None But The Brave: A Novel of the Surgeons of World War II

by Anthony A. Goodman

  “I don’t know if we’re ever going to hit that beach. I just noticed that we’re heading back out to sea toward the LSTs again,” McClintock said.

  Hamm turned momentarily to look out of the ambulance front window. He shook his head in amazement. “Jesus!”

  McClintock went on, “That would suit me just fine. I don’t think I’m going to like it much on that beach.”

  It seemed then that the very act of focusing on the familiar, of feeling in charge, took them out of their fear, even while their lives were on the line. With constant explosions raining all around them, and the 88s zeroing in on the toy-like boats carrying them into battle, the medical team focused on one man—their patient—whose life was slipping away. They gave him all their attention, in return for which he would take their minds out of the battle zone, if only for a few minutes.

  Hamm kneeled at the right side of the litter, motioning Higgenson to the left to assist and hand instruments. A lantern glowed overhead. McClintock kneeled at the head of the litter and opened a can of ether.

  “Gene, better switch that lantern off,” McClintock said, “before we blow ourselves up with this ether. Get some flashlights and start the engine. We can use the dome lights once the engine’s going.”

  Antonelli climbed into the cab and turned over the diesel engine. The vibrations shook the truck irregularly at first, sputtering and coughing before catching and settling into a relatively steady rhythm. The overhead bulb, dim as it was, added a bit to the light. McClintock began administering anesthesia. Soon the whole truck reeked of the familiar eye-burning odor of the open-drop ether. Hamm said,

  “Better open the windows, guys, or we’re all going to be sick in here pretty soon.” The wind was wet and blustery, but it was better than the fumes, which had already begun to make everyone a little queasy.

  “I hope we’re not going to operate on our knees for this whole war,” McClintock said.

  “What do you want me to do, Doc?” Higgenson asked Hamm.

  “Just keep the pressure on. You seemed to have stopped the bleeding…or at least slowed it to a trickle.”

  Hamm arranged a few more instruments. McClintock already had two big IVs running with plasma streaming into one arm and saline into the other. He was working on the second unit of plasma and wondered how many of these they would use before the war was over. The truth was that none of them could even begin to know just how many.

  “OK, I’m set,” Hamm said. “Dick, just let up the pressure really slowly. My side first so you expose the artery and vein to me. That’s it.”

  Higgenson rolled his hands toward himself, showing Hamm the vessels. By now the gauze was a deep crimson wad of jellied blood, almost unrecognizable as a surgical dressing. But, the blood had clotted, and that was good. Higgenson lifted his fingers a bit more. Hamm saw the edge of the femoral vein.

  “A little more. OK, stop! Right there. Hold it. There’s a tear in the side of the vein. Let me fix that while you hold the artery.”

  Hamm loaded a suture-ligature and drove the needle carefully through the sidewall tear in the vein. Then he tied a series of square knots. Finally, he put a continuous running suture along the tear until the vein was closed. He tied another series of knots and cut the excess suture away.

  “OK. Let up some more pressure.”

  Higgenson continued to expose the vessels.

  “More. More. That’s it. The vein’s OK now. Let’s look at the artery and….”

  A blast rocked the boat, momentarily deafening everyone. The Rhino ferry shifted in the water then righted violently, throwing everyone in the truck off balance. Hamm braced his left hand against the floor to keep from falling over, making him plunge his sterile gloved hand into the filthy bilge water.

  “Shit! What was that?”

  “Another hit,” McClintock said. “Let’s get this operation over as quick as you can. We might get blasted again any minute.”

  “Well, I can’t quit until I see what’s with the artery. Move that gauze, Dick.”

  Higgenson removed the packing, and as the clotted jelly came away, blood from the tear in the artery spurted into the air. The column of blood hit the ceiling of the truck, and dripped back into the wound.

  “Oh, shit!” Hamm said. “So much for goddamned sterile technique.”

  Hamm had just taken off the glove that had touched the truck floor. But now he knew there was no time for such luxuries as sterile technique, so he plunged his bare hand into the wound. He couldn’t see anything as the blood filled the wound faster than Higgenson could sponge it out. They had no suction set up there as they would have in a real operating room.

  “Watch out!” Hamm said, impatiently pushing Higgenson’s hand out of the way. He placed his fingers into the puddle of blood, carefully feeling for the pulse of the femoral artery. He was grateful for the pulse, as it meant that McClintock was keeping up with the plasma volume replacement. But it also made for brisk bleeding. When Hamm found the artery, he used his thumb and index fingers as clamps, gently squeezing the artery shut just where it entered the wound upstream from the injury. The spurting stopped, but the back-bleeding continued to fill the wound from below the tear.

  “Give me that vascular clamp,” Hamm said to Higgenson.

  Higgenson took a curved clamp from the small tray and handed it to Hamm, who guided it over his fingers, sliding the clamp over the artery and tightening its adjustable jaws. He removed his fingers, but the spurting continued. He gently tightened the jaws of the ratcheted clamp another click. The spurting stopped, but some bright red blood continued to seep into the wound.

  Without waiting, he felt his way to below the tear and repeated the clamping process. All the bleeding stopped, allowing Higgenson to sponge it dry.

  “If only we had a little suction,” McClintock said.

  “If! If! If my grandmother had balls, she’d be my grandfather,” Hamm said impatiently.

  “Cute,” said McClintock.

  Hamm didn’t answer. He was staring into the ragged wound where he could clearly see the sutured femoral vein and the two clamps above and below the tear on the artery.

  “OK, everything’s under control now. Ted, make sure we’re ahead on the plasma. He’s lost a shitload of blood. I’m going to try to—”

  Another blast rocked the ferry. And another. And another. They were bracketed. The overhead light went out, and one flashlight fell from its perch. The only light remaining was from a flashlight in the hands of Antonelli. Barely enough to see the wound, much less finish the operation.

  “Call it, Hamm.” It was McClintock. “Finish up now.”

  “OK. Wake him up. I’m gonna pack this wound open and leave the clamps in place. Hate to lose those vascular clamps; we’re going to sure need them before long.”

  Still another explosion rocked the ferry. Antonelli held his place keeping the light on the wound. McClintock took the ether mask off the soldier’s face, and let him breathe the cold damp air of the Normandy night. Soon the man started to moan. A frothy foam appeared at his lips, and he coughed several times. McClintock gently wiped the man’s lips with a gauze pad.

  “It’s OK, pal,” McClintock said quietly, wiping the froth away. “Take some deep breaths. Nice and deep.”

  “OK. The wound is packed,” Hamm said. “Dick, wrap it with a heavy roller gauze, and make sure those clamps are covered so they won’t get torn off when we transport him.” Hamm turned to an enlisted man. “You know which way we’re going?”

  Another blast. Everyone ducked.

  “We’re heading back out to the transports, sir. Goin’ to get on another Rhino, I guess. This one ain’t gonna make it to the beach.” Still another blast rocked the boat. It was a miracle they weren’t on fire.

  Hamm flinched with each blast. “I hope we make it back to the ships,” he said. He envisioned the other Rhino ferry going up in flames, the men jumping into the water, the burning and the drowning, all the horrible ways to die. Hamm had see
n death many times in his career and had often pondered the most terrible ways to go. He shuddered at the thought of first burning, then drowning in the sea. His two worst nightmares were coming true all around him.

  The fear was beginning to overwhelm him, and Hamm began to shake. He squeezed his fists to still the tremor, to hide the fear from his friends. He realized that he needed more casualties to keep him busy, and he was ashamed of that thought. He knew, however, that as soon as they hit the beach he would have more than enough work to keep him occupied.

  Higgenson finished packing the wound and binding it. He tore off his gloves and dropped them to the floor.

  “What’s going to happen to that artery, sir? To the leg?”

  Hamm shrugged. It was all he could do to speak. Finally, the words came.

  “If we can get him to a real OR in time—a couple of hours or less—we might be able to repair the artery. Or someone else will. Then he might keep his leg.”

  Hamm was so happy that the Rhino ferry had turned and run, heading back to the big ships and out of range of the 88s. He willed them out of range of the German guns.

  “Nothing more we can do here with this shelling going on. We need to get him evac’d right away.”

  “Yessir,” Higgenson said.

  The wounded soldier coughed again and opened his eyes. He began to moan quietly.

  McClintock leaned down and said softly, “It’s OK, son. It’s OK. The war’s over. You’re going home.”

  Chapter Eight

  6 June 1944, 0630

  Near Turqueville, France

  As the trio kept watch, two human shapes appeared along the edge of the road. The men were moving silently, stealthily, carrying their rifles at the ready. Schneider exhaled when he saw the silhouette of the soldiers. He started to rise, to call out to the men to regroup with them there in the bush. A hand slammed into his mouth, knocking him backwards and cutting his upper lip. As he hit the dirt, he heard a distant voice from the road say, “Wo sind die verdammten Amerikannen?”

  Schneider froze. He held his breath. Marsh’s hand was still clamped over his mouth. Nobody moved.

  An answering voice said, “Ich kenne nicht. Machen Sie still!”

  As Marsh slowly released his hand from Schneider’s mouth, he whispered, “Sorry, sir.”

  Schneider pressed his body deeper into the wet earth. He translated the German words to himself.

  “Where are the damned Americans?” Then, “I don’t know. Keep quiet.”

  The dark, bulky figures continued their stalking, looking from side to side, from the ground to the path ahead. The shadows drifted away from Sorenson and his men in the darkness until, finally, they merged with the trees and the sky and the night. And they were gone.

  Schneider shivered as the dampness seeped into his undershirt. He wondered how long it would be before he would ever be warm and dry again. When would he ever stop shivering?

  Schneider leaned closer to Sorenson, seeking protection from the lieutenant’s massive frame. Then he realized what he was doing and felt ashamed. But he didn’t move away. They waited a few interminable minutes more before daring to speak. He wondered how many Germans were out there—the ones they couldn’t see.

  Schneider relaxed into the earth, trying to regulate his breathing. He realized that it was not just the nearness of the German soldiers that had rattled him so. It was the thought of his own German heritage.

  Both his parents had immigrated to America just before World War I. It was the combination of economics and anti-Semitism that had driven them from their homeland of so many generations. As Schneider grew up in America, his parents’ German accents had been an embarrassment to him. Although his schoolmates rarely said anything—for lots of parents in his neighborhood were immigrants from somewhere or other—he did everything he could to avoid bringing his parents into contact with the families of his friends. He rarely had friends sleep over and never invited his parents to school functions. He struggled to make sure that his accent was always cleanly American.

  Although he was fluent in German, which his parents spoke at home, he never let any of his friends or colleagues know it. Even as he grew older and supposedly more mature, he couldn’t bring himself to be identified with his German heritage in any way. In high school and college, he chose to study French rather than continue learning German. Then, when Hitler rose to power and the Nazis became a symbol of everything evil, he found himself even more self-conscious about his parents and his name.

  Now on this battlefield in France, he was haunted by his name and his ancestry. At home, he knew his parents were suffering from the universal hatred of all things German. They were confused and embarrassed. It was worse for the Japanese, he realized. They were being placed in internment camps. People of German descent were harder to identify.

  His parents considered themselves to be as loyal to America as anyone native born. Didn’t they, themselves, have their only son fighting on the battlefield against Hitler’s Wehrmacht? Wasn’t their very own child, born in America, risking his life to save American soldiers? Was there not a flag with a blue star hanging in their living room window? How could their neighbors think that they were anything but loyal Americans as well? They had left Germany decades before, long before the war. Who could doubt their loyalty? Schneider knew what they were suffering that very minute, and it made him ashamed.

  Then there was the religious issue as well. They were Jewish. In the past several years, he had begun to participate in some of the rituals of Judaism. No, he was not a regular at services, but he wanted his little girls, Emily and Anna, to have a religious education, and he was still, after all, a Jew. The family celebrated the religious holidays, at least what were called “the happy holidays.” Hanukah and Passover were great family gatherings and required very little in the way of serious prayer. Schneider found reasons to stay away from temple on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Those services were too long. He claimed they bored the girls, but he was the one who became bored. Emily just went to sleep, and Anna played little games to pass the time. Susan was somewhere in the middle. Her parents observed most of the holidays, and went to temple when it wasn’t even a holiday. That always confounded Schneider. The services were mostly in Hebrew, and though he understood the prayers, he found the ritual sterile and totally without meaning. But in the early years of their marriage, he went quietly—peace at any price.

  So, Schneider now realized he had been the most disloyal of all to his parents and to his ancestors. He wondered what he would have done had he been born in Germany under the Nazis. He felt as bigoted as his parents’ angry neighbors.

  As the men lay agonizing over their situation, they heard a rustling in the bush. A few yards away, men were crawling quietly in their direction. Ignoring his own pain, Sorenson rolled carefully onto his side and positioned himself facing the noise. He unclipped the holster of his sidearm and handed it butt first to Marsh. Marsh looked at it as if Sorenson were handing him a rattlesnake. He took a deep breath then extended his hand to take the weapon. Schneider watched as if he were at the movies. He felt detached yet somehow involved, like a witness to a crime. The red crosses on his helmet and on Marsh’s marked them as noncombatants. The same rules that should preclude the Germans from firing on them should have kept them from firing at the Germans. But, out of the darkness and the fear came a detachment, an instinct for survival that superseded the written rules of war. Schneider didn’t have time to process the thoughts. He knew only that he was glad Marsh had the gun and that Sorenson was ready with his rifle. In fact, if he could have spoken at that moment, he would have asked for a .45 for himself, even though he knew nothing about how to use it. Instead, he pressed his body again more deeply into the ground, drawing upon the instinct of a worm to bury itself in the damp protective coolness of the earth.

  Sorenson was as still as a rock as he trained his weapon on the approaching movement in the brush. Schneider could only admire the lieutenant’s stee
l as he fought off his pain and controlled his breathing. The decision to fire or hold fire would be made in the instant the brush parted and Sorenson’s brain processed the information in his sights. Schneider wondered about the effects of the morphine on Sorenson’s reflexes and judgment. He needn’t have worried.

  Marsh and Schneider found themselves holding their breath again. Sorenson leveled his rifle, bracing his elbows against the earth as he squinted down the site. He waited, slowly exhaling his breath, pressing the fleshy tip of his finger lightly on the trigger. Once, his thumb went to the safety to assure himself that it was off.

  Marsh watched Sorenson, and then he too felt for the safety on his .45 caliber pistol. Marsh’s safety was on. He shook his head, feeling stupid as well as scared, he quietly thumbed the safety to the off position. Then he pulled back on the slide to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber. With what sounded to Marsh like a super-loud click, an unspent cartridge ejected and fell with a soft thud onto the ground as another round was chambered from the magazine. Surely the approaching men had heard the noise. Sorenson glanced at Marsh and shook his head.

  They waited.

  The movement in the brush slowly closed in on them. It seemed that four or five people were approaching their little clearing. Finally, the muzzle of a rifle parted the vegetation, and a weapon extended into their space. The muzzle inched slowly forward passing directly in front of Schneider’s face. Without thinking Schneider reached out and grabbed the moist steel in both his hands, yanking it up and away. He lurched to one knee and screamed with the effort as he pulled the rifle, and the soldier attached to it, into the clearing. A single shot exploded in his ears as the fingers of the man involuntarily pulled the trigger. The man hurtled into the clearing and yanked on the weapon, which Schneider held firmly at the other end. Marsh propelled himself forward, dropping the man with a kick to the chest. He pinned the soldier to the ground, and rammed the muzzle of his .45 into the man’s forehead. All this in the space of a few seconds.