A Midnight Clear: A Novel

by William Wharton

  I sleep again, but catch the calls when they come in. We’re all half drunk with sleep. I dread going out in the cold; I wonder if it’s stopped snowing.

  This time I’m up on top with Wilkins. It’s black cold, even though it’s snowing white. I remember I haven’t put on coffee water for the guys coming in; Miller forgot, too. I hate being dumb like that.

  It’s slippery going. The ground’s hard with frozen leaves and about two or three inches powdered over top. I fall twice working my way up. Wilkins waves without challenging and goofy Gordon throws a snowball at me.

  “Good snowball snow, Wont.”

  Nothing seems to get Mel down. Some people have it, some kind of inside rubber resilience that keeps them bouncing. He makes another snowball; I duck, holding my rifle close against my side, turning my back. The snowball hits lightly on the rifle butt and crumbles. Gordon does a perfect imitation of Hunt.

  “What kinda sojur is you, there, Knott. That there coulda been a’ enemy grenade. I oughta stomp the pissin’ outa ya, mollycoddled lousy quizkid.”

  “Cut it out, Mel. I’m freezing already.”

  He folds up his shelter half, leaving mine.

  “Out of my way then, if you don’t want to play; I’m ready for a fire.”

  He slips and slides down the hill, grabbing trees to stay up, his rifle still slung on his shoulder. Wilkins and I decide we’ll take turns sitting deep in the hole and change on the ten minutes. That’s what he and Gordon have been doing. This manning two holes at night can’t go on. I’ve got to work out something else.

  I ask Wilkins about chess. It’s something to keep us going and I’ve been wanting to know for a long time.

  “Vance, why is it you won’t play chess with the squad? Is it because there’s no competition?”

  Long silence. Am I doing it again? Is it any of my business, even? Vance is standing; I’m squatting in the hole; he looks down at me.

  “Promise you won’t tell?”

  “Promise on Father Mundy’s honor.” He stares out into the dark.

  “Because it’s no fun. It’s not because I usually win, but they don’t play chess; they work at it.”

  He pauses; I wait.

  “You know, the German word for chess is ‘Schach’; almost like their word for battle. That’s the way Miller and the rest of them think of chess, as battle. But it isn’t battle; it’s seduction. The queen is trying to seduce the king, make him come out, be vulnerable. It’s a lovely game played that way, and nobody really wins or loses. The secret is in the term ‘checkmate.’ It’s mate, not kill or capture; it’s all there. If you think of the game like that, chess is fun and easy.”

  I squat deeper. I find it hard to believe. Probably Mother’s just a chess genius; no matter what he thinks he’s doing, or why, chess for him is natural. It’s like me and drawing. It always astounds me when a bright person such as Shutzer or even Wilkins draws like a four-year-old. Is that the way they see? I can’t believe it.

  Wilkins and I aren’t scared enough anymore. We’re tired and depressed. Phoning in gets to be the high point, something, anything, to do. I’m on till six and it seems impossible. Then my first day guard will be alone down at the bridge. Day guard, hell, it’s still dark at eight o’clock. I wonder how the Germans are making it. If they’re patrolling around, too, they can’t be getting much sleep.

  From six to eight, I sleep through, except for phone calls. We keep the fire burning low to save wood.

  At eight, I’m down by the bridge. I watch the light try to show itself through all the snow. At first, it seems only the snowflakes glow lighter and everything else stays dark; then the space between the flakes gets warmer, pinker, but it’s still cold; maybe colder.

  By the time Gordon comes to relieve me, it’s full light but gray again. The wind has died and the snow’s drifting down straight; softly, slowly, flakes big around as quarters, or wafers, ghosts of hosts; Ardennes manna. I kick the snow on the ground as I work my way back up to the chateau.

  3

  Foo Kit Lur

  Gordon shakes me awake.

  “Wont, it’s Ware on the radio.”

  I swing my feet to the side of the mattress, still in my fart sack.

  “What time is it?”

  “Eleven-thirty. Ware insisted on talking with you, chain of command and all.”

  I slip my legs out of the sack; even my shoes are off. I thought I was in for a straight three-hour sleep and needed it. I still don’t have it together in my head who’s on guard and who’s not. I look over; Miller, Shutzer and Mundy are around a bed with the bridge deal.

  “What’s up? Wilkins out alone?”

  “Well, we figured we were all about to crack manning two holes, so we slacked off while you were asleep. OK?”

  “Sure; fine.”

  What the hell else can I do; run around threatening to “stomp the pissin’ outa ’em”? Besides, he’s right; we can’t keep it up; I was just too nervous, scared.

  I squat by the radio. Gordon left it on and it’s humming away, a little light glowing red. I switch to transmit and look around the room; there are more smashed chairs beside the fireplace. I hope we get them burned before Mother Wilkins comes back in.

  “Able one calling Able four, over.”

  I get Ware. He must’ve been sitting in the radio tent waiting.

  “What’s this about your making contact? Over.”

  He sounds flustered, excited.

  “They came to the posts last night and made noises, sir. They were yelling at us, sir. Over.”

  “Christ, Knott! What in hell’d they say? Over.”

  “It was in German, sir. Shutzer says they told us to sleep well. Over.”

  “Shutzer understands German? Over.”

  “Yiddish, sir. It’s about the same, he says. Over.”

  “What the hell! Love wants you to locate their CP so he can put it on the operations map. It’s total confusion here; there’s talk about attacks and everybody being surrounded.”

  He pauses. He didn’t say “over,” so I wait. Procedure and all that, what ho!

  “Sergeant Knott, I want you to take a small patrol and see if you can find their CP. Over.”

  “Wilco, sir. Over.”

  “Look first at that hunting lodge on the other side of the hill. That’s the most likely place. Over.”

  “Wilco. Over.”

  “If they’re not there, check the shack along the streambed downstream from the château. Over.”

  “Wilco. Over.”

  “This is pure recon; a three-man patrol should do. Don’t take any unnecessary chances. Leave the rest of the squad at the chateau. Over.”

  Where the hell else did he think I was going to leave them?

  “Wilco, sir. Over.”

  “Make it soon as possible; daylight if it looks OK. Over.”

  “Wilco. With this snow it doesn’t make much difference, sir. We can’t actually see much of anything. Over.”

  “OK, call back when you come in, or at twenty-hundred the latest. Over.”

  “Wilco, sir. Over.”

  “That’s it, Knott; good luck. Over and out.”

  “Over and out.”

  The mob of them are crowded around me. One of the few events which could break up a squad bridge game would be talk of a patrol. Miller switches off the radio.

  “You mean Ware wants us to walk out in the snow and muck around till we stir up a few of the friendly enemy? I don’t believe it.”

  Shutzer wanders back and stares at his bridge hand some more. Miller and Mundy drift over and settle down with him. Gordon cracks the legs off a chair and tosses them into the fire.

  “Who’s it going to be?”

  “You, Stan and me, I think. The rest will have to step up the guard, and, Bud, would you put chains on the jeeps? You never know, we might want to skedaddle away from here in a hurry.”

  Shutzer’s still staring at his hand. Mundy’s doing the same thing, scratching his
head through his woolknit cap. He sleeps with that damned thing on. Whenever he takes it off, he carefully pulls out all the hairs stuck on the inside and saves them. He has a little pack of this hair in the bottom of his canteen holder; says he’s going to turn it in after the war and claim a disability pension as an amputee. He’s getting bald on top. Shutzer says it’s a natural tonsure or maybe a flesh-colored yarmulke. Maybe Mundy will be a religious switch-hitter.

  “Won’t, what’s the chance we finish our hand here first? Mother definitely outdid himself this time. I’m ready to propose he be drummed out of the squad.”

  Gordon’s staring at his hand now.

  “Maybe we ought to declare ourselves a firing squad and practice on Mother; I strongly suspect he’s a German secret agent sent to destroy our minds, undermine our morale.”

  “OK, but soon as it’s over, we’ll go out, and Bud puts the chains on. Then when Mother’s guard is up, you take it, Mundy. OK?”

  I guess he hears. They’ve all settled back into the game, miles from patrols, chains, guard duty; they’re wearing their brains thin on the possible combinations of cards. I wonder which one it is. No matter what they do, only Mother’s going to have any satisfaction.

  I’m already nervous. I go upstairs and crap; it isn’t bad at all. I come down and scoop some water from the bucket with my canteen cup and put it on the primus stove. I open up my soap and well-used razor, last blade, both sides of both sides worn dull; but if I’m going to be killed, I might’s well be a neat-looking corpse; my mom would appreciate it.

  Afterward, to the background moans and complaints of bridge players, I heat up powdered eggs, spread orange marmalade on a biscuit and wash it down with coffee. By the time I’m finished, the game’s over. I don’t even ask what happened. Gordon and Miller look stunned. Shutzer won’t talk to Mundy. I’m afraid to ask. Mother’d better stay on guard an extra two hours. Without a word, Miller goes outside to work on the jeeps. Maybe he’ll hang himself with tire chains.

  I pull out camouflage jumpers from the duffel bags. Shutzer, Gordon and I take off our webbing equipment while we slip the jumpers over our regular outfits. Then we strap the ammo belt, bayonet, canteen, aid kit back on again. We look like Arctic surgical soldiers. We should whiten our rifles and helmets but we don’t; it’s such a tough job getting that crap off afterward. So many of these things are extra, superfluous; we’re carrying through with training routine, rituals to make us feel safer, help us not think what we’re actually doing. We’re going on an Ardennes safari, with guns, hunting humans, humans who are hunting us!

  It’s after one o’clock when we finally take off. We go down past the bridge, then automatically spread to a ten-yard interval. Shutzer’s first as scout, then Gordon; I bring up the rear.

  We drop into the streambed and push our way along the right bank. We’ve already decided to check out the shed or shack first; it’s closer. Then we’ll swing around and come up on the lodge from south. We’re convinced that’s where they’ll be, so this shed part is mostly a bit of dry run in the wet snow.

  I have our contour map tucked in my field jacket pocket under the camouflage cover. We all took a good look at it first. By staying with the stream we’ll come close to the shed; it isn’t more than four or five hundred yards, at most. The worst we can expect is the Germans will have an outpost there, but that’s enough.

  According to our map, it looks as if there’s a saddle between two hills leading from the shed up to the hunting lodge. I’m not really scared, no shaking, but my tongue is dry. I grab a handful of snow from the low-hanging branch of a tree and stuff it in my mouth. The branch springs up and showers thin flakes of icy snow.

  I keep one eye on Gordon’s back and try enjoying the scenery. It really is beautiful. I wonder how I could ever manage the effect of snow masses with drawing. It would be mostly a matter of leaving white spaces. It’d sure be great if I could only finagle some typing paper. I can never manage an illusion of snow on gray insides of K boxes. Maybe I could draw first, then dab on rifle whitening for the snow. I’ll have to try that; I’d be practically painting then. I could make a brush from some of Mundy’s amputated hairs; he doesn’t need them all. I’d attach them to the end of a stick with one of the rubber bands, like Benjamin West and his cat hairs.

  There isn’t as much snow falling and the visibility is better. There’s a feeling sun might be up there above the clouds. The stream isn’t frozen and is dark brown, almost black, against the snow. It’s fast-moving and sometimes not more than a couple feet across. The protruding rocks are capped with snow, water rippling clear against the upstream surface. I’m having my usual trouble, noticing how beautiful the world is just when there’s a chance I might be leaving it.

  We stay on the right bank, generally, but cross over on rocks when it gets crowded with trees or bushes. Everything’s quiet except our own noises. Inside a helmet you can hear yourself breathe or even swallow but it’s hard to pick up outside sounds; another bit of brilliant army engineering. At least the Germans had enough sense to bevel out the sides of their helmets. I don’t see how we’re ever going to win this war doing everything so stupidly. The military mind seems to train soldiers for fighting the war just fought. We were trained to fight trench warfare. In World War I, they were all ready for cavalry charges. It never ends.

  We’re watching for tracks. There’re rabbit skip-jump marks and we spot the trail of a deer but nothing of men. As we go downhill, the forest becomes more dense and the trees are bigger. In some places it’s so compacted with trees, the snow doesn’t penetrate and we walk on soft, brown pine needles only slightly powdered by blown snow.

  Suddenly, Gordon stops and falls to his knees. In front, Shutzer’s hit the ground. He motions back. I hurry in a crouch and drop beside him.

  “I think that’s it, Won’t!”

  He points straight ahead to a gray, weathered wooden shack with straw sticking out from cracks in the boards and from eaves under a slate roof. I roll on one side, reach inside my camouflage suit and pull out the map. I spread it on the snow. The shack seems to be just where it should be. I look up at the reality.

  “Yep; looks deserted enough.”

  “Uh-huh. What’ll we do now, coach?”

  “You and Gordon stay here. I’ll sneak around and look for tracks. If somebody’s there, they’d have to make some marks going in. And, unless they’re happy freezing to death for the Vaterland, there should be smoke, too.”

  I ease myself forward slowly toward a small rise on the left. I stay crouched over, keeping the rise between me and the shack. When I peer down the hill, I can see the shack and everything around it. There’s nothing: no tracks, no sign of any kind. I pull out the scope and focus on it to make sure. I check especially the ground between shack and hunting lodge. Nobody’s been near this place since it started snowing. I stand up, wave Shutzer and Gordon in.

  We meet down at the shack. We peer through cracks in boards; nothing’s in there except hay. It’d be nice having this place closer to the château; we could use it for firewood. Mother couldn’t object too much to that.

  There’s a nasty little wind blowing and we shelter against the lee side of the shack. I take out my map again; this next part’s harder.

  We move out in the same order but with a twenty-yard interval. Visibility’s still improving; we’re heading almost due north now. I check Shutzer’s watch. It’s not two o’clock yet. According to the map, it should be about a mile from here to the lodge. With any kind of luck, we can get there, take a look, then be back in the château before dark.

  We slink along in the trough of hills and come to a narrow road which isn’t on the map. This shakes us. It’s the kind of thing you don’t want to have happening on a patrol. You’re scared enough, without getting lost. We go over the map carefully but this road shouldn’t be here. Still, far’s we can tell, we’re going the right direction. Unless we found the wrong shack, we should come on the hunting lodge within two hun
dred yards or so.

  It isn’t five minutes later when Stan hits the ground. He signals and I hurry on up. I drop beside him and peer out but can’t see anything. He points. I lift my head higher and still don’t see anything. Then I see it, a dark smudge in the vague smear of whiteness. We’re close. Shutzer cups his hand over his mouth. I lean close so our helmets clink.

  “Looks like Nazi smoke to me, probably burning Jewish wood.”

  We slither back to Gordon and have a powwow. The point is we’ve already done what we’re supposed to do. There they are, there are Germans; and we know where they are. Gordon and I are for calling it quits. Shutzer wants to make sure. In the end, Shutzer talks me into sneaking up with him for a closer look. Mel will stay back to cover us. I tuck in our map, pull out the scope and give it to Shutzer. He’s leading; after all, this part is his idea.

  We creep back to where we were, then on up over the curve of the ridge. Now we can see down the other side.

  Below, there’s a long, low log-cabin-type building. It has a peaked roof and smoke is curling from a chimney on the east end. Bare-eyed, we can see a pair of German soldiers cutting wood with a two-man saw on a crude sawhorse. They’re probably having the same trouble keeping a fire burning we have. They’re not wearing overcoats and don’t have any visible weapons. Shutzer’s scanning the scene with our scope. Then he stops and concentrates on something up close.

  I’m looking for outposts. They’ve got to have some kind of cover. I see a path of tracks down to the road between us and them. Also, there’s another path up to a square of green canvas on a hill beyond the lodge. It looks as if there might be a latrine up there.