Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"Blown into history," said Captain Grimes sarcastically. "That's the way it is. Ride as far as you can, but you'll have to go into the village on foot. Now move!"

Bat took one great gulp of beer, then trotted down the street to where his platoon sat around their vehicles: a truck and a halftrack. He ordered his men into the truck and halftrack, and they set off. Half an hour later they dismounted and advanced through a vineyard on foot. They reached a small grove of trees, hurried through it, and emerged to a spectacular view.

The Rhine lay below. A smooth paved highway ran along the west side of the river. The village was directly below them, dominated by a beautiful centuries-old church. And there was the bridge. It stood. Men and vehicles were streaming across.

Bat used a pair of binoculars from the halftrack and stared at the bridge. "Those are Krauts," he said. "Retreating. Okay. Let's move down. C'mon."

He led his platoon down the hill. He did not take time to look for a road or path. They just walked down, through terraced vineyards. Other units were moving. Something like twenty halftracks were advancing on the highway. The Germans on the bridge began to run. Only a few of them stopped to fire at the Americans.

"They're running away!" one man yelled. "They're not going to defend it!"

"Don't kid yourself," grunted Sergeant Dave Amory.

As Bat's platoon reached the bottom of the hill and the first houses of the village, sniper fire from the windows caught one man in the leg. He was Corporal Prizio, the son of a farmer from upstate New York. He screamed and fell. Bat ordered heavy fire on the houses and then knelt beside Prizio. He would survive. How well he would walk in future was another question.

The platoon moved forward. Their burst of automatic fire, especially that from the BARs, had shattered the windows of the nearest houses and knocked big jagged holes in the stucco on their rear walls. No more sniper fire. First squad, led by Sergeant Amory, kicked down the back door of the nearest house and charged in. Second squad entered another house.

Bat ordered two men to carry Prizio forward and into the first house. First squad spread out through the house and found a German family cowering in the cellar. " Heraus !" Bat screamed. " Heraus ! Schnell !"

The Germans came up from their cellar: an elderly woman and two teenaged girls. Bat spoke German to them. "One of you fired on my soldiers and wounded that one. Lawfully, I can shoot all of you. If I decide to shoot you, I will allow my men to take such pleasure of you as they may wish before we shoot you. I offer you one chance to survive. You care for my wounded man. I will return for him — or one of us will. If he has not survived, or if he has been mistreated, you will die, and this house will be burned to the ground."

The women swore they had not fired a shot. It had been done by a Volksturmer — an overage militiaman — who had run when the Americans fired on the house. Bat left Prizio with sulfa and morphine, also with a carbine and a grenade.

The platoon assembled and advanced toward the river and the bridge. Other Americans were in the streets. They could hear the roar of tank engines.

The Ludendorff Bridge was a railway bridge. The Germans had planked over its tracks so tanks and trucks could cross. And it stood there, crossing the sullen gray and swift Rhine. At the far end it debouched at the foot of a stone escarpment. Whoever crossed it would have a hard fight to get beyond it.

As Bat and his platoon stood staring at the bridge, Captain Grimes came to them. "We go across," he said.

A moment later an explosion lifted the bridge and filled the air with smoke and dust. Bat shook his head, then shrugged. Well ... they were relieved of the crossing. The honor would not be theirs. They had arrived a few minutes too late.

But as the air cleared they could see the bridge again, still intact. The explosion had blown open a trench that would temporarily block tanks from crossing, but nothing but German small-arms fire blocked the infantry. Other units ventured onto the bridge. Enemy machine guns in stone guard towers opened fire. American infantrymen moved against it, peppering the towers with steel and lead. Engineers went over the railings and began to cut wires, disarming charges.

Emotions never to be experienced otherwise in life govern the combat soldier. Bat's ran strong, wholly in control of him. He was relieved not to be first across the bridge, but he was torn with anger that other platoons were rushing forward while his stood and stared. From the corner of his eye he saw Captain Grimes returning to give the order. He would not wait.

"Go, for Christ sake! What're we waitin' for? Move! Move! Move!"

He ran ahead of his platoon. He didn't have to glance back to see if they were following him. His men, some of them old enough to be his father, respected him or were afraid of him. They wouldn't let him go across alone. They dreaded what he would do to a man who proved afraid to follow him.

Maybe they dreaded more what their fellow soldiers would think of them.

Bat ran forward. He jumped over the bodies of Americans who had fallen to defensive fire, then over bodies of Germans caught in the sudden onslaught. Tanks on the river highway had zeroed in on the defense towers at the eastern end of the bridge. The white smoke and red fire of phosphorous shells enveloped the entire east end of the bridge. He could hear the agonized screams of German soldiers with phosphorus burning on their skin.

Slugs ricocheted off the steel around him. Ahead he saw a man fall. Drizzle and sweat in his eyes obscured his vision. The air was chilly, but he sweated nevertheless. Time, too, was obscure. He ran for less than a minute, but it seemed as if he were running for ten minutes. His eyes were dimmed, but he saw the situation as if it were engraved on a bright crystal. The danger was the explosive charges under the bridge. "Hey, Mac! Hey, Mac!"

The man was yelling at him . A man over the side. "Hey, Mac! Look! See the cable? Can you hit it?" Bat saw what the man was yelling about: a cable about half the thickness of a man's wrist, running from somewhere to the east and under the bridge — to an explosive charge, without any doubt at all.

" Shoot the son of a bitch ! Break that son of a bitch !" Bat nodded. The carbine he was carrying was not the war's most accurate weapon, but he braced himself on the bridge rail and took aim. His first shot missed. A little high. He adjusted. His second slug severed the cable. It hung in shreds. He fired again. And again. The two ends separated and fell apart. "Hey, Mac —"

He had stood still too long. It made him a target. He felt the shock in a lower right rib, then the burning pain. He was aware of nothing after he felt Sergeant Amory dragging him into the shelter of a steel girder.

In that, on the 7th day of March 1945, First Lieutenant Jonas E. Batista, while leading his platoon across the Ludendorff Bridge in the face of heavy enemy fire in the best practice of infantry leadership, did stop and, exposing himself as a target, did by accurate fire from his weapon break an electric cable that connected heavy explosive charges to the enemy's source of electric power, thereby preventing detonation of such charges, but subjecting Lieutenant Batista to severe and life-threatening wounds; and

In that First Lieutenant Jonas E. Batista did conduct himself in the face of an armed enemy with extraordinary courage and gallantry in the finest tradition of the Armed Services of the United States,

NOW THEREFORE it is ordered that Lieutenant Jonas E. Batista be awarded and he hereby is awarded THE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS.