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

by Anthony A. Goodman

  The clearing erupted with soldiers struggling for position, weapons drawn, each afraid to fire for fear of hitting a comrade in the close quarters.

  “Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!” Sorenson shouted. “Fuckin’ A! Hold your fire!”

  There was a moment of stillness as the soldiers recognized each other. All of them dropped to the ground and remained perfectly still, as if they might nullify the racket they just made. The only sound was of labored breathing, and then again, the silence.

  There were four newcomers to the group. All of them were commandoes from the destroyed glider. Schneider released the rifle, and Marsh pulled back, releasing the cocked hammer of his .45. He realized how close he had come to killing Sergeant Frank Kelly. He backed away and then, reversing his grip, handed the weapon back to Sorenson. Sorenson clicked the safety on, holstered the weapon, and re-buttoned the canvas flap. Marsh felt around in the wet grass, coming up with the cartridge he had ejected from the chamber of the .45. He handed it sheepishly back to Sorenson.

  Sorenson took the cartridge and turned to Schneider with a smile.

  “Nice job, Doc.”

  Schneider was still fighting off the temporary deafness from the blast so near his ears. He shook his head again and poked a finger into his ear. He never heard the compliment.

  The men organized themselves into a tight group.

  Sorenson rolled over onto his back. He was in terrible pain now, and it showed. The men looked at the deformed leg and winced at the thought of what Sorenson must be going through. It would be Sergeant Kelly, they thought, who would have to lead the platoon now. Kelly was still rubbing at his ribs where Marsh had kicked him. In any other situation but this, there would have been hell to pay. But Kelly was a professional.

  Sorenson repositioned himself and said, “Kelly, what’s going on? What’s our position? Strength?”

  “I don’t know, sir. There’s the four of us right here, and twelve more about a hundred yards west of here waiting in a little stand of trees near the road. We can regroup with them as soon as you’re ready to move. But, I’m damned if I know where we are. This map’s no good until we get an initial fix on something.”

  “Well, we’ll have to make our way to the road and pick a direction until we can get some recon. Maybe find a house or a farm and get oriented. We should have been dropped in somewhere southeast of Turqueville, but who the fuck knows where we are, what with the pilot dead. First thing we need to do is see where the Krauts are. Kelly, you take these men and scout the area. See who’s out there. Marsh and Schneider will make a splint for this leg of mine and take me to the rest of the men. Which way do you think they are?”

  Kelly pointed to the west and said, “They should be right down there. Just go straight. Parallel the road, and you can’t miss them. They’ll be hunkered down in the tree line. But, let ‘em know you’re coming, or they might start shooting. Everyone is spooked after losing all those men in the glider. It’s a fuckin’ mess, Lieutenant.”

  “I know. But, we’ve got to get the doc to the clearing station at Turqueville. If there is a clearing station at Turqueville. If not, we’ll make one, I guess. I have a feeling we’ll have to fight our way there. There might be more of our glider groups around here. If we can link up with them, we might have a fighting force again. Let’s get going. It isn’t gonna get any safer here when the sun comes up, which won’t be long.”

  Sorenson looked to the west for a moment and then at his watch. “They should be getting ready to hit the beaches just about now.”

  Kelly and his men crept off toward the road, while Marsh gathered some branches for a splint. Schneider organized the medical packs, taking out some heavy bandages to pad the splint. When they were ready, Marsh held the leg and Schneider lined up the stout branches. They bound the leg from the ankle to the hip, keeping it as straight as they could.

  “You think I’m gonna lose this leg, Doc?” It was the first time he had admitted the possibility to himself.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Schneider said. “If we can get this cleaned up and debride—uh, cut out some of that dead tissue under anesthesia—we’ll have a good chance to save it. We should get some of that penicillin, too.”

  “Some what?”

  “New drug. For infections. An antibiotic. Kills a lot of these germs. We have a good supply of it with the field hospitals. We should get ten thousand units of that stuff into you as soon as possible.”

  “Well, let’s go do it.”

  With Marsh in front holding the legs as carefully as he could, and Schneider in the rear supporting Sorenson’s shoulders, they moved off along the edge of the road. The sun was now brightening the dawn, and the darkness receded from the east. Now they would see the enemy about the same time the enemy would see them. But only the enemy was in position to shoot.

  Chapter Nine

  6 June 1944, 0700 Hours

  On the Road near Turqueville, France

  Sergeant Kelly and his men were slowly gathering at the side of the road. There had been no enemy movement since they arrived at their new position. Kelly had deployed scouts and then tried to figure out his position on the map. But, there were no landmarks, no houses, no signs of a village. There was only a road without signposts.

  After about twenty minutes of waiting, Kelly heard a low whistle from the scout just west of their position. Then he saw the figures of Schneider and Marsh struggling through the brush with Sorenson.

  “Garcia. Fox. Go help with Lieutenant Sorenson,” Kelly said.

  The two privates scurried out of their cover, moving fast and low. They each grabbed a limb, and dragged Sorenson back into the cover of the woods. Sorenson made a muffled cry as one of the men stumbled, putting pressure on the fractured leg.

  Moments later, Kelly and Sorenson were conferring over the map.

  “Any idea where we are, Sergeant?” Sorenson said.

  “I don’t have a fuckin’ clue, LT,” Kelly said. “We could be anywhere.”

  “Any activity here?”

  “Nothing in the last thirty, forty minutes. Not a peep.”

  “Well, we should just move out along this road. Choose a direction and go for it. We’ll assume we were close to the drop zone, and go from there. If we’re wrong, we’ll soon find out, and we can back track. At least we’ll be doing something.”

  “Yessir,” Kelly said. “So, if we were dropped where we shoulda been, we’re south, southeast of Turqueville. So we should make it north, northwest. That way,” he said, pointing up the road.

  “Where are all the road signs, Sergeant?” Schneider asked Kelly.

  “Gone, Major. The Jerries probably took them down long ago.”

  Kelly’s men had done the very same thing in England before the invasion. They had removed all road signs to confuse any possible German invasion. It was amazing, Schneider realized, how dependent they were on something as simple as street signs, even in their own neighborhoods. Now the Germans had done the same to them, and they were lost.

  “OK. Let’s do it,” Sorenson said. “Get some of your men to make a litter for me, and we’ll move out. Get some sturdy branches and canvas from the packs. You can’t keep dragging my ass all over hell and back. Too slow. And it hurts.”

  “Yessir.” Kelly said. Just as he was about to give the orders, Schneider looked up toward the road. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Holy shit! Look at that!”

  The entire group turned to see where he was pointing. There, in the early light, was a young boy of ten or eleven years leading a donkey-drawn cart. He wore torn, short, gray wool pants and sandals over ragged, black knee socks. His gray sweater was coming apart at the neck, and the sleeves were tattered as well. Empty milk cans clanged alongside the animal. The boy tapped the donkey’s rump with a switch, unaware of the soldiers in the bush.

  Schneider called out to him. “Hey! Pssst! Ici. Ici!”

  The boy stopped suddenly, cringing against the side of the donkey. He star
ed into the woods, and then saw the cluster of soldiers. He started to back away, pushing still harder against the mud-crusted side of his donkey.

  “Non! Non! Ne va pas! Nous sommes Américains. Amis. Nous sommes votre amis!” Don’t run away. We’re friends. Americans.

  The boy stopped and stared. “Americains? Americains? Americains!” he shouted, jumping in place and hugging his animal. He turned to the donkey and told the animal, “Ils sont Americains!” He stood in the middle of the road excited, expectant.

  “Schneider! Get out there and talk to him. Find out where the hell we are,” Sorenson said. “And quietly.”

  Schneider began to crawl out of the cover, and ran up to the roadside in a crouch. Sorenson called after him, “And commandeer that cart for me. I’ll ride in it.”

  Schneider acknowledged the orders with a nod of his head but kept moving. The little boy was jumping up and down in place. As he got closer, the boy thrust out his arm, and clasped Schneider’s hand in a strong grip. He pumped up and down twice as if he were shaking hands with an old friend he hadn’t seen in a long time—or trying to get water from the town pump. He said with great excitement, “Bienvenue! Bienvenue! Je m’appelle Claude!”

  “Bonjour, Claude. Je m’appelle Steve. Nous sommes perdus. Y a-t-il un village près d’ici?”

  “Oui! Certainement. Je vive la bas. Moins que trois kilometres. Á Fauville.”

  Sorenson called out in a stage whisper, “What’s going on?”

  “This is Claude. He lives in Fauville, less than three kilometers from here. Right up this road.”

  “Did you tell him…ask him…if we could use the cart?”

  Schneider turned to the boy, who was squinting around Schneider to see the soldiers in the shade of the brush. “Claude, nous avons un officier blessé, très serieuse…uh…nous avons besoin de votre…uh…carte…non…uh…wagon…non…mmm…this…” he said, now pointing at the pathetic little cart. “Celui-ci.”

  Claude hesitated. Then his eyes lit up and he raised his eyebrows. “Ah, oui! Une ambulance!”

  Schneider laughed and said, “Oui! Oui! Une ambulance.”

  At the sound of the word, ambulance, two GIs and Marsh hurried from their cover, carrying Sorenson seated across locked wrists. The rest of the men followed, surveying the surroundings as they ran. One whistled, calling in the outlying scouts. The platoon, or what remained of it, surrounded the cart. Claude was grinning and going from soldier to soldier pumping their hands and saying his name.

  There were a few strands of straw in the bottom of the splintered wooden floor, but nothing that would give any sort of comfort to Sorenson’s butt. He settled down painfully, grabbing the sides for support. Schneider placed his pack under the major’s knee and added Marsh’s pack at the side to keep the leg from moving around. It was a lot better than carrying him all the way to Fauville, but it still was not going to be comfortable. From Fauville they would try to find Turqueville and, hopefully, some help. Schneider looked at his watch. It was too soon for any more morphine. He looked at Sorenson.

  “Maybe another hour, Lieutenant.”

  Sorenson nodded his head. He knew what that meant. Sorenson looked to his men, happy to see they were correctly deployed, and waved a hand forward. He was still in command, and he was going to remain in command until he could properly turn the platoon over to a larger force. Perhaps at Turqueville.

  The little band proceeded toward Fauville at a pace dictated by the donkey, whose name was Charles. Schneider asked Claude if the donkey were named after Général de Gaulle. Claude shook his head but then saluted with his palm facing forward, and making a very dour face—a pretty good imitation of Le Général.

  After they had gone about a mile, the sun appeared over the eastern sky under the remnants of the D-Day clouds. Schneider kept thinking about the invasion forces and hoped to hell they had landed and were fighting their way to join up with him. It was the not knowing that was killing him.

  As they were starting up a gentle hill, Sorenson called to Schneider, who was walking along with the boy, chatting in French.

  “Hey, Doc, ask the kid if there are any Jerries around here.”

  Schneider spoke to the child, who opened both hands wide, blew a puff of air through his pursed lips and said, “Les Bosches? Bien sûr! Ils sont partout! Partout!”

  “Oh, shit!” Schneider said. He yelled back to Sorenson. “He says they’re everywhere. Everywhere!”

  “Even in Fauville? His village?” Sorenson was incredulous.

  Schneider spoke to the boy again.

  Claude said, “Mais oui! Depuis plusieurs années.”

  “He said, ‘Of course! They’ve been there for several years.’”

  “Whoa! Hold up. Shit! Why the fuck didn’t he tell us that before we almost got ourselves into a fuckin’ ambush? Jesus Christ!”

  Schneider turned to Claude and slightly modified the major’s question. The boy replied to Schneider.

  “He says he was hoping we would kill them all as soon as we got there. Says he was going to ask you if he could kill some of them himself. Seems he has a few scores to settle.”

  Claude began to speak rapidly. It was way too fast for Schneider.

  “Whoa. Whoa. Slow down, son. Lentement. Plus lentement. It’s been a long time.”

  The boy caught his breath for a moment and then began speaking again at exactly the same excited pace as before. Schneider shrugged and smiled, and watched Claude’s lips carefully.

  He translated for Sorenson. “He says he hates the Jerries, and that he wants them all dead. Since they took his village—apparently they have a command post there—they execute a bunch of citizens every time a German gets killed or a rail line is blown up by the Resistance—the Maquis. One of them was his uncle; they shot him in the public square. The kid saw the whole thing.”

  “Well, gather ‘round here,” Sorenson said. “If he’s right, we got a little planning to do. We have shit for a strike force here. Not enough to take out a whole town and a goddamned command post. We need to join up with some more guys from our side, then we can clean the fuckers out of that town. A whole bunch of gliders were supposed to have come down in this neighborhood. Ask him if he’s seen any other Americans.”

  “I already asked him that. He hasn’t. Just us. But he says there’s a small farmhouse up ahead; we could hole up there until we have a plan. Maybe try to locate other groups in the area.”

  “He said that?”

  “No. He told me about the farmhouse. I’m suggesting we hole up there and regroup. We’re sitting ducks out here on the road.”

  “OK, let’s do it. Talbot,” Sorenson shouted, “take the point.”

  The odd little procession moved out again, infantry fore and aft as well as flanked out along the sides as much as their small numbers would allow. Claude led the donkey as the cart bounced painfully along the rocky road. Talbot, on point, stayed about fifty yards ahead of the group. Claude asked Schneider if he could go up there with Talbot. Schneider told him, no, that it was too dangerous to go ahead. The man on point was likely to be the first killed in a firefight or an ambush.

  “Better stay here with me and the lieutenant,” Schneider said in French.

  “Mais, je n’ai pas peur!”

  “I know you’re not afraid,” Schneider told Claude in French. “But, we don’t want to lose any more men.” He emphasized the word “men.” Claude puffed up, proud to be part of this man’s army, the army that would soon liberate his little town, just as De Gaulle would soon liberate France.

  Schneider was walking alongside the cart now, keeping tabs on his only patient. He thought it odd that after such a terrible crash, and the ensuing mortar attack, that he would have only one patient to care for. The rest were all dead at the site. Not a single wounded man had survived long enough for Marsh or Schneider to be of any use. He thought that by now he would be up to his elbows in blood, filling the aid station or field hospital with wounded and operating aro
und the clock with the rest of his team. But, that was not to be. Not yet.

  The day had begun to warm up a bit. With the sun brightening the day, the nagging fears that had gripped Schneider’s bowels had disappeared. He felt some modicum of calm, though now and then, for no reason at all, he found his heart racing and the sweat of fear breaking out on his forehead.

  Schneider smiled at the little boy who so bravely led the little force toward Fauville, toward his home. All these months, while Schneider and the rest of the invasion force—hundreds of thousands of men and women—were holed up in the relative safety and comfort of England, Claude and his family had been virtual prisoners of the Germans. They had lived the war every day for the past four years. They were short of everything: food, clothing, hope. Their captors shared nothing with them except for centuries of hatred for each other.

  Holy shit! Four years this little guy has been at war, while most of that time I’ve been drinking warm beer and cooling my heels in England. Schneider wondered where he would have found the strength. What would he have done at Claude’s age in such a situation?

  Schneider couldn’t help but marvel at the extreme bravery of the ordinary citizen caught up in the horrors of this war and how they lived every day as if it could be their last, hostages to the capricious cruelty of the enemy. Villagers all over France, all over Europe for that matter, waited for rescue by the coming of the Allies. Schneider was struck by the extraordinary bravery it must have taken to walk down the street in your very own village under the guns of the Nazis.

  “Quel âge as tu, Claude?”

  Claude answered that he was ten, and soon to be eleven.

  Schneider shook his head in wonderment as he looked at little Claude, now a proud part of the army of liberation.

  They soon came off the long low hill and onto a level space surrounded by woods, stone walls, and hedgerows. Marsh had wandered up to the point and was talking with Talbot. The rest of the men spaced out along the road.