The Steel Wave

by Jeff Shaara

  Gavin turned around.

  “This make you nervous, Sergeant?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It ought to. It’d be awfully good for someone in your position to believe that those folks up the ladder know what the hell they’re doing. I know what the hell I’m doing, and Ridgway knows what the hell he’s doing. I suppose Ike does too. But some of those others fellows—I just found out they changed the mission on us. New jump zones. You know the mission?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Hell, no, of course you don’t. That’ll come later. You’ll be briefed when SHAEF says it’s time. But it’s gonna be hot. That’s Rommel over there, and you can bet he’s waiting for us. You still remember how to use that Thompson?”

  “Definitely, sir.”

  Gavin nodded, still no smile. Adams could feel the weight in the room, the smell of dust and burnt coffee.

  “This is important, Sergeant. Most important damned thing we’ve ever done. You understand that?”

  “Yes, sir. I believe so, sir.”

  Gavin seemed mystified now, looked at Adams with a tilt of his head. “You recall why I wanted to see you?”

  “No, sir. I assumed…maybe you wanted to talk to me about my work, something I screwed up.”

  Gavin smiled. “Nope. As much as I miss you on my staff, I’m not about to yank you out of here again. These boys would miss you a hell of a lot more than those paper pushers at St. Paul’s.” He paused, looked down, put a hand on the papers. “Damn. My brain’s mush, Sergeant. I need this war to end so I can get a real night’s sleep. I’ve told Ekman the Five-oh-five has some good people to carry the load. He knows that, of course, and it probably pisses him off when I tell him his business. No commander listens to advice from his predecessor. Even if he should.” Gavin looked at his watch, shook his head. “Have to meet with Ridgway in an hour.”

  He looked at Adams now, moved around the desk, close to him, suddenly held out a hand. Adams took it, his own hand engulfed by the hard thin fingers.

  “Once this thing starts,” Gavin said, “I expect you to kill some Germans. Not sure where I’ll be when D-Day comes, but you can damn well bet I’ll be jumping somewhere close by. Try to find me if you can. I want a good point man in front of me. If I don’t see you again—well, I expect—I expect both of us to get home in one piece.”

  BRAUNSTONE PARK, NEAR LEICESTER

  MAY 30, 1944

  They sat in a semicircle, braced against the hard chill, the wind whipping across the open ground. In the center, the doctor dropped to one knee, held up one arm of the man lying flat beside him on a wool blanket.

  “Now, listen up. You insert the sharp tip of the syrette directly into a prominent vein.” He looked down at his patient, held up one of the skinny arms. “You ready, Private Unger?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “Roll up your sleeve. This won’t hurt.”

  Unger obeyed. Quickly, the doctor jabbed the syrette into the crease of Unger’s elbow and continued his lecture.

  “Like that. The morphine should be effective immediately. Even if you cannot readily dress the man’s wounds, this should keep him calm and free of pain. For the most part.”

  Adams watched the others, no one laughing now. The doctor stood, holding the syrette in front of him.

  “Use it all, every bit. Nothing wasted. It’ll do a man far more good in his veins than on the ground. Any questions? Good. Now, on to the last matter. The division is issuing every one of you a prophylactic. At least one, though I’d like to see you each carry a dozen. We’ve been dealing with enough cases of venereal disease that you’d think someone upstairs would appreciate the need for the damned things. They will be included with your other equipment.”

  “Hey, Doc, we won’t be needing those things anymore. They locked the gates, and all the Red Cross girls went home. There’s not a gal anywhere around here. You know when they’re coming back?”

  Adams looked toward the voice; Marley, a broad smile on the big man’s face. Beside him, another man spoke.

  “You chased them all away, Dex. They get one look at the size of those boots and run like hell.”

  Adams was in no mood for this kind of fun. “All right, shut the hell up. Doc’s got a lot to do. He can’t waste his time listening to you morons.”

  “Actually, Sergeant, your man asks a good question. The Red Cross has withdrawn their personnel from this base and, as I understand it, other bases as well. The ladies did brighten the place up. I doubt they’ll return before—um—before we receive our assignment.”

  There was no response.

  “You get that?” Adams said. “The girls are gone. You should be paying attention to that. Same reason no one’s going to town anymore. You idiots think this is a game? Put your mind on one thing and one thing only. We’re getting orders soon, and when those orders come you’ll find out what all this training has been for.”

  “Hey, Sarge, is that why they’re feeding us better?”

  Adams looked at Marley and thought about the food. I’ll be damned. He’s right.

  “Could be. I figure the officers were getting pretty sick of cabbage and brussels sprouts. But maybe they think we need fattening up.”

  There were more laughs, and another man spoke: Buford, one of the newer replacements.

  “Sounds like they’re treating us like hogs going to slaughter, Sarge.”

  “All right, shut up. Let the doc finish.”

  The doctor was leaning low, close to Unger. “Oh, dear me. Private, are you conscious?”

  Adams moved closer, saw Unger’s mouth open, heard slow breathing, the hint of a snore. The doctor looked up at him.

  “This happens every now and then. The morphine affects some people more severely than others. It appears Private Unger will be sleeping for a while.” He stood up, stretched his back, rubbed a hand through the short gray beard. “I didn’t realize he was so thin. My mistake. Very sorry.”

  Adams saw Unger’s eyes twitch, heard a low grunt. He looked at his watch. “All right, it’s close to chow time. Hit your quarters for ten minutes. I’ll take care of this idiot.”

  The men were up and running, the usual routine, a double-timed jog everywhere they went. Adams bent low. With the doctor helping from the other side, Unger was hoisted up and over Adams’s shoulder. He began to move away, Unger’s head flopping against his back, the words of the doctor behind him.

  “Truly sorry. Actually, he looks a bit young.”

  They stood in the usual chow line, a crackling chatter of music from a radio, some bouncy tune Adams didn’t know. He didn’t pay much attention to the popular songs, heard the names tossed around, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, the men speaking lustfully about the girl singers. Their posters draped the walls of the mess hall, movie stars as well: the leggy Betty Grable, a sultry stare from Rita Hayworth. Adams ignored most of that, didn’t attend the occasional films, tried not to pay attention to the noisy speculation that Bob Hope would come. No one is coming now, he thought. The gates are locked. No time for dance parties.

  The kitchen staff was lined up behind large steel bins, spooning out what seemed to be some sort of green vegetable, beside a large bucket of what Adams guessed to be creamed corn. But every man had picked up the new smell and stood in reverent silence, watching the last server digging a long fork into a huge pile of thick steaming meat. Each man in turn had a piece dropped onto his plate, each one then hurrying toward a place to sit, the silence replaced by joyous sounds of men eating beef. Adams brought up the rear of the line, had deposited Unger on the floor, propped up against the wall in a corner of the mess hall. He picked up two trays, then glanced back at the sleeping man. Yeah, fine, he thought. I’ll get you some chow, stick one of those steaks under your nose. That ought to wake you up sooner or later.

  Adams watched as the pile of meat grew smaller, a fork hoisting up the dark slabs, wet thuds on the trays. He couldn’t help staring at the steaks, the smells filling him wi
th memories. How long has it been, anyway? More than a year, I guess. Some cookout back home, somebody’s father drinking too much beer. What the hell did we do to deserve steak? The question hung in his brain. In front of him, the new man, Buford, moved away with a full plate. Adams stared at his back, Buford’s words punching clear and cold in his mind. Hogs to the slaughter.

  * * *

  13. EISENHOWER

  * * *

  SHAEF FORWARD COMMAND POST, PORTSMOUTH

  MAY 31, 1944

  He nursed the eye with a warm cloth, pressed gently against the swollen redness. He glanced at the tube of ointment, something the doctor had given him, thought, To hell with that. If warm water won’t fix this thing, I’ll just put on an eye patch. Pirate Ike. Arrggh.

  The eye had been bothering him for several days now, coming as so many other afflictions had come, erupting from the overwhelming exhaustion of mind and body. He had been plagued by this kind of thing before, during the Sicilian operation and after; he knew the reasons then, as he understood them now. Eisenhower had driven himself to the point of utter collapse.

  He sat on the narrow bed, the brief flash of humor wiped away. It was easier to be angry at himself, to curse this new plague, the eye tormenting him with burning misery. It’s your own fault, he thought. You don’t sleep enough, that’s for sure. The staff has given up nagging you about it, Harry especially. They don’t know what this is like, what kind of—he searched his brain for a word—swamp? Cesspool? Up to my knees in mud, trying to run a marathon. All right, stop this. You’re doing the job, just like the rest of them. Well, most of them. No one expects this to be a piece of cake. You wanted command, now you’ve got it. You know damn well how miserable you’d be if you were stuck back in Washington. Stop whining, for God’s sake.

  He dabbed at the eye again with the cloth. Don’t even look in the mirror. It looks bad enough to the staff, no need to remind yourself you’re not invincible. It’ll pass in a day or two.

  He tried to relax, find some kind of calm, and heard a soft breeze blowing against the wide canvas around him. He put both hands down beside him, propped up his slumping shoulders, and felt the nagging pain in his right arm. Another ailment. What the hell is this? You’re falling to pieces. Hang on, old boy. You’re the man at the top. No time for this crap.

  The tent was Eisenhower’s home, at least for now. Several weeks earlier he had ordered a command post to be set up in the far south of England, mobile, a large boxlike room hoisted up on the bed of a deuce-and-a-half, the reliable two-and-a-half-ton truck the Allies now used for so much of their ground transport. He called it his circus wagon. With his office perched on a truck, his command center could be hauled quickly to any point he needed to be. Close beside the truck were tents, makeshift offices and sleeping quarters for his key staff. It was far from anyone’s notion of quarters for a supreme commander, but Eisenhower never paid much attention to the griping of anyone who thought war should be comfortable. Back at Bushey Park, Bedell Smith was dealing with the ongoing barrage of administrative matters, the offices there a constant rush of activity. Smith continued to ruffle feathers, especially among the British. Eisenhower enjoyed having a bulldog as his chief of staff, but Beetle had trouble reining it in, and both men knew he might end up causing some kind of diplomatic flap that might require too much of his boss’s energy to unravel, energy Eisenhower simply didn’t have. Marshall doesn’t get along with people either, he thought. He wants to come across as a soldier, all that stiff-backed stuff, the thing that made Black Jack Pershing stand out in Washington. That works pretty well with congressmen and reporters, I suppose. Eisenhower recalled the story, how, in some meeting, the president had actually addressed Marshall as George. Marshall had responded that he preferred to be called General Marshall, pointing out the importance of chain of command. That took some brass, Eisenhower thought. Even Churchill calls me Ike. But it’s Marshall’s way. Fortunately for him, Roosevelt doesn’t have a raw nerve about it.

  He set the wet cloth aside, tested the eye, blinked hard several times. The tent flaps were billowing inward, pushed by the wind, and he looked that way and blinked again, relieved that the swelling had not impaired his vision. But the itchiness was still there, the constant tears. Live with it, dammit.

  He knew it would be dark soon and glanced at the small pillow. You came here to take a nap, he thought. So, take a nap. Just a few minutes maybe. But the wind was picking up now, the tent shaking, another spear thrust into this one quiet moment. The weather briefings were scheduled regularly: 9:30 each night, 4:30 in the morning. They’re terrified of me, he thought, seem to think that if they bring me bad news, someone’s going to get blistered for it. But they’re meteorologists, after all, and right now I need them to spend every minute studying…whatever it is they study. I don’t need them to tell me how their best estimates are only guesswork or some kind of intuition. Rather not hear that. There has to be some science at work here.

  He looked again at the pillow, thought, Just a few minutes—

  “Sir.”

  He looked toward the tent flap, saw one of his MPs, the telltale white helmet, the men Butcher called Eisenhower’s snowballs.

  “What is it, Corporal?”

  “Air Marshal Leigh-Mallory has arrived, sir. He insists on seeing you. I didn’t want to bother you, sir, but Commander Butcher is not here at the moment.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Corporal. I’ll see him in here. No need for both of us to traipse out into this weather.”

  The MP disappeared, and Eisenhower felt the chill of the wind. Dammit. Has the sun forgotten how to shine in this place? The man’s face poked through the tent flaps, the neat mustache: Leigh-Mallory, his coat glistening from the rain.

  “Ah, there you are. Very sorry to intrude, sir.”

  “Pull up a chair, if you don’t mind getting your butt pinched. I decided the cushions could stay at home.”

  Leigh-Mallory seemed to take him seriously and sat slowly, testing the hard slatted surface of the small folding chair. Leigh-Mallory rarely engaged in useless small talk, and Eisenhower waited, knowing he’d go right to the point. Leigh-Mallory made a hard frown, looked down for a moment.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Well, yes, I’m afraid. I feel the need to go on the record, as it were. You know I have always had deep misgivings about the plans for the airborne assault. I must state officially that my feelings have not changed. I have studied this matter in detail and have concluded that your paratroopers will suffer a casualty rate as high as fifty percent, and a loss of glider strength as high as seventy percent. You have more than a thousand transport aircraft that must traverse the waters occupied by a portion of the invasion fleet. The danger of catastrophe from friendly fire is significant. There will be full moonlight, and once the first waves of transports reach land, the German searchlights and antiaircraft batteries will certainly gain accuracy in locating them. You know, sir, that the C-47, for all its marvelous advantages, has been described by some of its pilots as a flying bomb. There is no shielding, no armor to protect the fuel tanks. My analysis of the maps has indicated that the landing grounds are completely unsuitable, and the enemy’s opposing forces will present a formidable hazard that your troops cannot overcome. Should this occur, those units will lose their tactical power, and their effective role in this operation will be negated completely. I cannot allow this operation to go unchallenged, when I feel you are risking the futile slaughter of two fine fighting divisions.”

  Eisenhower studied the man’s dour expression and absorbed the message. “You didn’t mention the British paratroopers. Is this just an American problem?”

  “Oh, my, no. I mean no slight to Americans. The British operation will take place on far better ground, with objectives that are far more practical to achieve. I do not anticipate such difficulty there.”

  Eisenhower believed him. He ran a hand over his scalp, the eye itching more than before. “I respect your views. B
ut if the Eighty-second and Hundred-and-first do not attempt their operations behind Utah Beach, the landing on that beach itself could become a disaster. At this point, we are committed to the plans. Why in hell would you bring this up now?”

  “I have mentioned this previously to General Ridgway and General Taylor. They did not respond with…appreciation. I understand their need to protect the prestige of their divisions—”

  “This isn’t about prestige! This plan has been ripped up, shredded, chewed, spit out, ground up, stomped on, and ripped up again. The finest strategists in both armies have spent months—hell, a year!—going over every last detail. I don’t expect this operation to go perfectly, but I expect it to go. We all have doubts! We’re all concerned about losses, and I for one am damn well concerned that the Krauts might roll us right back into the ocean! Those paratroopers know what we’re asking them to do, and regardless of Ridgway and Taylor, regardless of their pride, this strategy is the best we’ve come up with. We need those paratroopers behind Utah Beach. Bradley supports this, Montgomery supports this, this is the plan, and this is what we’re going to do!”

  He stopped, felt too angry, tried to hold it in. Leigh-Mallory looked down again, a slow nod.

  “I could not, in clear conscience, allow this operation to go forward without expressing—”

  “Fine. Put it on paper. Write me a letter. You want it on the record, that’s on the record. I know you’re sincere, I know it’s what you believe, so do what you have to do. When this is over, your position will be documented. If there is a slaughter, you can say you warned me.”