Men were throwing their equipment away.
Gas masks were the first to go. Some of the men had thrown away their gas masks long before that day. Then, after the masks, blankets went and overcoats and shelter halves, tent pegs, rope, raincoats, parts of mess kits. Some men hacked off the bottom parts of their overcoats with their bayonet blades and made short jackets for themselves.
Erick threw away his overcoat entirely because it was so warm. In the back of his mind he knew it wasn’t going to stay warm. But the sense of live for the present was still strong on him. What happened hours later seemed of no interest to him. And, admitted or not, he knew that he might never see what went on hours later.
He kept on his combat jacket and put his folded raincoat into his thinned out pack. He kept half of his mess kit and his canteen cup.
Men sat all over the plain checking everything. Some of them were cleaning their rusty, mud-caked rifles. Erick didn’t even look at his. He gazed over the plain that was strewn with discarded equipment. It looked like a thinly-spread junk yard.
Then he took out his wallet and looked at the photographs. At his mother smiling lovingly at him. At Grace holding her new-born daughter proudly and smiling at him. At her husband George standing beside her, smiling at his baby. At his cousin Richard smirking at him. At the photograph of his father holding Erick in his arms.
He stared at each photograph, trying to imagine the family as they were when the photographs were taken, what they had said and what kind of day it was. What the rest of the world was doing as they posed and someone clicked a shutter and set them down on paper.
The escape didn’t last long. He couldn’t hold on to the past. It was too vague, too far from him. The present had fingers of steel and it kept on turning him around and crying—Now! Look me in the face! He could not hold on to memories. He kept on being thrown back to the long plain, a billion miles from home and life, sitting on a muddy patch of ground and waiting. And these pictures were only scraps of paper held in the hands. Scraps to be slid in between stitched pieces of black leather and shoved back into his pocket, alien and uncomforting. God, he thought.
And tried the concept on for size.
* * * *
They were in enfilade position, ready to move out.
He had his rifle over his arm in hunter fashion. Ahead of him he saw the squad leader and Old Bill and the man with the thick glasses who always kept his rifle and his clothes clean through everything and the rest of the squad all eighteen years old and afraid.
Someone blew a whistle.
They began to walk slowly, a vast staggered group of men that stretched over the plain as far as Erick could see. They walked and walked over the uneven terrain as though they were stalking someone, some animal.
After a while they moved down a gradual slope and through a shallow, rushing stream. The cold, sparkling water swept up over his shoes and up the sides of his legs, soaking his feet. When he started up the hill on the other side of the stream, he felt the water squishing inside his shoes as he walked.
The men moved quietly and slowly up the hill, into a shattered town.
There was nothing in it but rubble. The only building left standing was a skeleton church that seemed ready to collapse. There were no people in the town. It was silent and deserted. The only sound came from boots crunching over the rubble-thick streets and the jiggling of weapons on the troops shoulders.
Erick kept looking at the church, his heart beating quickly, thinking in training film alertness that snipers hung in batlike clusters from its walls.
His throat became clogged and he coughed. It sounded unnaturally loud, he felt. As though he were giving away the position of the United States army by his carelessness. His heart began to beat quickly and he held ready the cloak of divine protection he had forced himself to believe was just about slung over his shoulder.
As he kept walking, past the silent church ruins, he wondered how long it would be before the Germans decided they had gone far enough. He lost the feeling of his body and seemed to drift effortlessly through the town like some vaporous entity. Or else, he felt, he was not moving at all and the shattered town was rolling past him like broken stage flats. He wasn’t sure which way it was. He only kept his eyes shifting suspiciously from side to side, ready to throw up his rifle and fire at the slightest promise of a target. He thought, if the man in front of me knew how jumpy I am, he’d walk backwards to keep an eye on me and take his chances on the Germans.
The squad passed the town and started down a rocky hill. His feet were becoming uncomfortable now. It was unpleasant walking with water in his heavy shoes.
They crossed a depression, then up and over into another long deserted plain. Since he hadn’t noticed landmarks on the other plain, Erick thought maybe they were walking in circles. “Shit,” he muttered, almost believing it. Then he was sorry he’d said it, feeling that any recourse to profanity at this moment was slightly perilous when he might be calling on God at any moment.
We walked slowly, his heart beating quickly. He kept looking for trees or bushes to hide behind but there was nothing. Well, that’s a stupid thing, he told himself, you don’t hide behind a prominent landmark; you were taught better than that.
And, suddenly, as in a dream, he began to believe that he had forgotten everything; how to load the rifle, how to fire it, how to adjust the bayonet, how to parry and thrust with it. Even, how to walk.
He trembled and his teeth clenched as he tried to go over everything in his mind. Mentally he loaded and unloaded his rifle, his head dipping in sudden jerks as he nodded when he remembered correctly. His face was tense and expectant as he kept walking without looking where he was going, trying desperately to recall how one sidestepped when he wanted to drive a bayonet into a man’s stomach or how to parry so you can smash a man’s face with the butt of your rifle.
Once, he whirled and looked behind himself suddenly as though he thought he was being stalked by a division of hand-picked German troopers.
They were a quarter of the way to the crest of the next downward slope. He was shifting the bazooka to his left shoulder. Then you pull back the… the thing and the clip flies out and then you… you…
Rushing sounds in the air.
Way over their heads. Sounding like a giant blowing on his soup.
Then, ear-splitting explosions behind and ahead of him. Someone yelled,
“Hit the ground!”
He wondered for an instant how he had possibly managed to get down on his stomach so fast with all the equipment he was carrying. It seemed as though the cry of “Hit the ground!” was still ringing in the air when he was groveling on the earth his face pushed hard into the hollow of his arms, eyes tightly shut.
Stop being such a fool—his other mind said casually, sitting cross-legged and relaxed above it all—do you think you’re hiding yourself by closing your eyes?
He fought it off. It did help. It was as though by shutting out the world he was putting himself in darkness too.
Then he began to pray.
Without form, just words, spoken automatically, over and over like an entreaty, a command, a mathematical formula. Something taught in Sunday School and tutored endlessly by his mother.
God is my protection. God is myprotection. Godismyprotection. Over and over and over until the words became a glued-together jumble of sounds that lost all meaning.
Yet, meaningless or not, they filled his mind with their presence and kept fear from entering. He didn’t feel afraid. Suddenly he knew he was safe. There was no reason for feeling that way, he certainly was not safe.
But he wasn’t afraid. He knew, even taking a moment off to sympathize, that others were going to be killed. He felt sorry for them. But, as for himself, he was charmed. He couldn’t possibly be killed. It didn’t occur to him that all the other men might feel the same way. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had thought of the possibility. They could feel any way they wanted. But some of them were going to
die. And he couldn’t die. It was impossible.
The shelling was brief. Silence swept over the open ground.
“Move out!” cried the same voice. It was the first sergeant, Erick recognized. He struggled up and joined the slow, uneven movement of troops across the plain.
For some reason, he felt confident now, almost cocky. In a minor way he had come through his first brush with death and hadn’t even received a scratch. Hang on boy, said the irritator in his mind, it’s only the beginning, only the beginning. Thank you, Captain Andy! the same portion of his mind bowed grandly to itself.
As they reached the crest of the hill, the shelling began again.
He had to fling himself down again, heart drumming fiercely, fingers clutching at the earth. Overhead the shells whistled and the sound of their exploding was like that of the giant, now pounding his huge fists into the ground, first one at a time, then both together, crashing them down in a brainless rage, trying to crush them all.
All over the plain, men dove forward with a clatter of equipment and hugged themselves to earth. The ground was dotted with their stretched-out immobile bodies.
Erick’s mind was filled with the magic phrase again. It repeated itself over and over now. Once, when the shelling slackened for a moment, he whispered— “Is our protection.”— in a sudden impulsive gesture of loving kindness.
But then the shells began to flutter over in great clusters and the air was torn with explosions. Great dirt clouds were flung up into the air and, abruptly, he drew in the folds of his protection and held it over himself alone, muttering the endless cant faster and faster, smelling the reek of the dead winter earth in his nostrils, feeling its chill wetness, hearing the scream of war all around him.
* * * *
After a while the shelling slowed down.
“Dig in!” yelled another voice.
He needed no encouragement. Tearing off his pack, he assembled the small pickaxe. Anxiously, he began to tear at the hard dirt, suddenly back to a practical plane and not wishing to stretch God’s protection any farther than he had.
It seemed the earth was mostly rock. He pulled out big stones with his fingers. They were all wet and muddy and, as the sun disappeared behind grey clouds, the air grew colder and the wet mud froze and caked on the backs of his hands. His wet feet began to get colder.
Time fell away. It was as though he had devoted his life to digging a hole for himself. He kept going deeper and deeper, widening the hole, putting clumps of wet dirt and rock around the edge like a rampart.
It was only after he was about two feet down that he noticed he was digging right behind the slit trench being dug by Old Bill and the squad leader. He would have to shoot them down first before he could aim at any Germans. He kept digging anyway, trembling with fear that some officer or the squad leader himself would see him, yell at him and make him go dig another hole right on the crest of the hill.
Now exhaustion returned. He had used up what little energy a brief night’s sleep had restored to his body. It felt as though all his muscles had stretched beyond shape and now were incapable of returning to their original state.
And the ground was getting rockier the deeper he went. He had to pry out small boulders and lift them up, teeth gritted, back aching and stiff.
What am I doing here? he wondered once. Like a fool in a place I’ve never been, digging a damn hole in the ground.
But it was his other mind. He couldn’t think of it consciously. He kept digging like a dull-eyed robot, held in a vise of agonizing necessity.
When he’d finally finished, he lowered himself and all his equipment down into the cold trench. There he sank back against one muddy wall and stared at the muddy wall facing it.
Now.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing to do. But wait. He remained motionless, half sitting, half lying, his body throbbing with an exhaustion he could never abate, he thought. There wasn’t that much rest left in a lifetime.
In a little while the shelling started again and grew intense. He fell down and stared at the mucky brown earth and listened to the whine and crash of the shells. And he was sure that he would be there forever, crouching in a hole.
“Eighty-eights,” he heard someone say in the lull between shells. It was the man with the thick glasses and he sounded very smug and very self-important. Erick pressed his lips together and called the man a bastard.
Then he closed his eyes and tried very hard to forget where he was.
* * * *
Night came and there was no food.
It began to rain. A cold, drenching rain that poured over him mercilessly. He had nothing to cover himself with but his raincoat. He put his head under it and as much of his body as he could. He curled up into a muddy ball of wool and flesh.
But he couldn’t get his feet under the raincoat. His shoes stuck out in the cold rain and it ran over them, re-soaking the leather, making his feet icy, then numb. After a while he could hardly feel them.
He slept a black exhausted sleep, without dreams.
Once in a while, for no seeming reason, he woke up with a start and rose up sitting to peer over the edge of the trench into blackness, hearing the tinny drumming of the rain on his helmet. Once he stood up and urinated over the edge of the trench. He stood wavering in the oceaned blackness, his eyes closed, feeling that it must be a dream. Then he buttoned up his pants and sat down in the mud again and pulled the raincoat over his head.
There was no sound but that of the rain. It hid all else behind its rushing curtain. For all the world he might have been alone in Germany, in the night and the drenching rain. He might have been a corpse who had just dug his own grave and was sitting in it waiting for the command to lie back and sleep so the rest of the men could throw down the mud over him as he had wrenched it up.
Then they could move on and leave him be.
* * * *
It was quiet and he heard someone crying.
He sat up quickly with a rustling of clothes. A puddle of rain held in his raincoat splashed down over his legs.
He looked around.
Two men were leading Old Bill away. He had slept all night in the cold rain bent over at the waist and now he couldn’t straighten up. He looked like a little boy, hands clutched over his stomach as though he had eaten green apples. He was moaning and Erick saw big shiny tears dribbling down over his bearded cheeks.
He watched the two men and Old Bill until they disappeared. Then he glanced over at the squad leader.
“How are you?” asked the squad leader.
“All right,” he said, surprised at the flat, dead sound of his own voice.
Then, after he stared mutely for a moment at the squad leader, he fell back against the wall of the hole again. He stared at rock and mud. He tried to wiggle his toes. At first he thought they were stiff and he couldn’t move them. Then he realized that he was wiggling them all right but they were completely numb.
* * * *
“Hello Erick.”
“John!”
“Can I sit in there with you?”
“You bet!” He drew up his legs and John stepped down into the hole. He sat down across from Erick.
The night had done something to him. His eyes were watery and circled with dark flesh. His face had lost its color. It was pasty hued and smudged with dirt, still covered with that thin fringe of curling whiskers.
“Where have you been?”
John leaned his rifle over one shoulder. “Gee, I don’t know,” he said shakily, “I’ve been everywhere. I’m so tired.”
“Your rifle is all rusty.”
“I know,” John said quietly. Erick was sorry he’d said it. It seemed a ridiculous thing to speak of now. As if in atonement he held up his own rifle and said,
“Look at mine if you think yours is bad.”
John nodded without changing expression. He looked doped.
“Didn’t you sleep?” Erick asked.
“No. I’ve been delivering
messages all night.”
“God. That’s awful John.”
Silence a while. John stared exhaustedly at his drawn-up knees. Then he took off his glasses and held them in one inert hand. His eyes looked very weak. Erick thought—if he loses his glasses he’ll be helpless.
“You know where we’re going yet?”
John gestured wearily with his head. “Down that valley,” he said.
“Did the captain say when they were going to bring up food?”
John shook his head. Then he reached into his overcoat pocket with a weary grunt and drew out a can of K ration cheese.
“Here,” he said, “I got it last night.”
“Swell!”
Erick took the can from John and opened it quickly. He looked up. “Can I have half of it?” he asked anxiously.
“Take it all,” John said. Erick felt guilty. “No, you take some,” he said. John shook his head. Erick held out a piece and John took it and looked at it as if it were something repulsive.
Erick paid no attention. He took a big bite of the cheese and chewed on it hungrily. It tasted good, creamy and tangy.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked mouth full of cheese. He took another bite.
“It belonged to Sergeant Jones.”
Erick chewed noisily. “What’d he give it to you for?”
“He didn’t,” John said.
Erick’s jaws stopped moving as he looked up.
“He’s killed,” John said.
“What?”
“An eighty-eight shell landed right in his trench.”
Erick looked at the cheese gripped in his grimy hand.
“Oh,” he said.
He didn’t know what to say or feel. He wasn’t sure whether he was sorry or not. He didn’t know whether he should go on eating or whether he shouldn’t.
Abruptly he remembered Sergeant Jones. He saw the man’s face, remembered the exact sound of his voice. He remembered, once in England, when Sergeant Jones had taken the platoon for an exercise run around the countryside. When the men were out of breath Sergeant Jones laughed and told them to take it easy until they got their wind back. And while they all walked along slowly, he told dirty jokes and everybody laughed at them. And a little while later they all sang popular songs and the people leaned out their windows to watch as they marched past led by Sergeant Jones.