~ * ~
Ben had no tallit to lay across his shoulders. That had gone down with the Susan B. Anthony. He had no velour cloth or small scroll to spread over the hood of a jeep, no menorah or candles to glitter and make this corner of a field a sanctuary at dusk. He left his prayer books and Old Testament in his backpack. He kept his helmet on his head so the two hundred men would, too. The Merderet River burbled behind him. Every man standing before him knew this creek flowed not far before it murmured past the enemy. The doughs were clustered in a group the size of a company, many of them were officers, and they were inside German mortar range. They should be spread out, it would be safer, but they had gathered to hear Chaplain Kahn. Solemnity was among them with the gnats, the danger, and the missing faces from the battles already fought.
Ben lifted both hands.
‘Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad.’ Ben sang the Hebrew with inflection and meaning. The English translation he intoned. ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.’
Voices chimed in. Close behind, Ben heard Phineas Allenby utter the Hebrew and English. Phineas was right; he butchered the Hebrew. Ben looked over the assemblage.
They were not all Jews, many did not know the words, or looked uncomfortable. But they were here with Ben and each other, and for these minutes, for as long as he held them, they were held, too, by God.
‘Baruch shem k’vod malchuto l’olam va-ed. Blessed is God’s glorious majesty, for ever and ever.’
Half the men responded, ‘Ah-mein.’ The rest caught up, sputtering the word.
Ben pushed his hands down. The soldiers sat.
He opened his mouth to speak. In silence, he cast his eyes over them. Some heads had bowed, others blinked at him with expectation. Ben did not see his son replicated two hundred times in this dimming pasture of war. That would have been too simple. That would have been too comforting. These soldiers were not his son. They were alive and in front of him.
He felt the quiet grow unwieldy, he’d looked on them too long. Behind him, Phineas whispered, ‘Chaplain?’ Ben pushed aside the veil of his memory and grief, but it did not part fully, it draped over his shoulders where the tallit should have been.
‘In Leviticus, a man with an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father got into a fight with an Israelite. During the fight, the half-Egyptian blasphemed God. The people who heard this took the man to Moses for judgment. Moses appealed to God, who told Moses to take the blasphemer outside the camp and have the whole congregation stone him to death. Moses was told to speak to the people of Israel, that anyone who blasphemes shall be stoned, aliens and citizens alike. Anyone who kills an animal shall make restitution. Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Anyone who kills a person shall be put to death.’
Ben let this sink in. He walked along the line of the seated front row.
‘We Jews do not have a gentle God. He is jealous and He is vengeful and He is strict. He insists we live in peace among other nations, and commands us to make war on nations who will not. That’s why you’re here. Because the Germans will not live in peace.’
‘Amen,’ someone said. It was Phineas Allenby. No one took the Baptist chaplain’s cue, the gathering stayed quiet.
‘You are not here as Jews and Christians,’ Ben continued, ‘you are here as soldiers. You are in this land as tools of the one God. What Hitler and his people have done to the Jews is blasphemy. What he has done to the peoples of Europe is a shame, and God will not let these things stand. You are here as justice, as God’s strictness and His vengeance.’
Ben stood still. He opened his fists. He spoke from a deep place. A long journey brought his words to the surface, and they would not be slowed nor cooled.
‘Men, you are not alone. I am here. Chaplain Allenby is here. The United States Army is here. God is here.’
A voice in the back said, ‘That’s right!’ and this was taken up. Ben let the nods and agreement fever the soldiers for many seconds. He raised both hands to hush them.
‘We say to the Germans what God said to the kings of Judah who turned their backs on Him.’ From memory, Ben recited the verses:
‘Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire;
In your very presence, aliens devour your land;
It is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.
‘When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you;
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen;
Your hands are full of blood.’
Ben held both hands outstretched to the soldiers, for their inspection. They did not see what he could see on them. He looked at their hunkered faces and saw only his son. Thomas Kahn sat dead in his pilot’s seat, in the twisted wreck of a shot-down bomber on a cold, foreign ground. Ben watched German hands root through the boy’s jacket, slip his watch off the wrist, steal a letter from his tunic, snatch tags from around his neck. The boy was stripped, he became just another body, not Ben Kahn’s son. Then, in a shift, powered as always by hope, Thomas was not dead, but in a German camp. The young man wrapped his hands around barbed wire, gazing through the strands. Ben had trouble seeing Thomas’s face like this; though painful, he could more clearly envision his son dead than tortured and starved. Ben did not know which fate was his son’s. Either way, he’d come back to France to find out. If his boy was dead or imprisoned, the faster the war ended, the sooner he would know, and the sooner his boy would be mourned or freed. Until then, he could find Thomas only in his heart and in the air, the way the boy appeared right now, perched above these soldiers waiting for him to speak.
‘Let me tell you all something, and I want you to remember this. When Jericho fell, the Israelites were forbidden to profit from the bodies of the slain. It is a sin to loot the dead. War is not for gain. War is a plague on every house. Respect the dead. They are taken from their families and from this world. They belong to God. And that means their watches and their guns and their wallets...’ Ben tapped the pocket of his own coat over his heart, ‘...and their letters.’
Heads hung at Ben’s rebuke. He caught several pinched looks, too, men who weren’t so ready to give up their lucre. Quickly, Ben realized he’d spoken from wrath. The thing had its own tongue.
He inhaled and brought a hand to his brow. Who was he to talk to these men out of his own pain like that? What did it matter to them? No one here had volunteered to be Ben’s absolution. He’d chosen them for that role, not the other way around. He was a rabbi who’d been with this infantry regiment only one afternoon. In the shuffling silence, he heard one voice mutter, ‘Y’all Jews go ahead. Not me.’
Ben turned to Phineas Allenby for his reaction. Phineas shrugged and laced his hands in front of his belt, guilty. Ben noted again how filthy the little Baptist was, as dirty as the men. Phineas had crawled in their places and shared their misery and fright. Yes, he’d failed to stop them from looting, perhaps he’d even taken a souvenir himself. Ben Kahn stood in front of them a clean and shaved stranger, the red cross on his helmet not blanked out because he had not yet faced the peril of snipers aiming at it. The 90th was a problem division, and Phineas Allenby and others had been their chaplains since landing at UTAH, probably since England. Ben had not earned his place among these Tough Ombres, not in this war, anyway. He could not help them, Jew or Gentile, until he gained their respect, the way Phineas had. Ben was wrong to reprove any of them.
He finished his service with a prayer in Hebrew, then translated in English. No one joined in.
‘Baruch atah Adonai, ga-al Yisrael. We praise you, O God, Redeemer of Israel. Ah-mein.’
Ben changed his posture to let the soldiers know the service was over. Phineas Allenby came beside him. The two men waited for the last of the Jewish soldiers to come and welcome Ben to the regiment. Not many came forward, and Ben was restrained with those who did.
When the two chaplains were finally alone in the fiel
d, the first tints of darkness had descended. Along with the sliding river and distant potshots, the sound around them was of shovels. The men of the 358th were digging their holes for the night.
The little Baptist held a grave look on his face. There was so much compassion in Phineas’s eyes. Sheepish, Ben looked to the ground.
Phineas took Ben’s two wrists. He turned them over, facing palms up. Ben looked into the white plains of his own hands, gripped in Phineas Allenby’s grubby fingers.
Phineas spoke, a depth in his voice that Ben had not heard until now.
‘The rest of it goes like this, Rabbi:
‘When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you;
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen;
Your hands are full of blood.
‘Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean,
Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes,
Cease to do evil.
‘Learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed,
Defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
‘Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord:
Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow;
Though they are like crimson, they shall become like wool.
‘If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.
But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
Phineas Allenby did not release Ben. The chaplain held out the rabbi’s hands, like a gypsy reading the lines.
‘David wasn’t allowed to build the Temple because his hands were full of blood. The job fell to Solomon.’
‘I know. Ein Kateigor Naaseh Saneigor.’
‘What is that?’
‘It means a prosecutor cannot become a defender. Someone who’s killed cannot bestow a blessing of peace. David killed thousands. Moses killed an Egyptian, and because of it God kept him out of the Holy Land. They were both Kohain. So am I.’
‘Is that why you feel God took your son, Ben?’
‘I didn’t say he was dead.’
‘You didn’t have to. It’s all over your face. Is he dead?’
“I don’t know. Thomas was the pilot of a B-17. He was shot down over Verdun.’
‘Why’re you so sure he’s dead?’
‘I don’t think God will spare him.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve killed men, Phineas. Plenty of men.’
‘That was in war, Ben. A righteous war. I don’t think -’
‘God doesn’t make an exception. Moses killed that one Egyptian to save his own people. David killed whole tribes in wars. Didn’t matter. God didn’t tolerate either. He decides for each man how much is too much. I’ve killed more than He allows, even in a war.’
The Baptist chaplain let go. Ben’s hands stayed aloft, as though carrying the weight of the lives he’d collected twenty-six years ago.
‘Well, God did say, “Come, let’s argue it out.”‘
Ben nodded.
‘So, I reckon you came, huh?’
Phineas said nothing more. Ben lowered his arms.
‘Come on, Rabbi. Let’s get us some chow.’
Ben followed. He set a hand on his new friend’s shoulder.
Phineas said, ‘And some tape for your helmet.’
~ * ~
SECOND
The peasants, from time immemorial, have raised a bank of earth about each field, forming a flat-topped ridge, six feet in height, with beeches, oaks and chestnut trees growing upon the summit. The ridge or mound, planted on this rise, is called a hedge, and as the long branches of the trees which grow upon it almost always project across the road, they make a great arbor overhead. The roads themselves, shut in by clay banks in this melancholy way, are not unlike the moats of fortresses.
Honoré de Balzac describing the Norman hedgerows
Coming under hostile fire causes inertia to our troops ... do not believe they are afraid, but bewildered... Prisoners of war say they can tell the direction we’re coming from and how we’re going, which indicates we’ve got to control our fire... and they say we bunch up ... we should be able to control our men better in this terrain.
Notes from a speech given by the 90th CO
to battalion commanders June 15, 1944
That goddam country.
Description by a GI of the Norman hedgerows
~ * ~
D+12
June 18
Joe Amos thrust up his hand.
‘Me, Lieutenant! Give her to me.’
He raised his hand so hard, his feet moved through the sand and Joe Amos found himself standing in front of the platoon, sixty men behind him. Joe Amos noticed a few snickers, a few huffs.
‘Me, Lieutenant.’
Lieutenant Garner gestured for Joe Amos to quit, he could have the assignment. Joe Amos turned to the platoon. He found the pudgy face he was looking for.
‘Grove, come on, man. Let’s do it.’
‘Corporal Biggs, if you don’t mind,’ the lieutenant answered, ‘I’ll make the duty roster this morning.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Dismissed, everyone.’
The platoon shuffled off. Inside a few hours, they’d be dispatched on another run. Three LSTs churned their engines in the shallows to dry their flat bottoms on the beach, then dropped their great ramps to off-load. Another wave of landing craft circled in the flattened tide inside the Mulberry artificial breakwater. Supplies and machinery teemed over the recently completed lobnitz pierheads. Out in the Channel, so many ships traipsed back and forth that Joe Amos caught only snatches of the horizon, dashes of planet between the guardian destroyers pacing and the Liberty ships and transports waiting their turn on the beach or at the pierheads. In Joe Amos’s excited nostrils, diesel stink blended with sea salt.
Lieutenant Garner called out, ‘Private Mays, you stay behind.’
While the others flowed past, a powerful-looking boy held his ground. Joe Amos first noticed him around dawn; the boy was new and Joe Amos had wondered if this was the replacement partner Major Clay had mentioned. Lean but with veined forearms and a waist that funneled up to shoulders like a mantel, Private Mays was dark-skinned. When he said, ‘Yes, sir,’ his voice was deep and strong.
‘Private, this is your new partner, Corporal Biggs.’ Lieutenant Garner waited while the two shook hands. Joe Amos was quietly relieved that Mays did not use the handshake to make an opening display of his muscles. He looked to be younger than Joe Amos, nineteen or maybe twenty.
The officer led the two of them away from the platoon’s Jimmies to a deuce-and-a-half. The truck stood loaded past any regulation, jam-packed with crates of small-arms ammo strapped high above the rails, easily beyond the five-ton limit. Joe Amos expected to hear the suspension creak just sitting there.
‘Yes,’ Joe Amos uttered. Here was his truck, the one he wanted, with the .50 caliber machine gun mounted in a ring welded behind the cab.
‘The two of you get this son of a bitch up to the town of Tamerville. Just beyond Valognes. Map’s in the cab. 79th Division is on their way to Cherbourg, and 3rd Battalion’s short on ammo. You’re taking this right up to the front line. That’s what you wanted, Joe Amos, so you got it. Just get it to them, get back, and catch up with the platoon. Go on with you.’
The lieutenant set his hands on his hips and stopped talking. Joe Amos jumped for the rail, to scamper over the crates and into the machine-gun ring.
Garner stabbed a finger at Joe Amos. ‘Biggs, get your tail behind the wheel! Damn, son.’
Joe Amos dropped off the rail. He flicked a hand at Private Mays, who’d headed for the driver’s door. ‘Go on around. I’m driving.’
Garner shooed them with the back of both hands, like sheep in the road. ‘Mays, get in there next to him and learn something. And dammit boy, Joe Amos, stay out of trouble and get back here.’
Joe Amo
s fired the engine. He felt the chassis groan.
‘Lieutenant?’
‘You’re still here, Corporal.’
‘When I get back, can I keep this one?’
The officer tossed his head, chuckling.
‘Sure. Now git, they’re waiting on you.’
The Jimmy wanted a lot of clutch to get rolling. The wheels crushed into the sand, the load teetered. Joe Amos needed to pay attention to heave the truck off the beach and into the draw. He expected Mays to start talking the moment they climbed into the cab but the dark private kept quiet. Joe Amos snuck a glance at him. The boy watched Joe Amos’s feet and hands working the truck, just like Garner told him to do.
David Robbins - [World War II 04] Page 9