by Len Levinson
Lieutenant Woodward sped toward him and dived to his stomach a few feet away.
“Nobody ordered you to stop!” Woodward shouted at Mahoney.
Mahoney glared at him but said nothing.
“Why did you stop!” Woodward screamed.
“I couldn’t go any farther,” Mahoney replied calmly, as bullets whistled over their heads.
“You disobeyed an order!” Woodward said. “I’ll have you court-martialed for this!”
Mahoney swung his carbine at Woodward and pointed it at his head. “I’ve had just about enough of you,” Mahoney said.
Woodward’s eyes goggled at Mahoney’s carbine barrel a few inches from his nose. “Now just a minute!” he said, backing up.
“Go ahead and court-martial me!” Mahoney yelled above the din of battle. He tightened his finger on the trigger. “I dare you!”
“Have you gone crazy?”
Pfc Dryden ran toward them and dived to his stomach beside Lieutenant Woodward. “Captain Anderson wants you on the walkie-talkie, sir.”
Mahoney relaxed his finger on the trigger. Woodward, his hands trembling, grabbed the walkie-talkie.
“Woodward here!”
“Hold your men right where they are, Woodward! I’m sending the second platoon right up the middle, and I want you to cover them!”
“Sir!” said Woodward. “Sergeant Mahoney just tried to kill me!”
“WHAT!”
Woodward looked Mahoney in the eye. “I said Sergeant Mahoney just tried to kill me!”
“I don’t have time for this right now!” Captain Anderson replied. “Cover the second platoon!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Over and out.”
Woodward handed the walkie-talkie to Dryden. “Call the squads, and tell them to cover the second platoon.”
“Yes, sir.”
Woodward turned to Mahoney. “I’m going to see you hang for what you just did. You’re not going to get away with this one, Mahoney.”
Mahoney spit in Woodward’s face. “Fuck you,” he said.
Woodward lost control of himself and dived toward Mahoney, who brought the butt of his carbine around and walloped him coming in with all his strength. Woodward’s head nearly twisted off, and he fell to the ground with a broken jaw. His helmet had absorbed part of the blow, but he was unconscious and blood trickled out of his mouth onto the snow.
Dryden looked down at Woodward. “Oh-oh.”
Mahoney winked at him. “You didn’t see anything just now, did you Dryden?”
“Who me? No, Sarge, I didn’t see nothin’. What’ll we do with the son of a bitch?”
“What son of a bitch?” Mahoney asked innocently.
Mahoney turned to the front and saw the first platoon firing volleys at the German line, while the second platoon charged forward. The second platoon advanced to within twenty yards of the German line, where it was stopped by withering rifle and machine gun fire. The men of the second platoon dropped to their stomachs, hurling hand grenades and firing desperately.
Farther back, Captain Anderson was watching the battle through his binoculars when he saw the Germans debouch from the woods on both sides of the second platoon, evidently in an effort to envelop it. Captain Anderson dropped his binoculars and jumped to his feet because there was only one thing to do now. He raised his rifle high in the air and shouted “CHARLIE COMPANY—CHARGE!” Galloping past his men he pointed his carbine at the Germans. “FOLLOW ME!”
The GIs scrambled to their feet and followed their captain forward. Mahoney got up, pointed toward the Germans, and screamed, “KILL THE COCKSUCKERS!”
“BLOOD AND GUTS!” yelled the soldiers of the first platoon as they followed Mahoney. They shrieked rebel yells and Indian war calls as they swept across the snow. Cranepool slipped on a patch of ice and fell on his ass, but he bounced right up and kept going. The GIs shook their rifles and clenched their teeth because it was going to be down and dirty in just a few seconds. “YAAAAHHHHHH!” Cranepool yelled. “RIP THEIR FUCKING HEADS OFF!”
Mahoney was in front of the first platoon, his head hunched low and his knees kicking high. The Germans ran toward Charlie Company, shouting their own battle cries. Mahoney saw the Germans come closer, but he didn’t slow up because he knew he had the weight and speed to break right through their line.
The Germans came close enough so that Mahoney could see their faces, and they were unshaven and filthy like the Americans. Their eyes were bloodshot and their teeth were stained with tobacco. Americans and Germans screamed and yelled to give themselves courage as they came together and clashed on the snow.
Mahoney held his carbine in front of him and charged the German soldier in front of him like a football lineman. His strength and power bowled the German over, and Mahoney stepped on his face, his forward momentum still going. Another German came into his line of vision, and Mahoney fired his carbine from the waist, putting a red hole in the front of the German’s white camouflage suit. The German collapsed onto the snow just as a bullet whizzed past Mahoney’s ear. Mahoney spun around and saw an officer pointing a pistol at him. Mahoney threw his carbine at the officer, upsetting his aim, and then dived on him, grabbing his wrist with one hand and his throat with the other while kneeing him in the balls.
The German officer hollered in pain and dropped to his knees. Mahoney kicked him in the face, picked up his carbine and saw a dark blur moving toward his head. He angled his head toward it and saw stars as a German hit him in the helmet with his rifle butt. The German turned his rifle around to stick Mahoney with his bayonet, but Mahoney jumped to his feet.
The German lunged forward with his bayonet, and Mahoney parried it to the side, bringing his rifle butt around and slamming the German in the face. The German was stunned and took a step backwards, but Mahoney stayed after him, drew his arms back, and plunged his rifle and bayonet into the German’s ribs.
The German screamed horribly and dropped his rifle. Mahoney pulled back his carbine, but the goddamn thing wouldn’t come out. He pulled the trigger but the bolt went click—it was empty. He didn’t have time to fuck around, so he picked up the German’s rifle and spun around in time to see a German bayonet streaking toward his heart. Dodging to the side, the bayonet went by and ripped open the sleeve of his uniform.
Mahoney feinted with his bayonet, and the German pulled back his rifle to parry the blow that never came. The German was off balance, and Mahoney shot his rifle butt at the German’s head while the German raised his shoulder, where the blow connected, knocking the German to the side and causing him to lose his balance.
Mahoney drew his rifle and bayonet back and tried to harpoon the German lying on the ground, but the German, in a last desperate effort to save his life, reached up and grabbed Mahoney’s bayonet with his naked hands. The blade cut his hands to the bone, but he managed to hold on and push Mahoney’s thrust to the side.
Mahoney kicked him in the balls as he lay on the ground, and the German grunted, letting go of the bayonet. Mahoney aimed again and pushed it into the German’s stomach, and the German went limp as his blood darkened his white camouflage suit and stained his hands.
All around Mahoney, men struggled and tried to kill each other. They banged each other over the head with rifle butts and stabbed each other with bayonets. Occasionally one of them would be able to get off a clear shot, but the fighting was too close for much shooting. Men rolled over the snow, clutching each other by the throat and trying to knee each other.
Mahoney jumped in front of a German soldier who looked sixteen years old. Blond hair fell over his forehead, and he had the face of a baby about to cry. Mahoney put the full weight of his two hundred and twenty pounds behind the thrust of his bayonet, and the young German soldier tried to parry it, but he didn’t have the strength. Mahoney’s rifle and bayonet crashed through and impaled the young soldier in the chest, and the young soldier screeched in terror and pain. Mahoney yanked his bayonet out, bashed the kid in the face,
pushed him out of the way, and looked around.
The Germans were falling back. They’d been outnumbered, and they couldn’t stop the GIs. Some turned and ran, the others were cut down methodically.
Mahoney dropped to one knee, aimed his German rifle at a fleeing German soldier, and squeezed off the round. A red sunburst appeared in the back of the German’s camouflage suit as he tripped and pitched onto his face.
Chapter Eight
Claire sat with her back leaning against the oak tree and heard fusillades of gunfire coming from the American lines. Franz stood over her, holding his rifle loosely, perceiving the sorrow on her face and thinking of his two sisters in Stuttgart.
Colonel Richter walked toward them, his face flushed with excitement. He pointed to Franz. “Leave us alone for a few moments!”
“Yes, sir.”
Richter placed his hands on his hips and looked down at Claire. “How are you faring, my dear?”
She looked up at him, her eyes like two chips of ice “I’m not your ‘dear.’”
He laughed. “Of course you are. You may deny it all you want, but you are.” He knelt in front of her. “You and I are stamped from the same mold, Claire. We’re made for each other, whether you like it or not.”
“We’re not stamped from the same mold,” she replied, “and we’re not made for each other.”
“That’s not the impression I got when we were in bed together last night and you were scratching my back and begging for more.”
She looked away, and wondered how she could have done all those things. “I hate you,” she said in a whisper.
“I know how you Americans don’t like to surrender,” he told her, placing his hand on her knee, “but you will surrender to me sooner or later and admit the truth.”
“The truth is that I hate you.”
“You won’t say that tonight when I have you in my arms, but anyway, I don’t have any more time to spend with you right now. My battalion is advancing toward your comrades even as I speak, and I must go to lead them. If anything happens to me, I shall die with your name on my lips.”
“I don’t care what you have on your lips,” she replied, “just as long as you die.”
“If I do die, nobody would cry more than you, I assure you. Your problem is that you can’t admit how you really feel.” He stood and tugged at the wristlets of his black leather gloves. “But you will.”
He walked away, swinging his arms back and forth and stopped near Major Glucker and Private Hendl, who held out a white camouflage uniform to him. Hendl helped him put it on, and then the three of them moved into the woods, heading toward the fighting.
~*~
The Charlie Company soldiers lay on their stomachs and faced east as they awaited further orders. Captain Anderson sat behind a boulder to their rear, as Pfc Spicer listened to the radio for the latest orders from battalion.
Lieutenant Woodward, his jaw broken and blood streaming from his left ear, staggered behind the boulder and dropped to his knees in front of Captain Anderson.
“My God!” said Captain Anderson. “MEDIC!”
Woodward coughed up blood and spit it out. His jaw was out of line with the rest of his face and his voice came out muffled. “Mahoney did this to me,” he said, “and I want him court-martialed!”
Pfc Johnson, one of the company medics, came running and saw Woodward’s bloody face. He kneeled beside Woodward and touched his jaw while Captain Anderson pondered what Woodward had said. He had a pretty good idea of what had happened.
Woodward flinched and yelped in pain as Johnson felt his jaw. Johnson turned to Captain Anderson. “It’s broken, sir. He’ll have to go back to the field hospital.”
“Of course, it’s broken!” Woodward screamed, his words garbled. “Sergeant Mahoney attacked me when I wasn’t looking! I demand that he be court-martialed at once!”
“At once?” asked Captain Anderson. “You mean right now?”
“You can at least place him under arrest!”
“Listen Lieutenant,” Captain Anderson said, “I feel very sorry about what happened to you, but I’m in the middle of an attack right now, and I don’t have time to hold a court-martial or place one of my best platoon sergeants under arrest on your say-so.”
Woodward pointed a quivering finger at Captain Anderson. “That’s dereliction of duty!” he said. “If you try to protect Mahoney, you’ll go down with him!”
Pfc Spicer interrupted them. “Sir,” he said to Captain Anderson, “Major Cutler wants to speak with you.”
Captain Anderson took the headset and held it against his face. “This is Charlie Company,” he said.
“It looks like we’ve breached their forward lines,” Major Cutler said through the earpiece. “Get your company moving, but be sure you stay linked up with Baker Company on your right and the first battalion on your left. How’s your ammunition situation?”
“Good so far.”
“Casualties?”
“Twelve dead, about fifteen wounded.”
“Move out Captain, and good luck.”
Captain Anderson handed the headset to Pfc Spicer and got to his feet. “Notify the platoons that we’re moving out right now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“WHAT ABOUT ME!” Woodward screamed.
“Do you think you can get back to the field hospital by yourself, or should I send somebody with you?”
Woodward staggered to his feet and held both his hands to his jaw. “You’re behaving as if you don’t know that one of your officers has been assaulted by one of your men. You can’t let Mahoney get away with this.”
Captain Anderson ejected the clip from his carbine and inserted a full one. “Lieutenant Woodward,” he said, “I’ll look into this matter when I have time. Do you or don’t you need help to get to the battalion field hospital?”
“I can go myself,” Lieutenant Woodward replied, “and when I finish there, I’m taking this matter to Colonel Sloan at battalion, because I can see that the Uniform Code of Military Justice means nothing in this company.”
“Do whatever you like,” Captain Anderson said, “but I’ve got to get going.”
Captain Anderson walked away, followed by Sergeant Futch, Pfc Spicer, and several other GIs who travelled with Captain Anderson. Pfc Johnson continued to probe Woodward’s jaw.
“I can bandage that up for you if you like,” Johnson said.
“Get out of my way,” Lieutenant Woodward snarled, pushing him aside.
Holding his jaw with both hands, Lieutenant Woodward staggered toward the rear.
Meanwhile, Charlie Company formed its skirmish line and prepared to move toward Comblain. Mahoney didn’t know where Woodward had gone but was glad to have full command of his old first platoon again. To his left, he could see the first battalion also lined up and getting ready to continue the assault. Mahoney hadn’t been able to find his carbine, so he was carrying an M-1 rifle he’d taken from a dead GI. It was heavier and more substantial than a carbine when it came to bayonet fighting, and he expected more of that before the day was out.
“Move it out!” yelled Captain Anderson.
Charlie Company stepped forward into no-man’s-land, holding their rifles ready and knowing that they’d run into more Germans before long. So far, they’d only broken the outer crust of the German positions, and the tough core was straight ahead.
“Keep it dressed up,” Mahoney shouted to the first platoon, “and make sure the only people you shoot are Germans!”
They passed through a forest that had been decimated by the earlier artillery shelling. It looked haunted and weird with its broken twisted trees and shell craters in the snow. Dead Germans lay everywhere in grotesque positions.
A German body in front of Mahoney moved, and Mahoney fired two shots at it from his waist. The first shot tore apart the German’s shoulder, and the second burrowed into his chest. Mahoney approached the German cautiously and kicked him. The toe of Mahoney’s boot made a thud sound
because the German nearly was frozen solid, and his movement had been the effect of the temperature.
“Keep moving!” Mahoney called to his platoon. “Keep your eyes open!”
Charlie Company advanced through the devastated forest, and everyone searched for signs of the next German line. Mahoney thought of Lieutenant Woodward and wondered where he’d gone. He hoped he’d killed him because if he hadn’t, Woodward would probably make trouble.
A German machine gun went burp-burp in front of Charlie Company, and all the soldiers dived to the ground.
“WHERE’S THAT FUCKING GUN?” Captain Anderson yelled.
Mahoney scanned the foliage in front of the first platoon and saw smoke and sparks in the underbrush. “I see it!” he replied.
“TAKE CARE OF IT!”
“YES, SIR!” Mahoney said. “RIGGS—GET OVER HERE!”
“HUP SARGE!”
Riggs jumped up and ran toward Mahoney, lugging a walkie-talkie, bazooka, and his carbine. He was a gawky young man with bulging eyes and the face of a camel, and everyone in the first platoon knew he was a psycho case, but he was their psycho case.
Riggs flopped down beside Mahoney. “Here I am, big Sergeant!”
“Gimme that fucking bazooka, and prepare to load it up!”
“Hup Sarge!”
Mahoney cupped his hands around his mouth. “First and second squads—move in on that machine gun nest from the side! After I fire two bazooka rounds, I want you to take it by assault!”
Cranepool and Leary moved their squads forward as Mahoney screwed both halves of the bazooka together. The GIs from Charlie Company were aiming a hail of hot lead at the machine gun nest, but it continued to fire anyway. Mahoney rose to one knee and put the bazooka on his shoulder, as bullets whizzed around him.
“Load me up!” he said.
Riggs raised himself cautiously, but machine gun bullets kicked up snow near him, and he dived down again.
“I said load me up!” Mahoney shouted angrily.
“You’d better get down, Sarge,” Riggs said through chattering teeth.
