Roll Me Over

by Raymond Gantter

  Peace ... peace, Sergeant Gantter—you’re still wearing stripes on your sleeve!

  April 27.

  We left Beyemaumburg in trucks and rode 141 miles to Selb, near the Czech border. We hovered on the outskirts of Selb until the following morning, but my only memory of the city involves a certain Gypsy caravan, three or four gaily painted wagons that stood in the little park opposite the houses where we’d taken refuge from the rain. Several Hungarian Gypsy women were visible, and they eyed us with frank, measuring interest. Two were handsome in a slatternly, bright-colored fashion, and soon they left the wagons and strolled over to the house occupied by some of our officers. They disappeared within the house and that was that. We saw no more of them and that’s all I remember about Selb, except that it was big.

  April 28.

  We crossed the border into Czechoslovakia and walked to Rossenreuth. We are there now. It’s raining and cold and miserable, but I have a warm house and am content. My setup is a happy one: the second and third platoons and the company C.P. are in Rossenreuth proper, but my platoon is a thousand yards from them in a tiny village that appears to have no name. I am king of this small domain, consisting of half a dozen farmhouses and their attendant outbuildings. The captain said, “This is your town, Sergeant, and you’re the burgomeister. Whatever you say is the law. See that they understand that!” So, by royal edict and in keeping with the prerogatives of my imperial state, I have a fine room in the biggest house, which contains two double beds, a desk, and a magnificent porcelain stove. I have commanded that the room be kept warm at all times, and every time I snap my fingers, an anxious female trots up with another armful of wood, a pail of briquets, or a hat filled with fresh eggs. I’m toying with the idea of restoring the ancient custom of jus primae noctis.

  We live in a constant delicious tremor of anticipation. Every news report, every rumor, pumps fresh hope into us that it’s all over. We’ve heard that the Italian front has disintegrated, that Mussolini and the beautiful Clara have been executed by Italian partisans, that Hitler is ill, that Berlin is toppling. Our usual crude humor has an added edge of hysteria: we kid each other with a savage license akin to drunkenness, and every witticism and practical joke seems uproariously funny.

  Captain Wirt related an anecdote the other day that’s worth passing on. I’ll give you the grim bones of the story first, saving the lighthearted sequel for a chaser.

  The story concerns one of our better-liked, high-ranking officers who recently paid a visit to a neighboring unit, thereby meeting several Americans lately released from German prison camps. Freed by the Russians, these ex-prisoners had had an opportunity to see our allies in action. According to their report, the Russians are really rough, tough, and nasty, and the famed 1st Division, by comparison, as gently mannered as Girl Guides on a summer outing. The Russians loot, then burn every German house that falls into their hands, and say simply, “So it was done to us!”

  Two American officers gave a vivid firsthand report of Russian reprisals. Freeing the American and British prisoners in a newly captured town, the Russians said to them, “Here is a street. From this corner to that corner is yours, and the houses on both sides of the street. But stay here! Do not go from here to another part of the town!” And when the Russians had finished their grim business, the buildings that had been assigned to the ex-prisoners were all that remained of the town. Nothing else.

  Concerning women, the Russians are reputedly a shade more delicate in their approach than were the Germans in Russia two years ago. The Russians do ask first, “Komme sie hier und schlaffen!” Sometimes they even say, “Willst du?” Freedom of choice remains, you see. Of course, if a flat “Nein!” is the answer, the Russian has the last word... and a pistol slug puts the final unanswerable period to further reluctant bargaining.

  That’s the story, now for the denouement! Our officer, listening to these accounts of Russian vigor, reflected upon the soft way we handle civilians, and the comparison made him angry and self-conscious. Riding back to his own headquarters, he considered further, and his anger mounted. Passing a German farmhouse, he suddenly ordered his driver to pull up, and puffed with firm resolution, the officer jumped from the jeep. Studying the farmhouse for a moment, he tilted his helmet and strode up the path. (Incidentally, he stands five feet three and weighs a generous 115 pounds.) He pounded roughly on the door, and when it swung open, he pushed past the cowering frau and walked in. Then, fixing the frightened woman with a stern eye, he stomped his foot, stretched an imperious hand, and said firmly, ‘Twelve eggs!”

  Postscript: He returned to Battalion a little comforted by the discovery that there wasn’t so much to this business of being tough. Why, hell, she handed over the eggs just like that!

  April 30.

  Last night it was officially reported that Hitler is dead. The platoon took the news very quietly, with no great show of rejoicing. We might have celebrated his demise properly if there’d been anything to drink. Other platoons, more fortunate than we, noted the occasion with some hilarity. Hitler is dead, that’s fine ... swell! But it’s not what we’re waiting for. The news we want to hear is the collapse of organized resistance by the German armies, the end of the war, the acceptance of defeat by the German people. Well, Hitler is dead—what’s the delay? Why in God’s name isn’t it over?

  * * *

  I spent all yesterday at regimental headquarters, filling out questionnaires, taking a physical examination, answering questions and swearing oaths, yacketa, yacketa—all the little crap involved in this field commission. I chased from one office to another, being interviewed by this major, that colonel, this captain, that lieutenant. As I sat in an anteroom, waiting to see a particular VIP, I chatted with a certain tech sergeant, a male stenographer. His spotless, freshly pressed O.D.’s shamed me, and in self-defense I assumed a lofty disregard for my own uniform—the grease spots, the foulness of old sweat the torn trousers mended with black thread because no other color had been available. For more than an hour this barracks soldier described in shuddering accents the rigors of life at regimental headquarters. Talcumed cheeks quivering with feeling, he assured me that the men on the front “just didn’t realize how much work there was in rear echelon,” and honestly, he got so damn tired and sometimes he just didn’t know if he was coming or going and we just didn’t realize! And I thought of the dirty, unshaven men up on the line, and I looked at the beautifully creased trousers on this character, the clean-shaven cheeks, the hint of talcum powder, and I wanted to get out of there fast, I wanted to go home, back to where the smells were honest But I didn’t leave. I smiled and nodded and murmured my sympathy, and we talked of books and Broadway plays and music.

  One of the officers with whom I talked at Regiment dropped a bit of information that staggered me. He said a survey of our records indicated that less than three percent of the entire regiment, officers included, had better than a high school education. I don’t know—maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe that percentage is average; maybe it’s comparable to the education record of any large, heterogeneous group of men—the personnel of a big industrial plant, for example. But the figure seemed alarmingly low to me, particularly in comparison to the high percentage of college men in the Air Corps.

  [On the voyage home many months later I talked at length with a colonel who had served at division headquarters. When I commented casually on the percentage of college men in my regiment, the colonel undammed a flood of bitter criticism against army policy that left me slack-jawed. I learned, among other things, that the Infantry traditionally gets the low-point men of each year’s West Point crop; that army policy throughout the war had been to assign inductees with high IQs to the Air Corps, the Engineers, and the Artillery, in that order, and the Infantry gets what’s left. I cannot vouch for these statements as proven fact, but the colonel presented them as such.

  [He was particularly bitter because the Infantry was the dumping ground for the “culls,” both officers
and enlisted men. “You’re the real expendables,” he said. “The top brass still regards the Infantry as so much raw meat, easily replaced, and not worth the bother of special care. What the bastards don’t realize is that there is no branch of service where so much depends on the split-second decisions of unit commanders, whether they’re platoon leaders, company commanders, or battalion commanders. If they’d take a look at the casualty rate in the Infantry, they’d see how important it is to have good men always ready to step into responsible jobs at a minute’s notice. The Infantry ought to get the best men, the cream, and what does it get? Always the dirty end of the stick!” He broke off bitterly, and I murmured, “The dirty end of the stick ... maybe that’s why they call us the ‘Queen of Battles.’ ” He looked at me inquiringly and I amended, “Queen—spelled Q-U-E-A-N.” He grinned, we shook hands in mock courtesy, and retired to his stateroom for a drink. I didn’t need the drink—it was intoxication enough to discover someone who would appreciate my moments of pompous erudition.]

  May 3.

  We reluctantly emerged from our snug farmhouses and marched drearily through rain, snow, and sleet to Frantiskovy Lázne, Czechoslovakia—known as Franzensbad to the Germans, but I prefer the Czech. It’s a resort town, like Saratoga—mineral springs, handsome villas, and ornate hotels and pensions. My C.P. is in one of the less handsome villas, but I’m comfortable. My sybaritic content is flawed only when I glance out the window and see cold, wet men standing guard in muddy foxholes.

  Our rations have been erratic of late and I am running out of cigarettes. (I quail before the biting comments of home fronters who have been on short cigarette rations for months, but this is the first time the shortage has touched me. The Service of Supply did a bang-up job in keeping frontline troops in cigarettes, although near echelon units have been pinched for a long time.) At any rate, I have only six cigarettes on hand and that represents low ebb to me: my habit, up to now, has been to carry a reserve of two full cartons in my pack at all times.

  As in all conquered towns, the civilians here have been warned to observe a curfew. The order reads: “All civilians off the streets by eight p.m.” But Frantiskovy Lázne is a large town and there are occasional stragglers, sullen, reluctant dawdlers. There have been so many of these tardy, insolent civilians that, in order to emphasize the inflexibility of the curfew ruling, we have resorted to the happy practice of bouncing a bullet off the sidewalk or wall nearest them. They move then! And linger not to make their exits properly prideful and contemptuous, as befits the Super Race. Oh, these strutting, posturing Germans!

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Nothing remains of Germany but a great grief … and hatred.”

  May 5.

  The news just came in, ‘It’s all over in North Germany.” So it’s nearly done at last, nearly finished. Only Czechoslovakia to finish off and it’s ended. I think the Czech business will not last long. The German armies trapped here are men without a country, without a leader, without purpose, without hope. And, on the practical side of the ledger, without supplies, without ammunition, without gasoline, without planes. What they may possess is hatred. But lacking hope, hatred becomes tired and turns to despair. And there is a great weariness in what was the German Reich.

  So we know it will soon be over. The Volksturm, stripped of its cardboard and fustian, was a hopeful myth; the “Werewolves” only the stinging of minor insects. And the “last ditch stand”? A boast of wind from an empty paper bag! It’s over, it’s over... and those who taught by the whip will now learn from the whip.

  Still May 5.

  It’s ten-thirty p.m. and I’m on phone guard until midnight. I won’t get much sleep tonight: we shove off at four-thirty a.m. on what we hope is the last push. It’s raining, as it has been raining for a week, and the ground is a muddy sponge. We have a long way to go, and on foot. I’ve been studying the map the captain gave me and memorizing my orders. A helluva long way to go!

  I feel edgy, ready to jump at strange sounds. The implications of the time, the place, and the situation hit me with brutal effect tonight, the equivalent of a rifle butt slamming into my groin. All day the radio chattered excitedly that the armistice is to be signed at noon tomorrow; the war is over in Europe. But we jump off at four-thirty, and our orders cannot be altered or postponed except through official channels. Official channels being what they are...!

  I hope that a few days from now I’ll be able to laugh at the weight of premonition pressing down upon me at this moment. Suddenly I remember a long-forgotten novel of the First World War, and the hero killed by a sniper’s bullet in the very instant of the war’s ending, scant seconds before the “cease fire” order was sounded down the line. The senseless tragedy and waste ... men who must die because red tape, protocol, and official decorum demand that wars be concluded with a propriety utterly lacking in their prosecution. It is apparently agreeable that men should die, with or without dignity, but the funeral oration must be solemnly phrased and the orator properly hatted and gleaming for the ritual.

  To die at such a moment, to die when there is no longer a meaning in the death, to know in that last lightning-shot moment that the blood you would once have offered hotly was now to be served up as a pale aperitif, proffered meaninglessly out of cold custom...

  I attempt to persuade myself that I do not really feel such heavy foreshadows crouching on my spirit. But I am aware of a kind of unease, a subtle discomfort. And if it should be, if I should be so cheated—ah, there will be a restless spirit, a disconsolate ghost howling in the council chambers of the world through all eternity.

  I hope all this will seem mighty silly to me a few days from now. As a matter of fact, it seems pretty silly right now.

  Frantiskovy Lázne delights me. It is like Baden-Baden though not so old, not so famous, not so wealthy, not so beautiful. But it is a pretty town, with lovely parks and gardens and the elegantly lush architecture of the last century. It must have been pleasant and discreetly gay back in the eighties, bands playing in the pergolas and grimly convalescent elderly sinners seeking the cure for past evils in the vile waters that unaccountably make these spas famous. Most of the men in the platoon are convinced that ’tis more agreeable to die of a lingering illness than to drink these foul waters and bloom like a rose.

  The other day I saw an elderly civilian emerge from one of the “drink” buildings, hugging a green bottle against his chest. A small grandson marched sedately beside him. A strolling GI halted the pair and I heard a greedy voice inquire if the bottle contained schnapps. The old man’s reply was emphatic: “Nein, nein! Wasser! Gut wasser!” And he uncorked the bottle and extended it invitingly. One sniff, and the soldier backed away hastily, his mouth twisted with distaste. Watching, I grinned as the old man’s face mirrored his astonishment at the strange behavior of these Americans. Then, shrugging philosophically, he tilted the bottle to his own lips and took a long swig. Patting his stomach in extravagant appreciation, he cooed, “Ahhh! Prima, prima!” and waddled away, small grandson dotting docilely beside.

  From a letter, written May 5:

  I think I will come home from the war almost unscarred inside. Not untouched, that is, but not shaken in my faiths, not bitter, not suspicious. In many curious ways I feel unmarked, almost innocent, and sometimes it bothers me that it should be so. There is something not quite decent in my inviolate state. I feel that I should be deeply changed, I should reflect some bitterness, some sickness of spirit. Surely one cannot walk on such troubled waters without even wetting his feet?

  At this moment I’m still too close to predict with certainty, to analyze objectively and place an unerring finger on this spot and on that and say, “This will be different in me... this will be changed ... this will be as you remembered.” But can one chart the subtle discolorations of his own spirit?

  One forewarning I can give you: knowing my own fondness for the dramatic tale, I am blandly aware that if my at-home audience listens to my stories and is properly
pop-eyed, I will take dramatic fire from such flattery and stretch for new quaverings of emotion. So if you see me stare into space as though these horrors I see (and I will see them, you know, because I’m a good storyteller!) are with me always, haunting my every sleep—honey, you can discount a good fifty percent of my self-drama as malarkey! (You needn’t publicize this pre-confession: I’m telling you and only you because I don’t want you to torment yourself with unnecessary grief, languishing over a lacerated spirit that is not so sorely wounded as it will often appear to be.)

  I seem to be bouncing back and forth between extremes: first too far in one direction, then too far in the other. But I think you will know what subtle middle ground I’m trying to find for your feet (and for my own). There will be memories I will never lose and never want to lose, deep scars that will always ache and throb a little. Thus far I am true to type, a la female magazine “returned vet.” But I am healthy, I am not hag-ridden by remembered horrors. To my constant astonishment, I seem to have come out of this a better-balanced individual, a healthier human being than when I went in. Even the wounds I carry are an indication of sounder health because these were inflicted by the world without and not self-committed, not the festering, ugly sores that my twisted, shadowed, introspective self used to inflict with deliberation. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? I think I’ve gained a little in perspective, a little in stature, a little in balance. I think I am almost human enough to live with now. Almost.