Shrapnel Page 7

  ‘So, you’re still alive.’

  ‘That’s right, Sir, I think.’

  ‘What happened? Why didn’t you get in touch with us? We’ve been scanning for your radio but could find nothing. One trouble was no one thought to register the code number of our equipment.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. I called the bands I’d been given every hour on the hour but all I could find were Germans broadcasting. I’d been told not to broadcast because I would be triangulated and located.’

  ‘My God, what a fuck up.’

  I don’t know whether he’s referring to me, or the whole operation. I don’t think I fucked up, but the entire operation was useless.

  ‘Well Soldier, considering the situation, you did a good job. Did you get the radio to the Free French?’

  ‘No Sir, they never came.’

  ‘Where is it then?’

  ‘I left it there, hoping they’d finally show up and find it. They must have known about that tree where I was hiding.’

  He’s looking down at his desk. He looks up at me. ‘Do you have the watch?’

  I unbuckle it and hand it to him.

  He checks the time.

  ‘Well, your outfit hasn’t jumped off yet. It could be several weeks before the beachhead is widened enough to handle them. I’ll get you back to them right away.’

  He acts as if I should thank him. But I don’t. He’s a bit like that doctor with my varicocele and calcaneus spur. He’s doing me a favour.

  He puts out his hand and we shake. A sailor comes into the room.

  ‘See that this man gets back to his outfit.’

  He tells him the number of my regiment. We salute and I go with the sailor. No mention of my silver star.

  I’m transported over three days back to my outfit in England. Gettinger still has my place reserved in the tent. I go gather up my duffel bag. Gettinger wants to know where I’ve been for the last week. I figure I might as well tell him. The mission is over, if not completed. He can’t believe it any more than I can.

  4. INVASION

  SERGEANT BILLY DAN GRAY

  We finally do get over. They’ve built temporary docks so we don’t need to splash through the water. They’ve had the Saint Malo breakthrough so we’ve missed all the fighting in the hedgerows. None of us are complaining about that. We bivouac in an apple orchard and are told we’ll be moving out soon.

  We’re all concerned because the village church has a rooster on top of the steeple where a cross should be. We’re convinced the filthy, Godless Nazis have done this. Meanwhile, the people living around us are giving us bottles of what looks like apple cider. We’re all drinking it from the bottle. Some of our more knowing members, our native Tennessee guys, tell us this is applejack and they’re drinking it and falling all over the place. We, the less knowing in the company, think it’s just apple juice and are swilling it down until they pass on the word.

  In the drunken mob we’ve become, we determine to take that Nazi rooster off the church and put a cross up there. One old timer buck sergeant convinces us all he had a job as a steeple jack in civilian life one time, and can get up to the top of the steeple. He points out a small door opening at the slanting top of the steeple, just under the rooster. We all join in this ‘Christian’ project. Someone finds the lock to the door up to the steeple and twists it off. Sergeant Billy Dan Gray takes the wooden cross somebody’s carved and starts up to the top of the church staggering on the steps. We all go outside and watch. None of us would really be heartbroken if he falls. He’s been making life miserable for his entire squad.

  We watch as he climbs out of that small door way up there. Some villagers have gathered around to watch. One is a priest and he runs back and forth pointing up and babbling in French. He’s obviously trying to understand what’s going on.

  Billy Dan climbs out of that little hole and, with his legs wrapped around the steeple, manages to hold onto the rooster and wind vane up there. He unhooks it somehow and throws it down to us. It almost beheads Smitherson who is standing and watching. Billy Dan has the wooden cross stuck in his back pocket and pulls it out. He seems to be jamming it into the holder for the rooster and vane. He manages to get it pretty straight. Everybody gives him a big hand when the wooden cross is in place, except for the priest who has gathered up the rooster and vane and run away with them. We figure he must have been a Nazi sympathiser. So ends our little ignorant experience with French churches. I find out later that roosters are normal on churches in France.

  Two days later we’re packed into two ton trucks and start our tour across France following General Patton’s tanks. We’re headed for Paris.

  HIDE AND SEEK

  In the I&R, our major assignment is patrolling. Our patrols are usually reconnaissance searching out information. They are not attack or ‘Tiger’ patrols to take prisoners. The exception would be when we’re asked to take a prisoner for interrogation. These are the worst jobs and we all dread them. Relative to line companies, most of the time in the regimental company we live an easy life, although we are in the field.

  When we do go out it can be dangerous, serious, because we’re usually sent into situations where it’s felt that an ordinary platoon, company or even a battalion I&R patrol would not be adequate.

  Our outfit moves quickly through most of France after Saint Malo, without too much resistance on our front. We bypass Paris. The French want to take it themselves. We continue through the rest of France, with the help of tanks, until we reach the French – German border.

  Then, we’re in the Saar valley. It’s our first penetration into German territory. The regiment has been moving forward for over three weeks, but now we’re bogged down in mud and stone-walled by at least two German Panzer divisions. Regimental headquarters is in a place called Olmsdorf. Just before midnight, on an early fall day, my new tent mate, Wilkins, and I are called into the Regimental Colonel’s tent. My old tent mate, Gettinger, has been promoted to assistant squad leader for the Second Squad. Wilkins and I are the first and second scouts for the first squad of the first platoon. It would be impossible to make a worse choice for scouts.

  We’re dead asleep when Anderson, the I&R platoon Lieutenant, sticks his head in our tent and tells us to get over to the S2 tent on the double, the Regimental Commander wants to see us. It’s as if God himself has come down to earth and summoned us.

  The Colonel’s tent is like the tent of a desert king. It has everything except Persian carpets and a hookah in the corner. There’s a cot with a heavy sleeping bag, a map table, another table for eating, surrounded by camp chairs. The Colonel is wearing his long OD underwear with an OD towel over his head and his feet in a bucket of hot water. He blows his nose and looks up at us when we come into the tent. He looks into his OD handkerchief. He looks at a sheet of paper on the map table beside him, next to a large situation map. I figure he’s looking to check our names.

  ‘At ease men.’

  We do the ‘at ease’ bit. I’m still sleepy. I realise I don’t have my canteen or canteen holder, that makes me out of uniform. I used the canteen as a pillow and forgot it in our rush from the pup tent. There actually isn’t much shortage of water, it’s rained all day.

  ‘Privates Wilkins and Wharton, we need a recon patrol going through Company B’s forward outposts.’

  He leans toward his map table. He seems so old to me, but he is probably only fifty. His liver spotted hand with thick fingers and clean fingernails point to a spot on the map. He slides his fingers forward on the celluloid.

  ‘At 0-five-thirty, we’ll have corps artillery hit them with everything we’ve got. Then we’ll move out at 0-six hundred. This is a penetration attack, a “feeler”, just to see what’s out there.’

  He looks up at us, actually through us. He blows his nose again.

  ‘But we don’t want to go out there blind. There could be bunkers, tanks, who knows what else. We’ve had conflicting reports.’

  I try not to look at Wilkins. How do we
find out if there are tanks and bunkers without them finding us?

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Wilkins chimes in more slowly, with less enthusiasm. Maybe I’m still asleep and this is only a bad dream. I peer around the tent. Major Love, the S2, is there, and so is Major Collins, the Colonel’s Adjutant. I see Lieutenant Anderson hovering, maybe hiding, inside the flap of the tent. This is a nightmare all right, but I’m not asleep. They’re all watching us, two mere PFCs with quite an audience.

  I’m feeling scared, over awed, uncomfortable with all this brass hanging over me. I pretend to listen as Love briefs us, but my mind is miles away. I’m considering everything from insubordination to desertion. I figure I did my part for the crazy war with that dumb D-3 day. Or maybe I could work up a quick section 8 by trying to float some cartridges in that bucket of water with the Colonel’s feet in it. I do nothing but listen and nod, then salute and leave the tent. Lieutenant Anderson follows us out. Nobody says anything, there’s nothing to say.

  Anderson leads us to a waiting jeep with the engine warming. It’s a first battalion jeep and the driver’s in a hurry. He’s probably been pulled out of some warm sack himself. He hardly even looks at us as we clamber into the back. Anderson hovers. He’s wearing a side arm. He leans into the jeep. In the moonlight I can see him wink.

  ‘Don’t you guys do anything I wouldn’t do.’

  He steps back and the jeep lurches forward. It has chains for the mud and no lights. There’s practically no road and the driver has his windshield folded down on the hood so he can see. Wilkins leans toward me, whispers.

  ‘I guess that wink means we don’t do anything, right, Will?’

  But we are doing something already, driving in a jeep in the wrong direction in the middle of the night.

  At the Third Battalion, a messenger from B Company is waiting for us. No more jeep. We start off behind him. He tells us to watch out for snipers and mortars. Snipers and mortars at midnight? We follow him to the Company Command Post. The farther forward we go, the dirtier, sloppier and more nervous the soldiers are. Twice we’re challenged and need to give the password.

  The Captain of B Company is expecting us. He briefs us again with another map. His map is folded and he pulls it out of his field jacket pocket. No celluloid. He’s pale and nervous. He points out suspected emplacements. He has small Xs in pencil where there have been casualties. He pumps us for what we know. We tell him about the corps artillery at 0-five-thirty and the attack at 0-six hundred. He says there will be division artillery, as well as corps. He looks at his watch. He pulls one out of his field jacket pocket and gives it to Wilkins. Again, memories of D-3. He checks the time, winds it.

  ‘You guys be out of there by 0-five hundred at the latest. We can’t hold things up.’

  He takes a good look at us. I’m embarrassed by our cleanliness. Compared to everybody around us we look like new replacements. This CP is in what used to be the cellar of a house. Rations, blankets, fartsacks, weapons are scattered around.

  ‘Stay away from this wood right there. I’m pretty sure that’s where they have at least an outpost. And if you see any tanks or personnel carriers or anything approaching the size of a squad, skedaddle on back here in a hurry.’

  An even dirtier soldier comes through the blanket hung over the open cellar steps, he turns.

  ‘Morris, take these two guys up to Brenner and Miodoser. Be careful, don’t bring anything in on us. These guys are from Regimental I&R and are going out on a patrol.’

  He smiles a thin smile and this Morris, who’s a T5, looks at us as if we’re from German headquarters. The Captain turns away and flops down on a cot with his muddy boots still on.

  We go out into the dark. The moon is behind a cloud and we can’t see much. We go about a hundred yards without saying anything. Morris scurries crouched over with his rifle at the ready. The moon comes out again. He hits the ground behind a pile of stones that might once have been a church. There’s a part of a stone wall still standing, and something that could have been a stained glass window. He waves us forward and we slither up beside him. He whispers to us.

  ‘Be careful, we could be under observation here, don’t make any noise. I’ll take you half way up to the outpost and then point out where you go.’

  There’s quavering fear in his voice.

  We start crawling through the rubble. We’re ducking into every shadow from that moon. I mean, we’re really crawling and fast, rifles out, swivelling along on elbows and hips. At least we’re beginning to get dirty enough so we look as if we belong up here.

  Morris keeps trying to explain how we can find the outpost ourselves, he’s sure we can’t miss it. He points to a small depression in the ground. We crawl out there without even knowing we’ve gone through the perimeter and are actually at a forward outpost. We slide on our stomachs the last seventy yards or so, until we get to the hole. Our guide has slithered on back. We creep up behind two more PFCs. These two are absolutely filthy, almost invisible in the mud. I give the password, just to be safe. They counter.

  They tell us they’re afraid even to go back through the area we’ve just come through. They’re hungry, but not hungry enough to do that. They’ve been scraping the wax off K ration boxes and chewing on it. That gives us some idea of how ridiculous it all is, how scared and hungry these poor guys are.

  By this time, we’re fairly spooked ourselves; these guys have named every rock, tree, stump around them. They talk about the pointy rock out there and the lump of something on the ground at four o’clock, direction, not time. And they have seen, according to them, shadows moving a while ago that keep appearing and disappearing. It could only be the moon slipping in and out of the clouds, but I don’t say anything. They’ve been sitting out here hours watching for things to move. It’s one of those moonlit nights and everything is muddy, so in some places it shines and glistens, especially when there are puddles.

  We’re dirty ourselves after all the shimmying on our way out. There’s a big difference between crawling and creeping, but no matter which you do, you have mud ground in your face and into every opening of your field jacket. When I’m flat on my belly shimmying along like that, I’m popping buttons off my field jacket, too. Wilkins finally asks the two of them.

  ‘Which way should we go.’

  There’s a moment’s silence. They look at each other.

  ‘You guys have got to be nuts! You don’t go anywhere; stay right here with us until somebody relieves us. We’ll tell them how you went out.’

  They’re looking at us as if we’re from that moon, with relatively clean uniforms, clean faces, and looking like people who’ve never been in a war at all. Compared to them, we’re pristine, and they’re filthy, absolutely stinking, like real bums. One rolls over on his back, takes out a cigarette, just sucks on it, doesn’t light it.

  ‘I’ll tell you, there’s no way anybody could get me to go out there. What’s the good of it anyway?’

  They won’t even stick their heads up. They say things like, ‘Look over there, see? Over there at one o’clock. You see that? We think there may be someone behind that rock, probably has a machine pistol.’

  And they’re not kidding, they’re mostly scared.

  So Wilkins and I decide to go out just a little way, see if there is actually anything.

  We slither up and out of the hole carefully. The two left behind say they’ll try covering us, but we’re crazy. When we reach the first shady spot where we might be able to hide in the moon shadow, we both have the shakes. Wilkins stretches out on his back.

  ‘You know Will, this is insane, we’re going to get killed! Those people back there in their big comfortable tent at regiment don’t care at all. They’re only anxious to send us out and see how far we can go before somebody shoots at us.’

  ‘Let’s work our way over there.’

  He points with the tip of his rifle to a blasted tree. ‘We can tuck under that and figure this out.’

  So we
twist around on our stomachs again and start slithering in the mud until we’re more or less out of breath. We wind up on our backs looking up at the sky. We lie out so my head is at his feet and his head is at my feet. That way, we cover all three hundred sixty degrees. We’re talking to each other in low voices. We decide we can see what might be tank tracks, marks in the mud anyway. Also we aren’t sure, but we hear motorised sounds. It could be our breathing, now we’re scared silly.

  We decide on this as our scenario: tanks, mostly because, in the hole, they told us they’d heard something that was either tanks or big trucks. To us, it’s definitely tanks, now.

  We also convince ourselves we see what looks like a three man mortar team just around another pile of rocks. We’re scaring each other now. After fifteen minutes more of ‘creative reconnaissance’, we wriggle our way back to the outpost. They’ve been listening for the rat-tat-tat that would be the end of us.

  They’re really surprised to see us come back. We stay with them another fifteen minutes, telling them what we ‘thought’ we saw. We hang around a bit just to make it seem our patrol was longer than it really was, also to keep them company.

  We snake our way back to the guy who took us out here, then are taken back by the messenger of death through all the things we’d worked our way through the first time. We come to the jeep and now we’re getting to feel like a couple of heroes returning from a dangerous mission. We have information on the enemy and are being escorted directly to the Colonel’s tent at three o’clock in the morning, or whatever time it is by then. Wilkins forgot to give the watch back to the platoon leader, but it’s so covered with mud we can’t read it.

  In the regimental tent, the Colonel’s still all wrapped up in a blanket with his feet in a bucket of hot water, looking surprised as hell to see us. As far as he’s concerned, it’s like two dead men walking in through the flaps. We deliver our carefully rehearsed story of what happened and point out on the maps where we saw this. We really lay it on.