Young Lions

by Irwin Shaw

  The Medics had all been lost earlier in the day and Lieutenant Green kept running down when he could find time to do what he could with first-aid dressings.

  The farmer was not on good terms with his wife. “No,” he said bitterly again and again. “Madame would not leave her boudoir, war or no war. Oh, no. Remain, she says, I will not leave my house to soldiers. Perhaps, Madame, you prefer this?”

  Madame did not answer. She sat stolidly on her box, sipping at a cup of cider, looking down curiously at the faces of the wounded, beaded with cold sweat in the light of the candle.

  When a machine gun that the Germans had trained on the living-room window on the first floor clattered away there was a sound of breaking glass and tumbling furniture above her head. She sipped her drink a little more quickly, but that was all.

  “Women,” said the farmer to the dead American at his feet. “Never listen to women. It is impossible to make them see that war is a serious matter.”

  On the ground floor the men had piled all the furniture against the windows, and were firing through loopholes and over cushions. Lieutenant Green shouted instructions at them from time to time, but no one paid any attention. When there was some movement to be seen through the hedges or in the clump of trees two hundred yards away, everyone on that side of the building fired, then fell back to the floor for safety.

  In the dining room, at the head of a heavy oak table, Captain Colclough was sitting, his helmeted head bowed over on his hands, his pearl-handled pistol in its bright leather holster at his side. He was pale and he seemed to be sleeping. No one talked to him, and he talked to no one. Only once, when Lieutenant Green came in to see if he was still alive, he spoke. “I will need you to make out a deposition,” he said. “I told Lieutenant Sorenson to maintain contact on our flank with L Company at all times. You were there when I gave him the order, you were there, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, Sir,” said Lieutenant Green, in his high voice. “I heard you.”

  “We must get it down on paper,” Colclough said, staring down at the worn oak table, “as soon as possible.”

  “Captain,” said Lieutenant Green, “it’s going to be dark in another hour, and if we’re ever going to get out of here that’s the time to try …”

  But Captain Colclough had retired into his private dream at the farmer’s dining-room table, and he did not speak, nor did he look up when Lieutenant Green spat on the carpet at his feet and walked back into the living room, where Corporal Fein had just been shot through the lungs.

  Upstairs, in the bedroom of the master and mistress of the house, Rickett, Burnecker, and Noah covered a lane between the barn and the shed where a plow and a farm wagon were kept. There was a small wooden crucifix on the wall and a stiff photograph of the farmer and his wife, rigid with responsibility on their wedding day. On another wall hung a framed poster from the French Line showing the liner Normandie cutting through a calm, bright blue sea.

  There was a white embroidered spread on the lumpy four-poster bed, and little lace doilies on the bureau, and a china cat on the hearth.

  What a place, Noah thought, as he put another clip in his rifle, to fight my first battle.

  There was a prolonged burst of firing from outside. Rickett, who was standing next to one of the two windows, holding a Browning Automatic Rifle, flattened himself against the flowered wallpaper. The glass covering the Normandie shattered into a thousand pieces. The picture shivered on the wall, with a large hole at the water line of the great ship, but it did not fall.

  Noah looked at the large, neatly made bed. He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to crawl under it. He even took a step toward it, from where he was crouched near the window. He was shivering. When he tried to move his hands, they made wide senseless circles, knocking over a small blue vase on a shawl-covered table in the center of the room.

  If only he could get under the bed he would be safe. He would not die then. He could hide, in the dust on the splintery wood floor. There was no sense to this. Standing up to be shot in a tiny wallpapered room, with half the German Army all around him. It wasn’t his fault he was there. He had not taken the road between the hedges, he had not lost contact with L Company, he had not neglected to halt and dig in where he was supposed to, it could not be asked of him to stand at the window, next to Rickett and have his head blown in.

  “Get over to that window!” Rickett was shouting, pointing wildly to the other window. “Get the hell over! The bathtards’re coming in …”

  Recklessly, Rickett was exposing himself at the window, firing in short, spraying bursts, from the hip, his arms and shoulders jerking with the recoil.

  Now, thought Noah craftily, when he is not looking. I can crawl under the bed and nobody will know where I am.

  Burnecker was at the other window, firing, shouting, “Noah! Noah!”

  Noah took one last look at the bed. It was cool and neat and like home. The crucifix on the wall behind it suddenly leapt out from the wall, Christ in splinters, and tumbled on the bedspread.

  Noah ran to the window and crouched beside Burnecker. He fired two shots blindly down into the lane. Then he looked. The gray figures were running with insane speed, crouched over, in a bunch, toward the house.

  Oh, Noah thought, taking aim (the target in the center of the circle, remember, and resting on the top of the sight and even a blind man with rheumatism can’t miss), oh, Noah thought, firing at the bunched figures, they shouldn’t do that, they shouldn’t come together like that. He fired again and again. Rickett was firing at the other window and Burnecker beside him, very deliberately, holding his breath, squeezing off. Noah heard a high, wailing scream and wondered where that was coming from. It was quite some time before he realized that it was coming from him. Then he stopped screaming.

  There was a lot of firing from downstairs, too, and the gray figures kept falling and getting up and crawling and falling again. Three of the figures actually got close enough to throw hand grenades, but they missed the window and exploded harmlessly against the walls. Rickett got them all with the same burst of the gun.

  The other gray figures seemed to glide to a stop. For a moment there was silence and the figures hung there, motionless, reflective, in the clayey barnyard. Then they turned and began running away.

  Noah watched them with surprise. It had never occurred to him that they would not reach the house.

  “Come on, come on!” Rickett was screaming. He was reloading feverishly. “Get the bathtards! Get ’em!”

  Noah shook himself, then carefully aimed at a man who was running in a curious, clumsy, limping way, his gas-mask can banging on his hip and his rifle thrown away. Noah squinted, pulled the trigger gently, feeling the metal hot against the inside of his finger just as the man was turning behind the barn. The man fell in a long, sprawling slide. He did not move.

  “That’s it, Ackerman, that’s it!” Rickett was at the window again, shouting hilariously. “That’s the way to do it.”

  The lane was empty now, except for the gray figures that weren’t moving any more.

  “They’ve gone,” Noah said stupidly. “They’re not there now.”

  He felt a wet pressure on his cheek. Burnecker was kissing him. Burnecker was crying and laughing and kissing him.

  “Get down,” Rickett yelled, “get down from that window.”

  They ducked their heads. A second later they heard the whistle through the window. The bullets thudded into the wall below the Normandie.

  Very nice of Rickett, Noah thought coolly, very surprising.

  The door opened and Lieutenant Green came in. His eyes were granular and red and his jaw seemed to hang down with weariness. He sat on the bed, slowly, with a sigh, and put his hands between his legs. He wavered back and forth minutely, and, for a moment, Noah was afraid he was going to fall back onto the bed and go to sleep.

  “We fixed ’em, Lieutenant,” Rickett said, happily. “We gave ’em a good dose. Right up the old dog.”

 
; “Yes,” said Lieutenant Green in his squeaky voice, “we did very well. Anybody hurt up here?”

  “Not in thith room.” Rickett grinned. “Thith is a rugged team up here.”

  “Morrison and Seeley got it in the other room,” Green said wearily, “and Fein has one in the lungs downstairs.”

  Noah remembered Fein in the hospital ward in Florida, enormous, bullnecked, hard, saying, “After the war you can pick whatever company you please …”

  “However …” Green said with sudden brightness, as though he were beginning a speech. “However …” Then he looked vaguely about the room. “Isn’t that the Normandie?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Noah, “it’s the Normandie.”

  Green smiled foolishly. “I think I will sign up for a cruise,” he said.

  The men did not laugh.

  “However,” Green said, passing his hand across his eyes, “when it gets dark, we’re going to make a break. We’re almost out of ammunition downstairs, and if they try again, we’re fried. French-fried with ketchup,” he said vaguely. “You’re on your own when it gets dark. Twos and threes, twos and threes.” he chanted squeakily, “the Company will dissolve into twos and threes,”

  “Lieutenant,” Rickett said, from the window, where he was still peering out, with just a thin slice of his face exposed past the window-frame, “Lieutenant, is thith an order from Captain Colcough?”

  “This is an order from Lieutenant Green,” the Lieutenant said. He giggled. Then he caught himself and looked firm. “I have assumed command,” he said formally. “Command.”

  “Is the Captain dead?” Rickett asked.

  “Not exactly,” said Green. He lay back suddenly on the white spread and closed his eyes. But he continued talking. “The Captain has retired for the season. He will be ready for next year’s invasion.” He giggled, lying, with his eyes closed, on the lumpy featherbed. Then, suddenly, he sprang up. “Did you hear anything?” he asked anxiously.

  “No,” said Rickett.

  “Tanks,” said Green. “If they bring up tanks before it gets dark, French-fried with ketchup.”

  “We have a bazooka and two shells in here,” Rickett said.

  “Don’t make me laugh.” Green turned and stared at the Normandie. “A friend of mine once took that boat,” he said. “An insurance man from New Orleans, Louisiana. Got laid by three different women between Cherbourg and Ambrose Light. By all means,” he said gravely, “by all means use the bazooka. That’s what it’s for, isn’t it?” He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the window. Slowly he lifted his head and peered out. “I can see fourteen dead Krauts,” he said. “What do you think the live ones are planning now?” He shook his head sadly, then crawled away from the window. He had to hold onto Noah’s leg to pull himself up to his feet. “The whole Company,” he said wonderingly, “the whole Company is fini. One day. One day of combat. It doesn’t seem possible, does it? You’d think someone would have done something about it, wouldn’t you? When it gets dark, remember, you’re on your own, try to get back to our own lines. Good luck.”

  He went downstairs. The men in the room looked at one another. “All right,” Rickett said sourly, “you ain’t hurt yet. Get up to those windows.”

  In the dining room downstairs, Jamison was standing in front of Captain Colclough and yelling. Jamison had been next to Seeley when he was hit in the eye. Jamison and Seeley were from the same town in Kentucky. They had been friends since they were boys, and had enlisted together.

  “I’m not going to let you do it, you goddamn undertaker!” Jamison was yelling wildly to the Captain who still sat at the dark table with his head despairingly in his hands. Jamison had just heard that they were to leave Seeley in the cellar with the rest of the wounded, when they made the break at dark. “You got us in here, you get us out! All of us!”

  Three other soldiers were in the room now, staring dully at Jamison and the Captain, but not interfering.

  “Come on, you coffin-polishing son of a bitch,” Jamison yelled, swaying slowly back and forth over the table, “don’t just sit there. Get up and say something. You said plenty back in England, didn’t you? You were a big man with a speech when nobody was shooting at you, weren’t you, you bloody embalmer. Going to make Major by the Fourth of July! Major with the firecrackers. Take that goddamn toy gun off I can’t stand that gun!”

  Crazily, Jamison bent over and took the pearl-handled forty-five out of the holster and threw it into a corner. Then he ripped clumsily at the holster. He couldn’t get it off. He took out his bayonet and cut it away with the belt with savage, inaccurate strokes. He threw the shiny holster on the floor and stamped on it. Captain Colclough did not move. The other soldiers continued to stand stupidly along the scroll-work oak buffet against the wall. “We were going to kill more Krauts than anybody else in the Division, weren’t we, morgue-hound? That’s what we came to Europe for, wasn’t it? You were going to make sure that everybody did his share, weren’t you? How many Germans have you killed today, you son of a bitch? Come on, come on, stand up, stand up!” Jamison grabbed Colclough and pulled him to his feet. Colclough continued to look dazedly down at the surface of the table. When Jamison stepped back, Colclough slid down to the floor and lay there. “Make a speech, Captain!” Jamison screamed, standing over him, prodding Colclough with his boot “Make a speech now. Give us a lecture on how to lose a company a day in combat. Make a speech on how to leave the wounded for the Germans. Give us a speech on map-reading and military courtesy, I’m dying to hear it. Go on down to the cellar and give Seeley, a speech on first aid and tell him to see the Chaplain about the slug in his eye. Come on, give us a speech, tell us how a Major protects his flanks in an advance, tell us how well prepared we are, tell us how we’re the best-equipped soldiers in the world!”

  Lieutenant Green came in. “Get out of here, Jamison,” Lieutenant Green said calmly. “All of you get back to your posts.”

  “I want the Captain to make a speech,” Jamison said stubbornly. “Just a little speech for me and the boys downstairs.”

  “Jamison,” Lieutenant Green said, his voice squeaky but armed with authority, “get back to your post. That’s a direct order.”

  There was silence in the room. Outside, the German machine gun fired several bursts, and they could hear the bullets whining around the walls. Jamison fingered the catch of his rifle. “Behave yourself,” Green said, like a schoolteacher to a class of children. “Go on out and behave yourself.”

  Jamison slowly turned and went out the door. The other three men followed him. Lieutenant Green looked down soberly at Captain Colclough, lying quietly, stretched out on his side, on the floor. Lieutenant Green did not offer to pick the Captain off the floor.

  It was nearly dark when Noah saw the tank. It moved ponderously down the lane, the long snout of its gun poking blindly before it.

  “Here it comes,” Noah said, without moving, his eyes just over the windowsill.

  The tank seemed to be momentarily stuck. Its treads spun, digging into the soft clay, and its machine guns waved erratically back and forth. It was the first German tank Noah had seen, and as he watched it he felt almost hypnotized. It was so large, so impregnable, so full of malice … Now, he felt, there is nothing to be done. He was despairing and relieved at the same time. Now, there was nothing more that could be done. The tank took everything out of his hands, all decisions, all responsibilities …

  “Come on over here,” Rickett said. “You. Ackerman.”

  Noah jumped over to the window where Rickett was standing, holding the bazooka. “I’m gahnta see,” Rickett said, “if these gahdamn gadgets’re worth a fart.”

  Noah crouched at the window, and Rickett put the barrel of the bazooka on his shoulder. Noah was exposed at the window, but he had a curious sensation of not caring. With the tank there, so close, in the lane, everybody in the house was equally exposed. He breathed evenly, and waited patiently while Rickett maneuvered the bazooka around on h
is shoulder.

  “They got some riflemen waiting behind the tank,” Noah said calmly. “About fifteen of them.”

  “They’re in for a little thuprise,” Rickett said. “Stand still.”

  “I am standing still,” Noah said, irritated.

  Rickett was fussing with the mechanism. The bazooka would have to throw about eighty yards to reach the tank, and Rickett was being very careful. “Don’t fire,” he told Burnecker at the other window. “Let’s uth pretend we are not present up here.” He chuckled. Noah was only mildly surprised at Rickett’s chuckling.

  The tank started again. It moved ponderously, disdaining to fire, as though there was an intelligence there that understood its paralyzing moral effect that hardly needed the overt act of explosion to win its purpose. After a few yards it stopped again. The Germans behind it crouched for protection close to its rear treads.

  The machine gun farther off opened fire, spraying the whole side of the building loosely.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Rickett said, “stand still.”

  Noah braced himself rigidly against the window frame. He was sure that he was going to be shot in a moment. His entire body from the waist up was fully exposed in the window. He stared down at the waving guns of the tank, obscure in the growing shadows of dusk in the lane.

  Then Rickett fired. The bazooka shell moved very deliberately through the air. Then it exploded against the tank. Noah watched from the window, forgetting to get down. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment. Then the cannon swung heavily downwards, stopped, pointing at the ground. There was an explosion inside the tank, muffled and deep. Some wisps of smoke came up through the driver’s slits and the edges of the hatch. Then there were many more explosions. The tank rocked and quivered where it stood. Then the explosions stopped. The tank still looked as dangerous and full of malice as before, but it did not move. Noah saw the infantrymen behind it running. They ran down the lane, with no one firing at them, and disappeared behind the edge of the shed.