Souvenir (18 page)

Now Jake waited, listening to the sound of Shorty and Tuck making their way up the hill, boots crunching the brittle snow cover with each step. Jake winced, cursing the frozen crust, until he realized the noise was good news. If anyone was up there, they would have been shooting by now and tossing grenades at the noisy approach. So he leaned into the tree, getting as much of it between the wind and his body as he could, warming his hands under his armpits. Another noise rose up behind him, and he realized it was the echo of his own chattering teeth. Men pressed together, trying to gain a bit of warmth from each other, their bodies cooling down as they waited. The staccato clatter of their teeth sounded like castanets as the cold drove itself deep into their bodies, their brains responding, ordering jaws to spasm and run up some heat before everything frosted up.

Jake couldn’t stop his own teeth from chattering any more than anyone else could. He felt the cold inside himself, and the fear too. Fear of noise, fear of drawing attention, fear of how the men looked to him, waited for his decisions. Up or down, move or stop, everyone wanting him to decide. Now here they were, closer to death than most of them understood. Jake knew that they didn’t have much time left out in the open with this wind. They needed shelter, soon. Leaning his helmet against the tree, he let his cheek rub against the rough bark, the sensation allowing him leave where he was, for a precious moment. Closing his eyes, he left his freezing feet and shivering body behind, holding everything that would ever matter in that hard, cold, sticky pine bark on his cheek. The feeling stunned him. His whole future fell into place. He could see everything. A future as cold and lonely as this night, an agony of life, fear eating at him forever, as it did now. He wondered how scared everyone else was, if anyone felt the way he did. Alone, a freak of nature. Wrong, just plain wrong.

He knew he was cursed, cursed with bad blood, and he thought about the mark of Cain they’d told him about in Sunday school. Pa never went to church, but he always made Jake go, and Alice too. Maybe Pa knew he was damned and church was too good for him. Maybe he thought prayer might do them some good, or maybe he didn’t want them around the house on the Lord’s day to remind him what kind of sinner he was. Cain was a killer, and his mark was on all men. Some more than others. It ain’t fair, it ain’t your fault. Well then, whose fault was it? Whose fault will it be, with Pa’s mark on me?

Jake heard crying. A whimpering, and he was afraid it was him crying, feeling more like a little boy than he had in years. He took off a glove and rubbed fingers under his eyes. Nothing but pine smell, gritty, sticky, pungent. Pushing his hand back into the glove, he turned and saw Clay with his arm around a G.I., leading him away from the other men. The guy was crying, sobbing, his breath all gone as he heaved in air between gasps and tears. Jake could tell he was a replacement. He was young, barely out of high school, red cheeks and wide wet eyes, coat dirty, but not yet worn at the edges from living in it day after day.

“I’m c-c-cold,” he said, looking up at Clay, the effort to speak between sobs breaking his face, knotting his forehead, quivering his lips. Tears froze in tracks alongside his nose as he stopped to look at Jake.

“C-c-can’t we s-s-surrender?”

Jake looked away, towards the hill.

“C’mon, boy,” Clay said, his arm around his shoulder like a coach at school. “Let’s walk a bit, it’ll be okay, really. You know your momma don’t want her boy giving up first thing. Where you from anyway?”

Jake heard the words and didn’t care. Oakland. So what? What was that but a place to hope for, a home, a mother waiting by the fire or on the porch or at the train station, wherever mothers from Oakland waited for their Oakland boys. It had been years since Jake saw that piece of paper, held it up to Alice, figured out who was really who in his life and what that meant he was. But it wasn’t until this very moment, leaning against this cold tree, that he understood he really would never go back to the way it was. Bad as the knowing had been, he’d always had it tucked away in the back of his mind that he’d go home a hero, maybe wounded, but nothing bad, and everyone would be waiting, waving little flags down at the train station, and that piece of paper would be long forgotten. Ma would cry and Pa would be proud and maybe smile a bit. But Ma was no one to him now, nothing but a woman too stupid to know what her man was up to, or too scared to stop him. She was no mother, no mercy, nothing. Pa was Pa and that was bad enough right there. Alice, well Alice was another thing. His big sister never again. She probably wouldn’t even want him around, reminding her of the shame. Worked both ways, too.

There would be no going home. No one waiting at the station, no flags, no slaps on the back. They could all go to hell. He’d find someplace else to go, someplace safe, where he could keep his secret, where no one knew him, where his past was nobody’s business. Jake felt his shoulders shake. Shudders flew through his body. It was the cold, it had to be the cold. Squeezing his eyes tight, he jammed his head against the tree, whispering a prayer to the frigid air, but it didn’t stop the shivering or the chattering.

The cold carried Jake back to Pennsylvania, back to the deep winter of 1938, or maybe it was ’39, when he and Tommy Owens had gone outside in a blizzard. Biting wind, like this. They were fourteen and foolish, daring each other into acts that were now dazzling in their simplistic stupidity. Bundled up in wool coats, they climbed to the top of Miller’s Ridge, where you could look down into the valley and see the twists and turns of the old river, and feel the winds roaring up and slam into the hillside. Then, stripped to the waist, they stood bare-chested to the winds, hooting and hollering their youth and defiance, feeling their oats, daring the world to throw against them what it could. It seemed like it lasted forever, standing there, laughing, the worst winter they could remember harmless against their boldness. Did my teeth chatter? Did I shiver? Maybe, but it didn’t matter. There was hot soup and a warm fire waiting for us, our whole lives left to live, and secrets still hidden in desk drawers and cold hearts.

A hand on his shoulder. Jake turned, half jumping, falling back against the tree.

“You okay?” Clay asked, trying to get a fix on Jake’s eyes.

“Yeah,” said Jake, “good enough.”

“There,” said Clay, pushing on Jake’s shoulder, turning him towards the hill, pointing to Tuck slogging through the snow towards them, grinning.

“Goddamn, that boy’s got eyes like a fucking hawk,” Tuck said, heaving out frosted air as he tried to catch his breath.

“What?” said Clay.

“Kraut strongpoint up on that hill, what’s left of it. Looks like heavy mortars, but they got plastered. Bomb craters all around, lots of empty ammo boxes, they musta pulled out.”

“Yeah?” said Clay, waiting for the good news. He glanced at Jake and saw his eyes following the kid from Oakland as he walked back to the knot of men behind them. Jake’s tired face had an odd look, hate or some sort of passion. One second he’d been staring blankly at the ground and then Oakland walked by and Jake’s eyes widened, his lips showing a snarl as he stared at the kid’s face. Clay wondered what was wrong. The thought struck him as funny. What’s wrong? Lost, cold, hungry, darkness, Germans, minefields, and I’m worried about the look on Jake’s face?

He focused back on Tuck, and realized the fatigue and strain of the fight this morning…no, wait, yesterday morning, and the freezing march through the woods was catching up to him. Tuck’s face floated in front of him, and he realized Tuck was talking and he’d better listen.

“…one big dugout with a wood roof, and a bunch of good-sized foxholes, all with log roofs and camouflaged real good, and they’re all lined with hay! These Krauts built first class, there’s enough room for everyone. C’mon!”

Tuck took off back up the hill. Clay could see he was excited, so it had to be good news, but he was nervous. Kraut dugouts? What if they came back?

“Let’s go, guys!” Big Ned said, clapping Clay on the shoulder. “We don’t have a lot of choices.” Miller followed him up the hill, along with the rest of the men. They hadn’t heard everything, but anything was good enough for them. Someone to follow, an end to walking and a place to sleep. It was enough. They all filed by Clay and Jake, who still leaned against the pine tree. He looked almost unconscious, but Clay heard him counting.

“…fourteen, fifteen. You and me, seventeen. There was twenty of us.”

“I’ve been watching for stragglers,” Clay said.

“Don’t think they straggled,” Jake said. “I think they got the same idea Oakland did, ’cept they didn’t ask. They went.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep. Let’s get up there and find a spot.”

The two men walked side by side up the hill, neither of them saying out loud what they both worried about. That right now, some dumb ass replacement was drinking schnapps with a nice English-speaking German, probably smoking cigarettes in a warm house somewhere, safe behind the lines. Behind enemy lines. And telling him all about their escape, and how there was still a bunch of them out there, stumbling around in the dark, a bunch of saps, not like him. He was smart, alive, warm, and in his need to explain himself, excuse himself, he’d make them part of his story. And the German would agree, Ja, you are smart, you did the right thing. Then somebody would leave the room and give the signal for a search to start for twenty or so Amis who were too stupid to give up. They’d smoke a few more cigarettes until they got everything out of him they needed, then they’d throw him in a barbed wire cage and bring in the next smart guy, who’d be surprised at how nice the Krauts were and probably end up telling them the same story, about those dumb fucks wandering around out there, trying to get back to their lines. Trying to get home. 
The big dugout was impressive. Wood plank roof, covered in dirt with pine boughs and rocks on top. One entrance at the rear, a narrow trench leading to an actual door, a wood frame fit into the cut earth. Inside, ten G.I.s were crammed in, body heat already building up as they lay next to each other on the soft hay. Wood boards were nailed to the supports. It looked like an underground room, but it smelled like a barn that needed mucking out. It was damp and musty, earth and hay soaking up the odors of the former and current occupants and filling the air with a sour smell, maybe cabbage or sweat, it was hard to tell. You couldn’t stand up straight, but if you bent over or got down on your knees you could get around. A narrow firing slit with a view out towards the open fields ahead ran the length of the dugout. No one else looked out, but Clay and Jake at the door exchanged glances. A silent
fuck
passed between them. It was obvious this was a good position, and it was obvious why it had been shelled. And why it might be shelled again, for good measure. It was a hay-lined death trap, and either American 155mm shells or a German heavy weapons platoon would come calling sooner or later.

“Keep it quiet in here,” Jake said. “We gotta move out soon as it’s light.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Head down, he pushed the door open and squeezed out. He watched as the other men split into pairs and went into foxholes. They were as elaborate, a thick roof of pine logs, with a rear trench leading to a hole that was covered by a blanket nailed to the logs. Hay-lined and wood planks inside too. Behind the main dugout was a firing pit that had been covered by camouflage netting strung up on poles and tied off to tree limbs. White fabric was pulled through the netting, moonlight gleaming off it. It was ripped and torn, flapping back and forth with the low winds.

“That’s what I saw, Jake,” Shorty said. “That fabric, it was moving and all lit up by the moon, and it was too even. I knew it had to be netting, I knew it.”

“Nice job, Shorty, you saved our asses,” Jake said, looking down into the firing pit to avoid Shorty’s eyes. He didn’t want him to see the worry on his face as he enjoyed his find. Two large mortars were twisted and blacked, the tubes bent from the explosions. Ammo must’ve gone off too, there were black gouges in the snow and bits of burned cloth that maybe had been uniforms. The snow was trampled where it wasn’t blown away, and wooden crates and other debris were scattered all around them. A blackened helmet with a hole in it, unrolled bandages, all signs of casualties and a quick pull-out.

“Look down here,” Clay said, nodding his head down to the ground in front of him. The snow was drifting back over the crater, but where the shell had hit was unmistakable. Right on top of a two-man foxhole. Pine logs were shattered and through the ruined roof were the churned up remains of two Germans. You could tell it was two only by the size of the hole and the fact that three hands were visible. Nothing else was in the right place or attached to anything. Blood had frozen them into a solid mass, clothing, helmets, bones and organs all waiting for the spring thaw. So convenient, dying in a small hole. Fill it in and pound down a marker. Foxhole, grave, it was all the same.

“We can’t stay here long,” Jake said, moving away, looking for an intact foxhole.

“Why not?” Shorty said, as if his feelings were hurt that his discovery was less than perfect. “We could wait…”

“Jake’s right,” Clay cut in. “Either the Krauts come back or this place gets hit again and it’s us they find in the ground up here. We gotta get a few hours sleep, but then we leave, soon as the sun’s up.”

“Okay fellas, okay. Shit.” Shorty dropped his head and went off to help Tuck clear out a foxhole. Big Ned and Miller came over to them with something wrapped under their arms.

“We found three overcoats,” Big Ned whispered. “Miller did, actually. Not enough to go around, but you could use them as blankets.” He handed Jake a rolled up German greatcoat, then went over to Tuck and Shorty and gave them theirs. Miller stood there, a big grin on his face. It was as if Big Ned had tousled his hair after he caught a fly ball on a warm spring day. He’d done good, done good for his buddies, and Clay could see that thought light up his face.