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

by Anthony A. Goodman

“May I join you?” he asked quietly.

  She shifted to her left and made room for him on the stump. But she didn’t turn around; a bad sign, he thought. Schneider sat down next to her, moving close, trying to feel the warmth and softness that he had grown to love. Molly made no effort to move away, but she wasn’t the same. Schneider had become accustomed to her melting into him when they touched, so that their bodies became inseparable, without clear boundaries between them. At that moment, though they touched, there was a subtle demarcation. Again, he didn’t like it.

  “Molly—”

  “Don’t talk just yet, Steve. Just sit here for a minute.” That was something, anyway, he thought.

  She hadn’t told him to beat it or leave her alone, as he had feared she might. No flare of that Irish temper he had seen when anyone, American or German, had gotten between her and her nurses or her and her patients. She never took any bullshit from anyone.

  Ex nullo, non feces. She still took no shit from no one.

  So they sat there in silence looking into the far distance. Not so different from the thousand yard stares of the shell-shocked GIs they treated. Schneider kept going back and forth between his choices. He had only two, really. He could avow his love for her and his determination to end his marriage to Susan. Or, he would go back to Susan and the kids, and try to start his life over again just the way it was before the war.

  But who am I kidding, he wondered? Nothing in the world was ever going to be the same after the war. Nothing.

  Schneider had no idea what he really wanted. He was operating out of fear. That much he knew. Divorce was alien to him. But his life with Susan seemed to come from another lifetime. Out here it was different. Lives ended in the blink of an eye. It made every moment precious. Everyone there in the war zone knew how little it took to snuff you out.

  There had been a definite loss of spark, of passion, between Steve and Susan over the years, but maybe that was normal. None of his friends talked about their marriages, and he’d never thought about it before. It seemed only reasonable that passion would wane with time. Then Molly came along, and, all of a sudden, he was behaving like a teenager again. He was walking around with an erection every time he saw her or thought about her. And their lovemaking had exceeded his fantasies. He couldn’t ever recall feeling that way with Susan, even in the beginning. They met, they courted, and everyone just assumed they were right for each other. Even they had bought into that one. So they married, and that was that. Schneider just couldn’t remember the romance, the passion. Was he too sophisticated back then? Too jaded? Was Susan?

  Then he wondered again if that were the natural course of things. If he settled into a real life with Molly, would their passion dwindle, too? Would their love-life become routine? He couldn’t imagine it at the moment, but who the hell knew?

  It wasn’t just the sex that concerned him. He was also fearful of the realities of life. He was just starting out in surgery, and all of a sudden he would be saddled with alimony and child support and a new wife who would probably want what his ex-wife had. Molly had never said anything to indicate her own expectations, but it made sense. That one night in Paris was going to be hard to live up to again, what with a busy practice and the expenses.

  The world of war just wasn’t real. They had been taken out of their normal lives, lives where they had been taught never to kill, and then thrust almost overnight into a daily battle for their lives, living like animals. They were doing the unthinkable and witnessing the unbearable every day and night without letup, and now they were supposed to go back home just because Ike said it was over. Hitler was dead, and there were no more Nazis left to kill. So, it was supposed to be like when he played Ringalevio in the streets back home when he was a kid.

  “Fins! Truce! Time to go home for supper.” Everyone picks up his marbles and goes home.

  So, how do I go home and forget everything that’s happened here? Do I tell my family what I did here? What the Nazis did to us? I still haven’t come to grips with the joy I got from killing that Kraut. To me, he was less than human and deserved to die. But he was also my patient, under my care and protection. So, what did that make me?

  In the silence, Schneider labored under the burden of what had happened since he left home. All the horror and the killing and the pain and the sorrow. They would never understand it back home.

  If I go back to Susan, do I confess to her my sins with Molly? Do I keep it my secret, and then find myself fantasizing about Molly while I am with Susan? Or do I go on and make a new life with this woman who shared so much with me here in France and Belgium and now Germany? Is that enough to build a life on? We had an awful lot in common with our work in the operating room. I never really felt that Susan understood what I did when I disappeared into the OR. I tried to get her to come with me one night, but it never worked out.

  Ah, Jesus! What a mess.

  They sat there on that tree stump for a long time. Schneider wanted so badly to put his arms around Molly and hold her tight. But, he couldn’t, and he didn’t know if she would have let him. He decided to wait for her to speak. It was a long wait.

  “You need to go back, Steve.” She finally said.

  He had no idea what she meant. Back to the barracks? Back to Susan? Back to where?

  “I don’t know what you mean, Molly.”

  “I mean home. Back to your family when this is really over. We’re going to be here a while longer. We aren’t all going back just because a surrender was signed. I’ve heard it could be months, maybe years. But, one way or another, at some point, we’re going to go home, and home for you is with Susan. And the girls.” She paused, but Schneider had nothing to say at that moment, so he waited for her to go on. She took a breath and continued.

  “This whole thing…this place…none of it is real. This isn’t the real world, and we have to go back to the real world. I’ve loved what we had here, and I wouldn’t take a moment of it back. But, when we get home, this is going to be like a dream, and dreams get forgotten fast.”

  “Can you just let it go, Molly? Just like that?”

  “Isn’t that just what you did?!” Her voice was just short of shrill. “I’m struggling, Steve, and you’re not helping me. I know this much: I let myself fall in love with you, and I haven’t the vaguest idea of who you really are. Nobody is the same out here, and I won’t know anything until we’re back in the real world again, and neither will you. So, let’s just go back to work now, and behave like…I don’t know…grownups.”

  She turned to Schneider for the first time and reached up to touch his face. He lowered his head and closed his eyes because he knew that this was good-bye. She cradled his cheeks in her soft hands and then kissed him on the lips, lightly and without…without something. He didn’t know what, but it wasn’t the same person who had kissed him before. Then she got up from the stump and walked back to the barracks, leaving him sitting there with his head now buried in his hands, and his hands slowly becoming wet with his tears.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  9 May 1945, 0700 Hours

  Field Hospital Charlie-7, Leipzig, Germany

  The next morning, after an early breakfast, the teams loaded themselves into three jeeps and one ambulance truck. Hamm had arranged everything: passes, food, even a few armed infantrymen to accompany them along the way. He was very unconvinced that the ceasefire would hold. And as much as Schneider wanted to believe that the war was over, he was glad to see those young guys with their guns.

  Schneider knew he didn’t want to, or shouldn’t want to, ride in the same jeep as Molly. He grabbed a small pack full of what he expected to need for a few days and started toward the motor pool. Then he saw Molly standing there at the side of the nurses’ tents. He was so confused by then that he didn’t know whether to hug her or ignore her.

  He walked a few steps with her in silence until they were out of sight of the others. Then he melted. He couldn’t help himself. He reached out and took her hand,
squeezing it as hard as he could without hurting her. He felt as if he were back on one of those side streets in Paris. He could barely take his eyes off her.

  However, it was she who spoke first.

  “Oh, Steve. The war’s over. I still love you, and God knows when we’ll be going home.”

  All his resolve drained away, and he gave in to it all, moving closer, putting his face next to hers and whispering into her ear, “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

  “Me neither.” Her breath near his ear gave him chills right down to his knees.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking of you,” he said. “Every logical bone in my body tells me we have to end this. That I have to go back to work things out with Susan. But it’s not what I want to do.”

  “I know this is not what I’m supposed to say, but just for the record, I cried all night last night.”

  They lapsed into silence, holding hands, leaning into each other. Back to the starting line. And where this was going to end, he couldn’t even imagine. But, he was imagining a nice hotel in Prague, if they got that far. It wasn’t Paris, but it was a hell of a long way from yesterday.

  Then the sun came out, and they both headed off for the jeeps. They climbed into the back seat together, lay their heads back, and felt the warm rays burn into their faces. The jeep jerked into first gear, and they were off. God only knew where they would end up.

  Molly slept for a while with her head on Schneider’s shoulder. He could feel her fidget from time to time, changing positions and stretching to get comfortable. His arm was getting numb, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to move from where he was. He couldn’t wait until they got to Prague or wherever they would spend the night. It was such a long time since they had really been alone. Schneider couldn’t think of tomorrow or the days after that. For so many months, the war had controlled his thinking, and he had gotten used to taking his life one day at a time.

  By noon, they were all weary. The roads were potholed and difficult. The way was studded with destroyed jeeps and tanks and trucks, both German and American. The villages were a horrible sight. There were piles of dirt and wreckage as large as sand dunes. There was hardly a building that wasn’t damaged or a window left with glass in it. Corpses of dead horses and cows lay along the road as well, bloated and rotting in the sun, their limbs sticking straight out like upside down table legs.

  The smells were grotesque. Mixed with the fresh clean spring air were the horrible odors of rotting flesh, burnt rubber, and scorched metal, as well as a mixture of old cordite and motor oil. Schneider wondered if he would ever get the odors out of his brain. He recalled how sensitive he was to smells of all kinds. As a child he was repulsed somehow by odors that lingered in his family’s bathroom: not only the basic smells of bodily functions, but even the smell of fresh toothpaste in the sink. As a surgical resident, he experienced a new genre of human stink; bending over the face of a drunk in the emergency room, he would suture messy facial lacerations as the patient spewed back breath befouled with a combination of alcohol and pungent food, mixed with the metallic odor of fresh blood. It was an experience so engrained in the olfactory centers of his brain that years later he could hardly bear to be too close to anyone who had been smoking or drinking scotch, or bourbon, or rye. Although as a physician, he quickly grew inured to the sight of the destruction of the human body, the smells still evoked a visceral response in his primitive brain, making his gorge rise and his throat gag. The smells of the air on that warm day brought it all back.

  Along their way, crowds of Germans greeted their little convoy, begging for food and even medical care. The walking wounded appeared in the streets, stopping the jeeps and trucks when they saw the red crosses on the sides and the hoods. The doctors obliged whenever they stopped, doling out medicines, changing dressings, and making occasional diagnoses right there in the street.

  At a small village later in the day, a young boy, perhaps twelve years old, stopped the convoy by hobbling out into their path on makeshift crutches. The arm pads were made of rags, and wool stuffing was coming out at the seams. Hamm stopped the jeep. They all climbed out to see what was wrong. Molly awoke in a groggy haze. The boy lay down in the road in front of the jeep and began to cry. He pointed to his knee, which was bandaged in dirty rags and stained with green pus.

  Schneider approached the boy and wondered if they were still inside Germany. He didn’t recall crossing any borders, but then again he might have been asleep when they did. The voices he heard were speaking German.

  Molly came up alongside Schneider and knelt. She cradled the boy’s head in her lap, but the boy still cried. Schneider gently unwrapped the bandages and threw them away into the dusty roadbed. The knee was badly swollen, though there was no sign of a wound. He spoke to the boy in German for a minute, and then turned to Molly and said, “He hasn’t injured it, he says. It just swelled up one day a few weeks ago and kept getting worse. Looks like a septic joint to me. Believe it or not, this could be a septic joint from gonorrhea.”

  “At his age?”

  “This is war time, Molly, all bets are off.”

  Molly continued to hold the boy while Schneider signaled for a medical kit. The driver fetched one from the truck and gave it to Schneider. Hamm came over to help. A crowd of locals had encircled them, making the infantry escort very nervous. There was still almost nothing in the way of law and order in the countryside, and snipers as well as assassins were a real threat. Nobody liked being surrounded by these country people, many of whom carried hoes and rakes. Somehow they were a more menacing rabble in their way than armed soldiers. Seeing this, their own infantry soldiers dispersed the crowd as Schneider treated the little boy.

  “Wie heisse Sie?” Schneider asked him.

  “Franz,” the boy said in a quiet and frightened voice.

  Schneider told Franz that there was an infection in the knee and that he was going to drain out the pus. Molly held the boy tighter as he began to sob long before anything was done to him. Schneider didn’t take the time to try to find Franz’s parents, if there were any, to obtain permission. He just went to work doing what the boy needed.

  A man had wandered back to the edge of the road and was shouting something at Franz, who by now was nearly hysterical.

  “What did he say, Steve?” Molly asked.

  “He’s telling Franz to stop crying and behave like a man! What an asshole! Hey, Corporal,” Schneider called to one of the infantrymen. “Get that prick out of here, and shoot him if he comes back or tries to interfere with us.”

  The corporal drove the man back with the butt of his rifle until the man scampered away to the protection of a burnt-out house. Schneider returned to Franz. He now had a giant 100 cc syringe loaded with a number 14 needle—the kind of needle big enough to draw thick pus and the sight of which scares even grown men. Molly took Franz by the face and pulled his head into her chest to keep him from seeing the needle. Schneider quickly stuck the needle into the inflamed knee joint. It was all Molly could do to keep Franz under control. They were out of Novocain, so a quick needle stick was the best Schneider could do. He pulled back on the plunger, and gobs of green pus came oozing slowly back into the syringe. It was amazing to the circle of infantrymen to watch the knee deflate as the pus was pulled out. The syringe was completely full, but the knee still obviously contained a great deal more pus. So, Schneider detached the syringe from the needle while holding the needle carefully in place so as to avoid having to stick Franz again. Just as he squirted the pus out of the syringe and onto the dirt at the roadside, Franz snuck a peek from inside Molly’s restraining hand.

  Franz saw the needle still in his knee, slowly oozing green pus from the hub, and at the same time he must have seen Schneider squirting the disgusting stuff onto the road. The sight made even Molly swallow a few times; it was just too awful for Franz.

  As Schneider was about to reattach the syringe to the needle, Franz let out a terrible cry and struggled to his feet.
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  “Nein! Nein!” was all Schneider heard as the boy wrenched himself free from Molly’s grasp. Molly and Schneider simultaneously grabbed for Franz to stop him, but he was too quick. Even with the needle still in his painful knee and no crutches to help support him, his terror made him faster than anyone could have imagined. He scampered away, knocking Schneider to the ground as he escaped. Then he tore the needle from his knee as he ran. With a dribble of green pus still oozing from the hole in his swollen knee, he ran with amazing speed. His fear must have dulled the pain, for he never hesitated as he went. He climbed a fence at the side of the road then began to run again.

  Schneider regained his feet and chased after the boy, with Molly trailing just behind. As Schneider approached the wooden fence, he heard screaming in German and English all around him.

  And there it was. A big white sign with black letters and a skull and crossbones:

  Achtung! Minen!

  “Oh my God! Halt! Halt, Franz!” he shouted. “Minen! Minen!” The whole crowd—Americans and Germans—were shouting now.

  “Stop!”

  “Halt!”

  “Mines!”

  “Minen!”

  “Franz, stop!”

  “Halt!”

  Schneider was shouting, screaming as he ran. But Franz ran as if he never heard a word. His terror of that needle drove him farther and farther away over that terrible field.

  Before Schneider could stop her, Molly was over that fence and running after Franz. She seemed to be concentrating on his footsteps, placing her feet where Franz had placed his. But it was hard going, with all the shouting and the confusion and the erratic pattern of the boy’s staggering gait. His steps were uneven, but Molly wasn’t gaining. Franz had outdistanced her because she was being so careful to step only where he had stepped. Franz was running as fast as he could, oblivious to the danger of the mines.

  Above the shouting of the crowd, Schneider called to Molly. He pleaded with her to stop. She turned to look at him as he climbed over the fence and began to follow her path into the field. Molly stopped in her pursuit of Franz and turned back to Schneider.