I Am Canada: Sniper Fire

by Jonathan Webb

  About a dozen men are dead, wounded or missing.

  Meanwhile, the 8th Indian Division has taken over from the Princess Pats on our left flank. Rumour has it that they built a bridge where our engineers couldn’t. Vokes — who’s an engineer — must be furious.

  Seems like everyone but us has been thrown into battle. The Hasty P’s, the 48th Highlanders, the Seaforths and then the Royal Canadian Regiment all have crossed over to the other side. The lieutenant says we should be ready to move tomorrow.

  * * *

  We cross the river for the second time on Thursday night. On the other side we’re joined by a mortar platoon and a squadron of Calgary tanks.

  The Seaforth Highlanders lead the way again into San Leonardo, only this time, they take the village and hold it. Again our task is to follow through towards Cider Crossroads. When we control the Ortona highway, the enemy is expected to pull back to the next big river, the Arielli. At sunrise we’re in the village — not that there is much of it left. Most buildings are scorched and empty shells. The street is strewn with rubble and wreckage. Dead Germans lie where they fell. Their pockets have been turned out by souvenir-seekers, their holsters are empty and their belts have been removed. Some of the men collect German bayonets and the Gott mit uns — “God is with us” — belt buckles.

  “Want a little something to remember San Leonardo by?” says Jimmy. He means to sound casual but his voice is strained.

  Loon, with his round, white face and pale eyes, stares straight ahead.

  The barrage begins at 0900 on Friday morning. Kittyhawks make their roaring sorties overhead. And then the artillery kicks in, not just our guns but some Indian arty as well. The Royal Navy is doing its part too, tossing enormous high-explosive shells in front of us from the guns on a pair of cruisers offshore. The noise is shattering. The smoke is blinding. The ground shakes: I feel the vibrations through my boots and calves and up through my stomach and chest. We haven’t seen anything like this since we landed at Pachino.

  The Gaffer has the platoon paired up. Strong John and Jimmy, Paddy and Derrick, Doug and me are put together. The Gaffer keeps an eye on Loon and Specs. Somewhere off to the right the other two sections are moving into position, along with the lieutenant and captain. And with the captain there’s a forward observation officer from the 3rd Field Regiment and a radioman. A Company is in position and ready to go.

  We push off at 0945 hours.

  The barrage walks in front of us at a steady, almost brisk pace. There are plenty of small obstacles — boulders and bushes and the rocky beds of small streams. The ground is soggy where it isn’t muddy. The barrage is making it worse.

  It’s hard to keep track of what’s happening now. It’s like I’ve walked into a different world. The air is filled with smoke, dirt and dust, and the ground is pitted, broken and hot where shells have landed. The ringing in my ears fills my head. I hear everything, I hear nothing. I can see no more than a few yards in front of me. I’m like a robot, a mechanical being, my senses dulled. The rifle in my hands is weightless. I see my buddies fire their weapons but they’re noiseless. Even the deep-throated rattle of Doug’s Sten gun gets lost in the thundering row.

  I see Jimmy on the ground, Strong John kneeling beside him.

  The branch of a tree flies past me. It brushes my sleeve. Above me, a plane disappears into the billowing smoke. I can’t tell if it was hit or was diving at the enemy’s line.

  I crouch behind a low stone wall. Doug is beside me.

  There is a Sherman tank a hundred feet behind me. Its machine gun is spurting fire. We march on. The smell of cordite stings my nostrils. My eyes are dry and sore. The rifle is cold in my hands. There has been no reason to shoot. I have seen no German soldiers. Just the flash and drifting smoke from mortars and medium machine guns.

  The Gaffer trots by and punches me on the shoulder. Loon lopes along at his side. Specs struggles to keep up with them. I move as if in a dream.

  And then the smoke lifts. The noise dies away. I hear the Gaffer shout, “On your left!”

  The barrage hasn’t stopped, but it has leapt ahead of us. The ground closest to us becomes visible as the smog lifts. The guys from the platoon are strung out around us. Strong John is on the ground, firing the Bren in short bursts. Jimmy lies flat on the ground beside him. I can’t see what Strong John’s shooting at, but I instinctively bend low as I move up beside him. I slip into a muddy ditch and peer ahead.

  Mortar and machine-gun fire is coming from a line of scraggly trees on our left flank. The barrage is coming back from the enemy’s side. The ground explodes all around us. Stone chips and shrapnel ricochet into the brush. I think of Gene Krupa, the drummer in Benny Goodman’s big band, banging away at his cymbals and drums. The staccato of the snare drum and the thump of the bass are echoed in the weapons being used against us. The noisy confusion is complete.

  I glance at Jimmy. He’s curled up on the ground in the fetal position. His face is wet, his eyes squeezed shut.

  Figures are moving in front of the line of scraggly trees: German soldiers. Bees buzz past my head. The bees are bullets. The Gaffer’s shouting at us. “Move! Don’t sit there! Go!”

  I move, keeping close to the ground. Doug and Strong John are behind me. Strong John has the Bren gun in one hand. He’s dragging Jimmy along with the other. The Shermans are moving up behind us, pumping shells at the enemy. I run, stumble, take cover and get my bearings, and then run again.

  The Germans are rushing towards us, just as we are rushing at them. They have their Mark IV Panzers behind them. Their barrage stops as we come together and the close-up fighting begins. The ground is rough. I never see more than a fraction of the battlefield. I never see more than a handful of the enemy at any one time, but the racket of small-arms fire is everywhere. A Grenadier pops up suddenly from a fold in the ground. A German tank appears from behind a stone hut, another from behind a stand of trees. We stalk one another. It all happens so fast, too fast for my brain to process, too fast to keep track of.

  At last, I take cover behind a tree and snipe at the enemy. I see the Gaffer yelling in Loon’s ear, Loon nodding his head in agreement. Specs is crouched behind a stone wall, reloading his weapon.

  There’s an almighty explosion behind us. One of the Shermans takes a hit. Its magazine blows up. Parts fly in all directions. In an instant, all that’s left is a blazing, blackened chassis. The crew has no chance.

  * * *

  When you’re in a firefight, it can seem as if everything is out of control: one random event follows another without rhyme or reason. But the captain is behind us, monitoring the situation. The forward observation officer is calling in arty and air support. The lieutenant keeps in touch with the captain and so keeps his platoon in touch with the company. And the Gaffer is tireless, the ends of his moustache twitching as he lurches from point to point, checking on us.

  Another Sherman takes the place of the one that was destroyed. We keep moving forward, quickly at first, and then more slowly. In the course of the day we advance, at most, a few hundred yards. Eventually we repel the German counterattack. We lose three tanks. Enemy patrols and occasional sniping make us cautious. We never get close to Cider Crossroads.

  Late in the afternoon, Strong John is leading us up a narrow dirt path through rocky country. He’s bending forward instinctively to avoid presenting too obvious a target. Machine-gun fire breaks out as soon as his head rises above the height of the land. We halt. Captain Trehan comes up for a look-see. With the lieutenant beside him, he peers through binoculars at the prospect on the other side of the ridge. What lies in front of us is a deep ravine, less than half a mile wide, that runs all the way to the sea. Exploratory parties are sent off in different directions. All come under fire from concealed positions. We dig in.

  All of us, that is, except Jimmy. He’s sent back to the RAP. The tag attached to his tunic says Battle Exhaustion.

  The next morning, all three A Company platoons, ours inc
luded, are out patrolling the edges of the Gully. Elements from the whole brigade are involved: the Seaforths on our left flank, the Princess Pats on our right. Division HQ figures there’s a weakness somewhere in the German defences. The lieutenant says the enemy has 88-mm anti-tank guns dug into the opposite bank, along with tanks and self-propelled arty. Pretty much the whole darn shooting match is sitting there waiting for us.

  And no one knew they were there.

  * * *

  Doug plops himself down beside me in the evening.

  “You got a girl waiting for you back home?” he asks.

  “There was a girl,” I say.

  “Is she waiting for you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Bella is the daughter of one of Pa’s best friends. We’ve always been close to her family. I’ve known Bella forever, but it’s not like we were going steady. Not exactly. I like her a lot, and she likes me. I don’t know if she’ll wait and I don’t know if I want her to, but she gave me her picture before I left.

  I pull out my wallet and show Doug.

  “Wow! She’s something!”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I say. We’re digging into compo rations and washing them down with tea the O’Connor brothers have made. Doug takes a swallow and sputters.

  “What the heck, Derrick,” says Doug. “You ever think of using this on the Jerries?”

  “Drink up,” he answers. “It’ll put fire in your bones.”

  Derrick and Paddy sit down with us and then Strong John joins us too.

  “Hey, Strong John! What happened to Jimmy?”

  “Was it something I said?” asks Doug.

  “He’s scared,” says Strong John.

  “He was scared from the get-go,” says Derrick.

  “Some guys just get worn down,” says Paddy. “The stuff you see and the stuff you do.”

  “Sure,” says Derrick, “but …”

  “With other guys, it’s all in their heads. It’s not what happens, it’s what they’re afraid will happen.”

  “The anticipation,” says Doug.

  “But anticipation isn’t the same as battle exhaustion,” says Derrick.

  “So, what you’re saying is, he’s yellow,” says Doug.

  “Do you think so?” I ask.

  “I dunno,” says Doug. “We don’t know much about him. We don’t know what he’s been through.”

  “I think he’s seen some things,” says Strong John. “He’s had a hard life.”

  Strong John has had a hard life. He would know.

  “How about you, Paul?” says Derrick, turning towards me. How come you’re so cool?”

  “Yeah,” says Doug. “I saw you shooting that rifle of yours. You might have been shooting rabbits. What goes through your head when you’re shooting Jerries?”

  I say, “I let my mind go blank. Isn’t that what you do? You see something move. You shoot.” What I don’t say is that I never feel cool in a firefight. I feel numb.

  “Yeah,” says Doug. “But for me, there’s a moment before I pull the trigger when I’m scared. I mean, I’m shooting someone.”

  “Well,” says Derrick, “you’d better get over that.”

  * * *

  It has started to rain again. We emerge from our trenches into a dark and drizzly dawn. All day, rain drips off the rim of my helmet. My tunic’s soaked. It’s impossible to keep my socks dry. The sound of small-arms fire breaks through the damp air at intervals. It’s hard to tell where it’s coming from or how far away it is.

  We keep sending out patrols. The Germans send out their recce parties too, some of them slipping in behind us. It’s our turn one late afternoon. We follow a path that’s little more than a dirt track. We hear the crack of a rifle, branches shiver and stone chips zing past us. No one gets hurt. We never see who’s shooting.

  After another nearly sleepless night, we wake up to see the sun for the first time in what seems like an age.

  It’s Monday, December 13. At around 0630 hours, two companies of the Carleton & York Regiment pass through to where the Germans are dug in. We wish them luck. Half an hour later, the barrage begins. The enemy is stuck into the near slope of the Gully and our arty shoots over them. Even where there are German guns on the other side, they’re so deeply embedded that our shells don’t touch them. Even the mortars aren’t doing the job.

  In the afternoon the Carleton & York return. They were badly mauled.

  * * *

  Back from another patrol, I run into Freddy Whitelaw looking beat-up but happy. He says his unit took Cider Crossroads.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “So how come you’re here and not there?”

  “Let me tell you,” he says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We set out this morning with a squadron of four Shermans. We aimed to find a way around the top of the Gully instead of going straight at it, like the Carletons. We found a track and followed it. The weather was foul. The mud stuck to our boots and the boys in the tanks were worried that they’d get stuck, but they kept up.

  “The captain called a halt when we were close to the Gully. He said there weren’t enough of us to win a set-piece battle, but that we might pull it off if we took the Jerries by surprise. And he laid out his plan.

  “We fixed bayonets. We spread out in a line. Our tanks were drawn up in line behind us. On his signal, we charged.”

  “You did what?” I say.

  “We charged. We started screaming and charged down the side of the Gully.” He shakes his head at the memory.

  “Well, the Jerries were surprised. They popped out of their slit trenches like prairie dogs out of their holes. Hands straight into the air! It was all we could do to round them up.

  “Some of them made a fight of it, mind you, and destroyed one of our Shermans. It was all over in minutes. We took more than seventy prisoners.”

  “Seriously? Seventy?”

  “Maybe even more. We sent a party back with the prisoners. And then we set off for Ortona.”

  “You made it to the crossroads?”

  “It got a bit tense. We started up the far side of the Gully. We’d lost the element of surprise and were meeting resistance. We lost radio contact with the battalion. And we lost two more Shermans. But, yes, we made it almost all the way to the crossroads. The lads were all fired up and wanted to keep going. Of course, we couldn’t, not really.

  “Our last tank got stuck. The squadron commander said he had no choice but to destroy it — those were his orders. Without the radio, there was no chance to call up more support. We had to pull back. But it was an adventure, Paul. It was a good day.”

  * * *

  Two companies of the Carleton & York are sent into the Gully in another attempt to fight their way through to the other side. The Germans send them back again. Vokes keeps trying. He’s a stubborn cuss.

  Lieutenant Gold comes back from brigade HQ with news that the 22e Regiment — the Van Doos — have taken the same route as the Seaforths did yesterday in an attempt to go around the top of the Gully. The Germans sent in reinforcements overnight and are making a fight of it. The Van Doos are under a lot of pressure but, at last report, were holding their position near Cider Crossroads. We may get there yet.

  * * *

  The barrage continues. Again, the Carleton & York is sent into the enemy’s mouth. And again, it gets chomped on, chewed up and spat out.

  I watch as the stretcher bearers bring back the wounded and dead. The retreat is orderly, but horrible to see. Even Lieutenant Gold mutters something about mad orders and out-of-touch commanders. The Gaffer, who is not known for being diplomatic, calls it a monumental cock-up. “Vokes,” he says, “should be shot.”

  * * *

  Jimmy just turned up.

  We’re in a farmhouse on a bit of high ground. From behind the stone wall that surrounds the yard, there’s a view over a patch of the Gully. This is our observation post.

  “I’ve got something for you,” Jimmy says, and he
drops a mailbag on the kitchen table.

  “Also this.” And he produces a kitbag packed with goodies, including cigarettes, chocolate and socks sent by women’s auxiliaries back in Canada. “You can thank the rear echelon,” says Jimmy. “They said since I was headed this way, I might as well bring them.”

  “I could use some socks,” says Derrick.

  “How’re you doing?” I ask Jimmy.

  “Why are you asking?” he says. Right away he’s defensive.

  “Where did they take you?” asks Doug.

  “How’s life behind the lines?” asks Paddy.

  “Planning to stay this time?” adds Derrick.

  Jimmy turns red and it looks as if he’s going to take a swing at someone. The moment passes and then Jimmy seems to get smaller. It’s like the juice has been wrung out of him. “Regimental aid post,” he says. “San Vito Chietino.”

  “Hanging out with the nurses, eh?”

  “Have a good time? We’ve seen some fighting.”

  “They treat you okay?” I ask.

  “The MO gave me something to make me sleep.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I slept for two days.”

  “On a nice soft bed, no doubt,” says Derrick, still mocking him. “With nurses to fluff up your pillow?”

  “That’s enough,” says the Gaffer. He has been watching and listening.

  “I needed a break,” says Jimmy. There’s a pleading note in his voice.

  Strong John has been listening too. Now he gestures to Jimmy “We’re going to need you,” he says.

  “I’m here to stay,” says Jimmy defiantly. And that’s that, I guess.

  * * *

  On Wednesday, December 15, word reaches us that most of the Van Doos C Company has been wiped out defending a house, Casa Berardi, on the road to Ortona. Somehow the survivors held on until a squadron of tanks arrived. There’s something brewing in our sector now. Lots of activity at Brigade HQ.