American Pig Dogs

By Joseph Hirsch

It’s the 80s and the Cold War is at full freeze, and that freeze is pretty literal for Corporal Chris Talworth and his two friends, Private Legg and Specialist Jablonski. They have been tasked with the mundane job of guarding a Christmas fair in the sleepy village of Langemarck. It should have been an easy (albeit cold) gig, but then Fate throws them a curveball and they find themselves in deep trouble, not to mention probably stripped of rank and dishonorably discharged from the Army.x Their only hope at this point-and it’s a longshot-lies with an ancient map one of them found while on field maneuvers. It may lead to untold riches. Or deep into the bowels of the Abyss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC
• Release date: May 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781619506121

Book preview

Contents

Copyright Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

American Pig Dogs

by

Joseph Hirsch

All rights reserved

Copyright © April 21, 2020, Joseph Hirsch

Cover Art Copyright © 2020, Mike Tenebrae

https://tenebrae.artstation.com/

Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

Lockhart, TX

www.gypsyshadow.com

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

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ISBN: 978-1-61950-612-1

Published in the United States of America

First eBook Edition: May 22, 2020

Christmas Caller

One could never say for sure during the Cold War, but the town of Langemarck definitely didn’t feel like it was important. It wasn’t an asset for the West Germans, as far I knew. Our small outpost with only a signal unit and a couple attached assets were the only evidence of the American army in the sleepy burg. And as for the Ossies? There wasn’t much to spy on or collect intel about, unless the GDR hoped to steal the layouts for the yearly Christmas markets, which, to be fair, were pretty impressive for a town as small as Langemarck.

We were at the final night of the Weinachtsmarkt on work detail when things went sideways. There were me and my two buddies, fellow MPs: PFC Martin Legg and Spec 4 Jablonski. We’d gotten tasked by Top to do police call and teardown at the tail end of festivities, but we still had a few minutes until the last booth closed.

We were at the edge of the market waiting for the final shoppers and ring-toss throwers to finish up and we hung back on a ryegrass tussock, smoking and joking as soldiers do when there’s nothing else to be done.

I took a puff on the Gauloises and watched the vapor form in front of my face, tried to guess what was cold air and what was smoke. It was the kind of question that was rhetorical for me, but Jablonski could have really answered if I asked him. I didn’t ask him though, because the pleasure he’d get answering such a question would piss Legg off.

Instead, I shifted the smoke to him without a word, bundled myself deeper in my field jacket and turned the collar up. I moved my fingers inside their glove liners and outer leather shells to keep from feeling numb.

Scheisse, I said.

That’s the only German Americans know, Jablonski lamented, as he puffed the cigarette. Shit.

You act like you’re not American, dingus.

Jablonski shot Legg a sharp look, like he might either not pass him the cigarette or might flick it in his face and call him a fat ape. Yeah, but we should make the effort to be good ambassadors to them. He pointed his smoke, or our smoke rather, toward the village square down in the dale.

It was beautiful, with white sparkling lights strung up over the small wooden booths with thatched roofs, where Stollen and puff pastries were being sold, games and gewgaws on offer. Outside the perimeter where the fairgoers reveled there was a baroque carousel where the painted horses went in circles. Beyond that the hazelnut and apple trees were bare of fruit and heavy with frost.

Why do you think we’re here? Jablonski asked. He thought Legg was too dumb to answer the simplest question and Legg didn’t respect him enough to field queries, so the question had to be rhetorical. Except Legg was pissed because it was cold and late and answering gave him a chance to complain.

We’re here because the War between East and West is being fought in Berlin, and we’re out here in some town in Hesse, watching Krauts pin tails on donkeys because the Army has no use for us now.

‘We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here’, I said, quoting the old Tommy from the Trench. And then I checked to see whether or not Legg was done with the cigarette, and if so, how close it was to the filter. I feel ready to cross the Rubicon.

Don’t reference the Rubicon to him. Jablonski shifted his square-framed glasses on his sharp nose. He won’t know what it is.

How do you know what I know?

We could have gone on like this all night, but a dark form came toward us, leaving the little fachwerk and cobblestone town square where the lights glowed, and snow fell. Oompah horns and the Schlager croon of Heino came to us on the wind, and she approached us on foot.

Jablonski’s glasses fogged and Legg did his best to suck in his gut beneath his field jacket. He even doffed his field cap, or tipped the brim, as if he were some paladin and wasn’t the kind to comment on her ass after she turned around and walked back down to the village.

Our expressions changed, even Legg’s, as she got closer. The young woman wore a heavy gray merino sweater and a hat with earflaps and snowy pompom tassels. She was probably in her early twenties and had a button nose and burnt almond complexion, green eyes that highlighted her mixed parentage. She was beautiful, but to many of the older Germans she was probably a bit of Rassenschande; denazification had come here, just like everywhere else, but a lot of the Germans didn’t like American soldiers, and definitely not the ones who got their daughters knocked up. Especially not the black GIs.

I need help. Tears streamed down her high cheekbones and froze in place reflecting light like crystals.

Yes, ma’am. I reflexively felt for my sidearm, remembered we couldn’t have them for these joint-nation meet-and-greet things. Weapons were still at the armory since it was doubtful there would be trouble, as most of the old Red Army fighters were either in prison, dead, or were college professors now.

A man down there… She trailed off, avoided eye contact.

Legg balled his fists, maybe because he felt compelled to defend the assault on womanhood, or maybe because he was more violent sober than drunk and he was pissed to be here after duty hours.

Can you point him out to us, ma’am?

No, she said. I have fear. She shook her head and some black shiny curls fell free from beneath her cap. I am shamed.

Jablonski stepped forward. Can you describe him to us, then?

Legg had field-stripped his cigarette and pocketed the butt, observing good litter discipline.

Yes, he wears a large coat. She tugged her gray sweater just to make sure she had the right word.

Welche Farbe hat den Mantel?

Her eyes went saucer-wide and a smile almost crossed her queasy face. She looked at Jablonski differently now. Es ist braun und bodenlange.

Jablonski pointed toward the valley. Und ist er noch unten?

Doch.

Danke, Jablonski said, and since he’d taken the initiative he led the charge, even though I technically had rank as corporal.

Be on the lookout for a man in a floor-length brown jacket.

Roger that, Legg said, patting Ski lightly on the shoulder. But I’m not sure there’s much we can do. We don’t have the authority.

I’m not sure we have a choice, Jablonski said, and touched the hickory handle of his baton where it sat in a recently Kiwi-coated leather holster. We’ll hold the perp for the Polizei, if there’s grounds.

The laughter of children came from the carousel where the pastel nags went in circles on the first and final furlough of a never-ending race. The sound of the kids would have been pleasant under normal circumstances, but struck the ear now like the off-kilter warble of a glass harmonica. We passed a stall where amateur marksmen fired BB shot at tin mallard silhouettes, and I flinched from the pinging of the metal balls on tin each time they made contact and a popup target went down.

In the distance the thick darkness of the shaggy black pines was prismed with golden shafts of light beamed from the candle-carrying procession on their way to mass at the old fieldstone church.

There, Legg hiss-whispered, loud but urgent. He stopped and we did, too. Jablonski and I looked in the direction he was turned. He didn’t dare point. Our eyes were shaded by our field cap brims pulled low over our eyes. The German revelers may have been aware of us, but they had become studied hands through years at watching the Amis without being obvious about it.

The suspect stood at the edge of a Dick and Doof show, where the German papier mâché characters danced and fought against a Venetian backcloth inside a box lacquered with filigree and scrollwork, like an old street performer’s barrel organ.

Kids stood with their parents, and a man in a camelhair coat rocked his child who was sobbing because he was too short to see the show, obstructed as it was by the backs of the other adults and kids in snow parkas who’d gotten there first. The man solved his son’s problem by picking him up and hoisting him on his broad shoulders.

I looked away from the crowd and toward our target. The man in the long coat also wore a Jager’s cap with a red feather cinched in its satin band, and he pulled the headpiece low over his eyes. Then he inched toward the show where the German puppets argued with each other, both his hands in his pockets as he shuffled along.

PFC Legg stepped forward. Sir.

Herr, Jablonski said.

I didn’t say anything.

The man kept his eyes toward the display, or rather the people watching the puppet show, but his shoulders hunched slightly, either from the cold or from the disturbance he sensed at his six. I hoped he didn’t have a gun, or something worse, in his hand.

Es tut mir Leid, aber— Jablonski didn’t get a chance to finish.

The guy spun on his heels and broke through us, knocking Jablonski down and shoving me so that I almost fell with him into the snow.

That left Legg to hawk our quarry. He was well outside reg, weight-wise, as Top reminded him often, and he hated PT, but he could, as he once said, turn it on and off like a Viking from time to time. He proved it now, gaining on the fellow in the raincoat as the guy ran through the alley between the two sets of booths.

The man ran up the hill, slipping once on the slushy snow underfoot. He recovered his footing, pumped his arms and reseated his hat on his head, like a vaudeville villain. As he ran and we ran after him, it became obvious that he was heading for the hill where the girl was sobbing, and I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to escape us or get revenge on her for snitching on him for his perversions.

Stop! I shouted.

Halt! Fest stehen! Jablonski shouted.

The man didn’t respond.

The woman saw the man coming for her and heard our shouts. She dug inside a