Crossroads by Susan M. Ballard - Combat Fan Fiction

    Crossroads
         by

           Susan Balnek Ballard

Back in Arkansas, my family will be getting ready for Christmas. In the
woods the snow is deep and cleanly white, untouched and undisturbed aside from
the footprints of deer and rabbit and the occasional hunter. The air is cold and clear
and smelling only of pine and wood smoke.
I can feel it, experience all of it. I can feel home and family and security. I
can feel it and I do. But it will pass all too quickly as I wake and roll myself out of
a thin wool blanket on the floor of an old shack, the only real shelter I--we’ve--had
in forever.
Here, the snow is disturbed by the feet of a thousand tramping men, turning
the beauty of it into an impassable quagmire. There are hunters here too. Here
we’re all hunters, but of men.
The air is cold but never clear of gunsmoke and the clinging cloying smells of
war, sweat, decay, death.
The date is December 17th, 1944. I am a medic in the United States Army,
361st Infantry, 2nd Platoon, King Company and the we I speak of are my sergeant,
Saunders; Caje, the company scout and interpreter and Littlejohn, a PFC and a darn
good soldier. There are only four of us because we have been assigned as runners.
We are supposed to report to Major Callahan, B Battery 285th Field Artillery. I am
to stay with the nearby 546th Ambulance Company as a temporary replacement. I
guess the Sarge is to receive a verbal message for our Captain Jampel. I don’t know
what’s going on but communications have been spotty to nonexistent in this part of
Belgium for the past twenty four hours. The area is in a state of violent transition,
Germans and Allies crossing and criss-crossing paths. Our trip here has been
mostly the nightmarish kind of detail.
Some details are of the dream variety. You walk in - no enemy patrols - no
mine fields - no foul weather. You do your job and walk back out again. But this
has been a nightmare from the start. How it’ll finish up is anybody’s guess and
believe me, I don’t plan on thinking that far ahead.
Foul weather, snow and sleet, then bitterly cold; hide and seek with countless
German patrols - yeah, a nightmare. My stomach has been tied up in knots and my
heart races so fast and loud sometimes it’s all I can hear.
To not be afraid for just a little while would be all the Christmas blessing I
could ever ask for.
“Hey, Doc...you awake?” It’s Littlejohn’s voice and yeah, I am awake but I
hesitate to open my eyes and actually admit to it. One more “Hey, Doc!” though,
and I do. Littlejohn towers over me, a good-natured smile on his big face.
“Thought there for a minute maybe you were dead!” he jokes.
Here you either joke about death or take it too seriously. Seems the guys
who take it too seriously end up that way...dead, I mean.
Sarge and Caje are already up and ready to go. I sorely miss a cup of hot
coffee but Sarge says there’ll be time for that once we link up with the Major.
We stay to the side of the road. The walking is pretty easy here since the
road itself is all torn up from heavy equipment, tanks and such, probably Allied and
German; but for now it’s quiet. We pass a sign; St. Vith is south. We’re coming up
to a crossroads village, Baugnez. This area is all but deserted by the locals and for
good reason. Ruined vehicles and buildings are smoking. There is a dead horse, in
harness, lying on its side, half blown away but still there. Starving villagers haven’t
yet had time to butcher its skinny carcass for whatever meat is left.
What happens now is truly odd. Odder still since none of us feels it coming,
not even Caje who gives the rest of us the willies when it comes to knowing things
are going to happen before they do.
Caje is on point, Sarge next, then me, with Littlejohn bringing up the rear.
It’s so quiet one minute. I mean you can hear the big guns off in the distance, but
nothing close by. Birds are even beginning to chatter a bit in the trees close to the
road.
All of a sudden a figure comes running out of the woods, screaming like the
hounds of hell are at his heels. I can’t see his face yet and as shocked as I am, I
freeze right to the ground.
The guy’s uniform is so shredded and filthy, I can’t even make out if he’s one
of ours or not. His screams are just that - no words at all.
He launches himself at the Sergeant and the two fall back off the roadside. I
begin to run when Littlejohn passes me at full gallop.
When we reach Sarge, Caje is there. He tries to pull the guy off Saunders but
the soldier is berserk. “He’s got a knife!” I yell but the warning is obviously late. I
see now the soldier is bloody. Before I can act, or Littlejohn, Caje unsheathes his
own knife. The soldier goes limp and Caje pulls the body off Sarge.
I kneel by Saunders. He’s lost his helmet and the Thompson is off a ways in
the brush. Littlejohn retrieves both and stands close, on guard.
Caje is checking out the crazy. “One of ours,” he observes. There is sadness
in his voice.
Saunders is panting from exertion and his uniform, from the wrestling match
in the wet snow and mud, is as dirty as the dead man’s. His eyes are wide and he
looks shocky and pale.
He’s also bloody and I search him for wounds. There is an obvious one in his
left shoulder from the knife, deep and bleeding a lot. The rest of the blood is
coming from a scalp injury. He must’ve hit his head on a rock when he fell.
I talk to him, question him about any other pain but he answers no. As I
clean and bandage him, his color begins to slowly return. The bleeding in the
shoulder stops pretty fast but the scalp wound is stubborn. “He needs a hospital,” I
comment to Caje, who crouches down next to me. The Cajun nods.
“It’s only a mile or so till we reach the 546th Ambulance, if they haven’t
moved out. Can you make it, Sarge?” I ask.
Saunders nods yes, sits up with a bit of help from me, then makes it to his feet
with help from us both. It takes a minute for him to get his bearings. Littlejohn
hands him his helmet.
“Do you want the Tommygun back, Sarge?”
“I’m okay, Littlejohn. I think I actually feel better than I look.”
I find that highly doubtful but help the Sarge sling the weapon over his right
shoulder. His left hand I tuck into his partially zippered field jacket. I have no sling
nor any extra bandages to rig one.
While I do that, Caje rolls the crazy soldier’s body off into the brush and
removes one of his dog tags. Without comment, he walks over to the sergeant and
hands the ID to him.
There isn’t really anything to be said. Caje and Saunders both know the
scout did what he had to. An Allied soldier’s death is appalling, but in this case it
could’ve happened no other way. There was no time. For Saunders to have voiced
his thanks out loud - well, that wouldn’t have been right. So the Sarge nods and
takes the tag, dropping it into his jacket pocket.
We walk the better part of an hour, more than a mile for sure. We come
across a lot of GIs, but none from the 285th or the 546th, and everybody’s in a state
of confusion. When we ask directions twice we’re pointed north and twice
south-east toward Waismes, the way we’d come!
Sarge needs a break so we take five. I help settle Saunders down and check
him out. He’s doing okay, everything considered, and pulls out his map. Caje has
gone on ahead, toward Malmedy where Sarge thinks the 285th would head. They
were advancing last time we heard - pushing hard at the Krauts. But that was the
last we heard and at the front, things change faster than the weather back home.
Caje is running back towards us, fast, not his usual relaxed lope.
“We gotta go! Gotta run! Back towards Waismes! Come on, hurry!” He
grabs at Saunders, hauling the Sergeant to his feet.
The Sarge gets real pale, but shakes off Caje’s hands. “Wait a minute!
What’s going on, Caje? What happened?”
“Sarge...Krauts up ahead...lots of tanks, close by. They got prisoners and
they’re heading this way!”
“Okay, let’s move!”
We start to run and Caje is right. Already I can hear mechanized equipment moving
up - heavy stuff and tanks for sure. We run, but Sarge isn’t gonna make it far.
Whatever strength he had is gone.
Littlejohn and I pull Sarge into the brush at the side of the narrow farm road
we cut off onto. Caje watches our backs.
I lay flat on my face next to Sarge, one hand on his back so I can feel his
breathing. Like mine , it’s fast and shallow. Through my field jacket and the
sweater underneath and the shirt and t-shirt under that, I feel the cold wet of the
snow and mud I’m laying in begin to soak me. Snow is beginning to fall too and I
think the temperature is dropping. Bad news for us all but especially the Sarge. But
if it’s got to snow, I pray it gets heavy enough to hide us from the Krauts.
I wonder why Caje hasn’t followed us into the brush and I turn my head and
crawl over a bit to see the road. I see Caje. He’s looking up the road at something
or someone and he’s laying down his rifle! He raises his hands in surrender.
Germans come into sight and I hear Caje telling them he’s alone - separated from
his squad. But the Krauts don’t buy it that easy. They start to poke into the
underbrush. Littlejohn sees what’s happening too. He looks at me and then at the
Sarge, then bolts out onto the road. He lays down his rifle, walks a few steps
toward the Germans. “I give up! Don’t shoot! I give up!” He continues to walk
away from us, trying to pull them off. It’s for nothing.
They drag me out first, then the Sarge. Saunders is in a bad way and they’re
rough with him. Caje and Littlejohn protest and get a clubbing from a rifle butt for
their efforts. I truly hate these Krauts. That I should hate any man is disgusting to
me. But somehow I feel a difference in them, an inhumanness, a total lack of
morality.
They drag the Sergeant up by the back of his jacket. Somehow he stays on
his feet and glares at the Krauts. They pay him no mind and move us out.
Farther down the farm road we come to a clearing. There’s a lot going on
here -- Krauts, tanks, vehicles, and in the clearing a large number of PWs,
Americans. Krauts circle the clearing. They’re heavily armed and the tanks and
jeeps have their machine guns trained on the prisoners. I break into a cold sweat
that has absolutely nothing to do with exertion. Caje feels it too. His eyes meet
mine over the Sarge’s bowed head as we try to keep up with our captors and hold
Saunders up on his feet.
“There must be close to a hundred GIs here,” Littlejohn whispers to me. “I
think we found the 546th too.”
I agree. Many of the men wear the red cross armband of the Medical Corps,
and they all look as cold and scared as we are. Some are wounded.
We lean the Sergeant up against the thick stump of a tree. He rouses himself
and takes a look around. “I don’t like this...not one bit.”
Saunders sees what we’ve already noticed. In this field we’re fairly close to
the southernmost edge. A ways beyond the perimeter the woods begin. Trees are a
bit sparse, but there is brush cover. Here, where we are, there is none.
“We gotta get out of here, Doc,” Sarge says. He’s right, I know. We all
know.
We try to keep warm, me, Caje and Littlejohn, walking in tight circles,
stamping our feet, moving our arms like pinwheels and shaking out our hands. We
dare not talk to the men nearest us. Any attempts have been met with threats and
shouted curses from the Krauts.
Sarge is beginning to float in and out of sleep. It’s hard to keep him warm.
Littlejohn tries to give up his jacket to cover Saunders, but I won’t let him. Snow is
still falling and the cold is getting more intense, deeper, numbing us to our bones.
The Krauts took our watches so I can’t be certain of the time, but it’s
probably around two or three p.m. More GIs have been rounded up and herded in.
Sounds like a bunch of cattle. To them that’s all we are. My stomach growls in
hunger.
Everyone is tense. The GIs are milling around, tired of waiting, freezing.
Something is going on at the far end of the field. I want to bolt, make a run for it.
Instead I sit down next to Sarge. Without a word Caje and Littlejohn also sit, close,
all touching for the warmth and the comfort.
A shot is fired - a single pistol report. Then, within seconds, it seems like the
whole Kraut army is opening up on us.
I pull Sarge over and cover his body with mine. Littlejohn and Caje are as
flat to the ground as they can get, face down, in the cold slush. Bullets kick up
snow and mud and all around us I hear the screams of the wounded and dying.
Littlejohn is hit and Caje. I hear their muffled cries and as suddenly as it started, the
shooting stops.
I try raising my head. I do it only by sheer force of will. I’ve been in this war
long enough to know what I’ll see.
I just want to go home - now. To be transported there somehow. Maybe this
is a dream and I’ll wake up at home, in my own bed, warm and safe.
These thoughts are mine for only seconds. Because that’s all the time it takes
for my real situation to kick in.
The screaming is real and too close. I am a medic, after all. But God I’m
scared and not ashamed to admit it to myself, so I sit up and tend to my own men
first. Sarge is bleeding again from all the rough treatment but he can wait. I check
out Caje, who’s already sitting up. He’s bleeding from a wound high up in the
shoulder. The bullet went through mostly flesh, with no bone involvement and no
major blood vessels hit. I patch him up using bandaging and sulfa I scrounge from
another medic lying dead nearby.
Littlejohn is okay too but his wound is in his left arm. It’s messy but not
life-threatening.
Right now there’s a lull. It’s like the Krauts are wondering what to do next.
So many men are dead or wounded. While I’m working on the Sergeant, I see two
GIs working their way to the edge of the field. In seconds, they’re gone. I say a
silent prayer they make it.
Sarge, Caje and Littlejohn are all lying flat. Sarge says the Krauts will only
be confused for a little while. He says they’ll open fire again, this time kill us all.
But I’ve got to do my job. I crawl over the nearest wounded man. I know
it’s no use. It’s a head wound but I wrap him in bandaging and try to comfort him
before moving on to the next man.
Sarge calls out to me. “Doc! Get down! Stay down! The Krauts see you!”
I turn and see two Germans walking toward me. One carries a rifle, the
other, the officer, a pistol. The officer yells something at me in German. The words
I don’t get, but the tone, that I understand. I get to my feet and point to the red
cross on my sleeve and then to the dying man on the ground. More angry words in
German. They’re close now - so close I can see the officer’s eyes are a cloudy,
milky sky blue. His Luger is pointed at the dying GI. He fires - raises the pistol and
fires point blank at me.
I know my face registers surprise, but not pain for I feel none. The cries of
horror I hear are from my men, my friends. I see their faces as I fall - Sarge, Caje
and Littlejohn.
And for a moment I am home and I am warm and I am safe. The war is over.

* * * * *

“Doc!” I hear myself scream and it’s against everything in me to stay put, but
I have to stay in control. I’m the sergeant. I’m in command. I reach out with either
hand to grab at Caje and Littlejohn and hold them back. They’re soldiers and
against their own wills, instinct takes over and they remain still beneath my
fingertips. My strength is gone and I couldn’t hold them back now anyway. The
Krauts don’t seem to pay us any heed; they seem to be in a hurry now. They walk
back quickly, avoiding the bodies of the dead and wounded. They’re blind and
dumb.
Some of the tanks pivot their positions and head off up the road. Others are
coming.
“Sarge, we gotta get outta here!” It’s Caje to my left. I nod and tap
Littlejohn to my right, whispering to him, “Now.”
We crawl, scramble and finally run, low to the ground. Every second I
expect to be seen. My shoulder screams and my head feels like it’s going to
explode. The pain behind my eyes is so bad it blurs my vision. I hang on to the
back of Littlejohn’s jacket. The firing begins again, but we make it to the brush.
We can’t stop but begin to crawl from ditch to ditch, brush clump to brush clump, in
and out of half-frozen muddy water. Blindly I hang on to Littlejohn, do as he does
until I pass out. As I feel it coming I swear I can hear Kraut voices. I know I still
hear the firing.
I wake up too fast and the world goes out of focus. Caje and Littlejohn are
with me and I feel pain so I’m not dead.
“We made it, Sarge.” Littlejohn pats my arm awkwardly, reassuringly. Caje
agrees, adding, “We made it a couple miles, I figure. We’re a ways off the road
heading toward Malmedy - a little farm. This is the chicken coop.” He smiles and
offers me a bit of milk in a beat-up tin dipper. It tastes like heaven.
“Littlejohn found a cow...a very skinny cow,” Caje adds as if needing to
explain the small amount in the cup.
Both men look exhausted and pale. We must be a sorry sight.
Littlejohn sits next to me, stretching out his long legs, boots touching the
opposite wall of the tiny lean-to.
“The Krauts didn’t pass this way, Sarge, but we figure they could still be
lookin’ for survivors. We couldn’t run any more.” He notices my expression.
“Neither of us could run any more either, Sarge. It wasn’t just you that stopped us.”
Caje also sits down and stretches out, rubbing at his wounded shoulder. His
jacket front is stiff with dried blood. “When it gets full dark, I’ll sneak up to the
barn over there,” he jerks a thumb in the direction behind us, “and see if I can’t find
a blanket or some food, anything we can use.”
I lose consciousness or fall into some kind of sleep. It hits me so fast I only
have time for one thought. Even if the Krauts don’t find us, we could all still die
here, from cold, or infection....But I know one of us has gotta make it. One of us
has got to tell what happened here, near Malmedy, Belgium, December 17th, 1944.
We owe it to Doc and to the others and to ourselves.

* * * * *

Tuesday, December 19, 1944:

The corporal crouched down, cautious, rifle ready. He peered into the tiny
coop. For the first time that day, the haggard, exhausted GI smiled.

“Looks like we got 3 live ones here!”