Second Generation (60 page)

He paused and Barbara waited. "Go on," Barbara said.

"Hell, Barbara, do I have to spell it out? We're not kids, either of us. You've been around."

Barbara regarded him thoughtfully. "What you're saying, Colonel, is that you'd like to fuck me, and if I go along with that, you'll let the kid off."

"You're putting it damn bluntly. I wouldn't use that language to a woman."

"That's commendable delicacy on your part. Are you married, Colonel?"

"Look, Barbara, I put it on the line. Because you struck
^m
e as a woman who knows the ropes. You're asking me
^to
stick my neck out. Well, quid pro quo, as they say."

Barbara smiled. "Or tit for tat, as they also say. I'll tell you what, Colonel. Here's a counteroffer. I'll stay here an extra day. If the charges against Polchek are dropped tomorrow, I won't write an absolutely fascinating story, namely, how a colonel in the United States Army offered a deal, a boy's life for a night in bed."

"You wouldn't!"

"Why not?"

"Your paper wouldn't dare print it."

"You don't know the
Chronicle."

"I'd sue them for their last cent."

"I bet you wouldn't."

"What the hell kind of a bitch are you?"

"That kind," Barbara agreed. She poured brandy into the colonel's glass. "Have another drink." She smiled at him. "Come on, Oswald, you tried and you lost. A man can do no more."

He sipped the brandy and began to grin. "God damn it, I'm beginning to like you."

"And the kid gets off?"

"No deals. I'll bust my ass to get him off. How about your giving me a break?"

Barbara shook her head. "It wouldn't work. It just wouldn't work at all. We'll just sit here and chat while you finish the cigar and the brandy—and then off you go."

A half-hour later, Barbara steered him to the door, kissed him on his pink cheek, and saw him stagger uncertainly down the hallway. The following day the charges against Private Polchek were dropped, and the day after that Barbara left Cairo on the first leg of her journey home. Colonel Ormsbey saw her to the airport, and she kissed the pink cheek for a second time. "You're a good man, Oswald," she told him.

"If you're ever in Omaha?"

"Absolutely, if I'm ever in Omaha."

At about seven o'clock in the morning, on the sixth of June, Captain Adam Levy leaped into the water off an LST, which stands for Landing Ship, Tanks, and moved in toward the beach. His first impression was the shock of the icy cold water; then he almost fell, telling himself, "Damnit, don't fall. You'll freeze." He was very frightened, but the thought of freezing took his mind off it, and because he felt impelled to do something other than stagger through the cold water, he shouted for his platoon leaders to stay in touch with him. A fleeting thought informed him that he himself could not hear his own voice, so how could anyone else hear it? No one had warned him that he would not be able to hear his own voice. They never briefed you on things like that. The reason was not only the thunderous bombardment from the ships offshore, but the roar of the surf and the howling of the wind. Strangely, there were concrete blocks sticking out of the water. He didn't know what those were, either.

He saw a man on his right go down, thinking, He must have slipped. Or could it be gunfire from the beach? He had no sense of gunfire, and afterward he thought about that man and wondered whether he had been shot and had fallen dead in the water before they ever reached the beach. The thought of death in the cold water horrified him, even though it couldn't be any worse' than death on dry land.

A minute or so later he was on the beach himself, slopping through the lacy foam and yelling for his platoon leaders again. Adam had come to learn the art of swearing in the army and he had embraced it. That was the result of early deprivation; his mother, Clair, had spent her childhood on lumber ships on the California redwood coast, and she had learned to swear like a trooper at a very early age. The result was that she became an absolute martinet with her children when it came to foul language; and now Adam, a late starter, was shouting, "Califino, you mother-fucking second-rate sonofabitch, where the hell are you?"

"Here, Captain." The voice was in his ear. Califino was right behind him.

"For Christ's sake, Lieutenant, get them up!" Adam yelled, pointing to where the men in his company had flung themselves onto the wet sand, the tide wash slopping over them. "Get them up! Prinsky!" Sergeant Prinsky was crouching, a few feet away. "Prinsky, get them up on the beach!"

Califino, big, heavy, phlegmatic, pulled Adam down onto the sand and spoke into his ear, "You got to stop shouting, Captain. Voice goes. Sore throat."

"Where's Meyers?" Lieutenant Meyers was his other platoon leader.

"God knows. I don't see him."

"Thing is, we got to get them up the beach."

"How far?"

"Make it a hundred yards. We'll try to group there and dig in. Take the right; I'll take the left."

Adam ran down to the left, stooping, kicking the men, "Up the beach! A hundred yards!" The first dead man he saw was Oppenheim. He lay on his back, a bullethole in his head, grinning stupidly. It was his first real comprehension that they were being fired upon, and it came as a shock. Sergeant Duggan rolled over to stare at him and pointed to where small-arms fire was kicking up the sand. Adam squatted. "This is the worst damn place," he said to Duggan. "This is a shithole. Come on, Duggan. Get your guys up there. Up there, a hundred yards."

Duggan began to crawl, waving on his squad. "I'll make a point," Adam said excitedly. "Understand, I make the point." He couldn't crawl. He raced up the beach, counting his paces. The jumping sandspouts of small-arms fire reached out for him, and he began to take crazy leaps, as if doing the high hurdles. Far enough, he decided, and he turned, waving his arms. At least a dozen of his men raced after him, one of them hit and spinning like a top; then Califino reached him and dragged him down.

"That was dumb!" Califino said. "Adam, dumb! That was a crazy thing to do!"

"Fuck it! We dig in, right here."

The men who had run after Adam flung themselves onto the sand around him and began to dig, using their hands, their rifle butts.

"God damn it, use your trenching tools!"

"Schwartz got it," someone said.

Crawling, wriggling, running in spurts, the men of the company reached Adam's point and began to dig in. A fold of dirt protected them. The sandspouts were kicking up behind them. Six bodies lay between the surf and their position. Whistles were blowing, piercing the noise of the bombardment. A shrill voice yelled for medics. It was a bleak, overcast day. Adam could see the big LSTs lurching in the water. Where was the next wave? Where were their reenforcements? Where were the tanks? The orders said they would be supported by tanks.

Lieutenant Sisily from the headquarters company came wriggling through the sand. He was a prissy, spit-and-polish young man. Califino and Adam grinned at each other, and Adam said to himself, "I'm crazy, lying here in a hole, soaked and grinning at that jerk."

"I think it's raining," Califino said.

"Oh, shit on him. Come on, Sisily, you crawl like a fuckin' earthworm." Sisily was shouting to them. They could see the motion of his lips but couldn't hear a word.

He stopped. "The hell with it," Adam said. "Let's get over there." They crawled to Sisily.

"If you stay down," Adam said into his ear, a wave of compassion overtaking him, "that fold of earth protects us."

"I dirtied my pants," Sisily said, tears in his eyes.

"It's only shit. Forget it."

"Where's the command post?" Adam asked him.

"Two hundred yards back. The major wants to know how many casualties you have?"

"I haven't checked. We're just trying to group. I don't think more than ten or twelve."

Sisily closed his eyes and shook his head. Califino touched Adam's shoulder and pointed down the beach. Two more LSTs were discharging men, who flattened out just above the waterline.

"That's a lot of help," Adam said. "Come on, Lieutenant. So you shit in your pants. Life goes on. What does the major want us to do?"

Now, suddenly, mortar fire began. A shell exploded about twenty feet away, showering them with dirt. "He says," Sisily managed, "that there's a bluff, ten, twelve feet high, up ahead."

"How far?"

"He thinks maybe three hundred yards. That's where the fire is coming from. He says we got to get up there and silence it. You're the closest point."

"Ah, shit, come on, Sisily! The major's got more sense than that!" Califino yelled.

"I'll go talk to the major," Adam said. "Get them dug in, Califino, and see if you can find some medics. Come on, Sisily. Show me the way."

The major, a thoughtful man in his mid-forties, was almost as confused as Sisily. "We sort of knew about that bluff," he told Adam, spreading out a sopping wet map in the big hole that had been dug as a command post, "but We didn't expect any resistance there."

"Major, what about tanks? What about air cover?"

The major pointed hopelessly to the leaden gray sky,

"Well, where the hell are the tanks?"

The major shook his head.

"What about those men down there?" he asked, pointing to the water's edge. "Are they staying there?"

"That's our weapons company." "Oh, shit! Those dumb motherfuckers!"

"Levy, look. We can't use machine guns, and even the tanks can't get up that bluff. You have to go up with men and grenades."

"Why us? My men have no combat experience."

"Because you're there."

"What about those lousy bastards on the battleships? Why don't they lay some shellfire on it? They've been laying their stinking shells everywhere else."

"We have no communication, no fire control. We're trying. But even when we get it, we can't see results until we get up on that bluff."

Adam crawled back and summed it up for Califino.

"Meyers is dead," Califino said. "I told Rondavich to take over. Larry Smith is all right. He's got his platoon dug in over there on the left."

"I'm scared shitless," Adam said. "We been on this lousy beach over an hour, and nothing. No tanks, no air cover, no Germans. All we got is kids being killed. How do you feel?"

"Like Sisily. I'm going to shit in my pants."

"Motherfuckin' stupid bastards!"

"We give it a try?" Califino asked.

"I guess so. We'll be heroes. Thank God my kid brother's on a ship! That's where we should be, on a ship, sitting on our asses behind ten inches of steel. Fuck them. Get Smith and Rondavich and Prinsky and Judson and that new sergeant they gave us, the one who said he was a grenade instructor."

"Finelli?"

"That's him. Hey Bennie," he said to one of the soldiers, then shouted. "Bennie!"

"I hear you, Captain."

"Crawl up there and try to get a look at that bluff we been talking about."

Bennie crawled up to the ridge of earth and very carefully poked his head up. "It's there!"

"How far?"

"Maybe a quarter-mile."

"See anything—Germans, anything?"

"No, sir."

"O.K. Come back."

When Califino returned with the others, Adam repeated the major's instructions.

"It stinks," Lieutenant Smith said.

"I know. The whole thing stinks. I think there's only one way. We spread out and race for the bluff. But let's look. Bennie says you can see it."

They crawled carefully after Adam, who had just a glance; then a machine gun opened up and they came tumbling back.

"It's flat,
¹
' Adam said. "We just run like hell and hope it's not mined."

"It's wrong by the book," Califino said. "Every way."

"If we crawl, we're sitting ducks. This way, once we're under the bluff we got cover."

"How do we get up there?"

"What about it?" he asked Finelli. "It's not too high. Can we clear it with grenades?"

"Maybe."

"What do you mean, maybe?"

"Maybe."

"Why don't we wait until dark?" Smith asked.

"Tell it to the lousy battleships," Califino said.

"Let's move," Adam said. "Pass the word. We'll take off in precisely ten minutes. And spread them out. We'll regroup under the bluff."