A Midnight Clear: A Novel (19 page)

“What makes you think Ware or Love is going to take part in this great farce? And the Germans, I can’t see them giving up like that. Besides, no matter what you diplomats plan, Wilkins will never go along with it.”

It’s something we haven’t thought of too much, how to talk Wilkins into this whole scheme. We’re quiet, leaning against the wall, not smoking, mulling this one over. It’s Mel himself who comes up with it.

“We could always have a playoff, like Saturday night bingo, to see who’s this week’s lucky hero. He might go along on that basis. No matter what we play, bridge, poker, chess, tiddlywinks, Wilkins will win. To make sure, the rest of us could play less than our best.”

Shutzer looks at me, winks quickly.

“Hell, Wilkins will win no matter how hard anybody plays. Especially chess. I don’t think he’s ever lost a match, even against Evans in the first squad, and that freak’s a human calculator. I think he sees colors as numbers.”

I look back and forth. Mel and Stan are so different in the way they perceive life and still there’s a strong bond between them. It isn’t Jewishness either; it has something to do with love, not sticky man-to-man love or even brotherly love, but they love themselves, and can let that feeling flow over into other people. I don’t really think Shutzer actually even hates Germans. He only hates what some Germans have been doing, the way Bud hates doing things the wrong way.

They’re waiting for me to say something.

“Well, do we tell Wilkins or not? He’s so nervous he’d never even agree to our going out now to talk with them. He’s convinced we’re surrounded and in some kind of trap.”

 

It’s then I tell Stan and Mel what happened back in the dent at headquarters: the run through the forest and all. I try to tell it straight, without leaving anything out, and still not elaborating. They listen carefully, looking at each other, not believing what I’m saying and at the same time knowing I have no reason to lie. When I’m finished, Stan’s the first to speak.

“I don’t think we should tell him. When we’ve got the Krauts all here, prisoners, then we can have the chess competition playoffs. When we go out to get the Krauts, we leave Wilkins here to guard the château and mind the radio. It’d all be perfectly natural.”

Gordon takes this in his usual way, as if he didn’t hear; no expression on his face.

“I still think we should tell Mother; we’ll have such an advantage and it wouldn’t be fair. But I see what you mean; let’s think about it. For now, if you guys want to take the chance, you’d better dash on out there to see if there really are Germans ‘underneath the lamplight by the village square.’ I’ll keep my ears open and if I hear anything, we’ll come charging out to help. Give two quick shots, count three slowly and fire once more if you need us. OK?”

Shutzer looks at his watch and we both nod. We’re really going to do it.

“If you guys aren’t back by one-thirty, I’ll phone regiment and tell them you went on a recon patrol.”

“Ware’s in a staff meeting. If he calls before we get back, tell him we’re just doing a little reconnaissance-mission-type thing.”

“Right.”

 

Shutzer and I go out the same way we went the first time with Gordon. About two hundred yards from the shack, Shutzer motions me to a fifty-yard interval so I can just see him through the trees. The whole thing is even more spooky than I thought it would be. I’ve been completely conditioned not to trust Germans. I imagine they don’t trust us much either; I don’t think they even respect us; at least, not as soldiers, probably not as anything. I’ve got to say I respect them, at least as soldiers. If there were as many of them as there are of us in this goofy war, I’d hate to think of how it would come out.

Shutzer drops to one knee and stops on the ridgeline where he can see down to the shack. I drop and wait. Then he gives me an OK sign with his thumb and finger, a soft motion forward. He starts slowly over the ridge with his rifle at ready. I move carefully up after him, my rifle ready too, the lock off. At least we learned something from that mad scrabble in the snow.

When I get to the top, sure enough there are two German soldiers standing in the lee of the shed. They look unarmed. One, probably a noncom, probably the one with the Schmeisser the other night, is talking to Shutzer.

Shutzer’s slung his M1 on his shoulder. I let myself down just at the turn of the ridge to stay out of sight. After three or four minutes, Shutzer comes trudging back uphill to me. He’s sweating the way he sweated in that bathroom back in town at Shelby when he was waiting his turn with the girl.

“Well, there they are. The main guy, the noncom, wants to talk with our officer in charge. Between my Yiddish and his German we can get most things across OK.”

“I don’t understand that lingo, Stan. Besides, I don’t have any stripes or anything. He’s never going to believe I’m an officer.”

“Maybe he’s just not happy talking with a Jew, especially about surrendering. Let me go back. I’ll tell him our officer in charge isn’t with us. There’s another guy, a younger one, and I don’t know why, but I think he understands some English. Unless they have side arms or rifles hidden on the other side of the shack, they look unarmed.”

“God, Shutzer! What should we do? Have they said anything about surrendering?”

“Nope. Only the business about wanting to talk to our commanding officer.”

We stand there a minute, thinking it out.

“Look, Won’t, you come down with me. We’ll tell them our officer is back in the château. I’ll translate whatever he says and you try to watch the other Kraut and see if he’s picking up on what we’re saying. You look goy enough; maybe he’ll come out with more if you’re there.”

So we go back down the hill, trying to saunter casually as if this were an everyday thing, talking to Germans. As we get closer, I see they aren’t the ones we saw at the lodge. These must be the ones who jumped us on the hill. The soldier leaning against the shed is smoking a hand-rolled cigarette in yellow paper.

We walk straight up to the one Shutzer’s been talking with. My God, he looks like a German soldier from a Hollywood hate-the-Nazis movie; only worn down, ragged-looking. He’s almost a foot taller than Shutzer with deep-sunken, pale gray eyes. His blond eyebrows are so thick they almost block his vision, he must see the world through a screen of hair. Maybe he combs them down over his eyes so we can’t fathom the devilish torture schemes he has in mind for us.

The skin on his face is tight against bone and there are deep wrinkles, long lines coming down the side of his face from the outside edges of his eyes almost like scars, deep runnels from the sides of his nose to the bottom of his chin. He could be any age from twenty-five to forty. When he opens his mouth, he has a wedge-shaped broken upper front tooth and one eyetooth missing. There’s something of an often beaten club fighter about him. He’s wearing the gray-green field uniform and even in this cold he isn’t wearing an overcoat or a helmet, only an overseas-type field cap, frayed, greasy and fitting tight to his head. I have the feeling he might be mostly bald.

He and Shutzer start talking. They have a hard time getting things across but work it out with hand movements and trying different words. The German has a tendency to repeat a word only louder when Shutzer doesn’t understand, but Shutzer plays it almost like a game of charades, searching for new ways to say what he wants. The Kraut’s pointing to his stripes and the insignia on his shoulder boards. I figure he’s still trying to get in touch with our officer.

Shutzer takes out two packs of four cigarettes, along with some of his inexhaustible matches, and passes them around. The soldier leaning against the shed leaves what must be their hidden cache of weaponry and comes over to take one. Shutzer lights all four cigarettes on one match, even with the wind blowing. We move close against the shack, out of the wind. The other German smiles at me and I smile back.

This one’s younger and his face is white, thin. His eyes are long, dark and wet along the bottom rims, almost as if he’s been crying, or is about to. Wilkins’s eyes are like that sometimes. Both Germans are wearing the usual black leather boots with thick soles and hobnails but these are soaking wet, cracked and worn.

We’re standing there and the first German begins a long speech. It goes on and on. He doesn’t raise his voice or even particularly look at us but goes through his speech as if he has it memorized. We’re almost finished the cigarettes before he shuts up. Shutzer’s been interrupting him at different times when he didn’t understand, so that slows things down, too. Shutzer turns to me.

“OK, I think I’ve got it. First, he wants to talk to our officer. He’s only told us the stuff he’s told me now so our officer will know he’s serious.

“These guys are tired of the war. They’ve been shipped across Germany from the Russian front, where they had the shit kicked out of them. He says the Krauts have started a big, new offensive here on the west, just south of this sector. They’re part of something like a battalion I and R outfit, and they’re all sure the war’s about over. They don’t want to be killed in the last days after getting through five years. He thinks their outfit is going to push off in a day or two and the whole bunch of them don’t want anything to do with it. They’re convinced even if they live through this attack, they’ll probably be sent back to the eastern front. They don’t want to be captured by Russians.”

“Did he actually say they want to surrender?”

“Not in so many words, but that seems to be the gist of it. He keeps wanting to talk with our commanding officer. I explained we only have a noncom like him with us. He says that’s good enough. There are seven of them all together.”

“What do you think, Stan?”

“Well, we can always go back to the squad and talk it over. I’ll tell him we’re checking with our commanding officer.”

“OK, you do that.”

The Germans are standing there during this. They’re on second cigarettes Shutzer gave them. The noncom takes a last deep drag, then grinds out his cigarette in the snow with the heel of his boot. Shutzer begins yakking away. I watch the other one; I still can’t tell anything. It doesn’t even sound like Shutzer talking when he spouts the Yiddish; it’s more singing, rolling sounds. In English, Shutzer talks in quick spurts, almost as if he can’t get his tongue to go fast as his mind. He comes back to me.

“OK, we’re on. I told him we’ll bring our commanding officer here the day after tomorrow at ten a.m. Wait a minute till I check that time again.”

Stan goes back and gabs a few more minutes.

“That’s right, ten o’clock, with our officer, right here, day after tomorrow. He wants it to be tomorrow but we’ve got to work this out.”

The Germans have already started back up the hill. I didn’t see from where, but they’ve picked up a Mauser and the Schmeisser. The younger one turns, waves, smiles as they go. Stan and I turn and go back the way we came.

“What’re we going to do for an officer, Stan; bring Ware out here?”

“Don’t be crazy. We’ve got the most perfect officer type in our own squad, better than the whole German Army can produce. They’ll come crawling in on their bellies when they meet our officer.”

“Miller?”

“Of course. Who else?”

 

When we get back, it’s just lucky Wilkins is on guard. I guess they had to wrestle him out of his attic. I call everybody together and Shutzer explains what’s been going on. Miller butts in.

“You mean you guys’ve been out there in the bushes talking with Germans?”

“Drinking beer, eating pretzels and dill pickles, out there under the old
Tannenbaums.
Yes, sir, Buddy boy.”

Mundy keeps shaking his head and smiling all through Shutzer’s spiel.

“You guys are crazy, but what a terrific chance. Imagine Wilkins with medals all over his chest. He can have a Silver Star for the top of his Christmas tree. Far as I’m concerned, he’s been overdue for a medal since he climbed over Hunt in the barracks that day. God rest his soul.”

“You mean Hunt’s soul, Mundy? Hunt didn’t have any soul. He was heel solid through.”

“OK, Shutzer, sorry I mentioned it. There’s no sense talking against the dead.”

Mundy blesses himself.

We push the idea around for ten or fifteen minutes. Everybody has wild fantasies about Wilkins capturing the prisoners. If we’re not careful, we’ll be writing a novel to include everything. We can call it
All Cuckoo on the Western Front.

“And, Miller, you’ll be our commanding officer. There never was and there never is going to be an officer like you.”

“Fuzz that. You’re the one, Won’t. You get the extra pay, you be the officer.”

“Come on, Miller,” Shutzer butts in and saves me. “No Kraut’s ever going to believe a hundred-thirty-pound weakling like Won’t is an officer. Besides, he has brown eyes. You can’t have brown eyes and be an officer. You’re the only logical candidate.”

“How about Mundy; he’s big and tall, sort of soft like an officer. Besides, he’s older. I’m too young.”

“Damn it, Miller. You’re not young; you were born old, came into this world checking the doctor’s instruments, telling him how to hold the forceps.”

“Then what’s wrong with you, Gordon? You’re tall enough and you have that Buddha shit-eating smile all the time. You look like the natural leader type; besides, you have corporal stripes in your pocket. I saw them fall out once while you were unhooking grenades. Stop hiding your light under a bushel basket man; be proud, strut a little, maybe even get a swagger stick.”

“Listen, Miller. Those Germans have Jews like me worked out to the ‘J.’ They have pictures, maps, diagrams spread all over Germany: Jewish noses, Jewish lips, Jewish eyes, Jewish ways of talking, walking, spitting, combing hair, tying shoes. Any Kraut worth two cents would see through me in twenty seconds. No, you’re our only pure Aryan type. You’re elected commander-in-chief by acclamation.”