by Jon Stafford
Wiley thought: Sure, just ‘zip in and out’! What does he know?
Redding continued. “I know you like to scout during the day, but it can’t be helped.”
“Yes, sir. Do I really need ta take someone with me?”
“Yes, I want you to take Private Kuehl.”
Redding knew Wiley wouldn’t be thrilled about this. He was greeted by the blank look he’d expected.
“Sir, I’d rather not take Kuehl.”
“Who would you like to take?”
“Well, nobody, sir. The captain knows what happens ta the guys that go along with me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Sir, I’ve been doin’ these missions since we hit the beach at Oran. First with Noah Hendricks. He got himself captured at Kasserine Pass. Then they gave me Enrique. He got shot by that sniper in Sicily. Then Tony Dutton who got it in the side and I had ta carry six miles. I hope he’s okay. And now Burke last week. We ran outta that basement with Germans shooting at us, and I never saw him again.”
“Yeah, your point is?”
“Well, sir, I got ta know these guys real well. Dutton, I made six trips with him. I just don’t want this ta happen ta some other guy. Kuehl’s a pretty good sort.”
Redding looked up at Wiley. “Chip, we can’t afford not to send someone with you.” He looked down at some of his mounting paperwork. “Someday it’ll be you that doesn’t come back.”
He looked coldly at Wiley. “Or it’ll be me. I’ve told Kuehl, but given him no details. That’s up to you. Go.”
Wiley walked out of the tent and toward the company’s tents, spread out over several acres of ground. It was an overcast day, with the threat of rain making the air heavy.
“Yeah,” he said to himself, “just ‘zip in and out.’ I wonder if any a these people have any idea at all about crawlin’ around behind the lines.”
As he came into the middle of the company, his comrades, exhausted from continuous action since D-Day on June 6, called across to him from their tents or where they were milling about.
Jerry Daghastani was the first. “Hey, Chip, watch out for that pile of shit in front of you, you might slip and bust your arm!”
Wiley laughed. Then he yelled at his pal Andre McMurtha, or “Long Shot,” as everyone called him. McMurtha waved.
Frankie Bari was across the way and shouted. “So, Chip, goin’ up country again, eh? You lucky slob, you might get to Paris before me and see some of them Frenchie broads. Hey, can I go?”
“Not today, lover boy.”
Wiley called out to a number of other men as they came within sight.
“Hingas!”
The soldier gave a mock salute with his left hand. Wiley called out to another who nodded. “Skinny!”
Then, as he neared his gear, there was a tall man.
“Torgeson, you dumb Swede.”
The tall towhead called back. “West Virginia! Is that part of the United States?”
Others saw him and nodded or waved. They knew him well and had heard that he’d been volunteered for another dangerous scouting mission. To a man, they were relieved that he was going and not them. It would be too bad if he didn’t come back, most thought; he was a good man in a pinch. At six foot one and usually 170 pounds of muscle, he was as tough as any man in the company. A terrific rifle or pistol shot, he never mooched from anyone or started arguments and got along with almost everyone. He was true to his word too.
Wiley spotted Kuehl about forty feet away. He motioned for the private to come with him.
Wiley made it to his gear. He opened his duffle bag and looked for a few more clips for the Browning .45 automatic pistol strapped to his waist. He grabbed four and began to get other needed things together. Then he sensed someone behind him.
He turned. There, looking at him, were Bud Hadley, McMurtha, Torgeson, and Kuehl.
“Thanks, guys, for coming ta see me off on this here fun trip.” He noticed that Kuehl looked nervous. Wiley looked up at Hadley. “Bud, you got my little Colt?”
“Yeah, here it is.”
He handed over the 4.5-inch gunmetal black pistol. Wiley smiled, looked at it, and put it in his right front pants pocket.
“It’s loaded up,” Hadley added. “I don’t know why in the hell you carry that damn thing. You couldn’t knock over a bug with it! You got the .45. If you’re going to shoot someone, knock ’em down!”
“Yeah, well, it saved my life a couple a times,” the scout said casually, “includin’ against that Nazi that asshole Wallinski forgot to search.”
McMurtha asked, “They give you back your stripe?”
“Yeah, that’s life,” Wiley said sarcastically. “Proves you never can tell.” He grabbed a small flashlight. “I sure hope this thing works. You guys got any batteries?”
The four men shook their heads.
“Long Shot, you got a candle?”
“Yeah. I think so.” McMurtha walked toward his tent. He always had something of everything. The disheveled-looking man, about thirty years old with a faded Boston Red Sox sports cap backward on his head, was the best scavenger in the company.
“Listen, Pally,” the big Swede said, “take these.” He handed over three chocolate bars. “You don’t have another twenty pounds to lose like you did that last time.”
“Thanks. Yeah, four days in that damn basement with the damn Germans within a few feet of us. I wish Burke and I’d had these things,” the scout said, taking the bars. “We wouldn’t a had to run for it. How’d ya get ’em?”
“Fell off a truck.”
Wiley smiled.
“Thanks, I can make two, three days on these. Andre,” he said to McMurtha, who had returned with a small white candle, “I gotta travel light. I’m goin’ ta need Bracey’s M1 carbine again. I can crawl a lot easier with it than my Garand.”
“I figured. I already got it. Eight clips too. That enough?”
“Yeah.”
McMurtha produced some tape. Wiley taped two of the clips to the carbine’s stock and put the others in a cartridge belt.
“All right, you don’t have to ask. I know what else you want,” McMurtha said. He handed a thick silver cylinder to Wiley.
“Thanks. I wonder how many times I used this silencer.”
“Listen, Chip,” Torgeson added, “Lieutenant Gummerson has duty at the river. He’ll help you two get across.”
“Yeah, he’s a good man. Well, it’s been fun. You know what ta do with my stuff. We’ve been through this enough times, haven’t we?”
The three friends nodded.
Within forty minutes, Wiley told Kuehl everything he needed to know about the mission—and, as this was Kuehl’s first time scouting, some of the secrets of staying alive. They smudged boot polish on their faces and made their way down the long decline to a depression within thirty yards of the river. There, the two men busied themselves putting together a crude raft, discussing with Gummerson where to cross.
They took most of their clothes off and then wrapped them, thei
r weapons, and waterproof ponchos into the shelter halves (half of a pup tent). When it was dark enough, they carried the raft to the water and edged in.
Recent rains made the water in the fifty-foot-wide stream unusually swift, and they lost their footing continually. Twice, Wiley caught one bundle as it was about to fall in. Listening as closely as they could in the rapid waters, they worked their way across wondering every second if they had been seen, knowing that one alert guard could get them killed or captured.
Wiley became confident as they were carried downstream. “There’s no alarm that I can tell, and no one’s runnin’ along the bank parallelin’ us. Only if we step out in someone’s lap will they get us. If we can just get ta the other side!”
They came to a heavily wooded area, and Wiley pushed the raft and Kuehl to the enemy side as hard as he could. As they came to the bank, the trees were actually so dense that they overhung the water. They had trouble holding on and much trouble in climbing out amongst the slimy roots.
In the underbrush, they put on their clothes and ponchos and armed themselves, Wiley smiling that again he had the little Colt within reach. It began to rain as they hiked.
Wiley knew that getting through the lines would be comparatively easy now. But after an hour and slow progress with the rain showing no signs of letting up, Wiley knew they had to stop.
The rain came down very hard as the two stopped to talk.
“We gotta stop here,” Wiley said, almost yelling. “Might as well get some rest.”
“I ain’t tired,” Kuehl protested. “We could go a long way on a night like this.”
“We can’t be a dumb ass about this. It’ll screw hell outta the timetable, but we don’t have a choice. We can’t see anythin’! We’re supposed ta scout stuff, but this way we’ll probably get captured.”
“We’re supposed to get some film.”
“Shut up. See that oak tree over yonder?”
“Which one is the oak, that one?” Kuehl pointed at the wrong tree.
“Naw, see that giant tree over there?” Wiley pointed at a tree whose trunk was probably four feet across. They could barely see it through the rain.
“Yeah, I see it.”
“You go over there. Pull stuff over . . .”
“What?”
“Shut up!” Wiley said. “Brush! Sit against the damn trunk and pull brush over you as best you can. Go ta sleep. If anyone steps on you, he won’t even know you’re there. Hold your stupid knife in your hand. I’ll come for you in the morning’. Don’t go lookin’ for me. Don’t! And don’t stab me with that damn thing.”
He motioned. Kuehl walked away slowly and nearly out of sight in the rain.
Kuehl sure likes his knife, Wiley thought. He walked over to behind another tree trunk, settled in, and thought to himself about the large, ugly switchblade that Kuehl had bought on a London side street. Wiley heard him boast many a time about how he would “cut me up a Kraut.”
Wiley pulled out his little .25 caliber Colt, made doubly sure that there was a bullet in the chamber, put his finger on the trigger, and put his hand in his pocket.
The .45’s much more lethal, but a lot louder, unless I use the silencer, he thought. But with that tube on it, the thing’s thirteen inches long and hard ta get out. If I got surprised, I’d rather use the .25. At least I could get off a shot.
He settled in some more. “I hate knives,” he muttered.
The night went poorly. Wiley ate little from his dinner K-ration. He decided it tasted like leaves. As near as he could figure, he slept only about two hours. It was always hard to tell without a luminescent watch. He’d had one in Africa but decided it might give him away in the dark. There was no sense in getting out his flashlight.
“I’m stuck here anyhow, ain’t I,” he mumbled sarcastically.
He spent some time thinking of how the heavy rain had wrecked his plans before he even got started. Some rain’s always good, because the enemy would likely be inactive, tryin’ ta stay dry. But this’ll cost me six hours, one-sixth of the time I got.
Wet and miserable, he closed his eyes. This is the way it is for a scout.
But that was nothing new to him; his entire youth had been spent in discomfort or in hunger. He heard the voice of his father in his head.
“You’re a little fuckin’ liar,” Pop would say. “You just lie, lie, lie all the damn time, you little asshole.” That’s the way it usually started, right outta of the blue with some fun words.
Wiley opened his eyes and looked around, the rain still falling hard.
I’m here, now. Behind enemy lines in the province of Normandy in the country a France.
He nodded with a frown on his face and then closed his eyes.
Pop drank and drank. It took him about an hour ta get really abusive. At least he was quiet then. Old Forrester was his favorite when he could get it, but anythin’ would do. It just took longer with wine or beer. I learned ta leave when he started and hide in the woods, but many a time he came home after I’d gone to sleep. I’d wake up with him yellin’ in my face. He’d scream for a while and then beat me.
When I knew he was comin’ home, I’d go down to my grandparents’ place about half a mile off. Essie and A.C. Bellinger. They were the only people who ever loved me.
Holding the little Colt tighter, the nineteen-year-old stared into the rainy darkness.
I don’t remember Mom, though others talked about her. Once Essie was on the phone and let the receiver down for just a few seconds and I heard a woman’s voice. “She couldn’t a loved him much, or she’d a been there for the little fella.” Essie looked at me. We’d both heard. She put the phone back to her ear.
Wiley remembered her talking on the phone. She always nodded and would say “Yes” to whatever anyone said.
The rain hit on the Wiley’s nose, ran past his mouth, and off his chin.
“Mama left when I was two, left me to him, my dear father, Dick ” he muttered bitterly. The usual embittered look came on his face, one that very few people had ever seen. “It must a been tough on her to put up with him, but she left me to him! Why did she do that? It’s just because I’m a shit, that’s why she left me.”
Such thoughts made the night pass very slowly.
By first light, the scout stood and walked toward Kuehl. The rain had stopped, and he had no trouble seeing him. He poked the man with the barrel of the carbine.
Roused out of a deep sleep, Kuehl jumped to his feet. “I was awake!”
Wiley saw two empty K-ration cans and their coverings scattered on the ground. “Listen, you dope, pick that crap up. Anyone come through here and they’d know we been here.”
“Yeah, I was goin’ to pick ’em up.”
Wiley looked at Kuehl as he cleaned up his mess. This guy’s goin’ ta get me killed, he thought. He’s more trouble than he’s worth. Funny how some can handle this and some just ain’t meant for it. I know he’s a good guy, but he’s careless and has no common sense for this job.
“Listen, buddy,” Wiley said, “when we head off, parallel my movements about fifty yards off.”
“Why?”
&
nbsp; “Because one can hide easier than two. And two are easier ta see than one.”
“Okay,” Kuehl said, a baffled look on his face. “Whatever you say.”
The two men ate a breakfast K-ration after pulling the oblong package out of its cardboard container. Both agreed in muffled voices that it was the best of the three meals. They buried the remains and headed off, Wiley looking at his compass and pointing in the direction he wished to go.
Soon the country became much more open, and the scouts made slow progress. Each stopped as the other moved, making sure they had not been seen. Many times they heard explosions off to the north that sounded like artillery. Wiley judged that some were within a few miles, but most were much farther off. Most of the morning passed in this way, crossing the occasional road and bypassing the occasional farmhouse, but seeing no enemy positions or even a single soldier. Wiley estimated that they had made five miles.
This is about where we shoulda gotten last night, he thought.
As they paused in a thicket to eat something, they began hearing intermittent heavy motor sounds, far off and farther away from American lines.
“You hear that?” Wiley asked.
“Yeah,” Kuehl mumbled through a mouthful of food.
“Let’s head off so we can see what it is.”
The woods got thicker as they approached the sounds, and there was plenty of cover. In ten minutes, they came to a covered spot overlooking a dirt road. Soon, they heard sounds to the south and looked off that way.
“Looks like there’s a bend down there maybe two hundred yards,” Wiley muttered.
“Yeah.”
The sounds built for more than a minute. The ground began to shake.
Finally, a tank came into view, the commander sitting on top of the turret instead of standing in it. Steel tracks clanking, it rumbled past at what Wiley figured was top speed of about twenty miles an hour.
A bad taste came into Wiley’s mouth. He thought back to his first experience with German tanks eight months before in North Africa. The same sounds had panicked him then, and he felt somewhat queasy. But the panic was gone now. The fear he felt was that of a veteran soldier who knew the risks of battling tanks.
