Standing at the Scratch Line (4 page)

“You think they’d send us out again? We just came back from three days on patrol. Last night was the first night we slept in the bunker in more’n two weeks. We been sent damn near everywhere. Our squad’s taken some big hits. We got three men dead and one injured. They got to know we needs rest.”

LeRoi pulled the bolt of his Springfield .30-06 free from its tracks. He set the bolt on a cloth that he had laid out for the purpose, examined the rifle’s cartridge-feeding mechanism. “We arrived here in August with two full battalions of the Three hundred Fifty-first Regiment. What we got left: two platoons that ain’t even half-strength? These people is using us like bait. Ain’t no white units suffering them kind of losses. They throwing our lives away. They don’t care what happens to us. They’ll send us out to soften up some other target.”

“If you feels that bad, why do you keep on?” Big Ed asked sincerely. He was twenty-two, and yet in his understanding of the world, he was younger than nineteen-year-old LeRoi. Big Ed continued speaking. “I tell you the only reason I keep on day after day, is thinkin’ about seein’ home again. Sometimes I just think about how rich and dark the dirt is back home and sometimes how you can just drive for miles and not see nothing but the green and gold of corn. We ain’t got much of a farm, but I was starting to make a difference. We had a real good crop the last two years.”

“So, you want to be a farmer, huh?”

“It’s what I dream about: standing behind a plow in the afternoon sun, drinking a cold glass of water, sweat drippin’ off’en me, and the rich smell of tilled earth. If I didn’t have that, I’d go crazy. I don’t mind fightin’ for my country but seein’ all these people die is gettin’ to me. Every time I close my eyes, I dream about home.”

“I don’t dream much,” LeRoi admitted. “Especially about home. As far as fightin’ for my country, I could give a shit! This war ain’t done nothin’ to make me patriotic. All I really care about is getting back home and settlin’ some debts. I owe some folks a seein’ to and I damn sho’ gon’ see that they get it!”

“Why don’t you knock some officer down and a get stuck in the calaboose? They probably wouldn’t let you out ’til the war was over.”

“What?” LeRoi barked while pushing a cleaning rod with a bit of cloth through the barrel. He gave his companion a questioning look. “And let these crackers hang me for hitting an officer during military operations? I rather be bit in the ass by a snaggletooth mule and sent to Mississippi to live! I ain’t lettin’ these crackers get anythin’ on me. If I go down, I wants to go down shootin’.”

There was movement at the doorway as two men pushed through the tarp and entered. LeRoi had his Colt .45 pistol drawn when the men cleared the canvas.

The smaller man, “Professor” Darwin Morris, saw LeRoi’s gun and said, “I brought you your food, don’t worry.” He was a dark-skinned, wiry man who wore round, wire-rimmed glasses. A college graduate, he was at twenty-six one of the oldest men in the squad. “Of course, once you taste it, you might want to pull your gun again.” Professor was from Brooklyn and had a decidedly New York accent.

The other man, Slick Walters, who entered with Professor, spoke. “The food ain’t that bad. We definitely got meat in our stew this time, but it cost me a carton of cigs.” Slick was also from New York, but he hailed from Harlem, which was the other side of the world from Brooklyn. He handed Big Ed a metal mess plate with stew in it. “We gon’ have to slip out to the town and pick up some stores.” Slick was the wheeler-dealer and black-market specialist in the group. He stored his black-market goods in a German-occupied town five miles on the other side of the front lines. All the members of the squad had benefited from Slick’s black-market trade, so when sorties were necessary to restock, he had the company of two or three squad members.

“Before we plan anything,” LeRoi recommended, “we should check with Sarge. We may get sent out again.”

Slick grimaced. “Not again! We just came back! How am I supposed to do business if I ain’t got no time in camp? These mothers must just want to kill us off! I swear before God, they just want to kill us off!” Slick was a chocolate-colored man who never smiled. Instead, he sneered.

“We have to prove our patriotism over and over again,” Professor said quietly, looking up from his diary, in which he had been writing. “You have to remember what W. E. B. DuBois wrote in
The Crisis—
”

“Who gives a damn about him?” Slick declared angrily. “He’s just another high yellow nigger who had the money to buy his way out of the service!”

LeRoi, who had been eating his lukewarm stew, picked up his rifle and slammed the bolt home, then asked, “High yellow what?”

There was a moment of silence before Slick stammered out an apology. “I didn’t mean nothing against you, you know that, LT. I just meant, if the man ain’t here risking his life with us, he ain’t got shit to say!”

All the men in the Second Battalion of the 351st Negro Regiment had been stationed briefly at Fort Dodge, outside Des Moines, Iowa, before being transferred to fight in Alsace-Lorraine. Off the base, LeRoi had proven many times that he had the capacity to spill blood, and the fact that none of his enemies was alive or physically well enough to make the trip over to Europe was not lost on the other men in the battalion.

The conversation was interrupted by a sharp knock on the log above the entrance. All the men picked up and cocked their weapons. “Who goes there?” LeRoi called out.

“Sergeant Williams and Platoon Lieutenant McHenry,” a voice answered back in clipped tones.

“Damn,” Slick growled disgustedly. “It’s that boot-licking sergeant and his master.”

The canvas split and two men entered. The bunker’s occupants stood up in accordance with military discipline.

“At ease, men,” the lieutenant said as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the lantern. He was young, not much older than LeRoi. Of medium height, he was on the plump side of stocky. “It’s as cold as a well digger’s ass in Nome, Alaska,” he said jokingly, but no one laughed. His face was pink from the cold and he rubbed his pale hands together vigorously.

The sergeant spoke. “The lieutenant wants to tell you boys about your next assignment. So listen up!” The sergeant was a dark brown–skinned man who was in his late thirties, and he had been in the service for nearly twenty years before the war started. He was military spit and polish down to the bone. Even after four months on the front lines, his uniform looked like recent issue and his boots were shiny.

“I’ve just come from HQ and I have our orders,” the lieutenant said as he pulled a map from the chest pocket of his jacket and unfolded it on LeRoi’s cot. “We’re going to merge the two remaining platoons of the Three hundred Fifty-first into one, consisting of four squads. We’ll be renamed the First Platoon of the Three hundred Fifty-first Regiment. I know you men have taken some devastating losses in personnel and that you’ve been on the front line continuously since you arrived. I spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Olsen and he assured me that after this mission you boys would get a well-deserved rest. He gave me his word.”

Slick mimicked softly in a high voice, “He gave me his word.”

Sergeant Williams instantly turned on Slick. “Watch your mouth, Walters. You’re in the presence of an officer!” He gave Slick a threatening stare.

McHenry continued. “We’re starting a big offensive tomorrow night and several infantry battalions are going to join in the attack. We know the Germans are pulling out of Saint Die to reinforce their position at Ribeauville. In order to do that they must go through this pass at Kastledorf Bridge.” McHenry pointed to a spot on the map. “Since we can’t possibly mobilize all our troops in time to stop them, it’s been decided that if we can send a small group in tonight, maybe we can blow the bridge up if the Germans haven’t gotten through yet, or if they moved the bulk of their troops and equipment, maybe we can stop them from blowing the bridge up.”

LeRoi looked at the map and asked, “Don’t all these squiggly lines mean mountains?”

“Why yes, Kastledorf is only fifteen miles from here—”

Slick’s sarcasm was barely disguised. “I knows you and the sarge done thought about this, but how you gon’ get forty men fifteen miles deep into Kraut territory by tonight? ’Cause it may be fifteen miles as the crow flies, but it’s a good twenty-five if you traveling by road. If you don’t follow the road it’s gon’ be even more.”

The sergeant turned to Slick. “The lieutenant doesn’t have to answer to a private! Now, I warned you—”

“That’s alright, Sergeant. I’ll handle this,” McHenry said evenly. “Listen, Walters, I didn’t want this assignment to a colored unit, but that’s what the army gave me. So I took it and I didn’t look back. After nearly four months on the front lines with the Second Battalion of the Three hundred Fifty-first Regiment, I see that you colored men are as good as soldiers as any unit of white men. The only reason I don’t court-martial you for insubordination right now is that I know you men haven’t had a decent rest in weeks. But if you ever approach me again in such a disrespectful manner, I’ll have you up on charges so fast, it’ll make your head spin. Do I make myself clear?”

Slick grimaced and nodded his head reluctantly.

“Do I make myself clear?” McHenry demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

After Slick had been faced down, all the men in the bunker listened quietly as the lieutenant outlined the plan and spelled out the deadline for being travel-ready. McHenry left as soon as he finished his briefing. The sergeant remained behind, leaning against one of the bunker’s log supports. The four men began sorting through their duffel bags for clothing and equipment. There were no words spoken; there was only the sound of equipment being checked. Each man was aware that the sergeant hadn’t left, and since it wasn’t his practice to visit, they all knew he had something further to say.

The tension steadily built until Slick finally turned to the sergeant and said, “Alright, what you got to say? You sitting here like a big dog. Let’s hear your bark!”

The sergeant turned and faced Slick. “You’re a nasty piece of work. You’re the type of Negro who makes it hard for colored men to succeed in the military. You don’t know nothing about honor, hard work, or loyalty to your country. You’re everything bad that they say about colored people, always trying to con somebody or trick people into doing your work.

“I saw you taking jewelry off of dead people’s fingers, then going through their pockets to take their possessions. I can look the other way when it’s guns and ammo, but I won’t stand for stealing from the dead for personal gain. Ain’t nothing that can discredit a unit faster than a reputation of stealing from the dead. If I see you doing it again, I’ll shoot you on the spot myself. You got that?”

Slick pulled a switchblade from his pocket and opened it with a flick of his wrist. “Come on, sucker, I got somethin’ for you,” he taunted.

The sergeant laughed. “You think I’m afraid of that? Hell, I’ll ram that little blade so far up your ass that you’ll have a metal tongue. Now, if you had spent the year at Fort Dodge working with me every day on your hand-to-hand technique like Tremain here did, I might be afraid of you. But you goldbricked on that too. So, it’s time for a final lesson.”

Professor stood up and got in between Slick and the sergeant. “We’re surrounded by enemies. Shouldn’t we try harder to stick together? This isn’t the kind of note we’d like to start this mission on, is it?”

Big Ed stood up. “The Professor’s right. Colored people ought to stick together. We gon’ need everyone we got, if we gon’ come back from this one.”

LeRoi watched the scene unfold in front of him and didn’t feel any need to intervene.

Since there were two men between him and his intended quarry, Sergeant Williams stepped back. “Any time you want to bring that little pig sticker and challenge me, Walters, I’ll be ready.” He looked around and saw that LeRoi was just sitting and watching. “You think an old man like me stands a chance against a young buck like Walters?”

“I think you’ll kill him,” answered LeRoi in a matter-of-fact tone. “But that ain’t what worries me. I want to know how we gon’ get back from this mission, that’s what worries me. We don’t know the country around this bridge. We ain’t got no planned route of escape. It looks to me like we bein’ sacrificed again. What do you think, Sarge?”

“I think that we follow orders and put ourselves in the hands of the Lord.”

Slick sucked his teeth and shook his head disgustedly. The other men were silent.

“Of course, the good Lord helps those who help themselves,” Sergeant Williams continued. “So, I think that we’ll send a couple of our best shots high above the bridge to cover our retreat and to check out possible escape routes.”

“How is that going to help us if we run into that German artillery division?” Professor asked. “We’re going to need more fire power than the small arms we were issued.”

“A couple of howitzers could blast us to hell!” Slick interjected.

“Is this a suicide mission, Sarge?” Big Ed asked. “Is they sacrificing us?”

The sergeant thought for a moment before he answered. “All I know is if you fight bravely and carry out your orders, you gon’ make things better for the colored men who come after you. If it’s your time to die, it’s your time. Ain’t nothing can change that, but if you fight bravely, it’ll get recognized.”

Slick questioned Big Ed. “You didn’t expect him to say nothing else, did you?”

The sergeant pointed to Slick. “One more word and I’ll do you now!”

“Can you get us some small artillery, like those forty millimeter cannons we saw on the outskirts of that little town we passed through to get here?” Professor asked.

“All the weaponry we gon’ get through channels is what was already issued,” Williams answered. “But I know you boys confiscated some German mortars and a big Vickers machine gun in one of our last raids. You must have them stored someplace. If you still got possession, we need them now.”

“If we had the guns you’s talking about, how would we move them through mountainous country, twenty-five miles beyond the German lines?” LeRoi asked in a tone that indicated casual interest. He knew that the sergeant was aware that his squad had begun to pilfer enemy equipment and ammunition, storing it on the German side of the lines.