The Losing Role by Steve Anderson

No why. The kid picked himself. Might as well
have had ‘kraut’ stamped on his forehead, the way he was talking
and acting—till he got a baseball glove on, that is.” Espinoza
shook his head, took another sip. “To be blunt? Rest of you were
little help. Amish? My ass. He’s Amish, I’m a goddamn
Rockefeller.”
    The language sessions were helpful, yet the day left
Max with an even greater ache in his chest and head. The prisoners
could have refused to take part. After all, weren’t they aiding and
abetting the enemy? Yet it didn’t seem to matter to them. Max saw
it in the way Espinoza and his gang smiled at him. They must be
thinking: These undercover krauts are so moronic, so doomed,
they aren’t even worth the fight. It was only worth the bad
beer.
    By the last day in Stammlager VII A, Max had fallen
into a blue funk. He needed to get back to Grafenwöhr and move
onward. The show must go on. As they waited outside for the truck
that would haul them away, Max nudged Felix and they shared a
cigarette alone by the fence. “Don’t tell anyone how off I was,”
Max said, speaking German again. “How rotten. My God, if that was
not the worst performance of my life.”
    “I won’t,” Felix said. Max huffed and smoked,
glaring out beyond the fence. Did Felix have to be so callous? The
least he could have done was ask the same of Max. “Look, don’t fret
it,” Felix added, placing a hand on Max’s shoulder. “You’ll have
the chance to make up for it. We all will. I will. Not all Amis will prove so sly, of that I can assure you.”
     
    The fifteen exhausted and humiliated
agents-in-training returned to Grafenwöhr late at night. The sky
was still and pitch black, smothered by low heavy clouds. Max and
Felix said goodnight to Zoock and trudged off to their barracks,
Felix leaning into Max they were so tired. They headed up the
steps, opened the door. All dark. All quiet. Max shut the door
behind them, letting his eyes adjust. The lights flashed on.
    “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah for the Special Unit
Pielau!”
    “Long live our Pielau commandos!”
    The whole barrack had stayed up. Max and Felix stood
at the door, stunned. The men clapped and stomped and knocked on
the tables and bunks. Max smiled. Felix grinned. Max bowed. Felix
gave Max a playful punch in the ribs. Max grasped Felix’s hand and
they bowed together.
    “ Zugabe! Bravo!”
    “On to victory with Special Unit Pielau!”
    The big news from camp was the fifteen were now part
of an elite new unit—named after the dead man Captain Pielau
himself. The men surrounded Max and Felix, asking questions all at
once. Said one, “Bet your English is stellar now, eh? Tell us.”
    Max placed a hand to his heart, with fingertips.
“Well,” he began in English, “ours was a tough mission. But that
was the boat we were in. And it was a bad one.”
    They stared. “A poor ship?” muttered one. “Must be
an idiom,” mumbled another.
    Someone tossed Felix a pack of cigarettes and
lighter and he juggled them. “It’s like this. We showed the Amis who’s boss, really had them spinning—just like this,”
and they passed him more to juggle—pack of cards, bullet cartridge,
a knife. “Shame we can’t give you the juicy details. But just you
wait and see what we got in store for them.” The men shouted and
stomped some more. Felix kept it up. “These fool Americans, they
can bomb us but they can’t stop us. When the going gets tough, such
a bastard and lazy nation stands no chance against the likes of
us.” Men hollered and punched fists in the air. They lifted Felix
and carried him around the barrack like some Egyptian prince.
    Max clapped along. He shouted, too. Of course, they
were no elite force. Yet to these young men in the barrack, he and
Felix were the one great hope. And why not? Their illusions were
probably healthier than Max’s own.
    By the morning, Felix had totally rewritten the
script. “You want to know what went wrong in that POW