Guns At Cassino

by Leo Kessler

  But as the first week passed since their capture of Peak 555 and no Ami counter-attack from below had materialized, the young officers started to forget the Creeper and concentrate more on the unknown prospect that lay before them.

  On the morning of the ninth day, with the clouds hanging low over the peak, grey and leaden with snow, the Vulture sought out von Dodenburg in his own CP. Together they made a full inspection of their positions, their eyes straying continually to the smoke-filled valley below, trying to penetrate the secret of what lay behind the man-made screen.

  `Very satisfactory,' the bandy-legged little cavalryman said when they came to the end of the perimeter and slapped his cane against his riding boots. 'The men have done a very good job, though I think we could do with one or two of our heavy tags resisting.'

  `I'll see to it immediately, sir,' von Dodenburg snapped. `Good, better get it done before the violins start to play,' he indicated the rolling grey clouds with his cane.

  For a while they walked in silence, broken only by the nimble of the heavies far off.

  `What are we going to do about the Party, von Dodenburg?' the Vulture asked suddenly.

  The younger officer turned startled.

  `What did you say, sir?'

  `I asked what are we going to do with the Party? You know, of course, that we're losing the war?' He said, as though he were discussing the state of the weather. 'If we're going to approach the Allies, then we've got to go to them with clean hands - relatively clean hands, that is. You understand?' He paused and taking out his monocle deliberately, began to rub off the condensation caused by the icy cold.

  `No ... no, I don't, sir.'

  `It is simple. The Allies won't receive us with those men in Berlin still in power.'

  `But that's a shocking suggestion, sir,' von Dodenburg burst out, his eyes filled with shocked outrage. 'You can't mean - '

  `Of course I can, my dear young von Dodenburg,' Geier cut him short. 'The time has come when someone in authority has - ' He broke off abruptly.

  The pudgy figure of Lieutenant Kriecher had just appeared from behind one of the camouflaged heaps of ammunition boxes. Urgently, the Vulture clutched von Dodenburg's arm and forced him to commence walking again.

  `Perhaps we should drop that subject for the time being, eh,’ he said hastily. 'Our first task is to stop the Amis, then we can begin talking about - er - negotiations!'

  Just as the Creeper caught up with them, notebook in hand as usual, he added quickly:

  ‘We will let the mountain decide, von Dodenburg, when they come again - which they will undoubtedly do. Soon.'

  Six

  The Americans came that same night. Like timber wolves through some great North American forest. Silently, hushing from shell-hole to shell-hole, the slight sounds they made in their rubber-soled boots, covered by the persistent hiss of the driving snow. Ex-cooks, carpenters, redcaps, bellhops, Southern sharecroppers, they fought their way up the steep slope against the snow which lashed their faces, determined to prove to the US Army that they were fighting men and not second-class citizens, only fit for rearline duties. For on this night the 93rd Infantry Regiment (Coloured) was going into action for the first time.

  `Black Jack' Jones, their skinny white CO at the point just behind the lead scout, could hardly see them now for the driving flakes. But he knew they were there behind him. He sensed them, and felt a warm glow of pride in his regiment, which had been laughed at, reviled, short-changed ever since he had formed it from the hordes of eager volunteers in Fort Jay. They were his men and not the boys, as the fat, contemptuous Alabaman full-bird on the Second Corps staff, who had given him his nickname of 'Black Jack', always called them. They were fighting men and no longer the cowed, segregated 'coons' he had taken over the year before.

  Just ahead of him 'Pineapple Pete', the lead scout, a farm boy from Georgia, who had gained his nickname because his belt was heavy with fragmentation and phosphorous grenades, stopped abruptly and hissed:

  `We've hit the wire, Colonel, sir!'

  `Freeze!' Black Jack Jones ordered immediately.

  Hastily Black Jack slung his carbine and crawled forward to where Pineapple Pete was crouched next to the snow-covered strands of wire, already fumbling with the wire-cutters.

  `Okay, sir?'

  `Okay, Pete,'

  They dropped on to their backs in the white mess and took the strain together, each man gripping a handle of the big wire-cutters.

  `Now, sir,' Pete grunted and exerted full pressure.

  The first strand went with a loud snap. For an instant they waited, heads cocked to the wind listening, hearts thumping furiously. But there was no sound save that of the wind. The Krauts hadn't heard them.

  `The next one,' Black Jack whispered.

  Once again the black man and the white man lying in the snow on the barren Italian mountain side only fifty yards from the enemy positions, took the strain. It snapped easily and they crawled forward into the confused maze of wire, trailing toilet rolls behind them, as a guideline to the men who would follow.

  Foot by foot they fought their way forward, the sweat streaming down their strained faces despite the bitter cold. Once Pineapple Pete knocked the cutters out of the Colonel's hand and whispered:

  `Sorry, Colonel, sir, but them darned Krauts have got a can of pebbles fixed to that one - see!'

  Black Jack strained his eyes and caught sight of the vague round shape, which indicated an enemy trap. If they had cut the wire, the can would have gone swinging back and forth - and presumably other similar cans hidden by the darkness too - warning the German sentries on the plateau above them.

  `Good boy,' he hissed and caught himself too late. 'Good man, I mean, Pete! You must have eyes like hawk's.'

  Carefully they snipped off the can and lowered it gently to the ground, then tackled the wire which supported it. They moved on and the first wave of the 93rd followed, with Black Jack praying his men weren't bunching too much. If the Krauts caught them now, it would be a massacre. But their luck held out. They were getting closer and closer to the summit, the driving snow still covering their approach and deadening any sound they made.

  `Just one more to go, sir,' Pete chortled, 'and then I'm gonna give them nasty old German Krauts a taste of the sweetest pineapples ever to come out of Georgia.’

  Black Jack grinned momentarily and took the strain once more.

  `Yeah,' he said, his voice strangely distorted. 'Just one more river to cross, Pete. Okay now!'

  The wire gave with a snap. Next instant a sudden red light hushed into the sky, forcing apart the snow, bathing the men crouched in the wire blood-red.

  `Christ!' Black Jack screamed in alarm and fear. 'Trip flare! Come on, fellers, follow me!'

  He rose in panic, feverishly grabbing for his carbine. Pineapple Pete pulled out a grenade. But he never managed to throw it. The first high-pitched hysterical burst of enemy machine-gun fire caught him squarely in the belly. He screamed in agony. One of the phosphorous grenades on his belt exploded. A sheet of dazzling white flame rose up instantly and enveloped his body. In a second he was a writhing torch, illuminating the men frantically trying to fight their way through the wire, as the German perimeter erupted into violent life.

  Schulze saw the Negro in the same instant as the Negro spotted him. He tore the pin out of the potato masher's base and flung it. His head hit the snow-covered ground in front of his pit and he counted frantically.

  `Twenty ... twenty-one ... twenty-two ... twenty-three - '

  The grenade exploded with a vivid flash just in front of him. Red hot, razor-sharp splinters of steel hissed through the air. His head felt as if it must burst the confines of his helmet. The blast hit him in the face like a wet fist. Automatically he opened his mouth to prevent his eardrums from bursting. In that same instant the Negro was tossed high into the night. When he came down again, he was minus both arms. But there were more behind him.

  Schulze grabbed for his spanda
u, suddenly blinded by the flash of the exploding grenade. It wasn't there! The explosion had blown it away from its stand. Suddenly panic-stricken as the grunts and shouts in the strange language grew closer, he fumbled for his bayonet.

  `There's one of the bastards over here!' a voice shouted only ten metres or so away.

  He understood nothing but 'here'. The Amis had spotted him! Vaulting out of the pit, he drew his bayonet, legs spread apart, and waited.

  Two of them suddenly burst through the cloud of snow. The leading man lunged immediately with his rifle. Schulze felt a sharp stab of pain along his thigh. Something wet and hot gushed down his leg. Yelping with pain, he raised his big nailed ‘dice beaker' (1) and kicked the Ami between the legs. He screamed in agony and shot backwards into the snow, rolling himself in a ball, twisting and turning and clutching his testicles. Schulze sprang over him and parried the other man's thrust. But the Ami was quick on his toes. He dodged to one side and swinging his rifle round, thrust at Schulze with the brass-shod butt.

  Schulze turned his head just in time. The M-I caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder. Another man would have gone reeling back. Not Schulze. He knew that he was done for, once he fell to the ground. Instead, he lunged forward. His bayonet connected with something hard. The Negro howled with pain. His rifle fell from his nerveless fingers. Schulze had severed the tendons of his right wrist.

  In that same instant, however, the Negro thrust his boot into Schulze's belly, as if he were a male dancer doing a high kick, and grabbing the German's tunic pulled him down on top of himself. Schulze's nostrils were assailed by a heavy pungent odour, compounded of sweat and some kind of perfume. The Negro was fumbling in his pocket with his free hand. Schulze could guess what he was after. He tried to grab the hand, and missed. Something gleamed in the thin white light. A cut-throat razor! Schulze felt the hair at the back of his head stand up in fear. His big left hand shot out and grabbed the Negro's wrist. His other, the first two fingers extended stiffly like the prongs of a fork, thrust up and into the man's nostrils. They found their target. Schulze ripped the wet cavities upwards.

  The Negro's scream of agony was drowned in the sudden stream of blood which threatened to choke him. The cut-throat razor dropped into the snow, as he writhed with pain. Schulze did not give him a second chance. He grabbed the razor, and pulling harder at the man's nostrils so that his contorted face was drawn back to expose the throat, he slashed the razor across it just above the adam's apple. Once - twice - three times, while the Negro's legs writhed helplessly.

  Seconds later the Ami's body went limp. He was dead. Schulze pulled his fingers from the Negro's nose and let himself fall into the snow beside his victim. Too exhausted to fight any more, hating the dead man so bitterly for having made him do this terrible thing.

  The attack on the German perimeter had developed into a bloody, bitter series of hand-to-hand fights between individual soldiers, swaying back and forth locked in desperate battle in front of the foxhole line, wreathed in the howling white fury of the snow. Neither side gave or expected quarter. When a soldier went down, his opponent rained blow after blow on his unprotected face until it turned a horrifying pulp. Rifles were abandoned for anything - bayonet, knife, entrenching tool - with which they could gouge, slash, chop, hack, slice. A frenzied blood-lust overcame the terrified men, German and American, fighting up on the naked mountain top, transforming them into wild animals from whose throats came frantic, unintelligible grunts.

  In his CP, all communication lost with the perimeter, a shaken von Dodenburg tried to restore contact with his out-posts. In the yellow flickering light the sweating, trembling operator tried to raise them over and over again while von Dodenburg paced up and down puffing nervously at a cigar.

  `Hello three ... hello three ... do you hear my signal? ... Hello four ... hello four, do you hear my signal ...?'

  But neither three nor four - nor any of the other outposts which had a radio link with the CP answered.

  `Listen,' von Dodenburg snapped, grabbing at the operator's shoulder so that he would pay attention.

  The young soldier pulled off one earphone. Von Dodenburg could see his eyes were round and staring with fear.

  `Get Colonel Geier on the radio. Tell him we've lost contact with the companies. Tell him too that I'm going up to have a look myself. Request that he stand by with reinforcements, if necessary, as the situation is highly confused. Get that, operator?'

  Von Dodenburg swung round, putting on his helmet' and grabbing his machine-pistol at the same time, and snapped to Lieutenant Kriecher who was squatting on a ration box in the dim corner of the CP.

  `Kriecher, I want you to come with me. If I get hit, you'll have to take over.'

  The National Socialist Leadership Officer looked at him, as if he had gone crazy.

  `Come on, man. Heaven, arse and twine, hurry it up!' von Dodenburg roared and flung him the other Schmeisser lying on the trestle table.

  The Creeper made no attempt to catch it. It clattered to the floor. Behind him the operator started to rap out his call sign.

  `Hello, Snowdrop, can you hear me Snowdrop? ... This is Sunray calling. I repeat, can you hear me Snowdrop ...?'

  Von Dodenburg looked down at the other officer, shocked and not a little puzzled.

  What's the matter with you, Kriecher?' he rapped. 'Come on, man, for Christ's sake, speak up!'

  The Creeper's eyes were wild with fear behind the thick lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses.

  `Come on, Lieutenant Kriecher,' von Dodenburg thundered, beside himself with rage. 'Get the lead out of your fat arse!'

  `But you can't make me ... me fight,' the Creeper found his voice at last. 'I'm not a fighting soldier.'

  `Well in Heaven's name, what the hell are you then?'

  Von Dodenburg never got an answer to his question.

  `Look out sir,' the operator screamed suddenly. 'A grenade?

  A round metallic ball had tumbled to the ground just inside the entrance to the command post. Von Dodenburg reacted instinctively, his body electric with fear. Grabbing the helmet off the table, he flung himself forward, thrust it over the grenade and pressed down hard with all his weight.

  A second later the grenade exploded. With a kick like that of a mule, the impact struck him in the chest. His whole body was lifted up from the ground. The air was full of the smell of burning. As he came down again and the shattered helmet rolled from beneath him, he saw what it was - the camouflage paint, melted by the hot blast.

  `Are you all right, sir,' the operator yelled, pulling him to his feet.

  Von Dodenburg swayed groggily and looked down at his chest. The whole front of his tunic was black and singed. `I think so,' he said weakly.

  Then he shook his ringing head. There wasn't a moment to lose. The Amis would come bursting in in a moment, spraying the CP with machine-pistol fire.

  ‘Give me the Schmeisser,' he ordered, his voice sounding faint and far away. 'And stand by!'

  In the very same instant that the man who had thrown the grenade pulled back the tarpaulin, von Dodenburg fired a wild burst from the hip. The clatter of the slugs was ear-splitting in the confined space. The big Ami screamed with agony and came tumbling down the crude steps to sprawl dead in front of von Dodenburg. Hastily he kicked him over to make sure. He was. The bottom half of his face had been shot away.

  ‘Come on,' he yelled, recovering himself now, 'let's get the hell out of here. It's sheer suicide to stay!'

  Now even the Creeper needed no urging. He grabbed the machine-pistol from the floor and followed the other two up the stairs.

  Outside the snow storm still raged. Here and there, little groups of shadowily outlined men swayed back and forth in mortal combat but the Amis were already pulling back. Everywhere their officers were blowing shrill blasts on their whistles and shouting orders. A Negro sat up suddenly just in front of them, moaning piteously, his arm shot away, blood pouring through fingers clasped to the stump. Von Dodenbur
g shot him without even realizing he was doing so.

  They pushed on. Before them in the white mist, he could hear the confused orders and counter-orders of the retreating Amis. They were definitely withdrawing. Hastily he pulled out his signal pistol and fired a red marker flare into the sky.

  `Rally on me, Wotan!' he bellowed above the vicious snap-and-crackle of small-arms fire. 'On me, Wotan - now!'

  Grenadiers came scurrying out of the snow on all sides, firing wildly from the hip as they came.

  `Form a skirmish line,' he yelled, 'and stop that bloody indiscriminate firing, will you!'

  The firing petered away as the men took up their positions.

  `I'll take the right, Kriecher - you the left!'

  This time the officer did not protest. He took his position up as ordered and when von Dodenburg blew a shrill blast to advance, he ran forward obediently with the rest.

  Here and there small groups of the Americans fought to the end. But the men of Wotan knew they were winning now; they had the Amis on the run. They charged forward, ignoring the slugs which hissed by them. Men crumpled violently, but in their rage they did not seem to notice their casualties. A big black sergeant, face streaked with blood, tried to cover the withdrawal with a Thompson sub-machine-gun. A bareheaded blond trooper swung a shovel at him and sliced his face almost in half with the keen blade.

  A couple of Negroes almost hidden in captured foxholes held them up for a few minutes with well-directed fire from their BAR. But an SS man pulled the china ring from a stick grenade, counted four aloud and flung it hissing in their direction. The two disappeared in a blinding burst of flame. When it cleared the two Amis lay there, mangled and bleeding. Someone finished them off with a vicious high-pitched burst from a Schmeisser.

  And then, suddenly, the Negroes broke completely. Streaming wildly down the snowy mountain side, skidding and sliding, they threw away their weapons, fighting each other to get away from that terrible fire, carrying their officers and NCOs with them; and behind them the Nationalist Socialist Leadership officer began to go from one wounded Negro to the next, turning their heads gently, pressing his pistol against their cropped heads just behind the right ear and blowing out their brains.