Like somebody who just lost his marbles, Sean thought.
“Stop the vehicle,” Sean told Kowalski, who, from his driver’s seat in the bow, had no idea what was happening in the turret. “Pull off the road.”
“Something wrong with the ol’ girl, Sarge?”
“Just pull off the fucking road, Ski. Now.”
Even over a tinny intercom, a man could tell when the person speaking to him was in no mood to be questioned. Kowalski pivoted the tank off the pavement and brought her to an abrupt stop. The vehicles in the column behind Eight Ball continued to roll on, their crews shooting curious looks her way as they passed.
Sean grabbed his gunner by the collar of his tanker’s jacket and pulled him to his feet. “Get out of the vehicle, Fab. You and me gonna have a little talk.”
Once they were on the ground beside the tank, Fabiano began to babble, “Them rocket ships…them big guns…and them big tanks. They’re gonna get us, Sarge. I’m telling you, I got a real bad feeling. They got stuff that’s gonna kill us all and there ain’t a damn thing we can do to stop ’em.”
Sean didn’t say a word, just stared into Fabiano’s frightened eyes. Even though those eyes were looking in Sean’s direction, they seemed to be staring right through him, as if focused on something far in the distance only the terror-stricken could see.
He didn’t want to lose Fabiano—not this way. Sean had seen plenty of guys go over the edge and plummet into the life-long, damning realm of a Section Eight discharge.
But something told him his gunner wasn’t quite ready to take that plunge. Not yet.
He ain’t scared useless like all them other guys who went off their rockers. But still, he’s a liability if he’s too fucked up to focus on the job. He needs to start seeing things clear again and knock off this horseshit babbling about Kraut super weapons all the damn time.
So who do I play here? The buddy? The priest? Maybe the Dutch uncle—like them judges who gave guys a choice of jail or join the Army?
Nah, that won’t work. The poor bastard’s already in the Army.
Lieutenant Fagan’s tank stopped next to Eight Ball. “Something wrong, Sergeant Moon?” he asked.
“Negative, sir,” Sean replied, pretending to be fussing with a track. We just got some junk stuck in the idler sprocket, that’s all. It’s making a racket that’s driving us nuts.”
“Well, hurry up. Can’t have you falling behind. We need you up front.”
Fagan’s tank pulled away. The lieutenant didn’t realize it, but he’d just provided the answer to Sean’s dilemma.
“You hear that, Fab?” he said. “They need us up front. They need us…and that includes you. You’re still the best damn gunner in the outfit, ain’t you?”
He felt he was watching the wheels turn in Fabiano’s mind, changing the expression on his face from fear, to regret, to embarrassment…and finally, to resolution.
“Oh, what the hell,” Fabiano said. “At least if I die, I’m in good company, right?”
Sean smiled and put an arm around his gunner’s shoulder.
“The best company, Fab. You’re in the best company. Now let’s move our asses before we have to burn all our extra gas just to catch up.”
“We’ve got a big problem, Stan,” Colonel Abrams told Lieutenant Fagan as they stood together on the roadway. “We’re stopped because the head of the column’s stalled at that tiny little village of Simmern up ahead. The lead unit tried to bypass it as soon as they started taking fire, but they bogged down left and right in that soft, hilly ground. Then they got cut up with MGs and mortars. They lost at least one Zippo, too, so the Krauts have anti-tank weapons of some sort. Not sure what type yet.”
The colonel unfolded a sketch detailing what he’d been told so far of the village’s defenses. Fagan braced himself. He was certain the colonel was about to give Baker Company the task of clearing the village. Based on what he saw on the sketch, he had no idea how to do it.
The main stumbling block was a stone building several centuries old, three stories high, which overlooked the village square. Apparently, it was a mini-fortress, bristling with heavy machine guns and small arms, sturdy enough to have suffered little damage from the Shermans’ main guns like so many of the old structures they’d encountered. The building afforded excellent fields of fire in all directions, making the one main road through the village—the road on which 4th Armored was traveling—a death trap. The approach to the village square was already littered with shattered American vehicles and the bodies of dead GIs.
“I’d flatten the whole damn village with air or artillery right now,” Abrams said, “but dammit, we’ve got that SHAEF directive not to indiscriminately level civilian areas—even if they’re rotten with Krauts. So we’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way, Stan. I was thinking maybe your platoon of Stuarts might be able to make it around the perimeter of the village and get behind that bunker in the square. What do you think?”
Fagan didn’t know what to think. Sure, he could probably get the small and fast Stuarts through the woods that bordered Simmern without getting bogged down, even on soggy ground. And they could probably find their way through the maze of narrow streets and alleys in the unfamiliar village to come up behind the Germans…
But tanks operating alone in narrow streets with buildings of two or three stories towering over them on either side might just be sacrificing themselves to sappers.
“Maybe we could take some infantry with us, sir, to cover our backs?”
Abrams didn’t think much of the idea. “Don’t you think they’ll just slow you down, Stan? Speed and surprise are going to be the deciding factors here.”
“I got a surprise for ’em, sir,” an unknown voice offered. “A big surprise.”
It was Sean Moon’s voice. They turned to see him standing a few feet away.
“You’ve heard our discussion, Sergeant?” Abrams asked.
“Every word, sir.”
“So what’s your surprise?”
“Well, sir…SHAEF says we can’t use artillery and air indiscriminately. But we can use it discriminately, right?”
“How do you propose we do that, Sergeant?”
“Simple. That two-oh-three-millimeter howitzer we used back at the dragon’s teeth is just a little ways back in the column, waiting for something to do. Let’s bring her up, park her on the edge of town, and blow the shit out of that building with direct fire. Nothing indiscriminate about that.”
“Hmm,” Abrams replied. “Interesting idea, Sergeant. Give me a second to run it by the general.”
That radio conversation lasted only seconds. Abrams was back quickly with the answer: “The general agrees. Make it happen, Lieutenant Fagan. On the double.”
Fifteen minutes and two rounds from the 203-millimeter howitzer later, a white flag emerged from the now-shattered building on the square. Baker Company tanks rumbled into the village as GI infantry swept up the surrendering Germans. Sean parked Eight Ball in the middle of the square, a symbol of Allied victory not lost on the battered and defeated enemy soldiers.
But even though they’d been beaten into submission, the Germans seemed unbowed. Sean thought, These ain’t the sick, lame, and lazy we’ve been scooping up lately. These Krauts are the real deal. Crack troopers, if you ask me.
Hope we don’t have to take on too many more like them.
Among the Germans was an irate officer, pacing like a caged animal. Looks like he’s an oberstleutnant, going by his shoulder strap, Sean thought. Kinda like Colonel Abrams, just in the wrong fucking army. The German colonel was demanding—in English—to know who was in charge.
Sean looked around. At the moment, he appeared to be the senior American in the square. “I guess I am,” he replied. “Got a problem, mein freund?”
The colonel tried to approach Eight Ball, but several GIs with weapons raised blocked his path, making it clear they’d shoot him if he took another step.
“No, you guys,
it’s okay. Let him come,” Sean said. “I want to hear what’s on his mind.”
“You sure, Sarge?” one of the GIs asked.
“Hey, I can shoot him as good as you can if he tries any funny business.” He gave the .50-caliber machine gun on the turret roof a loving pat. “Actually, better. Nothing would give me greater pleasure right now than turning the oberstleutnant inside out with this thing.”
The German was sputtering now, more incensed than ever, as if the very presence of the Americans was some grievous insult. He approached Eight Ball as if it was somehow in his power to dispense discipline on what he considered crude interlopers.
“What you did with that artillery piece,” the colonel said, “it was barbaric. Just like your talk of shooting me with a weapon meant to engage aircraft and vehicles. You should be ashamed. You should all be ashamed.”
At first, Sean was startled by the audacity of the oberstleutnant’s scolding, as were the other GIs within earshot. But within seconds, he was laughing out loud. He climbed down from Eight Ball’s turret to get face to face with the colonel.
“That was against all standards of civilized warfare,” the German officer insisted. “It was nothing short of butchery.”
“Decent warfare? Civilized warfare?” Sean replied. “Just what the fuck are you talking about, Fritz? Ain’t nothing decent or civilized about it. It’s kill or be killed, plain and simple. And it don’t matter a rat’s ass how you do it, neither.”
Sean was just getting started. His ire reached its peak as he continued, “And I’ll tell you something else, mein freund. You can save the sour grapes bullshit. I’ve been fighting you bastards ever since North Africa. Don’t seem like you clowns never once worried much about the civilized or decent thing to do.”
But the German colonel was adamant. “You Americans are all a disgrace, Sergeant. Nothing but undisciplined rabble, just like your Russian allies. Enjoy your little victory today, because it may be your last.”
“Now ain’t that hot shit,” Sean said. “Some other Kraut bastard told me the exact same thing back in the Ardennes a couple of months ago, right after we captured his ass, too. Since then, we ain’t done nothing but win…and you ain’t done nothing but lose.”
The German spat on the ground, narrowly missing Sean’s boots.
“I tell you what, Fritz…fuck you and the panzer you rode in on. Have fun in the POW cage.”
Then Sean clambered back into Eight Ball’s turret as GIs led the oberstleutnant away.
Sean didn’t realize it, but Colonel Abrams and Lieutenant Fagan had been watching from the edge of the square. There’d been no reason to intervene; the veteran sergeant seemed to have the situation well in hand.
“Just one thing, Stan,” Abrams told the lieutenant. “Maybe this isn’t the time to press Sergeant Moon about taking that direct commission. We’ll do it later. Let him cool down a little first.”
Chapter Eleven
The bürgermeisters had expected to be dealing with officers of the occupying army—preferably the naïve and gullible Americans they’d heard so much about, joyfully dispensing chocolate and cigarettes. They would’ve enjoyed manipulating them.
Instead, the southwestern corner of Germany had fallen into an area of operations not belonging to the Americans but to the French 1st Army. Even though that army reported to General Jacob Devers, commanding general of US 6th Army Group, the American-made boots on the ground in the mountains of the Schwäbische Alb would be wrapped around French feet. Nothing short of the Soviets as their conquerors could have been more distasteful to the Germans and their civic leaders.
As if being beneath the heels of the French wasn’t painful enough, one particular pair of heels didn’t wear Army boots at all; they belonged to the practical women’s shoes of Sylvie Bergerac. It was to this young Frenchwoman of the Affaires Civiles the bürgermeisters would have to turn for their formidable logistical needs, someone who didn’t wear a uniform but was, in fact, a civilian employee of the Provisional Government of the French Republic.
Their contempt was obvious: Those idiot French have put a girl in charge!
They tried to scare her off. Surely, they thought, it wouldn’t take much to terrorize this mere girl. The plan was to have a local goon rough her up. In wartime Germany, however, goons were in short supply as most had been dragged into the military one way or the other. The best they could dredge up was a middle-aged policeman with a bad back and a history of Nazi party affiliation he was trying to make disappear as quickly as possible.
But their plan failed miserably. She’d promptly incapacitated her assailant with a sharp blow to the throat, then held him at gunpoint until the military police arrived.
The bürgermeisters were beginning to understand why they had failed, so far, to get the better of her: not only did she possess a shrewd awareness of the ways of the world far beyond her years, her knowledge of German was far better than they imagined. She understood the subtext of their language; conversing in idioms only a native German would understand failed to misdirect her because she somehow understood those idioms. They’d never thought that possible of so young a foreigner…
Especially one who was a woman.
What they didn’t—and wouldn’t—know was how she gained that proficiency: as a member of La Résistance, one of her tasks was to pose as a prostitute and sleep with German officers for the information they divulged with alarming frequency.
But she knew they were still trying to subvert her. What was going on in the town of Ebingen was a classic example.
“Your warehouse is short over two hundred kilos of flour,” she told Herr Vogel, the elderly bürgermeister of Ebingen.
He seemed shocked to hear it. She was confident his shock was feigned.
“How can that be, Frau Bergerac? Every gram is so precious…we count it so carefully.”
“That’s the problem, Herr Vogel. We tallied it carefully, too. Now it’s gone.”
“Perhaps it’s just an error in calculation of the amounts used in—”
“No, there’s no miscalculation, Herr Vogel. The bakery’s output of bread is short because of it, as well. Some of your people will be forced to sleep with empty stomachs tonight.”
“What would you propose I do, Frau Bergerac?”
“I propose you find it, Herr Vogel. Before I do.”
She wasn’t worried about a black market being run behind her back. The commodities missing were being given away for free, and few civilians had money to spend, anyway.
That means the stolen goods aren’t moving far at all, she told herself. Probably no more than a few kilometers. The quantities involved can support only a small group of people, a dozen at best.
And without a doubt, this group is up to something that must be kept under wraps.
Colonel Marchand greeted her theory with a healthy dose of skepticism. But he had to respect the passion of her argument and the fact she’d rushed all the way back to headquarters at Stuttgart to tell him in person.
“You really think, Sylvie, that some missing bread and milk will lead us to Boche fanatics?”
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense, oncle. A small band hidden in the mountains very close to Ebingen is taking the supplies. I’m sure of it. They’re cut off from Nazi Germany now, and we control the local food distribution. They have no choice but to steal it if they don’t want to starve.”
“But couldn’t it be anyone stealing, Sylvie? Not necessarily German die-hards?”
“No one else has the motive, oncle.”
“But they’re surrounded, Sylvie. Why wouldn’t they just give themselves up?”
“We in La Résistance were surrounded for four long years, oncle. But the thought of giving up—surrendering—never occurred to us.”
That made him stop and think for a moment. When he spoke again, he was no longer playing devil’s advocate. “I’ll ask General Tassigny how we should proceed,” he said. “Stay here. This shouldn’t take
very long.”
But the moment Colonel Marchand returned to his office, she could tell that the general was not interested in her theory.
“A wild goose chase, he called it,” Marchand said. “He refuses to commit troops to operations in areas we’ve already conquered. Not when they’re needed to press on to Berlin.”
“But oncle, the French First Army is assigned to sweep into southern Germany. It’s not going to Berlin. Nowhere near it, in fact.”
“Don’t tell that to General Tassigny, Sylvie. These days, every Allied general sees himself riding triumphantly through the streets of that city.”
Frustrated, she said, “From the rumors I’ve been hearing, the only general who’ll be triumphantly riding through the streets of Berlin will be some Russian asshole.”
Amused, Marchand replied, “Dear girl, you really are sounding more and more like an American every day. You must be spending so much time with your Yank flyer.”
“Not as much as I’d like, oncle.”
“So what are you going to do about your vanishing supplies?”
“I’m going to find them. And the bastards taking them, too.”
“Be very careful, Sylvie. Don’t get yourself into deep water.”
She brushed off his concern with a shake of her head. “You forget what a good swimmer I am, oncle.”
When Sylvie returned to Ebingen, Bürgermeister Vogel had made himself scarce. Not surprising, she thought. Whatever’s going on here, the old man is in it up to his neck, I’m sure.
The two men she’d detailed from her group to surveil the main warehouses in town were waiting in her office. Both began to speak at once the moment she walked in.
“Slow down, you two,” Sylvie said. “Let me at least get to my desk. Luc, why don’t you go first.”
Luc Vachon was once a scrappy Lyon thug and member of La Résistance. Now, he was a private in the French Army possessing a superior facility for languages, a penchant for strong-arm tactics, and a burning desire to avoid being an infantryman on the front lines. He’d thrown himself into his duties at Affaires Civiles to ensure a rifle was never thrust into his hands.
Our Ally, Our Enemy (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 3) Page 9
