An Honorable German

by Charles L. McCain

  “Well, they’ve got that right. Who did she hear this from?”

  “Heinz, Herr Kaleu. He got sent there himself because he knocked down two American guards when they snatched the U-boat medal off his uniform.” U-114’s torpedo chief petty officer had been Carls’s closest friend on the boat. Max smiled. Captivity had not changed Heinz.

  “Your mother is well, yes?”

  “She finally took my advice and got out of Hamburg, Herr Kaleu. Brought herself to my cousin’s farm in Schleswig-Holstein. Get as close to the Allies as you can, I told her. Don’t go nowhere near the East.”

  “The Afrika Korps men, how are they?”

  “Restless, Herr Kaleu. Very restless. Seeing their comrades beat up, it’s got their venom up. They’re tough men, almost as tough as U-boat men. They fought under Rommel for almost two years.”

  “Problems?”

  “Perhaps, Herr Kaleu.”

  Max liked the Afrika Korps men. They were tough and proud and disciplined like the navy he had known in the early years of the war. Last week Major Hessler had given him a squad from the Afrika Korps to supervise and the desert soldiers went at the pines like they meant to cut down the whole forest before sunset. Certainly the Americans were getting their money’s worth for the eighty cents a day they paid these men to cut timber.

  That night he sat up late and smoked. It stayed hot now even at night and Max’s sheets were damp from the humidity. How many nights had he lain awake in this hut, replaying in his mind the events that led to the surrender of his U-boat? Remembering the sighting of the ship through the mist, the adrenaline pumping through him, the jolt of the torpedoes as they shot from the boat, the rumble of the explosions, then the shock of seeing all those people scrambling over the top deck of the steamer, of realizing what he’d done. He’d been right to save the passengers, but he felt such guilt over scuttling the U-boat, and it hung heavy on him like the thick night air. Carls had told him that he had worried off twenty pounds, and he was right. Max’s uniform hung loose on his body—the appetite he had lost in France had never returned.

  Mareth’s letters arrived once a week, all he was allowed under camp regulations. She was grateful to be in Mexico City and did her best to sound cheerful. But Max knew it was a front. She yearned for him as he did for her and when not worrying about him she worried about her father.

  Max smoked till dawn, burning through half a pack of Lucky Strikes. He bought the cigarettes with the scrip the Americans paid him; the scrip was worthless outside the camp but it was easy enough to purchase things at the canteen and sell them cheap to the American guards for hard currency. Not that hard currency was much good to a POW, but at least it was real. He had accumulated eleven dollars this way.

  After breakfast he found Carls with the ten men of their woodcutting detail formed up by the main gate. An American sergeant counted out their axes, all of which Max had to sign for.

  “All is in order?” Max asked Carls.

  “Jawohl, Herr Kaleu.”

  “Carry on.”

  Carls gave a parade-ground salute, then wheeled around to the Afrika Korps men, wiry youngsters with bright eyes. “Achtung!”

  They came to attention as one, like a machine, as the American sergeant looked on. Max had watched the American troops on the rare occasions when they drilled, and they always looked like a pack of conscripts on their first day in the army. Some seemed not to know the difference between left and right. No one had the discipline of the German fighting man. No one. Then again, the Wehrmacht hardly assigned its finest soldiers to guard POWs, and Max didn’t suppose the Americans did either. But the men of the Afrika Korps were damned impressive all the same, and Max wondered what they would think of his surrender if they knew.

  Outside the gate the bus waited for them—an old school bus, Max thought it was, painted olive green, the peculiar color with which the Americans covered everything associated with their army. The bus driver, a Negro named Malachi, a veteran of the American Expeditionary Force in the First War, sat quietly behind the wheel. Malachi had been wounded in France in 1918, even walked with a limp as a result, but the young American soldiers didn’t treat him with any more respect than they displayed for other Negroes.

  “Two minutes late, boy,” the corporal of the guard said, leading his men onto the bus.

  Malachi nodded at him.

  “Two minutes late, I said.”

  “Had to put gas in the bus,” Malachi said. Max noted the omission of “sir” or “cap’n.” Most Negroes around the camp tacked one or the other onto the end of their sentences when addressing the white guards.

  Max had struck up an acquaintance with Malachi. The colored man spoke passable German from the eight years he’d spent working as a trumpet player in a Negro jazz band in Berlin after the war. “Where did you play?” Max had asked a few days back.

  “Place called Johny’s on the Kurfürstendamm.”

  “Johny’s? The cabaret? I’ve been there. Next to the Café Wien?”

  “That’s the one. ‘Authentic American Negro Jazz Band’ was the sign they put up on the nights we played. Paid us good. Your people treated me a damn sight better than what I’m used to around here,” Malachi had told him, “and your women…”—he winked at Max—“let’s just say a colored man in Berlin drew powerful attention from your women back then.”

  The Afrika Korps men followed the guards onto the bus, Carls and Max the last to board.

  “Okay, boy,” the corporal said, “let’s move it.”

  Malachi nodded, then spoke in German to Max: “That white boy ain’t got the sense God gave a cow.”

  “If he was in my unit,” Max replied, “I would have him sent to the Russian Front.”

  The corporal eyed them suspiciously. “Hey, you boys talk American for me. None of that Hun language. Bad enough you Krauts using it, but I can’t have niggers talkin’ Hun.” Max fell silent. The only thing these Americans had over Germany was their inexhaustible resources. They could manufacture anything in unheard-of quantities and ship it all over the world. What had the leader of the Hitler Youth said? “Every German boy who dies at the front is dying for Mozart.” Americans didn’t even know who Mozart was. They listened to Benny Goodman and Cab Calloway and the Andrews Sisters, and when Max’s young sailors were able, that’s who they listened to as well. Whenever Ferret had played American music from the BBC over the U-boat’s loudspeaker, almost everyone started bobbing their heads to the music. Georg, the control room petty officer, even acted like he was playing the drums. None of Max’s men had shown the least bit of interest in dying for Mozart.

  The bus went down one dirt road for several miles, turned and turned again, stopping at their worksite from Friday last. “You ever get lost out here?” he asked Malachi, still in German.

  “Came up in these woods till we got in the first war with you people and I went to France with the army, and then to Berlin, but I come back home in ’28 because my folks was getting on, and I been here ever since. Still live over the store my daddy ran. Guess you just know the territory once you been around it so long.”

  “Is it far from here?”

  “’Bout six miles north. Place called Poole’s Crossroads. Just a bump in the road. Ain’t even a stop sign.”

  In another few minutes they reached the clearing and they divided into two groups. Carls took five men and led them into the woods to start a new worksite one kilometer north. They were followed by the corporal and another American soldier, rifles slung upside down across their backs. The other two guards stayed with Max and his five men at the original site. Malachi came down off the bus and limped to a spot in the shade. He settled down in the dirt, produced a book, and began to read.

  “A nigger readin’,” one of the guards said, “now don’t that beat all.”

  Taking up one of the axes, Max marked a row of tall pines for his men to fell. He handed the axes out to the young soldiers and motioned them forward. The rhythmic percussion of
axe blades biting into wood rang through the forest. Working methodically, like the disciplined Germans they were, the men went down the long row of trees, pausing from time to time to stand back when one of them tilted and pitched over, tearing limbs from other trees as it crashed down, the final thump sending birds to wing.

  Later in the day, after a truck had brought lunch to them, Max went to check the progress of the other detail. Because he was the officer in charge, Max could move between the two groups without an escort. “Guard,” he called to one of the young Americans. The man sat in the shade, smoking, rifle propped against a tree.

  “I’m going to inspect the work of the other group.”

  “Okee dokee, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Okay, sir. That’s fine.”

  Max started down the trail Carls and his men had taken, stamping his feet hard like the American guards did to scare the snakes, two of which slithered away during his walk. Ordinarily he marched double-time on such an errand; it was the military way and he had a desire to show the Americans how real soldiers behaved. The sloppier they were, the more military he became. But the forest was quiet today and the heat wasn’t so bad in the shade and Max took his time, breathing in the bitter earth smell of the rotting pine needles. He began to run only when he heard the first gunshot.

  When he reached the clearing two of the Afrika Korps men were sprinting hell for leather in the opposite direction, making for the cover of the forest. The corporal was sighting them down the barrel of his rifle when Carls knocked him cold with a pine branch thick as his arm. Blood spurted from the corporal’s skull. Carls dropped the club and started after the two fleeing men and without pause the other three Afrika Korps men followed him.

  The second sentry was scrambling to his feet five meters to Max’s right. Must have been napping. The youngster bobbled his rifle awkwardly and Max plowed into him on a dead run, both of them crashing into the bed of dust and straw. A bayonet flashed in the morning sun as the young sentry rolled into a crouch and drew the long knife from its scabbard. He lunged at Max, who sidestepped and hit the boy on his backside, sprawling him out on the ground. But the lad rolled and came up, moving damned fast, passing the bayonet from hand to hand as he and Max circled each other. The sentry lunged again, faking with his right, and almost drove the blade through Max’s ribs, but Max spun and delivered a kick to the youngster’s kidneys. He stumbled and Max dived for the branch Carls had used on the corporal. The sentry dived after him and Max rolled onto his back, bringing the branch around to catch the boy aside the head. The American somersaulted, crashed into the trunk of a pine, and pulled himself up again—pausing only to draw another knife from a sheath in his boot. Now he had one in each hand. He smiled at Max and spit out a tooth. Blood dripped from his mouth and nose onto his starched khaki shirt. Max gripped the branch halfway up, feeling the sticky pinesap on his palms. He feinted forward, taking a short swing at the sentry’s head, then drew back. With a war whoop the boy jumped forward. Max reversed his grip and drove the butt end of the branch into the boy’s forehead, just above the nose. The sentry dropped to his knees, unconscious, and pitched forward into the soft straw.

  Max dropped the branch, then darted through the trees, following the others, fearing he’d lost them. Move, he told himself, faster. The trees grew dense, he could see the broken tree branches that marked the passage of his men. In the far distance a rifle shot, followed by a dozen more. Were these Americans shooting into the woods at random?

  After another ten minutes of hard running, a sharp pain stabbed his side like a poker in the gut. Had to stop for a moment. Head down, clutching his knees, sweat poured from his face as he gulped in great lungfuls of air. The hand that touched his shoulder caught him completely off guard and he jerked upright in fear.

  “Herr Kaleu!”

  “Shit! Carls, for God’s sake, man!”

  Gasping for air, Carls said, “Those lads run like ponies.”

  Max didn’t speak, just continued to gulp air, chest heaving, as Carls did the same. Finally Max said, “Report?”

  “I heard the guard give a shout and looked up. Seen two of our boys running. That swine of a corporal went to shoot and I clubbed him.”

  Max ran a hand through his greasy hair. Shit. They could still give themselves up, but he’d already been through the shame of surrendering once. He didn’t want to do it again. Ever. But what to do? He knelt and put his head down with his hands over his face. Had to think for a moment. Carls was silent. Perhaps two minutes went by before he heard the rifle fire. He jerked his head up. More shooting now. A fusillade of rifle fire broke out, but it was far in the distance. Southeast of them, he felt sure.

  But he knew what they had to do. A freighter. They had to get aboard a neutral freighter. It was the only alternative. They weren’t that far from New Orleans. He’d been there during his training cruise on Emden, had roamed the city for several days. But how in the name of Saint Peter and Paul were they going to get there?

  “If we want to try and escape, we need to get to New Orleans and find a neutral freighter,” Max said to Carls, who nodded. “Maybe one that would take us to Mexico. I can’t think of anything else.” Carls still worked at catching his breath. Finally he said, “What about the nigger bus driver you talk to, Herr Kaleu?”

  “Malachi?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Max thought about this. Would the colored man help them? They would hardly be welcomed guests. Could they even find Poole’s Crossroads? Was there an alternative? No, there wasn’t.

  “He said he lives about six miles north of here, town called Poole’s Crossroads.”

  Carls looked up at the sun, then pointed to his left. “North would be that way, Herr Kaleu.”

  “Then let’s carry on.” They forced-marched through the woods for another hour, following the sun north, then stopped, put their heads down, hands on knees, and gulped air like blown horses. They were drenched in sweat and Max knew they had sweated out all their body fluids. They had to find water. Soon. Carls seemed to be suffering badly. “I’m not the youngster I was on Kronprinz Wilhelm,” he said between gasps.

  They moved on, much slower. Max saw spots in front of his eyes and knew they were approaching heatstroke. He could shoot someone for a canteen of water. Dusk now—they came to a dirt road and dropped to their knees. Carls saw it first, across the road, a large cow pasture with a water trough big enough to bathe in. There were no cows. They had been led back to the barn by then and the pasture was deserted. Covered by the falling night, they slipped across the dirt road, stopped and listened. Quiet. Max cut himself going over the barbed-wire fence but stifled a yelp. Carls got over without cutting himself and helped Max down. On all fours they both crawled to the water trough. Max motioned for Carls to go first and the big man plunged his head in and drank, came up breathing hard. Max followed, Carls keeping watch.

  Max finished drinking then whispered to Carls that they must take their shirts off, rinse them out, and then put them on inside out to hide the white PW letters painted on the back of each shirt. For the next fifteen minutes they alternately drank water and rinsed and wrung out their shirts. They both took one last drink of water, then retraced their steps across the road till they were back in the trees about fifty meters from the dirt road. Neither of them could go on without sleep, so they made themselves as comfortable as they could on a mat of pine straw and slept.

  Three hours, four hours went by, Max wasn’t sure. The sound of a truck in the far distance woke him and he was up and in a crouch before he was barely awake. But the sound receded into the distance. Dark now with just a hint of light from a half moon. They had to be close to Poole’s Crossroads. No more than a kilometer at this point. Time to move. Max could not get Carls to wake up no matter what he did. Finally, he leaned close to his ear and whistled the bosun’s call for “Rise, rise, get up,” the signal for the sailors to get up and stow their hammocks. That woke him. They crept to the dirt ro
ad and walked north, staying on the down moon side so they wouldn’t cast a silhouette. A dog barked. Now two. They dropped. But this was it—Poole’s Crossroads. In the dim moonlight he could make out four or five tin-roofed clapboard shacks scattered around the intersection, their windows dark. The small grocery was unmistakable with its weathered Coca-Cola sign and the single rusted gas pump in the dirt driveway outside. An open staircase on the side of the building climbed to the second-story apartment.

  “The bus driver lives up there,” Max whispered.

  Carls nodded, too exhausted to speak. Max led the way to the staircase and they made their way up very slowly, the weathered steps creaking faintly.

  On the landing at the top of the stairs, Max paused, listened. Nothing. He waited. A dog in one of the other houses started to bark. He looked around. This had to be the place. Now what? Knock on the door? He rapped gently. Rapped again. Nothing. Two more dogs added to the flurry of barking, which trailed off after a few minutes. Max went to rap again, but as he did so the door opened slowly. It was Malachi, holding a kerosene lantern in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other, both barrels pointed at Max’s gut. With great care, palms outward to show he was unarmed, Max slowly raised his arms into the air. No one spoke for a long moment. Then Malachi, suddenly aware of the lantern light, hissed, “Get in here ’fore somebody sees you, you goddamn sons of bitches. You trying to get me lynched?”

  Malachi set the lantern on a table in the main room. It cast a dim light that sparkled on a spiked Prussian helmet from the First War mounted over the fireplace. Malachi spoke quietly, still pointing the shotgun at Max. “Took that helmet from one of your fellows I bayoneted in the Argonne. He didn’t have no more use for it. Your people thought fighting colored soldiers was going to be easy, reckon they thought we could only sing and dance.” He tightened his grip on the shotgun. “And we can sing and dance. You know what else we can do—at least those of us who was in the 370th Colored Infantry? We can fire six aimed rounds a minute of .303 caliber from a Lee-Enfield and bring down a whole line of you. Did it more than a few times.”