The Steel Wave

by Jeff Shaara

  “Give me some men who are stout-hearted men,who will fight for the right they adore.

  Start me with ten who are stout-hearted men,and I’ll soon give you ten thousand mo-ore!”

  Around him, his own men responded with puzzled annoyance, and Adams said aloud, “What the hell?”

  He saw the singer now, slapping his buddies on the back, encouraging them to join in with him, some feeble voices rising, but not many.

  “He’s trying to organize a full-blown glee club,” Adams said, to no one in particular. “Somebody needs to stuff a sock in his mouth. He must be one of the brave ones, all puffed up. Jackass.”

  The man gave up his efforts, no one in his squad seeming interested in his one-man attempt to rally their patriotic energy. In front of Adams, the men continued to press forward along the tables and crates of equipment, the only sounds the clanking of metal, equipment fastened and hooked and lashed to each man’s jumpsuit. Adams looked out across the field, surprised he could still see, the darkness not yet complete. It was strange, something to do with British Double Summer Time, some odd way the British had of adjusting their clocks to make better use of daylight. Adams had never completely understood that; time was time. He looked at his watch. This late, it ought to be dark, he thought. I guess it makes sense to somebody who’s smarter than I am. That’s why I’m just a sergeant. He was suddenly aware of a voice tripping through his brain:

  Give me some men who are stout-hearted men…

  Oh, for God’s sake! That idiot has me singing his damned song. Think of something else. What, another song? He tried to silence the music, then thought, No, just let it go. You have enough to think about. He ran a hand over the Thompson hanging off his shoulder. Think about that. Grab a ton of ammo. These guys think they need rations more than anything else. He called out ahead.

  “All right, you morons. Fewer chocolate bars and more grenades. If you think it’s too heavy, it’s not. The army’s not going to run out of this stuff.”

  Shoulder to shoulder, and bolder and bolder…

  Dammit! Shut the hell up! If that jerk had been one of my guys, I’d stick a grenade in his jumpsuit. Ten thousand men! That’s how many Krauts are waiting for us, at least. I wonder if the jackass who wrote the song thought of that.

  “Keep moving!”

  The words came from in front of him, Lieutenant Pullman, grimfaced, standing at one end of a large wooden box. Pullman would be jumpmaster of Adams’s plane, the last man out. Adams would be crew chief, an unusual role for him. The crew chief was the last man to board the plane, stayed close to the wide doorway, and so would be the first man to jump. Adams wasn’t used to that, was far more experienced being the thorn in the side of the hesitant jumpers, coming up from behind, pushing the man out the opening who might not be so eager to make the jump or, worse, yanking the man back, out of the way of the others. In training, if a man wouldn’t go, you could urge him, prod him, yell at him, but ultimately no one was forced to jump. This time, there would be no one returning home with the plane. In combat, there was a different kind of urgency, the power of the entire stick overwhelming any one man’s fear. If anyone froze, the surge of men behind him would solve the problem; no matter what terrors filled a man’s thoughts, he would find himself rammed out through the door, his chute yanked open automatically by the static line above his head. Adams had seen it before, that strange paralysis that could infect even experienced jumpers, men who would suddenly lose their nerve. Adams scanned the men around him. That wouldn’t be a problem, not with this bunch. He had an instinct for those men, one reason he had become such a good jumpmaster. You can tell who the problems are likely to be, he thought. Sometimes it’s the quiet ones, but mostly it’s the loudmouths, men like Marley. But he’ll be okay, they’ll all be okay tonight. He rubbed his stomach again, could taste the stew in his throat, cursed to himself. I hope that was beef. Damned English farmers. He recalled a lesson from Fort Benning, drilled into him from some textbook: The anticipation of combat is far worse than the combat itself.

  That’s a crock, but most of these boys don’t know that yet. Scared is healthy, means you’re paying attention. But nothing prepares a man for what he’ll see on the ground. How many of these loudmouths know what they’ll do when they see a Kraut pointing a bayonet at them? Like that moron over there, with his damned song?

  And I’ll soon give you ten thousand mo-ore….

  Dammit! That’s what we should do: Sing that to the Krauts. Win the war by driving them nuts.

  He reached the tables, looked at Pullman, could see the lieutenant sweating in the chill, making anxious motions with his hands. Pullman pointed into the crate closest to him.

  “Grab a couple of these, Sergeant. Gammon grenades. Most of the men have no idea how to use the things, but I want you to carry them. We might run into some armor.”

  The grenades looked like bundles of socks, small black wads of cloth stuffed with pliable bricks of plastic explosive. To one side, Adams heard a voice: Marley, the big man already loaded up with a mountain of gear.

  “Hey, Sarge, you ever use that stuff before?”

  Adams stuffed one in a pocket on his pants leg. “Nope. Didn’t have them in Sicily. You saw a tank, you either fired a bazooka or ran like hell. We did a little of both.”

  “You think we’re gonna run into tanks, Sarge?”

  Marley had lowered his voice, and Adams realized it was a serious question, the joking bluster of the man erased by the mood of the men around him. The lieutenant responded.

  “We might, Private. If we do, these Gammon grenades are made to stick to their bellies.”

  “Sir, you mean…under? How do you get under a tank?”

  Adams moved past Marley toward a box of magazines, ammunition for his Thompson.

  Pullman said, “You let them come to you. If you’re in a foxhole, they’ll drive right over you. You just stay put and jab that thing up into the tank as it passes. It’s supposed to wedge into whatever crack you can find.”

  Straight out of a training manual, Adams thought. He tried to respect Pullman, but the man had never seen combat. Adams had been in that exact situation in Sicily, a massive Tiger tank rolling up a hillside directly over a narrow foxhole. Then there were no Gammon grenades, nothing to stop the great steel monster. The only weapon was the bazooka, something most of the men had never fired or, worse, had never even seen. He glanced back at Pullman, saw him talking to Marley still, the tall heavy private seemingly eager to learn what he should already have learned in training. He can’t have forgotten all that, he thought. No, he’s just scared to death. Chattering. Maybe the lieutenant too. I wonder what either one of them will do if a tank drives over him?

  He grabbed more of the magazines, stuffed a baggy pants pocket, moved along the rows of equipment, a routine he had repeated often. He wore the standard jumpsuit, heavy and stiff, the cloth impregnated with some kind of odd stinking chemical. It was said to prevent gas poisoning, though no one seemed to know how their jumpsuit would keep gas from finding its way inside. A gas mask was more comforting protection, and he hooked one to the pistol belt at his waist. The belt was a strap of thick canvas with eyelets that served as a tool belt for much of his equipment. The belt already held a .45-caliber pistol, and Adams had held on to his beloved Thompson submachine gun, even though most of the men now carried the M-1 Garand rifle. The M-1 could be broken down into pieces for the jump, the pieces held together in a tight cloth sack. That was one part of the training drilled into the men with as much precision as the jump itself: The M-1 could be assembled by every one of them in blind darkness.

  Adams picked up a small hinged shovel and a canteen, already full of water, and hooked them to his belt alongside a small med kit. One of the crewmen handed him a soft cloth bag, issued one per man, packed with clean socks, a compass, rations, toothbrush, a small bar of soap, a safety razor. The bag also contained cigarettes, a thin billfold with some unknown amount of French currency, and wate
r purification tablets. Adams chose a knife from several in a heavy wood box. He weighed one in his hand, felt the thick canvas scabbard, knew they were all the same, that no matter how sharp it might be, he would sharpen it anyway. He strapped that to a pants leg; easier access, should he need to cut his straps. That was every man’s nightmare, his chute hanging him on some obstruction, a tree perhaps, high off the ground. Adams straightened his back, adjusting himself to the weight of the gear. Now it was time for the parachute, and he saw the shrinking pile of dark green bundles, the name tags, spotted the one marked with his particular drawing, black chevrons, his rank, easy to spot. He slid the chute up on his back, tightened the belly strap, reached for the straps under his crotch. Someone was helping him from behind now, the usual routine, and he said, “Thanks.”

  The man moved past him, toward the pile of reserve chutes, and Adams saw it was Unger. “Here you go, Sarge. Any particular one you want?”

  The reserve chutes were more anonymous. Adams pointed. “Pick one that will open. Shouldn’t need the damned thing anyway.”

  “I’m happy to have mine, Sarge. You never know. You gonna carry a Mae West?”

  “We all carry a Mae West. You heard the orders. We’re flying over water.”

  “Yeah, I know. Awful heavy, though.”

  Adams hooked the reserve chute at his chest and attached it to D rings from the main parachute pack. Unger was holding two Mae Wests, inflatable life vests, and Adams could see that Unger was fully loaded, was struggling to stay upright.

  “How much longer we have to wait, Sarge?”

  Adams took one of the life vests and clamped it under his arm. “No idea. They tell us to board up, then we’ll know.”

  “You scared, Sarge?”

  “Damned right. You know better than to ask that.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Unger leaned closer to Adams, discreet. “Some of these boys, they talk a good game. Not so sure I believe all that rah-rah stuff. I heard Marley say he can’t wait to get his hands on some French girl. Says they do things…well, things.”

  Adams saw Marley to one side, still talking to the lieutenant. “You remember all the things those Sicilian girls did to you?”

  Unger seemed mystified. “Uh, no, Sarge. Mostly they just waved as we went by.”

  “Right. I’m guessing the French girls are about as mysterious as that.”

  Unger laughed, surprising him. “That’s a relief, Sarge. I wasn’t sure how I’d…do that.”

  Adams shifted the weight of the pack, felt the gear dragging him down, an ache in his legs. Unger was still struggling to stand. Damn you, Adams thought, you ought to be dressing up to go to a prom.

  “Let’s move over there, take a load off. I need to sharpen this knife.”

  Unger followed him to a thick bundle. Adams knew they wouldn’t sit for long, the ground crew would soon attach their seat to the underside of a wing. The bundles were like fat green sausages, holding more gear—bazookas, radios, or heavy machine guns. He sat, Unger beside him, both men staring out through the dimming light. Adams pulled the knife from its scabbard and slid the blade along a sharpening stone, something he always carried in a pants pocket. Around him, many of the men were doing as he did, some cleaning their already cleaned rifles, some examining the clips for their M-1s.

  “You glad you signed up, Sarge? Would you do it again?”

  Adams didn’t want this conversation, but he couldn’t avoid an affection for Unger, wide-eyed innocence, boyish stupidity.

  “What do you think?”

  “I figured you’d always be in charge here. I hated it when you got called away by General Gavin. Some of the guys said you’d never come back, that they’d make you an officer and you’d end up getting fat behind a desk. I told ’em you’d be back. I kinda expected you to be a lieutenant though.”

  “I like the stripes. If I was an officer, I couldn’t bust you in the chops when you got out of line.” He felt stupid making that kind of threat to Unger. The kid had never been a problem at all. He slid the knife blade along the stone, slow, even strokes. He glanced at the young man’s smooth skin, almost no sign of a beard. He was curious now. “What about you? What made you want to jump out of a plane?”

  “I didn’t, Sarge. I’d never even seen a plane, except in Des Moines, at a big carnival. Everybody was all excited, said Amelia Earhart was coming. I saw the airplane, but that’s about it. Didn’t find out until later who she was.” He paused. “I was drafted into the Fourth Division, those guys that are supposed to land on Utah Beach. We didn’t know anything about that, not back then. One day a captain comes into the company mess, and I hear him say something about volunteering to become a pair of troops. A lot of the guys were cussing about that, and I thought that was pretty unsociable. Made me ashamed that my company was being rude to some captain we didn’t even know. So I raised my hand, and the captain came toward me, patted me on the back, told the rest of the guys I was a good example. I thought that was all right, being a good example. Before that, nobody ever noticed me.”

  Adams lowered the knife—couldn’t help a laugh—looked at Unger, and said, “A pair of troops?”

  “Uh, well, yeah. I thought that’s what he said. Sounded good to me, that I’d be teamed up with a buddy, might learn to be a better soldier by being in pairs. So, next thing I know I’m at Fort Benning, and the first couple days I keep asking who I’m being paired up with. Guess that was pretty stupid, huh?”

  Adams saw the bright-eyed energy in the boy’s face. “Yeah, kid, that was pretty stupid. You are a kid too, aren’t you? I know it.”

  He tested the edge of the knife blade with his finger, felt satisfied, slid the knife into the scabbard again. His stomach was rumbling again; he didn’t want to talk to Unger now—or to anyone. He stared out across the vast airfield. He had almost never seen so many C-47s in one place, not since before Sicily. He made a rough count: more than a hundred, huddled in neat rows. The body of each plane had been painted with alternating stripes, three white split by two black, to make sure every plane had the same identifying marks. It was someone’s solution to the friendly-fire disaster in Sicily, to let the antiaircraft boys know that every Allied plane, whether transport or combat, would carry the same distinct markings. The stripes had been applied only a couple of days before. Adams had watched the crews working with their paintbrushes, had even volunteered his men to help, but there didn’t seem to be enough brushes for everyone. It had raised only one question in his mind: Where did they find all that paint?

  Adams was jolted by the sounds of jeeps, moving out past the hangars, and felt his heart jump. It was officers, the higher brass, coming to load up with gear of their own. Every one of the commanders would accompany their men, and that applied all the way to the top. In the Eighty-second Airborne, that meant Gavin and Ridgway as well. Adams had heard that Gavin was flying with the 508th, and understood why: Gavin’s worry about untested regiments would keep the general close to them. No matter how cocky they might be, having Gavin close by would make them better soldiers. The 505th would be accompanied by its own senior officers, Colonel Ekman of course and the battalion commanders, Kellam, Vandervoort, and Krause. Adams had rarely spoken to any of them, had no reason to go any higher than Captain Scofield, who commanded the company. Most of the other sergeants reported only to their lieutenants, and Adams had no problem dealing with Pullman.

  “Hey, Sarge, you heard anything about your brother?”

  The question surprised him. “Not lately. Why the hell do you care?”

  Unger shrugged. “Just wanted to know. Gotta be tough for your mom, having two sons in the war, scattered all over the earth like this.”

  “Don’t worry about my mom.”

  Unger focused again on his equipment, and Adams thought of her last few letters, brief, pleasant, to the point. It’s just her way, he thought. She writes me like I’m on a camping trip ten miles away. Probably writes the same stuff to Clay. Wonder what he’s doing? H
e’s gotta be okay. If something happened to him, the army would tell me that, for sure. Probably knee-deep in some swamp on some island in the middle of the Pacific. Why in hell would you join the Marines? He laughed quietly. Hey, you coulda jumped out of airplanes. Loads more fun.

  “I’m sure he’ll be okay,” Unger said. “I heard that whoever kicks butt first, we’ll all join up and finish the job.”

  “What?”

  “Saw it in Stars and Stripes. We whip the Japs, those boys will come over here and help us. We get Hitler, we’ll go over there and help them. You might see your brother yet, might even fight right beside him.”

  “You’re as stupid as a bag of rocks. My brother’s a Marine. Besides, I don’t need him anywhere near where I’m fighting. Ever.”

  “Why? I think it’d be great to fight side by side with your brother. I like having friends in this unit, Sarge. Best friends I’ve ever had. Even…you.”

  “Two bags of rocks. I’m not your friend, Private. I’d expect that from these other idiots, but you’re a veteran. You should know better. Don’t make friends.”

  “If you say so, Sarge. But I thought you and Captain Scofield were good buddies. Always seemed that way.”

  “Check your damned equipment.” Adams was annoyed with Unger because he was right. Adams had jumped with Scofield in Sicily and held on to the hope that it would happen again. Ed Scofield was far more than a capable company commander. He was an exceptional soldier, with perfect instincts on the battlefield, and the two men had survived the bloodiest days in Sicily by relying on each other to do the job. It was a dangerous exception to Adams’s rule about friendships. Most of the men ignored the wisdom of that rule. There was a natural camaraderie among men who respected one another, a pride in knowing they shared the airborne’s unique identity. Adams glanced at Unger. He should know better, but still he follows me around like a puppy. If we get into some rough stuff, every one of these morons will find out that having your best friend beside you when you’re under fire can be a costly mistake.