I Am Canada: Sniper Fire

by Jonathan Webb

  “We could use a blanket,” I say. “A coat. Something to keep her warm.”

  I stick the hypodermic in the wounded woman’s arm and push down the plunger. Doug disappears into the house. He comes back with blankets and a bottle.

  “Wine?”

  “Some kind of liquor.”

  “Good,” I say. “I can use that.”

  I splash it on the wound, place a pressure pack on it and then wrap bandages around the woman to hold the pack in place. She’s quieter now as the morphine takes effect. I grasp one of the blankets.

  “Help me with this,” I say. Before Doug moves, however, the other woman kneels down and together we bundle up the casualty.

  “Come si chiama?” I ask her. “Mi chiamo Paolo.” My name is Paolo.

  She stares blankly at me for a moment and then answers, “Teresa. Mi chiamo Teresa.”

  “Teresa,” I say. “Good.” Her sister’s name, I learn, is Claudia. The child, Tomas, is Claudia’s son. He’s almost five. Teresa takes Tomas into her arms.

  The sound of exploding bombs punctuates our conversation. Some are near at hand, others farther away, but they aren’t stopping.

  “With luck,” I say to Doug, “she’ll be stable until we can get help.”

  I turn to Teresa. “Dove possiamo trovare un medico?” Where can we find a doctor?

  She answers immediately. She can lead us to him.

  “We’re taking this woman to a doctor,” I tell Doug.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “What do you think?”

  I hoist my rifle and backpack and then lift Claudia. I nod to Teresa and she wraps the boy in the other blanket. And then we start walking, not to rejoin the section somewhere behind us, but straight ahead. Teresa leads the way. I fall in behind her with Claudia, now barely conscious, cradled in my arms. Doug, his weapon at the ready, brings up the rear. He makes his reluctance obvious. We’re disobeying orders. And worse, we’re headed straight for the Germans. He says nothing; he just scowls.

  * * *

  It’s getting dark as Teresa takes us down narrow paths and across cobblestone streets. We duck into doorways to survey the way ahead, and then plunge onwards again. Claudia moans and mutters words that make no sense. The child, either exhausted or terrified, is silent.

  It seems a long journey, though we don’t go far as the crow flies. At any moment I expect to hear the crack of a rifle, or to see Paras charging our way. We hear German voices on two occasions and freeze each time. Teresa and I, bent and burdened, might just be mistaken for civilians in the fading light. The same can’t be said of Doug and his Sten gun. More than once I hear him muttering.

  “This is nuts.” And then, “What the hell was that?”

  A bang like the closing of a car door. Or something, I don’t know what. We keep going.

  Whether because of Teresa’s guidance or through sheer luck, we make it to our destination. She finds and opens a wooden door. Stone steps take us down to the basement. I see a lit lamp and a mass of people. I hear a gasp, a moment of silence and then a dozen voices speak at once.

  A few come forward, their faces shocked and questioning. In the dim light behind them, there are others, old and worn. There are children too, babies and toddlers with wide-open eyes. I set down Claudia on a table and an old, white-haired man bends over her. Teresa releases the boy. Then she places a hand on my shoulder and explains to the others what happened. She says Canadian soldiers are entering the town.

  I glance at Doug. He’s exhausted. My own hands are shaking. I have blood on my tunic. I find a space and slump to the floor, my back against the wall. A woman offers me a stool to sit on, but I can’t be bothered. She offers me something to eat. I close my eyes. For some time, I listen to the hum of nattering children, adult chatter and the scratch and clatter of dishes and furniture shifting in the crowded space. It’s strangely soothing. It sounds almost like normal life, the life I left behind when I left Canada. And then I’m dead to the world.

  Chapter 6

  Piazza della Vittoria

  Tuesday, December 21, 1943

  Teresa shakes me. “È il momento di andare.” It’s time to go.

  “What?”

  She shakes me again, still speaking in Italian. You told me yourself, you can’t stay.

  She’s holding a lantern. It’s partly shuttered so as not to wake the people who are still asleep. In the half light, the basement is a heaving, snuffling, snoring mass. Doug picks his way towards us, rubbing his eyes, fumbling with his helmet. We hold a mumbled conference, made slow by the need to translate, either for Doug’s benefit or Teresa’s.

  She says she will get Claudia to a hospital in the town. It’s being held by the Germans but it’s run by nuns and there’s a doctor. Doug can’t understand why she doesn’t leave town — it’s a war zone — but there’s nowhere to go and no way to escape. The Allies are bombing the roads and railways, Teresa says, and Italian men, if they show themselves, are imprisoned by the Germans.

  She has wrapped a coat around her, to cover her torn and bloody dress. She is small and brave, her pale skin emphasized by her black hair. Somehow she has recovered from the shock of the previous day’s events. The set of her mouth is grim. She says she will show us the way back to where we met, the site of the explosion. And more than that, she will show us the layout of the town, where the Germans are, what lies ahead.

  Ortona is on lumpy ground, mostly higher in the middle and falling off steeply around the edges. A low building on high ground gives me a view of the bits that lie below it.

  There’s a glimmer of light in the east when Teresa leads us through garden gates and back passages to an abandoned house. It overlooks the road that leads to the church of San Costantinopoli, which the Seaforths occupied yesterday. We climb the stairs to the second floor and she points to the window while, at the same time, touching a finger to her lips. I nod and peer out the window and see nothing but mist. I lean further forward, look down and jerk back.

  “Jeezus!”

  Military vehicles are parked in line on one side of the street, leaving just enough room for others to squeeze past them. Two sentries guard the entrance to a small café. There’s a light inside, but thin curtains mask the interior. The fabric stirs and shadows are moving behind it. There’s no doubt the café is a German command post.

  On the eastern side of the house I can see another church, smaller than San Costantinopoli. Beyond it, Teresa says there’s a square, Piazza della Vittoria. And leading to the square is the main road, the one that leads back to Cider Crossroads. These are the roads that lead in and out of Ortona. One goes straight to the mountains and one branches off to the coast. Now we know where we’re coming from and where we’re going. And what to expect when we arrive.

  * * *

  We’re saying goodbye when they blow up the cathedral.

  Teresa stops in her tracks. She turns and looks back at the town. The expression on her face is both helpless and furious.

  A dense black cloud spirals from the far edge of the stone-grey town into the leaden sky. She murmurs something. I translate for Doug’s benefit: “Cathedrale San Tommaso — the cathedral of Saint Thomas. They’ve blown up a tower next to it and brought down the cathedral itself.”

  Teresa is holding my hand. She speaks so rapidly I have to ask her to repeat herself.

  “The Germans were afraid the tower would be occupied by their enemies,” I tell Doug. “They’ve been threatening to blow it up for days. The priests tried to stop them.”

  “It’s a big deal?” he asks.

  “You’re not a Catholic, you wouldn’t understand. But yes, it’s a big deal. It’s an old church. It holds relics of the saint. For the people of Ortona, it’s as if the heart of the town has been ripped out.”

  Teresa lets go of my hand and places it on her heart. She looks at us with an expression that is indescribably sad.

  * * *

  “You fools!” says the Gaffer when we f
ind our way back to the company command post. Doug straightaway tells the sergeant about the events that took us out of the line. The Gaffer isn’t impressed and he lets us know it: What we did is a breach of discipline. It was ill-advised. It placed us in needless danger. It puts the security of the entire unit at risk. He will discuss it with the lieutenant. They will consider whether or not to have us charged. Whether we are charged or not, he personally is disgusted. We had better smarten up. We had better do it now.

  This is the short version. Doug looks shaken.

  “Of course the Gaffer’s pissed off,” I tell him later. “He was worried. He’ll get over it.”

  And he does. The lieutenant gives us a funny look the next time he sees us. But we hear no more about our excursion behind enemy lines.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Gold, back from company O Group, speaks to the Gaffer, who tells us there’s a new plan. He says we did a good job taking out the machine-gun nest yesterday, but that’s not the way he wants the job done. He says we need to use our firepower, to call in tanks and heavy machine guns of our own. The Gaffer shrugs when he tells us this, like the captain has a nice theory, but the Gaffer has his doubts.

  The afternoon is overcast and cold. Doug and I fall in with our unit, form up and tramp back into town. Everything has been drained of colour. Winter has turned the landscape either grey or brown. We scramble through some of the same grounds, gardens and houses between the highway and the street that we went through yesterday. The Seaforths are still fighting a tough battle on our right flank. B and D companies, with tank support, are blasting their way down the main road on our left. The clatter, rumble and periodic explosions from either side never stop for long. The noise, however, moves with us as the afternoon wears on. The Germans are retreating house by house in the direction of the first square.

  We make some noise ourselves as we mop up the in-between areas. But the captain was determined to proceed in a more orderly fashion than we did yesterday, so sections are keeping in touch with one another as we advance. The lieutenant is keeping track as each house is secured.

  The Germans are just as disciplined as we are. You’d think they’ve been given the same orders as us, only backwards. There’s another position behind every position they abandon. Snipers lurk on rooftops. They are quick to pick off any of our men who show themselves. Docherty’s section has suffered a couple of casualties. We’ve been luckier, so far.

  Derrick and Paddy are crouched in the shelter of a stone wall when I duck down beside them. Derrick is cursing under his breath.

  “What’s up?” I ask Paddy.

  “Show him,” he says to Derrick.

  “Dammit,” says Derrick.

  “What?”

  “Look at this.” He turns around, bends over and offers his backside up for inspection. There’s a 6-inch tear in the seat of his pants.

  “How bloody close was that?” he asks.

  “You telling me a bullet did that?”

  “Darn right,” says Derrick.

  Paddy is still laughing when I move on.

  The lieutenant calls up a couple of the Saskatoon regiment’s machine gunners to assist in taking out a German strongpoint. He takes his time, putting our men in position to cover the attack. The manoeuvre goes smoothly, with one part of the section moving up on one flank and laying down covering fire before the Saskatoons set up on the other side. The action’s over in a matter of minutes. One German is taken prisoner. Another is dead.

  We move on.

  I watch Strong John and Jimmy the next time we’re held up by the enemy. Lieutenant Gold tells them to put their heads together and work out the best way to go on. Jimmy’s the older of the two, but Strong John’s got rank on him and, anyway, he’s obviously the leader. Jimmy depends on him. Now that I watch them, I realize that Jimmy is calmer than I’ve seen him since he first arrived.

  Doug and I are leaning against a stone wall. The noise of artillery and small-arms fire is constant — it’s got so we only notice it when it stops. A thin mist hangs over us. The air smells of burnt cordite, damp leaves and mould.

  “You like this,” says Doug.

  I’m not sure what he’s getting at.

  “I’m scared a lot of the time,” he says. “But you’re not.”

  “I’m scared too,” I tell him. And it’s true. When I’m not made numb by the noise of artillery, when the adrenaline isn’t flowing through me, when I’m not flat-out exhausted, I’m scared. I’m so scared that if I let myself think about it, I wouldn’t be able to move. So I try to think of the next thing I have to do. And the next thing. And from time to time I look up at the clouds and thank God I’m alive.

  “You don’t show it,” he says.

  What to tell him? “Every minute we’re out here, I keep reminding myself, I’m still here,” I say. “Every minute is a gift.”

  We push on down narrow alleys. We climb over walls and clear more houses. We rarely see the enemy for more than an instant. We see his handiwork though — the wreckage, the flames, the craters — at every turn.

  We’re within a block of Piazza della Vittoria, close to the little church I glimpsed earlier this morning when we’re pinned down by enemy fire again. There’s a medium machine gun situated either in the church tower or in a house across from it, and it has us in its sights. It rakes the walls in bursts. Stone chips whizz through the air.

  Again, the lieutenant tries to organize the attack. “What are the chances of getting one of those Three Rivers tanks up here?” he asks.

  “Street’s too narrow,” says the Gaffer.

  The lieutenant thinks about this and then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “The turns are too tight.”

  The square is on a height of land ahead of us. The little church occupies a corner between us and the square. The cross street below it gives us some cover, but our approach, when we round the corner, is wide open. Strong John and Jimmy start to work their way around to the left of the church. They’re looking for a way in from the rear. The rest of us — the O’Connors, Specs, Doug and I — wait for instructions. While we wait, I realize we’re short a man.

  “Where’s Loon?”

  At first I don’t see him.

  “What the …?” says the Gaffer.

  Then I glimpse Loon’s back as he disappears around the corner on our right. He’s down on all fours. I can’t imagine what he thinks he’s doing.

  We haven’t even got a fix on the German machine gun. Our whole battalion is converging on the square. Soon we’ll have other elements we can use to neutralize the enemy, but this will take time. Loon apparently has decided not to wait.

  I can’t let him go off like that alone.

  Doug yells, “Hold it!” When I don’t stop, I hear him mutter, “Damn,” and I know he’s coming too.

  The yard in front of the church doesn’t offer much in the way of cover. A couple of wooden benches, a lamppost and a damaged palm tree are all that stand between us and the church. There’s still more than enough light to see Loon, who’s kneeling behind what’s left of the tree. I glance up and see, now, where the machine-gun fire is coming from. A hole has been blown in the side of the church. The gun is lodged in the second-storey gallery. The Germans have only to look straight down to see us …

  I catch up to Loon. I touch his shoulder.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask him.

  He holds up a hand grenade.

  “That hole up there isn’t big enough,” I say. “It’s too small a target.”

  “I can do it.”

  From somewhere on our left, Strong John’s Bren gun starts stuttering. He must have found a vantage point that gives him an angle on the machine gun. The Germans fire back at him. Loon breaks away from me. He doesn’t so much run as lurch from side to side. He hurls the grenade when he’s about 15 feet from the base of the building. It arcs up and for a second I’m certain he’s thrown it too high. I stand up an instant before it explodes, lift my rifle and squeeze the
trigger. Doug opens up with the Sten gun. We bang away at the enemy as smoke and dust drift over us.

  Nothing up there moves.

  I lower my rifle. I glance back at Doug. He looks shaken. As for Loon, he’s grinning from ear to ear.

  “How about that?” he says.

  * * *

  Derek is sitting bare-legged in a corner of the church we now occupy. He’s mending the rip in his pants.

  “You’re lucky,” I say.

  “Some luck,” he says. “That was too close.”

  “It’s ’cause you have such a big butt,” says his brother.

  “Aw, c’mon,” says Jimmy. “You almost had the perfect wound. Not too serious, just serious enough. We could have shipped you to a hospital in Africa. They’d have patched you up and then sent you off on a nice long leave.”

  “By the time you were healed, this bloody winter would be over,” says Paddy.

  “Heck, the war might be over. In this beaten-up country, at least,” says Jimmy.

  “You don’t understand,” says Derrick.

  “What don’t we understand?” I ask.

  “They keep getting closer. First I got wounded in the leg. Next, at Colle d’Anchise, shrapnel dinged my helmet. Now this.”

  “Now what?” I say.

  “That bullet grazed my flesh.”

  “Oh, Lord! Derrick — not your flesh!” Paddy gasps, as if horrified.

  “Laugh all you want,” says Derrick. “But I’ve got a premonition that I’m going to die.”

  “Aw, bull,” says Jimmy.

  But Derrick won’t give up. “I was looking round the church earlier. I went down to the crypt, where the bodies are.”

  “Why?” asks Loon.

  “It’s like I was drawn there,” says Derrick. “Death was calling me.”

  Paddy just shakes his head.

  Later, I take a look at the crypt. Loon follows me down the narrow steps. The ceiling is so low that we both have to keep our heads down. It’s so dark that we strike matches to light our way.

  “What do you think, Loon?” I ask.

  The space is small. Perhaps as many as a dozen raised stone coffins are arranged around it. It’s strange but quiet, almost peaceful.