Ordinary Heroes

  "You the one going to Bastogne, then?" a flight sergeant asked me. "Place is damn near surrounded, you know, sir. Germans battering the hell out of everything. All the big roads go right through there, so Jerry can't go rolling on without taking the town." The Ardennes had provided an excellent hiding place for the Panzers, but one reason Bradley and Middleton had discounted the reports that the German tanks were massing there was because a forest was such an unpromising locale for a tank assault. It was easier to run over men than thousands of trees. Once the Panzers had crawled from the woods, they still were not able to maneuver freely, because the fall we'd been through had left half the fields swamps. I'd heard often about our tanks sinking. The Panzers were regarded as better machines--our Shermans were so likely to ignite that the troops called them Ronsons--but German treads got stuck in the muck same as American, and the weight of the biggest of Panzers, the King Tigers, would literally bury them in the wet ground. Because the Panzer forces were confined to the existing roads, holding on to the paths and byways for as long as possible was the key to slowing the Germans and allowing the Americans to reassemble for a counteroffensive. Patton reportedly had outflanked the 5th Panzer and was still speeding north to help out.

  "Sounds like it's going to be a difficult landing there," I said to the sergeant.

  "Landing?" He had a wrench in his hand and was toying with an engine part, but now he turned full around, a craggy English face. "Crikey, mate. Don't you know you're getting dropped?"

  "Dropped?"

  "Parachute. You know, big bedsheet in the sky?" His smile faltered. "You're a paratrooper, then, sir, ain't you?"

  "I'm a lawyer."

  "Oh, Lord Jesus.,, His reaction said it all. It was so absurd, I laughed out loud. As I left to tell Biddy, I heard the sergeant explaining my situation to his crew. "Poor sod," he said, "thought he was going to Bastogne in the royal carriage.''

  Biddy couldn't even manage a pained smile.

  "Parachute? Shit, Captain, my knees are lard when I get up on the roof of our tenement. I don't know about no parachute. You got any parachute training?"

  I'd had none. Yet I had told myself for three days that I would do whatever I had to to win this war. It was a vow I'd taken and now would keep. If Martin was really intent on impeding our troops in Germany, I had to do this.

  "Biddy, there's no need for both of us to go."

  "Aw, hell, Captain. You know I'm just blabbing. Ain't no way I'm gonna let loose of you now, so let's not bother with that talk."

  The plan, as it was explained to us, was essentially an experiment. For the moment, there was no way to resupply the troops in Bastogne. The main road from Neufchateau had been cut off and in Hitler's weather, flyers could not navigate by sight to make airdrops at heights safe from antiaircraft fire. The RAF pilots had agreed to try one low-altitude night flight, thinking that if it worked, more planes would do the same tomorrow evening. Three pallets of medical supplies were going to be parachuted in with us. If Biddy and I made it, doctors might follow.

  There were a couple of hours before the plane was due and in that time we got what would pass for jump instruction: toes down, knees and feet together, eyes straight ahead. We made dozens of efforts to practice rolling as our boots struck the ground. The knee I'd cut when the dump exploded had healed well and had given me no pain for weeks, but now there were little phantom throbs each time we reenacted landing. After the first half hour, it was clear to me that our instructors, with all but one exception, had never jumped themselves. Nonetheless, they made a good case that if the chute released, we didn't have much to do but hang on and try not to break our legs. Real training, which addressed maneuvers in the event the chute ripped or inverted, or the suspension lines or risers snarled, would do us no good anyway from five hundred feet. None of those problems could be fixed before we hit the ground.

  "Telling you the truth, Captain, t'ain't the jump what ought to concern you. Hanging like an apple on a tree, if Jerry works out you're there--that's a worry, sir.

  The crew packed our chutes for us, then bundled our overcoats and cinched them beneath our valpacks, which would come down behind us with the medical supplies. We donned jumpsuits over our wool outdoor uniforms, and traded our headgear for paratroopers' helmets with their leather chin cups, the better to absorb the shock of the chute opening. Then we waited. Every ten minutes, I wandered outside to pee. My body temperature was about the same as marble. I simply could not imagine the circumstances under which I might be alive in another two hours.

  Nearing 8:30, the truck convoys that would carry off the supplies on the arriving aircraft began to form in the field, but there was still no sign of the planes. By 9:00, I began to suspect they would not get here and wondered if I could pretend to be disappointed, when the mere thought flushed me with relief.

  And then they came. The initial drone might have been insects if it were another season. The ground crew ignited dozens of Coleman lanterns and ran them out to illuminate the borders of the strip, and the planes came down with barely thirty seconds between them. The convoy crews rushed forward to unload.

  The flight sergeant who'd been assisting me helped me into the rest of my parachute gear. First was a Mae West, the life vest required because there was no guarantee we wouldn't settle in a lake or pond, then I stepped into the harness, a web of straps and buckles that were tightened on each side of my crotch.

  "Not exactly comfy knickers, but your nuts might still be rattling round once you land, Captain." What I had on already was cumbersome, but it turned out I'd just made a start. Since we could put down on enemy ground, the sergeant inserted a Thompson submachine gun under the waist web, and clipped on two five-pound boxes of machine-gun ammo, then strapped a fight knife on my leg and, for good measure, a small Hawkins mine, looking like a can of paint thinner, against my boot. He turned my woven waist piece into a combat tool belt, hanging off it a trenching shovel and a canteen, my pistol in its holster, a skein of rope, a pair of wire cutters, and a folding knife. An angle-headed flashlight went under a band on my chest. Then, when I thought he was done, he put a reserve chute across my belly. I expected to topple any second. Even Biddy, huge as he was, looked weighed down.

  "You're traveling light, mate, 'cause you're firsttimers. Paratroops usually carry a Griswold bag under one arm.

  Biddy and I were jeeped to our plane, a light bomber called a Hampden. It had two engines, a silvery fuselage, and a low glass nose that made it appear like a flying turtle. We stood with difficulty on the car's hood and with two men steadying us from below climbed a ladder through the bomb bay into the bare sheet-metal belly of the plane.

  There was a four-man crew there--pilot, bombardier, gunner, and radioman--but their attitude toward us seemed slightly standoffish, even for Brits. I wondered if the RAF would have been trying this run without Teedle's--or the OSS's--insistence at Supreme Headquarter's on the paramount importance of Biddy and me reaching Bastogne. Perhaps, I decided, these four were just exhibiting a natural reluctance to develop attachments to the doomed.

  With all the gear on, we could get only the rear edge of our butts onto two fold-down seats bolted to the fuselage, but the radioman harnessed us in with the strapping that had secured the unloaded cargo. The pilot, a Flying Officer, came rear to brief us. We would reach Bastogne in twenty minutes, he said. As soon as the joe hole, the bomb bay in the silver floor in front of us, opened, we should hook our rip cords to the line above and get out on the double. Our drop area was in open fields just west of Bastogne, near a town called Savy. If the Germans figured out we were in the air, the gunner and radioman would put down covering fire with the Vickers machine guns on turrets in the gun wells in front of us. However, the pilot thought the Nazis would never see the chutes in the dark, because the sound of the plane would draw all the fire. He was businesslike but made it plain that if there was a fools' contest here, they were probably the winners. I understood then why we'd received such an unenthusiastic gree
ting.

  Sitting there in the instants before the plane took off, I felt completely detached from myself. I thought I had given up on life, but as soon as the engines triggered, a sharp whinny of protest rose straight out of my heart. This is crazy, I thought. Crazy. Men down there are going to try to kill me, men who have never met me, men I've never tried to harm. Suddenly, I could not remember why that made any sense.

  We built speed, enduring that second of weightlessness when we left the ground. I looked to Biddy, but he was staring at the floor, clearly trying to contain himself. As we climbed, I remembered that I'd passed all that time waiting without writing to my family or Grace, but I couldn't think of what I would have said besides 'I love you, and I am going to leave you for the sake of madness.'

  As we flew, the interior grew unbearably hot, but I was principally preoccupied with trying to ignore the urgency of my bladder and my bowels. The bombardier came over and crouched beside me. He was a Leading Aircraftsman, the British equivalent of a corporal, a handsome dark-haired kid.

  "First jump, then?" He had to repeat himself several times because the throbbing buzz of the engines filled the entire belly of the plane.

  I nodded and asked for last-minute pointers. He smiled. "Keep a tight arsehole."

  Almost on cue then, Biddy vomited in front of himself and sat there shaking his head, manifestly ashamed. "It's the heat," I yelled. The interior of the Hampden was like a blast furnace, and fouled with the sickening fumes of the plane's exhaust. I felt woozy myself. The bombardier acted as if he'd seen it all before.

  "You'll feel better now," he told Biddy.

  When the phone beside the hatch flashed, the bombardier grabbed it, then motioned to fix our chinstraps.

  "All right, then," he yelled, "who's first?"

  We hadn't discussed this, but Biddy raised a hand weakly, saying he had to get out. He hooked on, then crawled to the edge of the joe hole. The doors fell open slowly, emitting a frozen gale. Some part of my brain was still working, because I realized the plane had been overheated in anticipation of the cold. The bomb bay was not even fully extended when Gideon lowered his head and suddenly disappeared without a backward glance.

  After hooking overhead, I tried to stand, but my legs were like water, and it would have been difficult anyway given all the equipment I was wearing and the shimmying of the plane. Like Biddy, I went on all fours, remembering too late to avoid the puddle he had left behind. The instant he was gone, I was at the edge, leaning into the great rush of icy air. My face went numb at once, as I looked down to the vague form of the land moving below in the darkness. In the white leather jump gloves, my hands were clamped to the edge of the bomb bay. The bombardier placed his face right next to mine.

  "Captain, I'm afraid you must be going. Otherwise, sir, I'm going to have to put my boot in your bum."

  Ma, what am I doing? I thought. What am I doing? And then I thought, I must do this, I must do this, because it is my duty, and if I do not do my duty, my life will be worth nothing.

  But still, my body would not surrender to my will. I shouted to the bombardier, "I'll take that kick in the ass.), It was like diving into a pool, the shock of cold, the sudden distance from sound. I did a complete somersault in the air and came upright with my heart pumping nothing but terror, while one thought leaped at me with startling clarity. As my chute snapped open and I was slammed against the sky, a white pain ignited in my arms. I had forgotten to grip the harness, falling with my hands spread before me like a child taking a spill, and I feared for one second that I had dislocated my shoulders. But even that was not enough to distract me. Because in the instant of free fall, I had realized I hadn't really come to find Martin. The form I'd seen as I tore through space was Gita Lodz.

  For half the descent there was no sound or sensation except the racing cold. I saw only the earth, black on black, a swimming form without perspective. And then it was as if the night, like the shell of a hatching egg, was suddenly pecked by light. Volleys of antiaircraft fire came from at least three sides and the rockets tore by like massive lethal bugs. Then, without warning, a squeal of red flares brought day to the sky. I caught sight of Biddy's chute, mushroomed below me, and took heart for just a second, knowing I was not alone here, but that was replaced at once by another spasm of terror when I realized that the Germans were firing at us. The AA was still blasting, but smaller rounds also ripped by like shooting stars. In the instantaneous glow, I actually saw one make a hole in the canopy of Biddy's chute, whose descent accelerated. It would be a good thing for him, though, assuming he survived, to get out of the barrage.

  Paying my nickel on a Saturday afternoon, I'd heard the shots whanging past Tom Mix in the movie-theater speakers. But the real sound of a round that misses is just a sinister little sizzle and a wake of roiled air, a bee farting as it passes, followed instantaneously by the sharp report of the rifle the bullet came from. The German infantry, thank God, hadn't practiced shooting falling objects. A dozen shots missed by only a few feet. But as the ground came near, my ear was bored by an intense pain.

  My next memory is of lying in the snow. Under my nose, Biddy was waving an ammonia ampoule he'd extracted from the first-aid kit on the front of his helmet. I flinched from the driving odor.

  "C'mon, Captain. Those 88s will be on us any minute." I continued to lie there while I put things together. Somewhere along, I realized he'd already cut me free of my chute. "You passed out, Cap. Maybe a concussion." He wrestled me to my feet. I reached to grab my pack, which he'd also collected, then stopped dead, astonished by what I felt against the back of a thigh. I retrieved the sensation at once from the remote memories of childhood. I had shit in my pants.

  Behind Bidwell I ran in a half crouch through a farm field where the snow was up to our knees until we reached a wooded border. All that worry about parachute training and it turned out we were landing on a pillow. After the flares, we knew American forces would be looking for us, assuming we'd come down in an area they controlled. While Biddy struggled in the dark to read the compass strapped to his arm, I shed my parachute harness and pushed farther into the brush, where I dropped both pairs of trousers. It could not have been more than ten degrees but I still preferred to stand there naked, rather than go on with crap trailing down my legs. I cut my briefs off with the jackknife from my belt, cleaned up as best I could, and hurled away my underwear, which ended up snagged on one of the bushes. Biddy was watching by now, but asked for no explanation.

  A recon group arrived five minutes later. We raced with them to gather up the medical bundles before the German artillery turned on us, then clambered into the backs of a pair of two-ton trucks from an ordnance unit that had pulled up. As the vehicles rolled out, Biddy, beside me, reached up to touch my helmet. Removing it, I saw a dent in the steel above my right ear, and a fracture running down two inches to the edge. That was from the round that had knocked me out. I shook my head, as if I could take some meaning from the nearness of the miss, but nothing came to me. There was alive and there was dead. I wasn't dead. Why or how close really meant nothing compared with the elemental fact.

  We had ridden half a mile before I picked up on the radio traffic blaring from the cab. Someone had not been found.

  "The Brits," Biddy said. "The Hampden went down right after you landed." The Kraut AA had caught it in a direct hit, a giant ball of fire and smoke, he said, but they were east of us by then, over the Germans. I thought about the four men we'd flown with, but I could make no more of their demise than I had of my own survival. Instead I turned to Biddy to complain for a second about the cold.

  The soldiers who had collected us were elements of the 110th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division who had been cut off in their retreat and ended up here, formed up with the mist Airborne, which was the principal force defending Bastogne. They drove us back to their command post set up in the hamlet of Savy. The town consisted of a few low buildings constructed of the native gray stone. In the largest o
f them, a cattle barn, the acting combat team commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hamza Algar, had established his headquarters.

  Algar was working at a small desk set in the center of the dirt floor, when we came in to report. The orderlies had done their best to sweep the place clean, but it was still a barn, with stalls on both sides and open beams above, and the residual reek of its former inhabitants. Four staff officers were standing around Algar, as he went over lists and maps beside a lantern. They were in field jackets and gloves, shoulders hunched against the cold. It was better in here, because there was no wind, but there was still no heat.

  Algar stood up to return my salute, then offered his hand.

  "How much training did you have for that jump, Doc?" he asked me. "That was damn brave. But, Doc, you came to the right place. Unfortunately." This made the third or fourth time since we'd landed that I'd been addressed as 'Doc.' Perhaps it was the concussion, or the numbness of surviving, but I realized only now that this greeting wasn't being offered in the fashion of Bugs Bunny.

  "Begging your pardon, Colonel, but I'm afraid you have a misimpression. I'm a lawyer."

  Algar was small, five foot six or seven, and perhaps in compensation was plainly attentive to his good looks. He had a narrow split mustache over his upper lip, carefully trimmed even on the battlefield, and his hair was pomaded. But he was clearly bewildered.

  "I was told you were dropped with medical supplies. Sulfa. Bandages. Plasma." Algar sat down and turned to his aides. "We get lawyers by parachute," he said. "What about ammunition? Or reinforcements? Jesus Christ." In a second, he got around to asking why I was there. He stared at me even longer than he had when I'd said I wasn't an M. D., once he heard my explanation.