The Haigerloch Project

In a couple of miles they would join the highway to Mayen.

The trees were thinning out, the gloom was becoming less intense.

Suddenly Marshall pointed.

“Holy shit!” he whispered. “Look!”

Ahead of them was the road junction. And on the highway, directly across from the back road they were on, sat the massive hulk of a heavy transport truck hooked up to an artillery piece, a 15 cm Schwere Infantrie Geschütz. Around a fire were half a dozen of the crew; the others were working on a damaged driving track on the truck in the beam of a battery work light.

It was their first sight of the enemy.

It was expected, and yet Kieffer felt a quick surge of panic. He suppressed it angrily.

Automatically Marshall slowed down.

“Keep going,” Kieffer snapped. “And keep your trap shut!”

He resisted the instant impulse to grab his gun.

The jeep edged onto the highway.

The Germans stirred at the sight of the American vehicle. Guns in hand, a couple of them, one a Feldwebel, warily started across the highway toward the jeep.

Kieffer leaned out.

“Hallo! Am Kraftwagen!” he called. “Hey! At the truck! — Wie weit noch bis Mayen? — How far to Mayen?”

“Fufzehn Kilometer,” the Feldwebel answered in typical Berliner dialect.

Kieffer beat his arms around him elaborately.

“Kreuz-Donnerwetter-Papenheim-Herrgott-Sakrament-Zum-Teufel-Nocha'mal!” he swore. “It's cold in this damned Ami Klamotte!” He prayed his thick Bavarian oath would allay any budding suspicions the Berliner might have about his accent. He knew his German was good, though it wasn't good enough for him to be taken for a nextdoor neighbor. But for someone from a different part of Germany. He hoped.

Irrelevantly he had a flash vision of his mother's scandalized face as he'd pronounced that oath the first time. He'd been twelve. Blasphemous, she'd cried, white-faced with shock. It was a little strong — especially to Catholic ears. Crucifix-Thunder-Home of Popes-Lord God-Sacrament, to the Devil, Twice Said! For days she refused to speak to her brother, who was visiting the States from Bavaria and who'd taught the boy the curse.

He turned to Marshall.

“Los, Fritz,” he said. He pulled his wool cap even farther down over his ears. “Before I freeze my balls off!”

The Berliner grinned.

“Mensch!” he said. “You are warming the wrong end!”

They started down the highway.

No one stopped them.

* * *

It was 2237 hours when Kieffer and Marshall brought their oddball jeep to a halt at the Mayen railroad yards in back of the main station. The sprawling yards were utterly deserted and dark, yet not dark enough to hide the sweeping devastation. Mayen, a town of some 16,000, was an important junction on the Andernach-Gerolstein Railroad, vital to the rail traffic in the Rhineland-Palatinate, and as such the town had been the target of heavy Allied bombing raids. The railroad marshaling yards were a mass of corkscrew iron rails, shrapnel-shattered rolling stock and jagged mounds of masonry rubble.

Though it had been late when the two Americans drove into town, there was still considerable traffic abroad, both military and civilian. The streets were only dimly lit, a fact they welcomed; electricity obviously was scarce, but even in the dimness the old town, which had begun as a Roman settlement, clearly showed what the bombers had done.

Driving through the center of town, Kieffer and Marshall had passed only one large building which miraculously showed no damage except for a few boarded-up windows — the huge, castlelike hospital, shored up with massive concrete buttresses. They had steered clear of the area. The hospital was obviously in the process of being evacuated, and there was too much activity for comfort. The Germans, anticipating the impending occupation of the town, were transporting their wounded soldiers to the rear — so they might be patched up to fight another day.

They had found a spot next to a mangled tie-tamper between two badly shot-up boxcars and stashed their jeep in the black shadows. Kieffer had decided to track down Decker on foot. It would eliminate the risk of having to park the jeep on the street. Marshall threw a couple of loose boards against the vehicle as camouflage. He opened the hood and removed a small object. He threw it to Kieffer.

“Hold on to that,” he said, closing the hood. “It's our ticket back home.”

“The rotor?” Kieffer asked, pocketing the little object.

“Right.” Marshall patted the jeep. “Nobody's going to start this baby without it.” He looked at the jeep. “You know,” he said, “I never really thought we'd pull it off. But I'll be damned if the Krauts didn't act as if they saw a US Army jeep driving through their burg every day….”

“That's just fine with me,” Kieffer said. “Let's keep it that way.”

He turned toward the town.