BRAT and the Kids of Warriors

by Michael Joseph Lyons

For the next two days, they called him Black Squirrel Jack. Once Jayla and Sam found out why, they refused to call him anything but crazy.

  28

  Property Disposal

  Jack dragged Charlie and Kevin over to the edge of the playground after lunch one day. “I have a little project and, Charlie, you’re my man.”

  “What’s up?” Charlie felt suspicious. Whenever Jack had that look, it usually meant work.

  Jack stuck two fat sticks into the ground, pointing them toward each other. “Pretend these are the trees down by the ravine. At one point, they’re only five feet apart.” He held a piece of bark in between them. “What if we built a bridge from one tree to the other? Then everyone could use Black Squirrel Crossing.”

  Charlie’s mind easily replaced the bit of bark with a wooden bridge. But one thing puzzled him. “How am I your man?”

  Jack smiled. “We need to hunt up building stuff—probably six-foot boards. When we were stationed stateside, there was always scrap lumber free for the taking. Lots of houses were being built and the carpenters left piles of junk boards till the dump truck came around. I haven’t seen any here, but if there are some, you’re the guy to find ’em.”

  Kevin nodded slowly. “If you could find a Nazi shell casing, you can find us something for a bridge.”

  Charlie took a mental tour of the base—behind the PX, the gym, the airfield, The Glass House. He couldn’t see a scrap of lumber. But at the same time, when he thought about the ravine, he definitely could see a plank bridge between those two trees, so he gamely said, “I’ll try.”

  For the rest of the week, Charlie scrounged Cooke Barracks high and low. Riding in the school bus, or in a car, he scanned for possible scrap locations. As he’d feared, there wasn’t a stick of lumber to be found. The Germans were so well organized, and so neat, there were no castoffs of any kind, anywhere.

  However, Charlie didn’t give up. When he was poking around behind the PX, looking for wooden pallets, the guy on trash duty took pity on him. “Lost cause, son. They’re always reused. Scarce as hen’s teeth.”

  The very next day, Charlie got a break. Walking toward his reading discussion group,

  he picked up on just one word: go-cart. Go-carts needed wood.

  Charlie plunked down in his usual spot, by Ben Kramer, the boy who had said it. “You made a go-cart? Where’d you find wood? I’ve been looking for some all week.”

  Ben grinned. “So did we. There’s no wood around anywhere—at least, that we could find. We used scrap tin. My old man helped us.”

  “The Sargent Major got you the tin?”

  “He helped us fine-tune the plans. I got the tin from my best source.”

  “Yeah?” Charlie almost pleaded.

  Ben studied him for a bit, as if deciding if he could share this key piece of intel.

  Then he leaned toward Charlie. “I got the tin from Ol’ Henry. He runs a place called Property

  Disposal—a place you’re gonna love. It’s where the Army stashes old stuff it doesn’t need anymore. Things like old furniture, scrap metal, and beat-up army equipment.”

  Ben began flipping through his textbook for the story they were reading, all the while quietly explaining how to find Property Control.

  Charlie said, “Thanks. School’s out next week. Maybe we could build stuff together. Too bad we live on opposite ends of the base.”

  Ben gave him a crooked smile. “We’d do great. But I can just picture the Sargent Major finding out my new friend was some colonel’s kid. He’d blow a gasket.”

  Mrs. Campbell started glaring at them; Charlie cocked a head in her direction. “That reaction times ten billion.”

  They joined the book discussion.

  The very first day of summer vacation, Charlie made his way down to the Cooke Barracks Property Disposal. He dug around for a bit, but nothing. He was starting to get discouraged. That is, until he met Ol’ Henry.

  “Our Boy Scouts troop wants to earn a merit badge this summer by making a small bridge, but we can’t find any wooden planks.” Charlie’s desperation was true, even if the story wasn’t.

  “That’s on account of you’re lookin’ at the problem all wrong. See, yer in the great land of 4th Armored Division. You need to consider this here project more like a tanker would.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Lookie here, you need to be thinking metal rather than wood.”

  “Metal?”

  “Yes siree, Bob!”

  Ol’ Henry took Charlie outside to an area way in the back. He showed him a five-foot-high stack of corrugated-steel sheets. Each was about eight feet long and two feet wide, with regularly spaced holes. They were obviously well used, a bit bent up, and rusty.

  Ol’ Henry flipped one off the top of the stack and it clattered to the ground.

  “This here is a metal skid. Combat engineers put ’em on top of mud so trucks and tanks and such can drive across the mud without getting stuck. See how it’s kinda beat up? That’s why the tankers don’t want this one no more. But it’s still plenty good for a small bridge, don’t ya think?”

  Charlie nodded, trying to look interested but not so interested the price would go up. “How much?”

  “Well, lemme see,” Ol’ Henry said, rubbing a gnarled hand across his chin as if giving the matter serious consideration. “Since it’s for the Scouts and all, I guess I could let her go for fifty cents. That sound about right to you?”

  “More than fair. Thanks, Henry. I’ll be back for it tomorrow.”

  Kevin dropped the handle of the Radio-Flyer and rubbed his tingling hands together. “This better be good, Charlie. I’ve had it with pulling this stupid wagon.”

  “You didn’t say it was an hour away,” grumbled Jack.

  Charlie was unapologetic. “Don’t be such party poopers. You’ll see. This place is outtasight.”

  In a few minutes, they walked into Property Disposal.

  Charlie called across the warehouse, “How you doing, Henry?”

  “Just swell, Charlie. How you doin’? You come back for the skid?”

  “Could be. We’ll just go check it out.”

  The three boys studied the big hunk of iron out on the back lot.

  “I see what you mean, Charlie,” Jack said. “It just might work.”

  Kevin hadn’t spoken yet, obviously focused on the skid. And as usual, when he was thinking something over, his hand glided over his flattop. At the moment, his hair was unusually short, because he’d been to the barber the day before. Kevin had to get a haircut every single week, no matter what. Col. Duncan’s orders. That’s when he would go by the PX to stock up on Bazooka Bubble Gum. If Jack was famous for spending half his allowance on his train set, the same people knew Kevin spent half of his on bubble gum. He pulled one end of his current wad into a long rope and then wiggled it back into his mouth. “It’s certainly strong enough to hold us for an air crossing. And it’s wide enough to be safe. We could pound big nails into the tree trunks and branches, and then bend them through the holes in the metal to secure it.”

  “That is, if we had big enough nails,” observed Charlie. He leaned down to try and pick the thing up. “Whoa, this baby is really heavy! How are we gonna get it up there?”

  “Ahhhhh, that’s no problem,” Kevin said, grinning. “We’ll just strap it to the back of the greatest tree climber on the planet, Black Squirrel Jack, and he’ll run it up.”

  Even using both hands, Jack could barely lift one end of the skid. “I don’t think so!”

  “Well, we gotta find a way,” said Charlie.

  Kevin thought some more. “With enough rope we could hoist it up.”

  That meant they needed rope as well as ginormous nails. They trooped back inside to see Ol’ Henry, hoping he’d have a suggestion or two.

  Ol’ Henry had
no nails, but he did have huge wood screws, which they settled on. When it came to rope or chain, he had none. However, after much consideration, he dragged out some flat, OD-green cord. “This here’s parachute cord.”

  When the boys said it couldn’t handle the weight, Ol’ Henry just scoffed. “Now, boys, lookie here. The 101st Airborne Division used this to tie jeeps to three parachutes and drop ’em out of C-47 aircraft on D-day. If it worked for jeeps, it should hold that little slab a iron.”

  “How’d 4th Armored end up with parachute cord from the 101st?” asked Jack.

  “Call it a present. For rescuing their ass.”

  Charlie was fingering the cord, but at that he looked up. “How?”

  “You don’t know that story?” Ol’ Henry sounded incredulous. He waved them to a table little better than the metal skid. “It was World War II. General George Patton and his 3rd Army had hightailed it across Europe to crush the Nazis. Back then, 4th Armored Division was part of Patton’s 3rd Army.

  “The 4th was called Patton’s Vanguard. Everybody knowed they was Patton’s best. It was the last winter of the war, and 3rd Army was almost to Germany. Then them Germans mounted a major winter offensive at Bastogne. Became known as the Battle of the Bulge. German Panzer Divisions had the 101st Airborne Division surrounded. Those Panzers kept pounding ’em. The 101st was barely hanging on when Patton commanded 4th Armored to rescue ’em.

  “The 4th had just come out of a major battle, and they was exhausted. But General Patton didn’t give them one bit of down time. He made ’em race across Belgium, through the snow and freezing cold. They covered a hundred and fifty miles in just nineteen hours. No sleep and no rest. And believe it or not, boys, they went right into battle against them Panzers. They did the impossible. They rescued the 101st.”

  “Wow,” said Charlie. “I never heard that story.”

  “Haven’t you seen that little patch on your fathers’ uniforms? The one right under their 4th Armored Division Patch? It says, ‘BREAKTHROUGH.’ They got that ’cause they’re the ones who did the big breakthrough, coming outta one battle, doing an impossible advance through the snow, and right away breaking through the Panzers to rescue the 101st. Made them famous, even if the 101st ain’t ever admitted they needed help.”

  Jack thought about the time their dads had gone off to Grafenwöhr for winter combat exercises and range qualifying. It now made a lot more sense.

  Then he realized Ol’ Henry was still talking.

  “Yup, that’s when Ol’ Bazooka Charlie was flyin’ Two Star General Wood, 4th Armored commander, in a little Piper Cub airplane. ‘P’ Wood, he liked to command from the front, and Bazooka Charlie flew him in to recon every big battle. We have that Piper Cub parked down on the airfield right now, ’cause General O’Hara acts just like ‘P’ Wood, runnin’ around in that ol’ Piper Cub. And good thing he does.”

  “Why?” Kevin asked.

  “On account of when war breaks out again this is the place it’s gonna happen. And we’re gonna need commanders like General O’Hara.”

  “What?” Jack demanded, hardly believing what he’d just heard.

  The old guy looked startled by Jack’s question, as if he’d said too much. “Now . . . look here. Don’t you be worrying about all that. I never should have mentioned it to you kids.”

  Jack changed the subject. “So where’d you get the parachute cord?”

  “Bazooka Charlie give it to us,” Ol’ Henry said, looking relieved to talk about something else. “He got it from the 101st.”

  “How’d he get the name Bazooka Charlie?” Kevin asked.

  “Now, lookie-here. That’s a story for another day, on account of I gotta get back to work. But I think you two ought to thank this here Scrounger Charlie for scrounging up your bridge-building material,” he said, giving a nod to Charlie.

  “He’s certainly earned the name,” said Black Squirrel Jack.

  The total bill came to sixty cents. Each boy coughed up his twenty cents. The new owners loaded the long screws and a whole spool of parachute cord into the Radio-Flyer, and then Ol’ Henry helped them balance the big metal skid on top. They said their good-byes.

  Ol’ Henry watched the boys struggle with their load as they tried to maneuver over the ruts in his Property Disposal kingdom. Charlie was pulling the wagon while Kevin was pushing from behind and Jack held the skid so it wouldn’t fall off.

  Jack looked back and saw a small smile on Ol’ Henry’s face. Jack wondered if he suspected they would not be earning a merit badge.

  It took them almost an hour and a half to reach The Glass House. They collapsed on the ground behind the building, exhausted. But tired as they were, it dawned on Jack that they could never leave their hard-earned supplies there. They might attract questions, especially if one of the Sevens discovered them. So he persuaded the others to push on. Their final objective for the day became the Nazi pillbox.

  “Ahhhh, my back is killing me,” groaned Kevin. It was his turn to be bent over the wagon, trying to balance the skid as the wagon rolled slowly over the soft forest floor.

  “Mine, too,” Charlie moaned, breathing heavily. “I feel like one of those guys from 4th Armored, marching to Bastogne to rescue the 101st. How did they keep going?” But at that point, he saw the pillbox. “Breakthrough!”

  A hundred yards more and Charlie was sprawled on the ground.

  Kevin prodded him with a toe, as if making sure he hadn’t died of exhaustion. “Can’t rest yet. Gotta get home for dinner.”

  Charlie moaned, but got to his feet to cover the supplies with leaves. After all the trouble to scrounge the materials, he wasn’t gonna have them stolen by someone else.

  Jack was eighteen minutes late when he finally made it back to his quarters. He tried to slip in undetected, but Queenie spotted him, and said with classic superiority, “You’re late again. And what have you been up to? You’re filthy.” Naturally she said it just loud enough for Mrs. McMasters to overhear.

  “Stop trying to cause a problem, Laura. And you, Jack McMasters, better be washed up and looking sharp in the next ninety seconds, or you’re going to get it.”

  Jack bolted for his room to get out of his rust-stained, muddy clothes. He smiled to himself. Materials in place to accomplish the mission.

  29

  Black Squirrel Crossing

  Jayla and Sam were darting from tree to tree in stealth mode. They’d agreed to help build Black Squirrel Crossing after Jack read them in on the mission. The two girls scouted ahead for Sevens while the three boys laboriously wheeled the building materials from the Nazi pillbox to the construction site. Sam and Jayla followed the most direct path possible. The boys didn’t want to drag the overloaded Radio Flyer even one foot out of the way.

  “I’d hate a rematch with the Sevens, but it looks clear,” Sam whispered nervously.

  Jayla nodded. “I’ll signal them to keep coming.”

  The boy’s construction plan might have sounded perfectly logical back at the Nazi pillbox, but not when they got to the ravine.

  “Are you nuts, Jack McMasters!” declared Sam, staring up at the tree. She couldn’t even tell where the crossover point would be, but it was obviously going to be way up over the creek. “Impossible!”“Don’t flip your wig, Sam. It might be impossible, but you remember me telling you about my Navy friend, Alex Knox? The guy I met crossing the Atlantic?”

  “Jack, is this gonna be one of your long stories?”

  “Nope. Short,” he said, winking at Charlie and Kevin. “It’s just that Alex told me the Seabees, the Navy combat engineers, have this saying for the times they have to build stuff that nobody thinks can be done. Kinda like you and Jayla think this little bridge-building project of ours is impossible. Anyway, the Seabees say, ‘The difficult we do at once. The impossible takes a little longer.’ Okay, so there’s no way we’re gonna ge
t this done, right? That means it’s the impossible, so it’ll take us a bit longer.”

  The boys grinned at Sam and Jayla, and started unloading.

  Jack said, “So here’s how we’re going to run this operation: Kevin, Sam, and Jayla are our ground crew.”

  Charlie handed them each a pair of leather work gloves.

  “Charlie and I climb.”

  “Oh, joy,” said Charlie.

  Jack ignored this. “I need your muscle to maneuver the metal sheet.”

  He started up the tree with the tool bag Scrounger Charlie had packed. “Holy cow, Charlie. What do you have in this bag? It weighs more than the skid.”

  Charlie caught the end of the parachute cord Kevin tossed him. “Only essentials.”

  As Charlie followed Jack up the tree, Kevin began feeding him more cord off the huge spool. Jack quickly reached the crossover point, wedged the canvas bag in the crook of a large branch, and hurried back down to help with the unwieldy cord. Jack did a bit of acrobatic climbing to get the cord beyond the remaining limbs. At the crossover point, he temporarily tied it to a branch. Charlie climbed up to meet him. The hardest part had been ignoring the girls’ involuntary shrieks whenever Jack got overly acrobatic.

  At last, Jayla threw caution to the wind when it came to the Sevens and shouted, “Jack McMasters, you get back down here right now. What’s so damned important about getting across this stupid ravine anyway?”

  Then it dawned on Jack: The girls didn’t know the real objective for Black Squirrel Crossing. “Come on, Charlie. Time for a break.”

  Once Charlie scrambled down, Jack followed. “Unless you guys have told them, the girls don’t know why we need this crossing. Kevin, could you give ’em the sitrep?”

  “Sure,” said Kevin. “Jayla, we know you’re desperate to prove we can overcome every obstacle and get to the Hohenstaufen. Well, if we can get over this ravine, we might make it there and back all within a single day.”

  Jayla’s eyes widened. “You can get over the barbed-wire perimeter fence?”