1901 (20 page)

Captain Walter had spoken at length with those who’d seen Kessel last in the fire, and he had been informed that Kessel, far from being lost, had strode off very purposefully in the direction of some shops that were well away from the fire. The conclusion was inescapable that Kessel had been looting and had somehow gotten into serious trouble. When confronted with that and given the alternative of losing his rank or facing a court-martial and possible death for desertion under fire, Kessel prudently decided to take the demotion. He had lost his stripes before and would doubtless lose them again.

When Ludwig Weber became corporal in his stead, Kessel’s hatred became palpable. Some thought Kessel a buffoon, but Weber knew better. Despite the advantage in rank, Weber still tried to stay out of the man’s way and felt that someday, somehow, Kessel would try to kill him. Through the rumor mill, he’d heard that Kessel, in his tormented logic, thought Weber was responsible for his demotion and the hurt done to his face.

But what were they doing on alert, and how long would it last? It had rained lightly all night and the trench was inches deep in mud and water. If it weren’t so warm, they could be in real trouble. Worse, it was still raining and looked as though it would continue all day. The clouds were dark above, and Weber felt he could reach out and touch them. He turned imploringly to Captain Walter, who merely shrugged. Despite the difference in their ranks and social standing, a degree of cordiality, if not friendliness, had developed between them. Walter was not, Weber realized, an archetypal Prussian. Even Sergeant Major Gunther had begun to acknowledge Ludwig with a friendly nod.

About ten in the morning, they heard the distant crackle of small-arms fire. They stiffened and pointed weapons at targets as yet unseen. If the Yanks were about, the 4th Rifles were ready. The regiment held an earthen-walled fort shaped like a five-pointed star with trenches that protected the riflemen’s bodies both to the front and rear. On all sides in front of the fort the shrubs and trees had been hacked and pulled out for several hundred yards in what had been backbreaking work. Now it seemed the effort might have been worthwhile. Directly in front of the walls, the ground sloped down to a man-made cut in the ground that not only protected the fort from direct fire, but forced any attackers to stop and negotiate a ten-foot drop. But before they made it to the drop, they would have been confronted by an array of wooden spikes that had been driven into the ground and laced together to break up their formations or delay them.

Machine guns were set in both the points and recesses of the embankments. The whole thing was designed so that overlapping fields of fire could protect the inhabitants. The design had been perfected centuries before and it still worked. Inside the perimeter, a battery of howitzers stood ready to shoot at any target found by the lookouts on the fifty-foot-high wooden tower.

Without warning, one of the howitzers barked. “What the hell?” said Kessel, his face pale. It suddenly dawned on Ludwig that Kessel, for all his bluster, had never been in a real battle. All his exploits in China had been against helpless peasants. Somehow, Ludwig found it comforting.

The other cannon fired and continued to fire as quickly as shells could be rammed into the smoking breeches. Obviously, the Yanks were out there, as yet unseen. Damn the rain, Ludwig thought. He gulped and concentrated on trying to locate his firing lane and the range markers they’d staked out at fifty yards, on which to register their rifles.

Through the sound of the guns he heard distant and undecipherable voices, screeching and yelling. Suddenly, he could see a group of men, maybe a hundred, rushing in the general direction of their fort.

The machine guns opened up and he watched men fall, flopping like puppets with their strings cut. He found it hard to think of them as humans. The Americans stopped and pulled back, clearly stunned by the ferocity of the German defense, and commenced long-range and inaccurate rifle fire.

As yet the German rifles had been silent, and Captain Walter walked among his troops. “Patience, men, that was just a probe. There will be plenty more for us.” Some men chuckled. Ludwig thought he heard a whimper come from Kessel.

More? He didn’t want more. Ludwig sighted down his rifle and tried to ignore the annoying thwacks as American bullets landed randomly in his area.

“Now they’re coming,” the captain shouted. As if in response, the land in front of them erupted with a solid wave of blue-coated Americans, their bayonets fixed, running forward. “Fire!” Captain Walter screamed, and the trench erupted in fury.

“Steady, men. Aim low. Let them come to you. Watch your markers.” Captain Walter walked the top of the trench behind them, ignoring the fact that he made a splendid target.

Ludwig felt Sergeant Major Gunther’s presence behind him. “Squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull it, squeeze gently. Just like your sweetheart’s tit,” coached the sergeant major. “That’s right, squeeze it like a tit, don’t jerk it like you do your cock.”

Shut the fuck up, Ludwig wanted to scream as the rifle slammed into his shoulder again and again and his face burned from the powder. The Americans were falling, but they were still coming. They were into the obstacles and ripping them apart with their hands, screeching and hollering while sword-swinging officers urged them on. Ludwig could see faces and he was shocked that they were convulsed and flushed with rage. They wanted to kill him!

Some Americans, unable to get through the spikes, had dropped to their knees and were shooting at German heads and shoulders now visible above the trench wall. Some of the screams came from German voices as the hail of fire inevitably found flesh.

The obstacles were breached and the Americans ran to the ditch less than a hundred yards away from the German trenches. German rifles and machine guns cut the Americans down in quivering bundles, but they still came on. The Americans’ rifle fire grew more accurate and more intense the closer they got. Worse, they had brought up their own machine guns. Then American artillery started firing, and their shells churned up gouts of mud as they landed in the fort. As Weber fired back, he was pelted with falling dirt. Oh, God, he hoped it was only falling dirt.

It suddenly dawned on Ludwig that the regimental fort was not impregnable and that the Americans might overwhelm them through sheer weight of numbers and uncommon bravery.

The Americans reached the lip of the ditch and paused while the German guns continued to rake them. Some tried to climb down; others were pushed over the edge by those behind them. Still others tumbled lifeless onto the ground below.

The rain, until then a nuisance at worst, suddenly commenced to come down in torrents, blinding Ludwig and everyone near him. He could no longer see the Americans! Terrified, he wanted to run. At any second a horde of blue-jacketed Yanks would emerge from the sheets of rain that were beating on his face.

“Aim low!” Captain Walter shrieked. “Aim for the wall of the cut. You know where it is!”

The Yanks were on them. Emerging from the rain, they came at the German line screaming like maddened animals. Weber fired and fired again, pausing only to reload. He awkwardly dropped bullets into the mud and lost precious time as he hurried to jam them into the magazine of his Mauser.

A beast was before him—an enemy with wet hair plastered on his head, his red face surrounding an open mouth that vented a primal scream. Ludwig fired and the man dropped to his knees. He fired again and the man rose up and hurled his rifle at him like a spear. It skidded along the rain-slicked ground and came to rest just over the lip of the trench. The man lay facedown on the ground and stopped moving.

It was too much. Later, Ludwig felt he’d heard a sigh, and perhaps he had, but slowly, very slowly, the Americans began to withdraw in the now-slackening rain. As some of them tried to drag their wounded away, others turned to fire at their German tormentors, while German fire continued to reach out and kill.

Finally, the order came: “Cease fire!” It was not obeyed immediately. The intensity of battle had overwhelmed some soldiers who continued to fire until they ran out of ammunition or were grabbed by comrades and stopped. Not caring in the least what the mud would do to it, Ludwig set his rifle on the parapet and realized he was breathing convulsively. The Americans had tried to kill him. Now the enemy had a face. Part of him wanted to go out and look at the dead man who’d thrown his rifle at him. He knew he’d killed that one, but had there been others?

As Ludwig’s senses returned, he realized he was in a world of sound and smell, as well as sight. The area about the trench was full of the stink of blood, urine, feces, and other stenches he couldn’t recognize. He checked his crotch and found to his relief that he hadn’t soiled himself, although others had. He also realized he was hearing moans and screams that hadn’t reached his deadened ears in the heat of battle. A number of his comrades were hurt, many very badly. Although the earthen walls protected most of their bodies, soldiers had to raise their heads and upper torsos in order to fire, and most of the wounds were to those critical areas of the body. A handful of men had been hit by American artillery, which finally shifted to shrapnel that exploded above the trenches and showered the occupants with maiming shards of steel. For the first time, Ludwig also saw just what sickening things a bullet can do when it hits a man, twists inside, and leaves through a fist-sized hole.

The day was not over. The Americans came again and again. The subsequent attacks, however, lacked the strength and ferocity of the first one and were beaten back almost easily. Even so, Ludwig’s company and the rest of the 4th Rifles took more casualties. It was small comfort that the Americans had suffered far worse. The 4th Rifles had been mauled.

Before sunset and after it was confirmed that the Americans were indeed withdrawing from the area, a few Americans appeared under a flag of truce and asked to remove their wounded and dead. The request was quickly granted. “Let them care for their own,” sighed an exhausted Captain Walter. “We have enough to do with ours.”

Ludwig watched as the sad caravan of American carts took as many of the moaning wounded and dead as they could. He was deeply saddened and shaken by the cries coming from the blood-soaked field. He had not truly realized that so many men would call for their mother in such circumstances, and it tore at him. For once, even Kessel had nothing to say.

In the early afternoon of the next day, the mangled company was withdrawn and replaced by fresh troops, who stared at them in disbelief. Do we look so awful? Ludwig thought. Are we the walking dead? Do they not know we are the victors? His uniform was covered with dirt and blood, some his own. He found a small cut on his neck that had probably been caused by a piece of spent shrapnel. He still carried the American’s rifle, which he’d shown to the captain. The fact that it was a British Lee-Metford was disturbing. Just where the hell were the Yanks getting British equipment? The captain had no answer, but Ludwig could see that he too was puzzled and disturbed. If the damn Brits were arming the Yanks, there could be real trouble.

As they marched slowly and out of step along the dirt road a few miles from the fort, Ludwig found himself alongside Captain Walter, who suddenly raised his right hand and signaled a halt.

“What the hell?” Ludwig gasped.

In a field alongside the road lay bundles of American dead. Some were in small, neat rows; others were piled in heaps. A troop of dismounted Uhlans idled nearby, and Ludwig noticed their lances had been replaced by rifles. Then it dawned on him. The Americans had been executed.

“Who is in charge here?” asked Captain Walter, his voice almost breaking.

A young lieutenant rose from the ground and saluted insolently. He had a sulky, pouty face and looked upon the infantry captain as if he were some lower order of life. He was a Uhlan, and to a Uhlan all riflemen were shit soldiers. “I command here, Captain. Lieutenant Sigmond von Hoff at your service.”

“Are you responsible for this? This murder?”

“An execution, Captain.” Hoff smiled benignly. “Nothing more and most certainly none of your concern.”

The man’s casualness was outrageous. “And by whose orders?”

“Why the kaiser’s, Captain, the kaiser’s.”

Captain Walter seemed rocked by the answer. “It cannot be. What was their crime? When was their trial?”

Ludwig noticed that several of the other Uhlans were gathering around, grinning, while others had turned away, possibly ashamed of what they had done. Ludwig wondered if these were some of the group that had gotten whipped by the Americans a few days ago. If so, that would account for their behavior, although it did not justify it.

“Captain, their crime is treason. They are Germans fighting for the Americans. The kaiser has decreed that one who is born a German will always be a German. A German cannot renounce his citizenship and be justified in taking up arms against the Reich and our beloved kaiser. If he does that, he is a traitor and, by the way, no trial is necessary under these circumstances. Their guilt is obvious.” He again saluted, this time even more casually. “If you will excuse me, Captain, my men and I have much to do.”

As the Uhlans walked away, Ludwig turned to the captain. “Sir, has the kaiser gone mad, issuing that kind of order?”

The captain’s voice was stern, but Ludwig could see the concern and hurt disbelief in his eyes. “Corporal, you will watch your tongue. Our kaiser is surely not mad. He may have received bad counsel, or an order may have been misinterpreted. Do you understand me, Weber?”

Ludwig nodded. Indeed, he understood quite well. One did not call the kaiser insane, no matter what, unless, of course, one wanted to be considered a traitor as well. Ludwig looked at the captain and saw a small, sad smile on his face and he quietly shook his head. Then Ludwig knew that the captain was in complete agreement regarding the kaiser, only he had the wit and discretion not to say it.

Ludwig turned again to the field where so many dead lay in prim formation. What will the Americans do when they find out about this atrocity? His body chilled at the thought of the vengeance that could be wreaked upon them. What if he were captured? Would they kill him as well? Oh, Jesus, what is going to happen now?