A Midnight Clear: A Novel (28 page)

After five minutes, I know this isn’t a casual barrage; troops will be moving through here. I phone to hustle Wilkins and Gordon back into the château. This looks like time for us to move out.

When I get to the château, Miller’s still hanging over the radio, searching frequencies. I look at him but he shakes his head. I tell Gordon to pull wire and phones in from both posts. Wilkins and I carry Father on our shoulders. He’s stiff, hard, but still doesn’t smell. We tie him to the bedspring on back of our jeep. Then we go inside and pack the rest of our stuff, including whitening, camouflage suits, leftover wire; we throw it in back under Mundy. We stuff the fart sacks under there, too. We’re all scared and running around like hell but panic hasn’t struck yet.

We’re just about loaded when the first mortar hits. The trouble with mortar is it hits before you hear it coming in. Then there’s another, then eighty-eight. There are three bursts. That eighty-eight seems almost like direct fire. These are no shorts; somebody sees us and is calling it in. We’re under observation.

Gordon and I jump in our jeep with Mundy; the one without chains, without the fifty caliber. I’m driving. The motor turns right over and I hear Miller start behind me. There’s no time for fooling around. I roll over the edge and downhill toward the bridge. It’s going to be mean without chains; just going down that little hill I’m slipping all over the road. It’s dark as hell but the snow’s let up some. Mel looks back.

“They’re with us OK, Wont. Most of the stuff is landing uphill behind the château, above the upper post.”

I nod. I’m concentrating on driving and keeping my mind in control. I stay in low-low with four-wheel drive and start uphill on the other side of the bridge, up and away from the château. I’m just about keeping traction, and at the same time losing speed. I can hear the slap-slap of chains on Miller’s jeep. Mel’s looking back, half standing up on his seat to see over Mundy.

“My God! They put one beside the bridge and blew the scarecrow to bits.”

I hunch my shoulders a little tighter and peer over the hood. Miller’s already dropped both windshields because snow piles on them and hand wipers don’t keep ahead. So snow blows in my eyes unless I keep them squinted. I can hardly see a thing through the dark and snow. Also, the damned jeep’s top-heavy with Mundy up high; the back wheels swing right or left with every rut. I’m not sure Miller can push us out if we get stuck on this hill.

Then, suddenly, the barrage lets up. I’m crawling along at less than ten miles an hour. Mel stands on the seat and leans back over Mundy.

“Holy Christ! Here they come! It’s a weapons carrier with an eighty-eight and a packed personnel carrier. They’re rolling past the bridge now! Jesus, there’s another one! The whole road’s swarming Krauts; some of them are running up to the château. Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

Mel scrunches down, squatting, peering under Mundy now. I don’t look back. I need to concentrate or we’ll stall or slip. I want to get around the ridge and out of sight. I don’t think they can see us much through the snow, but they can hear us and there are tracks. If they come on after us, we’ve had it.

I keep aiming on the road, using the angle-iron wire cutter we have welded to the bumper. The Germans were supposed to be using piano wire stretched across roads to cut off American heads, so our motor pool put these cutters on every jeep, like masts on sailing ships. Miller almost had a fistfight with the warrant officer about it. I don’t know if the Germans actually did such a thing or if those bits of angle iron would do any good, but right now it helps me aim. The only visual cue I have to go by is a slight opening of white ahead of me where the road winds through the woods. The pitch of the road has leveled off some and now we’re going along a cut in the mountain. There’s a steep drop on the right side; I hug the left as much as I can without going in the ditch.

I keep telling myself if it’s really an attack they won’t veer off the main road to come chasing us. We only have to get out of sight and away.

Just then a mortar explodes in front of us; it’s close enough so clods of dirt hit the jeep with loud clunking sounds. Then another hits downhill on our right, fragments burying in the hill. I keep bearing down. When the next one hits behind us, between our jeep and Miller’s, my first instinct is to stop; then I realize we’re bracketed, our only chance is to keep moving. Mel stands up and looks back.

“They’re OK, I think! Miller’s hunched over the wheel and I can’t see Mother, but Miller isn’t signaling or anything. Just keep on rolling.”

He slides down below the hood again, his knees on the floor of the jeep. I try shifting up one gear and holding to it. We’re going about fifteen miles an hour; in the dark and snow it’s all I can handle and stay on the road.

The next mortar explodes up on our left; it’s close. Fragments ricochet and sing off the jeep. One piece somehow shatters the windshield flat on the hood. There are clangs against metal and a dull thump.

“You hit, Mel?”

“No; Mundy.”

“Damn!”

Mel lifts his head again.

“I think they’re still OK back there. Another hundred yards and we’ll be out of range.”

Two more come close but we’ve passed the place where they can lay one in directly; the ridge is between us. Either they’ll chase now or we’re out of it. There’s a long downhill stretch coming up. I try holding it in second. The road’s still only a cut into the side of a hill and I know it’s a long drop on the right. I should downshift to low-low again but the panic’s strong. We start picking up speed, and when I try braking, we slide. Snow’s jammed in the treads and the damned jeep’s like a toboggan. I hold her on around the first curve but by the second, we’re going too fast.

“I can’t make it, Mel! Jump!”

We’re going too fast to jump. I keep pumping the brakes and I’m shifted down now but still sliding. I lose control completely. We go off the downhill side and hit sideways against a tree. We spin, bounce against the bank, twist and end up teetering off the deep edge, front first, over a drop of at least forty-five degrees. From our tilted-forward place in the front seat it looks like a cliff. All four wheels are free from the ground and spinning. I turn off the motor. Gordon moves to sit on his seat and the jeep tips farther forward, down.

“Hold it, Mel! We’ll go over if we move.”

I turn my head; Mundy hasn’t budged. As I look, the other jeep pulls up behind us. Miller carefully brakes and comes to a stop. Wilkins jumps out of their jeep, runs toward us.

“You guys all right?”

“We’re fine, Mother; but our jeep’s about to slide over! Hold us down!”

Miller pulls the emergency on his jeep and leaves the motor running, gets out and comes over. He goes around and looks under our jeep.

“Christ, you guys are on a regular seesaw! Don’t move! I’ll get the towrope and see if I can pull you off.”

We sit still while Miller and Wilkins hook the rope onto our back bumper and their front one. We all keep looking back up that hill, expecting hordes of Huns to charge down at us. Mundy’s weight in back is keeping us from tipping over the edge. When the rope’s secure, Miller runs to his jeep and begins backing uphill, but all he does is slip, even with the four-wheel drive and chains. He jumps out and runs back again.

“I could go downhill and tie to my back bumper. We’d have the hill in our favor then, but the angles are all wrong; you might go on over the edge. I’ll tell you what; I’m going to back up and pull with the rope while you two climb out over Mundy. It should hold.”

Before we can say anything, he runs to his jeep, backs up and pulls tight on the slack rope. Mel and I crawl over Mundy and off the back of the jeep. After we’re both out, Miller unties the rope from his jeep and rolls downhill past ours. Without us in the front seat our jeep’s more secure. Mother ties the rope to Miller’s back bumper; Miller begins pulling again. He swings our jeep around but it slips farther over the edge. There’s no way to pull it off now.

“Won’t and Mother, you get Mundy out of the jeep while I hold it here.”

Mother and I cut the satin strips holding the bedspring with Mundy to the jeep. Mel helps lift the whole thing off and lower it to the road. We take out the whitener, the camouflage suits and the 506, stuff them into Miller’s jeep. There’s no room for the fart sacks. Miller gives another pull but it only gets worse; our jeep’s over the edge.

“Won’t, cut the rope with your bayonet and stand away so you won’t get caught in the whiplash when the rope breaks loose.”

I hack away at the rope with my bayonet. The last few strands unravel and break themselves. The jeep twists slowly, then turns around and begins rolling, sliding, down. It hits a few trees but rebounds and disappears in the dark, crashing and picking up momentum. It doesn’t explode and finally there’s silence. One U.S. jeep at the bottom of a ravine in the Ardennes Forest. Miller puts his brake on again, comes back and stares down the hill.

“That was the best of them, too.”

Together we lift Mundy and jam him, feet first, under the mount of our fifty caliber. His head is up at least two feet higher than the top of the gun; he’s practically standing up. We all climb in. With the radio, the phones, the rations and all the other crap, there’s not much room. I get in front beside Miller and stash the 506 at my feet. Mel and Mother are in back, half under Mundy’s bedspring. Miller starts the jeep rolling. Chains sure make a difference.

 

When we get to where regiment was, there’s no one. The snow has covered everything, even the bare spots where our squad tents were. Only the kitchen tent space is still warm enough so there’s mud and grass showing. They’ve been gone for more than twenty hours. We drive in a circle around that regimental area, looking for the jeep, looking for some sign, but there’s nothing. Miller stops and turns to me.

“Well, Sergeant Knott, what the fuck do we do now?”

“Christ, I don’t know, Bud. What’s your idea, Mel?”

“Look for tracks, probably. They couldn’t move a whole regimental headquarters without tearing things up.”

Mother is staring from behind Mundy out the back of the jeep.

“There could be Germans anywhere around here.”

Miller shoves the jeep in gear.

“The best thing is, get moving. The most tracks go off on that road; it’s the way out of here, so we go that way. Go west, young men! At least I think it’s west.”

I’m thinking if we run into any Germans, a squad or more, we give up. We keep looking for tracks but it’s practically impossible. The road goes under trees and there, without lights, it’s pitch dark. And the snow’s coming down harder. We roll along in the dark, jammed together, each of us alone, not talking much. We’ve all put ourselves in Miller’s hands.

Then we come out of the forest and into more or less open farm country. We only know we’re on a road from the fence posts along both sides. The snow blows from every direction in gusts and we’re miserably cold. Miller slows, stops and turns to me again.

“I don’t know where I’m going anymore. I could be driving us straight to Berlin.”

Not one of us has a compass. At Shelby we did maybe five hundred field exercises, shooting azimuths, all the rest of it, but we’ve never used a compass since. I think mine’s in my duffel bag somewhere in the kitchen truck. My whole full field pack’s in that truck; my whole life, practically.

It’s bitching cold. My feet are numb, the fronts of my legs iced to my pants. We’re covered with snow except where Mother and Mel are jammed under Mundy. Father Mundy looks like a statue; the snow’s stuck to his face and packed in his eye sockets.

I don’t know what to do. If we stop, we’ll freeze. We can’t build a fire; it’d attract any Germans in the vicinity. Also, all the wood’s wet and I don’t want to waste gasoline just burning it for heat. At the same time, riding along, going nowhere, isn’t helping either. But what else?

I climb onto the hood and stretch out holding onto that vertical piece of angle iron. This way I can see better. Miller starts up again. The hood’s warm from the motor. As we go along, I give hand signals to keep us on the road but twice we slip into ditches. We use the entrenching tool on the back of our jeep to dig out.

We’ve gone maybe five more miles when it happens. I’m out in front but I don’t see anything. Everything’s white against white, but set in darkness. I’ve lost any ability to separate close from near, up from down. Suddenly the right side drops. Our whole jeep rolls on its side and slowly turns over with the motor still running!

Without even knowing it, we were going over a small unrailed bridge. The drifts are so high it was invisible. It happens slowly so nobody’s hurt; even Mel and Mother wiggle out from under Mundy. Miller leaps back to the jeep and turns off the motor.

The jeep’s settled upside down, with Father and the fifty caliber jammed into and through the ice of a small running stream.

Together, we slip and struggle in the snow till we’ve pushed the jeep back onto its wheels. Mundy seems all right. I brush the snow and mud off his face. It’s wet from the water and starts to freeze almost immediately.

We’re all puffing. Even with four, it’s tough righting a jeep in the snow. By the time we’re finished, I’m sweaty but my hands and feet are wet and cold. Miller is going around checking. He reaches under the jeep and comes up, his hands smelling of gasoline. He looks at me, then points under the rear end. I get down on my knees. There’s a puncture slash in the gas tank and gasoline is coming out in a steady stream at about the same speed and trajectory as horsepiss. Miller shakes his head.

“Must’ve scraped something going over the edge. There’s a gash the length of my hand.”

He slides under and packs one of his gloves into the hole, stoppering it somewhat. We kick snow over the leaked gasoline, then Bud tries turning the motor over but no response. He checks everything under the hood and tries again. Nothing. All four of us push to get her back on the road; but the embankment’s too steep. By the time we give up, we’re all sweaty and pooped out. The falling snow seems to get thicker, heavier.