Ordinary Heroes (31 page)

"But how it was really, Captain, I went along with it mainly because I was just like you. I wanted to fight. I wanted to be like Jesse Owens and rub old Adolf Hitler's face in the dirt so hard that that damn mustache come off his face. And I knew they wouldn't see hide of many colored troops near the front.

"Once I got in the middle of Omaha Beach, I gave that another think, all right. I'd'a been just as happy to set 'em straight and go back to England. It's full crazy, what I got myself into. Ain't a day that passes I don't think once or twice I should have listened harder to my mom. Times I feel like I'm not being true to my own, even though I never said a false word to nobody. And I'm always tellin myself I gotta get home alive, just so ain't nobody there sayin how it's a mistake for a colored man to think he can do the same things as white folks. It's just all one hell of a mess."

He peeked over at me again and reached onto the ledge for my toothbrush, which he'd pulled from his mouth and thrown in there as the shelling began.

You want this back?"

The word 'yes' was halfway to my lips, but I retrieved it without a flicker.

"Yeah, damn it, I want it back," I said then and snatched it from him, jamming it into my mouth. The toothpowder had frozen hard on the bristles. "I didn't get a chance to use it this morning. And tomorrow I'm first. You can be first the day after that."

He looked at me for a while.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Chapter
19.

THE SKIES

Late in the day, American C-47s passed overhead. Looking back toward Savy, we could actually see the chutes and supplies drifting dow
n o
ut of the big Gooney Birds, and the glowing trails of the German antiaircraft fire darting at them like malign June bugs. The parachutes, red, yellow, and blue, resembled blossoms, a lovely sight in the clean sky, but not one we enjoyed for long. Nazi bombers and fighters appeared from the other direction, and the fierceness of the AA soon cleared the skies. Once our planes were gone, the Germans repositioned their guns and another artillery barrage began. They clearly feared that with their AA occupied, the Americans might have moved out ground forces, and the new volleys seemed to go on twice as long as they had i
n t
he morning. As we huddled in the hole, I felt my teeth smash against each other so hard I thought I might have broken one of my molars.

Once it was over, the field telephone pealed. It was Algar, who'd chosen the code name Lebanon.

"What's the condition out there, Lawyer?"

We'd sustained two more wounded from the last barrage, both relatively minor injuries. One man would need to be moved back to town, along with the young fellow with the leg wound. Algar promised that the ambulances would be there after dark.

"I'm hearing that your Army commander has broken through to the south," Algar said. "Punched a hole, they're saying. We should start seeing reinforcements. Make sure your men know. We had a hundred sixty supply drops here, now Not enough. But there's some ammo. Medicine."

"Yes, sir." The news about Patton was welcome, but my men would believe only what they saw. Everything was rumor until then.

"How's the mood?"

The mood, I said, was good, considering. The men realized there was nothing to do about the cold, but they were complaining often about not being allowed out of the holes in daylight, especially to relieve themselves. Orders were to shit in your hat if you had to, but since nobody was going to abandon his helmet with two tree bursts every day, the directive put the troops to a ridiculous choice.

Sunset came shortly after that, a moment of great solemnity, as it signaled a lessening of the dangers. The Panzers wouldn't come at night in these conditions when they could get stuck so easily if they veered off the roads. And the Germans, after the huge push that drove us back from the Ardennes, were too short supplied to engage in the harassing artillery fire they normally would have ordered up in darkness. We had to be alert for Kraut scout teams, who could sneak across the field in an effort to assay our position, but we all knew we had survived and would soon be able to move around. The sun, which had edged in and out for hours, knifed through in the distance, breaching the clouds with an intense coppery shaft blazing on the forest across the field. Biddy grabbed his camera, somehow seeing a blackand-white picture in all that color.

Meadows called and we made night assignments. Bill also had a request. The men wanted to make a fire in the pump house. There would be no light. The issue was the smoke, which might betray our position. But the wind was still coming from the north, which would carry the odor back toward town. It was a calculated risk, but we decided it was worth it. I doubted that even if the wind shifted the Germans would be able to tell our smoke from their own. Each squad would be allowed in the pump house for half an hour to eat their rations, as well as fifteen minutes before and after night guard. The gunners who'd been out on the strongpoints all day without communication would get stretches twice as long and go first.

The ambulance arrived near 6
:00
p
. M
., accompanied by a supply truck. The quartermasters were supposed to be bringing tomorrow's rations, but they had only two C ration containers. It meant I was going to be able to feed the men just once tomorrow.

"Colonel hopes for better Christmas Day," said the quartermaster sergeant. I knew he was husbanding whatever he had for a Yule treat, but starving the troops in advance seemed like a poor way to enhance their appreciation. "He did send these, though. Requisitioned them from a local cafe in Bastogne. Owner beefed something terrible, but hell, he ain't doing much business these days anyway."

I stuck my field knife into one of the soft pine boxes and found table linens. It took me a moment to catch on, then I summoned my three noncoms, Meadows and Biddy and Masi, to distribute them to their platoons.

"What the hell?" Meadows asked.

I explained that the men could use the white tablecloths as camouflage, if they needed to leave their holes during daylight. We were lucky the linens had been starched. Otherwise they would have been shredded for bandages.

Once he'd handed out the cloths and napkins, Meadows returned. He wanted me to know this ha
d e
levated me in the eyes of the men, an effect that would undoubtedly be lost when they got hungry tomorrow. Nevertheless, I appreciated the fact that Meadows was looking out for my morale, too.

"If Algar had any sense, Bill, he'd have made you the company commander."

"Tell you a secret, Captain, he offered. But I don't see myself as officer material. Second lieutenant, frankly, that's the worst job in the Army. At least in the infantry."

Biddy, across the hole, grumbled in agreement. I'd heard the statistics, but I answered, "The food is better at headquarters."

"Suppose that's so," said Meadows. "I'm just not the one to give orders, sir. Not in combat." "Because?"

"Because if you live through it and your men don't, that's something I don't want to deal with. All respect, sir.

It was another problem I'd never considered, because I was too green, and I dwelt on it in silence while Meadows went on his way.

As captain, I'd assigned myself the last stretch in the pump house, and I decided to try to sleep before then. I took off my overcoat. The snow had frozen it solid and it actually stood up by itself, leaned against one wall in the foxhole. I was too cold to fall off. Instead, near the end, awaiting my turn in the pum
p h
ouse, I actually started counting to myself. When I finally walked in, the heat was one of the sweetest sensations of my life, even though my hands and feet burned intensely as they thawed. The men of Meadows' Second Squad were in there again, taking as long as they could to consume their rations. I knew they'd overstayed by the speed with which they all jumped up when I entered.

"As you were, gentlemen."

O'Brien told me to go slow approaching the fire. These men were familiar with the hazards of frostbite.

"Captain," said O'Brien. "Can I ask you a question? You ever heard of a fella getting frostbite of the dick? Collison's worried that his dick will fall off."

I'd never heard of that. I thought back to high-school biology and explained that what imperiled the extremities was their distance from the heart.

"I told you, Collison," said O'Brien. "You're so dumb, you know what they call the space between your ears? A tunnel. You know what you got in common with a beer bottle, Collison? You're both empty from the neck up."

Collison, on his haunches, looked toward the fire as O'Brien laid into him. I suspected that O'Brien was giving him the treatment for my benefit, after last night.

"Take it easy, O'Brien. Save a few cracks for the rest of the war."

Saved by an unexpected source, Collison looked my way briefly.

"How's he even remember all these? I can't never remember no jokes."

"That's because you're a marching punch line, Collison," said O'Brien.

Meadows came in then to send the squad back to their holes. First Squad was on the way up. I crept closer to the fire and Meadows stayed with me a minute to warm his wire-framed glasses, which were frosting over. The little red dents stood out beside his nose.

"So, Bill, what was your racket before this started?"

"Me? I was on hard times, Captain, if you want to know the truth of it. I grew up in California, close to Petaluma. My folks were farmers but I got myself down to Frisco, worked as a longshoreman and made a good buck, too. But there was no work come '34 or '35. It didn't go right between me and my wife, then. I was drinking. Finally, she took herself and my two boys back to Denver where her people was from, put up with her folks. I just started hopping freight cars, looking for work. But there were lots of chappies like me sittin 'round fires in every freight yard in every city. Those were bad times, Captain. I was first in line at the Army recruiter when the mobilization started in '40. This damn war was a piece of luck for me. If I live through it. Wife remarried but it didn't work out and she's all lovey-dovey now when she writes me. I really want to see those boys. Oldest is sixteen. I sure as hell hope this war ends before he can join up. I don't know how I'd keep my senses if I had to worry about him being in this mess, too. You think it's gonna be over soon?"

I'd thought so, just a week ago. At the moment it looked as if there was more fight in the Nazis than any of us had expected. Still, it seemed important to tell the men I believed victory was not far off. Meadows looked at me hard to see if I really believed it.

I ate a cracker out of today's K ration and decided to save the rest for morning. I caught two hours' sleep, then warmed up again in the pump house before my watch. The men of Masi's platoon, too small to be divided into squads, began filing in. Meadows and I were on the same schedule and headed out together.

"Gee whiz," said Meadows, putting his gloves on again, "how do you figure they took a fella from California and sent him to the European theater?"

"Man, you ain't countin on the Army to make any sense, are you, First Sergeant?" asked one of the men coming in.

We all laughed. I stood outside listening to m
y m
en for a minute as their talk rose into the night through the chimney.

"You figurin it's some bad luck we're here rather than the Pacific?"

"Lot warmer in the Pacific, I know that."

"Every letter I get from my brother," said someone else, "is about how damn hot it is. But it's not how that's a blessing or nothing. They get every kind of rash. He says he got stuff growin on him, he didn't even know a man's skin could turn that color. And a boy's got to have some absolute luck to get himself a drink. Ain't like here in Europe with all this wine and cognac, nothing like that. Best that happens is somebody with an in with the quartermaster gets hold of some canned peaches and sets himself up a still, makes something tastes like varnish. Guys is drinkin so much Aqua Velva, quartermaster's never got any in stock. And they-all's fighting among themselves to get it."

"But it ain't cold there."

"Yeah, but I'd rather get killed by a white man, I really would."

"Now what kind of fucking sense does that make?" another asked.

"That's how I see it. I ain't askin you to feel that way, Rudzicke."

"Don't be a sorehead."

"Just how I feel is all. Think it would be a littl
e e
asier to go out like that. Just don't want the last face I see to be brown."

"I can understand that," said another man.

"I tell you another thing," said the first man, called Garns, "them Japs is savages. They're like the wild Indians, eat a man's heart. They think we're some inferior species like monkeys. They really do."

"They're the ones look like monkeys. Don't they? The Krauts at least, they'll treat you okay if they take you prisoner. Buddy of mine wrote me how he was fighting on this island, Japs caught one of their men. They sliced this guy's backbone open while he was still alive, then they poured gunpowder in there, and lit the poor son of a bitch. Can you imagine? And the rest of his platoon, they're hidin out and listening to this shit."