There was a sizeable crater near the hole, and I presumed the shock from the salvo must have been to blame for killing them. Jedidiah’s Bible lay beside him. He’d undoubtedly been reading it when the shell hit. Sadness pierced my leathery heart. I looked down at Johnny. Tears flowed freely down his face, cutting trails through the crust of dirt that covered it. He held a cigarette in between fingers that shook uncontrollably.
“Th—that was a good man,” Johnny stuttered between sobs, pointing an unsteady finger at the hole. For the first time in what seemed like eternity, I felt twinges of genuine grief. For a moment, I allowed myself to feel human emotions. Everyone had liked the hillbilly preacher. He’d been the real deal. I swallowed my sorrow and rested my hand on Johnny’s shoulder.
“It is well with his soul, Johnny,” I said quietly. He nodded as I turned to go. I was worried about him. He’d never lost his composure to that extent before, and I wondered if the shelling had begun to unglue him. Though I had momentary thoughts of sending him home, I decided instead to keep a closer eye on him, and talk to him to get a sense of where his head was at before sending a valuable resource like Johnny Snarr back to America.
As for Francis, it would be his last battle. I sent his body home the next day. The fragments of his mind stayed on a bloody, battle-scarred ridge called Martinville.
Table of Contents
NINE
FRIENDLY FIRE
“When are they gonna take us off the goddamn line?” a surly Dick Johnson asked his tin of canned ham and egg. “I’m sick of eating this shit!” He hurled the empty tin over the top of the foxhole and reached for a cigarette.
“We won’t get moved off until we take Saint-Lô,” I replied, trying to sound matter-of-fact about it, instead of bummed out like I felt.
“Well, if Saint-Lô was being held by crows instead of Krauts, we’d be long done. You fellas look like a bunch of goddamn scarecrows,” Johnson observed.
Eddie Gunn snorted. “You need to take a look in a mirror, Dicky.” Private Johnson looked just as gaunt and ill-kempt as the rest of us. Weeks of K-rations had whittled us down to bony frames, and our filthy uniforms hung on our bodies like baggy sacks.
“Wonder how long we’ve been on the line? A month?” Dick mused.
“I dunno,” I sighed. “I stopped counting at two weeks.”
“Twenty-six days. Twenty-six days of hell,” Johnny answered.
“Shit,” said Dick.
“Yup,” said Johnny, his right eye twitching. It’d begun twitching ever since we’d gotten shelled on Martinville Ridge, and he seemed more skittish and snappy. He had also taken to singing or humming “Oh, Shenandoah” a lot, especially at night.
“Come on boys, it ain’t so bad!” Eddie grinned as he blew smoke through his nose. “We have a little grub to eat, unlimited ammunition, and a license to kill as many Krauts as we like. What more could a fella ask for?”
It was a typical comment from Eddie that we usually chose to ignore. His enthusiasm for war and killing was not shared by many any longer. What was unsettling was that he didn’t make his bloodthirsty comments simply to impress his comrades or stir the pot, he genuinely enjoyed being at war. His fascination with killing won him few friends.
“Shut up, Gunn!” Johnny snapped.
“What?” Eddie looked stunned, like he’d just been hit over the head with a shovel.
“I said, shut up!” Johnny’s face contorted with rage. “No one wants to hear your bullshit about how this is the life! I’m sick and tired of you yappin’ about how much you love shootin’ and stickin’ Krauts! I just won’t listen to it anymore!” The calm, deliberate Johnny I’d once known had been replaced by a sputtering madman.
The stunned look on Eddie’s face lasted only a moment before being replaced by a derisive smile. “Now Snarr, you keep talking like that, somebody’s bound to get hurt,” he said, flicking his cigarette butt coolly toward Johnny.
Quick as a cat, Johnny leapt up and had his trench knife at Eddie’s throat. Eddie didn’t move. I waited for either one to say something, but they didn’t. Eddie looked up at Johnny, not with fear, but with an inquisitive look a puppy gives a butterfly. Of all the things that Eddie might be scared of, death certainly did not appear to be one of them. Sweat beaded on Johnny’s forehead.
“Johnny,” I said in a low voice. “Sit down.”
He continued to hold the quivering knife suspended in front of Eddie’s throat. I rose slowly and took Johnny’s wrist, guiding his hand down to hang limply at his side. I put my hands on his shoulders, gently pushed him back, and sat him back down on the ammunition crate he’d been sitting on. He dropped his knife and began to cry. It was pitiful. Eddie opened a chocolate D-bar and began eating it like nothing had happened.
“Lunch is over, boys,” I told Dick and Eddie. “You’d best see if you can get your foxhole dug another foot or two deeper, while things are still quiet.”
“Yes, sir,” Dick responded soberly, and he and Eddie returned to their foxhole. I didn’t envy Dick, having to share tight quarters with the likes of Crazy Eddie, though sharing my earthen accommodations with my friend Johnny was turning into no picnic, either.
“Johnny!” I chided softly. “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny!”
He lifted his head and roughly wiped his face with a ragged sleeve. His sunken eyes mirrored his hopelessness. I could have cried. He was a man I respected. He had won my respect. I loved him, looked up to him like an older brother. It was like seeing your invincible big brother get whupped in a fight. You feel sad not only because his greatness has been diminished in your sight, but because you feel his humiliation.
I sat down beside him and leaned forward, hands clasped between my knees. “What was that all about?”
He shifted his weight uneasily. His eye twitched. He looked down, ashamed. “I’m sorry,” was all he said.
We sat in silence. I felt tired. It was more than physical. I felt a mental, emotional, spiritual fatigue, as though every possible part of my being was utterly exhausted.
“Do you want to take a break?” I asked, almost timidly, not wanting to insinuate he was weak. “You know, get behind the line a bit, take a shower, shave, eat some hot meals?”
He thought for a minute, though whether about my question, I wasn’t convinced. “No,” he answered, and I didn’t press the issue.
We listened to the distant rat-tat-tat of machinegun fire, thankful that, for the moment, we weren’t the ones giving or taking it.
“Cigarette?” I offered. He stretched out a hand that shook like an old man’s, took a cigarette from me, and put it in his mouth. I lit it for him.
“Thanks,” he said through the corner of his mouth that wasn’t holding the cigarette. I nodded.
The midday sun shone into our foxhole. I could feel its warmth seep into my muscles. It penetrated to my bones. I closed my eyes. As much as I felt like I needed sleep, my mind refused to allow my body that luxury, so instead, I fretted over Johnny. He looked so utterly used up. Old beyond his years. He reminded me of Black Beauty. I’d read the story a thousand times as a boy, about Black Beauty, that proud, majestic steed, reduced to a lowly nag through the cruelty of men, worth little more than dog food. That was Johnny. Beaten down. Hammered flat. Worn out. Good for little else but to use up the little that was left of him. The Little Joe Green in me wanted to set Johnny free from what was squeezing the life out of him. Give him proper nourishment, rest and peace. I wanted to make him young again.
“I had a dream last night,” Johnny said suddenly.
“That so?” I replied, not bothering to open my eyes. I heard him blow smoke through his lips. He began telling me his dream, unconcerned with whether I cared to hear it or not.
“I dreamt I was standing in the bottom of a great big pit, or dry well. It was pitch black in there, black as all fuck, but I could see faces. It was me, and you, and Frankie, and Cappy.” He paused. “Honky-tonk, Hankins, Green, Meeker—a whole shitload of us, you kno
w, guys we trained with. We were standing on bodies, and someone was throwing in the bodies from the top, like they were trying to fill up the whole goddamn thing with bodies. And we just kept on having to climb on top of the bodies to keep from getting buried. Most of our buddies eventually got bodies thrown on top of them, and got buried with the rest of them. And I’d have to climb on top of them too, just to stay alive. Well, more fellows kept getting buried, and I kept on climbing, and finally, when most of the fellows I recognized were gone, the bodies were piled so high, I was starting to see the light at the top.”
He took a drag from his cigarette, and I waited for him to continue. But he didn’t. I opened one eye and looked at him. He was studying the smoke rings he’d blown at the sky.
“And then what?” I prompted.
“Nothin’,” he said.
“Nothing?”
He shook his head. “That was where it ended.”
I felt a shiver down my back. “Well, I should make the rounds,” I excused myself abruptly, rising to my feet and lifting myself out of the hole with my hands. I walked a half dozen paces before I stopped and turned back. “Johnny?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“At the end of your dream, you know, when you saw the light. Do you remember if I had already been buried, or was I still there with you?” I could scarcely breathe as I waited for his reply. He furrowed his brow thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” he finally said, “Yeah, I—I think you were.” I nodded and walked away, wondering if I’d made it to the top of the well.
~~~
“I feel like a new man,” Leroy Green grinned over a steaming bowl of mystery goulash.
We had finally been relieved of frontline duty and been sent back behind the lines for some rest.
“I’m just happy to feel like any sort of man again,” Donald Rudd said. Every head at the table nodded understandingly. Forty-two days on the cusp of the offensive had reduced us to feeling like little more than animals.
That morning I’d taken my first warm shower in almost two months, and its effects on my emaciated body did my spirit good. It was more than a physical cleansing, it was cathartic. It felt like being reborn, to be able to scrub away my skin’s grimy rind, rinse out the dust and dirt from my hair, and feel the water gently cleanse the open sores that had developed on my exposed skin. And, for a few moments, my mind was cleansed of 42 days of horror.
I’d seen myself in a mirror for the first time in a long time that morning, and I was shocked to see I looked just as gaunt and aged as my comrades. But a shower, shave, haircut, and clean uniform had worked wonders for our morale.
I looked around the room. Men who hadn’t smiled for weeks were beginning to laugh and joke once again. I hoped, somehow, the war would miraculously end before we were pressed back into service. But I wasn’t holding my breath.
~~~
On July 22, 1944, I was promoted to Sergeant First Class. While I supposed the army meant it as a compliment to my service and abilities, a promotion in rank failed to excite me as it once would have. Battle had already taught me that the more stars and bars they stuck on a man’s uniform, the more likely he was to put himself in harm’s way. You were expected to lead then. I had assumed leadership of the platoon the moment 1st Lieutenant Stavely had gotten shot on D-Day, so in a way, the promotion was a long time coming.
None of us knew how long we’d be behind the line. I greeted each morning ambivalently; I celebrated being off the line, but the nagging thought was always there: Is this the day we get sent back?
While we were no longer on the front lines, the army believed idle hands and minds were the devil’s tools, so we were made to participate in a full schedule of training, from weapons firing to close-order drill. In many ways, it was good to keep occupied, since the dread of returning to the line was never far from our minds. I could see the tension on the faces of the men. Sometimes a fellow would get a haunted look, as though he were being hunted. Each day that passed brought us closer to the inevitable, and I believe many of the men would have handled actually combat better than the suspense of respite.
~~~
On the morning of the fifth day, I was awakened by a nearby commotion. I heard garbled shouts and calls for a medic, so I got half dressed and crawled out of my tent as fast as I could.
The eastern sky was just beginning to lighten. Ghostly figures of men scurried out of tents like ants and congregated around a tent a hundred yards from me. I ran toward the crowd and cleared a pathway through to the door of the tent.
A shirtless Doc Clayton was already there, kneeling beside a lifeless body in the light of several flashlights and a lantern. Blood was spattered all over the inside of the tent. The medic shook his head. “Goddamnit!” he yelled. Anger, sadness, and helplessness pulled his face in different directions. He grabbed his bag, pushed past me without acknowledgement, and disappeared into the crowd.
I quickly moved to kneel beside the body. It was recently promoted Sergeant Donald Rudd. His rifle lay beside him. The top of his head was blown off.
“Show’s over,” I told the onlookers, taking the lantern from a faceless body and closing the front flap of the tent. I felt the stickiness of blood on my fingers. I looked up at Private Daniel Finch, a fresh-faced replacement from New York City who shared Donny’s tent. The stunned look of horror on his face quickly dismissed any possibility that he’d had any hand in Rudd’s death. He was shaking all over. This was obviously not how he’d envisioned he’d see his first death in action.
“So . . . what can you tell me, Finch,” I asked.
“Well, I, uh, s—sir, well . . . he, he, uh,” he stammered through quivering lips.
“Hang on,” I held up my hand for him to stop and rifled through Rudd’s pockets until I found a couple of cigarettes and a lighter. I lit one and handed it to Finch, and lit one for myself.
“Thanks,” he said, and I waited until he blew smoke in a steady stream instead of ragged puffs before questioning him further.
“Go on,” I prompted.
“Well, last night, Sergeant Rudd began muttering strange nonsense as soon as we went to bed. Just talking crazy, about how he was the toughest motherfucker around, and how sick he was of sitting on his hands when there were more Krauts to kill. Then he started singing ‘I’m a fightin’ man that’s what I am’ over and over and over. He must have sung it a thousand times. Well, I just lay there, listening to it for hours. I didn’t know what to do. He sounded nuts! Anyway, I finally got so tired, I fell asleep in spite of it around two hundred hours. Next thing I remember is waking up to a loud bang, and . . . and . . .” he trailed off, making a spastic gesture toward the body on the ground, as though he were shooing a fly.
“Thank you, private,” I said quietly. I picked up Rudd’s pate by the hair, like one would grab a jack-o-lantern lid, and turned it this way and that until it fit the jagged hole in the top of his head.
Then I found some twine, looped it carefully over the loose piece of skull, and tied it tight around his chin like a bonnet string. A traumatized Private Finch looked on, bewildered, as I wiped my bloody hands on the sleeve of Donny’s uniform. My own calmness surprised and, in some ways, alarmed me.
“I like to bury my men with as many of their parts as I possibly can,” I explained as I opened the front of the tent. I looked at the blood sprayed on the walls. “I’m guessing you’re going to want to find different accommodations.”
I stepped into the warm embrace of the sunrise. My throat knotted up as I thought about how poor Donny Rudd had seen his last one.
Breakfast went down hard that morning. Waking up to the bloody carcass of your friend does little to whet the appetite.
“What was all the ruckus about this morning?” Private First Class Everett Lane asked through a mouthful of biscuit.
“Yeah, I heard there was some excitement on the other side of camp, but I’ve gotten about fifty different stories,” Charlie Reid piped up.
“Fell
a got killed, is what I heard,” Leroy Green contributed.
As I gulped down some hot coffee, I felt all eyes on me, expectantly waiting for me to confirm or deny the rumors they had heard. I set down my empty cup on the table and flicked it with my fingernail. Tink. Tink. Tink. I picked it back up and stared at its empty bottom. The men remained silent.
“Yeah, a man died this morning,” I said finally. The silence hung like a heavy smoke. My tablemates scanned the room, looking to see if they could account for someone missing.
“Who?” Johnny finally ventured.
“Sergeant Rudd,” I replied. My words fell with a thud.
“Aw, Christ!” Charlie muttered, shaking his head.
“What happened?” Leroy asked. I filled my cheeks with air and slowly let it escape.
“Friendly fire,” I replied. A dozen pairs of eyes inquired “self-inflicted or homicide?”
“I, uh—I believe Sergeant Rudd felt he’d made his contribution to the war, so he removed himself from any possibility of further participation,” I answered the unspoken question carefully. I looked up. Every man knew what I meant.
“Pussy!” Eddie Gunn snorted under his breath. Everyone ignored him. No one touched their food for a moment. We all sat soberly, reflecting on the life and death of Donny Rudd.
“Good for him.” Johnny murmured. “Good for him.”
~~~
Two days after Donny Rudd put a bullet in his brain, I was instructed to assemble the platoon. We’d rested for one week. My heart sank to my knees, and I could instantly feel my palms prickle with sweat. I would have done anything to get out of telling the men that they were being sent back to hell. Before I’d even spoken a word, they knew. Some groaned, some looked pained, and a few looked visibly ill. Faces whose color had been revived from seven days of rest became ashen. We broke camp in grim silence. Men put their war faces back on. We became warriors once more.
Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 20