanced at his watch. It was 1000 hours.

  Chapter Four

  The second platoon got set to attack the panzer column. Mazursky inspected his position, making sure his men were where they should be, and telling them the plan of attack. There was a large spruce tree at the side of the road about a hundred yards before them. When the lead tanks came abreast of that tree, the second platoon was to open up with all they had. The first anti-tank crew under Mazursky would try to hit the tank on the right. The second anti-tank squad under Corporal Banes would try to take out the one on the left. The various bazooka men would aim for tanks directly behind the front two. The soldiers with small arms weapons were to keep the enemy soldiers pinned down and to repulse any attacks. They had to hold out until noon. Somehow.

  Mazursky entered the cave of the second anti-tank squad and inspected the gun on its tripod. He looked through its sight and the cross hairs were on that part of the road opposite the spruce tree.

  “Keep firing until you hit the fucking tank,” he said, “and once you hit it, hit it again. When you’re sure it’s out of action, aim for a tank farther down the line. Got it?”

  “Yes sergeant.”

  Mazursky went down on the ridge and worked out a firing plan so that the BAR men would have overlapping fields of fire. “When the troops attack, they’re going to come through the woods in front of us. You won’t be able to hit them there, but once they come out into the open on that swamp down there, rip the bastards apart. Understand?”

  “Yes sergeant.”

  “FIX BAYONETS!”

  They hooked the bayonets on their rifles as Mazursky climbed up to the cave where the first anti-tank crew was. At the mouth of the cave, he ducked down behind the boulders and took out his binoculars. Peering through them, he saw the panzer column coming about a half-mile off. Eight tanks were in front, and behind them were four personnel carriers with mounted machine guns. Then there were more tanks and more personnel carriers all the way back to the horizon. Mazursky gulped. There were light artillery pieces behind each personnel carrier. They’d use that artillery to slowly blast the hill away until the second platoon, like a colony of ants, were exposed. Then the massacre would begin.

  The anti-tank crew was pale and steely-eyed behind their gun.

  “Everything okay boys?” Mazursky asked.

  “Yes sergeant.”

  “Make the first shot count. You might not get a second one.”

  “Right sergeant.”

  In the cave with the second anti-tank crew, Private Robinson, the New Yorker who’d flunked out of Officers Candidate School, was stacking clips of ammunition beside his position. He was lying on the ground and his M-l stuck out between two large boulders. It’d be hard for somebody to shoot him; the only way they’d get him would be to lob an artillery shell into the cave, but its mouth was small and they’d made it smaller by piling up boulders. He was a crack shot with an M-l, and at a range of two hundred yards, he knew he’d have no trouble killing Germans. But he knew that sooner or later the Germans would swarm over the position, and then it’d be bayonets hand to hand. He didn’t like the idea of that, because he wasn’t particularly strong, and he knew that in hand-to-hand combat, the strongest man would probably win. The thought of a cold German bayonet slicing through his guts made him break out in a cold sweat. He hoped that when the end came, he’d be lucky enough to get a bullet through his brain.

  Down on the ridge, Private Nowicki was looking through his BAR sights at the oncoming panzer columns. He’d been in front line combat long enough to know that the second platoon didn’t have a chanc
e, and particularly not the BAR men, because automatic weapons like the BAR tended to attract hand grenades and all manner of rifle and machine gun fire. He turned to Deesing, who was lying beside him, nervously pushing the safety in and out of the trigger guard of his M-1.

  “Hey Deesing,” Nowicki said.

  “What?”

  “Listen. I want you to do me a favor.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What the fuck is it?” Deesing looked at him, his full lips sticking out petulantly. He was not in a particularly good mood.

  “First I want you to promise me that you’ll do it.”

  “How the fuck can I promise to do it if I don’t know what it is?”

  “You can do it. It won’t be hard. It’s just a little favor. C’mon, promise.”

  “Oh fuck, okay. I promise.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes I’m sure.”

  “If I die, I want you to go to my home town and say goodbye to Shirley for me.”

  “What if I die too?”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “Why not?”

  “Guys like you never die. You got Lady Luck on your side.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because you always win at craps.”

  “I don’t know if I can beat a bullet.”

  “You will. Will you go say goodbye to Shirley for me?”

  Deesing was sure he’d get killed too, but it wouldn’t cost him anything to give Nowicki some piece of mind. “Sure, I’ll say goodbye to her for you.”

  “You promise.”

  “Yeah, I promise.”

  Nowicki smiled. “Thanks a lot, Deesing.”

  “There’s just one problem,” Deesing said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know where she lives.”

  “Oh, that’s right too. I’ll write down her address.” Nowicki took out the little notebook and pen he carried, and a photograph of Shirley fell out. “This is a picture of her,” he said, picking it up. “Take a look.” He handed the picture to Deesing then wrote down the address.

  Lying on his stomach, Deesing looked at the picture of Shirley. It was a formal portrait done by a professional photographer in a studio. Shirley had blonde hair, large eyes, an oval face, and the kind of mouth born to give blowjobs. “This is Shirley?” Deesing asked, wide-eyed. He’d always thought she was some ugly little broad.

  “Yeah, that’s Shirley. What do you think of her?”

  “She’s okay.”

  “I guess she’s not your type. She’s just a small town girl.”

  “Yeah.” Deesing handed back the picture, and accepted Shirley’s address. Folding it carefully, he put it in his wallet. He didn’t know how, but somehow he was going to survive the war and then go to Pittsburgh and see Shirley whether Nowicki died or not. He’d tie the little bitch to a bed and screw her till she fainted. Then he’d throw a bucket of water on her and screw her again.

  Nowicki didn’t realize it, but he’d given Deesing a reason to live.

  On the road, the panzer division advanced steadily. Mazursky followed it with his binoculars and could make out the features of the men standing up in the lead tanks. The one on the left was an officer, and the one on the right a non-com. They both were about twenty years old and very clean-cut looking. Mazursky didn’t like people who were clean-cut looking because they got all the advantages in life while ugly brutes like himself got all the shit. Mazursky put down the binoculars to rest his eyes, and looked at Albright, who was lying a few feet away, sighting down the barrel of his M-l. Mazursky smiled. Albright sure didn’t look clean-cut. He looked like a little fucking rat who’d steal your wallet if you weren’t looking.

  “How you doing, Fuckbright?” Mazursky asked.

  Albright didn’t look at him. “Don’t worry about me,” he said bitterly.

  “I didn’t say I was worried about you, Fuckbright. I was just asking how you were. And you’d better answer me or I’ll kick your teeth in.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Good.”

  Mazursky brought the binoculars to his eyes and looked at the panzers. They had rounded the last bend before the fatal spruce tree marker. He didn’t need his binoculars anymore. He looked at the three men from the weapons platoon who were surrounding the anti-tank gun.

  “You guys ready?” Mazursky asked.

  Corporal Winograd from Providence, Rhode Island looked through the sights. “I’ve got the bastards dead on.” His finger tightened around the sights.

  “Make the first shot count.”

  “I’ll get him,” Winograd said cockily. In point of fact, Winograd was an expert with an anti-tank gun. An engineering student at Brown University when he’d enlisted, he was mechanically inclined and knew his weapon from every possible point of view. Given a reasonable chance, Winograd could be counted on to hit his target. He’d trained his crew to re-load quickly. Mazursky didn’t know it but he had one of the best anti-tank crews in the whole U.S. Army right next to him.

  The tanks rumbled inexorably toward the spruce tree marker. Mazursky laid his sights on the young cherubic-looking officer in the lead tank on the left. He’d like to drill him through the head, but he had to wait until the anti-tank guns fired.

  Closer and closer and tanks came. The officer and non-coms in the lead tanks looked around at the countryside. They’d been training for weeks for this major counter-offensive that Hitler hoped would change the face of the war. Their plan was to slice through the British and American armies, outflank them, and push them back to Antwerp.

  The tanks were only twenty yards from the spruce tree. Every man in the second platoon tensed behind his weapon. The tanks kept coming. The German officer was looking up at the ridge and caves where the second platoon was. On his face there grew an expression of concern. He’d seen something.

  “Oh-oh,” Mazursky murmured.

  The German officer raised his binoculars to his eyes. Corporal Winograd had the tank in the dead center of his sight. The tank came abreast of the spruce trees. The German officer lowered his binoculars abruptly and shouted into his headset. Winograd pulled the trigger of his antitank gun.

  It made its muffled poof sound and kicked slightly.

  On the road, the shell hit the tank where its turret met its body, and exploded. A shell from the other anti-tank gun hit the tank beside it in the treads. The second platoon opened fire with everything they had. The bazookas fired. The BAR men raked the personnel carriers with automatic weapons fire. German soldiers leapt from the personnel carriers and ran into the woods at both side of the road. Smoke filled the air around the tanks.

  Mazursky peered through the smoke and his heart was gladdened when he saw the German officer standing in the turret of the tank with his shoulders and head missing. But in the other tanks they were battening down the hatches and swinging their big guns around. The second platoon’s anti-tank squads knocked out two more tanks and one personnel carrier. German soldiers were lying dead in the road and the gully. The German panzer column could no longer advance.

  But they could fight back.

  The cannons and machine guns mounted on the tanks opened fire on the second platoon’s position. The first salvo landed just beneath Mazursky’s cave, and the whole hill trembled. The second salvo hit the boulder that Winfield and Mac Doodle were hiding behind. The sound of the explosion was so loud it disoriented them and made them deaf for a few minutes. Private Johnson on the right flank happened to look up at the wrong time and caught a machine gun burst in the face. His blood and brains splattered the men near him, but they kept firing their weapons.

  Mazursky looked at his watch It was 1030 hours. Somehow the second platoon had to hold out for another hour and a half. Shells and bullets rained down on their position, and he didn’t see how they could do it. He sighted down his carbine at the road. Germans were abandoning the damaged tanks. One of them was jumping down over the smok
ing treads. Mazursky shot him in mid-air. When the German landed on the ground he collapsed and never got up again.

  Down on the ledge, Nowicki had forgotten all about Shirley and was calmly gunning down fleeing Germans with his BAR. The weapon stopped firing, he ejected the empty clip, pushed in a new one, and resumed firing at the tank crews funning for shelter in the woods. A machine gun burst slammed into the rocks in front of him, and he ducked. When it passed he looked up again and noticed German soldiers attacking from out of the wooded area below. He angled his BAR down and opened fire on them. He hit two, but they were pouring out of the woods in droves. Beside him, Deesing removed a hand grenade from one of his lapels, yanked the pin, and hurled it.

  The hand grenade fell lazily through the air, resembling a ball that children might play with, and landed in the midst of the Germans. It exploded with a thunderous sound, blowing Germans to bits. The Germans kept coming. Other second platoon men threw hand grenades, which spread bloody devastation among the Germans. But they kept coming.

  The machine guns and cannons on the tanks stopped firing as the German soldiers neared the crest of the ridge. Realizing that, the men of the second platoon stood up and threw hand grenades down the hill fast as they could pull the pins. Others fired rifles at the Germans fast as they could pull the trigger. The Germans faltered and began to fall back, but some kept coming. Nowicki stood up with his BAR, and firing from the hip, mowed them down. The lead German, an officer, made it to the ridge and didn’t realize he was all alone, and that the others were retreating. He leapt over the barricade and found himself face to face with Private Hartman, the Jayhawker. Before the officer could fire his Luger, Hartman ran him through with his bayonet.

  Farther down the line, a German soldier realized, just as he approached the ridge, that his comrades had retreated. He turned to join them, but four hands came over the ridge and grabbed him by the collar and shoulder.

  MacDoodle and Winfield dragged the German soldier kicking and screaming behind the ridge. They kicked him in the balls and punched him in the face. MacDoodle took out his Chicago switchblade and cut the German’s throat from ear to ear. Blood gushed out of the gash and the German’s mouth. In swift strong strokes MacDoodle cut off his ears and his nose. He gouged out the German’s eyes. Opening the German’s pants, he cut off the German’s pecker and stuffed it in the German’s mouth. Then he and Winfield threw the German over the edge of the ridge, and the German rolled down the steep hill.