He braked.
Dead Nazis lay in front, their bodies in a clot of equipment: they were
sprawled in a maw of bicycles, smashed machine guns, duffle, rifles,
coils of telephone wire, helmets.
Dennison remembered that their infantry had fought here yesterday. Last
night's rain had soaked the dead men ... their bodies were sinking into
the ground, into weeds and grass.
They blurred as he jazzed 9.
A saddle sloped below the tank and he nosed the bus along it seeing a
machine gun emplacement on the next crest, its sandbagged front standing
out. Dennison signalled Landel and Landel loaded his gun, swaying,
grabbing for handholds, helmet slipping.
For a dozen yards the slope was easy going: it seemed to be sod all the
way: then the ground leveled to a sort of pasture, oddly green,
brilliantly green: vaguely, Dennison tried to figure out why the green
was different: his brain was too tired to register. Green snagged at
the treads and then he caught the flash of water; before he could
swerve, before he could brake, he felt 9 sink.
No amount of power budged her.
Cleverness at the controls meant nothing: he reversed both treads, tried
the port tread, tried the starboard tread, 9 bogged deeper and deeper.
They were trapped in a runoff, a swampy catch basin--mud and water under
tractionless treads. Sweat poured down Dennison's face and he wiped it
from his eyes, scrutinizing Landel, aware now that Landel had been
yelling at him as he struggled to extricate 9.
"God," he groaned, "we're stuck, sure as hell."
_Stop_, Landel signalled.
Grabbing a note, Dennison wrote:
_Motor overheated_
Landel scribbled:
_Don't leave tank. Intercom out_.
As he read the scrawl, Dennison thought he would rush outside: Landel's
grey face and jittery scrawl maddened him; he thought angrily: we can't
crawl out of here--we'll die in this hole. Then he recalled the machine
gun emplacement above them.
He wiped his face--waited.
Bullets ripped across 9's cab: they crawled and re-crawled over the
armor plating. Battening their ports they checked their ammunition,
checked the fan, checked the turret bolts.
In a short time Landel returned their gunfire, using all of his skill:
he lobbed four single shots, waited.
Dennison stumbled to the rear to urinate.
He bumped against Zinc who was clinging to his gun, blacked out: their
half-naked bodies slapped. Locating their canteen, Dennison passed it
to Zinc who drank, canteen tipped up, his eyes shut. Shoving Zinc into
the driving seat, he took over his gun.
How good to stand up. Yet he had to fight off sleep. Swaying against
the machine gun butt he drowsed, trusting Landel, Captain Fred Landel.
If the bastards unlimbered an anti-tank gun or hurled grenades or
mounted a flame thrower! If!
Probably the Nazis were trapped in their own emplacement.
Let somebody else wipe them out!
Anyhow, 9's beat. Battery weak.
Maybe another tank could drag her free.
Maybe ... a requiem of shells!
Tonight ... what time was it?
Tonight was a long way off.
He shivered and drowsed. Sleepily, he fingered his automatic, and found
its steel warm.
... Bretten's bombardment seemed to be going on and on.
... The clock tower was still exploding.
... His world shifted, perception by perception.
... Christ, it had been a tussle, piloting the tank to the Roer River:
debris: men and trucks: fog along the river: mental fog: like London
fog: walked and walked in the fog: that was in Tunbridge (or was it
Tunbridge?): that was the night he had slept with Raymonde: the hearth
in her room had a Solomon's seal on each tile: they had talked and
talked: warm: warmth of her body: nice little breasts: nice and warm:
warm covers: Raymonde very tired: warm ...
... Strange--that hammering sound: mortar shells?
... Strange, Zinc asleep.
... Strange, to be an Ithacan!
He woke when a shell rocked the tank. He shouted.
He felt inside the stomach of death. When could they crawl out?
Another shell whined. His throat tightened. He felt cold and buttoned
his shirt and zippered his jacket and licked his lips and listened: was
Landel shouting? Was it dark outside? It seemed to him that 9's motor
was running. Bending over Zinc, he tested the switches. No, the motor
was not running. Zinc was asleep.
Fumbling about, reaching for Dennison, Landel pulled him close and
yelled:
"No ... they'll shoot you down."
"You stay ... try the radio ... I get nothing ... stay."
The flesh under Landel's eyes was quivering.
He realized he could not weather out their rescue: frantically, he
clawed at the jacket: an hour, another hour.
"I'll make it ... get help. Fire my gun!"
"Hell, they'll cut you down."
"No ... they don't return my gunfire ... when I fire ... nothin!"
"A trick," Dennison warned.
"No," Landel said
"Hell," Dennison yelled.
Landel was gone.
Dennison lined up the emplacement, arching and depressing the gun
accurately: there was no return fire when he fired. He fired again.
Five minutes. Ten. No return fire.
Perhaps Landel had made it by now.
Dennison eased into the seat, wondering about Zinc.
He was still asleep; his sleeping face was repulsive; his warped body,
his jockey body, was repulsive.
Eyes on the emplacement, he studied its arrangement of sandbags, ripped
off branches, wilted and shredded leaves: he estimated that four or five
men had done the job: why had they selected this location? The
emplacement looked old, a week, a month. Some sort of rear guard. They
could have depleted their stock of ammunition. They could have
retreated.
He slept.
Zinc woke.
He fished in his pocket for an apple and ate it. Somewhere they had
K-rations on board. Without lighting the cab (it was dark now), he
brought out the rations and the canteen. They ate and slept. Fired guns
and ate. Cheese, K, chocolate bars. Without tasting anything they ate
everything. The radio was out because the battery was low. Water was
oozing over the floor: the bus had sunk that far. They had to sit with
their shoes on the dash or on the walls of the tank. As their hearing
returned to normal they talked a little. It seemed to them that the
radium hands of the chronometer were glued to the dial.
There was no shelling except in the distance.
It was colder.
Raising his jacket collar, Zinc thought of home: home and steam
radiators, his dad smoking his pipe, the neighbor kids ... yeah, they
poked fun at my hair ... Red ... Red ... banter across his dad's grocery
counter ... why you little Jew pissant, how the hell are you? Heah,
runt, reach me a box of saltine crackers ... no not that size ... the
giant one....
At school they pestered him, name, age, color of hair ... His dad had
said, over and over, get yourself a job, boy, the sooner the better.
Life had been stupid until Millie came along, Millie and his boat.
Millie wouldn't fail him: her letters (he tapped his pocket), kept him
going.
Eyes on his machine gun slot, he mouthed chocolate and it adhered to his
teeth and stuck between them and clotted his palate (the bar had threads
on it from his pocket); he tongued the piece down with a sticky tongue.
He imagined himself thumbing a magazine, the fold-out of a naked girl:
someday, soon, he'd have time to read the Sunday comics; someday he'd
find a 32-footer in the classifieds, Buick engine, cabin good condition,
sleeps 4, galley, 2-way radio--terms ... a price he could afford ...
someday he'd open a deli and make damn good money.
Somehow the lull in the shelling became threatening: it was ugly, heavy,
a part of the armor plate, part of the menace of the emplacement.
Dennison hunched his legs, unzippered his trousers, and picked lice from
among his hairs. He searched with the help of his flash. On his belly
the engine scar seemed to have a thicker scab; he tested the scab and
scratched it soothingly.
He wanted to masturbate but something prevented him, perhaps the eye of
the compass. He swayed, let himself sag, when he shoved back against
the cushion the bent spring bothered him.
Apple cores floated on the water.
Change, that was it: war was change, if nothing else, the slap of rain,
slug of wind, whistle of death. Fear had its changes too. Fear was
possessive. Then change was possessive. Change ... you ate and slept
and that was change.
Your scrotum shrank between your legs. Another change. Your genitals
crawled inside your body. Your penis crawled in. Sometimes shellfire
drove them in, penis and scrotum.
Sanctuary.
Abruptly, clearly, Jeannette spoke to him: "Orv, don't stare at the
floor like that ... turn out your flash ... you've got to get out of
that bus ... crawl out ... tell Zinc ... both of you have to leave ...
do something about getting out ... get up..."
He dragged himself to the engine and leaned against it.
Can't stay here ... move!
Eyes to the periscope he submerged: below surface he observed his mother
painting a watercolor, a stand of trees along the Nile, brilliant green
against brilliant sun on the river: The torpedo raced toward Persepolis,
sand, Persian sand, sun, flies, flies on the ruined city, flies in the
shah's palace: another ruin to the starboard: flies on our food: the
dune moved: this was Notre Dame, its buttresses bombed, water high along
the apse: wasn't that bell from Claude Debussy's music?
Water had flooded the Louvre, or was it the bombings that had wrecked
the building? Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa lay on the floor. Gold was
washing over the frame: if he hurried he might save the painting. Save?
How?
Hunkered over, cold, he felt he had been isolated for years: everywhere
was the impenetrable: dazed, he sagged against the wall; then, peering
out, he realized the sky was a flame above the emplacement. So Bretten
was burning. Shelling grew distinct. Burning clouds seemed to be
approaching.
Dennison regarded the sand bags for a long time.
"They're gone," he said to Zinc, hand on his shoulder.
"There's nobody up there. See. Look. Nothing. See in the light from
the sky, nothing. Landel ran for it. He got away. Come on ... let's
get out of this mess..."
Through wavering light from the town and the clouds he thought he saw
somebody stumbling toward 9.
"Zinc, look, somebody's coming."
"Where?"
"It's Landel."
They waited, waited.
It was nobody and Zinc sank into pain. Dennison lit his flash and
fumbled about for their canteen. Shaking its near-emptiness, he drank,
then pushed it at Zinc, who drained it.
"Bah, it tastes bad."
"Let's go."
"Where?" Zinc asked.
"Look at the sky ... there's light enough for us to see ... Bretten's
done for..."
"What about Landel?" Zinc asked.
"Hell with him!"
"Then, let's go."
He found his flash; the canteen was floating on the tank floor, cap off;
Dennison unbolted the turret; as he spun a bolt he felt for his
automatic; leaning down he yelled at Zinc:
"Have we any grenades?"
"No grenades."
Outside, in the protection of the tank, they saw that their shovels were
still wired to the cab. They thought of putting the bus in action.
Could be safer than wandering. What about the battery? Gas but not
enough juice. Splashing in water they walked a few steps.
"Hopeless," said Dennison.
"Leave the damn thing."
Crewmen appeared--stepped out of the dark, the sky coloration on their
helmets: there appeared to be eight or ten, plastered with mud, sopping,
their flashlights hooded. A guy loosened his helmet strap and said:
"I'm Captain Kernie. You two alone?"
"Bogged down ... our bus..."
"No battery power," said Dennison.
"Gas?"
"Yeah, we lost two tanks ... nearby ... hey, Walt, get a battery ... get
Mack to help you ... bring a battery ... we'll put this bus back in
action..."
"Captain went for help, hours ago," Dennison said.
"What about the machine gun emplacement?" Zinc asked.
"My guys wiped it out ... crew's dead," said Kernie.
"Good."
"There's timber ... logs ... by the woods ... We'll put your bus on
rollers ... have her out in no time."
Zinc unwired a shovel.
"We're in luck," said Dennison mournfully.
Light crept over Kernie's face, then face and light went. His men
placed scraps, logs, branches, replaced the battery, the engine fired.
Cab light went on. Zinc reloaded his gun--sleep at his elbows.
9 backfired, rocked, rolled, apple cores bobbed on the floor, floated
toward the rear. Easing the bus forward, on a rise, the water began to
drain. Someone in Kernie's gang banged on the driving port.
Dennison worked her to the starboard, slipping, slipping; but she began
to climb, stuck, climbed. With a wild teetering the treads grabbed and
rolled away, rolled steadily downhill, to solid ground. Kernie and his
crewmen had melted away.
Zinc stood beside Dennison.
He mopped the periscope with a rag.
In the cab light, dial light, they smiled at each other.
The down terrain held tough: the land had been tilled but was sodded: 9
rolled through a maze of vineyards and truck gardens. When a hedgerow
blocked their way, Dennison sliced through it, slewing. He followed the
remains of a paved road. Smoke mushroomed. Instinctively, he wobbled
the tank. A shell hole gaped. Then another. A shell careened,
spraying shrapnel. The cushion crushed against Dennison's testicles and
pain tore through his body and magnified the roar of the engine and the
treads. Nauseated, he could not see: blobs shook in his brain. Bending
over, he closed the ignition.
A shell threw dirt and rocks onto 9.
Mouth open, both waited, clinging to their seats.
Another shell whined, then became a rumble.
His will drained from him: the nerves in his arms and hands ached: he
tried to talk to himself as earth spouted over the port side, another
shell at the rear. Something rattled and clanged. Light spat: every
aperture admitted flame: it glazed their hands, their faces, the walls,
the instruments. Shrapnel pounded blows.
Recoiling, Zinc's brain slid in on itself, whimpering, grimacing like a
monkey, something Neanderthalic: he doubled up on the floor by the
engine, head on his arms, legs jerking: death was here!
Dennison jabbed his hands into his stomach: Christ, not to vomit.
Opening his mouth over and over, he tried to lessen the concussions.
Why can't it stop? Stop ... yes ... this muck ... those arms in the
sand, those flies on Robinson's arms ... dust, all that heat, arms,
hands, wrists, arms ... we got away ... we got away ... got to get away
from this ... I'm comin, back, Jean ... I'm going mad, Chuck and I.
"No, Zinc, I'm all right. Okay, the shelling's stopped ... I'll drive
... we'll make it out of this!"
What, what was this?
It was Paris ... and they were stripping her in the street, the
beautiful Princesse de Lamballe ... they were hacking off her breasts
... they were hacking off her legs ... Do you speak French? May I help
you, mademoiselle? Long live the guillotine! _Vive la revolution!_
Dennison saw his dad lying on the floor of his little Renault: he was
seriously wounded: nobody was helping him: his tank lay on its side.
Dennison was urinating on the floor.
He would not drive the tank again: he would refuse to drive any tank:
what could they do? They could do their damnedest and he would go AWOL.
But now, now the shelling had stopped, just cut itself off, leaving a
ditch of silence.
He tried to figure out the cessation: it seemed to him it was his duty
to figure it out: he must unravel enigmas, supply answers. That was what
life was for.
The bent springs in the cushion bored into his back and he leaned
forward and wet his lips with his tongue. Fingers and arms trembling,
he cupped his head in his hands, closed his eyes.
Miraculously--he felt he was a boy, playing the game he used to play,
playing soldiers on the living room floor: he had his troop in line and
rolled something against them and they reeled and fell, the entire line
fell.
And something else: the half-frozen needle of a phonograph was spinning
music for their skating on Beebe Lake, light-hearted music. The chimes
of the library tower struck ten o'clock in solemn notes. A girl was
skating with him, Cathy Bowers: her slip-on sweater hugged her, they
hugged each other, circling the lake quickly, their skates scraping
softly.
But it was over ...
The barrage was over; yet he could not stir; he began to count the
minutes on the chronometer; the greenish face of the chronometer was
trying to say something; he inched forward a little, inched more, pushed
the brake lever. Presently, he considered all of the dials:
Got to check, got to see where the shell hit us, got to estimate ...
estimate the damage ... got to climb out ... put on my flash ... climb
...
He signalled Zinc with his flash; Zinc responded; together they left the
bus, the air acrid with smoke, as if burned in a filthy oven, raw with
slugged mud.
At the bow, with dimmed lights, they stooped over the starboard tread.
Then the port tread. Plates had been torn out and the entire tread had
been folded back like a strip of hide: there was no power there: they
could do nothing to restore mobility.
Dennison motioned Zinc inside the cab.
"I'll destroy our maps," he said.
"What? Couldn't hear you."
He could not repeat himself.
Risking interior lights, he gathered the maps, ripped them into shreds,
tramped them underfoot. Thinking of clips for his automatic he shoved
them into his pocket. His helmet. Jacket. Was that all? No canteen?
No thermos? No apples?
"Okay," he said.
"The ammunition," Zinc yelled.
"Leave it."
"Not much ... outside."
He hurled his belts; Dennison threw out Landel's shells; the floor was a
mess of sludge and they slipped as they worked.
"Put out the lights."
"Lights out."
Behind the bus they crouched down for cigarettes: as Zinc lit his fag
something expanded inside him: a vague, battered sense of freedom:
freedom? He wasn't sure what kind it might be. He sucked in smoke,
looked up: something was there?
Dennison felt no loss: he had had enough of 9: enough, enough, that
thought continued as they slogged down a slope: he was sorry for his
Isaac Jacobs, so small, so vulnerable: he led him across barren fields,
toward the Roer, expecting shellfire, expecting death.
It was a long way to the Roer River, black-walking. They had to avoid
corpses, had to avoid barbed wire, shell holes: their dimmed lights were
sometimes useless. They thought they remembered a farm house and argued
about it, then stumbled on, uncertain. Seeing lights they became more
cautious, stopping, waiting, listening. MP's challenged them, and one
of them acted as guide to the remnants of their division.
Men from the Corps had bedded down in a barn; they might be crowded
there; somebody suggested the country church: there was room at the
rear: shellfire had blasted the small, gothic thing: its altar was a
contrivance of boards and tarp and cross. They entered through a gaping
wall. Windows of antique glass remained: blue, rose, yellow, mauve
against the night. Both stopped to see leaded glass on bits of steel.
Dennison recognized Landel, woebegone on a pew, his head and neck
bandaged, face drawn, hand to his mouth, his beard peppered with grey.
A medic was adjusting his neck bandage, talking.
Dennison had hoped Landel was dead.
He refrained from speaking to him: motionless, wanting to sit or lie
down, he rubbed his hands over his jacket, unsteady, hating his grime:
he smelt his own stench: he craved a drink. Zinc, too, hesitated, ready
to buckle from fatigue.
GI's sprawled on pews, lay in the aisles, sat on the altar platform:
they were sleeping, eating, talking, smoking, bedding down. The
beautiful window had died. Coleman lanterns sputtered on tables, pews,
ledges. Dennison and Zinc headed for the altar where there seemed to be
space to lie down. Before they could reach it, Fred Landel saw them,
approached them.
"Hey, you guys!" he shouted, his neck injury paining him. "What's eating
you? How'd you make out?"
Zinc faced about, without a word, helmetless, his filthy face and
clothes a little dirtier than most of the others.
Dennison looked at Landel scornfully.
Landel's eyes were bloodshot; he, too, was filthy, mud-spattered; he
raised an arm, stopped, resentful of his crewmen, aware, by their
attitudes, they had marked him off.
"Couldn't find help ... shrapnel hit me..." Why should I make excuses:
can't they see? "What happened to 9?"
"Tank's done for," Dennison yelled.
"You guys just walk off and leave it?"
"Naw, we put it in mothballs!" Zinc cracked.
Landel took a long look at him.
"Shell hit us ... we lost a tread," said Dennison.
"Lost a tread," Zinc repeated, smiling, knowing that sleep was going to
knock him out at any moment.
"I'll get us another machine," Landel yelled.
Pain was flashing through his head; he walked to a pew and sank down on
it, moaning. Far off, he heard Dennison say something about getting
washed, getting something to eat, Landel wasn't sure.
Okay ... okay ... am I crackin' up? There were slits in the floor,
cracks, slits ... a cockroach was busy ... there had been swarms of
cockroaches in Panama, cockroaches, fever, heat. Arm hooked over his
eyes, lying on the pew, he sank into a fitful sleep.
Dennison and Zinc found a wash basin and some soap, and then ate, ate
without exchanging a word, nine of them at a table made out of a door,
an army cook doling grub: the men humped over their food, jaws
mechanical: stew ... canned peaches ... bread ... coffee.
Dennison hoped that food would stop a cramp in his belly. His eyes
fixed on a fork: it seemed to him that the tines were moving, the handle
was forming a half circle. Something peeled off in his mind: he felt he
was at home: the fork had a "D" on it: Mama was humming in the kitchen:
there were candles on their dining table: he felt about in his pocket
for a pack of matches to light them.
More GI's jammed the church, most of them yammering for food.
"Jesus Chriz ... if it ain't Dennison! Hiya!"
"Hi, Pete ... Hi, Vic ... ,"
Pete and Vic were tankmen out of Sherman 446, grizzled, smiling, punch
drunk; they had participated in attacks with Dennison, always helpful:
both were New Yorkers, Vic had been a physics major at NYU, Pete was a
cutter, in a suit shop, in Harlem.
"How did you guys make out?" Pete asked.
"We lost our bus."
"9?"
"Yeah." Dennison was biting a section of a peach.
"What's news about the minefield?" Zinc asked.
"We lost twenty-three," said Vic, squeezing himself in at the table.
"Twenty-three tanks?" yelled Dennison.
"Twenty-three men," Vic said. "Wounded ... dead ... don't know how
many..." Elbows on the table he covered his face with his hands. Near
him a pot of stew was puffing.
"It's been a hell of a day!" said Pete, standing behind Dennison. "They
had their minefield planned ... they know they're licked but they make
us fight on and on. Dumb. All that waste of life." He picked his nose
mournfully, his bleary eyes on the crowded church, the milling GI's, the
men at the door-table.
"Bretten's ours," said a lieutenant at the table. "We took it a couple
hours ago."
"Will there be street fighting?" someone asked.
"I don't know."
"Jus' lemme sleep," said Zinc, liking his cup of coffee. God, it smelled
good.
"The Germans are burning their towns as they retreat," someone said.
"We've got them on the run!" said Vic.
Vic and Pete ate, others left the table, an officer was asleep over his
food; medics sat down, complaining of lack of supplies.
Dennison and Zinc bedded down on hay and straw, a light from a Coleman
somewhere in the distance, Red Cross men aiding the wounded, a GI on
guard, in case of fire. Soon every sag in the hay and straw slept a
man. A sergeant had his bazooka beside him. Someone, screwed up in his
fatigues, curled up tight as a ball, had a puppy in his arms.
There was no such thing as a peaceful interval: men came and went
throughout the night: a wounded man died: a patrol was lugged in on a
stretcher: doctors whispered and hovered: toward morning there was a
lull and during that lull water began to spread throughout the church.
Someone thought it was the rain ... but it was not raining. The fire
guard saw straw drifting on the water, then he observed a man's boot
floating by: getting up he splashed about, mumbling, asking questions,
mumbling:
"Lie still over there ... I'll find out what's wrong ... no, it ain't
rainin' ... maybe it poured somewhere nearby ... sure a lot a water
comin' in from somewhere..."
With his flash he waded outside: water had inundated the yard in front
of the church and it seemed to be inches deep: as the guard stood on the
lowest step a GI splashed by, with a lantern, rifle crooked in his arm.
"Heh, what's up?"
"River's flooding," the GI bellowed.
Someone with a racking cough warned the guard the Roer was rising
rapidly: Nazi's are flooding us out. Inside the church the guard began
waking men, asking everyone to spread the word: already the water was
ankle deep. The wounded had to be shifted at once. Lights and
flashlights took over. All of the pews had water around them.
The general hubbub woke Dennison.
"We're being flooded out," someone explained.
Dennison woke Zinc.
Grabbing his shoes and jacket, he scrambled higher on the pile of straw
and hay; putting on his shoes he hollered at the men around him.
"Where do we go?"
"Outside."
"What for?"
"Everybody out!"
"Almost dawn."
"Yeah, gettin' light."
Dennison spotted Landel and waded across flooded straw to wake him: he
woke with a groan and grabbed at his head and neck.
"We're being flooded ... it's the Nazis ... they've opened steel flood
gates up the river ... the Roer's flooding ... it's on the radio,"
Dennison shouted.
Icy water eddied about Landel's pew where other men lay: the swift
moving water carried straw, hay, a man's jacket, wood chips, towels,
bandages.
"Too many flashlights!" somebody yelled.
"Douse the lights!"
"Give a guy a chance!"
"There's a hill behind the church ... everybody's going there!"
Men were evacuating GI's on stretchers.
Outside, it was cold but windless, the stars were numerous around a new
moon. A jeep soused through the rising flood, its black-out lights
weak. Shelling had resumed but it was in the distance. Lights
flickered behind the ruined church: at the rear of the building a truck
was loading wounded.
Dennison returned to the church to aid a wounded youngster who had a
serious stomach laceration: he got him a new blanket, water, and found
him an orderly ...
" ... got hit at a minefield ... got me bad ... Eeee ... not hard, Doc.
Not so hard, like ... Eeee..."
The orderly very abrupt, very savage, told the tanker to shut up, lie
down.
The fellow stared at Dennison and then at the medic: he stared beardedly
at the ceiling as the doctor gave him an injection: he had the face of
someone who had suffered malnutrition most of his life.
"See if you can get him into a truck or ambulance," the doctor
suggested, limping off through the icy water.
Dennison secured stretcher bearers.
Landel had disappeared. Zinc was nowhere. Someone squawked a
walkie-talkie and the two-way sputtering began as officers conferred by
the tarpaulined altar, water already at the steps; all lights had
dimmed; it was almost day.
Going outside to piss, Dennison heard a puppy whimpering; at first he
could not see it, then there it was, at his feet, padding through muck.
Lifting it, he recognized it as the stray the officer had been holding.
The collie pup's belly and paws were cold; it cried and snuggled;
Dennison popped it underneath his jacket. He was comforting it when
Zinc tapped him on the arm.
" ... Radio says that sluice gates on the Roer were opened during the
night ... our whole area is flooded ... hell ... You an' me an' Landel
are to transport wounded guys in a Lee." Zinc was playing with the
pup's ears. "Where'd you pick up this lil guy?"
"Here ... in the water."
"Whatcha gonna do with him?"
"Stash him in the church ... leave him..."
"The river's a mile or two wide in places," Zinc said.
"Do you know where the tank is--the one we're to use?"
"Sure ... I know."
"Let's go," Dennison said. Reentering the church, he placed the pup on
a pew. "Gotta go, old boy ... gotta go ... just stay there and yelp."
A lingering glance at the antique windows, then he followed Zinc toward
the hill behind the church: a ditch drenched them to the knees:
swearing, they floundered ahead, past a group of tanks, to the Lee,
higher on the slope, out of the menacing flood water.
"That's her!" Zinc yelled.
"Okay."
Fred Landel was inside, in the driver's seat, warming the motor: the cab
was jammed with wounded, some standing, leaning against walls, some on
the floor, huddled against each other.
"Where do we go?" Dennison asked Landel, mouth to his ear.
"You drive!" said Landel. "We go to Gex ... I have the map ... I know
the route ... take a long look at those red lines; let's pull out of
this goddamn place ... lights out ... we leave the wounded at a Red
Cross station ... (he jabbed the map with his forefinger) ... I'll let
you know ... sit down ... check the dials ... lights out ... this bus
has had it rough..."
As they got rolling, the sunlight was filtering, but the clouds were
thick and seemed on the verge of blanketing the sun. Dennison drove
carefully, trying to familiarize himself with the Lee: he had piloted
others but this one was different and he wanted to work out any
differences; the engine power, the tread maneuverability, gear shift,
traction, carburetion? He had tried to memorize the route and compelled
his mind to re-establish landmarks.
God, it was raining!
Rain and more mud, lousy traction, anything to foul us up! The Lee was
climbing a slope, doing well: no flooding here. Beyond this slope there
was supposed to be a road; he was to follow that paved road, toward Gex.
Yeah, there it was ... a road, trees, fences, farms in the distance.
"You'll have to help me," a fellow screamed, grabbing at Dennison's leg.
"It's my knee ... shrapnel ... Aaah-hhh!" Pain-sobs gushed out of him
as he pawed at Dennison. Dennison slowed and stopped the tank.
"Let me see your knee," he yelled.
His kneecap was dangling, bleeding: Dennison and Landel could do no more
than press it into position, re-bandage. Dennison crouched beside him,
using his flashlight: again and again he was aware of leaves, leaves and
sunlight: he was not sure where. The GI was sobbing.
A Red Cross official beat on the forward door; Landel admitted him;
somehow he managed to find room, his face rain streaked, satchel in his
arms, a bayou figure: the gaze fixed on some everglade of the mind.
_Okay_, Landel signalled.
_Okay_.
Landel felt the jolting of the bus: pain, from his neck wound, was
beating through him.
"Where?" the Red Cross man asked.
"Gex."
The Lee crawled by a winery, a bombed complex, dinosaur ribs of
buildings, passed rows of barrels, tall grass waving in the rain: some
of the barrels were moulded: the road curved in a long curve; there, at
the apex of the curve, was the Red Cross station, aerial designation and
the familiar flag. No one appeared.
An ambulance had a jack under its differential.
Landel, Zinc and Dennison assisted the wounded; they climbed out; Landel
climbed back into heat, began checking their armament, began arming his
gun.
Dennison glared numbly at a strip of black sky as he drove away. Zinc
fussed about with his gun, pleased that he had space to move around.
Landel, making every effort to shake his pain, hanging to the sides of
his seat, was remembering Panama, nights of pleasantry, dancing, _Cuba
Libres_, marimbas, time, that was the time, time for a cigarette, time
for a drink.
A shell boomed in front.
Widening his ports, Dennison observed a Sherman ejecting shoelaces of
black smoke; as he drew nearer flames spouted and enveloped the tank
completely.
_Go on_, came the signal.
Dennison leaned back in his seat and wet his lips with his tongue ...
destroy ... shall we destroy?