Roll Me Over

by Raymond Gantter

  The same officer assured us that when this counteroffensive is broken and the Germans pushed back once more, it will be “the end of the war.” When statements like that issue from the lips of authority, we are obliged to fight to maintain our precarious and tough-minded balance. It’s always a losing battle, so far as I’m concerned: before I’ve finished counting to ten I find myself making plans, estimating the number of days it would take to get to Syracuse, New York, from here.

  And according to this day’s Stars and Stripes, the stock markets are soaring to new and crazy heights, drunk with the news of German successes and the hopeful prospect of the war continuing indefinitely. Christ, what a crazy world—where one half fattens on the other! I remember young Gilman, dead before he knew why he was here, what he was fighting for, and—okay, skip it.

  December 24.

  Afternoon, and bitter cold. And bitter thought nor any comfort anywhere. No mail, no packages today.

  A little excitement last night. Assigned to wire detail again, but this time we strung the wire. A slow and painful job, made doubly difficult by the burden of weapons and ammo that encumbered us. Imagine, if you are able: a night of zero temperature and the scene a snowy hillside. To protect your hands against the wire, you wear voluminous canvas gauntlets, the utility mitts worn by expert wire stringers. But your fingers soon grow numb from the cold, and the gauntlets are clumsy, tumbling things and you pull them off disgustedly, preferring to work in bare hands, ripping and tearing your flesh on the icy barbs and too cold to feel the pain until some minutes later. At last the stiff fingers refuse to bend at all and awkwardly you slide them inside your shirt, coaxing them back to throbbing life against the offended flesh of your belly—the only part of your body that is yet warm. You start to work again, and as you bend over, the rifle slung on your back swings forward, whacking you soundly on the noggin while the sling begins to twist and strangle you. In the meantime your ammo-weighted belt drags painfully at your hips and the hand grenades clipped to the edges of your jacket begin to weigh about eight pounds apiece. Finally, just as you are about to perform the last delicate adjustment on a strand of wire, that goddamn gas mask swings around and dangles in front of you, directly in the way of your once-more-frozen hands. Great sport, the whole business.

  It was another wonderful winter night. But I was busier than I’d been the night before, and there wasn’t time to brood lovingly over the memory of Christmases past. About eleven p.m., after we’d been working for four hours, the enemy started to throw mortar shells at us. There had been a bustle of Jerry activity for some time previous—flares, observation planes, and the like—and we were painfully aware of our silhouettes against the snow, picked out in stark relief by a glaring moon.

  The first shell landed a safe distance away, but the second came in only 150 yards from where two engineers, the platoon sergeant, another noncom, and myself were working. We hit the ground. There were no dugouts at hand—not even a hollow in the ground—and we feared the shells would fall in a “ladder” pattern: an artillery design in which the successive shells “search out” the target as though moving up the rungs of a ladder. After a tense moment of waiting, the sergeant took off in search of the rest of the squad. (Our work had tended to split us into separate small groups, working independently. Our immediate group was alone on the hill, with the rest of the detail scattered in the woods behind us.) A moment after the departure of the sergeant, the remaining noncom took off for the nearest outpost, shouting something over his shoulder about “calling the C.P. for orders.” (He was an excitable twenty-year-old and something of a little bastard—not that there’s any connection.) The two engineers and I alone remained, and they agreed as one man that they were “engineers, not infantry,” and took off. For a moment I hesitated, then decided the hell with this hero’s death business. And I took off, too.

  I met the excitable young noncom on the road. He was even more excited than usual, waving his arms and yelling incoherent orders to get back to the C.P. because “beaucoup Jerry tanks and infantry were heading our way.” Hastily assembling, we raced for home on the double and counted noses when we got there. Three men were missing. One of them was Shorty.

  We sat in the stable for a while, talking in low tones, listening nervously for the artillery barrage that would signify a real attack. But nothing happened. After a bit, in spite of alarms and worries, we drifted off to our respective beds.

  Just as I crawled into bed, sick at heart with wondering about Shorty, he appeared and slid in beside me. His story was simple: he’d been working near our first line of dugouts and dove into the nearest foxhole when the shelling started, sharing it with the occupying doggie until the danger seemed to be over. The other missing men were safe, also. One of them had come in with Shorty, and the third had been discovered at the C.P. When the first shell landed, he went to pieces, weeping hysterically and cowering in a dugout until a soldier led him to the haven of the C.P. This might sound like cowardice, but it wasn’t: the man was one of the old veterans of the outfit, with a good record in Africa and Sicily. But he’d been wounded three times—he returned from the hospital only a few days ago—and had reached the saturation point. He couldn’t take it anymore, that’s all, and no one blamed him.

  In the morning, the attack having not yet come, we learned that the “beaucoup tanks and infantry” were the vision of an excitable sentry who saw a Jerry patrol and permitted his fancy to mushroom it into a large-scale attack. And at four a.m. a Jerry patrol fired on one of our outposts and wounded two men.

  According to rumor, our officers, and the newspapers, it might well have been the end of the war if this big German offensive was stopped. That bright hope was our sole topic of conversation. I tried not to consider it; I tried to shut from my consciousness everything but the immediate job, however painful, small, or dirty. Because if I allowed myself to think, my thoughts would be of Ree, and how it was for her at that moment—the sudden full stop in the flow of my letters, the ominous news broadcasts, the scare headlines in the newspapers. And always, pounding in her brain, taken from my last letter, “somewhere in Belgium” ... somewhere squarely in the path of the Von Runstedt juggernaut. To contemplate what her days and nights must be like ... and there was nothing I could do about it

  It is still December 24.

  I am writing this in a foxhole, from which I have just witnessed a sight particularly thrilling to the earthbound infantryman—a mass bombing attack by our planes, thousands (count ’em!) of our planes. Wave after wave of bombers and fighters sweeping serenely across the sky, long silver bodies glistening, thin plumes of smoke like bridal veils trailing, and above them, below them, around them, the dark blossoms of bursting ack-ack. I say “sweeping serenely.” That’s a misstatement: not all of the enemy ack-ack missed, and I saw several planes explode in the air or dive in long, graceful swoops to the ground.

  To us in our foxholes, cold, miserable, and disheartened by inactivity, the spectacle was alcoholic in its effect. I saw men with tears on their cheeks, and I know my own eyes were blurred. We strained our faces to the sky and yelled vulgar, heart-warm encouragement: “Give it to the bastards, you beautiful big-assed birds!... Pound the living ---- out of’em!” And so forth.

  It was the size of the attack, the number of planes involved, that was the real miracle. I gave up trying to count them after I’d tallied six hundred in twenty minutes and saw them still coming from the west. And now, good night. I feel happier, cheered by what I cannot help but believe was a good omen. Maybe it’ll be a good Christmas after all.

  December 25, and a Merry Christmas to you.

  Last night after chow we relieved a squad that had been on line for several days. So I spent Christmas Eve and will spend Christmas Day in a dugout facing the German lines. Ah there, Adolf! Frohliche Weinachten!

  It was a beautiful and grim Christmas Eve. Shorty and I spelled each other on guard throughout the bitter cold night. The cold I could endure, but an add
itional misery landed on me in the middle of the night. I got the GIs! That’s always a tragedy, of course—although in normal life, with the luxury of a civilized bathroom at hand, it would seem only an embarrassing annoyance—but this time the tragedy was of major proportions. You see, our dugout is on the crest of a hill, smack in the middle of an open field and with never a bush or tree to provide cover. It’s not modesty that bothers us, you understand: it’s snipers. We peer anxiously in the direction of the German lines, unbutton our pants in the dugout, hold them up with one hand while we clamber out, and get the business over in a hurry. We wipe on the run—our naked and chilled buttocks quivering in anticipation of a bullet—and button up again when we’re once more safe in the dugout. A half-naked man crouching on a hilltop is a defenseless creature, unnerved by the constant sense of his nakedness framed in the sights of an enemy rifle. I winced and shook each time I dropped my pants, expecting every moment to be caponized by a German sniper who combined marksmanship with a macabre sense of humor.

  The artillery fire was heavy until midnight. Then it died away, became sporadic. (Because it was Christmas Eve? I wonder.) In the strange silence, the war seemed remote, and I was several thousand miles from Belgium for a few moments. All night long I discounted the time difference between us and tried to see what you were doing. Now she’s telling the kids for the hundredth time that yes, yes, YES, they’ll see Santa Claus tonight... now she’s getting them into their snow suits—it must be just about time to start for Mother and Dad’s and the usual Christmas Eve festivities. Now everyone is there, and the house is bulging with noise and joy.

  And thus, until six o’clock Xmas morning... Now she’s home and in bed...sleeping...crying, maybe?... Wonder if the fat red candle is burning in the window for me, burning all night for me? It was, I knew it was... I could see it in the Belgian sky and in the German lines, and it was inside our dugout, making a pine-scented, rosy warmth where a moment ago there had been hoarfrost and frozen mud.

  We got no breakfast this morning, Christmas morning. Our squad leader forgot to send a messenger to tell us to come to chow. We waited and hoped and peered anxiously for sight of the runner until there was no longer any point in hoping. Except that it was Christmas morning, I didn’t mind the missed meal: my interior was worn out from my late tussle with the GIs. Later in the morning I opened a can of C rations, made a little coffee, and ate two dog biscuits. Shorty opened a can of hash and ate it cold. Christmas breakfast! We munched in unhappy silence, and I brooded over the memory of our customary Christmas stollen (how ironically German!), so richly stuffed with raisins and nuts and citron.

  A beautiful Christmas Day, clear and not too cold. Many planes overhead... many shot down and plummeting earthward. God rest you, merry gentlemen!

  The artillery was vigorous. I watched the shells bursting on the hillside and thought incredulously, It’s not... it can’t be Christmas Day! This couldn’t happen on Christmas!

  The lack of mail, especially Christmas mail, is a blessing. Lacking tangible evidence to the contrary, I could regard the day almost calmly and say, “See? It isn’t really Christmas after all!” (Who did I think I was fooling? I wonder.)

  We had a real Christmas dinner, although it was cold when we got it. Turkey, dressing, potatoes, giblet gravy, com, coffee, cake, and a fistful of hard candy. A feast.

  Must stop writing now. My legs are going to sleep from the cold, and my fingers are so cracked with chap that I cannot hold a pen with comfort. A Merry Christmas, darling! And a merrier one next year.

  December 26.

  Still in my dugout on the hill. I am sitting on the rim of it, ignoring the possibility of snipers and determinedly relishing the warmth of the sun on my back. This is an admirable feat of concentration because the sun warms only the thin surface of my hide, and my legs, dangling in the hole, remain stubbornly numb. Within, I am stiff with cold, a core of ice encased in faintly warm skin. Dirty skin.

  Heavy shelling throughout the night and all day thus far. Our artillery is really laying the wood on the little town in the valley below us. Some of the buildings are but a few hundred yards away, and we watch the movements of the German troops with something more than curious interest. There seem to be quite a lot of them.

  Last night a small and daring task force of our engineers crept close to the town and mined a road on its outskirts. An hour or two later a German light tank innocently rumbled down that road. The sound of the explosion when it hit a mine and blew up brought a smile of satisfaction to the face of every doggie on the line. Shortly afterward, one of our tank destroyers scored a direct hit on a German tank or half-track. It burned most of the night.

  My morale hit a new low last night. I wallowed in black despair, near to the frenzy that must often afflict a man imprisoned in solitary confinement. During the day it was my memories of other Christmases... but at night it was the bitter cold ... the absence of everything I love—music, books, conversation, Geoff and Sukey, you—they all piled up, making a load of misery before which even Ella Wheeler Wilcox would turn away defeated.

  Must stop. The Jerries are sending us holiday greetings. More later.

  December 27, and back in the stable again.

  We were relieved last night after chow and came back here to spend the night.

  Do you recall the man I told you about, who went to pieces when the Germans started shelling us, the night we were out on a wire detail? He’s no longer with us. Here’s what happened:

  All the following day, the twenty-fourth, he sat morosely alone in a dark corner of the stable. Learning he was from Syracuse, I rushed over to him, ready to call him “Friend! Pal! Brother citizen!” He responded to my joyous questions with grunts, unfriendly monosyllables that indicated a complete disinterest in hometown reminiscences. Complete disinterest, period. Colorless face heavy with a black stubble of beard, he huddled deep in his overcoat and stared before him, seeing things that none of us could see. He spoke to no one. The old men looked at him, talked among themselves quietly and turned away, helpless. We were uncomfortable and uneasy, infected in spite of ourselves by his tension.

  At dusk we wearily prepared to return to the line. We started off, single file, and the forepart of our column had just rounded the corner of the barn when we heard a shot from the rear. There was a startled yell from the assistant squad leader, “Hey, Sarge, c’mere! Joe B. just shot himself!” The sergeant raced to the rear and we sat down in the snow to wait.

  It was true, the poor devil had shot himself—but only in the hand. A bullet through his palm. He said it happened while he was “loading his rifle.” We said nothing among ourselves, although every one of us knew that it’s impossible to shoot yourself through the hand while loading a rifle. Today we heard that he’s to be court-martialed, and we’re in a fine rage.

  It’s a particularly maddening example of “the army way.” Everyone here—noncom, old vet, new replacement—has known for days that the man was teetering on the verge of collapse. His nerve was gone, and it was no secret. His officer should have been aware of that, too; it’s his business to know such things, and to take the proper measures. Here in the front lines a man in that condition not only is unable to guard his own life, but is a threat to the lives of the men around him. Lives hinge on each other here, and no man survives by himself alone. That being so, why not send a man in his condition to the rear, ship him to England for a few months of real rest? Why use him, or any man already so pitiably used?

  And now they will court-martial him. If real justice were done, his court-martial would be conducted not by officers and before officers, but by doggies and before doggies like himself; by men and before men who have known the same small agonies of sleepless nights and weary days, the cold, the wet, the mud, the long marches, the full loads on aching backs (there are no jeeps to carry the gear of enlisted men) ... by men and before men who have lived the slow terror of always the unknown, the score rarely revealed and the odds always against them.
Officers, no matter how worthy, cannot fully comprehend the cumulative weight of the small miseries. But small miseries will break a man quite as thoroughly as a surfeit of battles, guns in the head.

  [Note: The passage above was quoted from my journal as I wrote it at the time. That’s the way I felt, and I was an enlisted man. It’s the way we all felt, and as such it can stand. A footnote is necessary, however, because in the months that followed, I acquired a different slant on the subject.

  [The original statement is correct in the main, and I reaffirm the salient points: (1) the man should not have been sent out again; (2) his commanding officer should have been aware of his condition; (3) his trial should have been conducted by enlisted men, not officers; (4) officers do not fully appreciate the small miseries that wear on enlisted men. The stoutness of my belief in these four points is not shaken. However, point 2 deserves the justice of this addendum: his commanding officer may have been aware of his condition and yet been helpless to do anything about it. Long before I was commissioned, while I was still a buck sergeant—but commanding a rifle platoon—I made bitter acquaintance with that tragic circumstance. There were long weeks when the platoon was so short of men, so skeletonized, that every man physically capable of carrying a weapon and moving on his own two feet had to be used. There was no choice. Had I listened to my conscience and refused to put into the lines men who should have been in rear area rest centers, I’d have doubled the work, doubled the danger, and risked the life of every other man in the platoon. Too many times the assigned job was too big, the sector too large, the objective too loaded with danger, and I had to use every man available, including even the recognizable borderline cases. I’d have used even the lame, the halt, and the blind. And I’d pray and cross my fingers, hoping they wouldn’t break, that they’d be stiffened to one more effort by the knowledge of our need for them. I’m humble with pride to remember how few of them did break. They were great guys.