A Special Providence (11 page)

“That’s what’s the matter, all right. Same with me. And it’s going to come a whole hell of a lot worse before it goes.”

It was comforting to have Quint there; it seemed to help things come back into focus. Some men nearby were pointing upward, and Prentice looked up to discover that the rich blue of the sky was intricately marked with white vapor trails. Aerial combat was taking place between fighter planes too high to see except as dots at the head of each trail, like the planes that used to spell out “Pepsi-Cola” high over New York on summer afternoons. But the act of looking up doubled Prentice over in a seizure of coughing that twisted him with pain and left his head hanging between his knees.

“Prentice, look,” Quint said, and at first Prentice thought he meant look up at the planes; but that wasn’t what he meant. “Look. Let’s quit kidding ourselves. You know what I think? I think we’ve both got pneumonia. Either that or we’re pretty far along in the process of getting it. We’ve got all the damn symptoms.”

“Well, but how about all these other guys? How come
they
don’t have it? Guys that have been sleeping in the snow for a month in the Bulge?”

“Oh, balls, Prentice. It’s got nothing to do with that. People get pneumonia in April and May. Babies get it. Athletes in top condition get it. Old ladies get it walking around the dimestore. It’s a disease, that’s all, and when you get a disease you’re supposed to go to the hospital.”

Prentice thought it over. “You mean you want to go back?”

“I mean I think we both ought to go to Agate and tell him we’re sick. Tell him we can’t make it, and go back to the aid station. Right now. Doesn’t that sound sensible?”

And the remarkable thing was that Quint’s face, owlish and bespectacled, heavily fringed with beard, had an expression that Prentice had never seen on it before: a look of defiance clearly mixed with pleading. For the first time in all these months, Quint was asking Prentice for guidance, instead of the other way around.

It was an oddly dramatic moment – exactly like a moment in the movies when the music stops dead on the soundtrack while the hero makes up his mind – and it didn’t take Prentice long to decide what his answer would be. It didn’t even matter that it had to come out in his absurd falsetto. “No,” he said. “I don’t want to.”

Quint put his pipe back in his mouth and looked down at his overshoes.

“I mean, don’t let me stop you, Quint, if that’s what you want to do; you go ahead. I’m staying, that’s all.” He knew he was laying himself open to a charge of false heroics, but he didn’t care – and whether Quint saw the opening or not, he didn’t take advantage of it.

“Okay,” he said.

“I mean after this Horbourg business is over maybe I’ll go back, but not before. It’s just a thing I’d never feel right about doing, that’s all.”

“
Okay
,” Quint said. “You’ve made your point.”

And that was the end of their talk, though the weight of it hung like something palpable between them as they blinked at each other and then avoided each other’s eyes.

“A” Company led off in the battalion column that night. Third Platoon went first; then came the command group, or “Headquarters Platoon”; then came the First and then the Second, with Weapons Platoon bringing up the rear. They walked in strict silence most of the way to Horbourg, five paces apart on either side of the road, each man with his eyes fixed on the back of the man ahead. Then they waited, crouched in the dark roadside ditches, for their artillery support.

When it came, in great fluttering rushes overhead that ended in earth-rocking explosions, lighting up the sky, it seemed to go on forever, and when it was over it seemed that nothing could be left alive in Horbourg. Trembling in the ditch, Prentice forced all his attention on the dim shape of Owens’s back. When it rose and wavered silently upward he scrambled after it, up to the surface of the road again, hearing a muffled rustle and clink of equipment as the man behind him did the same. He was very conscious of the sound of his own breathing as he walked, a rapid, shallow rasp in and out of his nose in counterpoint to the faint steady hum of the wind through his helmet. He wished he could be close enough to the other men to see if they were still carrying their rifles on the sling, as he was, or if they’d taken them in their hands for greater readiness. He had just about decided to unsling his rifle when Owens’s back floated up close enough to reveal the vertical line of the slung rifle beside his helmet, black against the snow; so he kept his own rifle where it was.

Almost before he realized it, the ghost-white fields on either side of the road gave way to the dark shapes of houses – they must be
in
Horbourg by now, or at least on its outskirts – and without worrying about Owens he slid the sling off his shoulder and carried his rifle at port arms with his gloved finger trembling on the safety and slipping experimentally in and out of the trigger guard. Then he thought it might look silly if he were the only man in the column doing that, so he put it back on the sling. But then Owens’s back came up close enough to show that
he
was walking at port arms now; and off it came again.

Gradually, and then suddenly, the road ahead was illuminated with a wavering orange glow: it was a house on fire, one of the houses on the other side of the road. As they moved past it, the individual shapes and shadows of the men were clearly visible – for several seconds Prentice could even see the dirty brown nap of Owens’s overcoat and the dirty green squares of netting on his helmet – and a thought occurred to him that was instantly put into words by the man behind him: “Jesus, we’re perfect targets.”

But except for the hiss and crackle of timbers in flames the night remained dead silent until they were well past the burning house, enclosed once more in the protection of darkness. Prentice resumed the difficult job of watching Owens’s helmet, until it suddenly came up very close and he realized Owens had stopped. He stopped too, and moved back a few steps. Apparently the whole column had come to a halt.

Glancing down and to the left, he saw the unmistakable shape of a man lying in the snow. It struck him as odd for a second – what the hell was he lying
down
for? – until he realized the man was dead. It was impossible to tell whether he was German or French or American. He looked back at Owens’s helmet just in time to see it turn and disclose the pale oval of
his face. Owens was whispering something to him, and at first he thought it must be some comment on the dead man. But it wasn’t.

“What’s that?” he whispered back.

“Send up the First Platoon; pass it on.”

And Prentice turned around to face the dark blur of the stranger behind him. “Send up the First Platoon,” he whispered. “Pass it on.”

Soon, from the rear, there came a scuffle of overshoes and a muted creak and jingle of equipment as the men of the First Platoon moved up to receive their orders.

Did everyone have better night vision than Prentice? It was all he could do to concentrate on the floating shape of Owens’s helmet, waiting to see if it would turn again.

It turned. “Send up the Second Platoon; pass it on.”

He was pleased that he’d heard it right the first time. He turned back and repeated the words, and in a little while the Second Platoon came plodding up past him in the darkness. Then he waited, studying the helmet, for what seemed a very long time. And the next order came as a stunning surprise:

“Send Prentice up.”

He went dogtrotting past Owens with his heart in his mouth, past a number of other shadowy figures and on up to Lieutenant Agate, whose anger was visible even in the dark.

“Damn it, boy, where you been? When I say Second Platoon, that means you.”

“I know, sir; I’m sorry, I—”

“All right. Logan, take him and show him where the hell they are. And hurry up.”

Logan was the communications sergeant, tall and sardonic. “Christ,” he whispered. “Are you gonna start fucking up already? Can’t you stay on the ball? You’re the Second Platoon
runner – can’t you get that straight in your head? Now you’re holding up the whole fucking works.”

“I know; I – I just didn’t think.”

“Well you better start thinking, kiddo. This is important.”

He knew it was important, and he stumbled along as fast as he could beside Logan, weak with embarrassment.

“There,” Logan said. “See that house? That’s where your platoon is. Now for Christ’s fucking sake don’t forget it.”

And Prentice stared at the dim face of the house for all he was worth. The way he committed it to memory was that its roof, instead of sloping, was built in steps. “Okay,” he whispered, and went loping after Logan, afraid he might lose him as they ran back to the column.

He was able to recognize Owens because of his shortness, and fell into place behind him again. But the brief run had winded him and he began to cough wretchedly, trying his best to stifle it; he heard someone say, “Shut that bastard up!” but he had to cough again and again, doubled over with his fist in his mouth. The spasms held him blind and crouching for a long time, until time itself seemed to have stopped, and when he straightened up at last and opened his eyes to the whirling darkness, Owens was gone. He took several faltering steps forward, but Owens wasn’t there – and neither was anyone else. There was nothing ahead but snow and blackness. He spun around and looked behind him: nobody; nothing but the empty road and, far in the distance, the glow of the burning house. He was alone.

He ran forward, the straps biting his neck and the two grenades bouncing heavily on his ribs. He had no idea where he was going, but there seemed to be nothing to do but run. Once he tripped and nearly went sprawling over something that felt like a soft log and proved, when he looked back, to be another corpse. Then finally he made out some movement ahead, across
the road, and he ran in that direction. It was a trotting column of four or five men – good God, were they Germans? No; Americans – and he ran up to the first of them, gasping for breath.

“Is this – is this Headquarters Platoon?”

The man didn’t answer or even slow down.

“I said is this Headquarters Platoon?”

And at that instant the air was split by a high whistling shriek and a tremendous
Slam
! with a burst of yellow in the road. All the men hit the road on their bellies at once, and Prentice fell with them. Another shriek, another
Slam
!, and they all scurried to fall again behind the shelter of a big nameless shape several yards away – it seemed to be a truck lying on its side.

“Mortars …” somebody said, but that was all Prentice could hear except the repeated Shriek –
Slam
! Shriek –
Slam
! and the whir and ping of flying fragments. Then from somewhere not far away came a shy, tremulous voice that rose to a frantic childish cry of shock and pain: “Medic? Medic? Oh Jesus –
Medic?
Oh
Je-heesus, Medic! Medic! …
”

Five or six more mortar shells hit the road while Prentice and the others lay behind the fallen truck, which had turned out not to be a truck at all but an armored halftrack; and finally there was an abrupt, ringing silence. One by one the shadowy men rose into a crouch and ran, and Prentice went up to the first man.

“Where’s Headquarters Platoon?”

But the man moved past him without a word.

“Look, excuse me, I – where’s Headquarters Platoon?”

But the next man ran past him too, and the next, and the next, and then there was only one left.

“For Christ’s sake
tell
me. Where’s Headquarters Platoon?” His terrible voice broke into a womanish wail on the “toon” and he knew it sounded as if he were crying, but at least it was
enough to make the man turn around, and he was close enough to be recognized: it was Mays, the clown from the boxcar. Prentice tried to atone for his tearful-sounding voice by staggering a little more than necessary, to prove he was really sick.

“Who do you want? Agate?” Mays said. “Come on, then.”

Prentice followed him, deeply ashamed both of the “toon” and the fraudulent stagger. The men led him back some fifty yards down the road, turned in between two houses so abruptly that he almost lost them, and went clambering down a flight of pitch-black cellar stairs. A door opened onto a blanket hung as a blackout curtain, and beyond the blanket, inside the cellar, Agate and all the other headquarters men were huddled in the weak yellow light of a single candle.

Prentice looked quickly around at Mays and his squad, to see if they were laughing at him or looking at him with contempt, but they paid him no attention at all. Mays was talking rapidly now with Agate while the others stood by; then Agate nodded and gave some curt instructions, and they went out again as quickly as they’d come.

The cellar contained a great deal of mildewed furniture, and several of the men were sitting in chairs; that meant it was all right to sit down. He found a deep upholstered armchair and sank into it as if into a morass of self-abasement, staring tragically into the candlelight. He had fucked up badly, twice. If anyone wanted to give him the upbraiding he deserved, now was the time. He would sit here and take it, however it came.

But nobody looked at him, and after a while it began to seem that they weren’t ignoring him out of disgust; they simply hadn’t noticed he was there, and possibly they hadn’t noticed he’d been missing in the first place. He glanced furtively at Logan, ready to accept any kind of derision from him, but Logan was wholly absorbed in his hand radio, speaking in a tense monotone,
repeating words that Prentice was now dimly aware of having heard ever since his arrival in the cellar.

“Donkey Nan,” he was saying, “Donkey Nan, this is Donkey Dog, Donkey Dog. Do you read me? Over.” Then he paused, listening, and started again. “Donkey Nan, Donkey Nan …”

A soft moan came from the shadows along the far wall, and Prentice made out the figure of a medic crouched over an inert form on the floor: it must have been the wounded man, the man who’d cried out on the road.

“… this is Donkey Dog, Donkey Dog. Do you read me? Over.” And Logan turned to the lieutenant. “Can’t seem to get ’em, sir.”