Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  As if to signal the changing battalion fortunes, the rain began to ease.

  Lieutenant Schup ran back into the hut, tore a sheet from Raymond Peck’s communications log, and began hurriedly scribbling. “Can you watch the whole shop here?” the lieutenant asked Timmy Rice. He pulled the headset off Raymond Peck and thrust the piece of paper into his hand, grabbed Raymond’s helmet from atop the wireless set and dropped it on his head. “You know the way up to the line, son?”

  “I’m not sure – ”

  The lieutenant had pulled Raymond outside. Raymond blinked against the last of the rain splashing against his face. “It’s that path right there. Get this to Major Joyce!”

  From inside the hut, Timmy Rice: “That’s it! On the radio, somebody said they saw the red flare! He says he’s sees Rainbow Six moving to the top of the hill!”

  Lieutenant Schup, already hustling Raymond to the path by his shoulder, sent the lad on his way with a swat on his rump and the command, “Run!”

  Somewhere at the end of the gravel path, out of sight beyond the myriad turns the walkway made behind opaque curtains of firs, German artillery rained down on the I & R Platoon’s position. As Raymond Peck skidded over the rain–slicked stones, along the graceful curves intended to provide a pleasant walk for hikers, the sound of the barrage grew louder and clearer. His pace began to slow from a run to a trot; his steps grow more tentative.

  On either side of the pathway, the towering evergreens stood near the wooden curbs in such tight ranks that their branches interlaced in an unbroken phalanx, casting the gravel way in shadow. On either side of the walk, between the close–standing trunks, Raymond saw a place of perpetual gloom and dark shapes. The earth beneath the evergreen canopy was so starved for sun there was no groundcover; no grass, no shrubbery, only barren earth occasionally mottled by a sprawl of moss. There amongst the tall trees, alone somewhere between the comforting familiarity of the CP and the vulcanian tumult ahead, Raymond Peck felt the primal ghosts of a dozen bedside fairy tales whisper in his ear, and, for a moment, he was just a child lost in the woods.

  “Hey, Peckerhead!”

  He recognized the two soldiers crouched alongside the path; two of his mates from the HQ company. They had been running the fresh wire for the forward OP’s sound–powered field telephone, had finished one spool and were splicing on the next.

  Raymond waved a hello, presented a composed face, and resumed his jog down the path.

  “If you’re goin’ over the hill, that’s the wrong hill to go over!” one of the men jibed and Raymond forced a smile.

  “How much I gotta give you t’ run this wire up the line for me?” the other remarked.

  “You don’t have that much!” Raymond jested in return, then lost his smile as he turned back to the path and continued on.

  Deeper into the woods, splashes of light broke up the dark ground; holes punched through the evergreen canopy by the incoming German shells now concentrating further ahead. The barren dirt was littered with sheared boughs, long shards of wood peeled from trunks, fallen trees. Other evergreens remained stout and straight but their uppermost reaches had been denuded by the artillery, their barren trunks ending in splintered stumps like broken ship masts. Still further along, the litter on the ground was joined with a scattering of rifles, helmets, ammunition boxes, bandoleers, packs and musettes, mess kits, canteens, blankets, shelter halves, blood–stained pressure bandages and unspooled gauze, webbed gear, C–ration cans and K–ration boxes – the detritus of a bloodied army. Troops had been carted away dead, wounded, psychologically shattered, leaving their equipment behind. Others had simply had enough, thrown down their kit and walked away dead–eyed and spent.

  And now, perhaps 200 yards from the edge of the woods, there was no longer an intact screen between Raymond Peck and the war. This had been the area where the rifle companies had dug their foxholes and toughed out two days of shelling, and it had been here that the German artillery had tirelessly sought them out. These were not the singular bursts Raymond had suffered back at the CP area but a shower – the explosions tumbling over each other like the detonations marking the climax of a fireworks display – traversing the entire front of the battalion area. The torrent had so torn apart the evergreen bulwark that more and more shells were dropping unimpeded to the ground, vomiting up great volumes of dank earth and knots of tangled roots.

  Incoming. Sounding like a runaway train. Unbearably loud.

  Raymond Peck threw himself off the path and huddled close to a tree trunk. The salvo struck a rank of still intact firs close by. A thunder of exploding shells; the ear–splitting crack of timber and falling boughs – as if the spine of the world were being broken.

  It was a long moment before trembling young Raymond, his ears still ringing from the volley, mustered enough nerve to pick up his head, see that he was still alive and intact. He looked at the crumpled paper in his gloved hand – Lieutenant Schup’s message – and remembered what he’d been ordered to do. But then he looked ahead at the curtain of artillery the Germans were trying to draw round the men on the line.

  Astonishingly, among the geysers of smoke and earth, Raymond saw men moving about. They were medics and stretcher bearers, probing amid the litter of branches and broken tree trunks and into collapsed foxholes, following cries for help and moans of pain, and searching for those too seriously wounded to call out. At the sound of incoming shells the medics did not scatter and hide. They hunched over the bleeding men on their litters, then, as soon as the crisis moment passed, resumed a quick bandaging – just enough to allow the bearers to be on their way – before proceeding to trace the next cry.

  Huddled behind his tree, watching the medics scramble about, Raymond felt ashamed. He pulled himself to his feet and started off again. Up ahead, he could see the end of the trees.

  The I & R Platoon, and its augmenting comb–outs from the other HQ units, had assembled for their assault just inside the woodsline, finding what shelter they could among toppled trees and still–smoking shell craters. Through the stumps and few firs still standing along the line, Raymond caught a quick glance of the firebreak and Hill 399.

  The firebreak was a 150–yard open strip of ground, churned into a moonscape by days of barrage. Beyond that was the mount Raymond had heard the battalion troops call “The Camelback.” The hill stood nearly a quarter mile from one end to the other. Long slopes led up to steep–shouldered crests, one atop each wing of the chevron with a low saddle in between forming the double–humped silhouette that had earned the hill its nickname. The southern wing of the hill curved away out of Raymond’s sight, but across from him the lower, wooded part of the north slope looked every bit as decimated as the forest this side of the firebreak, and continued to be torn apart by volleys of mortar fire. Raymond could pick out a jagged line of trenches cutting across the upper part of the hill, separated by 100 shell–torn yards of open ground from the crest. From positions along the base and top of the crest, a rain of tracers from German machine guns poured down the hill, traversing the breadth of the hillside. The noise – not completely eclipsed by the German shells landing nearby – was horrific, an incessant roar of rapid–firing machine guns and small arms fire raking the trench line, and mortar fire blossoming across the lower part of the hill. Most chilling of all was how thin – even frail – the answering American fire from the troops hunkered down in the trench line sounded in comparison.

  All this Raymond saw in a quick, awing glance.

  “Hey, jackass! What the fuck do ya think you’re doin’?”

  It broke the trance. The call came from a sergeant huddled with his squad in a shell crater close to the woodsline.

  “I’ve got a message for Major Joyce!” Raymond called back. “He’s supposed to be with Lieutenant Tully at the forward OP.”

  The sergeant pointed Raymond to the left. “And get yourself a pot, jackass!” he added.

  It was the first time Raymond realized he’d lost his helmet
somewhere along the path. There were plenty lying about, he grabbed one and threaded his way through the trees for some yards, finally spying Major Joyce and Lieutenant Tully.

  The forward observation post was simply a shell crater right at the woodsline looking out on the firebreak, roofed over with timber and camouflaged with evergreen boughs. Outside the rear entry of the OP where his antenna could stand clear, a wireless operator fiddled with a pack radio. Nearby stood Major Joyce and Lieutenant Tully, so engrossed in their argument they seemed oblivious to the shells and branches crashing down about them.

  “There was supposed to be air cover!” Lieutenant Tully was saying, “Close support from those TDs that never showed up! We were supposed to make the crossing in the dark!” The lieutenant was not just shouting to be heard over the battlefront roar; it was the first time Raymond could recall seeing the bottomless composure of the I & R platoon leader falter; he was raging.

  “There’s no sense arguing about it!” Joyce raged right back. “They’re up there now!”

  “I don’t give a shit if they’re half–way to Berlin! The ‘go’ signal is a flare or a radio message, and I haven’t gotten a goddamn thing!”

  “You saw them up there!”

  “I’ll lose half my men just getting up to those trenches! I’m not putting them through that meat grinder just to have those jokers pass us on the way down! Hell, we’re getting the shit kicked out of us here!”

  “Tully, I swear to Christ, if you don’t move your people out now I’ll relieve you and bring you up on charges when this is all over!”

  “On whose authority?” It was only then that Tully – and then Joyce – noticed Raymond Peck standing deferentially nearby. “What the hell’re you doing here?” Tully demanded. “You bring up the new phone wire?”

  “They’re a few minutes behind me, Sir. I’ve got a message for the major from Lieutenant Schup.”

  Joyce took the rumpled paper from Raymond, read it quickly, then said to Tully, “The mortars are back in business. You’ve got your cover fire.”

  “You had mortars and artillery yesterday and you saw how they got chopped up! Unless I see the ‘go’ signal, I’m not sending my people into – ”

  “Sir!” It was the wireless operator. “I’ve got Blue Six! He says they’re coming down!”

  The two officers went still for a moment; Joyce seemingly stunned, Lieutenant Tully – tactfully bereft of any hint of I–told–you–so – relieved.

  “What?” Joyce finally blurted. Before the operator could amplify, Joyce grabbed the handset. “Blue Six, Blue Six, this is Rainbow. Repeat your message, over…” The exec’s frustrated anger at Tully paled to what now began to show in his scowling face. “Blue Six, you are to hold, do you understand? Do not – repeat – do not withdraw…” Then, “Goddammit, Sisto, I told you to hold! Put Rainbow Six on…Sisto, for Christ’s sake, you – …Sisto? Blue Six, Blue Six, come in!” Nothing.

  “I see ‘em!” somebody from inside the OP called. “I see ‘em comin’ down!” At that, Tully and Joyce turned toward their hill and raised their field glasses. Joyce seemed to sag, drained, but only for a moment. Then the anger boiled back up and he hurled his field glasses against the nearest stump. “Goddammit Goddammit Goddammit!” He forced at least some measure of control over himself and turned to the I & R platoon leader who had been observing the display emotionlessly. “Ok, Tully. You get your wish. It’s over. The whole assault force is displacing to here. You pass the word to your people: wherever Colonel Porter comes across the line, tell him I’m here and I need to talk to him on the double. And Sisto: you see he’s brought straight to me.”

  “If he makes it back,” Tully said dryly, then ran off to pass the word along the line.

  Joyce then turned to Raymond. “Go back to the battalion area. Go to Captain Merriam. Tell him the assault force is displacing to the woodsline and to begin cover fire with his mortars as soon as he gets this message. Make sure Lieutenant Schup knows, too. And if you pass those goldbricks with the phone wire, tell ‘em to get their ass in gear!”

  There was nothing tentative about Raymond’s steps this time, and it didn’t take him long to pass the wire team just a hundred yards along the path.

  The legless torso of the GI who’d called him “Peckerhead” lay by the curb, near a fresh shell crater. One of the soldier’s hands was still clasped round the handle of the spool of telephone wire. His eyes had the bored, half–lidded look dead men take on, as if his missing limbs were of little concern. Of the other man Raymond saw nothing.

  Raymond’s stomach began to spasm at the sight, but he sped on, was soon at the CP area where he saw Lieutenant Schup among a crew of men who had just finished unloading the second of the Weasels. As Raymond ran up to the lieutenant, a cheer went up from the men round the vehicle as a third mud–splattered Weasel lurched up the path and clanked into the picnic area. The lieutenant who’d led the first two vehicles turned to Schup: “Your lucky day! That’s your 81 mm stuff!”

  As the convoy lieutenant directed the unloaded Weasel to make room for the new cargo, Raymond reported to the S–3. “Message from Major Joyce,” he gasped, suddenly realizing how little breath he had left. Lieutenant Schup nodded for him to proceed. “The assault force is pulling back from the hill. He says Captain Merriam’s mortars should start laying down cover fire.”

  Lieutenant Schup nodded and seemed unsurprised at the news. “Ok, I’ll tell Merriam. You go on back to your radio.”

  “Lieutenant, if you don’t mind, if Timmy’s still handling commo ok by himself, I’d like to help unload.”

  Lieutenant Schup smiled and nodded. “You did a good job, son.”

  Raymond joined the crowd that descended on the freshly–arrived Weasel, clambered aboard and helped wrestle the ammo cases over the side to waiting arms.

  “Incoming!”

  Sensing that the assault on the hill was faltering, the German batteries left the Americans retreating across the firebreak to be picked over by their mortars based behind the Camelback. Meanwhile, the enemy artillery shifted back to the American battalion’s rear areas in the hopes of suppressing the American mortars covering the withdrawal.

  As the first salvo screamed in, the men unloading the Weasel scrambled clear of the vehicle and scurried for cover. Except Raymond Peck.

  He’d been wrestling a tin of mortar shells over the side of the cargo area. Rather than drop it and run, Raymond slid to the ground and grabbed hold of the tin. Perhaps he still felt shamed by the conduct of the medics in the forest who had not run despite a downpour of fire heavier than this.

  None of the German shells hit the Weasel directly, but one landed close enough for the blast to detonate the 81 mm mortar ammunition still aboard as well as that in the struggling lad’s arms.

  For Raymond Peck there was a great, blinding light, a great roar, and a blast of engulfing hot air like the breath of God wrapping round him. He felt an odd buoyancy, as if no part of him touched the ground. He felt without weight, without substance, just so much air.

  All these sensations, both terrifying and exhilarating, he felt for just the briefest of moments…

  *

  MR/MRS RAYMOND PECK

  121 JACARANDA ROAD

  LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

  DEAR MR. & MRS. PECK:

  THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR SON PRIVATE FIRST CLASS RAYMOND C. PECK, JR. WAS KILLED IN ACTION IN DEFENSE OF HIS COUNTRY IN FIGHTING NEAR THE GERMAN FRONTIER IN BELGIUM NOVEMBER 7. LETTER FOLLOWS.

  THE ADJUTANT GENERAL

  PART I: Moloch

  CHAPTER ONE: Diaspora

  THE RECESSED DOORWAY OFFERED POOR SHELTER from the rain. The wind rippled through curtains of drops, whipping chill water inside the shallow alcove and against Harry’s trouser legs. He thought little of it. The wet cloth may have been somewhat uncomfortable against his skin, but his feet remained warm and dry in his combat boots. He leaned back against the ancient but st
urdy wooden door set in the aged, pitted stone, more to ease the aches the dampness caused in his joints than an aversion to the rain. He watched the water sluice down round the cobbled slope beyond the doorstep and wondered if the blood spilled there eight months before had run down the narrow via just as freely.

  The other man, younger, burrowed deep in his trench coat, hunched under his umbrella, looked slowly uphill to where the Via Rasella intersected the broad avenue of the Via Quattro Fontane. His eyes, hidden in the shadow of his homburg, turned back down along the hundred–yard length of the smaller street, his gaze on the cobbles as if looking for the same red rivulets Harry had imagined, on down to where the street ended at the Via Del Traforo.

  He was a good–looking fellow, early 30s, with straight, reddish–blond hair, bright blue eyes. One would have wondered – perhaps angrily, if one was so inclined – why such a fit–looking lad wasn’t in uniform, while the pudgy codger ten years his senior standing in the doorway was.

  If the thought troubled Harry, he was, for the moment, more interested (amused, actually) by the image the young man was presenting just now. Shivering in the November rain, his healthy ruddy color drained to a chilled pastiness, looking adrift in the middle of the little street, the young man had a painful awkwardness to him; unsure of the proper thing to do, to say. He seemed very much a lost child hoping someone would take him by the hand to find his mother.

  At last, he cleared his throat, then “Colonel, where along here did it happen?”

  “Top to bottom,” Harry said. “The column was stretched along most of the street.” Harry pointed past the narrow stone walk–ups and shops to the crumpled facades up toward Quattro Fontane. “That’s where the first bomb – the biggest one – went off. There on the left. The blast was strong enough to take out the front of some of the houses across the street. After that, the partisans threw a couple of smaller bombs into the street, then some of them brought out guns and opened fire.” Harry pointed at the dappling of finger–width holes burrowed into the concrete above a barber shop across the street. “The Germans thought they were being hit from the buildings and started spraying fire.” A small girl, six or so, all brown eyes and tangled dark hair, looked down from the window above the shop. She smiled at Harry and waved. Harry nodded in return.