Eureka (7 page)

As he turned the doorknob, her voice came to him from the darkness.

“I read a poem once,” she said in a voice tortured with misery. “It said ‘First love is forever.' And I believed it.”

He ran from the greenhouse, ran to Cyclone, jumped on his back, and rode down the path, away from the Hoffman house and around Grand View and down the precipitous cliff road from the Hill to Eureka.

The town had gone crazy. It was like New Year's Eve. The bars were full, men were staggering in the street, shooting their guns into the air. Some of the girls were dancing on the wooden sidewalk. The news was out about Riker.

Light from town spilled out on the beach, and Brodie leaned back and smacked Cyclone on the rump. He dashed off down the beach.

“Go, boy, go!” Brodie yelled, as the stallion galloped in and out of the surf as he loved to do. They raced past the town, and then Brodie wheeled him around, and they trotted back to the swimming beach. Brodie slid off his back and for the next two hours he talked to the horse, emptying his heart out, explaining to him why he was leaving.

He understands. I can see it in his eyes. He knows I gotta do this.

The wagon to end-o'-track left at 5:00 a.m. And the weekly supply train to San Francisco left at seven. The sun was a scarlet promise on the horizon when he led Cyclone up to the sheriff's office and tied him to the hitching post. He threw a saddlebag over each shoulder and went into the office. The deputy was half-asleep at his desk.

“What you doin' down here this time a day?”

“I gotta go out of town,” Brodie answered.

He laid an envelope on the desk.

“My horse is tied up outside and I got a note here for Buck. I'm asking him to take the horse back up to the Gormans for me.”

“Hope the hell nobody steals him,” the deputy said, looking out the window at Cyclone. “I'll keep an eye on him.”

“Thanks.”

The wagon was loaded with hungover iron workers when Brodie climbed aboard. A few minutes later, the driver cracked his whip and they started up the hill. As the wagon reached the crest, Brodie looked back at the town where he was born and where his life had changed forever in the years since the death of his mother. A great sadness flowed over him. Then he turned his back on Eureka and dismissed it.

Good-bye forever and good riddance,
he said to himself, and he knew he would never return.

Fate had other plans for Brodie Culhane.

1918

 

In the spring of 1917, a dispirited President Woodrow Wilson, the liberal idealist who had ardently resisted America's intervention in the war in Europe, was finally forced to admit the inevitable: America was about to be drawn into the most savage conflict in the history of warfare. In 1914, nine European nations were embroiled in what would become known as the Great War, a conflict unparalleled in its brutality. On one side, France, Italy, Great Britain, and Russia, among others. Opposing them, Germany, Turkey, and the Ottoman Empire.

It quickly became apparent that World War I was to become a campaign of mud, trenches, barbed wire—and machine guns, the first time the deadly weapon was used in a major war.

By the time the United States entered the conflict, the trench war was approaching its grotesque and barbaric finale . . .

A thick fog laced with the smell of death lay like a shroud over the battlefield. Then there was a howl in the sky as a star shell arced and burst, briefly revealing a ghastly sight. Silhouetted in the heavy mist was a wasteland of staggering destruction. Trees, fragmented by constant artillery shelling, were reduced to leafless, shattered stalks. Fence posts wrapped in rusting barbed wire stood like pathetic sentinels over trenches that snaked and crisscrossed the terrain. Shell holes, surrounded by mounds of displaced earth, were filled with rancid rainwater. There was no grass, nothing green or verdant, just brown stretches of mud, body parts dangling from endless stretches of wire, abandoned weapons, and corpses frozen in a tragic frieze of death.

And there were the rats, legions of rats, scurrying back and forth in the no-man's-land, feasting on the dead.

A few hundred yards beyond the haze-veiled scene, the Germans were gathering for another attack—there had been dozens through the years. The star shell burned out and darkness enveloped the shell-spotted battlefield.

Brodie Culhane was chilled even though it was early September. His boots and socks were soaked and he had removed his puttees, which were in rags. Damp fog wormed through his clothing and clung to his skin. The machine-gun nest he had set up had an inch of water in it from a rainstorm the night before. There wasn't a spot of dry ground for miles in any direction. It made him think of Eureka. All around him was mud. Mud as demanding as quicksand, sucking a man's legs down to the knees with every step. As he stared into the darkness, another star shell burst overhead, illuminating the grim no-man's-land that lay between his machine-gun line and the Germans.

From Switzerland to the English Channel, the French had lined their border with trenches and barbed wire, four rows of each separating them from Germany. Now, almost four years later, the grim sight before him defined what had become known as the Western Front.

He was dying for a cigarette. And in the deadly silence, a song suddenly echoed in his head.

K-K-K-Katy, K-K-K-Katy,

You're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore . . .

It was their first day on the line. They were marching down a road past a park on the outskirts of a French town called Château Thierry, heading north toward a game preserve called Belleau Wood. One of the squads started singing, as if it were a parade. One platoon singing one song, a second company answering with another.

K-K-K-Katy, K-K-K-Katy,

You're the only g-g-g-girl that I adore,

When the m-m-m-moon shine's, over the c-c-c-cowshed,

I'll be w-w-w-waiting at the g-g-g-garden door.

Answered by:

You may forget the gas and shells, parlay-voo,

You may forget the gas and shells, parlay-voo,

You may forget the gas and shells,

But you'll never forget the mademoiselles,

Hinky-dinky parlay-voo.

They were still singing when the Germans fired the first volley. Machine guns. His men went down like string-cut puppets.

Barely six months ago.

Baptism day.

Behind him, the radiophone buzzed, its ring muzzled to prevent the enemy, a few hundred yards away, from hearing it.

The radioman, a clean-cheeked youngster, answered it, cupping the mouthpiece with his hand. He gave the receiver to Culhane, who could feel the youngster's hand shaking as he took it. The nineteen-year-old had developed the shakes after only two weeks on the front.

“Culhane,” he whispered.

“Brodie, this is Jack Grover. The major wants to have a chat. I'm on the radiophone by the five-mile post.”

“Stay where you are,” Brodie answered, “I'll come to you. You'll never get that tricycle of yours through this damn muck.”

“Appreciate that,” Grover answered with a chuckle, and the radio went dead.

“Relax, kid,” Culhane's voice was calm and deep as an animal's growl as he handed the phone back to the radioman. “Nothing's gonna happen for three or four hours. Think about something else. Think about your girl back home or Christmas or something. Fear's worse than the real thing.”

He checked his watch in the masked glow of his flashlight. It was three-fifteen.

“I gotta run back to HQ,” he told the kid. “Cover the stutter gun.” He grabbed his rifle, crawled out of the nest, and headed east in a crouch toward the dirt road four hundred feet away, mud snatching at his boots with every step.

Grover was waiting on the motorcycle when Culhane emerged from the dark. His clothing and face were caked with mud, he was unshaven, and his eyes were dulled by lack of sleep.

“Jesus, you look like hell,” Grover said as Culhane clambered into the sidecar.

“Haven't you heard, this
is
hell,” Culhane answered. Grover wheeled around and headed back down the muddy road.

Temporary HQ was a two-room bunker a mile from no-man's-land. It had wood-plank floors, sandbags for walls, and the ceiling was made of fence posts and logs. The first room was occupied by the top sergeant, a beefy old-timer named Paul March. Wooden planks stretched between upended ammo boxes substituted for a desk. A radioman named Caldone was huddled over his equipment and a runner was catching a nap on a cot in the corner. A tattered piece of burlap served as a door to the other room, the major's office.

“How's it going up there?” March said to Culhane.

“Wanna take a guess?”

“No thanks,” March said. “Let me be surprised in a couple of hours when we join you for tea and crumpets.” He walked to the burlap curtain and knocked on the wooden frame that supported it.

“Yes?” The voice from inside the room was deep, with the soft roll of the South in it.

“Sergeant Culhane's here, Major.”

“Good, show him in.”

They entered, saluted, and Major Merrill walked around his desk to grab Culhane by the arm.

“Good to see you, Brodie,” he said.

“Glad I'm still around.”

The major was a big man, broad-shouldered and muscular, his hair trimmed almost to the scalp, his dark blue eyes dulled by too many attacks and counterattacks and too many “regret” letters written to mothers or wives or sisters. He was a year younger than Culhane, but the war had put ten years on his face. Culhane had served under him for two years, starting when the battalion was formed in South Carolina. Merrill was a compassionate man in a business where compassion was a liability.

“Jesus, you're a wreck,” he said to Culhane.

“So I've been told,” Culhane answered. Haunted eyes peered out from his mud-caked face.

Major Merrill looked Culhane over.

“Sergeant March,” the major called.

“Yes, sir,” March answered, peering through the burlap curtain.

“Do you think you can find me a pair of dry boots, ten-and-a-half C, and some dry socks and puttees?”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

To Culhane, the major said, “I could hear your boots squishing when you came down the steps. A soldier has a right to go into battle with dry feet, damn it. Sorry I can't get you a fresh uniform.”

“I'll be up to my ass in mud two minutes after I leave here, anyway,” Culhane said. “But it'll be nice to have dry feet for a little while. Thanks. Okay if I smoke?”

“Of course.”

Merrill watched Culhane's mud-caked hands as he took out a pouch of tobacco, papers, and matches wrapped in tinfoil to keep them dry. Not a tremor, he thought, as he watched Culhane roll the cigarette and light it.

Culhane took out a roughly sketched map and spread it out on Merrill's table, but Merrill pointed to the other curtain in the room.

“There's a makeshift sink and some clean water in there. Why don't you wash up before we talk. My razor and strop's in there if you want to grab a quick shave. I'll get us some coffee.”

March came back with fresh footwear, and Culhane put on the socks and boots. When he returned to Merrill's office, there were two tin cups of coffee sitting on the table. Merrill took a silver flask from his back pocket and laced both with brandy while Culhane rolled another cigarette.

“According to our intelligence, whoever the hell they are, the Germans are lining up to take another crack at us,” Merrill said.

“What a surprise,” said Culhane. “When?”

“Dawn.”

Culhane looked at him for a moment, then asked, “What's the weather look like?”

“We're supposed to pick up some wind about sunrise. That'll clear the fog, then it's going to be a bright, sunny day.”

“A break for us, for a change.”

“If we can stop them this time, I think they're beat. They need to make this breakthrough and get behind our troops. Brodie, you're going to have to . . .”

“. . . stall their front line at my forward post until you can move the company up,” Brodie finished the sentence.

Merrill laughed. He had not laughed for some time. Culhane could sense a lot more relief in his laughter than joy.

“Where will you be?” Brodie asked.

“Fifty yards behind you. The company will move up to within fifty yards of your position before the Krauts start shelling us. I'm gambling that they'll think we're in the trenches, and pepper the trench line between them and us. If they find out we've moved back from the line, they'll raise their big guns and blow us to hell and gone. Your gunners are our front line. As soon as you make contact, we'll attack.”

“How long do I have?”

“With the mud? Ten minutes. Can you hold them for ten minutes?”

In a place where a minute equals an hour anywhere else in the world?
He shrugged. “If that's what I gotta do, that's what I gotta do.”

Culhane turned his hastily sketched map toward Merrill and pointed out his positions as he spoke. “I got ten machine-gun nests set up along our perimeter with overlapping fire. Max Brady's in charge of the line. I got sappers out there planting mines in the trenches only. The mines are marked with circles on the map. I've got my two best shooters on the road and Rusty, the human ear, in a trench about fifty yards out. They should hear something before the shelling starts. The Krauts have four trenches to cross, a lot of wire, the mud, and the mines. The trenches are laced with 'em, Major. Warn our boys to jump across them. If they fall in one, there's a four-in-one chance they'll land on a mine.”

“Classic setup for an ambush.” Merrill smiled. “You outguessed me.”

“I need the fog to lift, because if we can see them, we can hold them in place. But if the fog holds and they get right on top of us before we can engage them . . .”

He let the sentence die.

“So you have fourteen men holding that line?”

“Actually eighteen, counting me. We have two radiomen and two corpsmen up there, too.”

“You travel pretty light.”

“I got the seventeen best men in the company. You got the rest.”

Merrill leaned forward and stared at the map. “So we need the fog to hold, to cover us,” Merrill said, “and then lift just as they attack so you can zero in on them.”

“That's about it. My two point men and Rusty the Ear are out there listening for movement. They'll fire flares when they're sure the Krauts are on the move. Then you can lob some star shells over them and, with luck, we'll get a nice look at 'em.”

“They'll charge at that point.”

Culhane nodded. “And move their artillery down the road. If they lead off with a tank, we can take it out with grenades. If they bring on the caissons first, we'll kill the horses and stop their artillery dead in its tracks.”

“It's a daring plan,” Merrill said. Then he nodded. “But if it works, we can drive them right into the river. They'll have to surrender.”

“A lot's gonna depend on the fog.”

Major Merrill reached in his pocket and took out a lieutenant's gold collar bar, put it on the desk, and slid it toward Culhane.

“I knew you'd be ready, Brodie,” he said. “You're the best I've got. I'm giving you a battlefield commission. Colonel Bowers approved it last night. I don't have a commissioned officer left in this company.”

Culhane stared at the bar for a full minute. He reached out with a forefinger and spun it around.

“How'd you like to tell some kid's mother that her son was blown to bits for five miles of mud, Major?”

“I do,” Merrill said quietly. “I write the letters every day. I tell them their sons died heroes.”

“There aren't any heroes in a slaughterhouse.”

“Brodie, in four years, the battle lines along the western front have moved less than ten miles in either direction. It isn't about taking ground, it's about artillery and machine guns and bodies. We're expendable because we can be replaced. The guy back on the production line cranking out those howitzer shells and firing pins and cannon barrels, he's the one who's important.”