An Owl's Whisper (28 page)

Tigers in the Woods

From behind trees Stan and Harkin fired at white-clad enemies. When Maxwell shouted
Come on
, they retreated, keeping inside the tree line. The panzer fired its big 88 mm gun. The shell sizzled as it streaked into the woods behind them, splintering a swath of trees. The Americans’ covering fire slowed the enemy infantry’s advance, giving the GIs time to slip into the safety of the forest.

Stan and the others ran together through the darkening woods, some of it so thick there was little snow on the ground. After a mile, they slid in behind the trunk of a fallen tree.

Stan’s chest heaved as he gulped air. He turned to Maxwell and panted, “Damn, that Tiger tank’s a big sucker. Coulda sworn our Sherman smacked him a good one.”

Maxwell was barely winded. He didn’t look at Stan. “Twarn’t no Tiger, bub. I see’d Tigers in the Normandy hedges. ’Bout impossible to kill ’em. And this one were bigger and meaner. Yeah, our Shermie hit ’em bang on, but that beast’s sloped steel chin…shit, our boys’ 75 mm peashooter just plinked off like piss on paving.” He spat.

After a few minutes of rest, Harkin pulled the four others close. “Look, everything’s FUBAR. We’re supposed to be behind friendly lines. But seeing the Hun here in these numbers smells like they busted through. Nothing we can do tonight but get some rest. We’ll each take an hour and a half watch. At dawn, we backtrack—we should get to friendly ground sooner or later. Maxwell, you’re on first. Rest of you, gather up a mess of these leaves for camouflage and warmth and get some shuteye.”

Just after dawn, Harkin called the men together. He’d cleared a patch of dirt and scratched in a map. “Here’s the road we come up.” He used his bayonet as a pointer. “Here’s where we got hit. The 28
^th
was supposed to be here, but with Krauts pouring through like that, maybe they ain’t. Now we’re about here.” He zigzagged the knife tip over part of the patch. “All this is woods. We’ll move back this way, keeping in the cover. Try and hook-up with friendlies. Gotta be on our toes, gents. Expect a Kraut behind every tree. We’ll move in a diamond, me in the middle. No talking. Just hand signals. If we get hit, Maxwell, you’re with Chandler and Turner, you got Bonotucci. Let’s even up our ammo and move out.”

The five had been going two hours when they came to a dirt road. It was heading in the right direction and would make their transit faster, so Harkin decided to follow it. It was an hour later when they heard the growl of a panzer behind them.

“Don’t engage unless they see us,” Harkin whispered. “If we’re lucky they’ll roll on by.” He put Stan and Maxwell off to the road’s left side and he and the others went to the right.

Where they were, the road rose up a long, gradual hill. There were evergreen trees and large boulders. Stan prayed they wouldn’t be seen.

A few minutes later and a hundred yards off, it emerged from the fog: A single Tiger tank. As it lumbered up the hill, Stan could see a half dozen riflemen on top and another half dozen walking along side of it. The tank was whitewashed and the infantrymen wore white cloaks. With the snow on the hillside and the mist in the air, the panzer looked like a massive mechanical ghost, clawing itself up from a frozen grave.

Stan’s throat tightened. His mouth was dust-dry. He took a bite of snow. He felt short of breath—like his lungs were struggling but the air was too thick to suck in.
Jeeze, you’re loud as a steam engine. Them Germans’ll hear ya over the roar of their tank. Come on, calm down.
He could feel the pulse throb in his temples.

Maxwell rapped Stan on the shoulder and whispered, “Good luck, kid,” as he pushed on his brass knuckles. Before Stan could respond, he crawled off lizard-like down the hill toward a huge outcrop of rock so large that the road had to swing around it before heading on up the hill. The stone jutted from the hillside like a giant navy ship emerging from a fog bank. The top was a flat stone platform running horizontally from the uphill side. From the road to the top of the outcrop, it must’ve been a dozen vertical feet at the sheer downhill face.

Stan watched in horror and wonder as Maxwell slithered on top of the stone and lay there like a dark splotch in the snow. From above, he could see Maxwell, but the Germans on the road below could not. Stan looked over at Harkin, thirty meters away on the other side of the road. Harkin gestured
What the hell?
with a shoulder shrug. Stan answered
I have no damned idea
with a shake of the head and the same shrug.

The dismounted
panzergrenadiers
were arrayed a few meters out from the tank. The hatch was open and a tanker was riding halfway out for visibility. He peered through binoculars and occasionally pointed and yelled to the soldiers. The men walking on the left side swung to the left of Maxwell’s boulder as the tank followed the road around on the right. As the panzer groaned by the stone, the tanker’s head was still a yard below Maxwell’s level. Black exhaust poured from the pipe as the engine strained up the steep incline.

Stan’s breathing slowed. It was like watching a movie.

Suddenly Maxwell sprang. He tossed a grenade over the side of the rock opposite to the road. Like a puma, he leapt onto the top of the tank, his Tommy gun in his right hand and a pinless grenade in his left. Stan was almost as shocked as the enemy. As he hit the panzer’s deck, Maxwell flicked the grenade into the open hatch just as the tanker dropped down, pulling the cover closed behind him. Maxwell fired a burst that knocked down two of the soldiers atop the tank before they could fire, and he shot another as he wheeled his Mauser rifle. The first grenade went off, taking two of the three Germans on the far side of the boulder. One of the other grenadiers on the tank leapt up only to be hit by his comrades on the ground, firing at Maxwell. The grenade in the tank thudded. The vehicle lurched to the right, crushing a German infantryman on the ground, and sputtered to a halt. By this time Stan and the other GIs were firing. They cut down the three remaining Germans on the ground and one of the two on the tank. With his Thompson out of ammo, Maxwell ripped the bayonet from his boot and leapt at the last enemy soldier. The German got off a shot from his machine pistol just as Maxwell fell on him. The bayonet sank deep into the grenadier’s chest. He and Maxwell tumbled off the side of the smoking tank.

The spectacle left Stan feeling as invincible as Maxwell had been. He sprang to his feet and ran toward the tank, whooping like a wrangler at roundup. He didn’t see the wounded grenadier rise up on an elbow and level his rifle, and he didn’t hear the single crack as Harkin killed the German before he could fire. Stan just wanted to get to Maxwell. To tell him how amazing it all had been.

Maxwell lay face down on the legs of the German he had stabbed. The young German’s eyes gazed skyward. His mouth was open, as if caught in mid-speech. The blond fuzz on his pink cheeks looked like it had never met a razor.

Stan rolled Maxwell over just as Harkin ran up. The red spot in the center of his chest held Stan’s gaze for a moment. Stan touched it—warm, moist, sticky. He looked into Maxwell’s eyes. Like the German’s, they were open, but not in surprise. Maxwell’s eyes seemed satisfied. Like a fella that’s done a good day’s work, Stan thought. He looked up at his sergeant.

Harkin nodded. He knew death when he saw it. He pulled Stan to his feet. “Come on, son.”

They’d taken just a few steps when one of the Germans moaned. His carbine lay a few feet from him.

Turner ran up and kicked the weapon away, then he leveled his rifle at the wounded man.

“Hold it, Turner,” said Harkin, hustling over. He surveyed the young German’s wound—thick red blood oozed from his leg and dripped onto the snow. He picked up the soldier’s Mauser and tossed it down the hill. “He’s no threat to us.” Harkin kneeled next to the man and gave him an ounce of water from his canteen.

The man gripped Harkin’s hand. “
Bitte, eine Zigarette.
” He coughed and blood appeared on his lips.

Harkin rolled him onto his side. A wound in the back had painted the snow beneath him scarlet. “Got no cigarette,” Harkin said, easing him down. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stick of Juicy Fruit. He unwrapped the chewing gum and folded it in half. He put it in the man’s mouth.

The man coughed. “Is good.
Danke, mein Herr
.” Pink saliva trickled from his mouth as he chewed.

Stan pulled a cloak from one of the dead Germans and brought it over. He draped it over the wounded man’s chest and legs.

Harkin stood. “Let’s move out, men.”

As they trudged away, Turner scoffed, “Should’ve let me plug that Hun. I can just see him putting his pals onto our trail.”

Harkin rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I saw him taking his grandkids to see the circus forty years from now.” He glanced back at the tracks they were leaving in the snow. “Besides they won’t need any help trailing us.”

“You see him?” Turner shook his head. “Guy’s a goner anyhow.”

“Just keep moving, Turner,” Harkin said.

Ten minutes later they heard armor clanking behind them. “Panzer, by the sound of it,” Harkin said. “Ain’t good. They see that shot-up tiger, they’ll be hot as hornets.” He looked back. “Let’s step on it.”

As they moved quickly forward, Stan whispered to Harkin, “My uncle was a Marine in the Great War. Before I went in, he told me, ‘Combat—it’s the darndest thing. It’s a percent blindin’ terror, a percent skyrocketin’ thrill, and ninety-eight percent crushin’ boredom.’ This mornin’, watchin’ Maxwell, I seen them skyrockets.”

Harkin patted Stan’s shoulder. “Good for you, kid. Guess I was more on the terror side, myself.”

“Sarge,” Stan whispered, “like Turner said, the Kraut back there looked done for. How come we didn’t…?”

“Shoot him?” Harkin sighed. “You kill when you have to kill, Chandler. You don’t when you don’t. Cases like that, you let the Lord decide if he’s done for or not.”

The Americans pushed on, bearing northwest. The snowfall had stopped, and the air was luminous with frosty mist. Silence hung in the woods like the fog. To Stan, the scenery was dreamlike, almost intoxicating, with the snow-flocked trees, the cottony quiet of his steps, and the sterile cold. The fog seemed alive, creeping a bit ahead of the GIs, seeping along their flanks, and slipping in behind them.

They had been going no more than twenty minutes when Harkin halted them with a raised hand.
Hear that?
he mouthed, tapping his ear.

Stan looked around, his heart pounding. Like everyone else, he shook his head.

“Twig snapped,” Harkin whispered. With choppy hand motions, he signaled
Move that way, quick
.

Two minutes later Harkin stopped the troop again. He froze, his head cocked like a stag’s. After a breathless moment, he barked, “Go, go, go!” and broke into a sprint.

As everyone ran, Stan heard a rifle pop behind them. He heard Harkin’s cough. Saw his head go back and his chest heave forward, like it was chasing the pink mist that sprayed from his breast. He knew Harkin was dead before he hit the ground.

The hollow cracks of rifle fire echoed through the woods. Rounds sang by Stan’s ears. They clipped tree branches and kicked up sprays of snow. Stan saw Bonotucci and Turner drop down, firing wildly back into the mist. Instead of sticking with his buddies, he ran, slipping and sliding on the snow. The fog was so thick he should’ve worried about running into a tree limb. But the only thing he thought about was not dying there in the forest.

The firing stopped as abruptly as a lamp switched off. With the quiet, Stan heard pounding footsteps a bit behind him. And huffing. He imagined his pursuer’s dark eyes and wondered what the burn of a bullet in the back would feel like. But the footsteps behind faded, and soon it was quiet again. He knew he should have stayed with Bonotucci and Turner. But it was too late to go back. Too quiet. And he was too yellow.

Stan came to a road. Fresh tire tracks streaked the snow’s perfect sheet. He ran in the tracks to hide his footprints. He looked around frantically as he ran. Only the crunch of his boots on the snow and the heaving gasps of his lungs cracked the air’s crisp silence.

Stan was glancing back when he tumbled down a steep embankment, out of control. His rifle and helmet went flying. His face smashed against a rock, and he landed dazed in a small, half-frozen creek. He lay there in the trickle of water like a set of work clothes tossed off after a long day. His face was numb and every part of him was jarred, but he made himself look for his weapon and his helmet. He found them nearby in the icy water.

When he heard a vehicle on the road, he dragged himself downstream to some scrawny shrubs. The bushes had lost most of their leaves, so they offered little concealment, but they were all he had. The vehicle stopped and Stan heard voices above him on the road. He saw two Germans at the top of the embankment. One seemed to look directly at him. Stan ducked his head and waited, cowering, for a rifle shot to kick into his back. He heard a shout and figured that was it. When no bullet came, his conscience sneered
Guess they know you ain’t worth the lead.
He stood up with his arms raised.

But the soldiers were gone. He heard the vehicle pull away, then it was quiet.

After a minute Stan climbed the slippery embankment to the road. He peered into the mist. In both directions. There was no one around.

Stan stood there alone. His face hurt. His hands were numb. His clothes were soaked. But it was the truth that stung Stan deepest: He’d tried to surrender. He’d run out on his buddies. He didn’t belong among brave men. Then he glanced up at the sky. Its brightness surprised him. He stopped shivering, and his breathing slowed, and salty tears filled his eyes.
He was alive!
Somehow he had what war rarely gives—a second chance. A chance to show some guts like Maxwell and Harkin. A chance to make it back to Eva!