Chapter 11

Voice, what can you do for us if we are wounded by bullets? The question has never come up before, but it looks to me like a real possibility when we run into those Krauts this afternoon.

Sgt. James Haggerty, we are equipped to care for any normal wound, even beyond what the hospitals you are used to would be able to do. If you are killed, there is nothing that we can do, but, short of that, we can return you to normal health without too much difficulty. Any wounded man will be transported to our facility where he will be dealt with. Tell your men not to take unnecessary chances, and we will take care of the rest.

OK, Voice, we will depend on you to save our asses if we get wounded. Thanks. I'll tell the men.

Voice had provided me with a map showing where we could probably find the Germans who were hunting us, but there were no guarantees. Some of our route would be over marked trails, so they would be reasonably safe, but some would be cross country, and there we would be on our own. I just hoped that Jazz and Mason had learned the lessons of yesterday, because we did not have much time for training on this patrol.

Initially, we were headed across the sand before we would come to the first trail. This was not too bad because this part of the trip would last only a little more than a mile, but it ought to be enough to get the adrenalin running. I noticed that Jazz and Mason were concentrating on where they were putting their feet, so I guess that we did get through to them yesterday.

We'd gone about three-quarters of a mile when Hank sang out with, "JU-88s!" He pointed to our north and there were eight of the things headed in our direction. We couldn't be sure if they were scouts for the German patrol or not, but we couldn't take any chances. We began putting out air bursts of fragmentation rounds as soon as they got into range. Every one of the JU-88s were hit, but none of them fatally. At least, we got their attention!

We must have pissed them off, because they flapped their wings for more speed and dove at us just like in the training films we had seen back in England before we hit North Africa. All eight of the stupid beasts were in trail and diving at us. This made them perfect targets. We switched to explosive rounds with a 15-foot radius on the proximity fuses. Voice had added some black powder to the bombs so that they were easier to see when they went off. This made it easier to correct our aim. By the time the creatures were within 750 yards of us, our shots were all on target, and we were blasting them out of the sky.

They crashed into the ground a comfortable distance away. None of the group of eight had escaped to report back to the Germans, so I figured that we were reasonably safe so far. As long as the creatures acted no smarter than we had seen so far, I wondered just how useful they were as allies.

The rest of us laughed as Jazz and Mason reacted to the rush of Rabbits to clean up the mess left by the fallen JU-88s. We had forgotten to tell them about the Rabbits, so they were dumfounded when the little things showed up to clean up the battlefield. A few moments of explanation calmed the men down, and we continued our patrol.

Our next encounter happened just after we reached the trail. Four King Kongs showed up and became downright obnoxious. However, our explosive rounds took care of them with very little ado, as compared to the fight with the JU-88s. We left this part of the fighting to the PIATS with a 0 setting on the proximity fuses. A solid hit in the chest of a King Kong with one of those large rounds was enough to eliminate it immediately. Jazz and Mason were suitably impressed and starting to have more faith in their weapons.

This was starting out to be a busy day, and we had not yet gotten close to where the Krauts were reputed to be. We cut across some sand to make our way to another trail. This sand was not smooth, but it was not as rough as we were used to seeing. I suspected that there were one or more monsters down below our feet, but I couldn't be sure.

Mason found the answer to that question after he had walked about 40 feet out onto the suspicious ground. He was walking point, and he led us right into a mass of Dr. Teeths. Of course, it was not his fault, but we were too busy for a while dispensing piss pots right and left for any of us to find fault, anyway. Chester was the nearest thing we had to a casualty—a Dr. Teeth grabbed him around the calf with a tentacle and started pulling him toward that mass of teeth. Chester's shotgun was set for full automatic fire, so he just aimed at the monster's mouth and held the trigger down. The second or third round went down the monster's throat, and that was the end of the contest, except that Chester was thrown about 12 feet by the spasmodic contraction of the tentacle that had hold of his leg. It was a surprise for all of us to see Chester flying through the air, but he was not hurt. All he got was a few bruises when he landed. Chester's pants leg had done a good job of protecting his leg.

Things were a little bit frantic for a few minutes. After all, it does take time to eliminate a dozen or so Dr. Teeths. Mason was somewhat embarrassed because he had led us into the ambush, and the other guys teased him about it. However, I stopped the banter before they could really hurt Mason's feelings. When it was over with, every man slapped Mason on the back or expressed his lack of fault finding by some other means. Mason then recognized what was going on and grinned sheepishly. That ended the matter, and Mason returned to the job of walking point. I wanted to show that I, too, had confidence in him.

Our next encounter was with a Medusa, but this one was not in a cave. We were walking near an overhanging cliff that was casting a shadow. I think that it may have just been by luck that Mason saw it in time. He didn't even think about what he was doing, he just twisted around and started firing pisspots at the monster before it could react. The thing went into convulsions and Mason jumped back out of the way as the Medusa died. When it did, it fell from the wall. The Medusa seemed to have been attached to the wall by suction cups all along its back. Well, no matter, Mason had taken care of the monster all by himself and the rest of us congratulated him on his quick response. That made up for the Dr. Teeths episode.

We had three other encounters with monsters before lunch. We found a good place to take our break, and broke out our C-rations. This time, we had some damned good spaghetti with tiny meatballs. Spumoni ice cream was the dessert. How the hell does Voice do that?

We saddled up and moved on after our usual cigarette. According to the map, we were now close enough that we needed to be on the lookout for the Krauts that were hunting us. Chester was now on point, because I wanted somebody who was familiar with the normal run of monsters so that he could spot something unusual.

We had gone about 100 yards across an open space when we heard the chatter of a burp gun (MP-40). We all dropped to the ground and tried to spot the source of the shooting. Only one weapon had fired, so I assumed that it was from a man who had gotten too excited and had screwed up. We heard some sharp language in German, so there was no question what was going on. There was no mistaking the sound of a sergeant chewing someone out.

We quickly spread out by rolling across the ground. There were some low hills ahead of us, so that was probably where the Krauts were hiding. I signaled everybody to hold their fire while I tried an experiment. I set my shotgun for a fragmentation round to go off at 15 feet. The hills were so far away that I had no trouble lobbing a shot behind them and watching for a reaction. The air burst went off and there was a scream of pain. OK, now we knew where they were.

These guys might be the cream of Hitler's SS, but they had never dealt with weapons like ours, so I figured that we had a good chance to win any battle. We had eight men in the squad, so I could afford to send half of our force out as flankers, two to the left and two to the right. I would keep three men with me to drive straight ahead at the Krauts and keep their attention.