Bloody Bush

by Len Levinson

  Mahoney and Cranepool walked toward the tank and looked at the four prongs in front.

  “Hey sir,” Cranepool called up to the lieutenant, “what are these things for?”

  The lieutenant smiled and wiped perspiration from his forehead. “They’re called hedge spades. They cut through hedgerows like they were made of fudge.”

  “No shit,” Cranepool said.

  ‘That’s right,” the lieutenant replied.

  ‘They really work?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “That’s a great idea, sir,” Cranepool said. “I wonder who thought of it.”

  “A sergeant from New York, I heard,” the lieutenant said.

  Cranepool turned to Mahoney. “Hey—how about that. The tank can go right through hedgerows. The guy who thought of this must be a smart son of a bitch, huh?”

  Mahoney stared at the hedge spades. “Must be,” he agreed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Mahoney and Cranepool lay in a foxhole near the road between Saint Lo and Coutances. It was nearly dawn and the saturation bombing of Germans on the other side of the road was scheduled to begin any moment.

  Mahoney huddled against the dirt wall of the foxhole and puffed a cigar. He watched Cranepool eating a can of franks and beans. Ever since the problem in Saint Lo, Cranepool had been eating food, scrounging food, and squirreling away food. He’d buried cans of food throughout the Charlie Company area and had cans stuffed in his shirt, pack, and all his pockets. Mahoney figured that Cranepool would be shipped out to a psycho ward any day now. The kid looked as though he’d gained fifteen pounds in the past few days, and he’d had to get a bigger pair of pants from the quartermaster.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Cranepool said, stuffing half a frankfurter into his mouth.

  Mahoney looked sideways at him. Mahoney was sleepy, unshaven, and had developed a bothersome itch in his crotch. “No kidding,” he grunted.

  “Don’t you wanna know what I’ve been thinking?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m just not interested.”

  “I’ll tell you anyway,” Cranepool said, gesticulating with his fork. “I’ve been thinking—what would happen if our own planes bombed us again?”

  “You worry too much,” Mahoney said.

  “It could happen,” Cranepool insisted.

  Mahoney slapped the air with his big hand. “Nah—it couldn’t happen again. They fucked up in a big way once and they won’t dare to do it again. They’ll be extra careful this time. They’ll be so careful that they might not even hit the Krauts.”

  “I don’t know,” Cranepool said. “I couldn’t shit this morning, and whenever I can’t shit something bad usually happens.”

  “You can’t shit because you eat too much,” Mahoney pointed out. “Your tubes are clogged up with all the garbage you’re eating, you fucking chowhound bastard.”

  Cranepool looked embarrassed. “Maybe you’re right. But I’m hungry all the time.”

  “What a fucking asshole you turned out to be.”

  “But I’m hungry all the time.”

  “So eat, but stop talking about it all the time.”

  “Hup Sarge.”

  Cranepool spooned the beans into his mouth, and Mahoney closed his eyes. The war was getting him down. It was day after day of mud and death and he thought that the Graves Registration Squad would get him one of these days. I’ll never survive this war, he thought. The law of averages is against me.

  He heard a faint hum from the north. Opening his eyes, he listened and sniffed the damp morning air. “I think I hear them,” he said.

  “How come you always hear everything before me?”

  “Because you eat too much.”

  The hum grew louder, and Cranepool hurriedly finished his franks and beans. He tossed the can out of the foxhole and lit a cigarette. They’d been told that the airplanes would bomb for two days, and then they’d attack all along the front. Cranepool lay in his side of the foxhole and leisurely smoked the cigarette. He was looking forward to two restful and nutritious days.

  Mahoney looked out of the trench and saw the waves of planes coming in low on the horizon. They darkened the dawn sky, making it appear night again.

  “They look awfully low,” Mahoney said.

  “Oh-oh,” Cranepool said. “I told you.” He pulled his steel pot low over his ears.

  “Cut that shit out!” Mahoney snapped.

  Mahoney watched the planes draw closer. He didn’t believe that they’d short-bomb again, but he was keeping his eyes on them just to make sure. His jaw dropped open when he saw little black dots appear underneath one of the planes, and then another.

  “I don’t believe it!” he said.

  Cranepool looked up, an expression of horror on his face. “Oh no!”

  “Hit it!” Mahoney screamed.

  Sirens went off and whistles blew as the bombs dropped through the morning sky. The first ones landed on an artillery battery, blowing a few cannons and crews into the air, and then the bombs fell forward toward the companies on the line.

  Mahoney and Cranepool clawed at the bottom of their foxhole, trying to get as deep as possible. The earth shook and bits of metal whistled through the air. The second squad of the third platoon, which never had seen combat before, received a bomb in its midst and was blown to kingdom come before it ever had a chance to fire a shot in anger. Another bomb landed on the mess tent, and the only food remaining in Charlie Company was on the person of Corporal Edward Cranepool. A bomb landed ten yards from Mahoney’s trench, and one wall caved in, covering Mahoney with dirt.

  “I don’t believe it!” Mahoney said, spitting dirt out of his mouth. “I just don’t believe it!”

  Cranepool tried to burrow his head underneath his right armpit. “You shoulda listened to me,” he mumbled to Mahoney.

  “I can’t take this anymore!” Mahoney screamed, snorting and spitting dirt. “I really can’t take this anymore!” He punched the dirt with all his might and nearly broke his hand.

  A bomb landed on the second platoon latrine, sending shit flying everywhere. One of the turds landed on Sergeant Mahoney’s helmet, and when he got a whiff of it he lost his mind.

  “Lemme out of here!” he yelled, tearing off his helmet. He threw his helmet in the air, jumped up, and started running.

  “Come back here, Mahoney!” Cranepool yelled after him.

  “I can’t take it anymore!” Mahoney screamed, running in a zigzag pattern, waving his arms wildly in the air.

  “Come back!” Cranepool cried.

  Mahoney couldn’t hear him because bombs were bursting all around. He looked up at the sky and punched at the planes. “You cock-suckers!” Mahoney screamed. “You blind bastards!”

  A bomb landed near him and threw a large rock in the air. The rock bounced off Mahoney’s head, and he toppled unconscious into a hole.

  Cranepool saw him go down and thought he’d been killed. “Mahoney!” he yelled, jumping out of the trench. Holding his helmet on his head, he ran across the battlefield toward Mahoney. Bombs fell all around him and shrapnel whistled past his ears but still he kept going. A head without a body fell to the ground in front of him and he jumped over it, running a few more yards and diving into the hole with Mahoney.

  Mahoney lay on his back, bleeding from his forehead. Cranepool pulled his field dressing from the pouch on his cartridge belt, tore off the wrapper, and pressed it against Mahoney’s head, feeling Mahoney’s pulse with his free hand.

  The pulse was beating strongly. Cranepool removed the dressing from Mahoney’s head and saw only a two-inch cut. He checked Mahoney over but could see no more blood.

  “Are you okay, Sarge?” Cranepool asked hopefully.

  Mahoney opened his eyes to half-mast. “I can’t take it anymore,” he said dazedly.

  “Sure you can, Sarge,” Cranepool said cheerfully.

  A bomb landed nearby, covering them both with dirt.
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  “You’re bombing my men again!” General Bradley screamed into his telephone.

  “I am?” asked General Saunders.

  “Yes!”

  “My goodness. I wonder what went wrong this time?”

  “Can’t your men see?” Bradley demanded.

  “Of course they can see. We’ll just have to get better coordinated next time.”

  “Listen here,” General Bradley said, “if this keeps up—there might not be a next time because I won’t have any men left!”

  “My entire front is aflame!” Field Marshal von Kluge said into his telephone.

  “What does that mean in military terms?” Hitler asked, sitting in the Chancellery in Berlin.

  “It means that my front has been under intense bombing all day! The Americans are planning a major attack!”

  “Counterattack with the Panzer Lehr Division. They’re a fine unit and they’ll roll the Americans back.”

  “Mein Fuehrer,” von Kluge said, “the Panzer Lehr Division no longer exists.”

  “Beg your pardon?” Hitler said. “We must have a bad connection because I thought you said that the Panzer Lehr Division no longer exists.”

  “That’s precisely what I said, Mein Fuehrer.”

  “It no longer exists!” Hitler’s right arm began to shake uncontrollably.

  “That is correct.”

  “How can that be?”

  “It has been bombed until there’s nothing left of it. We estimate that the Allies have dropped more than four thousand tons of bombs on our front.”

  “That much?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm. I’ll have to think about this.”

  “I have a possible solution, if you don’t mind me mentioning it,” von Kluge said.

  “Go right ahead,” Hitler told him.

  “Let me have the Fifteenth Army.”

  “What about Army Group Patton?”

  “If he hasn’t come by now, he’s never coming. Besides, if I can’t hold the front in Normandy, we’ll lose France anyway.”

  “Hmmm,” said Hitler.

  “May I have the Fifteenth Army?”

  “I suppose we don’t have any choice in this matter, do we?”

  “As a matter of fact, we don’t.”

  “It’ll take a while to get them mobilized,” Hitler pointed out.

  “They’re already mobilized,” von Kluge told him.

  “They are?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “I mobilized them.”

  “Who gave you permission?”

  “No one. I hope you’ll forgive me for taking the measure myself.”

  Hitler sighed. “You did the right thing, von Kluge.”

  “Thank you, Mein Fuehrer. And now please permit me to explain my plan.”

  “By all means do.”

  “The Americans will attack at any moment. They will not meet much resistance, and will become confident. Then, when they least expect it, they will be attacked by the entire Fifteenth Army. The attack will be so fast and merciless that it should split the American lines in two. We’ll cut off the Cherbourg Peninsula, encircle them, and set to work destroying them. Perhaps by then, you’ll have your new weapons operational.”

  “Perhaps,” Hitler said.

  “Do I have your permission to proceed?”

  “You have.”

  “Thank you, Mein Fuehrer.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mahoney had a big scab on his forehead but it couldn’t be seen because he wore his steel pot low over his eyes. One of Cranepool’s cigarettes stuck out the corner of his mouth because he had no more cigars.

  It was daybreak and Mahoney crouched in a foxhole with Cranepool. The Charlie Company area was filled with holes, and Charlie Company had lost forty percent of its men in the short-bombing.

  “There he goes,” Cranepool murmured, chinning toward the center of the line.

  Mahoney looked and saw Captain Kirk, the new company commander, walk to their front with his forty-five high in the air.

  “Let’s move it out!” Kirk said.

  Charlie Company came out of their holes and followed Captain Kirk into no man’s land. Simultaneously the entire Hammerhead Division and most of the Third Army did the same thing.

  They moved forward slowly, crouched over and ready to kill Germans, but no live Germans were to be seen. There were plenty of dead Germans though, and portions of dead Germans. There also were many disabled German tanks.

  They made their way through holes in the hedgerows, and the tanks sliced through with their hedge spades. After several hundred yards Charlie Company saw some Germans walking around in a daze, and took them prisoner. A little farther on, some Germans fired a machine gun at Charlie Company from a foxhole, but a tank rolled over the foxhole and crushed them alive.

  “Gee,” Cranepool said to Mahoney. “It doesn’t look as though there are many Germans left out here.”

  Mahoney nodded, peering ahead through the smoke and mist, as the Hammerhead Division moved cautiously through no man’s land.

  The jeep stopped and General Patton hopped out. He strode into his command post tent and looked at the maps on the table as he removed his gloves. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Here sir,” said one of his aides, drawing a line with his finger.

  Patton bent over the map and looked. He was excited and his face glowed, because he loved war and thought it was mankind’s noblest activity.

  “That’s all?” he asked.

  “Yes sir.”

  Patton frowned. “What the hell are they waiting for!”

  “They don’t know what’s in front of them, sir, so they’re being careful.”

  Patton banged his fist on the table. “I don’t want careful soldiers—I want fighting soldiers! Issue orders all along the line that I want the advance stepped up!”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Tell them I’ll relieve any commander who isn’t in Avranches by tonight!”

  “Yes sir.”

  The aide ran to the telephones while Patton stood at the map table, slapping his leg with his riding crop. He’d been inactive ever since he was brought back from Italy three months ago, and had been afraid the war would be over before he got the chance to fight again.

  Now he was in action at last, and he wanted to prove to the world that he should be commander of all the U.S. troops in Europe.

  “Everybody load on the tanks!” shouted Captain Kirk. “Let’s go—double-time!”

  Charlie Company was in the hedgerow country south of Saint Lo. American planes flew overhead, dropping bombs on Germans farther south. The men climbed onto the tanks and held onto anything that protruded.

  Mahoney and Cranepool found themselves on a big Sherman. The tank commander, a sergeant first class, was standing in the turret. “Make yourself comfortable, boys,” he said.

  Mahoney grabbed a shackle on the front deck of the tank. He hated tanks because they were big slow targets, and he grumbled as he looked around. Charlie Company was off the ground and on the tanks, and Captain Kirk was on the lead tank with Sergeant Botcho, who was chewing a plug of tobacco and looking meaner than ever.

  “Move it out!” Captain Kirk said.

  The tankers shifted into gear and moved out. They accelerated and soon were speeding across the fields, moving south toward Avranches. Mahoney held on to his helmet as the wind whistled past his ears.

  “What the fuck’s the big hurry?” he murmured, and nearly fell off the tank as it bounced over a shell crater.

  In a long line, the Third Army rolled at top speed into the heart of France.

  Meanwhile, the German 15th Army was racing toward Normandy. It was bombed by American planes, but still it kept going. It was harassed by the French Maquis, but it never stopped. General Hans von Salmuth was in the lead tank, standing in the hatch, scanning the horizon for sight of the Americans. Like General Patton, he too had been sitting on hi
s heels for months, waiting for the chance to go into battle.

  Now he was on his way, and he hoped to win a great victory over the Americans. But speed was of the essence. He wanted to hit the Americans with such unrelenting ferocity that they would be stunned and disorganized. He would then roll over them, chew them up, and destroy them.

  “Faster!” he shouted to his driver. “Faster.”

  “General Patton—Air Reconnaissance reports a large enemy troop movement headed toward our lines.”

  Patton looked up from his map table, where he’d been planning the conquest of Paris. His army wasn’t even close to Paris, but he knew they’d be there before long. He walked in quick strides toward the radio and put on the headset.

  “What’s the approximate size of the enemy unit?” he asked.

  “Five or six divisions, maybe half of them armored.”

  “Where are they headed?”

  “It looks like they’re headed toward Mortain, sir.”

  Patton returned to his map table and studied it as his aides crowded around. He saw at once that the Germans were trying to cut off the Cherbourg Peninsula. “Wars have been lost at times like this,” he said to his aides, “because armies dug in and fought defensively before that was necessary. I want all front line commanders to be advised that a German Army is headed their way, and that when they sight it, they must attack the Germans head-on immediately and rip them to shreds.”

  The aides prepared messages to be sent to the front-line commanders, and Patton leaned over his map again. He balled up his fists and licked his lips in anticipation of the battle.

  Mahoney had bruises all over his body from banging against the tank every time it hit a bump. They hadn’t stopped all morning and he hadn’t even had time for a cigarette. His head ached on the spot where he had been hit by a rock, and his mouth tasted as though a German soldier had crawled inside and died. It was midmorning and the sun was shining. To his left and right were long ranks of tanks speeding across the fields and over the roads. They passed bombed-out farmhouses and devastated villages. The hedgerows were thinning out, and Mahoney thought that maybe they’d be completely out of the hedgerow country soon.