I keep telling myself I am doing a lot of good. I know that I have saved some people who would be dead otherwise. But even then it can be so hard. I send soldiers to the aid station minus a leg or an arm or scarred for life. Some GIs shoot themselves in the foot just to avoid something far worse.
But it’s not even just the blood, it’s what I see happening to the men and women here. They grow cynical, harsh, indifferent. Some have it worse still and lose their minds altogether. Grown men and women just rocking back and forth and sobbing.
It’s seeping into me too, I know it. How many times can you see a human being die and feel his heart stop without losing your own mind? And I ask myself why. Sometimes I blaspheme, Pastor, because I do not know how God lets this happen. How does God let this happen? These GIs live like pigs in their own filth and spill their intestines into mud. How does God let fine young boys and girls be slaughtered, butchered, blown apart, burned to charcoal? Can you tell me that? Because I would really, really like to know that.
Sorry if I sound crazy, maybe I am. I had a man who worked with me, we called him Deacon, who was a conscientious objector. He was a good and brave man. A believer in the grace of Jesus Christ. And he just shot himself in the head because he just couldn’t go on. I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t realize how it was for him.
I should probably tear up this letter. You’ll think I’ve gone round the bend. But I am going to send it if only to remind you to pray for me. Please. Pray hard.
Frangie
Dear Rainy,
What is this I hear about you becoming an officer? You’ve gone over to the enemy! My baby sis a lousy brass hat! My God, before I know it you’ll be a general.
Okay, more seriously, congratulations! I mean it!!! I could have exploded with pride when I heard about you. I would never want to compare myself to you, but I have to tell you that I, too—yes, your goofy brother—am now a platoon sergeant, and I am busy all day long spitting nails and chewing on barbed wire as Marine platoon leaders are supposed to do.
I am extremely safe sitting here on this godforsaken piece of coral with about three lousy palm trees. I of course can’t name the island without bringing on the censors, but it doesn’t matter because they’re all the same. Nothing to do but knock coconuts out of trees and play cards with the guys.
I still don’t exactly know what you are doing, although I hear from the folks that you disappeared for a while. But whatever it is, take good care of yourself. You and I have a lot to talk about when this is over. I picture dragging the lawn chairs up onto the roof, having a beer or maybe six, and shooting the breeze. Wouldn’t that be swell?
So be careful and cautious and take care of yourself, little sister.
I mean, little sister . . . SIR!
Aryeh
(I’m saluting right now.)
24
RAINY SCHULTERMAN—CLERVAUX, LUXEMBOURG
Rainy is in uniform once again, with boots and a helmet with the small vertical chevron of a first lieutenant on the front. And for the first time in a very long time, she has an M1 carbine slung over her shoulder. This battle is not one of wits, but hot lead.
GIs to her left and right form a row of fighting holes and log shelters. Behind this line is a second line made of supplies and trash, crates of ammo, empty C ration cans, a dead radio, abandoned packs, and musette bags.
Behind that second line are interspersed pockets of mortar men firing ka-toonk! and pockets of GIs recovering, cigarettes dangling from snoring mouths.
Last, and below the ridge crest on a piece of terrain that is merely steep instead of being nearly vertical, an aid tent has been set up.
Way off to the left on a lower slope of the ridge Shermans blast away.
And where Rainy stands, out of the direct line of fire, is a sad-looking tent with a couple of camp chairs no one can use since the angle topples them over. There’s an MP at the tent flap.
“Here to see the captain,” Rainy says, and is waved inside just as rain starts falling. Inside the tent is steamy and crowded. There’s a foldable map table with a map Rainy suspects is inaccurate, open and marked with grease pencil.
“Captain Mackie,” Rainy says, and salutes. “I’m Lieutenant Schulterman.”
Mackie is under thirty, olive-skinned, stiff as a board, and at first meeting Rainy suspects she might be a martinet. The captain is turned sideways to Rainy at first, but when she turns and Rainy can see her more clearly by the light of a single kerosene lantern, she sees mud-caked boots, mud splatters all up the legs of her trousers, and she sees that the left sleeve of her uniform blouse has been crudely hacked away to make room for a blood-soaked bandage.
So, maybe not a martinet: maybe a soldier.
“Lieutenant Schulterman,” Mackie says. Her voice is clipped but not tense. “What can I do for you?”
Rainy says, “Damned if I know, Captain. I’m not sure how I ended up here, to tell you the truth. There’s a bit of a . . .” She’s about to say panic but chooses a different word. “. . . a bit of confusion going on. I’ve been sent to assess the situation here.”
“Ah. Spying for the brass? Well, I’ll tell you, Schulterman, I got people from three different divisions,” Mackie says. “We’re in a box and holding lines we cannot hold for much longer. That’s the situation. And, no offense, Lieutenant, but about the last thing I need right now is another G2 officer.”
“Sorry, Captain,” Rainy says. A captain on the front line of a hot fight wants combat officers, not intelligence officers.
Mackie slices the air horizontally with stiff fingers. “Okay, look, you want to be useful? I could use some information. Grab some coffee and let’s talk.”
Rainy takes a cup of coffee proffered by an aide, and Mackie and a male lieutenant lead her to the map table. “I haven’t had a chance to be briefed by the colonel lately. He probably has the straight poop, but all I know is I’m supposed to hold this ridge.”
Rainy sets her cup down and leans over the map. “I’ll give you what I have. That’s the Second SS Panzer Division shooting at you, it’s an old-line division. France in 1940. Poland. The Balkans. Fought the Russians at Kursk. An old-line division, but mostly green troops now, despite that. They were almost wiped out in the Falaise pocket after D-day, so this is a lot of replacements.”
Mackie takes this in and nods. “A full panzer division? Great. So what’s the overview?”
Rainy shrugs. “I can give you the official version, which is that this is a German probe, a diversion. Officially the Krauts don’t have enough divisions to do anything more than launch harassing attacks.”
“And the unofficial version?”
The unofficial version is made up of hints and guesses, rumor and scuttlebutt Rainy has picked up hanging around HQ. Her natural tendency to secrecy suggests she say nothing more. But Mackie is in a spot, and she doesn’t strike Rainy as the sort of officer to berate her for passing along her own judgments.
“Well,” Rainy says, sighing, “some few of us think Adolf has been playing possum with us, preserving his strength, building up new units for an all-or-nothing breakout.”
“Based on?”
“Based on: we’ve seen panzer units pulled back for no good reason out of the east. We’ve seen frontline units starved of supplies we know the Krauts have. Also too much radio chatter coming from Jerry. And, finally, it makes a demented kind of sense: Adolf has nothing left to stop the Russians, so his best bet is to get us and the Brits to sue for peace. I think he’s trying to cut us in two and push to Antwerp.”
“With how much?”
“Officially? Maybe two or three divisions.”
“And?”
Rainy shrugs. “Some of us, including my colonel, think they may have thirteen infantry divisions and six or even seven panzer divisions.”
“Jesus H. That’s not a diversion,” Mackie says. “That’s a desperate, all-out, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink attack.”
“If it’s any comfort, som
e of the top brass think if it is an all-out attack, it will actually be an opportunity. If the Germans are heading for Antwerp we have a shot at hitting their flanks and cutting them off.”
“Not such an opportunity for the GIs who have to do the dirty work,” Mackie says.
The tent flap opens, and a dirty, sweat-stained woman sergeant whose ripe smell precedes her enters, snaps a salute, and freezes stiff, staring at Mackie. Glancing at Rainy. Then back at Mackie.
“Small war, Richlin?” Mackie says.
“You’re a . . .” Rio Richlin waves in the direction of Mackie’s shoulders.
“I had a choice,” Mackie says, returning the salute and then shaking Rio’s hand with genuine pleasure. “Either stay stateside and keep training idiot recruits, or take the ninety-day wonder route and join the war as an officer. You look like shit, Richlin.”
To Rainy’s utter astonishment, Rio blushes and stammers and looks down, appalled at the state of her uniform, until Mackie takes mercy on her. “This isn’t basic training, Richlin, and this is not an inspection. Take it easy. What are you doing here?”
“They threw us on trucks and here I am. I have a rump platoon, two dozen people, most of them still green.”
“Where’s your lieutenant?”
“He’s checking out the big picture down at the castle,” Rio says.
Mackie makes a snorting sound. “Colonel Fuller will make short work of that nonsense. Fuller likes fighters! Well, good to see you, Richlin. Go see Lieutenant Dubrowski. He’s West Point, but he’s a good officer. Dismissed. And, Richlin?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Diane.”
For a moment it almost seems as if the filth-covered killer with the koummya might start to cry. “Diane,” Rio says, and flees.
“As for you, Schulterman,” Mackie says, “I’m going to see if I can’t get you some POWs to interrogate. I don’t suppose you speak German?”
Outside the tent Rainy and Rio hold each other at arm’s length and look each other up and down.
“Old home week,” Rainy says. “I haven’t seen you since our days of debauchery in England.”
“Yeah, when you managed to talk me into coming to this little holiday in Europe.”
Rainy nods. “I know it’s been tough. I see some of the after-battle reports.”
“And now you’re an officer too,” Rio accuses her. “First my old drill sergeant, and now you. Traitors, both of you.”
“What was that about Diane?”
Rio grins. “I never knew her first name. I asked her once, and she said it was Sergeant.” She shakes her head. “You have no idea how much that woman used to terrify me. Mackie is who I wanted to . . . She’s a good soldier.”
“Who you wanted to be when you grew up?”
“Go ahead, laugh. But I guess it’s true. Jed Cole and Mackie. Diane Mackie.”
“How’s Jenou? And you haven’t heard anything from Marr, have you?”
“Marr could be ten feet away and I wouldn’t know, I just got here. And Jenou is fine, she can still count to twenty on her fingers and toes.” Rio sighs. “Well, I have orders to go shoot some Krauts.”
“Take care of yourself, Rio,” Rainy says in an echo of the friends-more-than-soldiers voice from their days in Britain.
“You too, Rainy.”
They separate, and Rainy turns and calls after Rio, “Hey, if you happen to come up with any Kraut prisoners . . .”
“I’ll look you up.”
Rainy watches Richlin saunter away toward a gaggle of soldiers slumped against tree trunks, talking, cajoling, kicking the occasional boot sole.
I wonder if I talked her into her own death?
25
FRANGIE MARR—MALMÉDY, BELGIUM
The crossroads, like every crossroads in Belgium, Luxembourg, and western Germany, is a tangle of vehicles, with divisions trying to go two different ways. It takes hours to sort it out, hours during which Frangie lies comatose in the seat of her jeep with Manning—bandaged ear and all—equally asleep, leaning against and drooling on Frangie’s shoulder.
BLAM!
Frangie’s eyes are instantly open. She jerks upright. Looks frantically left, right, a smoking truck at the head of the column.
BLAM!
A second vehicle, this one at the rear of the column, blows up.
And now, emerging from the tree line across an empty field, come the beasts, the German tanks.
“Tigers!”
It’s over before Frangie can rub the sleep from her eyes. More and more German tanks rumble from the woods and advance on the stalled column at point-blank range. They cannot possibly miss.
There is only one Sherman in the column. It traverses its guns . . . and stops. The barrel lowers in submission. A few dozen GIs bolt, heading toward the woods behind them, but the Tigers’ machine guns discourage that move.
“What’s happening?” Manning asks.
“Nothing good,” Frangie mutters.
The Tigers stop at a distance of less than a hundred yards. The barrels of their big guns are trained on the vehicles; the machine guns are leveled at the soldiers.
And now, to Frangie’s shock, she sees an artillery captain walking toward the Germans with a white rag stuck on the end of his rifle. He’s waving the white flag.
“We’re surrendering,” Frangie says in an appalled whisper.
The captain with the flag walks to one of the lead tanks. Its commander is a handsome blond man with a confident leer. Frangie squints hard and says, “It’s an SS division.”
“A Kraut’s a Kraut,” Manning says, and spits.
Frangie knows better but stays silent. Wehrmacht—German army units—can be brutal, but they are not usually as utterly sadistic and cruel as SS.
The captain and the SS colonel speak briefly. Then the captain comes walking back. He is followed by a file of SS Panzergrenadiers.
“Men . . .” the captain starts to say before being rudely cut off by an SS lieutenant who begins shouting orders in heavily accented English.
“You are now prisoners of the Reich. You will be well treated if you immediately obey all orders. If you do not, you will be shot!”
They are ordered to stack weapons and line up. Frangie has no weapons so she grabs her bag, and she and Manning fall into line, two black faces among mostly white ones, a consequence of the chaos of the battlefield.
The SS lieutenant spots them, approaches, stops, and actually pushes his face forward to sniff them. He steps back. “You smell no different,” he says, and seems disturbed by this.
“I think we all stink, if—”
The blow hits Frangie before she notes his hand moving. It is a backhanded swing that connects with her cheek and causes her to stagger.
“Hey!” Manning yells.
The officer snaps his fingers and a Panzergrenadier shoots Manning twice in the chest. She’s dead before she hits the ground.
“No!” Frangie yells.
Other soldiers surge forward as if they might do something, but more Panzergrenadiers are leveling more weapons and just waiting for the word. One of them slams the stock of his machine pistol into Frangie’s stomach and swings it sideways to catch the side of her head as she falls.
When Frangie returns to consciousness, she is moving. She feels movement even before she opens her eyes. But she feels, too, that her own feet are being dragged, that strong arms are under her shoulders.
She pries open a bloody eye. She does not know the soldier bearing her weight; he’s a white man for one thing, and instinctively she pulls away.
“No, no, missy, make sure your knees work first,” he says kindly.
It’s good advice. It’s a few minutes before she is confident that she can walk. “Thanks.”
He releases her. “I put a bandage on the side of your head, but I’m a gunner, not a medic.”
He’s a bespectacled, early twenties white boy with brown eyes and a mouth permanently quirked so he always looks amused. F
rangie didn’t see quite what he—or any of them—should find amusing. They are in a column of several dozen soldiers being marched along in the freezing cold, with snow in their faces, as SS swagger alongside, occasionally punching or kicking a straggler.
Manning is dead.
Deacon is dead.
“I’m Frank Pepper,” the white man says, holding out his hand. “From Memphis, Tennessee.”
Frangie shakes his hand, frowning as she does it, because it is one thing for a white man from California or New York to shake her hand, but it’s a whole different thing for a southern white boy.
“Frangie Marr. Tulsa.”
“Oklahoma, huh? Cowboys and such?”
“No.”
Manning. Dead.
Deacon. Dead.
“Maybe you can tell I just got here,” Pepper says. “One day in the damn war and I’m a prisoner. That beats all.” He shakes his head, regretful but philosophical.
“Well, thanks for helping me.”
“You’re thinking it’s funny, a southern boy helping you out.”
“I guess I am,” Frangie admits.
He leans close and whispers, “I’m not exactly a soldier. I’m a musician. Stand-up bass.” He mimes plucking a bass. “Blues, jazz, boogie-woogie, if you’re going to play music—real music—it’s Nigra music.”
“You play with colored musicians?”
He looks around absurdly, as though the SS will be upset by this. And perhaps, Frangie thinks, they would be. These are, after all, committed, indoctrinated Nazis for the most part. And the similarities between Nazis and white-sheeted night riders with ropes are obvious.
“I can sit in with colored players, they don’t mind so long as you can lay down a rhythm. Guess who I played with? Albert Ammons! It was just one set, but man, what that fat ole colored boy does with the ivories!”
The SS guards are now veering them into a snow-covered field where they are told to wait, standing.
“Probably bringing up some trucks to take us to the POW camp,” Pepper says. “Fine with me! My dogs are killing me!”