Junior Jones in WWII
Time: August
1944, 3:00 AM
Place: In an abandoned farmhouse somewhere in France
Cast: Fourth Infantry Batallion, Company B
Part One
Company B had been hunkered
down in the old farmhouse since yesterday afternoon.
Having been separated from
the rest of the Fourth Infantry, the little company had gotten pinned
down by a determined Nazi platoon.
Sargeant Pickle watched the gallant Captain Vic Horizon as the company's
CO tried to read a map using just a flashlight. A steady downpour had
dampened the old farmhouse, while thunder mixed with the
Nazis' steady machine gun fire filled the air. Pickle got ready to puff
on his
cigarette, then cursed as a drop from the leaky farmhouse roof extinguished
the butt.
"Damn, this sucks!"
he cursed, and he flicked the wet useless butt over at
Private Bunky, who was huddled inside his pancho over by the farmhouse
door.
Bunky arose from his fetal
position with a start, brushing feverishly at the
sudden invading projectile. "Hey dude, what the hell are you doin?"
Pickle laughed. The grizzled old sargeant enjoyed getting laughs at
the grunts' expense. Captain Vic took his eyes off the map and glared
at Pickle for a moment. "Better not mess with the Captain,"
thought Pickle.
"Stay down, Bunky.
The krauts are movin' right out there in the field. You don't want to
get your head shot off, now do you?"
Private Bunky scowled, then
resumed his protective position by the door, kicking up some dirt in
the process. Private Junior Jones, stationed at the other side of the
wide door, shuffled back a few feet to avoid the dirt. "Hey, watch
what you're doin!" he complained.
Privates Straczny and Krotz
huddled together at the rear of the farmhouse,
ostensibly watching through the only window of the farmhouse that hadn't
yet been shot out by the Germans. Krotz slept while Straczny, who
was supposed to be on watch, began to doze off leaning against his rifle.
Next to the Captain sat
Corporal Vivo Bubble, the Captain's right hand man, attempting to contact
the Fourth Infantry on the radio. Some of the men in the platoon liked
to make jokes about Cpl. Bubble's relationship with the Captain, calling
him the Captain's girlfriend, among other
things.
Sgt. Pickle especially enjoyed
insulting Bubble. Pickle was jealous of the confidence that the corporal
enjoyed with the Captain. Pickle knew he himself could never achieve
that level of camaraderie with the beloved Captain Vic, and he secretly
hated Bubble for it. Whenever the Captain was not around, he made Bubble's
life miserable.
Pickle looked on in disgust
as Bubble shouted suddenly into the radio,
apparently having successfully reached somebody in the Fourth Infantry.
Captain Vic looked at his aide-de-camp with admiration.
"This is Company B,
repeat, Company B! We're pinned down in a farmhouse just west of Lebeaux
ridge, over!"
The crackly voice was just
audible over the sound of gunfire. "Company B, this is Lt. Shmolnick
at Ops Command, what is your position, over?"
Cpl. Bubble glanced up at
the Captain in exasperation. "Ops Command, we are PINNED DOWN,
just west of Lebeaux ridge, over. Need assistance IMMEDIATELY!!! Please
advise, OVER!"
"Company B, did you
say Lebeaux ridge, over?"
"Yeah, west of Lebeaux
ridge. That's it! We're pinned down!"
"Well, shit, son, what
in hell are you guys doing over there? We evacuated that area yesterday!
It's crawlin' with Krauts, over!"
Captain Vic angrily snatched
the radio from Bubble. "Give me that thing," he snapped.
"Goddammitt Lieutenant.,
we're pinned down here. The Krauts are practically knockin' on our damned
door! We need some help NOW, over!"
"Uhh, sorry, Company
B, no can do. We got half our guys sick from the water or something,
and besides, the General's waiting for the weather to break so he can
play a round of golf."
Captain Vic spat. "What
the hell-"
The gunshot that followed
very quickly and neatly drilled a red hole in the middle of Captain
Vic's forehead. Captain Vic dropped the radio in stunned surprise, then
keeled over like a felled tree directly on top of Cpl. Bubble.
From over near the door,
Private Junior Jones shouted, "OH SHIT!"
Part Two
The sudden death of their
beloved captain sent the surviving members of the little company scrambling
to their feet. Privates Straczny and Krotz near the window awoke with a
start, and promptly clanged their helmets together, knocking each other
unconscious.
"OH SHIT OH SHIT!!"
yelled Junior, wildly swinging his rifle around, expecting to find menacing
Nazis everywhere. His swinging rifle butt smacked Bunky in the head,
knocking his helmet off.
"Ouch, Junior dude,
you idiot, watch where you're swingin' that thing, dude!"
Cpl. Bubble struggled to
get out from under the heavy corpse of Captain Vic. Sgt. Pickle was
closest to Bubble. "Hey Sarge, you wanna help me out here?"
he yelled.
The static from the radio
became louder as Bubble inadvertently turned up the volume. "Company
B, come in, Company B, come in!!" came the frantic voice of Lt.
Shmolnick.
Pickle moved in to retrieve
the radio. "Give me that radio, Bubble," he said, but did
not help the corporal move the dead captain.
"Oh shit oh shit oh
shit," chanted Junior, now swaying back on forth on his
haunches.
"Dammit Company B,
are you THERE!!?" came the voice from the radio. Pickle reached
over the prone Bubble, still trying unsuccessfully to free himself of
the dead Captain Vic.
"Ahh, they've had it,
Major. CLICK!" from the radio. Then loud static.
"Shit, no, come in
Ops, come in Ops!!" yelled Sgt. Pickle frantically.
But it was too late. The little company could expect no help from the
Fourth
Infantry. They were on their own.
"Sarge, what are we
gonna do, oh shit oh shit oh shit, what are we gonna do!" shouted
Junior.
"Shut the fuck up Junior!
Get a grip!!" yelled Pickle. Angrily, he ran over to
the frightened private and sharply slapped his face. "Get a fucking
grip, Private!"
Junior started softly sobbing
now, and went back to swaying back and forth.
Meanwhile,
Cpl. Bubble finally freed himself from the dead weight of Captain Vic
and angrily approached Sgt. Pickle. "Hey Sarge, how come you didn't
help me? We gotta get outta here, the Krauts are closin' in!"
Pickle turned around and
looked at the corporal. "Well well well, if it ain't
the Captain's girlfriend."
"Go fuck yourself,
Pickle. We got a situation here!" Bubble grabbed his rifle and
looked around him, assessing the situation.
"No, Bubble, you go
fuck YOUR self, ha-hah!" Sgt. Pickle calmly pointed his rifle at
the unsuspecting Corporal and fired several shots.
"What th-" mumbled
the hapless corporal as blood ran over his fingers, which were trying
to find the new wounds. He fell to his knees. He looked up at his killer,
a pleading look in his eyes.
Something in Sgt. Pickle's
mind snapped at that moment. He raised his rifle butt up and slammed
it home, again and again, crushing Bubble's skull, spilling blood and
brain matter on the damp straw.
Bunky looked over at Junior.
"Dude, the Sarge just killed Cpl. Bubble! I'm
gettin' outta here." He flung open the farmhouse door and ran out,
his rifle at the ready. A quick hail of machine gun fire took him down
almost instantly.
"Dude…."
His quiet murmuring went unheard.
"Oh shit oh shit,"
chanted Junior.
Part Three
The death of Private Bunky
resulted in a fresh hail of Nazi gunfire, which blew both farmhouse
doors wide open. Gunfire and windspread rain sprayed the interior of
the little farmhouse.
"Close those fuckin'
doors, Junior!!" shouted Sargeant Pickle as he made a quick dive
to the ground, bullets just missing his helmet.
If the gunfire didn't snap
Junior Jones out of his childish ranting, Pickle's
sudden shout certainly did, and the anguished private crawled over to
first one door, slammed it shut, then the other, and slammed it shut.
The hail of gunfire, having met the resistance of the doors, abated
just as suddenly as it had begun.
Pickle crawled over to Privates
Krotz and Straczny. "Wake up, you assholes, we're gettin' outta here."
Pickle shook Straczny awake, then did the same to Krotz. Pickle turned toward
Junior, now laying prone on the floor next to the doors.
"Get your sorry ass
over here Junior!"
"Gee, uh, okay Sarge"
replied Junior, who started crawling on his
belly to the rear of the farmhouse. Krotz was just waking up, and, having
missed the deaths of Captain Vic, Cpl. Bubble, and Private Bunky, stood
up, startled at their absence. "Wha happened?"
"You asshole,"
replied Pickle, "you fell asleep. Sniper took the Captain and Bubble,
Bunky panicked and ran out front." He glared at Junior, just arriving
on his belly. "Now see if you can keep your stupid ass down, we're
going out through this window."
"Gee," Junior
thought, "the Sarge is lyin! I better keep my mouth shut, or he'll
kill me too!"
Straczny, now fully awake, took
the initiative and smashed the window with his rifle butt. Instantly,
another hail of gunfire blew away the remains of the window, and both
bullets and shards of glass took away half of Straczny's face.
"Shit!" muttered
Pickle. The gunfire stopped.
Straczny dropped his rifle and
raised his hands to what remained of
his face, trying to stop the bleeding and pain. "Unnngghh, unnngghh!"
was all he could say.
Pickle turned to Krotz and
Junior. "Now follow me and keep your heads down."
Standing up behind Straczny,
he grabbed the moaning private and, holding him up as a human shield,
climbed swiftly through the window.
Outside in the rain, Pickle
stayed behind Straczny, who tried vainly to struggle out of the sargeant's
grasp, and began moving quickly toward a line of tall bushes several
yards away.
Krotz clambered noisily
out of the window, banging his head and cutting his hand on glass in
the process.
"Sonuvabitch!!"
he cried, sticking his bleeding hand in his mouth.
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!!!
Krotz' body seemed to do a herky-jerky dance out of the window as the
Nazi gunfire tore through him. He fell lifeless to the ground outside,
his bleeding hand still stuck in his mouth.
German voices could now be heard from the distance above the sporadic
gunfire.
Pickle's progress was now
slowed as Straczny's body grew heavy in the rain. "Goddammit, just
let me get past those bushes!" he complained to himself.
Junior chose this moment
to panic. Seeing the death dance of Krotz drove him to unthinking action.
He grabbed his rifle and nearly leaped through the window, rolled on
the ground to avoid the gunfire, and came up shooting.
"MOTHERFUCKIN' KRAUTS!!!!"
he yelled with insane glee, his eyes bright with terror.
Junior's gunfire sprayed
the line of bushes just as Pickle, still holding Straczny as a human
shield, reached them.
The gunfire silenced the
Nazi guns and also riddled Pickle's body from behind, sending him to
the ground with the hapless Straczny. Junior kept firing until all his
ammo was spent and the gun started to make a clicking noise. Then he
looked around, dropped the gun and said, "Oh shit!!" and ran
off through the bushes, tripping over a dead German officer.
Sgt. Pickle lay at the line
of bushes still clutching the moaning Straczny, now also bleeding out
of several mortal wounds. "This really sucks," he muttered,
then closed his eyes.
EPILOG
Junior Jones accidentally
stumbled into a rear guard platoon from the Fourth Infantry, who, after
hearing his story of how his own platoon was wiped out, just shook their
heads and helped him back to Ops
Command headquarters.
After
several weeks recuperating from "exhaustion" in a
military hospital, Lt. Joe Shmolnick came to visit to inform the private
that the little farmhouse he had defended had turned out to be a crucial
victory for the Allies and had helped to drive the Nazis back. Junior
Jones was going to receive a medal for bravery!!
