Despair

(Source)

By dawn of the second day, SS-Sturmmann Rainer Bodenschaft could see that SS-Scharführer Ernst Schneider's right hand was badly infected. The hand was swollen, badly, and two of his fingers were turning black. Though Schneider denied being in any pain, Bodenschaft could see the man wince whenever his hand brushed against something. He had also taken to carrying his rifle in his left hand. Bodenschaft wondered if Schneider was still capable of even firing his weapon.

Schneider was indeed in intense pain, he couldn't feel the tips of his ring and little fingers any more, his hand throbbed constantly. As he sat there, absorbing the pain and trying, in vain, not to show it, he told the last two Volkssturm men to go home.

"Wolf, Johannes, you're old men, you fought your war thirty years ago, this one is ours. Go home to your families." Both men lived in a small town 15 kilometers north of the Harz.

Johannes Beck looked at the gaunt SS sergeant and said, "Come with us Scharführer, you need a doctor for that hand." He had wanted to say something about the hopelessness of their situation, but the SS man made him nervous, spouting Nazi slogans one minute, acting like a normal human the next. Beck was convinced that Schneider was insane.

Wolf Meyer stood up, "You're not coming with us, are you?"

Schneider shifted the position of his hand, winced, then said, "My duty is here Wolf." Turning to look at Bodenschaft he said, "Rainer, dump your tunic and smock. Go with Wolf and Johannes, you've done enough for the Reich."

Bodenschaft looked down at the ground then back up again, staring at Schneider, "I'd be dead if you hadn't pulled me out of that trench just before that Russki T-34 collapsed it." He turned to the two Volkssturm. "My right leg was badly injured, I couldn't walk, I could barely crawl. The rest of the squad left me, Ernst came back and saved my life." He looked at Schneider.

"I won't leave you to fight alone Ernst. Not in this lifetime."

2nd Squad of 3rd Platoon was on the far left flank of the company as they swept the woods, looking for werewolves.

"They ain't no such thing as werewolves, right Sarge?" Pvt. Rufus Curry was from the mountains of Arkansas, he didn't have much schooling, but he possessed a wealth of common sense.

Sgt. Ed Russell shook his head, "Nope, Rufus, no such things like you hear about in scary stories. These werewolves are Nazis left behind to terrorize the rear areas. Mostly SS from what I hear, scary bastards if you're unarmed."

"Sarge, I heard..." Pvt. Melvin Gonzalez was interrupted by a noise just ahead and off to the left. The entire squad immediately went down, ready to engage whatever was making the noises off in the brush.

Meyer hissed at Beck, "Can you make any more noise? We might as well have a brass band. Be quiet you old fool."

Beck hissed right back at his old comrade, "Old fool? Who saved your silly arse at Verdun? Was I an old fool then?"

Meyer was ready with a retort, then stopped and held his hand up, "Listen."

Both men watched as an American soldier advanced in their direction, rifle at the ready.

Beck slowly stood up, hands raised over his head.

Meyer watched in shock as the American fired a single round, which hit his friend Beck square in the chest, knocking him back into the brush.

"Goddamn it! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" Sgt. Russell came up, he saw that Pvt. Oscar Combs was still pointing his rifle at a small clump of low evergreen bushes. Russell thought he heard sobbing.

Advancing carefully, rifle at the ready, flanked by Combs and Gonzalez, he pushed aside the brush, he could see a man on the ground, with another man kneeling over him.

Meyer was holding one of Beck's hands in both of his, "Stay alive Johannes, Gerda needs you. Damn it, I need you."

Beck was bleeding badly from a bullet wound just above the heart, he knew, deep inside, that he had but seconds to live. His eyes went to the three Americans standing over them. One of them, a very young soldier, still pointed his rifle at the two men, but tears were running down his cheeks.

Beck wondered for a moment if this was the soldier who had killed him. He supposed that it didn't matter. He looked once more at his old friend Wolf Meyer, he had known the man since 1904. Boyhood friends, they had served in the same regiment in the Great War, the same company in fact.

Meyer couldn't restrain the tears any more, they poured down his cheeks as he held his friend's hand. "Stay with me comrade, stay with us."

Beck coughed, blood came from his mouth, he was starting to drown in his own blood. He managed to say one last thing, "I'm sorry Wolf, tell Gerda, won't you?"

Then he died.

The morning of the third day, Bodenschaft woke up to find that Schneider had died sometime in the night. As he sat up, he saw his friend leaning against the side of the trench, his weapon on the lip of the trench in front of him.

At first he thought Ernst was still keeping watch, then he noticed that his sergeant's head was tilted slightly forward, as if he was studying the earth upon which his rifle lay. Bodenschaft got up, he realized that Schneider's eyes were glassy and unfocused.

Placing a hand on Schneider's shoulder, he shook him gently. It was then he realized that Schneider was dead.

Bodenschaft spent the next hour burying Schneider in the trench. Then he put his soft cap on, then tossed his helmet and rifle into the brush. He stripped off his camouflage smock and tunic. As he still had his blanket, he cut a hole for his head in the middle, then draped it over himself.

He started to walk, then had a thought, he took his cap off and looked at it. The SS eagle and Death's Head were too obvious, so he tossed his cap into the brush as well, then he began to walk downhill.

Russell had noticed that both of the older men were wearing Volkssturm armbands, though he was tempted to let the surviving man go, he had his orders. He sent the man, under escort, back to the Company CP, perhaps the Cap'n would know what to do with him.

Meyer looked one last time at the body of his friend, then he turned and let the Americans take him wherever they wanted him to go.

His sons were all dead, all three of them, last month his wife and daughter had died in a bombing raid. He had nothing left to live for, despair was all he had left.

SS-Sturmmann Rainer Bodenschaft was captured by a patrol from 1st Platoon near sundown. He had been walking down the road shouting in broken English, "I geef up, don't shoot!"

Pvt. Billy Pires nearly shot the German as his squad rounded the corner. But the man had his hands in the air and was clearly giving himself up.

"Handy hock!¹" Pires shouted out, a phrase he'd learned at the Repple Depple. The man who taught him that didn't know how to pronounce it either.

"He's already got his hands up numbnuts." Pfc. Zachary Beach pushed past Pires, who was all of seventeen years old.

Sgt. Francis Baldwin examined the prisoner, no pay book, tunic gone, belt gone. Most of the men who'd surrendered had kept all of their clothing and their pay books. This guy didn't even have a hat. He also seemed ignorant of the English language, other than what he'd been shouting as he came down the road.

Eventually Cpl. Woodrow O'Neil and Pvt. Curt Hoffman from 2nd Squad joined them, Baldwin had sent one of his scouts, Pvt. Jerry Santiago, to fetch Hoffman, who spoke German very well, having grown up in a German community in Texas. O'Neill came along to see what all the fuss was.

"Hoffman, you speak Kraut, right?" Baldwin asked.

"Yes, Sergeant, I speak German. Want me to talk with this fellow?" Hoffman nodded at the prisoner.

"Yeah, find out what his story is, uniform pants and boots but no tunic, no pay book. Something's fishy here." Baldwin said.

Hoffman turned to the German and spoke, "Krempel deine linken Ärmel hoch.²"

The German went pale and stuttered, "N...n..nein."

Hoffman pointed his rifle at the German's belly and barked out, "Sofort!³"

Reluctantly the German pulled his left sleeve up to about the elbow.

Hoffman barked again, "Mehr!⁴"

The German sighed and pulled his sleeve all the way up, revealing a small tattoo on the inside of his left bicep.

"He's SS Sarge, that's his blood group tattoo. Probably ditched his stuff hoping to pass himself off as Army." Hoffman spat in the dirt at the German's feet.

Bodenschaft knew that the game was up when the blond American had ordered him to roll up his sleeve. After he heard the American say "SS," true despair come over him. He stopped paying attention to the Americans and looked around.

The deciduous trees were starting to bud, birds were flitting from tree to tree. He could hear them twittering in the trees. It had been a cloudy day, but as the sun set, the clouds in the east opened and brilliant sunlight flooded through the tops of the pines.

He thought back on his life, there were many things he regretted, now he regretted that he'd never see home again. A slight breeze started, he could smell the pine woods, even the snow on top of the Brocken.

He supposed that there were worse places to die.

"He's SS, Cap'n, probably one of the guys who killed those two G.I.s from 8th Armored." Hoffman had the temerity to protest Cpt. Hernandez' order to take the prisoner back to battalion.

"At ease Private." Hernandez snapped. "Haven't you figured it out yet? We're not like them. He's a prisoner, he gave himself up."

Turning to Cpl. O'Neill, Hernandez said, "Get this man back to battalion, alive. Are we clear on that?"

"Yessir." O'Neill said.

"Beach, go with Cpl. O'Neill, Hoffman report back to your squad. Move!"

As they led him away, Bodenschaft couldn't believe that the Americans hadn't killed him. It's what his old unit would have done. But for now, he was alive. Maybe he would live to see home again.

Hope returned.

¹ "Hände hoch!" - Hands up.

² Roll up your left sleeve.

³ Immediately!

⁴ Further!

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