The Cost

(Source)

1Lt Gus Chambers and 1Lt Nate Paddock were watching as the wounded were evacuated down the trail. They had to be carried down to where the jeeps could pick them up. It was far too rough to try and bring the vehicles up, the ride back down would have killed some of the wounded men.

"Nate, how many men did you lose?" Chambers understood why it had been done, he even applauded the effort on the part of Paddock's men to show some initiative. Scouts had reported back that the Germans had been hurt, badly.

Paddock shook his head. then he pulled the list from his pocket, his hands were trembling, "Of the nineteen men who made that flanking attack," Paddock sighed, he took a deep breath, the list was still too painful, these his men listed on this scrap of paper, "five men were killed, five were wounded, and three men are missing."

"Thirteen casualties out of the nineteen who went in, Jesus." Chambers knew that Captain Josephson, now commanding the battalion, was going to be hurt by this. He knew these men, he'd often bragged about Paddock's being his best platoon. "Names, Nate, who did we lose?"

"My platoon sergeant, Sgt Hernandez, the leader of 1st Squad, Sgt Wilson, and Pvt Tremblay from 1st Squad are all missing. Only four men out of Wilson's squad made it back in one piece. Leonard, Kennedy, and Cambridge were all killed, their bodies were recovered, the men weren't able to recover Kennedy's body."

Chambers turned to look at Paddock and asked sharply, "And why not, why did they leave him up there?"

Paddock rubbed his sleeve over his eyes, "Sir, there wasn't much left of him. Cpl Katz tried to get to the body and pick up what he could, but it was too dark, they just couldn't find enough of him to bring back."

"Damn, is he the guy who stepped on the mine?"

"Yeah, f**ked him all up, killed Leonard and wounded Dickenson as well. The other wounded man from 1st Squad was Cambridge, a new guy, just got here a few days back."

"You haven't mentioned 3rd Squad."

"Yeah, Sgt Gentile's guys. Mackensen and Duffy were both KIA, Mackensen's another new guy. Sgt Gentile, Pvt Riley Taggert, and Fred McArthur were all wounded. Gentile is okay, Doc Milbury patched him up, Taggert the same, though Doc sent him back to battalion to get checked out. Doc thinks a few stitches should fix him up. McArthur's probably going to lose an arm."

"Man, that's terrible Nate, go see to your men. I need to figure out what we're going to do now that we're up here."

"Opa?" von Lüttwitz was looking at Köhler's leg, it was a bloody mess.

"Sir, I'm okay, really, it's just a deep cut, nothing broken, it's already stopped bleeding. How's your head?"

Hauptmann von Lüttwitz considered that for a moment. The position had held, the Amis had been driven off in the night, but the cost had been high. All of the engineers save one were dead, the Americans had overrun their foxholes, had even bayonetted Sepp Zumbach to death, the blade had still been in his chest when they found him, snapped off at the hilt.

The assault gun had been destroyed. At first the captain thought that the crew had abandoned their vehicle and destroyed it before retreating, but Vorwald, who had actually taken some initiative, had led a small patrol to check that out. There were signs of a struggle in the vehicle, blood and a sleeve ripped from a tunic. It looked as though the Americans had snuck up on them.

"If I'd had the men, I would have given Bielefeld some infantry support," von Lüttwitz looked at Opa Köhler, then added, "but we didn't have anyone to spare."

"I know Sir. How many men did we lose? I don't even know how many we had at the start of the fight." Köhler knew they probably had two squads left, maybe 23 men. More than they had before the engineers and Vorwald's men had come up, but even with that, he figured they had to have lost at least fifteen men dead and another seven wounded.

"Do we hold, Herr Hauptmann?" Köhler had to ask, someone had to mention the possibility that they should pull back.

"Yes, Gefreiter Köhler, we stay, we fight. If we go back, they'll have us shot, you know that." von Lüttwitz shook his head. "All we can do now is obey orders, Opa."

SFC Bud Pedley looked up when he heard the shout, "HALT! Who goes there?" He also heard the reply, "Friendlies, we have wounded!"

Pedley went to the front, "Advance and be recognized soldier!"

Slowly, three men hobbled into view, they not only "had" wounded, they were all wounded.

Sgt Jack Wilson had been hit in the left arm, the bullet had dug a long furrow across the arm, it hurt like Hell but he could still use it. Helping him support Pvt Andre Tremblay, who had a broken right foot and a nasty cut on his left thigh, was Sgt Stephen Hernandez. Hernandez had a very painful wound to his lower abdomen, low on the right, but the bullet had not hit anything vital. The muscle though was torn and it was all he could do to support Cajun with Wilson's help.

Pedley noticed that the men were dragging a poncho behind them, tied to a couple of pine saplings. There was something in the poncho, Pedley was afraid to ask what it was, it seemed too small to be a body. But he knew that's what it was.

"Hey guys, a little help." Hernandez managed to gasp out before collapsing in pain.

Paddock waited as Doc Milbury rebandaged Tremblay's left leg. Doc then examined his foot, "Cajun, ya know this is it, right? Your war's over man. Your foot is really f**ked up. What the Hell happened?"

"Ya know those tank rounds those guys were shooting into the Kraut position?"

"Yeah?"

"One flew right over the Krauts and brought a f**king tree down on my foot. Jack pulled me out, I think that hurt worse then getting hit by the tree. Damn tree also gashed the Hell out of my leg."

"Ya know Cajun, your foot is made up of 26 bones, 30 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments, I swear to God, you probably broke all 26 of those bones and messed up most of the joints. Your foot right now is just a bag holding busted up bones."

Tremblay winced as he tried to move that foot, "So how long will that take to heal Doc?"

"Could take years, Cajun, that's if the battalion surgeon doesn't decide to just cut it off."

"What?"

"I'm just a medic Cajun, but if that foot gets infected..."

Milbury nodded to the two stretcher bearers, "Get him down the hill." Then he put a hand on Cajun's shoulder, "You're a tough sumbitch, but do what the Docs tell ya. And have a beer for me when you get back to Louisiana."

Doc watched for a moment as the men carrying Tremblay took him down to the aid station. Then he turned to Hernandez. "What am I supposed to do with you Sgt Hernandez?"

"Doc, just wrap it up tight. You said yourself it should be okay in a few days."

"Damn it Stephen, you had a f**king bullet go through you, you should get down to the aid station."

"I ain't going Doc..."

1Lt Paddock interrupted, "Sgt Hernandez, you will go down to the aid station, that's an order. If the docs down there clear you, then come back up. It's gonna be a while before this platoon goes into action again. We're pretty short of men right now. I expect we'll get replacements any day now and..."

This time it was 1Lt Chambers who interrupted, "Nate, take your platoon down to battalion, you're too short of bodies to be of any use up here. Go, get your wounded attended to, bury your dead." He could see that Paddock was about to protest, "That's an order Nate. Go."

Before heading back down the trail, the men of Nate Paddock's platoon passed by the blanket -wrapped bodies of Jack Leonard, Hank Cambridge, Chris Mackensen, Lou Duffy, and Virgil Kennedy. As they filed past, each man reached down and touched the boots protruding from the blankets. Except for Virg Kennedy, as there were no boots there, his legs hadn't been found. But each man laid a hand on the sad bundle containing what was left of their buddy. 1Lt Paddock was the last man in the line, he paused briefly and looked at each body. Then he too moved on, he had letters to write.

The survivors of the 2nd Platoon of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry filed down the hill. They were diminished in numbers but not in spirit. They would be back.

"Manfred Sauer! What a pleasant surprise." von Lüttwitz felt a bit giddy and Unteroffizier Manfred Sauer looked at him with surprise. Then he noticed Opa Köhler pointing to the captain, and then to his own head. Ah, their commanding officer was concussed.

"Sir, Günter Voigt is dead. He was one of the men hit by the white phosphorus. Krauss tried to save him, but the burns were too bad. The pain killed him I think."

Von Lüttwitz sighed, his eyes began to sting. Of the seven men he had led out of France, only Pohl, Sauer, Schumacher, and himself were still alive. One had been wounded and left behind within hours of reaching friendly lines, Böhm and Voigt now lay dead on this very hill.

"Manfred, do you think any of us will survive this war?" von Lüttwitz was dizzy now and his ears were ringing.

"Of course we'll survive Herr Hauptmann." Sauer answered, then called for the Sanitäter as he noticed that his captain had passed out. He looked over at Köhler with a questioning look.

"Someone has to survive Junge, maybe not us, but..." Köhler shrugged. He had asked the same of his comrades back in November of 1918. Here they were, twenty-six years later, asking the same questions, fighting the same war.

"Will we ever learn?" Köhler asked himself as he looked down the slope.

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