A thousand suns

He nodded, assuring himself that they had done enough.

He signalled to his two men across the street that the fight was over, that they should put down their guns. He looked around for the others. It was time to get a quick tally on what had happened to his twelve men. Now that the truck, and the hard cover it afforded them, was gone, they had hastily spread out, seeking safe positions along the street. There were three sheltering in one of the warehouse’s doorways further back and another two taking turns to fire short bursts from an archway closer to the Americans. He saw the bodies of five of his men lying in the cobbled street, those that had been caught off guard by the opening exchange. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. His men instinctively turned towards him.

‘That’s it, weapons down,’ he bellowed.

The German soldiers tentatively lowered their weapons but none of them moved from their covered positions. Bosch realised he’d have to go first. He loosened the strap of his helmet and then slid it off, he held it one hand by the rim and slowly, very slowly, he eased it out into the open.

Several shots splintered the slender tree trunk still further and it creaked alarmingly as if preparing to topple over. He heard an American call out a ceasefire and the gunfire stopped.

He eased himself out from behind what was left of the tree with both hands raised fully above his head. He called out the only English phrase he knew, one that he and most of his men had taken time to learn in recent months.

‘Geneva convention… Surrendering!’ he announced loudly and clearly. He walked cautiously into the middle of the cobbled street, beckoning with one raised hand for his men to do likewise. One by one the seven remaining men of his platoon emerged and joined him.

The American soldiers remained in their positions, guns aimed, ready at a moment’s notice to resume firing. One of them, Bosch recognised the stripes of a sergeant, pointed towards the Germans and shouted. ‘Levy! Round ’em up and shake ’em down!’

From one of the warehouse doorways a young man emerged, and he trotted at the double towards them, his kit rattling like so many pots and pans in a bag. As Levy passed the Jew’s body, the prone form moved and they heard a faint moaning.

‘Sir! We got a live one here!’

Amongst the Americans the call for a medic rippled down the street, and moments later a medic appeared through one of the arches and slid to a halt beside Schenkelmann. Levy continued towards the Germans with his rifle raised at them, while the medic began his work.

Bosch watched the medic; he was fumbling with a compress applied to the wound to slow down the blood loss.

The Jew mustn’t fall into enemy hands alive.

Hauser had muttered this a countless number of times to him over the last few days, every time he’d heard the sound of artillery, or been spooked by the crack of gunfire.

The young American soldier now stood only feet away from them. ‘Okay, you shitheads, get down on the road!’ he shouted at them, pointing to the ground.

Bosch and his men stared defiantly at the young man; their eyes drawn to the Star of David pinned prominently on his uniform. Levy jerked his rifle to the ground repeatedly and jabbed one of the prisoners in the ribs to make the point.

‘Yeah, that’s right, you Nazi shit-holes, I’m Jewish. Now get the fuck down!’ he yelled angrily.

Bosch looked anxiously towards Schenkelmann. The medic treating him seemed satisfied that the compress was working and was now applying a bandage to hold it in place. Bosch nodded to his men, and they began to kneel obediently, albeit slowly. Another futile gesture of angry defiance.

The Jew can’t fall into their hands alive.

He gritted his teeth and gave one of his men a hard push to the side. The man fell awkwardly to the ground. The young American swung his rifle towards the prone man and Bosch reached for it, yanking hard at the barrel and freeing the gun easily from his hands. He grabbed the waist of the rifle with his other hand and shoved the weapon backwards, the butt smashing into the young man’s face with a sickening thud.

Levy dropped to the ground unconscious as Bosch spun the rifle round, aiming it squarely at Schenkelmann.

He had only a fleeting half-second, as he racked the weapon, to register the look of surprise and alarm on the faces of his own men and realise his rash action had doomed them all.

The gunfire from the entire platoon of Americans lasted a little more than fifteen seconds, and many of the young men who emptied their weapons that morning would vividly recall in years to come the bloody mess that was left of the eight German soldiers.

As the smoke cleared, the medic raised himself up off Schenkelmann, whom he’d almost crushed with his own body weight.

‘You okay, fella?’ he asked.

Schenkelmann nodded in response. His mouth opened and he tried to speak.

‘Don’t… just relax. We’ll have you out of here shortly, buddy.’