Chapter Nineteen
3rd June, 1917
Near Château-Thierry, France
The US Marine Corps had turned out to be absolutely relentless. Their orders were to hold, no matter the cost. They were holding, but it was by their fingernails. Creeping artillery barrages followed closely by infantry and attacks that could come at any time, day or night had become the order of the day. Horst could see that Sjostedt was looking awful. Pale, eyes rimmed red with exhaustion. He couldn’t imagine that he looked any better.
It was almost a relief when they were attacked by the French instead. Except there was one thing that they had not anticipated, a clanking smoking machine came into view with the French infantry following. They had heard of these machines used by the British in the Arras sector but had seen nothing like this before. The front of this one was vaguely like a rhinoceros with a steel bar projecting up at a vertical angle. There was a cannon on the right-hand side and on each side, were two machine guns in ball mounts.
The cannon on the vehicle fired and one of the machine gun nests exploded. Horst thought he saw bodies and what was left of one of the platoon’s machine guns flying through the air.
The golden rule on the battlefield was to keep as low as possible. That holds doubly true when presented with the unexpected. The vehicle rolled right over the top of them as they huddled in the bottom of their foxhole the vehicle’s track having sunk into the earth just inches from them. Then it was past and they were back into bright sunlight.
Horst knowing that French infantry were right behind was up and shooting at anything that moved. Firing his rifle in five shots in rapid succession. He it wasn’t until he reloaded that he noticed that Sjostedt was no longer next him.
He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Sjostedt, who’d crawled out of the hole below the level of the gunners on the French vehicle jamming a block of explosive into the vehicles tracks the fuse already lit, crazy bastard. As Sjostedt jumped back towards their hole, his luck which had held since Verdun ran out. Horst saw what looked like a puff of dust on the right side of Sjostedt’s chest and he collapsed landing hard just shy of the foxhole.
Horst dragged Sjostedt to the relative safety of the foxhole just in time to see the side of the vehicle blow apart and catch fire. Horst could hear the rest of the platoon firing as he turned back to the fight just in time to see a Frenchman’s bayonet had been aimed right at his exposed back. He got the butt of his rifle up just in time to deflect the bayonet. Someone else, he never saw who, shot the Frenchman through the head.
The destruction of the vehicle stopped the French advance cold but Horst wasn’t paying attention. The first thing Horst noticed was that Sjostedt had scrapped the skin off the front of his nose and over his cheekbone when he landed and it was bleeding freely. Sjostedt was gasping for breath “Got the fucker” he said and started coughing, Horst noticed that blood was coming from his mouth and a red stain was spreading on the front of his tunic. The platoon’s medic finally made an appearance, tearing open Sjostedt’s tunic he saw that there was a hole in his chest that had blood oozing from it, every time Sjostedt tried to breath, air bubbles formed in it. This is bad, the thought kept running in Horst’s brain again and again.
The medic was going through his bag. Pulling out a bandage. “Press this over the wound, hard” The medic said. Horst was fixated on Sjostedt’s blood that was soaking around his fingers. Then he noticed that the Medic was cutting into Sjostedt’s side with a scalpel.
“What the Hell do you think you are doing!” Horst yelled.
“Your friend has a collapsed lung” The Medic “If you can’t handle this…”
“No” Horst “I’ll be fine” He’d seen enough people get hit before but it had never been anyone he’d been too close to. How had he done this for more than year and that had never happened? How many times had he rolled the dice with Sjostedt or Emil Holz?
4th June, Verdilly, France
They had gotten Sjostedt to the field hospital. Horst had been there for several minutes when the surgeon had gotten angry with him “We are going to do everything we can for your friend but right now you need to get back to your platoon Oberfeld” throwing him out.
That was when Oberlieutenant von Hofstadter found him “I understand that it was Unteroffizer Sjostedt that destroyed that French tank” von Hofstadter said “Is that true, Oberfeld?”
“Those things are called tanks?” Horst asked numbly “Yeah, it was Sjostedt.”
“You’ll be pleased to know that means that I’m putting him up for decoration” von Hofstadter said “Provided of course that he lives…”
The Oberlieutenant trailed off when he noticed that Horst was looking at him with a look of pure loathing. Sjostedt’s blood was still dried onto his hands and this coward was talking to him about decorations and whether or not Sjostedt lived or died?
Horst took a breath and brought himself back under control “You do that, Sir” He said. Then turning on his heel he walked into the night.
Hours later Horst was sitting on the side of the road, he was faced with the prospect of returning to the platoon before he was ready. The sky in the East was already lightening, he’d have to be back by dawn like it or not. That was the problem, at the moment, he would rip apart the first Soldat who messed up anything. He knew that intellectually but in his heart, he just wanted to hurt someone right now and wouldn’t be the least bit picky.
That was when the taped over headlights of a convoy of lorries came down the road. The lead lorry stopped when they saw Horst and he noticed that all the others had to slam on their brakes to avoid collisions, a few even had to pull up onto the shoulder.
“You there” A cheerful voice called out “Are you with the 4th Division?”
Horst stood there for a long moment, finally he said “Yes, I’m with the 4th”
“Good” The man said getting out of the lorry “We’ve been assigned to work in support of your Division.”
As the man stepped into the dim light from the lorry’s headlights Horst could see that he was an Oberstlieutenant. A spare man, the uniform he was wearing looked like something from another era, cavalry. Boots shined mirror bright and all.
“Who are you?” Horst asked.
“Oberstlieutenant Manfred Wolvogle, 1st Armored Cavalry Brigade” The Oberstlieutenant said shaking Horst’s hand, when he saw Horst’s hands “I’d suggest washing your hands…um” he was fishing for a name the way officers did.
“Oberfeld Walter Horst” Horst said “And what do you mean by armored cavalry?”
“You’ll see soon enough” Wolvogle said “We came as far as rail could take us, now we’re trying to get to the front with as few breakdowns as possible.”
“The front is a few kilometers that way” Horst said pointing down the road.
“Oh, brilliant” Wolvogle said then he turned to the truck behind him “We’ve almost made it, just a few more kilometers down the road” he yelled at the lorry’s driver.
As Wolvogle walked back to the lorry he turned and asked “Do you need a ride, Oberfeld?”
“No, I’m fine” Horst said. He had a feeling that Wolvogle was the sort who was best had in small doses.
“Very well, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you!” Wolvogle said out the window of the lorry as it drove off.
Lorry after lorry followed down the road, Horst could some were flatbeds with tarp covered crates and others were carrying men. Typical supply convoy moving up in darkness he thought to himself. Then he heard a clanking sound, like that French tank, yesterday now. He was about to throw himself into the ditch when he noticed that these were very different.
Light glinting off their grey paint, black and white crosses identifying whose side they belonged to. Where the French tank had waddled along these seemed to move forward with purpose and intent. They were low slung and looked dangerous. Horst smiled, he had wanted to hurt someone, make them pay for what happened to Sjostedt. This looked like there would be a lot of opportunities to do that. To make the French and Americans scream. The prospects of having a better day today suddenly looked a lot better.