Roll Me Over

by Raymond Gantter

  [I don’t know where the fault lay, but it was somewhere in the rear. Remembering how long we rotted with inaction in the Bastogne woods, waiting to be used, while at the same time the men of the 16th Infantry fought and died in the Hurtgen Forest and waited for replacements, I am led to believe that most of the time there were large pools of replacements in the rear, stagnating in snarls of red tape. They just never reached the front fast enough, and I never commanded or was part of a full-strength platoon at any time during the war. Our full complement of personnel, our full T.O., was not attained until long after the war was over.

  [A further footnote: The outcome for the man who shot himself was a little happier than seemed likely at the time. In view of his previous good record, the court-martial charges against him were dropped. Several months later I saw him once more. He was working with our kitchen crew, a member of our mess sergeant’s staff. He was never returned to line duty.]

  To get back to December 27.

  As I said, we returned to the stables last night. Three days ago Leo Allen and I, on private reconnaissance, had discovered a vacant top floor in one of the farm buildings. Now we moved in, ignoring the outraged squawks of the chickens who roosted in the room below and thus regarded our intrusion as an invasion of their privacy. From a discarded benzine can we constructed a stove, attached a length of stovepipe—we patched the shrapnel holes with flattened tin cans, tied on with wire—and voila, we had an apartment! Five of us slept on mounds of hay we filched from the barn, but it was not a night of uninterrupted domestic bliss. We had just gone to bed and I was snug and warm in my new sleeping bag when the call came, “Get it on! We’re stringing wire tonight!”

  It was another clear, still night with a nearly full moon. Our task took us well within small-arms range of the German lines, and we were not happy. A couple of burp guns could have

  wiped us out. But there was no sound, not even the occasional remarking of rifles.

  It was a grim and tense business for all that. The shelling of the village had continued into the night and several buildings were blazing. The silent flames so near us, the still night, the engineers, ghostly in white snow garments and laying mines in silent haste, and we ourselves, laboring wordlessly and freezing to immobility each time the stubborn wire uttered a protesting “twang”—all the ingredients for a fine dramatic tension were present. But like all dramatic moments too finely attenuated, too long unresolved, the magic in the scenery and the props began to wear off and the whole affair became pedestrian and tiresome as the night progressed. We were conscious of being very weary, and after a while we were careless about keeping our voices at whisper level, and hell, those dumb Jerries couldn’t see us, and for Pete’s sake, how long have we gotta work anyway?

  And then the villain of the piece made his entrance—out of the clear night a German plane suddenly dove toward us and zoomed only a few hundred yards above our heads, the roar of its motors shaking the ground and tearing at our ears. He was upon us so quickly that we could do nothing but freeze where we were, hoping pathetically that he would mistake our motionless figures for misshapen tree stumps in that snowy field. In a moment he’d passed over us ... he was gone! Instantly we were hot-footed into action, racing for the frail shelter of a small, tin-roofed outbuilding nearby. There we waited for fifteen minutes, but the plane did not return and we went back to work.

  Twenty minutes passed and suddenly he was upon us again, so low that we could see the black bat shape clear and evil against the milky sky. This time we stayed in the field after he had gone because we were so nearly finished with our job. We worked frenziedly, the hasty sweat chilling our bodies like a needle spray. Once more he zoomed overhead, and our hearts stopped as we waited for the burst of his machine guns. Still he did not strafe. We were bordering on hysteria when we finished what was probably the lousiest wire-stringing job

  in the ETO and raced from the field, slowing our flight only when we were safe in the shadowy lanes between the hedgerows. It was midnight when we reached home. And we slept like angels, warm for the first time since leaving Minerie.

  A strange and terrible thing happened yesterday as we were being relieved on the line. I had come in before Shorty—he stayed out there until the relief arrived to take over our dug-out—and when he joined me at the C.P., he was still excited and sputtering with rage at what he’d just seen.

  Our artillery had been shelling the small village in the valley for hours. Although many of the buildings had been wrecked by fire and shell, a scattering of civilians still lingered, clinging with desperate hope to their homes. Yesterday afternoon the Germans evicted them and headed them toward our lines. There were twenty women and children and three old men, and some of them were wounded. Waving white flags, they approached our lines slowly, fearfully. They were fifty yards short of our positions and clearly visible against the unbroken white of the open field when the Jerries in the town behind them started lobbing mortar shells.

  Shorty said it was a bad ten minutes up there—the wretched civilians lying on the ground, clawing at the frozen snow with desperate, bleeding fingers, and over the sound of their cries the flat, vicious explosion of bursting mortar shells and the dangerous humming of shrapnel. Some of our men, ignoring the bursting shells, ran out and dragged or carried the fainting civilians to the nearest holes. There were some wounds from the affair, but happily, no deaths.

  Ho Hum Department: Tonight we go out on wire detail again. Last night’s order stated, specifically, “a single-apron barbed wire entanglement.” A moment ago came the order to return to the same place and make it a double apron!

  December 28.

  Four hours on wire detail last night, and I looked forward to a warm bed when we finished. Six men were required for a reconnaissance patrol, however, and I was one of the unlucky ones.

  I was scared. We rested in the kitchen of a farmhouse until twelve-thirty (I didn’t sleep), and then dressed ourselves in makeshift snowsuits that had been fashioned from sheets. We were in combat dress—no overcoats, no galoshes—and the snowsuits hooded our helmets and covered our bodies to the knee. The sleeves were crudely mandarin, huge and entangling.

  At one a.m. we set out, our mission to go as deep as possible into German territory and discover what we could about the German force opposing us—its size, disposition, equipment, outposts, and so on. We were to try to take a prisoner or two, but a firefight was to be avoided unless thrust upon us. Until five a.m. our artillery would take an intermission. We had to be back by then or run the risk of being under the fire of our own guns when they opened up.

  I think I have never been so cold, so wretched, so frightened. I decided that a patrol was the worst of all war assignments, particularly in winter. (Nothing I experienced in later months changed my mind—patrolling remained the job I hated and dreaded beyond any other.)

  It is the slow piling up of fear that is so intolerable. Fear moves swiftly in battle, strikes hard with each shell, each new danger, and as long as there’s action, you don’t have time to be frightened. But this is a slow fear, heavy and stomachfilling. Slow, slow ... all your movements are careful and slow, and pain is slow and fear is slow and the beat of your heart is the only rapid rhythm of the night ... a muttering drum easily punctured and stilled.

  You wait for zero hour at the point of departure. Huddled in a shadow, you listen to the last low-voiced instructions, get the final checkup: “Joe, tighten the stacking swivel on your rifle—I heard it rattling ... Mac, leave your wristwatch here or put it in your pocket. It shines like a headlight!... Gantter, your shirt shows. Pull your sheet closer around your neck... Now listen, you guys! We go out in this order: first Joe, then me...then Mac, Parks, and Gantter...Bryan on the end. Keep plenty of distance crossing the open fields, close up when we hit the hedgerows or the trees. If you see anything, freeze! Don’t get trigger-happy—that ain’t your job tonight! If we hit the ground, stay there until the guy ahead of you starts to move, or until you hear
me tap with my fingernails on the stock of my rifle... twice I’ll tap, like this!” In the unbreathing stillness the faint tapping of his nails on the smooth wood is like the clattering of castanets.

  “Okay ... here we go! And for Chrissake, be quiet! While he was talking, your eyes slipped past him and to the white fields ahead, to the dark patches of trees, the shadowy smears that were hedgerows.

  Now you’re ready. While you were busy with last-minute preparations, the men in the nearest hole made a gap in the barbed wire. Wrenching several of the iron supporting stakes from the frozen ground, they have flattened the sagging wire by lying on it, and now you can cross. One by one you go over the wire, lifting the skirts of your snowsuits high to keep them from catching on the barbs. A wire twangs as someone steps clumsily, and you freeze for thirty seconds. Then on again. Once free of the wire, you move swiftly, your flickering eyes returning anxiously and always to the comforting shape of the man ahead. The crunch of snow is alarmingly noisy, and you experiment briefly with techniques of walking, trying to minimize the dangerous creaking. Knees high, feet coming down flat? No ... it slows your pace and you begin to fall behind. There is an agonizing moment when you cannot see Parks, the man ahead, and you leap forward frenziedly, snow-walking techniques forgotten in the impulse of your panic. The snow is deep, over your knees, and already you’re tiring.

  Now you’re in the middle of the field, moving steadily toward a hedgerow that debouches like a dark artery from the distant huddle of trees. The hedgerow looks safe, inviting, and you wonder why your leader continues to move forward on the naked breast of the field when the shadows of the hedgerow promise such haven. You turn your head for one swift look behind, in the direction of our lines. There is nothing there, you can see nothing. Not a man, not a dugout, not a suggestion of the wire entanglement through which you passed not five minutes ago. The six of you are alone, midway between worlds.

  A fierce whisper from someone ahead: “Down!” You collapse noiselessly in the snow, falling flat but remembering to keep your rifle upright so the muzzle will not be clogged with snow. You’re quivering with excitement and fear, and your helmet has slid over your eyes, so you cannot see. Cursing silently, you struggle to right it, feeling a bubble of hysterical laughter in your throat. What a Sad Sack! Fifty million helmets in the army and you can’t get one that fits!

  A few convulsive movements and at last you can see. You lift your head a cautious three inches and peer ahead. Nothing! Not even the white-clad bodies of the other men. There, in the trees! A shadow that moved? Did it move ... was it (you finger your rifle, fumbling for the safety catch)... no, only a branch in the wind. A faint sound—there on your right, in the hedgerow! No, it comes from the left, from that hedgerow! Now every bush holds menace, every shadow. In what covert lies the patient sniper, pale eyes watching? Behind which tree the machine gun, the burp gun? If they see us, why do they wait? Until we’re on our feet again, a slow line of easy targets, and then—one short traverse of the machine gun?

  So you lie and wait and count the seconds and quiver at the many small voices of the frozen night You begin to be conscious of cold—biting, searing cold—and with a sense of shock you realize that the warmth of your body has melted the snow under you and you’re lying in a pool of ice water. Your genitals flinch and withdraw and you feel them tightening, drawing up ... up ... inside your belly, retreating to the dimly remembered fetal warmth. The raw humor of hysteria shakes you, and you recognize it as hysteria but for a moment you cannot control it, you do not want to control it. (S’posin’... s’posin’ they really did pull up... s’posin’ they got stuck there, didn’t come down again?... I knew a guy, what’d he call it?... Testicular descension or declension or something...what would I say when Geoff asked me?... “Well, son, they weren’t exactly shot off, but I did sorta lose ’em in the war!”)

  The cold deepens in your bones and blood, and your teeth begin to dance. With shaking fingers you fumble in your pockets for a stick of gum. You chew it, jerkily, and wedge the softened wad between your teeth. It muffles the sound of chattering, though the jaws continue to jig.

  Still you he there... colder... colder... colder. Fear is forgotten now and only the cold remains. At last a faint blur of movement ahead, a faint whisper—“Come on!”—the faint suggestion of a white arm sweeping in the “Let’s go” signal you learned in rifle squad training at Camp Wheeler. Slowly, stiffly, you arise. Then forward. Before you’ve taken ten steps your dripping snowsuit has frozen and become a widely flaring kite, a crackling mockery of camouflage. Without slowing your pace, you try to crush the stiffness between your hands, soften it with rubbing so that it will not rattle. At last the hedgerow, the clump of trees. A stealthy searching of the little grove. All clear! And you relax a little, breathe deeply for a moment. The first leg is over.

  A brief consultation and you start off again, still moving toward the German lines. Now it is routine: the open fields, the stealth, the whispered order—“Down!”—the slow paralysis of waiting, the advance, the relief of the next hedgerow. With every small advance your tension grows: the whispering of your garments is an alarum tremendous and shattering; the creaking of a frozen branch is heavy with danger. Those trees ahead—there’s a Jerry listening post there; that hedgerow must be the first fine of enemy positions—it’s got to be, don’t you see, because that’s the logical place/or a defense line!

  There was more than two hours of it. At last we stood on the rim of a sunken lane frequently traveled by the enemy, to judge from the trampled snow. We lay in ambush for an hour, waiting for the German who would be the prize of our expedition. But we were unlucky—none passed.

  Cautiously, we crept to the farmhouse, which was being used by the Germans as a C.P. In the yard were light tanks and armored cars, ample indication of the enemy’s armor and equipment. Once, an eight-man patrol passed nearby, not close enough for us to latch on to a possible straggler. Me, I was just as glad. The hell with this prisoner business, this patrol business! I was cold and I wanted to go home.

  At four-thirty we turned back, racing across the field with reckless abandon as we neared our lines, our frozen snow garments grotesquely extended and crackling like frozen sails. We turned in our report and hit the sack. Got up at six-thirty long enough to have breakfast, and went back to bed immediately after. Tonight we go back to the lines.

  In response to my fervent pleas, my wife’s letters were now extra thick, extra fat, requiring double postage. However, the letters contained therein were brief notes only: the extra thickness was a padding of toilet paper, the most precious gift I could receive during those winter months. Far from conventional bathroom facilities, and afflicted almost constantly with the GIs, we came to regard toilet paper as one of the supreme achievements of civilization. [Even the exquisite Marlene Dietrich, bless her, can testify to the misery of the GIs, having herself been a sufferer during her ETO tour. One tribulation I am confident the lovely Marlene was spared: I’m sure that someone, possibly a major with nothing else to do, saw to it that she was supplied with paper!]

  I’m no stranger to certain rural customs: I’ve heard about corncobs, and I know how the hairy-chested will sneer at my whimpering, but they don’t grow much com in Europe and I have it on good authority that a handful of pine needles is no substitute. You can use a lot of paper with a touch of the GIs, and a dozen trips a day is only a mild case. Figure that in terms of paper consumption! Fortunately, many of us carried one or two books in our packs, gifts of the Council on Books in Wartime, an organization I cannot praise enough. Even after having been read, those books continued to minister to our comfort. I knew one guy whose sole remaining treasure in life was a pocket-size Shakespeare. Alas, poor Yorick! First he worked his way through the comedies, starting with the ones he liked least, but at last he was compelled to begin on the tragedies. He’d reached the third act of Antony and Cleopatra when at last a truck arrived, loaded with supplies and sundries.

  I was l
uckier than he in my period of woe—my book was a historical novel of no great significance, and the manner of its destruction gave my conscience no qualms. On the contrary, it gave me an obscure satisfaction, and I never tore out a page without recalling other historical novels of similar quality that I would have enjoyed so using.

  Passage from a letter, written December 28, 1944:

  Last night, huddled around the stove in our chicken-roost bedroom, we fell to talking about the abnormality of our life up here. We discovered, to our mutual surprise, that none of us have had any compelling sex urge for months. It puzzled and even disturbed us that it should be so because, aside from one nineteen-year-old, we are all mature married men, well-accustomed to a normal sex life. We batted the subject around for a while and finally came up with an answer that should allay any worries you might have—at least so long as we’re in combat! We decided that we are incapable of normal human feelings in a world that is violently abnormal, alien to all our habitual patterns. Existence itself has a dreamlike quality and normal appetites hint of the grotesque. I suspect that abnormal desires, perverse tastes, vices of a spectacular and violent nature would frequently seem more authentic, more in character than the normal. If we were stationed in or near a town, our hunger would be as insistent as though we were civilians; if we were anyplace where the life around us approached the normal, the urge for satisfaction would be irrepressible. But this, this life that is no life, this eating, breathing, sleeping, defecating—this is a cardboard imitation and we no longer recognize our own flesh.

  And if you prefer a less esoteric explanation—we’re just too damn cold to think about sex!

  December 29, 1944.