“No thank you. Tell me about the surrender?”
“Well sir, you know we got our asses kicked by the Krauts. We were surrounded and outnumbered and outgunned and outfought and, oh yeah, outsmarted.”
Tanner interrupted. “I remember that much. Who decided that anyone was going to surrender?”
“Hell, I don’t know. The medic said that two of the division’s three regiments were surrendering and that the third one had gotten away. He said our position was hopeless and that he was going down the road to tell the Germans that there were wounded in this farmhouse. That was a couple of hours ago so they ought to be back here pretty soon.”
Tanner took a deep breath. Did he want to surrender, to become a prisoner of war? Hell no. But did he have any other realistic choices? The Germans were all around. Could he get through and go west to where the American lines had to be? The Germans couldn’t have pushed the Americans too far back, could they? He decided that he had to try it. The weather was cold and miserable. Snow had started falling again. A prison camp might be dry and warm, but it would still be a prison. He could be there for years, maybe decades or even the rest of his life. Everybody had said that the Nazis were on their last legs and would collapse soon. Sure. The ongoing German offensive had just shot that idea all to hell. Now it looked like the war could go on forever with him in a prison compound. No thank you. He would leave this hellhole and go west. If he didn’t make it, he could surrender all by himself.
He picked up his M1 carbine and gear. He had two clips of ammunition, but only a handful of packs of rations. Once more the world moved and stopped. Another deep breath and he was back in control.
“Peters, if anybody remembers there were three of us, tell them that I left right after the medic did. I wish I could take you with me, but you know that’s not possible.”
“Understood,” said Peters. “You can’t carry us and you sure as hell can’t drag us around by the arms. No, sir, you get the hell out of here and when you reach safety, just remember us.”
Tanner reached down and shook Peters’ hand. “I will. You won’t be forgotten.” He was surprised by the depth of emotion he felt. It was terrible to abandon the two helpless soldiers, but there was no way he could take them.
He patted Tucker on the head. No response. “Germany may be hard on Jews,” he said to Peters, “but I’ve heard they’ve been treating prisoners of war pretty decently. You’ll be okay. The war can’t last all that much longer.” Too bad he didn’t mean it. This last German offensive proved that the Krauts were a long ways from dead.
He saluted them and stepped to the doorway. I hope they’ll be okay, he thought. He looked outside and down the muddy road. A German vehicle was approaching, although very slowly. Tanner ducked out the back way and used the farmhouse to shield him from the approaching Germans. Even though he knew there was nothing he could do, he hid in some hay and threw snow over himself while he waited to see what would happen when the Germans arrived. He had an awful feeling that it would be something dreadful. He prayed that he was wrong.
The German vehicle was a Kubelwagen, the German version of a Jeep. It stopped by the house. Four men got out and Tanner saw to his dismay that they were all SS. One appeared to be a fairly senior officer. All four went into the house. Tanner pulled out his binoculars and watched and waited. After a moment, he heard harsh laughter and then screams followed by the staccato burst of a German submachine gun.
All four Nazis came outside, laughing. The senior officer’s weapon was smoking. The German took a number of steps in Tanner’s direction and he thought that the German had seen him. But his luck held. The bastard unbuttoned his fly, pulled out his penis and began to urinate into the snow. When another German joined him, the officer laughingly told him that this pissing spot was reserved for field grade officers only, which they all thought was hilarious.
Bastards, Tanner thought. How can you butcher two helpless men and then laugh? He focused the binoculars on the senior man. His SS rank was equivalent to colonel. He was stocky, in his thirties, and there was a rose-colored birthmark in the shape of a star on the Nazi’s left cheek. He would remember that. He would also remember Peters and Tucker.
* * *
The surrender of the 106th took place on December 19, 1944. Tanner would never forget that date. To him it was even more important than December 7, 1941, the date of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He quickly found out a basic truth. An army is difficult to hide, but one man is not. He moved slowly but steadily westward. His few rations quickly ran out and he realized he was in danger of starving. He tried eating some grasses and even kept some of them down, but chewing twigs simply made him sick and gave him diarrhea. His boots were soaked and his feet had felt funny for a while, but now were paining him. He didn’t think he was frostbitten, but he wondered about trench foot. He wanted to live, but not as an amputee. He sagged to the ground. He needed rest, but allowed himself only a few minutes before pulling himself to his feet. He also needed to keep going.
Without food and with his feet hurting, he’d lost track of time. He only knew that he was a hunted animal and had to stay hidden. He had to reach safety, not just for himself, but for Tucker and Peters. He had gone into the farmhouse after the Germans had left and seen their mangled corpses. He had the horrible feeling that there was more that he could have done for them. Logic told him he was wrong, but he wasn’t being particularly logical.
He wondered just when the hell he would run into American forces. He could tell by the sun that he was heading west, but how far west had the Germans advanced? Had they gone all the way to the French border? He sucked on some snow to kill his thirst. He remembered as a kid being told never to eat yellow snow and then wondering what it meant. His stomach had been cramping up and his bowels were barely under control. If he didn’t get help soon, he would die in a Belgian forest and it would be a long, long time, if ever, before anybody found his remains. That thought almost made him cry. He was a twenty-six-year-old college graduate with a liberal arts degree. He’d majored in German history and was an associate professor of languages at Dayton University. He’d taught German, which he thought was probably why he’d been assigned to a billet as an intelligence officer in the 106th in the first place. Sometimes, the army does get things right, he’d thought.
Tanner had seen precious few civilians during his wanderings and had stayed hidden. He didn’t want them involved with him. Someone might turn him in or, worse, the Nazis would treat them like they had treated Tucker and Peters if they were found out. The SS were everywhere and they were animals. The U.S. Army had begun discovering concentration camps. They’d all been shocked to the core. Tanner wondered if he would have wound up as a skeletal wreck if he had surrendered along with the rest of his men.
He heard someone cough. He looked up and saw half a dozen men standing in front of him and with rifles leveled at his chest. He laid his carbine on the ground and stood up slowly. As soon as he was upright he held his hands up and out. The other men had wraps on their helmets and white cloths over their uniforms so he couldn’t tell whether they were German or American. It didn’t much matter. His run for freedom was over.
“Give me the password,” one of the soldiers said in English and Tanner nearly collapsed with joy.
“I don’t know the password. I’ve been running from the Germans.”
“Sure, and maybe you’re one of those shits who’ve been disguising themselves as Americans and blowing up stuff.” From the way the others deferred to him, the speaker was likely an officer.
“My name is Scott Tanner and I’m a captain in the 106th Infantry Division. Who are you?”