The Losing Role (14 page)

Zoock: “Thangs at the front, they jawst gown apeshit
boy! Gown apeshit!”

“Huh? How do you mean?” said one GI, his cigarette
trembling between fingers.

Felix: “You heard him. Those krauts are nuts.
Crazy!”

Zoock: “Fixin’ to scalp us, they are.”

(Rattner mouthed along, stammering “R, R, R . .
.”)

Felix: “Hey what outfit you from? How many strong
are you? Where’s the front?”

Max sat tall and looked official as the GIs answered
to the best of their knowledge.

Zoock: “You got that wrong, boys, all wrong. Thaw
front’s thataways.”

Max: “Men, we must find our way to the Meuse. Are we
still holding it?”

“Better be,” said one GI, his voice breaking. “If
not we’re surrounded already.”

They did the routine at four junctions. It was a hit
every time. They accumulated lots of minor, constantly fluctuating
information, of which Rattner took copious notes. Any sign of
officers or MPs and they’d speed off.

Around one o’clock in the afternoon, they came to a
crossing blocked by a long ragtag column retreating from the front.
MPs lined the crossing. One stood in the road directing traffic.
Before Zoock could turn around the MP waved them on into the stream
of vehicles. Zoock merged in behind a troop truck. Traveling behind
them was an armored car. More MPs guarded the turnoffs ahead,
crouching with their guns slung low in their hands.

“At least we’re heading west,” Max said. No one
laughed. Behind them, the armored car’s cannon extended only a few
yards from Felix and Rattner. The truck ahead was so tall Max’s
eyes were level with its muddy taillights.

Zoock tapped Max on the knee. Crammed in the back of
the truck were German prisoners. They’d rolled back the canvas
top’s rear flap and were staring out. Some were bandaged and
bloodied, their eye sockets dark and hollow.

“They’re ours, the poor dogs,” Felix muttered.
Rattner sat up, silent with rage.

Most were old men and kids. Max tried nodding at a
middle-aged private. The private gave Max an American-style middle
finger. An SS captain appeared wearing a thick dirty bandage
wrapped around his head like a turban. Seeing him Felix removed his
helmet, pulled out his blue handkerchief and tied it around his
neck. Zoock, meanwhile, pointed to the telltale white X on the
corner of their hood. The SS captain grinned and whispered to the
men around him, and they stared now too, incredulous. They smiled
and pointed.

“This is no good,” Max blurted in German, “They’re
going to give me away—”

“Give us away,” Zoock said.

“They can’t help it,” Rattner said. “We are heroes
to them.”

Still grinning, the SS captain ran a flat hand
across his throat, like a knife cutting a jugular. Then the truck
hit a bump and the captain toppled back, never to appear again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Felix said. “He can
go to hell.”

“Just find an open road, goddamnit,” Rattner
growled.

Soon Zoock found an unguarded turnoff onto a forest
road. A heavy wet snow started falling and they stopped to put the
roof up, saying nothing.

With twenty miles left to the Meuse, the sounds of
battle had dimmed. This was not a good sign. It meant the lead
panzers were falling far behind schedule. As Zoock drove on they
watched the snow fall in silence, each considering, in his way,
what total failure might bring. They smoked their German Ernte 23
cigarettes with care, breathing deep, smoking them right down to
the end.

The snow thickened and stuck to the windshield. They
saw the sparkles of ice forming on the road. The cold ached in
Max’s knuckles and in his knees. He put on his gloves and sat on
his hands.

Rattner tried the radio out in a field, atop a hill,
and in a ravine. Zoock drove straight inside the woods so he could
try it there, the tires whirring on freezing earth. Among the
static Rattner could hear the cries of desperate Germans in battle
but they couldn’t hear Rattner, who pleaded with them to hear
him.

They stopped to eat rations along a raging stream.
On the opposite bank a steep wall of ravine rock rose up, blending
into the thick branches above. On the other side of the road stood
a wall of broad fir trees. It was like they were in a cave. Their
voices seemed to echo and the water made a hollow roar.

Rattner tried the radio again. All he got was
static. He burst out of the jeep, ran down to the stream, crouched
before the violent current, and got on his knees as if praying.

“Maybe he’ll jump in,” Zoock said.

Felix went down to Rattner. Max and Zoock watched
from up in the jeep. Felix spoke softly and put his arm around the
captain. Zoock looked away, but Max had to watch it. After a couple
minutes Felix trudged back up to the jeep.

“The captain, he wants us to turn back,” he said,
almost whispering it. “Just head home. He’s losing it, gents.
Losing faith. So much for the vaunted SS.”

For Max, heading back now was as bad as being caught
spying. He got out of the jeep, stood in the road, and shook his
head—pondering the right response.

Luckily, Zoock said, “And what would heading back
accomplish? Tell me that. We’d be retreating without authorization.
Besides, might be worse medicine than anything the
Amis
can
dish out.”

They were all speaking German now.

“He’s commanding officer,” Felix said. “As long as
he’s with us, he gets final say.”

Zoock got out and joined Max and Felix in the road.
They stood in a triangle for at least thirty seconds, thinking.

“The question is—has he acted like a commander?” Max
said. He was pushing it, but this was no time to hold back.

“Of course not,” Felix said. “The real question is,
what to do about it.”

Zoock threw up his hands and slogged over to the
nearest tree trunk, to urinate.

Down at the stream Rattner kept staring into the
raging water, still on his knees. He appeared to be muttering.
“Look at him,” Felix said to Max. Rattner was gesturing now,
pleading with hands, rocking his head. “He does that a lot. It’s
his family—he thinks he can talk to them.”

Finally, Rattner and Max had something in common.
For a time Max had tried to reach his lovely Liselotte like this,
he missed her so much. He tried it at her grave.

Felix’s lips had scrunched up as if he’d eaten mud
off his boots. He added, “I know what you’re thinking—he’s
cracked.”

“No. I don’t,” Max said. “Far from it.” He held out
his pack of Pall Malls for Felix. “It was an air raid. Am I right?
He lost some kids, a wife perhaps . . .”

Max wanted to tell Felix about Liselotte, but held
off. This wasn’t his show now. Felix gazed back with hard and
narrow eyes. He nabbed the Pall Malls and lit one. “You’re right
about the air raid, and the loss part—oh, you’re right on target
there. Braunschweig was bombed all to hell. It was his parents, and
his grandparents, and six of his relatives. Flattened the house he
grew up in. You see, our Captain Rattner never married, Kaspar. As
you might imagine. He lived at home when on leave. He had no other
home.”

Max lit a Pall Mall, although they only had two
left. He put a hand on Felix’s shoulder. “Look, I was thinking. Why
don’t you go back over there and talk ole’ Rattner into sticking to
our guns, eh? Inspire him. Whatever it takes.”

Felix inhaled. He stared. He blew smoke out the side
of his mouth.

“If, you know what I mean,” Max continued. “I know
you can. I . . . I’ve seen you—I’ve seen what you two do. So, take
your time. I could take Zoock on a little walk, if you like—”

Felix released a nervous giggle. He patted Max’s
shoulder. “Way to take charge. You’ve really impressed me, you
know. You’re earning this. Truly, a fine performance.”

“Oh? Thanks. Thank you.” Max didn’t ask exactly how
he was impressing, and what exactly he was earning. It was best not
to know. He wanted Felix safe. He wanted him happy. But he wasn’t
about to die for the little juggler.

Max took Zoock on a walk. They scouted the road
ahead for ten minutes and turned back. Back at the jeep Rattner was
standing tall in the road, his hands clenched on his hips like that
first day Max met him. He announced:

“The Meuse River is within our grasp, comrades, so
let’s waste no time.”

They found a main road and drove a few miles but
daylight was thinning fast, so they spent the night at a hikers hut
deep in the woods. Zoock and Max slept in the jeep while Felix and
Rattner took the hut. It was a dark, wet, and cold few hours. Each
rose often and paced around to keep warm, and Max couldn’t help
feeling like they were doing it out of mistrust. It was like in an
American Western movie—the robbers must camp out, and as soon as
the campfire dies, they eye their accomplices all night from under
their horse blankets. They needed each other, and yet they were
poison to each other. Max, for his part, could not sleep. He
considered leaving again—just walking off into the trees and never
coming back. He didn’t. This was all about tomorrow, and the day
after that. So he rolled up in a ball on the back seat and closed
his eyes, squeezing them shut until he’d fooled himself into
something like sleep.

Twelve

The next morning—December 17, 1944. At dawn Rattner
tried the radio again with no success. Felix had their maps out on
the hood of the jeep. They had bypassed the towns along the main
attack route—Stavelot, Trois Ponts, Werbomont, Ouffet, Seny—and
traveled almost a hundred miles. It might as well have been one
thousand miles. Their jeep was a banged up, mud-caked bucket. Their
fuel was on reserve. Their limbs ached from the night in the cold,
their uniforms were damp down to their skin, and their feet wet and
freezing in their boots.

They hit the main road. At the first crossroads
American tanks, artillery, and troop trucks were heading east to
the front, stalling all cross traffic. With only ten miles left
until the Meuse River, they had to sit and wait and watch the
mighty columns pass, a seemingly unending supply of replacement
materiel and men.

“Look at the fools,” Rattner growled from the back
seat. “Throwing in the very last of their forces. And what are they
to do when that’s all gone, eh? Send in the donkeys? Or their
Negroes?—be lucky if their Southern slave drivers even give them
guns. Sorry, Zoock, but it’s true.”

Zoock nodded, wearily. Felix coughed. Max said
nothing. All three knew the truth—America’s resources were endless.
They had been there. They had seen it.

The traffic kept them from Huy on the Meuse until
almost ten o’clock in the morning. A narrow forest road carried
them to the crest of a wooded hill that overlooked the town. The
dense forest obstructed their view, so they parked the jeep next to
a thick fir they could climb for a better look.

Rattner went up first. He stayed there a long time,
saying nothing. He climbed back down with ashen cheeks, his
binoculars loose in his trembling hands. “Good God,” he
mumbled.

Max grabbed the binoculars and headed up. He saw a
medieval fort atop a hill, the spires of a minor cathedral, and a
town hall plaza. The Meuse River curved through the center of old
Huy. Huy Bridge was stone and arched, centuries old. American
soldiers, armored cars, and machine gun nests packed both ends of
the bridge. The Americans were going to hold this at any cost. Even
entering the town looked impossible. Soldiers manned key
intersections and rooftops. Sandbags, tank traps, and barbed wire
blocked all roads to the bridge, and anyone who dared approach got
the third degree from the MPs. Max watched as a staff car bearing
the flag of a two-star general was searched and the general
questioned at length.

He lowered the binoculars, stunned. What a fool he
was. Any real soldier would have known the river had to be crossed
at some remote place. Swimming it was probably best. Max didn’t
even know how to swim. Making it across would be risking
hypothermia, pneumonia. It might also require boldfaced treachery
and possibly killing. Who was he kidding? He was a better swimmer
than a killer.

A black mood seized him. His chest filled with a
dull pain. He should have bolted when he had the chance.

He clambered back down, grasping at the cold and
slippery branches. “Well, that’s that,” he said.

Felix waved at him to be quiet. “
Psst
,” Zoock
said. Rattner was hunched over the radio down behind the jeep. When
Max went up the tree, all he’d heard was crackles and fuzz. Now he
heard German voices, and Rattner spoke back to them in a modified
code of which Max understood little. Water drops from high branches
hit Rattner and rolled down his neck, but he didn’t flinch nor wipe
them away. He had gotten through.

Max was a fool, without a doubt.

Rattner glared at them. “You’re disrupting my
signal,” he sneered, “so go on, take a walk, why don’t you?”

The three shrugged and strolled off in search of
water. They returned with full canteens twenty minutes later.
Rattner was sitting in the mud before the jeep, his back against
the rear tire, staring into the mud with his hands hanging off his
knees. He spoke to Felix:

“I told them the situation. Huy’s a fortress. The
bridge is there, and it’s there to stay. We have nowhere to go but
backward.”

“And?” Zoock said. Rattner kept looking at Felix.
“And?” Felix said.

“I requested permission to roll back—request denied
till morning, they said.”

“Till morning? What are we going to do meantime,
just sit here? Freeze our asses off.” It was Zoock again. “Son of a
bitch,” he said in English and punted his canteen up into the
branches. It didn’t come back down.

Felix spoke softly. “No. Now listen. We’ll just get
more intelligence. Confuse the
Amis
some more. Put some real
fear into them. Isn’t that right, Hartmut?” He had called Rattner
by his first name.