One Man's War

by P. M. Kippert

  “You ain’t gonna end up no cripple. Don’t think on somethin’ like that.”

  “I don’t mind dying so much. At least, I don’t think I do.”

  “Shut up now, Dash. You’ll jinx yourself somethin’ terrible.”

  “It’s just being a cripple. Being like Andover. I don’t think I could handle that, that’s all. I couldn’t stand it, Bama.”

  “Goddamnit, Dash. You’re messing me up here, real bad. Stop it, now. You hear me, boy?”

  “You gotta do me that favor, Bama.”

  “I don’t get what you want, Dash. How’m I supposed to stop you gettin’ blowed up by a shellin’ or somethin’?”

  “No. Not that. You gotta kill me. I mean, if what happened to Andover, something like that, if something like that happens to me, you gotta kill me.”

  “Dash, what the fuck? You fuckin’ bastard. I ain’t gonna kill you.”

  “You got to. I can’t be no fucking cripple, Bama.”

  “Dash, oh my shit. Oh my shit, Dash.”

  “Promise me, Bama.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Kafak clutched Carter’s forearm. He squeezed it hard, not even realizing he was doing it. He stared into Carter’s eyes. He spoke in an urgent growl, low and angry.

  He said, “You gotta do it, Bama. You gotta promise me. Promise me, goddamnit.”

  “Oh my shit, Dash, you know what you askin’ me?”

  “I know exactly what I’m asking you, pal.”

  Carter paused a long time. He turned away. He dropped his smoke and ground it out under his boot. He took a deep breath. Without looking back at Kafak, Carter spoke.

  “OK, then,” he said. “If that’s how you want it, Dash.”

  “That’s how I want it. Say you promise.”

  “I promise,” Carter said.

  “All right,” Kafak said. “All right.” He let go of Carter. He turned away. He nodded. “All right,” he said again, this time more to himself than to Carter. He smiled, just a little. He took a deep breath of his own and nodded again.

  A feeling of relief washed through him like a cleansing rain. A sharp, intense, suffusing feeling. Kafak lit another cigarette, offered one to Carter. Carter wouldn’t take it, but Kafak smoked his.

  Kafak felt better after that, with Carter’s promise tucked away in his mind. He could face it now. He could march forward and do what he had to do and not worry about how it would end up. He felt better.

  He was ready.

  19

  The Third Battalion started off providing support fire for the Second, covering its flank. There was a lot worse duty, Kafak thought, and then the second day of the battle, they got some of it. Holbrooke told them to move forward, toward the town of Cleurie. The entire battalion, including L Company, moved along a ridge to their northeast. In the morning they faced no opposition. They moved through thick trees. The rain fell down steady and cold. It rose up in a mist from the ground.

  “I can’t see a goddamned thing,” Carter said.

  “The visibility here is for shit,” Vinzani said.

  “Keep your ears open, then,” Kafak said.

  He whispered, Carter grunted, and everyone shut up.

  They moved along and didn’t stop to eat any lunch. In the afternoon, a machine gun opened up on them. Kafak hit the cold, wet ground, looked around. The gun fired again, off to his right. The Germans were unloading on some of the guys from King Company. That meant L Company was in the clear.

  “Come on,” Carter said. “We can flank those bastards.”

  He stood up into a crouch, and Vinzani and a couple of the others followed him. They moved to circle around the machine gun nest, and then four Krauts armed with machine pistols fell in behind them. They fired quickly. It was loud but not so accurate. The Americans hit the dirt. Kafak thought a couple of the guys might have been hit. He took the BAR and labeled the four Germans with it. They jerked around and collapsed onto the ground. Kafak moved up toward them, carefully, waiting and looking and listening for another squad to attack like this first one had. No other Germans erupted out of the mist this time, though. By the time he had reached the four men, Vinzani had finished spraying them with his Thompson. They were all dead and the Americans could move forward.

  The machine gunners had heard the commotion, though, and turned their weapon to fire toward Kafak and the others. Kafak didn’t figure the Germans could see them, just heard the firing and so they shot in their direction. All the Americans dropped flat and waited out the bursts. A staff sergeant rolled over to them.

  “Hey, Murph,” Vinzani said. “How you doin’?”

  “I’m feeling great,” Murphy said. “You fellas ready to take out those Jerries?”

  “After you, Sarge,” Carter said.

  Murphy smiled.

  “Come on, then,” he said.

  He led the way, crawling quickly forward under the constant barrage of the machine gun. Kafak somehow ended up right beside him with Carter on his other side. When they had reached to about twenty yards of where the gun sounded to be coming from, Murphy stopped and looked over to Kafak and Carter.

  “What’s up, Sarge?” Carter said.

  “You boys got any grenades?”

  “Got a couple, yeah,” Kafak said.

  Carter said, “Me, too.”

  “Toss one, on my count. Right?”

  “Sure thing, Sarge.”

  Kafak plucked the grenade out of his jacket. Carter took one from a pouch. They readied theirs, watching Murphy do the same. Murphy counted in a low voice.

  “One, two, three!”

  He hurled his grenade, and Kafak and Carter threw theirs. The three small bombs exploded in unison and Murphy was up before all the clumps of dirt had fallen back to the ground, charging the nest and screaming like a madman. Kafak said, “Oh shit,” and jerked up right behind him. Both men fired their weapons without cease as they charged forward. Kafak saw Murphy jump into the nest. There were three Germans there, they were all dead, and Kafak couldn’t tell if they had been killed by the grenades or by their small arms fire. It didn’t matter either way, he supposed; they were dead enough.

  “Nice job, soldier,” Murphy told Kafak as Carter arrived.

  “What happened to you?” Kafak asked Carter.

  Carter scowled.

  “Slipped on some fuckin’ leaves and fell flat on my fuckin’ face. I’m here now, though.”

  “Day late, dollar short.”

  “That’s my motto, all right. Help me live through this fuckin’ war, I hope.”

  They both laughed, and Murphy joined them.

  “What’s your names?” he asked them.

  “They call me Bama,” was all Carter said, nodding toward the sergeant.

  “Kafak.”

  “I’m Murphy,” the sergeant said. “Audie Murphy.”

  Kafak didn’t finish any of the introductions because he saw two ghostly forms lurching out of the mist behind Murphy and he shoved the sergeant down and landed on top of him. He heard Carter firing his M1. Kafak rolled off to get back to his feet and join Carter’s attack, but Murphy leaped up in front of him, spinning and firing. He took out the two Krauts who were charging through the mist. Carter had ducked them, but it was Murphy who finished them off.

  Carter looked at Murphy. Kafak was watching the two Germans, making sure they didn’t get back up.

  “Oh my shit,” Carter said, “that was a hell of a thing.”

  “You saved my life, Kafak,” Murphy said.

  “I doubt that, Sarge. I figure if I hadn’t tackled you, you just woulda killed those Krauts a lot sooner, is all.”

  Murphy laughed and slapped Kafak on the shoulder. The other guys had come up now, and Vinzani said, “Good work, guys.”

  Carter shook his head.

  “Oh my shit,” he said, “these fuckin’ woods are messin’ with my head.”

  “Still not as bad as Anzio,” Murphy said, grinning.

  “Nothing bad as Anz
io,” Kafak said.

  Murphy grinned at them all, said, “Well, I’ll see you boys in Cleurie!” and then darted off into the mist to rejoin his company. Leastways that’s where Kafak figured he was going. Still, he thought Murphy was something of a maniac, and there was no telling where a guy like that would end up.

  Holbrooke found them then and gathered them up with the rest of the company. He moved them all forward once more. Again Kafak crept through the trees with Carter close by, searching through the heavy mist. The sun couldn’t break through the canopy of dead or dying leaves and the trees’ thick branches to burn off the ground fog, so they just had to deal with it. About forty minutes after the machine gun nest, another German platoon materialized right in front of Kafak and Carter and the others. Not fifteen feet away. Both sides opened up simultaneously. Kafak found cover behind a tree trunk. He blasted the Germans with the BAR. Immediately, a heavy round of fire blistered back at him. He ducked behind the tree trunk. Carter emptied his M1, Vinzani his Thompson. Other guys joined in as well. The Germans stopped firing. The Americans moved forward. Kafak saw that the other side of the tree trunk behind which he’d been hiding had been chewed up all to hell.

  “They were tryin’ to chop down that ol’ tree,” Carter said.

  He grinned at Kafak.

  Kafak shook his head, pulling a face.

  “Goddamn BAR,” he said.

  Carter laughed and Vinzani said, “Need any more ammo?”

  “Naw,” Kafak said, “I still got some on me. Thanks.”

  All the other guys in a squad were tasked with protecting the BAR gunner since they knew he would be the man who drew the most fire. A rifle platoon was set up around the BAR man. They also carried extra ammunition for the weapon because no single man could carry enough by himself. It weighed too much.

  “Let’s go, men!” Holbrooke said.

  They followed again. Kafak thought Holbrooke was all right, even if he was new. He kept his head and did his job. That was all a guy could ask. A Kraut popped up right in front of the lieutenant not ten minutes later, up from the ground, thick fog swirling around him like the broken surface of a pond. He came up with a knife, and if Holbrooke hadn’t moved fast, he would have been gutted from belly button to sternum. He swung his carbine’s stock around though and knocked the German’s thrust off direction. The blade sliced through the lieutenant’s sleeve, maybe got some of the arm. Holbrooke fell backward, flat on his ass, on the ground, trying to bring his rifle to bear on the German who was moving forward, trying to bring the knife down into the lieutenant’s chest. Kafak fired the BAR. He’d been standing right behind Holbrooke and just off to his side. He had a sudden clear field of vision at the German now, and he pulled his trigger and stitched the enemy soldier almost in half. The guy lay groaning on the ground, and Kafak helped Holbrooke back to his feet.

  “Thanks, Kafak,” Holbrooke said.

  “Nice move,” Kafak told him. “Dropping down like that.”

  Holbrooke grinned.

  “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I just slipped.”

  “Well then,” Kafak said. “Lucky thing.”

  Holbrooke nodded.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They moved along and fifteen minutes later ran into about twenty Germans with an MG42 and lots of potato mashers. They fought an intense firefight, and Holbrooke sent Kafak and three others off to the right to flank the Kraut position. The guys kept Kafak in the middle of them until they had reached their spot, and then they all threw grenades while Kafak unloaded a twenty-round clip into the Germans. At the same time, Holbrooke and the others charged from the front. It took about ten minutes, but it seemed like a few days, the fire had been so heavy. The Germans were all either dead or wounded then. There’d been no prisoners. Anyone they might have taken alive had scurried off in the fog. The wounded left behind were too far gone to do anything for them. Holbrooke left them there and moved the company on.

  They encountered two more groups of Germans that afternoon and handled them in the same manner, each time flanking the position through the fog and trees and then collapsing on them. They never caught any prisoners. Not that day. By late afternoon, the entire battalion had gained the position they had sought, the high ground south of the town of Cleurie. At dusk, a heavy artillery barrage started dropping on King Company, not far off from where Kafak and L Company were hunkered down. They kept their heads down and hoped the shells didn’t move their way. They didn’t. They just suddenly ended. The moment they did, a company of Germans, screaming their love for Hitler, erupted out of the darkening mist, firing machine pistols at the men of K Company. The surprise of the attack pushed back the Americans, and they retreated right through where Kafak and his buddies were located. The men of L Company provided covering fire, and then K Company regrouped and formed up and fought back, and the German advance was halted. The fight went on for three hours. Small arms fire a constant presence, zipping over their heads, plucking up dirt in front of their faces, nipping at their packs and uniforms. Killing them. Wounding them. Kafak didn’t think much about it. Not while he was in the middle of it. He just kept his ass down and fired the BAR where he thought the Germans were. Mortar fire started dropping on the attacking Germans. It went on for what seemed an hour. The sound was deafening but welcome. It broke the Germans and they started falling back, and K Company’s troops charged after them, regaining all the ground that had been lost in the original push. The entire action had been a waste in terms of strategic position, but it had killed or wounded a good number of men, both German and American.

  After the battle, after the wounded had been cared for, Kafak lay down in his foxhole and kept watch while Carter and Vinzani ate cold rations. Then it was Kafak’s and Wolocheck’s turn, and Kafak ate some stew and took a piss while lying on his shoulder and aiming at the side of the muddy hole. Then he went back on watch while Carter and Vinzani tried to sleep. Kafak didn’t know if they did or not, but two hours later, when it was his turn, he knew he didn’t sleep. They kept hearing sounds during the entire night. Scufflings in the dark. German voices calling to one another. They could never be sure where the voices were coming from in the darkness and through the echoing tree trunks. Every so often, the unmistakable sound of burp guns would explode in the night and American weapons would answer. These firefights were always quick and intense. Then the Germans would either move on if they succeeded in killing their targets or melt away into the thick woods if they couldn’t sustain their assault. Or they would be killed themselves. Kafak and the men in his foxhole all waited for the assault that would come to them. None did that night, but no one got any real sleep at all.

  The next day was a replay of the day before. Vinzani was wounded. The medics carrying him out of the fight on a stretcher required an escort because the Germans had infiltrated all through the American lines. And they had no qualms about firing on wounded or medical personnel. The Germans were everywhere; there really were no set lines as L Company moved on. Kafak sometimes wondered if they were just moving to move, like a shark had to move, and killing Germans as they came across them, or if there existed some purpose, some final goal to all this movement and fighting. By the end of the day he knew that there had been a goal and the company had achieved it.

  Holbrooke told them, “We’re on Hill 785 here, men. And we’ve been ordered to hold it at all costs.”

  “At all costs,” Carter said, whispering to Kafak.

  Kafak only shook his head.

  That night they fought off attempted German incursions upon the hill on four separate occasions. Most of them consisted of bullets flying out of the dark and the rain and the fog as if nobody shot them at all; and the Americans fired back in the direction from which the sound of small arms came, but they couldn’t see anything or anyone they were shooting at. A guy three over from Kafak bought it. A slug ripped right into his face, just below the eye, and came out the back of his head, ricocheting around inside his helmet. “O
h my shit,” Carter said. “I don’t even know who to fuckin’ shoot at, Dash.” “Just keep shooting out that way,” Kafak told him. “Maybe we’ll hit something like they did.” One of the incursions threatened to break through, though. Thirty Krauts had charged forward in the night, screaming wildly and firing their burp guns, trying to overrun the American position. At about forty yards away they were nothing but ghostly forms in the dark and fog, and Kafak leveled BAR fire at them. In the darkness he couldn’t tell how effective it was, but he could hear the Germans screaming and charging still. Guns were popping and firing in a constant roll of sound, trying to drown out the Kraut shrieking with death and destruction. Half a dozen enemy troops actually made it into the American line. One German leaped into Kafak’s foxhole and Kafak ducked and the man landed on the far side of Kafak and Kafak spun to fire at him but the BAR was too cumbersome to bring around quickly enough and the German fired his burp gun point blank at Kafak only the gun jammed and Kafak saw the German’s eyes go wide and suddenly frightened when he realized the situation he was in and then he stared at Kafak and Kafak brought the gun to bear, finally, and he ordered the Kraut to surrender, put up his hands, and the German’s face went abruptly black and he shouted his love for Hitler as he dropped his gun and drew his knife and Kafak yelled at him, said, “No!” but the man was lunging forward and Kafak shot him and the force of the .30-caliber bullets knocked the German backward and off his feet and Kafak cursed and then moved over to see if the man was still alive but he wasn’t and Kafak kicked him once, just to make sure, or maybe for some other reason, and then Kafak turned away, still swearing and cursing the “fucking stupid fuck Nazi” and then he got back to his position on the line but the fight was over by then.

  They spent a little time policing the field, and Carter and Wolocheck picked up the dead German and rolled him down the hill, out of sight.

  “Good thing that fucker’s gun jammed, ain’t it?” Carter said.

  “You think it was the mud or something?” Wolocheck said.

  “Something,” Kafak said.

  “What else?” Carter said.