David Robbins - [World War II 04]

by Liberation Road (v1. 0) (epub)

  Joe Amos cleared his throat. ‘Lieutenant, I got bad news.’

  ‘And I got forty minutes of sleep. What is it?’

  ‘We were waylaid. Outside Fontainebleau. A captain with Third Army commandeered my column. Said he was taking it all the way back to Reims.’

  Garner shook his head. ‘Reims? He’s at Reims already?’

  ‘Boogie’s boys gave us a ride back.’

  Garner rubbed his bald pate. ‘Were you carryin’ gas?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘This captain, he take all your Jimmies?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Twelve of them.’

  ‘Son of a bitch. That’s the third time since yesterday Patton’s done that.’

  Garner spoke to his clerk. ‘Alright. Get ‘em twelve more from the motor pool.’ To Joe Amos he said, deadpan, ‘Got one shot up, got two blown up, got twelve stolen. I can’t wait to see what’s next with you.’

  The lieutenant pivoted to head back into the recesses of the hut, a return to his cot.

  ‘That’s it?’ Joe Amos called after him.

  ‘That’s it. Try to hang on to these for a little while, will you, please?’ Garner disappeared into the shadows.

  The clerk said, ‘Wait right here.’ He left Boogie and Joe Amos alone while he disappeared to dig up the locations of another dozen trucks.

  ‘How ‘bout that?’ Boogie said. ‘Looks like they can spare some trucks, after all.’ He thumped Joe Amos on the back. ‘Gotta roll, College. I’m gonna get my ass to Paris before Garner figures he liked me better with a shovel. I’ll catch up with you.’

  Joe Amos waited in the hut. There were no chairs. He sat against the wall and fell asleep.

  ~ * ~

  D+85

  August 30

  The woman took his arm. Like a couple they walked along the Rue Bénard.

  ‘Ahh, Chien Blanc,’ she said, ‘I tell you. No one is as big a bore as a collaborator.’

  Her hand rested in the crook of his elbow. White Dog covered her fingers with his. He liked this feeling, strolling in the open down a boulevard with a woman on a cool, clear eve. Yesterday, she had gone with him to watch the American 28th Division parade down the Champs Elysees. They’d cheered and thrown confetti, he even waved an American flag at his countrymen, a little heartsick at the sight of them. He joined the ten thousand who walked behind the division until they left the city through Bastille. Along the way, Parisians hung from every streetlamp, they draped from balconies, they cavorted into the marching ranks to kiss or hug the Yanks. White Dog heard later that the division entered combat that very afternoon east of Paris. This lifted his spirits.

  ‘Me, I did not collaborate,’ she continued. ‘I did not touch the Boche. Not for a ransom did I touch them.’

  She grabbed a fist of her hair and tugged, to show White Dog she still had her locks when so many women of Paris did not.

  ‘Yes, chérie,’ he said, ‘your hair is lovely.’

  ‘Have you noticed? There are surfacing three types of collaborators after the Liberation.’

  ‘And they are?’

  ‘They are all miserable.’

  ‘The types?’

  ‘Ah, oui. First, the ones who worked with the Boche. Them we will put in prison. Some we will shoot, such as Laval, Pétain, and the rest of the Vichy rodents. Then the ones who spoke in favor of the Occupation, pfff, they will never get back any good name in France. The worst are the common ones, who did nothing for the Boche but were friendly, let them in their homes. These talk now for hours about how they were forced to do this or that, they explain, they bore. Ugh. They get a slap and are told to shut up. I hate them all.’

  ‘You hide it well, cher.’

  The jest popped her distemper. She hugged his arm with a laugh, swaying into him on the cobblestones.

  ‘The ones who fought, the heroes, they say nothing. The ones like you.’

  White Dog did not object.

  She said, ‘I am so happy.’

  They walked close like this for another block.

  ‘Here,’ she said, stopping at a bistro. The door stood open to the street. Smoke and piano sounds drained out the door, the place was jammed.

  White Dog said, ‘Show me.’

  She led him by the hand into the bar. They had to turn sideways to make their way through the crowd. White Dog would have walked in front to part the bodies in their path but she did a better job elbowing through than he would have. The air inside was pleated with smoke and hot with skin and wool. Beer and liquor were lifted in toasts on every side. White Dog had to dodge flying arms and spilling drink. She kept a tight grip on his hand. Partway through the bar he could not see her at the other end of his arm. Someone banged out a rag on a piano. The ringing of a cash register pierced above the plinking and hubbub. ‘Pardon,’ he said many times, jarring men’s glasses. He noticed several American uniforms in the throng.

  Nearing the far wall, her hand stopped tugging. White Dog heaved himself the last steps past some barrel-chested singers of the ‘Marseillaise.’ He arrived beside her and released her hand.

  At a table, with his back against the wall, sat an American soldier. Beside him was a woman White Dog knew to be a drug addict. On the tabletop were the remains of many beers and shots. With this much debris of drinking and the company of this woman, White Dog expected the man to look up with red-rimmed eyes. But his eyes were clear and astonishingly white against the darkness of his skin.

  ‘Hey now, Missy,’ the Negro said, not peering at White Dog at all but looking instead at the woman beside White Dog, ‘did I forget somethin’?’

  She smiled, playing the coquette. ‘No, monsieur, you have remembered everything quite well.’

  ‘What you drinking?’

  ‘Cognac.’

  ‘How ‘bout your pal here?’

  ‘The same, merci.’ White Dog affected a French accent. No need to let out all secrets too soon.

  The Negro circled a finger at the waitress, signaling she should bring a round for all four of them. The addict woman slumped sloppily.

  ‘So,’ the man said, looking now at White Dog, ‘you her pimp or something?’

  White Dog made himself laugh instead of striking the soldier.

  ‘No, monsieur, she is my friend. Welcome to Paris. You like the city?’

  ‘Yeah, man, I like very much. Squeeze in here.’

  Before White Dog sat, he said sweetly to the addict, in French, ‘Get lost. I have business. Make an excuse.’

  The woman fixed wobbly eyes on White Dog. He nodded, agreeing by the gesture to pay her money later.

  ‘Mon cher,’ she blurted to the Negro, ‘I do not feel well. I must go.’

  ‘You sure, baby?’

  She rose, unsteady.

  ‘Alright,’ the man said. He peeled some bills from his roll for her. She took them and stumbled into the crowd.

  White Dog’s woman patted his shoulder. ‘I’ll make sore she gets a taxi.’ She left the two of them at the table.

  The black man disapproved. He said to White Dog, ‘Man, you sure know how to clear a room.’

  Four drinks arrived. Two glasses were slid in front of White Dog.

  ‘Down the hatch,’ the Negro said.

  ‘Santé.’

  When all the glasses were empty and lips wiped, White Dog leaned in to be heard without shouting.

  ‘I am told you drive a truck.’

  ‘She tell you that?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You told her, oui?’

  ‘That I did. What else did I tell her?’

  ‘That you drive trucks of gasoline. That you would like her to guess what a gallon of gasoline might sell for in Paris?’

  The Negro leaned in now, brushing aside empty glasses. Their elbows gathered together on the tabletop. White Dog continued in accented English.

  ‘What did she tell you, mon ami?’

  ‘She figured about three dollars a gallon.’

  ‘And is this price attractive to you?’<
br />
  The Negro narrowed his bright eyes.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ The man was burly, he glared with malevolence. ‘Mon ami.’

  ‘I am a buyer. And if I am not mistaken, you are clearly interested in being a seller, or you would not have asked the price. That is why she has brought us together. The price is just as she said. I, of course, must mark it up to make my profit.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Five dollars a gallon is the street price today. But as I said, I will give you three. So tell me, is that attractive to you?’

  ‘Yeah. It’ll do.’ The Negro leaned in his closest. White Dog smelled many things on him, alcohol, exhaust, perhaps the woman. The driver asked, ‘How much you want?’

  ‘How much, as they say, have you got?’

  ‘A thousand gallons.’

  The Negro measured him across the table. White Dog whistled.

  The Negro grinned. ‘You ain’t got that kind of money, man. And anyway, why the hell you dressed up like that?’

  White Dog broke off the negotiation for a moment to feign indignation. ‘Like what?’

  The Negro swirled a finger at White Dog’s linen coat and thin black tie, his tux trousers and slicked, piled hair. ‘Like Cab Calloway or some shit. What’s up?’

  ‘I like the American music.’ White Dog dug his thumbs under his suspenders for one dramatic snap. ‘And yes,’ he said, dropping the French accent, ‘I have that kind of money. I’ll pay you three thousand bucks for your gas.’

  The Negro retreated from the tabletop as if shoved. White Dog tried to read his face, full of twitches and bared teeth.

  ‘Man,’ the Negro said, flabbergasted, ‘what you doin’?’

  ‘Business, my friend. Business.’

  White Dog reached out his hand over the empty glasses. ‘My name is White Dog.’

  The Negro stared at the pale hand for moments, unsure. ‘You an American?’

  ‘Apple pie, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Cab Calloway. You bet.’

  The driver took the hand. White Dog’s mitt disappeared into it.

  ‘The hell you doin’ in civvies?’ the Negro asked.

  ‘I’m a B-17 pilot. Got shot down a year and a half ago over Verdun. The Resistance got to me. They brought me through Paris on the way home.’

  White Dog held wide his two palms, encompassing the crowd, the women, music, life, and profits all around them. ‘I decided to stay in Paris instead.’

  ‘You’re black market.’

  ‘Le marché noir. Guilty. Built up a nice little network since I been here. I run the show. I got friends, I got connections, and, brother, I got the money. The Krauts are gone and now I got a big, fat, hungry market. The way I see it, you got the gas. I figure it’s a match made in heaven.’

  White Dog turned on the charm in his smile.

  The Negro asked, ‘Why you go by White Dog?’

  ‘Because I don’t need Uncle Sam coming to look for me. Far as the U.S. Army knows, I’m dead. I intend to stay that way a little longer. No reason to get nosy, is there, soldier?’

  The big man lifted his chin, considering. ‘You say three thousand dollars.’

  ‘Cash on the barrel.’

  ‘Four and I throw in the truck.’

  White Dog whistled. A thousand dollars for a U.S. Army truck.

  ‘A deuce-and-a-half?’

  ‘With a full tank.’

  ‘You can do this?’

  ‘Easier than you think, Cab. Hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee-ho.’

  The Negro issued a snarfing laugh. White Dog saw the man was a little drunk.

  ‘Alright,’ White Dog said. ‘You got a deal.’

  The Negro sucked his teeth. ‘And you’re an American, huh?’

  ‘Red-blooded.’

  ‘The Krauts knew about you?’

  ‘Everybody did. Everybody in Paris wanted to sell, buy, or steal something. We all got along fine. I kept my face out of daylight and my ass out of trouble. I was even kind of a hero, you wanna know the truth.’

  ‘You a hero now, Cab?’

  ‘I might be yours. Let me ask you this. No offense, but how’s the Army treating you?’

  ‘What you mean?’

  ‘What do you think I mean? You want me to say it, I’ll say it. You’re colored. So how’s the Army treating you?’

  ‘Like Sambo.’

  ‘There you are.’

  White Dog leaned back, slapping a hand on the table.

  ‘You think it’s gonna get any better because you pass up on a shot at four thousand dollars? Why not get a little something for yourself? Four grand worth, by the way. Can I tell you something else?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘If it goes alright the first time, I’ll give you a five-hundred-dollar kicker for every truckload of gas you get brought to me. You look like a friendly fella. You got friends?’

  ‘I got friends.’

  ‘There we go.’

  White Dog hoisted an arm for more drinks. The waitress saw him right off. Two more cognacs were on the table before the Negro spoke.

  ‘How I know I can trust you? You might be a cop or somethin’.’

  White Dog stood and turned to the crowd. She was by the bar, waiting. He beckoned her. She forged through the baclsides and haze. White Dog motioned her to sit where the addict had been, beside the Negro.

  ‘She’s yours. On me. Would a cop do that?’

  The man eyed her. She stroked his brown hand on the table.

  White Dog asked, ‘What’s your name, soldier?’

  The big man mulled the question.

  ‘Boogie.’

  ‘Just Boogie?’

  ‘Boogie.’

  White Dog laughed. A counterfeit name. Perfect, he thought, we’re a pair.

  He hoisted his cognac in toast. The Negro did not take up his glass but busied himself with the girl.

  White Dog said, ‘I like that.’ The comment went unmarked. He brought the cognac to his lips to drink alone. He whispered to himself, ‘Hi-dee-ho.’

  ~ * ~

  D+91

  September 5

  For six days, Ben walked sunny fields with fifteen thousand soldiers. They saw no resistance. He ate hot chow and fleshy oranges, and at night watched movies. He smoked a lot and drank some during the day from wine stashes among the officers. He found conversation with a few other chaplains who visited the men in their encampment around the town of St. Masmes, a dozen miles east of Reims where the 90th had run out of gas. Ben conducted prayers in the morning and again at dusk, and a Sabbath service with two candles, a glass of wine, and two loaves of bread, attended by over three hundred Jewish doughs. The Suippe River ran narrow north of town. He pulled Thomas’s letter from his pocket, set it inside his boots with Phineas’s gun, and stripped in the water. Ben washed his uniform, enduring catcalls from the GIs naked and splashing. Afterward he lay alone in his ODs, looking up, listening to the young men. Ben rested with the Tough Ombres. There was no choice, because each in their fashion had run dry, and could not fight.

  This morning, word came down it was time to move east again. The 90th folded its tents at St. Masmes and at noon hit the road on foot. There was little reason for haste, the Germans were gone. They’d had most of a week with no pursuit from Patton’s army to cross the Saar River and sweep the dust off their Siegfried Line. Reports had it that the Krauts were also manning the old Maginot bastions left over from the Great War. The doughs enjoyed the enforced break but every officer fumed about it, furious at the failure of COM Z to supply them with fuel to catch the Krauts. Maybe they could have hurled a war-stopping blow, they claimed, before the Jerries could scamper into their homeland and border fortresses. But that wasn’t going to happen now, and the war would go on longer.

  Marching in the fresh 358th Regiment out of St. Masmes, Ben felt none of the foot soldiers’ zeal to return to battle. He bore none of the officers’ well-informed anger over the fuel shortage and the disappearance of the enemy. Eagerness and anger, these belonged
to men who believed they might make a difference. Ben knew better about himself. He walked east into a day that he could not affect. He could not stop the deaths of today’s ten thousand in the death camps of the unconquered east. He could not find his son or Phineas, or even Sam. The men on all sides tramping in this war carried weapons they could fire, minds and hearts that could lead and inspire and do battle. Ben’s only arsenal were his belief and the God behind that belief; these he could not feel anymore and so could not use them to change a thing. All Ben could do well was walk with the soldiers, talk with them, say words of prayer for them when they had gathered and over them when they were down. The words were not real, they were blanks, shot out of him as simple noise. What was real for Ben were his memories, of the other war, of his living son, of his living people, and the metal nudge at his waist of Phineas’s .45.