Articles of War (14 page)

He had advanced past four houses altogether when a sudden series of shots startled him and he ducked behind the corner of a fence and waited. Initially it seemed the shots came from nearby, at him, but then he wasn't sure. He felt disinclined to expose himself to further dangers. He had exhibited great bravery already today—he thought, with a notion of indignation—in leading the charge up the hill. He decided he would turn back and reconnoiter down the opposite side of the street. He sprinted across the street and moved carefully from one point of cover to the next, glancing in doorways but not entering. A jeep careened by with an officer who shouted at him incomprehensibly.

He came to the pale blue, half-timbered house opposite the fenced yard and gateway through which he had entered the street. Squatting here at the corner of the house was a GI, tall and fair-haired. He was smoking a cigarette. Approaching him, Heck had the disconcerting impression that the other man had been watching him awhile. As Heck came up the other GI said, indicating the house at his back, “You know if anyone cleared this one yet?”

“No, I don't know.”

The GI had thick ugly swaths of acne across his cheeks and forehead. He nodded and stubbed out his cigarette. “Suppose it might as well be me and you.” He pushed himself out of his squat and moved toward the doorway. He stopped and pressed his back against the wall beside the doorway, took a grenade from his pocket, yanked the pin, held the grenade a moment longer, then tossed it in the open doorway. As soon as it exploded he swiveled and fired inside. He stepped forward, and Heck lost sight of him in the inner darkness and the smoke curling out. He could hear the sporadic shots. He edged forward. The other soldier shouted something—“C'mon,” it might have been. Heck bent low and ran through the doorway.

He entered a foyer. The grenade had created a ragged, smoking hole in the floor and a wall. Fragments of wood, glass, and dried flowers had been thrown about. There were two doorways and a wide set of wooden stairs going upward. Heck looked at the dried flowers scattered at his feet. There was a gunshot upstairs. Heck crept to the stairs, watching the top. He noted with surprise how little fear he felt.

He climbed upward. At the top was a short hallway sprinkled with plaster dust and shards of paint that had come off the walls and ceiling. Smoke grayed the air. There were three doors, all open, and he could see the blond GI moving about in the nearest room. Heck glanced into the other two rooms, both of which contained mattresses, dressers, lamps, and other furniture in varying states of ruin, then joined the other GI.

This had evidently been a study—there was a large desk, and ranks of empty bookshelves covered one wall. Opposite hung a crossed pair of swords. Above was a gilt-framed photo of Hitler and on either side dangled red, white, and black pennants. A jumbled pile of paper and books lay on the floor and the blond GI was prodding through these with the muzzle of his rifle.

“Was there anyone up here?” Heck asked.

“Nope.”

Heck crossed the room to a tall window beside the bookshelves and, standing cautiously at one side, peered out. From here he could see across much of the town. An explosion boomed and flickered down the street. Streams of smoke rose from burning houses. A downcast prisoner was ushered along with a rifle in his back. A pair of GIs ran by with their arms full of Nazi paraphernalia—flags, medals, swords, caps, armbands—and not far away was a soldier who appeared to be cooking steaks over a bonfire of velvet upholstered chairs. The food seemed such a wonderful thing that Heck was tempted to go down to join him.

The blond GI came up beside him. “Krauts didn't put up much of an argument over this place.”

Heck glanced at him, and saw that the other man was offering him a bottle. Heck took it. He searched the label and found the word
Cognac.
After drinking a little he handed it back. “Where did you find that?”

“What I'm afraid of is that they're planning to come back.” The blond GI took a slug of the liquor, then dropped it into his gas-mask pouch, which was otherwise empty. Heck wandered over to the desk. In one corner lay a round, egg-shaped hand grenade that appeared to be from the previous world war, and a black lacquered box ornamented with silver eagles and swastikas and several framed photos. Moving closer, Heck saw that the photos were of smiling men in black SS uniforms. There was a strange incongruity between their amiable, smiling faces and the coal-black uniforms. The paint on the grenade was peeling, and around the top were patches of rust. The lacquered box might have contained writing instruments or knives or possibly currency. Heck reached to feel the glossy surface.

“Hey,” the tall GI said. “Tsk, tsk. Don't put anything past the krauts. They're sour-hearted fuckers.”

Heck recoiled from the box, suddenly sick with the memory of the log that had exploded, the boy broken from his hand, his foot. He stepped into the hall, and the tall GI joined him, pointed his rifle back through the doorway, and blasted the desktop with a series of shots. “Nope,” he said cheerfully. “It's okay.”

Heck followed him back inside. The other GI strode over to the desk, where the lacquered Nazi box had been punctured with three or four splintered holes and knocked back against the wall. Fragments of the framed photos of happy SS men were scattered across the desk and floor. The grenade had fallen to the floor. The tall GI undid the clasp on the front of the lacquered box and swung it open and Heck was hurled backward into the hallway by the explosion. On his back on the floor, he had a brief moment of extreme lucidity during which he seemed able to see in all directions simultaneously: the fragments of flesh thrown against the wall behind him, the empty helmet at his feet, the smoke swirling in the doorway, the upset flies slowly coming to rest again on the ceiling, and even from above, down at himself, dotted with blood that might have been his own or the other man's, his eyelids sinking.

There followed an all-encompassing, black incomprehension.

What he knew next was the heaving of his chest, the moisture of tears or sweat or blood on his face. Somehow, he was on his feet. Somehow, he had come downstairs. He pressed his hands and face against a wall; he could not remember how he had gotten down here. He stepped back and wiped at his face. On his hands was blood. All the front of his torso felt bruised. He found his rifle lying in the corner. In his mind he had an image of the tall GI, exploding apart, hurtling toward him.

From the street came a strange, high, howling noise, like the screaming of an animal. Heck felt himself over and could identify no wounds. He could not entirely believe this and checked again. He could find no injury and felt no pain, only a terrible exhaustion. The animal howling continued in the street and Heck crept to the door and peered outside. An American soldier was seated on the curb with his feet in the gutter, head in his hands, gasping and wailing. His rifle and helmet were neatly arranged on the street before him. There were noises of nearby fighting. Heck suddenly wanted very badly to be out of this house. He gathered himself for a moment, then, gripping his rifle, darted past the GI on the curb and across the street toward the protection of the stone wall. He heard a pair of shots. His balance was shaky; he felt as if he were on the deck of a ship pitching in high seas.

He entered through the gateway and threw himself down beside the wall. His chest throbbed painfully. He twisted and saw the wailing man now sprawled on his back, silent.

He crawled along the wall into what would have been the back lawn. He reached a corner where the wall turned ninety degrees, and there he rested a minute, then put his helmet on the end of his rifle and raised it up over the top of the wall. It provoked no response. The fighting sounded not far away, and he could imagine that everyone was preoccupied with others than himself. In a quick slithering movement, he went over the wall.

He crouched on the other side a moment. Nothing happened. On this side of the wall he was hidden in a thick growth of brush and trees. There was a woman on the ground, half-hidden in the brush. Her eyes were closed. Her shoulder was a mess of blood. One breast was exposed, and nearly blue. She was dead; Heck recognized this calmly. His own calm was strange to him. He wondered, How had she come to be here? She was dressed in a long, soiled skirt and appeared young, but gaunt, with lines at the corners of her eyes. Perhaps she had for some reason failed to flee the town with the other civilians and had been caught out here by the shelling. Perhaps she had been a soldier's lover. Heck thought, hopelessly, of Claire. Grimly, trying not to touch the body, he stepped over her. With an awkward gait, bent low, he moved along the wall, passing along the back side of the house, until he came to the point where the brush gave out. Here he edged forward on hands and knees.

He was upon the hill he had charged to reach the town. The distance he had crossed in that charge now looked rather small. The earth was torn and shredded everywhere, and the dead and wounded lay scattered about, with several medics moving among them.

He crept back into the brush and peered over the wall. Thick black smoke streamed from a pair of upper-story windows in the house that the BAR man and his ammo carrier had charged into. Heck hunkered down with his back to the wall. He fretted briefly over whether he should go back into the town and rejoin the fighting. His orders, however, had been to get into the town, and he had done that. He was too tired to fight effectively. He would rest here a little and rejoin the others soon, if they hadn't finished the job yet.

Even among the not-distant noises of explosions, shots, screams, the crash of a building in collapse, he slept.

The death of the tall soldier, however, was not easily forgotten, and at the sound of an explosion Heck seemed to see again the tall GI hurled toward him, in fragments, and he woke with a start.

He wiped at his arms and the front of his shirt. The craggy bushes before him were peaceful and beautiful. The sounds of battle continued behind him; the fighting had perhaps grown nearer. He understood, slowly, that he had been asleep only a few minutes. He twisted and peered over the wall again.

Flames, pale in the sunlight, were tonguing out of the upper-story windows, and thick smoke now came from the ground-floor orifices. A section of the roof collapsed and flames and sparks shot high. He felt the heat on his face.

He thought then of Claire, how he wanted badly to return and find her and help her. He wanted to do this with a severity that ached in him.

Dimly, through the smoke and the gateway in the wall, he saw a figure run by in the street; then another went by, then a third. They were running out of town. The sounds of shooting had distinctly moved closer. He saw a couple more figures scurry by. They seemed to be American.

Heck sat down again behind the wall. They might have been wounded, evacuating themselves, or messengers of some kind, perhaps, or a tank crew that had lost their vehicle. He turned and peered over once more. If they were in retreat, he could not stay here.

The heat from the burning house was growing intense. The paint was cracking and blackening. Flames shot from every window. The smoke was now too thick to be seen through. With wobbling reluctance, Heck moved farther along the wall, out of the brush and toward the hillside he had charged up.

He reached a corner where the wall turned. He peered cautiously around, then followed the turn.

He stopped to rest. For a minute he sat without thinking. He felt in his pockets for a D-bar or something to eat. A sudden, rapid series of crashes and flakes of stone flying caused Heck to drop facedown. A machine gun, he thought, a machine gun had opened up on him. Perhaps he had allowed his helmet to rise a couple of inches above the wall. The gun pounded a few more shots into the stone wall at his back, silenced, then chattered in another direction. Heck felt at his face and helmet, scarcely believing that his head had not been split open.

Looking down past the length of the wall he could see a man here, a man there, darting out of the village and across the open ground. The clamor of fighting continued inside the town, but it had grown very close again. It seemed the Americans were being thrown out.

Heck felt despair, and for a moment he envied the dead their invincibility. He huddled, seeking to reduce his size as a target to nothing. It was impossible not to feel ungainly and huge. The machine gun hammered a few more shots into the wall. It was difficult to imagine how the Germans had already moved a machine gun into a position so near, and it seemed the Germans must be soldiers of incredible qualities. Occasionally bullets snapped overhead. He was, for the moment, behind the wall, secure. The zone of danger was there above him. It was as if there was a plane above which exposed flesh would be destroyed. Like sticking your hand into a threshing machine.

Suddenly a vast temptation opened—as though, not realizing he was near the sea, he had climbed a small berm, and there lay an ocean before him. He could extract himself from this deathfield; he could go back to Claire; all he had to do was put a hand up high enough to get shot. It would be far better than shooting himself in the foot: an enemy bullet, he didn't have to pull the trigger, and who could doubt him, shot in battle by an enemy machine gun. He needed to do it to retain his sanity, to escape death, to try to return to Claire. Right hand or left? He held the stock of his M-1 in his right hand and examined the left, the dirt-filled lines of the palm, the knuckles, the nicotine stains, the ragged nails. It was filthy and abused but nonetheless a thing whole and complete. He could feel the chill of the air against it. Stretching the fingers he felt the tendons pulling, the skin going taut. With little fear and more resignation he raised it up over the wall into the line of fire. The German machine gun was still gnashing and sending bullets whistling overhead, seemingly filling all the air with potential injury. Yet he held his hand up there, fingers outstretched, and nothing happened. The machine gun rattled mechanically, the bullets snapped by, and his hand was just there. He began to feel impatient and he pushed his hand up higher. A bullet passed so near his fingers he felt the disturbance of the air. Then the firing shifted toward another direction. He wagged his fingers a little. His shoulder began to grow tired. He felt awesomely frustrated.