A Midnight Clear: A Novel (4 page)

“Lieutenant Ware, Sergeant Knott, as you know, here in this sector of the Ardennes, we have a fluid and, at the same time, static front.”

He looks to see if we’re comprehending the big words.

“It’s fluid because of these large forest tracts, virtually without roads.”

He circles some fuzzy parts of the map with his pencil.

“It’s static because nothing has happened here for several months.

“We’re here. And they’re there.”

Again some pencil twirling to show the lines.

“Neither side wants to set up a line without clear fields of fire, and nobody’s moving.”

He snaps off another of his Robert Taylor glances up from under the eyebrows. By God, that’s it! I knew Love looked familiar; he’s a sort of faggy Robert Taylor. I need to check this with the squad; it could be only personal prejudice.

“Right here is a five-hundred-acre forest.”

He traces, again on the celluloid, the forest. This time he makes real marks, so we’re getting serious. My eggs have put themselves back together and are a whole egg, shell and all, just behind my belly button.

“There’s an intersection of two tertiary roads, not paved, almost in the center of the forest. At the intersection is a château.

“At the eastern end, here, is a hunting lodge.”

He gives us another conspiratorial—up from under eye-brows—steely glance.

“We strongly suspect Jerry has an observation post or outpost there.”

Oh boy, the plot sickens. Just snuggle up behind those guys and capture a few. I think I’ll faint here in the S2 tent. Or maybe I’ll dash over and tear at Tucker’s fly, while working up a proper drool. Sorry, Father Mundy, I know not what I do; just testing out a possible quick Section Eight.

“Sergeant Knott, I want you to move into that château with your reduced squad. Take two jeeps, one with the fifty caliber mounted; also a week’s rations. Take a 506 radio and keep in contact with us here at regiment.”

Is this it? Is Love telling me we’re going to live in a château? I wait.

“Lieutenant Ware, you maintain radio contact with Sergeant Knott. We’ll hold the other recon squad here at regiment for any additional patrol work.

“Sergeant Knott, your squad will either be relieved by the end of the week or additional rations will be sent out, according to operational conditions.”

Ware sort of halfway pulls himself to attention.

“When do you want these men sent out, sir?”

“Tomorrow morning at o-eight-hundred. They’re to keep an eye on any enemy outposts in the area and man posts to surveil the bridge and road going past the château.”

Love turns to me.

“Well, Sergeant Knott, your squad can’t complain about this one. The Whiz Kids can live like kings.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, is there any evidence of occupation at the château?”

“That’s one of the things you’re to find out, Sergeant. Here’s a chance to use our ‘intelligence’ in a little ‘reconnaissance’ for a change.”

He smiles his undertaker’s smile, ghoulish anticipation.

“Yes, sir.”

Always a hooker. Six guys in two jeeps rolling up to a château in the middle of somebody’s (nobody’s sure whose) forest and inviting themselves in. We can always dog it if things look bad. Most of us have wagging tails, floppy ears and the mange from dogging it during times like this. We are
not
the best choice for I and R work.

Love’s finished with his after-toilet before-breakfast military operation. We go through the whole saluting dismissal routine and I break clear of Ware fast. I need advice from the squad. Maybe this might be the chance we need to quit the war. A whole week with nobody looking.

That’s rot! We’ll do it. For sure, we’ll baby-sit Love’s château in the middle of a frozen forest filled with people trying to kill us.

I don’t know what makes us think we’re so smart. Just because we can take tests, do crossword puzzles, play bridge, chess and other games; just because we read too damned much, we think we’re something special. Shits like Love or Ware are the real smart ones if you look at it objectively. They stay alive. That’s intelligence!

It snowed during the night, but lightly; temperature’s dropped at least ten degrees. The first snow fell in the Saar for my nineteenth birthday.

I was on a full-day artillery observation post with the squad twenty-power scope. I’d spent the morning peering through drifting whiteness, trying to keep from breathing on the lenses. It was beautiful, even the black blossoms of mortar; they were far enough away. I’d pick a spot and wait till it happened; you can do this when you get to know the patterns. Now, when I look at the Brueghels in Vienna, I remember my nineteenth birthday.

 

Here, this morning, going out, there are frozen leaves and pinecones on the ground when we pass through K Company and drive into the forest. The road’s just two hard ruts; the light, new snow’s blown into them. No sign of other traffic; rough riding, slippery, cold. Miller’s driving our jeep; Wilkins and I, in back, take turns on the fifty caliber. I’m up; it’s miserably cold sitting there in the icy wind.

As we go deeper into the forest, huge pines loom dark on both sides. Some light is coming into the sky. We drive along not saying much; absolutely beautiful sniper targets.

Gordon’s driving the other jeep, with Father Mundy and Shutzer; I look back to see if they’re still with us.

Wilkins taps me and I slide down. He uses the handhold to climb up and crouch behind the sights. Wilkins looks scared, but we’re all looking scared most of the time. We haven’t said anything about our cross-country jaunt through the woods. Maybe it’s because we can’t figure out who won. Wilkins is acting as if it didn’t happen. That’s OK; just thinking about something like that scares me.

Mother has a piece of blanket cut into a long scarf; he’s tucked it under his helmet like a burnous, then wrapped it around his neck and stuffed it inside his field jacket. It gives him a sad Lawrence of Arabia look. Thank God Sergeant Hunt isn’t around for this.

Mother’s glasses have slipped to the end of his nose. I’m not sure if he can actually see anything through those sights, anyway. His nose is long, bright red against his face, but he looks all right: maybe it was only a bad moment, something to forget.

“I’ll tell you, Wont. I feel exactly like a target being towed across a firing range.”

“Don’t sweat it, Mother; pretend we’re going for a winter Christmas stay at the family château. Imagine yourself a member of the old European elite.”

 

I look ahead, over Miller’s shoulder. The road’s tough, twisting, narrow. We’re winding along switchbacks now, working our wav deeper into the forest.

I’m just checking the map again to see if we’re on the right road, going the right way, when the world seems to explode. The jeep jumps so only Miller could’ve kept it from turning over. I think at first we’ve hit a mine but then realize it’s Mother firing off a long burst. He’s shooting past Miller’s left ear at something on that side of the road, so the jeep’s reared up on its two right wheels. I’m already clambering out before it gets settled back on four. Miller cuts the motor, grabs his M1 and dives, crawling under the jeep. Half our junk we’d piled in back, behind the gun, is spread along the road. I’m hunched in the middle of it.

Jumping out, I banged a knee on that damned handhold and my stupid mind is more wrapped around this pain than on keeping me alive.

Wilkins is still up behind the gun. He’s not firing but continues sighting down the barrel. I can barely get my voice together for a whisper. I’ve crept behind the right rear wheel, away from the direction Mother fired.

“What is it, Wilkins? What’d you see?”

There’s a moment before he answers. He stands up from his crouch behind the gun. He pushes his glasses farther up his nose and leans forward.

“There was a German soldier standing behind a tree—there. I think I got him; he’s lying on the ground. I don’t see any others.”

“You’re sure, Mother? And you can still see him?”

Mother takes off his glasses, wipes the lenses with the leather fronts of his woolknit gloves and peers again.

“Yeah, he’s there. You can see him yourself if you stand up.”

This is not the kind of thing anybody who likes being alive does. But if it’s an ambush why aren’t they shooting Mother off the jeep?

Bolstered by this slight bit of hasty logic, I scurry into trees beside the road. I look back and see everybody’s dispersed from the other jeep; the motor back there’s still running.

God, I’m scared, I’m expecting the BBBrrrRRRppppPP of a burp gun any minute. I sling my rifle and take a grenade off my jacket. Anything close, I’m better off with a grenade than a rifle. I slide my finger in the ring and move up two, then three trees. It’s a German all right and he’s sure enough dead.

 

About one minute later, after I’ve carefully snuck up in good infantry manual procedure on our “dead German,” I look down on something I’ve seen in dreams at least a thousand times during the past thirty-seven years.

He’s been dead a while and is frozen with one arm over his head and the other twisted across his stomach. He’s lying on his back but he died on his stomach with his head turned. One side of his face is iced and flaked so pieces of frozen flesh hang from the bones; this flesh is bluish green and there’s no sign of blood. I see where one of Mother’s fifty-caliber bullets went through his neck just below the chin, a perfect unbleeding fifty-caliber hole.

I’ve seen the dead and the dying but I’ve never seen anyone dead, shot. They call a sharpshooter a dead shot, but this is a real one, shot while dead. It seems to me, then, like the final violation.

Miller comes beside me.

“Jammed dog tails! What happened?”

“Somebody must’ve stood him against that tree, Bud. They hauled him from somewhere and propped him there.”

I reach down and pick up a typical German bolt-action Mauser balanced beside him. There’s also a piece of white paper with holes in it, no writing or printing.

“They maybe even had this rifle balanced on his hands, sticking out, leaning against the tree. That’s what Mother saw.”

Except for Wilkins, the rest of the squad’s drifting over now. Boy, am I ever the great leader. “Come on, everybody, let’s bunch together so we can be mowed down easily.” Wow!

 

Father Mundy kneels by the German. He tries closing the one open eye with his thumb like a real priest, but it’s frozen open. The other eye is only goo, frozen goo. Father pulls off his glove, jams his thumb into the bolt of his M1 and rubs it around. Then he makes little crosses on what’s left of the German’s face: his forehead, his eye, his ear and his lips, then the backs of the stiff decaying hands. He’s mumbling prayers to himself in Latin. I kneel down on one knee beside him, as much to keep from keeling over as anything.

“That isn’t Extreme Unction you’re doing there, is it, Mundy? I thought you had to be alive to get it and a priest to give it.”

Mundy stands up slowly, still praying. He’s functioning, but he’s in almost as much shock as I am.

“Right, Wont. But those were the best prayers I could think of. I asked the angels to help and the devils to leave. What else?”

He pulls off his helmet and his head’s sweaty. We start moving back to the jeeps. Mother Wilkins, like the only good soldier in the pack, is still sitting up there behind the fifty caliber covering us. Mundy reaches into his helmet liner and pulls out a wad of toilet paper.

“Is it all right, Wont, if I go off into the bushes for a minute? Something like this turns my insides out.”

I wave everybody our private “piss call” sign, and Father Mundy goes deeper into the woods. I move back to the jeep. Miller’s sitting in the driver’s seat, his legs hanging over the sides. He has his helmet off, and is pounding on his ears.

“Look, Mother, could you give me just one second’s notice before you start that thing up again? I have a flock of mockingbirds doing a duet with a squeaking oil well in the middle of my head.”

Miller turns to me.

“Won’t, is it OK if I take a smoke while we’re waiting for Mundy?”

“Sure, but I don’t approve. I have to live with Gordon, too, you know.”

I look down the road at the other jeep; Shutzer and Gordon are leaning against it.

Melvin Gordon is squad health nut; he intends to become a doctor if he lives through the war. (He actually does; both those things.) He’s taken on the personal responsibility (unasked) for the state of our bodies. Mundy works on our souls. In today’s terms, I guess Mother’s our ecologist, Miller’s our mechanic and poet, I’m the artist and Shutzer’s our business manager.

Gordon has gotten all of us who smoked to stop, at least in front of him. It can be an enormous nuisance. Miller resists Gordon most, the way Shutzer resists Mundy.

 

About then, Father Mundy comes dashing from the forest at half mast. He still has the toilet paper in one hand flapping along after him and he’s holding on to the belt of his pants with the other. His rifle has slipped down to the crook of his elbow so it’s swung in front and is thumping against his knees with every step.

“Mother of God, save me!”

He looks back over his shoulder. He feels for his head with his toilet paper hand and realizes he doesn’t have his helmet. He stops dead in his tracks.

“No, Lord! Don’t make me go back!”

Father Mundy’s trying to buckle and put himself together. He keeps tangling in the toilet paper. We’ve all sprawled in the snow again except Wilkins, who’s swung that fifty caliber so it’s aimed just over Father’s head.

“What in the name of heaven is it, Mundy?”

Mundy shambles over and flops beside me. He’s about six three and better than two hundred pounds; on the edge of being soft. His usually white skin is even whiter and his Irish upper lip is covered with beads of sweat; quivering.