by Robert Adams
"Somebody come in here and get Danforth," said Saxon, in a quiet, gentle tone. "The poor li'l fucker and all the rest of you's gonna see more and worse nor thishere when you gets in the trenches, over there."
"Somebody go ring up the medics and get some litters over here, on the double, seven… no, eight of 'em. Sargint majer, have your men git all the weapons together and get 'em back to the arms room, then git back here, and don't you swaller none of Jacoby's shit 'bout 'em havin' to be cleaned afore you can turn 'em in; allus remember, you outranks him."
As he put the safety on his submachine gun and passed it to the waiting hands, he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and spun about to see Milo, his uniform soaked in blood, his hands smeared and streaked with it, twitching feebly, his lips moving soundlessly.
"Sweet fuckin' Christ," Saxon whispered, then turned and roared out the doorway, "Git that big medical kit down here, fast, and tell the medical comp'ny to get a fuckin' surgeon over here on the fuckin' double. I think Moray's still alive!"
By the time the medical officer arrived in the charnel house of a room, John Saxon was squatting beside the semiconscious Milo, an opened but unused medical kit behind him.
"The onlies' thing I can figger happened, lootinant, is that the fuckin' slug tore th'ough his shirt, in the front and out of the back—the holes is both there for to show for it. In dodgin', someways he musta tripped over the MP's body and cracked his fuckin' haid when he fell, and he fell right in a big puddle of the fuckin' MP's blood and Moffa just figgered he was dead meat. It ain't no wounds on him, 'cepting that goose egg on his fuckin' knob. Don't nobody but fools and Paddies mostly have that kind of luck."
All of the injuries and deaths save only Moffa's were determined to be L.O.D.—line-of-duty—and Milo found himself being accorded vast respect by officers and men alike for all that his personal choice of the real hero of that terrible day was old, combat-wise Captain Saxon.
"Now, goddam you, Milo," Stiles had railed at him in private, "you're not immortal, you know—you can bleed and die, too. You're not paid to take that kind of stupid chance. That's what we have eight hundred odd GIs in this battalion for. You're too valuable to the unit. You're too valuable to me, too, you fucker. I happen to know you've promised Martine to try to keep me alive through the rest of this war. How the bloody hell are you going to do that if you go and get yourself shot and killed for nothing?"
Then he had grinned. "By the way, even if our last trip up north had accomplished nothing for the division, at least it accomplished something positive for the future. Martine is pregnant again."
Jethro Stiles had attested his belief in Milo's mortality. But Milo himself was beginning to wonder about that subject, to entertain certain doubts. Much as he tried to rationalize these insanities away, still did they come back to haunt him.
Everyone else might believe Saxon's assumption that the shot fired at him by Moffa had missed, but Milo knew them all to be wrong. What he had to face was that he had been shot in—or close enough not to matter—the heart with one of the most powerful and deadly combat pistols in existence and at a point-blank range of less than a dozen feet. He clearly recalled the force of being hit and flung against the wall, and he could still remember the agony of the heavy ball tearing through his body, though that particular bit of recall was slowly fading, he noted thankfully.
Moffa had known that his shot had been true to its mark—drunk or sober, his emotional state notwithstanding, the well-trained old soldier could hardly have missed at a range of four yards or less. Milo could still hear ringing in his ears the dead man's admonition to "lay down! You dead!" And dead he should have been, well dead. So why was he not dead?
Careful examination of the back and the front of his torso, when once he got back to his quarters, had shown Milo only a slight indentation of about a half-inch diameter in the skin above his heart, this surrounded by discoloration that resembled a fast-fading bruise. On his back, a bit below the shoulder blade, was a larger, deeper dent—about an inch and a half—and a wider discoloration. However, when he showered the next morning, he had been hardly able to locate a trace of either of them, front or back. That he told no one of these oddities was partly because he hardly believed them himself and partly because his job just kept him far too busy for another visit to the surgeon.
Chapter IX
Like some vast herd of huge beasts grazing the restless waves of the North Atlantic Ocean, the convoy of troop transports, supply ships and naval vessels sailed a course that was deliberately erratic, lest that course be guessed out by the wolflike packs of German submarines, the bane of wartime shipping. On front and rear and along the flanks of this convoy of men, materiel and armaments, speedy, hardworking destroyers flitted back and forth, with every crewman's eye, every technological device aboard on the alert for the slightest trace of one of the feared submersible raiders of the seas. Should such a trace be suspected, it was the mission of these flankers to interpose their own lightly armored cockleshells between the attackers and the lumbering quarry, while others of their kind steamed to the supposed location of the foe and let off salvos of depth charges—steel drums filled with powerful explosive charges designed to create sufficient concussion to rupture the hulls of the submarines, thus drowning the crews or forcing the craft to rise to the surface, where shells from deck guns could sink them easily. Because of the dangers presented by the U-boats, because of the fact that despite all precautions, submarine-launched torpedos still found their marks, sinking or heavily damaging ships, killing or injuring men and sending to the bottom billions of tons of valuable equipment and supplies, each cargo ship was packed to utter capacity, and so too were the troop carriers, to such a point that the only men aboard who made the passage in any degree of comfort were the sailors and the higher-ranking officers. The troops were packed like so many canned sardines in a 'tween-decks hot and thick with the reek of humanity, with no room for organized calisthenics and few possibilities for the make-work details traditionally used to keep units and individual soldiers out of trouble, their principal activities consisting mainly of endless gambling and even more endless bull sessions, interspersed with the occasional fight—a welcomed relief from boredom—and noncoms were hard pressed to prevent their troops from becoming just so many slothful, dirty, vicious beasts. They were able to maintain order, discipline and at least a degree of cleanliness only by dint of near-brutality.
So many men were crammed into the ship that only by shifts could they be allowed up into the fresh air topside, there to gather in clumps or to walk the narrow ways around and between the vehicles lashed to the decks; and even these few brief forays into natural light and clean, crisp air were only allowed in daylight on clear, calm days without deckwashing seas, lest any of these landlubbers be lost overboard.
On such a day, a rare day for the season and the location—the sky of a silvery blue and utterly cloudless—the troopship plowed through a sea almost as calm-looking as a pond. Far away on either hand could be discerned other ships of the convoy, but to the naked eye these were merely large dots; only with magnification could details of them be seen. Headquarters and Headquarters Company of Milo's battalion were taking their brief sojourn upon deck. Leaving his subordinates to maintain order and discipline among the troops, Milo had sought out a secluded spot—actually, in the cab of a truck—to converse and confer with his commander and old friend, Lieutenant Colonel Jethro Stiles.
"Milo, certain of the staff feel that we—I—ought to make regular inspection circuits down below decks. John Saxon demurs, but then he seldom agrees with much of anything the staff decides. What do you say?"
"I say John's right… as usual, Jethro. Remember, he went to France on a troopship back in the Great War, so he knows just what kind of hell it is. No, best to let us noncoms handle it alone," was Milo's solemn reply.
Stiles regarded him narrowly. "That rough down there, is it?"
Clumps of muscles worked
at the hinges of Milo's clenched jaws. "Jethro, whoever designed that slice of purgatory down there was not only utterly sadistic but a certifiable lunatic, as well. How in hell are you supposed to keep up the morale and the self-respect of men who have to wallow, day in and day out, in their own filth? The so-called showers are an insult to the intelligence— the hot water lasts just seconds, you have to soap up fast as blazes before it turns into live steam, then you have to rinse yourself in cold, salt seawater, which leaves you feeling sticky, tacky all over; you may be clean, technically, but you sure as hell don't feel clean."
"The latrines have round-the-clock lines of men waiting to use them, and what with the cases of seasickness and diarrhea and whatnot, a lot of the men in those lines are unable to wait as long as necessary, so there are mop details at work damn near any fucking time or place you look."
"The men are without exception bored, damnably uncomfortable, irascible and getting stiffer by the hour from a lack of decent exercise. Classes are an unfunny joke. They nod and sleep through them."
"Why don't they sleep at night, Milo?" demanded Stiles.
"My God, Jethro," Milo expostulated in heat, "you saw those racks down there before the troops moved in, didn't you? There's only a foot or less of space between each one even when they're empty. At night, a man has to slide in either on his back or on his belly, because after he's in, there'll be no room for him to turn over all night long. The only thing they wear at night is dog tags and jock-straps, and still they stream sweat. A man would have to be utterly exhausted to sleep under those conditions, Jethro, and they have nothing to do to exhaust them and no room to do it in."
"So under every light there's an all-night poker game or crap shoot, and the noise they generate just adds to the echoing snores of the lucky few who have been able to sleep. We feel it would be most unwise to try to break the games up, for at least when the men are gambling the nights away, they're not contemplating the wretched conditions under which they're forced to live, the swill they're expected to eat, their complete helplessness inside the fucking steel torpedo target, their sexual frustrations, the nonavailability of booze and beer or even fucking Cokes, the suffering to be ended, maybe, by their deaths where we're sailing to."
"One of the few good things I can report is that there's been damned little theft reported down there, but that's most likely just because there's simply no place to hide anything and a thief would be found out very quickly… and probably killed or seriously injured on the spot, despite us NCOs. As it is, for the best we can do or try to do, the fights down there are frequent and vicious. We've locked up issue weapons, bayonets and every other item that looked like it could be used to kill or badly incapacitate a man, of course, but as you and I both have reason to realize, fists and feet and fingers and knees and elbows can do more than enough damage if a man knows precisely how to utilize them in fighting… and that's exactly what instructors have been drilling into most of those men since their basic training."
Stiles frowned through most of the monologue. "Well, Milo, I can do nothing about the shower facilities. Ours are no better up here, you know; the ship simply does not —could not—ship aboard sufficient fresh water to give fresh-water showers every day to so many men. For your information, I did lodge a strenuous objection to all these fucking trucks and jeeps being jammed onto the deck of this ship, but my objections were overridden by higher authorities. If these vehicles were not here, taking up space, we could have organized physical training classes up here in the air and the light… but then if a bullfrog had wings, he'd not have a sore ass most of the time, either."
"You and the other NCOs and the men will just have to put up with the latrines and the sleeping accommodations until we get where we're going. There's nothing anyone aboard can now do to change or ameliorate those conditons, unfortunately. But what's this about the food?"
"These cooks of ours," said Milo, "are virtually without effective supervision. The head cook, Sergeant Tedley, has been ill since the day we set sail, so much so that off and on, the medics have thought he might die of dehydration. His second-in-command is so inefficient, so weak in leadership, that most of the cooks do absolutely nothing to speak of except stay drunk on lemon extract and the like and keep well out of the reach of the men."
"Well, Jesus Christ, Milo," snapped Stiles, "why hasn't Lieutenant Jaquot either set this matter straight or reported it to me or John Saxon?"
Milo shrugged grimly. "Probably because he's unaware of it, Jethro. I don't know of anybody who's seen the mess officer below decks since we left New York Harbor. Although the scuttlebutt is that he's won himself a fucking pisspotful of money in some high-stakes poker game up in officer country."
Stiles nodded, a hint of anger smoldering in his eyes. "So he has, Milo, so he has, some of it from me, too. He's won so consistently, the Belgian bastard, that some of us are beginning to wonder just what he did for a living before the war. Of course, the fucking money doesn't matter to me, I don't have to try to live on what the Army pays me, after all, but, by God, I'll have that fucker's hide for neglecting his duties to have more time for his precious fucking cards."
"I'll also talk to the ship's captain and see if there's some way we can get more ventilation down into those spaces you inhabit, particularly at night. As regards all of the rest of your many tribulations, old pal, all you and any of us can do is to just keep on keeping on until we get landed, wherever. Then if we're lucky we'll have the time and space and the opportunity to whip the company back into shape before we have to fight."
The battalion landed in England one cold, wet, blustery day, and that weather remained with them for months, so that many a man and officer was soon looking back to warm and often bone-dry South Carolina with fondness and real longing. So easily did the heavy soil on which their camp was set retain water that most of those who knew anything about such matters were dead certain that the area had been a swamp in the not-too-distant past; moreover, though not within sight of the sea, the land lay sufficiently close to the coast to be buffeted by every storm or gale that chanced to come boiling in from off the North Atlantic Ocean as well as to be pervaded by each and every one of the incredibly damp and icy-cold sea fogs of that season. Nor, in the flat and almost treeless countryside, was there any natural break against the frigid winds and storms that winter brought lashing down from the Highlands of Scotland, Iceland and the arctic wastes of Ultima Thule, far to the north. But in the rare good weather or in the usual foul, the hard training had to continue, day in, day out, night in, night out, week after week, month succeeding month. Big and bloody operations were now afoot, aimed at Fortress Europe, and everyone, from generals down to lowliest privates, knew it for fact.
"I jest don't unnerstand it none, Milo," attested Captain John Saxon, as they sat in the adjutant's office of a wintery day, drinking from canteen cups of hot coffee laced with whiskey and waiting for the office space heater to build up sufficient warmth to at least partially disperse the enervating, bone-chilling, damp cold. "Thesehere folks should oughta be in our debt, after all we've done and is doin' right now for to pull their sad asses outen the fuckin' fire for 'em. More'n that, they's's'posed to be our kinfolks, for all that they all talks damn funny, like damnyankees, kind of. But shitfire, man, you'd think the fuckin' shoe was on the other fuckin' foot, the way thesehere fuckers act. I allus was sorry I dint get to England back in the Great War—jest to France and then back—but I guess I plumb lucked out after all. I wouldn' of put up with being treated like a fuckin' mangy stray dog, the way thesehere fuckin' limejuice bugtits treats our boys."
"Take thishere Hulbert bizness, fer instance. Did you talk to the man after they brung him back? Yeah, well, so did I. He's allus been a good 'un, draftee or not, and I'm damn sure that that Limey cooze is tryin' to get the poor horny fucker railroaded, is what I think. She let him buy her drinks, the first night, see, leadin' him on, sweet-talkin' him inta gettin' a cook to give him butter and powdered eggs and Spam
for her, plus three fuckin' cartons of cigarettes. She kept up smoochin' the fella and a-squeezin' his cock in dark places and promisin' him ever'thing. Then when he had give her a whole passel of stuff and tried to get her to put out like she'd been promising him, the cowcunted candlebasher broke a fuckin' bottle over his head and yelled 'Rape!' Did you see what them damn fuckin' Limey cops done to the poor bastard's face?"
"But even so, he just may've been lucky, luckier thin some I could name what did get into a few Limey cunts and was too drunk or too fuckin' lazy or too damn dumb to use the fuckin' pro-kits like they been told to. Don't you look for that fuckin' Jacquot back anytime soon—the fuckin' cardshark has done got hisself clapped up twenny fuckin' ways from Sunday from all the Limey codfish he bought and slammed his wang into right after we got here. And he's just one, too. You wouldn't believe how many men and fuckin' of'sers, too, in the division has done gone and got theyselfs done up brown with syph, shank, clap, crabs and ever-fuckin'-thing elst the damn fuckin' Limeys is got for sale."
"I tell you, Milo, till we gets to France or wherever, I'm stickin' my prick into nuthin' but Madam Friggley" —he held up one big hand and waggled the fingers— "and you'll be smart to, too."
Milo himself had been lucky, he decided. None of the women, either in England or in the States, whom he had swived had apparently been diseased, or if they had been, at least, he had failed to contract any of their afflictions. It was just as well, too, for with the accelerated training and the normal day-to-day minutiae of running the oversized company, he would not have had time to undergo treatments for venereal disease or anything else, and he could only again thank his lucky stars that he obviously was immune to such other annoying discomforts as flu and bronchial infections, scabies, boils, sore throats, intestinal problems and even hangovers. For all that in the perpetually wet and cold climate some of the men around him always were sniffling, sneezing, and hacking, he seldom caught a cold, and then only a mild, short-lived one. The outbreak of crab lice soon after the battalion came ashore which had necessitated the shaving of everyone's head and body hair had pointed out the amazing fact that the tiny creatures apparently found his body fluids distasteful, as not a one was ever found upon him.
