The Bunker

(Src1 Src2)

"What do you think, Rudi? Will the Amis come in this snowstorm?" Grenadier Ulrich Kleinheisterkamp was straining to see into the forest. The snow was falling heavily at the moment but it had been off and on all day.

"How would I know Ulrich? Do I look like a weather forecaster or a strategist?" Grenadier Rudi Hahn, the gunner, was looking over the barrel of their MG 42. Theirs was an older bunker and was basically a concrete shell. It was cold and the trees grew in close to the firing slit. Whether that was by design or sloppy placement of the bunker, Hahn didn't know, he was one of the older men in the squad, nearly 19-years of age.

"If the two of you keep chattering, I'll shoot you myself." Gruff old Stabsgefreiter Edgar Pöge, came into the firing chamber from the sleeping area. He was all of forty-three years old, had done his stint in the army after the end of the Great War, in the Reichswehr, the rump military allowed to Germany by the Versailles Treaty. He had been lucky to do a tour in the Army, slots were limited as were jobs in the Weimar Republic.

When Germany had invaded Poland he had a comfortable slot in the quartermaster corps, far behind the lines in Dresden. But as more and more men were being fed into the abattoir that was the Eastern Front, he could no longer avoid service at the front and in late 1942 he had been with the Sixth Army, in Stalingrad.

Pöge only had two fingers and a thumb on his left hand, a Soviet grenade had taken the other two in the struggle to seize a Soviet apartment building not far from the Volga River. Notwithstanding his crippled left hand, he considered himself lucky. He had been on the last flight taking wounded out.

Now he was at the front again, neither his age nor his disability were enough to keep him in the rear. Now he was an assistant squad leader, his squad leader was all of twenty-five years old, but Unterfeldwebel Karl-Heinz Landau was an old hand, he'd seen every campaign since Poland, been wounded twice, had both the Iron Cross First and Second Class and had a Tank Destruction Badge for single-handedly destroying a Soviet T-34 near Kharkov.

The way Landau told the story, it had been an accident. He'd been ordered up to the line with a Panzerknacker and he'd turned the corner of this one rubble filled street to find a T-34 parked right in front of him. The Russian crew was looking the other way. He'd attached the thing to the tank, pulled the fuse then ran like Hell. His sergeant had seen the whole thing and Landau got his tank killer badge.

Landau played down his experiences in Russia, but Pöge knew the type, a competent soldier who just did his job. A job Landau was very good at.

Pöge looked at the two Grünschnabeln¹ and said, "Keep your eyes open boys, and your mouths shut. This snow is letting up. Pray for night, the Amis won't come at night. At least I hope they won't."

(Source)

Sgt. Melvin Katz raised a hand, the men stopped, dropped slowly to a crouch and turned their gazes to cover their assigned sectors. Katz thought that his new kids learned pretty quickly, better than some of the new recruits they'd received before the Hürtgen. Probably why the Army had sent them to college in the first place.

Turning he looked for Pvt. Scott Caldwell, the new guy was carrying a bazooka and Katz wanted him near in case they needed to crack a bunker. He nodded at the kid, who nodded back and clutched his stove pipe a little tighter, the kid was obviously nervous. Hell, Katz thought to himself, I'm nervous!

The snow was stopping, at least he thought it was it was hard to tell inside the woods. Snow would continue to trickle down off the branches even after it had stopped falling. But he could see a brightness in the sky, perhaps the sun would come out. But in these woods, it was hard to tell.

Katz felt a hand on his shoulder, he knew it was his acting assistant squad leader, Pfc. Bogdan Nowak. Katz got along well with his fellow European, Katz himself had been born in Austria, but being Jewish his family had fled Austria well before the Anschluss, his father had seen the writing on the wall.

Nowak had been born in Poland but his family had emigrated to the United States when his father had received an offer of sponsorship to work in a factory in a small town in Vermont. A number of other Poles lived there, including his Uncle Karol.

Though young, Nowak was a natural soldier, when 2nd Lt. Stephen Hernandez had realized that Katz's squad didn't have an assistant squad leader, and there were no "spare" corporals in the platoon, Katz had suggested Nowak.

"The kid's smart as a whip L.T., picks up things fast. I swear, he's a natural soldier, lives to kill Germans. He and his buddy Bill Zielinski are both good troops. Let's give Nowak a chance, if he works out, I'll recommend him for corporal." Katz had explained to his lieutenant. Hernandez had agreed, now here they were.

Katz looked at Nowak, who leaned forward and murmured in his sergeant's ear, "There are Germans around, Sarge, I can smell 'em."

Katz nodded, he didn't notice any "smell" but he knew what Nowak meant, he couldn't smell the Germans literally, but it made sense that they were close to where they must be. The terrain itself argued that there should be a defensive line right about here, Katz thought.

Katz signaled for the men to take a knee and have a good look at what they were seeing. Something didn't feel right. As he thought about it, maybe Nowak could smell the Germans, you never knew with the Poles.

"Etwas², Edgar?" Unterfeldwebel Landau came in to the fighting compartment and glanced out of the vision slit. It was lighter out, but there was still snow filtering down through the trees. Visibility down the slight slope was terrible, the Amis could practically walk right up to the muzzle of their machine gun before they'd spot them.

"Nothing, Kalle. It's quiet, it's awfully pretty though, isn't it?" Stabsgefreiter Pöge sounded almost wistful as he said that.

"Pretty goddamned cold, I'll give you that. I swear Russia was warmer." Landau groused, there was something about this wet cold that just went right through him.

Pöge cocked an eyebrow and looked hard at his squad leader, "You think this is cold?"

Landau started to respond when Rudi Hahn said, "Herr Unterfeldwebel, there's something out there."

Pvt. Luther Thomas raised himself up from the ground, his ass was soaked from the snow and it felt like he was going to freeze if he didn't shift position. As he did so, he saw something through the trees ahead, somehow a darker shadow than should be there. Then he realized what he was seeing, it was a bunker.

"Chris, I see a Kraut bunker." Thomas whispered to the B.A.R. man, Pfc. Chris McWhorter, the man he was the assistant to, which really meant he humped his own rifle, his own ammo, and extra magazines for the B.A.R. which McWhorter carried.

"What? Get your ass down, Luther." McWhorter hissed at his assistant.

"SCHEIßE!! AMERIKANER!!" Rudi Hahn screamed as he racked the bolt back on his machine gun and proceeded to open fire at a vague shape in the forest, a shape which hadn't been there a moment ago.

Thomas crumpled to the ground, his chest a bloody ruin after being hit by two rounds from the German machine gun. McWhorter went to ground and rolled to his left, looking for the source of the incoming fire, there, a flash! McWhorter opened fire, trying to suppress the German gun.

Kleinheisterkamp screamed as chips of concrete flew into his eyes. He fell back from the gun and tried to get the flakes out of his eyes, they stung like mad! The Americans had returned fire very quickly. When Kleinheisterkamp fell back, the belt going into the gun twisted, causing it to feed incorrectly, jamming the weapon.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Hahn popped the feed tray open, he pulled the belt up and began to reseat it when another burst of American fire hit around the bunker's vision slit, one round came through and tore the helmet from Hahn's head, knocking him senseless.

The other men of the squad were coming into the firing compartment now, one or two of the men were firing their rifles blindly into the forest. Landau pulled Hahn out of the way, the kid looked stunned but still alive, he set the belt back into the feed and slapped the feed tray closed, racking the bolt back he looked for a target.

"F**k, f**k, f**k!! Sarge, did you spot it?!!" McWhorter screamed as he changed the magazine in the B.A.R.

"Yeah, I got it! You okay?" Katz yelled back. The squad had gone prone as soon as they heard the characteristic snarl of a German machine gun followed by the bark of McWhorter's B.A.R., only McWhorter had fired.

"I'm okay, Luther is down, he's hit bad!"

Sgt. Katz had seen the flash from the German machine gun in his peripheral vision, what he'd really noticed was the dust coming off of something in the forest when McWhorter had returned fire. That's when he'd seen the bunker's vision slit.

"Caldwell, where's my stovepipe!!?" he'd yelled, he knew Caldwell was close.

"Right here, Sarge. Damn it, I wet my f**king pants!" Katz heard the new man answer, he was close on Katz's right side.

"Don't worry about that, did you see where that fire came from?"

"I dunno Sarge, it all happened so fast."

"Get your ass up here, stay low, hug the f**king ground kid!"

"Cease fire, cease fire!! You boys are shooting at air!" Landau managed to get his rookies to stop shooting at shadows long enough so that the air cleared inside the bunker. He was hunched over the gun, searching for targets. One of the new kids was on the belt, ready to feed it.

"Stay calm boys, looks like the Amis have come to visit. Edgar, how are Hahn and Kleinheisterkamp?"

"Rudi's okay, just rattled, but he's going to need a new helmet! Ulrich, can you see?" Pöge asked the assistant gunner as he noticed that the kid was blinking his eyes and looking around.

"My eyes sting, Herr Stabsgefreiter, but I can see, just concrete dust. The water helped." During the brief blaze of fire, Kleinheisterkamp had used water from his canteen to try and wash his eyes out, fortunately the liquid in his canteen wasn't frozen.

"Edgar, take the riflemen outside, try to flank the Americans, I don't think there are that many of..."

As Unterfeldwebel Landau said that, a 2.5 inch bazooka round slammed into the bunker, just above the machine gun. One of the riflemen, Grenadier Reinhard Rader, spun away from the vision slit, his right arm bloody. His screams filled the bunker.

Landau looked up, he had ducked his head just in time, "Damn it, the gun is trashed. Everyone out, I'm not waiting for another shot from that American antitank weapon!"

"Nice shot Caldwell, reload, reload!"

Pfc. Alexander Boone was carrying the spare ammo for the bazooka, Caldwell had shown him how to load the thing, he was slow, but he yelled, "Up" after a few long seconds.

Caldwell fired at what he thought was the bunker's vision slit, in reality it was a band of darker paint meant to draw the attention of an assailant from the actual vision slit. But he missed entirely and the round sailed high and into the distance.

"Damn it." Katz swore as he checked Thomas, the man was dead.

"Boone, help me drag Thomas, everybody fall back to the head of the trail!"

The American squad, having fulfilled their mission of discovering the German line, fell back, dragging the body of Pvt. Luther Thomas.

"Where is Hönigswald?" Landau was checking on his squad, Rudi Hahn would need medical attention for a concussion, Grenadier Reinhard Rader would probably lose an arm, the debris from the hit on the bunker and fragments from the American rocket had shredded his right arm. When they had evacuated the bunker, Landau and Pöge had climbed onto the roof of the bunker, and narrowly missed being hit by another American bazooka rocket. Pöge had noticed the back blast from the weapon.

Pöge had brought his machine pistol up to fire, but Landau had shoved it down. "Too far, Edgar. You'll never hit them. Look, they're retiring. Looks like we killed one of them."

Rejoining the remainder of the squad, Landau had noticed that one of his men was missing.

"He's still inside, Herr Unterfeldwebel." Grenadier Waldemar Lindner had seen Hönigswald drop to the floor of the bunker but in the confusion assumed that he was okay.

"Rudi, can you hear me?" Landau asked his dazed looking gunner.

"Ja, what happened?"

"You got knocked on the head. Can you help Rader back to the main line? He needs a Sani, so do you."

"Uh, sure, okay, I think so."

"I'll get us there, Herr Unterfeldwebel, I can still walk." Grenadier Reinhard Rader had his mangled arm in a makeshift sling, one of his mates had tied off his arm above the elbow, the bleeding seemed under control.

"Good. Tell Feldwebel Hase what happened, do we hold, or do we fall back? Klar?"

"Yes, yes, I can do that. Come on Rudi, I'll lead you back."

With that the two men shuffled down the trail.

Landau and Pöge went back into the bunker and discovered that Hönigswald was indeed still in the bunker, quite dead. A piece of steel had hit him in the forehead. They moved him outside and tried to repair their damaged machine gun, it was no use. The armorer could probably patch it up, but they couldn't.

"What do we do now, Herr Unterfeldwebel?" Stabsgefreiter Pöge asked.

"We put Hönigswald's corpse outside, then we wait. For orders, or for the Americans, whichever comes first."

"You found the bunker line I take it?" 2nd Lt. Hernandez was angry, he'd lost another man for no good reason. He unfolded his map and handed it to Sgt. Katz.

"Yeah, L.T., right here, about where you might expect, but I don't think it's the main line."

"Neither do I. I think it's further on, but we'll find out tomorrow. Get your men fed. Sorry about Thomas."

"Yeah, me too. Kid stood up, he should know better by now."

"I get it Cat, we're all tired. We'll talk in an hour, as soon as it's dark."

"Okay Sir."

The snow began to fall again. 2nd Lt. Hernandez looked at his map again, then over at the poncho-wrapped corpse of another man from his platoon. The cost was starting to get to him.

A lot.

¹ Greenhorns

² Anything?

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