5

  Roetgen Advanced

  Stacked up, Sergeant Franklin Delaney coordinated his squad alone to cross the clearing. Corporal Russo took the gunner team and traded roles as ammo bearer with Private Jared Holmes. Equipped with spare magazines, the Corporal set out with his team, this time spaced further against the bush and the furthest reach of the sector. The first mortared crater lay around seventy yards behind a pasture of fissured mud and bits of grass. That was, in all safe assumption, the maximum range of the mortar team, unless they had repositioned in the past hour.

  They might’ve, John thought.

  “Murphy, take three guns and advance on the house.” Franklin sparked a cigarette and burned it down harshly with his first pull. “I’ll take two guns and draw their MG fire towards the west. You clear their firing line on the east.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t wait for us,” the Sergeant said. “You clear their firing line, you breach. If they’re in too deep, secure a perimeter and defend our advance.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The squad split up. John Murphy took Jake Schilling and Sterling Goodman, and although he almost cast aside Topper, it only made sense to take the new pointman along so he’d get some breaching experience. John just hoped the kid didn’t get himself shot to shit. The Sergeant took Bill Parker and Jared Holmes and, before he took to the field, he gestured a cross over his heart and bowed his head.

  John looked away. It seemed improper to observe a man as he prays. His team compiled together and the four of them waited while the Sergeant traversed the mud further west alongside his own team. They broke off into a hustled advance towards the house. A line of fire belched from the distant pasture in their direction. Dirt rippled and became caught in the autumn breeze, wafting down range.

  John yanked the buckle under his chin and tightened his helmet. “Let’s go.”

  He dashed. The muddy terrain gave little purchase but he pushed, steady, rifle braced against his sternum in both hands. His pace bucked from jog to steady sprint. Scattered rifle fire tore up the dirt around him. He swerved towards the anti-tank hedgehog, shielded himself behind the rusted steelforged star. The rest of the boys stacked up quickly behind him with Sterling at the caboose.

  “Wait.”

  A shell shrieked in the sky. It thundered several hundred yards away. On the far west side of the clearing, Sergeant Delaney’s detachment scattered back from their advance, their curt withdrawal shielded by a line of fire from the BAR gunner team.

  Rounds dinged off the metal of the hedgehog. Not MG rounds, thankfully, but basic rifles. John waited, waited a little longer, and waited longer still. The rifle fire ceased on their position, and he burst forward across the clearing. The innermost layer of barbed wire bordered the crossing between the rest of the land that used to be farmland. A long, dense weave of razorwire flanked by hedgehogs and dragon’s teeth impeded any swift climb.

  Within seconds of his sprint, the German rifle fire continued. The terrain dipped inward, cratered from former explosive fire. It wasn’t shelter, that was sure as shit, but it’d do for quick cover. The shell screamed further away to the west of the clearing. His squad’s Browning Automatic Rifle screeched a return fire, and that was confirmation enough to John Murphy that his own advance was impeded by only rifle fire.

  “Come here, Schilling,” John said.

  Grenadier Jake Schilling climbed across the dirt, hand over his helmet. “Yeah, Murphy?”

  “Put some smoke out there. About…” John considered. He stuck his dirt-stained thumb into his mouth, lathered up a good amount of spit, and held up his wet thumb to the sky. The autumn wind pushed in strongly from the east.

  Bullets sent dust scattered over them.

  John directed the muzzle of his Garand down eastward, to a small patch of trees and broken road some hundred yards from the actual farmhouse. “Over there.”

  “I can land it closer to the house,” Schilling said as he primed the grenade launcher on his M1.

  “Do what I told you to do,” John said. “All of you get ready to push.”

  Jake took up a kneeling firing position and launched a smoke grenade far to the east, where he was instructed. Plumes of white fielded the clearing, spitting out into the air and wafting along the afternoon winds that pulled from east to west. John leapt from the crater and plunged deeper into the frontline. Heavy boots and breathing rumbled behind him. As the smoke spewed into the air, the winds pulled it across the firing line, shielding their advance, and John rushed fast towards the field of barbed wire that bordered the clearing from the farmhouse’s pasture. Blind bullets from the German riflemen rattled back, most of them far away, a few close but not close enough to deter.

  John was thankful the Germans made fences of barbed wire in this sector, and not beds of it. He slung his rifle over his back and yanked free his entrenching tool from his rucksack. “Sterling, get your shovel and dig under that post. Topper, help him. Schilling, wait a bit and smoke that same spot again.”

  “How long?” Jake asked.

  John gave his best guess. “Count about twenty seconds and do it again.” He shoved the head of the shovel into the dirt under the post and spooned out scoops of mud.

  “I get why you wanted me to launch the smoke further out to the east,” Jake said, smiling as he knelt down into the mud with his rifle aimed for a long launching. “The smoke got caught in the wind. It made better cover.”

  “Yep.” John stabbed the shovel into the crater around the wooden post he’d dug, spooned out a chunk of mud and began to fish out the stake of the post from where it was plunged into the soil. Once he leveraged the post up, raised the first level of barbed wire while Sterling and Topper did the same thing on the other side, John cranked his shovel under the wire and raised it up. “Do it again now, Schilling. You two - let’s go, let’s go!”

  Goodman and Topper crawled under the wire, and immediately, without instruction, they made John more proud than he’d been in his entire life. Both replacement GIs immediately began digging up the posts of the next wire fence.

  “You get that one,” Sterling said when Topper went to help him with the same post as they’d done the first time. “I got this one.”

  “You’re right,” Kevin said and rushed to the other fence post instead.

  The smoke had begun to filter into their space, filling their vision almost like a ghost of morning fog. John cranked the shovel again, helped Schilling under the barbed wire, and by the time they turned back around to the next row, Sterling and Topper were raising the wire.

  “Let’s go, fellas,” Sterling Goodman said.

  Kevin Topper quickly adjusted his grip on the razorwire, his palm leaking blood from where he’d snagged his hand on a barb. “We’ve got this.”

  John crawled in first. Blinded under smoke, he followed the sound of gunfire. The ground grew uneven, raised up on a slope, and he climbed until he saw a fence. Not an iron fence, but a fence you’d use to keep a bunch of cows together. Any further beyond the fence, smoke dissipated and there lay no more cover.

  “Smoke?”

  “I got one more. Where do you want it?” Schilling asked.

  “No, man. You got a lucky?”

  “Yeah? You want one now?” Schilling stared at him, eyes wide.

  “Naw, for later.”

  Jake reached into his breastpocket and drew out a cigarette.

  John tucked it behind his ear. Beyond the fence, the pasture was muddy and divided in slopes of trenches, seemingly from previous vehicles that passed through. There, beyond a wall of sandbags, a bricklaid farmhouse with shattered windows and dark holes for doorways loomed on a slight hill. At the turn on the corner, towards the house’s front entrance, a machine gunner spat bullets out towards the western flank of the clearing. Somewhere beyond that, John heard a return fire from a Browning Assault Rifle, joined with mixed riflefire and, at the end of that volley, a distant ding of an M1 Garand’s loading locks ejecting the spent clip.

  Whatever was left of the Sergeant and Corporal’s fire teams, it was enough for the MG gunner to fire upon, and enough of them to fire back. That was a good thing. John pointed ahead.

  “Can you hit the house from here?” John asked.

  “Fuck yeah. Smoke out?”

  “Nope.” John tightened his grip on his Garand. “Blast the hell out of them. If you land that sucker in a window, I’ll owe you a hundred bucks.”

  “I'll take that bet, Murphy.” Schilling sized up the shot, using the fence to anchor his barrel. He launched.

  Like a ball knocked out of the park, the HE grenade careened through the air in a steady arc, too high, and rattled off the sloped roof and rolled down into the gutter. Suddenly flames burst and shingles over the farmhouse roof collapsed into the brick wall, folding the window frame into itself in a clatter of wood, crumbled mortar and shattered brick.

  “Goddamn it,” Schilling growled. “I can do it, believe me.”

  “Naw,” John said. “We gotta work with that.”

  They crawled the field. The explosion blessed the Germans with a good case of ringing ears, but returning fire would come. The German MG had ceased once the volleyed grenade exploded on the house. There came a quiet as the entrenched defenders were no doubt collecting themselves. Once his unit had crossed much of the field, he paused their advance and split them in two; Sterling with Schilling, Topper with John.

  “We go,” John said, “you cover us. We cover you, you go.”

  “Got it,” Sterling Goodman said, splayed on his stomach flat in the mud, his rifle perched on some mud that raised his barrel towards the farmhouse.

  John went. Topper closed in behind him. Two windows ahead, both on far ends of the farmhouse. In the center, the collapsed window frame, crumbling from Schilling’s grenade. Inside the dark of the windows, rifles flashed. Dirt erupted, two shots apiece. Legs locked in barreling movement, he hauled ass across the pasture. Two more shots, missed. Harder to miss the closer they get. The wall of the house came into clarity, the stone frame of the cellar doors and the tossed over wheelbarrow outside. Just before that, the edge of the pasture fence. John dropped down behind the fence, scrambled behind the post. Two more shots. Two German riflemen versus John’s rifleman.

  “Fuck.” He shoulda gave Sterling and Schilling instructions to watch different lanes. He didn’t know if they’d sort that out among themselves already. Just in case they didn’t, it was worth returning fire. “Stay low,” he told Topper, as he stalked the edge of the fence, his chin tucked to his chest. “We’re gonna fire.”

  “I thought -”

  “Shut up. We’re gonna fire. You shoot at the left side window.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The windows flashed. The wood erupted, scattered fragments across his hands. He pushed further along the fence, trailing a line of bullet-shattered wood, and then he raised his rifle. In the far right corner window, the muzzle flashed. John fired. A second later, two Garands fired at six o’clock from his position into the right side window. He couldn’t wait. He dashed forward, hoping Topper was smart enough to follow.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  “I think I got him!” Topper said.

  John ducked through the pasture fence and sprinted. Rifle cradled in his right hand, he yanked at his belt for a grenade. Eyes focused at the window, he sprinted forward to the walkway beside the farmhouse cellar, his head craned upward. He clasped the pin on the grenade.

  From the window, a man in a gray suit fired at him. Mud spattered up from the ground at John’s feet, scattered into his face. He released the unpulled pin and flung himself against the bricks of the farmhouse wall, underneath the window’s firing line. He dug his fingers through his eyes, scrubbing, face caked in dirt, his mouth frothed with mud that he could not spit out fast enough.

  John clasped his left eye closed, spied enough through his right eye to find the window again. He yanked the pin and pitched the grenade upward, into the darkness of the shot-up frame.

  Topper appeared at John’s side. “Did you hear me? I shot the fella on the left side.”

  “That’s real swell, Topper,” John said, rubbing fiercely at his left eye. “Stand over here with me.”

  Topper obeyed quickly.

  John covered his ears. “Do this, too.”

  Topper covered his ears.

  The house boomed and trembled. Brick and debris spilled down from the corner window, dark smoke ghosting from the top of the shattered frame like panicked deep breaths.

  “Holy shit!” Topper leapt back, rifle raised. “You alright, John? Did you get hit?”

  John was still rubbing his knuckle deep into his left eye. ”Got something in my eye. Get those boys up here, wouldja?”

  Topper called out to the other two, and John took that moment to stalk against the house wall towards the front entrance. The chained cellar was not an option. He had to guess they had submachine guns inside, if they were anything more than a rifle squad. John wasn’t sure. He couldn’t trust every German gunner unit would be the same. In the meantime, the entrenched MG hadn’t fired since the grenade went off inside. Around the corner ahead, the front entrance was dug in with sandbags, nearing the direction of the MG’s position.

  Goodman and Schilling joined, and as a full four man group, John led them through the scattered walls of sandbags.

  Schilling had a drink from his canteen and slung it back on his belt. “That Jerry was a fucking squirrel. Sterling and I both shot that window to shit and he still ducked us.”

  “Seriously,” Sterling Goodman said. “If he’s not dead yet, he’s gonna be, that schmuck bastard. I’m tellin’ you, Murphy, we shot that fucking window to hell.”

  “I figured.” John crept along the wall, his body flattened. “How do I know they didn’t turn that MG around to face us instead of the others?”

  “I dunno?” Schilling shrugged.

  “Me neither,” John said. He stopped them a few yards away. Maybe a good enough distance from a grenade, but more than enough to not get caught in a lane of MG fire. He unsheathed his bayonet and fixed it onto the end of his barrel. With the scabbard poised, he tossed it ahead the corner of the wall into the open ground at the fore of the house. There came no enemy fire. That didn’t mean safety, however. John crept towards the corner, where the brick edged over into the front of the house. He raised his bayonet, waving the length up and down, trying to draw any fire, and when none came, he peeked.

  The trenches were carved deep into the ground, snaking around pillars of sandbags that formed a half-wall around a standing MG40. A handful of gray-clad soldiers scampered about, two working to feed a fresh belt into the gunner, more quickly stacking bags atop one another to form a quick fort.

  A Jerry with a belt of ammo slung over his shoulder saddled up behind the machine gun and began to anchor, looking down range towards the west. The gun belched a rip of bullets and he waited, smoke wafting from the MG40’s barrel.

  “Schilling,” John said as he slid back behind the wall. “Load up something that booms. I want you to hit that nest.”

  Jake stepped forward. HE grenade loaded into the underbarrel launcher of his Garand, he stepped out from the corner of the wall, rifle raised to create an arc. He aimed. He launched. The grenade flew. It landed somewhere and there the Jerries didn’t seem to notice, kept stacking the sandbags. The gunner ripped another volley of fire down range.

  Then, the explosion burst a mist of light and blood and dark smoke in all directions. A handful of standing men that had been busy rebuilding their fortifications were standing no longer. What remained of them was hidden behind the half-wall of the sandbags.

  “Fuck yes!”

  “Atta’ boy, Schilling!”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “That’s better than that window shot,” Jake said, smiling wide. “Ain’t it, Murphy?”

  John cracked a smile. “What window?”

  They pushed, rifles raised, ready to leap into cover behind the German’s own sandbags. John had his chin braced against the stock of his rifle. The house door was on the right side, up a small climb of stairs, closed.

  “Topper, watch the door,” Murphy said.

  “Okay.”

  They proceeded. When they came to the entrenchment, John lowered to a crouch-walk along the dirt wall. With a measured approach, he guided his men towards the encampment where the Germans had hastily been rebuilding their entrenchment. A tattered bag of sand spilled out, hanging over the bordered half-wall. Inside the entrenchment, six men lay among each other, soaked in pooling blood, limbs scattered here and there, burnt but legible. Under a crumple of gray suits, a German soldier whimpered, gurgling.

  John turned his rifle towards the house. “Let’s get this done.”

  Down the field, Sergeant Delaney’s detachment advanced. It would be several minutes before they regrouped, and John figured there was still much work to do in that time. He set Sterling and Topper to guard the front door, took Schilling along and circled alongside the outside wall of the house on the opposite side. As they reached the rear of the house near the pasture, he saw a handful of fleeing men down across the clearing towards Roetgen proper. There, in a dug-in entrenchment just behind the farmhouse, a stack of mortar shells laid into the dirt alongside a propped up mortar tube.

  “Coward fucks,” Schilling said.

  John shrugged. “Makes our life a little easier.”

  By the time they circled to the front of the house, the Sergeant joined them with the rest of the squad.

  “Manning went down,” Frank said, sweat pouring down his face.

  “He’s dead?” Topper asked.

  There were a series of grunts.

  Corporal Russo cleared his throat. “He’s dead. Let’s move.”

  John climbed the steps to the front door and posted himself at the corner. Frank joined him, carbine pointed. Rifles trained on the entrance, Sergeant Delaney yanked at the doorknob.

  Gunfire erupted from the other side. Bricks splintered and ruptured apart at the doorframe. From the inside, a volley of prepared fire staved off their approach, and John shrunk away to the furthest corner of the front porch.

  “Schilling!” Frank barked.

  “Yes, sir!” Jake wrenched his last grenade from his belt, yanked the pin and pelted it into the doorway.

  John tucked his head down, helmet held over his face. The house erupted again and the volley of gunfire paused. Frank leapt inside first, John behind him. Inside a narrow hallway, a German rifleman laid on his stomach beside a turned over couch, howling in agony, his own gun a few feet away. Down the hall behind the stairs, two rifles fired.

  John leapt into the kitchen alongside Frank and together they fired down the hallway, unloading the entire capacity of their clips in a volley of bright, loud bullets.

  “Get in!” Frank barked. “Get in, get in!”

  The squad poured in. Russo joined their volley, firing down the hall, while Walton Keene tore into the house and let rip a fresh bead of automatic fire that plumed gunsmoke into the cramped, already smoked out farmhouse.

  “Yeah, fuckers!” Walton screamed. “We’re in your house now!”

  John’s Garand spat the clip and he prepared to reload his next.

  From the top of the stairs, a rifle fired. Blood spat from Keene’s torso and he tumbled backwards, his Browning skittered into the kitchen. The squad turned muzzles toward the top of the stairs and the German rifleman that knelt there felt a flurry of bullets ripple through his arms, chest and face. Blood sprayed across the floral wallpaper beside him and he collapsed forward, rolling down the stairs, his arms tangled in the sling of his rifle.

  Instead, John tossed down his Garand and swept up the Browning. The squad turned their fire down the hall, and John grabbed hard on Keene’s feet and dragged him into the kitchen.

  “Fucking shit,” Walton said. “Jerry hit me, Yank.”

  “It happens, Tex,” John said. He searched Walton’s belt for a Browning magazine. “Gonna give this back to you, alright?”

  Walton grasped at his shoulder, in the bleeding spot between his clavicle and rotator cuff. “Yeah, you can borrow it,” he groaned. “Give it back, though.”

  “I will.” John plugged the magazine into the Browning and pushed. Down the hall, the German rifleman peeked out to return fire from his sandbags. John pointed and squeezed. Blood misted across the walls and the Jerry slumped backwards. Behind the stairs there was another, he knew. John took point, trusted his squad to be at his back. The gunfire paused and he pushed. He stomped his feet harder, louder, as if he meant to storm the position, Browning poised.

  The second rifleman peeked out and fired. John returned fire and the German soldier crumpled sideways, a line of bullets torn through his chest. Above his head, John felt bits of debris fall from the ceiling where the German’s bullet shot upward at the last second. John had himself a deep breath and checked behind his ear for the Lucky Strike and sure enough, the cigarette sat neatly under his helmet, behind his ear.

  “Upstairs,” Frank said.

  John rushed up the stairs with the BAR raised. From a doorway, a German stepped out and aimed. John fired and the man fell down squirming. He pushed into the first bedroom with Frank and Schilling at both his flanks. Behind a turned over reading desk, the barrel of a German rifle protruded upward. The three of them fired into the desk and a moment later, the soldier keeled over, eyes wide and struggling.

  They approached the last room that John had tossed a grenade into. No longer was there a door. John probed the corner of the doorway with the barrel of the Browning, but there came no return fire. The rest of the squad had begun to spread out and secure the house.

  Bullets tore into the wall about two feet from where John stood. He fled backwards into Delaney and Schilling.

  “A few more,” John grunted. He steadied his breathing.

  “I’m surprised they’re still holding out,” Jake said.

  “They’re cornered.” John tried to gauge from which direction the gunfire came from inside the bedroom. The space next to the window might’ve been likely, but he somehow didn’t think anyone would post themself in a position that had been grenaded. “Want me to rip it up?”

  “Keep it suppressed,” Frank said. With a free hand, he unholstered his 1911 and handed it off to John. “Empty the mag, and follow us with this.”

  John aimed the Browning and squeezed the trigger. He fired and fired. The barrel quickly gleamed shades of red, and he spilled bullets in a volley where he best guessed the enemy would be. Seconds later, he tossed down the Browning and raised the 1911 with both hands. Stacked up behind Frank and Schilling, they breached the bedroom. Huddled behind a large oaken dresser, now tattered in bullet holes, the last German rifleman fired blindly in return, his rifle anchored awkwardly over his makeshift cover.

  Frank and Schilling crossed both sides of the dresser, firing back. The room swirled with so much gunsmoke, John’s eyes burned. Within seconds they crossed the other side of the bedroom and there, on the shot up floorboards, lay a young German soldier with blood and spit foaming at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were red with tears and he moaned in pain.

  “Lemme get this one,” Schilling said. “I’ve been scoring them up today.”

  Frank looked away and looked past the makeshift cover, looking through the window frame that offered vantage over the front pasture. “Go ahead. Christsakes, what a bunch of trouble this was.”

  Schilling aimed his rifle down at the bleeding soldier.

  The closet door kicked open. The last German soldier fired. Frank ducked down behind the dresser. John pointed and fired. The soldier’s head yanked back as bullets ripped into his head. The man in gray fell back against the wall, sliding down, his rifle fallen over his lap, and John fired until the 1911’s hammer locked and fired no more.

  Private Jake Schilling laid on the bed, blood pooling from his neck, through his fingers. He gagged and said something that became lost inside his throat.

  “No!” Frank rushed forward. He yanked Jake Schilling into his arms and closed his hands around the wound that fountained from the private’s neck. “Goddamn it, no, fucking hell!”

  John set the 1911 down on the dresser with shaky hands and pulled out his lighter. Among the gunsmoke, he could hardly smell nor taste his own burning cigarette.

  Schilling went still, eyes open and glazed over.

  “We gotta get him up,” Frank said flatly, eyes absent, his arms tucked under Jake’s shoulders, hefting the dead private from the bed. “We gotta get him up.”

  John blew a shaky breath of smoke from his lips. “Yes, sir.”