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

by Anthony A. Goodman

  She wiped her eyes and took still another deep breath. She pulled back only slightly, finding comfort in his closeness. She looked up at him for a moment then she continued.

  “I transferred out of the Pacific. You can understand why. Requested Europe and got it. And here I am. Spent a long time in England waiting for the invasion. And you know the rest.”

  “I’m sorry, Molly. That shouldn’t happen to anyone. The fact that it happens to someone every damned minute out here can’t make it any easier for you. I’m just so sorry.”

  She pulled back, seeming a little embarrassed at having cried on his chest. She touched the wet stain on his scrubs and gave a weak smile. They disconnected themselves and stood.

  “Thanks for listening to me. It’s the first time I’ve told that story all the way through. It’s been two and a half years since he died, yet that’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. Thanks for just listening to me.”

  They walked back to the farmhouse and the tents with the noise of the artillery still dominating the night. Schneider could barely stand it when they got to the fork in the path and he had to leave her side. He wanted to stay with her forever.

  The next few weeks got busy again, so they were back on the move. The stay at the farm had spoiled everyone. Living in real rooms with walls and a roof seemed so civilized, despite sharing everything with crowds of others.

  Now Schneider spent almost all his time in the operating tent or somewhere nearby, so he was always with Molly, or Hamm or McClintock and the rest of the team. The abilities of the surgical teams varied greatly, but there was no question that their group was among the best. Schneider and Hamm took more pride in that in front of Molly than either cared to admit. From the surgery to the anesthesia to the pre- and post-op preparation, their team never missed a trick.

  Schneider spent a little time with Molly between cases, mostly at meals. But, there was nothing again like the day she poured her heart out to him sitting on that stump in the soggy field near the farmhouse. He thought they had forged a kind of bond then, but maybe, he admitted, he was just kidding himself.

  In the operating room Molly treated Schneider as she did everyone else. She called him “Major” in front of others, maintaining formal army protocol with him at all times.

  Schneider didn’t know whether he admired her for her self-control or was disappointed that she showed no attraction to him. He was hoping for more.

  There was that wedding band on his finger, of course. He didn’t know who of the two of them was more aware of it. Finally, he gave up on the thought of romance with Molly and somewhat reluctantly returned to their purely professional relationship. He began calling her “Captain” again, and stopped trying to find ways to spend off-hours with her.

  One night, after a very long stretch without sleep or rest, he was tanking up on food in the mess tent, refueling for the next onslaught. It was nearly two in the morning, and he couldn’t remember when he had slept last. It hadn’t been within the last twenty-four hours. He was trying to eat some dreadful concoction on his plate that was swimming in grease. He gave up and pushed the whole tray away, rescuing his coffee—the tea supply was gone—and some hard crackers.

  He was considering melting part of a chocolate brick into the thick hot brew, when his tray disappeared and a fresh one was plopped down in front of him. On it was the best looking steak he had seen in years. Slightly charred on the outside, rare in the middle. A pink juice surrounded the meat. He couldn’t believe it. He actually drooled. Then he looked up to see where this treasure had come from and found himself looking into Molly’s smiling face.

  Molly sat down right next to him on the bench, even though there was by now not another soul in the mess and all the other seats were empty.

  “Holy shit! Where did you get this? And it isn’t even Christmas,” he said. He tried, not too successfully, to keep from salivating some more, and they both laughed as he wiped the drool at the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

  “What an elegant guy,” she said.

  “You know how to make a guy feel wanted.”

  “I brought you this didn’t I? You want me to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, too?”

  “Oh yes!” he said without hesitation. God! What am I thinking?

  “OK,” she said. “But, help me finish this steak first.”

  “Really, Molly, where did you get this?”

  “There’s a heifer out there in the back. Was a heifer. Now she’s dinner. One of the GIs passing through bought it for two thousand francs. About forty dollars. Got it from a French farmer along the road somewhere. They shot it on the spot and have been carrying it around in the back of a jeep trying to find a real cook. So, they came upon us and figured they could get some good food, showers, and female company by bringing us the heifer. Pretty neat, huh?”

  She didn’t wait for him to reply. She cut a piece and speared it with a fork, lifting it to his mouth for a taste. Schneider opened his mouth as she placed it gently on his tongue. That simple gesture was the most sensuous thing in his life in the last three years, maybe ever, and it made him blush. Molly pulled the fork back and fed herself a piece. She used the same fork and made no gesture to wipe it off. Sharing that fork and the meat was for Schneider and Molly, somehow, a line crossed. It was both intimate and loving. It sent a message that needed no words. They never talked about it, but there it was.

  And she started it.

  For the next several weeks, the staff were up to their elbows in casualties and blood. Antonelli, Marsh and Higgenson seemed never to sleep. They were on the move day and night, bringing in the casualties, administering first aid, assisting in the pre-op and the OR and then back out into the field again.

  It wasn’t unusual for the hospital to do seven or eight hundred cases a week. Sometimes more. And that didn’t include bringing in the dead. The Jerries may have been retreating, but they were putting up a hell of a fight as they went, not ceding an inch of ground without blood. As American boys fought their way east and inland, the surgical teams followed as closely as they could, sometimes to within a mile of the fighting. A few times the lines changed so fast that they were caught on the wrong side.

  When they moved so fast, it was hard to get everything packed up in an orderly way. The serious abdominal cases and a few of the chest and neurosurgical cases were so unstable that they couldn’t be transported. At those times, they would move the hospital with the rest of the wounded and recovering GIs, but leave a detachment of nurses and doctors behind to care for those patients until they could be moved. It was dangerous work because the lines were not always moving forward. When the Americans were retreating, it was crucial to get the patients and their medical teams out of harm’s way as soon as possible. Small convoys of ambulances and supply trucks were constantly on the move.

  The push east toward Paris continued. The Germans were moving away, and except for the high number of casualties pouring in all day and night, there was little evidence of any major counteroffensive. The medical group was burdened with hundreds of patients. Ambulances were running day and night to take the transportable cases west to the evac hospitals as the medical team moved further east. Always east toward Germany.

  In this, their latest move, Schneider was riding with Hamm, McClintock and Molly in an ambulance truck carrying mostly medical personnel and supplies. It was not usual for the surgeons to be in one vehicle now, because they had moved out so fast, it just ended up that way. By chance, Molly ended up sitting with McClintock, and Schneider was visibly pissed. Each time Ted leaned closer and said something quietly to Molly, her laughter steamed Schneider even more.

  Higgenson was up front with the driver. Marsh and Antonelli had stayed behind with a group of surgeons and nurses to care for the last of the wounded GIs until they were stable enough to evacuate. And this time the convoy had no infantry with them. Those soldiers were all far ahead chasing Germans or remained behind to protect the rest of the staff and pat
ients.

  “I don’t think I’m going to miss Cherbourg or any of Normandy,” Hamm said as the trucks bumped along the now deeply rutted and potholed road.

  “Really?” Schneider said, with mock surprise.

  “I don’t know. I guess I just associate it with a hell of a lot of death and dying—such a waste of lives. I don’t think I could ever come back here. I mean after the war is over….”

  “Y’all can have this whole damned country if you ask me,” McClintock said.

  “It’s so beautiful, though,” Molly said, looking out at the countryside. “I would have liked to have seen it before the war.”

  “I did see it before the war,” Schneider said, “and it was wonderful.”

  “You did?” she said.

  “In college. I spent a whole summer in France learning French and pretending to be cosmopolitan. My friends said I was an insufferable bore when I got back to school.”

  “You’re still an insufferable bore, Steve. You just can’t help yourself.” said McClintock.

  Everybody nodded in agreement. Even Molly.

  “A bore? Moi?” Schneider laughed, but he was not good at taking a ribbing, especially in front of Molly. In the weeks since they had talked on that stump and then shared the steak in the mess tent, nothing more had happened. Their damn schedules were so completely out of sync. He would be up working, and she would be asleep. Or vice versa. For many days at a time, they hardly saw each other.

  Schneider did a lot of fantasizing during those hours.

  The trip dragged on, with stops and detours and reversals. Everyone was getting tired and cranky, dozing off in fits and starts. But, to their credit, they bore it pretty well. Schneider found himself rocking to the sway of the truck. He had changed seats—not very subtly—and now being next to Molly helped his mood a lot. But his mind kept going back to somewhere else. Try as he might, he could not let it go. Finally, he gave in and let his mind wander where it would.

  Schneider’s thoughts dwelled on one of his fights with Susan. It was weeks before he actually left, and more fights were still to come. But none stung him as much as that one.

  Back in their kitchen, when he told her he was going to enlist, when she spoke those words that wounded him so, the words he would never forget: “What are you going to do when someone starts shooting at you? What are you going to do then?”

  The memory of it took him back to where she had wanted it to take him, where it would hurt him the most: that night; so many years ago.

  He was almost seventeen. Susan had just turned sixteen. By high-school standards, they were an item. They had been dating for four months and were in love as only teenagers can be: total, consuming, frustrating, and heartbreaking first love.

  They had been to the movies and had taken two buses back to Susan’s street. They were walking the last street to Susan’s house. It was a quiet and sultry evening. Schneider could hear the wind in the many trees along her street. He was tired, dreading the long bus rides home back to his own house. At this time of night, after midnight, the buses ran only once an hour. He would be standing there in the night, alone, for a long time if he missed the next one.

  But there was the promise of some necking on the front porch if he got lucky. They had done their share of smooching in the balcony during the movie, but Susan was always uncomfortable kissing in public, even in the darkness of the theater. When Schneider had begun to explore how far she would go, she had pushed him away. He felt hurt. After a few minutes, she had leaned into him again and whispered, “Later.” She took his hand, which had been around her shoulders, and moved it furtively to her breast. Schneider was stunned. She had never allowed him that far. The night was looking up.

  On the street to her house, Schneider started to smile. He had been so excited during the movie that he now had no idea which one they’d seen.

  Susan looked at him as they walked and squeezed his hand tighter.

  Just as they reached the house next to Susan’s, a huge animal leaped from behind a row of chest-high hedges and directly into their path. It was black and fierce and growling. Schneider remembered looking directly into the animal’s eyes and big white sharp teeth. Without any thought or planning, he reacted on pure instinct. His heart was racing as he placed both hands on Susan’s shoulders and shoved her in front of his own body, between the Great Dane and himself.

  Expecting a scream, Schneider was dumbfounded when Susan put out her hand and said, “Hi, Duke. Good dog.”

  She patted Duke on the head and was rewarded with a great sloppy kiss—from Duke—not Schneider.

  It took several minutes for Schneider’s heart to calm down. It would take a lifetime for him to forget the shame of his cowardly instinct. He had failed every test he could think of.

  It was so horrendous an act that, for a moment, Susan thought he was joking. No one would push the girl he loved in front of a dog he believed to be attacking them. But when she realized what he had just done to her, she was at first speechless, then furious.

  After loving up Duke, and scratching his big ears—the loving affection that Schneider had hoped for later—she turned her pent up rage on him.

  “You son-of-a-bitch! You cowardly son-of-a-bitch!”

  Then she turned and stormed into her house, furious and hurt. And terribly disappointed. She would never forget, and never quite forgive him.

  He didn’t tell a single person about that evening, until almost ten years later when he admitted it to Hamm.

  Schneider came out of his reverie as the convoy slowed, then stopped at a bend in a small river. There was nothing around to suggest that they had arrived at the new field hospital site, so everyone jumped down to see what was going on. There was an American jeep parked off to the side. Hamm’s driver was talking to the sergeant in the passenger seat. The sergeant’s driver, an MP, had climbed out to stretch his legs, carefully taking his rifle with him. The rest of the doctors and nurses strolled over, happy to stretch their legs even in the mud and the light rain.

  The sergeant was speaking. When he saw all of them, mostly officers, he turned his attention their way and began to explain again.

  “I’m Sergeant O’Reilly. Like I was saying to your driver, you guys may wanna just turn around right here. There’s a whole shitload of Jerries about eight hundred yards down the road and moving this way. They’ll be here almost any time now.”

  “Well, where are you going, Sergeant? And what do you suggest we do?” Hamm asked.

  “There’s a little side road back there on the left, Major. I’m pretty sure it’ll take us back to our lines. Not really sure what to tell you, sir. But anywhere is better than what’s ahead of us. You got any protection here? Anyone armed?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Hamm said.

  “Well, you can have my sidearm if that’s any help,” the MP said, slinging his M1 Garand rifle and reaching for the standard army issue .45.

  Hamm waved him off again.

  “We’re not supposed to be armed. Though that doesn’t seem to matter to the Krauts. I think that gun will get us in more trouble than not.”

  Schneider stepped forward, forcing Hamm to step aside. He held out his hand.

  “I’ll take that, if you’re still offering it.”

  The MP handed Schneider the gun, grip first, and then took out two more clips of ammunition and handed them across as well.

  “You never can tell, Doc. Might just save you after all.”

  Hamm blew out a deep breath. “Jesus, Steve. Or you might just get us killed.”

  He turned to the gathered group and said, “Looks like we don’t really have a choice here. Let’s get back in the trucks and How Able out of here. Follow the sergeant.”

  How Able was the military phonetic alphabet for H and A. It meant Haul Ass.

  Everyone scrambled for the trucks. The MP climbed back in and wheeled his jeep around, heading back toward where they had come from. The two-truck medical convoy followed him closely be
cause they had no idea where they were going nor what lay ahead of them.

  “I don’t like this,” Schneider said.

  “Me neither,” said McClintock.

  “Those guys aren’t much protection,” Higgenson said.

  They were all keenly aware of how vulnerable their little convoy was. The three vehicles moved along slowly for about thirty minutes without encountering any Germans, before abruptly stopping again. They all jumped down as soon as the trucks ground to a halt. To their surprise, they found a small group of Americans in the field at the side of the road. Maybe eight of them. In a couple of seconds, they realized that six men were wounded. A lieutenant came out to the road and approached the jeep, talking with Sergeant O’Reilly, where everyone had gathered again. He saluted and received a bunch of very unmilitary, unenthusiastic salutes in return.

  “Hey, majors. Name’s Cantrell.” He said. “I’m sure glad to see you guys.” Then to Molly, “Hello, Captain.”

  Hamm took the lead again. “What’s happening, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, my platoon—what’s left of it—got ambushed here in this field last night. We’ve got six men really badly wounded. No medics. I stayed here with one other GI while the rest of the platoon went for help. That was around midnight. They tried to slip out of here in the darkness so the Krauts wouldn’t know they were gone. I haven’t seen the Krauts or anyone else since.”

  “So where are they?” O’Reilly asked, looking warily around at the tree line.

  “Don’t know. There was some sporadic rifle and machine gun fire last night—around two in the morning—then nothing since. Must have slipped outta here in the darkness. Maybe they thought we had reinforcements on the way. Just don’t know.”

  He shrugged, his body visibly straining with the effort.

  “Look,” Hamm said, “we’ll take care of your wounded. Why don’t you leave us one man with a gun. I guess you only have one man with a gun,” he said, pointing to the GI who was still sitting with his wounded buddies out in the field. “You go with Sergeant O’Reilly here in the jeep and get us some more help. OK? Some medical supplies would be good, too.”