Lost...

(Source)

"Lieutenant, hold up." Sgt Stephen Hernandez hissed at 1Lt Nate Paddock who was just ahead of him.

The word passed up to the front to hold position. Paddock, crouching low, moved back to Hernandez. "What's up Sgt Hernandez?"

"One of the new kids is missing."

Hernandez motioned to Sgt Mike Peavey, his 3rd Squad was bring up the rear and it was his man Pvt Riley Taggert, the trail man, who had noticed the gap between him and the next man in the squad. The guy who had been there just moments before, was gone. Vanished. He went with Peavey to brief the lieutenant.

"Sir, I was sweeping the rear, making sure we weren't being followed, when I turned back to the front, McCall wasn't there. I didn't hear anything, didn't see anything in this damned fog. Sorry sir."

Paddock looked around, the fog was getting thicker and there wasn't much daylight left. He hated to leave a man behind, but he had forty others to worry about as well.

"You can't watch everything Taggert, he can't have gone far." Turning to two of the men in his platoon headquarters, Paddock said, "Winston, Romano, check each side of the track for about ten yards out. Don't get lost. Hopefully the kid didn't panic."

Unfortunately, that's exactly what Pvt Jeb McCall did.

He had been moving along, watching his sector, stepping carefully, trying not to make any noise. Then he had misplaced one foot and gone sliding down the bank to the right side of the trail. It was muddy and the mixture of leaves and old pine needles made it slippery as Hell. At the bottom of the steep bank he had rolled and twisted his ankle. Not badly, but enough for him to spend some time massaging it. When he looked up, he had no idea where he was.

At first he thought that he couldn't be that far from the bank, find that first he figured, then climb back up. He saw that the forest floor was disturbed so he figured that must be where he'd come to rest after his slide down the bank. So he moved in that direction.

"That's odd," he thought to himself, "where's the damned bank?"

He moved a bit further on and encountered a small slope. But the forest floor was undisturbed here. "Huh," he thought, "I must have slid down further away, but this must be the same bank. Has to be." So Pvt McCall climbed up that low slope with some difficulty, slipping back a step for every step forward. "Damn, I'm making a lot of noise!" he muttered.

He was, but it had started to rain and the fog was getting thicker. The noise he made didn't carry very far. The two men on the other side of the small ridge never heard him.

"Otto, face it, we're lost."

The older German looked around, he could have sworn they had walked by this particular tree at least twice in the past hour. A city boy from Kiel, Otto Dorfmann had been in the Navy at the beginning of the war, had served in destroyers and fast patrol boats. But there weren't so many of those left. He had been transferred to the Army in early September. He missed the sea and he hated this bloody forest. It reminded him of all the stories his Oma¹ used to tell him and his sisters when he was a boy. The woods still terrified him at times.

"Listen Junge, do you hear that?" Otto froze in place and held his hand to indicate that Karl should do the same, which the young man did.

Not far from them, a branch had made a dull snap as it broke in half. It was damp but it had enough strength left in it to actually make a noise when the man up the slope stepped on it.

The hair on the back of Jeb McCall's neck stood up as he realized that there, not twenty feet away, were two Germans. One, an older man, was equipped with a submachine gun, the younger man had a rifle slung over his shoulder. Jeb's eyes went wide as the older man began to swing the barrel of his MP 40 in Jeb's direction.

Without thinking, Pvt Jeb McCall brought his rifle up and squeezed off two quick shots.

Otto Dorfmann grunted in pain as a round from the American rifle hit him low in the abdomen. He managed to squeeze the trigger of his machine pistol before he dropped to his knees on the forest floor. The American's second round had missed him completely. But the one which had hit him was all it took. Otto knew that without immediate medical care, he was a dead man.

Karl Weber struggled to get his rifle off of his shoulder. He had seen the man up the slope bend over and had heard his sudden gasp of pain as Otto shot him. But why was Otto kneeling now, why had he dropped his MP 40?

Jeb McCall had nearly doubled over and had gasped aloud as a round from the German weapon had hit him in the groin. What he did not know is that the 9 mm round had been delivered from the factory with a short powder charge. It was one of twelve which had been sabotaged by a Polish slave laborer at the ammunition factory. It had managed to get through McCall's overcoat and trousers, and still had enough of a punch left to cause a certain amount of pain. As anyone who has ever been punched in the groin can attest to. The round hadn't even broken the skin where it had hit him high up on the inside of his left thigh.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as he watched the older German fall to the ground. The younger man looked terrified, his eyes as big as saucers as he struggled to bring his rifle into play. All McCall could do was watch as the German K98k came off the German's shoulder.

McCall winced in pain as he tried to stand back up and aim his rifle at the German.

Karl Weber worked the bolt of his rifle and was startled as a shiny brass round was ejected. His weapon had already had a round in the chamber. Ah well, now it has another, Weber thought as he aimed at the wounded man on the rise in front of him.

Weber had trouble aiming his rifle, his sight picture looked funny,"Scheiße!" Weber exclaimed, his safety was still on!²

McCall heard the German exclaim and saw him do something with the rear of his rifle bolt. But he didn't watch for very long. He aimed and fired.

Grenadier Karl Weber's head jerked back, his soft cap flying off as the first round hit him square in the forehead, the next one hit him in the throat, but he was already dead. The man crumpled to the forest floor without any sound but that of his body hitting the ground.

He fell next to the body of Gefreiter Otto Dorfmann, who had bled to death while Weber had struggled with his rifle.

Pvt Jeb McCall waited, he watched the two dead men as if they would suddenly spring to life once more and try to kill him, but they remained as still as the downed tree they lay next to.

"Jesus buddy, what were you gonna do, invade Germany all by yourself."

McCall nearly jumped out of his skin but he recognized the voice of his squad leader, Mike Peavey. He and a man McCall didn't recognize were watching him.

Sgt Hernandez walked past McCall down to where the two Germans were lying. He checked both and looked back up at Peavey, then at McCall.

"Both dead, one shot in the belly, the other in the head and the throat. Jesus McCall, you don't f**k around do you?"

"Your platoon sergeant asked you a question Jeb, you gonna answer?"

McCall hesitated, then just said, "They was gonna kill me Sarge, so I kilt them first!"

Hernandez just shook his head as he stood up, "Pretty good shooting kid, you probably used too many rounds, but you nailed them both."

Peavey looked around, the rain had stopped and he could see the path back to where the platoon was waiting. Or where he hoped they were waiting. "We ought to get moving Sgt Hernandez, gonna be dark soon."

"Yup, let's go. You want to go ahead and safe that rifle, Killer?"

McCall wondered who the sergeant was talking to, then it hit him. This sergeant was talking to him, so he did as he was told. Pvt McCall was happy to have someone tell him what to do as he followed the two sergeants back to the relative safety of his platoon. It could have been him lost out there, like those two Germans.

He shuddered at the thought.





¹ Grandma. Oddly enough, it's also the Korean word for "mom." Just thought you'd want to know that.

² With the K98k rifle, having the safety on blocks the user's view through the sights. By design, as if to say, "Hey, dumbass, take your safety off!"