The Eager Lieutenant

(Source)

Cpt. Tony Palminteri was drinking hot coffee from his canteen cup, he had had to put his gloves on as the coffee was really hot. They'd set up the C Company CP in a school house, it was one of the few untouched buildings in the town. He was watching his platoon commanders file in as he drank his coffee. He needed it badly, he was damned near asleep on his feet.

The last man in was 1st Lt. Stephen Hernandez, who had brought S/Sgt Brad Woodstock with him, the commander of C Company's attached tank platoon. When everyone had found a place he offered the men coffee. While they helped themselves to the steaming hot brew, he glanced at the other door into the room, wondering where his new executive officer was.

1st Lt. John Bosquet had arrived two days ago, fresh from serving on staff duty in London. He'd been in the Army for two years and had spent the entire war to date on various staffs. He was a graduate of the Citadel and seemed to be very well connected in South Carolina politics. But in talking to the guy, Palminteri had been surprised that Bosquet had been trying to secure a combat assignment since his commissioning. It seemed that it wasn't him who was avoiding combat so much as powerful relatives with connections in Washington D.C. who had kept him away from danger. He seemed eager, which made Palminteri slightly nervous.

The last thing the men would tolerate at this stage of the war was a glory hound, some guy wanting to get into the action and maybe win a medal or two before the war ended, getting men killed in the process, Palminteri's men. He had thought about having a chat with the First Sergeant about the man, but he didn't want to get his NCOs involved with what was essentially his problem, so he'd lectured Bosquet the night before.

"You won't be going into the field, lieutenant, your job is here at the CP. Administration is your job, not combat. Are we clear on that?" He'd asked with a stern look.

"But Sir, the war is almost over, most of my classmates have seen action and..."

"Lieutenant, let me make this clear, administration, not combat. If you can't understand that, we'll cut orders for you back to England. Do you understand?"

"But Sir..."

"Yes or no lieutenant, I can't make it any simpler than that."

"All right, I understand Sir."

"Good."

Now his platoon leaders all had their coffee and were waiting for him to speak. Bosquet was still absent.

"Top!"

1st Sgt. Mort Saeger poked his head into the room, "Sir?"

"Find out where my exec has got to and tell him to get his ass in here, ASAP."

"Uh, Sir, the lieutenant took a jeep, one of the messengers, and two Basic Duty privates from 1st Platoon and headed out about an hour ago. He said not to bother you, he just wanted to have a look around. I thought you knew." Saeger was obviously embarrassed that the Captain didn't know this.

"He did what?" 1st Lt. Nathaniel Gonzales was on his feet in an instant. "Cap'n, did you authorize this?" He was angry and made no effort to hide it.

"No, Nathaniel, I didn't." Turning to his First Sergeant, he said, "Mort, get a patrol together, one jeep and a halftrack, send a squad from..." He was interrupted almost immediately.

"With your permission, Sir, I got this." Gonzales was furious. He'd lost two men the other day, one dead on the spot, the other on his way home with only one arm, now this new guy takes two of his men...

"Go Nathaniel, Mort brief the lieutenant on everything you know."

"Yes Sir."

Two miles away, 1st Lt. Bosquet was studying his map as he sat in the jeep with the driver, Pvt. Jack Magruder, a green kid from Nebraska. The two men from 1st Platoon, Pfc. Robin Bradley and Pvt. Sydney Patton, stood some distance away from the jeep. Both men were furious.

"I tell ya Syd, this f**ker has no clue. I'll betcha Lieutenant Gonzales doesn't know about this." Bradley was sure that this new Company Exec had told them a bullshit story. Their own lieutenant would be livid when he found out about it.

Patton looked towards the jeep, "The little bastard said it was L.T.'s idea for us to take him out on a familiarization ride. Now the little f**k is lost."

"Yeah, what's worse is, I think we're in Kraut territory."

Hauptscharführer Ulrich Schneider couldn't believe his good fortune at having found fuel for the halftrack. Now they were clattering down the road trying to catch up with the rest of their unit, the XII SS Corps. Oddly enough, a Waffen SS headquarters commanding primarily Army units.

"Hey, Ulrich, isn't that an American scout car up ahead?" Rottenführer Horst Bassewitz said as he got up behind the MG 42 mounted on the roof of the 251.

"Ja, it is, I wonder who's lost, them or us?"

"Well, let's ask them." Bassewitz said with a grin as he chambered a round in the gun and tucked himself in behind it, laying the sights on the vehicle itself. He figured he'd have plenty of time to shoot the two men standing off to the side.

"Lieutenant, we gotta roll, that's a Kraut halftrack!" Magruder was green, but he had paid attention in the classes they'd been given regarding enemy vehicles and how to recognize them.

"Hold your horses Private, I don't know where we are just yet, I need to..."

The first burst from Bassewitz's machine gun slammed Bosquet forward and on to the hood of the jeep. Bosquet was confused, the pain hadn't hit him yet. What the Hell was happening, he wondered. Time seemed to have stopped.

Magruder revved the jeep, slammed it into gear and drove off the road towards where the two men from 1st Platoon were standing. Both dove in as he floored the accelerator, jostling Bradley and Patton as the two men were trying grab a handhold and return fire with their Garands. One really bad bump then sent the badly wounded lieutenant off the hood and over the side of the jeep.

"Shit! Hey kid, the lieutenant fell out!" Patton yelled.

"You wanna rescue him Syd? Be my guest, Magruder, keep driving, get us the Hell out of here!" Pfc. Bradley wasn't going to die while trying to save some dumbass, green lieutenant.

The halftrack rolled to a stop next to the wounded American. The man was obviously in a lot of pain and was struggling to breathe. His chest was a mess, Schneider wondered how the man was still alive at all, one of the MG rounds had gone straight through, probably destroying the man's right lung.

One of the men from the squad yelled at Bassewitz, "Is that how they teach you idiots from Bavaria how to shoot? You hit one man out of four, you didn't even scratch the Ami car I'll bet."

The other SS men were now laughing at Bassewitz, who stayed on the machine gun as Schneider jumped over the side to see if the Ami was worth saving. Tough little son of a bitch, he wasn't going easy. But go he would, his wounds were bad enough that he had maybe seconds to live.

Schneider drew his Walther and racked the slide back, checking that the safety was off, he walked over to the dying man.

"Hey, Ami, what you do here, this Germany, not America. Wrong country, arschloch.¹" Then he pointed the pistol at the man's head and pulled the trigger. The struggling American immediately went still.

"Let's go boys! The beer is on me tonight!"

As the men cheered, Schneider mounted the 251 and it proceeded to head north, they'd need to find cover soon, it was nearly two hours past sunrise and the clouds were starting to clear. What a morning, the SS man thought, found fuel, got to kill an invader. A good start to the day!

The jeep had circled back after making sure the Krauts were gone. As the sun was now up and the clouds were gone, they figured the Krauts wouldn't linger in the area and risk attack from the air. Magruder braked near Bosquet's body. He had one look and immediately vomited.

"Jesus kid, ain't never seen a dead guy before?" Bradley had, not many, but he had been in the Ardennes and had seen enough.

"Nah, never seen such a..." Magruder vomited again.

"Geez Rob, looks like those Kraut bastards shot him in the head." Patton couldn't believe his eyes, he'd heard that some Krauts didn't take prisoners, but this? It made him sick, but not as sick as Magruder.

Bradley lifted the body by the shoulders, "Come on fellas, help me load him in the back of the jeep. The Skipper is going to be pissed."

"Not as mad as the kid's family." Magruder said as he helped Bradley and Patton ease the lieutenant's body into the back, they then covered him with a poncho.

"Let's go kid, do you know the way back?" Bradley asked as he climbed into the front passenger seat.

Before Magruder could answer, Patton began to whine, "So, I get to ride with the dead guy?"

"Yeah, Magruder's the driver, I'm a Private First Class. You're a low life buck private Syd, so yeah, you ride with the dead guy. Shut up and get in." Bradley had a stripe, the other two didn't. "RHIP boys!"

Magruder looked puzzled.

"Rank Has It's Privileges. Now drive rookie, head thataway!" Bradley pointed down the road  to the south. Damn lieutenant would still be alive if he could read a map, Bradley thought, oh well, better him than Mama Bradley's boy.

The SS men who had killed 1st Lt. John Winfield Bosquet, late of Charleston, South Carolina, outlived him by approximately an hour. They had been caught on the road by a section of American P-47s who were on road patrol, looking for precisely what they had found, Kraut vehicles in the open.

War is Hell.

¹ Roughly "asshole."

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