David Robbins - [World War II 04]

by Liberation Road (v1. 0) (epub)

  Overhead, artillery rounds ripped. The big guns the convoy had passed that morning in the fog were starting to hammer the Kraut advance. Shells flew thick, a whistling flock. Joe Amos had a feeling the dough who’d said the 30th ‘ain’t goin’ nowhere’ was right. Other convoys will be feeding them, too. But at least now the boys had two hundred more tons of bullets and C-rations for their stay, compliments of his Lucky.

  ~ * ~

  D+66

  August 11

  ‘Don’t seem like the same war, does it, Rabbi?’

  Sam leaned back in the open jeep, one hand on the wheel, the other offering Ben a canteen. Three days ago someone from the 359th’s motor pool tossed Sam the keys to this vehicle. Ben accepted, and he and Sam had been riding since.

  Ben took the canteen. He doffed his helmet and dripped water over his face with his mouth open. The August sun baked the fields, the jeep’s green metal was hot to the touch. Traffic on the road to Alençon moved slower than the walking GIs. Ben rubbed water into the bristles of his hair, feeling it dribble down his back without cooling him. The air was silted with dust from thousands of boots and exhaust from slow-moving trucks. In the fields, three dozen Sherman tanks paced the convoy. A mile overhead, P-47s circled to protect the strike force from wandering Luftwaffe fighters.

  ‘No,’ Ben answered, almost a minute after Sam made his comment, ‘it doesn’t.’

  Everywhere he looked, Ben saw proof that this was a new war. Instead of staring into the matted walls of roots and leaves in the bocage and the dark cloisters of branches in the forest, he looked to distant hills, saw the steeples of the next town. Instead of a hundred bodies and quick-dug holes to lay them out of sight, he moved beside men strong on their feet. They liberated thirty miles a day instead of dying for that number of yards. The aid stations were not so full, the Graves Registration teams not so busy.

  Not just the war but the men themselves were transformed. Since Sèves Island, the 90th had hung a few pelts on their shed: Périers, St. Hilaire du Harcouet, Mayenne. Laval. Now they spoiled for a fight with the Krauts. They sang on their marches, they ribbed each other, even the replacements whom they no longer feared as Jonahs and rookies.

  Momentum swept the Tough Ombres, a tide raising all spirits. Even Sam sauntered, proud to be assistant to Rabbi Ben Kahn, who had walked into the Kraut’s camp, Yesterday, Ben overheard him sharing a smoke with some doughs, telling them he’d run under more Kraut fire behind his chaplain than he ever did as a foot soldier.

  The next targets were Alençon and Carrouges. The 90th followed behind the French 2nd Armored leading the spearhead north. The 2nd was supplied with American uniforms, half tracks, guns, and Shermans. The French force was ragtag, made up of regulars who’d fought in the Sahara, plus sailors with no Navy, North African Arabs and Senegalese, and French colonials who’d never set foot in France. The GIs trudging along the road complained about how slowly the 2nd was moving. They joked how the Frogs were handed new American tanks, and were busy practicing driving them in reverse.

  Soldiers passed the creeping jeep. The column, made up of the two divisions plus their supply trains, was probably fifteen miles long. Tomorrow, the leading elements would likely take Alençon before most of the Tough Ombres reached the town. GIs saw Ben in his seat and took liberties with him, calling out ‘Chap’ and ‘Padre.’ Some cursed, ‘We’re gonna go kick some fucking Jerry ass!’ just to be bad boys and get Ben’s attention. Many walking by touched him on the shoulder, some that were Jews wanted to shake his hand. Ben could not rest or close his eyes in the heat from the constant contact.

  The momentum of the advance did not take hold in turn, though he was carried along on its current. He was too troubled to be buoyed by distance gained and easy battles. Every day was too long now for Ben, even if it brought another victory over the Germans, another freed point on the map. Every rising sun did not rise on another thousand Jews somewhere to the east. This new war, the fast-paced skipping over France, was not fast enough, because it was already too late. In his heart, he’d begun to lose hope for Thomas, Phineas, for his people, and for his own faith.

  He suspected he’d been wrong to bargain with God. Perhaps God did not pay as much attention to proud Ben Kahn as he’d thought. If that turned out to be true, then Thomas and Phineas were indeed lost, like the Jews of Europe already were, because then they, too, were subject only to the mercies of Germany, and these were paltry. Ben could have no effect at all.

  ‘So, Rabbi,’ Sam asked, ‘what do you think the Frenchies’ll do tonight? Throw a dance party?’

  Last night, after dark, the French armored column lit campfires throughout their bivouac. Alençon was to be their first combat as a unit in France since 1940. Their lack of camouflage discipline came back to haunt the entire column around midnight when a handful of German night-fighters swooped in for a few harassing runs. A couple thousand guns in the 2nd and 90th opened up, waking Ben and anyone else fortunate enough to catch a snooze. No casualties were reported, but the affair did little to raise the GIs’ confidence about their French fighting partners.

  Sam kept up his chatter, trying to cajole Ben. He mentioned more spots in Pittsburgh they might both know. He pointed out the neat, square pits beside the road every seventy-five yards, emergency foxholes dug for Kraut truck drivers to escape Allied air raids. For two weeks, Sam had taken to typing a lot of Ben’s correspondence, making sure the older man got rest and meals, even intervening with the men always tugging at the chaplain for conversation, favors, requests to be excused from duty, complaints, letters to be mailed. Sam did his best to spare Ben’s energies, saving him for the hurt and dead, and for Friday night Shabat services among the riflemen. Ben figured Sam had secured the jeep, to ease their movements between the three regiments of the 90th. The boy steered Ben to the company of other officers, men he could try to relax and talk with, while Sam waited nearby on a stump or in the jeep. He monitored Ben’s moods, and talked a blue streak when Ben went quiet for too long.

  ‘We got a big surprise comin’ for the Krauts, huh, Rabbi? Gonna jump right up behind ‘em.’

  Ben could not tell the boy to shut up. He wanted to fall and stay down, and Sam would not let him.

  Sam thumped on the steering wheel.

  ‘If we ever get there, that is. Come on, guys. Geez.’

  ~ * ~

  All the way down the shady lane, Joe Amos honked the horn on Garner’s jeep.

  The Marquis waited in the circular drive with his arms spread wide. He did not drop them even while Joe Amos climbed from behind the wheel.

  ‘Joe Amos! We thought you had forgotten us. But no. Ha-ha, no, you have not, mon frère!’

  Joe Amos stepped forward. The man shut his embrace like a mousetrap. Joe Amos took kisses on both cheeks.

  ‘But, where is Lucky, eh? You are not driving the bullet truck today?’

  Joe Amos waited until the Marquis let him go. He couldn’t have a conversation with a man’s face this close after being kissed. He stepped back.

  ‘I had to borrow this.’

  The truth was the jeep and the afternoon to drive it down here had cost Joe Amos fifty dollars cash. Garner wouldn’t take it in cigarettes.

  ‘Lucky kinda ran out of luck.’

  Joe Amos intended to hold back the exciting story of how he lost his truck in the teeth of the German advance, to tell it in front of Geneviève.

  He watched how the Marquis looked over the jeep, inspecting it for gifts. Joe Amos had brought no jerricans or cigarettes, not even McGee this time.

  ‘Where’s Geneviève? She in the kitchen?’

  The Marquis seemed startled away from his scrutiny of the jeep. He had a sort of Christmas-morning disappointment on his face.

  ‘Ah? Yes, she is in the house somewhere.’

  Joe Amos left the vehicle. The Marquis came alongside, quick and cheery again, chatting about how much be liked the jeep up close, he’d only seen them flying past on the road. It seemed quite b
asic and hardy, a car for survival. The Peugeot was running well, he said. The recent hot weather and rains were making it difficult to keep up with the grass, though the grounds looked manicured.

  Inside the house, Geneviève hurried down the curved stairwell, still twisting her hair into a bun. Like her father, she pecked Joe Amos on both cheeks. Then she took his hand in hers. The Marquis clapped, playful but impatient.

  ‘We have a visitor, child. Put food on the table.’

  Joe Amos noticed both daughter and father looked rosy. They’d fleshed out since he’d seen them two and a half weeks ago. Joe Amos figured the Marquis had traded the gasoline well for victuals.

  In the kitchen, Joe Amos said, ‘Wait a minute. I got something for the two of you.’

  Over the table, he spread a fan of bills, one hundred and seventy dollars and five hundred eighty francs. The francs, set officially at fifty to the dollar, had even more buying power in the black market than the bucks.

  The bills on the table were just bits of paper, Joe Amos thought. They hadn’t been that hard to collect, it took some wit and enterprise and here they were. But the eyes of the Marquis and Geneviève frozen on the tabletop said that the money was life. Joe Amos had killed a German pilot and fed an army, he’d escaped tanks and washed gummy blood from the bed of his truck. These bills weren’t life to him: the girl with her hands to her mouth was. The job ahead, miles to drive, an enemy to beat, his uniform, the future to win, these were life. He would give Geneviève every dollar he came across if it put that look on her face again.

  ‘Mes cieux!’ Geneviève gasped through her fingers. ‘This is too wonderful.’

  The Marquis said nothing. Joe Amos caught his eyes scanning the bills, counting. Geneviève slid an arm around her father’s waist.

  The Marquis reeled his attention away from the money. With his arm around Geneviève, he smiled and reached for Joe Amos’s hand.

  ‘Merci. Merci.’

  The Marquis’s head dipped. With his thumb, he bladed a tear from his cheek.

  The Marquis sniffed and released Joe Amos. He stepped away from Geneviève and the cluttered table.

  ‘Go. Leave me here. Take a picnic.’

  ‘Marquis,’ Joe Amos asked, ‘you alright?’

  The man laid a hand over his heart. ‘Oui, oui. Go. I will see you when you return.’

  The Marquis headed for the back door out of the kitchen, to his vast lawn. In the doorway, he turned.

  ‘Geneviève?’

  ‘Oui?’

  ‘Rendez le garçon heureux.’

  The Marquis went out to the yard. Joe Amos and Geneviève stood on opposite sides of the money.

  ‘What did he say?’

  The girl turned to the cabinets. She went on tiptoes to take plates from the back of a shelf. Joe Amos admired her white ankles, the softness of her reaching arms. She spoke without turning to him. Joe Amos didn’t mind.

  ‘He is very grateful. We will go into the Forêt de Cerisy. I know a place.’

  ‘That’ll be nice.’

  The girl assembled the picnic meal and loaded it into a wicker basket, bread, meat, and vegetables. She narrated, ‘Do you like cheese?’ and ‘We will drink Cabernet today.’ Joe Amos glowed. He’d laid out for this French girl and her father more money than he had ever brought home in Danville to his mother. He lit a cigarette and crossed his legs at the table. Conversation stopped while she finished preparation. Joe Amos fingered the bills. He wished McGee, Garner, someone could be here to see this. Major Clay, that’s who he wanted. Major Clay, who’d said he’d never be a hero.

  Geneviève was pleased with the open-top jeep. She ran rack into the house for a scarf, tied it around her hair, and climbed in. She wore a simple, light frock, and the scarf was white. On the seat beside him, in the sunny afternoon, the girl could not have been more his creamy opposite.

  The road led east out of Couvains. For five miles they drove through uncontested hills and fields, where buildings and fences had not been knocked over. France gleamed in emerald and gold, a lush land of cattle and gray boulders. Small churches anchored even the tiniest villages, flower wreaths lay at the foot of crucifixes at country crossroads. The figures of Jesus were carved from old wood and varnished, to hang for mankind every kilometer, never enough. From his truck seat, Joe Amos had seen only the France that had been battlefields. On this summer day in an open car, he breathed the pollen of flowering trees and weeds, and slid past crop rows and elderly women in smocks picking in the green. Geneviève’s white scarf fluttered beside him, she smiled and looked like a movie starlet.

  When they reached the Bayeux-St. Lô highway, she told him to turn right into the Forêt. The road burst with military traffic. Column after column powered past, packed so tightly no one could slow to let him in. Joe Amos waited for an opening. Geneviève commented on the unremitting line of trucks and tractors, saying, ‘So this is America. Mon Dieu.’

  After several minutes, a gap appeared. He told Geneviève to hold on and gunned the jeep into the crevice. In the backseat, the picnic basket slid. She checked, nothing had broken.

  Joe Amos closed on the deuce-and-a-half in front of him. The Jimmy’s bed was full of replacement GIs heading to St. Lô. He could spot them, anyone could who’d been in the war more than a week.

  A few of the clean faces crowded over the tailgate, looking down at Joe Amos and Geneviève and their picnic basket. A cigarette was passed around, the boys smoked between finger and thumb. The shared cigarette was a bond for them, a cheap one, Joe Amos thought, just smoke on lips that would be bloodied soon enough. Then they’ll know who’s their brother. Then they’ll learn if they’re as tough as they’re trying to look.

  Geneviève lifted her chin at them waving to her. One soldier wolf whistled. She set her hand over Joe Amos’s on the stick shift. Joe Amos wanted to back off the rear of the Jimmy, but the truck behind him was on his bumper. She pulled her hand from his when the first dough shouted at them.

  ‘Hey, boy! Get your hand off her!’

  ‘Hey, lady, what’re you doin’ with a nigger?’

  One soldier tossed the cigarette overboard, bouncing it off the jeep’s hood. He unshouldered his carbine.

  The GI worked the bolt on his rifle. He lifted the gun, pointing straight at Joe Amos’s head. Other doughs pushed the long barrel down. The soldier glared through the shoving hands around him, taking away the rifle but never his eyes. Joe Amos pulled the jeep out of the convoy. He stopped on the shoulder.

  Trucks roared past. The gargle of worn mufflers and the stink of tired pistons made the shoulder of the road a hard place to sit. More soldiers hooted when they rolled by. Joe Amos put his eyes into the woods. The trees were skinny chestnuts and oaks, kept stunted by the winds of Normandy. Geneviève said something to him. Joe Amos clamped his teeth so hard, the column next to him made such a racket, that he did not hear her. Geneviève sat back in her seat, waiting.

  Joe Amos chewed on his anger, that some cracker would do that in front of his girl, just to spoil his good rime, his one day off. That dumbass was never going to shoot him; the boy was just spouting off, pretending he wasn’t scared out of his country wits to be rolling off to war. Joe Amos rapped his fist on the steering wheel. How could he explain to Geneviève what she just saw? What did she know about blacks and whites in America? Was he supposed to tell her the man she was with was despised, that he got treated like an animal by some of his own countrymen? What was he to say when she asked why? Because he was brown? It was the truth, but that would make no sense to someone who hadn’t grown up with Jim Crow. Joe Amos reckoned he’d just tell her what his mother had told him when he was a boy, that hate and love were like bullets, once they got in your heart it was near impossible to save yourself from them. When it came to heaven and some white folks, it looked like the best you could do was hold on and hope better days were ahead.

  A truck horn sounded. Joe Amos sighed, reluctant to look, guessing it was just more soldiers hazing him
. He looked instead at Geneviève. She smiled, and just like that she made this a better day. The horn beeped again. He looked over his shoulder to see a stopped Jimmy. Behind this truck, another horizon of vehicles bunched on the highway. The truck’s driver was white. He waved Joe Amos back onto the road.

  Joe Amos punched the gears and pulled off the shoulder. He lifted a hand to the driver in thanks.

  A minute later Geneviève showed him the turnoff for her picnic spot in the Forêt. Joe Amos bounced the jeep down a logging road. Every moment the noisy highway was left farther behind; the trees cushioned the engines and summer light. His thoughts of the crackers in the truck and of America faded, too. The girl guided them beside a stream, under a copse of pines where the ground was a ginger patch of soft needles.

  Geneviève spread a blanket and set out the picnic. Joe Amos smoked beside the stream. The tumbling water and breeze covered the sounds from the highway.