Doom Platoon

by Levinson, Len

  “What a lowlife you are, Mazursky.”

  “Who me?”

  “I take back what I said before. I’m not going to whip your ass when we get out of here. I’m going to kill you.”

  “You’re full of shit, you stump jumper bastard. If you ever come near me, I’ll kick your ass.”

  “I can’t wait to get my hands on you.”

  “Some fucking gorilla has got his hands all over your wife right now, you bastard. And she’s probably chewing on his cock.”

  “You bastard.”

  “You cornball.”

  Mazursky heard Dexter walk back from the bars of his cell, so Mazursky returned to his cot and sat down. He didn’t like to needle Dexter that way, but what else was there to do? At least it had been a little excitement. He’d been able to forget his predicament for a few minutes. But now it back with him again. He was trapped like a rat and he knew it. There was no way out of this one. He looked at his trust old Bulova; it was 1800 hours. He wished he had a cigar. He wished he’d never joined the Army.

  He lay down on his cot, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. After a while he heard a faint rumbling in the distance. He sat up and listened. It was a bombardment. A bombardment? Either the Allies had advanced and mounted an artillery attack, or the weather was clear and the Air Corps had gone into action.

  Mazursky doubted if the Allied armies could have advanced this far. It must be the Air Corps bombing targets in the area.

  “Hey Mazursky, you hear that?” asked Dexter.

  “Yeah, the weather must have cleared.”

  “It’s music to my ears.”

  “If the weather stays clear, we’ll push the Krauts all the way back to Berlin.”

  “What do you mean, we?”

  “The Allies. I hope they get here fast so they can let us out of here.”

  “I don’t think they’ll reach here for quite a while. There are a lot of Germans between here and our front lines.”

  “How do you know where our front lines are? They might be five miles away.”

  “Don’t be such an asshole all your life, Mazursky. They couldn’t have moved up so fast.”

  “I hope they drop a bomb right on that fucking Hitler.”

  “If I could get my hands on that son of a bitch I’d tear his head off. Do you realize how many people have died because of him?”

  “They say he chews rugs.”

  “I heard he eats shit.”

  “I heard he’s a queer.”

  “All those big shot Nazis are queers.”

  “The Germans have got to be the most fucked-up people in the world. I mean, who else would take a person like Adolf Hitler seriously.”

  “They’re good soldiers though.”

  “We’re better.”

  “The American soldier is the best soldier in the world.”

  Mazursky looked at his watch; it was 1930 hours. “I’m going to bed, Dexter. Have a nice night.”

  “You too, Mazursky. Watch out for the rats.”

  “What rats?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  Mazursky went to his cot and lay down. Now he had something new to worry about. Rats. If only he had been a 4-F.

  Somehow he had to figure out a way to escape from that camp.

  Chapter Seven

  In the morning after breakfast a troop of armed guards entered the cell block and opened the doors.

  ‘EVERYBODY OUT!”

  In the corridor, Mazursky saw Dexter for the first time. He was broad shouldered, lumpy-faced, and had a broken nose.

  “What’s going on?” Mazursky asked him.

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “You’ve been here longer than me. I thought you might know a few things.”

  “NO TALKING!”

  They were marched outside into the cold dawn, and then to the exercise yard of the camp. Across the yard were the regular prisoners in front of their barracks. Mazursky felt weak and dizzy as he stood beside Dexter in the formation. We wondered what was going on.

  An SS officer and some guards stood at the front of the formation.

  “You are going out on a work detail,” the officer shouted, his hands on his hips. “Anyone who does not do his share of work will be killed. Anyone who tries to escape will be killed. Anyone who talks without proper authorization will be killed. We are not going to play silly games with you foolish Americans. If you give us any problems we will kill you and that will be that.” He turned to the guards. ‘Take them away.”

  The regular prisoners, under heavy guard, were marched out of the camp first, and then came the special group of prisoners that included Mazursky and Dexter. They walked down a dirt road to a paved road, and then walked on it past farmhouses, meadows, and forests. A mist rose from the snow on the ground, and the trees looked eerie and twisted in the dawn light. As they marched, the day grew brighter. Mazursky wondered where they were going.

  At 0800 hours they approached a military installation and marched through the front gates. They passed barracks and mess halls that had been damaged by bombing, and then came to an air field that was all torn up. Mazursky realized this must have been one of the targets of the allied bombing last night. He was proud of the Air Corps.

  Picks and shovels were distributed, and the prisoners were ordered to fill in the holes on the air strip. Trucks filled with dirt and gravel emptied their loads near the holes, and the prisoners shoveled the fill in. Guards with submachine guns stood around, some with big dogs who liked to snarl and bare their teeth at the prisoners. Mazursky worked next to Dexter and kept looking around for possibilities to escape. If only they could get one of those trucks. He noticed that the trucks were driven by ordinary soldiers, not SS men.

  At noon a different kind of truck arrived, this one carrying soup and bread for the noon meal. Mazursky decided that this work detail wasn’t so bad, because at least you got more to eat. He stood in line with Dexter and got a bowl of soup and chunk of bread. Then he sat down with Dexter and ate in the midst of a group of prisoners. Guards and dogs patrolled the perimeter of the group.

  “How can we got one of those trucks?” Mazursky asked in a low voice.

  “I’m working on it,” Dexter replied, dipping his bread into his soup.

  “There’s got to be some way.”

  “There’s always a way. We’ll just have to figure it out.”

  After lunch, they all went back to work. Mazursky realized it was impossible to steal one of the trucks. There were too many guards around. They guards would shoot you down before you even got near the truck, and the dogs would eat you alive before you hit the ground.

  The trucks kept coming and going all afternoon, emptying fill which the prisoners shoveled into the holes. Whenever a hole was filled it was covered with concrete. The airfield was a mass of concrete patches; there had been many bombing raids already, and Mazursky hoped the weather would remain clear so there’d be more.

  At dusk the prisoners were marched back to the camp and locked in their cells. The normal evening meal of bread and water was passed around, and then the prisoners were left alone for the night.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can make it on these rations,” Dexter said. “I can barely lift the fucking shovel out there.”

  “Go tell it to the chaplain.”

  “You’re such a prick, Mazursky.”

  “I’ve been thinking about those trucks. Just as we unload them at the air strip, there must be a place where somebody loads them, right? A gravel pit or something?”

  “Right.”

  “Somehow we’ve got to get on that detail.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it might be easier to steal a truck that way.”

  “Why don’t you go see the camp commandant and put in for a transfer?”

  “Fuck you, Dexter.”

  “Up your ass, Mazursky.”

  “I bet eight guys are gang banging your wife right now.”

>   “Your mother works in a whorehouse.”

  Exhausted, Mazursky went to bed. He tried to think of ways to escape but sleep overtook him. Then there was noise and shouting in the corridor. He looked at his watch, and it was morning again. They had breakfast and then were marched to the air base, where they worked all day. Then they were marched back to the prisoner of war camp for dinner and sleep.

  This schedule was repeated for three more days. On the third night Mazursky lay in bed after dinner and wondered how long he could continue. The insufficient rations were making him weak and he could barely wield his shovel during the day. When he could no longer work, they’d shoot him for sure. He couldn’t let that happen. But what could he do? Fighting off sleep, he thought through the problem. He realized there was one possibility, and it was a long shot. But he’d have to take it. Arising he went to the front of his cell.

  “Hey Dexter!”

  There was no answer.

  “Dexter!”

  “What is it?” Dexter asked sleepily.

  “Come here, I want to talk to you.”

  “Lemme sleep.”

  “It’s important.”

  He heard Dexter get out of bed and shuffle to his bars. “What is it, you asshole?”

  “I’ve figured out a way to get out of here.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s not the greatest idea in the world, but the way I look at it, it’s the only chance we’ve got. We’re going to get a couple of sub-machine guns off those guards and fight our way off that air base.”

  “Are you fucking crazy?”

  “Have you got a better idea?”

  “Well, no.”

  “We have to do something soon, because a few more days on those rations and we’re going to be dropping like flies out there. Then they’ll just shoot us. We have to take a chance. There are no two ways about it.”

  “Maybe you’re right. How can we get those machine guns?”

  “I don’t think that part will be too hard. You and I will both be carrying shovels tomorrow, right? And you’ve probably noticed that some of those guards get a little lackadaisical out there, right? So you and I, while putting in our honest day’s work, will sort of get close to one of those lackadaisical guards. At the right moment, I’ll swing my shovel at his head and you grab for his submachine gun. Then you start firing at the nearest guards. I’ll grab a submachine gun from a dead guard and we’ll fight our way to one of those trucks. Then we’ll get in and drive the fuck out of there.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because those other guards will just chop us right the fuck down.”

  “Not if the other prisoners are tipped off, and do the same thing we do at the same time.”

  There was silence for a few moments. Then Dexter said, “Hey, I think you’ve got something there.”

  “You pass the word to the guy on the other side of you, and I’ll pass it to the guy on the other side of me. We’ll do it at 1600 hours tomorrow, just before the workday is over. It’ll be night soon after that, and maybe we’ll have a better chance to get away at night.”

  “You think of everything, Mazursky, but there’s just one thing. What if there’s a spy in here?”

  “I don’t think there is, but if there is, what can they do to us that they’re not doing already?”

  “They can shoot us.”

  “They’re going to do that anyway in a few days after we can’t work anymore.”

  “I guess we’ve got to take the chance.”

  “You’re fucking right we do.”

  Mazursky and Dexter moved to the cells adjacent to them and told the escape plans to the prisoners there. The prisoners were reluctant at first, but soon saw the logic of the plan. They realized it was their only hope. They had nothing to lose.

  The escape plan slowly made its way around the cell block. Tomorrow at 1600 hours, when Mazursky crowned a guard with his shovel, they would try to fight their way to freedom. They were all desperate, they had nothing to lose, they were marked for death anyway.

  Among them was Private Alvarro Lopez from Los Angeles, a slender weasel of a man and a skilled knife fighter who had killed three men before he joined the Army, and had never been caught. Lopez liked to kill close up, and see the expression on his opponent’s face as the knife went in. He loved the feeling of triumph as his opponent fell dead at his feet. He was in special detention because he had been caught trying to grind his spoon into a knife.

  Also there was Private Mike Grogan of Des Moines, Iowa, a brutal saloon fighter who liked to stomp on his victims, and who once had served a prison term for assault and battery. He was in special detention for stealing food.

  In a corner cell was Private Harold Karashevsky of Portland, Oregon, an odd withdrawn man with deep set eyes, who once had been arrested for rape, but released for insufficient evidence. The Germans locked him up because they thought he was crazy, and they were right.

  Next to Karashevsky was Lieutenant William Doyle of the Army Air Corps. Doyle had been a star quarterback for the University of Michigan during his college days, had flown a P-51 Mustang on numerous combat missions over France and Germany, and was locked in a cell because he’d been caught trying to escape on two occasions. He expected a firing squad at any moment, so was most interested in the escape plan.

  Also worthy of mention was Sergeant Okie Jones of Lebanon, Missouri, who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor on the Salerno beach for attacking a German pillbox single-handedly, and winning. Like Mazursky, he was locked up for administering a beating to a spy.

  Mazursky didn’t know any of these men, of course, But he’d seem them all during the work detail that day and thought that they looked like the type of men who’d give a good account of themselves in a tight situation.

  Tomorrow he’d find out for sure.

  Chapter Eight

  The sounds of bombardments reverberated throughout the night, as Allied planes dropped tons of bombs on German targets. Bright and early in the morning the prisoners at Schwanditz were awakened, fed, and marched across the countryside to the air base five miles away.

  Upon arriving, Mazursky saw that the air strip had been devastated the night before. There was much work to do, and three trucks were already there waiting to be unloaded. Mazursky and the men from his detention barracks set to work unloading one of the trucks, and men from the other barracks unloaded the other trucks. Throughout the morning they shoveled dirt into the holes and attempted to level off the landing strip. At noon they paused to eat, and Mazursky sat next to Dexter, dunking his bread into the watery soup and looking over the men from his barracks. Some appeared nonchalant, others tense and nervous. They looked like a good crew.

  After lunch the work resumed. Mazursky’s leaden arms jabbed his shovel into the ground and came up with dirt, which he threw into a bomb crater. During his work he checked out the guards. None of them was paying too much attention; some chatted with each other, their gun butts on their hips and barrels pointing into the sky. Others watched the work through glassy bored eyes. The guard duty had become routine for them, and they didn’t expect anything. Even the dogs were getting lazy.

  The afternoon hours passed slowly. Mazursky decided to zero in on a young SS guard who had a poetic face and liked to look at sky. This guard didn’t look very husky in his black SS overcoat, he was pale, and Mazursky figured that the SS must be lowering its standards if it took youths like that. Mazursky winked at Dexter, and together they worked toward that SS guard. It was drawing close to 1600 hours.

  The other prisoners, seeing what Mazursky and Dexter were up to, made way for them. The sun was sinking in the west. They were unloading a truckload of dirt. Some of the prisoners were on the bed of the truck shoveling the dirt onto the ground, and other prisoners were shoveling it into a bomb crater. Three guards were watching that truck load. A short distance away a different detail from the special detention barracks was unloading
another truck.

  Everyone was watching Mazursky and Dexter out of the corners of their eyes as Mazursky and Dexter drew close to the scrawny guard. The guard didn’t seem to notice they were only a shovel’s length away; he was looking at clouds racing across the sky and thinking of his girl friend in Berlin. Other prisoners maneuvered closer to the other guards.

  “NOW!” screamed Mazursky, as he lunged the blade of his shovel toward the guard’s neck.

  The guard looked down from the clouds, from the images of his girl friend, and for a split second saw the shovel streaking toward his throat. The blade of the shovel severed his throat and jugular, and the guard crumpled toward the ground as Dexter grabbed the submachine gun out of his hands, rammed a round into the chamber, clicked off the safety, and spun around, as blood sprayed over his uniform.

  The other prisoners were grappling with the two other guards. Dexter ran toward the truck, with Mazursky right behind him. Guards at another truck fifty yards away noticed the unusual activity and brought their submachine guns up. Dexter opened fire on them as he ran, cutting one down and wounding another.

  Lieutenant Doyle and Private Lopez both had the other submachine guns now, and they ran toward the truck too, firing at the other guards. Dexter jumped into the cab of the truck and saw the driver cowering behind the wheel. Dexter whacked him over the head with the barrel of his submachine gun, pushed him over, and got behind the wheel.

  Mazursky got into the cab via the other door, kicked the driver onto the floor, took the submachine gun lying beside Dexter, and fired a burst at the other guards, who were rushing toward the truck. The other prisoners were lying on the ground, trying to stay out of the line of fire. Private Lopez, running toward the back of the truck, was stopped by a submachine gun burst across his stomach, and fell to the ground. Sergeant Okie Jones, himself on the run, picked the submachine gun out of Lopez’s hands, and running in a zigzag toward the rear of the truck, fired at and brought down the guard who’d killed Lopez.