My Honor Flight (5 page)

We all gathered around
him.  I turned and threw up.  I seemed to do that quite a bit during the war. 
But I wasn’t the only one.  Some of the guys cried.  O’Halloran was pretty
tight with Tom Duncan.  Duncan dropped to his knees and put his hands on
O’Halloran’s chest.  He didn’t say anything as his tears dropped onto
O’Halloran.  He opened O’Halloran’s coat, and pulled out the leather square
that was in an inside pocket. 

 “It’s McIntire’s.  I’ve
got it now.” Duncan opened his coat and tucked away the square.

Everyone looked dazed. 
We all fell to the ground, sitting in a big circle around the body.  O’Halloran
was a good egg, just like the rest of us.  To see him lying there, I knew that
it could have been any of us.  When was it going to be my turn?

 “He was a good man,”
said Cap, walking around our circle.  “You boys remember him.  You remember
this moment.  Because as sad as it is, a lot more of us are going to end up
like O’Halloran.  We need to stick together, and fight for each other.  No
matter how bad it gets, you keep fighting.  You don’t give up.  Ever!”

The words felt hollow,
like he was scolding us.  I didn’t like hearing it.  I didn’t like seeing
O’Halloran lying there.  That could be me.  That WOULD be me, soon. 

Cap looked around at us. 
He didn’t look supportive or understanding.  He looked disgusted, frowning and
piercing each of us with a hard gaze.  “So you boys can sit here crying like
schoolchildren,” Cap said in his quiet, calm voice.  Then his voice shifted to
a loud, angry shout.  “Or you can take the hurt to those fucking krauts! 
Because if you don’t snap out of it and remember your training, you’ll be dead
in a few minutes!”  We started nodding and looking at each other.  We wiped
away tears.  I felt a hatred well up inside me that I had never felt before. 
There were men just on the other side of that hill who had killed a friend of
mine.  And they were going to kill us all, if we didn’t kill them first.  It
was... animalistic.  We heard rustling back in the direction toward the beach,
and about a dozen of us swung our guns in that direction.  Paul Taylor came
running into the hollow, bent over and holding his helmet on.

 “I got them!” he said
through gasps.  “A full company!  Three hundred men!”

We didn’t cheer or say
anything.  There was no noise at all, except for the clicking and snapping of
our weapons as we pounded in clips and affixed bayonets.  We were grim.  Some
guys’ dirty cheeks were streaked white from where there had been tears.  Paul’s
smile faded as he looked around at us, then he looked down at O’Halloran’s
body.  He sagged.  He looked at us in bewilderment, like he didn’t recognize
us.  We had changed.  We weren’t scared new soldiers.  We wanted to kill.

The ensuing battle was a
blowout.  There were some three hundred and thirty of us versus about fifty
Germans.  The battle only took a few minutes.  I killed my first enemy in that
battle.  About a hundred of us charged out of the hollow while the rest
provided cover fire.  We charged toward the trees, firing while we ran.  I took
aim at a German who was lying on the ground, tucked up next to a tree trunk. 
All I could see was one side of his face, part of his helmet, and his
shoulder.  My first shot caught him in the shoulder.  He collapsed down a
little, and that exposed more of his face.  I shot him right in the nose.  I
didn’t throw up that time.  I was mad as hell about O’Halloran. 

And then it was over.  I
didn’t have to take another shot, because we had overwhelmed them so much. 

 “Cease fire!” men were
calling.

I stood next to the man I
had killed.  Curiosity got the best of me.  I rolled him over.  His dead eyes
looked right at me.  He was a boy, no older than me.  He had sandy hair and
bright blue eyes.  Cap must have seen me looking at him, and he walked up and
stood next to me.

 “He ain’t your friend. 
He ain’t just like you.  He doesn’t have a girlfriend just like you.  He isn’t
doing what he’s told.  He was here to kill you.  And if you didn’t kill him,
you would be dead.  Do you understand?”

I nodded, but didn’t stop
looking into the guy’s eyes.  Cap punched me in the shoulder, in a friendly way.

 “Get moving.  You don’t
need any doubts.  And that’s all you’ll get if you think about it.  All you
need to think about is staying alive.  Move.”

Two men from Buzz Company
were wounded bad enough to get pulled from duty.  That took us to thirty-two men.

Our next
battle wasn’t so lopsided, and it wasn’t so easy.  We worked our way through
the country to a pretty good-sized French town.   I don’t remember the name of
it.  But the Germans were holed up tight.  Our assignment was to flush them
out.  They were hunkered down and they had sandbags surrounding the buildings. 
We didn’t have tanks.  So, we’d shoot at them when they looked out their
windows.  But any time we tried to take shots at them, they’d duck out of
sight, and we’d waste our ammo.

We were
getting really pissed off about it.  It was one-sided.  They had free shots at
us, but we couldn’t see them or shoot at them.

Finally Cap pulled
us back around five o’clock in the afternoon.  He gave us a mess break and told
us to try to get some sleep because we were going to take the town at night. 
We had a decent meal and lay around trying to get comfortable.  But with those
long summer days, only a few of us could actually sleep in the evening daylight. 
A few groups of us got together and quietly played cards.  Remember, we’d only
been in France for a few days, so we were still green.  By the end of our tour,
we could sleep on command.  But we weren’t battle-hardened yet.  I was getting
butterflies, just like when I was on the landing craft during D-Day. 

I joined in a
game of rummy with Calvin Porter, Tom Duncan, and Mike Franklin.  Anything to
take my mind off what was coming that night.  I think they were nervous because
there were no jokes, no chatter.  I remember that Duncan looked grim as he
stared at his cards.  He wasn’t concentrating on the game.  He’d just stare off
into space, and we’d have to tell him it was his turn every time.  I don’t
think any of us were paying much attention to the cards.  We weren’t playing
for money.  Finally, Duncan started talking.

 “When do you
guys think you’re going to die?” he asked.

 “When I’m a
hundred,” said Franklin.

 “We’re not
going to make it that long,” Duncan said, shaking his head, “We’re not going to
make it at all.”

 “Why do you
say that?” I asked.

 “There’s
killing everywhere.  Since we landed here, it’s all about killing.  It’s not
one-sided.  They’re going to kill us too.”

 “Nah,” said
Porter. “We can take ’em.  With our smarts, and our supplies, and a little luck...
We can do this.”

Duncan shook
his head.  “I don’t like relying on luck just to stay alive.  The odds are too
stacked against us.  We’re not going to make it.”

It was
unusual to hear Duncan talk like that.  He was one of the funnest guys in the
platoon.  With his circus background, he was one of our best entertainers.  He told
us all the gimmicks in the carnival games, where people would fork over big money
to win a doll.  He even carried a twenty-foot length so that he could practice
his rope walking.  He was a lot of fun to watch.  But there wasn’t any fun that
night.

 “Man, a daredevil
like you is scared to die?” asked Porter.

 “It’s all
about risk and practice.  I can walk a rope between two buildings.  Because
I’ve done it my whole life.  But there is never someone trying to kill me when
I’m on the rope.  I tell you, the odds are against us here, fellas.”

We didn’t say
anything for a long time.  We just sat there and looked down.  I couldn’t argue
with him.  I also started to think this was a suicide run.  Us against the
whole damn German army.  They had the advantage of position, and knowledge of
the land.  They looked well-supplied.  They were meaner than us.  It was
scary.  Any time I thought about it, I just wanted to go hide somewhere.  Just
curl up in a ball in the woods and hide.  I know I wasn’t the only one that
felt that way.  Despite all of our posturing as being Buzz Company, there were
times when guys in the platoon showed their fear.  Hell, by the time the war
was over, we’d all broken down at one time or another.  Nobody made fun of
anyone when that happened.  We all had doubts and fears, but we didn’t think
they were weaknesses.  Our claim to fame was that we would go into the battle
and get the job done, no matter how bad it was. 

For me, I had
a constant weight on my mind that I had to kill other men or be killed by them. 
And I didn’t like either alternative.  All I wanted was to survive until I
could go home.  Not just me.  I wanted all of us to make it.  Don’t get me
wrong, I was there to help win the war.  It’s like what they say about making
sausage—you don’t want to know how it gets done, you just want the end result.

Cap called
everyone together.  Each platoon of Buzz Company had a different objective that
night.  The objectives were far enough apart that we wouldn’t kill each other
with friendly fire.  Our platoon was going to take a big farm just east of
town.  There were several buildings, and Command figured that there were
probably twenty or more krauts holed up there. 

We left the
camp, which was on the west side of town.  We had to avoid the town so we didn’t
get shot at, so we had to haul ass south, then east, then north.  It figured we
would have the longest hike!  Seems that always happened to us.  About a half
mile east of town, we spotted a light in the farmhouse.  We split up into six
groups of about five each.  The plan was to form a semicircle in the woods around
the farm, and lay into the krauts when we saw their gun flares.  Cap gave us
specific instructions—do NOT shoot at anything except the buildings, unless you
were damn sure that you were shooting at a German. 

It was a mostly
cloudy night, so it was pretty dark.  We were in heavy woods, so it was even
darker.  A kraut could walk right up to me and shoot me in the head, and no one
would take him out, because people would think it was just me shooting into the
farm.  I didn’t like this setup one bit.  I kept glancing behind me.  If I were
the krauts, once the fighting started, I’d send a bunch of guys around behind
us.  It’d be real easy to take us out.  This was the only time during the whole
war that I thought Cap made a bad call.

I was
crouched down next to Tinpan Jones.  I don’t know how Jones got the name
Tinpan.  I don’t remember his real name.  Hell, I don’t think I ever heard his
real name.  Everyone called him Tinpan, or Tin. 

 “This ain’t
good,” drawled Tinpan.  He was from Oklahoma.  “Cain’t see shit.  All them damn
krauts gotta do is hold their fire.  Hell, they could walk right up and git
us.”

I agreed. 
“Anyone seen Cap?”  I whispered as loud as I could.

 “Shh!” came
a reply.  “Shut the fuck up!”

 “It’s
Mackinack.  I need to talk to Cap.  Pass it on.”

I heard some
whispering, and it worked its way down both sides of the chain.  Then I heard
some rustling to my left.

 “What the hell
is it, Mack?”  It was Cap.

 “We don’t
like this, Cap—”

 “I don’t
give a shit if you like it or not!” he said.  “You got something important for
me, or are you just wasting my time and risking the lives of everyone here?” 

I’d really
pissed him off.

 “I’ve got an
idea,” I said.

 “What is
it?”

I hesitated. 
I was about to tell my CO that I disagreed with him, and I thought I had a
better idea.  I didn’t know how he would react.  But I had been eyeballing the
farm yard.  There was a good-sized barn on the right, and the house was on the
left.  There were some smaller outbuildings, but I figured they were too small
to hold any Germans.  A chicken coop.  A tool shed.  I think maybe a small barn
for sheep or pigs.

 “Me and Tin
have been talking here.  We can’t see shit.  But that means the Germans can’t
see shit either.  But all they have to do is hold their fire, and we can’t see
them.”

 “So?”
whispered Cap.

 “So we’re
only covering one side of the farm.  Those assholes could circle around and get
us.”

Cap didn’t
say anything.  I couldn’t see his facial expression in the dark.

 “So,” I
continued, “I think some of us should take the barn.  If we can do that, we got
’em from two sides.”

Cap was still
silent.  He was thinking.

 “That’s a
good call, Mack,” he said.  “Goddamn, you might make Captain someday yourself. 
Who’s in your group?”

 “Uhh...,” I
said, “Uhh, it’s me and Tinpan, Porter, Peters, and Taft.”

 “All right,”
said Cap. “You and Torgeson’s group are going to take the barn.”

I was kicking
myself hard.  I just volunteered to give up the safety of the woods for a
gunfight to get into a secured building.  I was silent.

 “You
scared?” he asked.

 “Hell yes,”
I whispered.

He leaned
close and whispered to me.

 “Good.  Then
I’ve got the right man in charge.”

That filled
me with pride.  Cap was giving me a vote of confidence.  But the pride wasn’t
enough to overcome the fear.

 “Work your
way through the woods, so that the barn is between you and the house.  Then
real quiet, get across the clearing.  I don’t know what’s on that side.  You
may need to shoot through windows, doors, whatever.  But don’t bunch up, and
leave Peters and Pearson in the woods.  Tell them to snipe anyone in windows
until you get in the building.  Then they need to hold their fire into the
barn.  You get me, soldier?”

 “Yes sir,” I
said.  I was running through the picture of the attack in my head. 

Cap slapped
me on the chest and said, “What the hell you waiting for?  Get going.  We won’t
open fire on the house until you start shooting from the barn.”

 “Cap?” I
said.

 “What is
it?”

 “What if we
can’t take the barn?”

Cap
hesitated.  “One of three things is going to happen.  You’re going to take the
barn, you’re going to die trying to take the barn, or you’re going to encounter
heavy resistance.  If there’s just no way to take the barn, attack from the
trees on that side just like we are going to do here.  But watch your asses for
an attack from the north.”

 “Yes sir,” I
said, and turned to leave.  He grabbed my arm.

 “Mack,” he
said.

 “Yes sir?”

 “There’s a
lot of men here.  Your plan gives us all a better chance of getting through
this night.”

I swallowed
hard.  It was bad enough that I’d stumbled into volunteer duty.  Now he was
putting the weight of the platoon on me.

Me and
Torgeson had the two right-most groups in the trees.  So we worked our way
around until we were straight east of the barn.  We could see the glow of light
from two windows, but there were no doors on the east side of the barn.  There
were only doors on the north and south side.  I cussed to myself.  That meant
we were going to have to expose ourselves to a second side of the barn to get
in through a door.  Since the house had more visibility to the south side of
the barn, we figured we’d take it from the north door.  The only thing with
visibility to the barn’s north side were the outbuildings, which would be
empty.

Peters and
Pearson split up so that they could each have a view of one end of the barn and
one of the windows.  I felt a lot better having those fellas on my back.  They
were two of the best shooters I’d ever met.  Torgeson’s group was going to approach
the barn windows and shoot like hell into the barn.  My group was going to
swing around to the north door, and catch the krauts in a crossfire.  No one
was going to enter the barn until both groups yelled that it was clear.  Then
we’d get in the barn and assess our situation.  We figured by the time we got
in the barn, we’d be taking heavy fire from the farmhouse, so we’d have to move
fast to support the rest of the platoon in the trees.

We ran out
into the clearing and up against the barn wall.  The glow of the light from the
windows helped, because we could see each other.  I saw that Torgeson had men
on each window, and they were peering in and then looking at my group. 
Torgeson caught my attention and signaled with his left hand—five, five, four. 
There were fourteen men in the barn!  I gripped my temples.  Jesus Christ, we
were eight against fourteen, unless Peters and Pearson could get clear shots. 
I made a fist and pretended it was like a grenade, pulling the pin with my
teeth and throwing it.  I held up four fingers.  Torgeson understood.  I
watched as the four men each pulled a grenade.  That meant that they would not
be firing into the barn right away.  And it also meant that if we charged the
barn before those grenades blew, we could get hit by friendly fire.  I crouched
down to the men. 

 “They’re
throwin’ grenades,” I whispered. “When they blow, we take the door.”

Jones,
Porter, and Taft all looked at me and nodded.  Their eyes were wide.  Taft’s
lip trembled a little.  I looked back to Torgeson and made a motion like I was
throwing a grenade.  He nodded, and looked back into the window.  We waited.

 “Now!”
called Torgeson.  The sound of his voice startled me, because it had been so
quiet.  I was worried that it would warn the Germans.  All four of the men threw
grenades, and then ducked below the window sills.  But they held their rifles over
their heads, shooting blindly into the barn.  That was one of the longest ten
seconds I had in the war.  Even with rifles firing and the Germans yelling in
the barn, we waited and waited for those grenades to blow.  I heard the Germans
calling “Grenate! Grenate!”  Then the grenades exploded in short sequence,
sounding like one long blast instead of four individual ones.