Shrapnel

  We’re heading out over the German lines because that’s the direction the hill went down.

  ‘Rolin, you’re going the wrong way. Turn around.’

  ‘Can’t, not yet. The wind’s all wrong.’

  Just then we start getting bursts of anti-aircraft guns, 88s as far as I can tell, bursting all around us. I’m ducking down in the cockpit and Rolin’s grinning and pulling that plane higher, then he practically tips it over in a tight turn which almost throws me against the door and we’re heading back to where we’ve come from. The ack-ack lets up a bit. I climb up from where I was, practically on the floor.

  ‘I don’t think we’re finished, Will, unless you can figure how to use the radio in this baby. Our own guys will be taking pot shots at us soon.’

  I reach for the radio dials and start spinning them but I’m getting nothing. This is like a bad dream repeating itself. I shout into it, hoping there’s somebody out there somewhere listening. At least the light on the dial is lit. But then it comes, more puffs all around us and the ping of shrapnel on the plane.

  ‘Higher Rolin, can’t you get this thing any higher?’

  We’re just skimming over the trees.

  ‘Sure, but if I get any higher those fools with the seventy five mm guns will have a better shot at us. If I keep low, they don’t have enough time to get a bead on us.’

  So we skim along, just missing tops of trees or hills and in about five minutes it stops. Rolin still keeps flying just about the height of telephone poles. He’s concentrating.

  ‘Keep on trying the radio, Will. We’ve got to let them know we’re friendly aircraft, not some Kraut in an L4. Look at the gas gauge too, will you? I can’t take my eyes away from what’s in front of me.’

  I look and it’s about half full. So we skip along over ridge and forest, watching lines of troops moving forward or camped or scattering in fear as we swoop low over them. Rolin can’t help waving his wings at some of them in a line along a road, especially the tanks. I think it’s his way of thumbing his nose. I keep my eye on the gas gauge and watch it slowly swing to the left, wondering what Rolin has in mind.

  ‘Will, I think we can get this old crate so far behind the lines it won’t be worth their while to ship us all the way back to our outfits. It’ll be fun, anyway.’

  It isn’t half an hour after this statement that the motor starts to cough and we begin losing altitude.

  ‘Keep an eye out for another open field, Will, or at least some kind of ploughed field where we can set this thing down. I saw two small airfields a ways back, but I don’t think we can make it to them.’

  We keep chugging, missing, coughing and losing altitude. At the last moment, we do come in on a field of what looks like wheat. It’s flat and almost long enough. Rol bears down and takes good aim. I brace my hands against the airplane’s equivalent to a dashboard and jam my feet against the floor.

  Just as we’re about to touch the ground, Rol pulls the nose up so we settle back slightly and hit with hardly a serious bump. I’m so excited I applaud.

  ‘You should see me land our seaplane on lakes not much bigger than puddles. Taking off again is the hard part.’

  We’re climbing out of the plane when about twenty men in foreign uniforms come running out at us with rifles. I begin to think we might have gone the wrong way, after all.

  We lean our rifles against the plane and put our hands up. I can’t understand a word of what this mob is shouting at us. But Rolin starts shouting back. They surround us and stop. They jabber away with Rolin. Rolin is smiling. It seems we’ve landed in the middle of a supply dump for a French Canadian outfit.

  Rolin apparently explains everything and they start speaking to me in English. French-English, but I can understand enough.

  They take us back to the command tent. I can’t figure out the rank from the insignia, but this is medium high brass. They talk to Rolin, then the top guy turns to me.

  ‘Is this true you found this craft in an open field, repaired it and flew it here?’

  ‘That’s right, Sir.’

  ‘And where is your regular outfit right now?’

  I point over my shoulder.

  ‘Up there, Sir. We’re infantry. We flew until we were sure we were in friendly territory.’

  He laughs and the others are laughing with him.

  ‘You practically flew back to England. Where’d you learn to fly like that, buddy? What do you think we can do with you now, anyway?’

  I speak up before Rolin gets a chance.

  ‘We could help with your work. Just notify our outfits by radio that we’re here so they won’t think we’ve deserted or something or that we’re missing in action. I’m tired of being in the infantry anyway.’

  I can feel this isn’t going over very well. The men mutter to themselves in French. There are crowds of soldiers at the open flap of the tent. The officer speaks up again.

  ‘Sergeant Clairmont is asking to be transported back to your regiment as soon as possible. I’m afraid we must do that. You cannot stay here.’

  So, thanks to Rolin and his gung ho war attitude that’s just what happens. It’s astounding how far we’ve flown. We’re almost a week moving in truck convoys over crowded roads. I remember with sentimental memory how easily we’d flown over this same route going the right way. Now we start hearing the crumping sound of big artillery, then the smaller sound of anti-tank guns and anti-craft, then the thump of mortars, finally, the crack and whistling of small arms. We’re home! We’re back in K Company. All that for nothing.

  We’re surrounded when we get back. It seems they did send out missing in action telegrams to our families. They countermand those as fast as possible, but I’m sure not fast enough to stop a lot of worrying. I find out later that they came one day after the other, the countermand first. This was obviously confusing and not very convincing to our parents.

  Rolin’s using his hands, acting out our flight for everybody. He makes it sound even more exciting than it was, if that’s possible. I only listen. The amazing part is that Rolin is sent back to Division Headquarters where they give him a silver star for saving the plane.

  DOWNHILL SLIDE

  Too soon, I’m squad leader again. Then I get just another little wound below my knee, enough to go back to the field hospital again. There’s a small piece of shrapnel embedded in there so they take it out, sew it up and put another little bandage on it. That’s my third purple heart. I feel like a kid at school who keeps falling down on the playground, gets sent to the nurse who puts some mercurochrome on the cut, and is sent back out to play. The people at the hospital are getting to know me. After the airplane thing, I’m something of a celebrity.

  When we were together before I got wounded, before the airplane folly, Rolin was always reading his Bible. He was a great Bible reader. He doesn’t talk about it, but when he has a little free time he reads the Bible. He makes no big thing about it and I don’t say anything because it’s his business.

  But, when I come back from the hospital again, Rolin’s Bible is nowhere in sight, and he’s a different guy. That little bit of war hero celebrity has somehow released something inside him. He’s taken to drinking, gambling – the whole thing. He’s on his way to being a classic, true blue, non-com.

  Since I’ve gotten back, our situation is even scarier. We are now attacking the Siegfried Line. The German bunkers are in that very complicated zigzag pattern. They’re around a town called Reuth, which is the control centre for that portion of the Siegfried Line. It’s why we’re held up.

  I don’t know what we’re waiting for, but the Germans are hardening their positions. They even have Mark 2 Tiger tanks come up and are preparing for a big assault. Our S2, Regimental Intelligence, wants to know as much as possible about what the Germans are doing, so we’re pushing our forward posts further and further forward. We’ll dig a hole and be there for a day, half a day, then wait for nightfall to move forward and dig in again. After the war we could get
jobs as grave diggers.

  To go out and take the forward post is quite a trip. It’s far and we’re all dragging, deeply fatigued. Also, we’re short of men again because of some action I’d happily missed. We’re on four and off four, which means we don’t get much sleep. Normally the Sergeant of the Guard, Rolin, and the Corporal of the Guard, me (even though I’m now a Sergeant), don’t stay on guard duty together, but the platoon is about half its normal strength and from long guards, day and night, just about totally wiped out. So, Rolin in his usual impossible way, suggests the two of us take the king four hour guard at the forward post from midnight to four in the morning – the worst one – to give everybody else a break.

  I’m not happy with this idea. It’s a hard guard to stand. He’s afraid someone out there on post will fall asleep and we could be overrun. There’s a lot of patrolling by the Germans these nights. It’s the type of situation which is very uncomfortable, very spooky. Everybody’s nervous and jumpy, especially me.

  So we go out and work our way through the series of holes leading out there. The two guys we relieve are nervous wrecks. They swear there are Germans all around them, but they can’t see any because it’s so dark.

  The moon is mostly overcast. Once we’re out there we’re able to see a bit, but not enough. It’s farm country – open, with bits of woods. There’s probably a mile separating the two towns, Reuth, where the Germans are, and our town, Neuendorf. Both towns are thoroughly turned into rubble. Our platoon is staying in a cellar in the centre of it all, a smoke filled, smelly cellar.

  We make it out to the point post and we’re taking turns, one kind of keeping his eye open and watching for movement, while the other sits down in the hole and meditates on life and death. I sit there hunched up, there isn’t all that much room in a foxhole and we don’t have much to talk about.

  In this foxhole, we have a fire step. Whoever dug this hole has done a good job. When you’re standing on the fire step your head is up above the dirt piled around the hole and if you’re the reckless type, you can rest your arms on the parapet of the foxhole. If the dirt’s piled right you have a fair view for a line of fire and a reasonable amount of protection.

  This night, even though I’m now a Sergeant again, for this patrol, I’m toting a BAR (a Browning Automatic Rifle). I want us to have some fire power if things go as wrong as I think they’re going to go. We don’t have a BAR Assistant so I’m not only toting the BAR, which is a heavy weapon, but I’m carrying the reserve ammunition for it in a thick webbing belt around my waist. I also have a bandoleer of 30 calibre clips around my neck. This is usually the job of the BAR Assistant who would normally be carrying an M1.

  I have the BAR set up on the parapet with a little tripod. This isn’t always the case, but a BAR tends to rise as one shoots because it’s a rifle firing fifteen consecutive shots automatically. One just needs to hold the trigger tight and the weapon down.

  It’s my turn on guard, when I see a German patrol going across our field of view. I see them moving, covering each other. They apparently don’t know we’re there. This is a Tiger type patrol, out looking for trouble or a prisoner. This, if it weren’t for Rolin, is just fine with me. Let them look. I’ll help them find me. I won’t mind being a prisoner. I’m tired of this war, feeling I’m running out of luck, but the trouble is, giving up is hard to do. You can’t be sure they won’t just shoot you, kill you, without asking too many questions.

  So I nudge Rolin and he stands up, he’s been asleep. Some people can sleep anywhere – Rolin is one – I’m not. He sees the patrol and tenses up. This is not the tension of fear, this is the tension of the hunter, the cat on the prowl. Before I know it, Rolin is giving me instructions.

  ‘We’re going to get these guys. There are eight of them and we can get them all.’

  He points out to me, quietly, where each one of them is. His idea is we pick off the ones at the back first. He’s really hunting. That means they’ll have farther to run when they realise we’re up here and have automatic fire.

  He says, ‘Squeeze off shots, Will, try not to shoot more than one at a time. We’ll pick them off from the back, or if you need to, you can keep sweeping automatic, you have plenty of ammunition, it’s up to you. I’ll knock off anybody who gets out of your range before they have a chance.’

  So, this is our basic plan; he has organised a hunt. I slump up there on the parapet and he gives me the signal to fire, my knees are shaking. I’m shooting at the most two hundred yards, which is a good distance for a BAR to be accurate. I fire off one shot, and the man goes down. Then I swing to get the next one and the BAR jams! BARs are known for this.

  I start emergency procedures knowing there are seven guys out there who know where we are. They’re either charging toward us or running away; I can’t even look I’m so busy. I’m pushing in the clip and jamming it tight, pulling back the bolt and doing all the emergency procedures you do when your BAR jams. I keep trying to pull the trigger and nothing’s happening, I reach in my belt for a new clip.

  In the meantime Rolin is standing up, he’s tall, he’s standing right down in the hole with his feet against the back wall and is firing the way I should be firing. Boom, pah, boom, boom. He has a full seven shots plus one in the chamber. He fires one after the other, well spaced, while I’m sweating like crazy over the damned BAR. Then I think he’s run out of ammunition. He pulls out a new clip; but he does it real slow and easy.

  ‘Hurry up Rolin, they’re going to get away or they’re going to get us! Are they coming toward us or are they running away?’

  He smiles in the dark. ‘Well they started running away and I began picking off the ones in front as they ran; then they turned back toward us so I concentrated on the ones who were in the front as they came toward us. I think I got them all.’

  I look out. Without missing one shot he’s downed every one of them! A chill runs through me.

  There are foxholes to either side of us, but much farther back. We have a telephone out there with us in our hole going directly to the CP, but it doesn’t go to either side. Those guys aren’t yelling or anything, they don’t want to give away their positions. At Rolin’s instructions I crank up our phone.

  They switch me to Captain Wall and I tell him what’s happened.

  ‘How many in the patrol?’

  ‘About eight. Clairmont shot them all except one I got before the BAR jammed.’

  ‘Hell’s bells. Go out and check to see if they’re all dead, take a prisoner if any are alive. Regiment is interested in who and what’s in front of us. Find out who it is if you can. If they’re all dead, cut off the insignias so we can verify what outfit we’re facing.’

  In the meantime, Rolin has already gone out there on his own, no cover! I know by now he’s like an old time mercenary soldier.

  I hang up the phone and cover him. Nobody moves, he goes to each one, and goes through their pockets, slicing away insignia with his well-sharpened bayonet. I can just about see him because it’s dark and after maybe half an hour he comes back. He has a big grin on his face and blood all over his hands. He’s like somebody who’s just come in from dressing a deer he’s shot. For a nice guy he has the most evil grin I’ve ever seen. Out of one pocket, he takes watches, wallets, rings and so forth. He uses his bayonet to dig a deep hole in the bottom of our foxhole then puts all this loot in it, stomps it down tightly. In his other field jacket pocket, like a saddle bag almost, he has all the insignia and rank that he’s ripped off along with two pistols. He left the rifles.

  He says, ‘I’m going to take all this back, you stay here.’

  He leaves his rifle. It’s still warm.

  I’m figuring there might be a backup patrol and I’m scared to death. He comes out again just about the time our guard duty is supposed to be over. He has the two replacements with him to take our place; they’re shaking in their boots. Rolin scoops up the loot he’d stuffed in the hole he dug and sticks it in his pocket, dirt and all. He won’
t even let these new guys jump in the hole until he’s gotten it all out.

  When we get back, Captain Wall wants to have my report on what happened, says he wants all the details. I tell him basically how Sergeant Clairmont stood up and shot down every one of them, while my BAR was jammed.

  ‘Just one rifle load, Sir, seven straight shots. In my opinion he deserves a silver star at least.’

  I know that’s what he wants me to verify, what had actually happened. He did put in for a silver star but Rolin never got it. He’d had one too recently, I guess. Some Lieutenant probably got it for pissing straight down a hole.

  Rolin is the only American I know who’s as rough and tough as the Russian-Mongolians, worse than the southerners in a certain way. He’s as unafraid and happy-go-lucky as the guys in their floppy hats. He laughs and carries on and drinks anything anybody hands him. The only difference is he never rapes a woman. He doesn’t need to. However, he always has a constant supply of candy bars and cigarettes. He has sex appeal or something because German women chase after him. It seemed to me he’s indefatigable.

  There are some Polish women slave labourers in these German towns and they’re hungry for food or anything we can give them – K rations or whatever we have. And they’re as hungry for sex as German women. I begin to suspect there might be something wrong with me. Sex for the sake of sex has no appeal to me. We can’t even talk to these women, they speak some German but no English.

  It’s like a regular holiday for just about everyone, and it lasts a while because later we’re manning road blocks on the autobahn and some of the small roads, as well. Lots of chances to make contacts.

  Anybody who passes by, usually on foot, heavily loaded, we demand some identification from, and if they don’t have it we send them to the military government guys, and the CIC.

  The last I heard of Rolin Clairmont is that when he goes home on furlough, between wars, the German and Japanese, during which they drop the atomic bomb, he goes on a real toot. After having gone through the whole war without a scratch, taking all kinds of risks, he takes his father’s airplane, flies it under telephone wires, misses, crashes, and gets twenty-three stitches in his head and a concussion. Well, it should have been enough. I’m sure a psychiatrist could write some kind of paper explaining how Rolin needed to play war to prove something to himself. Maybe they’d say he didn’t have enough self-esteem or something, but for Rolin, I think the war was fun. I think he was one of the few people who lived through the damned thing and actually enjoyed it. I also think he was frustrated when we dropped that atom bomb. When we were told at Fort Benning about the beaches we would have charged up just south of Tokyo, it was obvious he was disappointed. What does a civilised society do with a guy like that? I guess sometimes we just put them in jail or an insane asylum.