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

by Anthony A. Goodman

  No sooner had the first volley ended than the machine gun opened up again and grenades were lobbed in their direction. Smaller trees toppled near their fortress. Hamm could hear the whistling of the rounds as they flew past; a bad sign, he knew, when he could hear the actual bullet passing by.

  “Fuck this!” McClintock said, but he stayed frozen in place, seeing no better options.

  Schneider, taking cover behind the rocks with Molly, grabbed her waist and muscled her to the ground.

  “Don’t move.”

  “Jesus!” she said. “You scared the hell out of me. And I can’t breathe!”

  It was then she realized that Schneider was shielding her with his body. He was practically smothering her with his weight. As soon as she realized what he was trying to do, she remained perfectly still. Their faces were close together, and he could feel her breath on his neck. She was still scared, and so was Schneider. But they felt at least a measure of safety in their newly dug hiding place.

  “Where’s the shooting coming from?” she whispered.

  “No idea. Just stay put. All we have for protection are these rocks and that private back there. Lot of good he’ll do us.”

  No one could tell where the firing was coming from. It continued more sporadically for a few minutes, then stopped altogether.

  Now their medical team was clustered around a fifty square yard space, but safer than when they were near the trucks. Higgenson was nowhere to be seen, but of all of them, Schneider thought, Higgenson was the most capable of taking care of himself and his patients. Gun or no gun.

  As if reading his mind, Molly asked, “Where do you think Dick is?”

  “Not a clue. But I bet he’s taking care of his patients.”

  Then, for about ten minutes, there was no more firing.

  “Been quiet for a while,” Schneider said. “I want to check on Dick. Something’s not right. You stay here.”

  Then, as Schneider was about to get up, a staccato string of thuds and the shriek of ripping metal forced him back down. They peeked through openings in the rock pile and watched in horror as the ambulance was riddled with machine-gun fire; it rocked and bounced, dust and debris flying out of its sides like an exploding garbage can. Schneider expected it to burst into flames. But it didn’t.

  “Jesus!” Schneider whispered. “If we’d stayed in that ambulance they would have slaughtered the lot of us.”

  The guns stopped again. Shredded tree branches creaked as they swung above their heads. Then came the report of a solitary rifle very nearby. One shot. Pause. Another shot. Pause. Another shot.

  They sank down again and waited. Two more shots fired from in front of them, but no bullets came their way. Then a few random shots were fired to the left. Then five minutes later from behind them, the bullets were flying outbound over their heads, or so it seemed. Then more firing from the right again. It was confusing, but as long as no more bullets struck near them, they didn’t care.

  “Think that’s our private?” Molly asked.

  “Don’t know. Or maybe the Jerries have gotten behind us.”

  Another series of shots burst from the right, very near the truck. Then the blast of a grenade ripped through the air, sending up a geyser of flame from the truck’s gas tank.

  “Oh, God!” Molly gasped.

  Again, they peeked over the top of the rock wall and watched as the burning truck lit up the night. Schneider started to duck back down just as he saw a figure back-lighted in the orange flames and smoke. It was their private—their lone defender—propped against the side of the truck, his rifle pointing straight ahead taking aim at the enemy.

  He was the one answering the German fire. A solitary rifle trying to protect a bunch of unarmed doctors and their patients. Schneider wanted to call to him, to tell him to get under cover. Surely, the man could do no more. He must have been racing around behind them, always changing his location after every shot or two, trying to make the Germans believe they were fighting more than a one-man platoon.

  Then the flames that had back lighted him crept upward and around him, engulfing him in a blanket of orange flame and black smoke. But the private did not move.

  “Steve! He’s burning!”

  “No…he’s dead, Molly. He’s dead.”

  There was another brief lull in the firing. Then from the cover of rocks across from them, a large figure raced crouching toward the fallen private. It was Higgenson. He ran full tilt toward the burning man and threw himself on top of the body to smother the flames.

  A series of three rapid-fire shots rang out again. Higgenson’s body arched and bucked as the bullets tore into him.

  Instantly, and instinctively—in spite of the danger—all four of the medical team leapt from their hiding places and raced the few yards to save him. McClintock and Schneider beat at the flames with their jackets and smothered the pyre with their bodies. Hamm wrapped his arms around Higgenson dragging him to cover, while Molly scrambled for their medical equipment.

  The lone private was certainly dead. But Higgenson was still breathing. McClintock grabbed his instruments and quickly inserted an airway into Higgenson’s trachea. Hamm cut away his medic’s jacket and Schneider was trying without success to start a large-bore IV for plasma. All of Higgenson’s veins were collapsed in his profound state of shock.

  McClintock bagged air into and out of Higgenson’s lungs while Hamm and Schneider tried to asses the situation. Only then did they see the three giant holes tight in the center of Higgenson’s chest. There was a river of blood on his clothes and on the ground, but none was coming from the wounds. As they watched, all three holes began emitting pink froth with each breath from McClintock’s anesthesia bag. Hamm lifted Higgenson’s eyelids and in spite of the risk, shined his small flashlight into each eye.

  Hamm slumped back onto his haunches and shook his head. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Schneider did the same, but McClintock kept working, only stopping when Hamm put his arm around him, gently pulling him back. McClintock slowly removed the endotracheal tube, and dropped it into his bag of supplies. Molly wrapped her arms around Higgenson and rocked him across her lap.

  Schneider dropped the IVs and the plasma bag. He reached out and took Higgenson’s hand in his, the tears still streaming down his face.

  “What did you think you were doing, Dick?”

  Hamm sat up, wiped away his tears and put a hand on Schneider’s back. “He did just what he always did. He did his job.”

  They kept Higgenson with them all night. Molly could not let him go. The ensuing silence was as frightening as the firefight had been. At least while there was shooting, Schneider felt he knew where the danger lay. But now, in the silence, he imagined German soldiers creeping up in the darkness, only yards away, ready to lob a grenade over the top of the rock wall. He saw in his mind a single silent enemy troop; then there were two, then four, then a platoon, a whole company overrunning their position. He saw the slaughter and his own death and his inability to save himself or Molly. And who would he save first? Would he give his life for this woman? For anyone? What would he do when the time came? Schneider had covered Molly’s body with his own when the firefight started, but was it an effort to protect her, or an action forced upon him by his history of guilt? And when he thought about what Higgenson had done, knowingly risking and then losing his life for the very slim chance that he could save this young GI, he could not even conceive of such bravery in himself. Ever.

  Molly and Schneider stayed next to Higgenson and the burned out truck until dawn. They neither moved nor spoke. All through the night, she never took her hands away from Higgenson’s body. She was exhausted from the terrible strain of the events of the night, and Schneider was drained by his own fear and more than anything, his overwhelming sadness at the loss of Dick Higgenson.

  The three wounded men still lay under the cover of the camouflage that Higgenson had built for them. Hamm and McClintock had dug in next to them, enlarging their littl
e fortress of dirt and stones. They would watch over and care for their patients; changing IVs; administering morphine; checking on the chest tubes. All in the darkness.

  The wounded had survived purely on damned good luck and perhaps some decent medical care. Perhaps the private had scared off the Germans after all. Perhaps he had made them think he really was a fighting force rather than one soldier and a bunch of noncombatants. Perhaps the Germans had killed enough for one night.

  Whatever it was, the morning brought quiet to the field and the realization that the remaining medical group members were quite alone.

  At first light, everyone cautiously rose from their positions. What was foremost in everyone’s thoughts that morning was that Higgenson had given his life on the very small chance of saving the private who had saved all of them. The private who had tried to defend them had bought their lives with his own and with Dick’s. Now nothing much remained of him but a helmet, a rifle barrel, and a burned brass belt buckle.

  Hamm poked through the still warm ashes with a stick, searching for the boy’s dog tags. After a minute, he pulled out a chain and shook it. There at the end of the chain were the tags, charcoal black.

  Molly walked over to Hamm and asked, “Are you going to send those to his parents?”

  “No, these go to graves registration. But, I want to copy down the details. He tried to save all of us, and perhaps he did. I’ll ask his CO to put him in for a Bronze Star, maybe even a Silver Star. And I want to write to his parents and lie a little about how he died. I don’t want them to know how it really happened. I want them to think it was quick. I’m not his commanding officer, but I’m going to write the letter anyway.”

  The whole group gathered at the remains of the truck. Hamm and Schneider carried Higgenson’s body on their shoulders and placed him against a mound of earth and stone. Wrapped in the khaki blanket, and lying naturally against the side wall, he seemed to be resting there asleep, waiting for his ride back to the field hospital.

  Molly moved among the critically ill post-ops from the night before, still amazed that none of the wounded had been hurt in the attack, and all were recovering pretty well. As well as could be expected only a few hours after surgery, hiding out in a camouflaged fox hole. Had everyone remained in the truck, of course, they all would have died horribly. She was fully aware that Hamm had made the right decision; and that he was, indeed, their commanding officer.

  Hamm had just begun to collect the last of his medical kit when an American jeep rolled up the road. It scared everyone. Because of the heavy summer foliage they had not heard it coming until it was almost upon them. It could easily have been the Germans.

  An MP private sat behind the wheel next to his sergeant. There were two more armed infantry GIs in the back. The sergeant jumped out of the jeep before the vehicle had stopped and saluted. Hamm waved him off and pointed to the recovering soldiers on the litters.

  “Can you get us all out of here, Sergeant?”

  “Yessir. But it’ll take a bit longer before I can get you all out,” he said, pointing to the small jeep.

  “Well then, take the wounded, and maybe leave us some GIs with guns, okay?”

  After the two most seriously wounded were secured to the hood of the jeep, the sergeant jumped back in. The two privates armed with their M1s and a bunch of grenades visible on their web belts, got out and stood on guard near the edge of the road. Then they lay the third wounded man, the most stable one, across the small back seat, leaning up against the side.

  The jeep took off in the direction it had come from. No one had asked how long it might be before they were rescued. Then everyone sat down on the ground to wait. All the food had been in the truck, and in the excitement of the rescue and their hurry to get the wounded back to a field hospital, they had forgotten to ask if the sergeant had any rations to spare. By that time, they were very hungry. Unfortunately, there was nothing to do about it, so they all just sat down on anything dry they could find. Somehow they ended up in a little semicircle facing the remains of the truck and the remains of the private who had saved their lives.

  Schneider finally asked, Hamm, “So who was that young man?”

  Hamm felt around in his pocket and pulled out the dog tags dangling from the now shiny metal necklace. He handed them to Steve.

  “Otis,” Steve said. “Robert Simpson Otis. Private First Class.”

  Then he wiped the dog tags off and handed them back to Hamm.

  Steve nodded his head slightly and murmured, “Thank you, Robert.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  26 August 1944, 0600 Hours

  Field Hospital Charlie-7, 100 Miles West of Paris

  Nearly two more bloody months dragged on since their night under fire in that field. The German resistance was fierce in many places, and progress had been slowed for weeks at a time. Field Hospital Charlie-7 and its staff were almost constantly at work and under fire.

  In the early morning light, a small group of personnel were gathered around the radio in the mess tent. Hamm and McClintock were drinking coffee while Antonelli and Marsh waited for their breakfast to be ready. Schneider was sitting next to Molly and trying to clear the static on the crappy radio that had been allotted to them.

  “Sure ain’t NBC,” he said. “Maybe we can get Bob Hope or Jack Benny. The Shadow, The Fat Man, Danger with Granger, anything for Christ’s sake! Something!”

  Schneider was very frustrated, probably because he was hungry and tired and feeling somewhat guilty at how much he had enjoyed being so close to Molly for the past few weeks. Each day he waited for the OR schedule to be posted, and if she was not assigned to his team, he silently pouted. He didn’t fully understand it, but when she was helping another team, especially Hamm’s team, he felt like a jealous lover, scorned and discarded. It was so stupid. Juvenile. He was behaving worse than a teenager. It was really a lot worse than that because, whether he liked it or not, he still had a wife and two lovely young daughters at home, but all he did was moon away over Molly.

  Schneider didn’t think he was being very obvious. At least Hamm and McClintock hadn’t said anything to him. But, why should they? They had been up to their asses in surgery almost every day for the past two months, and only in the last ten days had the pace slackened enough for anyone to breathe. In the first two months since the invasion, the group had done thousands of cases. That didn’t include all the wounded and shock patients who didn’t require surgery, just first aid or fluid management.

  During this time the Allies continued to move east, at a slow pace at first, then accelerating, breaking through the enemy defenses and driving flat out for Germany. Scuttlebutt said that Patton was moving so fast he had outrun his own supply lines. That sounded just like Patton.

  The first days after Normandy, the Allies only made a mile or two a day; now it could be a dozen or two dozen miles a day, and that kept the medical teams scampering to stay close to the troops.

  As they drew nearer to Germany, Schneider began to think more and more about his uncle and his family. He still had no idea where they were, or if they were still alive for that matter. There were so many rumors about what was happening to the German Jews and the Poles. Some of what they heard was too outrageous to believe. At least no one wanted to believe it. What they were dealing with right there at the front was bad enough. No one wanted to think of anything worse.

  With no news of his uncle since before the war, Schneider thought there would be little chance he could ever find him amid the chaos. Nevertheless, he held on to a faint hope. What a wonderful thing it would be to ride into Munich behind the troops to find that his uncle and aunt and cousins had survived the war.

  By late August things were so quiet that on most days the medical teams were actually bored, though they hated to say it. The past night had been an all-nighter, commonplace before, but unusual lately. An armored personnel carrier full of GIs had hit a land mine about fifteen miles from the field hospital and were trucked bac
k in three big ambulances. Teams were up all night putting those guys back together. There were fifteen casualties all told, and they saved every one of them. They had gotten very good at resuscitating the GIs in a hurry and speeding them though surgery. With all the medics scurrying to bring in the wounded, and with guys like McClintock at the anesthesia machines, they were a hell of a team. It was a family, really, and they prayed that some tight-ass in the war department wasn’t going to get the idea that they should be separated. For whatever reason.

  And not a day went by when they didn’t think about Higgenson, and how he died trying to save an already dead GI, the second time in his young life and his all too short career as a medic. This man who saw his duty and did it every day. This Conscientious Objector.

  So there they were, their little group, listening to the radio static when Schneider hit a clear patch on the dial. Out came the crystal clear voice of Free French Radio from Paris. From Paris! Schneider’s French had radically improved over the past couple of months because he had taken care of a lot of civilian casualties and done a lot of reconnaissance translations with the locals and occasionally the Maquis, the French Resistance, known also as the French Forces of the Interior, or the FFI.

  Often, the fighting guys would send for Schneider to conduct an interrogation of the farmers to gather terrain and logistics information. It made him feel as if he were taking a more active part in the war effort. Especially when he was helping with the Resistance, whose bravery he admired so much.

  Schneider translated the radio news for everyone in the mess tent. Apparently, about ten days earlier, De Gaulle had called for a national resistance movement. The French had responded in spades. There was fierce round-the-clock fighting all over Paris. The Paris police had also declared a walkout strike against the Nazis. The entire city was engulfed in an insurrection, something they would never have dared to do before the invasion and the rapid retreat of the Germans.