Reluctant Warriors (38 page)

As the light remained dim, the chocolate began to do its magic. Soon he became fully
conscious, making his way toward his lines more carefully. Many times he thought
he heard something and ducked down, only to have minutes pass by with no untoward
sounds at all. Periodically, he came toward lights that turned out to be from farmhouses
or came upon roads. Twice he put the poncho over his head and checked his position
and the time by match light.

The going was slower than he had expected, but by 0300 he figured he was within a
mile of his lines. It was then that he began to encounter German troops. He crept
past a campfire here and there, and sounds of men became common. The numbers were
small, however, confirming his idea that the enemy had mostly pulled out. He was
not challenged even once.

Just as Wiley came to the river, he heard some distant and muffled explosions to
the west and sat down beneath a bush. In a few minutes, a large glow appeared on
the horizon in that direction. He smiled.

“Well, I guess I'm not as dumb as I look,” he said to himself. “I'll bet that was
my train. You just never can tell.”

He watched for about ten minutes more, started out again, and soon made it to the
water. The water level had receded in thirty-three hours, and he waded across without
even losing his footing.

Soon he was challenged by sentries but had no trouble convincing them that he was
an American. It was 0430. He smiled, knowing he had made it with time to spare.

Lieutenant Gummerson soon appeared. “Sergeant, you're back!”

Wiley took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. I'd like ta make my report.”

Gummerson motioned Wiley up the hill toward the command tent. Still dripping wet,
Wiley lifted the flap and saw a strange captain behind the desk.

Sergeant Bracey walked by. “Hey, Chip.”

Wiley walked toward the captain, who looked up with a frown. The scout saluted.

The officer looked up, returning the salute. “Sergeant?”

“Sergeant Wiley reporting, sir. I'm supposed ta report ta Captain Reddin'.”

“You will report to me, soldier. Redding's at the aide station.”

“Bad, sir?”

“Nah, a couple of pieces of shrapnel in the shoulder. Tank he was standing next to
got it from an eighty-eight. Report.”

“Sir, Private Kuehl and I were sent out ta get the photo cartridge from a . . .”

“Oh, yeah, Sergeant Bracey told me. Bracey!”

“Sir!”

“Sergeant, get me that report on replacements.” Looking completely uninterested,
the officer motioned with his hand for Wiley to continue.

“Sir, Kuehl and I crossed the river at 1800 on the 23rd. We proceeded about six miles
in the direction of the airplane, seein' no enemy activity of any type. That's when
we saw a large concentration a armored vehicles headed north, SS stuff.”

“Yeah, we know all about that. Did you get the cartridge?”

“No, sir. It was already gone.”

“Doesn't make any difference.”

“Sir?”

“We don't need the intelligence, sergeant. Some guy in the Twenty-Sixth Regiment,
up the line, captured a German colonel who told us everything we needed to know.
Where's this Kean guy?”

“Kuehl, sir. We split up, sir. I sent him back so he could tell you the enemy was
movin' north. I went on for the cartridge. He didn't come back?”

The officer frowned again, picked something out of his teeth, and then lit a cigarette.

“Nope, haven't seen him. So you lost a man and didn't get the film. Well, don't worry
about it. Third Armored Division is moving north to deal with the SS boys, so we
get a couple of days off. Since you haven't been on the line, get some rest. We might
want you to go out again tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wiley saluted and walked out of the tent thinking about his friend.
He shoulda gotten
back. He had a straight shot.
At the same time he knew the business of scouting was
as dangerous as it got.
Anythin' coulda happened ta him.

The sky was just beginning to brighten. The scout shook his head and sighed. “It's
all just a pile of crap. I hate the Army.” Actually, he loved it.

Heinzeldorf

. . . but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.

—King David,
63rd Psalm
King James Bible

A
s the war in Europe slowly ground to a halt, Allied armies, having crossed the Rhine,
rapidly pushed through Germany and its thousands of towns and cities. Most towns
and cities gave up without a fight, while others were defended fiercely.

Western Germany, Company B, February 26, 1945, 1830 hours

Staff Sergeant Joseph “Chip” Wiley thought back on the previous two nights' scouting
missions.

The first night, with Private Dennis Walsh, was bad enough. Studying the best maps
available at company headquarters for an hour, they'd decided to go to the left of
the enemy position and then curve around into the town. It was actually a toss-up
what side to probe. Captain Redding's orders had been of no help in the decision
at all.

“Look, you two,” Redding had said, looking up from his desk. “An advance element
of A Company with a couple Jeeps and a half-track smashed into what they said was
a very strong position going up the main road into that town, Heinzburg, ah, Heinzedorf,
whatever.” Like everyone else, Redding was exhausted from being up for thirty-six
hours straight. He went on.

“Ran into cannon and machine gun fire. Blew the hell out of one of the Jeeps. Killed
Lou Fontana who was on point.”

“Damn,” Wiley said, saddened by the loss of one of the best guys they'd had. Then
he asked the obvious question. “How'd we get the place if A Company got hung up?”

“Regiment redrew the line, so now we share the place. They're talking about three
companies being involved in this one, and there are other scouts out too, so watch
out for them. We don't care how you do this, but we want you to look the whole enemy
position over.”

Then Redding called across the tent. “Hey, Oren, what the hell is the name of this
damn town?”

“Which one?” Staff Sergeant Oren Bracey responded.

“This one!”

“Oh, yeah, it's, ah, Hastenburg.”

“No, that was the last one!”

“Oh. Yeah! I'm looking. Ah, Heinzeldorf. Yeah, Heinzeldorf.”

“Really? Heinzeldorf ?”

“Yeah!”

Redding turned back toward Wiley and Walsh, and shrugged. “Hell, I got one right!
Anyway, I want you two lowlifes to scout this place and find a way to attack at 0600
tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “That gives you nearly ten hours to get in and
out and make your report. Any questions?”

“No, sir,” Wiley said, and the stocky little black-haired Walsh nodded.

The two men got their gear together and left when it became dark enough, about 1900.
Neither of them had seen the ground during daylight hours, so the going was slow.
It was completely black outside.

The first thing they ran into, just after they thought they'd crossed the lines,
was some kind of canal or pond. It was about twenty feet wide and went on for maybe
fifty feet or more. Wiley never did figure out what it was. He pushed Walsh, and
they went around to the right.

In another thirty minutes, the moon rose and they could see much more. Soon, they
happened upon what became the focal point of Wiley's life for
the next three days:
a sunken road. It wasn't on the map they had studied. They had no idea where the
thing went to the left but thought the right probably led to the town.

With the fall leaves on the ground, the men decided in whispers it would be too noisy
to rustle around in the brush. They walked down the side of the road instead.

Soon, it curved and headed up a slight rise in the direction of Heinzeldorf, which
they could now see some of, at least the darkened shapes of some buildings. Wiley
and Walsh followed it. As they expected, it led directly into the town. They saw
no one.

The emptiness did not put Wiley at ease. The quiet brought to mind a feeling he'd
had many times before while scouting: that they were advancing into some sort of
trap.

Finally, they reached the edge of town and stepped onto the cobblestones that had
been part of so many of these German towns for hundreds of years. The place was completely
blacked out. After the first block, they went through to a parallel street. Occasionally
over the next half-hour, they saw a light here and there and once dodged a dog. They
moved carefully, stooping and whispering, concluding that most of the residents had
probably fled when A Company approached and was fired upon.

Wiley was beginning to doubt that they were walking into any trap. In another half-hour
they'd reached the little town's center. There was some sort of large statue they
could barely see crowning the square. It took a while to conclude that the road they'd
been following ended in a new road just after the statue.

“I'll bet this new road is the main road,” Walsh said, an inch from Wiley's ear.
“If we follow it to the right, it'll bring us down to the back of their position.”
Wiley nodded.

They started to the right, crossing the new road. Still, they saw no one, either
soldiers or civilians. They pushed out the other side of the town, where the road
became sunken again.

Walsh whispered in Wiley's ear. “Hey, Chip, I don't think a tank could even get up
the steep sides of this thing.”

The road did head back toward the Allied lines. Soon, Wiley and Walsh saw their first
soldier, barely visible walking guard duty, flapping his arms together in an attempt
to stay warm. The German position had to be only a short distance ahead.

They managed to elude the sentry by going through what appeared to be a park. Sounds
of activity were welling up out of the darkness all around them: men talking, then,
one after another, three large motors starting. They roared a few minutes and then
stopped.

Wiley and Walsh huddled again.

“Damn, Chip, I know a Panther's diesel when I hear one,” Walsh hissed. “Let's get
the hell out of here!”

“You got it, pal.”

The men crept around a corner of a house and then halted. Not fifteen feet away was
the outline of a squad of Germans, marching directly toward them!

Wiley thought fast. Even though they'd been seen, it was so dark that the enemy soldiers
probably had no idea they were Americans. A man who was probably a sergeant motioned
toward them. Wiley swept Walsh around, and the two men joined the enemy. No one said
anything. The strange procession continued back toward town for several hundred yards
until it rounded another corner.

There was a low stone wall running along the road here. Wiley pushed Walsh out of
the line, and they flopped down behind it, Wiley scraping his left leg on it as they
did.

Surprisingly, the Germans did not come back looking for them. Wiley had to think
no one in the unit had noticed.

It was about 0300 and cold. Wiley guessed it was at least below freezing. He and
Walsh huddled, whispering about what to do next. Finally, they decided to cut across
below the town, hopefully not making too much noise in the leaves. They looked around
sharply at every sound, expecting to be challenged at any moment. It took forty minutes
to make it back to the curve in the road where they'd started. They were almost home.

Suddenly, not forty feet in front of them, a vehicle started, and its
spotlight caught
the men directly in its beam. In an instant, they both bolted toward their lines
with the light fully on them. The loud RAT–AT–AT of a machine gun, an MG 42, opened
up, dozens of bullets hitting all around them.

The spotlight illuminated the outline of the canal in front of them. They ran for
it and jumped in. But just as they dove, Wiley saw Walsh take a hit in the back.

Firing began from the American lines and the light went out, but it was too late
for Walsh. The water was near freezing. While their fellow soldiers fished them out
in only a minute or so and Walsh was able to stand, within thirty seconds he fell
over and lost consciousness.

Wiley didn't really remember being hauled to the aid station. He vaguely registered
the medics working on Walsh for a long time, finally stepping away from the private's
still form.

After the medics checked him over, some of the other soldiers packed Wiley into a
Jeep and headed out. Shivering, with two blankets still around him, he found his
reception at headquarters about 0430 less than what he'd expected. In the main tent,
Captain Redding was talking with Captain Eugene Alvarez, the long-time commander
of A Company. Soon Alvarez left, and Redding turned to Wiley.

“All right, Chip, what ya got?”

“Sir, Walsh and I saw the whole place, or at least most of it. The German left flank
is wide open. There's a sunken road that leads right up ta the town, one of those
cobblestone places, stone buildings, statues, the whole deal.”

“You fall in a river?”

“Yeah.”

“Where's Walsh? He fall in too?”

“He's dead, bullet in the back. We were just real unlucky. Ran inta a scout car or
truck that had a spotlight and an MG 42.”

Redding looked upset. “Damn. Sorry.”

“Yeah . . .”

“He just got a letter from . . . looks like from his wife in Baltimore.”

“Yeah.” Wiley was feeling numb and dopey from the cold.

“So, the left flank's open?”

“Yeah, these guys are thin, sir. We saw almost no one.”

“So we could go right up the main road?”

“No! We didn't see that.” Wiley wondered what the captain was talking about. He repeated
himself. “We went around the left and inta the town. It dumps inta the main road,
which we followed outta town toward our lines. The whole place is like a half circle.”

“So, you didn't see their actual positions?”

“No. But we sure as hell came close.”

“Chip, I got to tell you that some guys from A Company went out, came back in an
hour or so ago, and said the place to attack is up the main road.”

“That's bullshit, sir,” Wiley said, puzzled and half-angry. “I don't see it. Sir,
we heard heavy motor sounds, Panthers for sure, when we came out the other side of
town on that road. You know how they gotta keep those diesels running every hour
on those things. We heard three motors shut off, one after the other. They had ta
be very close ta the main road.”

“Well, Alvarez was just here. He's going to Colonel Pope at the Twenty-Sixth Infantry
right now to push for an attack up the main road.”

“What the hell's wrong with the left?”

“I have no idea.”

Redding got on the phone to the infantry regiment. In a few minutes, someone told
him that the attack would indeed be up the main road. He insisted on talking with
Pope. Wiley listened wearily. Redding kept trying to speak, breaking off his sentences
as Pope broke in on the other end. Apparently, the man's mind was made up.

Redding finally said, “Yes, sir,” and hung up. He turned to Wiley. “Shit. Chip, they
didn't buy any part of it.” He frowned. “I'm sorry about Walsh.”

“Yeah.”

“Try to get some sleep. You've got a few hours before things start.”

Wiley headed wearily back to his tent. He picked up his poncho, into which he had
crudely sewn a blanket. Some of the men had German women sew the blankets in, and
their “viel fleckens” even had pockets. Wiley's
sewing job wasn't nearly as good,
but it provided extra warmth, which was the important thing.

He put the poncho hood up and put his helmet on over it. He closed his eyes and slept
in fitful dozes, each interrupted by his starting awake, dread heavy in the pit of
his stomach.

The attack, which Wiley and his squad participated in, commenced in four hours. It
proved a disaster, with three Sherman tanks destroyed and forty casualties, including
fifteen dead.

When the men returned from the attack, with wounded men being carted by and the cries
of others left on the field fresh on the minds of everyone, Redding sent for Wiley.

“Look, Chip.” Redding's voice was dull and sad. “I suppose you know what they want.”

“Tonight again?”

“Yes. Are you up to this?”

“Why not?” Wiley didn't even try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “What am I
supposed ta do this time?”

“Same damn thing.”

“I figured. What'd they do ta those jerks who said the main road was clear?”

Redding leaned forward. “They blamed it on you, pal.”

“What?!
What're you sayin'?”

“They're saying you and Walsh went in there and made so much noise that the enemy
thought we were going to attack the main road and moved back in! Pope bought it.”

“You can't be serious! Those guys never moved in the first place. They were there
when Dennis and I scouted, and they were still there when we attacked.”