The Man with the Iron Heart

charge of dynamite.”

“Just keep going, goddammit.” Lou had the courage of his convictions. Of course, Hitler had also had the courage of his. Now, am I right, or nothing but a stubborn jackass? Is it the good turtle soup, or merely the mock? Lou wondered. One way or the other, I’ll find out.

Bulldozers and steam shovels kept banging through rocks. The drivers shouted to one another. Lou couldn’t always make out what they said. That was bound to be just as well. When one of them jerked a thumb in his direction and then spun an index finger in a circle next to his temple, Lou couldn’t stay in much doubt about what the GI meant.

Neither could Shmuel Birnbaum. “They think you’re crazy,” the DP said. “So they think I’m crazy, too.”

“Yeah, well, fuck ’em all,” Lou answered. “Long as they do what I tell ’em to, who gives a rat’s ass what they think?” Birnbaum gave him a look. Lou had no trouble translating it-something like You’re the champion of democracy? And, in a weird way, Lou was. But democracy and Army life mixed like water and sodium-they caught fire when they touched. What did democracy give rise to in the Army? We want to go home! and damn all else. The system might stink, but it worked.

The sun sank lower and lower, toward the pass in the west. Shadows stretched. A chilly breeze started moaning. Then one of the dozer drivers urgently waved to the rest. That had to mean Hang on! His cry of amazement pierced the diesel roar: “Fuck me up the asshole!” He pointed to something Lou couldn’t make out.

After scuttling like a pair of ragged claws to position himself better, Lou did see what had astonished him: a black hole driven straight into the side of the mountain. Sure as shit, the mine went on after the supposed cave-in. Which meant…well, they’d have to see what it meant. One thing it meant was that Shmuel Birnbaum wasn’t crazy- or not on account of that, anyway.

Lou was about to send men into that hole when explosive charges went off somewhere deep inside. The black opening fell in on itself. A great cloud of dust and more than a few rocks-some up to fist-sized and beyond- flew out. They clattered off the olive-drab machinery. One smashed a steam shovel’s windshield. Another caught a bulldozer driver in the shoulder. His howl said it sure didn’t do him any good.

But what those mine blasts said…Lou put it into plain, everyday English: “We’ve got the motherfuckers!”

Night. Black night. Black as the inside of an elephant. Cold, too. Bernie Cobb wished he had an overcoat, not just his thin, crappy Eisenhower jacket. He laughed at himself. Why don’t you wish for a hotel room and a bottle of bourbon and a naked blonde with legs up to there? If you were gonna wish, you should wish.

It might be dark, but it wasn’t quiet. Way down the mountainside from where he crouched in the gloom, Army engineers tore away at the blocked mineshaft. Something was sure as hell going on down there. Bernie still thought that was funny as hell. He’d been there when the demolitions guy closed that hole in the first place. If it turned out to be important now, the krauts had done a fuck of a job of disguising it. Well, they were good at that stuff. He’d seen as much since the minute he got to Europe.

Generators grunted down there, powering spotlights that bathed the work scene in harsh white light. Bernie looked every which way but that one. When he watched what was going on down there, his eyes lost their dark adaptation. He wondered how many of the guys scattered over the mountainside with him would think of that. Odds were most of ’em were rubbernecking for all they were worth.

He thought about passing the word to be careful about it. Only one thing stopped him-the likelihood the other GIs would tell him to fuck off. They knew everything there was to know about soldiering. Or if they didn’t, they didn’t want to hear about it. Chances were it wouldn’t matter. If the Germans were trapped down there, they wouldn’t be coming out.

Then again, even critters knew better than to dig a burrow with only one opening. Didn’t Jerry? He could be an arrogant bastard. Maybe he’d figured nobody would ever find his perfect hidey-hole. Or maybe…Maybe the American troops who’d combed this territory had missed some escape hatches. That might not be so good.

Here and there, soldiers on the mountainside were smoking. Bernie could see the glowing coal at the end of a cigarette for a surprising distance. And when somebody lit a match or flicked a Zippo, the yellow flare drew the eye like a magnet. Most of the other guys didn’t believe anything bad could happen. Bernie’d been through the mill. He was a confirmed pessimist.

He shivered and wished for an overcoat again. The blonde, the booze, and the bed might be more fun, but the coat was more practical.

His watch-GI issue-had glowing hands. Those wouldn’t give him away-you couldn’t see them from farther than about six inches. He held the watch up to his face. 0230. “Shit,” he muttered. Another hour and a half before somebody came to relieve him.

He undid his fly and relieved himself. That, sadly, didn’t get him out of being stuck here. He tramped along. Once he tripped over a rock he never saw. He flailed frantically, and almost dropped his grease gun. Only his Army boots saved him from a twisted ankle.

Any kraut in the neighborhood could have plugged him. So could any soldier allegedly on his side. He’d made enough noise to let them all know right where he was. If any of them had been as jittery as he was…But nobody fired at him. All the Americans assumed he was only a clumsy GI. Which he was, but they shouldn’t have thought that way.

And then, on the slopes across the valley from him, the balloon really did go up. Mortars and machine guns and rifles all opened up at the same time. The incoming fire was aimed at the tiny area the spotlights lit up. Almost in slow motion, a driver tumbled off his seat atop a bulldozer. He started to clutch at himself as he fell, but never finished the motion-he must have been hit as bad as anyone could be. When he hit the ground, he didn’t move.

“Fuck!” Bernie said. The krauts were way the hell up the mountains over there-he could see where their muzzle flashes were coming from. His submachine gun was as useless as a bow and arrow. It didn’t have a fraction of the range he needed. All he could do up here was watch the fur fly.

The Germans were out and fighting in at least company strength. Bernie did some more swearing. They hadn’t come out in those numbers since the surrender. And where the devil did they come out from? From up out of the ground, dumbshit: he answered his own question. Sure as hell, the American patrols that came through here hadn’t found anywhere near all the hidden doorways Jerry’d dug for himself.

Somebody at the opening to the mineshaft had his head on straight. No more than thirty seconds after the Americans there started taking fire, the spotlights went out, plunging the whole valley into blackness. The mortars and MG42s would still have the range, but they couldn’t see what they were shooting at any more. That had to make a big difference.

“Let’s go help ’em!” a guy not far from Bernie yelled. He knew which way to run, anyhow. Bernie was all set to go stumbling down the side of the mountain, too.

But somebody else farther away said, “No! Sit tight!” with an officer’s snap to his voice. The man went on, “If they popped up over there, they can pop up here, too. That attack may be a diversion. Hold your ground and see what happens next-that’s an order.”

Maybe it was a smart order. Maybe it was stupid, or even cowardly. No way to know till things played out.

The Americans had more than just bulldozers and steam shovels down closer to the valley floor. Armored cars started shooting at the German mortar and machine-gun positions. A 37mm gun wasn’t much, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing. And how could the krauts hurt the armored cars unless they dropped a mortar bomb right on top of one?

“C’mon, guys!” Bernie said, as if his team were trying to rally in the late innings.

Then he found out what the krauts could do. A streak of rocket fire lit up the night and slammed into one of those armored cars. Panzerschreck or Panzerfaust? Bernie couldn’t tell from up here. It hardly mattered, anyhow. Both weapons were designed to pierce the frontal armor on a main battle tank. No wonder the armored car went up in a fireball.

“Jesus! Where’d that asshole come from?” Bernie said. How many secret holes did the Germans have? He had the bad feeling his side was liable to find out.