To Hell and Back

by Audie Murphy

  By the time my gun is ready for action, bullets are popping within a foot of my body. I judge the range, press the trigger, and turn the stream of lead on anything that remotely resembles a kraut.

  Screams of agony come from the foxholes. I rip the position again and wait in readiness. But nothing stirs. I pick up my gun and stalk up the hill to investigate.

  A young German, who appears no older than twenty, sits on the ground; his eyes are filled with unspeakable terror. I am on the point of giving him a burst when I notice that his left jaw has been shot off. He tries to say something to me with his half-mouth; and as his chin moves, blood spurts in jets from a severed artery.

  I brace myself against sentiment. I can do nothing for the boy except put him out of his misery. I raise my gun, but cannot pull the trigger. His staring eyes, already filling with the shadows of death, still plead for life. I step around him and examine the other foxholes. Each contains a body or two. One stirs; and I give it a burst as a precaution.

  Now an enemy machine gun opens up on me. I hit the dirt, but cannot locate the gunner. The fire, however, is coming from my left. I set up my gun and rake the area with lead until my last cartridge is spent.

  Then I race for the cover of the ditch again and scuttle down it to reconnoiter. Recovering my carbine, I hold it ready for action while I wonder what to do next.

  At the sound of a moving body, I wheel about. It is Brandon.

  He grins broadly. “What are you trying to do?” he asks. “Win yourself a wooden cross?”

  “Where are the other guys?”

  “Pinned down, so they say. I found out you were up here all by yourself. And I says to myself, ‘That Murph is trying to hog all the glory.’ Couldn’t let you get by with that.”

  “You shouldn’t have come up.”

  “Why not? This is not a private war, is it?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Neither would I. Come on. They can kill us, but they can’t eat us. It’s against the law.”

  As we start up the ditch, the canes at our side suddenly part; and two Germans fire at us point blank. A bullet clips off part of Brandon’s right ear, but he does not flinch. Whirling, he kills both men with just two shots from his carbine.

  I examine his wound. The blood trickling from it runs down the side of his face and drips off his chin.

  “Better go back and get it dressed,” I say.

  “And leave you? Oh, no. You don’t pull that one on me.”

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  He pitches me a clip of ammo and says, “I was born a fool and haven’t improved since. Where do we go from here?”

  The ditch has become decidedly unhealthy. A machine gun is feeling out our position; and from the opposite side of the canebrake, hand grenades are being lobbed at us. Sliding up the gully, we locate the machine gun. It is just up the hill from a foxhole sunk beneath a cork tree.

  Putting a blast of fire on the gun crew, we dash for the hole. At the bottom of the chest-deep pit, two Germans sit with their heads between their knees. They never know what hit them. Quickly lowering our carbines, we shoot them carefully in the head and dive in on top of the bodies just as the machine gun opens up.

  Smiling, Brandon wipes the blood and sweat off his face with his sleeve.

  “Have you got any idea of how to get out of this spot?” he asks.

  “No, I’m open to suggestion.”

  “We should have looked it up in the field manual.”

  Cautiously raising our helmets above the surface of the ground, we draw fire from the machine gun. The bullets pop at least two feet above us. At ground level, we decide that our heads will be relatively safe.

  Heaving two hand grenades, we rise suddenly and empty our carbines into the gun emplacement. Our action is followed by utter silence. Then the Germans yell, “Kamerad!”

  Brandon peers over the edge of the hole. “They’re waving a handkerchief,” he says. “I’ll go get ’em.”

  “Keep down,” I urge. “You can’t trust them.”

  “Murph,” says he, “you’re getting to be a plumb cynic. They’ve had enough.”

  He climbs from the hole nonchalantly and stands upright. That is all the enemy is waiting for. I hear the slash of machine-gun fire. As Brandon topples back into the pit, he softly mutters, “Murph.” Stunned, I lie for a moment with the two dead Germans beneath me and my comrade on top.

  Carefully I ease myself from under Brandon. An abrupt movement may cause his wounds to hemorrhage. I grab his wrist, but there is no beat to his pulse. I start yelling like an insane man for the medics, but I might as well be shouting at the moon. I am all alone; and the hill is rattling with fire.

  For the first time in the war, I refuse to accept facts. While Brandon grows cold beneath my hand, I keep telling myself, “He is not dead. He can’t be dead, because if he is dead, the war is all wrong; and Brandon has died in vain.”

  Then I get the curious notion that he needs fresh air. I lift the body from the hole and stretch it beneath the cork tree. Why I am not shot during the process I shall never understand. Instinctively I spin about to find a machine gun being trained upon me from a position a few yards to my right. I leap back into the hole, jerk the pin from a grenade, and throw it.

  At its blast, I scramble from the pit with my carbine. But the grenade has done its work well. One of the two Germans manning the gun has his chest torn open; the other has been killed by a fragment that pierced an eye.

  I pick up their gun and methodically check it for damage. It is in perfect condition. Holding it like a BAR for firing from the hip, I start up the hill.

  I remember the experience as I do a nightmare. A demon seems to have entered my body. My brain is coldly alert and logical. I do not think of the danger to myself. My whole being is concentrated on killing. Later the men pinned down in the vineyard tell me that I shout pleas and curses at them, because they do not come up and join me.

  When I find the gun crew that betrayed Brandon, the men are concentrating on targets downhill. They do not see me, and I have time to take careful aim before pulling the trigger. As the lacerated bodies flop and squirm, I rake them again; and I do not stop firing while there is a quiver left in them.

  In a little while, all resistance on the hill has been wiped out. The company moves up, and we halt on the crest to reorganize.

  The voices of the men seem to come to me through a thick wall. My hands begin to tremble; and I feel suddenly weak. Sinking to the ground, I wait until the company moves off through the trees. Then I go back down the hill and find Brandon.

  I check his pockets to see that all of his personal effects are secure. I open his purse and take a last look at the little girl with the pigtails. I remove his pack and make a pillow for his head. Then I sit by his side and bawl like a baby.

  An insect begins chirping halfheartedly. The leaves on the cork tree rustle. After a little while I get up, wipe the tears from my eyes, and walk over the hill to rejoin the company.

  The pillbox in the area has proved to be a dummy. In this tiny section of France the war is over. Above us white clouds float beneath a roof of pure blue. It is just another summer day; and the farmers are already out inspecting their vineyards for damage.

  When the company takes a break for a brief rest, I find Kerrigan.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks. “You look like an undertaker at a health resort.”

  “You haven’t heard about Brandon?”

  “Brandon?”

  “He’s dead. Machine gun got him.”

  Kerrigan reacts as if he had been slapped in the face. “Oh, this goddamned stupid goddamned war,” he mumbles. “What’ll happen to his kid?”

  “She’ll live. He wouldn’t listen to me. Trusted everybody. I tried to keep him down.”

  “Yeah. He was like that, but,” he continues, his tone shifting to savage irony, “we won the fight. The hill’s cleared.”

  “It’s not cleared of Brandon.”
>
  “It never will be.”

  Elleridge has been listening to our talk with gaping mouth.

  “Did a buddy get killed?” he asks awesomely.

  We glare at him without answering.

  “I didn’t mean to say anything wrong. I don’t suppose it’s any of my business,” says the ex-teacher in an embarrassed manner.

  “It’s all right,” Kerrigan replies wearily. “Forget it.”

  The order comes: “Okay. Up on your feet. Let’s go.”

  As the afternoon passes, the rage leaves me. Again I look at the Germans as an enemy to be hated only impersonally. Again I see the war as it is: an endless series of problems involving the blood and guts of men. And I accept the mysterious workings of destiny as I did yesterday.

  But I do not want to think beyond this. I need to march, to shoot, to destroy, to do anything that creates the feeling of progress and accomplishment. So I volunteer to cut across country and contact the elements of our battalion driving inland a few miles away.

  Only Berner and Kohl accompany me. We tread through fields and forests Indian fashion. It is a lazy afternoon. The quietness is broken only by the intermittent roar of cannon and occasional outbreaks of small-arms fire. But the area through which we walk is peaceful. We hear the chirping of insects, and sometimes the song of a bird.

  From the hilltops we can see the beach. Boats still chug through the blue waters of the bay. There has been no let-up in the piling of men and materiel ashore. Files of replacements move up the hot roadways. Tanks crawl cumbersomely toward the cover of trees. The ships’ cranes dump the contents of their cargo nets into waiting ducks. The heart jumps, the blood stirs strangely at the massive pattern of our offensive.

  Near a farmhouse we are greeted by a native. He is an old man whose white hair curls beneath a broad-brimmed hat. Berner decides to try out his high-school French.

  “Les boches sont partis?” he asks.

  “Oui,” replies the old gentleman, smiling.

  “Good. He says the Germans have all skeedaddled.”

  Kohl is suspicious. “Wait a minute,” says he. “Les boches sont ici?”

  “Ah, oui,” answers the Frenchman pleasantly.

  “You’re nuts,” says Kohl to Berner. “He says the Germans are here.”

  “Sont partis les boches?” Berner asks again.

  “Ah, oui.”

  “Sont ici les botches?”

  “Oui.”

  “There you are,” says Kohl. “The Germans are here and gone at the same time. Well, that’s the supermen for you.” An idea strikes him.

  “Il pleut maintenant?” he asks the Frenchman.

  “Oui, m’sieu. Certainement.”

  “He says it’s also raining cats and dogs,” explains Kohl.

  “Ask him if he knows any loose women,” says Berner.

  “Vous connaissez des femmes–des femmes chaudes?”

  “Oui, m’sieu. Fait chaud.”

  “He says the weather is very warm.”

  “That’s fine. Unless he has other interesting news, we’d better get moving.”

  “Bien, m’sieu. Pour toute l’information, merci.”

  “Plaisir, m’sieu.”

  “He said it was a pleasure to give us the information. I told you I could parlez-vous this lingo.”

  “You don’t think he’s playing dumb?”

  “Not with that face. He looks about as dangerous as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Au revoir, m’sieu. Merci encore.”

  “Au revoir. Vivent les Américains.”

  “He says long live the Americans.”

  “How long?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  In a short while the French will become accustomed to our butchering their language. And our ears will learn to pick out a few familiar words from what seems volleys of gibberish.

  On a hillside, the felled trees give away the German position. We sight the dead brush and crawl to the edge of the clearing. Wherever the krauts are, they are well camouflaged. For a while we can see no sign of life.

  “They must have ducked,” says Kohl finally.

  “Oh, no. Look up there.” Sunlight glints briefly on glass. The German officer lowers his binoculars.

  “I can get him from here,” says Berner, adjusting the sights of his rifle.

  “Don’t be a fool. He’s not by himself. I can see the barbed wire now.”

  “Must be an observation post.”

  “Sure. That’s what it is.”

  “We can pull out now, or–”

  “The hell with that. Let’s hit them.”

  After discussing the matter, we decide that Kohl will move to a position on the right; Berner, to another on the left; and I will remain in the center. We will try to give the impression that the place is surrounded.

  “When you hear me fire, open up with everything you’ve got,” I say, “and start yelling. If too many swarm out, take off like a bat out of hell. I’ll meet you at the farm where we saw the old man.”

  “Just don’t get in my way,” says Kohl. “Or I’ll run right over top of you.”

  I move out to a clump of brush and wait until I think a proper amount of time has passed. The German officer has gone, but I have located the head and shoulders of a sentinel. My rifle cracks. The bullet kicks up dust; the sentinel vanishes before I can draw another bead on him.

  But immediately Kohl and Berner start firing rapidly. I yell like an Indian on the warpath, while my two comrades shout curses and threats at the krauts in German.

  A white flag soon flutters from the emplacement. The German officer reappears. As he stands behind barbed-wire entanglements, I lower my sights on his heart and remain in concealment.

  “Where is your officer?” he shouts in English.

  “You’ll see,” I reply. “Up with your hands; and don’t make another move. Tell your men if there’s any monkey business, I’ll blast out your liver.”

  “There won’t be any tricks. Come on up.”

  I rise from a clump of brush and walk forward.

  Five men stand behind the officer. He eyes me contemptuously and asks, “Where is your officer? I surrender only to an officer.”

  “Throw your gun to me.”

  He lowers a hand to his holster, pulls out a Luger, and deliberately tosses it aside. His men start. They have not decided to what extent I am bluffing. I have no alternative to playing my cards to the hilt now.

  “I will give you exactly three seconds to do as I say. Pick up that gun and throw it to me.”

  The officer hesitates. My finger begins squeezing the trigger of my carbine. I think perhaps with a quick rake I can put most of the Germans out of action, but at this moment, I would give my chances at Paradise to have a tommy gun in my hands.

  Then the German snorts, picks up his pistol, and tosses it over to me.

  Kohl and Berner join me.

  “Is anyone else inside?” I ask.

  “There is nobody else,” says the German.

  “In that case, we’ll disinfect the place with a grenade.”

  The German turns toward the dugout and barks a command.

  “Komm ’raus!”

  Two sly-looking soldiers emerge with their hands up.

  “Now march directly toward me. If there are mines in the path, you’ll soon meet your maker.”

  Satisfied that the ground is safe, Kohl searches the place for more stragglers. But he finds none.

  As we march the prisoners away, the officer asks, “Where are your other men?”

  “I wouldn’t know. You must be a fine officer to let a little noise and firing confuse you.”

  Before dusk, we have contacted our men. That night we bed down in a forest; and the next day the drive begins in earnest.

  15

  SMARTING under the wrongs and indignities endured during the years of German occupation, members of the French underground now emerge from their hiding and strike. Sometimes we find whole towns liberate
d by the F.F.I. and waiting our entrance. Maquis join our forces as guides and give us information on enemy strongpoints.

  The German dead are often dumped in abandoned foxholes and covered unceremoniously with the soil they held in captivity. When it rains, their boots stick gruesomely from the mud.

  Meanwhile, the Third Army continues its slashing drive across middle France. When we contact it, all the Germans in a vast section of the country will be caught in a trap. For three days we move forward in trucks, encountering only road blocks and pockets of resistance. After the slow battering months in Italy, our advance seems incredibly swift.

  We experience great exhilaration, for there is nothing so good for the morale of the foot soldier as progress. Long ago we came to believe that our only way home lay through the Siegfried Line; and each mile that we move up the Rhone Valley of France is another mile nearer America.

  The Germans react strangely to the situation. In one instance, twenty thousand of them surrender to a single American platoon. Yet often we encounter handfuls of men who fight like wildcats to slow our offensive.

  One day we come upon a house in which a lone colonel has holed up. Before the building several men lie in a fanwise formation casually pumping rifle bullets through the wooden door. The colonel returns the fire with a pistol. He shouts in English that he will never be taken alive.

  It is an interesting show, and we pause to watch. I study the situation as one would a mathematical problem. The walls of the building are made of stone, which gives the German ample protection from our small-arms fire. He must be shooting at a slant from a corner of the room. A couple of hand grenades should be sufficient to flush him, but we have used all of our grenades on a previous objective.

  I finally get an idea. Borrowing a tommy gun, I creep down one side of the house and kick the door partially open. A volley of pistol bullets splinters the wood. Still using the wall as cover for my body, I thrust the gun around the corner of the door. Held sideways, the rattling gun rides around in an arc sweeping the room. At the thump of a falling body, I leap through the door.