The Haigerloch Project

Major Baldon eyed Kieffer and Marshall with obvious wariness. He'd been handed a hot potato by Corps — and didn't like the possibility of getting his fingers burned.

“If you ask me,” he said, “you're nuts!”

Kieffer ignored him.

“Have you any idea where you want to cross?” the major asked testily.

“More than an idea,” Kieffer answered. “I've picked the exact spot.” He pulled a dirty, creased map from his pocket. It was a Wehrmacht area map he'd traded for a pack of Luckies with the IPW's who interrogated the prisoners. He'd carry it on the mission instead of a U.S. Army issue. Just in case. He spread it out on Baldon's desk. “I'll show you.”

He found the spot on the wrinkled map and traced his route with his finger as he talked.

“Right — here. There's a timbering path running through a forest. The contour lines show it sloping down toward the Kyll River valley, joining a small country road — here.”

“The Kyll bridges are all out,” Baldon interrupted. He seemed smugly pleased with the intelligence.

“I know. We'll ford it.”

“The river's pretty swollen.” The major sounded doubtful.

Kieffer felt a surge of impatience. He didn't feel like wasting his time explaining to the contentious officer that he had just spent several hectic hours interrogating the half-dozen members of a Luxembourg hunting and fishing club he'd been able to round up. In better days these sportsmen had fished in every river and stream in the area — including the Kyll. They'd trudged along its banks, stood planted in the middle of the water and searched for the places richest in trout. Better than anyone, they knew the width and depth, the current and bottom conditions of every inch of the river — swollen or not. From their information he had picked his spot.

“We'll make it, Major,” he said curtly.

He returned to the map.

“The road runs roughly parallel to the main highway to Mayen and joins it here — near Daun.”

Baldon looked at the map, orienting himself in the jumble of unfamiliar symbols.

“You'll have to cross in Able Company's sector,” he said. “Lieutenant Kinsey.”

Kieffer nodded.

“The Krauts are reported regrouping in the entire area,” he said. “The situation may be fluid enough to let us pull it off without a hitch. We've had reports of sporadic motorized activity. The sound of our jeep shouldn't cause any raised eyebrows.”

He folded up the map, missing the original creases, and put it away.

“You brief Kinsey we're coming up now, Major. We'll make our final arrangements with him directly.”

Baldon looked at him sourly.

“When do you want to take off?”

“After dark. At 2100 hours.”

2

Sergeant Marshall was coaxing the jeep along the muddy, bumpy back road at what seemed to Kieffer a lazy snail's pace. They had put the top up. They usually didn't — and somehow the jeep looked less GI to them. To the Germans as well, he hoped. The road was dark, and the shadows from the trees lining it heightened the gloom. The blackout hoods over the headlights permitted only two thin slivers of light to probe the blackness ahead.

Kieffer felt keyed up. For the hundredth time he took stock. The jeep was unidentifiable as belonging to the US Army. It could easily be a captured vehicle pressed into service with the Wehrmacht as were countless others. Both he and Sergeant Marshall were clad in a conglomeration of nondescript uniform items. They'd checked each other out before taking off, like a pair of paratroopers before a jump. He wore a wool cap pulled down over his ears; a wool scarf which effectively hid his collar tabs with his US insignia; a dirty, loose US mackinaw coat; and mud-caked paratrooper boots. His dogtags around his neck were stuck together with chewing gum to prevent their rattling. His underwear was fresh. If he got into trouble and was hit, the clean fabric forced into the wound would be less likely to cause infection and perhaps gangrene than dirty cloth. In his mind he repeated the passwords he and Kinsey had picked: Homecoming — Highball. It had been decided they'd cross back at the same place they left, at 0430—with or without Decker.

So far the mission had gone off without a hitch. Too easy. It made him uncomfortable. Something was bound to happen. He wished it would. He needed to cope with — something….

He and Marshall had located the forest path quickly. For a couple of hundred yards it sloped gently down toward the Kyll valley. They'd coasted slowly and silently until the jeep finally had come to a halt. There had been no challenge.

They'd started up, and had soon joined the back road that crossed the river.

As the Luxembourg fishermen had described, the river widened there and formed a natural ford, reinforced with bottom rocks and logs just below the surface of the rushing water.

The current had been strong. The jeep had labored on its buffeted course across the slippery rocks, but they'd made it without getting more than tolerably wet.

They had seen no activity at all. Only heard what sounded like light armor moving in the distance….