Red Sniper

With Cole gripping the sides of the rowboat, Vaccaro fitted the oars to the locks, and started rowing, pulling the two other boats in their wake. On the opposite bank, the German refugees saw them coming across and shouted encouragement. “You do know that once some officer spots us doing this, there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

“You think I give a damn?”

“The good news is that all this rowing will get us into shape for breaking rocks at Fort Leavenworth.”

The trip across took just a couple of minutes. Cole had worried that there would be a ruckus over who got into the boats, but to his surprise, the refugees were very orderly.

A couple of men had taken charge and were forming people into lines, keeping families together. Cole thought that the organizers, with their military bearing and close-cropped hair, looked suspiciously like German officers, but they wore civilian clothes. They seemed used to giving orders.

The boats filled quickly. Suitcases were abandoned in favor of fitting more people—the refugees carried only what they could hold in their arms. Cole got into the second rowboat, noticing that a few inches of river water sloshed in the bottom from some unseen leak. He just hoped the damn thing didn’t sink on him.

He counted eighteen Germans spread across the three boats. Cole didn’t like the fact that with so many passengers, his rowboat now sat low in the water, but fortunately the river was smooth and calm. He put his back into pulling the oars, eager to cross the expanse of river. However, the trip back to the western shore took longer because of the weight.

On the American side of the Elbe, the passengers disembarked in orderly fashion. A handful still had relatives on the opposite bank. They looked imploringly at the two GIs.

Cole settled back down and took up the oars. “If I keep this up long enough, maybe they’ll let me join the navy.”

“We’re going back?” With a sigh, Vaccaro reached for his own set of oars. “I guess we can’t leave the job half done.”

They rowed to the other side and loaded the boats again. The Germans jabbered at them, and although neither man spoke the language, it was plain that the refugees were thankful. Someone tried to give Cole a roll of money, but he shook his head and muttered, “Nein.”

On their fourth trip across, he did accept a bottle of schnapps from an old man, mainly because the poor codger seemed so excited to give it to him. Cole nodded his thanks and tucked the bottle into what he had learned from Vaccaro was called the bow.

The water was getting deeper in the belly of his rowboat. One of the German organizers on the bank noticed and produced an empty tin can. He jumped in and started scooping out water.

Cole was built lean and rangy, which was good for covering ground, but not for rowing heavy boats back and forth across the muddy Elbe. His hands were far from soft, but he didn’t have the leathery skin of a farmer. By the fifth trip he had blisters. By the eighth trip his hands were bloody. On the tenth trip, a beautiful blond woman, dressed in fashionable clothes, noticed the blood where he gripped the oars. She took his hands, making tsk, tsk sounds of sympathy. She had eyes the color of a blue sky and looked as if she had just stepped off a movie screen. She tore strips from the hem of her dress and then gently wrapped his hands. He went back to the oars.

Now the number of Germans waiting to cross was not diminishing, but growing. Where the situation had been almost hopeless before, now Germans were being drawn to possibility of escape. Previously, the Germans had been calm, but there was a new urgency in those waiting for the boats. He overheard the words die Russen repeated again and again, clearly in an apprehensive tone. Did that mean the Russians were closer?

There seemed to be some confusion about who was getting into which boat, and what they were taking with them.

“Hurry up,” Cole said, hoping they understood.

One of the men who might have been a German officer got what he was saying and nodded. Turning to the crowd, he started counting off people and pushing them toward the boats, shouting, “Hop, hop, hop!”

On that trip across, a major Cole didn’t recognize came down the bank to watch them. He just shook his head and walked away. Some other GIs came down the bank to help people off the boats, but it was only Cole and Vaccaro rowing the boats. A couple of younger Germans started going back and forth with two more boats.

They made their fifteenth trip across. That was damn near two hundred Germans that they had ferried across the Elbe.

The major Cole had seen earlier reappeared as they reached the American side. “All right, you two. That was your last trip.”

Vaccaro started to protest. “But sir—”