Guns At Cassino (8 page)

`Get
Colonel Geier on the radio. Tell him we've lost contact with the companies. Tell him too that I'm going up to have a look myself. Request that he stand by with reinforcements, if necessary, as the situation is highly confused. Get that, operator?'

Von
Dodenburg swung round, putting on his helmet' and grabbing his machine-pistol at the same time, and snapped to Lieutenant Kriecher who was squatting on a ration box in the dim corner of the CP.

`Kriecher,
I want you to come with me. If I get hit, you'll have to take over.'

The
National Socialist Leadership Officer looked at him, as if he had gone crazy.

`Come
on, man. Heaven, arse and twine, hurry it up!' von Dodenburg roared and flung him the other Schmeisser lying on the trestle table.

The
Creeper made no attempt to catch it. It clattered to the floor. Behind him the operator started to rap out his call sign.

`Hello,
Snowdrop, can you hear me Snowdrop? ... This is Sunray calling. I repeat, can you hear me Snowdrop ...?'

Von
Dodenburg looked down at the other officer, shocked and not a little puzzled.

What's
the matter with you, Kriecher?' he rapped. 'Come on, man, for Christ's sake, speak up!'

The
Creeper's eyes were wild with fear behind the thick lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses.

`Come
on, Lieutenant Kriecher,' von Dodenburg thundered, beside himself with rage. 'Get the lead out of your fat arse!'

`But
you can't make me ... me fight,' the Creeper found his voice at last. 'I'm not a fighting soldier.'

`Well
in Heaven's name, what the hell are you then?'

Von
Dodenburg never got an answer to his question.

`Look
out sir,' the operator screamed suddenly.
'A
grenade
?

A
round metallic ball had tumbled to the ground just inside the entrance to the command post. Von Dodenburg reacted instinctively, his body electric with fear. Grabbing the helmet off the table, he flung himself forward, thrust it over the grenade and pressed down hard with all his weight.

A
second later the grenade exploded. With a kick like that of a mule, the impact struck him in the chest. His whole body was lifted up from the ground. The air was full of the smell of burning. As he came down again and the shattered helmet rolled from beneath him, he saw what it was - the camouflage paint, melted by the hot blast.

`Are
you all right, sir,' the operator yelled, pulling him to his feet.

Von
Dodenburg swayed groggily and looked down at his chest. The whole front of his tunic was black and singed. `I think so,' he said weakly.

Then
he shook his ringing head. There wasn't a moment to lose. The Amis would come bursting in in a moment, spraying the CP with machine-pistol fire.

‘
Give me the Schmeisser,' he ordered, his voice sounding faint and far away. 'And stand by!'

In
the very same instant that the man who had thrown the grenade pulled back the tarpaulin, von Dodenburg fired a wild burst from the hip. The clatter of the slugs was ear-splitting in the confined space. The big Ami screamed with agony and came tumbling down the crude steps to sprawl dead in front of von Dodenburg. Hastily he kicked him over to make sure. He was. The bottom half of his face had been shot away.

‘
Come on,' he yelled, recovering himself now, 'let's get the hell out of here. It's sheer suicide to stay!'

Now
even the Creeper needed no urging. He grabbed the machine-pistol from the floor and followed the other two up the stairs.

Outside
the snow storm still raged. Here and there, little groups of shadowily outlined men swayed back and forth in mortal combat but the Amis were already pulling back. Everywhere their officers were blowing shrill blasts on their whistles and shouting orders. A Negro sat up suddenly just in front of them, moaning piteously, his arm shot away, blood pouring through fingers clasped to the stump. Von Dodenburg shot him without even realizing he was doing so.

They
pushed on. Before them in the white mist, he could hear the confused orders and counter-orders of the retreating Amis. They were definitely withdrawing. Hastily he pulled out his signal pistol and fired a red marker flare into the sky.

`Rally
on me, Wotan!' he bellowed above the vicious snap-and-crackle of small-arms fire.
'On
me
,
Wotan
-
now
!
'

Grenadiers
came scurrying out of the snow on all sides, firing wildly from the hip as they came.

`Form
a skirmish line,' he yelled, 'and stop that bloody indiscriminate firing, will you!'

The
firing petered away as the men took up their positions.

`I'll
take the right, Kriecher - you the left!'

This
time the officer did not protest. He took his position up as ordered and when von Dodenburg blew a shrill blast to advance, he ran forward obediently with the rest.

Here
and there small groups of the Americans fought to the end. But the men of Wotan knew they were winning now; they had the Amis on the run. They charged forward, ignoring the slugs which hissed by them. Men crumpled violently, but in their rage they did not seem to notice their casualties. A big black sergeant, face streaked with blood, tried to cover the withdrawal with a Thompson sub-machine-gun. A bareheaded blond trooper swung a shovel at him and sliced his face almost in half with the keen blade.

A
couple of Negroes almost hidden in captured foxholes held them up for a few minutes with well-directed fire from their BAR. But an SS man pulled the china ring from a stick grenade, counted four aloud and flung it hissing in their direction. The two disappeared in a blinding burst of flame. When it cleared the two Amis lay there, mangled and bleeding. Someone finished them off with a vicious high-pitched burst from a Schmeisser.

And
then, suddenly, the Negroes broke completely. Streaming wildly down the snowy mountain side, skidding and sliding, they threw away their weapons, fighting each other to get away from that terrible fire, carrying their officers and NCOs with them; and behind them the Nationalist Socialist Leadership officer began to go from one wounded Negro to the next, turning their heads gently, pressing his pistol against their cropped heads just behind the right ear and blowing out their brains.

The
American artillery reacted at once. With a roar like that of an infuriated beast cheated of its prey, the guns of the Second Corps opened up.

The
veterans of the Wotan Battle Group knew that strange sound well enough. Paralysis descended upon their positions at once. The rattle of their spandaus died immediately. The crews huddled together expectantly, their heads buried in the stinking uniformed body of the man next to them. In the rifle pits, the troopers cowered in the mud, bodies rolled into tense balls, trying to present the smallest possible target. In that same instant, the first hundred or so heavy shells straddled the perimeter, bursting in a deafening thunder. Immediately all hell was let loose. Purple searing flame, the choking smell of cordite, pieces of shrapnel and copper shellbands hissing through the air, as big as a man's fist, slashing showers of earth and mud. Mangled, screaming men were flung high into the air.

A
platoon of rear echelon stallions approaching the Twin Tits' HQ, carrying the breakfast rations for the Vulture's staff, were caught by a direct hit. Black army ration loaves and the kettles of hot giddi-up soup flying crazily through the vicious storm. A runner was caught out in the open, his head severed neatly by a piece of glowing metal. A group of reinforcements, boots polished, rifles neatly oiled, running panic-stricken through the hellish barrage and taking casualties all the way, dropped gasping into the perimeter trenches, dirty, bloodied and already completely demoralized.

In
the Twin Tits' CP the assembled officers looked at each other, faces pale with shock, eyes wide and staring, as the big dugout shook and swayed with each explosion like a ship at sea hitting wave after wave. In the corner, the Creeper crouched in the foetal position, knees tucked up tightly under his chin, eyes closed, and hands pressed tightly to his lips. Next to him, Metzger, his normally ruddy face now drawn and ashen-grey, took surreptitious gulps from his bottle of
grappa
, his one consolation in this crazy murderous front-line world.

But
despite the tremendous barrage, the Vulture was his usual self. Calmly he polished his monocle, and seizing a brief pause in the shelling, rasped:

`You
have done well gentlemen. I am pleased with you. Our defences have held well.'

`But
they were only niggers - little better than Jews and animals,' Schwarz said contemptuously. 'There is no victory in defeating such creatures.'

The
Vulture looked across at the one-armed captain almost sadly. Everyone in the Battle Group knew now that Schwarz was mad; he had to be treated gently.

`No
you are wrong, Captain,' he said. 'The black men were very brave, but poorly led and inexperienced. After all they did penetrate our positions.'

He
turned to the others.

`One
thing we have learned this night, however, is that we need more strength. If we had had the new paratroop recoilless rifle, we could have broken up the Ami attack much more easily. We need more beef. But that problem will be taken care of later. As soon as this barrage lifts, I want you to get back to your men immediately.'

`You
mean they'll come back, sir?' von Dodenburg asked.

`Of
course,' the Vulture said easily and slapped his cane against the side of his riding boot. 'Believe you me, gentlemen, we haven't seen the last of our black friends from the land of the boundless possibilities this night ...’

`
Hello
,
Sunray
...
This
is
Moonbeam
...
Hello
,
Sunray
,
this
is
Moonbeam
,
are
you
receiving
me
?'

The
radio operator, crouched in the cover of the snowbank at the bottom of the mountain called over and over again, while the officers of the 93rd came and went, reporting the terrible losses the Regiment had suffered.

`First
company, Second Battalion - twenty killed, fifty wounded, thirty missing ... First Battalion, sir, three officers and six non-coms unwounded ...’

Black
Jack Jones slumped behind the operator, the blood pouring down from the gash on his forehead, received the news of the terrible casualties blankly, as if they had happened to someone else's regiment and not to his own beloved 93rd. In the shelter of a poncho, the regimental surgeon was sawing off the leg of an eighteen-year-old runner. He could hear the harsh grate of the bone-saw on the boy's leg bone and his rapid, shallow breathing.

`Hello
Moonbeam,' a voice broke through the static suddenly. 'Hello Moonbeam ... Here Sunray.'

Black
Jack Jones shook himself out of his lethargy. He grabbed the mike from the operator's frozen hand.

`Hello
Sunray, here Moonbeam. Are you receiving me?'

`Sure,
I'm receiving you,' a well-remembered, satisfied Southern voice answered. 'Your boys sure did get their black asses whupped, colonel, didn't they!' The staff colonel's voice, distorted as it was by the static, was unmistakably gleeful. 'I told you they would. Yer can't make fighting men out of that kind of material.'

Black
Jack Jones exploded with rage.

`Get
off the radio, damn you!' he cried, forgetting radio procedure completely. 'I want to speak to the Corps Commander!'

`Who
the hell do you think you're talking to, Colonel!' the fat staff officer cried.

`I
know who I'm talking to - a mean bastard of a bigot whom I'm personally gonna pistol-whip when I come to Corps HQ. Now get your ass off this radio - quick!'

The
staff colonel blustered but he fetched Keyes to the radio. Underneath the poncho the surgeon had finished with the boy. A blood-stained orderly deposited the severed limb in the snow, and as the boy was carried out, another soldier with most of his lower jaw shot away, was led in.

`Listen,
General,' Black Jack snapped, 'I need all the artillery support you can give in thirty minutes. I want that goddam peak slapped with everything you've got.'

`You're
going in again, Moonbeam?'