Once an Eagle (15 page)

“Kannst du weiterziehen?”

“Ja, sicher—bin erschöpft, weiter nichts … Halts fern von der Walde, he? Rechts, immer rechts, durch die Wiesen … Du sollst drängen.”

“Richtig. Hals und Bein bruch.”

“Hals und Bein bruch …”

Their voices faded, were lost in the distant roar of gunfire. Brewster strained to hear the rest of what they said. He was too afraid even to call out to them to surrender. Off to the right he heard horses, and the faint jingle of harness, the thin squeak of axles. Away. He had to get away from here. But where in God's name could he go?

Time went by. It seemed darker than ever, if anything. I'll wait till daylight and then give myself up, he told himself flatly, struggling to maintain a semblance of calm. There's no hope for me anymore—stuck out here like this. That grenade didn't go off and that's why I'm alive. They can't expect any more from me. I'll wait till daybreak and then surrender. That's the thing to do.

He heard movement close by, and froze. A man crawling, very near. Now he had stopped. Behind him and to the left. He lifted his rifle from the bottom of the hole, remembered it was empty and crouched there holding it, put it down again. “—Don't shoot,” he started to say, but no words came out. Slowly he raised his hands above his head.

The figure moved again, a voice said, very softly: “B Company? First platoon?” A tone perfectly calm. “Starkie? Turner?” All at once Brewster recognized the voice—Sergeant Damon—and shivered with relief.

“No,” he murmured, and lowered his arms. “Brewster.”

“You all right?”

“I think—yes. I am.” He was trembling violently and clenched his hands together. “Where is everybody?” He heard Damon off to his right and whispered loudly, “Sarge—
wait …
”

“Shut up,” Damon murmured. Brewster could hear him pulling at something.

“What's the matter?”

There was a little pause. Then Damon muttered, “It's Starkie.”

“Right over there?”

“Yes. He's dead.”

Starkie was dead. Starkie, who had slept in the cot right next to his at Drouamont, who had that way of opening his mouth in silent laughter—Starkie who was collecting picture postcards of all the bridges in the world, was dead. Had been there in that hole, dead, all this time …

“Why didn't you pull out?” Damon had crawled near him again.

“What?” he stammered.

“If you're all right, why didn't you pull back?”

“I—couldn't …” He heard the tight, dry chink of metal on metal. “What are you doing?”

“Taking Starkie's clips. I was almost out of ammunition … ”

Ammunition. How in the name of God could he think of
ammunition—

“Come on. We've got to get out of here.” Brewster was silent, shivering. Damon crept up to him, resting with his face so close Brewster could feel the Sergeant's breath against his eyelids. “Come on, now. We've got to make a break for it.”

“Wait,” Brewster whispered. The thought of leaving his hole was unbearable. “To go where?”

“Where the hell do you think? Back to our lines.”

“Oh.” He said suddenly: “There are Germans. Over there.”

“I know. I heard them.”

“They said to keep clear of the woods.”

“They said that?”

“Yes. One told the other. To keep to the right and go through the meadow.”

Damon paused. “Good. That's all right, Brewster. Good going. Come on, now.”

“Wait—”

“You got your rifle?”

“Yes.” He nodded dumbly. “But—it's not loaded.”

“
Load
it, then …”

Damon was irritated with him, he could tell from his voice. He got a clip out of his belt and inserted it, wincing at the noise it made. The firing had died away to a sporadic rattle and pop, and still farther off the short stammer of a machine gun.

“We're going to crawl over that way,” the Sergeant was saying. “Toward those woods.”

Brewster said: “Where
is
everybody?”

“I don't know. Come on. Keep close to me. To my right leg.”

“You mean we're all there
is?
” The thought of their being just the two of them was frightening, in spite of Damon's presence; a part of his mind was still clinging to the idea that the rest of the platoon was somewhere nearby, right behind the embankment or in the woods.

“Come on, now,” Damon ordered him.

“—Don't you think we'd better wait?” Brewster whispered suddenly.

“What for?” The Sergeant had thrust his face close again. “Now listen here, Brewster. You're hauling your ass out of that hole and coming with me and that's all there is to it. Now, come on!”

He heard Damon start crawling away. He nearly screamed out,
“Wait!”
wriggled out of his hole then and began to creep along behind the Sergeant. The wheat was trampled now in long swatches, as if enormous animals had wrestled and rolled in it; the broken stalks pricked his cheeks and hands. Ahead of him Damon paused, shifted to the left. Moving on, Brewster felt cloth, an outflung hand: rough fabric, slick leather, a stench of body odor so strong it was sickening—and then the sweet, dense smell of blood. A German. Dead German. He wiped his hand on his shirtfront and clenched his teeth. He could see things better now, a little better: shadows of woods, of packs and bodies in the lighter gray shadows of the wheat. Firing rose, a swift, rattling crescendo far beyond them. His heart was thumping in an even rhythm; he felt helpless and exposed, crawling through this murderous, open field. He had to cough, he had to sneeze even more, he made a thick, gulping sound trying to suppress them. The noise they were making—the steady rustle and scrape—moving through the field was horrifying. When he heard voices again, ahead of them and to their right, he knew even before he'd made out a single word that they were German. It sounded like several men; their talk grew louder and more distinct with each second.

Damon's hand was on his neck. “We've got to run for it. Now. Get up and run for the woods.”

“Run?” he echoed weakly. “Stand up and
run?
”

“Yes. It's the only way. Come on. Get set.”

“I—can't, Sarge …”

“You can,” Damon hissed at him. “You've got to!” The hand gripped him with fierce insistence. “Brewster. Come on.”

“Don't leave me, Sarge. Don't leave me here—”

“
Do
as I say!—do you hear?”

“No, Sarge. I—”

Hands plucked at him, yanked him to his feet. He stood there swaying, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, started to mouth a protest—heard Damon's rifle right beside him, an absurdly loud crashing roar that half-deafened him, and saw the bright cone of flame from the muzzle. The shot released him. There was a scream and then a chorus of shouts, but he paid no attention to them now: he was running with all his might through the wheat, racing toward the woods with a speed he didn't know he possessed. He flew over the ground, ran right past Damon, who was singing for air. Tracers burned out into the night sky like red-hot wires, crisscrossing. Someone howled with pain, and a deep voice roared: “—Unterlassen Sie das, Ihr verrückten Bastarden!”

“Crazy bastards,” he breathed. Running toward the dense mass of the woods under the seesawing tracers he was invaded by a wild, teeth-clenched mood of hilarity. Something droned past his right ear, like the plucking of a taut string, and he gasped in glee. Then he was in the woods, and an absolute dark washed over him. He leaned against a tree trunk, his mouth so dry it hurt him, his head pounding as though it would burst. But now he was safe.

Damon's hand shook him. The big man could hardly speak. “Now. We move—out. Follow me.”

“But which—
way?
” he panted.

“Tree to tree. Pick one out and move to it. Then another.”

“I can't
see
…”

“Like cowboys—and Indians. All right?”

Like cowboys and Indians. He started to giggle, choked it off. If Mother could see me, he thought. Here. Now. In these woods. Then fear of losing Damon absorbed him, right to his fingers and toes. He could see nothing, groped warily ahead until his hand struck the bark of a tree, then crept on, listening for the Sergeant's movements. Suddenly he could see a little: the trunks of the pines were a little blacker than the dark of the woods. The difficulty was in moving without making any noise. He kept stumbling, hooking his feet on roots, on dead limbs. Branches whipped him in the face and drove him frantic; when he stepped on some dead leaves it sounded like kicking bags of broken glass. What in God's name were they trying to do? How did Damon know what direction to
take?
Everyone was gone and here they were wandering around in pitch-dark woods—

There was a sound of movement. To their right. Not where Sergeant Damon was. He froze by a tree, his mouth opened wide to silence his own breathing. Someone was moving straight toward Damon, then he had stopped. Brewster tried to raise his rifle, found he could not. His whole body was shaking with every heartbeat, and his hands had no sensation. For an instant he wanted to scream something, anything, and crash off through the woods; then that passed and he felt suddenly very alert, completely aware of all that was going on around him.

The man took two or three more steps: he should be almost exactly where Damon was. “Konrad?” the man said once, tentatively; his voice was unbearably loud in the close dark of the woods. Why, he's afraid, Brewster thought in amazement; he's more afraid than I am. He raised his rifle calmly.

“—Konrad?” the man repeated. “Wo sind—”

Before he could fire there was a thick, meaty sound, a grunt; the slow, even rustle of leaves, and then stillness. Brewster went carefully toward this tiny commotion, holding his rifle at his shoulder.

“Brewster?” Damon's voice came.

“Yes.”

“Let's go.”

“What happened, Sarge?”

“I slugged him.”

“Jesus.” The man lay slumped by the trunk of the tree, a part of it now in the darkness.

“He's either a stray, or lost from a patrol. Let's get going.”

For a time it was quite still; even the distant firing had faded. After the monstrous uproar of the bombardment, the collapsing walls of shock and the fury of the German attack, the silence seemed like a precious and tangible thing. Brewster could hear a frog croaking in some marshy place nearby. The pine needles here and there muffled their footsteps perfectly. He felt more confidence as his vision grew keener. As a child he had always been afraid of the dark; his most fearsome memory was a night when his parents had gone to the opera and the power had gone off while he was upstairs in his bedroom reading Conan Doyle—an onrush of sheer blackness without warning so sudden he had only gasped once, then lain rigid with the big book across his belly, while the darkness, swollen with terrors, descended on him pitilessly. After a very long time he had crept out of bed and lighted a candle—and his own shadow guttering and leaping along the wall had frightened him even more. But he
had
got out of bed and lighted the candle …

“Sarge,” he whispered hoarsely when he caught up with him again. “It must be almost dawn …”

Damon nodded; his face was gray, with a web of tiny lines under his eyes. “We've got to be more careful. Don't fire at anything unless your life depends on it. If you do you'll alert the whole German army.”

They worked their way along to the south and west, following a little ridge above a wood road. Twice more they heard men talking in German, and once they sank out of sight just as an artillery team trotted back along the road, heading toward the German rear. The riders were slumped over their saddles, their heads rocking, nearly asleep.

The ridge ended abruptly at the edge of a little ravine. The path ran down it for a way, between rock outcroppings covered with vines and old leaves. For some reason Brewster could not explain, the little gully filled him with dread. It looked exposed—so sunk in its depression, so bare of cover. To stop Damon he touched him on the shoulder and said: “Where are we going?”

Damon's brows rose. “Back to our own lines. Where'd you think?”

“—We'll never make it back, Sarge.”

“Sure we will. Of course we will. I'll bet you my next month's pay against yours.”

The Sergeant was grinning at him. “Hang on, Brewster. You're doing fine.”

It was much lighter now; through the breaks in the foliage overhead the sky was pearl and lavender behind the clouds. Moisture dripped from the branches. They started down the gully, crossed it, and entered the woods again. A horseman was riding hard through the field at the edge of the woods to their right—an officer in an immaculate gray uniform, the bill of his cap drawn low over his eyes. His saber and the horse's bridle made a loud jingling in the dawn stillness.

“Hurrying back with the good news,” Damon muttered, and spat. “Sons of bitches”—and Brewster was surprised at the anger in the Sergeant's voice.

The land ran downhill now; the trees thinned and the path wandered through dense banks of shrubs. They followed it in cautious little advances of twenty to thirty feet, pausing and peering ahead through the trees. Brewster had just come up to Damon and was about to say something to him when he saw the Sergeant stiffen. Below them, coming across the field, they could see a file of men walking.

“Prisoners,” Damon murmured.

Peering down Brewster counted six of them, three struggling with a wounded man carried on a stretcher, and two others. They were guarded by two Germans, one at the front and one in the rear of the little column. They kept passing and repassing behind the screen of trees. The Americans looked awkward and weary, particularly the three struggling with the improvised stretcher, which was made out of two rifles and a poncho; the wounded man lay inert, his bare head lolling against the chest of the man at the rear. They're coming this way, Brewster thought in a flash of panic, they're going to come up this path. Right past us. But he couldn't avert his gaze. One of the men carrying the stretcher stumbled, and the guard at the rear shoved at him roughly. The American threw up his head in protest, snarled something. His face caught the light: an angular, bony face, a broad mouth—