I took the canteen from Michel and bent down in front of the doubtful-looking dog. He met my eyes and growled a low belly-growl.
“You aren’t thirsty?” I asked him.
Hugo and his father stood behind me, watching. I could feel their eyes on the back of my neck. I felt ridiculous, kneeling in front of a big black war dog, begging him to take a drink.
Yutz studied me, studied my outstretched hand. He lifted his head and sniffed at the air, stretched a little farther, and sniffed the opening of the canteen. I tilted it and let a little drop of water pour out. Yutz snatched it from the air with his tongue. I poured a little more and Yutz opened his mouth, lapping it in, gulping it. When he’d had his fill, he sneezed once, blasting excess water through his nose, and then he looked up at me. He laid his head back down onto his paws.
He didn’t bark or growl. A moment later, he snored.
I guess ignoring me for a nap was a kind of progress.
I wondered how he would feel when I woke him up again. We had to go get help and save the prisoners from a Nazi death camp. There was no time for naps.
I ate some of the bread and sausage that Michel had brought me and then I put on the heavy SS coat right over my army uniform. It was much warmer than my thin army jacket. I might’ve looked a little puffy with all those layers, but it was better than freezing to death.
Hugo wore only thin pants and a light coat. He covered his head with a green wool cap, hiding his brilliant blond hair beneath it. Even though it was freezing out, his teeth didn’t so much as chatter. There was a toughness to him I couldn’t begin to imagine. I hoped some of it would rub off on me.
While I buttoned up the gray SS coat, Michel knelt down and whispered something to his son in French. The boy nodded and wiped a tear from his father’s cheek. Michel hugged him close, pressing his face into his chest.
I thought about my father when I told him I was going into the army. We were sitting around the breakfast table, the orange sunlight streaming in through the window. He’d cried too. I guess when sons go off to war, fathers cry. It was true in my kitchen and it was true all the way over here in Belgium. I wondered if there was a time when Yutz’s master had a father cry over him. I couldn’t picture it, but I guess even Nazis have fathers.
“Time to go, Yutz,” I whispered to the dog as I untied his leash from the post. I went to wrap a loop of it over his snout again, but he looked so peaceful lying there, his side rising and falling with each breath, a little snort escaping his snout, I couldn’t bring myself to do it again. “You be good this time,” I said to him. “Remember the water I gave you.”
I jostled the leash to wake him. He sat up instantly, eyes alert, ears perked, tail pointed. His nose worked the air. A soldier dog at attention.
He sniffed at my coat and his little nub of a tail wagged. It must have taken him a second to remember where he was and who he was with, because once he got a sniff of my hand, his ears sagged a little and his behind flopped back onto the floor. He looked me up and down and he sighed. I hadn’t known that dogs could sigh, but he sure did. Sighing was better than attacking, though, and with another tug on the leash, he stood. It was time to go.
Hugo’s father peeked out of the barn. He whistled a short tune, and a moment later, we heard a short tune whistled back from down in the village. He turned back and waved us outside. Hugo went first. When I passed by, Michel patted me on the shoulder.
“Good luck to you and to your countrymen,” he said.
“And you and yours,” I told him.
Hugo had run out in front and beckoned impatiently for me to follow him.
“With Hugo on our side, we cannot fail.” Michel smiled.
Yutz sniffed at Michel as he passed, and Michel slipped a piece of sausage into the dog’s mouth. “Maybe this dog will remember Belgium more fondly now.” He laughed.
I looked down at the burned and ruined village, the bonfire of old furniture in the square and the patch of Mike’s blood in the snow. The villagers must have taken the body to bury it. I couldn’t believe this man could still find the strength to laugh in spite of all this ruin.
I saluted him with my free hand, like I would a superior officer, and then I let Yutz pull me to catch up with Hugo. We made our way through the village to the road.
Yutz sniffed at the ground and tried to pull me faster and faster, but I held him back. We had to follow Hugo, not sprint ahead of him.
We didn’t stay long on the road. We turned off to the side, through a thick hedge, and scurried like nervous lizards from one overgrown patch of brush to the next.
We crossed a field where no one had plowed and a small village where no one lived. The raised hedges alongside the fields had been crushed and fresh tank treads marred the snow. There were even boot prints frozen in place, like they’d been sculpted in glass. Yutz sniffed at the boot prints and the hair on his back rose. His ears perked and he snarled, sending angry spittle from his floppy lips.
“Not friends of his,” I said. “Maybe friends of mine.”
Hugo didn’t react, either because he didn’t understand or because he didn’t have the same idea. We moved carefully through the hole in the hedgerow left by the tank.
On the other side, a gruesome scene stretched out before us. From the forest on one side to a hedge on the other, the field was covered in mounds of fresh snow in the length and shape of men. I knew too well what lay beneath. It was like a field of snowmen had been knocked over by a fearsome wind. We moved quickly through the field, watching our steps.
Hugo didn’t even look at the lumps, but I could not take my eyes from them. This one had a boot sticking out — American. That one, a German helmet. Yutz sniffed at the mounds, perhaps looking for a familiar smell, and I had to jerk his leash to keep him moving and to keep him from pawing at the snowmen. Though their ends had been violent, at least now they had some peace. I was glad when we left that ghostly battlefield behind. They say that dogs can smell fear. I wonder what Yutz smelled on me.
At dusk, the cloudy sky dimmed and turned a pinkish-gray that made me think of the sergeant in his foxhole. I shuddered. Europe in winter had none of the beauty of my desert sunsets back home in Albuquerque. It just grew dim. Night didn’t fall, like they said in books. It spread, like spilled ink. It stained.
We stopped to rest for a moment and Hugo immediately took to petting Yutz. I’d never cared much for dogs, but Hugo, I guess, was fond of them. He looked relaxed as he stroked Yutz’s head, pressing back those devilish ears and watching them spring up again. Yutz’s nub of a nail wagged so much, his back legs moved.
“How old are you?” I asked Hugo. He looked up at me and smiled.
“Hugo,” he said. I guess his English wasn’t so good. I had to wonder about him. He was at least a few years younger than me. If we were in the United States, he’d probably be on Christmas break from sixth grade right now. Instead, he was leading me to find the American front lines so I could get help to rescue my friend from the Nazis while his father went off to fight other Nazis. I guess I could no more imagine what his life was like than he could imagine mine. But I had so many questions. Where was his mother? Did he remember what life was like before the war? Did he ever have a dog of his own? Maybe when all this was over, I could give him Yutz. He’d probably want to give the dog a new name, of course. How could I explain any of this to him?
When he saw me staring at him, he smiled and stood from petting the dog.
“We go,” he said with a nod, and we were off again, moving quickly through the dark forest.
It didn’t take long before we reached a frozen field, and on the other side of it, we could see a road. A river of shadowy men flowed along the road. They moved quickly, coughing and spitting, not speaking, and among them a jeep ground its gears trying to creak along the line. The Germans did not have jeeps like that.
The Americans did.
At first I thought they were marching into battle, taking the fight back to the Germ
ans. Hitler’s army had struck the first blow with that early morning sneak attack on our front lines in the forest, but the Americans had regrouped now. I felt a surge of pride to see so many men, rifles on their shoulders, ready to push Hitler out of Belgium and back to Berlin once and for all.
But then I saw the wounded.
Men in stretchers; GIs hobbling, supported by other GIs; men without helmets; men missing coats or boots; men without even their rifles. And then I realized these Americans were in retreat, hundreds of them, rushing as fast as the road could take them away from the battle, away from the Germans.
“Come on,” I told Hugo, rising from our position. But the boy placed his hand on my elbow to get my attention. I looked down at him as he saluted me somberly. He’d taken me where I needed to go, and now he had a Resistance to get back to.
I saluted him back, and he nodded before turning around and disappearing into the night as fast as his legs could carry him.
“Okay, Yutz,” I told the dog. “Time to meet your enemy.”
I let some slack into the leash and Yutz started racing toward the Americans on the road, pulling me behind him, snarling like he was going to take out a whole battalion with just his teeth and claws. In spite of what Michel had said, I was pretty sure he hated Americans.
Too bad for him, because there were a lot of them, and we were about to join up.
I waved my free hand in the air and I called out.
“Hey! Hey! American! USA! USA!”
As I ran across the field, I heard the buzz of a bullet zip past my ear, the snap of rifle shots. I stopped running, pulled Yutz back. He barked and snarled in their direction.
I’d forgotten that I was in a Nazi officer’s coat running with a Nazi dog. My own army opened fire on me.
“I’m a medic!” I shouted. “American! American!”
I raised one hand in the air. The other held Yutz back as he reared on his back legs, barking and growling. I moved slowly forward, close enough so I didn’t have to shout. I kept my head down as a few more shots buzzed by me.
“Don’t shoot!” I yelled again. “American!”
When I reached the side of the road, I was staring down the barrels of a half dozen M1 carbine rifles. I had never had a gun pointed at me before in my life. It made me flinch.
“Where you from?” one voice demanded. In the dark, his face was shadow. Yutz barked at him.
“Albuquerque, New Mexico,” I told him. “I’m a medic with the Ninety-Ninth.”
“Medics don’t got no dogs,” another voice snapped.
“He ain’t dressed like an American,” someone added.
“Germans got spies all over,” the first voice said. “Shoot him.”
“We can’t just go shooting him. We’re not Krauts. We don’t shoot prisoners.”
“There’s new orders to shoot all SS prisoners on sight.”
“He’s not a prisoner.”
“He might be an American.”
“I am!” I pleaded. I tried to open my shirt to show the uniform underneath the civilian clothes, but it was hard to do with one hand, while Yutz was still going nuts. My clothes felt suddenly very thin. The cold wind cut right through them.
“Show your hands!” one of the men yelled.
“Shut that dog up!” another shouted.
“Yutz, quiet!” I yelled, tugging his leash once to get the point across. Much to my surprise, Yutz quieted.
“Who won the 1944 World Series?” one of the men snapped at me.
“What?” I asked. Why was he asking me about the World Series?
“He don’t know,” one of the others said. “German spy. Shoot him and let’s keep moving.”
“He just called that dog Yutz.”
“That a German word?”
“Sounds like it to me.”
“The St. Louis Cardinals!” I answered loudly.
“Who lost?”
“The St. Louis Browns!”
“Not even I knew that,” one of the soldiers said.
“Maybe he’s a spy who studied the right answers,” another said.
“What’s a yutz?”
“It’s … uh …” I had to remember what Goldsmith called that language. “Yiddish!” I said.
Suddenly, a flashlight flicked on, blinding me.
“Turn that off!” someone farther along the road yelled.
“Light discipline! Full dark!” another yelled.
The light went off.
“We gotta get out of here,” a soldier said, shoving the clump of men forward. The river of retreating soldiers flowed around the group that had stopped to talk to me.
“He doesn’t look German,” a guy said.
“You say you from Albuquerque?”
“Yeah,” I answered. I worried how much time I was wasting standing here. Every minute that passed was another minute where Goldsmith and the rest of the prisoners got closer to the trains, closer to the work camp. Closer to the unthinkable.
“You, what, Mexican or something?” I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. It was too dark and the flashlight had taken out my night vision. I was being interrogated by helmeted shadows.
“I’m American,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“My parents are from Mexico, yeah,” I said.
“Speak Spanish.”
“What?”
“Prove it.”
“Hola,” I said, feeling tongue-tied. I didn’t know what to say. “Me llamo Private Miguel Rivera, Ninety-Ninth Infantry. No sé lo que quieres de mí.”
“Was that Spanish?” one of the guys asked.
“Sounded like it to me,” another said.
“He could have just made stuff up,” said a third.
“Hey, Sanchez!” one of the guys called. “Get Sanchez. We got a guy saying he’s Mexican.”
“What’s up?” A new voice, a new shadow on the line in front of me.
“Guy says he’s Mexican, but we don’t speak Spanish,” they explained.
“He looks Mexican,” another said. “Hitler doesn’t have any Mexicans in his army, does he?”
“Ask him something in Spanish,” they urged the guy named Sanchez.
“¿Quién ganó las World Series en 1944?”
“The St. Louis Cardinals,” I told him, frustrated.
“¿Por qué tienes un perro?”
“I took the dog from an SS officer,” I said in English. “I’m with the Ninety-Ninth. The Germans overran our position. Took prisoners. I’m trying to help.”
The men looked at one another and nodded. They lowered their rifles.
“You can’t help ’em if they already got taken,” Sanchez said. “We just came from the town of St. Vith. It’s a bloodbath, man. They’re shooting everyone. Took out an entire battalion. They’re even shooting prisoners. It’s an SS Panzer Brigade. Tanks and guns and thousands of men. There’s no stopping them.” He shook his head. “You can’t go back that way. We’re no match for them. We gotta retreat. Regroup, hombre.”
“We can’t just let them take our guys,” I pleaded. “They separated the Jewish soldiers and —” I looked to Sanchez. “And all the ones that looked different. Darker skin. Understand?”
“We got orders to retreat,” Sanchez said.
“What’s a medic gonna do, anyway?” another guy said. “Take out a Kraut SS division all by himself?”
“Maybe he’s no medic. Maybe he’s OSS,” another suggested.
“You OSS, Rivera?” Sanchez asked. “Some kind of superspy?”
“I’m just a private trying to do the right thing,” I said.
Sanchez whistled. “Brave private.” The other guys agreed. I felt embarrassed by their admiration. If only they knew how brave I’d been during the first attack, how I’d hidden in a foxhole. They wouldn’t think I was so brave then. I looked down at my feet.
“Follow orders, Private,” a new voice snapped. “I’m a sergeant and I’m telling you to get on this line a
nd fall back with us.”
I ignored the sergeant. I hoped the others might still choose to come with me, though part of me really wanted to go with them. They were older; they were more experienced; they still had officers in charge and orders to follow. They still had each other.
“Should we shoot the dog?” someone asked. I heard the snap of a rifle bolt, saw a gun barrel go up.
“No!” I shouted. I didn’t think; I just pulled Yutz behind me, putting myself between danger and the dog. To this day, I couldn’t tell you why. Or maybe I could. But I knew right then, I wasn’t going to go with these guys. I was going to find my friend.
In the distance, artillery rumbled. Somewhere, the Germans were on the attack, even in the dark of night.
“They’ll kill us all,” someone else said, shoving past Sanchez.
“Stay or go,” said the man who’d called himself a sergeant. “Your funeral.”
With a nod, he and the clump of men around him rejoined the flow of retreating soldiers, a river of the wounded and the frightened.
Sanchez stayed still. He looked me over.
“You really gonna take on a squad of SS by yourself?” he asked.
“I’m not by myself,” I said. “I’ve got this dog.”
Sanchez shook his head. He slung his rifle off his shoulder and held it out to me. “You’re gonna need this,” he said.
I took the gun and slung it over my shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Good luck,” he said, and he vanished back into the river of soldiers.
“To you too,” I whispered, watching the shadowy forms of my countrymen slog on down the road. Away from the front lines, away from the German attack, away from the prisoners who needed rescue.
Away from me.
I didn’t feel scared watching them go even though I knew they were leaving me all alone. I felt shame instead — a great embarrassment for my country, to be so broken by the Germans, to be humiliated like this, sent into a terrible retreat, like dogs who had tucked their tails between their legs and fled.
I had pulled myself together when I was afraid in my foxhole. I had climbed out, made a plan, taken action. Fear had laid me low, but it didn’t beat me. I’d licked it good. Why couldn’t these men do the same?
Prisoners of War Page 6
