Called to Arms Again: A Tribute to the Greatest Generation

by J. L. Salter

  In the resulting firestorm several shots went toward Leo’s garage and one hit the tip of Melvin’s left foot. He screamed like a hyena.

  Pete nodded at Ellie and then called for concentrated fire while Ellie scooted from the end of the barricade to the inside of Leo’s garage — just under twenty feet. The entire way she waved her bat like a major leaguer in the on-deck circle. One unpredicted result: not a single gangster shot at her. They just stared like they’d never before seen a woman run from a barricade, around a minefield, to a garage… while waving a bat.

  A former LPN, Ellie took off Melvin’s shoe and quickly assessed the damage: inside corner of his big toe. Actually, not much more than a nick, but extremities bleed a lot. Ellie found most of what she needed by rummaging in Leo’s bathroom and kitchen, which she entered from the door at the back of the garage.

  She cleaned and dressed the wound quickly. “Need somebody to spell you over here?”

  “Just cut the toe top out of my shoe and put it back on. I can’t walk without shoes on account of my arches.” Melvin grimaced though he’d been remarkably calm throughout the ordeal.

  Ellie found some garden shears on the garage wall and made quick work of the toe box on Melvin’s specially-arched shoe. One might have thought she modified shoes for a living.

  Melvin groaned as Ellie replaced and laced his altered shoe.

  “If it ain’t throbbing yet, it’s going to, pretty soon. Okay for a while?”

  He nodded. “I can still shoot and now I’ve got a better reason to hit somebody.”

  “Try to keep it up a little, if that don’t mess with yer aim.” She demonstrated by sticking out her own leg. “If you change yer mind, just signal somebody.” She pointed to the barricade.

  Although Kelly had previously been nicked by a ricochet, Melvin’s was the first blood drawn directly by a gangster’s bullet.

  In the enemy camp, the situation was in flux. Retracing their route, loader H5 and the north flanking team headed back toward the huddle behind the front truck. The three loaders were struggling; H5 and H2 assisted the wounded H7. The groaning black man held his own right arm while H2 applied direct pressure to the wound with a purple bandana.

  No sooner than they arrived, Foss tapped loader H5 for a new mission. With the defenders distracted by their own obvious wound, Foss saw opportunity to move forward. H5 was still panting from his recent exertion.

  “See that open garage?” Foss pointed to Art’s condo and the door mistakenly left open by Herb previously. “Maybe we can’t go clear around them, but you git in that garage and you got a real good line on everybody at the near side of that blockade. Understand?”

  H5 nodded. “You mean now?”

  Foss just pointed to the open garage door.

  The newly-appointed one-man patrol took a deep breath and ran in a zigzag pattern, like he’d seen in a movie once, and flung himself into Art’s cluttered garage.

  From the barricade, Art gulped loudly as he watched the hoodlum. Having once served as a military engineer, he might have purposefully constructed an elaborate booby trap for just such an incursion. But, truth be told, Art simply collected lots of junk and had difficulty committing to a disposal program. With his wife out of town for an extended time, even more clutter had piled up. The result was a precariously balanced pile of heavy boxes which practically filled his garage. These had evidently been nudged slightly when Herb was previously the defenders’ lookout from that same corner. Now that this criminal had flung himself into Art’s garage, the delicate balance of those many boxes instantly disintegrated, and they collapsed upon him in a loud crash. Nobody heard a sound out of H5 himself, so he was presumed to be knocked out cold.

  From Leo’s garage, Ellie signaled Pete, who again ordered suppressing fire. As before, many of these were Chet’s M-1 blanks, because the defenders’ live ammo was rapidly diminishing.

  Boldly waving her bat again, Ellie scrambled from Leo’s garage to the barricade. She was winded when she reached Pete’s position. “Left foot, big toe, inside corner. Lots of blood, but just a nick. He’ll lose that nail, but it wasn’t nothing special anyhow. Fungus.” She rubbed her hands on her pants.

  Pete nodded and patted her shoulder. “Good work, Ellie.”

  Irene wished she had run into Leo’s garage to help Melvin, if it could have generated the admiration she now saw in her husband’s eyes for Ellie the medic.

  In the enemy camp, Foss watched with mounting dismay as his evolving plan continued to devolve. That garage maneuver had been intended to angle some fire from one side and keep the elderly defenders pinned down. Now it was simply a footnote of mild amusement to Earl and Bernie, and of concern to Art as to what inside his boxes might have broken.

  Foss signaled to driver H4, hunkered below the dashboard inside the large forward van, to get ready. H4 could see his boss through the side mirror.

  From the barricade, Kelly had seen the thug dash for Art’s garage opening and wondered if any of the others would try for Pete’s garage, nearest her. “Sure wish I had my shotgun right now. This old rake won’t do much good.”

  “Use that capsule gun.” Diane was never short of ideas. “Maybe you can put their eyes out.”

  Ellie was quickly back in her groove behind Chet’s truck in the barricade. She realized, from Pete’s relay of Norm’s report, that Force Mitchell had breached the enemy’s rear over fifteen minutes ago. By now Ellie figured they were at or beyond the mouth of Placid Lane. She knew enough about Gary’s and Steve’s abilities to assume they had already dispatched any gangsters away from the main force. That gave Ellie information which Foss and Dante did not possess: a handful of good guys were already operating behind enemy lines.

  But where were Wade’s Warriors?

  Ellie reached around behind Irene and tapped Pete, who motioned for Kelly to blow the air horn again. Kelly did, right into Chet’s left ear. He reeled. Diane and Ashley would have been in the blast, but both were seated on the pavement examining Diane’s knee, which had started bleeding again slightly.

  The air horn had the same effect as a school bell sounding the end of recess. Everybody stopped right where they were, with greatly perturbed expressions.

  Ellie did not need a megaphone for her voice to carry. “Okay. Like I said, the whole Bless George American Legion Post is on their way. And you punks got about three minutes to drop them guns and hit the ground. Unless you want yer butts stomped for good measure.”

  “Yeah. Nice bedtime story, you old witch. So where’s all them Legion-ites? Ha!” Foss huddled briefly with Herve, who hurried to the large van’s cab and briefed driver H4, whom Foss had just signaled.

  H4 slammed into gear and the front van began rolling slowly.

  Pete called for concentrated fire. Several Garands shot at the grill and the tires. Some of the rounds evidently hit, but didn’t stop the massive vehicle. Bernie fired off another shotgun blast at the vicinity of the truck and the kick nearly bowled him over again. He loaded the fourth 12-gauge shell in his daddy’s ancient Long Tom.

  Pete hustled over to his left. “Art, put that over/under in the radiator. Both barrels. Quick. Reload and shoot again if you have to. We need that thing stopped.”

  He did. It did… after the third round. The results were punctured hoses, split belts, and some cracked hydraulic lines. The huge radiator hissed with steam and smoke and the massive van rolled to a stop just short of Art’s Chrysler, right in front of his own condo, about eighty feet from the barricade.

  “Good job, Art.” Pete’s jaw stuck out briefly. That truck’s definitely out of commission.

  At the disabled van, H4 bailed out and scurried toward the rear of Art’s parked sedan. A quick huddle among Foss, Herve, and H4, and then all three zigzagged to the rear of the second van.

  Dante had begun moving down the hill to check on the third vehicle’s raised hood when he saw Foss and Herve regrouping behind the second truck, so he returned also.

  From the
south flank, haulers D13 and D15 returned, led by driver H6.

  Now the central enemy group was reinforced back to operational strength. Besides Foss there was Herve, plus drivers H4 and H6 and loader H2, and Dante, plus haulers D13 and D15. Total of eight. H1, driver of the second vehicle, was behind the wheel where he belonged. Nine.

  Loader H7, who’d sustained the bullet wound, was laid out near a small tree in front of Frank’s condo. Someone had tied the bandana tightly over his injured forearm. He lay near runner H9 who was still unconscious from the orange which had smacked him right between the eyes.

  Hauler D16 headed toward the rear to look for three missing colleagues — D11, D12, and D14. They were completely out of commission and guarded by the Elmer and Ralph duo. But none of the gangsters realized that yet.

  D16 was about to find out.

  Herve ran around to the front of the second vehicle with driver H4. New instructions: driver H1 was relieved and H4 took his place.

  Driver H4 revved the engine. Hauler D13 and loader H2 piled into the back of the operational vehicle. Former driver H1 was given an AK-47 and told to ride shotgun up front.

  From the barricade, it looked certain the enemy was preparing to ram. The truck with the fourteen-foot enclosed cargo box started moving up Placid’s hill and built up speed as it approached the rear of the larger van.

  Pete’s Model 70 barked loudly and driver H4 slumped over with a .308 bullet deep in his right shoulder. The windshield had a neat hole with a minimum of cracks and veins. This truck came to rest about fifty feet behind the largest van, approximately in the middle of the street, in front of Melvin’s condo. The engine bucked and stalled when H4’s foot abruptly flew off the clutch. Right before losing consciousness he fell over onto H1’s lap.

  If it hadn’t been in gear, the vehicle would have rolled back down the slope. The three gangsters riding in that truck abandoned the wounded driver and scurried back in the direction of the smallest remaining vehicle — the stake-bed.

  It was right then that Dante’s hauler D16, heading to the rear, finally reached the third truck and noticed its engine had been tampered with. Though he pointed frantically and yelled toward the forward group, he was unable to get anyone’s attention.

  Except for Gary’s.

  ****

  Task Force Mitchell

  Gary scored right away as he intercepted hauler D16, who’d tried to signal his forward cohorts. The look of astonishment on D16’s expansive face was spectacular but short-lived. Gary clubbed the 10 mm barrel over his left ear and the hauler went down like a punch-drunk boxer. Then Gary continued up the street.

  Still at the low side of the third duplex east of the Henleys, Mitch watched Gary and Steve move west on both sides of Placid, up the hill and curve. Both were hunkered over and exceedingly alert. Mitch wanted desperately to get to Kelly, but he needed a moment to devise a plan and determine a route. Only in movies can you run into a melee like this and emerge on the other side of the barricade without a scratch.

  Back near the intersection of Placid and North Pleasant, Elmer and Ralph had long ago finished tying up the three haulers: D11, D12, and D14. All were unconscious except D11, the feisty white man with a filthy rag in his mouth.

  “Let’s drag them over there.” Elmer, or maybe Ralph, looked for a place to hold on to unconscious D12.

  A brother reached under one of D12’s knees and his sibling lifted the other knee. They hauled him fairly easily across the pavement, up over the curb, and on toward the back of the trailer. From that short distance, feisty D11 saw his associate’s skull bounce on the curb and he began shaking his own head frantically.

  “Sorry, Mack. You weren’t invited here. This whole thing was your idea.” Ralph turned to Elmer, or vice versa. “He’s ready.”

  D11 struggled and moaned pitifully. Both siblings almost pitied him, for a few seconds. But each realized if the roles were reversed, they’d likely be dead already. With that in mind, a little head bump on a comparatively soft concrete curb didn’t seem so callous.

  They’d need a winch to lug the sizeable hauler D14 across forty feet of blacktop. On their way toward the trailer to look for a rope, the look-alike brothers leaned forward a bit; it would be exaggerating to say they even quartered-over. The trailer held nothing to help them, so the elderly siblings worried no further about that assignment.

  Mitch had told them to stay near the trailer, keep an eye on these three haulers, and not let any other gangsters get past them heading out. But the brothers figured that was a one-man job. Orders notwithstanding, there was shooting up ahead and they had friends on that barricade line. Elmer picked up the recently discarded tire iron and headed forward, while Ralph remained as the solo lookout from the cover of the stake bed’s cab. Or vice-versa.

  ****

  Main Battlefront

  During a firing lull, Ashley heard faint yelling off to her far right. She grabbed Kelly’s elbow and pointed south.

  “What on earth was that?” Kelly slapped Diane’s arm. A souped-up golf cart careened down the steep hill to the south of Placid’s duplexes. It was seen only once and quite briefly as it sped past the opening between Betty’s duplex and the Henleys’.

  “Wade’s making an end run!” Diane hollered in a shrieking voice. “And he’s got Joe riding in back!”

  Indeed Joe was in back, though one could hardly call it riding — he was holding on for dear life. His left hand gripped the vertical brace while his right hand supported his sore neck; one leg was hooked around a heavy box of produce in the shallow foot well.

  Kelly alerted Pete and Ellie that Wade’s task force had just been spotted approaching the enemy side of their right flank.

  After that single fleeting glimpse of Wade’s Warriors, nothing more could be seen from the barricade. If not for the buildings along Placid, the main battlefield’s participants would have watched Roger in the front seat with one hand on Wade’s snake gun and the other grasping anything possible just to keep himself in the cart as it bounded roughly along the heavily-rutted sloping field.

  Now without his vehicle, driver H1 was the only gangster to see, albeit briefly, that zooming golf cart to their south. He stood and walked a few steps in that direction, momentarily forgetting the defenders were still firing intermittently. “Hey, hommes!” He struggled for the words. “Somebody’s coming from over there.” He pointed southerly, but neither Herve nor Foss could see anything because of the buildings. Plus, sporadic barricade fire kept them all pinned down. It was mostly Chet shooting, but the enemy didn’t realize how differently blanks sound from live rounds.

  Finally aware he was exposed to the defenders’ fire, H1 tried to fling himself behind the disabled truck. In the movies, it’s an athletic dive with a graceful roll and you pop back up ready to fight. However, in real life, H1 tripped on his dragging pants cuffs and sprawled out into the street, squealing with pain as the hard macadam bit into his palms, elbows, and chin.

  As Herve continued to study the barricade defenders, he absently-mindedly dragged the fallen ex-driver to safety behind the second truck.

  ****

  Task Force Wade

  It’s difficult to imagine any additional external stimuli for Wade’s task force as they hurtled down the steep rutted slope. But all three jostled Warriors in the Wade-mobile instinctively flinched and ducked at the sounds of sporadic gunfire as they flanked the main battlefront.

  Roger did not recall — or would not later admit — his own final words, but one of the last things he acknowledged hearing was Joe’s scream of “There’s a gigantic ditch down there, Wade!” as Joe pounded on the driver’s beefy back and gestured frantically toward the bottom of the hill.

  Before tightly closing his eyes, the last thing Roger saw were two pairs of narrow planks which someone had recently placed, a few feet apart, over the deep utility trench, and a very narrow space between two sturdy wooden decks on neighboring duplexes along Pleasant Drive. Roger would later claim
he caught multiple splinters in his right shoulder from one of the two decks Wade barely squeezed between.

  Later Wade would admit, “Well, I guess that hole looked a little bit smaller once we got right up on it. Me and Old Betsey had to hold our breath just a bit.”

  Joe would later testify that he truly was not certain whether Wade’s buggy rolled over those narrow planks or entirely sailed above the utility trench. He claimed that he preferred to believe the former.

  Wade’s sole comment about the wild ride down the steep slope, across the planks over the trench, through the narrow passage between two decks, and flying up over the steep curb was “Hot gravy!”

  After that, things were blurred for a moment.

  ****

  Main Battlefront

  With both neighborhood task forces more or less in place, it was time for the residents to shift gears from defense to offense, so Pete nodded to Ellie to pop the clutch. His own important role was to observe enemy actions and reactions.

  Irene wished her husband would nod to her and she’d know exactly what he wanted. But that was evidently some secret communication between soldiers, for Ellie was as much a soldier as any uniformed man Irene had ever known.

  Ellie suddenly began speaking quietly. At first Irene thought the stronger and younger woman was addressing her, but quickly realized Ellie was praying. So Irene bowed her head and listened.

  “Lord, we know both our flank teams is behind the enemy somewheres. But we cain’t see nothing but these Bless George vehicles right here and some of them wayward punks shooting at us. If You see fit, Lord, to keep our boys from being shot, we’d sure be thankful. So while You do whatever Yer going to do, Lord, I figure we better distract them. Amen.”