Roll Me Over

by Raymond Gantter

  Stuttering with sudden rage, I looked at the old man and exploded in bastard German. “Du hat gesagen ‘nicht Deutsche soldaten hier,’ hein? Was ist das hier?" and I pointed to the Luftwaffe pilot. At once the German soldier hastened to say that they hadn’t known he’d been in the house; he’d been hiding there without their knowledge. Eagerly, the old man chimed agreement, and the trembling diners swore the same. And I knew damn well that all of them were lying. The truth was pathetically evident: the guilty fear on the faces, the tightly sealed house, the bald lie about everyone being asleep in the cellar when on the table the coffee cups still steamed. And for the final clincher, the bed of quilts under the piano in the corner of the room and the German field pack that lay near it. But I felt pity for them. I could see them sitting around the table—not as they were now, old and frightened, but as they’d been before I pounded on the door—listening with greedy ears to the apple-cheeked hero, the warrior, the defender of the Fatherland against the barbarous invaders.

  We sent them back to the cellar and swiftly searched the house. No more prisoners. After posting the men, John Sturgos, my then second in command, and I started to dig our foxhole.

  There was sporadic fighting in the town as the lurking enemy soldiers were rooted out. Our sector remained quiet until about four a.m., when I heard someone coming down the road, approaching the town. There was no attempt to walk quietly. The footsteps were frankly noisy and firm, and I guessed that this was the friendly patrol I’d been warned might come through our position during the night. At any rate, whoever was approaching would have to pass the three men I’d posted along the road. I listened, expecting to hear a challenge, “Who goes there!” but there was not a sound. I began to sweat a little. Were they asleep, all three of them? Or... dead, lying quietly with their throats cut?

  The footsteps drew nearer, became a form... a single man, but it was too dark to pick out uniform details. I challenged. “Halt!” The figure kept coming, and again I yelled, “Halt!” Still coming, and without a moment’s hesitation. But why the hell didn’t he stop? Who was he? Closer now ... I could see him more clearly, swinging his arms—swinging his arms? Where were his weapons? Where was the rest of the patrol? Why didn’t he halt? Who the hell was he, anyway? What the hell was he? I yelled again and my voice was a scream, and he kept coming. Twenty feet away... fifteen ...tea... he was a Jerry! And Sturgos fired. Then at last he halted. He was unhurt: Sturgos had fired over his head. (I never asked John if his aim had been deliberate.)

  While John escorted our prisoner to the C.P., I started off to find out what tragic fate had overtaken the three men along the road. I had a cold presentiment of what I’d find—three bodies twisted and quiet in their muddy holes. I was wrong. They were twisted all right, but only because they had jammed together in one hole in order to converse more easily.

  After I’d recovered from the first shock of speechlessness, I asked mildly if they had seen “that joker who just went down the road.” Yes, they had. Had they challenged him? Yes, they had. Did he know the password? Well, they didn’t really know because he hadn’t answered their challenge. Had he halted upon their challenge? No, he’d just kept right on going. At that point I blew my stack! I chewed ass until I could almost taste the blood; I threatened them with one-man patrols and other fearsome penalties. I swore that I’d have their b---s hanging from the rooftree of the highest house in town. I put on a helluva fine show. And their answer? ‘Well, Sarge, we knew you and Sturgos were right there by the house, and when he didn’t stop, we figured you’d stop him and find out who he was!” How the hell did we win this war, anyway?

  There were other prisoners that night, but none that we had to persuade with bullets or go out and get. They just sort of filtered in. Seventy was the total company bag, and the company that relieved us took another sixty the following day. It was like scaring mice out of the straw.

  At five a.m. we were relieved and fed. We’d been hoping for a rest but had to clear the town of Bornheim and put out roadblocks. The town was partially captured, but fighting was still going on.

  Just after dawn on a cold, misty morning, we reached Bornheim. Skirting the edge of the town, we hastened to our assigned sectors. The platoon was split up, each of the three squads being given a separate road to clear. Mine was the road leading to the point, and my orders were to keep going until we reached a crossroads. According to our photo maps, there was a house at the crossroads, and in it I was to station an outpost.

  In cautious single file we started down the road, and as we drew near the first house, I saw three figures approaching us. The morning fog and the mist of rain on my glasses made vision doubly difficult, but I noted that the leading figure wore riding breeches and boots, a not unfamiliar civilian garb. We were not alarmed: we’d been encountering civilians all morning. But when this “civilian” suddenly whipped a burp gun from behind his back and opened fire on us, I realized I’d made a slight error in judgment. We hit the ground as one man and returned fire. There were no casualties. The three high-tailed it for cover, and a flurry of movement on the road behind them indicated there were others. In a flash the road was empty and the morning was hushed and still. We hugged the bank and I removed my glasses and wiped them dry so that I could see.

  Now, and for the first time, I felt a personal anger toward the enemy. In the wounding of Ketron and the death of Boyd Smith, there had been no impulse to anger. I accepted them as a part of the whole dirty business, inevitables to which a soldier gives a grudging nod and a shrug. My anger at the old civilian in the last town was the anger of a player at a spectator who tries to get into the game, the drunk who reels out on the field and intercepts a pass on the three-yard line, ruining the play. But this anger on the road out of Bornheim was a new emotion, a hot and blinding desire to punish opponents who would thus violate the rules of the game.

  All of the houses were still, too still. No morning smoke rising from the chimneys, no sound of life anywhere. The buildings looked peaceful enough—simply farmhouses that had not yet awakened. But I knew now that their sleepiness was a cheat, that within them was wakefulness and tense whispering and eyes watching—men with guns who wore civilian clothes and walked softly, smilers with knives. And my anger mounted. When Misa called to me from the window of a house behind us and said he’d send up a couple of tanks, I yelled back, “Hurry ’em up!”

  Soon the two tanks rumbled up, and the men hugging the bank fell in behind the first one as it passed. Crouched behind its protecting bulk, we moved slowly along the road until we were less than two hundred yards from the first house. In the field to our right a wounded German lay among the cabbages. We had nailed him in that first spit of fire. He waved and called and we ignored him, but he persisted, sniveling that he was gewunden until I told him to shut up, he’d be cared for by our medics very shortly. He at least was in his country’s uniform—it was the bugger in the civilian clothes whom we wanted to get.

  At last the tank groaned to a halt, as if to catch its breath. Then it lurched forward a few more yards, paused again, moved a little farther, and stopped once more. There was a moment of silence when the morning stood waiting, not breathing. Even the wounded man in the field ceased his moaning and was silent. A long moment ... then the cold snarl of machinery from the deep bowels of the tank and the grating of steel on steel. Smoothly, ominously, the long barrel of the 75 swung around, steadied, came to rest, pointed directly at the house. Another moment of silence while we peeped cautiously around the rear of the tank. Then the morning exploded and the tank reared up in the air a little and rocked back upon us, and we were frightened by the sudden swift life in this monstrous thing. When we looked again at the house, there was a gaping hole in its creamy plaster and dust rising in thick clouds, and there was the hoarse sound of wood tearing and the thumping of things falling on nearby roofs. The tank fired again, and a third time, and new holes appeared in flowers of dust. In the moment of silence between shells we could hear the hy
sterical squawking of chickens and the bawling of cattle. There were no human sounds ... or none that were recognizable as human.

  Six times the tank fired, and between rounds sprayed the house, the outbuildings, and the woods across the road with machine-gun bullets. The machine-gun fire flushed a single German soldier from the hill. He came toward us running, his hands strained so high above his head that he could barely keep his balance. He was young, not more than seventeen, and in uniform. A new uniform—the perfect picture of the Wehrmacht warrior, from shining helmet to form-fitting overcoat. The only unwarriorlike thing about him was the color of his face. A pasty green, it was shaking with fear, like a pudding being jiggled before it was set. Against the green skin the blond fuzz of his young beard and the adolescent pimples were pitiful and revolting. He could not control his trembling, and his body jerked violently with each roar of the 75. I sent him to the rear, and we moved forward with the tank for another seventy-five yards. The tank sprayed the house once more, and then we rushed.

  Kicking open the side door, I yelled the usual “Komme sie raus!” There was an answering wail (female) from the cellar and the hurried response (male), “Ja! Ich komme!” Colorless with fear, a middle-aged man climbed from the cellar and tremblingly approached. Stuttering incoherently, he swore that there were no German soldiers in the house, but I brushed past him and started down the cellar stairs, still angry and feeling very tough. My anger and my phony toughness vanished when I reached the cellar and saw the four women there, one of them holding a baby in her arms. Three of them were hysterical, and they huddled close to the old lady who stood erect and faced me. The unquestioned matriarch, she stood while the others whimpered against her skirts. In her upheld hands she held a crucifix, and by it and the Virgin Mother and Jesus Christ she swore there were no soldiers in the house. I believed her.

  This was total war, though not as total as had been visited upon Warsaw and Rotterdam and Stalingrad, and they had never expected it for themselves. And we pitied them and tried to despise them so that we wouldn’t hate ourselves too much.

  There were no Jerries in the next house, but we took one prisoner in the third. Now we could see the house at the crossroads, five hundred yards away. Five hundred yards of open ground—we’d have to run for it. We did.

  The house was empty. Behind it and curving to the left was a quarry, rimmed by a sand cliff two hundred feet high. At the quarry entrance, just behind the house, a small brick building snuggled against the base of the cliff. It seemed to be only a toolhouse or guard’s cottage, but we put a few bullets through the windows just for luck. Although there was no return fire, Sturgos and Berthot wanted to search it, and I told them to go ahead.

  As I walked toward the main house I heard the shattering Harness of exploding grenades behind me and swung about hastily. For a moment I stared, pop-eyed. A small group of German soldiers were plainly visible on the cliff top, leaning over the edge and dropping potato mashers on Sturgos and Berthot directly below, opening their hands and dropping the grenades casually. I heard Sturgos yell, “I’m hit!” and he came running toward me, his face streaked with blood. Behind him came Berthot. I sent Sturgos to the rear—he wasn’t badly hurt, fortunately—and asked for a tank to be sent up.

  Soon two light tanks approached, and I asked the gunner in the leading tank to dust the top of the cliff with .50 caliber machine-gun bullets. Far to the left a German soldier appeared on the rim of the quarry, his hands high above his head. He started in our direction, vanished in the depths of the quarry, and appeared again a few minutes later, still heading toward us. I screamed, "Schnell, schnell!" and he began to run faster. In a moment he had joined us behind the shelter of the tank, another green-faced adolescent warrior.

  Barely had he and the accompanying guard loped off to the rear when I heard a flat, evil explosion that seemed familiar. I turned toward the sound in time to see another shell explode not fifty yards away. In the air, a third mortar shell curved lazily downward, and from the look of it, our names and serial numbers were written on the nose. I yelled to the men and we raced for the cellar. As we reached safety there were two explosions, sharp and close together, and I knew that one of them was not a mortar shell. Then silence. I waited a moment, then crawled to the corner of the house for a look. Far down the road I could see the rear end of the second tank as it streaked toward town. And in the middle of the crossroads was the first tank, silent now, black smoke billowing from it, moving slowly and without direction toward the potato field across the road. It had received a direct hit from a German bazooka.

  Someone was calling. “Hey! Hey, soldier!” It was one of the tankers, crouching in a ditch fifty yards away. He yelled again, “Hey, go out and stop that tank!”

  With what I’ve always thought was rare wit, I bellowed back, “How do you expect me to stop the goddamn thing? With my foot?” What the hell did a rifleman know about the mysterious workings of a tank? And why the hell should I run across an open courtyard and risk my neck for his lousy tank when he could get to it himself and in safety by crawling up the ditch?

  The tank rolled relentlessly forward until it nudged into the soft earth of the plowed field. It stopped then, and slowly the smoke drifted away and all was quiet again. A few minutes later the tanker made a rush for it, frantically clambered inside, and seconds later it was roaring back to town, buckety-buckety. (It carried two dead men back—the gunner and the tank commander.)

  Now we were alone, my squad of three and myself, alone in a deserted farmhouse with the enemy on two sides, possibly three ... thick as crumbs at a lap supper. On our right lay a broad field and an orchard, and beyond it the section of town that was still in the hands of the Germans. Three of the four roads at our crossing led into enemy territory and were logical avenues of approach for an armored counterattack. There wasn’t any way out for us. The road to safety, the road back to town, was now exposed to the raking fire of the Germans on the cliff. And we hadn’t received any orders to pull out; we’d been told to “hold it.”

  That sounds like a bid for a tin medal. It isn’t. If I’d had any sense I would have pulled out order or no order. I stayed because I was so fuzzy-brained with weariness that I couldn’t think beyond the exigencies of the moment. My head was a squirrel cage rattling to the mechanical echo of the order I’d been given at a fresher time by someone else: “Set up a strong point in the house at the crossroads ... the house at the crossroads ... the house at the crossroads.” Okay, I stayed—not because I was filled with a holy fervor to go down valiant under many spears. I stayed because it didn’t occur to me that it was possible to leave.

  Anyway, there we were—four riflemen. Not even a bazooka or a BAR, just four rifles. Two of the men were my scouts, Bill Bowerman and Bob Berthot, both of Niagara Falls. About twenty years old and fine youngsters, but a little green. They’d been with the company only since February. The third man was older, but he’d been with us only four days. Fresh out of Jersey City, he had sailed from the States on February 10 and been whipped into a frontline outfit so fast that he was still dizzy. This was his first action, and he was unable to talk above a whisper, so shaky that he could not hold a match steady enough to light a cigarette.

  I scouted the house for defense positions and found one. One! Like the house in Drove, there were too few windows and one side of the house was a blank wall. No second-floor windows were usable. I posted a man at the one strategic window, put another at a window that faced our lines and cautioned him fiercely to watch for signs of activity in the town, some indication that help was on the way. I ordered the third man to rest for a while so that he could spell one of the other two later. I wandered restlessly from place to place, stoutly muttering words of encouragement though I knew damn well that my own tail was carving a deep groove in the ground behind me as I walked.

  I don’t know why a counterattack never came. We could have been set upon from three sides and we would have been helpless. But nothing happened, even though
our continued rifle fire must have informed the enemy of our presence. Perhaps they presumed a much larger force than four men: certainly we threw a helluva lot of lead in their direction to convince ’em of that. After a while we observed furtive movements away from the cliff, men running from secure positions, scampering over the skyline and away. One German behaved very strangely. I watched him descending the face of the cliff, apparently trying to get to the litlle brick house. When I nailed him, he did a flopping swan dive into a pile of brush behind the brick house and we saw him no more.