The Dream Merchants (28 page)

“My name is Saunders,” he said, “and I’m an easy guy to get along with.” His eyes looked down the line. Every man felt he was talking to him alone. “All you have to do to get along with me is to stay alive.” He paused again and looked at them. “From here on, you forget everything you ever heard except what you learned to stay alive. I want men, not heroes. Men, not corpses.

“To stay alive you must remember a few simple things. One, keep your head down. By that I mean don’t get curious and try to look over the top of the trench to see what the Heinies are doing. Lookouts will be posted for that job. Don’t do it if it’s not assigned to you. Two, keep your weapons clean and in good working order. The guy who lets his gun get fouled up is generally a corpse before he can get around to cleaning it again. Three, do what you’re told and nothing else. What we tell you to do is designed with but one thought in mind: your safety or—as little risk as can be afforded.”

He stopped talking and looked down the line again. “Do you understand me?” He waited for a reply. There was no answer. He smiled. “Follow those rules and we’ll all be on the same boat together going home. Don’t follow those rules and you might make the same trip home, but you won’t know it. Any questions?” he asked. There were none. He stood there for a few seconds looking at them; then he turned and walked to the edge of the trench.

Silently he placed his hands on a block of wood and raised himself cautiously toward the top of it. Slowly his head appeared over the top of the trench. There was a slight ping and a mound of dirt jumped into the air near his head as he quickly dropped back into the trench. He sprawled on his hands and knees for a moment before he rose and faced them. There was a strangely mocking light in his eyes as he spoke.

“See what I mean?” he asked.

***

The three of them formed a little triangle as they squatted on the ground at the bottom of the trench. Their hands held little metal cups of coffee, and the steam from it rose in clouds up to their faces.

Rocco lifted his cup to his lips and took a long sip of the inky black fluid. He put it down with a sigh. “I hear talk we’re goin’ over in the mornin’,” he said.

“Crap,” Joe replied comfortably. “I been hearin’ that ever since we got here, and that’s more’n five weeks ago.”

Johnny just grunted and drank his coffee.

“This ain’t the crap,” Rocco insisted. “If it was, why would they be pilin’ all these guys in here every night? I think we might be about ready now.”

Johnny thought it over. Rocco’s statement added up. Every night since they arrived more men had been coming up. Last night was the first night no new arrivals had come. Maybe they had their quota and were ready to kick off.

“To hell with it,” Joe said, finishing his coffee and putting the metal cup down. He loosened his belt and leaned comfortably back against the wall of the trench and lit a cigarette. “I wish I was back in that little village where we were the night we came up. Those French babes know how to please a man. I could stand a little of that right now.”

A soldier came up to them. Rocco, looking up, saw it was the lieutenant and started to get up.

The officer stopped him with a gesture. He looked down at them. “Savold,” he said talking to Rocco, “get your platoon inspected. See that everything’s in shape and let me know what you need by tonight.”

“Yes sir,” Rocco answered.

The officer walked away. Rocco got to his feet. “It’s beginning to look like I was right,” he said.

Johnny looked up at him. “Yeanh.”

The officer came back. He seemed to be hurried. “Savold!” he called.

Rocco turned to him. “Yes, sir.”

“Take over as acting sergeant,” the officer said. “Johnson just got hurt. Got someone for corporal?”

“How about Edge here?” Rocco gestured with his hand.

The officer turned and looked at Johnny. After a moment he spoke. “All right. Edge, you’re acting corporal.” He turned back to Rocco. “Tell Edge what he has to do, then come down to meet me at the captain’s dugout.” He turned on his heel and walked away rapidly.

Johnny turned to Rocco. “What did you go and do that for?” he asked.

“You can use the extra ten bucks a month, can’t you?” Rocco grinned.

***

There was a puddle of water at the bottom of the shell hole and they clung to its side to keep from getting wet. Not that it would make a great difference now. It had been raining all night and their clothes were soaked through and caked with mud. It was just instinctive—an inner desire to retain some degree of comfort.

“Where in hell are those guys Rocco said would meet us here?” Joe grumbled.

Johnny puffed at his cigarette in his closed palm. “I don’t know and I don’t care,” he answered. “I’m willing to stay here an’ wait for them for the rest of the war if I have to. I don’t like it out there, it ain’t healthy.”

Joe grubbed a cigarette from him. He lit it carefully from Johnny’s cigarette, shielding them so the glow would not reveal their sanctuary. The chatter of a machine gun rose in a crescendo over their heads. They could hear the whine of the bullets as they passed over them.

“They’re gonna have to knock out that gun before we kin go any further,” Joe said, listening to its noise.

Johnny looked at him. “Whatta yuh worryin’ about? In a hurry?”

Joe shook his head. “Nope, but I was thinkin’ maybe they expect us to do it.”

“What if they do?” Johnny asked. “We’re not mind-readers. Nobody told us to do it. Remember what the captain said? Just do what you’re told, no more. We did what we were told. From here on out, I stay until I’m told different.”

Joe didn’t answer. He began to scratch his head reflectively under his helmet. Suddenly he swore. He pulled something from his hair and threw it into the water. “Those God-damn cooties are drivin’ me nuts,” he said.

Johnny leaned back against the wall of the crater and shut his eyes. He was tired. For three days they had been pushing forward. No rest. Now he felt he could go to sleep right in the middle of no man’s land.

Joe shook him. He opened his eyes. It was night again. When he had shut them it had been late evening and the last traces of daylight still hung around in corners of the sky. “I must have been sleeping,” he said sheepishly.

Joe grinned at him. “I’ll say you were. You were snoring so loud I was afraid they could hear you in Berlin. I gotta hand it to yuh though, if you can sleep out here.”

The chatter of the machine gun drowned out Johnny’s reply. They were silent for a while. Joe fumbled in his knapsack and took out a bar of chocolate. He broke it in two and gave half to Johnny. They chewed on it, letting the rich chocolaty sweetness fill their mouths.

“I been thinkin’,” Joe said.

“Yeah?”

“They must expect us to get that gun,” he said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be waitin’.”

“That ain’t our worry,” Johnny said. “Nobody told us.”

Joe looked at him, his eyes narrowed a little. “This is a case where nobody can tell us and you know it. We have to make up our own minds.”

“My mind’s made up,” Johnny answered. “I’m following orders. I’m staying here.”

Joe watched him for a minute, then he shifted over onto his knees. He took two hand grenades from his belt and examined them. Then he looked over at Johnny. “I’m gonna take a whack at ’em.”

“You’re stayin’ here,” Johnny said flatly.

Joe leaned his head to one side and eyed Johnny speculatively. “You gonna make me?” he asked. His voice just as flat as Johnny’s had been.

They stared at each other a moment, then Johnny smiled. He shoved Joe with the flat of his hand. “Okay,” he said. “If yuh wanna be a hero I better go along and look out for yuh.”

Joe took his hand gruffly and squeezed it. He smiled. “I knew you’d see it, kid.”

Johnny smiled back at him. He took two hand grenades from his own belt and looked at them. Satisfied that they were in working order, he turned back to Joe and said: “I’m ready if you are.”

“I’m ready.” Joe began to crawl to the top of the shell hole. He looked behind him at Johnny, who was crawling up to him. “I couldn’t stand those cooties any more nohow.”

They were on the edge of the crater. Cautiously they peered over it. The chatter of the machine gun revealed flashes of light coming from ahead of them.

“See it?” Johnny whispered.

Joe nodded.

“You take it from the right, I’ll hit from the left,” Johnny whispered.

Joe nodded again.

“What’s the matter?” Johnny asked nervously. He was beginning to sweat a little. “Cat got your tongue?”

Joe grinned at him. “I’m too scared to talk,” he said. He raised himself to his hands and knees. “Come on kid,” he said. “Let’s break their asses!” And then he was running zigzag across the field.

Johnny huddled there for a second, then he followed him.

8

He lay quietly on the bed listening to the music that came in the open window. His eyes were wide and staring, yet they saw nothing. He didn’t turn them toward the window. He didn’t want to see the kind of day it was, the sky so soft and blue, the sunlight so golden on the fresh spring green of the trees. With one hand he clutched the sheet that covered him to his chest as if he were afraid it would be torn from him.

The music stilled, leaving a quiet that echoed in his mind. Unconsciously he listened for the next tune. He knew what it would be, they always played it just when the bus was pulling out.

He reached for a cigarette on the little table next to the bed. He put it in his mouth and lit it. He drew deeply on it, waiting for the music to begin again.

The sound of voices came to him. They floated lightly and softly on the breeze. Men’s voices. Women’s voices. Nice words. Soft words. Tender and somehow gruff words.

“So long nursey, if yuh wasn’t a looey I’d kiss yuh!”

A soft warm laugh and then the answer: “Go ahead, soldier, but watch that arm. Don’t forget what the doctor said!”

Other voices. Men’s voices. Man talk. “I coulda got in, bud. Honest. But then she had to go an’ pull her rank on me!”

Disgusted agreement. “Yeanh. They only put out for officers.”

The first two. His voice: “I’ll miss you.”

Her voice: “I’ll miss you too.”

“Kin Ah come back an’ see yuh sometimes?”

A second’s hesitation, and then the reply: “What do you want to do that for, soldier? You’re going home!”

One at a time the voices faded away. For a moment there was a silence, then the roar of a motor being started.

His free hand tightened on the sheet. Now. Now it was coming. The music hit him like a wave in the ocean. It rolled over him until he felt he was drowning in it. It was loud. It was brassy. It was written to torment him.

“When Johnny comes marching home again, tra la, tra la.”

He put his hands to his ears to shut out the sound. But the music was loud and it pushed its way past his hands. He heard the gears being meshed, the cries of farewell, and over it all beat the loud, pulsing, dissonant sound of the music.

At last the music died away. He took his hands down from his ears. They were damp with the sweat that had run down his face. He took the cigarette from his mouth and put it in the ashtray on the little table. He dried his hands on the bedsheet.

Slowly the tension seeped from him. His eyelids drooped and almost closed. He was tired. His breathing slowed. And after a while he slept.

***

The sound of dishes rattling in a tray awakened him. With the same motion with which he opened his eyes, he reached for a cigarette. Before he could light it, a steady hand held a match under it.

Without looking up, he dragged deeply on the cigarette. “Thanks, Rock,” he said.

“I got your lunch, Johnny. D’yuh want tuh get outta bed to eat it?” Rocco’s voice was as steady as his hand had been.

Instinctively Johnny’s eyes turned to the crutches at the foot of the bed. They leaned against the bed, a constant reminder of what he had become. He shook his head. “No.”

He lifted himself with his hands as Rocco straightened the pillow behind him and bolstered it so that it would support his back. Rocco put the little stand on the bed across his thighs. He looked down at the plate and then away.

“I’m not hungry.”

Rocco pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down and looked at him. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He let the smoke out his nostrils slowly. “I can’t figure you out, Johnny,” he said quietly.

Johnny didn’t answer.

“You’re supposed to be a buggin’ hero, an’ yet you’re afraid to get out of bed,” he continued in the same quiet voice. “You’re the same guy that charged a German machine-gun nest single-handed. They pinned a medal on yuh. In fact, two medals. Ours an’ the Frenchies’.” His voice filled with quiet wonder. “An’ yet yuh won’t get outta bed.”

Johnny uttered one violent ugly word. He turned and looked at Rocco’s impassive face. “Let them go walk on their friggin’ medals. They gave ’em to Joe too, but it don’t do him any good now. I tole yuh enough times that I didn’t go alone. If I’da known Joe got it, I woulda quit right there. I didn’ wanna be a hero.”

Rocco didn’t answer and they sat there silently smoking their cigarettes. Johnny was the first to break the silence.

He gestured toward the seven empty beds in the room with him. “When is the new batch comin’ in?” he asked.

Rocco turned and looked at the beds and then turned back to him. “Tomorrow morning,” he answered. “Till then yuh got a private room.” He looked at Johnny speculatively. “What’sa matter, Johnny, getting lonely?”

Again Johnny didn’t answer.

Rocco stood up and pushed his chair back. He looked down at Johnny. The sympathy that showed on his face was not apparent in his voice; it was studiedly casual. “Yuh could’ve gone with ’em if yuh wanted, Johnny.”

Johnny’s face froze into a mask. His voice was as casual as Rocco’s had been. “I like the service here, Rock. I think I’ll stay awhile.”

Rocco smiled slowly. “This is a transient hotel, Johnny. It ain’t my idea of a place to settle down.”

Johnny squashed his cigarette in the tray. He looked up at Rocco. His voice was bitter. “You can afford to have your ideas, Rock. Nobody’s makin’ you stay here, but if you do, keep ’em to yourself.”