“How the Mighty” Chapter 12— Rudi

Death Trap at Omaha

Fighting off the Americans. And Germans.

Rudi held the machine-gun belt in both hands, feeding it to Gefreiter Schmitt, who zipped off a dozen bullets every few seconds. He’d always liked the dull metallic sheen of the rounds, chunky little phallus shapes that were full of power and would fuck up whoever was on the other end.

Not that he had ever fucked anybody, of course, but life in the company of veteran soldiers had taught him a lot of things, not least a collection of very rude words in various languages.

Yob tvoyu maht, for example, was not something said politely to any Russian gentleman but Oedipus, and probably not even then. Be too slow with the morning milk, or drop a box of mortar rounds, and Feldwebel Bock would firmly advise you on this course of action.

And all the veterans in earshot would laugh and make comments. In German, which was no more helpful.

Rudi was thinking of his mother, as it happened. She would hear reports of the fighting in Normandy, and be worried for him.

Fuck that. Rudi was worried for himself! The Americans on the beach were beginning to get themselves organised, and the volume of fire coming back at them was steadily increasing. Already the smooth concrete surface of their Tobruk had been pocked by American bullets, and some heavy calibre machine gun on a prowling destroyer sent them both diving for the floor, now shiny and slippery with hundreds of spent brass casings.

And hot, as Rudi couldn’t help but notice when his cheek was pressed firmly into a pile of them.

Bock chose that moment to dive in from the trench and yelled at them both to get up and be soldiers.

“You have a gun; fire back at those fuckers!” he ordered. “What sort of nun’s picnic do you think this is?”

“Here!” he yelled. “This is how it is done!”

He stood up behind the gun, standing on tiptoe to get the best view, Rudi noticed, and sent off a whole belt at the ship, the hot casings raining down on the two men huddled below.

Another burst of heavy machine-gun fire came in return, and Bock jerked his head back, laughing as he brushed at a spatter of grit and pebbles flung up as the rounds thumped into the earth outside. Something ricocheted off his helmet, making a hollow noise like a dropped kettle.

“Pah!” he exclaimed as he examined the dent. “I need something heavier. Watch me fire a mortar from the hip at those sailor buggers! Here. Take this, boy, I know where I can get an empty one!”

And he was gone, thrusting the helmet at Rudi, and running off down the trench.

Rudi put the helmet on. It had to sit at an angle, but it was better than nothing.

“My turn!” he chirped, and Schmitt said nothing, content to sit out of harm’s sights and feed linked rounds up.

Definitely more bullets zipping about now, but firing uphill from the beach just ensured that the Americans weren’t going to hit him anyway. They cracked past well over his head or thumped into the soil, or occasionally banged off the cement.

Those shooting from further away along the beach had more of a level shot at him, but the range was longer. It really wasn’t much of a fair fight, Rudi decided. All of his body apart from his head was well protected by the earth and concrete around him, while those below him on the beach were out in the open, or huddling behind the shingle belt where they seemed content to wait out the war.

Regardless of Schmitt’s moans and Bock’s cheer, there was a happy medium. Do the duty, fire the weapon, use the resources brought to this place at great expense to do the job.

Rudi sought out targets. Approaching landing craft were fair game. As soon as the ramp dropped, there were dozens of men suddenly exposed, a prime target. But there weren’t as many as before. Perhaps the Americans had tired of that slaughter.

Any clusters of enemy drew his attention. There were a few medical posts, marked by red cross flags, and Rudi tried to avoid them, but anything else could be a crewed weapon such as a machine gun or a mortar, or maybe an officer assembling an assault team.

Here and there small groups of men braver than the rest were working on the barbed wire belts and minefields. The whole beach was marked by minefield signs, but Rudi knew that most of them were dummies. There were only so many men available to lay mines, erect obstacles, construct bunkers, dig trenches and all the rest of it, and only so many mines had been delivered anyway. The whole coast from Norway to Spain had to be defended, and it was an impossible task to get it all done.

Rudi did his best to kill these men. Once they got off the beach and started climbing the bluff, they would inevitably search out the defence points and eliminate them.

The rising ground immediately in front of Rudi was hidden from his view. It had a very real minefield laid down, but it was sparse. Once the Americans got past the mines, they would be able to fire over the crest, almost as well protected as Rudi. Grenades would be his best defence then, and he looked down to check that the bag was close to hand.

Gefreiter Schmitt was holding the next belt of machine gun rounds, and looked up at Rudi with a question on his face. Rudi shook his head, nothing yet.

Schmitt clearly wanted to surrender, and Bock was bent on fighting to the end, and there didn’t seem to be any middle ground. Hoist out a white flag and if Bock spotted it before the Americans, he would turn the Tobruk into a tomb. On the other hand, leave it too late, and the result would be exactly the same.

And what was his duty? Defend the Fatherland to the last bullet? Survive to come home safe to his mother? Fight to protect his comrades? Retreat to join the inevitable counterattack that the High Command would order?

Do what he was told, Rudi decided. He was barely out of recruit school, and everyone around him not only outranked him but had far more experience.

Now more bullets were snapping past his ears, and they seemed to be coming from somewhere close. He sprayed the bushes along the crest before him, and the shooting stopped. Maybe time for a grenade?

“Good shooting, soldat!” Bock had returned and was smiling approvingly as the empty casings rained down in a golden spray. Rudi reached into the bag, pulled out a grenade and held it uncertainly. If he saw any movement, he would throw it.

There! Just a flicker of something off to the left, but it was a movement where there should be none. He raised the machine-gun and fired a burst, intending to follow it up with a grenade to destroy anybody hiding behind the fold of ground.

But too late! A metal egg landed beside him, rolled up over the lip of the Tobruk’s firing bay, and dropped out of sight below. An American hand grenade. In the confined space it would surely kill them all.

He looked down in frozen horror. Schmitt gaped at the grenade innocently sitting at his feet in a nest of spent cartridges.

Bock knew what to do. Without hesitation, he pushed Schmitt down onto the grenade.

There was a sharp explosion. Schmitt jerked upwards, gasped, and lay still.

Bock was yelling something at him, but he couldn’t hear. He didn’t need to.

Kill those American motherfuckers.

“Yob tvoyu maht!” Rudi shouted, pulling the cord on his stick grenade and throwing it over the edge of the bluff. For good measure, he blazed out a belt of bullets along the crest and reached for another grenade. “Yob tvoyu maht!”

I hadn’t intended to get into the mechanics of infantry fighting. Not knowing anything about it, for one thing. If I have made some gross error, please let me know. There is only so much that can be gleaned from Wikipedia and black and white photographs.

The dynamic between the two Americans, Rudi, Bock, and Arthéme attracted me, and to get there I needed to look at what their various strategies for getting through the war might be. Hell, getting through the day!

I won’t say that I’m now an expert on Ringstände, and it irks me a little that I’ve surely been in close proximity to actual examples without recognising what they were, or taking the time to examine their dimensions. I can rectify that next time I’m in Normandy, but my story will be history by then.

Britni

The whole story: