Colonel Whiteside crawled beside them. A secondary explosion ripped the village. The shelling had hit either ammunition or fuel, and some men cheered.
The tanks started to roll out and the barrage, on schedule, stopped. “Now they’ll crawl out of their hidey-holes,” Whiteside muttered, “and either fight or run to Berlin.” Jack was incredulous. People were still alive in that smoking hell?
The armor fanned out and began their own firing. At about a hundred yards from the ruined stone buildings, a projectile streaked out and just barely missed a tank.
“Panzerfaust,” snarled Whiteside. The German Panzerfaust was a self-propelled rocket, their equivalent to the American bazooka and, some said, far more lethal.
More Panzerfaust rockets streamed from Germans dug into the rubble. One hit a Sherman, stopping it dead. A second tank was hit, ripping its tracks off. The remaining tanks began to flank the village. They would attack it from the rear. Jack had a sense of foreboding as he watched the drama play out before him. Half a dozen tanks and ten half-tracks rolled behind the village, turned, and began to move towards it. Then it hit him.
“Colonel, it’s another ambush.”
Whiteside looked up, startled. “What are you talking about?”
“Our tanks are showing their fannies to that line of woods. If you look carefully, you can see tracks leading up to those trees and not beyond. There have to be more krauts in there, Colonel.”
Jack was about to say some more when the woods on the other side of the village erupted in fire. German armor became visible as camouflage fell off. Three Panzer IV tanks began blasting at the American armor and tanks began to explode. German machine guns ripped through the thin armor of the rear of the half-tracks and Jack could only imagine the carnage inside.
Another Sherman erupted in a plume of exploding gasoline, reminding him of their sardonic nickname-Ronsons, named after the popular cigarette lighter because they lit up so easily.
The American units hastily retreated, leaving four more burning tanks and three dead half-tracks. A number of dead and wounded littered the ground. As the mauled American force returned in disarray to the American lines, German vehicles hidden in the village began racing out, carrying the survivors of the German garrison away to fight another day.
They were all in shock. It had happened so quickly. Only Whiteside was in control as he barked orders to have the artillery hit the wood line. It took a couple of moments to coordinate, and, by that time, the Germans were pulling back beyond it and the shells landed on empty dirt. Jack had never seen German armor in action and, even from a distance, their tanks looked formidable. Hell, they were obviously formidable. The Panzer IV was supposed to be inferior to the German Panther or Tiger, but a trio of them had just kicked the shit out of an American column of Shermans and Stuarts.
“Walk with me,” Whiteside said. The regiment had taken up position just past the trees where the Germans had devastated American armor. Stoddard’s headquarters was secure and the demoralized regiment had settled down for the night. There were no thoughts about pushing on. They had wounded to treat, dead to bury, and a number of vehicles to either repair or scrap. Tomorrow they would move out and again try to bring their elusive enemy to bay.
Whiteside led Jack through the ruined village. The stench of burned wood and flesh filled the air. They walked by the collapsed church where the smell was the worst.
“Villagers were inside here, maybe a score of them,” the colonel said. “At first we thought we’d killed them with our barrage and maybe we did kill some of them, but a survivor in the village said the Germans went in just before our attack and hosed them down with submachine guns and then poured gasoline on them. I guess they were in the way.”
“It’s hard to believe there were any survivors, sir.”
To everyone’s surprise a dozen people had emerged from their vaulted and ancient basements, shaken and stunned, but alive. None, however, had come from the church. The villagers were also united in their hatred for the Boche who had brought such horror to their quiet homes.
A short row of German military dead had been laid out in the street. There were only eleven dead Germans in return for all the hell that had been visited on the French village and the American regiment. The villagers had looked on the corpses with contempt. Some of the dead Germans had been horribly torn and mutilated and were missing limbs, even a head. One had been charred to a crisp and appeared to be grinning through white teeth surrounded by blackened skin, while a couple looked unhurt, just surprised. The villagers had spat on them and one old man had exposed his ancient penis and urinated on them, cackling hysterically as he did.
“Do bomber crews realize this is what occurs when they drop their eggs, Morgan?”
Jack swallowed rising bile. “I doubt it, sir. I know I never did. I never bombed anyone, but, no, any thoughts were abstract.”
The colonel chuckled. “Abstract? Wars are not abstract. Did you notice the dead krauts all have their belt buckles missing? That’s because they were embossed with ‘Gott Mit Uns,’ which means they make great souvenirs. The phrase roughly means God is on our side, which is funny since we thought he was on ours, and not the Nazis’.”
“Maybe God’s neutral, sir.”
“Maybe there’s no God,” said Whiteside. “Forget I said that.”
The Germans were from the 21st Panzer Division. Intelligence had said that the division had been decimated by earlier fighting and was no longer an effective unit. Intelligence, Jack decided, wasn’t worth a good shit.
“Jack, when you first came here we all thought you’d prove useless. In the short time since then, you’ve changed our minds and we think we can use you better than having you set up Stoddard’s headquarters. Stoddard agrees, by the way. And don’t worry, we won’t put you in charge of an armored company. That’d be suicidal for all concerned.”
“Thank you sir, I think.”
“Trust me, it’s a compliment.”
They’d walked through the village and past the dead tanks and half-tracks. Again their nostrils were assailed by the stench of burned flesh. These vehicles were scrap and would be replaced. One good thing about American wartime production-there would never be a shortage of vehicles. Just a shame, Jack thought, that they weren’t all that good, and more than a shame that good men died in them.
At that moment, a flight of American P47 fighter bombers flew low and over them. “Where the hell were they a few hours ago?” Whiteside snarled. “When we asked for help we were told they were too busy for small targets. That is, after we finally got through to them in the first place.”
Morgan decided it would be inappropriate to comment. Relations between the army and the air force were even more strained than he’d thought, even though they were still part of the same service branch. The air force wasn’t independent yet and maybe never would be. A few seconds later, there was the rumble of thunder, and smoke billowed in the distance.
“Can you fly a Grasshopper, Morgan, or was the B17 the only thing you were trained on?”
“Not that it matters, sir, but I flew the B24, not the 17, and yes I can fly a Grasshopper.” The Grasshopper was the military variant of the Piper Cub. “I flew the Piper a couple of times before pilot training and a handful of times after.”
“Excellent. We were caught with our pants down both this last skirmish as well as the one where the eighty-eight ambushed our column. We don’t want that to happen again if it’s humanly possible. The regiment is authorized reconnaissance aircraft; however, neither planes nor pilots were available. Now, thanks to you we have a pilot and a plane has suddenly appeared. Just don’t ask how we got it, except that a division north of here is wondering why they’re a plane short. You will command a detachment to fly it and any others we can dredge up. Levin will take over your duties. Take maybe five minutes to figure out what you’ll need and get back to me.”