The captain was stunned. He had no reply.
The men were similarly and gratefully surprised. Scarlett removed his hand from the captain’s arm.
‘I’ll be back in half an hour. If not, I suggest you wait for some rear support. We’re quite a bit ahead of the others.’
Scarlett checked the magazine of his revolver and quickly crawled around the captain to the west flank, disappearing into the overgrown field.
The men mumbled to each other. They had misjudged the snotty lieutenant with all the fancy friends. The captain swore to himself and frankly hoped his second lieutenant would not return.
Which was precisely what Ulster Scarlett had in mind.
His plan was simple. He saw that about two hundred yards to the right of the wooded area in front of Company B was a clump of large rocks surrounded by autumn-foliaged trees. It was one of those rough-hewn spots that farmers cannot dig out, so the fields were planted around it. Too small an area for any group but ample space for one or two individuals to hide themselves. He would make his way there.
As he crawled through the field, he came upon a number of dead infantrymen. The corpses had a strange effect upon him. He found himself removing personal items—wristwatches, rings, tags. Ripping them off and dropping them seconds later. He wasn’t sure why he did it. He felt like a ruler in some mythical kingdom, and these were his subjects.
After ten minutes he wasn’t sure of the direction of his refuge. He raised his head just high enough to orient himself, saw the tips of some small trees, and knew he was headed toward his sanctuary. He hurried forward, elbows and knees pounding the soft earth.
Suddenly he came to the foot of several large pines. He was not in the rocky knoll but on the edge of the small forest his company planned to attack. His preoccupation with the dead enemy had caused him to see what he wanted to see. The small trees had actually been the tall pines above him.
He was about to crawl back into the field when he saw, about fifteen feet to his left, a machine gun with a German soldier propped up against the trunk of a tree. He drew his revolver and remained still. Either the German had not seen him or he was dead. The gun was pointed directly at him.
Then the German moved. Only slightly with his right arm. He was trying to reach his weapon but in too much pain to accomplish the task.
Scarlett rushed forward and fell upon the wounded soldier, trying to make as little noise as possible. He could not let the German fire or raise an alarm. Awkwardly he pulled the man away from the gun and pinned him on the ground. Not wanting to fire his revolver and draw attention to himself, he began to choke him. Fingers and thumbs on his throat, the German tried to speak.
‘Amerikaner Amerikaner! Ich ergebe mich!’ He held his palms up in desperation and gestured behind him.
Scarlett partially released his grip. He whispered. ‘What? What do you want?’ He let the German raise himself as much as he was able to. The man had been left to die with his weapon, holding off whatever assault came while the rest of his company retreated.
He pushed the German machine gun out of the wounded man’s reach and, while alternately looking forward and backward, crawled several yards into the forest. All around were signs of evacuation. Gas masks, emptied knapsacks, even bandoliers of ammunition. Anything too heavy to carry easily.
They’d all gone.
He rose and walked back to the German soldier. Something was becoming very clear to Ulster Scarlett.
‘Amerikaner! Der Scheint ist fast zu Ende zu sein! Erlaube mir nach Hause zu gehen!’
Lieutenant Scarlett had made up his mind. The situation was perfect! More than perfect—it was extraordinary!
It would take an hour, perhaps longer, for the rest of the Fourteenth Battalion to reach the area. B Company’s Captain Jenkins was so determined to be a hero and he had run hell out of them. Advance! Advance! Advance!
But this was his—Scarlett’s—way out! Maybe they’d jump a rank and make him a captain. Why not? He’d be a hero.
Only he wouldn’t be there.
Scarlett withdrew his revolver and as the German screamed he shot him in the forehead. Then he leapt to the machine gun. He started firing.
First to the rear, then to the right, then to the left.
The crackling, shattering noise echoed throughout the forest. The bullets entered trees thumped with a terrible finality. The sound was overpowering.
And then Scarlett pointed the weapon in the direction of his own men. He pulled the trigger and held it steady, swinging the gun from one flank to the other. Scare the living Jesus out of them! Maybe kill a few!
Who cared?
He was a power of death. He enjoyed it. He was entitled to it. He laughed. He withdrew his pressed finger and stood up. He could see the mounds of dirt several hundred yards to the west. Soon he would be miles away and out of it all!
Suddenly he had the feeling he was being watched! Someone was watching him! He withdrew his pistol once again and crouched to the earth.
Snap!
A twig, a branch, a crushed stone!
He crawled on his knees slowly, cautiously into the woods.
Nothing.
He allowed his imagination to take over his reason. The sound was the sound of a tree limb cracked by the machine-gun fire. The sound was the sound of that same limb falling to the ground.
Nothing.
Scarlett retreated, still unsure, to the edge of the woods. He quickly picked up the remains of the dead German’s helmet and began to run back to Company B’s position.
What Ulster Stewart did not know was that he was being watched. He was being watched intently. With incredulity.
A German officer, the blood on his forehead slowly congealing, stood upright hidden from the American by the trunk of a wide pine tree. He had been about to kill the Yank lieutenant—as soon as his enemy left the gun—when he saw the man suddenly turn his fire on his own men. His own troops.
His own troops!
He had the American in his Luger’s sight but he did not wish to kill this man.
Not yet.
For the German officer, the last man of his company in that small forest—left for dead—knew precisely what the American was doing.
It was a classic example under maximum conditions.
An infantry point, a commissioned officer at that, turning his information to his own advantage against his own troops!
He could put himself out of range of combat and get a medal in the bargain!
The German officer would follow this American.
Lieutenant Scarlett was halfway back to Company B’s position when he heard the noise behind him. He flung himself to the ground and slowly turned his body around. He tried to stare through the slightly weaving tall grass.
Nothing.
Or was there nothing?
There was a corpse not twenty feet away—face down. But there were corpses everywhere.
Scarlett didn’t remember this one. He remembered only the faces. He saw only the faces. He didn’t remember.
Why should he?
Corpses everywhere. How could he remember? A single body with its face down. There must be dozens like that. He just didn’t notice them.
He was letting his imagination overwork again! It was dawn… Animals would come out of the ground, out of the trees.
Maybe.
Nothing moved.
He got up and raced to the mounds of dirt—to Company B.
‘Scarlett! My God, it’s you!’ said the captain, who was crouched in front of the first trench. ‘You’re lucky we didn’t shoot. We lost Fernald and Otis in the last fire! We couldn’t return it because you were out there!’
Ulster remembered Fernald and Otis.
No loss. Not in exchange for his own escape.
He threw the German helmet he had carried from the forest to the ground. ‘Now, listen to me. I’ve wiped out one nest, but there are two others. They’re waiting for us. I know where they are and I can get them.
But you’ve got to stay put! Down! Fire off to the left in ten minutes after I leave!’
‘Where are you going?’ asked the captain in consternation.
‘Back where I can do some good! Give me ten minutes and then start firing. Keep it up for at least three or four minutes, but for Christ’s sake, shoot left. Don’t kill me. I need the diversion.’ He abruptly stopped and before the captain could speak reentered the field.
Once in the tall grass, Scarlett sprung from one German corpse to another, grabbing the helmets off the lifeless heads. After he had five helmets, he lay on the ground and waited for the firing to commence.
The captain did his part. One would have thought they were back at Chateau-Thierry. In four minutes the firing stopped.
Scarlett rose and ran back to the company’s lines. As he appeared with the helmets in his hand, the men broke into spontaneous cheers. Even the captain, whose resentment disappeared with his newfound admiration, joined his men.
‘God damn it to hell, Scarlett! That was the bravest act I’ve seen in the war!’
‘Not so fast,’ Scarlett demurred with a humility not in evidence before. ‘We’re clear in front and on the left flank, but a couple of Krauts ran off to the right. I’m going after them.’
‘You don’t have to. Let ‘em go. You’ve done enough.’ Captain Jenkins revised his opinion of Ulster Scarlett. The young lieutenant had met his challenge.
‘If you don’t mind, sir, I don’t think I have.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My brother… Roily was his name. The Krauts got him eight months ago. Let me go after them and you take the ground.’
Ulster Scarlett disappeared back into the field.
He knew exactly where he was going.
A few minutes later the American lieutenant crouched by a large rock in his tiny island of stone and weeds. He waited for B Company to start its assault on the forest of pines. He leaned against the hard surface and looked up at the sky.
Then it came.
The men shouted to give themselves a touch more courage in the conceivable event they met the retreating enemy. Sporadic shots rang out. Several fingers were nervous. As the company reached the forest, a shattering volley from a score of rifles could be heard.
They were firing at dead men, thought Ulster Scarlett.
He was safe now.
For him the war was over.
‘Stay where you are, Amerikanerl’ The voice was thickly Germanic. ‘Don’t move!’
Scarlett had reached for his pistol but the voice above him was emphatic. To touch his revolver meant death.
‘You speak English.’ It was all Lieutenant Scarlett could think of to say.
‘Reasonably well. Don’t move! My gun is aimed at your skull… The same area of the skull where you put a bullet into Corporal Kroeger.’
Ulster Scarlett froze.
There had been someone! He had heard something!… The corpse in the field!
But why hadn’t the German killed him?
‘I did what I had to do.’ Again it was the only thing Scarlett could think of to say.
‘I’m sure of that. Just as I am sure you had no alternative but to fire on your own troops… You have… very strange concepts of your calling in this war, do you not?’
Scarlett was beginning to understand.
‘This war… is over.’
‘I have a degree in military strategy from the Imperial Staff school in Berlin. I’m aware of our impending defeat… Ludendorff will have no choice once the Mezieres line is broken.’
‘Then why kill me?’
The German officer came from behind the huge rock and faced Ulster Scarlett, his pistol pointed at the American’s head. Scarlett saw that he was a man not much older than himself, a young man with broad shoulders—like himself. Tall—like himself, with a confident look in his eyes, which were bright blue—like his own.
‘We can be out of it, for Christ’s sake! We can be out of it! Why the hell should we sacrifice each other? Or even one of us… I can help you, you know!’
‘Can you really?’
Scarlett looked at his captor. He knew he could not plead, could not show weakness. He had to remain calm, logical. ‘Listen to me… If you’re picked up, you’ll be put in a camp with thousands of others. That is, if you’re not shot. I wouldn’t count on any officers’ privileges if I were you. It’ll take weeks, months, maybe a year or longer before they get to you! Before they let you go!’
‘And you can change all this?’
‘You’re damned right I can!’
‘But why would you?’
‘Because I want to be out of it!… And so do you!… If you didn’t you would have killed me by now… We need each other.’
‘What do you propose?’
‘You’re my prisoner…’
‘You think me insane?’
‘Keep your pistol! Take the bullets out of mine… If anyone comes across us, I’m taking you back for interrogation… far back. Until we can get you some clothes—If we can get to Paris, I’ll get you money.’
‘How?’
Ulster Scarlett grinned a confident smile. The smile of wealth. ‘That’s my business… What choice have you got?… Kill me and you’re a prisoner anyway. Maybe a dead man. And you haven’t much time—’
‘Get up! Put your arms out against the rock!’
Scarlett complied as the German officer took Scarlett’s revolver out of his holster and removed the cartridges.
‘Turn around!’
‘In less than an hour others’ll be coming up. We were an advance company but not that far ahead.’
The German waved his pistol at Scarlett. ‘There are several farmhouses about a kilometer and a half southwest. Move! Mach schnell!’ With his left hand he thrust Scarlett’s empty revolver at him.
The two men ran across the fields.
The artillery to the north began its early morning barrage. The sun had broken through the clouds and the mist and was now bright.
About a mile to the southwest was a cluster of buildings. A barn and two small stone houses. It was necessary to cross a wide dirt road to reach the overgrown pasture, fenced for livestock which were not now in evidence. Chimney smoke curled from the larger of the two houses.
Someone had a fire going and that meant someone had food, warmth. Someone had supplies.
‘Let’s get into that shack,’ said Ulster.
‘Nein! Your troops will be coming through.’
‘For Christ’s sake, we’ve got to get you some clothes. Can’t you see that?’
The German clicked the hammer of his Luger into firing position. ‘You’re inconsistent. I thought you proposed taking me back—far back—through your own lines for interrogation?… It might be simpler to kill you now.’
‘Only until we could get you clothes! If I’ve got a Kraut officer in tow, there’s nothing to prevent some fat-ass captain figuring out the same thing I have! Or a major or a colonel who wants to get the hell out of the area… It’s been done before. All they have to do is order me to turn you over and that’s it!… If you’re in civilian clothes, I can get us through easier. There’s so damned much confusion!’
The German slowly released the hammer of his revolver, still staring at the lieutenant. ‘You really do want this war to be over for you, don’t you?’
Inside the stone house was an old man, hard of hearing, confused and frightened by the strange pair With little pretense, holding the unloaded revolver, the American lieutenant ordered the man to pack a supply of food and find clothes—any clothes for his ‘prisoner.’
As Scarlett’s French was poor, he turned to his captor. ‘Why don’t you tell him we’re both Germans?… We’re trapped. We’re trying to escape through the lines. Every Frenchman knows we’re breaking through everywhere.’
The German officer smiled. ‘I’ve already done that. It will add to the confusion. You will be amused to learn that he said he presumed as much. Do you know
why he said that?’
‘Why?’
‘He said we both had the filthy smell of the Boche about us.’
The old man, who had edged near the open door, suddenly dashed outside and began—feebly—running toward the field.
‘Jesus Christ! Stop him! Goddamn it, stop him!’ yelled Scarlett.
The German officer, however, already has his pistol raised. ‘Don’t be alarmed. He saves us making an unpleasant decision.’
Two shots were fired.
The old man fell, and the young enemies looked at each other.
‘What should I call you?’ asked Scarlett.
‘My own name will do. Strasser. Gregor Strasser.’
It was not difficult for the two officers to make their way through the Allied lines. The American push out of Regneville was electrifyingly swift, a headlong rush. But totally disconnected in its chain of command. Or so it seemed to Ulster Scarlett and Gregor Strasser.
At Reims the two men came across the remnants of the French Seventeenth Corps, bedraggled, hungry, weary of it all.
They had no trouble at Reims. The French merely shrugged shoulders after uninterested questions.
They headed west to Villers-Cotterets, the roads to Epernay and Meaux jammed with upcoming supplies and replacements.
Let the other poor bastards take your deathbed bullets, thought Scarlett.
The two men reached the outskirts of Villers-Cotterets at night. They left the road and cut across a field to a shelter of a cluster of trees.
‘We’ll rest here for a few hours,’ Strasser said. ‘Make no attempt to escape. I shall not sleep.’
‘You’re crazy, sport! I need you as much as you need me!… A lone American officer forty miles from his company, which just happens to be at the front! Use your head!’
‘You are persuasive, but I am not like our enfeebled imperial generals. I do not listen to empty, convincing arguments. I watch my flanks.’
‘Suit yourself. It’s a good sixty miles from Cotterets to Paris and we don’t know what we’re going to run into. We’re going to need sleep—We’d be smarter to take turns.’
The Scarletti Inheritance Page 5
