Bullet Bridge Page 14

  “Yes sir!” Pfc. Drago took the radio and looked fearfully from beneath the jeep. He saw shells falling everywhere, and one of the American tanks took a direct hit, its turret blowing straight up into the air.

  Two artillery shells landed fifty yards in front of Mahoney’s speeding truck.

  “YOWIE!” screamed Willy from Philly, wrestling the steering wheel.

  The truck careened from side to side across the field, as Willy from Philly tried to dodge more artillery shells. Next to him, Mahoney chewed his cigar and tried to figure out what to do. He thought he could make a wide end run around the battle and get back on the road to Saarlautern, but something told him that was suicide. One truck with the remnants of two rifle squads couldn’t take on the whole city of Saarlautern filled to the gills with armed Krauts.

  Mahoney pointed to the holes left by the two artillery craters. “Stop over there!” he shouted.

  “Over where?”

  “Right over those two holes!”

  Willy from Philly pulled the wheel to the right and steered toward the holes. “Right over them, you said?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, you stupid cocksucker!”

  Willy from Philly hit the brakes at the right moment and the truck skidded to a halt over the two shell craters. Mahoney pushed open the door of the cab, jumped down, and ran toward the back of the truck.

  “Everybody under the truck!” he yelled. “Move your fucking asses!”

  The GIs jumped out of the truck and dove into the craters underneath it. Willy from Philly turned off the engine and joined them, and Mahoney was the last one in.

  “Olds!” Mahoney shouted.

  “Yes?” said a voice like the squeak of a mouse.

  “Where the fuck are you?”

  Olds’ head appeared in the jumble of soldiers underneath the truck. His face was pale and his eyes bulged out of his head. “I’m here!”

  “Get your ass and that walkie-talkie over here!”

  Olds crawled and stumbled over the soldiers between him and Mahoney. Pfc. Knifefinder goosed him with the barrel of his M-1, and Olds jumped into the air, banging his head on the undercarriage of the truck. Fortunately he was wearing his steel pot.

  “You son of a bitch!” Olds shrieked, spinning around and diving onto Pfc. Knifefinder.

  Knifefinder shot a quick left jab that caught Olds coming in, and Olds went down for the count.

  “What a fuck-up outfit this is!” Mahoney said angrily, shaking his head and pushing soldiers out of his way as he moved toward Olds and took the walkie-talkie from his shoulder. He held the walkie-talkie against his face and called Captain Anderson. Receiving no response, he tried again. On his third attempt he raised Pfc. Drago and told him he wanted to speak with Captain Anderson.

  “Sir,” said Mahoney, “I can’t go forward. What do you want me to do?”

  “Stay put,” Captain Anderson replied. “I’m awaiting a call from battalion. Where are you?”

  “I’m with my men underneath my truck.”

  “Stay close to your radio. I’ll get right back to you. Over and out.”

  Mahoney let the walkie-talkie hang from his neck. His cigar had burned down to a stub and gone out. He chewed the stub, watching Private Olds regain consciousness amid the men from the first and second squad. Olds blinked, looked around, saw Pfc. Knifefinder, remembered what had happened, and went for him again.

  Pfc. Knifefinder threw an uppercut this time, connecting neatly with Olds’ jaw. Olds’ head snapped upwards and hit the top of the truck again, and he fell unconscious onto two other soldiers who pushed him off them and into the mud at the bottom of the hole.

  Mahoney chewed his cigar. “Cut that shit out, Knifefinder,” he said.

  “What am I gonna do?” Knifefinder asked. “Stand still and let him hit me?”

  “I said leave him alone, and you know what I’m talking about. He wouldn’t have jumped on you if you didn’t do something to him. I don’t know what you did, but it was something. Cut it out. Understand?”

  “Hup Sarge.”

  Mahoney raised his binoculars and looked in the direction of the battle. It had become a classic tank duel, as tanks from both sides charged, maneuvered, and stopped sporadically to fire their cannons. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a German armored personnel carrier speeding across the field in his direction.

  “Oh-oh,” he said.

  Ordinary rifle and machine gun fire couldn’t stop the personnel carrier, and Mahoney thought it might stop close by and discharge its soldiers. He hoped he had more men than were in the personnel carrier. He thought he’d better call his third and fourth squads to come over and help him out, when suddenly an artillery shell made a direct hit on the personnel carrier, making it disappear in an orange blossom of flame that incinerated everyone inside.

  Mahoney breathed a sigh of relief, tossed his cigar butt away, and lit a cigarette. He hoped that the sneak attack on Saarlautern would be called off by higher headquarters.

  ~*~

  At division headquarters, General Barton Hughes was in his office talking to his G-4 (supply) officer, Colonel Chase, when the phone on his desk rang.

  “Yes?” asked Hughes.

  “This is General McCook,” said the voice on the other end. “Our striking force from the 15th Regiment has run into a wall of enemy tanks on the road to Saarlautern, and they report that they can’t go on.”

  “WHY NOT!” thundered Hughes.

  “They can’t get by the enemy force in front of them, sir. They need more tanks and more men.”

  “How much more?”

  “A battalion of men reinforced with a battalion of tanks.”

  General Hughes knew that a quick decision was required, and it had to be the right one. He had two choices: he could either stop the quick attack and take Saarlautern in a more orderly fashion, or he could reinforce it and smash right through. He’d been around General Patton long enough to know what choice old Blood and Guts would have made.

  “Listen to me carefully,” Hughes said. “Move up the rest of the 15th Regiment and break through that enemy resistance. Place the 28th Regiment in reserve and have them follow the main striking force into Saarlautern. My orders of this morning still are in effect. I want to be in Saarlautern by sunset, is that clear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Carry on.”

  ~*~

  Colonel Wolkenstein stood at the map table of 44th Division headquarters in Saarlautern, looking down at the pins and wooden blocks that indicated the relative positions of German and American forces as of an hour ago. General Dobbeling was out in the city, inspecting fortifications.

  “Sir,” said the radio operator, “there’s a call for you from Major Bleicher.”

  Wolkenstein walked to the radio and put on the headset. “What is it, Bleicher?”

  Bleicher was commander of the armored column sent to deliver the riposte to the advancing Americans. “Sir,” he said, “we’ve run into unexpected resistance. A huge enemy column is on the road and they’ve taken us by surprise. I don’t know how long we can stop them.”

  “Hmmm,” said Wolkenstein. “That’s odd. We thought the Americans were advancing slowly on a broad front.”

  “They’re not. If you could reinforce me, I think I could wipe them out.”

  “No,” Wolkenstein said. “We don’t want to fight them out there in the open. We prefer to fight them here in Saarlautern, which is well defended. Your column was supposed to be no more than a riposte. Return to Saarlautern at once!”

  “Yes sir!”

  ~*~

  War is bullshit, Mahoney thought, puffing a cigarette underneath the truck. One moment they tell me to keep going no matter what, and the next moment they tell me to stay put. They don’t know what they’re doing. What a fucking mess. He looked toward the scene of the tank battle, and couldn’t see anything behind the smoke. He didn’t like the idea of staying put underneath the truck. You should eithe
r go forwards or backwards, but never stay in the same place.

  Private Olds, with a black eye and a bloody nose, held out the walkie-talkie to Mahoney. “Captain Anderson wants to talk to you,” Olds said glumly.

  Mahoney took the walkie-talkie and pressed the button. “Mahoney here.”

  “The Germans are pulling back, Mahoney!” Captain Anderson said. “Saddle up your men and move them out!”

  “Yes sir.”

  Mahoney handed the walkie-talkie back to Olds. “Everybody back on the truck!” he said. “The Germans are retreating! We’re going to Saarlautern!”

  The men crawled from underneath the truck and climbed into the back. Willy from Philly got behind the wheel and Mahoney sat next to him, looking at the road through his binoculars. The cloud of smoke still was there, but in back of it, like a long black tail, was the German armored column returning to Saarlautern. Mahoney wondered why they were pulling back, because they didn’t appear to be outnumbered that badly.

  Willy from Philly started up the truck and shifted into gear. He kicked the accelerator and the truck leapt forward, nearly throwing three soldiers out the back. The truck bounced and careened over the field as the German column sped to Saarlautern with the American tanks following hot on their heels. Other trucks and tanks in the American convoy were also converging on the road, but Willy from Philly had been a cabdriver in Philadelphia and he got to the road first, cutting the wheel sharply as he turned onto it. The truck screeched on all four wheels, and Mahoney hung on for dear life as the truck straightened out and Willy from Philly slammed the gas pedal onto the floor. The truck shot like an arrow down the road to Saarlautern.

  ~*~

  General Dobbeling returned to the conference room after his inspection of fortifications and saw great excitement among his staff officers at the map table. Colonel Wolkenstein approached and saluted.

  “Sir,” Wolkenstein said, “our armored column has been forced to retreat!”

  Dobbeling hung his helmet up on a peg near the door. “Why?” he asked calmly.

  “Because they encountered an American column coming from the other direction. That spoiled the effect of our riposte, so I ordered the column to return.”

  Dobbeling slapped Wolkenstein on the back as both of them advanced to the map table. “Good work, Wolkenstein.”

  “There’s just one problem, sir. The American column is following our column back, and I was wondering if we should blow the bridge on that road.”

  “No,” said Dobbeling, shaking his head. “Our own people won’t be able to return if we blow that bridge.”

  “But we’ve got to keep the Americans out of Saarlautern, sir.”

  “We’ll keep them out—don’t worry about it,” Dobbeling said. “As soon as our people are over that bridge, we’ll blow it to kingdom come. Pass the word along to the engineers.”

  “Yes sir.”

  ~*~

  Mahoney was no mind reader, but he knew what he’d do if he was commander of the garrison at Saarlautern. He’d blow that bridge as soon as he could. Mahoney wondered if the commander would blow the bridge before his armored column returned. It would depend on how hard up he was for tanks and men, and Mahoney figured he probably would be very hard up because the Germans had been taking a beating ever since D-Day.

  That meant the German commander probably would blow the bridge as soon as his armored column made it back. Mahoney realized that if he continued to follow the German column, he’d probably get blown up with the bridge. The only other thing to do was stop as soon as he got to it, but if he did that he’d probably face a court-martial for failing to follow out an order.

  There only was one other possibility. If an American force could get into Saarlautern before the German armored column, it could go to work on disarming the explosive charges on the bridge; and if he worked quickly, the rest of the American convoy would show up in time to bail him out.

  The problem would be to get in front of the German column, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. The column was moving at the speed of the tanks, which only went around thirty miles an hour. The deuce-and-a-half, on the other hand, could do eighty if it had to, and on top of that, he had Willy from Philly, an ex-cabdriver, behind the wheel.

  Maybe he could beat everybody into Saarlautern and save the bridge. If he could do that, the battalion could get a firm foothold in Saarlautern before the Krauts knew what hit them.

  “Hey Willy,” he said. “I want you to get off this road and pass that German column up ahead.”

  Willy from Philly glanced at him. “What’re you talking about!”

  “You don’t understand English, you little fuck?”

  “You mean go around everybody?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Because I said so!”

  “But we’ll get killed!”

  Mahoney gave him a backhand in the kisser. “I SAID GET GOING!”

  “Hup Sarge,” Willy from Philly said through bruised lips.

  “Just don’t get too close to the Krauts when you’re passing them!”

  “Hup Sarge!”

  Willy from Philly cut the steering wheel to the side and the truck veered off the road. It bounced down the gully and into the field.

  “Is this all the speed you can get out of this?” Mahoney asked.

  “You just hang onto your hat there, big feller,” Willy from Philly said, as he shifted into third and kicked the accelerator down to the floor. His professional competence was being challenged, and he was going to show the world what a cabdriver from Philadelphia could do when the chips were down.

  The truck bounded across the field, Willy from Philly steering in a wide arc that he figured would put him in front of the German column in about three more miles.

  ~*~

  Sergeant Tweed pointed ahead. “Where in the hell is that son of a bitch going?”

  Captain Anderson looked at the truck speeding across the field. He raised his binoculars and read the numbers on the rear fender.

  “That’s Mahoney’s vehicle,” he said.

  “I wonder where he thinks he’s going?”

  Captain Anderson figured it out in a few seconds. “He’s going to Saarlautern.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “He wants to beat the Germans there and try to hold the bridge.”

  “He can’t do that!” Tweed replied.

  “All he has to do is hold it until the rest of us get there and prevent the Krauts from blowing the bridge.”

  “He’ll never make it,” Tweed said. “The son of a bitch has gone nuts this time, I think!”

  “If he has, he’s taking us with him. Drago, follow him.”

  “Huh?” asked Drago.

  “I said follow him.”

  “But sir ...” said Tweed.

  Captain Anderson interrupted him. “We’ll have more of a chance if we have more people there. If we can hold that bridge until our main forces arrive, it’ll be easier for us to take Saarlautern. Hang on, Sergeant.”

  Drago turned off the road and the jeep bounced up and down as it went after Mahoney. Captain Anderson leaned out the door and waved to the other trucks, motioning for them to follow. At first the drivers couldn’t believe what Captain Anderson wanted them to do, but they followed orders and sent their trucks crashing through the field.

  ~*~

  Willy from Philly looked in the rearview mirror. “Holy shit!”

  “Whatsa matter?” asked Mahoney.

  “Everybody’s coming after us!”

  Mahoney rolled down the window and looked back. Sure enough, the seven other trucks from the company and Captain Anderson’s jeep were following him across the field. Mahoney became more confident. We won’t be alone, he thought. Maybe we can hold that bridge after all.

  A bullet slammed into the hood of the truck, and Mahoney ducked his head. Bullets kicked up dirt and mud all around the truck. In the back, the GIs wrestled
with each other in an effort to get lower as bullets whistled over them. Mahoney peered over the window on the door. His truck was abreast of the German personnel carriers, and the German troops were firing at him.

  “FASTER!” Mahoney said.

  “If I go any faster we’re liable to tip over!”

  “I said go faster, you son of a bitch!”

  Willy from Philly pushed down on the accelerator and the truck hit a little gully, bouncing off and flying into the air. Mahoney felt the terrible sinking sensation of weightlessness, and then the truck slammed down to the ground and kept going. He peeked out the window again and the German personnel carriers were three hundred yards away. They had half-tracks instead of wheels in back and couldn’t go as fast as a truck. Slowly, Willy from Philly pulled ahead of them.

  “FASTER!” Mahoney shouted.

  Willy from Philly gritted his teeth together and held the wheel with all his strength as bullets whizzed by. The streets of South Philadelphia had got pretty wild at times, but he’d never seen anything like this.

  ~*~

  General Hughes leaned over the map table, planning the moves in his approach to Saarlautern. General McCook walked swiftly toward him.

  “Sir, Colonel Simmons wants to speak with you, and he says it’s urgent.”

  General Hughes harumphed. “Everybody thinks everything is urgent,” he said, “but it seldom is.” He muttered to himself as he walked to the telephone and picked it up. “General Hughes speaking.”

  Colonel Simmons, the commanding officer of the 15th Regiment, spoke with a lazy Kentucky drawl. “Just thought I’d let you know, suh, that my 1st Battalion has passed that German armored column on the road to Saarlautern and that maybe they should have some air support, because they’re gonna have one hell of a time once they get to that bridge.”

  General Hughes blinked. “Who told them to do that!”

  “Do what, suh?”

  “Pass that German column!”

  “Well suh, I guess they decided to do it themselves. I guess they figured they’d best beat those Germans to Saarlautern, because if the Germans got there fust they’d most likely blow that there bridge.”

  “They didn’t check with anybody?”