Last Rites

U.S. Army Photo (PD)

The last thing Smitty remembered was when he and Hudson had stumbled into a German command post. The Germans had been sleeping, all but one man whose eyes widened when the two Americans appeared right in front of him.

Smitty had regained consciousness hearing strange voices, German voices.

"Er hat viel Blut verloren, Vater.¹"

"Gibt es Hoffnung?²"

The German medic had managed to staunch the bleeding, but the American had lost a lot of blood. If he could get the man to a field hospital, he would stand a slim chance. But here? In the field? He looked at the chaplain and shook his head.

Smitty saw that he was being treated by a German medic ... Where was Hudson? He looked around, jerking his head from one side to the other.

"Easy, my son, rest easy."

There, near the lip of the entrenchment he and Hudson had blindly walked into, a man in an American uniform, his chest a torn and bloody mess.

Smitty tried to reach out to his buddy and managed to croak, "Jed ...?"

Gently, the man who had spoken to him in heavily accented, but very clear English, pushed Smitty's hand down.

"Your comrade is dead, I'm afraid. I am, sorry."

Smitty blinked back tears, "Dead?"

The man's next words surprised Smitty, "Do you believe in God, my son?"

Smitty now focused on the man talking to him, some sort of officer from the uniform. Then he noticed, on the man's soft cap, there was an ornate cross underneath the standard German Army eagle clutching a swastika. Smitty thought how incongruous that was, then the pain hit him. He understood the man's question now.

"Are you a priest? Sir."

"Yes, my son. Are you Catholic?"

Smitty nodded, "Yes, Father."

Smitty glanced again at Hudson's body, the German said, "He's dead, my son. Was he a friend?"

"The best, Father, the best. What am I gonna tell his mother?"

Father Gerd Oster shook his head, "Don't worry about that for the moment, my son."

MacIlroy was chewing his lower lip, something he did when he was at a loss for what to do next. He'd heard the yelling, a short burst of automatic weapon fire, then nothing. Had Smith and Judson run into trouble? The weapon sounded like an MP-40, he'd heard no return fire. Damn it.

Ferguson, in the meantime, had kept the field under observation, he'd heard the fire as well, but stayed focused on the task at hand. In doing so, he caught a flash of movement, a face turning towards the sound of the firing. On the opposite side of the field from the position Smith and Hudson had been moving on. A dummy? He fell back to tell his sergeant.

MacIlroy looked at Ferguson, momentarily nonplussed, then Ferguson spoke.

"Mac, there are Krauts on the other side of the field, I think the position I saw before was a dummy, a ruse."

MacIlroy shook himself, he was slightly amused at Ferguson using the word "ruse," most of the men would have called it a decoy or something else. He remembered that Ferguson was an ASTP³ boy, a smart one at that.

"Okay, okay, take Miller and Jackson up to where you were, I'll have Cohen and Robinson set up to lay down fire on the Kraut position." Turning he looked at Private Will McCoy, kid was sharp and a good soldier.

"Will, I want you, Ginn, and Biscayne to work your way up to the left of that opening. Johansen, you're with me. I want to check on Smitty and Jed."

McCoy cleared his throat, "Bad idea, Sarge. Let me go with Nick to check on Smitty and Jed. You should stay here, you take Teddy and Norm. You lead the attack, 'cause I know that's what you have in mind."

MacIlroy looked at McCoy for a long moment, then Ferguson spoke in his ear. "He's right Mac, Smitty and Jed are of secondary importance now. You need to lead here, now."

MacIlroy sighed and looked at the ground, "You're both right, Will, go find Smitty and Jed. The rest of us, let's go."⁴

Streicher pulled Kirche back down as he had jumped and turned at the sound of the firing from not too far off. "Quit bouncing around. We know the Amis are out there, if you move, they might spot you. Dumb ass."

Hartstein muttered, "Too late, the bastards are maneuvering, I think our decoy has been blown."

Streicher took a quick look through his glasses, "Damn it, I think you're right. Get ready Männer, we're about to have company."

"Well, Heereshilfspfarrer⁵ Oster, are you planning on saying a Mass for these dead Amis? There are live ones out there, you should head back to the rear." The senior sergeant sneered as he said that.

Father Oster knew that Oberfeldwebel Georg Mannheim was a Party member. Odd for a paratrooper, but the Luftwaffe had always been politically savvy. He looked down at the dead American once more. The boy had died worrying about his friend's family.

Now there were two families in the United States who would be receiving the news of the loss of their sons.

The boy's last words had been, "How can you serve that bastard Hitler, Father?"

Before Oster could answer, the young American was dead.

The boy's question was one he'd been asking himself a lot lately.

Indeed, how could he serve both God and the Third Reich?

¹ He's lost a lot of blood, Father."

² Is there any hope?

³ Army Specialized Training Program, see this.

⁴ The members of the squad are: Sergeant Ian MacIlroy - Squad Leader, Corporal Bruce Ferguson - Grenadier and Assistant Squad Leader, PFC Julius Cohen - BAR man, Private Bob Robinson - Assistant BAR man, Private First Class Jacob Smith - Rifleman, Private Jedediah Hudson - Rifleman, Private Herb Miller - Rifleman, Private Melvin Jackson - Rifleman, Private Nick Johansen - Rifleman, Private Will McCoy - Rifleman, Private Ted Ginn - Rifleman, and Private Norman Biscayne - Rifleman

⁵ Army chaplain