A Midnight Clear: A Novel (15 page)

I’ve watched Miller win bets tearing down those weapons blindfolded, getting them together faster than most people do with eyes open. It’s something special, like his being psychic and a poet.

Nothing, but nothing, seems hard for Miller; he’d probably be a general in the German Army by now. No, they’d most likely shoot him. With Bud, you never know. Any minute, he might just refuse to obey a direct order. He’s not contrary, only bullheaded; he won’t do anything when he’s convinced it’s the wrong way. I don’t think he’s much on ethics, moral correctness or anything; but he has some kind of personal aesthetic which involves being logical, doing things the
right way.
In fact, Bud could probably do almost any wrong thing so long as it was being done right. Maybe it comes from being a watchmaker’s son, but Shutzer’s not like that at all. I don’t know.

After ten minutes or so spinning like this, my cramps begin. I’m convinced it’s from being scared all the time. When we were running down that hill, my mouth was filled with a sour, bitter taste. I had to keep swallowing just to stop myself from puking.

 

Somebody’s coming down from the chateau. It’s Shutzer. He has his snow jumper on again. I lean against the wall and watch him work his way along the road. He’s lifting his feet high as he comes down, looking back at his own footsteps in the snow, like goose-stepping.

“Himmler’s tits, Shutzer, haven’t you had enough strolling around in this winter wonderland?”

“If it’s OK with you, Won’t, I’m going back to look for that scope and map, also my clip. We’ve definitely got to make out a Statement of Charges on the scope, so one of us should go check it out. Chances are they’re still there.”

“Hell, the scope’s my problem, Stan. I can always sneak out later and look around.”

“You’d never find it in the dark and this snow’s going to bury everything, anyway.”

“The hell with it.”

“But it’s OK if I go look?”

“I don’t get it, Stan. What’s the sense? Those guys
could
still be hanging around in the woods. They might even have a post up there.”

“No, I’m sure they were only patrolling.”

“Then they probably got anything we dropped. If it were a patrol, they’d come down to scrounge around after we ran.”

“Maybe; but I’d like to take a look anyway.”

“Rat’s claws, Shutzer! It’s just not that important.”

“Somebody should do it sooner or later. I’m willing to do it right now, so relax.”

I
know
I don’t want to do it. Stan’s not on for four more hours at least; now’s good a time as any. But there’s sure to be a bridge game going on, with me out here. Maybe that last deal cured Shutzer; maybe he’s looking for some excuse to duck playing.

“OK, Stan; but take it easy. No fooling around. No one-man avenging Jewish army against the forces of darkness and evil. Mundy’s our religious fanatic; remember that.”

“I’ll be back through here before you’re off, and don’t you shoot
me.”

“If you’re not back by six-thirty, I’ll send Mundy to sprinkle some holy water over your remains, like urine. A little Extreme Unction couldn’t hurt either. We’ll do it all kosher.”

“Spoke, like in wheel, you, Won’t.”

Shutzer works his way down along the stream, same way we went out, under the bridge, then up over the road where our wall ends. Then he moves on to the other side of the road, and into the trees until I can’t see him anymore. I light up my second cigarette, trying to breathe slowly and deeply at the same time. I’m painting the inside of my lungs black with soot, according to one of Gordon’s lectures. But sometimes I can stop the cramps that way. I don’t want to crap in the snow. It’d be much better if I can just hold out/in till I’m back inside.

 

I’m just beginning to get worried when Shutzer crosses the road farther down, at the turn in the road. I watch him as he comes toward me. He slides down off the road and joins me against the wall.

I’ve just phoned in and it’s all OK except they’re about to form a lynching party for Wilkins because of the last bridge deal. Mother’s upstairs and Miller suggests we lock him in and slip a little food under the door once in a while. But Father Mundy says we’ll all starve if Mother doesn’t cook.

 

“Find the stuff?”

“Just my clip.”

Stan takes out a cigarette and I give him one of those last matches. It isn’t often Shutzer smokes. It’s then I notice his forehead is dripping sweat, his hands shaking and his mittens soaked.

“They came down after we left, I guess, because there’s all kinds of tromping around. They took the scope and map; war souvenirs for the
Fräuleins
back home.”

“I’m definitely in for a Statement of Charges then. I hate making out those things. Normandin, the company clerk, acts as if I’m stealing the stuff to start a war surplus store when I get home.”

Shutzer pulls off his wet mittens. He’s the only one in the squad who has these new mittens with the index finger separate for firing a rifle; the rest of us still have old-style, wool-backed, leather-fronted, five-fingered gloves, designed to encourage frostbite. I’ve never seen anybody except officers and Shutzer with these new mittens. Shutzer wrings them out before shoving them in his pocket.

“Looks as if you really did a good hunt for that scope, Stan. OK if I use you as a witness to prove I didn’t hide it in my duffel bag or bury it somewhere?

“What’ve you been doing anyway, walking around on your hands and knees? Or just praying in the snow for Mundy’s soul?”

“Nawh. I could see right off the stuff wasn’t there.”

He looks down at himself. He’s wet from boot tops to crotch.

“I got wet working out a little surprise for our Teutonic friends.”

“Grenade trap?”

I say it and hope not. Shutzer might just do a thing like that. He’s the only one of us fighting the war on purpose.

He smiles and blows two smoke rings. He can blow the most solid, holding-together smoke rings I’ve ever seen. These two he churns out now are blue and thin against the snow. A draft skittering along the gulley bends, then tears them apart.

“Built a snowman.”

“Come on, Stan! Don’t
you
start bucking for Section Eight, too. Save some space for me.”

“Built a life-size snowman right where we dropped our stuff. This is perfect snowman snow; rolled two big balls in no time at all, piled one on top of the other, the way people do in kids’ books. Then I made a face with pinecones for the eyes, nose, mouth. Finished the whole thing off using pine needles for a mustache, then a long pine branch, with a flat snowball on the end, stuck out like an arm giving the Nazi salute. I even plastered a few pine needles falling over one eye. Damned good resemblance if I say so myself.

“You know, Won’t, maybe I won’t start an advertising agency after the war. Maybe I’ll buy myself some rocks and try it as a sculptor. I’ll tell you, I built me a genuine masterpiece out there.”

“Come on, Shutzer. You mean you built a snowman in the open field on that side-slanting hill. Those German crazies could’ve snuck up behind the mad artist at work and made a few well-placed critical comments with a burp gun. One more ventilated ASTPR whiz brain.”

“If those Nazis were going to kill me, they already had their chance. I figure they’re dogging it the way we are. They don’t want any trouble; they’re getting all their thrills sticking yellow stars on Jews, herding them into cattle cars, locking them up in concentration camps, using them as slave. labor. They’re not going to do anything against anybody with a real gun in his hands.”

“You really believe that shit, Stan? You really think the Nazis are killing Jews?”

“I
know
it. It’s hard for a goy like you to believe, but I know. I have relatives who were there. These Nazis are bloodthirsty monsters. It’s a whole nation of shits like Hunt and Love.”

“OK. So maybe you’re right. But what sense does it make building a snowman in the middle of a forest? Tell me that, and no more Zionist sermons, please. I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want to believe anything like that.”

“All right, buddy; but you’ll see.

“By the way, I stamped out a message in the snow just in front of my snowman. It faces the forest where they came out at us. If they go by there again, they can’t miss it.”

“OK. So what’s the message?”

“FUCK HITLER ! ! !

“I made the exclamation points with pine branches.”

Shutzer stands and slings his rifle on his shoulder. We’ve been sitting against the wall out of the wind, waiting for warning bullets through our skulls.

“Stan, you’re nuts. Tell Gordon and the rest about the snowman, and don’t forget your love note. They’ve been threatening to lock Wilkins in the attic; maybe they’ll lock you up there with him. He can catalogue furniture while you make paper airplanes inscribed with messages in Yiddish to throw out the dormer windows for the Germans. This whole squad is going quietly berserk.”

Shutzer starts up the hill. I think of lighting another cigarette but don’t. I’m feeling rotten. Cigarettes, breathing, nothing seems to help. My stomach’s rolling, rumbling, and my back hurts.

 

I can’t stop thinking about things. Everybody’s saying the war’s almost over, the Germans are supposed to give up, maybe even by Christmas. But it’s never going to end.

When you think how long it’s taken to come this far; how the farther we go, the closer the Germans are to home, fighting for their lives, with short supply lines, it looks impossible. With all the murder and looting they’re supposed to’ve pulled on the Jews and Russians, I don’t see how they can ever give up either. They’ll fight to the last crossroads, the last railroad station, the last city.

And after that, the Japs. The only chance to stay alive is get hit, be captured or go ape. I admit I’m afraid of being captured by Germans. Maybe it’s all only propaganda but something inside me is afraid of what they’d do. Seeing those bodies, the one leaned against the tree and the others pushed together in the woods on the way in, didn’t help. Maybe Shutzer’s right; maybe they are different. It had to be the Germans did it. What could they be thinking?

But we were all ready to give up today, even Shutzer. It was so easy, nothing to do. And God, you can get killed fast; I was expecting it, tight inside, feeling my last time slipping past me, waiting, helpless.

I’ve got to stop. If you think about what’s happening or what might happen, you’ll never make it. If you start looking at those ideas, then soon you’re waiting and if you start waiting, you’re finished.

 

When I go off at eight, I’m dead tired. I’m feeling dry-skinned, my lips feel tight, as if the skin will split and fester. I’ve been fighting off cramps the last hour.

Gordon comes down for the first night guard. We talk. We reach the conclusion to try two on a guard but only one post, phoning in on the half hour. That way, we can get some sleep. We should really have two posts but what the hell, if that’s how the squad feels, OK.

I tell Mel the new password is “snow—man.” We laugh about Shutzer’s crazy snow sculpture. Mel says he hopes the Germans don’t find it; all we need is a hot and bothered enemy slavering after our blood.

Up at the château, Mundy, Miller and Shutzer are settling in for a game of Shutzer’s PANTRANT.

I say I’ll probably join in soon as I make my call to regiment. I warm the radio. When I get through, Leary says to sign off and call back in five minutes; Ware wants to talk with me.

I turn off and spread myself on one of the mattresses. There isn’t enough time to go for a crap but the cramps are already beginning. There’s a big pile of shiny, splintered wood leaning against the fireplace. I wonder if Mother knows about this. I should go up in the attic to find out just what the hell he’s doing. What would I do if he’s decided to give it all up and hanged himself? Here I’d have Miller hanging by tire chains and Wilkins dangling in the attic. Maybe I ought to skip the game and check out Mother; that’s what a sergeant is supposed to do, I think.

The fire’s burning fine; chunks of cast metal are attached to some of the wood and are glowing red in the heat. What could it have been? They wouldn’t burn a piano or anything like that, would they? I don’t think so; I hope not.

At quarter past, I call again and get Ware.

“Everything go off OK, Sergeant? Over.”

“OK, Lieutenant. Shutzer, Gordon and I took it. We checked the shed, nothing there. We found them at the lodge. There were three Germans plus an outpost on the road just under us. Over.”

“Good work. You only saw four of the fuckers? Over.”

“No, sir. After that, on the way back, we made contact with an enemy patrol. There were three or more of them; they were about a half mile from the chateau. Over.”

“You made contact? What the hell’s that mean? Did they see you? Over.”

“Yes, sir. They pinned us down, could’ve picked us off, but didn’t. I don’t understand it; none of us does. Over.”

“Well, I’ll be Goddamned!”

There’s a long pause. My cramps are coming on so hard I’m bent double over the radio. I hear the word for the first part of the game. It’s Miller and the word’s “brinkolar.” He gives the spelling. I think about ice skates, candy bars, stars. Anything but think about what’s happening just north of my asshole. If Ware doesn’t sign off soon, I’m going to crap my pants again.

“Sergeant Knott, things are still confused here. Nobody seems to know what’s happening. I’ll report this to Major Love now. He’s climbing the walls of the S2 tent; at least this is something. Over.”

“Yes, sir. Over”

Please! Let me off before I explode.

“OK, Knott, stay in there. Over and out.”

I turn off the radio and wait for a strong cramp to let up. Shutzer’s gathering in the slips of paper with the different definitions. Mine would have been “the nearest edge of a frozen star.” I loosen my field jacket, my belt, the top buttons of my pants. I work out some toilet paper from my helmet liner on a mattress beside me. Then slowly I get up and start toward the stairs, leaning over, holding my pants with my left hand. I make it to the top of the stairs, then stand there while a bad one bears down on me. I hold till I get my pants down and my ass jammed into the toilet.