An Owl's Whisper (27 page)

Poke Denton, seated next to Stan, was remarkable for his thin lips and weak chin. And his nasal voice. “Ever seen anything so screwed up?” he whined. He lifted the canvas flap over the tailgate and shook his head at the vehicles lined up behind them. “Look at that. Fucking brass ain’t smart enough to pour piss outta their boots.” He hollered, “Hey, ya goddamn Krauts! It’s Christmas, for chrissake.”

The driver turned off his motor, and distant rumbling was unmasked. Stan said, “Thunder in December! Well, how ’bout that?”

Howitz, a pimply GI across from Stan, stopped picking his nose. “Ain’t thunder, fella. It’s artillery. Big shit. 155s, I bet. Trained artillery ’fore I got made a cook.” He grinned nervously.

Denton leaned over and whispered to Stan, “Back in Memphis, I worked graveyard shift in a TB sanitarium. Guns barking off yonder sound ’bout like them patients we had. Like their hacks echoing down the hall all night long. Gives me the willies.”

Stan’s bad feeling got worse.

The men who were awake, even those who didn’t smoke, smoked. The glowing tips gave off psychological warmth. At some point, the endless night ended.

The snow was boot-top deep when Stan jumped out to pee. In the first light of dawn and the bracing air outside the truck, he could look up at the snowflakes fluttering down and be charmed by it. Then the trucks all started up, and Stan climbed back aboard. The line of vehicles lurched forward. The charm ended that quickly.

The drone of the motor, the sway of the bumps, and the crunch of tires on snow lulled Stan into half-sleep. His mind swirled with memories—or were they dreams?—of riding his horse Daphne over snowy hills as a boy. Suddenly the air was full of bees. Had Daphne stepped on a hive? Stan knew there was something wrong about bees in winter—as wrong as thunder in winter—but he couldn’t say just what it was. He’d blurted, “Whoa, girl,” trying to control his horse, when noise and chaos startled him alert. No longer alone on Daphne in the silent Nebraska winter, he was engulfed in sounds: The shouts of GIs and the zip of the rounds as they ripped through canvas and bodies. Denton slumped to Stan’s lap then rolled to the floor. The men who hadn’t been hit hollered and pushed to the rear, trying to escape what had become a viper’s nest. Stan moved with the jostle of bodies, looking back just once at Denton lying still on the truck floor. Johnson, who jumped just before Stan, hit the ground like spilled oatmeal and lay there moaning. When Stan tried to miss him, his awkward landing sent him sprawling. His rifle spun away. Lying stunned, face in the snow, he felt like a moth splattered on a windshield.

The zing of rounds flying overhead focused Stan’s mind. He looked back at Johnson, who wasn’t moving. Stan crawled to his rifle and grabbed it. He aimed into the trees along the road where he saw muzzle flashes and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.
Shit dummy, try loadin’ it.
Stan took a clip of rounds out of his ammo pouch, but he couldn’t load with his gloves on. He took the right glove off and pushed the bolt back with the heel of his hand. He shoved the clip in, removed his thumb, and let the bolt fly forward. His fingers were snowy and numb. He pumped his fist open and closed to get them working. Stan wildly fired off a whole clip of eight rounds. Return fire kicked up snow around him. So close, he couldn’t believe he wasn’t hit. He reloaded and fired again, this time with some control.

The sergeant from the cab of the truck crawled up and told Stan to follow him. They ran in a monkey-crouch to a jeep that had overturned in the ditch. The sergeant pulled Stan’s helmet close and barked, “I’m gonna try to lob a grenade on that Kraut machine gun. I’ll crawl to that scrubby tree and pitch from there.” Stan looked where he was pointing. “You keep shooting to draw their fire. You with me, son?” Stan nodded, and the sarge gave him two more ammo clips.

The sergeant skittered over the snowy ground like a cockroach.

Stan popped up and fired off rounds in twos, moving his spot behind the jeep after each pair. He was loading a second clip when he heard the thud. He peeked over the jeep and saw smoke where before he’d seen flashes. The machine gun was silent. Stan breathed, “It’s over,” and he felt his body sag, his legs go limp. He turned and leaned back on the jeep, the world before him a blur. His feet slid slowly out. He sat on the snow, his rifle across his lap, and realized he was wet with sweat and shivering.

The sergeant ran back to the capsized jeep. Seeing the spent look on Stan’s face, he tapped his boot. “Good job there, Corporal. The name’s Harkin. Yours?”

“Stan Chandler, Sarge.” A star crack radiating from the center of the left lens of Harkin’s spectacles caught Stan’s eye. “You see with them fogs busted-up like that?”

Harkin removed his glasses and examined them. He popped the pieces of shattered lens out with his thumb. “Lucky it isn’t my shooting eye, I guess.” He grinned.

A lieutenant named Burke ran up, followed by several GIs. “Nice work, Harkin. Sure you got ’em all?”

“I took a look-see. They won’t be causing us no more trouble, sir. By the way, gotta credit Deadeye Chandler here for covering me and drawing their fire—made it a piece of cake to get close enough to toss.” Burke nodded to Stan, and Harkin pulled the officer aside. “Sir, you got any idea what’s up—Germans bushwhacking us like this behind our own lines?”

Burke looked around to be sure no one else could hear him. “Got a bad feeling about that myself, Albert. Lot of shit’s gone haywire down here. Road signs switched. Sabotage. Bogus radio transmissions.” He shook his head. “Look, we gotta keep moving. Come on. Grab your pal Chandler and see what wheels we still got.”

Back at the truck, there were three blanket-covered bodies on the road. Stan was happy to see Medics working on Johnson and Denton up on the truck bed. A soldier ran back from the cab. “Won’t move, sir. Ran into the truck in front. Front end’s all fucked-up. Fender’s bent to shit over on the tire. Sucker’s here to stay.”

“Hell it is, Edwards,” Burke boomed. “Head back and get every fuckin’ vehicle that can move off to the side. Then get those damn Shermans up here pronto. Tell ’em to shove any O-slash-A trucks aside. I need this road open now. Move it!”

“Right, sir.” Edwards hustled off.

Lt. Burke yelled to Stan, “This truck’s going in the ditch. Get the wounded off.”

Jeeps and trucks pulled to the right side of the road. A moment later, with the clank of tracks and its engine’s roar, the first of two big Sherman tanks pulled up. It pushed the disabled deuce and a half off the road. The highway ahead was clear.

Burke hollered, “Want a ride, gents? Jump on up.”

“On the outside?” Stan asked. “What about a truck?”

“Your truck’s there in the ditch, son. It’s up here or walk. Take your pick.”

Six soldiers scrambled atop the first Sherman tank. Stan, Harkin, and three others climbed onto the second one. They roared off.

Stan had never before been near a tank, much less ridden on one. The Sherman’s power seemed to flow into him, and he felt invincible. He looked up at the lightening sky and told himself, snow’s pretty well let up and the sun’s tryin’ to poke through the cloud cover in the east. With some luck, it could clear up. It was someone else’s friends got killed. And best of all, I passed my first test pretty good. Things could sure be a lot worse.

By noon on December 18, the sky was pencil-smudge gray. Snow, gritty as cinders, crackled on Stan’s helmet and stung his chin. Wind and ice made the tank’s steel deck downright disagreeable. “And I used to think it got chilly on horseback,” Stan told Harkin. “Damn, this beast must’ve been built by Frigidaire. Least there ain’t no more Krauts around.”

Stan huddled next to a rugged-looking, 82
^nd
Airborne Division buck sergeant named Maxwell who called himself, “a .45 caliber type what goes by Tex.” He pronounced the name as
takes
. After the introduction, Maxwell squatted in silence, sharpening his bayonet with a whetstone. With vast patience, he drew the blade slowly, meticulously, over the sharpening stone, testing it every few strokes with his thumb, until after twenty minutes he was satisfied.

Tex was dressed to kill: In addition to the Thompson submachine gun he carried, he had a .45 cal. sidearm holstered on his hip; a nail-studded club, four grenades and brass knuckles hanging from his webbing; and the bayonet strapped to his boot. Grinning, Maxwell thrust his skeletal pock-marked face into the wind—it reminded Stan of how a dog rides in the bed of a pick-up. Tex’s bony figure was exposed under a huge overcoat that whipped unbuttoned in the frigid gusts, especially when he stood, leaning forward like the figurehead on a pirate ship’s bow. Stan figured, if ya get in a pinch, this’s the kind of guy ya sure as shootin’ wanna stick close to.

As if he divined that Stan had been studying him, Maxwell broke his silence. “Yep,” he drawled, “guess ol’ Tex is feelin’ like a kid in a candy shop ’bout now. With the war heatin’ up again.” He looked Stan in the eye and rubbed his chin. “Killed a feller back in Texas. Self-defense, they ruled. Maybe t’were. Over here, I get all of it I want. All legal. Best is face-to-face. Him or me.” Maxwell tilted his head to the side. “Ya done much killin’?”

Stan winced. Looking at his boots and holding his rifle close, he mumbled, “Not much…I’m supply.”

Maxwell shrugged
To each his own
and scratched his knee with the barrel of his Tommy gun “Got shot-up in Holland. September. Been on sick call since.” He took a deep draft of the cold air. “I tell ya, this beats a hospital bed by a West Texas mile.” He spat for emphasis.

Stan thought how good a warm hospital bed sounded. But to keep some credibility with Maxwell, he only grunted, “Uh-huh.”

Stan leaned back on the gun turret. It was late afternoon and the terrain had become rolling hills. The road followed a stream on the right. To the left was an open stretch of ground—a long stone’s throw wide and snow-covered with tall, golden, dry grass poking through. Beyond the snowy stretch was a wall of dark woods.

Stan watched Sgt. Harkin, who sat silent in front of him and took occasional sips from a silver flask. Harkin was scanning the roadsides right and left. Earlier he’d said, “Best be on the lookout for ambushes, men.”

Stan wondered, how could there be an ambush, with the 28
^th
between us and the enemy? Anyway, cold as it was, he figured freezing was more of a worry than getting plugged.

It was just onto dusk when Stan heard the engine of the forward Sherman revved way up.
What the -?
The tank swung sharp right, between the road and the stream.

The tanker commanding Stan’s vehicle had been riding with the hatch door open. He hollered, “Oh shit,” and dropped into the cockpit. The hatch clanked closed. Immediately, the tank pivoted hard left.

Stan looked up the hill ahead and saw the beast coming over the crest. Even at a half mile away, it looked huge.

Harkin yelled, “Tiger! Hit it.” He dove off the moving tank and rolled into a crouch, ready to fire. The others scrambled off after him.

Stan landed sprawling in the snow and tall grass. He looked up just in time to see fire lash out from the moving panzer’s gun. A smoke ring followed. After a scorching roar, the lead Sherman erupted in flames. The second U.S. tank engaged the enemy. The shock of its 75 mm gun firing from just ten feet away slapped Stan’s cheek. He could see the projectile streak down and strike the panzer dead center on the foredeck. Stan held his breath, waiting for the German tank to explode.

But it didn’t. Like a rhino besieged by a fly, the panzer barely flinched at the blow. Stan was watching its turret continue the cold swing his way when Harkin jerked his jacket collar and boomed, “Let’s go, Chandler.” He pulled Stan ten yards farther from their tank, yelling, “Hit it,” as he shoved Stan to the ground. There was a frozen instant of quiet. Then, as if the gates of hell burst open, the second Sherman exploded, its turret blown skyward on a column of dirty, orange flame. Stan looked back to see the smoking hunk of steel thud down where he’d just been.

Dazed, his ears ringing, Stan watched transfixed as the panzer moved toward him. Around it, swarming like ants after spilled lemonade, were white-clad infantrymen.

“Come on, kid—” Harkin tugged Stan to his feet. “—there’s a jillion Krauts. Gotta make those trees.”

Amid the zing of small arms fire, eight GIs dashed the thirty yards to the tree line, parallel to the road. A man ahead of Stan got hit and tumbled down. When they dove into the trees, just five of them were left.

Stan’s lungs couldn’t pump air fast enough. His brain seemed to have shut down. He had to look at the other GIs to see what to do. He fired his M-1 without aiming.

Harkin yelled, “We’ll have to skin the cat outta here. Maxwell, take those two and fall back ten meters. We’ll cover for you. Then me and Chandler’ll drop back and you cover. We’ll keep leapfrogging away for a while then duck into the woods. Now go.”