Ben accompanied 3rd Battalion along the road, covering fifteen miles by 1800 hours. Even walking, swatting bugs and fingering sweat from his brow, he coasted on the momentum of the troops. He liked this lack of choice, the direction of the march, the cadence of the bootsteps. He was not left alone for a moment; for hours there was a dough in front, behind, and beside him, always some voice prodding, singing, or joking in the ranks. The long walk and the talking were easy. In the bright afternoon among the boys Ben became again a soldier. He took on their youth, and becoming young he was not bloody and old, he was not a failed son and a dismissed husband and a grieving father, he was just one of the boys, a Tough Ombre, everything in front of him, ahead lay the chance to be honorable again. Ben lifted his face to the sun. He closed his eyes and walked blindly for a minute, testing the current of men he was in and to no surprise he walked straight and in rhythm. He opened his eyes and considered the pleasures of the march.
With a few hours left of daylight, the battalion stepped off the road into a field with a view across swells of pastureland falling off to the horizon. A mess convoy caught up with them and the infantrymen ate a hot supper. Ben was asked to say a prayer over the meal and he made up a beauty, a rambling paean to thanks, duty, and victory. He spoke so long, some of the soldiers began to eat before he was finished. Ben prayed with his eyes shut the way he had walked in the column, to see if he would stumble and run out of balance, but he did not, the prayer was a wisp and meaningless, so he could have gone on with it past dark. Finally he laughed in the middle of a sentence and said, ‘Alright, fellas. Amen.’
At dusk, with supper done, a column of empty Jimmies pulled up in the road. The battalion was ordered to entruck and continue east by motor. All the doughs gave a cheer, happy not only to be riding instead of walking but knowing this was a signal that the fuel shortage was over. Now they could get back to the purpose of chasing down the Krauts.
Ben climbed onto the bed of a truck with a squad from K Company. A few remembered him from Mont Castre and called him by the name he’d won there, the Running Rabbi. One dough recalled Ben’s shouted message to the Krauts who’d surrounded them on the slope: ‘Go fuck yourselves. I’m a Jew and come fucking get me.’ The others on the benches howled and every one of them leaned out to clap Ben on the shoulder, like he was a talisman of luck and will. Ben accepted a cigarette, ducking out of the wind for a light. The sun set and the vast countryside faded into dim-lit ghosts fleeing past.
The doughs around him smoked all their cigarettes and exhausted their chat. The breeze grew cool, clouds knocked out stars. A light drizzle dampened them into wrapping their arms and tugging down helmet brims to try for some sleep. Ben sat straight among the slumping soldiers. In the silence of the gears and road he was alone again. Only cat’s-eye light from the Jimmy behind lit the dozing squad. Ben rose from the bench to stand behind the cab and take the chill wind face-on. He followed the red glow of the blackout taillights from the convoy in front, little red eyes looking back at him.
Ben stood this way for an hour, catching what pale glimpses he could of the night land flickering by. An eerie sense cloaked his shoulders. He looked out, watching for something. Approaching midnight, he saw the first rotting fence posts slip by in a field. He tightened his grip on the cab. A string of posts emerged out of the thin beams and slow pace of the convoy. Ben wanted the trucks to speed up, to get out of here. But nothing changed for his wanting it. The posts moved closer to the road and he began to see the barbed wire, rusted but clinging still. From his moving perch, he saw in the fields beyond the wire a black row in the earth where the trucks’ lamps did not flow. A trench. A scar. In a moment Ben was angry, couldn’t the goddam French have filled that in? Why is it still here? His jaw clamped, he made fists. The road ran across a bridge. Ben knew the river without a sign to tell him, the Meuse. Two miles to the right, off to the south, lay Verdun. Seven hundred thousand men had died in those trenches and wire, in a space smaller than ten square kilometers. Somewhere out there in the murk, Thomas Kahn’s B-17 had plunged and struck. Fifteen miles farther south, at St. Mihiel, Ben Kahn had crawled under wire, under moon and clouds and God’s eye. Ben had come to the sad center of his life. He felt an urge to leap out of the truck, to hit and roll on his belly and stay there, to crawl again under the wire and into these slits in the earth, because this was the last time and place he was sure God had seen him. Instead, Ben did the only other thing he could. He released the cab and sat in his spot on the damp wooden bench, nestling between two sleeping doughboys. He lowered his helmet like them and closed his eyes, enfolding himself in his arms, feeling cold, bloodless.
~ * ~
D+92
September 6
The Red Ballers ran.
The operation was so massive, so impromptu and chaotic, that Joe Amos marveled daily how it could get up on its legs for another day without toppling over. Routinely the drivers ignored the rules set out for them by COM Z. They raced at twice the posted speed, bunched up their convoys, and rode each other’s tails. They flipped off MPs who tried to slow them or space them out. They ran beyond the limits of the Red Ball, hauling their convoys hundreds of miles off the route whenever Army field units asked them to deliver directly to their division’s supply points far forward. The drivers liked this bit of spice, flitting up to the front lines, dropping their cargo, then peeling rubber out of there. They ignored maintenance schedules, pushing their Jimmies past the point of reason until batteries dried up, engines overheated, motors seized without oil, bolts came loose, transmissions snapped, drive shafts fell apart, and bald tires blew. Fully loaded and abandoned Jimmies lined the shoulders of the Express route. Drivers shrugged it off, hitched a ride, and got a new truck, leaving the dilemma for someone else. Round-trips began to last more than forty hours of straight driving, and the Red Ballers, colored and white alike, got fuzzy from exhaustion and sabotaged their own tracks to get a break. Often the front lines moved so fast the drivers never found their destinations, so they hawked their loads to whatever soldiers came with their hands out.
The problems that plagued the Red Ball were not all the makings of the boys behind the wheels. There was always a shortage of MPs along the route, traffic snarled easily, and non-Red Ball vehicles crept in, going the wrong way or slowing everything down. Loading and unloading became tedious affairs, often taking over thirty hours to get a convoy filled or emptied. Weight restrictions were ignored: a single row of 155 mm shells put a Jimmy over the five-ton limit, and rare was the quartermaster who could resist tossing on another couple rounds. Trucks were sent to depots for loading before the consignment orders arrived from Signal Corps, so the trucks sat empty and the drivers took to malingering. Or not enough trucks were sent to carry a specific load, so the vehicles that arrived were badly overloaded, increasing the wear and tear on the suspension, tires, road, and the Red Ballers themselves. Highway repairs lagged, creating diversions and detours that slowed some convoys and got others completely lost. Many a worn tire met its end in a pothole. Maintenance crews struggled to keep up, encouraging the drivers to skip the long repair lines at the bivouacs and keep driving, eroding their vehicles even faster.
All in all, Joe Amos found it a simple matter to get lost in the shuffle.
~ * ~
‘You ready?’ Joe Amos asked.
McGee nodded. A Chesterfield hung pasted on his lips.
Joe Amos lightened his foot on the gas. The Jimmy began to coast and slow. In his mirror, Morales’s truck closed in. Morales tapped his horn.
Joe Amos put the Jimmy on the shoulder. He braked and stopped. Morales pulled off behind him. The rest of the column motored into the afternoon.
McGee went into action. He hopped down and yanked up the Jimmie’s hood. Joe Amos took his time and ambled around to the warm grille. McGee already had his wrench out. Joe Amos put his hands on his hips and waited for Morales.
The Latino walked up, shaking his head.
‘The fuck,�
�� he said. ‘What now?’
‘Dunno. McGee, what you got?’
The boy cranked a few more turns with his wrench, then lifted out a white spark plug like a dentist pulling a tooth. He drew on his cigarette without taking it into his hands. He jumped off the bumper, tossing the plug to Joe Amos. The porcelain was cool.
‘Busted,’ McGee said.
Joe Amos turned it once to inspect, then chucked the useless plug into the weeds.
Morales asked, ‘You guys okay?’
‘Yeah,’ Joe Amos replied, pointing at McGee wiping his hands on a rag, ‘the boy here’s got some plugs somewhere. He keeps shit like that under his pillow. We’ll straggle and catch you.’
‘Best mechanic in the company,’ Morales agreed. ‘Alright, ‘mano. Hasta luego.’
McGee stepped back up on the bumper and leaned over the engine. In seconds Morales powered past and slipped into the column. McGee kept his station under the hood, blowing tobacco smoke over the engine and doing nothing more.
Joe Amos sat on the running board, watching his convoy drive by. He waved and gave thumbs-up to his drivers. He’d waited five days for this moment. It was the first convoy he’d had in that time to carry gasoline. He glanced at the boy under the hood.
‘Look like you’re doin’ somethin’,’ he called to McGee. The boy tapped shave-and-a-haircut with the wrench over and over until Joe Amos told him to stop.
Five minutes passed until the last of the jerrican-laden column was gone. Another line of trucks roared at their heels, but Joe Amos recognized none of these drivers. Time to go, he thought.
He stood from the running board.
‘Do it.’
McGee reached in his pants pocket for the good spark plug he’d pulled from the engine before Morales walked up. The busted one he’d thrown to Joe Amos—the one to fool Morales—had come out of the same pocket. The boy torqued the good one back into place, connected the greasy spark-plug wire, and slammed the hood. Joe Amos climbed behind the wheel. He cranked the engine as McGee climbed aboard.
The turnoff to Couvains was a half mile ahead.
~ * ~
‘Stay here, okay? I’m only gonna be a few minutes.’
McGee crossed his arms. He did not look at Joe Amos.
‘Whatever.’
Joe Amos glared at his assistant. Now was not a good time for McGee to be taking an attitude.
‘What are you so aggravated about?’
‘I don’t see why we gotta come by here, is all.’
‘I’m just goin’ in for a minute. I’ll tell you why when I get back out.’
‘Go ahead, then.’
Joe Amos dropped out of the cab. Before closing the door, he turned back to McGee and softened his tone.
‘You scared?’
The boy flicked a glance at Joe Amos. He chewed his lips.
‘Go on. The faster we’re movin’, the better.’
Joe Amos moved across the grass heading for the mansion’s big front doors. Before he got far from the Jimmy, McGee’s voice caught up with him.
‘Yeah,’ McGee called. ‘A little scared.’
Joe Amos let himself inside the big foyer, calling for Geneviève and the Marquis. He stepped through the décor, heavy furniture and plush coverings. Walking through the halls he reached a hand up to brush a low-hanging chandelier. The smells of simmering chicken and vegetables breathed from the warm stove. A corkscrew lay on the chopping block with a cork stuck on it. Joe Amos looked out the window to the rear yard. The Marquis was there on the lawn, shirtless and shoving his mower. Joe Amos made for the door. He pushed and collided with the girl.
Today she wore slacks and a linen blouse. Her hair, knotted in a bun, let loose stray strands over her face. Her flesh was flushed. On seeing Joe Amos, she backed away and ran a sleeve over her cheeks. She smelled of grass cuttings and sweat, green and pink odors that went straight to Joe Amos’s gut and groin.
‘Hey,’ he said, backing up, too, surprised.
‘Joe Amos.’ The girl straightened herself, hastily tucking hair behind her ears. ‘You are here.’
‘Yeah.’ He laughed, amused at her efforts to prettify herself. He held out his arms for her to step in for a kiss, she stayed back, then came close for a peck. It’s because she’s sweaty, he realized.
‘I can only stay a few minutes. I’m in a convoy but I hung back to come see you.’
‘I am cooking,’ she said, pointing to the kitchen.
He brushed a blade of grass from her shoulder. ‘And yard work, too,’ he added.
‘Oui, very busy.’
Joe Amos got the feeling she was in a hustle about something.
By now the Marquis had seen them. He waved Joe Amos to come where he labored behind his mower. Joe Amos reached for Geneviève’s hand.
‘Come on. I want to talk to you and your father for a minute.’
The girl did not put her hand in his. Her head tilted, her forehead crinkled. All her hurry disappeared.
‘Joe Amos,’ she whispered. ‘No.’
He didn’t understand why she was laying back. He had a truckload of gasoline parked out front he was going to sell tonight in Paris for a fortune. He was going to be rich and he was going to rescue her and her father and this property. Joe Amos grabbed the girl’s hand and towed her across the lawn. She lagged for the first steps then caught up and strode beside him. The Marquis quit his mowing and buttoned on his shirt. He poured a glass of wine from the bottle Geneviève had brought out from their wonderful warm kitchen that Joe Amos would protect and fill with food and delights.
‘Joe Amos Biggs!’ the Marquis called, holding up the ruby-filled glass. ‘Again you have come. Have a drink!’
Joe Amos took the glass and emptied it in one gulp. This was a toast to himself. He did not let the girl’s hand go.
‘Marquis, I can only stay a few minutes.’
‘Yes, of course. So.’
Again, Joe Amos felt a rush in their welcome.
‘Well, I wanted to tell you something, and then ask you something.’
Geneviève tugged enough to have Joe Amos release her hand. She did not meet his glance.
‘Yes?’ the Marquis said.
‘Okay. Well, here goes...’
Joe Amos hesitated. He cleared his throat and did not speak, arranging his words, remembering what he had planned and hoped to say. The Marquis, like his daughter, changed his posture, the energy to usher Joe Amos off the place softened. The Marquis set a kind hand on Joe Amos’s shoulder and said like a father, ‘Whatever it is, say it. Get it over with.’
Joe Amos stood confused. Where were the high spirits of his other visits? The embraces, the affection and gratitude, what happened to all that? I’ll tell them, he thought. I’ll just tell them straight out and the news will be so good everything will snap back to normal.
‘Alright. Marquis, Geneviève. Look. I’ve got a deal going down tonight that’s gonna make me a lot of money. I know this guy who knows another guy in Paris. An American who’s a bigwig in the black market there. He was some kind of pilot who got shot down and stayed in Paris and now he’s getting rich. He’s buying gasoline as fast as he can get it, and he’s buying trucks. This friend of mine, another driver, he’s arranged for me to sell my whole load and the Jimmy for four thousand dollars. I gotta give McGee a thousand, but I keep the rest. And don’t worry, it’s foolproof. My friend did it and he got away with it easy. The Army’s got no way of knowing what happens to any of our trucks. Things are moving too fast for them to keep up. I’m just gonna say it broke down and I left it on the side of the road somewhere. I done it before. So how ‘bout that? Three thousand dollars. Wow.’
The Marquis had left his gentle hand on Joe Amos’s shoulder. Now he dropped it.
‘That is a lot of money, my friend.’
‘Yeah. It is. And I’m gonna give it all to you.’
Joe Amos waited for the Marquis to react, to click his heels, grab his daughter, and do a do-si-do, or someth
ing. The Marquis spoke to the ground.
‘And in return?’
Joe Amos was rocked. He never looked at it in terms of a trade.
David Robbins - [World War II 04] Page 46
