Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy
Page 126
With a newfound sense of vulnerability, Harry looked from the smashed vehicles to the trees about him. He saw broken branches in heaps along the ground; the majestic rows of tall firs were now interrupted where artillery rounds had decapitated one or another of the evergreens, leaving the skyline gapped like a broken–toothed comb. Other trees had weathered a blast but now the trunk was a charred, barren stele with every branch blown clear. There were stretches where engineers had tried to shore up the precarious trail with a cover of logs forming a corduroy road, but, in places, artillery shells had blasted them apart, and at other points slipping, sliding vehicles had pulled them out of alignment.
Some yards ahead of the main body, one of the riflemen had been walking point. He now stopped, hand–signaled to Woolchuck at the head of the file, and stepped off the trail. The men halted, dropped to one knee. Harry felt Peter Ricks’ hook on his shoulder, pressing him to follow suit. They waited several minutes, then the point man returned, waved an all–clear, and started down the road again. As the squad drew closer to where the point man had disappeared, Harry could pick the low, dark shape of some sort of bunker he soon enough saw was constructed of logs.
Nearer, Harry picked out another detail; one that sent a stab of cold through him unlike the one produced by the wind and snow. This he felt deep within, settling in the pit of his stomach. Throughout the woods round the bunker was a maze of stretchers, the blanketed forms lying upon them mercifully covered by a layer of snow. Closer to the side of the bunker, he noted what he at first thought to be a row of cordwood, but then saw that each “log” ended in booted feet.
For a moment, his legs felt weak. Peter Ricks must have anticipated the reaction for he was instantly there, holding Harry up with his good arm.
As they passed the bunker a swath of the day’s gray light illumined a section of the interior through the open door: more stretchers, floor heavily littered with blood–stained bandages and swathes of soiled gauze, empty Syrettes, plasma bottles, blankets, boots, helmets, a host of personal items. A dreadful smell carried to him from the bunker, a mix of gauze and antibiotics, old blood, feces, and that peculiar, indescribable stench which exudes from massive, open wounds.
Through the picket–close trees Harry could now see the dull glitter of the narrow, shallow, ice–crusted Kall River; he thought it no more than an oversized stream. As the trail straightened to head down toward the water, a small stone bridge came into view, and near to the right of the bridge, a large, barn–like structure by the water that had been holed and partially collapsed by German artillery. There were cut and partially stripped logs scattered about the bank below the building and in the ground beneath where the building overhung the river, Harry could see large piles of sawdust.
Woolchuck hand–signaled to his point man, halted the column while he scouted the building. Several minutes later, the point man reappeared and waved them on. The squad moved into a still–standing corner of the sawmill that afforded some shelter.
Harry sat by himself near where the floor of the mill abruptly ended – cleaved by a detonating shell – providing him a view of the snowy trees across the Kall. Below, the spectacle of overturned vehicles had gone from a parade to a hysterical jumble. They were no longer strung out along the trail, but here, where the gorge was at its steepest leading into the crossing, they lay in heaps, one vehicle piled atop another atop another as a child’s toys swept into a corner of his playroom. The snow brandished rainbow streaks from the oil and petrol still bleeding from the wrecks down the banks and into the once crystalline waters of the Kall.
Peter Ricks sat by Harry, leaning with him against the partial wall that shielded them from the wind eddying the falling snow in the gorge. “How’re you holding up?” he asked Harry in a confidential tone.
With a guarded look toward the squad huddled together at the other end of the floor, Harry kept his tone equally muted: “I’m goddamned dying. I’m out of breath, my feet hurt, my legs hurt, I can’t feel my face…and I am so–god–damned–cold it’s not – ” Harry abruptly cut himself off putting on a brave smile as VanDerMeer knelt by them. The gloating grin on the lieutenant’s face indicated he already suspected the substance of Harry’s conversation with Ricks.
“How’re you doing, Colonel?” the lieutenant asked.
Harry shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said it was a picnic, but ok.”
“Reminds me of what I hated about the infantry,” Ricks said.
“We’ll rest here for a few minutes. It’s not very warm but at least it’s out of the weather.” He spread a map out on the floor. “Thought you’d like to know where we’re at,” and he pointed to the crossing on the Kall. “We’re about half–way to Kommerscheidt, and then 399 is a little past that. Problem is – ” that gloating grin inched a little wider “ – a lot of the walk is uphill from here. Sure you going to be ok?”
Harry’s brave smile, again. “I’ll be right behind you, Lieutenant.”
“You know, any time you think you don’t need to go there, well, it won’t break my heart to turn back.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. How long have we been out?”
VanDerMeer glanced at his watch. “Not quite an hour.”
“That’s all?” Harry’s fortitude – feigned as it was – faltered a bit.
Another smile from the lieutenant. “When it’s dark like that and you can’t see what kind of time you’re making, it can feel like forever.” VanDerMeer went to check on the other members of the squad.
“That son of a bitch is enjoying this,” Harry muttered. He reached for his canteen, took a swig, his head immediately recoiled. He answered Ricks’ questioning look by upending the canteen. The water oozed out in a half–frozen slush.
“Ooh, ice pops!” Ricks chirped. “Who says the Army doesn’t spoil its boys?” He reached into his windcheater and offered a D–bar. Harry shook his head. Ricks expertly slit the wrapper on the D–bar with his hook and took a bite. He regarded the hook a moment. “Gee, with this weather, I hope it doesn’t rust. That’s a joke, Harry. You’re allowed to laugh.”
“Hey, Colonel!” It was the BAR gunner, a short but stout lad, seemed almost as wide as he was tall, his mouth full of a crunching cereal bar. “The lieutenant says you’re a lawyer? You out here on a case?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that kind of information,” Harry said.
“Damn, Pee Wee!” one of the BAR gunner’s mates exclaimed. “He sure sounds like a lawyer!”
A chuckle from the squad.
“Well, see here, Colonel,” Pee Wee went on, “I mean, Jesus, a lawyer who puts himself out like this for a client? I could use a lawyer that dedicated, ya know? I mean, I left myself a little legal problem back home when I shipped out sure could use some clearin’ up. Seems there was this young thing – ”
Wolf whistles and other miscellaneous lurid noises from the gallery.
“ – and damned if she didn’t look to be at least eighteen – no, nineteen! Swear to God, Colonel, it oughta be illegal for a little girl so, um…” He looked for a witticism.
“Gifted,” a squad mate put forth.
“Endowed,” tried another.
“Blessed,” said a third.
“I think I get the picture,” Harry said. “Not exactly my area.”
“She’s got a sister!” Pee Wee offered.
“Well, hell!” one of the riflemen said, “In that case, I’ll be your lawyer!”
A round of raucous laughter.
Harry smiled and nodded, but his mind drifted to something less amusing.
Peter Ricks noted the cloud on his mate’s face. “What’s the matter, Harry?”
“I keep thinking about that aid station we passed. I know they must’ve been more worried about getting the wounded out than the bodies, but still…”
A philosophical “humph” from Ricks. “I’m just hoping those bodies were dead when they left them.”
*
By the time they�
�d come up out of the gorge, Harry was wheezing and no longer inhibited about displaying his discomfort. Inside his layers of clothing he was sweating profusely. He had almost dropped to one knee – just for a moment, he was sure, just enough to catch his breath and let the pains in his legs subside a bit – but Ricks was there, an arm around him. “C’mon, Harry, just a little bit longer.”
The column passed off the main trail onto the path that would take them from the open ground where Kommerscheidt sat and back into the corridors of the forest. Of Kommerscheidt, there was little to see. A small hamlet of perhaps a dozen or so buildings on either side of the Kall Trail, Kommerscheidt had literally been pounded into rubble as the Germans had brutally fought to stall the Keystone’s push on Schmidt back in November. A few more inches of snow, Harry thought, and Kommerscheidt would disappear completely.
Back among the trees they continued their march until the point man held up his hand for a halt. This time Harry needed no help to pick up the cue and dropped to one knee with the rest of the squad, secretly grateful for the opportunity to catch his breath. Up ahead he could make out the point man down on his knees, studying the ground, before he jogged back to the column to confer with Woolchuck and VanDerMeer. After a moment, he returned to the point along with Woolchuck. Both men dropped to their knees, drew their bayonets, and began carefully poking at the path in front of them, creeping slowly along.
VanDerMeer huddled with Harry and Ricks. “The scout thinks somebody might’ve been through up there. He thinks it looks like the snow might’ve been brushed to hide their tracks but it’s hard to tell with this new stuff coming down. But it does look like they pushed through the brush on either side. None of our people should be going through here, so…”
“What are they doing?” Harry asked, nodding up the path at Woolchuck and the scout.
“Well, if the krauts came through, they might’ve just been on a recon. I hope. But just in case they left a present, they’re going to probe along for a bit.”
“Probe?”
Ricks drew his own bayonet and gently inserted it into the snowy ground at a shallow angle. “This is that lovely pasttime the Army refers to as ‘mine detection.’ It’s not as much fun as stamp collecting, but it does have a certain – ”
Whatever Ricks’ barb was meant to be, it was lost amid the chorus of alarmed cries from the other squad men, a hissed, “What the fuck – ” from VanDerMeer, a flash of movement among the brush alongside the trail up by Woolchuck, a shout from up the trail of “NONONO – ” brutally cut off by an explosion near the two men.
VanDerMeer hurriedly crept to the head of the column. “Nobody move! Nobody fucking move!” Then, a daze seemed to come over him and slowly – as if hypnotized by the scene up the path – he stood erect.
The smoke ahead cleared and Harry saw two bodies: Woolchuck atop the other man, as if sheltering him. And in the brush by the path, a thrashing about and a… He hesitated to describe it as a scream; an odd, gutteral cry, obviously one of pain and fear, but nothing he could identify as human.
Woolchuck’s head popped up. He rolled off the scout, sat up in the snow, put a finger in his ear as if trying to dislodge bath water. The relief among the men in the column – including Harry – was so overwhelming that laughter was irrepressible. Now, the scout was sitting up as well, dusting snow and dirt off. Woolchuck signaled that all was well, stood with rifle in hand, aimed it at the source of the thrashing and fired two, quick shots, their echoes dying quickly among the evergreens. The thrashing, the cry ceased.
VanDerMeer’s sigh of relief could be heard along the entire line of men. He turned to Harry. “Deer.” An accusing finger pointed Harry’s way: “You and your hike are aging me, Colonel.”
“Sorry.”
Woolchuck and the scout continued their probing, and in about ten minutes waved at the column to come ahead. VanDerMeer took the lead and as they reached the danger zone he pointed to the twigs Woolchuck and the scout had placed in the snow to mark mines.
The deer lay in sight a few feet from the path. It must’ve stood four feet at the shoulder; a doe judging by a lack of antlers. One of the rear legs had been blown off up to the haunch, and shrapnel had slit her belly open as well. The open wound steamed in the cold, as did the blood that had sprayed out of the wound and burned its way through the snow. The doe’s intestines spilled from the belly wound and Harry caught the rankling odor of perforated bowel.
“Better him than you, huh, Colonel?” called Pee Wee, the BAR gunner with the legal problem back home as they passed the deer carcass.
“It’s a her,” Ricks said flatly.
“It ain’t me is all I care about!” said another, and the men laughed.
*
It was plain that an army had been there, an army had left. They had not departed proudly, but beaten and maimed. Like the sorry jumble still adrift on the waves after a once imposing warship has sunk, the forest floor was littered with abandoned and forgotten gear: blankets, helmets, articles of uniforms, bed rolls, shelter–halves, bandoliers, ammunition canisters, bandages, ration tins, weapons… It grew from a casual scattering to a heavy seeding the further along the path the squad proceeded growing most dense nearer the edge of the forest were the ground was dotted with dozens upon dozens of foxholes. Nor was this despairing scene lost in shadows for the thick canopy of evergreen boughs had been holed repeatedly by artillery, and with increasing density, until by the time the squad neared the firebreak that bordered Hill 399, there was little of the green latticework left above them.
A turn in the path and Harry could see the shadow of Hill 399 beyond the last shattered trunks of the forest – a gray, looming hump that seemed not quite real through the veil of falling snow. The sight must have left him – as it leaves anyone on first seeing – mute and still in his tracks.
I’ve been to Hill 399. It would be months later. Snow would still be on the ground but the war would have long since moved on to raze another part of Europe.
The hill has a looming presence, appearing larger in every respect than it really is. The long, forward slopes and the upthrust crest give it the impression of being higher. The wings of the hill, sweeping away from the observer and leading naturally into its tapered ends, fool the eye into thinking the hill is, rather than ending, receding into the far distance.
But by more than the dimensions of the hill, one is shaken – nae, shattered – to witness the violence rendered in such concentration on such a limited parcel of ground. From the battered border ground of the forest, the evident effects of the ceaseless shelling of those November days increases as one moves into the firebreak. Neither the passing months nor the heavy coat of snow had softened the impression of a moonscape so heavily acned from shellfire that craters often overlapped, and one could only navigate from one side of the break to the other by constant arcs and criss–crosses, there being no uninterrupted straight path. That measled appearance proceeds unabated to the very top of the hill. The lower, forested slopes seem even more devastated as nary a single tree stands untouched. Shattered, split, holed, stripped of bark and branches, charred, they stand like the skeletal fingers of the burned reaching skyward in a plea for mercy. From the firebreak, the earthworks atop the hill are invisible, but the trenchline is clearly demarcated, a wavering scar cut clear across the face of the hill, interrupted frequently at sections where the concussion of artillery and mortar shells collapsed its walls, and other points where the shells scored direct hits. The deadly line of bunkers is invisible, sunk into the foot of the crest and lost in shadow. You would not see them; only the flicker of flame from the muzzle of a machinegun grimly heralding their presence.
Ricks needed to call Harry more than once to draw his attention away from the hill and have him join the squad where they were crouched behind fallen trunks by the side of the path. VanDerMeer and Woolchuck warily proceeded to the edge of the trees. They each drew up a pair of field glasses and studied the hill for some minutes.
“What?” Harry was still gazing through the gaps at the heights across the firebreak.
“‘Member? This thing with this girl back home? I mean, I was jokin’ around back there but this thing with this broad – ”
“I thought you were kidding.”
“They sent me papers, these lawyer – ”
“They sent you papers? Here?”
“Ain’t that somethin’? I’m over here getting’ my arse shot off for my country, I think I’m getting’ a nice fat letter from home ‘n’ it’s all this legal shit – . I mean, Jesus, Colonel, I know about age of consent ‘n’ all that shit, but you had to see this broad! If she wasn’t whistle bait, I don’t know what was. I mean, look, you get a ham sandwich stuck in your face, if you got blood in your veins you’re gonna take a bite, you know what I’m sayin’? You ain’t askin’, ‘How old’s the bread?’”
“‘How old is the – ?’”
“I mean, what do I do? They can’t make me marry this broad, can they? I mean, she’s nice ‘n’ all, I mean, ya know, for some laughs, but – ”
“I, uh – ”
“Go cry to the chaplain,” VanDerMeer warned off Pee Wee as he and Woolchuck returned to the squad.
“How’s it look?” Ricks asked.
VanDerMeer shrugged, unsettled.
“I like it when I kin see ‘em,” Woolchuck said. “Leastways then you know where they are. ‘Stead of wonderin’ where they’re at.”
“I don’t mind sounding like a broken record,” the lieutenant said, addressing Harry, “but there’s still time here to change your mind. Take a look at that hill, Colonel; that’s a long walk across that firebreak, and a long walk to the top, and a long walk back, and it’ll feel a hell of a lot longer if you do it with somebody shooting at you.”
Harry looked to Ricks. It was clear the captain preferred Harry decide against going up the hill as well, but for reasons entirely different from VanDerMeer’s.