The Young Lions (61 page)

"We fixed 'em, Lieutenant," Rickett said, happily. "We gave 'em a good dose. Right up the old dog."

"Yes," said Lieutenant Green in his squeaky voice, "we did very well. Anybody hurt up here?"

"Not in thith room." Rickett grinned. "Thith is a rugged team up here."

"Morrison and Seeley got it in the other room," Green said wearily, "and Fein has one in the lungs downstairs."

Noah remembered Fein in the hospital ward in Florida, enormous, bullnecked, hard, saying, "After the war you can pick whatever company you please…"

"However…" Green said with sudden brightness, as though he were beginning a speech. "However…" Then he looked vaguely about the room. "Isn't that the Normandie?" he asked.

"Yes," said Noah, "it's the Normandie."

Green smiled foolishly. "I think I will sign up for a cruise," he said.

The men did not laugh.

"However," Green said, passing his hand across his eyes, "when it gets dark, we're going to make a break. We're almost out of ammunition downstairs, and if they try again, we're fried. French-fried with ketchup," he said vaguely. "You're on your own when it gets dark. Twos and threes, twos and threes," he chanted squeakily, "the Company will dissolve in twos and threes."

"Lieutenant," Rickett said, from the window, where he was still peering out, with just a thin slice of his face exposed past the window-frame, "Lieutenant, is thith an order from Captain Colclough?"

"This is an order from Lieutenant Green," the Lieutenant said. He giggled. Then he caught himself and looked firm. "I have assumed command," he said formally. "Command."

"Is the Captain dead?" Rickett asked.

"Not exactly," said Green. He lay back suddenly on the white spread and closed his eyes. But he continued talking. "The Captain has retired for the season. He will be ready for next year's invasion." He giggled, lying, with his eyes closed, on the lumpy feather bed. Then, suddenly, he sprang up. "Did you hear anything?" he asked, anxiously.

"No," said Rickett.

"Tanks," said Green. "If they bring up tanks before it gets dark, French-fried with ketchup."

"We have a bazooka and two shells in here," Rickett said.

"Don't make me laugh." Green turned and stared at the Normandie. "A friend of mine once took that boat," he said.

"An insurance man from New Orleans, Louisiana. Got laid by three different women between Cherbourg and Ambrose Light. By all means," he said gravely, "by all means use the bazooka. That's what it's for, isn't it?" He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the window. Slowly he lifted his head and peered out. "I can see fourteen dead Krauts," he said. "What do you think the live ones're planning now?" He shook his head sadly, then crawled away from the window. He had to hold on to Noah's leg to pull himself up to his feet. "The whole Company," he said wonderingly, "the whole Company is fini. One day. One day of combat. It doesn't seem possible, does it? You'd think someone would have done something about it, wouldn't you? When it gets dark, remember, you're on your own, try to get back to our own lines. Good luck."

He went downstairs. The men in the room looked at one another. "All right," Rickett said sourly, "you ain't hurt yet. Get up to those windows."

In the dining-room downstairs, Jamison was standing in front of Captain Colclough and yelling. Jamison had been next to Seeley when he was hit in the eye. Jamison and Seeley were from the same town in Kentucky. They had been friends since they were boys, and had enlisted together.

"I'm not going to let you do it, you goddamn undertaker!" Jamison was yelling wildly to the Captain, who still sat at the dark table with his head despairingly in his hands. Jamison had just heard that they were to leave Seeley in the cellar with the rest of the wounded, when they made the break at dark. "You got us in here, you get us out! All of us!"

Three other soldiers were in the room now, staring dully at Jamison and the Captain, but not interfering.

"Come on, you coffin-polishing son of a bitch," Jamison yelled, swaying slowly back and forth over the table, "don't just sit there. Get up and say something. You said plenty back in England, didn't you? You were a big man with a speech when nobody was shooting at you, weren't you, you bloody embalmer? Going to make Major by the Fourth of July! Major with the firecrackers. Take that goddamn toy gun off! I can't stand that gun!"

Crazily, Jamison bent over and took the pearl-handled forty-five out of the holster and threw it into a corner. Then he ripped clumsily at the holster. He couldn't get it off. He took out his bayonet and cut it away from the belt with savage, inaccurate strokes. He threw the shiny holster on the floor and stamped on it. Captain Colclough did not move. The other soldiers continued to stand stupidly along the scroll-work oak buffet against the wall. "We were going to kill more Krauts than anybody else in the Division, weren't we, morgue-hound? That's what we came to Europe for, wasn't it? You were going to make sure that everybody did his share, weren't you? How many Germans have you killed today, you son of a bitch? Come on, come on, stand up, stand up!" Jamison grabbed Colclough and pulled him to his feet. Colclough continued to look dazedly down at the surface of the table. When Jamison stepped back, Colclough slid down to the floor and lay there. "Make a speech, Captain!" Jamison screamed, standing over him, prodding Colclough with his boot. "Make a speech now. Give us a lecture on how to lose a Company a day in combat. Make a speech on how to leave the wounded for the Germans. Give us a speech on map-reading and military courtesy, I'm dying to hear it. Go on down to the cellar and give Seeley a speech on first aid and tell him to see the Chaplain about the slug in his eye. Come on, give us a speech, tell us how a Major protects his flanks in an advance, tell us how well prepared we are, tell us how we're the best-equipped soldiers in the world!"

Lieutenant Green came in. "Get out of here, Jamison," Lieutenant Green said calmly. "All of you get back to your posts."

"I want the Captain to make a speech," Jamison said stubbornly. "Just a little speech for me and the boys downstairs."

"Jamison," Lieutenant Green said, his voice squeaky but armed with authority, "get back to your post. That's a direct order."

There was silence in the room. Outside, the German machinegun fired several bursts, and they could hear the bullets whining around the walls. Jamison fingered the catch of his rifle. "Behave yourself," Green said, like a schoolteacher to a class of children. "Go on out and behave yourself."

Jamison slowly turned and went out of the door. The other three men followed him. Lieutenant Green looked down soberly at Captain Colclough, lying quietly, stretched out on his side, on the floor. Lieutenant Green did not offer to pick the Captain off the floor.

It was nearly dark when Noah saw the tank. It moved ponderously down the lane, the long snout of its gun poking blindly before it.

"Here it comes," Noah said, without moving, his eyes just over the window-sill.

The tank seemed to be momentarily stuck. Its treads spun, digging into the soft clay, and its machine-guns waved erratically back and forth. It was the first German tank Noah had seen, and as he watched it he felt almost hypnotized. It was so large, so impregnable, so full of malice… Now, he felt, there is nothing to be done. He was despairing and relieved at the same time. Now, there was nothing more that could be done. The tank took everything out of his hands, all decisions, all responsibilities…

"Come on over here," Rickett said. "You, Ackerman." Noah jumped over to the window where Rickett was standing, holding the bazooka. "I'm gahnta see," Rickett said, "if these gahdamn gadgets're worth a damn."

Noah crouched at the window, and Rickett put the barrel of the bazooka on his shoulder. Noah was exposed at the window, but he had a curious sensation of not caring. With the tank there, so close, in the lane, everybody in the house was equally exposed. He breathed evenly, and waited patiently while Rickett manoeuvred the bazooka around on his shoulder.

"They got some riflemen waiting behind the tank," Noah said calmly. "About fifteen of them."

"They're in for a little surprise," Rickett said. "Stand still."

"I am standing still," Noah said, irritated.

Rickett was fussing with the mechanism. The bazooka would have to throw about eighty yards to reach the tank, and Rickett was being very careful. "Don't fire," he told Burnecker at the other window. "Let'th pretend we are not present up here." He chuckled. Noah was only mildly surprised at Rickett's chuckling.

The tank started again. It moved ponderously, disdaining to fire, as though there was an intelligence there that understood its paralysing moral effect that hardly needed the overt act of explosion to win its purpose. After a few yards it stopped again. The Germans behind it crouched for protection close to its rear treads.

The machine-gun further off opened fire, spraying the whole side of the building loosely.

"For Christ's sake," Rickett said, "stand still."

Noah braced himself rigidly against the window-frame. He was sure that he was going to be shot in a moment. His entire body from the waist up was fully exposed in the window. He stared down at the waving guns of the tank, obscure in the growing shadows of dusk in the lane.

Then Rickett fired. The bazooka shell moved very deliberately through the air. Then it exploded against the tank. Noah watched from the window, forgetting to get down. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment. Then the cannon swung heavily downwards, stopped, pointing at the ground. There was an explosion inside the tank muffled and deep. Some wisps of smoke came up through the driver's slits and the edges of the hatch. Then there were many more explosions. The tank rocked and quivered where it stood. Then the explosions stopped. The tank still looked as dangerous and full of malice as before, but it did not move. Noah saw the infantrymen behind it running. They ran down the lane, with no one firing at them, and disappeared behind the edge of the shed.

"It works, Ah reckon," Rickett said. "Ah think we have shot ourselves a tank." He took the bazooka off Noah's shoulder and put it against the wall.

Noah continued to stare out at the lane. It was as though nothing had happened, as though the tank were a permanent part of the landscape that had been there for years.

"For Christ's sake, Noah," Burnecker was yelling, and then Noah realized that Burnecker had been shouting his name again and again, "get away from that window."

Suddenly, feeling in terrible danger, Noah jumped away from the window.

Rickett took his place at the window, holding his BAR again.

"Nuts," Rickett was saying angrily, "we shouldn't ought to leave this here farm. We could stay here till Christmas. That fairy diaper-salesman Green ain't got the guts of a bug." He fired from the hip out into the lane. "Get back there," he muttered to himself. "Stay away from my tank."

Lieutenant Green came into the room. "Come on downstairs," he said. "It's getting dark. We're going to start out in a couple of minutes."

"I'll stay heah for a spell," Rickett said disdainfully, "jest to see that the Krauts keep a proper dithtance." He waved to Noah and Burnecker. "You-all go on ahead now and take off like a big-arsed bird if they spot you."

Noah and Burnecker looked at each other. They wanted to say something to Rickett, standing scornfully at the window, the BAR loose in his big hands, but they didn't know what to say. Rickett didn't look at them as they went through the door and followed Lieutenant Green downstairs to the living-room.

The living-room smelted of sweat and gunpowder and there were hundreds of spent cartridges lying on the floor, crushed out of shape by the feet of the defenders. The living-room looked more like a war than the bedroom upstairs. The furniture was piled on end against the windows and the wooden chairs were broken and splintered and the men were kneeling on the floor against the walls. In the twilit gloom Noah saw Colclough lying on the floor in the dining-room. He was lying on his back, his arms rigid at his sides, his eyes staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. His nose was running, and from time to time he sniffed sharply, but that was the only sound from him. His sniffing made Noah remember that he had a cold, too, and he blew his nose on the sweaty khaki handkerchief he fished out of his back pocket.

It was very quiet in the living-room. A single fly buzzed irritably around the room, and Riker swiped at it savagely twice with his helmet, but missed each time.

Noah sat down on the floor and took off his right legging and shoe. Very carefully he smoothed out his sock. It was very satisfactory to rub his foot gently with his fingers and pull the sock straight. The other men in the room watched him soberly as though he were performing an intricate and immensely interesting act. Noah put his shoe on. Then he put the legging back and laced it meticulously, pulling the trouser leg carefully over the top. He sneezed twice, loudly, and he saw Riker jump a little at the noise.

"God bless you," Burnecker said. He grinned at Noah and Noah grinned back. What a wonderful man, Noah thought.

"I can't tell you people what to do," Lieutenant Green said suddenly. He was crouching near the entrance to the diningroom, and he spoke as though he had been preparing a speech in the silence, but then had been surprised at hearing his own voice coming out so abruptly. "I cannot tell you which is the best way to try to get back. Your guess is as good as mine. You'll see the flashes of the guns at night, and you'll hear them during the day, so you should have a good general idea of where our people are. But maps won't do you any good, and you'd better keep off the roads as much as possible. The smaller the groups the better chance you'll have of getting back. I'm sorry it's worked out this way, but I'm afraid if we just sat here and waited, we'll all end up in the bag. This way, some of us are bound to get through." He sighed. "Maybe a lot of us," he said with transparent cheerfulness, "maybe most of us. The wounded are as comfortable as we can make them, and the French people downstairs are trying to take care of them. If anybody has any doubts," he said defensively, "he can go down and look for himself."