Bloody Bastogne

by Len Levinson

  The other anti-tank gun crews fired at the remaining German tanks, which were all soon knocked out. The battlefield became silent, except for a few stray rifle shots and the chatter of machine guns. Mahoney squinted through the smoke and tried to see if any German infantry was coming, but he couldn’t spot any. It had been a classic blitzkrieg tank attack, supported by planes and intended to make a quick deep penetration.

  “Let’s go,” Mahoney said to the musicians in the cave.

  “Go where?” asked a corporal.

  “To make sure there aren’t any live Germans in those tanks.”

  Mahoney led the musicians out of the cave and looked toward the roadblock. The carefully laid out positions had been devastated by the tank attack. Huge shell craters were everywhere, littered with bodies. The tank destroyers were gone, and Mahoney wondered if they’d been told to pull back or had retreated on their own.

  The other survivors approached the smoking German tanks. Like Mahoney, they wanted to make sure there were no live tankers to take potshots at them while they were figuring what to do next.

  Mahoney held his carbine ready as he limped toward the nearest tank. Huge fissures were in the turret and body of the vehicle. Mahoney stopped and looked inside. He saw blood already freezing and mangled, disjointed bodies.

  “This one’s okay,” he told his men.

  They walked to the next tank, but other soldiers were already there. A few shots rang out—evidently some Germans weren’t completely dead. Mahoney looked east down the road. No German soldiers were in sight, but more would arrive before long. He thought it would be a good idea to get away from that roadblock.

  He and the other soldiers who’d gone to mop up the tankers returned to the ruined barricades. He saw a few trucks and jeeps that appeared undamaged and a lot of dead Americans. The frosty air smelled like the inside of a meat cooler in a butcher shop. Mahoney saw an American soldier who’d been shot neatly through the head. Something gleamed on the soldier’s wrist, and Mahoney kneeled to see if the watch was still working.

  “Whataya doing?” asked a passing soldier.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Mahoney replied, unstrapping the watch.

  “You’re stealing from the dead!”

  Mahoney ignored the soldier because his leg hurt and he didn’t feel like wasting energy in a stupid argument. The watch was a new Bulova with a sweep second hand and a gold case. On the back was inscribed, To Dennis from Margaret. Mahoney strapped the watch to his wrist. It was nine-thirty in the morning. Mahoney opened the soldier’s field jacket and took half a pack of cigarettes.

  Mahoney spotted a group of men crowded around an officer and decided to go over and find out if the officer had any bright ideas. He headed in that direction, stepping over bodies and portions of bodies. Then he noticed something gleaming on the shoulder of a dead soldier. It was a first lieutenant’s silver bar, and Mahoney wondered if it was Lieutenant Baker.

  Mahoney kicked him onto his back. It was Lieutenant Baker. A piece of shrapnel had torn through his chest and stomach, and his steaming guts spilled out of him.

  Mahoney noticed binoculars lying near Lieutenant Baker’s face. Picking up the binoculars, he wiped the snow from the lenses and saw that they weren’t cracked. He looked through the binoculars; they worked perfectly. Hanging them from his neck, he spied a gold watch on Lieutenant Baker’s wrist. It’s always good to have two watches in case one of them gets broke, he thought. He took the watch, a Longines, from the lieutenant’s wrist and strapped it to his own next to the Bulova.

  Mahoney lit one of his Luckies and walked toward the group of soldiers crowding around the officer. As Mahoney drew closer, he could see that the officer was the captain who wore the patch of the Twenty-eighth Division. He had a map spread on the hood of a jeep and was tracing his finger over the road.

  Mahoney bulled his way through the soldiers. “If you’re looking for a different road back to Clervaux,” he said to the captain, “I know of one that’s pretty good.”

  The captain had broad shoulders and a barrel chest. He was freshly shaved and exuded purposeful energy. “Show me on the map.”

  Mahoney bent over the map and placed his finger on a road he’d used on a recent reconnaissance trip. “This road isn’t as good as the one we’re on, but it’s nearly as good. If we get rolling right now, maybe we can beat those krauts back to Clervaux.”

  “It’s worth a try,” the captain said. He raised his arm in the air and waved toward the trucks. “LOAD IT UP! WE’RE MOVING OUT!”

  Mahoney headed toward the trucks, but the captain stopped him. “What’s your name?”

  “Mahoney.”

  “I’m Captain Carlson. Are you Infantry?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought so. You’ll ride in this jeep with me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mahoney climbed into the jeep and sat in the back. He turned up his collar and turtled his head inside because he knew it was going to be a cold son of a bitch on the way back. He lit another cigarette.

  A Pfc got behind the wheel of the jeep and Captain Carlson sat beside him on the passenger seat. “You all right back there, Sergeant?” he asked Mahoney.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Carlson tapped the Pfc on the shoulder. “Move it out.”

  The Pfc shifted into gear and gave it the gas. The jeep’s rear wheels spun on the ice. The Pfc turned the jeep around and accelerated past the trucks and other jeeps that were waiting to follow Captain Carlson. Mahoney looked at his two watches and hoped they’d beat those German tanks to Clervaux. Captain Carlson pumped his arm up and down in the signal for double-time, indicating that he wanted everyone to drive as fast as they could.

  The few trucks and jeeps pulled together into a mini-convoy and drove away from the scattered bodies and crimson snow.

  Chapter Five

  In Bastogne, General Troy Middleton was trying to make sense out of the scattered reports that he’d received. Several indicated that a few individual units had been overrun or cut off by Germans, but Middleton couldn’t tell how serious or widespread the German attack was, or where it was going. His communications network had been damaged, and he was out of contact with many of his commanders. Finally he decided to call his superior officer, Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, at First Army Headquarters in Luxembourg City.

  It took a while to get through, but finally General Hodges came on the phone. General Middleton explained that his line had been pierced by the Germans in four or five places and requested reinforcements from other corps in the First Army to beef up the Eighth Corps Ghost Front.

  General Hodges, a tall and lean gray-mustached man of fifty-eight, listened quietly and calmly to General Middleton’s report and requests. An unusually soft-spoken and gentlemanly officer, Hodges was equal in rank and responsibilities to General Patton but was almost unknown to the American people because he had no talent or interest in self-promotion. He never wore bizarre uniforms and never engaged in flamboyant behavior. Yet his First Army had covered more ground in France than Patton’s Third Army, and he’d commanded more armor than Patton. Whereas Patton was a creature of inspiration, Hodges was a cool, methodical worker, and he was said to be unshakeable in battle.

  Hodges thought for several moments after Middleton stopped talking, and then said, “I’d like to have a better picture of your situation there before I divert other units from the missions they’re on right now. How soon do you think you’ll be able to report back to me?”

  “I don’t know, sir. My communications net is a mess.”

  “Then get it repaired and report back to me. Be as accurate as you can because I wouldn’t want to break off attacks that presently are underway if it’s not necessary. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Carry on.”

  General Middleton hung up the phone and scratched his head. He’d wanted to argue with Hodges because he had the feeling that a dangerous situ
ation was developing in the Eighth Corps sector, but he had no proof, so he hadn’t said anything. Somehow he had to get the facts, but how could he get facts if his telephone communications net was out of whack?

  He made a call to his communications officer, Colonel Denton. “Denton,” he said, “what’s the communications picture now?”

  “Getting worse,” Denton replied.

  “You’d better get it fixed fast,” Middleton said angrily. “I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

  “Sir, lines are being destroyed faster than my men can fix them, but we’re doing our best.”

  Middleton knew that radio communications were out of the question, due to the difficulty of transmitting in mountainous areas. “You’ve got to do better than your best,” he told Denton.

  “I’ll get right to work on it sir.”

  General Middleton hung up the phone and was more troubled than ever. It was inconceivable that the Germans could mount a full-scale attack at this stage of the war, but what if they had?

  Middleton shook his head. That was too horrible to contemplate.

  ~*~

  Mahoney’s nose was buried in his collar and his helmet was low over his eyes, but he thought he saw figures on the road up ahead. Braving the frigid wind stream, he took his hands out of his pockets and raised his binoculars to his eyes as the jeep bounced over the icy road. The magnification showed three soldiers running toward a jeep.

  “There’s something up ahead!” Mahoney shouted above the roar of the engine.

  Captain Carlson looked through his binoculars and saw the three men driving away toward Clervaux. “Looks like some of our people,” he said.

  “Didn’t somebody say there are Germans wearing GI uniforms behind our lines?” Mahoney asked.

  “That’s right too. We’d better see what they were up to. Hathaway, slow down. They might have tossed some mines onto the road.”

  Hathaway braked, and Captain Carlson stood up to get a better look at the road ahead. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Keep going slowly.”

  Hathaway drove forward in low gear, and Captain Carlson raised his hand to signal the trucks behind him to slow down. The jeep eased into an intersection that had directional arrows on a post. Captain Carlson and Mahoney jumped out and looked around. They saw jeep tracks in the snow and some footprints around the signpost. Mahoney checked the arrows and realized that the one for Clervaux was pointed in the wrong direction.

  “Hey,” said Mahoney, “the bastards fucked with the signs!”

  “How do you know?” asked Carlson.

  Mahoney pointed down the road. “Because Clervaux is thataway.”

  “We’d better fix the signs,” Carlson said.

  “I think we’d better tear them down and take them with us,” Mahoney replied. “Otherwise somebody’s liable to come by and fuck them up again.”

  “You’re right. Take ’em down, Mahoney.”

  Mahoney trudged into the snow and batted the signs down with the butt of his carbine. He picked up the signs, carried them to the jeep, and dumped them in the back seat. Then he got in. Hathaway drove off toward Clervaux again. The other trucks and jeeps followed. Mahoney looked at his watch. He figured that Clervaux was only about half an hour away.

  ~*~

  Ahead on the road was a jeep with three German SS men disguised as American GIs. They were Lieutenant Rolf Gurtner, and Sergeants Franz Muller and Ernst Grieser. Each had been born in Germany but raised in America, and they spoke American English perfectly. Gurtner and Muller were from the German neighborhood known as Yorkville in New York City, and Grieser was from Milwaukee, which also had a large concentration of German-Americans. In the thirties, each of them had become inspired by the Nazi movement in their native land and returned to become a part of it.

  Gurtner held a captured U.S. Army map low so that the wind wouldn’t disturb it. “We’re almost in Clervaux,” he said. “There is a large garrison there, and we have to cut their communications.”

  The other two SS men nodded. That’s what they’d been doing all morning, in addition to changing road signs and giving inaccurate directions to any Americans who were lost. One of their missions behind the lines was to kill high-ranking American officers, but they hadn’t seen any yet. They hoped they might find a general to shoot in Clervaux.

  “Can’t you get any more speed out of this piece of junk?” Gurtner asked Muller, who was driving.

  “This is as fast as it will go,” Muller replied.

  Gurtner muttered something about the inadequacies of American manufacturing as the town of Clervaux came into view on the horizon. A cloud of dark smoke hung over the city and fires were raging in some of its neighborhoods. As the jeep drew closer, the extent of the devastation could be perceived by the three German commandos. Many buildings had been leveled by the bombing, and other buildings consisted only of a wall or two. Nearly every building had suffered some damage, and from the distance it appeared as though all human life had ceased in the town.

  The three German commandos entered Clervaux, looking in all directions for communication lines to cut and Americans commanders to kill.

  ~*~

  Fifteen minutes later, the convoy led by Captain Carlson and Mahoney entered Clervaux and made its way around rubble and devastated vehicles to a headquarters building in the center of town.

  “You men wait out here,” Captain Carlson said, “while I go inside to find out what we have to do.”

  Mahoney got out of the jeep, and the other soldiers jumped down from the trucks. They entered the buildings nearby so that they wouldn’t be out in the open when the Germans started shelling again. They knew that the German armored column would arrive in Clervaux before long, and when it did, another battle would ensue.

  Mahoney found himself in a store whose shelves had been stripped of goods. The signs and posters on the walls indicated that it had been a grocery. He sat on the floor and leaned his back against the wall.

  He thought that maybe he should go to the MP station and destroy the records of his arrest, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that might be hazardous. If the MPs still were in the station, they might remember him and lock him up again, or at least put him under guard. If they weren’t there, they probably had taken their records with them.

  The image of Madeleine flashed into his mind. He saw her sitting in the candlelight of the cafe, so frail and vulnerable. He knew that she’d liked him; a man always can tell when a woman likes him, even though she argues with him and gives him a hard time. It was a shame a woman like that had to be a whore. He wondered if she still was at the cafe and if she was all right. Maybe she needed some help right now. He wanted to see her again.

  He got up and walked to the shattered front door of the store.

  “Where you going?” asked one of the soldiers.

  “Out to take a piss.”

  On the sidewalk, Mahoney slung his carbine over his shoulder and headed in the direction of the cafe. It was on the other side of town, but the town wasn’t very big, and he didn’t think it would take long to get there. He passed broken telephone poles and shell craters in the middle of streets. A few other soldiers were moving about, and smoke curled from burning piles of debris. The air had the rotten stink of burning, wet, old wood. Occasionally, he saw a jeep and ducked into a doorway until it passed. He knew that if he was seen by an officer, he’d be told to go someplace else.

  Finally he came to the cafe. The street, which had been so serene and magical last night, was now a junkyard like the rest of the city. An artillery shell had hit the top of the building that housed the cafe, but there seemed to be little damage on the lower floors. The front window had broken and boarded up on the inside. Mahoney turned the doorknob, but the door was locked. He banged on the door with the butt of his carbine and listened, but heard nothing inside. He banged again, but still no one came. He decided to shoot his way through the door. Raising his carbine, he pulled back the
bolt and took aim.

  Just then the door opened a crack, and standing there was the bartender who’d served him last night. The bartender saw the carbine pointed at him, jumped back, and looked terrified.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Mahoney stepped inside the cafe and closed the door behind him. He looked around and in the dimness could see only vacant tables and a blanket over the piano that had been played so raucously the night before.

  “Where are the girls?” Mahoney asked.

  “They’ve all gone.”

  “Madeleine too?”

  “Yes.”

  Mahoney pinched his lips together. “Shit!”

  The bartender peered into his face. “You’re the one who killed another soldier with a broken bottle here last night, aren’t you?”

  “Did I really kill him?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  Mahoney pulled out his pack of cigarettes and offered one to the bartender, who took it. Then Mahoney put one in his own mouth. “You got anything to drink in here?”

  “What would you like?”

  “Brandy.”

  “Have a seat.”

  Mahoney sat at a table near the bar and looked at the one near the wall where he’d sat with Madeleine last night. He wondered where she was right now. Probably blowing some other GI, but somehow that didn’t bother Mahoney very much. It was her job and all that mattered was that she’d have something for him if ever they met again.

  The bartender returned from the back room with a bottle and two glasses. He sat and poured brandy, then lifted one of the glasses into the air. “To victory,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Mahoney replied, taking a swig. “How come you haven’t left town with everybody else?”

  The bartender raised his chin. “This is my cafe. I’ve worked for most of my life to establish it, and I’ll never leave.”

  “German money is as good as American money, I guess.”