Walk Like Leather

By Mark R. Sumner

A fast moving, intense fictional account of combat during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Difficult decisions await the men trying to blunt the German advance. Action is focused on the men of one small unit faced with long odds, new replacements and a determined foe.

Written by a decorated WWII combat veteran.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387044696

Book preview

Walk Like Leather

Walk Like Leather

by Mark R. Sumner

Copyright ©

May 25th, 2017 by Mark R. Sumner

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2017

ISBN 978-1-387-04469-6

www.lulu.com

Disclaimer:

This is the story of a battle, and the words which follow are a record of events only in the fact that a similar battle did take place. None of the characters ever existed. As a story, it is with considerable humility dedicated to the young men who have served America in the army infantry, from Valley Forge to Afghanistan.

Dedication:

To the children of the men who fought with the United States First Army in December 1944, and to my children.

The Prologue

(December 16, 1944)

The Sergeant pulled himself along the frozen ground until he was well hidden by the rough jutting of the tree trunk. Even the numbing cold of the hardened earth could not still the fluttering excitement of his heart. He raised his head slowly, peering through the pines toward the enemy outpost.

Under the brim of his wool cap were alert, intelligent eyes, confident with the warrior breeding of hundreds of years. The face, under its coating of soot to reduce the shine in the pre-dawn December light, was set to hardness tempered by battles already fought.

The Sergeant could see two enemy guards drowsing near a light machine gun. Bits of equipment and empty ration tins littered the slope near the outpost’s group of defensive holes. It was a quiet sector, and the Sergeant and his men were unexpected.

A dugout with a hastily constructed log and earth roof gave the enemy an excellent view of the road. The Sergeant could not see the phone lines, but he knew there would be a phone in the tiny dugout.

The dugout would have to go first.

Gently, he eased the sub-machine gun in his arms up higher, motioning with the free hand to the dark-clad figures of his own squad. They moved, one by one to positions further left, and the Sergeant made a signal to the Lieutenant.

He waited for the sound of the guns, even now trained on approach roads and intersections, to give the signal to attack.

He had done this many times before, this Sergeant lying on his stomach, waiting for the big guns to roar a signal to attack. He had done it in France, in Poland, in Holland, in Norway.

He hoped the generals would wait before starting the tank engines, at least until the artillery had commenced.

The SS Sergeant, rough blond stubble chopping through the dirty smear of his face watched the American outpost in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest…and waited…

Behind him, over a seventy mile front left and right, lay twenty-five hundred tanks and self-propelled guns, and over three hundred thousand men composing twenty-eight combat divisions. It was incredible that the Americans did not know, but the behavior of their outpost was obvious. The attack would be complete surprise…

Chapter I

A few miles north of Aachen, Germany, almost to the Dutch border, the shadows who were Rifle Company G, Second Battalion, of the 789th Infantry Regiment, straggled on to the frozen-rutted dirt road, seeping from their holes in the ground and moving under the trees to form two slumped, tired lines on each side of the hardened trace of ruts.

Ernie Rodgers, private first class, stood at the edge of the road hunched inside his overcoat to avoid the bone chilling cold and listening to the soft stumbling and faint clink of metal combat gear. The relief troops, in clean uniforms and with fresh shaves, now faded away into the shadows, heading into the positions being vacated by George Company.

Up the road, ahead of Ernie Rodgers and the battered lines of his G Company fellows, loomed the dark mounds of a long line of trucks. The 700th Division was coming off the line, and their battering attack on German soil would be resumed in the morning by the replacement division now coming in.

**********

At this same hour in the pre-dawn dark of December 16th, 1944, a sleepy American Captain on the staff of SHEAF Headquarters in Versailles, said on the telephone that General Eisenhower would indeed see General Bradley in the morning, concerning an increase on the available infantry replacements for combat units, and, yes, General Patton’s attack on the SAAR, far to the south, was still scheduled.

The Captain yawned, wondering if the attack division for the Aachen assault had relieved the exhausted 700th Division yet.

**********

The relief was taking place, approximately on schedule, under the overcast winter darkness, as Ernie Rodgers could have told him.

The heavy weapons company of the new battalion was moving down the center of the road now, close enough for Ernie to have touched the cylindrical barrel jackets of their .30 caliber machine guns, or the tri-pod mounts as the crews struggled along, softly cursing the ruts as they passed.

The half-seen columns, the creaking and shuffling, were music in his ears, balm for a worn body. His pelvis ached and his legs were numb, and what Ernie Rodgers wanted most in the world was a place to lie down and sleep safely, where he could take off his shoes where he could be warm.

The air was fresh and crisp bringing a stinging to his nostrils, as he saw the company flow out from the lines, first in loose groups of squads, then the squads gathering into platoons behind him.

He couldn’t see them, really, in the mist darkness, but he didn’t need to. They were ragged, unshaven, stumbling on their feet…foul mouthed and foul smelling. Those twelve man squads would form up with four, five, six men missing from each one.

Ernie didn’t have to look at them. They were perfect replicas of himself, itchy beard and all. There were fewer of them, now, after the Aachen attacks, but they had helped take the first real German territory.  Thank God, he thought, we’re out of it for a few days anyway.

He heard Corporal Bentham, the Major’s jeep driver, call hoarsely, George Company is up. You wanta move out when they are loaded?

H Company, with their heavy weapons, and Rifle Company F, began to file into the assembly area. The men were hazy shadows like the tentacles of some giant animal pushing across the ground.

How like some pre-historic creature an army was. It had roads for blood vessels, and wire and radio for nerve cords. In combat, the battalion flowed like a live thing, trying to pinch enemy units, or squeeze them to death. If any of the battalion’s probing tentacles got smashed so hard the roads couldn’t be used, or the wires couldn’t carry messages, or the radio’s failed contact, then that part died, and the battalion animal tried to heal itself, killing as it did so.

Ernie saw the muzzle bi-pod of the automatic rifle silhouetted against the sky, and he moved to the carrier, a big man who made both the weapon and the steel helmet he was wearing seem undersized.

Hey, Cibuski?

Yeah, Doc.

The damned army is an amoeba.

You mean of them things in a microscope?

Yeah, you dumb bastard, a big sprawling ugly blot on the earth. Evolution has come full cycle. We’re back in the pre-historic ages.

You sick, Rodgers?

No. Philosophical

Shove it. You sound like you need a drink.

I’ll never, never argue that point with you, as long as I live.

Up yours, Rodgers.

The line of riflemen moved then, loosely, with quiet cursing, up the road toward the elephant like outlines of waiting trucks. Even with voices hushed, a buoyant excitement moved down the walking lines of shadows. They were getting out of it. Two weeks rest. That was the promise. Two weeks rest. The general himself said it.

As the lines of marchers drew past the trucks, the excitement turned into a louder sort of clowning. Let the relief troops worry about shells, if the enemy heard. The hell with the war.

‘Jeezuz, you bastards keep the noise down."

Screw you, Sergeant.

But it was the Black Bishop’s voice, and the noise faded. Nobody crossed Sergeant Bishop; not for long, anyway. Ernie had to grin to himself. As the line moved closer to where Sergeant Bishop’s dark bulk was standing, Ernie started to sing softly, pleased to hear Cibuski pick up the tune.

Oh, the Sergeant is a son of a bitch, parlez-vous, oh, the sergeant is a son of a bitch…

That you Rodgers?

No, it’s a whore with a hot tail, what did you think…?

Bishop shot out a heavy gloved paw, seizing Ernie’s arm.

Alright, you guys from first platoon, load up here.

Ernie dropped his rifle into the bed of the truck and swung inside. The platoon members close by piled in after him. Tenney, the man from Tennessee, was last in, with the stragglers going to the truck behind with Sgt. Bishop. Tenney sat on the tail-gate as Ernie started to slide the hooks in place. The truck roared and gave a lurch forward, and it was all he could do to keep Tenney from falling out backwards.

Cibuski jumped, catching Tenney’s rifle and then his cartridge belt, and with his help, Ernie pulled the mountaineer back into the bed of the truck. The convoy was rolling now, smashing over the ruts.

I thank you bastards. I truly do. Tenney gasped.

You almost got smashed, Doc. Cibuski snorted. What you trying to do? Get out of the army?

I’d like to, the mountaineer wiped his mouth with a hand, and that’s a fact.

Rodgers grinned at him, I thought you were a thirty year man, Tenney. Change your mind?

If he’s going to be a deserter, Cibuski chuckled, I’ll let him get squashed next time.

Shut yer faces, Tenney snarled, straightening out his gear and trying to find a place to settle. They’s something under this danged seat, and I twisted my foot.

Tenney found the offending objects, and with a vicious kick, sent them skidding into the back of the truck bed, where they clanged heavily against the metal.

Tenney, usually very quiet, was the newest man in the squad, and he caught the butt of every joke. At the same time, while his sense of humor rarely failed, his religious streak led him to turn the other cheek. It had amused Ernie, some time back, when members of the other platoons had learned he could do it without losing the smile on his face. Tenney was very literal about turning the other cheek, but a good man to have around when he had done so.

Rodgers sat loosely as the truck bounced, wondering who else was with them. The men crouched against the cold wind that was now whipping across the back of the truck, and Morris, the dark-haired rifleman who spent his spare time sketching everything on whatever paper was handy, began to sing from somewhere deep in the back, his voice rising over the rumbling motors.

Roll me over Yankee soldier…roll me over in the clover…roll me over and do it again…

Over the grinding of the truck, Ernie heard Cibuski growl to Tenney, I wouldn’t have grabbed you, but I hated to think of your dodging all those kraut bullets for the past month, and then getting run over by a truck.

Damn! Morris, do you have to make that kind of noise?

It was Williams, the wiry first scout, who had shouted from about half-way back. The singing cut off. Ernie Rodgers noticed the same flat tension in William’s shout that had been there earlier in that day. Walking first scout for a month of attacks was enough to make anybody edgy. With Williams, playing lead man was an art, but nobody could last indefinitely.

The convoy of vehicles was making too much noise for conversation now, and the wind whipped over them with increasing ferocity. Ernie Rodgers stood up, bracing himself against the bumping of the truck.

Some of you cruds help me get the top unrolled before we freeze to death, he shouted, struggling with the ropes.

Quickly, with an energy born of self-preservation, the men in the truck unrolled the canvas top along the overhead spars, lashing the sides down and lacing the rear curtains.

Ernie sat down on the seat slats exhausted, and, now that it was safe dug out a cigarette. He flipped his lighter, drawing in the warm smoke, checking the faces of the men seated along the sides and the two or three sitting on the floor boards. They sagged in their places, bearded and dirty.

Where’s Sergeant Bishop? he asked.

In the cab of the truck behind us. I think he threatened the driver.

He would too, Ernie decided. That’s just what the Black Bishop would do. Somebody else struck a match.

Christ! Don’t anybody move!

It was Williams’ voice, and the terror in it was real. Nobody moved, but the match went out.

What’s the matter?

Somebody strike a light, Williams said, calmer now.

Several matches flared. Williams, deep in the front of the truck, was huddled on the floor boards.

Land mines! Williams shouted, Give me some more light.

In a moment he held up a circular mine with a metal spider on top.

You damn-fool hillbilly, Williams called to Tenney. This is what you kicked. You might have blown all our asses over the moon.

What rear-echelon son of a bitch left them here? Tenney sputtered.

They’re safe, Williams shoved them under his pack, making a sort of pillow, But God Damn…

Cibuski leaned toward Ernie, shrugged, I’m thinking it’s riskier getting off the line than fighting. Maybe this quartermaster truck company is working for the Germans.

The light flickered out, leaving the glow of cigarettes to dot the darkness. To Ernie Rodgers, all the faces behind the cigarettes were the same…bearded, sunken eyes, and dirty. He asked nothing more than identification from those faces, nothing but a name he could give voice to, a specialty to use in the crisis. He asked as little of them as possible, giving nothing personal of himself that wasn’t absolutely necessary for the survival of all.

Finally he shut his own eyes. There was no point in staring at the dim figures in the truck until he began to see faces that were gone…No point at all, and it was an easy thing to do, if you felt anything about the faces. The point was to feel nothing, to forget.

Anybody know where we are going? Morris, the artist asked.

Not even a good rumor, Doc, Cibuski answered him.

General Jackson said two weeks rest. That’s all anybody knows.

The convoy moved slowly now, through trees, with the blackout lights casting a glow for the weary drivers. The vehicles rumbled and bounced. Ernie opened his eyes to see Cibuski hunched over in the light of someone’s cigarette, using the automatic rifle as a brace. The big Pollack was trying to get to sleep.

The truck was quiet now, as the inactivity brought the crush of fatigue down on the men inside. The boyish excitement that flared when they were loading the trucks, like a bunch of Ernie’s students at a football game, had faded as quickly as some half-forgotten emotion from the past. It hadn’t lasted, and Ernie Rodgers, at twenty-five the oldest man in the truck, knew it would never be the same again…not for these men.

Rodgers?

Morris had scooted over close to him.

Yes.

Rodgers, was that outfit who relieved us going to attack tomorrow?

They’re supposed to!

Green troops? Good God!

They’re not new. They’ve been here longer than we have.

You’re kidding. Christ, all those new uniforms fooled me.

We’ll clean up as good in a few days.

Ernie let his eyes lids settle, trying to make himself comfortable against the wooden slates. He pushed his helmet against the upright, bracing against the motion of the truck. It wasn’t sleep exactly. It was more like a slow deadening of the senses, one by one, into blackness. He tried to think of a girl, any girl, but not one from home. Not a thought of home. He thought of England, or France. If I fall over, he thought, at least I’ll fall into the bed of the truck.

Some part of his mind wouldn’t stop working. He half dozed, but the convoy jerked to a stop, and he woke up again. After a few minutes the trucks started again, and he slipped toward sleep. Time stopped, and then a cramp in his left arm woke him up. Ernie adjusted his position, jamming the rifle against his leg as an additional brace. The canteen made a heavy pressure against his kidneys.

He didn’t know when he actually went to sleep, but the dream came with a rush. He saw Howie again, standing on top of the Sherman tank, waving his left arm and pointing toward the farm-house.

He was looking right at Howie when the mortar shell exploded. He saw it, but he had no recollection of having heard it. The explosion ripped at the left tread of the tank, and Howie fell with a kind of slow motion, his legs buckling out from under him. The tank spun frantically on its good track…spun right over Howie. Howie screamed.

Ernie woke up, but the scream was still there…in the truck. A dozen matches flared to life. It was Williams, shaking his head from side to side. Morris was crouched beside him.

It’s nothing! Williams was saying. "It’s nothing. I had a dream…’

Ernie was sweating under the heavy coat. Howie was gone, he thought, forget him. Forget…forget…forget…

He slept again, fitfully, losing track of time, but conscious of every bump and jolt in the road. Forty-nine straight days of combat, forty-nine nights of fitfull sleep. A bed would feel good, he thought, and a girl. He fell asleep.

Ernie was aware that the trucks had stopped because he heard voices outside. Automatically, his fingers tightened on the rifle and he snapped awaken but it was only the Black Bishop.

The Sergeant was scratching on the rear flaps.

Hey, Joe Bishop growled, Are you bastards dead?

Cibuski was awake now, and at the flaps.

What’s up? he whispered.

Bishop was standing just by the tail gate. Off to the side, Ernie could see Major Gernhart, the battalion commander, and an officer from some artillery outfit. They were grinning like the war was over.

Lt. Greene sent you a present, Bishop grunted, unconcerned, but lousy ingrates remember I haven’t had a drink yet.

The men in the truck were awake now, alert but quiet, not sure what was happening. Bishop passed a full quart of Kentucky bourbon to Ernie.

Christ! Cibuski smacked his lips, Just look at that.

Ernie handed the bottle to Cibuski to open. He saw Sgt. Bishop go around to the rear of the other truck. A blond-stubbled face, looking strangely out of place, peered from the back of the truck. It was Petersen. The cotton-picker, with that damned tow-colored hair looked like a goat, beard and all. It also occurred to Ernie that Petersen, with a couple of horns, would have looked like the devil himself, dyed blond.

The Southerner took a bottle from Sgt. Bishop, whooping, and disappeared into the truck. Ernie saw the officer’s head at the top of the column.

In Ernie’s truck, each man took a slug from the bottle and passed it on. Nobody had to tell them to go easy, or there wouldn’t be enough. This was from Lt. Greene, and it was sacred. Ernie, and all of them, knew that sending his own liquor ration to the platoon must have been the first thing Greene did when the advance party hit the rest center.

When the bottle came to Ernie, he took a deep pull at the fiery liquid, hoping the warmth would reach to his cold feet. He waited, while the alcohol made a hot glow in the pit of his stomach, and then he jumped out of the truck, tapping on Bishop’s window.

The black-whiskered non-com took the bottle, holding it to the faint dawn light, and then passing it to the truck driver.

Petersen came from the back of the truck, joining Ernie outside the window, bringing the remains of the other bottle.

You see, men, Bishop said calmly, It pays to be a considerate sergeant. I’m the only one of you bastards who gets more than one drink.

Up front, the truck engines wound up, and Ernie ran for the tailgate, catching Cibuski’s hand to get aboard. The whiskey made a nice glow, but it never did get as far as his cold toes.

As daybreak cracked through the chill mist, Second Battalion began to realize where they were. It was the road to Reims; no, Liege; no, Reims, because they must be a bit north-east of Liege. Hadn’t they taken this very ground from a few half-hearted Germans just two months ago?

The war seemed over then, Ernie remembered. The German defenders of France were beaten, their combat units scattered, their equipment gone. It seemed then that all the Americans had to do was keep moving toward the east. They didn’t. They ran out of gasoline.  Ammunition was rationed, and what was worse, so were cigarettes.

When they were ready to move again, the Germans were there waiting. The war wasn’t over after all.

The convoy jolted to a halt, scattering equipment and dumping Cibuski on top of Morris. Ernie Rodgers eased the tail flaps back, unlacing them.

It’s getting light.

Going to snow soon, too, Cibuski looked up, sniffing the air.

It’s the Reims road, all right, Morris said. There’s the house where Remington got hit.

The platoon had been in reserve. A volley of Schmeisser sub-machine gun bullets had lashed across the house. One had come through the window and hit Remington in the neck. They never saw the German. Remington bled to death, and there was nothing they could do.

We can’t be more than a couple of miles from Reims, Cibuski said, tying the flaps back.

In the truck behind, Ernie heard Petersen telling Morgan, one of the new men, Just stick close by me, boy. It’s Reims, Morgan and I know this town better’n anybody in the army. The women are as good lookin’ as Charleston, and a damn site friendlier. Man, oh, man!

The convoy shuddered into motion, and Second Battalion, 789th Regiment, 700th Division, started rolling into the Reims Rest Area.

Eighty-five miles to the South, telephones began to jangle in headquarters after headquarters, in a cry of fear and anguish that would stretch, by mid-morning, from the Ardennes Forest back to Paris and beyond. The Germans had struck.

Chapter II

The fact that Liege, Belgium, a sprawling ancient city on the northwest side of the Meuse River, contained millions of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline, and all kinds of other items needed by the American Ninth and First Field Armies, did not touch nineteen year old George Parker.

Some of these supply installations could be seen from the rail spur where George sat in one of ten box-cars, along with four hundred other replacement infantrymen fresh from the United States.

Liege was a dismal huddle of narrow streets and stone buildings until the light began to fade from the gray December day, and George Parker was as restless as the rest of the unknowing men, irritated at having their rolling homes pushed from one siding to another for more important trains. They moved and stopped, only to move and stop again, still within sight of the shabby buildings around the freight yards.

George was sitting on his field pack near the door of the box car, heating coffee in a canteen cup, while Dick Reynolds pumped at the gasoline camp stove, when the sound, like a sputtering motorboat engine first came.

Hey, there’s a plane in trouble! See it! Up there!

That’s no plane engine!

A dot of red fire appeared several hundred feet in the air, fluttering out and then appearing again further along, almost in time with the motorboat sound. George stood up, watching, but sipping the coffee. The hot metal smell of the canteen cup did not add much to its flavor. Dick Reynolds stopped pumping the stove.

The hell that isn’t a plane! Look!

The men outside the boxcars huddled in clusters, staring at the jerky flame that marked a descending line across the blackening sky. Suddenly the sound quit and the flame went out.

Good God! Reynolds gasped, He’s going to crash.

Everyone watched, seeing nothing, waiting with breath baited.

The sudden explosion, earth cracking less than a mile away, rocked the train cars. George had to catch the door of the car to keep from falling. Most of his coffee spilled out.

Christ! someone muttered softly.

There was a shaken silence before anyone else spoke. The men shuffled closer to the heavy rail cars as if for safety.

It’s a buzz bomb. Like they’ve been shooting at London.

George got his canteen with shaking hands and refilled the cup. The faces, in the fading light, were drawn and surprised. George moved the tiny stove away from the opening of the sliding doors.

The war had suddenly ceased to be a thing of drills and marches. That bomb could have killed them all. It was meant to do just that.

Another of the flying bombs appeared in the night sky. George started not to go to the door to watch, but he couldn’t help himself. These things were German, and they could kill. They could kill him. The replacements watched silently, tension wire tight, scarcely breathing, until the engine cut off and the sparking in the sky stopped. They waited until the explosion cracked from the other side of the town, flashing orange and red against the cloud cover, jolting the boxcars.

What are they shooting at?

Us, you screwing fool. Us!

The railroad yards!

Hell, no! This is a supply center for about the whole army, that’s all. Who could care about us?

My mother does… Reynolds shrugged and spat out the car door.

The motorboat sound came again with the unsteady sparking in the sky, and this time flashed and banging