by Dean Hughes
By then Alex realized that one of the other tanks had changed its angle and was heading toward the orchard. Another 88 shell crashed through the trees and exploded to Alex’s right. Shrapnel whistled through the air. He dropped into his hole, in reaction, and waited for a moment. Just as he raised up again, a mortar shell exploded directly in front of the oncoming tank. The tank came to an abrupt stop and then, surprisingly, began backing away. It fired one more time, taking limbs out of the trees and blowing dirt in the air farther to Alex’s right.
The tank continued backing for a time, and then it swung around and headed away, toward the distant hill. Alex saw that the other two tanks were doing the same thing, and he took a long breath. What he knew, however, was that Duncan had been right. The Germans had probed a little, had determined what kind of firepower remained in the town, but hadn’t wanted to gamble away all their tanks. They could hold the Americans down, keep shelling from a distance, and make a major push when they met less resistance.
As soon as the tanks moved back, the artillery shelling began again. Howie had stayed down through all this, and now he pushed himself lower into the hole. “How long will they keep doing this?” he asked. Alex could tell he was on the edge, close to breaking down.
“I don’t know, Howie. But we sent them back. We did what we had to do. We’ll get some help in here soon.”
Alex hoped Owen was right about the reinforcements. He knew the Germans would be back, probably in the morning. But he was also worried about something else. He didn’t know whether anyone had taken a hit from those shells the tanks had fired. So during the next pause, after a round of three shells, he jumped up and ran to the next foxhole. He found Ernst and Sabin all right but looking baffled, dead serious. He crowded into their hole with them, reassured them, waited for the next three rounds, and then ran again. Duncan and Campbell were all right, a little less rattled, but in no mood to kid around.
When Alex ran toward the next hole, he saw before he got there that a shell had hit very close, almost a direct hit. He found his friend Curtis Bentley looking up at him, his face full of pain. He had apparently wrapped his own arm with a bandage, and he was holding onto it, with blood seeping through, dripping from his fingers. Withers was hunched over, folded in on himself. The back of his uniform was soaked with blood. “He’s dead,” Curtis said, his voice dead, too.
“How bad are you hit?”
“Not bad at all. Some shrapnel cut my arm open, but it didn’t break the bone.”
Alex jumped into the hole and then pushed Withers’s body over to make enough room. “We need to make a run for it after this next round of shells. There’s no way to evacuate you, but we’ve got medics. They can get the bleeding stopped.”
“Let’s just wait until the shelling stops. I’m not bleeding to death.”
“All right.” But Alex wondered. Would the Germans keep shelling all night? For the past two hours the sky had been darkening. Alex hoped it would rain, perhaps to drive the Germans inside. Mud would also slow down the tanks if they tried to cross that field again. He kept watching Curtis. His face was pale under the dirt and the stubble of beard, and he was obviously in a lot of pain, even though he wasn’t saying so.
A shell exploded in the town somewhere, and that meant two more were coming. Alex and Curtis pulled their heads down and waited. But the next two explosions weren’t close. “Let’s get Withers out of here,” Alex said. He climbed out of the hole, and then Curtis helped as much as he could as Alex dragged the body out on the ground. Then he jumped back in. “Let me tighten that bandage on you,” Alex told Curtis.
When they heard the whistle, they ducked low again, waited for the explosions. But none was targeted on the orchard right now. Alex tried to work on the bandage, then got out another one, used it to apply more pressure. “After Withers got hit,” Curtis said, “the only thing he said was, ‘I hope my mom and dad can deal with this. And my little brother.’ He came from a really nice family. He’s been telling me all about them.”
“Curtis, don’t think about that stuff. You just can’t.”
“I know.”
Alex hesitated, and then he said, “Come on. Let’s go. Right after this next round. I don’t like sitting here.”
“You don’t need to go with me.”
“I don’t want you to pass out–and bleed to death.”
“Don’t worry. I’m okay. I’ll be back out here on the line before long. It’s not that bad.”
“All right.”
Curtis waited for the next three explosions, but they didn’t come. The shelling had apparently stopped. Curtis waited another ten minutes or so, and then he said, “Okay. This is a good chance. I’ll go now.”
“All right. I’ll check on you when I can.”
They took a long look at each other. “Good luck,” Curtis finally said, and they both knew what he was thinking. If the Germans overran them tonight, or in the morning, there was no telling who would be left alive.
Alex tossed Withers’s rifle out on the ground and then climbed out of the foxhole. Withers was on his side and rather twisted, so Alex turned him onto his back and straightened him out. His helmet had come off, and his glasses were pushed up onto his forehead. Alex pulled the glasses back into place, and for just a moment, he looked at him. With a lock of hair drooping toward his eyes, Withers looked very young, far too young. Alex wanted to say something, maybe a prayer, but he knew he couldn’t start something like that. He stood up, looked away for a time, and clenched his jaw tight. He wasn’t going to let this get to him. He stabbed Withers’s rifle into the ground and hung his helmet over the butt. He hoped someone could come for the body before long and get him out of there.
When Alex walked back to his foxhole, Howie asked, “What happened over there?”
“It’s Withers. Curtis got cut up a little, but he’s all right.”
“Royce is dead?”
“Yeah. Don’t talk about it.”
“Did he catch some–”
“Howie, listen to me. You can’t think about that stuff. We’re alive. We’ll be okay.”
“All right.”
The rain was starting. It had been mostly a mist for a time, but now it was turning into drops, pelting down quite steadily. Alex realized he and his men were in for an unthinkably miserable night. They couldn’t go back to the houses. They would have to set up outposts and take turns watching and guarding the perimeter. The water in the foxholes would only get deeper, and the night would be cold.
Alex was almost relieved when the bombardment began again. It meant that the tanks weren’t coming, at least not yet, and probably not until morning. It also meant that he had something to think about, to fear. It took Withers off his mind.
The Germans continued to concentrate on other sectors, the shells not striking close. That was a strange sort of relief. If the shells weren’t hitting here, other men of Easy Company were taking it all the harder. Alex wondered who would be left to fight in the morning.
After a half-hour bombardment, the shells stopped again, and now night was falling. Alex and Howie tried to scoop out more water from their foxhole, but they found the effort pointless, so they sat on their helmets, with their ponchos over their heads. They ate from their cans of rations–their food smelling, tasting like mud–and then they sat in the dark, with the rain making popping sounds as it hit the ponchos. Their feet were in the water, and there was simply nothing to do about that. They didn’t want to be out on the ground if the shells started falling again.
At midnight Alex and Howie took a turn on watch, and even though the job was much more dangerous, Alex was rather glad to be out of the foxhole. He didn’t believe that the Germans would try to make a night attack, not in all this muck, but it was dangerous to make that assumption. Surprise was the most basic element of warfare, and he had been taught time and again that he should never presume that the most obvious things would happen.
As it turned out, the Germans surprised
him in another way. In the middle of the night, when he was back in the foxhole, sitting up but leaning against the dirt and actually dozing off, the shells started to hit again, and this time the guns had returned their aim to the orchard, full force. Alex and Howie didn’t worry about the water now. They got low in the hole and waited as hell opened up around them again. The shells tore up the trees, spattering mud and broken limbs over them. Alex was almost sure his squad would take more casualties this time.
Howie was gasping now, holding onto Alex with both hands. “I can’t do this, Thomas,” he mumbled between rounds. “I’m . . . not going to make it.”
“Can you make it through the night?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Howie. You can last out a few more hours.”
“Okay, but–”
“This is the worst night I’ve ever gone through. If you get through this one, you’ve caught up with the rest of us.”
“But won’t we be here tomorrow night?”
A shell struck, loud and wild, ripping trees. Alex waited a couple of seconds, and then he laughed. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be here tomorrow night.”
But that didn’t work for Howie. He couldn’t laugh. The kid was so young, so small. Alex felt like taking him into his arms and holding him. Instead, he said, “Just hold on. We’ll be all right. I’m going to get you through. Remember? That’s what I promised you.”
Howie nodded. “All right,” he said. He took a long breath, as though trying to draw in courage.
When the sun finally began to come up, after what seemed a dozen nights, not one, Howie ate, and he seemed to be going about his business, but he was silent, turning inward, probably telling himself to hold on, to be as much a man as the others.
Alex was glad for that, but he wasn’t happy to think what might be coming. When he heard tanks, his breath caught. And then he realized that the sound was behind him, and some big Chieftain tanks–British–were clanking down the cobblestone street through the town. They kept coming, a dozen of them, and they pushed on into the fields beyond Veghel. As they approached the distant woods, RAF fighters suddenly swooped out of sky, strafing. Bombers followed.
Alex’s men all climbed out of their foxholes, and they cheered, Howie as loud as any of them. And when Summers drove up, he had even better news. While the Germans were being held at bay by the Brits, the balance of the platoon was being moved out. Reinforcements were rolling down the road, and they would occupy the town.
So the men boarded trucks and headed for Uden. And along the way they questioned, quietly, whether any of the men from their company who had gone ahead would still be alive. But what they found was that all of them were, that they had taken far less fire than the men at Veghel. Alex watched Howie come back to life a little, but he still saw his wariness, as though he were thinking, as all the men probably were, “What’s coming next?”
Chapter 9
Bobbi was at Ishi Aoki’s house on a Sunday afternoon in late October. She was helping Ishi prepare their dinner while Lily and David were playing outside. “So what’s going on between Afton and Sam?” Ishi asked. “They seem to be together an awful lot lately.”
“I don’t know, Ishi. Afton always says it’s just a friendship, but I don’t think Sam sees it that way.”
“Well, I think Sam’s a good man for Afton. I hope she marries him.”
Bobbi was straining water from the rice that Ishi had cooked. There were certain subjects that she still found difficult to talk about with Ishi, but she took a chance now. “Ishi, Afton’s parents are opposed to people of different races getting married. They don’t know about Sam, but Afton’s sure they wouldn’t approve. Over here, maybe no one would think too much about it, but on the mainland it’s different.”
“Most people here don’t approve either, Bobbi. I heard a sister in the ward–a Hawaiian sister–say she thought Sam was making a mistake, that a marriage like that would never last.”
“Do you think maybe it’s best if people marry in their own race?”
Ishi didn’t answer for some time. She was setting bowls on the kitchen table. “I used to think that way,” she finally said. “I thought there were too many differences. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe we should try harder to get rid of the differences.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But there’s no reason for people to separate themselves the way they do. We’re all brothers and sisters.”
Bobbi thought she knew what Ishi was saying, but again she wondered whether she should ask. “Ishi, do you feel like you’re not accepted in the ward?”
“I don’t know. I can’t answer that with a simple yes or no. Most people are very nice to me.”
Bobbi decided she wouldn’t be nosy. If Ishi wanted to leave it at that, she would let it go.
“Bobbi, you probably think you understand Hawaii by now, but there’s more to it than you see on the surface. White people control most of the money, and Hawaiians resent that. And then, lots of Japanese came here at one time. We’re more than a third of all the people in Hawaii now. Native Hawaiians aren’t so happy about that either.”
“But in the Church, everyone gets along well, don’t they?”
“Pretty well.”
“But not well enough?” Bobbi set the rice on the table.
“Well . . . you see how the members group together, according to their own background. That’s not surprising, I guess. And maybe it’s not such a bad thing.”
“But you must feel left out.”
“There just aren’t very many AJAs–Americans of Japanese Ancestry, as we like to call ourselves–in the Waikiki Ward. That makes us feel a little uncomfortable at times.”
“Does the war have something to do with it?”
“Of course, Bobbi.” Ishi walked back to the stove, where she stirred the vegetables she was cooking. Bobbi heard the sizzle, noticed the burst of spicy smells. It was strange to think how much she had once disliked the foods she had discovered in the islands. “No one feels quite the same about anyone who is Japanese, no matter where we live. We’re the enemy.”
“You are not. Brother Hoffer’s family came from Germany. That doesn’t make him an enemy.”
“But that’s not how people feel. When they look at me–or my children–I’m sure they see the pilots who dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor. It’s going to be that way until this war is over–and probably for a long time afterward.”
“But do you notice that kind of attitude even at church?”
“People try harder at church, but they can’t help what they feel.”
“I just don’t understand that, Ishi.”
“Bobbi, be honest with yourself. You do understand.”
Bobbi was suddenly self-conscious. She thought she knew what Ishi was saying, but she didn’t admit anything. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“When you first arrived here, you were uncomfortable around me. I felt that immediately.”
“It was just something new to me.”
“Your brother is a prisoner of war–and I’m one of those nasty people holding him. Isn’t that what you felt?”
“It wasn’t quite like that, Ishi. I’ve just never been around people of different races. My parents are friends with one Japanese family, but I’ve never known them very well.”
“But tell me this. What did you feel when you came to dinner here that first time?”
Neither woman was looking at the other now. Bobbi considered for a time, and then she answered honestly. “I felt awkward, I guess,” she said.
“Now ask yourself why.”
“Ishi, you have to understand, once the war started, I heard nothing but terrible things about the Japanese. The newspapers on the mainland are full of these horrible cartoon drawings, and everyone talks about getting revenge for Pearl Harbor. There’s a lot of hatred. I don’t know whether you know this,
but in Salt Lake, Negroes always sit upstairs in our movie theaters–away
from the whites–and Japanese and even Chinese were told to sit up there with them. I asked my dad about that, and he told me people of different races would rather stay in their own groups. I said, ‘Gee, Dad, I didn’t know Japanese and Chinese and Negroes were all the same race.’”
Ishi laughed. “What did he say to that?”
“I don’t remember. I was in college and starting to think I knew everything–so he was used to my smarting off to him that way. But the thing is, I was curious about it, and I guess I felt there was something wrong with it, but it wasn’t something I’d thought about very much. I’ve never been acquainted with a Negro in my whole life. We had a few Orientals at my high school, but I didn’t know them very well.”
“So how did you feel about coming to Hawaii?”
“I don’t know. I thought about the palm trees and the beaches. I didn’t know how things were here. But on the way over, when I was in San Francisco, I saw this newsreel about the terrible way Japanese soldiers were treating the American prisoners in the Philippines. So when I met you, I didn’t blame you for that, but I didn’t know exactly how to behave either.”
“Bobbi, I’m sorry. This isn’t like me to bring all this up. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”
“No, that’s all right. And I’m not denying that I felt some of those things. But when people get to know each other, all that disappears.”
“That’s exactly what I would like to do, Bobbi. Get to know more people.”
“Then why don’t you go to the ward parties?”
“I don’t know. I always find an excuse,” Ishi said, and she laughed at herself. But then she added, “In church, we leave our cultures behind more easily. At a party, the differences come out. I get restless when the Hawaiians start singing and dancing. I hardly know what to do.”
“Sister Nuanunu said the same thing about me. She said haoles don’t know how to have fun.”
“Haoles do better than AJAs. We can be awfully serious.” Ishi brought the vegetables to the table.
“I’ll call the kids,” Bobbi said.
Ishi put her hand on Bobbi’s arm. “Bobbi, let me say something to you.” Bobbi was surprised to see Ishi’s eyes fill with tears. “I want you to know that with Daniel gone I’m closer to you than anyone. I know I don’t say things–not the way Afton does–but you’re as dear to me as a sister. Not just a sister in the church–but a blood sister. I never know how to tell you that, but it’s what I feel.”
