Shrapnel (9 page)

When he has the two of them stretched out on the cold, dark ground and white muddied snow, he has the Poles begin to bury them. He's giving instructions all the time in an almost hysterical voice. He has them start at their feet and work their way up toward the heads until only their faces are showing out of the slush. He's asking the same questions all the time. Obviously asking if they'll talk to the interrogators. One of them breaks down as they start sprinkling the earth on his face. Kurt gives the word and two of the Poles drag his almost unconscious body out of his grave. He's slobbering and vomiting as he's dragged off to the regimental interrogation tent.

It doesn't take long until the second officer gives in too. A human mind can only take so much. When the Poles lift him up, he breaks away and starts running with his numb legs. Kurt lets him go about twenty yards, running and stumbling, then shoots him in one of his legs just at the knee. He falls screaming and rolling.

That's the last I see of it. We're in a daze. I think Kurt suffers almost as much as the Germans. The Poles, on their own, are filling in the holes. Maybe in some way it helps them to forget what has just
happened. But I know I can never forget. That's the end of my career on the interrogation detail.

I go back and sleep two days in my tent, chasing away the nightmares.

During the course of the war, I change. It's probably just inborn cowardice. Not through any great effort or skill on my part, I find I'm scared more than most people. And, I'm not adept at hiding how scared I am from the other guys. I'm definitely not known by our squad as the most courageous of soldiers, despite taking prisoners at Metz. I'm not so bad that they're actually thinking of throwing me out of the I&R, that is sending me back to a line company, something we all dread, but it's bad enough. I discover the difference between being scared and being a coward is having other people find out.

I become quite a specialist at what we call ‘dogging it', that is, faking a patrol the way Wilkins and I did. We all do it. If the situation looks really
bad, we become quite imaginative mocking up our phoney,
ersatz
war. Also, we get good at ducking, hiding out, when a dangerous patrol is being formed.

Once, when I know before anyone else that there is going to be the worst kind of patrol, ‘Tiger', where we're supposed to take a prisoner, I hunker down under a jeep. I'm not too proud of this.

A Sergeant named Ezra Ethridge is in charge of the I&R platoon. I know he's looking for me. I'm falling asleep under that jeep, trying not to breathe. Ethridge is another southern cracker, a real regular army non-com, and we all hate him with a passion.

Ethridge doesn't like anybody, but it seems he particularly loathes me. Maybe it's the way I goof off all the time. Anyway, he's always taking it out on me. And so I know tonight's patrol is going to be really nasty.

A good friend of mine named Vance Watson is now my tent buddy, when and if we ever have a tent. Mostly we're in holes. The main reason we get along is because it's a contest between us who's the most scared. We just
know
we're scheduled for this patrol. We'd heard news of it, it's definitely the kind of thing we don't want to do.

We've found an old barn near the Headquarters CP in which someone must have stored hay. It's our secret, last ditch, hideout. We go up there on a sort of shelf and pile hay over each other and become invisible whenever things look bad. When no one is looking, I make a surreptitious dash out from under the jeep and head for our hideout. Vance is already there.

Ten minutes after our dash we're settled in. It's about twenty-two hundred, past ten o'clock. We're pulling our wool knit caps over our ears, trying not to hear Ethridge yelling, resting our heads on our helmets turned upside down. We also know that even if we aren't on this patrol and they find us, we'll be assigned to some other ratshit duty, like helping the officers bunk in, carrying all their crap.

Ethridge is hollering all over the place. Now, I have to say, this is the kind of thing you can really feel bad about,
but not us.
We're just ducking down deeper and deeper, thinking he'll never find us, he'll never climb that rickety ladder, he's too fat, he'll break it.

He never does find us for that patrol and he sends out two other guys from the Second Squad, one named Jim Freise and the other Al Toby. It's a bad patrol, as bad as we thought, or even worse.
But thank God neither of them is killed. Jim takes a bullet right through his thigh, but it doesn't break his thigh bone. Al Toby carries Jim all the way back, three hundred yards. Luckily Toby is about six-two and strong as an ox, Jim Freise maybe five-eight and light. Jim Freise looks a bit like Mike Hennessy, the same kind of dark curly hair and blue eyes. After Toby brings Jim in and slides him off his back, he falls in a heap on the ground. Medics carry Jim off on a stretcher, unconscious, medics hovering over him.

Of course, Vance and I feel like real rotters. I actually find myself wishing I'd gone, the war would be over for me. Jim got one of those million dollar wounds, one where he'll never be in combat again.

Ethridge gives us a bad time about how someone else took our patrol and was practically killed, all that kind of crap. Where the hell were we? Couldn't we hear him calling? But Sergeant Ezra Ethridge never once went on a patrol himself. He knew it and we knew it.

Despite all these kinds of dumb patrols and because three of our non-coms are killed by some eighty-eight millimetre direct hits, I do become squad leader to the first squad of the I&R platoon. I can't believe it, attrition can do wonders.

The war seems as if it's never going to end. We're deeper into Germany. We go several days when there'll be practically no fighting, no serious resistance, and then we get stopped, mostly by artillery. Unfortunately, we're involved with penetrating the Siegfried Line, now, the Germans' major defensive line, their equivalent to the French Maginot Line, only much more intelligently designed. They've rearranged it so their bunkers are in groups of three, in triangles, each one covering the other two. After a lot of trial and
error, i.e. casualties and deaths, we all sort of figure it out. You don't go for either of the front bunkers; you go for the back one, the third one. Then, when you've cut that third one out you've broken down their system of mutual defence and you can come up behind the other two bunkers. Then, if they don't surrender, we drop or throw grenades through the firing ports.

Sometimes it takes twenty grenades to get one in. It's like a carnival game. But after a while, a Kraut usually pushes out a white flag and surrenders. By this time, the Germans have passed the word around that if the back bunker is taken ‘
alles ist kaput
', they'd better surrender or shrapnel will be ricocheting around them in the bunker.

None of this kind of thing is really I&R work but things are thoroughly screwed up; military term, SNAFU. We're doing almost everything from attack patrols to guarding the regimental band.

We're in snow now, it has to be late January, somewhere in there. As usual, we don't know what the situation is. One afternoon they call me in, as squad leader. There's Sergeant Ezra Ethridge, along with the new S2, Major Woods, who had been in charge of the motor pool before. The rumour is that Love, our former S2, went bonkers with
combat fatigue. That I can understand. There's also Lieutenant Anderson, our platoon Lieutenant who never goes on patrol either, who knows next to nothing about combat.

This S2, Major Woods, whose experience has been just keeping trucks and jeeps running, has come up with a really dumb patrol. Patrolling is none of his business, and this one is absolutely impossible. It's as if I went down and rebuilt one of the jeep engines.

We're in the ruins of a town called Olsheim. There's nothing but bare, deep, snow fields in front of us, there's hardly a tree or a bush. The Major has spread out some old aerial photographs on a rickety table, which indicate there's either a railway embankment or a bunker out there in front of us but it's hidden in the snow. I look at it and even though I know I should keep my mouth shut, I can't help blurting out, ‘This looks like big trouble to me, Sir. This is something for a real “Tiger” patrol, not I&R.'

Anderson is agreeing with me. He thinks this is not an I&R patrol situation at all, it should be a ‘Tiger' patrol with twenty or thirty ‘line' soldiers and artillery backup.

I speak up again: ‘You can't just send a reconnaissance patrol out on this kind of mission, Sir;
it's suicide. Reconnaissance is only supposed to find out what things look like, and come back. If anybody comes close enough to see what's actually going on out here, for sure they aren't coming back.'

But I'm low man on the totem pole at this conference, nobody's paying any attention to my ranting and raving. Finally, after I give my little speech about how it's impossible, and Lieutenant Anderson gives his, Sergeant Ethridge comes on heavy.

‘This
is
what I&R is supposed to do, Wharton. It's intelligence reconnaissance. You can't just sit back here on your fat asses and play at being intelligent, you've got to go out and reconnoitre.'

‘Wharton, you're to take out this patrol and I want the whole Second Squad to go with you. I don't want to hear another word. Just do some reconnaissance work for a change and check this out. That's your job.'

Major Woods, who's been starting to back off on the idea of the patrol himself, is now effusive with his enthusiasm and ‘go get 'em' mentality.

What can I do? I mean, I know what I should do. I should refuse to take out the patrol. I should just say no.

But I don't.

After the meeting, I try talking to Ethridge and
he accuses me of being yellow. That's true, but it's not for him to say. He's never even been out on a patrol. I go back to the squad and tell them what's happened. These are all bright guys. They figure it out fast. They're a little pissed off at me for not protecting them, but they're willing to do it.

‘Look,' I say quietly to them when we're all together, ‘we're going to put on snowsuits and whiten our rifles. We're going out to where they can't see us from here, not even at the outposts. Then we're going to flop in the snow. We'll be cold, but we're going to stay out for maybe an hour, and stay alive. Then we'll come trooping back in and say we didn't see anything.'

I pause. No one speaks. I go on.

‘If tomorrow some other outfit is stupid enough to go out there and they run into trouble, we're sorry, but it is not an I&R patrol.'

There isn't much argument. Nobody's happy but we agree. We prepare ourselves as best we can. It's a scary patrol, just going out there, no matter what. We need to go a long way from where we are here, visible all the way, until we're out of sight of the perimeter guard, and of the regular dog soldiers on line out there. It's the only way. We need somehow to be invisible but we'll
be visible as hell. I mean it's not a full moonlight night but there's
some
moonlight, enough so when you stand you cast a shadow. White casts a dark shadow on white no matter how you do it. You think you're invisible but you're not.

So we take off around midnight or so, assuming Jerry will have minimum guard out, that is, if there's anyone there at all, and if there's going to be trouble. The problem is we don't actually know what to expect; we're going out blind.

Right at the ridge line, above this long open uphill plain of snow, is a pine forest. It worries me, anything could be in there, even tanks. Just in front of the trees is where these questionable lumps covered with snow are located. But, when one is out there in the snow it's hard to figure what they are.

We go in standard patrol formation, at five yard intervals with two scouts out. I'm the third one in line, just behind the scouts. Then the rest of the squad is behind me, followed by the assistant squad leader, Russ. We're trooping along through the snow; it's deep enough to get in our galoshes. I'm looking back constantly, more than anyone else, trying to estimate the distances. Just how visible are we, from behind, as well as from in front? Now we're out in the deep snow we're
practically snow blind, and there's a light ground fog. It's hard to figure just how far we've come. When is it they won't be able to see us from the outposts? In my mind, the real enemy, as far as we're concerned, is behind us. We slog on out there in the open snow and I give the signal to hit the ground, that is, the snow. Then I turn around, on my knees. I have a pair of binoculars on me which I'm not supposed to have. Binoculars are for officers. I took this pair from a dead German officer.

I look back and can still see the guys back in the foxholes on the perimeter. We're not far enough out yet. I look forward and can't see anything; no way I can figure out what those lumps are either. I whisper back along the line:

‘I think we'll go another hundred yards, then we'll have guaranteed we did it, they won't be able to see where our footsteps end in daylight, with everybody charging out on the attack. Because they'll be attacking at dawn, they'll trample down our footsteps without seeing them.'

I guess there's a good psychological reason for armies always attacking at dawn. They say it catches the enemy when he's least expecting it, theoretically. But, you're also sending out your own troops at their least vital time. Why do
humans, especially military humans, like to do things the hard way? I'm not saying war can be fun, but it doesn't have to be so hard.

So we scramble up again, wiping the snow off. We're moving forward and can see a lump looming up slightly to our right. It's one I hadn't seen at all before. It looks just like a railroad overpass, but I don't see any railroad tracks. I'm thoroughly confused. So we hit the ground fast and stay there. Nothing happens.

I whisper to one of the two scouts, Richards.

‘I'm going up to go look into this one, I don't think there's really anything there; but if we go and look in we can at least back up our story.'

Richards stands up.

‘Sure, that's okay with me. I'll go with you and give you cover.'

When we get up close, he volunteers to check this bump out himself. Somewhere about here, I should have called the whole thing off. We didn't really need to know what was under that questionable railroad overpass.

But no, I stretch out in the snow with my rifle to cover him. He goes forward and round a corner of snow and disappears into a hole.

The next thing I know, he comes tearing out of there, running like hell. Behind him is rifle fire
and he hits the ground trying to get his rifle up. It looks as if half the German army comes storming on out after him.

I start firing madly, fifteen rounds from my carbine, then I'm trying to switch the clip. Here we are, this is
real
war, shooting at each other like cowboys and Indians. Then the Germans see there are others behind me and dash back into their hole. I don't know how it happens, but they must have a phone there.

What we thought might be a railroad overpass is a bunker, and is one of a set. There are two others up higher. This one has its back turned to protect the other bunkers. We've walked straight into a trap.

The whole squad is smack in the middle of an open snow covered field, the forest line is up the hill ahead of us. From its edge now starts machine gun fire, crossfire, covering where the whole squad is spread out. They're shouting, shooting, screaming, hollering, running, falling, trying to get away but they're all caught in this devastating crossfire. Nothing has happened to me yet, but both the scouts are down. The assistant squad leader, Russ, was shot down right away and Cochran, the one who was supposed to supply covering fire for me, is down too, I see him thrashing in the snow.

Instead of an M1 rifle he had a carbine. He'd filed down the sear like mine, making it automatic. So he had fifteen shots. That seems like a lot of fire power, but it's not enough. It should also be the perfect weapon for this short distance, but it's not enough.

I look back and see most of the squad being mowed down. Some are running and some are trying to hunker down and return fire, but it's hopeless. I figure there's no way I can stay here, and no way I can surrender. These people aren't interested in me surrendering.

I figure if I can just run fast enough
up
the hill I can maybe get between the lines of fire of those machine guns. I can tell already that they're just sweeping back and forth, they're not hand-held guns, they're mounted, and therefore have a particular limited traverse. If I can get into the cone between where they reach, I'll have half a chance. This all runs through my mind in seconds. I take off faster than I can think. I jump back and forth expecting every second to have my head blown off or feel my legs go out from under me.

Somehow, by a miracle, I get between the bunkers and above the crossfire. I work my way into the forest. I look downhill and nobody's moving, none of us, and no Germans. I keep
looking, but I don't think there's anyone to see, anyone alive, that is.

This is a strong point we've run into not a defensive line. It's one strong point in their system of defence. When they're in retreat they set these up to defend their rear. Usually they have telephone connection with the main body of troops to let them know when someone attacks. For us it's the worst it could have been, we definitely walked right into it blind.

I do, luckily, break out so I'm behind the field of fire of those two machine guns. I stretch out to get my breath and up chuck. I don't know what else is hidden in this forest. Slowly, I work my way sideways, then, later, carefully back through the perimeter of another company down the line. I'm lucky I don't get myself killed by them. I'm hollering and screaming, ‘American, I'm American, don't shoot, don't shoot.' D-3 all over again.

I come with my hands up, my carbine dangling on my shoulder, up to their foxhole. Two GIs I've never seen are in it, I drop like a dead man, trembling all over, feeling horribly guilty about everything, at the same time, scared to death. These GIs let me rest a little, then lead me back to a kitchen tent. From there, at about 0-six hundred, I'm worked back to where I'm supposed to be, at
Headquarters Company. The corps artillery has started like thunder in a fish bowl.

By this time I've gotten some of my strength and morale back, also about fifty per cent of my reason, at the most. I'm mad-angry as well as scared. My guilt had transformed itself into pure, unadulterated, murderous anger. I'm insane with it. I know Ethridge is bunking in one of those A tents with the motor pool guys. It's farther back than it's supposed to be. I'm convinced he's a physical coward, even worse than I am.

I should have known he'd be way back there. He digs himself a foxhole, or has it dug for him, every time we set up camp. I don't blame him. We've recognised each other, it's a mutuality which is not respect.

I go in the tent and find the cot with Ethridge in it, sleeping on his back, big belly out, wearing his GI underwear, three blankets, more than any of us have. I'm amazed he isn't in his hole. These are the things I note in passing. I still have my rifle with me. I stand over his bed and yell, curse him. As he wakes, staring, I jam the butt of my rifle down hard in the centre of his fat stomach. I don't shoot him, you've got to give me credit. I want to, but I don't. It turns out later this blow cracked the bottom of his sternum and broke four
ribs on one side. I had no idea I'd hit him that hard. But it did wake him up. I got his attention.