The Young Lions (60 page)

"That's the way to fight a war," Burnecker said beside Noah.

"Real beds, coffee is being served below, Sir, you may fire when ready, Gridley. We would have joined the Navy, Ackerman, if we had as much brains as a rabbit."

"Come on, move!" It was Rickett, calling from behind them, the same, snarling, Sergeant's voice, which no sea voyage, no amount of killing, would ever change.

"My choice," Burnecker said, "for the man I would like most to be alone with on a desert island."

They turned and plodded inland, leaving the coast behind them.

They marched for half an hour and then it became evident that Colclough was lost again. He stopped the Company at a crossroad where two MPs were directing traffic from a deep hole they had dug to one side, with just their helmets and shoulders sticking out above ground level. Noah could see Colclough gesturing angrily and he could hear the violence in the Captain's voice as he yelled at the MPs who were shaking their heads in ignorance. Then Colclough got out his map again and yelled at Lieutenant Green, who came up to help.

"Just our luck," Burnecker said, wagging his head, "we got a Captain who couldn't find a plough in a ballroom."

"Get back," they heard Colclough shout at Green. "Get back where you belong. I know what I'm doing!"

He turned into a lane between high, gleaming green hedges, and the Company wound slowly after him. It was darker between the hedges, and somehow much quieter, although the guns were still going, and the men peered uneasily at the dense, intertwined leaves, made for ambush.

Nobody said anything. They trudged on both sides of the damp road, trying to hear a rustle, the click of a rifle-bolt, a whisper of German, over the everlasting infantry squash-squash of their shoes, heavily scuffing in the thick clay of the lane.

Then the road opened up into a field and the sun broke through the clouds for a while and they felt better. An old woman was grimly milking her cows in the middle of the field, attended by a young girl with bare feet. The old woman sat on a stool, next to her weathered farm wagon, between whose shafts stood a huge, shaggy horse. The old woman pulled slowly and defiantly at the teats of the smooth-shouldered, clean-looking cow. Overhead the shells came and went and occasionally, from what seemed like a very short distance, there was the excited rattle of machine-guns, but the old woman never looked up. The girl with her was not more than sixteen years old, and was wearing a tattered green sweater. She had a red ribbon in her hair and she was interested in the soldiers.

"I think maybe I'll stop right here," Burnecker said, "and help with the chores. Tell me how the war comes out, Ackerman."

"Keep moving, soldier," said Noah. "Next war we'll all be in the Services of Supply."

"I love that girl," Burnecker said. "She reminds me of Iowa. Ackerman, do you know any French?"

"A voire sante," Noah said. "That's all I know."

"A votre sante," Burnecker shouted to the girl, grinning and waving his rifle, "a votre sante, Baby, and the same to your old lady."

The girl waved back at him, smiling.

"She's crazy about me," Burnecker said. "What did I say to her?"

"To your health."

"Hell," said Burnecker, "that's too formal. I want to tell her something intimate."

"Je t'adore," said Noah, remembering it from some echo in his memory.

"What does that mean?"

"I adore you."

"That's more intimate," Burnecker said. He was near the end of the field now, and he turned and took off his helmet and bowed low, with a gallant sweep of the large metal pot. "Oh, Baby," he called thunderously, the helmet light and dashing in his huge, farmer's hand, his boyish, sunburned face grave and loving, "Oh, Baby, je t'adore, je t'adore…"

The girl smiled and waved again. "Je t'adore, mon Americain," she called.

"This is the greatest country on the face of the earth," Burnecker said.

"Come on, Hot Pants," Rickett said, prodding him with a bony, sharp thumb.

"Wait for me," Burnecker howled across the green fields, across the backs of the cows so much like the cows in his native Iowa. "Wait for me, Baby, I don't know how to say it in French, wait for me, I'll be back…"

The old lady on the stool, without looking up, brought back her hand and smacked the girl across her buttocks, sharply. The stinging, mean sound carried to the end of the field. The girl looked down and began to cry. She ran around to the other side of the cart to hide her face.

Burnecker sighed. He put on his helmet and went through the break in the hedge to the next field.

Three hours later Colclough found Regiment and half an hour after that they were in contact with the German Army. Six hours later Colclough managed to get the Company surrounded.

The farmhouse, in which what was left of the Company defended itself, seemed almost to have been built for the purposes of siege. It had thick stone walls, narrow windows, a slate roof that would not catch fire, huge, rock-like timbers holding up the floors and ceilings, a pump in the kitchen, and a deep, safe cellar where the wounded could be put out of harm's way.

It could be depended upon to stand up for a long time even against artillery. So far the Germans had not used anything heavier than mortars on it, and the thirty-five men who had fallen back on the house felt, for the moment, fairly strong. They fired from the windows in hurried bursts at the momentarily seen figures among the hedges and the outhouses surrounding the main building.

In the cellar, in the light of a candle, lay four wounded and one dead, among the cider barrels. The French family whose farm this was, and who had retired to the cellar at the first shot, sat on boxes, staring silently down at the stricken men who had come so far to die in their basement. There was a man of fifty who limped from a wound he had received in the last war at the Marne, and his wife, a thin, lanky woman of his own age, and their two daughters, aged twelve and sixteen, both very ugly, and both numb with fear, who cowered between the doubtful protection of the barrels.

The Medics had all been lost earlier in the day and Lieutenant Green kept running down when he could find time, to do what he could with first-aid dressings.

The farmer was not on good terms with his wife. "No," he said bitterly again and again. "Madame would not leave her boudoir, war or no war. Oh, no. Remain, she says, I will not leave my house to soldiers. Perhaps, Madame, you prefer this?"

Madame did not answer. She sat stolidly on her box, sipping at a cup of cider, looking down curiously at the faces of the wounded, beaded with cold sweat in the light of the candle.

When a machine-gun that the Germans had trained on the living-room window on the first floor clattered away there was a sound of breaking glass and tumbling furniture above her head. She sipped her drink a little more quickly, but that was all.

"Women," said the farmer to the dead American at his feet.

"Never listen to women. It is impossible to make them see that war is a serious matter."

On the ground floor the men had piled all the furniture against the windows, and were firing through loopholes and over cushions. Lieutenant Green shouted instructions at them from time to time, but no one paid any attention. When there was some movements to be seen through the hedges or in the clump of trees two hundred yards away, everyone on that side of the building fired, then fell back to the floor for safety.

In the dining-room, at the head of a heavy oak table, Captain Colclough was sitting, his helmeted head bowed over on his hands, his pearl-handled pistol in its bright leather holster at his side. He was pale and he seemed to be sleeping. No one talked to him, and he talked to no one. Only once, when Lieutenant Green came in to see if he was still alive, he spoke. "I will need you to make out a deposition," he said. "I told Lieutenant Sorenson to maintain contact on our flank with L Company at all times. You were there when I gave him the order, you were there, weren't you?"

"Yes, Sir," said Lieutenant Green, in his high voice. "I heard you."

"We must get it down on paper," Colclough said, staring down at the worn oak table, "as soon as possible."

"Captain," said Lieutenant Green, "it's going to be dark in another hour, and if we're ever going to get out of here that's the time to try…"

But Captain Colclough had retired into his private dream at the farmer's dining-room table, and he did not speak, nor did he look up when Lieutenant Green spat on the carpet at his feet and walked back into the living-room, where Corporal Fein had just been shot through the lungs.

Upstairs, in the bedroom of the master and mistress of the house, Rickett, Burnecker and Noah covered a lane between the barn and the shed where a plough and a farm wagon were kept. There was a small wooden crucifix on the wall and a stiff photograph of the farmer and his wife, rigid with responsibility on their wedding day. On another wall hung a framed poster from the French Line showing the liner Normandie cutting through a calm, bright blue sea.

There was a white embroidered spread on the lumpy fourposter bed, and little lace doilies on the bureau, and a china cat on the hearth.

What a place, Noah thought, as he put another clip in his rifle, to fight my first battle.

There was a prolonged burst of firing from outside. Rickett, who was standing next to one of the two windows, holding a Browning Automatic Rifle, flattened himself against the flowered wallpaper. The glass covering the Normandie shattered into a thousand pieces. The picture shivered on the wall, with a large hole at the water-line of the great ship, but it did not fall.

Noah looked at the large, neatly made bed. He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to crawl under it. He even took a step towards it, from where he was crouched near the window. He was shivering. When he tried to move his hands, they made wide senseless circles, knocking over a small blue vase on a shawl-covered table in the centre of the room. If only he could get under the bed he would be safe. He would not die then. He could hide, in the dust on the splintery wood floor. There was no sense to this. Standing up to be shot in a tiny wallpapered room, with half the German Army all around him. It wasn't his fault he was there. He had not taken the road between the hedges, he had not lost contact with L Company, he had not neglected to halt and dig in where he was supposed to, it could not be asked of him to stand at the window, next to Rickett, and have his head blown in…

"Get over to that window!" Rickett was shouting, pointing wildly to the other window. "Get the hell over! The bathtards're coming in…"

Recklessly, Rickett was exposing himself at the window, firing in short, spraying bursts, from the hip, his arms and shoulders jerking with the recoil.

Now, thought Noah craftily, when he is not looking. I can crawl under the bed and nobody will know where I am.

Burnecker was at the other window, firing, shouting, "Noah! Noah!"

Noah took one last look at the bed. It was cool and neat and like home. The crucifix on the wall behind it suddenly leapt out from the wall, Christ in splinters, and tumbled on the bedspread.

Noah ran to the window and crouched beside Burnecker. He fired two shots blindly down into the lane. Then he looked. The grey figures were running with insane speed, crouched over, in a bunch, towards the house.

Oh, Noah thought, taking aim (the target in the centre of the circle, remember, and resting on the top of the sight and even a blind man with rheumatism can't miss), oh, Noah thought, firing at the bunched figures, they shouldn't do that, they shouldn't come together like that. He fired again and again. Rickett was firing at the other window and Burnecker beside him, very deliberately, holding his breath, squeezing off. Noah heard a high, wailing scream and wondered where that was coming from. It was quite some time before he realized that it was coming from him. Then he stopped screaming.

There was a lot of firing from downstairs, too, and the grey figures kept falling and getting up and crawling and falling again. Three of the figures actually got close enough to throw hand-grenades, but they missed the window and exploded harmlessly against the walls. Rickett got them all with the same burst of the gun.

The other grey figures seemed to glide to a stop. For a moment there was silence and the figures hung there, motionless, reflective, in the clayey barnyard. Then they turned and began running away.

Noah watched them with surprise. It had never occurred to him that they would not reach the house.

"Come on, come on!" Rickett was screaming. He was reloading feverishly. "Get the bathtards! Get 'em!"

Noah shook himself, then carefully aimed at a man who was running in a curious, clumsy, limping way, his gas-mask can banging on his hip and his rifle thrown away. Noah squinted, pulled the trigger gently, feeling the metal hot against the inside of his finger just as the man was turning behind the barn. The man fell in a long, sprawling slide. He did not move.

"That's it, Ackerman, that's it!" Rickett was at the window again, shouting hilariously. "That's the way to do it."

The lane was empty now, except for the grey figures that weren't moving any more.

"They've gone," Noah said stupidly. "They're not there now."

He felt a wet pressure on his cheek. Burnecker was kissing him. Burnecker was crying and laughing and kissing him.

"Get down," Rickett yelled, "get down from that window."

They ducked their heads. A second later they heard the whistle through the window. The bullets thudded into the wall below the Normandie.

Very nice of Rickett, Noah thought coolly, very surprising.

The door opened and Lieutenant Green came in. His eyes were granular and red and his jaw seemed to hang down with weariness. He sat on the bed, slowly, with a sigh, and put his hands between his legs. He wavered back and forth minutely, and, for a moment, Noah was afraid he was going to fall back on to the bed and go to sleep.