Read Online My Honor Flight by Dan McCurrigan - Free Book Online

how he would react.  But I had been eyeballing the
farm yard.  There was a good-sized barn on the right, and the house was on the
left.  There were some smaller outbuildings, but I figured they were too small
to hold any Germans.  A chicken coop.  A tool shed.  I think maybe a small barn
for sheep or pigs.
     “Me and Tin
have been talking here.  We can’t see shit.  But that means the Germans can’t
see shit either.  But all they have to do is hold their fire, and we can’t see
them.”
     “So?”
whispered Cap.
     “So we’re
only covering one side of the farm.  Those assholes could circle around and get
us.”
    Cap didn’t
say anything.  I couldn’t see his facial expression in the dark.
     “So,” I
continued, “I think some of us should take the barn.  If we can do that, we got
’em from two sides.”
    Cap was still
silent.  He was thinking.
     “That’s a
good call, Mack,” he said.  “Goddamn, you might make Captain someday yourself. 
Who’s in your group?”
     “Uhh...,” I
said, “Uhh, it’s me and Tinpan, Porter, Peters, and Taft.”
     “All right,”
said Cap. “You and Torgeson’s group are going to take the barn.”
    I was kicking
myself hard.  I just volunteered to give up the safety of the woods for a
gunfight to get into a secured building.  I was silent.
     “You
scared?” he asked.
     “Hell yes,”
I whispered.
    He leaned
close and whispered to me.
     “Good.  Then
I’ve got the right man in charge.”
    That filled
me with pride.  Cap was giving me a vote of confidence.  But the pride wasn’t
enough to overcome the fear.
     “Work your
way through the woods, so that the barn is between you and the house.  Then
real quiet, get across the clearing.  I don’t know what’s on that side.  You
may need to shoot through windows, doors, whatever.  But don’t bunch up, and
leave Peters and Pearson in the woods.  Tell them to snipe anyone in windows
until you get in the building.  Then they need to hold their fire into the
barn.  You get me, soldier?”
     “Yes sir,” I
said.  I was running through the picture of the attack in my head. 
    Cap slapped
me on the chest and said, “What the hell you waiting for?  Get going.  We won’t
open fire on the house until you start shooting from the barn.”
     “Cap?” I
said.
     “What is
it?”
     “What if we
can’t take the barn?”
    Cap
hesitated.  “One of three things is going to happen.  You’re going to take the
barn, you’re going to die trying to take the barn, or you’re going to encounter
heavy resistance.  If there’s just no way to take the barn, attack from the
trees on that side just like we are going to do here.  But watch your asses for
an attack from the north.”
     “Yes sir,” I
said, and turned to leave.  He grabbed my arm.
     “Mack,” he
said.
     “Yes sir?”
     “There’s a
lot of men here.  Your plan gives us all a better chance of getting through
this night.”
    I swallowed
hard.  It was bad enough that I’d stumbled into volunteer duty.  Now he was
putting the weight of the platoon on me.
    Me and
Torgeson had the two right-most groups in the trees.  So we worked our way
around until we were straight east of the barn.  We could see the glow of light
from two windows, but there were no doors on the east side of the barn.  There
were only doors on the north and south side.  I cussed to myself.  That meant
we were going to have to expose ourselves to a second side of the barn to get
in through a door.  Since the house had more visibility to the south side of
the barn, we figured we’d take it from the north door.  The only thing with
visibility to the barn’s north side were the outbuildings, which would be
empty.
    Peters and
Pearson split up so that they could each have a view of one end of the barn and
one of the windows.  I felt a lot better having those fellas on my back.  They
were two of the best shooters I’d ever met.  Torgeson’s