Peering out the slit in his tank turret, Captain Alfred Kroll realized that the 323rd Panzer Division had achieved a great breakthrough. Thus far his tank company had smashed everything in its way, and now he was in the American rear, looking for ammunition dumps to blow up, communications centers to destroy, and American generals to shoot down.
He was exhilarated and barely could stop himself from laughing with glee. His machine gunners cut down retreating American soldiers and his cannoneers blew fortifications to bits. This was like the old days when the panzers swept across France, North Africa, and the Ukraine, winning lightning victories for Fuehrer and Fatherland. If the 323rd continued at this rate, it would be at the gates of Metz by late afternoon, and perhaps tomorrow would retake that great fortress city.
These Americans are nothing, he thought, and just then a shell exploded twenty yards in front of him. So the Americans finally are able to fire their artillery, he said to himself. He wondered how much artillery they had and where it was. Another American shell fell, and then another. Kroll peered through the slit in the turret and tried to figure out where the shells were coming from, so he could charge his tank in that direction and knock the artillery emplacement out of action.
More artillery shells fell in his vicinity, and he realized that more than one artillery emplacement was involved. He couldn’t see much through the slit and decided to take a chance and look through the open hatch to find out what was going on. He pulled back the latch and Sergeant Schorer looked at him from within the bowels of the tank.
“Where are you going, sir!”
“To see where those shells are coming from!”
Kroll opened the hatch and looked around quickly. What he saw made his blood run cold. In the first glimmer of dawn he could make out a huge number of American tanks attacking the 323rd Panzer from the right flank.
Kroll ducked back into the hatch and pulled the cover over his head. “Turn right!” he screamed. “Prepare to counterattack!”
The tank veered to the right and Kroll looked through the slit. The American tanks were attacking swiftly, firing their cannons as they moved along. The American shells whistled among the German tanks, some of which burst into flame.
“Hold fast!” Kroll shouted into his microphone. “Take careful aim and knock those tanks out of action!”
His tank stopped and fired a shell at an American tank. The shell flew through the air and hit the tank, blowing its turret away and causing it to disappear in a puff of smoke.
The tanks on both sides closed the distance between each other. They stopped, fired shells, and then continued moving ahead. Kroll’s heart sank as he realized that the American tanks outnumbered his unit. The great victory that he thought was within his grasp suddenly was slipping away.
German tanks all around him were blown to bits by American shells. Kroll’s tank was bounced and rocked by American shells landing nearby, but he ordered his men to continue maneuvering and firing at the Americans.
The interior of the German tank became warm, and sweat poured down Kroll’s face. It stank from diesel fumes and gunpowder smoke. His crew members had removed their shirts and fought furiously in their undershirts, jamming shells into the cannon, aiming, and firing.
Kroll’s teeth chattered as he watched the American tanks wade into the 323rd Panzer Division. He imagined an American shell striking his tank and roasting him and his crew alive.
“Retreat!” said the voice of Colonel Gortmann in his headphones. “Retreat!”
“Retreat!” Kroll repeated to his men. “Get out of here!”
The tank engines snarled as the driver pulled the levers that switched the tank into reverse. Kroll saw the scenery flash past the slit in the turret. The cannons still were pointed backwards so they could fire at the American tanks that covered the landscape like an army of ants.
The 323rd Panzer Division changed direction and sped back, while the American tanks pierced deeply into its flank, stopping and firing, stopping and firing. Captain Kroll wanted to weep. Victory had been so close. In another hour or two the breakthrough would have been so deep that they never would have been stopped.
Kroll’s tank bounced over shell craters and boulders as it tried to escape the American flank attack. An American shell hit its rear deck, was deflected into the air, and exploded above the tank with a roar so loud that Kroll’s ears were ringing afterwards. Kroll was greatly disheartened, but he told himself that there’d be other days and other battles, and perhaps good fortune would smile on the 323rd Panzer Division on another field of battle.
“Faster!” he shouted to his crew. “Move in a zigzag pattern and go faster!”
~*~
Captain Anderson had formed his company into a tight defensive perimeter and was trying to hold the German infantry off. A great many Germans already had passed his company by, but some evidently had been given orders to wipe him and his men out.
The air was thick with bullets and the Germans threw hand grenades as if they had a vast quantity of them to squander. Captain Anderson rested his carbine on the edge of a shell crater and took aim at a German helmet a hundred yards away. His carbine fired, and Anderson saw the German helmet disappear. He didn’t know if he’d hit the German or if the German had ducked and the bullet whizzed over his head.
Anderson and his men fought in a wild fury, knowing their backs were to the wall. The Germans had them surrounded and inched closer steadily. Charlie Company was nearly out of hand grenades and low on ammunition. Its field radio had been destroyed by a German mortar round and its walkie-talkies couldn’t make contact with battalion.
Suddenly the German fire stopped.
“Surrender!” shouted a German officer. “Surrender or die!”
Sergeant Tweed and Pfc. Drago were in the hole with Anderson, and they looked at him with question marks in their eyes. Anderson imagined they might want him to surrender and end the whole bloody mess. Men groaned in pain everywhere, and the ground was heaped with dead soldiers from Charlie Company. But Captain Anderson didn’t think he should surrender if he had something left to fight with.
The men in Charlie Company stopped firing, awaiting the response of their commanding officer. Captain Anderson knew that a terrible responsibility had been thrust onto his shoulders. If he didn’t surrender he and his men might be wiped out; but if he did surrender, who knew what would become of them? They might be put up against a wall and shot or be put in a POW camp and starved to death. No, it was better to fight until you had nothing to fight with.
“Surrender!” yelled the German officer. “This is your last chance!”
“KISS MY ASS!” Captain Anderson replied.
Captain Anderson’s defiant and raunchy reply raised the morale of his embattled company. More determined than ever, they took careful aim with their rifles and fired at German helmets in the holes ahead of them; and if they couldn’t see any targets, they fired in the general direction of the Germans because they knew that an intense base of fire could keep an enemy away from you.
Suddenly a whistle blew. The Germans shouted and came up out of their holes, charging toward the Charlie Company position.
“RAPID FIRE!” screamed Captain Anderson.
The men fired their rifles as quickly as they could, not even bothering to take careful aim. The machine gunners from the weapons platoon kept their triggers depressed and pulled the guns from side to side on the transverse mechanisms, cutting down the front rank of the German attackers. They’d been trained to fire their weapons in bursts so that the barrels wouldn’t melt, but there was no time for that nonsense now.
The Germans kept driving toward the men of Charlie Company, who fired their rifles like wild men. Germans dropped to the ground screaming, but the rest of them swept forward. Captain Anderson clenched his teeth and fired his carbine on automatic. Sergeant Tweed held a bazooka on his shoulder and fired into the middle of the Germans. The rocket moved through the air slowly enough so he could see it, and it slammed into the face of a German soldier, taking his head off and exploding a split second later. Nearby Germans were blown in all directions, their arms and legs flying through the air.
The Charlie Company weapons platoon had only two mortars left, but each of them dropped round after round onto the swarms of Germans running toward them. The German officer urged his men forward, and just then American machine gun fire shot away his jaw and he fell to the ground, blood gushing out of his throat.
The German attack faltered, and the Americans kept firing. A German sergeant took over and shouted commands. The front rank of Germans ran with their rifles held high toward the Charlie Company dugouts. The American soldiers shot many of them down, but the remaining Germans leapt over the bodies of their fallen comrades and jumped down into the forward American holes.
Captain Anderson was in one of the forward positions and got to his feet as the Germans swarmed around him. Holding the butt of his carbine to his hip, he fired it on automatic at the Germans, hitting them in the heads, sides, and backs; and then, when his clip emptied, he used the carbine like a baseball bat, bashing the Germans over their helmets or swinging sideways and catching them upside their faces.
A German sergeant lunged at Captain Anderson with his bayonet, and Captain Anderson whacked him on the hands, fracturing his fingers and causing him to drop his rifle. Anderson slammed him in the head and split his skull open. The German fell at Captain Anderson’s feet, and the young infantry officer rammed a fresh clip into the bottom of his carbine, once again spraying the German soldiers near him with hot lead.
The main body of the German attacking force began to pull back, stranding their comrades who were fighting for their lives inside the American fortifications. Those Germans quickly were overwhelmed and killed. A few tried to surrender, but the Americans weren’t playing that game. The Germans all were shot down, stripped of weapons, ammunition, and hand grenades, and the Americans prepared for the next attack.
It was dawn and the battlefield was a mixture of gray light, brown mud, and bloody bodies. Captain Anderson raised his binoculars to see what the Germans were doing and spied a hundred Germans moving forward to reinforce the ones his company already was fighting.
“Oh-oh,” Captain Anderson said.
“What was that, sir?” asked Sergeant Tweed, who was bleeding from a cut on the bridge of his nose.
“Those Krauts are being reinforced.”
Captain Anderson took out a cigarette and lit it up. He knew they couldn’t hold out much longer. The situation looked terrible. Where were the American tanks? Had the Germans knocked them all out somewhere to the American rear?
Captain Anderson cupped his hands around his mouth. “KEEP FIRING!” he told his men.
The GIs fired their rifles at everything that moved in the German positions, and a lot was moving because the Germans were getting ready for another attack. One of the American mortars ran out of shells and the other had only five left. The machine gun squads only had enough ammunition for another few minutes of firing, and their barrels already were nearly red hot. Some of the Americans fired the Mauser rifles they’d captured from the Germans and thought them inferior to the American M-ls, because the M-l shells ejected themselves after firing, whereas the German shells had to be ejected through the manual operation of a bolt.
The Germans shrieked battle cries and came up out of their holes, running toward the Americans again and pointing their bayonets toward American hearts. The GIs could see that they didn’t have a chance this time because there just were too many Germans and too many GIs had been killed or wounded in the last attack. Some of them wished Captain Anderson had surrendered when he had the chance.
Captain Anderson also thought that maybe he should have, but he switched his carbine on semi-automatic to conserve ammunition and picked off German soldiers running toward him.
“Hey sir—I hear tanks!” said Sergeant Tweed, spinning around and looking toward his rear.
Captain Anderson looked behind him also. He’d heard the sound for the past few minutes, but had been too busy to pay much attention to it. Sure enough, in the first glimmer of dawn, he saw German tanks rolling across the fields to his rear and American tanks in hot pursuit. The American tanks vastly outnumbered the German ones, and some of the American tanks stopped to shoot their cannons at the German tanks, scoring direct hits.
The sound of the tank battle became louder, and the Germans and GIs stopped fighting to see what was going on. The GIs cheered and the Germans stopped dead in their tracks. The GIs, encouraged by what they saw, turned to the Germans and fought harder; and the Germans, disheartened, began to fall back.
“After them!” Captain Anderson shouted. “Don’t let the bastards get away!”
The Germans ran, and the Americans shot them in their backs. The Americans blew them down with hand grenades and ripped them apart with their remaining belts of machine gun ammunition. Pfc. Drago fired his bazooka, blasting a huge hole in the ranks of the retreating Germans.
The Germans fled in all directions, and Captain Anderson ordered his men to return to their positions because the German tanks were drawing closer. The GIs dived into their holes and watched as the German tanks approached with their cannons pointing behind them, firing frantically at the swarms of pursuing American tanks.
The German tanks rolled past the Charlie Company fortifications, their treads throwing stones and mud into the air. Some of the tanks rolled right through the position, and the GIs ducked down into their holes. Some of the GIs lying in wide craters were crushed alive, but the others were in holes too narrow for the tanks to dip into. As soon as the tanks had passed, Sergeant Tweed put his bazooka on his shoulder and Pfc. Drago fed a rocket into the tube. Tweed took aim at a retreating tank and pulled the trigger, but his aim was off and the rocket exploded harmlessly on the ground in the midst of the retreating tanks.
Then the American tanks approached with white stars painted on their turrets. The ground trembled as they rumbled past the men from Charlie Company, who raised their rifles in the air and cheered enthusiastically. The air filled with diesel smoke and the sound was deafening as the American tanks roared after the German 323rd Panzer Division.
Captain Anderson puffed his cigarette. At one moment he’d thought he was facing certain death and the next moment he was saved. His men danced and cheered around him and he thought he’d better send out a patrol to find out what had happened to the first platoon, which had been cut off and overwhelmed so early in the fight.
~*~
Mahoney, his hands still on his helmet, approached a two-story farmhouse surrounded by German officers and soldiers who looked at him curiously. Two German privates were behind him, pointing their rifles and bayonets at him, making sure he wouldn’t run away.
Mahoney’s normally optimistic view of the world had returned now that his captors hadn’t shot him. They appeared to be adhering to the provisions of the Geneva Convention so far. He hoped they’d put him in a POW camp someplace so he could escape. He was certain there wasn’t a prisoner camp or jail in the world that could hold him for long. On top of that, he spoke fluent French and German, although the Germans didn’t know that. Once he got away he’d get some civilian clothes somehow and melt into the countryside.
One of the German guards motioned toward the stairs with his bayonet, and Mahoney climbed up. German soldiers nearby pointed to him and laughed, and he wondered what was so funny. He entered the farmhouse and saw a German sergeant sitting at a desk. One of the German guards kicked Mahoney in the ass, indicating that he should proceed to the desk. Mahoney snarled over his shoulder at the guard, who kicked him in the ass again.
Mahoney and his two guards stopped in front of the desk. One of the guards reported to the sergeant and the sergeant picked up his phone and dialed a number. He mumbled something into the mouthpiece, listened for a few moments, and then hung up.
“Take him to Lieutenant Weinicke’s office,” the sergeant said in German.
“Where’s that?” asked a guard.
“Down the hall.” The sergeant pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.
The guards escorted Mahoney down a hall and knocked on a door. Someone on the other side of the door said in German: “Enter!”
A guard opened the door and the other guard kicked Mahoney in the ass again. Mahoney stumbled forward a few steps, stopped, turned around, and glowered murderously at the guard, who had a bony face with hollow cheeks. Mahoney wanted to engrave that face on his mind forever, because if he ever saw him again he’d rip him to pieces.
A ruddy-faced German officer with black hair sat behind a desk. He stood and hollered at the guard for kicking Mahoney, and Mahoney knew it was the old good guy and bad guy routine used by cops the world over to make prisoners feel friendly toward the good guy and spill the beans to him. The officer told the guards to leave the office, then he pointed to one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Have a seat, Sergeant,” he said in English that had a peculiar German and British accent.
Mahoney sat down on one of the chairs. The wall to the right had a window, and he wondered if a guard was posted outside it.
The German officer lifted a gold cigarette case on his desk. “Cigarette?”
“Can I smoke one of my own?”
“By all means.”
Mahoney took out a Lucky and lit it with his Zippo. “You want one of these?” Mahoney asked, holding up his pack of Luckies.
“No thank you,” the officer said.
Mahoney put his pack of Luckies away, wondering how far he’d get if he jumped out the window.
“Could you tell me your name?” the German officer asked pleasantly.
“Clarence J. Mahoney.”
“How do you do, Sergeant Mahoney. I am Lieutenant Weineke.”
“Hi.”
“I imagine you’ve been through quite a lot today.”
“It hasn’t been one of my better days, if that’s what you mean.”
“What unit were you with?”
“The 25th Messkit Repair Battalion.”
Lieutenant Weinicke blinked, then smiled. “You have a sense of humor, I see.”
“I don’t have to tell you the name of my unit, according to the Geneva Convention,” Mahoney said.
“That’s true, you don’t,” Weinicke agreed, “but you’d be better off if you did.”
“Well I’m not.”
“You’re being unreasonable. I can see from your patch that you’re with the 33rd Division, which I believe has been nicknamed the Hammerheads Division, isn’t that so?”
“You tell me.”
“Come now, Sergeant. Don’t be so unfriendly.”
“I’m not answering any of your questions, so forget about it.”
“All right—I’ll forget about it,” Weinicke said. “Finish your cigarette and then you can go.”
“Go where?”
Weinicke shook his head. “If you want me to answer your questions, you’ll have to answer mine.”
“Forget about it, then.”
“Very well. I can understand why you might be angry right now. After all, your position was overrun and you have been taken prisoner as the result of the stupidity of your commanders.”
“How do you figure that?” Mahoney asked, wondering if he should make a break for that window. It would be better if it were night.
“Well, if they had exercised adequate caution, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Yeah,” replied Mahoney, “and I could say the same thing to you. If it hadn’t been for the stupidity of your commanders, the German Army wouldn’t have been pushed out of France, North Africa, Italy, and most of Russia.”
Weinicke frowned.
Mahoney puffed his cigarette. There was more that he could have said, but he decided not to push his luck.
“Well,” the German officer said, “this war isn’t over yet by any means.”
“It will be soon,” Mahoney replied. “And then you’ll be sitting where I am, if you’re lucky.”
“You won’t tell me what unit you’re with?”
“No.”
“And you won’t tell me, I suppose, your orders?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” Lieutenant Weinicke took a cigarette from his gold case and lit it with his gold cigarette lighter. “I’m going to be blunt with you, Sergeant Mahoney, because I can see that you’re not a stupid man. If you don’t give me the information I require, I’m afraid I’ll have to turn you over to the Gestapo and let them try. Do you know what the Gestapo is?”
“Yes.”
Lieutenant Weinicke looked at his watch. “I’ll give you two minutes to make up your mind.”
Mahoney wondered what to do. He thought he could tell Lieutenant Weinicke some lies that would get him off the hook for awhile, but sooner or later they’d find out and punish him. He definitely didn’t want to fall into the clutches of the Gestapo, but the only way to avoid that was to tell this Kraut what he wanted to know and Mahoney couldn’t bring himself to do that.
The phone rang. Lieutenant Weinicke picked it up and spoke his name. He listened for a few seconds, then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “What!” he screamed. He slammed down the phone. “Guards!” The door opened and the two guards rushed in. In the hallway outside soldiers ran back and forth. “Take him away!” Lieutenant Weinicke shouted.
“Take him where?” asked a guard.
“Wherever you want!” Lieutenant Weinicke jumped out of his chair and put on his helmet.
“What’s going on?” Mahoney asked.
Lieutenant Weinicke didn’t reply. Picking up his briefcase, he fled the room.
One guard looked at the other. “What should we do with him?”
Mahoney grinned in a friendly manner. “Why don’t you let me go?”
“YOU SPEAK GERMAN!” they both said in unison.
“Sure,” Mahoney replied. “What’s going on here?”
“American counterattack!”
Mahoney heard the explosion of an artillery shell nearby, and the two German guards hit the deck. Mahoney snatched the rifle out of the hands of one of them and ran toward the window.
“HALT!”
Mahoney held the rifle in front of him and leapt through the window. His body burst through the wooden frame and the glass, and he fell to the grass outside along with the shards of glass. He rolled over, got to his feet, and saw Germans running in all directions. Some hopped on motorcycles, others climbed into cars and trucks, and some fled on foot.
A German soldier on a motorcycle sped toward Mahoney, intending to pass him on the right. Mahoney dived on him, knocking him off the motorcycle. Mahoney and the German fell to the ground, and the German was so surprised he couldn’t defend himself. Mahoney punched him twice in the mouth, knocking him cold.
The motorcycle had toppled over and lay on its side, its engine stalled. Mahoney ran to it and picked it up. He sat on the seat, kicked it into neutral, and jumped on the starter. The motorcycle roared to life. He twisted the accelerator all the way, kicked it into first, and let out the clutch. The motorcycle screamed and took off, its front wheel two feet off the ground.
German soldiers and officers ran in all directions, paying no attention to Mahoney, who steered toward the American lines. The Germans jumped into automobiles or ran away as shells fell with increasing regularity near the farmhouse and on the surrounding fields.
Mahoney shifted up the gears and held his head low as he raced toward the American lines. Suddenly three German tanks debouched from the woods ahead and rolled toward him, their cannons pointed behind them. Then more German tanks appeared on the road, rumbling away from the American lines. Artillery shells rained down all around Mahoney and he veered off the road, heading for the woods. He figured that the Americans finally had counterattacked and knocked the Germans for a loop. The Germans were in a rout and the American tanks couldn’t be far behind. Mahoney wondered where to go: he certainly didn’t want to be gunned down in the middle of the battle.
He decided to hide in the woods and wait until the American tanks passed him by. Then he’d try to return to Charlie Company, if any of them still were alive.
He steered toward the woods and approached the German tanks fleeing across the field. He knew that their cannons and machine guns would be pointed behind them at the Americans and that once he got behind them they’d start shooting at him, unless they thought he was a German too.
He made a big circle in the field and turned back toward the farmhouse, raising his ass off the seat of the motorcycle and holding his head low. Artillery shells fell everywhere and he spotted a group of dead and wounded Germans lying on the ground; evidently they’d been hit by one of the shells.
He sped toward them and braked the motorcycle. Its back wheel bucked up and down as it skidded to a stop, and Mahoney jumped off it, running toward the Germans on the ground. He scooped up a German helmet and pistol, put the helmet on his head, jammed the pistol into his belt, returned to his motorcycle, and accelerated away. He headed back toward the retreating German tanks. His motorcycle bounded into the air as it hit a boulder, and Mahoney held on for dear life. It landed rear wheel first and Mahoney wound out the accelerator.
The motorcycle shot forward like a bolt of lightning and passed between two retreating German tanks. Mahoney veered to the right and held his head low in an effort to make himself a difficult target. No one fired at him and he felt pleased with himself; the German helmet was good camouflage.
The bullets began to whiz past his ears, and he realized it wasn’t such good camouflage after all. Turning to the left, he zigzagged across the field, praying that God would let him get into the woods so he could hide. A bullet hit the fuel tank of the motorcycle, and gasoline streamed out onto Mahoney’s leg. The engine sputtered. Mahoney cursed and braked the motorcycle. As it slowed down he leapt off and ran toward the woods.
Bullets zipped past his head and whammed into the ground near his feet, but he pumped his legs and the woods drew closer. He shifted from side to side like the halfback of a football team dodging tacklers, and finally reached the woods. He dived head first into the bushes, paused to catch his breath, and then ran deeper into the woods.
He saw a steep ledge with huge boulders twenty feet high at its base. He ran toward the boulders and found a little cave like shelter among them that he could crawl into. Scrambling into the dark dank little cave, he lay on his side and took out his pack of Luckies. He lit one up and inhaled, smiling faintly because he knew he’d made it to safety. The American attack must have been a strong one, to judge by the consternation of the Germans. Soon this cave would be behind the American lines, and then Mahoney could go out and return to his unit, or whatever was left of it.
He kept his head low as he listened to the growl of tank engines and the explosions of artillery shells.
~*~
Not far away, Captain Alfred Kroll crouched inside his tank as it rolled through the woods firing its machine guns and cannon at the American tanks. He’d escaped death miraculously numerous times during his frantic retreat, and his nerves were worn to a frazzle. He also was nearly out of gas.
“Turn left!” he shouted to his driver in an effort to make his tank a difficult zigzagging target.
The driver pulled the levers and the tank turned to the left. Just then an American artillery shell struck the treads of the tank, blowing them away and piercing the interior of the tank. Two of Kroll’s cannoneers and his machine gunner were killed instantly, and Kroll was thrown against the steel wall of the turret, knocked unconscious by his hard landing.
He awoke several minutes later with blood dripping down his face from a cut on his head. Dizzy and frightened, he tried to pull himself together and take stock. The inside of the tank was smoky and smelled of charred flesh. He saw bodies below him, and his driver moaned in pain.
“Are you all right, Hans?”
Hans continued to moan. Kroll climbed deeper into the tank, feeling intense heat. He was thankful the gasoline tanks hadn’t exploded. Bending over Hans, he saw that the young man was still alive but in hopeless condition, the side of his head mashed in and his ribs broken. His clothing was soaked with blood.
Kroll looked around the interior of the tank and saw mangled bloody bodies. There was nothing that could be done for any of them. He was the only survivor, and his head felt as if it had been hit by an ax. He realized that he should try to get out of the tank and make a run for it.
He climbed the ladder and unlatched the hatch. Opening it a few inches, he peered out and saw that the woods were deserted except for a few other German tanks that had been knocked out of action and one destroyed American tank. He could see no one moving about. Evidently, all the tanks had passed by, and soon the American foot soldiers would arrive. The first thing they’d do would be to check the German tanks to see if anyone still was alive in them. He’d better get moving.
He pushed open the hatch all the way and climbed out of the tank. Jumping to the ground, he saw a rocky ledge with huge boulders in front of it. That looks like a good place to hide, he thought. He ran toward the boulders and tried not to think of the pain in his head as blood oozed from his face and dripped from his chin onto his uniform.
Finally he reached the rocks and dropped to his knees beside one of them, gasping for breath. He took out his handkerchief and pressed it against the wound on his head, wondering if he had a skull fracture. Somehow he had to find a doctor quickly. But first he had to hide.
He looked around and saw several little caves amid the boulders—any one of which would make a good hiding place. He headed toward the nearest one and was horrified to see the filthy unshaven face of a man inside it. The man wore a German helmet, American uniform, and pointed a pistol at him.
Kroll stopped in his tracks, wondering if his skull fracture was sending him hallucinations or if the person really was there.
The man grinned and pulled the trigger of his pistol. Kroll felt as if he’d been hit by a truck and fell back into a bottomless pit.