The Losing Role (12 page)

“Explain?
Moi?
I . . .”

“Bickering again?” said a voice. It was Captain
Rattner himself.

They jumped to attention. Zoock rolled out of the
driver’s seat.

“Stop, no—at ease,” Rattner said, waving hands. As
the captain stepped closer they saw he wore the unkempt uniform of
an American GI. He held a GI helmet at his hip. “I don’t mean the
German ‘at ease’—I mean the American ‘at ease.’ Like we taught
you.” Rattner tried it himself, slouching his shoulders—a little
wooden but it would do. “Like this,
meine Herren
. You see
now?” He was speaking with greater patience, as if addressing the
children of prominent upper-class bosses. He hadn’t looked at
Felix. He faced Zoock and Max, who had moved close to Zoock at the
front fender. “See, I’m afraid you’ll—we’ll—have to get used to it.
Because I’m your fourth man.”

Max slumped against the fender. Anything but this.
He’d take one of the former chefs, the ballet dancer, anyone—

“Great! Just fuckin’ swell,” Zoock said in English,
adding a grin.

Felix glared at the black ground, his cigarette
hanging.

Rattner grinned. “What, no cheers? No toasts?”

Max held up the canteen. “Here, sir. Break a
leg.”

Rattner grabbed the canteen. “That’s the spirit.
Besides, I can’t let you drink all my hunters liquor, can I?” he
said, giggling, and added something in dialect about this being his
hometown drink, seeing how he was from Braunschweig. Max guessed he
had given it to Felix as a bon voyage gift. He gulped it down, what
must have been five shots’ worth, and passed the canteen to
Felix.

Max’s knees loosened, and he stooped, the fender
digging into the back of his thighs. He wanted to drop right there
in the mud.

“That’s it, how Kaspar’s doing it? That’s the ‘at
ease’ I’m looking for.”

“But, sore, yaw speakin’ German,” Zoock said,
retreating to his Chinese Dixie accent. “Ah reckon we best be
speakin’ English.”

“What was that?” Rattner grunted in German. “That
English?” he said to Max.

“After a fashion,” Max said.

“Ah.” Rattner put on the GI helmet. Clearing his
throat, he tried in thickly accented English, “Please, I am not so
vell understanding.”

Felix shook his head and grumbled something. Rattner
let it pass.

“Besides, you need a radioman—and I’m top
certified,” Rattner said. This much could be counted on. Electronic
devices seemed to be one of the captain’s few chaste joys. He had
even overseen the field radio operators’ training. Yet it also
meant he could keep in closer touch with HQ.

As their radioman, Rattner also wore the insignia of
a common technical corporal. Max, however, was a lieutenant now. He
had the bars on his shoulder. He’d almost forgot. He stood up tall
and faced Rattner. “From this moment on, Corporal,” he said in
crisp American English, “we’re going to have to speak
American-style, whether it’s only a grunt or a yes or a no.
Understand?”

Rattner straightened. He nodded, shook his head, and
looked to Felix. Felix looked away. Rattner said, “Juss me, Joe.
Vaaht zee fuck else?”

Zoock spat.

“Corporal, let’s have only yes or no answers, shall
we?” Max said—

“Yeah, you stupid moron you,” Felix blurted. In
German.

Zoock started. Max expected a tirade, but Rattner
surprised them all. “Understood,” he said in German, and he grinned
and wagged a finger at Felix.

“Very well, then,” Max said. He handed the canteen
back to Rattner.

Rattner hugged it under an arm so he could light a
cigarette. The lighter’s flame created a ghastly effect with shadow
and made Max take good notice of Rattner’s features. Eyes too far
apart. Broad forehead, with a hairline only inches from his thick
eyebrows. Flabby lips. Gaps between his teeth. He’d probably shaved
that afternoon, yet black stubble was already showing on his heavy
jaw. Physically, at least, the man looked the part of the
stereotypical
Ami
dogface. Max would have cast him.

Rattner clicked the lighter off. “So my English is
no good,” he said in German. “So what? Half the brigade can’t speak
it.”

A pause. This didn’t explain what the captain was
doing there. They needed more explained to them. Something to give
them hope. Max needed a PhD in it.

“That’s where you’ll come in. Anyone can shoot a
gun, that’s clear, but not everyone can do an accent,” Rattner
added to Max. “Can they, Kaspar?”

“No. Bravo to that.”

“That’s why I opted to join you all. At least with
you I’ll stand a good chance. Plus, I can keep my eye on you, can’t
I?”

Rattner had meant it as a joke. No one laughed.
Felix reached in the jeep and turned back around holding one of the
poison Zippo lighters. He strode over to Rattner, snatched the
captain’s Wehrmacht-issue lighter and tossed it off into the
mud.

“This one’s just for you, Corporal,” Felix said and
stuffed the poison lighter deep in Rattner’s trouser pocket.

Ten

Four thirty in the morning, December 16. Darkness.
Freezing. Zero Hour. In their American jeep, Max, Felix, Zoock and
Rattner rode near the front of the German spearhead. Three hulking
Panther tanks rolled ahead of them, while behind them the column
seemed to stretch back to the eastern horizon. For ten minutes they
had been inching westward, in single file. The clanking panzers and
droning armored cars slowed, and halted, then restarted with a
jolt, only to stop again for no reason they could know. Engines
revved and roared. Exhaust fumes burned in their eyes and nostrils.
The Panthers blocked Zoock’s view of the road ahead. All they saw
was the beast’s steep rear end with its steaming grilles and two
fat pipes pumping out the black smoke.

They had their collars up and scarves over their
mouths to block the soot and cold. No one spoke. Reality was
setting in, and no comparison to a theater production could help
Max now. This column was heading straight into battle, and the four
of them were undercover German agents. Max’s new American cover
name was Lieutenant Julian Price. He sat up front wearing olive
drab combat trousers, one of the better late-model American tunics
with concealed buttons, and a wool overcoat. He had actual
lieutenant’s bars. The overcoat, he couldn’t help noticing, had two
holes near his left underarm. The other three were enlisted men.
Zoock’s name and rank was Sergeant Bert Ignatius. Behind him sat
Felix, who was now Corporal Herb Fellowes. Next to him rode Captain
Rattner, or, Technical Corporal Curt Mauser.

All wore SS tunics under their GI garb so that, as
SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny had promised, they wouldn’t be
shot as spies.

Zoock’s left hand clamped the steering wheel while
his right hand and legs worked a crude ballet of shifting,
accelerating, braking so they didn’t ram into the rear end of the
Panther. Ever the sailor, Zoock hated tanks. “Rather face an
Ami
firing squad than get sucked under that monster,” he’d
shouted. He’d also proved stubborn about his Confederate flag on
the hood. Zoock’s Dixie mania could get them killed, Max had warned
Felix, yet Felix only joked, “Me, I like it. We could mount a
pirate flag on the back.” Rattner also approved. He called it a
“crafty ploy” and ordered that it stay. That was the last order
Rattner gave. He then finished off the last of Felix’s canteen and
started on another bottle of the hunters’ schnapps. Now he appeared
to have passed out in his rear seat. His helmeted head slumped
forward, and he swayed with the bumps. At least this gave Felix a
break. When they first got in the jeep Rattner sat close to Felix,
and Max saw the captain trying to grope for Felix’s hands. Felix
resisted it. Finally, Rattner gave up and rediscovered his schnapps
bottle.

Close to five o’clock in the morning, and still
dark. They were heading uphill. The jeep’s engine growled in low
gear, the front wheels shimmied. The temperature seemed to drop and
a wind picked up, biting at Max’s ears. Straw covered the road, to
keep the convoy quiet. It didn’t help the ride any. They lurched
and rocked, bouncing along. Max checked his compass. They were
heading due west, straight into the American front lines. His
stomach tightened up. His throat constricted so it was hard to
swallow. This was like stage fright—but more violent in its fury.
Who knew what minutiae of dress and habit would give them away? All
questions could not be known and they had no end. He only hoped his
thin mustache fit the role of an American lieutenant. A cold sweat
spread to his palms, forehead, and upper lip.

They stopped again. Max checked his watch—the second
hand passed 5:15 a.m. They started up with a jerk and hit a full
speed sprint out of the forest, the rush of wind smacking their
taut faces. This was it. The column raced forward, the jeep wanting
to overtake the slower Panthers ahead and Zoock, shouting again,
kept her steady by downshifting, braking, spinning the wheels
sideways.

The road widened. They hurtled onward, a storm of
metal, the tracks clanging, the ball bearings squealing. Max was
plastered to his seat, his hands stiff on his thighs. He closed his
eyes. He heard a thump and his eyes popped open.

The darkness burst open with blinding light—hundreds
of searchlights shot upward like giant fingers, white beams that
lit up the American positions ahead and the low clouds above. The
air had lost all moisture. Artillery thunked and rocket launchers
screeched and tracers cut through the light, raining down on the
Americans in orange and white and red, a horizon of erupting
volcanoes. And they sped right for it, back onto slippery mud now,
the Panther before them slinging the muck at their windshield.
Awesome, horrific, ghastly. As if they were plunging down a narrow
cavern of limestone in which bullets raced and ricocheted in all
directions.

A glob of mud smacked Max on the tongue—he was
screaming and didn’t realize it. The Panthers before them halted
and Zoock had to wheel the jeep sideways to stop. One Panther fired
and then another, and they continued on.

Was it time? They gaped at each other, their faces
flashing white and black from the blasts. Rattner was sitting up,
his eyes wide and not blinking. Felix nodded to Max. Max yelled:
“We’re on, let’s go!”

Just in time. The tanks were coming up fast from
behind. An armored car raced right around them, shredding the low
hanging branches. Zoock punched it and drove on with his head low,
staring through the steering wheel spokes. Up ahead, to the left,
was the road crossing—just like on the maps.

From then on, they would be Americans.

Zoock steered for the crossing as the column of
tanks plowed on forward into the convulsion of light and explosion.
Their side road led southward into the woods. Zoock floored it.
Shards of wood and metal landed in their path. Zoock swerved, they
bounced high, Zoock almost fell out, and Max steered. Zoock grabbed
the wheel again.

“Everyone okay?” Max shouted in English. “Bert?
Fellowes?”

“Okay here, sir,” Zoock and Felix shouted. Rattner
grunted. A stray burst hit the trees behind them, igniting trunks
and branches, the sparks cracking and popping. Rattner thrust his
head between his legs, but Felix didn’t so much as flinch. He gazed
out the back of the jeep as if watching a fireworks show, his mouth
hanging open.

Zoock drove on, skirting the main thrust. Max wiped
drool from his chin. He checked the compass. They were still
heading west, flanking the American front lines.

“Made it, we made it,” Zoock shouted in German.

Max nudged him and said “No more Deutsch” in
English. So much for the stage fright. His bodily functions seemed
to have ceased altogether as if his cavities were filled with a
gelatin. The adrenalin enhanced his senses. He could make out
individual tree trunks in the dark. He could hear far-off voices
among the shelling.

They rounded a narrow bend and their headlights
flashed on a green figure up ahead, crouching in the road. A
motorcycle lay at his side as if he had simply pushed it over. Max
saw his olive drab helmet.

“Shit,” Zoock blurted. Rattner, mumbling, grabbed at
Felix’s sleeve. Felix drew his American Colt pistol.

“No,” Max said. “You wish to damage any chances we
have?”

“You’re right,” Felix said, “all right,” and he
lowered the Colt to his lap.

“Keep going, to the same tempo,” Max said to Zoock,
“we’ll just pass him by.”

Zoock shook his head and shifted down, maintaining
speed. Within yards now. The American soldier stood. He held out an
arm to halt them. Max saw the sergeant stripes on his sleeve. The
sergeant yanked a stubby cigar from his mouth.

“Stop there! Hey stop,” he yelled.

“The Germans they’re coming!” Max yelled as they
passed, so closely that Max could smell the cigar.

“Retreat! While you can!” Felix shouted.

Speeding on, they saw American soldiers retreating
through the woods beside them. They were running for their lives,
sprinting and zigzagging and jumping over fallen trees and streams,
like so many Daniel Boones. Some had tossed their weapons. This
scene in a newsreel would have made Rattner, Felix and even Zoock
whoop and hurrah but now they only gazed, incredulous. For they
were heading in the same direction.

They rounded another bend, heading northwest, and
the road glowed orange from the flames of burning American vehicles
ahead. The flames licked upward, as high as the treetops, heating
up their faces and stretching their skin dry. Zoock navigated the
horrid, blazing carnage with care, slowing into low gear. Trucks,
jeeps, and trailers stood at odd angles. An ambulance upside down.
In the mud, blackened corpses flickered with orange and blue
embers. The stench of burnt rubber and flesh quickened Max’s pulse.
Such mayhem seemed to portend victory, but Max knew better from
what he’d seen in Russia. The greater the mess, the slower the
advance.