“It’s not funny,” Mink said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re scaring the crap out of me,” Mink said. “That’s why!”
We finished digging our foxhole, and I put in a sump hole. I didn’t say anything about it to Mink, but he saw me doing it and I guessed he knew what I was doing.
Stagg came around again. He was getting to be a pain in the ass since we landed in France, but I imagined it came with the territory.
“I catch both you guys sleeping at the same time, I’m going to cut one guy’s balls off and one guy’s head,” he said. “Think about it!”
I was up first, and Mink curled up and tried to get some sleep. I knew he was tired, and I knew he was scared. He was a nice guy, kind of smart, maybe even real smart, but the fighting was getting to him. It had either got to all of us or it was getting there. We were changing. I was changing.
I thought about praying. Back home, at the training sessions, there was an old sergeant major who used to always say that there weren’t any atheists in a foxhole. I didn’t know about that, but I didn’t want God hearing me pray and thinking about how long it had been since I had gone to a Sunday service or even thought about him. On the other hand, I didn’t want him making a list of who he was going to let live and who he was going to let die and putting my name on the wrong page.
A Company came through and asked if we had any extra rations. We gathered up what we could and gave them to a short, plump officer.
“These boys haven’t had anything to eat all day, and they’re dog tired,” the officer was saying to Stagg. “And the brass is pushing us to go forward. What the hell are we supposed to be fighting on? Air? What the hell are we supposed to be fighting on?”
Stagg didn’t answer, just nodded.
I watched as the company filed past us in the darkness. By their silhouettes you could see they were tired. I noticed some had their rifles slung upside down. I put my palm out and felt a few drops of rain.
“Stupid,” Stagg said. “They’re carrying M1s. They can return fire faster with the barrels up.”
“Yeah.”
I hadn’t seen any Germans fighting against us, or even any not fighting, except the ones who had been taken prisoner on the day of the invasion and the ones who had been captured near Vierville. And the dead ones.
As much as seeing dead Americans spooked me, especially if they wore the blue-and-gray patch of the 29th, the dead Germans spooked me even more. I didn’t know why at first, but then Petrocelli nailed it.
“They’re either kids, old men, or models,” he said. “If they came to Bayonne we’d make them wear dresses!”
Some of the dead Germans were from the 352nd, the same guys who were in the pillboxes on the beach. These guys were all tall, well built. Even being dead they just seemed relaxed, sleeping. Milton searched them for material to send back to Intelligence. One of them, a soldier named Rudolf Mallner, carried a mass card for his brother, who had been killed on the eastern front. The back of the mass card had two images of Jesus, one on the cross and the other with the crown of thorns.
My balls were itching like crazy a mile into the march south, and I realized I hadn’t taken a real bath or even done much washing since I had landed in France. I ignored it. I didn’t want to think about anything. That’s a funny way to be, but it’s how I was getting — just sort of zoning out — and my mind drifted back toward me enlisting.
There had been no direct bus from New York City to Bedford, Virginia, so I took a late afternoon bus from the Port Authority building to Roanoke, and planned to either hitchhike or find a bus going from Roanoke to get home. All the way down I thought about joining the Army and what I would do. I had never wanted to be a hero, and stopped myself when I thought about fighting hand-to-hand battles with the Japs or doing anything heroic against the Germans. But I wanted to do my part. Pearl Harbor had been attacked and over two thousand Americans had been killed. President Roosevelt had called it a day that would live in infamy. And when Hitler declared war on us a few days later, I knew we were going to be in for something big.
All the training at Slapton Sands, England, made me feel good, and patriotic. I knew we were training to liberate Europe, and I knew we could do it. Somebody beating America just wasn’t in my mind. I liked the English girls looking at us and maybe wondering if we were going to save the world. I thought we were going to do just that, but what happened on the beach changed everything.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do my part anymore, because I did. But all the guys killed on Omaha, all the guys struggling with their last breaths trying to make it out of the water, brought a whole new picture to mind, and a whole new feeling. Now I was always dog tired, tired like I had never been before in my life, and I knew a few hours of sleeping wasn’t going to change that. It was like whatever something was in me — the something that made me different from a rock or a fence or a photograph on a wall — was gone. I found myself telling my legs to move when I wanted to walk and telling myself to swallow when I ate. Sleep didn’t come easy, and when it did it was full of images, like an old newsreel playing back what had happened during the landing.
There were sounds, too. Sometimes when I woke in the middle of the night, I could hear the sounds of the channel slapping against the sides of the boat and the roar of the engines as we bounced through the water. The cries of grown men crying for their mamas and for God came in between the sounds of the water and the booming of the big guns.
I couldn’t tell the difference between our artillery and the German artillery at first. I didn’t know if the Germans had guns as big as ours or what they sounded like. I did know the sounds of machine gun bullets hitting close by, or tearing down the limbs of a tree I huddled under. I knew the burping noise their guns made, and the quick tattoo when their bullets hit flesh. I knew that.
We stopped to rest. Mink came over and sat next to me. We were becoming friends. No big deal talk, no arms around each other, just friends.
Mink asked me if I was afraid. He didn’t say afraid of this or that, just asked me if I was afraid. I lied and said no. It wasn’t the answer he was looking for, I knew. I didn’t want to tell him just how afraid I was, or how sometimes, when I was alone, I wanted to break down and cry.
Some brass came by. They told us to get ready to move on. Milton — we were beginning to appreciate him — sat down with us and showed us a map. A dot was circled in red marker.
“We’re going to take this area,” he said.
“We don’t have enough ammo to beat a den of Cub Scouts,” Stagg said.
“Then you better have your bayonet sharpened!” Milton said softly.
Stagg had put himself out, talking like that to an officer, but it didn’t make a difference. At 0400 hours in the morning, we were moving again.
We are moving back toward Omaha Beach. The word is that we are forming a new offensive line. The Germans are moving up reserves and we will be attacking them. Lieutenant Milton thinks that we are just seeing “what the Germans can muster up in a hurry.” He tried to smile when he said it but I think he’s losing his nerve. Lord knows I’ve lost mine.
This time we got on trucks behind two small tracked vehicles and started out. It was six miles to Longueville, where some companies from the 175th were setting up. It was good to see their pennant, and their guys didn’t look too banged up. We had to get out of the trucks and go the rest of the way on foot.
“I think the Germans have bugged out,” Shumann said. “We got our feet on the ground; it’s just about over for them!”
I felt good about that even though there was no reason to really believe it. Then a jeep came up with a colonel in it. I was near Milton when he gave him the latest news.
“Vierville was attacked. The Germans have circled around us,” he said.
“We going back?” Milton asked.
“No, you’re moving forward to keep the Krauts occupied in this area,” the colonel said. “Same objec
tive. We need to keep them spread out so they can’t form up for a counterattack. It’s all cat and mouse, so keep your eyes open.”
Lieutenant Milton threw the colonel a salute and looked at us. I could tell he wasn’t happy with the situation. I thought about what Petrocelli had said about the 29th being used to find the enemy. I guessed we all must have felt that way.
The Army was filled with scuttlebutt, the rumors that spread from man to man and from company to company. Half the time they weren’t true, but that didn’t stop everyone from wondering about each new one. Now the rumor was that the brass thought we weren’t moving fast enough, that we were giving the Krauts a chance to recover. I looked around me at the guys in my squad. They were still deep into themselves, and I knew they were searching the same as I was.
We quick-marched down the road for another mile until we came to some fields. We halted, and someone — it might have been Colonel Cawthon or some other hotshot — had us spread out in a long skirmish line. Able Company, or what was being called Able Company, was out front, with us a hundred yards behind them. There was a row of trees and we had to go through them, across a field, and then past a second row of trees. Lieutenant Milton called Burns and Stagg over and showed them a map. He was near me, so I took a step over and looked to see what they were talking about.
“These are the hedgerows,” he said, pointing to the green markings on the map. “The French farmers use them to separate their fields.”
“They look like little flower patches on the fucking map,” Burns said.
I looked at Lieutenant Milton to see what he would say to Burns about his language. He was biting his lip and shaking his head. “We got our pictures from the air,” he said. “This is the real deal, and I’ve got a bad feeling about crossing these fields.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we got to cross this flat-ass field, and we can’t see what’s past the other hedgerows,” Lieutenant Milton said. “And you’re going to be halfway across before we find out.”
“When we moving out?” Burns asked.
“We’ll get a signal when Able Company makes contact,” Lieutenant Milton said.
“In other words, we don’t know what the hell we’re doing,” Burns said.
“Sergeant, we know we’re fighting a war, and we know we’re catching hell,” Lieutenant Milton said. “If you have a better plan let’s hear it!”
Burns turned and spit on the ground.
We spread out along the nearest hedgerow. The hedgerow wasn’t like anything we would call a hedgerow back in Virginia. They were tall, some over six feet tall, with trees and bushes on them that sent roots as thick as my arm through the dark soil. You couldn’t see over them and you couldn’t see what was behind the next one.
“This does not look good,” Freihofer said. “We got to run blind across the field and hope that the Krauts aren’t just waiting for us!”
It’s what we’ve been doing since we’ve been over here, I thought. We came out of the boats and waded toward the beach while the Germans waited for and killed as many of us as they could. They were waiting for us in Vierville, and along the roads, and now they had circled around and attacked again at Vierville. What had happened to all the dumb Germans we had joked about in training?
The sky was gray, with a streak of light off to the south where the clouds broke. I couldn’t see Able Company for a while, and then I started seeing outlines of their helmets as they moved across the field.
“Able Company’s moving out now,” Milton said. “Let’s hit our positions behind this hedgerow and cover them. Don’t bunch up!”
The M1 I was carrying felt light in my hands, but I hadn’t been using it and realized that it might not have been zeroed in for a hundred yards, which was about what the field was. I took a quick look at the sights, saw that they were more or less centered, and climbed onto the edge of the first hedgerow. Shumann was on my right and Petrocelli was on my left.
The hedgerow was as tall as me, with bushes and shrubs and low trees that had probably been growing there for fifty years. Able Company guys had climbed through them and then lowered themselves the four feet or so to the field. The field looked good. It smelled a little like barley, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
What was supposed to happen was that Able Company was supposed to establish themselves at the first hedgerow across the field, and then we were supposed to follow them, go through their position, and make our way to the next hedgerow. Then Charlie Company would follow us and we’d leapfrog until we cleared enough ground to think the whole area was safe.
“Woody! What’re you thinking about?” This from Shumann.
“Mom’s apple pie!” I said. What the hell was I supposed to be thinking? “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking that if Able Company gets into a firefight, how are we going to help them out if we have to shoot in their direction?”
“We’ll call in mortars!” Petrocelli called out. “Maybe some artillery. Right, Woody?”
“Yeah,” I said. Shumann was right, but I wished he hadn’t brought it up.
I turned my attention back to the field. Able Company was halfway across and it looked good. The palms of my hands were sweating, and I wiped my right hand off on my pants leg.
“Baker Company, get ready to move out!” Lieutenant Milton barked.
I was lying next to a thick shrub stump and got up to one knee just as we heard the first shots.
I looked up and saw a line of guys from Able Company reel backward as they got hit. There were machine guns hidden in the hedgerows, and they opened up and mowed down a line of guys.
The Able Company men didn’t know what to do. It was the beach all over again: men out in the open facing German machine guns. I wanted to do something, anything, but I didn’t know what. Some of the men from Able Company were down in the prone position, firing at the hedgerows. I looked but I couldn’t see anybody shooting at them, only the occasional muzzle flash from a German machine gun.
I heard someone calling in coordinates for mortar fire, and in seconds the sounds of the shells from the mortar squads were in the air.
“Fire at the trees, just keep it up!” Lieutenant Milton yelled. “Keep it high enough not to hit our men.”
We all began firing. It was blind fire, and we knew it. The men in the field were either down and firing back or trying to run back to our lines. The ones who stood, who tried to run, were being taken down.
The firing lasted less than five minutes and then stopped. I could see some of the men from Able Company throwing grenades toward the hedgerows. To my right the grass and shrubbery was on fire.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!”
Medics were running out onto the field, and some of the men from Baker Company were already moving out.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Lieutenant Milton said.
I was shaking as I climbed through the hedgerow, scraping the skin off my forearm, and let myself down onto the field.
“Stay low! Stay low!” Lieutenant Milton said.
We moved in a line across the field with Lieutenant Milton yelling instructions to us. I was holding my breath as I ran forward, my eyes shooting from side to side, looking for the machine guns, waiting for the burping noise they made, waiting for the feel of the bullets.
We got to the Able Company men. Three were already dead, and at least six lay wounded in the thick, green field. Several others were wounded but still on their feet or sitting up on the ground.
“Hold it! Get prone!” Sergeant Burns said. “Lieutenant, you call a cease-fire for the mortars?”
Lieutenant Milton got on the radio. He called for a cease-fire, but said for the mortar crews to stand ready. Then he stood up and started for the hedgerows again.
My legs didn’t want to work; they didn’t want to run anywhere. Somehow they did. We got to the rows. The Germans had fallen back again. They left two behind. One was dead, his helmet ripped open on the left side. The
other one was wounded in the jaw. His mouth was open and bleeding, and he couldn’t close it.
Stagg started searching him. He took papers out of his vest pocket, what ammo he had left, and a dagger from his belt. All the time the soldier was bleeding from the mouth and shaking in fear. His eyes kept darting around, and I knew he was wondering if we would kill him. He probably couldn’t speak any English, but he was begging with his eyes.
“Look out for mines!” Burns barked.
We dug in behind the hedgerow. The next row was about twice the width of the one we had just crossed. Lieutenant Milton was already calling in the coordinates for the mortar squad.
“Either they’re setting up and waiting for us,” he said, “or they’ve moved beyond that one. As soon as the mortars zero in on the hedges ahead of us, we’ll move out.”
The mortars started hitting short of the rows, and Stagg radioed the distance. We watched as they began to hit their targets and got up and started across the open field.
There were a few shots fired at us, and I saw a man go down to my left. If anybody stopped and turned back, I knew I would, too. But Milton kept going forward, and Stagg was close to him. We got across the field to the next hedgerow with no more casualties.
The Germans had fired a few shots but hadn’t stopped to set up a line of defense.
“We lost one man!” A skinny corporal came over to where we were. He wore the arm patch of a medic. “Anybody hit here?”
No one spoke up.
“What they’re doing is fighting a delaying action!” Milton said. “They’re trying to slow us down across the hedgerows while they bring up reinforcements. The plan for us is not to slow down, to keep them moving backward faster than they can set up a defensive wall.”
We set up again and waited for the mortars to clear the next hedgerows. We examined the one we were at and saw that there were narrow holes dug through the base of the rows, with rocks lining them to keep the dirt from falling in. They were just wide enough for a machine gun to have room to sweep the field. The Krauts had made the holes long before the invasion. They knew we were coming and had marked off the killing fields that we were trying to cross.