by Len Levinson
“TAKE COVER!” he screamed.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and continued to shout. The men who’d been charging dived into the craters made by the mortar rounds. The craters were four feet deep with sloping sides, not much protection but better than nothing.
The mortar rounds poured down on Charlie Company. Mahoney took one last look at Captain Anderson, then dived into the nearest hole with Futch and Spicer.
“Gimme the radio,” Mahoney said.
Spicer turned around and presented the radio on his back to Mahoney, who took the headset and called battalion headquarters.
A lieutenant named Berger came over the airwaves.
“We’re under heavy mortar fire!” Mahoney said. “Captain Anderson is dead, and I’ve taken command of Charlie Company! You’ve got to do something to stop those mortars!”
“Help is on the way,” said Lieutenant Berger. “Try to hang on.”
Mahoney put down the headset. A mortar round smacked into the ground nearby, and the concussion caved in the side of the crater he was in. Chunks of frozen earth and snow covered his legs.
“KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN!” he shouted. “HELP IS ON THE WAY!”
Mahoney hoped they’d send tanks. “We need another hole,” he said to Futch. “This one’s fucked up.”
“I ain’t going out there,” Futch said. He turned to Spicer. “Clean out this hole.”
“Hup Sarge!”
Spicer took his entrenching tool and adjusted the blade. He shoveled the frozen dirt out of the crater, but to do so he had to raise his head a little.
“Keep your head down,” Mahoney said to him.
“Hup Sarge!”
Spicer shoveled out another load of dirt and raised his head for just a moment. A mortar round hit the earth twenty yards away and exploded. A chunk of the shell casing blew away and hit Spicer on his nose, tearing off the top of his head.
A fountain of blood gushed into the air, and Spicer collapsed into the crater, his brains spilling out of his head cavity.
“OH MY GOD!” screamed Futch.
Spicer’s brains steamed in the snow. Mahoney bent over his body and unstrapped the field radio. “I don’t know about you,” he said to Futch, “but I’m not staying in this hole anymore!”
Mahoney picked up the radio, jumped out of the hole, and ran a few yards to the next one, diving into it head first as mortar rounds still rained down on the field. He got up and looked around. Futch hadn’t followed him, but that was okay. He didn’t need Futch. Tanks were what he needed.
He heard a roar of engines. They didn’t sound like tank engines, and then he realized they were planes. He looked up but couldn’t see through the smoke. Then he realized that the planes were coming from the wrong direction. They were German planes, and their engines snarled viciously as they came in for their strafing run.
“KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN!” Mahoney yelled.
He heard machine guns firing in the wings of the planes, and bullets stitched across the field. The mortar rounds stopped landing, and Mahoney guessed the Germans were getting ready to counterattack, and in fact probably were already on their way across the field.
If he told his men to retreat, they’d be cut down by the planes, but if they stayed where they were they’d be killed or taken prisoner by the advancing Germans.
A decision had to be made, and there wasn’t any time to bullshit around. Something told him just to get the fuck out of there.
“PULL BACK!” Mahoney shouted. “RETREAT!”
He picked up the radio by its shoulder straps and jumped out of the hole.
“LET’S GO!” he screamed.
The men heard him and climbed out of their holes. They saw him running away with the field radio in his left hand and his rifle in his right, and they followed him, running in zigzags and keeping their heads low.
The German fighter planes swooped down and opened fire, but the GIs were changing directions quicker than the planes could follow them. The planes fired wildly and passed over the GIs heads, as the GIs swung their arms back and forth and kicked their knees high.
Mahoney heard the sound of engines coming from the direction toward which he was running. He looked up to see American planes streaking across the sky. The strafing ended as the German fighter planes climbed to fight the Americans. Mahoney reached the edge of the woods.
“TAKE COVER IN HERE!” he yelled.
He flopped behind a tree and tried to catch his breath. The men followed him in, jumping into shell holes and behind trees, their faces distorted by exhaustion and panic.
“FUTCH!” Mahoney yelled.
No one answered.
“FUTCH!”
Mahoney heard a voice coming from behind a tree. “I don’t think he made it!”
“CRANEPOOL!”
Mahoney was afraid there’d be no answer but then heard the sound of galloping footsteps, and Cranepool burst through a bush, running toward Mahoney and dropping beside him. “Captain Anderson is dead,” Mahoney said, “and Futch hasn’t come back. I’m the new acting company commander, and you’re the new acting first sergeant.”
“But I’m only a corporal!” Cranepool protested.
“You’re the first sergeant of Charlie Company until further notice. RIGGS!”
“HERE I AM, SARGE!” Riggs cried from someplace to the left.
“GET YOUR FUCKING ASS OVER HERE!”
“HUP SARGE!”
Riggs jumped up and sped toward Mahoney, who glanced up at the dogfights in the sky. Bringing his binoculars to his eyes, he looked straight ahead and saw the dark shapes of German soldiers coming through the smoke. Riggs crashed down beside Mahoney, “Here I am, Sarge!”
Mahoney looked at him. “Riggs, you’re the new acting company clerk. Get me battalion on the radio.”
“Hup Sarge!”
Mahoney turned to the front again, and saw the German soldiers advancing with fixed bayonets. There were a lot of them, and Mahoney didn’t think the rest of his company could hold them.
“Here’s battalion,” Riggs said, handing over the headset.
Mahoney held it to his face. “This is Sergeant Mahoney in Charlie Company,” he said. “If we don’t get help real soon, we’ll have to pull back.”
Major Cutler was on the other end. “You don’t think you can hold on where you are?”
“Not a chance, sir.”
“Then retreat slowly, and try to stay linked up with Baker Company on your left and Easy Company of the Second Battalion on your right.”
Mahoney had no idea of where these units were, but he said, “Yes, sir. Can we expect any relief here?”
“We’re doing what we can. Over and out.”
Mahoney handed the headset to Riggs and wondered how many men he had left. He estimated around forty. Hundreds of Germans were coming across the field.
“PULL BACK!” Mahoney shouted. “TRY TO STAY TOGETHER!”
The GIs came out of their holes and withdrew, moving quickly through the woods and looking back over their shoulders. They passed the system of foxholes and bunkers they’d used the night before and kept plunging into the woods. German bullets whizzed around them and whacked into trees. The GIs kept their heads down and kept moving, feeling sick about being pushed back this way.
Mahoney kept them spread out enough so that one German artillery shell wouldn’t destroy the whole company. It was hard for him to accept that Captain Anderson was dead because he couldn’t imagine Charlie Company without him.
They heard sounds of shovels and pickaxes. Soldiers were hastily trying to put together a line of defense. Charlie Company came to the new line and saw the Twenty-eighth Regiment digging in and setting up machine gun nests.
A major walked toward Mahoney. “What unit are you men with?” he asked.
Mahoney saluted. “We’re Charlie Company from the Fifteenth Regiment, and the krauts are right behind us!”
“Tell your men to take cover!”
The major t
urned around and told the men around him to get ready because the Germans were coming. The men jumped into their half-dug foxholes or got behind machine guns.
Mahoney’s men dropped into trenches with the men from the Twenty-eighth Division. The Germans appeared as vague movements in the woods ahead. American machine guns opened fire and blanketed the woods with bullets. The Germans dropped down, were silent for a few moments, and then their mortars started firing. The first few rounds were wild, and then the American mortars started up. The mortar squads from both sides refined their aim and soon were lobbing shells on each other, but the Germans weren’t dug in and the Americans were.
“HERE THEY COME!” somebody yelled.
Mahoney peered through the smoke and branches and saw the Germans advancing with fixed bayonets through the mortar barrage. The machine gunners tried to cut them down but had difficulty aiming because of German fire.
“STAND FAST, MEN!” yelled the major. “FIX BAYONETS!”
Clanks and rattles could be heard from all directions as the men affixed their bayonets to their rifles, then raised them to their shoulders again and resumed firing at the advancing Germans.
The American mortar barrage blew apart the forest through which the Germans advanced, but it didn’t stop them. They’d suffered defeats and reversals for the past several days and were now exhilarated by the ground they’d taken back. They advanced slowly, one wave covering the other, and then finally their mortars stopped, and they all got up to make a mad charge on the American position.
Mahoney stood shoulder to shoulder with the other GIs in the trench and fired his M-1 as fast as he could pull the trigger. Hordes of running, screaming Germans were bearing down on them, and the GIs shot them down in huge numbers, but still they kept coming. Mahoney’s empty clip flew into the air, and he stuffed a new one into the chamber, again firing as fast as he could.
The Germans jumped over their dead and continued to run forward. They dodged around trees and jumped over shell holes, shouting victoriously, certain they’d be in Bastogne by sundown. The fire in front of them became withering, but their officers and NCOs urged them on. The German soldiers were hungry, cold, and half-crazy. They screamed and shook their rifles as they sped through the woods.
They came so close that Mahoney could see their faces. He fired at one of them and brought him down. Moving his rifle two inches to the side, he fired again and put a bullet through another German’s stomach. He moved his rifle again, took quick aim, and squeezed the trigger. Yet another German fell to the ground.
The Germans came within grenade range. Mahoney pulled one from his lapel, yanked the pin, and let it fly. Other GIs in the trench did the same thing. The grenades exploded and sent Germans flying in all directions, but the wind blew the smoke away, and most of the Germans were continuing their charge.
Mahoney kept firing until the Germans were right on top of him, then held his bayonet straight up like a lance and impaled one of them as he tried to jump into the trench. The German shrieked and wiggled on the end of the bayonet. Mahoney threw him off the way a farmer throws hay off a bale of hay with a pitchfork. He held out his bayonet again and caught another German on it, tossing him to the ground and yanking out the bayonet.
The trench filled up with Germans. Mahoney ran one through before his feet even hit the ground, then pulled out in time to parry the thrust from another one. He came around with his rifle butt and smacked the German in the face, busting some bones and knocking him unconscious.
Another German jumped in front of Mahoney, and Mahoney got ready for him. Mahoney feinted with his rifle and bayonet, and the German raised his rifle to parry the thrust that never came. Instead, Mahoney rammed his bayonet below the German’s rifle into his belly, and the German moaned as his blood welled out around Mahoney’s bayonet.
Mahoney yanked his bayonet out and looked around. The trench was so crowded with men grunting and stabbing each other he could hardly move. He jumped out of the trench to the ground behind it and stood ready with his rifle and bayonet, waiting for a German to come for him.
One accepted the challenge and he was as big as Mahoney with a scar running down his face from his eyebrow to the bottom of his ear. He climbed out of the trench and grinned like a bloodthirsty pirate. Advancing toward Mahoney, he appeared cocky, as if he could kill Mahoney the way he swatted a fly.
His manner made Mahoney mad. Another fucking arrogant German, he thought, raising his rifle. They’re either at your feet or at your throat. The German screamed and lunged at Mahoney, driving his rifle and bayonet forward with all the strength in his powerful arms.
Mahoney dodged out of the way and got set again. The German changed his direction and made another charge, but this time Mahoney’s right foot was planted firmly behind him. He caught the German’s rifle in a parry and pushed it aside. Continuing his motion, Mahoney brought the butt of his rifle around so he could slam the German in the face with it, but the German ducked and Mahoney’s rifle butt passed over his head.
The German was too close to use his rifle, so he dropped it and grabbed Mahoney’s throat, pressing his thumbs on Mahoney’s Adam’s apple. Mahoney made an inverted V with his hands and arms and shot them into the air between the German’s grip. He knocked the German’s hands loose from his throat and then kneed him in the balls, but the German darted back and Mahoney missed.
The two men glared at each other, breathing hard. Neither had a weapon in his hand. The German reached toward his belt and pulled out a small dagger, which he sliced through the air a few times, before advancing toward Mahoney, who reached into his pocket, pulled out his old New York switchblade, and hit the button. The blade snapped open, and it was four inches long.
The fighting had spilled out of the trench, and men grappled with each other all around Mahoney and the German, but they only had eyes for each other. They circled each other, standing on the balls of their feet and feinting with their knives. The German smiled, and Mahoney smiled back at him. The German tossed his dagger from hand to hand, trying to be fancy and catch Mahoney off balance, and Mahoney knew then that he had the German beaten because you shouldn’t waste a move in a knife fight.
He lunged at the German while the knife was in midair, and it took the German a split second too long to catch his knife and get ready. Mahoney plunged his knife to the hilt in the German’s stomach, and New York’s Hell’s Kitchen had defeated the gutters of Hamburg. The German looked surprised and tried to smile as if he wasn’t hurt, but his knife slipped out of his hands, and he was defenseless.
Mahoney pulled his switch out and drove it in again. He yanked it, turned it around in his fist, and stabbed the tottering German in the heart. Blood gushed out around the knife, and the German staggered to the side. Mahoney pulled the knife out, closed the blade, dropped it into his pocket, and picked up a shovel he saw lying at his feet. The German collapsed onto the ground, and he wasn’t smiling anymore.
Mahoney looked around and saw two Germans trying to kill a GI with their bayonets. Mahoney came up behind one of them, pulled the shovel back like a harpoon, aimed at the German’s neck, and shot it forward, catching the German just where he’d aimed and severing his spinal cord.
The German fell backwards, and Mahoney snatched the rifle and bayonet out of his hands. He stabbed the other German in the kidney, spun around, and saw another German getting ready to stab him in the back. Mahoney managed to parry the blow and hit the German on the chin with a vertical butt stroke, snapping his head back, and as he was falling, Mahoney rammed his bayonet through the German’s lower abdomen.
A shot rang out, and Mahoney felt pain in his left arm. He looked up and saw a German firing his rifle from the hip. He maintained his aim at Mahoney, worked the bolt of his rifle, and then another shot echoed through the woods. For a moment Mahoney thought he’d been shot in the heart, but then he saw the red stain on the front of the German’s camouflage suit. The German spun around and collapsed onto the ground. Mahoney glanc
ed about but couldn’t figure out who’d fired the shot that had saved his life.
The vicious, hand-to-hand battle continued, with Mahoney in the middle of it, swinging his German rifle and bayonet, stabbing and butting Germans like a killing machine. Blood soaked into his sleeve from the bullet in his arm, but still he kept fighting. The ground became so littered with bodies that he couldn’t move without stepping on one. Blood was everywhere; men screamed, and bayonets clashed against bayonets.
There were too many Germans, and the major saw that his men couldn’t hold the line. He fired his pistol at a German who was charging at him with rifle and bayonet, and then shot down the German beside him.
“RETREAT!” the major yelled. “PULL BACK!”
The GIs tried to disengage and fight their way out of the mess. It turned out not to be as difficult as they’d imagined because the Germans didn’t want to pursue them. Evidently they were tired and just wanted to occupy the position they’d just taken.
The Americans ran wildly through the woods, and the Germans fired their rifles at their backs. Mahoney thought he’d get shot at any moment as he tried to put as many trees as he could between him and the Germans. Bullets whizzed through the air and ricocheted off boulders. The Germans set up their mortars and lobbed shells onto the Americans.
The forest became a nightmare of exploding mortar rounds and deadly bullets. Mahoney thought he’d be safe in about another two or three hundred yards. He gulped down air and his chest ached from the effort. He thought his legs would give out underneath him, but he kept going. A mortar round blew down a tree in front of him, and he leapt over it like a racehorse at Belmont Park. Other GIs were in a worse panic than he, and many had thrown their rifles and packs away so they’d be lighter.
Mahoney ran around a boulder and jumped over a frozen brook. He took three more steps, heard a terrific roar, and the forest disintegrated before his eyes. Floating through the air, he blacked out for a few moments, and when he came to, he was lying on his back, looking up at the treetops.
