From the Indie Side (28 page)

“I need you to go back down the beach, back
to the landing crafts, and find Colonel Ryan. Tell him to stop the
landings and to retreat. Able and Baker Companies and the 5th
Rangers radioed us ten minutes ago. They’re inland and moving
forward. They’re certain they can take this bluff from the rear.
This beach assault is suicide. We need to send the landing troops
back to avoid unacceptable casualties. Each minute we lose
hundreds—in an hour, thousands.”

Then he raised his voice to almost a shout.
“Understand, soldier?”

My head moved as if encased in Jell-O; I
nodded before I fully understood his words, before it had sunk in
that he wanted me to go
back down that beach
, face the
gunfire and the grenades, crawl through the broken bodies, and do
what—save the day?

I wouldn’t make it. I knew that in my heart.
He was asking me to die. Sending me to die, when I’d only just made
it here to safety. Here, where they’d told me to wait for the
others. Here, where I wouldn’t die just yet—where I had a
chance.

“Soldier! You understand? You go now. Every
second counts.”

He reached out and tapped my helmet, as you
might pat an obedient hound. “Good man, Baker.” Then, assured by my
nodding, he was off, traveling back the way he had come.

And I was alone.

I swiveled my head around to look down the
beach, through the smoke of the battle and the mist of the morning.
The combination was so heavy that I could barely see twenty
feet.

Then I turned back to look for Blackey, to
tell him “no,” that I couldn’t do it. But he had already
disappeared behind the curves of the dunes.

Panic overwhelmed me. With each beat of my
heart, it spread through my body like an immobilizing poison. Every
breath I took echoed in my head so loudly that I imagined the enemy
would hear me, peer over the top of their dugout, and lay a stream
of machine gun fire into my position.

I burrowed my cheek into the cool grains of
sand and held it there. The sand formed a perfect pillow, calling
to me like a siren to stay in the shadows, in the safety.

But there were men back there; “thousands,”
Blackey had said, who needed me to go down the beach and send them
back to safety. I was one man, and yet, somehow, this enormous
responsibility had fallen upon me. Eighteen years old and asked to
be a hero, when twelve months ago I had been nothing more than an
insurance company clerk.

I rolled over and stood against the sandbank,
propped straight up by my backpack. The sun was moving higher in
the sky, lifting the gray cloak of mist, and the vista of the beach
lay before me. Bodies in green and tan splattered with red dotted
the cream landscape. Large crossed planks of wood and
steel—“Rommel’s Asparagus” we called them—some with barbed wire,
obstruction barriers against our landing parties, lay scattered
along the beach like a giant game of jacks.

Even over the ceaseless gunfire, I could hear
the moaning. Multitudes of injured and dying, sounding more like
animals than men. Just listening to it was agonizing.

The unnaturalness of it all—me, on this
foreign land, staring at this scene beyond anyone’s wildest
imagination—overwhelmed me.

Every second counts.

I checked my gun, the feel of the cold metal
in my palm really of little comfort. Much good the gun would do me.
When the bullet came, I wouldn’t see it. It would hit me in the
back of my head or my body. My only chance was to weave and crouch.
And pray.

And that was a lot to remember.

A hum, growing stronger every second, built
in my head. Every breath I took sounded so loud it felt as if an
airtight bubble had settled over my head. My heart banged into my
ribs.

Thu-ump. Thu-ump. Thu-ump.
It beat so
hard it hurt.

I took a step. And then another. I twisted my
head at an unnatural angle to peer up at the bunkers.

Thu-ump. Thu-ump.

I knew I couldn’t stop now. If I stopped, I
wouldn’t have the strength—no, the courage—to keep going.

Another two steps and I’d left the shade. A
few more, and I’d be in the line of sight of the gunners. The
rushing of blood through my temples, now an accompaniment to my
heart.

Thu-ump. Thu-ump.

Two more steps and I’d be there.

The kill zone.

Something took over at that point: legs that
felt like jelly, muscles behaving like loose strings of fiber, were
suddenly filled with steel. My body, pumping adrenaline, took off
of its own accord, with me along for the ride. A silent, terrified
passenger.

Without thinking, I ran left five paces. Then
fell to the ground.

Breathe. Breathe.

Thu-ump. Thu-ump.

Then up again. Springing like a cat.

My legs pumping, driving into the sand.

Another five paces to the left. Then three to
the right.

Longer strides, stretching. If they were
scoping me, they couldn’t anticipate how far I would travel.

Then down. Flat on my stomach, near a
barrier.

Breathe. Thu-ump. Breathe.

Mouth in the sand, eating grit, my body
nestled against other bodies—dead, motionless, bloody bodies.
Sucking in oxygen, as if I’d just surfaced from a deep-water
dive.

God, my chest ached.

Don’t panic, Jack.

Thu-ump. Breathe!

And pray. Remember to pray.

God, please save me.

Tilting my head up from where I lay, I looked
back up the beach. I’d only traveled fifteen feet. This zigzagging
was getting me nowhere. I had to hurry. Get out of here. Keep
moving. That’s what they’d drilled into us.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Stand up, Jack.

As I jumped up, I heard the zing. Then a
sharp sting. It caught me in the right calf, sending me toppling
over. It hurt for a second; then there was little pain. That
shocked me more than the hit. When something enters your body at
that speed, you expect something more. It just felt hot, like the
worst bee sting you’ve ever had.

I lay facedown in the sand, waiting. Seconds
became minutes of just breathing, containing the panic.

Nothing.

They hadn’t targeted me. It was a random
bullet.

Slowly sliding my leg up along the sand, I
reached around and touched the wound. There was an entry and an
exit. That was good. Tentatively, I pushed my right foot into the
sand, checking to see if it still had strength to bear me. It felt
solid. It still didn’t hurt too badly, though it was beginning to
throb, as if I’d banged it against the side of a door.

From my dropped position, I surveyed my
immediate surroundings. Bodies of the fallen were everywhere. Now I
was in the middle of it.

Three feet to my left, one poor fellow had
lost half his head, the eyeball socket empty except for a dark red
cave which I could see light shining through. The other eye stared
at me—a gentle brown eye that had once looked upon the hills of
California, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or the skyscrapers of Chicago,
or even some small country town, a whistle-stop on the way to the
city. That eye was seeing nothing ever again. It was a hideous,
frightening sight, but I had to ignore my revulsion, or that would
be me soon enough.

A black army boot lay on its own above the
head, abandoned and missing its partner. It didn’t belong to the
man with the eye. He still wore both of his.

What a strange place to kick off a boot, I
thought, until I realized that within the boot nestled a foot and
part of a leg. Above the bloodied calf, with its jagged white bone
protruding through the torn and pulped muscle and sinew, was
nothing. A quick scan revealed no owner nearby. Abandoned, forever
lost to its owner who must have somehow staggered away. It left me
with only one question. How far had he gotten?

Beyond these two horrors were many more
bodies, more parts of bodies. It was a slaughterhouse gone crazy.
Pieces of men thrown everywhere. I could hear some men farther away
still alive, still calling for help or screaming in a hideous,
hysterical pitch, but there was not a soul left alive near me.

The idea hit me like a chiming bell at the
exact same moment a bullet whizzed past. It hit the sand inches
from my face, flicking up sharp grains that stung my eyes.

I tried to dismiss the idea, but each time I
did, my mind dragged it back and stubbornly held it before me. My
instinct to survive just wouldn’t let it go.

If I stood up and kept running—no matter how
much I zigzagged—those gunners would get me. No doubt in my mind. I
might make it to the landing parties, but what would be left of me?
The image of my leg or my arm lying somewhere farther down the
beach, while I crawled away in agony, filled my imagination.

This injury, which I’d thought was a terrible
piece of bad luck, was perhaps my salvation. Here was my plausible
excuse.

It was, wasn’t it?

I took the story out for a spin—ran it
through my mind. Backward. Forward. It
was
reasonable.
Nobody could ever say any different. I was hit, and I blacked out.
What happened after that, I couldn’t say.

If it weren’t for the other brave soldiers’
bodies falling on me, covering me, I would have died, too. I tried
to get through, I would tell them. If it weren’t for that
bullet…Yes, if the bullet hadn’t found me, I would have carried out
my orders. I wanted to be a hero, but it was terrible bad luck.
Blackey had said that the beach would shortly be ours. I only
needed to wait it out.

Who would know?

Another bullet skimmed overhead, only inches
away. That was all the encouragement I needed. Pushing my gun away,
I crawled the few feet toward “One-Eye.” Stretching my neck up,
just over his waist, I peered over. There was the owner of the
boot. He hadn’t gotten very far. His body lay in a shallow trench
at a crazy angle just a few feet away. Thank God his face was
turned in the other direction.

With all the strength I could muster, I
half-dived, half-crawled over One-Eye to land between the two
bodies. Then I pulled One-Eye inward, trying to keep his face out
of my sight. I couldn’t bear to look at his face for too long. I
cursed the weight of the body. It was heavier than it looked. It
only needed to be moved a foot at the most. The sand gave a little
with the force of my tugging and that made the job of pulling it
toward me easier.

Once he was in place, I turned my attention
to the other body, grabbing it by the belt. This was more difficult
because I couldn’t move around too much or I would dislodge
One-Eye. But after several sharp tugs, I managed it.

Now I was sandwiched between the two, and all
I needed was to snuggle beneath them and lay still. The
overpowering smell of blood and gunpowder, combined with the
exertion and the heat, made me feel sick. I turned my head into the
sand and retched violently, as I’d never vomited before. The
heaving didn’t stop until the only thing left in my stomach was
bile, and still it came.

It surprised me how calm I had become. The
thought of surviving was a balm to my terror. My leg, though, had
started to throb and itch. I reached down to scratch at it,
gritting my teeth against pain that was increasing with every
second. Each movement I made was slow and careful, even though I
wanted to scratch the hell out of it. I thought the bodies would
provide protection, but I was uncertain how much.

Tears ran down my cheeks, as much as I tried
to hold them back. I didn’t sob; they were silent tears. If I
cried, my chest might heave, and I couldn’t risk the movement.

I closed my eyes in an effort to stem the
flow. But with my eyes closed, my hearing became more acute. The
whistling of the bullets, the punch and crack of the explosions in
the distance, the shouts from both sides, the screaming of nearby
men mortally wounded.
Hell on Earth. Hell on Earth and
beyond.

A string of bullets laced through One-Eye,
the soft
thwack
sound and the slight jump of the body as
each one found its mark. I was terrified. I wanted to jump up and
run. But once it stopped, I realized no bullets had found me.

My heart took off again.

Thu-ump. Thu-ump. Thu-ump.

It beat so hard I thought it would lift me
off the ground.

I held my body rigid, hardly daring to
breathe. Playing dead was easier when death surrounded you.

I counted to one hundred, not breathing until
I reached fifteen, and then each ten after that. Then I would take
a shallow breath through my nose, just in case a sniper had seen me
and was waiting for my movement. I imagined him patiently watching
through his scope. When he saw no movement, he would blink and then
swing his rifle to another unfortunate target.

After one hundred, I opened my eyes, the only
part of my body I dared allow to move. Another minute passed as I
lay there, breathing every count of ten, only my eyes moving as I
scanned the immediate area.

I realized that when the bullets had struck
my savior’s body, the force had moved him slightly off of me. My
legs were now exposed. I needed to get him back over me, and again
burrow myself into the cave created by the two corpses. So again, I
began the strenuous process of moving the body. As I half-twisted
around, pulling at the belt of One-Eye, prodding at him, trying to
maneuver his body over mine, he came upon me—almost stepped on
me.

I saw him at the same moment that he saw
me.

Charlie O’Shea was in the 5th Ranger
Battalion. I knew him because, in the previous week, we had shared
training games with them. We weren’t friends, but we knew each
other enough to nod and say hello. It had gotten around that he was
one of the best lightweight boxers they had in the company. They’d
said when he got home—if he got home—he had a future in the sport.
World class, apparently.