Cliett realized in an instant what a blow he had dealt me.
“He wasn’t killed,” he hastened to add. “He wasn’t killed. Just wounded. He got hit in the side. It wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. I swear it, Paul.”
I hardly knew whether to believe him or not. Once he had seen the effect his words had on me, his voice had assumed a tone which, to me, was far too reassuring.
“He’s okay, Paul,” Cliett continued. “I swear it. They’ve taken him back to the aid station.” He told me briefly how Jack had gone out in the open to help a seriously wounded man and had been hit in the side by a rifle bullet.
My first thought was to abandon everything, to run to the rear and see for myself. What would I say when I wrote home? How and what could I tell Norma? Surely I would have to see him, to verify his condition. In the span of a moment I pondered a million things.
“Oh, dear God,” I prayed fervently, “please be with Jack. Don’t let them kill him on the way back. Guide him to the aid station. Don’t let him be hurt bad. Please, God! Please, God!”
Not far away one of the tanks let go with a blast; the noise snapped me back reality. What was it I had told Sergeant Lawrence back in the forest? Jack was only one man, one more lieutenant who had gotten in the way of a Jerry bullet. The war would go on without him. The war was still going on, even now, and I was responsible for the men of Company G. We were nearing the church, and I suddenly remembered the men who had come into the town the night before and now were in position somewhere around the church. I had to hurry, to warn the tankers, to warn the men of Companies E and F.
I could not put my concern for Jack out of my mind, but I would have to control it.
I hurried forward.
Contrary to my expectations, we experienced no real problem with the friendly forces around the church. The first men we came upon were from Charley Company of the 13th Infantry. I tried to get them to join us.
“No, sir, lieutenant,” a spokesman answered. “Our C.O. told us to stay right in the church, and that’s where we got to stay till he orders us out.”
I wondered what the hell good they thought they were doing sitting on their butts in the church, but I did not press the issue. Technically, I might have assumed jurisdiction over them, but again I saw no point in augmenting our force with reluctant dragons.
When we at last came upon my own men who had gone forward the night before with Lieutenant Carroll’s patrol, the difference in their attitude was quickly apparent. They were enthused and eager to join in the fight. One man in particular, a bazooka man, had knocked out a Jerry machine gun with his rocket launcher and could hardly have been restrained from firing “a few more rounds at the bastards.”
The houses in the vicinity of the church were more spread out, some of them well back from the main street, so that assaulting and searching them took more time and slowed our pace. Be-cause the threat of approaching darkness hung over us, this was disturbing, but there was little I could do about it. We were not many. By now I had gathered a group about me which consisted of men from all the rifle companies, E, F, and G, yet the group numbered less than a squad in size. On the other hand, we had developed a practiced system of assault and had grown quickly into a cohesive team. We might yet make it before dark.
We had progressed a few houses beyond the church when we came upon a big chateau-like house, standing relatively isolated. Leading the men in the assault, I rushed through a front door just as two Jerries emerged from the basement and headed out the back. Almost without thinking, I dashed for the back door and into the open. It was a foolish, careless move.
Just as I emerged from the house, one of the Jerries stopped, turned, and raised his machine pistol to fire. Only the fact that the second man still was running and was between me and the weapon delayed his shooting. I instinctively opened fire with my carbine. Almost at the same time I dropped into a low crouch and pulled back to the doorway. The German fired, but his burst of bullets flew past me, knocking pieces of brick from the side of the house into my face. Loud screams told me my own shots had found a mark.
Retreating to the protection of the house, I found my men emerging from the cellar with eight prisoners. When I again looked through the back door, cautiously this time, I saw one German lying on the ground. A few minutes later we captured the other Jerry. Tossing aside his machine pistol, he surrendered meekly.
We permitted our prisoners to go outside and bring in the man I had shot. He was badly wounded. A bullet had entered his chest near the heart and emerged from the back. He obviously had not long to live.
As the Germans applied first aid, the man moaned pitifully. Looking at him and knowing that it was I who had done this thing to him, I realized I should have felt some kind of compassion, yet I had none.
Here, I thought to myself, is the first man I can truly say without doubt that I killed. It is strange how much war a man can see without ever being certain he has accomplished the primary purpose of killing the enemy. I had fired at many Germans, of course, and I had presumed in a number of cases that I had hit them. But never before had I had definite proof. Of this one, there could be no doubt. Yet I could stand there and watch him die and feel absolutely no qualms of any kind.
This seemed particularly strange to me, for I was a man who had never gone hunting simply because I had neither the urge nor the heart to kill an animal. But I could shoot a man and then watch him die without feeling either sorry for him or for the fact that I was the one who had clone it. It was as if I were a carpenter and had driven home a nail which secured one beam to another, the job I was assigned to do. As I continued to watch the Germans administer to the man, my only real passion was irritation that he was taking such a stupidly long time to die. We had work to do; we could not sit here waiting for him to take his own time about passing away. At last I told the Germans to wrap him in a blanket and take him with them toward the rear.
He was dead before they got to the main road. They dumped his body beside a house.
It was getting dark fast, so it was with relief that we rapidly neared the last houses. Most of the buildings were empty now. Sticking close to our tanks, we kept moving even though we were dragging from fatigue and the heavy coat of mud on our boots. Despite the nip in the air, I was sweating from exertion, and only the sight of our goal prompted us to keep at the job.
We were down now to five or six men, plus Lieutenant Terzella, Lieutenant Carroll, and me. Where the others were I did not know. I suppose a good company commander would have had the whereabouts of all his men at his fingertips, and I suppose to a really good company commander would have been directing his troops from some strategically sound location in the rear. On the other hand, we had all but taken Huertgen. And if you take your objective you can hardly be criticized for the methods by which you did it.
As we approached the last house, the tankers fired a few more rounds. We dashed forward.
“Go get the bastards,” someone yelled, “and let’s eat!”
It proved to be no difficult task for a dozen Jerries were waiting for us just inside the door, hands already raised in surrender. I was just about to go down into the cellar to search for stragglers when another German emerged, hands raised but an arrogant look on his face.
“The commander,” he said in English, “is in the cellar. He will surrender, but only to an officer.”
Terzella and I exchanged glances, pushed the commander’s emissary with little ceremony into our group of captives, and headed down the cellar stairs. With our fingers on the triggers of our carbines, we entered a big basement room, damp and dimly lit by a candle. There, sitting at a table, slumped mournfully forward on his elbows, was our man.
The German officer looked up slowly—a small, pale, scrawny man.
“I will surrender only to an officer,” he said with haughty independence that was badly misplaced under the circumstances.
Terzella and I exchanged glances again. We were filthy and neither of us had shaved for two weeks. The only man I ever met who could raise a thicker and blacker beard than me was Terzella. Surely we bore no resemblance to what most people think an officer looks like.
I was in no mood at this stage to dally with arrogance. Thinking of General Canham’s treatment of the German general back at Brest, I thumped the butt of my carbine down on the table with a tremendous force.
“You will surrender to me,” I thundered. Shoving the muzzle of my carbine close to the German’s face, I added, “These are my credentials as an officer.”
Laughing in appreciation of my performance, Terzella yanked the German to his feet and snatched his pistol. How badly the little Nazi wanted to play soldier to the end, to execute a final Wagnerian surrender. We would have none of it.
“That’s a nice looking belt and holster,” Terzella said sternly. “Take it off.”
Though the German looked at us as if to protest this treatment, what he saw in Terzella’s grim face must have changed his mind. Meekly, he complied.
Without further ceremony, we hustled the officer upstairs and out into the street where we herded him along like the defeated Nazi he was.
Heading back toward the church, we passed the tanks which had given us such excellent support. Reaching into a bulging field jacket, I took out several German pistols and tossed them to the men in the hatches of the tanks,
“Gee, thanks,” squealed one of the men. The others smiled their appreciation.
“It’s okay, boy,” I said with sincerity, “you earned it.”
I meant it. If they were grateful for the pistols, I was more than grateful for the help they had given us. It was all too easy to remember the open field outside Huertgen before the tankers came on the scene. If it had not been for the men of Company A, 709th Tank Battalion, we might have had no part in the capture of Huertgen or any other place. This was the only way I could express my gratitude, to give to these men the one souvenir which the American soldier cherished above all others.
Now Huertgen was almost deathly still, as though those who had wielded the scythe of death had had such a field day they finally decided to let the lifeless bodies which littered the streets have a few moments of real tranquillity before cutting loose with another deadly swath. Except for exploding ammunition erupting intermittently and the constant warm, almost cheery crackle of burning buildings, Huertgen was silent. An acrid pall of smoke blanketed the town. Whenever the wind blew the smoke aside, I could look up and see a sky sparkling with stars, peaceful, inviting. It made me think of other times, other nights, when stars in such magnificent profusion and brilliance meant things like tenderness and being with the one you loved.
With a few directions from men we met along the street, we at last came to battalion headquarters, located, as I might have suspected, in a substantial cellar near the church. Inside men were milling about, and Colonel Kunzig was making plans for defending the town against counterattack. I personally turned over to him my captive officer.
When the German heard the word “colonel,” he snapped to attention and proffered a vigorous Nazi salute, obviously still in-tent on playing soldier and executing a formal, text book surrender. To my intense satisfaction, Kunzig ignored him except for a casual, disinterested glance. The little German was crest-fallen. I could only wonder what the word surrender actually meant to him, for he had nothing to surrender. We had forcibly taken the town and his command away from him. We had forcibly taken him too.
Leaving the headquarters building, I set out to round up what I could of my company, but the blackness of the night made any Teal search impossible. When we started the attack that morning, I had had about 40 men—now I could locate only eight. These were waiting for me with one of the platoon sergeants, Technical Sergeant Charles Galloway, an Irishman with a big moustache who had done an excellent job. I led the men to a pair of houses which I had selected during the day for their commanding view of the terrain to the east. I put four men in each house, wished them luck, and continued to search for more of the company.
I subsequently came upon Captain Cliett, Lieutenant Jack Christiansen, and Terzella in the cellar of a big house. At their invitation, I decided to stick with them for a few minutes rest. The cumulative effects of exertion, tension, and lack of food had taken an inevitable toll. In addition, my anxiety about Jack was gnawing insistently away at my insides.
I questioned all three of the officers about Jack’s condition, and they all tried to convince me that his wound had not been serious. I hardly knew whether or not to believe them. The very persistence with which they sought to allay my fears made me suspicious. I decided to keep right on worrying until I could talk with Doctor Moe, the battalion surgeon, through whose hands Jack probably passed on his way to the rear.
My feet were aching and felt as if they might burst through my shoes. Indulging myself, I removed my muddy overshoes, my tight GI shoes, and two pairs of socks, drenched from perspiration. Easing my weight onto a slab of broken concrete, I began to massage my feet with delicious pleasure. Almost coincidentally, I began to tremble all over.
I couldn’t stop shaking. Sweat broke out on my forehead, under my arms, on my legs. I knew the others must have been wondering what had come over me. I made hollow little excuses and apologies, but my trembling voice belied my words. I realized what was the matter. I had been so busy that I could not remember having been frightened a single time during a day which had been replete with hair-raising experiences. Now that the pressure was off and I could stop to think, the memory of all that had happened, the near misses, the shells, the men dying, proved too much.
Only with time and a conscious effort to reassure myself that the day was over, that I had, after all, lived through it, that we had, after all, taken Huertgen, did the trembling and the sweating pass. But even then I could not sleep. The four of us simply lay there and rested, trusting that Jerry would be unable to muster sufficient strength for a counterattack. I had eight men; Cliett could put his hands on two men, three officers, and himself. Company E, which had come into the attack that morning with about 125 men, presumably was better off, though we had no way of knowing for sure. We simply had to trust that Colonel Kunzig had positioned the tanks and the remaining men of Company E that they could beat off the Germans should they come back. We could do little ourselves.
Hardly had we settled down when Jerry artillery began to turn the town into an inferno again, but since we now were the ones in the cellars with a thick cover of bricks and cement over us, we did not mind it in the same way we had minded it when moving through the streets and alleys. It did not take long for us to appreciate how the Germans could have been so tenacious despite all the shells we had thrown at them.
“I’d have been brave too,” muttered Jack Christiansen, “if I had been wrapped in a brick kimono.”
With the coming of daylight, the incoming shells became even more frequent. The reason soon became apparent when we saw that tanks and other armored vehicles had begun to pass through the town en route to the next objective, the village of Kleinhau. The main street soon became clogged with vehicles. Tanks and trucks pulled off the road into the mud, seeking some protection from the shells against the battered walls of the buildings. Armored infantrymen, hunched in half-tracks that provided some measure of protection with light armor on the sides but none on top, pulled their heads down on their knees and sat there, miserably hoping no shell would fall directly inside their vehicle.
I soon set out again on my search for men of Company G. The first few I found explained they had taken prisoners to the rear and had been caught by the darkness, but they had come back with the first light of day. With these men I began to set up a defense based on the big house where I had killed the Jerry the day before. I chose the house for a CP, and as soon as possible, sent to the rear for my first sergeant and the few men who comprised my CP group. With them came water and rations. We got our first bite of food in more than 24 hours. It was an ever-lovin’ K-ration—but good!
I noticed immediately that my executive officer had not come forward.
“Lieutenant,” explained the first sergeant, “they evacuated him yesterday with combat fatigue.”
“Well, I’m a sonofabitch,” I wheezed unbelievingly. “We do the combat and he gets the fatigue.”
It was an unkind remark, perhaps it was unjust, but I just couldn’t resist.