Bullet Bridge Page 8

  Nobody said anything.

  “Okay,” Mahoney told them, “go back to your squads and tell them to get ready.”

  The squad leaders returned to their squads, and Mahoney puffed his cigar, looking at his watch. It was 0930 hours. Attacks usually began at dawn but maybe this one would catch the Krauts off guard.

  The air above sounded like it was filled with rockets, and Mahoney knew that the artillery battalions finally had zeroed in on their objectives. Looking ahead, he raised his binoculars to his eyes and saw explosions throughout the valley where the Germans were. He imagined the Germans scratching in their holes, trying to escape the fierce bombardment; but many of them would be blown to bits, and the rest would be so disoriented they wouldn’t know where they were. That was the time to hit the bastards.

  He heard the grumble of tank engines and turned around. The Sherman tanks were arriving with their long cannons bouncing around. Each tank commander stood in the turret of his tank wearing his funny helmet and headset. The tank aerials whipped through the air and the tankers’ extra gear was strapped to fittings on the outside of their tanks.

  The tanks rumbled past the foxholes and formed a long skirmish line, linking up with other tank units all across the Hammerhead Division front. The tankers climbed out of their noisy stinking mechanical contraptions to stretch their legs and check the treads, muffler, and gear. They bullshitted with the men in the forward trenches.

  “Hey feller—what’re you doing in that hole in the ground.”

  “I’m digging for gold, you fucking grease monkey bastard.”

  Knifefinder handed the walkie-talkie to Mahoney. “It’s for you, Sarge.”

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

  “This is Tweed. Form your men up behind the tanks.”

  Mahoney tossed the walkie-talkie to Knifefinder and came up out of his hole. This was it. He adjusted his pack and cartridge belt and chewed his cigar as he trudged toward the tanks.

  “Skirmish line!” he shouted. “Let’s go!”

  The first platoon came out of their holes. Mahoney pointed and shouted orders, telling everybody where he should be. Throughout the Hammerhead Division, platoon sergeants were doing the same thing, and all the men got into position, ready to move forward.

  Mahoney looked at his men grouped behind the tanks and wondered how many of them would be alive at sunset. He didn’t think he could function with many more casualties. Replacements would have to come from someplace soon. Grossberger the medic stood alone some distance behind the tanks so he could have a clear view of the whole platoon and see which ones were hit. His bag of medicine hung across his chest and back, and he nervously pawed the ground with his feet like a wild bull about to charge the matador’s cape.

  Mahoney puffed his cigar and held his carbine in his right hand. The straps of his helmet were unhooked and hung straight down. He was taller and more powerfully built than anyone else in the company and stood out among the men gathered behind the tanks. The roar of the artillery barrage could be heard in the distance.

  Ahead, the tankers climbed up on their tanks and crawled into them through the hatches. Mahoney figured that they’d move out pretty soon. The tank commanders stood in their turrets, adjusting their helmets and headsets. The tanks revved their engines and spewed diesel smoke back into the faces of the GIs, who coughed and turned the other way.

  A tank commander raised his fist high in the air, and the drivers shifted into gear. The tanks moved out in a vast wave across the valley, and the GIs followed them, holding their rifles at port arms and peeking around the tanks to see what was up ahead.

  Shells continued to rain on the German positions, which were hidden by orange flashes and black smoke. Mahoney trudged through the smoke and mud, wondering when the Germans would start to retaliate. He looked left and right and saw his men huddled behind the tanks. He spotted the new replacements, Privates Olds, Spino, and Vlahavsky, whom he’d assigned to the first, second, and third squads respectively. They appeared more apprehensive than the rest, and Olds, the tall gawky one with the long neck and prominent Adam’s apple, kept looking behind him.

  “Hey Olds—you lose something back here!” Mahoney yelled above the sound of the engines.

  Olds shook his head.

  “Then eyes front!”

  Olds turned around just as Mahoney heard the whistle of a German shell. Now the men were going to be separated from the boys. The projectile landed somewhere behind Mahoney, and he knew that it was an intentional over. Their next shot would be an under, and the third would be somewhere in between and probably right on target.

  “Keep moving!” Mahoney yelled. “Don’t stop for anything!”

  Several German shells fell a few hundred yards in front of the tanks. The tank commanders climbed down into the protection of their vehicles and closed the hatches behind them, and Mahoney wished he could go with them.

  Shells began to fall amid the tanks and men. Tanks were impervious to shrapnel, and it would take a direct hit to destroy one of them, but not so with the men. The explosions blew them into the air and shrapnel tore off their limbs or ripped out their guts. And the only thing to do was keep moving, because if you stopped they’d hammer you to shit.

  The tanks shifted gears and picked up speed.

  “DOUBLE-TIME!” Mahoney shouted, pumping his right arm up and down in the air.

  The men ran behind the tanks that now sped toward the German lines. Mahoney held his carbine in both hands, ready for the Germans when they came into view. It wouldn’t be long now. A tank in front of him suddenly disappeared in a powerful thunderclap, and Mahoney realized the Germans had 88s up in the mountains, taking aim and firing directly at the tanks.

  The men behind that tank were cut apart by flying chunks of metal, and seconds later Grossberger was there with his bag of medicine, making quick decisions about who could be saved and who was beyond help.

  Private Olds saw what had happened and was frozen to the ground with terror. He imagined himself being torn limb from limb by shrapnel, and the vision was too much for him. Throwing down his rifle, he broke and ran to the rear.

  Mahoney saw him and moved to intercept. He grabbed Olds by the front of his jacket and held him up in the air.

  “Where do you think you’re going, shithead!”

  “I can’t take it anymore!” Olds screamed. “I’m a nervous person! I shouldn’t be here! I don’t want to die!” Olds’ eyes bulged out of his head and spittle flecked his lips.

  Mahoney shook Olds as if he was a rag doll. “You’d better pick up your rifle and attack those Germans, young soldier!”

  Mahoney let Olds go, and Olds immediately tried to run to the rear again. Mahoney grabbed him by the neck this time and pulled him back, bringing his mouth close to his ear.

  “I’m gonna give you one more chance, young soldier,” Mahoney bellowed, “and then if you run away again I’m gonna shoot you down like the cowardly dog that you are!”

  “I can’t stand this!” Olds screamed. “I can’t stand this!”

  “Oh yes you can!”

  “I can’t! I can’t!”

  Mahoney let him go and pointed his carbine at his nose. “Have it your own way, you piece of shit!”

  Olds looked down the barrel of Mahoney’s gun, and Mahoney smiled.

  Olds realized he might have a chance against the Germans but he had no chance at all against Mahoney.

  “I’ll go back!” Olds yelled.

  “You’d fucking well better, young soldier!”

  Olds ran back, picked up his rifle, and joined the first squad, his legs unsteady and lips trembling.

  “Fucking psycho!” Mahoney grumbled.

  He clicked his carbine on safety and double-timed behind his men. The German artillery barrage was fierce but Mahoney had seen much worse. He figured they should hit the German positions pretty soon. Above his head, he heard the drone of airplanes. He looked up and saw American fighte
r and bomber squadrons with white stars on their wings diving toward the German positions on the ground ahead and in the mountains. The tanks fired their cannons and .50 caliber machine guns. The battle was getting hotter.

  “KEEP MOVING!” Mahoney shouted. “FIX BAYONETS!”

  The men ran and yanked their bayonets from their scabbards. They attached them to the ends of their rifles, and the combat veterans among them let loose their rebel yells, Indian war whoops, and blood-curdling screams.

  “KILL THE FUCKERS!” Mahoney roared. “RIP OUT THEIR GUTS!”

  The tanks rolled over the first German fortifications, and the German soldiers still alive came up out of their holes waving white flags. They all looked in a state of shock, and Mahoney was surprised by the extremes in their ages. They were either in their teens or their forties. Mahoney told his men to pass them by and keep going. Successive waves of infantry could collect the prisoners, but Mahoney didn’t want to weaken his platoon any more than it was already.

  “KEEP MOVING!” he told his men. “MARCHING FIRE!”

  Chapter Eight

  General Hermann Balck, the commander of Army Group G, sat in his office at Trier, drinking a cup of coffee and staring out the window. A sensitive, poet-looking man with blond hair and blue eyes, he’d had the reputation of a hard-driving martinet and brilliant field tactician until he’d been appointed commander of Army Group G and positioned opposite Patton’s Third Army in France.

  Since then he’d suffered defeat after defeat, which had shaken his confidence in himself. The formerly self-assured war lord now had difficulty keeping his hands from shaking, and he suffered from insomnia nearly every night. He’d lost his appetite and 25 pounds. His uniform hung on him like a sack and his eyes, which formerly glittered like diamonds, now were sunk deep in his head and looked like two burnt out lumps of coal. He’d had to admit to himself that he was just an ordinary man and not the genius that he previously had thought he was.

  His door was flung open and his chief of staff, General Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthien, entered the room. “General Balck,” Mellenthien said breathlessly, “the Americans are attacking again!”

  Balck shot to his feet. “Again!”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Oh my God!” Balck staggered to the map table and looked at the troop dispositions. “Where?”

  Mellenthien pointed. “Here.”

  “Hmmm.” Balck could see that Patton was rushing toward the Siegfried Line across a broad front. Numerous important cities, not to mention valuable coal and iron mines, stood in his way. Another critical battle was shaping up, and he didn’t have much to fight it with.

  “May I make a suggestion, sir?” Mellenthien asked.

  “I wish somebody would.”

  “We don’t have enough troops to fight a head-on battle, so why don’t we pull back in strategic zones, draw the Americans in, and hit them in flank. We may be able to cut off some of their units and annihilate them that way.”

  Balck studied the map. “A classic pincer movement, eh?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose we have any choice, do we?”

  “No sir.”

  “Then issue the orders.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “My God, Mellenthien—I just saw something!”

  “What is it, sir?”

  Balck pointed to the map. “Why, if they break through here, they’ll be able to enter the main population centers of the Fatherland!”

  “I know, sir,” Mellenthien said softly.

  “We simply must stop them here!” Balck said. “Otherwise, no one in Germany will be safe!”

  “That’s true.”

  Both men paused to ponder the fate that could befall their wives and the members of their families. They’d been combat officers long enough to know what happened to civilians when the war entered their backyards. There’d be looting, raping, murdering, and every other sort of horrendous crime. Balck and Mellenthien were aware of the escapades of the SS in the occupied territories, and they knew the revenge factor among the allies probably would be high.

  “We’ve got to stop them now more than ever,” Balck said. “This isn’t just another battle—it’s a fight to keep these Americans away from our families. The time has come to empty the hospitals and the prisons, Mellenthien. Give a rifle to every man who can walk and send him to the front. Round up cooks, clerks, quartermasters, everybody, and send them all to the front!” He looked Mellenthien in the eye. “Patton is trying to force a decision here in the Saar,” he said. “Somehow we must stop him from going any further!”

  ~*~

  Patton’s jeep approached his headquarters and he jumped out of the front seat even before the jeep came to a complete stop. He pulled off his gloves and entered the building, stomping through the corridors until he came to the conference room.

  “Well—how are we doing?” he asked as he approached the map table.

  “We’re making good progress, sir,” said Colonel Maddox.

  “Show me the dispositions.”

  Maddox pointed to the map and showed him where all the divisions were. Patton smiled. He’d raised some hell and it had worked. His Army, which had become somnolent after the victory at Metz, was rolling again. And he’d done it all through the force of his will and the power of his personality.

  “Very good,” Patton said, smiling with satisfaction. “I expect to be notified immediately if any one of my divisions slows down—is that clear?”

  “Yes sir,” said Maddox.

  “Let’s see what else is going on here.”

  He scanned the map of the entire Western Front, checking on the positions of the British 21st Army Group and the American Ninth, First, and Seventh Armies.

  “Shit,” Patton said. “The First Army is barely moving and it doesn’t look as though the Ninth Army is moving at all. Somebody ought to light a fire under those bastards before it’s too late.” His eyes fell on the Ardennes Forest sector, beside his Third Army’s left flank. “You know,” he said, “First Army is making a terrible mistake by leaving Middleton’s VIII Corps static where it is in those damned woods. It’s highly probable that the Germans are building up east of them for a terrific blow.” He sighed. “Well, that’s not my lookout. I keep telling them about these things, but nobody ever listens.”

  ~*~

  Resistance slowly stiffened against the Hammerhead Division as the day wore on, and the tanks slowed down. German tanks appeared on the field of battle and gun duels ensued between them and the Americans. Finally, the German soldiers stopped running away or surrendering. They were reinforced by troops from the rear and stood their ground. The attack that had begun with such speed and high spirits in the morning was bogging down.

  At division headquarters, General Donovan noted these developments and expected Patton to show up at any moment and start screaming at him. He knew that the only way to keep Patton off his ass was to get his men moving himself.

  “McCook,” he said to his chief of staff, “I want you to call all the regimental commanders on the phone and tell them to get moving again. I don’t care how they do it, but they’d better do it or else.”

  “I already told them, sir,” McCook replied, “and it didn’t work.”

  “Oh no?” Donovan furrowed his brow. “Well you’d better hold the fort here, McCook, because I’m going to go out and raise some hell!”

  “But sir!” protested McCook. “You shouldn’t go out there! We need you here!”

  “Bullshit!” replied Donovan. “They need me out there to get their asses in gear again!”

  “But what if we have to ask you something?”

  “You won’t have to ask me anything.” Donovan took his helmet off the hook and put it on. “You know what to do here as much as I do.”

  General Donovan stormed out of the conference room, leaving his aides looking at each other with their mouths hanging open.

  ~*~

  Mahoney knee
led beside a tank and peered through his binoculars at the smoky battlefield in front of him. It had started to rain again and visibility was terrible, but he could make out a small hill to his left, and that appeared to be where most of the German resistance was. From that hill the Germans had a clear view of the terrain and could shoot down at the tanks and troops below. The hill was holding up the advance in front of Charlie Company, and if a platoon or two could get up there, Charlie Company and the other companies in the 1st Battalion might be able to get moving again.

  Mahoney dropped his binoculars and ran back to the shell crater where Cranepool was in position with a few members of his squad.

  “Cranepool,” he said, “I’m going back to have a talk with Captain Anderson. You take charge of the platoon while I’m gone.”

  “Hup Sarge.”

  Mahoney ran back, holding his rifle with his right hand and his helmet with his left. He kept his head low, and bullets whistled all around him. German artillery shells fell on Charlie Company, sometimes two or three landing at the same time and making a terrific sound. Mahoney passed a destroyed American tank and then a German tank with its side blown in. Behind the tank, in a wide shell crater, were Captain Anderson, Sergeant Tweed, and Pfc. Drago. Mahoney ran toward them and dived head first into the shell crater, startling them. Captain Anderson dropped the map he was looking at and went for his Colt .45.

  “It’s only me,” Mahoney wheezed.

  “What are you doing here?” Tweed asked.

  Mahoney pointed to the front. “Sir, there’s a hill out there and we’ve got to take it if we’re ever going to get out of here.”

  “Show me on the map,” Anderson said.

  Mahoney looked at the map, found the hill, and pointed to it. “Right here.”

  Anderson, Tweed, and Drago bumped their helmets together as they looked at Mahoney’s finger.

  “You’re right,” Anderson said. “Whoever controls that hill controls this area. I didn’t know that the Krauts were up there in force.”

  “Maybe you should come up where the platoons are and take a look once in awhile, sir.”

  Anderson turned red and wanted to holler at Mahoney, but he knew he was right. But controlling a company wasn’t easy. You couldn’t go running all over the place.