Shifty's War

by Marcus Brotherton

  It got daylight, but we were too far away to safely make it back to the command post with that cold sunlight making plain our every movement. A big old farmhouse sat in a nearby field, so I told the guys, “We’ll go over there and spend the day, then come dark, we’ll head back.” They liked the sound of that, so we hiked over to the farmhouse, checked things out, and found a bunch of guys in the basement already. They wore American GI uniforms, spoke English, and appeared friendly enough, so it seemed okay.

  We spent the day near a wall lined with dusty Mason jars, all empty. There was maybe twelve, fifteen of those other soldiers hiding out in that basement with us. Sort of twitchy guys, I thought. Kept to themselves. Only one or two ever said anything. None sat down, and they weren’t walking around either, pacing, you know, like men would ordinarily do while waiting. My squad was tired after being up all night, so we just sat down, ate K-rations, and dozed.

  Come half an hour or so before it grew dark, I was listening closer to the way these fellas shifted their weight as they stood, see, and something didn’t sound quite right about their boots. I nudged my squad. “Let’s go,” I said. One of the fellas asked what the rush was. It wasn’t fully dark yet. I brushed off his question and told them to move quick. I kept my thoughts to myself, but I remembered that Germans were known to capture or kill American soldiers, then dress up in their uniforms so they could hike across enemy lines and see what’s what. Now, I don’t mind fighting a man when he’s across a field from me, but in that little basement with twenty-five men all with rifles, a battle would’ve been a slaughter. Those fellas in the basement with us were Krauts. I’m sure of it.

  One day near the end of our stay in Holland, it might have been eleven, twelve at night, and a lieutenant told me, “Sergeant Powers, get nine men and take a combat patrol out in the area. There’s a report of a German combat patrol in the area and they have twelve men. Anybody you see, shoot him.”

  Now, I don’t know why that lieutenant figured our ten men was better than their twelve, but that’s the way it was gonna be. It was absolutely black dark, you know, so black I couldn’t see the hand in front of my face. I lined my guys up, and we headed out. I left my M1 back at the command post and took two pistols because I couldn’t see the end of the barrel with the M1.

  We walked down this road a way. I was out in front of my squad, and I heard footsteps coming the other way. We all hunkered down on the ground. “Cover me,” I whispered, aimed, and got a bead on where the figure was coming from.

  “Shoot him,” the man behind me whispered. “He’s a Kraut.”

  I ignored him and peered closer into the night. The moon was just peeking out from behind the trees, and I could see his outline real clear now. My adrenaline pumped. I steadied my breathing and got ready to shoot. The man’s silhouette came clear. I had a direct sight line to his forehead. The man was taking his time coming close. I said that night’s password out loud, just to give him a chance, but there wasn’t a response. My finger went to move on the trigger.

  “Shoot him, Shifty!” came a whisper. “He’s a Kraut for sure.”

  I said the password again.

  “What? Hello!” came a voice from out of the darkness. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot. Don’t shoot! I don’t know tonight’s password!”

  It was Bill Kiehn. That same boy I almost shot on D-day. He’d been wounded in Carentan and gone to the hospital in England. He’d healed, and they’d put him in a replacement depot where the Army threatened to send him to another unit because he’d been out of action so long, he explained when he got closer up to us. So Kiehn had busted out and gone AWOL and came back to our unit on his own. He had stopped down the road and picked up a box of supplies for us and was walking back to camp. Twice I’d come near a fly’s whisker of shooting Bill Kiehn. I sure did. Both Bill and I were mighty tickled I hadn’t.

  The rest of our days and nights in Holland weren’t as happy as that story. Wish I could remember more details, but I can’t. Maybe I don’t want to. I remember that Joe Lesniewski, the replacement who’d been befriended by Skip Muck and Alex Penkala, caught the blast of a German potato-masher grenade while out on patrol. He went to the hospital all bloodied up, but he lived to rejoin us later. Lieutenant Buck Compton, everybody’s favorite officer in the company, took a bullet while charging up a ditch, but he came back to fight another day. My good buddy Jim Alley got blown to the ground by a blast of shrapnel that left thirty-two wounds in his side, face, neck, and arm. He lived, too.

  Others weren’t so lucky. I remember their names. Faces. The way a fellow might have told a story and made you laugh. Bill Dukeman didn’t make it. Nor did James Campbell. Vernon Menze died. James Miller. Ray Schmitz. James Diel. Bill Miller. Robert Van Klinken. Dead. We had jumped on September 17 with 154 men. When we pulled off the line on November 25, we had ninety-eight.

  I wasn’t sure how I’d clear my blurry head, even as orders came through and we climbed aboard trucks, heading to France for a rest. I tucked my thoughts away to sort through later. Many of the fellas talked about how Operation Market-Garden was a failure. It might have been. Me—as I slouched low in the back of that truck, I looked forward to hot showers and eating real food and not looking over my shoulder every moment, wondering if a bullet was heading my way. Had to shake out the cobwebs. Had to keep going. Maybe a couple nights of good sleep would help. In spite of Operation Market-Garden’s bleak outcome, I was still holding out hope that the war might be truly nearing its end. Oh, I hoped. We bounced around in the back of that truck heading for Camp Mourmelon, but a little twinge down my spine told me that what I hoped for was still a long way off.

  9

  CRAZINESS

  All was dark and drizzly when our trucks pulled off the road into Camp Mourmelon. I lurched in and out of wakefulness. We’d been riding for thirty-six hours. The truck’s motor hushed, and I stumbled off the tailgate and blinked. The first look around the camp was anything but reassuring. The Krauts had used the camp before we got there, don’t know what for exactly, but it looked like they’d been boarding horses where we were about to sleep. Barracks were dusty with hay. Boards were hoof-kicked. The whole camp smelled musty and rotting. It was the most beautiful place in the world.

  We stowed our gear, staggered to the showers, and scrubbed soap and hot water all over our filthy skin for the first time since jumping into Holland. For chow that night we gorged on roasted chicken, white bread with real butter, steaming vegetables, pie, and hot coffee. Best tasting meal the army ever served. It almost made me forget the wormy apples we’d been plucking off trees, the odd loaf of stale bread we’d scrounged. Even a K-ration had been a treat in Holland toward the end.

  We found bunks and fell asleep. Couldn’t have been more than an hour later I woke up and sprinted to the latrine. I heaved one way, then squatted the other, then stumbled back to bed past a line of squirming guys headed to do what I’d just done. I guessed none of us could handle real food yet. Twenty-four hours later I was up and grinning. Forty-eight hours later I was as good as new. Twice in a row now I’d slept all night without being ordered out on patrol. I’d slept on an actual mattress. I’d got up in the morning and nobody was shooting at me. This was the life.

  Rain kept falling, and they put us on some light duty hammering loose boards on the barracks, tossing gravel on the muddy sidewalks, digging drainage ditches. It felt good to hold a shovel in my hand when I didn’t need to dig a foxhole. We trained a bit, too, did some marching, some runs. Nobody felt like doing much, and for the first time since I’d been in the army, everybody above us seemed okay with that.

  Now, right about then is when I started having serious doubts about Earl McClung. When we were out in the mud and cold and shooting, the man was as fine a soldier as ever was. But when it came to garrison duty, ole One Lung was probably the worst soldier that ever wore the Army’s uniform. We celebrated Thanksgiving at the end of November and swished turkey meat with canned cranberry sauce around in our
mess kits. Then word came down right away to look sharp for a full retreat parade. The whole company busied itself with polishing and shining. Guys grumbled and moaned. Plenty of men didn’t have all their gear anymore. Plus, it’s hard to spit shine your boots when they’ve been rained on the past three months. But we did what we had to do. If even one man wasn’t slicked up, then the whole company would get gigged. That’d mean no passes.

  One Lung’s bunk was a couple over from mine. He lounged on his wool blanket and thumbed through a dog-eared copy of Field & Stream, one toe sticking out of a hole in his socks. I knew he wasn’t going to move, so I ambled over. “Hey, Mac, gimme your boots,” I said. McClung tossed them my direction and I started shining them for him. Kiehn caught what was going on. “Hey, Mac, gimme your pants,” he said. McClung tossed them over. Someone else yelled for McClung’s shirt. Another hollered for his web belt. Someone else took care of his garrison cap and tie. We got ole One Lung looking like he was going to a wedding. “It’s a damn good thing you can shoot straight,” I said. Sure enough, One Lung hated anything that smelled of refining. After we did that parade, we went back to the barracks. McClung skulked in, took off his pressed trousers and kicked them under his bunk. He took off his freshly ironed shirt and kicked it in a corner. I bet he didn’t come near those fancy duds for the rest of the war.

  Well, glory. Passes were issued all around. Want a pass? You got one. Here, take two, and have a good time. It was never like this in any Army I’d been part of. I think it was the first of December, and it must have been the whole damn company that bustled on into Rheims, ready to cut loose. A bunch of jokers from the 82nd was already prowling the city by then, and it seemed like all any fella wanted to do was cuss, guzzle beer, chase women, shout aggravations at other outfits, and fight. It was a short season for blowing off steam, and it seemed we couldn’t think of how to do it except by misbehaving. We all went a little crazy that night. We rightly did.

  We swung back on into camp and did a little whatnot, then were handed more passes. Well, glory times two. Popeye, McClung, and me hopped the first train heading to Paris. Wanted to see the big city, you know. We swaggered into the first crowded pub we saw, elbowed our way up to the bar, and slapped down our cash. Big Band music pounded through the smoky air. The rafters were really swinging. It was gonna be a night.

  Now, I’d known from previous times that Popeye could be a bit ornery when he so chose. It was good-natured orneriness, mind you. Still, that boy had a powerful streak of misbehaving in him. He did.

  A bunch of Navy guys lined the tables in the back of the bar. They were hollering at us, hollering at the waitresses, hollering at the wall, hollering at everybody they felt like. We ignored them and started drinking. The beers slid down the counter to us in bottles, and we sucked ’em down and lined up our empties. I counted seven bottles in front of me before long, eight in front of McClung, but none in front of Popeye. I gave him a nudge as he swilled the last drops from the bottle he drank from. “Whatduya got going?” I asked.

  Popeye sniffed. “Goddam Navy jokers.” He waved his hand nonchalantly and flung the empty bottle over his shoulder. I kept my eyes focused ahead. It was too loud to hear where the bottle crashed.

  “Shit, Popeye,” McClung said and glanced our direction. “You been doing that long? I reckon it’s about to get warm in here.”

  Popeye grinned.

  Five Navy guys walked up. I guessed they’d figured it out, because none were smiling. “Paratroopers, huh,” said one. He cracked his knuckles and made a fist. Another, his neck as thick as my thigh, started working his jaw as if he was about to say something smart. He didn’t get far before Popeye hauled off and punched him in the nose.

  We all scrambled. A fella went for my chin and I blocked his fist and hit him in the stomach. He doubled over and somebody caught my right ear with a jab. The blow stunned me as a chair flew by and crashed into the bar. I squished my fist against the nearest Navy man’s eye. He heaved over backwards while someone caught him and shoved him forward. I pushed him off me, ducked, sprung up, walloped another man in the head, then ducked again, only this time too slow. When a fist caught me just above my eye, I decided to go down and stay. The whole bar was fighting now. I crawled along the floor as beer glasses sailed through the air. A man thudded next to me. He was out cold. Everything across my sight line was a jumble of bodies punching and fighting. I peered around the corner of an overturned table and glimpsed a familiar grin. Popeye crouched under the table across from me. He offered a wry salute, and I scuttled over. “Just wondering,” I shouted, “how many bottles did you toss at those Navy boys before they figured out who threw them?”

  Popeye shrugged. “Every goddam one I drank.”

  Figures squalled near the door. All was a bustle as uniformed military police burst their way into the bar and started busting heads, blowing whistles, breaking guys apart. McClung’s belt floated across my sight line. I ducked my head up just as McClung leveled his last man then crouched down to Popeye and me. “We better make a run for it,” McClung said. It was a peach of an idea. We pushed our way to the door and sprinted down the street.

  We ran three, maybe four blocks before we decided the coast was clear. My eye’d started to swell, and Popeye bled from a gash on his cheek. McClung asked me for a handkerchief, wiped his knuckles on it, and handed it back. We checked our wounds and knew nothing was serious, so we began to pay attention to our growling stomachs and talked about how a hunt for food might be in order. Come near the fanciest restaurant we found, we swung through the doorway and landed in a booth by the window.

  A bunch of soldiers sipped cocktails around the room, fine-looking dandies all fancied up with girls at their tables. None were from the Navy, which I was happy about. A starchy looking fella in a black suit sidled over and jabbered at us in French. He balanced his bow tie between his finger and thumb, then when McClung roared “Food! ” he turned his nose up in the air and stomped off. We shrugged and noticed our thirst, so Popeye decided to roam a bit, then came back shortly with three bottles of wine he’d liberated off various tables when their owners weren’t looking. We poured ourselves big tumblers, kicked back on our chairs, and put up our feet.

  My, that waiter. He hurried back over, one of his arms bent in a crook, see, with a towel wrapped over that arm. He snapped off the towel with a mighty fuss, whipped our table clean, then hauled back to the kitchen with a loud snorty sniff.

  “What a joker,” Popeye said. His boots were still on the table. “Some fancy joint this is—they can’t even keep out the cats.”

  It was true. Maybe it was part of the highfalutin tone they were trying to set in this restaurant, I don’t rightly know, but big ole French cats yowled up and down the floor, fat and sleek from lots of milk, I reckoned, and brushed up against our legs. It seemed the craziest thing. One old marmalade leaped up on my lap and settled in. I rubbed its furry belly, and she stretched out with a purr.

  The uppity waiter strode back. He waved his arms at us again, slobbering all the while in French. He was sure mad about something.

  McClung raised his hand like a sergeant slows down his troops. “Yeah, we got it,” he said to the waiter, “but where’s our goddam food?”

  The waiter crossed his arms and tapped his foot. He didn’t move.

  “I reckon this fella wants us to leave,” I said.

  “I reckon we’ve had enough of this joker,” said Popeye. He scooped up the nearest Tom and, before anyone could blink, threw it into the waiter’s face. The cat shrieked. So did the waiter. He ran hollering around the restaurant while the cat landed on his feet. It slid calmly out the front door when we held it open for him. We followed closely, letting the door slam behind us. If you ask me, I think getting out of a joint like that was a smart move for the cat.

  We grabbed food from somewhere else, then sloshed back to base, fell asleep, and nursed hangovers the next morning. Seemed all the enlisted men out on passes had been cutting as loose
as us, for the passes tightened up after that, and they started sending us out on five-milers to get the aggravation out. It wasn’t all bad stuff that we did. They organized baseball games, basketball, football. Boxing matches. Healthy things for a fella to do. They set up a couple movie theaters around base. An NCO club opened and we had a good time there. A big football game was planned for Christmas Day—the Champagne Bowl, somebody named it—us against the boys from the Five-Oh-Deuce. Lieutenant Buck Compton had healed up from the bullet he took in Holland, and they made him coach of our team. He’d played football for UCLA before he was in the Army and had even played in the Rose Bowl. He knew what he was doing. Joe Toye, the toughest man in Easy Company, watched the practices from the sidelines. He’d just returned from the hospital and was still healing up. Joe Toye could have been a professional athlete if only the war hadn’t changed his plans. On a good day, Joe Toye would have charged up and down the field like a man with two legs on fire.

  Well, the atmosphere around Camp Mourmelon started seeming right festive. We figured nobody would do any more fighting until the weather turned warm again in spring. Maybe we’d jump into Germany then. Maybe head into China and take on the Japs. It didn’t matter. We got paid a few times. It felt strange to have money jingling in our pockets again. I guess if a fella wasn’t out on a pass, he didn’t have many places to spend it around Mourmelon, so a lot of gambling started up. I was never much of a poker player, though I enjoyed it now and then.

  One night maybe six of us sat around in an old barn playing poker. Now, when you’re playing poker, you’ve got to concentrate. I was working on a baby straight when a grenade popped off the vest of the man next to me and rolled on the floor. “Live grenade!” I hollered. We were all still twitchy from Holland, and everybody dived anywhere he could. Our card table turned over. Money and cards flew everywhere. I kept expecting a huge blast, but none came. It was a dud.