“Hey, LT, enjoying the ride?” Marsh said as Sorenson passed.
Sorenson nodded to Marsh and to Schneider as he crouched behind the pilot and stared out the window. Then something dawned on Schneider, jolting him back into the moment.
Jesus. What if the invasion’s called off? What if the shitty weather doesn’t clear? Or gets worse? What’ll happen to the advance elements like us? What’ll happen to me?
“Shittyassratfuck!” he said under his breath.
“Sir?” Marsh was looking at him again.
“Nothing.”
Schneider felt his gut tighten again as his bladder complained, insisting in spasms that he relieve the pressure. God only knew if he could hold it until they landed or, more to the point, crash-landed. He used to hate the makeshift army latrines with no cubicles for privacy. Men on both sides grunting and farting close enough to touch. But he would give anything for one of those now.
But, above everything else—even his bladder—was the fear. That same pervasive, nagging fear he’d had since he was seventeen years old was back to gnaw at him—the same one Susan had thrown in his face that day in the kitchen as they fought over his orders to report for duty. She just couldn’t let it go.
Would he, after all, prove her right and disgrace himself in front of his men, his colleagues?
As he watched Sorenson, the light on the ceiling of the glider came on. Lieutenant Sorenson turned aft toward the men.
“Disengaging from the tow plane now, gentlemen. Seven minutes ‘til touchdown.”
There was a muffled thud. The glider jerked as the towline was released from the nose hook. The pilot of the C-47 added full power, and the tow plane climbed steeply to the right. The glider pilot eased the stick forward and began his descent to the left, angling away from the C-47 as far as possible. In seconds, the tow plane was out of sight, and the only noise was the sound of the air rushing over the glider’s wings. Schneider found himself desperately wishing he were in that tow plane heading back to England to a warm bed, decent food and a clean toilet. And away from the fighting.
The last year and a half in England was looking a lot better from up here. Why had he been so anxious to get into battle? To volunteer! I must have heard a thousand times, “Never volunteer for anything!”
What an idiot I am to be here. I’m no soldier. I’m a doctor for Christ’s sake.
In the darkness, the silent wooden plane felt suspended; there was much less turbulence now, the plane’s movement barely perceptible except for the intermittent vibration of the wind on the wings. It was so quiet, almost peaceful.
Schneider saw it first. He thought it was a shooting star, but it was too bright. Too big. Too slow. Too close. Then Marsh’s head popped up and he elbowed Schneider, pointing to the windshield. They leaned forward trying to see around Lieutenant Sorenson’s bulky frame. White balls of light were streaking up from below. The lights moved in slow motion at first then appeared to rise with an acceleration that made a streaking blur across the sky as they passed the plane. An eerie glow reflected inside the aircraft.
Too close. Way too close! Schneider thought.
“Ack-ack,” muttered Sorenson in an unconcerned voice that gave Schneider even greater concern.
The intensity of the antiaircraft fire increased until the sky filled with exploding light as they descended over the German ground batteries.
Marsh leaned toward Schneider and said, “The white ones are tracers. Every fifth round.”
“So that means that there are five times as many bullets coming our way as I see out there?”
“Yessir.”
“Great!”
As he spoke, a shudder passed through the glider. The pilot shoved his stick forward and to the right. The swerving of the plane threw everyone off balance, everyone except Sorenson, who was as calm as ever. Sorenson pointed to the right wing where there were several holes torn through the canvas. Shreds of tattered fabric fluttered in the wind. For the moment, Schneider was glad there were no wing tanks filled with gasoline to explode. However, the erratic movements of the glider were not from the hits on the wing, but were actually made by the pilot, who was trying to fly a zigzag pattern to elude the ack-ack batteries. Now, even Sorenson was holding on, albeit with just one hand.
After a quiet minute, more fire spewed upward at them from the ground. The glider shook violently as a ragged piece of the floorboard splintered inward ten feet aft of where Marsh and Schneider were sitting. The flak exited the glider through the ceiling, leaving in its path a whistling wind that sounded like someone playing an impossibly long and breathy note on a wooden flute. A moment later another shock along the fuselage, and more of the floor tore away, the flak this time exiting through the side wall. One of the soldiers opposite Schneider quietly slumped forward. Half his face and head had been torn away. A river of his blood circumscribed the exit hole in the glider, running onto the floor and pooling at the man’s feet.
Schneider recognized the glistening gray particles on the splintered wall as pieces of brain. Marsh started to rise out of his seat, but Schneider put a hand on his arm and shook his head. Marsh hesitated, and then slumped back onto the bench.
Schneider knew immediately that the man was dead. One of the soldiers looked pleadingly at Schneider and Marsh. Both of them shook their heads and turned back toward the windshield.
Sorenson returned to his space on the bench for the landing. He looked with pity at the dead soldier slumped awkwardly half on and half off the wooden bench. His first casualty, and he hadn’t even touched down yet.
At the command from Sorenson, the men locked their arms together and braced their feet against the opposite bench in preparation for the rough landing.
The ground was now only fifty feet below. Schneider was absolutely transfixed by the sight. He might have been in a movie back home. A detachment had come over him as if he were only a spectator to this bizarre scene. There, in a field ahead, were the remains of three burning German tanks, taken out by the Allies’ bombing. The outlines of their long cannons were silhouetted by the orange flames. To his horror, he could now see that the glider was lined up for a perfect landing right on top of one of the tanks. He leaned forward, trying to alert the pilot, whose attention seemed fixed on something to the left. He leaned over and shook the pilot’s shoulder. As the man slumped forward onto the controls, Schneider saw a small wound in his left temple that matched a ragged hole in the windshield. The exit wound was a jagged edge of steel in his helmet with pieces of brain and hair dangling out from underneath.
“Oh, shit!”
“What?” Marsh asked.
“Pilot’s dead,” Schneider said.
“Fuckin’ A! Who’s flyin’?”
But Sorenson was already there, pulling the pilot off the controls and trying, while standing over the dead pilot, to wrestle the craft back into a shallower glide path. An instant later, the glider stalled and dove in among the tanks.
With the impact, men flew through the air and landed in the field as the hard steel of the tanks shredded the plywood glider. Only a few men remained inside the tail section of the glider. Still strapped fast in his seat, the dead pilot looked as if he had brought his glider down to a safe landing and was now ready for the post-flight checklist.
Marsh and Schneider threw themselves through the side of the glider, precisely where the door had been. Neither struck any part of the plane as they flew out, but both landed hard against the ground. Mercifully, the landing spot was free of rocks or trees, so neither of them sustained more than bad bruises and, in Marsh’s case, a sprained ankle.
Schneider knew only that he was alive, little else mattered. He tried to control the trembling and searched among the men scattered around him, wondering how many had survived. Who was hurt? Who could fight?
An unnatural silence followed the crash. The only sounds were the far-off reports of the ack-ack and the low moaning of the injured men in the field. The group appeared, for the mo
ment at least, to have landed undetected by the Germans.
Schneider collected himself and crawled over to Marsh. “You OK?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, Doc. I twisted my ankle, but I’m OK.”
They lay low in the grass for another moment, trying to assess their position. Their drop zone was supposed to be near a place called Turqueville. But neither Marsh nor Schneider knew where they actually were. Schneider started to move, his bladder again insisting he take action.
But Marsh grabbed his sleeve and said, “Stay down for a minute, Doc. We need to see what the fuck is goin’ on here, and where the fuck we are.”
“Yeah. OK. You have any idea?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
A rustling in the grass startled both of them. But there was nothing either of them could do to protect themselves. They were both unarmed. They held their breath as the grass parted. Schneider wanted to bolt, but his reason overruled his instincts. There was no place to run.
Lieutenant Sorenson broke through the cover. He was clearly in terrible pain. Blood covered his forehead, and his shoulders were stained with dry clots. He seemed to be pulling himself along the ground with his hands rather than crawling on his knees.
“I thought I saw you guys over here,” Sorenson said through clenched teeth. “You OK?”
“Yessir.” Marsh answered.
“You don’t look so great, Lieutenant,” Schneider said. “Let me have a look at you.”
Suddenly, Schneider felt more in control. His fear dissipated as he began to work. Even his urge to urinate faded as he prepared to do what he knew.
“Where are you hurt, Jim?”
“My leg. Left leg. I’m pretty sure it’s broken.”
“How about that head wound?”
“Cut it when I went through the wall. It’s just a scratch. Bleeding a lot, but I’m sure it’s OK. Never lost consciousness or anything.”
Schneider started to reach for Sorenson, but the lieutenant waved him off.
“Marsh,” Sorenson said. “Start crawling around and see what you find. See how many of the men are alive. Find out who’s well enough to fight and who needs the doc,” he said motioning to Schneider with his head. “You know what to do. I have no idea if there’s Jerries out there, but we need a perimeter now. Move out, but for Christ’s sake, keep it quiet.”
“Yes, sir!” Marsh whispered, and moved away across the field, crawling on his belly. He was gone in seconds. Schneider and Sorenson were alone. They hoped.
“OK, Lieutenant. Just roll onto your back, and let me look at that leg.”
Sorenson rolled over, groaning as he did. His huge pack kept him from lying flat, but he did the best he could, never letting go of his rifle. Schneider leaned closer and placed his hands on the lieutenant’s leg. He moved his fingers along the leg below the knee, feeling more than seeing anything. Keeping the pressure of his fingertips as light as possible, he sought out the injury while trying not to inflict any more pain. Sorenson surely had enough of that.
At a point halfway between the knee and the ankle, Schneider felt the deformity of the fracture. He stopped momentarily and leaned closer, trying to see in the darkness. There was a dark stain surrounding the bump in Sorenson’s leg which looked black in the night. This was blood, the crimson color obscured by the combination of the dark pants and the lack of any real light. “Damn!” Schneider said, under his breath.
“What is it?” Sorenson asked, without any emotion. He might have been speaking about someone else.
“A minute more. I’ll let you know for sure.” Schneider reached into his belt and removed a small stiletto knife, an illegal souvenir given to him years ago by a policeman one night in the emergency room. He pressed the button to open the blade (the blade he had sharpened for hours while passing time at the airbase, waiting for the invasion to begin) and slit Sorenson’s pant leg from the ankle to the knee. When he pulled the material aside, his fingers came away wet from a sticky fluid he recognized all too well. He could smell the blood that, as always, left a metallic taste on his tongue.
“Shit!”
“What?”
There in the dimness Schneider could see the white edges of an exposed bone fragment protruding through Sorenson’s pale skin. The laceration was jagged and a steady ooze of blood was forcing its way out around the fragments as well as from within the marrow of the shattered tibia. Schneider couldn’t see the much smaller fibula but suspected it was fractured, too. The two were usually injured together.
“It’s a compound fracture. Bone came through the skin. Damn! How did you manage to crawl over here, Jim? That must have hurt like hell!”
In a voice lacking all emotion, Sorenson said, “Doc, I can’t begin to tell you how much this hurts.”
Schneider shook his head. “Listen, I need to dress this and get it splinted. Get you to a clearing station…if there is one.”
“Hold on. I’m still in command of this group, and I need to be here with my men. Can’t you just set it and get me going again?”
“You’ve been watching too many westerns, Jim. Look, I can’t reduce this here in the field. You’d never stand the pain…Well, maybe you could. But it’s a dirty wound. If I reduce it here—set it—the dirt and shit from this field will get pulled back into your leg. You’d end up with gas gangrene and lose that leg and probably your life. Then where would we be?”
“OK. OK. I get it. What do you have to do?”
“I’m going to clean it out with water, then put some sulfur powder on it. We’ll pack it in a dressing and find something to splint it with.”
“You got splints?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t have shit. Most of the equipment is scattered around the field. I need some of your men to help me round it up. Maybe when Marsh gets back. Meantime, I got some stuff in my own pack to get started.”
“OK. Just do what you can. I need to command this group, or we’re all dead.”
There was nothing more to say. Schneider reached over and pulled his battered pack closer. He opened his canteen and began to pour water over the exposed bone and muscle tissue. Sorenson sucked air sharply in through his teeth.
“Oh, fuck that hurts!”
“Sorry, Jim. But this is the most important part. Grit your teeth. I’m not done.”
“Grit my ass, Doc. But…goddamn it, just go ahead and do it!”
“When Marsh gets back, I can give you some morphine. He’s got the whole supply.”
“Not now. I need a clear head tonight. That stuff’ll make me fuzzy-headed.”
“Don’t worry. With the kind of pain you’re in for, the morphine won’t touch your brain. You’ll stay alert.”
“Whatever you say.”
Schneider poured more water over the wound. Sorenson gritted his teeth but didn’t make a sound. Next, Schneider dug through his kit and pulled out a packet of sufanilimide powder, the crystalline antibiotic they carried in the field packs. Tearing off the top with his teeth, he sprinkled two packets of the powder over the exposed bone and the tattered shreds of muscle. Sorenson seemed not to feel it. At least he made no sound. Schneider dug out some more supplies, scattering them on the ground. He found a gauze dressing and applied it to the wound. He was feeling good now. Confident in doing what he knew how to do; what they trained him to do. The work took him out of the fear of combat and finally allowed him to focus on something he could control.
Placing Sorenson’s hand on the gauze pad, he said, “Hold this down here while I find something to wrap it with. Press as hard as you can stand it. It’ll help control the bleeding and the swelling.”
Sorenson did as he was instructed, pressing harder than Schneider would have done, wincing even as he pressed.
“Easy, man! Easy! Don’t punish yourself. Just hard enough to control the bleeding.”
Schneider continued to search for the roller gauze to wrap the bandages, but there was none.
“Ah, fuck! Marsh has
the roller gauze. We’ll just have to wait for him.”
In a few minutes they heard the staccato of small arms fire, though they couldn’t tell the exact direction. Ominously, it seemed to be all around them. Schneider found himself shrinking into the earth, pressing his body lower, trying to disappear from the danger. Then, from nowhere, Marsh burst into the clearing. Sorenson grabbed his rifle and swung it around, nearly hitting Marsh in the chest with the muzzle. For a second, Schneider thought Sorenson might kill Marsh.
Marsh stopped dead in his tracks, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! It’s me! Marsh!”
“Shit, Marsh!” Sorenson said, dropping the muzzle, grimacing as he rejoined his pain. “What the hell are you sneaking up on us for? You’re gonna get killed you do that.”
“Sorry, sir! It won’t happen again.”
“Bet your ass it won’t happen again. Next time I’ll fucking shoot you.”
“Yessir.”
“So, what’s out there?”
Marsh moved closer and settled in next to Sorenson. “Well, sir, we seem to be pretty well surrounded. I don’t know if the Krauts know our location yet. I couldn’t see them from where I was, so I guess they can’t see us either. There’s a hell of a lot of random firing out there, though.”
“How about our men?”
“There’s ten dead that I can count. I don’t know from which of the three gliders. Several more wounded and too badly hurt to move on their own. I gave them some morphine and first aid, but they need to be evac’d pretty soon. So I figure there’s about twenty, twenty-five more fit to fight. They’re doin’ a little recon, and then they’re gonna join up at the glider when they can.”
None But The Brave: A Novel of the Surgeons of World War II Page 5