Hell Harbor Read online

  Francine brought Helmut’s bowl of soup to the table and set it before him. Then she got behind him, crossed her arms over his chest, and kissed his ear. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said.

  “I wonder if you’d love me if I didn’t bring you chickens and ham bones.”

  She pouted. “I’d love you anyway, but maybe not as much as I love you now.”

  He laughed. “At least you’re honest.”

  “I will never lie to you, my dear,” she replied as she returned to the stove.

  “Well,” he said, blowing on his soup, “the war will be over someday and we’ll see about that.”

  She ladled soup into a bowl for herself. “Sometimes I think the war never will end.”

  “It will, don’t worry about it. We can’t hold out much longer. It might even end this year.”

  She carried her bowl to the table and sat down. “This year, Helmut? Really?”

  “I’m afraid so. I just hope I’ll be alive when it’s all over.”

  She placed her hand on his. “I’ll save you, darling.”

  “I may need you to do just that someday.”

  “You can rely on me always, Helmut.”

  “I hope so.”

  He took a spoonful of soup and raised it to his lips. “Ouch!” he said, burning his tongue.

  “Let it cool off.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  She looked at him and smiled. “Oh, yes, you said you’d tell me what’s keeping you so busy.”

  He frowned. “A very big job.”

  “What kind of big job?”

  He gazed into her eyes. “You must promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone.”

  “Of course I promise. Who would I tell?”

  “I don’t know, maybe one of those teachers you work with in school.”

  “I wouldn’t tell them something like this.”

  “I know you wouldn’t intentionally, but you might let something slip sometime.”

  “I won’t let anything slip,” she said annoyed that he didn’t trust her completely. “Have I ever blabbed anything that you told me not to?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Well?”

  He blew on his spoon of soup, then put it into his mouth and swallowed it down. “It’s very good.”

  “I’m so glad you like it, but don’t change the subject.”

  “Oh, Francine, leave me alone, will you?”

  She shot to her feet abruptly and placed her hands on her hips. “You don’t trust me!”

  He smiled wanly. “Oh, stop being so French, will you?”

  “Well!” she said, stamping her foot. “After all we’ve been through together, I can see that you still don’t love me and probably never will.”

  “I do love you, Francine. Please sit down and stop screaming. I have to leave very soon, don’t spoil the few minutes I have to spend with you.”

  “You can leave right now for all I care!”

  “Oh, you French are so emotional.”

  “And you Germans know nothing of love. It’s true what they say: you’re all made of ice.”

  “And fire,” he said with a wink, trying to lighten the conversation.

  “And distrust!” she shot back.

  “I don’t distrust you.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me what you’re doing? I know why you won’t tell me. Because you’re seeing another girl, that’s why!”

  He laughed. “That’s funny.”

  “So now you’re laughing at me, eh!” She threw the potholder at him, and it bounced off his head. “What’s her name, tell me so that I can kill her!”

  “Oh, really,” Helmut said. “This is getting to be too much.”

  “Who is she!” Francine screamed.

  “Calm down.”

  “I won’t calm down until you tell me her name!”

  He groaned. “There is no one else, Francine. I told you that I’ve been very busy lately, and I meant it.”

  “Busy doing what!”

  “Sit down and relax, and I’ll tell you.” He looked at his watch. “And hurry up because I don’t have much time.”

  She smoothed her hair and sat at the table. “Well?”

  “We’re making preparations to blow up the harbor,” he said, “because the Americans will be here soon and we don’t want them to use it.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I thought you already were doing that.”

  “We are, but we’re also doing something far more damaging that will utterly demolish the harbor so that the Allies will be unable to use it for a few months, maybe longer.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said.

  “It’s a very big job. I’ll tell you in advance when we’re going to throw the switch, so you can prepare yourself. There’ll probably be quite extensive damage.”

  “But Helmut, what about you? Where will you be?”

  “Deep underneath the fortress, my dear. We in the engineers will set off the blast from down there.”

  She looked at him and thought for a few moments. Then she raised her nose in the air. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “You don’t?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because where would you get all the explosives to do that kind of damage? You can’t fool me, Helmut. Now I know you’ve got another girl. Imagine telling me a ridiculous lie like that. Why, even I know that no new supplies have come to this city for a week, ever since the Americans cut off the peninsula.”

  Helmut smiled. “Well, that’s the tricky part,” he said.

  “It certainly must be,” she replied coolly.

  “But you see my dear, the explosives have been here all along, but in another form.”

  “What are you talking about, you big liar!”

  “Don’t you remember that U-boats used to come to Cherbourg for refitting?”

  “Are you trying to say that the U-boats brought in the explosives!” she said angrily. “Even I know that U-boats can’t get through that mined harbor, and moreover, everybody knows that the Allies have sunk nearly all of your damn U-boats! Tell me another one, you liar!”

  “You haven’t let me finish,” Helmut said. “You’re right, the U-boats don’t come here anymore, but we still have vast stores of torpedoes and torpedoes are filled with gunpowder, understand?”

  “Ah! You’re taking the gunpowder from the torpedoes!”

  “Not exactly. We’re just burying the whole torpedoes in the muck underneath the docks and running detonation wires to them. We have a great many torpedoes here—enough to blow this harbor to kingdom come. And when the time comes, we’ll also pour our remaining gasoline into the water, so that when we blow the torpedoes, flaming gasoline will explode in all directions. That ought to slow the Americans down, don’t you think?”

  She smiled, aware of the importance of the information she’d just obtained. “It certainly ought to,” she agreed.

  “Now do you believe me when I say that I don’t have another girl?”

  She covered his hand with hers. “I’m sorry. How could I have doubted you? But you know how emotional I can be.”

  He nodded as he brought a spoonful of soup to his mouth. “You French,” he said.

  Francine picked up her spoon and dipped it into her bowl of soup, hoping that Helmut would leave soon, so that she could deliver the information to the maquis underground headquarters on the Rue Garonne.

  Chapter Eleven

  Captain Albert “Bulldog” Boynton sat cross-legged in a foxhole, eating a cold can of beans. He was commander of Easy Company, Twenty-Third Rangers, and had received his nickname because he had a pug nose, squashed face, and beady little eyes. He was a Texan, forty-five years old, had rounded shoulders and no ass, and had risen from the ranks to his present position in the officers’ corps of the U.S. Army.

  Bullets and artillery shells whistled over his head, and explosions were now taking place all around him, but he ca
lmly finished his beans, smacking his lips and pausing occasionally to scratch his balls. He was not unduly disturbed by being on the front lines, because he’d been a combat soldier since he was seventeen, and had fought in all the major battles of the First World War, in addition to his considerable front-line service in this new war.

  Bulldog Boynton felt odd when things were too quiet and bullets and artillery shells weren’t whistling over his head.

  He tossed the empty can out of his foxhole and reached into his back pocket for his little flask of bourbon. Suddenly he heard the heavy clomping of running feet, and darted his hand toward the Colt .45 in his holster. Glancing over the rim of his foxhole, he saw a huge figure in an American uniform running toward him with his carbine at high port arms. The figure dodged tree stumps and boulders, jumped over bushes, and did a feet-first slide into Bulldog Boynton’s foxhole.

  “Master Sergeant Clarence J. Mahoney reporting for duty, sir,” said the huge figure, saluting as he came to a stop with his knees touching Bulldog Boynton’s.

  “Well, I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch,” wheezed Boynton. “When in the fuck did you get back?”

  “Just today,” Mahoney replied with a grin. “I reported to battalion first and they told me you were over here.”

  Bulldog Boynton held out his hand. “Welcome home, Sergeant.”

  Mahoney shook it. “It’s good to be back.”

  “This calls for a drink.” Bulldog Boynton reached into his back pocket and took out his stainless steel flask of bourbon whisky. He always carried it with him and it never went empty, which was the source of much speculation and mystery in the Twenty-Third Rangers. He unscrewed the cap and passed the flask to Mahoney. “Here you go, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Mahoney took the flask and poured some bourbon down his throat. It burned his innards and made him feel good. Handing the flask back to Boynton, he felt that he was back where he belonged, and everything was going to be all right.

  Boynton took a healthy swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and jammed the flask into his back pocket. “I heard you was in a hospital in England,” Boynton said in his Texas drawl, “but I don’t suppose it was anything serious since you’re back.”

  “Just a little leg wound,” Mahoney said.

  “I got shot in the leg once,” Boynton said. “It was in the battle for Soissons during the First War, which was before your time. I was a private in the Second Division then. A leg wound isn’t shit, but I guess you know that.” He winked at Mahoney. “You fuck any nurses?”

  “One.”

  “Only one?”

  “She was enough.”

  Boynton spat. “Wish somebody would shoot me in the fucking leg, so maybe I could get myself some hospital pussy.”

  “But what would Easy Company do without you, Bulldog?”

  “Fuck Easy Company. I’m getting sick of this war. It’s been raining too much.”

  “It’ll stop.”

  “I’m not so sure. It’s been raining ever since we hit the beach, just about.”

  “How’s it been going except for the weather?”

  “We’ve lost a lot of people.”

  “Kraut bastards.”

  Boynton shook his head. “Fucking mess. I guess I’ll give you the second platoon.”

  “What happened to Hardesty?” Mahoney asked, referring to the former platoon sergeant of the second.

  “He’s now my first sergeant. Don’t ask me where he is because I don’t know.”

  “What happened to Cullen?” Cullen had been the former first sergeant.

  “He’s now the battalion sergeant major. Nowicki, who used to be sergeant major, got hit by an artillery shell while he was out in his jeep.”

  “No shit,” Mahoney said.

  “When the smoke cleared they couldn’t find enough of him to put into a cigar box,” Boynton said.

  They thought about that for a few seconds, because the same thing could happen to them at any moment.

  “Who’s the platoon leader of the Second Platoon?” Mahoney asked.

  “You are.”

  “What happened to Lieutenant Finley?”

  “Dead.”

  “How?”

  “Machine gun burst just after we hit Omaha. We’ve lost about forty percent of our people since then.”

  Mahoney scratched his cheek. “Has Corporal Cranepool ever come back?”

  “Yeah, he’s got one of the squads in the weapons platoon.”

  “Can I get him in my platoon?”

  “You’ll have to give up one of your squad leaders to the weapons platoon.”

  “That’s okay by me.”

  “Okay, work it out with Del Bello.”

  “He’s got the weapons platoon now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened to Rusitsky?”

  “Shot through the head.”

  Mahoney shook his head and blew air out the corner of his mouth. “If this war keeps on, we’re not gonna have anybody left.”

  Boynton nodded. “I know.”

  They looked into each other’s eyes and wondered how long they’d be alive. The sound of running footsteps came from their rear. They turned toward the sound and saw a wiry little soldier with one hand on his helmet running toward them. When the soldier neared the foxhole he let out a yell and dived head first into it, landing in a heap beside Boynton and Mahoney. The soldier scrambled to his knees and saluted.

  “Pfc Shapiro reporting, sir!”

  Boynton looked at him with displeasure. “What the fuck do you want?”

  Shapiro was a runner from battalion headquarters. “Colonel Kersey wants you to knock out the pillbox on hill four-five-one, sir.”

  “Oh, shit.” Boynton took out a map and unfolded it. Squinting, he ran his finger over the grid lines until he found the hill. “Here it is,” he said, pointing to it.

  Mahoney leaned to his side and looked. Boynton turned to Shapiro.

  “What do we know about the pillbox?” he asked.

  “It’s got an anti-tank gun and two machine guns, sir.”

  “Any other Krauts on the hill?”

  “Don’t know, sir.”

  Boynton sucked a tooth. “Okay, you can go.”

  “Colonel Kersey wants to know what time the pillbox can be expected to be knocked out, sir.”

  “Tell him an hour and a half.”

  “He’d like to be notified when the pillbox is knocked out, sir.”

  “I’ll send a runner.”

  “Okay, sir. If you don’t have anything else, sir, I’ll get back to battalion, sir.”

  “I don’t have anything. Shapiro.”

  “Thank you, sir. Goodbye, sir.”

  Shapiro crawled out of the foxhole, looked around, sprang to his feet, and ran back to battalion headquarters.

  “Crazy little fucker, isn’t he?” Boynton asked, his map on his lap.

  “I don’t think I ever saw him before,” Mahoney said.

  Boynton looked at the disappearing figure of Pfc Shapiro. “He probably won’t last much longer.” Boynton looked at the map and placed his finger on hill four-five-one again. “Since you just got back and you’re full of piss and vinegar, why don’t you take this fucking pillbox?”

  “Okay.”

  “You should be able to do it with two squads.”

  “Right.”

  “Get going, and it’s good to have you back, Mahoney.”

  “It’s good to be back,” Mahoney lied, touching a few fingers to the brim of his helmet in a kind of half-ass salute.

  Boynton made a little wave in reply and reached for his flask as Mahoney crawled out of the foxhole. He crawled forward toward the second platoon, as the ground shook with explosions and projectiles whizzed overhead. However it was only casual fire, without the intensity and drama of a full-scale battle. That would come later when he tried to take the pillbox. As he moved forward he peered through the bushes and saw that Easy Company was deployed in a reasonabl
y straight line at the edge of the forest, and ahead were rolling fields and a river, a few hundred yards away. On the other side of the river were hills, and presumably the pillbox was on one of them, in a good spot to rake anything before it with machine-gun fire, or to knock out tanks with its big gun. If you fired artillery shells at the pillbox they’d just bounce off and explode harmlessly in the air. So you had to take it with a bunch of dog-faced soldiers, using stealth, courage, brains, and TNT.

  But first he had to get his platoon organized. He came to a machine-gun emplacement, pouring bursts of bullets at the German positions across the river. Crawling into the foxhole with the machine-gunner, he asked where the second platoon was.

  “Sergeant Mahoney!” said one of the Pfcs. “You’re back!”

  “Yeah, I’m back,” replied Mahoney, who didn’t even know who the Pfc was.

  “Glad to see you, Sarge!” the Pfc said, holding out his big ham hand.

  Mahoney shook his hand. “Thanks.”

  “The second platoon’s over there,” the Pfc said, pointing.

  “Thanks again.”

  Mahoney crawled out of the foxhole and moved forward in the direction indicated by the Pfc. Puffs of smoke appeared on the German side of the river, where soldiers were firing at the Americans. Far in back of that pillbox the Germans must have the artillery that was shelling the American lines, but the shelling wasn’t very heavy, which meant either that the Germans didn’t have too many artillery pieces, or they didn’t have very much ammunition.

  Mahoney came to a foxhole which at first he thought was empty. Then, as he looked into it, he saw a little private lying on his back smoking a cigarette. He slid into the foxhole, and the private looked lazily at him.

  “Hi,” the private said.

  Mahoney glowered at him, his face turning red. “What in the fuck do you think you’re doing, soldier!”

  The private arched his eyebrows. “Who wants to know?”

  “Who wants to know!” Mahoney bellowed. He grabbed the private by the front of his shirt and held him in the air. “I want to know!”

  The private turned white and his lips trembled as he looked at the master sergeant’s stripes on Mahoney’s arms. “Hello, Sergeant,” he said weakly.

  Mahoney threw the private against the wall of the foxhole. “Get your rifle, you little shit, and start shooting!”