The officer approached, the German sniper they had seen earlier trailing a few feet behind him.
“Smart Amerikaner! Very smart.”
Some of the soldiers stepped forward and quickly searched their new prisoners. Joey had expected them to be on the lookout for weapons, but aside from a small pocketknife or two — which the Germans kept — the Americans were unarmed. To Joey’s surprise, they took their wallets and money, chocolate bars, and wristwatches. Joey hadn’t known quite what to expect as a prisoner, but he sure hadn’t expected to be robbed.
A soldier looked at Joey’s wrist and nodded, so Joe had no choice but to unbuckle the strap of his watch and hand it over. He felt a pang of resentment because his parents had given him that watch as a high school graduation present, right before he had signed up.
The German sniper who had eliminated the man in the steeple was among the soldiers looking on. He stepped forward and grabbed Serra’s hand, then shucked his Timex off his wrist with such force that it seemed like he might take Serra’s hand along with it. He then started to pull off Serra’s gold wedding band, but Serra jerked his hand away. The soldier raised his rifle.
“Enough!” the officer said. “You have his watch, Hauer. Leave the man his wedding ring.”
The soldier looked as if he might shoot Serra anyway, but then he lowered the weapon. With a smug grin, without taking his eyes off Serra, he slipped the watch onto his own wrist.
Serra glanced at the officer and said quietly, “Thank you.”
If the officer heard Sera, he didn’t show any sign of it. Instead, he turned and shouted orders to the soldiers.
Joey didn’t understand a word of German, so he still wasn’t sure whether or not the Germans were going to shoot them.
Having been searched — and looted — the prisoners were marched toward the church a short distance away.
It all felt so unreal, like a bad dream. Never in a million years had Joey expected to be taken prisoner. Killed, maybe, but not taken as a POW. Their training hadn’t focused on being taken prisoner — maybe it wasn’t something the Army wanted to encourage by preparing you for it. All he knew was that they were only supposed to tell the Germans their name, rank, and serial number. That response had been drilled into them. The funny thing was, the Germans hadn’t even bothered to ask for that information. Maybe they didn’t think the Americans were worth the effort.
The sights they passed in the street were not encouraging. Germans appeared to be everywhere, setting up machine gun nests at key points and fortifying positions. There were a hell of a lot of Germans. For weeks, there had been rumors that most of the German soldiers were now kids or old men, but that was not the case with these troops. They looked battle-hardened and went about setting up their defenses with the efficiency of men who had done it all before.
Clearly, from the effort being put into the defenses, these troops weren’t just passing through. It appeared that they planned to stay for a while.
“Hands up! No talking! Schweigen! Keep moving toward the church.”
Lined up at the edge of the street was a row of bodies. Dead American soldiers and a couple of villagers who had maybe been caught in the crossfire. Joey tried to count the bodies, but he couldn’t seem to get his mind to work right. Counting past ten was more than his addled brain could handle. Anyhow, there were at least a dozen dead bodies, if not more.
It wasn’t his first time seeing a dead man in the war zone, but the sight of the bundles lined up indifferently on the ground was upsetting. Just a few hours ago, these dead men had been very much alive.
At gunpoint, they were marched right up to the Catholic church. Most of the townspeople were nowhere in sight, except for a few who seemed to welcome the arrival of the Germans with open arms, bringing the soldiers baskets of food and bottles of liquor. That should be no surprise — this close to the German border, there were bound to be a few Nazi sympathizers.
As they approached the church, the priest was nowhere in sight. He hadn’t been seen in days. Rumor had it that he had fled the town along with the village constable.
But to Joey’s surprise, Sister Anne Marie stood at the foot of the steps leading to the church. She was apparently not intimidated by the presence of the Germans, but watched with concern as the captured Americans were marched toward the church.
Joey felt like he was in the presence of a guardian angel. Surely, even these tough-looking Krauts would find it hard to shoot down the prisoners in the presence of a nun. Joey caught her eye, and she gave him a reassuring nod. That small gesture gave him new strength.
As they reached the steps, one of the Americans at the front of the group bent down to tie his shoe. It was Sampson, the skinny kid with the glasses. Without warning, the German sniper shot him dead.
“Keep moving!” the officer warned.
Joey and the others had no choice but to step over the dead man’s body. Joey saw Sampson’s blood wetting the steps and felt sick.
Sister Anne Marie moved to Sampson’s side, but he was far beyond any help. She made the sign of the cross and began praying over him.
Still stunned, Joey spent a moment too long taking in the scene. The next thing he knew, a soldier had clubbed him in the side of the head with the butt of a rifle. When he staggered, the soldier shoved him back into line.
“Into the church!”
The Americans had no choice but to obey. Joey’s head rang and he felt warm blood running down over his ear, but he didn’t dare to stop. The rifle butt had cut a gash into his scalp and any head wound bled profusely. He supposed that he should feel lucky that he hadn’t ended up like Sampson, shot dead on the church steps.
Inside the church, they were herded toward the altar at the north end of the space. There was a door to one side that he supposed led up to the steeple where they had seen the sniper earlier. There was no other way in or out of the church that Joey noticed, except for the door that they had just walked through, now guarded by two soldiers with submachine guns. The stained-glass windows were narrow and high, decorative rather than functional, which would have made it quite difficult to crawl out of them.
Like many of the old European churches, this one had no pews, but only a flagstone floor that was cold and damp. The church had no source of heat other than the bodies it now held. All in all, the church made a perfect pen in which to hold the POWs.
To their surprise, another group of prisoners was already there, slumped on the floor or against the stone walls. Due to those thick stone walls, the church looked larger and more substantial from the outside. Inside, it felt more like a chapel than a full-sized church. With the influx of new prisoners, the interior became quite crowded. One of the guards dragged a bench around so that it separated the last third of the church closest to the door. The guards waved their weapons at the bench and then the soldiers, and though they didn’t speak English, the meaning was clear enough — anyone who passed the line would be shot.
The guards soon grew bored and slouched against the wall, smoking cigarettes — but with their nasty submachine guns slung within easy reach.
Another soldier came in and placed a couple of buckets along the wall. The buckets were going to serve as their latrine. Clearly, the Germans intended to keep them here for a while.
The prisoners looked around, getting their bearings, and talking in low voices.
Serra approached Joey and looked at him with concern. “Jesus, kid. Your head is bleeding like a stuck pig. How you do feel?”
“Dizzy, but better than poor Sampson.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe those bastards shot him for tying his shoe.”