The Steel Wave

by Jeff Shaara

  “What the hell do you know? Give him some more morphine! He’s a big guy. He needs more!”

  Behind them, Marley was talking again, crying, garbled words. “Sarge…I can’t go home like this…please. I’m not gonna make it. Please.”

  Adams said, “We’ll get you some morphine! It’ll feel better!”

  The medic cursed, dropped down, jabbed another morphine syrette into Marley’s leg, said something Adams couldn’t hear, and moved away. Marley seemed to calm down, but the words still came.

  “Please…I can’t….”

  Adams leaned low. “We gotta go. You’ll be okay.”

  Marley looked at him with clear eyes, low quiet words. “Sarge…please…shoot me.”

  Adams felt his gut turn over again, his own tears, backed away. “Damn you! Take this like a man!”

  He felt idiotic, the words meaningless. He was furious now, felt a hand on his arm, Unger, felt an explosion growing inside, wanted to grab Unger’s arm, snap it off.

  “Sarge…we gotta go,” Unger said. “The captain.”

  “The captain can wait! This is your buddy, kid!”

  Unger leaned close, and Adams realized he was crying. “There’s nothing I can do for him, Sarge. You either. We gotta go.”

  Adams felt black rage, turned away from the blood and horror. He knew Unger was right and was angry at himself. You can’t do this…you could never do this. What the hell’s the matter with you? He glanced up, thought of the Piper Cubs, felt the Thompson in his hand. You stupid bastard. You ever fly past me again, I’ll blow you out of the air.

  He looked out across the field, heard low voices, the soft cries of the wounded, medics in motion, the officers calling out, their men responding. Adams followed the flow and moved back into line with Unger, the only thing he could do.

  SAINT-SAUVEUR-LE-VICOMTE

  JUNE 18, 1944

  The village was silent, utterly destroyed. The 505th had moved through, the Germans making little effort to stop them, the village now just a crossroads of blasted gravel roads, a point on a map. As the paratroopers advanced to the next objective, the French civilians began to emerge from hidden places in the countryside, finding their way back to their homes. Most of them discovered what the paratroopers had already seen, that nearly every structure in the small town had been obliterated.

  For the most part, the enemy in front of them had nearly gone, the only danger coming now from pockets of Germans trapped by the rapid push of the Americans or smaller groups driven by the suicidal fanaticism of an officer they still obeyed. The snipers had mostly gone as well, but it had not been for lack of ammunition. As Adams led his platoon through the village, word had passed back through the column of stores of German artillery shells and mortar rounds, preparation for a fight the German soldiers had already lost. Adams had seen some of the captured arms and had marveled at the Panzerfaust, the German equivalent of the bazooka. It was far superior to the weapon the Americans had brought to the front, packing a much larger wallop and far greater accuracy than the clumsy tube-fired rocket. There were scattered souvenirs to be found as well, and many of the men began collecting machine pistols or the so-called potato-masher grenades. But the treasure hunt was short-lived; the officers ordered the weapons to be deposited in dumps, where they would be destroyed. Most men understood that no matter how superior the German small arms might be, the quickest way to draw fire from your own men would be to make use of a German weapon in combat. Their sounds were just too distinct. Too many of the paratroopers had heard all they needed to hear of the telltale rrrrip of the German machine guns.

  They moved once more through low hills, but the ground was flatter now. Most of the hedgerow country was behind them. It was still farmland, but there was far more visibility, small houses perched among small orchards, or wider fields of some kind of grain. The men stayed mostly in the gravel road, and as he plodded along Adams stared at the machinery of war, the wreckage of German tanks and trucks, burned-out hulks of machines. The air above them was busy, a continuous roar of low-flying fighter planes, British and American, patrolling the countryside for any sign of a German stronghold or any foolish movement by the enemy in daytime. And then the Piper Cubs would come, on the same deadly mission as before, seeking targets for artillerymen who did not have to see what they destroyed.

  Adams’s feet were hurting, and his canteen had been empty for a while. The latest Piper Cub droned above him, and behind him men were calling out, empty boasts emerging from their anger. There would be a report of course, Scofield already sending word to Colonel Ekman, word that would flow through Gavin and Ridgway and beyond. Adams drove that from his mind, studied the gravel road, and looked toward a pile of black rubble, the remains of a truck, an artillery piece missing its wheels, the long barrel cracked. That’s what’s left of their army, he thought. Here, anyway. There were human signs as well, a German helmet, one hole drilled neatly through the top. He saw a coat, laid over a small bush, the insignia still attached, and thought of picking it up, but he had no energy for anything but the slow march, and the coat drifted past. Someone will grab that, he thought. Rear echelon, probably, an ambulance driver, something to take home and show his grandkids, tell them all about the day he took it off the back of a Kraut officer at knifepoint. Yeah, buddy, make it a good story. No one will want to hear mine.

  They passed another village, more destruction, the few buildings mostly rubble, sharp jagged rocks and broken steel. He heard a voice in front of him, saw a hand pointing, and Adams looked that way and saw the wreckage of a British plane, one wing straight in the air, the rest in pieces, spread out across an open field. The voice in front said, “We should see if he’s okay.”

  Then Adams heard the man’s sergeant, Tobin. “Keep your ass on the damned road! If the Brits want their pilots, they can come get them!”

  Adams wanted to smile, but there was nothing funny in Tobin’s words, too many pilots were lying in too much wreckage all over this country.

  And now came the smell.

  It rippled along the line of men, staggering each one, Adams feeling it on his skin, all through his brain. He tried to pull away, flinched as the men in front and behind him flinched. But there was no escape, nothing to do but march past and hope the wind shifted. He had thought he would get used to it, every day now, but it was still a shock, a smell like nothing else. After the first few days in the hedgerows, the smells had emerged, a grisly surprise often waiting behind the dense rows of brush. The Germans had prepared their defenses well, trench works placed to allow the perfect ambush, machine guns protruding through hidden openings in the hedgerow that a man would never see. But the ambush did not always work, and when fights erupted, men on both sides would die. As the Germans conceded the hedgerows, they had often left their dead behind. The Americans cared first for their own, the graves registration officers more concerned for the men wearing the right uniform. So, often, the Germans remained where they fell, and as more troops moved past on the narrow lanes between the hedges, the hidden trenches spilled out the horrific odor, unmistakable and sickening, no one allowed to forget that every field had been a battleground.

  Adams heard Scofield’s words in front of him—“Take a break! Five minutes”—and repeated the order to the men behind him, word filtering back along the line.

  The men responded gratefully, moving out along the roadside, some seeking shade in a farmyard, others gathering around a small well. Adams felt for his empty canteen, his thirst compounded by the sight of the well, and moved that way, standing in line behind a nameless uniform, the man’s stench nearly overpowering. Beside the man stood Nusbaum, the corporal pushing the man away.

  “Damn, Newley! We could all use a bath, but you’ve set a damned record for BO!”

  “Hey! Not my fault, okay? I sweat a lot!”

  Adams tried to ignore the smell, was surprised to see Scofield walking toward him. He stood back, held out his canteen, and said, “You’re allowed to jump
in front, sir. Nobody’ll bitch.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant. Don’t need any water right now. Come with me, will you?”

  Adams handed his canteen to Nusbaum, who said, “I’ll take care of it, Sarge.”

  The men in Adams’s platoon were used to their sergeant talking to officers, and Adams ignored the stares, had endured too much of that because of his friendship with Gavin. He walked beside Scofield, who led him out into a field beside another house, stripped bare, the doorway yawning open, Scofield stopped, said, “We’ve got about a mile to go. Orders are to pull up and wait. But I think it’s done.”

  Adams sorted through the words: Done. “What’s done, sir?”

  “We are. There are tanks moving up behind us and they’ll push to the coast, begin the drive toward Cherbourg. We haven’t received any specific orders yet, but I’m guessing General Bradley is about to cut us free. Maybe send us home.”

  Adams forced a smile. “We’ve gotten no orders, but you’ve figured this out yourself? I thought we weren’t supposed to be spreading rumors.”

  Scofield didn’t smile. “Maybe I just want it to end,” he said, after a pause. “How about you? You need a rest?”

  “That’s what this is about, isn’t it, sir? You’re watching me, to see if I’m cracking up.”

  “We’re all cracking up, Sergeant. This has been a hell of a lot more than anyone thought it would be. This…right here…this wasn’t supposed to be our job. The enemy…most of ’em were from the German Ninety-first Division. Tough bunch. Word from the Five-oh-seven was that they found some nasty stuff, atrocities committed against our boys. The enemy cut some prisoners’ throats. We’re in a bad mood, Sergeant. If we pick up any Krauts, this could get a whole lot uglier than it is now. I’m not sure I can control what might happen. We’re breaking down, losing our discipline. Look at you. I saw you puking your guts out yesterday over your man. That’s not you, not one bit. Bad enough we get shelled by our own guns.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that, sir. I let something slip. Won’t happen again. Caught me off guard.”

  Scofield stared at him. “You really believe that? Fine by me. But what I saw—well, hell, never mind. I still think you’re the best man in the company, and that’s why it bothered me. We still depend on each other, and I have to know I can depend on you. What was that man’s name?”

  “Private Marley, sir.”

  “Marley? The troublemaker?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damn, that’s a shame. Hell of an athlete, you know. Played ball somewhere, Oklahoma, I think.”

  “I don’t pay much attention to where the men come from, sir.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know. You keep your distance. But you didn’t keep your distance from Private Marley. You slipped badly. That’s something I don’t want to see, something Colonel Ekman is concerned about too. We’re not combat-ready anymore. We need a rest.”

  “If you say so, sir. I’d just as soon go out shooting holes in some Kraut machine gunner.”

  Scofield tapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know. Just make sure you outdraw him, Cowboy.”

  They marched until nearly sundown, the footsteps automatic, the full canteen prodding him on the side. They had moved to the side of the road one more time, as a column of tanks went past in choking dust, calls from the men sitting high in their steel fortresses that these grimy foot soldiers were now being rescued by the elite of America’s army. The taunting words of the tankers had been a dangerous mistake, difficult for Adams to ignore. He knew Scofield had been right. Any one of the paratroopers could have been sufficiently offended by the tankers’ arrogance to respond with a kind of violence that would have driven the tank commanders quickly down into their hatches. As the last of the tanks moved past, Adams had been quietly grateful that no explosions had occurred. We don’t need a civil war, he thought. Besides, we’d be outgunned.

  The road curved, a wide sweep to the right, downhill, the roadbed harder, less of the annoying gravel. Adams walked with his head down, realized now the sun was low, and looked up to see the orange ball just over the horizon. The column moved through the curve, the road dropping down, and he stopped. The road ended below in a T, a highway, tanks and trucks gathering in a long column. He stopped, moved out to the side, and let the others pass by, one man coming up close beside him. Adams wanted to tell the man, Get back in line, but saw it was Unger.

  “I’ll be, Sarge. What do you think of that?” Unger said.

  “I think, kid, we’ve reached the end of the line. That’s the ocean.”

  * * *

  PART FOUR

  * * *

  Monty is a good man to serve under; a difficult man to serve with; and an impossible man to serve over.

  DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, 1947

  To Hell with Compromises.

  GEORGE PATTON

  * * *

  34. EISENHOWER

  * * *

  As the Americans gathered their strength for the surge northward into Cherbourg, the entire Normandy theater was set upon by the kind of contingency no general can adequately prepare for. On June 19, a storm of astonishing violence swept eastward through the North Atlantic, a storm more powerful than any weatherman in England had documented for forty years. The conditions were so hazardous that no plane could leave the ground. In the Cotentin Peninsula, Joe Collins’s ground forces were kept immobile as well, the driving rain and winds turning every farm lane into a river of mud.

  The worst impact of the storm came on the beaches, where haggard supply officers were straining to unload extraordinary mountains of ammunition and other supplies for the growing number of men the Allies were sending into the field. The only threat to the beaches now came from sporadic long-range artillery fire or the occasional night raid by small numbers of Luftwaffe bombers, and so the flow of supplies was increasing daily. Before the storm erupted, the Mulberries at Omaha and Gold beaches had provided man-made docking facilities that were more effective than even the engineers could have predicted, enormous tonnage flowing onshore from fleets of supply ships. But the storm rapidly took its toll, and the high winds and tumbling surf almost completely destroyed the wharf at Omaha Beach.

  The worst of the storm took three days to pass, but the weather remained dismal, the rain and cloud cover still preventing the air support the Americans needed for the rapid full-fisted assault on Cherbourg. It was one more delay, one more enormous thorn in Eisenhower’s side, one more blow to the ambitious designs of the planners.

  BRADLEY’S MOBILE HQ, NEAR ISIGNY

  JUNE 24, 1944

  “We have a larger problem than air support, Ike.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Bradley rose from the narrow leather bench and paced across the small space. Eisenhower sat on a small sofa placed against one wall of the truck trailer. He had always marveled at Bradley’s efficient use of the limited area inside the trailer, every wall papered with overlapping maps. There was one small writing table and a coffeepot in one corner. Eisenhower glanced into his cup—empty—but thought, Enough for now. To the front of the trailer, Bradley’s sleeping area was cordoned off by a short wall, perched up on an elevated platform. Eisenhower couldn’t help thinking of the tents in his own forward command post. Brad’s got the right idea, he thought. He can move anywhere he wants to go and keep his feet dry doing it. There’s a lesson here.

  Bradley continued to pace. He kept his hands on his hips and seemed reluctant to speak, so Eisenhower knew that what was coming wouldn’t make either of them happy. After a long moment, Bradley stopped and looked at him.

  “I wish I could lather you up with good news. Nothing good about this storm. I know damn well the enemy has taken full advantage of our inability to hit them from the air. Well, hell, you know that.” He paused. “Dammit, Ike, this is tough. Lee’s your man, and I know he has your respect. But the supply situation has gone from awful to—well, more than awful. I’ve been bitching like hell at the SOS for weeks and ha
ven’t gotten anywhere. I haven’t been needling you about this because I assumed you had more important things to worry about. But it’s so bad now it’s causing a reassessment of the entire operation.”

  Eisenhower had heard complaints before and knew the Service of Supply was never as efficient as it should be. The logistics commander, General John Lee, was generally disliked by everyone but Eisenhower, which Eisenhower considered something of a mystery. Lee was a powerfully driven man and fought tirelessly to bolster the resources of his supply service. But as the realities of Overlord had grown more complex, the grumbling from the field commanders had grown louder. Eisenhower had begun to accept that Lee’s biggest problem might be an ego that needed constant massage. Even though Lee was tackling the enormous logistical problems that Overlord presented, he was spending just as much energy building his own kingdom, noisily inflating his own importance. The result had been constant wrestling matches between Lee’s supply offices and the frustrated commanders in the field, notably Bradley. It was one reason why the port of Cherbourg was considered so vital to American needs; presumably, it would offer a far more open conduit for the flow of supplies so desperately needed by Bradley’s army. But now, with the thrust toward Cherbourg delayed by the storm, Bradley’s supply problems were increasing.

  “Reassessing the entire operation? What kind of reassessment are you talking about? I’ve heard nothing about that from Monty.”

  “Have you seen Omaha Beach?”

  Eisenhower shook his head. “The destroyer brought me across Utah. I haven’t been there since the storm hit.”

  “It’s the biggest mess you ever saw. I’d say it looks worse now than the day we landed.” Bradley moved to the small desk, searched through papers, picked up one, handed it to Eisenhower. “Do you realize that if we had delayed the June 6 landings, our alternate timetable would have put us on those beaches the same day the storm hit? Do you have any idea what kind of disaster that would have been? You’re a charmed man, Ike.”