Point of No Return

by Gellhorn, Martha;

  “I’m dirty,” the boy said, and tears rolled down his cheeks though his face stayed numb and expressionless. “I can’t get clean.”

  “Take it easy,” Jacob Levy said. His hand, with the cigarette in it, was shaking.

  “Dirty,” the boy said, and now though the blind eyes and the unmoving body did not change, the voice became first a cry and then a scream. “Dirty!” the voice screamed. “Can’t get clean! Look at me! Dirty!”

  Doc Weber who was bowed over the kitchen table at the far side of the cellar, straightened, put his hand on the aching place in his back, massaged it, turned in the direction of the wild insistent voice, said, “Pentathal, Joe,” and bent over the table again.

  The technician, with the syringe in his hand, said to Jacob Levy, “Move along, bud.”

  Jacob Levy watched the needle go into a white, clean arm and heard the terrible voice soften until it became a mutter. Then the drug worked and the cellar was quiet again.

  Jacob Levy stepped quickly over the bodies of the wounded. Someone plucked at his leg and said, “This guy’s dead, I think. You better take him, Mac,” but he did not stop, only nodding to show he had heard. He ran up the cellar steps into the air and leaned against the broken housefront.

  Low clouds pressed over the shapeless village. Jacob Levy walked down what had once been the main street, listening carefully, for this was a collection of rubble that attracted artillery. He smelled and then saw two dead cows, with flies thick on them despite the cold. There was also the smell of human excrement and the sour smell that hangs around houses which have been opened by high explosive. In a cellar, someone was playing, “Chattanooga Choo Choo” on a mouth organ. A voice droned “Drastic White calling Drastic Six, over.” It sounded as if a machine, not a man, was repeating this. “Drastic White calling Drastic Six, over.” On the left, the black trees of the forest rose in a jagged wall against the sky.

  Jacob Levy found a corner of a barn, intact. It was built of heavy stone and having stood so long it must be a reliable shelter. A capsized farm cart, with bricks and hay blown around it, made a protective mound before the open angle of the building. Jacob Levy slid in and sat far back against the stone wall, hugging his knees. That was worse than being hit; you could heal from a wound. But would a man ever be allright again if once his eyes looked like they were glass and he screamed out crazy things he didn’t even hear? Jacob Levy held his knees tighter to keep from trembling. I’m cold is all, he told himself.

  There were three houses left in Glutz. In this way, Glutz could be distinguished from Wipfel. Glutz was located beyond the open meadow and the Grundheim-Berghof road, and Hill 302, only different in number from any other hill. Glutz lay, in fact, seven miles and twenty-five days beyond 0700 hours 4 November, when the Battalion started to fight in this forest. The Battalion’s survivors slouched or sprawled in the ruins of Glutz, bearded, filthy, lined with weariness, their eyes dark and brooding, and scratched themselves and shivered in the tireless wind, and looked forward to nothing. Beyond Glutz, the same trees covered the hills to the horizon. The only way out of this forest was on a litter or in a sack.

  The battle had curved away from them. To the north other men tried to hammer their way through the pine trees. The soldiers of the Second Battalion did not know this, and waited with an indifference like despair for the next order to attack.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers alone refused to give in to the forest. He walked around the drab wind-beaten mess that was Glutz and gave orders in a harsh voice; he held his shoulders straight and snarled at the discouraged posture of others; he chewed the staff, and drove the soldiers. But at night he could lie sleepless in the dark, cold as they all were, and tired to death, and stop acting. In the night he could mourn his Battalion which he loved. That men had to die in any action was known, and nothing to grieve over. But a man had the right to die for some purpose; the value of death was measured in miles. Whose fault is it, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers asked himself, and hoped it was the fault of the forest.

  At night, rejoicing and marvelling, Jacob Levy crossed off another day on his calendar. The Colonel’s luck held. The Colonel’s a wonderful soldier, Jacob Levy thought, he could command a Regiment if he had to.

  On the twenty-seventh day, the Division was ordered out of the line. They were to move south into Luxembourg and rest and re-equip. Lieutenant Colonel Smithers stood at the roadside in some battered village he did not know, and watched his men get into the trucks. He hated this part. He did not think they blamed him, for they understood he got his orders as they did, and obeyed them. He did not think that the look on their faces was anything permanent, that some part of their brains would always be marked too. He knew they were in bad shape but he had seen them like this before, heavy and silent with fatigue and with the strain of so much effort and fear. They would sleep and eat and wash, get drunk, find a girl. They would close ranks over the dead and wounded, pick up a new buddy, and go on. But right now he hated to look at them. Because, he thought, if these guys had any say they’d have stopped this war long ago. They didn’t have any say and he would take them into the next battle and fewer of them would come out. He hated this part because it made him think and he was not paid to think any more than they were.

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers shrugged as if something had caught around him. “Levy!”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Get to the head of the column.”

  He kept himself sitting up straight and awake until they passed the trucks with his men in them. Then he said, “You know where we’re going?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Wake me if anything happens.”

  “Everything will be okay, sir,” Jacob Levy said, almost choked over the friendliness of the words. Lieutenant Colonel Smithers slept, with his head jolting against his chest. I’ll get him there allright, Jacob Levy told himself, and his eyes burned with weariness and his shoulders felt like lead with nails in them. The Colonel didn’t need to worry. It was because of the Colonel’s luck that he had come from that evil place, without the third and last wound. The Colonel could count on him.

  3

  Weilerburg was almost too good to be true; if he had known there was any place like it in the ETO he would have been dreaming about it. These Luxembourg people seemed a lot cleaner than the French, and friendlier, and this was a high class house, whitewashed inside, warm, with white lace curtains and fine furniture. Upstairs his bed had a big feather quilt and sheets with crocheted stuff along the edges and there was a bathroom with hot running water and the toilet flushed. A Regimental commander would be proud to live in a house like this, let alone a Battalion C.O. The men were fixed up good too, they never had it better, and already that look on their faces in the trucks was gone. You couldn’t believe it was the same bunch of beat-up dead-eyed soldiers. Everybody happy, thought Lieutenant Colonel Smithers, as he corrected Sergeant Postalozzi’s typed copy of the Battalion’s after action report.

  He was not happy and he felt someone was going to get chewed for that forest, and yet nobody could have done more than they did. Colonel O’Neal was probably sweating it out, and the General, and there wasn’t any way to make it look like a successful operation; it stank just on paper.

  “Sixty-five percent casualties for seven miles,” he said to Lieutenant Gaylord who was working on his fingernails with a pocket-knife. “I tell you, it keeps up like this and they can send us as replacements to some other Battalion.”

  He’d have to start training his own replacements right away: bright green, all of them, complete with ten thumbs to each hand. They’d begin on assault craft but since there were no boats he would have the Pioneer platoon mark out the dimensions of boats with mine tape, on the ground, and let the new guys practice finding their places and getting out and maybe the poor dopes would get some notion from that. And borrow a couple of tanks for them to learn close support. And have them throw grenades until their arms fell off. He’d have to move fast if he e
xpected these sad sacks to be soldiers, in time for the next action.

  “I hear they got an Officers’ Club in Luxembourg City, and Red Cross girls and WACs and Bourbon and everything you want,” Lieutenant Gaylord remarked.

  “I’m going to see the men get a lot of decorations out of that forest.”

  That’s one thing about Johnny, Lieutenant Gaylord thought, he isn’t the heel kind of worrier, always thinking about his own neck. The men knew it too; they knew he did his best for them.

  “Not that they’ll come through,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers went on, “they don’t count how it was, they count what shows in the papers. I’d like to see Levy get something.”

  “You what?”

  “I know I can’t put his name in. He didn’t do anything outstanding you could mention. But I sure appreciate the way he worked.”

  “Listen Johnny. When are we going to Luxembourg? I forget what a woman looks like.”

  Bill was right; the forest was over, there was nothing he could do about it. It didn’t pay to think about anything, especially when it was over.

  “Allright, sonny, let’s go. Tell Major Hardcastle I’m taking off, Sergeant. I’ll sign this when I get back.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Smithers sat beside Jacob Levy in the jeep, with Lieutenant Gaylord in back, and the wind cut at his face though he tried to bury it between his turned-up coat collar and his pulled-down cap. It was cold but it was pretty. They kept their country nice, these Luxembourgers. The land rolled away in soft hills and the clipped brown fields looked as if they were covered in fur. The trees grew on the hills in planted patterns, the smoky purple of birches bordering the blackness of the pines. These are pine trees like Georgia, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers thought, not pine trees like Germany. The hills were like home too, and so was the quiet, and nothing burned at the sides of the roads, and no broken telegraph poles with the white insulators blown into the trees, and no snarled khaki traffic. Inside the sturdy farmhouses people would be sitting down to supper now, the way people should. You had to admire people who could keep their country looking peaceful these days.

  The road dipped and crossed a humped brick bridge. A brown stream rushed under the bridge and disappeared into a wood. Jacob Levy greeted this stream with delight; it was not as good as his, and a road interfered with it, but to see clear water running through gentle country was a sort of homecoming. They must be pretty happy around here, Jacob Levy thought.

  On the left a hill like a frozen horse’s mane flowed dark against the sky; then a black hill rose square like a slag heap. Nearer, a church steeple pointed up above the trees. They passed a grey stone wall with branches drooping over it, and Lieutenant Gaylord turned to see what sort of a house they had in there. It looked like an expensive estate outside Harrisburg; they probably led a gay life in a big stylish house like that.

  “Fine place!” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers shouted to Jacob Levy.

  “Sure is, sir!” Jacob Levy shouted back. He shared a room with Bert Hammer in a house down the street from Battalion Headquarters. They slept in a double bed; they took off their uniforms at night and slept in their underwear. He could wash anytime he wanted to, in hot water. If war was always like this, you could get a taste for it.

  They followed street signs to the Officers’ Club, noting with amazement that this city was upright. They were used to shell holes in the streets, a hedge of rubble, and sliced buildings like broken teeth. Luxembourg seemed beautiful simply because it was standing. At the door of the Officers’ Club, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said, “Be back here at ten-thirty, Levy.”

  “Yes sir.” That was a hell of a nice thing to do; most officers would have kept their driver hanging around. Four hours of liberty. He’d leave the jeep in a car park so as not to worry, and find a restaurant if there was one not off-limits, and eat at a table with a white cloth. Boy oh boy, Jacob Levy said to himself, this is the life.

  The sky was the beautiful evening color, a dark shining blue with light behind it. If they could have turned on the street lamps you would hardly know there was a war, the city looked so good and felt so good. This was the first place Jacob Levy had seen where people might seriously want to live. There were window panes in the windows. The streets were clean. The houses were big grey stone or cement jobs, mostly, and you could tell the stairs would be swept and there’d be a nice smell of cooking in the halls and not that smell of toilets there always was everywhere in Europe. There were even store windows and things for sale, handbags, cameras, gloves. This really was a city. There was too much rank around though, you couldn’t put your arm down for a minute. Now imagine guys who spent the whole war working in a Headquarters city like this. They must be laughing at the suckers who wore the combat infantry badge. Hotels were no good for him; the officers would have taken them for billets. He’d probably find what he wanted on some side street.

  There was a flower shop at the corner, then a hardware store, and then this big plate glass window with a sign printed on it in gold letters: Café-Restaurant de l’Etoile. Jacob Levy could not see inside because the black-out curtains were already drawn. The street looked allright, not rich or fancy but respectable. He was shy about opening the door because it might turn out to be a place with headwaiters and a lot of officers, and he’d feel like a fool. Opening the door slightly and peering in, Jacob Levy saw a reassuring room, small, warm, with brownish wall paper and tables and benches around the walls. There was a counter, with a nickel coffee machine and two faucets for beer, and a grey haired woman sitting behind it. Two men were drinking beer in one corner. Jacob Levy decided he was safe here, and shut the door, took off his cap, and saw the white table cloths in the next room. It seemed pretty smart to find what you wanted on the first try in a strange city.

  The grey haired woman put down her knitting and smiled encouragingly. She told Jacob Levy, in French, to come in and motioned towards the restaurant. If they didn’t wear the same uniforms, she thought, you could never tell they were Americans: some of them looked like Italians, some like Poles, some like Greeks and many of them looked like Germans. She did not know what this one looked like, but not like any others she had seen, like a Spanish prince perhaps. And he was so elegant too, with his trousers pressed and his boots as polished as those heavy boots could be.

  “Kathe!” she called.

  When Jacob Levy saw the girl come from the kitchen with a menu card, he knew she was what he wanted. Maybe he couldn’t get her because there would not be much time. And maybe he couldn’t get her anyhow; there were girls who lived with their parents or who were religious or something and wouldn’t cooperate under any circumstances. But she was what he wanted and he realized, seeing her, that it had been a long time since the last. In July that was, and then it was no good, in a dirty barn, in a hurry, and the girl scared of everything, of war and soldiers and shells and what was going to become of her. Then there were the months in hospital and afterwards not really wanting anything, except not to be hit again.

  Kathe, Jacob Levy said to himself. He pointed to words on the menu. He didn’t care what he ate; it would all taste perfect. He understood when Kathe asked if he wanted wine and said, oui oui, and they smiled at each other. While he was waiting he thought about how Kathe looked. She was just right, young and short and not painted and he knew she would smell good, smelling of herself and not of that strong perfume whores always used. Her skin would be just right too. He couldn’t stand whores, there was something rubbery and sticky about their skin, and he hated all that phoney sweet talk and the compliments. Kathe had a nice fat little rear and a nice fat little front and good teeth, with a gold filling somewhere when she smiled. And friendly blue eyes and she wore her black hair in a braid around her head. He would like to go where they’d have time, and she could undo the braid and let her hair fall down.

  Kathe stood near the table, watching Jacob Levy eat. When she changed the plates, she spoke to him and he shrugged to show he could not understand. But
he smiled and hoped she would go on talking anyhow because he liked the sound of the words and the way her mouth puckered up when she said them. He did not move after he finished the apple-cake dessert, and Kathe did not bring him his bill.

  There were other people in the restaurant now. Three men with owl-like horn-rimmed spectacles sat at one table. A white haired man sat with two thin middle aged women, who had the pinched red-nosed look of poor circulation, and wore identical brown felt pots as hats, with identical brown cabbages of ribbon bobbing on the front. By the door, a gnarled old couple whispered for the salt or bread or the wine bottle and were otherwise silent. They all wore dark baggy clothes and had the kind of faces that cannot be remembered. They spoke in French but they looked more like Germans, Jacob Levy thought, not mean the way he imagined Germans in Germany looked but as if they were the sort of Germans who lived on the south side in St. Louis; only sadder. They seemed to know Kathe and they spoke to her, jokingly, but he could see there was nothing tough or on the make about it. She talked back too, in her funny voice, and it was like a nice girl waiting on her family’s friends in her own house. He enjoyed watching Kathe bring in the trays, with her little bottom moving under the thin black wool of her dress.

  Then it was nine-thirty and the other customers were leaving the restaurant. Jacob Levy had been afraid the people would stay too late and he would have to go before he could see Kathe alone. He kept looking at his wrist watch and lighting one cigarette from another. When the last customer had left, the woman behind the coffee urn asked Jacob Levy a question in French: she had to close up and be home before the civilian curfew and she could not miss the only streetcar that went to her part of town. Kathe brought the bill. Jacob Levy was relieved to see how cheap this place was because he planned to eat here every night he could get off.

  When he had counted out the money, Jacob Levy said, “Take a walk with me?” Kathe smiled at him, not understanding. He pointed to her, “you”; pointed to himself, “me”; pointed to the door and then he made his middle and index fingers walk crookedly across the table. Kathe laughed and nodded and then she was back, buttoned into a black coat that was tight across her hips and her breast. She pulled on a pair of green knitted mittens, embroidered with yellow daisies. Jacob Levy looked at the mittens and he wanted to pick this girl up and fondle her like a puppy. He had forgotten there were such things as mittens.