"No use turning our bus around," Landel shouted.
"Radio ... the radio," the sergeant shouted.
"Ok," Landel yelled, reading his lips.
Dennison took over the transmitter.
They had stopped near a woodland; other tanks grouped around them; the
barrage had lifted.
It was chilly: the autumn air nipped their nakedness: they huddled
behind their machines, talking, urinating, smoking: as soon as they
could they donned shirts and jackets: the earth, they discovered, was
peppered with apples, exploded from nearby trees--part of the woodland.
Zinc picked up a red-yellow apple, bit it, and smiled.
Dennison grinned as he bit one.
"Come on, Captain, have one!" Zinc said.
"Worms."
But he picked up an apple and found it delicious.
A crewman from their Corps, a corporal named Jim Moore, ran up, flopping
his hands and jerking his head crazily.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" Dennison shouted.
Moore could not hear him, and yelled:
"Mine!"
"What?"
"Mine ... minefield."
"Yeah ... sure ... we know. That's why we're here, Jim. Have an
apple!" Jim shuffled over, flopping his arms, coughing, lurching, eyes
glazed.
"He's nuts!" Landel said.
His apple was wormy and he threw it down and tried another. Apples ...
apples ... we stand around eating apples ... there's some way out of
this ...
Biting and sucking the apple, he circled his tank, trying to get a lay
of the land, looking for other GI's who might have information,
instructions. Dennison had climbed inside, and was radioing: perhaps
information was being broadcast. By now six machines had lined up along
the woodland, some of them using foliage for camouflage.
Low flying planes ripped the sky.
Another tank approached Dennison and Zinc.
A GI's face was scrawled with grime and sweat, his helmet had been
ripped; he carried shirt and jacket over his arm--the knuckles of one
hand were bloody.
"Where's the mine?" he bellowed.
"Dunno," said Zinc.
"How many tanks we lost?"
"Where's the mine?"
"Apple?"
"What?"
"Have an apple."
"Can't hear ya."
"Sit down."
"Cigarette?"
"Had to wait ... dangerous..."
Landel appeared, mud on his clothes. Squatting by Zinc, he hollered:
"Get in the bus!"
"Wait?"
"No, get inside!"
"Hell no, let's wait here," Zinc objected.
"All of us inside ... we move!"
"Where?"
Nobody had a chance to hear that directive: a shell exploded: Zinc
dropped his apple, picked it up, and cleaned it warily. Landel and
Dennison settled onto their seats; the heat clamped around them: leaving
the turret open had not cooled the bus.
Dennison had stuffed apples into his pockets ... what were they
expecting, a signal? Landel unfolded his map, he munched an apple
carefully, read his wristwatch, and wiped his face with the back of his
hand. Grease streaked his jaw. He thought it must be blood till he
stared at his fingernails. Sagged in his seat, Dennison saw him bite
the apple, saw him dig grease from under his nails, welcoming this
respite.
It wasn't so long ago Mother and I strolled about Heidelberg ... we had
spent two or three weeks there, boating, climbing, sampling pastries,
sight-seeing.
Munching his apple he began to despise the tank, began to fling his
mind: Landel ... look at him, chewing away on his apple! Damn ass!
In Heidelberg they had strolled along the Neckar, boats and bridges,
chinks of river between trees and houses.
She had sketched a castle that had a heraldic glove chiselled above the
door.
A girl had waited on him in a shop, a slender girl, very blonde, very
blue-eyed: a woman to lie with ...
Dreams ...
A GI brought Landel a message.
He read it and passed it to Dennison.
_Head West. No minefields_.
"I hope they know what they're doin'!" Dennison yelled.
_West_ ... he consulted the compass.
Dennison warmed the motor and chewed an apple and swung 9 west, west
across dry ground, climbing gradually. The treads beat down a hedgerow.
The cab was getting hotter so they stripped and climbed and wormed 9 and
filed through a woodland and crossed a field. The battle swept around
them. Battle without immediate barrage. For Dennison driving became a
matter of mechanical movement, goading of muscle, endurance of heat,
tolerance of gasoline stink, smell of oil and gun powder ...
Dennison was amazed to see a flock of sparrows in a hedgerow.
At the top of a slope he saw Jeannette's face.
What are you doing there?