by Bill Mesce
“I know,” Harry said.
“I’m no doughfoot,” Compton declared. “One thing the doughs are right about is us flyboys do our fightin’ on our arse! I haven’t done any PT since basic! And after climbin’ up that thing three fuckin’ times – . Hill my arse, that thing was a fuckin’ mountain! Like this!” He angled an arm to illustrate the severity of the slope. “There were times guys were draggin’ my arse up that monster! Mind you, I had to haul this goddamn radio up on my back, the one I was supposed to use to contact the 47s that never showed up, and that thing weighed a fuckin’ ton! Really! I’m lugging that thing up, by that third time up the hill, goddamn, man, I was dead. I had the jelly legs, I was wheezin’. Dead. On my feet. Really. Dead! I was crawlin’.
“You know how that hill was laid out? There were these kraut trenches up there? By the time we got to them, I was on my belly. Seriously. I just couldn’t stay on my feet.
“You talk to any of the other guys that went up that hill? They tell you what it was like? That whole top of the hill, it was like a porcupine’s arse and every needle was some kind of gun! We hit those trenches, I fell in – seriously, fell in, that was all I could do – and just stuck my nose in the mud and hoped somebody didn’t put a second hole in my arse.”
He took the cigarette from his mouth, it seemed to simply slide from his fingers to smolder on the floor. I noted there were dozens of burned out fag ends about. Even before he had the next cigarette in his mouth, Ricks was offering a fresh light.
“I don’t know how long I was down there. Bottom of the trench, I mean. A fuckin’ joke! I knew we weren’t gonna get any good sky over that hill that day. Thirty–two goddamn missions, you better believe I can read a little weather. Just before jump–off, I told them, I said, ‘Look, you see anything but ugly clouds up there? We’re not getting’ any sky in here today. Why should today be different than any other day?’ They could just as well left my arse back in the woods, I wasn’t goin’ to do anybody any good up there. But, ‘Just in case! Just in case!’ My arse just in case!”
“The top of the hill,” Harry gently guided him.
“Yeah, right, right, I’m off somewhere else again, huh? Really sorry about that. Ok, so, I don’t know how long I was keepin’ my head down in the bottom of that trench, but then somebody was pullin’ me up sayin’ somethin’ about tryin’ for the top of the hill, I thought the guy was batshit looney, you know? But I looked up and there was this hole, there were some of our guys already on top. It was a run across open ground but if we could get up there, hell, at least up there I thought I’d be behind the krauts.”
“So up you went.”
“Fast as I could, still luggin’ all that goddamn hardware with me, too. I’m surprised I didn’t get a fuckin’ hernia with that thing. We got up there, I saw a hole, a shell hole, and in I went and right into my drill.”
“Nose in the mud,” Ricks said.
They exchanged a quick, comradely grin. “Goddamn right nose in the mud. I don’t know how long it was, maybe just a minute or two, and then someone was kickin’ me in the ribs and sayin’ somethin’ like, ‘He needs a radio! He needs a radio!’ I looked up and they were pointin’ to somebody outside the hole. Outside the hole? ‘Anybody outside the hole,’ I thought, ‘He needs a radio? Fuck him, I thought. Tell him to buy an RCA.’ I was goin’ to stay down there – ”
“With your nose in the mud,” Ricks said.
“ – with my nose in the goddamn mud, you bet, where it was safe.”
“Then what?” asked Harry.
“Then I got another kick in the ribs. I finally started thinkin’ I should see what was what about this guy who wanted a radio before one of these doughtfoot animals punctured my fuckin’ lung. I stuck my head up. I was right about keepin’ my nose in the mud, there was so much kraut steel flyin’ around. I thought we were goin’ to be behind the kraut guns but as soon as we were up in there – ”
“You saw the man who called for the radio?”
“About ten yards away this guy’s peepin’ up at me from another shell hole. He gets a look at me and goes – ” recreating the surprised look, the confused blinking of eyes “ – like he was thinkin’, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Then somebody else pipes up, thank Christ, somebody from back by the edge of the slope, some other radioman. I could see his antenna. I guess that’s who this joker had been callin’ for. So, he slips back down in his hole and runs over to that guy and me, I’m glad he stood me up because with all that steel flyin’ around one of us would’ve ended up a sieve.”
“You saw the man’s face?” Harry asked. “The one who was calling for a radioman? Did you know him?”
“Know him?” Compton laughed derisively. “I didn’t even know the guys I was with! I didn’t know anybody in that outfit! I just hooked up with them the day they got to whatever the hell that town was – ”
“Rott.”
“ – whatever the fuck it was, I got introduced to the battalion CO – ‘Hi, how ya doin’ – and the captain of the company I was supposed to go up the hill with, and that was it, and after the first day I never saw that captain again, he probably – ”
“The man you saw,” Harry pressed, “did you see any insignia of rank?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, he had a lieutenant’s bar on his helmet, I could see that.”
“And the other man?”
Compton’s head tilted to one side. “Other man?”
“The other one in the shell hole with the lieutenant?”
“I didn’t see anybody else in there.”
“He was the battalion commander, a light colonel, you said you met him.”
“I don’t give a shit if he was an admiral in the Turkish navy and he was my asshole buddy, there was nobody else in there.”
“Maybe,” I suggested, stepping forward, “he was too far down in the hole for you to see him.”
Compton shook his head. “That part of the hill looked like this.” He made a cup of his gloved hands. “The krauts were comin’ in all around here.” He indicated the high ground of his wrist and fingertips. “That’s why it was such a shitty position. They could shoot right down into your holes. I was up here.” He indicated a point partly up his palm. “That lieutenant was down here at the bottom. I could see pretty far down into his hole. This other guy you say was in there, if he was there, he must’ve had – ”
“His nose in the mud,” sighed Ricks.
“If he had any fuckin’ sense.”
Harry thanked the pilot and we all stood to leave.
Compton looked down at his quaking hands again. “They wanted to send me home on a psycho, but I’m not goin’ home that way. Thirty–two missions, I’m not goin’ to get Section 8’d out, go home and fuck the 32 missions; you’re a head case, that’s all they know. Really. I feel like I just need a good night’s sleep. Really. The doc gave me pills, to sleep, but I don’t like the pills, somethin’ about the pills scares me. I just need a good night’s sleep.” He looked up with a sad, puzzled look. “But I never get it.”
*
The sentries wore the O–and–black–triangle shoulder patch of the 83rd “Thunderbolt” Infantry Division. The 83rd had replaced the mauled 4th Infantry Division in the Huertgen earlier that December which, in turn, had replaced the bloodied Keystone around the middle of November. The place had been some sort of riding establishment. By whatever caprice of the war gods, the main buildings had been razed, but the stable – a sturdy affair of stone walls and slate roof which could accommodate thirty mounts – was intact. One of the sentries escorted us out of the cold night, passed us through the door and a blackout flap of canvas, pointed us down the length of the stable.
It may have been months – perhaps years – since the last equine guest had been appropriated as either transportation or dinner fare. Yet the smell of horseflesh and leather tack and manure was still strong, captured, I imagine, in the muddy straw that still littered the floorboards. At the nearest stall as we entered
, by light of a kerosene lantern, a half–dozen or so troopers were gathered round a petrol heater. They were garbed in whatever warm clothing they’d been able to scavenge from either Army stores or civilian caches. Here a GI, sweater upon sweater puffing up his windcheater till it looked like he’d burst. Another with shreds of a blanket wrapped about his boots. Another with a scarf – by its bright coloring one would guess something home–knit and sent across the Pond by a concerned mater – wound time and again about his chill neck. They rubbed gloved hands and stomped their feet, shuffled tins of rations about the top of the heater to warm their food. They barely looked up as we passed, continuing along the parallel rows of stalls, one harboring a set of wireless sets and their operators, another apparently a supply cache.
Finally, at the opposite end of the stable, three men under another lantern, deposited about another heater. Seated on a wooden crate was a sniffle–nosed second lieutenant, his eyes rheumy with illness. Another man wearing the silver shoulder bars of a first lieutenant knelt across from him, and between them, spread across yet another crate, a map over which they seemed to be consulting. Standing behind them, a tall, rangy, sunken–cheeked staff sergeant. It was he, the sergeant, who had been the first of the headquarters party to espy us as we stepped into the barn, held us all the time with a suspicious gaze, while the two officers were either oblivious to us, or intentionally ignoring us. I doubt any of the three were more than 22 or 23 years of age.
The sergeant took a step forward, not to greet or halt us. It seemed an almost protective step toward the ill lieutenant. His motion finally brought the attention of the two confabulating officers in our direction. No greeting, no verbal acknowledgement of any kind. They waited, eyes wary.
“I’m looking for the company CO,” Harry said. “Lieutenant VanDerMeer.”
The second lieutenant – the younger appearing of the officers, seated on the crate – fell victim to a bout of raspy coughing that ended with his spitting up a ball of phlegm he then – I imagine one could ascribe the descriptive “courteously” – covered by nudging some straw atop it. “Sorry,” he muttered.
The older lieutenant rested back on his haunches, his hands on his hips, peevish. “Who’re you?”
Harry introduced us. The man I now took to be VanDerMeer looked us over, his eyes returning and setting on me.
As did the sergeant’s. “Margaret Bourke White went that–a–way,” he cracked and jerked a thumb westward; a jest and an insult. “If you hurry you can catch her.”
VanDerMeer grunted to his feet. He was a sturdy, broad–faced lad, and like most of the boys I’d seen at the front, pale, his chin covered with a patchy adolescent growth, his eyes shadowed and red–rimmed. “I read this piece a couple weeks ago in Colliers by one of your colleagues. Mr. Hemingway was calling this ‘Paschendale with trees.’ I thought that was a hell of a turn of phrase.”
“Fuckin’ poetry,” the sergeant said.
“Pithy, I think the word is,” VanDerMeer said dryly. “So pithy I wondered how he came up with it since he hasn’t left the officer’s mess in Zweifall since he got here.”
“But I’m not at the officer’s mess, am I?”
He shrugged, conceding the possibility there might be some difference of character between myself and Mr. Hemingway.
“Are you VanDerMeer?” Harry asked.
The lieutenant nodded.
Another bout of violent coughing from the other officer, another ball of phlegm into the straw. “Sorry.”
VanDerMeer laid a hand on his junior’s shoulder. “My exec, Lieutenant Dobie. You all right, Kip?”
Dobie nodded unconvincingly.
“You should do something for him,” Harry said.
VanDerMeer’s face went cold; he didn’t need anyone telling him his duties. “What do you want, Colonel?”
“I need to get to Hill 399. I’m told that’s your sector.”
“Who the hell told you that?” But he shook his head: never mind. Unimportant. “What they mean is my company’s closest. We don’t go across the Kall River. Nobody does.”
“I’m told the Germans don’t hold the hill any more.”
VanDerMeer smiled at the perception of senior officers who were spending the war entertaining Ernest Hemingway over a bottle of wine in Zweifall. “Remember when you were a kid in school, the history books, they showed you the old maps of the United States? There’s the thirteen colonies, then that big space with ‘unexplored’ written across it in big letters? Well, once you get across the Kall River, that’s what it’s like. Unexplored. Indian country. They may not garrison the hill any more; that doesn’t mean they’re not there. But I’m not chancing any of my men just because you want to give your buddy here – ” a curt nod in my direction “ – the chance to pretend he’s Ernie Pyle. I’ve written enough next–of–kin letters the last two weeks thank you.”
“I find the comparison flattering,” I said, but VanDerMeer seemed not the type – at least at the moment – who favored witty badinage. “But we’re not here for my benefit…thank you.”
“Nobody’s looking to get any of your people hurt,” Ricks said.
VanDerMeer recognized the cut of the captain as a brother front line soldier, noted the prosthetic hook not with sympathy but a measure of due respect. “You cleared this?”
“All the way down the pipe,” Ricks reported. “Division to regiment to battalion.”
VanDerMeer pursed his lips, considering, then the smile of man confident he has a winning card left to play. “They give you orders for me? Or did they leave this as a ‘commander’s discretion’ kind of thing?”
Harry’s sour look was answer enough.
“Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on your way out, Colonel.”
“Maybe a guide just to get us started,” Harry countered. “Get us in the right direction. We’ll take it the rest of the way.”
The company commander smirked. “Ok, Colonel. Out the door, twenty feet to the road, keep going until you pick up the Kall Trail, make a right and just keep walking until somebody blows your fucking head off.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, unfazed, and started off back through the stable. I never learned if he was bluffing or meant, at that moment, to take us stumbling through the dark down the Kall Trail until someone did, indeed, attempt to blow our fucking heads off.
“Hold on a sec, Sir,” Dobie called in a weak, raspy voice. “Colonel, you must have one hell of a compelling reason to want to get to that hill.”
“Back when the Keystone was holding this sector, they sent a battalion against the hill.”
VanDerMeer nodded; he knew.
“Heard they got tore up pretty bad,” said the sergeant.
“Do you know about the court–martial?” Harry asked.
“The way I heard it they tried to skin the only guy who had sense enough to know they wasn’t gonna take that hill,” the sergeant said.
VanDerMeer’s eyes narrowed. “Were you the guys who prosecuted him?”
“Defended him,” Harry smiled, playing his winning card.
“Grapevine says that case is over and done,” VanDerMeer said.
“Trial’s over,” Harry replied. “Case isn’t.”
“And you going to Hill 399 has something to do with…?”
Harry nodded.
VanDerMeer and Dobie exchanged a look. Dobie shrugged, sighed, as if to say, “It’s for one of the family; what choice do we have?”
VanDerMeer walked a slow, pensive circle round the stall. He stopped, gave us each a long, appraising stare.
Before we had left divisional headquarters in Rott, Peter Ricks had thoughtfully steered us toward the Quartermaster’s stores and equipped each of us with a combat kit. Along with our gear–laden webbed belts, we each carried a sidearm, a carbine for Harry and myself, and a Thompson submachine gun for Ricks.
“My marksmanship isn’t what it used to be,” Ricks had explained, indicating his hook, then brandished the Thompson
, “but with one of these, you don’t exactly have to be Sergeant York to hit something.”
“I’m going to assume you can handle yourself,” VanDerMeer finally said to Ricks, but then nodded in Harry’s direction. “But can he handle that pop gun?”
“He’s done it before,” Ricks said confidently.
The company commander rubbed his chin thoughtfully, still unsure. Dobie turned to him; another look went between the men. VanDerMeer sighed resignedly. “Ok, Stringbean,” he said to the sergeant, “see who still has something resembling a full squad. Let them spend the night in here, get as warm as they can.”
The sergeant cast a baleful glare at Harry then shuffled out.
VanDerMeer pointed a gloved finger squarely between my eyes. “You! You stay. It’s a long walk on a bum wheel, mister,” and he nodded at my dodgy leg.
“I’ll tend to myself, Lieutenant, thank you. I’ll not ask for any – ”
“Forget it. You take a fall down the trail, I don’t have a problem leaving you to the vultures. But I’m not going to risk one of my men getting an attack of the pities and sticking his neck out to help you.” He turned to Harry. “Your pal stays or the party’s off.”
“It’s all right, Harry,” I said. “We also serve and so forth.”
“It’s a about two hours there, two hours back,” VanDerMeer explained, “but I want to step off before sun–up, give us a break from any spotters they may have as long as possible. You better get some rest. You’ll find some blankets down in one of the stalls. The previous owners don’t need them any more. And, Colonel, if you change your mind about this hike between now and tomorrow? Don’t be shy about saying so.”
As we fumbled about in the dark supply stall for the indicated blankets, I could hear the low, confidential voices of VanDerMeer and Dobie.
“Thanks, Van,” Dobie said.
“Fuck you, Kip. I’m already kicking myself.”
There was no meanness in it, and Dobie began to chuckle, only to lapse into another fit of uncontrollable coughing. VanDerMeer must have made some gesture of care because Dobie gasped out a, “Forget it, I’m fine.”