Germanica by Robert Conroy

ordered, and they clawed their way through fallen roofing and walls. Civilians and American soldiers poured from the hotel. Nearby, buildings were burning.
    “Why us?” Cullen asked plaintively. “What the hell did we do?”
    Tanner ran to a ditch and jumped in. The others followed. The German guns found a nearby American battery of four 105mm cannon and smashed it. Tanner watched in horror as bodies were hurled around like leaves. In the street by their ditch, more broken bodies lay and some of them were burning.
    Tanner replied. “Maybe because they saw us in the windows and thought we were artillery observers. Or maybe they were just bored. Maybe they’re just rotten pricks who like to destroy cities.”
    More German shells struck buildings in the town and much of Vogelgrun was on fire. So much for it being a tourist destination, Tanner thought. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the Germans stopped firing. So too did the remaining American guns. A few moments of bloody, burning hate and it was over. The surviving American guns from other batteries were towed away out of range of their tormentors. The Germans had won this skirmish. Or had they? If someone was paying attention, they had just given away the positions of many of their guns.
    Tanner gathered his small command and they retreated ignominiously out of range or at least out of sight of the Germans. They passed more men from the 105th Division moving in. The battle for Vogelgrun and a Rhine crossing was not over.
    When he thought they were safe, they sat on the ground and rested. Canteens were raised and cigarettes lit. “Okay, Sergeant Hill, what the devil did you find?”
    Hill took a long swallow from his canteen and poured a little on his filthy head and face. “Well, sir, you sent me out to scout and snoop and I did just that. And you’re right. Just about any boat of any real size was either sunk or dragged over to the other side. However, some very nice people in and around here hate the Germans so much that they’ll be willing to sell us some small boats and tell where some others are being hidden.”
    Tanner laughed sarcastically. “Sell? They couldn’t hate the Germans all that much. Still, how many boats are we talking about and what kind of capacity?”
    “I think we could get the general a hundred and each could hold a squad. We could get a battalion over with each wave.”
    Tanner stood and dusted himself off. “Then let’s gather up all those boats and see what Evans wants to do. At a battalion per wave, it’d take forever to get the division over, much less the entire Seventh Army. He’s trying to scrounge pontoon bridges from Seventh Army and turn this patrol into a major push.”
    * * *
    Lena watched stoically as the long line of emaciated ghosts moved down the road, headed south towards the mountains. They moved in daylight. They weren’t worried about the American planes strafing refugees. Lena wasn’t so certain. Mistakes had a terrible way of happening, and maybe they weren’t always mistakes. Some Allied commander might just realize that even slave laborers were part of the German war effort and attack them. I could have been one of them, she thought. Perhaps I should have been and it’s still likely I will be.
    These were prisoners from the large concentration camp at Dachau and other satellite camps. They all looked gaunt and sickly. Even though it was still winter, they were dressed in rags and many were barefoot. Their eyes were dead and they could barely shuffle. They were being marched south to work on the Alpine Redoubt. She wondered how many of them would make it and how much work they would be able to perform even if they did arrive alive.
    They were divided into groups of about a hundred and each group was guarded by members of the Volkssturm, the People’s Storm that had been created by the SS a few months earlier. These so-called soldiers were too old or too young or too sick or crippled to fight in a regular