A Special Providence

by Richard Yates

  What the hell were they waiting for? Then he remembered: they were waiting for “B” Company to go in first, on the right. And no sooner had he remembered this than there came a ringing sputter of machine-gun fire from the right-hand side of the town, instantly followed by more machine guns and B.A.R.’s and rifles, until all the sounds were blended in a welter of noise. “B” Company! And what the hell were they supposed to do now? Were they just supposed to lie here, while “B” Company got torn apart?

  He rose briefly, just enough to see that Finn was still huddled behind a bush, and that down beyond him Loomis’s and Coverly’s helmets had made no movement. Apparently, no orders had yet been given for “A” Company to advance across the field.

  He lay down again and forced himself to watch Walker, who was watching Finn, who in turn was watching Loomis and Coverly. The gunfire dwindled a little and then was resumed; it was steady for a while and it dwindled again. The noise of it began to rise and fall almost rhythmically, like the sound of the sea or his own breathing; it formed a cadence for the silent chant in his mind:

  If I watch Walker and Walker watches Finn and Finn watches Loomis …

  If I watch Walker and Walker watches Finn and Finn watches Loomis …

  If I watch Loomis, and Loomis watches – no; wait. If I watch …

  If I watch …

  … Slam!

  He was awake and on his feet in a split second, and the first thing he saw was that Walker was still there: Walker was getting up and spinning around to see where the shell had fallen. Yellow dust was rising and clods of earth were falling all around them.

  Slam!

  He saw Walker fall again, get up, run a few steps one way and a few steps another, like a man in panic; and now, turning, he saw Brownlee’s face rise up over the brush, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

  Slam!

  The branch of a tree came crashing to the ground beside him. Brownlee’s head ducked down again, and only now did Prentice see that Finn and Loomis and Coverly were no longer there, nor were they anywhere to be seen in the empty field ahead. Near the little brick structure the grass had been torn away in a ragged shellhole, and close beside it he saw Ted the medic crouched over someone who was lying down. The noise of small-arms fire was so intense that it was impossible to tell how much of it was coming this way: the whole field might be humming with bullets.

  Slam!

  A lone man was running out across the field now, holding his free arm high in a gesture of “Follow me” – it was Sergeant Bernstein, “Suicide,” and Prentice followed him. He felt an exultant animal energy as he galloped through the brush and down the hillside, yelling “Come on!” at the top of his lungs to Walker and Brownlee and anyone else who might still be back there. At the base of the hill he lost his balance and went sprawling, but he was up and running again with the wind singing in his helmet and the rifle-grenade bag pounding his sore chest, convinced that this was the bravest thing he had ever done in his life.

  Shells were still coming in but they were falling behind him now, back on the ridge where Walker and Brownlee and God only knew how many others were still huddled; only Bernstein and he himself, it seemed, were crossing the field.

  He ran so fast that he’d almost caught up with Bernstein in time to climb the hill with him; Bernstein had just reached the crest and fallen into a crouch, turning around, when Prentice came panting up behind him.

  “Where’s my squad?” Bernstein demanded.

  “I don’t know – they must be back there. You know where Finn is?”

  “No. Well, you’d better stay with me. Come on.”

  And still crouching, they ran up over the crest into a small, shabby back yard full of rusting automobile parts and piled-up boxes that proved to be rabbit warrens. The gunfire could have been coming from across the street or even from this house itself, but Bernstein seemed to know what he was doing. He ran straight for the back door of the house, and without breaking his stride he raised his rifle butt and brought it down on the knob and lock of the door, shouldering all his weight against it in the same motion, whipping the rifle back up to the ready as he lunged inside. Prentice loped after him, into a prim kitchen that smelled of recent cooking; Bernstein was already disappearing down a dark hall calling, “You take the upstairs!”

  Prentice found the stairway and took it two steps at a time with his heart in his mouth, half expecting to find a German machine gunner poised at the top landing or waiting in one of the rooms. He smashed open the first of the bedroom doors and went charging in, badly off balance but with his rifle ready at the hip. There was a neatly made double bed, a flounced dressing table scented with perfume, and a closet that swung open to reveal a mass of men’s and women’s clothing. Some of the clothes were the uniforms of a German officer, and an officer’s high-crowned garrison cap sat on the hat shelf beside several civilian fedoras.

  There were two other bedrooms, both empty, and he had just finished with the last of them when Bernstein’s voice called, “Okay up there?”

  “Okay!”

  And they were out in the back yard again, vaulting over a low latticework fence to approach the next house. Where the hell was the fire coming from? This house was bigger, and they took the ground floor together; then they ran upstairs, with Bernstein in the lead. He slammed into the first bedroom while Prentice took the second, and they attacked the third and largest room together. There was a bed in the room with a crude canopy of blankets hanging over it from a length of clothesline strung high on the walls. Prentice wondered what to do about it – tear the canopy down? – and he was still wondering when Bernstein raised his rifle and fired three times into it with an ear-splitting noise, making three little black holes in the quivering cloth. And it wasn’t until they were halfway downstairs again that Prentice began to worry about what might have lain under that canopy: what if it was an old man or woman, too sick to be evacuated with the rest of the family? Or a couple of children playing Indian inside their homemade tent?

  But they were approaching their third house now, crouching low as they ran across an alley. The kitchen door was standing open, and inside they found three huddled men: Loomis, Coverly, and Klein.

  “Donkey Dog,” Klein was saying into his radio, plugging one ear with his free hand to block out the noise of gunfire. “Donkey Dog, this is Donkey Nan, Donkey Nan. Do you read me?”

  “Bernstein, where the hell are your men?” Loomis said.

  “I thought they were following me. I guess they’re all back on the—”

  Klein had gotten through to Company headquarters now and Coverly had grabbed the radio, talking in a high quavering voice that sounded almost on the verge of tears: “I’ve lost contact with the element on the right,” he was saying, “and I’ve lost contact with the element on the left. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing here, and I don’t even know how many men I’ve got. Most of my men are still pinned down on the ridge.”

  “Pinned down my ass,” Loomis said. “They’re scared shitless, that’s what they are.”

  And then Sergeant Finn appeared from the hallway, followed by Mueller and Gardinella and Sam Rand. They were all out of breath; apparently they’d just finished clearing the house.

  “Finn,” Loomis said. “How many men did you bring over? Just these three?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m here, Finn,” Prentice said.

  ‘Well, where the hell you been?”

  “I came over with Bernstein – hell, we’ve already cleared two—”

  “How come you didn’t follow me?”

  “I didn’t see you go. Bernstein was the only one I—”

  “All right, shut up, everybody,” Loomis said.

  The lieutenant was still on the radio, wiping his wet face with his free hand. “No, sir, I don’t,” he was saying. “No, sir, I don’t …”

  The sounds of fire were still close in the street outside. What were they supposed to do now? Just wait here until the
rest of the men came across? Bernstein showed no sign of eagerness to move out again, nor did Finn. Edging away from them and trying to make himself inconspicuous, Prentice saw that the oven door of the kitchen stove was open, and now he saw what made the sweet vanilla smell he’d been aware of ever since coming into the room: it was an angelfood cake, set out to cool, apparently abandoned just before the woman of the house had fled. He touched it with his forefinger, making a little dirty dimple in its top. It was still warm.

  “Yes,” Lieutenant Coverly was saying. “All right. All right, sir …”

  Ted the medic came blundering in from outside, winded and very red in the face.

  “How’s Paul, Ted?” someone asked him.

  “He’s gone,” Ted said. “Concussion. There wasn’t a mark on him.”

  “Jesus,” said Bernstein, and Loomis said, “Oh, shit.” Prentice was dumbfounded. Did they mean Paul Underwood? Did they mean he was dead?

  “There wasn’t a mark on him,” Ted said again. Then he came over and sat in a chair beside the angelfood cake and started to cry. It was a terrible thing to watch: he was sitting there with tears dribbling down his dirty face and his hands trying to wipe them away, his lips curling and bloating like a baby’s. “There wasn’t a mark on him. There wasn’t anything I could do for him …”

  Then Bernstein was leading Prentice out of the house again, following Finn and Rand and Gardinella and Mueller: they were to clear other houses and set up defensive positions until the rest of the platoon came over. Other doors were smashed open, other empty rooms were disclosed. Was Prentice supposed to go on working with Bernstein now, or should he follow Finn? There was no chance to ask. He was following Bernstein out of another house when Bernstein turned and held him back. “No, wait, Prentice,” he said, his scholarly face screwed up in concentration. He was evidently working out primitive tactics in his mind. “You stay here and keep that lot covered. See there?” And he pointed to a window that faced a gray vacant lot, irregularly bordered by other houses. “You stay here. You see anybody run across that lot, use your rifle. Got that?”

  He nodded yes and hurried over to kneel by the window.

  “Okay,” Bernstein said. “Stay on the ball now, whatever happens.” And he went jogging out of the house, calling something to someone else.

  Prentice did as he was told, pointing his rifle out the window. After a second or two he thrust the muzzle forward and broke out the pane of glass, less because he knew it would make for better aim than because it was what gunmen always did behind windows in the movies. He felt eager and competent as he knelt there: at least he had a specific job to do. The complexity of action outside might be wholly beyond his understanding, but nobody could say he wasn’t doing his part; nor could anyone say he hadn’t done better than Walker and the others, whether he’d fallen asleep on the ridge or not. They were still back there, “scared shitless” – he thought of Walker’s terrified face in the yellow dust – and he had made it across the field. He was here.

  The sounds of gunfire were still all around him, interspersed with spells of alarming silence, but nothing happened in the vacant lot. After a while his pride gave way to an almost petulant feeling that he was missing out on everything: he wished Bernstein would come back and relieve him of this apparently useless assignment.

  “What the hell are you doing, Prentice?” said Loomis’s voice, and Prentice turned to find him standing there in the room with Coverly and Klein.

  “Bernstein told me to stay here. He said to keep—”

  “Well, you better get back to your squad.”

  And by the time he found his own squad again, huddled against a brick wall three houses away, the other missing men were in the process of finding it too. Krupka came trotting up first, then Drake and Brownlee, and finally Walker, whose glance at Prentice was more than a little shamefaced. If Walker had caught him in his melodramatic posture that day of their meeting on the Rhine, it seemed to Prentice now that the score was settled.

  Gardinella wasn’t there, though Prentice didn’t give much thought to wondering why, and there was something decidedly strange about Mueller’s face – flaming red, with a stunned look about the eyes – but Prentice assumed this only meant that Mueller was scared; he wondered if he looked that way himself.

  “Is everybody here now, for a change?” Finn asked. “All right, let’s quit goofing off now and stay together.”

  Prentice wanted to say: “Look, Finn, I haven’t been goofing off; Bernstein posted me at a window and I had to stay there …” but there wasn’t time. Motioning for the squad to follow him, Finn ran to the end of the brick wall and out across an open space toward the shelter of another house.

  It soon became clear that most of the enemy had either surrendered or withdrawn. Once Finn’s squad saw a German soldier running away at the far end of a street and they knelt to fire at him, but he turned a corner and vanished even before Prentice had squeezed off his single, wasted round of ammunition – the first shot he’d fired in the war. For the rest of the afternoon, working in twos, they cleared houses.

  Prentice enjoyed it: he liked to smash open doors and lunge inside in a marauder’s stance, ready for anything. In one house he surprised two very clean, frightened young civilians of about his own age. One was wearing earphones and they’d both been seated at a table over a small, complicated-looking radio set. Prentice couldn’t tell whether it was a sending set as well as a receiver, but the barest chance of their being artillery spotters seemed to justify what he did next: he tore the earphones from the boy’s head, kicked over the table, and brought his butt plate down hard on the fallen radio, smashing it into fragments that skated across the floor while the two boys winced as if in pain. And what if they were only amateur radio hobbyists who’d spent months or years building their equipment? The hell with them.

  In another house he went charging into a roomful of old men and women – a dozen or more, all stock-still in fear as he whipped his rifle down from high port to his hip. One stout woman in the foreground had screamed and cowered away from him, covering her face with her hands; now she peeped out from between her fingers, let her hands fall, and looked at him with a tearful, motherly smile, saying something that plainly meant she had never expected the invading enemy to be a thin, beardless, exhausted-looking boy. Then she came forward and put both soft arms around him, pressing her head into his shoulder, while with his free hand he reached around and patted her back.

  It was in another house that he broke into a shadowy bedroom and found himself confronted by another rifleman, and it took him a moment to realize he was seeing his own reflection in a dark full-length mirror. There was no time to spare – Brownlee was yelling “Come on!” from downstairs – but he moved up close to the mirror and looked himself over, pleased with the picture he made. Maybe it was a boy’s face, a face to make a mother weep, but the rest of him was every inch a soldier. “Coming!” he called to Brownlee, and he took a last, proud glimpse of himself before he ran from the room.

  It wasn’t until late that night, as he fought off sleep while standing guard against a counterattack that never came, that he learned what had happened during the five or ten minutes of his kneeling at Bernstein’s window that afternoon. In that time, on a street that couldn’t have been more than two houses away from where he knelt, Gardinella had been killed and Mueller had become a hero. It was from Sam Rand’s droning voice that he heard it, while Sam was relating the story to Loomis. Four of them – Finn, Rand, Mueller, and Gardinella – had been moving down the street when a German rifleman stepped out of hiding less than five feet from Gardinella and killed him with a single shot in the back. Mueller had spun around to face the German, given out a yell, and fallen over backwards, bringing his B.A.R. up and firing steadily: he had stitched a row of bullets up the belly, chest, and face of the German before Rand and Finn were able to see what was happening.

  “And then when I turned around,” Sam said, “there’s old Mueller
on his back yellin’ his head off and still firin’, and there’s this big-assed Kraut foldin’ up like a God damn paper doll. I don’t think old Mueller knew what he’d done till after he done it. Finn says, ‘Mueller, you’re gonna keep that B.A.R.; you’ve earned it.’ ”

  Prentice didn’t know what to feel about Gardinella, that sad, hopefully friendly little man he’d scarcely known, and whose death seemed so much less important to everyone than Underwood’s; but what he felt about Mueller was a childish kind of envy, or jealousy: I could have done that; that’s the kind of thing I could have done, if only I’d had the chance.

  And it wasn’t until the next morning, on the march again, that he learned what had happened to Bernstein’s hastily re-formed squad during that same brief time. They had run into a machine gun that killed two of the new replacements and wounded a third. Bernstein himself had knocked out the gun with a beautifully aimed hand grenade, and his B.A.R. man had dropped another German who was trying to make a getaway.

  Both actions already had the unlikely, made-up sound of all second-hand war stories; yet both had taken place right there, within a few yards of him. And it seemed to him now, as he walked and tried to adjust the rifle-grenade bag to ease the ache in his chest, that his own performance yesterday had been ludicrous. What had he done, after all, except to fall asleep on the ridge, to miss out on all the combat, to break a radio, to please an old woman – and even (Jesus!) to admire himself in a mirror?

  There was no coherence to the days and nights that followed. There was never a whole night’s sleep, and there was never enough to eat. Mile after mile of what was said to be the Ruhr was slowly consumed in the changeless rhythm of walking on heavy, swollen feet; through a haze of exhaustion the broken towns rose up and divided into broken streets and houses, and the houses divided into rooms; then rooms, houses, streets, and towns closed up and fell behind, and there were more roads, more fields and woods and railroad tracks and factories, with other towns waiting.