* * *3Dennison examined the lanky civic tower of the town of Bretten, across the Roer River: he noticed the Teutonic coat-of-arms on its tiled side, the ivy climbing its brick walls. He guessed the tower might be 12th century. The clock face was of bronze and brass. The time was 8:10. Lowering his binoculars, he checked the buildings below the tower, then he studied the expanse of hedgerows between the town and the river."Can we get through those goddamn hedgerows?" Landel shouted."Yes," Dennison yelled.As he raised his binoculars, at 8:12, he saw the tower explode: the disintegration directly inside the lens appalled him: dust burst from the ancient bricks and mortar, the big clock leaned, crumpled, its gears protruded, a hand tore off, brass inlay twisted, ivy rippled and fell. Bronze and brass gears shot upward, outward, pitched down onto roof tops, accompanied by a shower of debris.Dennison lowered his binoculars, feeling that he had seen time destroyed: he said nothing.A series of explosions ripped across the town as the heavy U.S. bombardment got under way: roofs collapsed, walls collapsed, fires broke out, smoke enveloped streets. With another glance at the base of the clock tower, Dennison leaned against his tank and witnessed the destruction as wave after wave of bombers dropped from a mackerel sky. He was architect enough to gauge the losses and realize how costly it would be to reconstruct after such bombings.And the guys in those houses ... had they been born for that kind of death? Where was man's dignity? His sanity? Landel had a broad grin on his face: it said let the whole lousy German country blow up like this!The Nazis have had it coming to them, had it coming to them for years: fucking around with their militarism! Bastard Hitler! Jew killer! Maniac!Landel was sorry the war was drawing to a close.Bretten ... what a sleazy town!He timed their advance, eager to push on and crash his tank against opposition: kill. He wished he could invade Germany at the command of a tank division!Zinc was tightening bolts on the hedge blades: large knives the crew had fixed across the front: without them it was impossible to buck the hedges. The blades gleamed in the bombed sun. Zinc's face shone, clean and fresh: after several days of good food and sleep he appeared rested. The length and toughness of the blades were in contrast to his jockey-built body and boyish face. Helmet on the ground, the wind whipped his hair.Lord, Lord, he said to himself, they're sure as hell wipin' out that pretty town ... listen ... listen. Ah, there goes a rough one. There's another! Jesus! Yet he did not pause to watch.Bolts tight, he opened the tank turret and dropped inside, started the engine and began dickering with the carburetor, adjusting it to a faster, more dependable idle. Swiftly, expertly, he dumped in two quarts of oil--tossing away the empties.Good engine, good V-8, good horses, good wiring.They had twenty-two machines ready for this attack, most of them parked in a ruined dockyard along the Roer: tumbled bricks, fallen beams, smashed glass everywhere: four-by-fours, bent girders, bent pipes, and mauled boats around: a life preserver dangled from a post near Zinc: HEINRICH VARNA was lettered in red.Orville, Zinc and Landel had tank 9: a fifteen ton Lee, measuring twenty by eight, nine feet high at the turret. 9 was tough, battered, lame on the port side. Rough terrain had knocked off some of her grousers. Zinc knew how to nurse the Chrysler engine but it drank excess water and extra oil. Her armament was first rate: her machine guns had been reconditioned and a new 78 cannon had been installed--for Landel.Zinc lit a cigarette under the open turret, feet dangling from the driver's seat.Jesus, god, we ought to be on our way--they don't know how to coordinate nuthin'--them brass. Peeling a stick of gum he chewed it quickly, spitting on the floor, longing for his 18-footer, slipped on the Vermillion River. As neat a boat as any! She could tack round like a frog.With Millie they had sailed across Lake Erie, good ole windy Erie ... sunny weather, lie back, drink beer, toss the cans over ... Millie crawlin' over me, unzipping my zipper ... ah, Millie ... Millie ... good Buckeye kid ...Suppose she's moved away by now: she said she was gonna move ... in her last letter ... job with the county welfare ... what a screwy kid ... beer and more beer ... but she wasn't fat ... now, now do you want to make me pregnant!She liked it when we went to the synagogue ... Isaac, when you get back, sure ... you'll see, it was better to wait till after the war.She'll have my letter pretty soon.Okay, okay ... there's the signal: now, we'll move forward, we'll settle that dumb town, clean it up proper ... okay, I got the signal ... yeah, I've bolted the turret ... okay, Dennison, you okay? Okay, Captain? Okay ...Caterpillar fashion the tanks crawled from the dockyard and headed for a pontoon bridge across the river: radio reported it should be a routine crossing, keep to the center, the artillery will throw in everything for cover.The road leading to the bridge had craters and shelled potholes. Fog appeared.Landel complained bitterly.The bridge wobbled.9 shook the planking violently: Dennison clung to his controls, feeling that the bus might keel over on the port side; the motor went sluggish; treads dragged; a Sherman in front of 9 bent the flooring; swayed, then shot ahead.Say, Dennison thought, that guy's good. Send him to Indianapolis!Waiting for radio communications, he leaned against the seat and wet his lips with his tongue. Crooked springs in the cushion jabbed him and he tried to avoid them by inching to one side. He wanted a drink. He wanted to rush across the bridge, rush through the town, finish. Wasn't this crossing something Napoleonic?Through his periscope he tried to penetrate the smoke that hovered over Bretten: he remembered the pattern of hedgerows and remembered the route they had to follow to knife their way through: the rows worried him: supposing their engine conked.There was a dangerous delay on the bridge, the pontoons fluctuating, exhausts smoking, GI's streaming past on the starboard, jogging by the hundreds. What's the delay, fussed Landel. He roared on the intercom.Carefully, Dennison eased 9 along, working the carburetor gingerly: he edged to the starboard, increasing his speed little by little, fighting for space with the jogging GI's."We'll make it ... we'll get across," he muttered through the phone. "Here we go again! Hang on! Nah, have to cut speed ... have to give those guys a chance ... better run it on the center ... better chance ... won't tilt ... won't tilt...""Slow ... slower," Landel yelled. "Watch it ... watch it!"The bridge had submerged as they approached the town, water sloshed across, brown, crawling with oil slicks.A GI, wearing an orange helmet, gun belted, wigwagged the route into town. Yet water deepened and chunks of wood floated across the pontoons in front of Dennison. He wallowed through a quagmire at the last pontoon; down she dropped to solid ground with a terrific bump; slobbering and smoking she climbed a grade, the hedges to the right.Would the terrain support her weight?Were there minefields?Word had gotten around that the Nazis were to stage a last ditch stand here: SS troops, reserves, god knew what all: the engineers had had ample time to plant mines, there was no doubt about that: earlier Landel had picked up radio warnings: three divisions in the vicinity. Now it was mud, smoke, hedgerows, hedgerows, with red leaves, red hedgerows raked by gunfire.A week or so ago the Corps had lost eight tanks to skillfully laid mines and tank traps.Dennison braked and brought 9 around to avoid a pile of rocks a farmer had heaped up for a boundary."Hedgerow," Landel belted through the phone."Okay!"Does the fool think I'm blind?Slicing through the first was rough: branches and leaves swept over the periscope and viewer, climbed onto the cab, then toppled to one side. The ground held. They climbed toward Bretten. Smoke foamed out of a tree. A shell exploded. Climbing higher, 9 ran into machine gun fire. Dennison snaked the bus, falling, rising, smashing bushes. Leaning forward in his seat he tried to say something to Landel.Landel grabbed the butt of his gun: he had no notion of being caught: if the Nazi gunners raked their underbelly it would not be because he was slow: where were they: camouflaged: over there, higher, behind those bushes ... yes?A tank appeared, off starboard, a Pershing, traveling fast.Zinc detected riflemen behind a hedge: through a slot in the smoke he shot low, retracing, raising the muzzle, screaming his anger as he triggered the gun."You won't get away ... I've got you..." he yelled.9's motor was working hard: she was doing her best at 8 mph, the heat increasing, hitting against the white walls, oozing out the ports, clogging the ceiling: African, German heat. Heat of combat swung the machine.Landel's burst, as Dennison cut through a hedgerow, accounted for men at an anti-tank gun: the men were assembling it, one was rigging the tripod, another hoisting the barrel: gun, knapsacks, rifles, and ammunition spun into the air. Machinegun slugs plowed into a fellow as he attempted to flee. With a half turn, Dennison rolled over the gun crew and crushed men and gun.A shell burst beside 9.Another detonation, and they were in the midst of a barrage, explosive forces yanking at the treads, hammering at the armor plate, slugging mud and gravel against the turret, smoke and acid penetrating inside.The tank rocking, Dennison stopped until the smoke cleared: they stripped to the waist and dumped their shirts on seats and floor. The sky crackled. The sky flamed. Dennison let the engine idle--he felt the pressure of shellfire on his skull, outside and inside his skull.Landel was firing: the recoil of his gun made him snap open his mouth and hang his jaw. The cab reeked of cordite and powder.Move ... advance, Landel signalled.Dennison worked the tank over rough ground, butting, rearing. He beat his hands on his knees to limber them. A shell hole gaped directly in front; he swung his bus expertly. His mind was numb: he was unafraid: he felt he would get Landel and Zinc through. When the tank stalled, the treads circling, circling, Dennison swore shrilly.His hands felt greasy and he rubbed then over his trousers and on the seat cushion.Landel signalled:LeftDennison watched the compass fluctuate, watched the gas gauge, the engine temperature: heat was climbing.Smoke bombs were dropping.Some bastard should bob up with a flame thrower, he told himself. Here he comes from behind that hedge. Look at those infantrymen retreating ... now we'll cross that plowed field ... other M4's ... cross together ... what did they raise here, wheat? Isn't that a horse over there, across the field?As they advanced it was curious how the smoke trapped them and then exposed them. Several houses appeared out of the smoke trap; riflemen fronted one of the houses; others rushed into a small barn; a geyser of earth and smoke replaced the barn.Dennison grinned when the barn disappeared.He observed a grove of elm trees: are we lost? No grove was indicated on the maps! He tried to signal Landel but a plunge of the machine almost pitched him out of his seat. Shellfire sprayed white, like flung salt, over the line of vision.Not on any map!Up front someone was signalling: standing in the path of their tank he waved both arms. An officer? Some Nazi trick, Dennison thought. Then he saw another GI and identified them as Americans. The nearest GI had his helmet squashed over his eyes; stooping, he pointed to the ground. Hands upraised, he signalled stop.Without hesitating he rushed to their bus and beat on a forward port. Landel let him inside."Minefields," the GI screamed."What?" Landel yelled. "Can't hear!""Minefield!" the sergeant yelled."Louder."'The fellow grabbed at Landel's leg pad and scribbled on it:TURN AROUND. STOP OTHERS. USE RADIO. MINEFIELD. SIGNAL OTHERS."No use turning our bus around," Landel shouted."Radio ... the radio," the sergeant shouted."Ok," Landel yelled, reading his lips.Dennison took over the transmitter.They had stopped near a woodland; other tanks grouped around them; the barrage had lifted.It was chilly: the autumn air nipped their nakedness: they huddled behind their machines, talking, urinating, smoking: as soon as they could they donned shirts and jackets: the earth, they discovered, was peppered with apples, exploded from nearby trees--part of the woodland.Zinc picked up a red-yellow apple, bit it, and smiled.Dennison grinned as he bit one."Come on, Captain, have one!" Zinc said."Worms."But he picked up an apple and found it delicious.A crewman from their Corps, a corporal named Jim Moore, ran up, flopping his hands and jerking his head crazily."What the hell's the matter with you?" Dennison shouted.Moore could not hear him, and yelled:"Mine!""What?""Mine ... minefield.""Yeah ... sure ... we know. That's why we're here, Jim. Have an apple!" Jim shuffled over, flopping his arms, coughing, lurching, eyes glazed."He's nuts!" Landel said.His apple was wormy and he threw it down and tried another. Apples ... apples ... we stand around eating apples ... there's some way out of this ...Biting and sucking the apple, he circled his tank, trying to get a lay of the land, looking for other GI's who might have information, instructions. Dennison had climbed inside, and was radioing: perhaps information was being broadcast. By now six machines had lined up along the woodland, some of them using foliage for camouflage.Low flying planes ripped the sky.Another tank approached Dennison and Zinc.A GI's face was scrawled with grime and sweat, his helmet had been ripped; he carried shirt and jacket over his arm--the knuckles of one hand were bloody."Where's the mine?" he bellowed."Dunno," said Zinc."How many tanks we lost?""Where's the mine?""Apple?""What?""Have an apple.""Can't hear ya.""Sit down.""Cigarette?""Had to wait ... dangerous..."Landel appeared, mud on his clothes. Squatting by Zinc, he hollered:"Get in the bus!""Wait?""No, get inside!""Hell no, let's wait here," Zinc objected."All of us inside ... we move!""Where?"Nobody had a chance to hear that directive: a shell exploded: Zinc dropped his apple, picked it up, and cleaned it warily. Landel and Dennison settled onto their seats; the heat clamped around them: leaving the turret open had not cooled the bus.Dennison had stuffed apples into his pockets ... what were they expecting, a signal? Landel unfolded his map, he munched an apple carefully, read his wristwatch, and wiped his face with the back of his hand. Grease streaked his jaw. He thought it must be blood till he stared at his fingernails. Sagged in his seat, Dennison saw him bite the apple, saw him dig grease from under his nails, welcoming this respite.It wasn't so long ago Mother and I strolled about Heidelberg ... we had spent two or three weeks there, boating, climbing, sampling pastries, sight-seeing.Munching his apple he began to despise the tank, began to fling his mind: Landel ... look at him, chewing away on his apple! Damn ass!In Heidelberg they had strolled along the Neckar, boats and bridges, chinks of river between trees and houses.She had sketched a castle that had a heraldic glove chiselled above the door.A girl had waited on him in a shop, a slender girl, very blonde, very blue-eyed: a woman to lie with ...Dreams ...A GI brought Landel a message.He read it and passed it to Dennison.Head West. No minefields."I hope they know what they're doin'!" Dennison yelled.West... he consulted the compass.Dennison warmed the motor and chewed an apple and swung 9 west, west across dry ground, climbing gradually. The treads beat down a hedgerow. The cab was getting hotter so they stripped and climbed and wormed 9 and filed through a woodland and crossed a field. The battle swept around them. Battle without immediate barrage. For Dennison driving became a matter of mechanical movement, goading of muscle, endurance of heat, tolerance of gasoline stink, smell of oil and gun powder ...Dennison was amazed to see a flock of sparrows in a hedgerow.At the top of a slope he saw Jeannette's face.What are you doing there?9 was working toward the port side.He braked.Dead Nazis lay in front, their bodies in a clot of equipment: they were sprawled in a maw of bicycles, smashed machine guns, duffle, rifles, coils of telephone wire, helmets.Dennison remembered that their infantry had fought here yesterday. Last night's rain had soaked the dead men ... their bodies were sinking into the ground, into weeds and grass.They blurred as he jazzed 9.A saddle sloped below the tank and he nosed the bus along it seeing a machine gun emplacement on the next crest, its sandbagged front standing out. Dennison signalled Landel and Landel loaded his gun, swaying, grabbing for handholds, helmet slipping.For a dozen yards the slope was easy going: it seemed to be sod all the way: then the ground leveled to a sort of pasture, oddly green, brilliantly green: vaguely, Dennison tried to figure out why the green was different: his brain was too tired to register. Green snagged at the treads and then he caught the flash of water; before he could swerve, before he could brake, he felt 9 sink.No amount of power budged her.Cleverness at the controls meant nothing: he reversed both treads, tried the port tread, tried the starboard tread, 9 bogged deeper and deeper. They were trapped in a runoff, a swampy catch basin--mud and water under tractionless treads. Sweat poured down Dennison's face and he wiped it from his eyes, scrutinizing Landel, aware now that Landel had been yelling at him as he struggled to extricate 9."God," he groaned, "we're stuck, sure as hell."Stop, Landel signalled.Grabbing a note, Dennison wrote:Motor overheatedLandel scribbled:Don't leave tank. Intercom out.As he read the scrawl, Dennison thought he would rush outside: Landel's grey face and jittery scrawl maddened him; he thought angrily: we can't crawl out of here--we'll die in this hole. Then he recalled the machine gun emplacement above them.He wiped his face--waited.Bullets ripped across 9's cab: they crawled and re-crawled over the armor plating. Battening their ports they checked their ammunition, checked the fan, checked the turret bolts.In a short time Landel returned their gunfire, using all of his skill: he lobbed four single shots, waited.Dennison stumbled to the rear to urinate.He bumped against Zinc who was clinging to his gun, blacked out: their half-naked bodies slapped. Locating their canteen, Dennison passed it to Zinc who drank, canteen tipped up, his eyes shut. Shoving Zinc into the driving seat, he took over his gun.How good to stand up. Yet he had to fight off sleep. Swaying against the machine gun butt he drowsed, trusting Landel, Captain Fred Landel. If the bastards unlimbered an anti-tank gun or hurled grenades or mounted a flame thrower! If!Probably the Nazis were trapped in their own emplacement.Let somebody else wipe them out!Anyhow, 9's beat. Battery weak.Maybe another tank could drag her free.Maybe ... a requiem of shells!Tonight ... what time was it?Tonight was a long way off.He shivered and drowsed. Sleepily, he fingered his automatic, and found its steel warm.... Bretten's bombardment seemed to be going on and on.... The clock tower was still exploding.... His world shifted, perception by perception.... Christ, it had been a tussle, piloting the tank to the Roer River: debris: men and trucks: fog along the river: mental fog: like London fog: walked and walked in the fog: that was in Tunbridge (or was it Tunbridge?): that was the night he had slept with Raymonde: the hearth in her room had a Solomon's seal on each tile: they had talked and talked: warm: warmth of her body: nice little breasts: nice and warm: warm covers: Raymonde very tired: warm ...... Strange--that hammering sound: mortar shells?... Strange, Zinc asleep.... Strange, to be an Ithacan!He woke when a shell rocked the tank. He shouted.He felt inside the stomach of death. When could they crawl out? Another shell whined. His throat tightened. He felt cold and buttoned his shirt and zippered his jacket and licked his lips and listened: was Landel shouting? Was it dark outside? It seemed to him that 9's motor was running. Bending over Zinc, he tested the switches. No, the motor was not running. Zinc was asleep.Fumbling about, reaching for Dennison, Landel pulled him close and yelled:"No ... they'll shoot you down.""You stay ... try the radio ... I get nothing ... stay."The flesh under Landel's eyes was quivering.He realized he could not weather out their rescue: frantically, he clawed at the jacket: an hour, another hour."I'll make it ... get help. Fire my gun!""Hell, they'll cut you down.""No ... they don't return my gunfire ... when I fire ... nothin!""A trick," Dennison warned."No," Landel said"Hell," Dennison yelled.Landel was gone.Dennison lined up the emplacement, arching and depressing the gun accurately: there was no return fire when he fired. He fired again. Five minutes. Ten. No return fire.Perhaps Landel had made it by now.Dennison eased into the seat, wondering about Zinc.He was still asleep; his sleeping face was repulsive; his warped body, his jockey body, was repulsive.Eyes on the emplacement, he studied its arrangement of sandbags, ripped off branches, wilted and shredded leaves: he estimated that four or five men had done the job: why had they selected this location? The emplacement looked old, a week, a month. Some sort of rear guard. They could have depleted their stock of ammunition. They could have retreated.He slept.Zinc woke.He fished in his pocket for an apple and ate it. Somewhere they had K-rations on board. Without lighting the cab (it was dark now), he brought out the rations and the canteen. They ate and slept. Fired guns and ate. Cheese, K, chocolate bars. Without tasting anything they ate everything. The radio was out because the battery was low. Water was oozing over the floor: the bus had sunk that far. They had to sit with their shoes on the dash or on the walls of the tank. As their hearing returned to normal they talked a little. It seemed to them that the radium hands of the chronometer were glued to the dial.There was no shelling except in the distance.It was colder.Raising his jacket collar, Zinc thought of home: home and steam radiators, his dad smoking his pipe, the neighbor kids ... yeah, they poked fun at my hair ... Red ... Red ... banter across his dad's grocery counter ... why you little Jew pissant, how the hell are you? Heah, runt, reach me a box of saltine crackers ... no not that size ... the giant one....At school they pestered him, name, age, color of hair ... His dad had said, over and over, get yourself a job, boy, the sooner the better. Life had been stupid until Millie came along, Millie and his boat. Millie wouldn't fail him: her letters (he tapped his pocket), kept him going.Eyes on his machine gun slot, he mouthed chocolate and it adhered to his teeth and stuck between them and clotted his palate (the bar had threads on it from his pocket); he tongued the piece down with a sticky tongue.He imagined himself thumbing a magazine, the fold-out of a naked girl: someday, soon, he'd have time to read the Sunday comics; someday he'd find a 32-footer in the classifieds, Buick engine, cabin good condition, sleeps 4, galley, 2-way radio--terms ... a price he could afford ... someday he'd open a deli and make damn good money.Somehow the lull in the shelling became threatening: it was ugly, heavy, a part of the armor plate, part of the menace of the emplacement.Dennison hunched his legs, unzippered his trousers, and picked lice from among his hairs. He searched with the help of his flash. On his belly the engine scar seemed to have a thicker scab; he tested the scab and scratched it soothingly.He wanted to masturbate but something prevented him, perhaps the eye of the compass. He swayed, let himself sag, when he shoved back against the cushion the bent spring bothered him.Apple cores floated on the water.Change, that was it: war was change, if nothing else, the slap of rain, slug of wind, whistle of death. Fear had its changes too. Fear was possessive. Then change was possessive. Change ... you ate and slept and that was change.Your scrotum shrank between your legs. Another change. Your genitals crawled inside your body. Your penis crawled in. Sometimes shellfire drove them in, penis and scrotum.Sanctuary.Abruptly, clearly, Jeannette spoke to him: "Orv, don't stare at the floor like that ... turn out your flash ... you've got to get out of that bus ... crawl out ... tell Zinc ... both of you have to leave ... do something about getting out ... get up..."He dragged himself to the engine and leaned against it.Can't stay here ... move!Eyes to the periscope he submerged: below surface he observed his mother painting a watercolor, a stand of trees along the Nile, brilliant green against brilliant sun on the river: The torpedo raced toward Persepolis, sand, Persian sand, sun, flies, flies on the ruined city, flies in the shah's palace: another ruin to the starboard: flies on our food: the dune moved: this was Notre Dame, its buttresses bombed, water high along the apse: wasn't that bell from Claude Debussy's music?Water had flooded the Louvre, or was it the bombings that had wrecked the building? Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa lay on the floor. Gold was washing over the frame: if he hurried he might save the painting. Save? How?Hunkered over, cold, he felt he had been isolated for years: everywhere was the impenetrable: dazed, he sagged against the wall; then, peering out, he realized the sky was a flame above the emplacement. So Bretten was burning. Shelling grew distinct. Burning clouds seemed to be approaching.Dennison regarded the sand bags for a long time."They're gone," he said to Zinc, hand on his shoulder."There's nobody up there. See. Look. Nothing. See in the light from the sky, nothing. Landel ran for it. He got away. Come on ... let's get out of this mess..."Through wavering light from the town and the clouds he thought he saw somebody stumbling toward 9."Zinc, look, somebody's coming.""Where?""It's Landel."They waited, waited.It was nobody and Zinc sank into pain. Dennison lit his flash and fumbled about for their canteen. Shaking its near-emptiness, he drank, then pushed it at Zinc, who drained it."Bah, it tastes bad.""Let's go.""Where?" Zinc asked."Look at the sky ... there's light enough for us to see ... Bretten's done for...""What about Landel?" Zinc asked."Hell with him!""Then, let's go."He found his flash; the canteen was floating on the tank floor, cap off; Dennison unbolted the turret; as he spun a bolt he felt for his automatic; leaning down he yelled at Zinc:"Have we any grenades?""No grenades."Outside, in the protection of the tank, they saw that their shovels were still wired to the cab. They thought of putting the bus in action. Could be safer than wandering. What about the battery? Gas but not enough juice. Splashing in water they walked a few steps."Hopeless," said Dennison."Leave the damn thing."Crewmen appeared--stepped out of the dark, the sky coloration on their helmets: there appeared to be eight or ten, plastered with mud, sopping, their flashlights hooded. A guy loosened his helmet strap and said:"I'm Captain Kernie. You two alone?""Bogged down ... our bus...""No battery power," said Dennison."Gas?""Yeah, we lost two tanks ... nearby ... hey, Walt, get a battery ... get Mack to help you ... bring a battery ... we'll put this bus back in action...""Captain went for help, hours ago," Dennison said."What about the machine gun emplacement?" Zinc asked."My guys wiped it out ... crew's dead," said Kernie."Good.""There's timber ... logs ... by the woods ... We'll put your bus on rollers ... have her out in no time."Zinc unwired a shovel."We're in luck," said Dennison mournfully.Light crept over Kernie's face, then face and light went. His men placed scraps, logs, branches, replaced the battery, the engine fired. Cab light went on. Zinc reloaded his gun--sleep at his elbows.9 backfired, rocked, rolled, apple cores bobbed on the floor, floated toward the rear. Easing the bus forward, on a rise, the water began to drain. Someone in Kernie's gang banged on the driving port.Dennison worked her to the starboard, slipping, slipping; but she began to climb, stuck, climbed. With a wild teetering the treads grabbed and rolled away, rolled steadily downhill, to solid ground. Kernie and his crewmen had melted away.Zinc stood beside Dennison.He mopped the periscope with a rag.In the cab light, dial light, they smiled at each other.The down terrain held tough: the land had been tilled but was sodded: 9 rolled through a maze of vineyards and truck gardens. When a hedgerow blocked their way, Dennison sliced through it, slewing. He followed the remains of a paved road. Smoke mushroomed. Instinctively, he wobbled the tank. A shell hole gaped. Then another. A shell careened, spraying shrapnel. The cushion crushed against Dennison's testicles and pain tore through his body and magnified the roar of the engine and the treads. Nauseated, he could not see: blobs shook in his brain. Bending over, he closed the ignition.A shell threw dirt and rocks onto 9.Mouth open, both waited, clinging to their seats.Another shell whined, then became a rumble.His will drained from him: the nerves in his arms and hands ached: he tried to talk to himself as earth spouted over the port side, another shell at the rear. Something rattled and clanged. Light spat: every aperture admitted flame: it glazed their hands, their faces, the walls, the instruments. Shrapnel pounded blows.Recoiling, Zinc's brain slid in on itself, whimpering, grimacing like a monkey, something Neanderthalic: he doubled up on the floor by the engine, head on his arms, legs jerking: death was here!Dennison jabbed his hands into his stomach: Christ, not to vomit. Opening his mouth over and over, he tried to lessen the concussions.Why can't it stop? Stop ... yes ... this muck ... those arms in the sand, those flies on Robinson's arms ... dust, all that heat, arms, hands, wrists, arms ... we got away ... we got away ... got to get away from this ... I'm comin, back, Jean ... I'm going mad, Chuck and I."No, Zinc, I'm all right. Okay, the shelling's stopped ... I'll drive ... we'll make it out of this!"What, what was this?It was Paris ... and they were stripping her in the street, the beautiful Princesse de Lamballe ... they were hacking off her breasts ... they were hacking off her legs ... Do you speak French? May I help you, mademoiselle? Long live the guillotine!Vive la révolution!Dennison saw his dad lying on the floor of his little Renault: he was seriously wounded: nobody was helping him: his tank lay on its side.Dennison was urinating on the floor.He would not drive the tank again: he would refuse to drive any tank: what could they do? They could do their damnedest and he would go AWOL. But now, now the shelling had stopped, just cut itself off, leaving a ditch of silence.He tried to figure out the cessation: it seemed to him it was his duty to figure it out: he must unravel enigmas, supply answers. That was what life was for.The bent springs in the cushion bored into his back and he leaned forward and wet his lips with his tongue. Fingers and arms trembling, he cupped his head in his hands, closed his eyes.Miraculously--he felt he was a boy, playing the game he used to play, playing soldiers on the living room floor: he had his troop in line and rolled something against them and they reeled and fell, the entire line fell.And something else: the half-frozen needle of a phonograph was spinning music for their skating on Beebe Lake, light-hearted music. The chimes of the library tower struck ten o'clock in solemn notes. A girl was skating with him, Cathy Bowers: her slip-on sweater hugged her, they hugged each other, circling the lake quickly, their skates scraping softly.But it was over ...The barrage was over; yet he could not stir; he began to count the minutes on the chronometer; the greenish face of the chronometer was trying to say something; he inched forward a little, inched more, pushed the brake lever. Presently, he considered all of the dials:Got to check, got to see where the shell hit us, got to estimate ... estimate the damage ... got to climb out ... put on my flash ... climb ...He signalled Zinc with his flash; Zinc responded; together they left the bus, the air acrid with smoke, as if burned in a filthy oven, raw with slugged mud.At the bow, with dimmed lights, they stooped over the starboard tread. Then the port tread. Plates had been torn out and the entire tread had been folded back like a strip of hide: there was no power there: they could do nothing to restore mobility.Dennison motioned Zinc inside the cab."I'll destroy our maps," he said."What? Couldn't hear you."He could not repeat himself.Risking interior lights, he gathered the maps, ripped them into shreds, tramped them underfoot. Thinking of clips for his automatic he shoved them into his pocket. His helmet. Jacket. Was that all? No canteen? No thermos? No apples?"Okay," he said."The ammunition," Zinc yelled."Leave it.""Not much ... outside."He hurled his belts; Dennison threw out Landel's shells; the floor was a mess of sludge and they slipped as they worked."Put out the lights.""Lights out."Behind the bus they crouched down for cigarettes: as Zinc lit his fag something expanded inside him: a vague, battered sense of freedom: freedom? He wasn't sure what kind it might be. He sucked in smoke, looked up: something was there?Dennison felt no loss: he had had enough of 9: enough, enough, that thought continued as they slogged down a slope: he was sorry for his Isaac Jacobs, so small, so vulnerable: he led him across barren fields, toward the Roer, expecting shellfire, expecting death.It was a long way to the Roer River, black-walking. They had to avoid corpses, had to avoid barbed wire, shell holes: their dimmed lights were sometimes useless. They thought they remembered a farm house and argued about it, then stumbled on, uncertain. Seeing lights they became more cautious, stopping, waiting, listening. MP's challenged them, and one of them acted as guide to the remnants of their division.Men from the Corps had bedded down in a barn; they might be crowded there; somebody suggested the country church: there was room at the rear: shellfire had blasted the small, gothic thing: its altar was a contrivance of boards and tarp and cross. They entered through a gaping wall. Windows of antique glass remained: blue, rose, yellow, mauve against the night. Both stopped to see leaded glass on bits of steel.Dennison recognized Landel, woebegone on a pew, his head and neck bandaged, face drawn, hand to his mouth, his beard peppered with grey. A medic was adjusting his neck bandage, talking.Dennison had hoped Landel was dead.He refrained from speaking to him: motionless, wanting to sit or lie down, he rubbed his hands over his jacket, unsteady, hating his grime: he smelt his own stench: he craved a drink. Zinc, too, hesitated, ready to buckle from fatigue.GI's sprawled on pews, lay in the aisles, sat on the altar platform: they were sleeping, eating, talking, smoking, bedding down. The beautiful window had died. Coleman lanterns sputtered on tables, pews, ledges. Dennison and Zinc headed for the altar where there seemed to be space to lie down. Before they could reach it, Fred Landel saw them, approached them."Hey, you guys!" he shouted, his neck injury paining him. "What's eating you? How'd you make out?"Zinc faced about, without a word, helmetless, his filthy face and clothes a little dirtier than most of the others.Dennison looked at Landel scornfully.Landel's eyes were bloodshot; he, too, was filthy, mud-spattered; he raised an arm, stopped, resentful of his crewmen, aware, by their attitudes, they had marked him off."Couldn't find help ... shrapnel hit me..." Why should I make excuses: can't they see? "What happened to 9?""Tank's done for," Dennison yelled."You guys just walk off and leave it?""Naw, we put it in mothballs!" Zinc cracked.Landel took a long look at him."Shell hit us ... we lost a tread," said Dennison."Lost a tread," Zinc repeated, smiling, knowing that sleep was going to knock him out at any moment."I'll get us another machine," Landel yelled.Pain was flashing through his head; he walked to a pew and sank down on it, moaning. Far off, he heard Dennison say something about getting washed, getting something to eat, Landel wasn't sure.Okay ... okay ... am I crackin' up? There were slits in the floor, cracks, slits ... a cockroach was busy ... there had been swarms of cockroaches in Panama, cockroaches, fever, heat. Arm hooked over his eyes, lying on the pew, he sank into a fitful sleep.Dennison and Zinc found a wash basin and some soap, and then ate, ate without exchanging a word, nine of them at a table made out of a door, an army cook doling grub: the men humped over their food, jaws mechanical: stew ... canned peaches ... bread ... coffee.Dennison hoped that food would stop a cramp in his belly. His eyes fixed on a fork: it seemed to him that the tines were moving, the handle was forming a half circle. Something peeled off in his mind: he felt he was at home: the fork had a "D" on it: Mama was humming in the kitchen: there were candles on their dining table: he felt about in his pocket for a pack of matches to light them.More GI's jammed the church, most of them yammering for food."Jesus Chriz ... if it ain't Dennison! Hiya!""Hi, Pete ... Hi, Vic ... ,"Pete and Vic were tankmen out of Sherman 446, grizzled, smiling, punch drunk; they had participated in attacks with Dennison, always helpful: both were New Yorkers, Vic had been a physics major at NYU, Pete was a cutter, in a suit shop, in Harlem."How did you guys make out?" Pete asked."We lost our bus.""9?""Yeah." Dennison was biting a section of a peach."What's news about the minefield?" Zinc asked."We lost twenty-three," said Vic, squeezing himself in at the table."Twenty-three tanks?" yelled Dennison."Twenty-three men," Vic said. "Wounded ... dead ... don't know how many..." Elbows on the table he covered his face with his hands. Near him a pot of stew was puffing."It's been a hell of a day!" said Pete, standing behind Dennison. "They had their minefield planned ... they know they're licked but they make us fight on and on. Dumb. All that waste of life." He picked his nose mournfully, his bleary eyes on the crowded church, the milling GI's, the men at the door-table."Bretten's ours," said a lieutenant at the table. "We took it a couple hours ago.""Will there be street fighting?" someone asked."I don't know.""Jus' lemme sleep," said Zinc, liking his cup of coffee. God, it smelled good."The Germans are burning their towns as they retreat," someone said."We've got them on the run!" said Vic.Vic and Pete ate, others left the table, an officer was asleep over his food; medics sat down, complaining of lack of supplies.Dennison and Zinc bedded down on hay and straw, a light from a Coleman somewhere in the distance, Red Cross men aiding the wounded, a GI on guard, in case of fire. Soon every sag in the hay and straw slept a man. A sergeant had his bazooka beside him. Someone, screwed up in his fatigues, curled up tight as a ball, had a puppy in his arms.There was no such thing as a peaceful interval: men came and went throughout the night: a wounded man died: a patrol was lugged in on a stretcher: doctors whispered and hovered: toward morning there was a lull and during that lull water began to spread throughout the church. Someone thought it was the rain ... but it was not raining. The fire guard saw straw drifting on the water, then he observed a man's boot floating by: getting up he splashed about, mumbling, asking questions, mumbling:"Lie still over there ... I'll find out what's wrong ... no, it ain't rainin' ... maybe it poured somewhere nearby ... sure a lot a water comin' in from somewhere..."With his flash he waded outside: water had inundated the yard in front of the church and it seemed to be inches deep: as the guard stood on the lowest step a GI splashed by, with a lantern, rifle crooked in his arm."Heh, what's up?""River's flooding," the GI bellowed.Someone with a racking cough warned the guard the Roer was rising rapidly: Nazi's are flooding us out. Inside the church the guard began waking men, asking everyone to spread the word: already the water was ankle deep. The wounded had to be shifted at once. Lights and flashlights took over. All of the pews had water around them.The general hubbub woke Dennison."We're being flooded out," someone explained.Dennison woke Zinc.Grabbing his shoes and jacket, he scrambled higher on the pile of straw and hay; putting on his shoes he hollered at the men around him."Where do we go?""Outside.""What for?""Everybody out!""Almost dawn.""Yeah, gettin' light."Dennison spotted Landel and waded across flooded straw to wake him: he woke with a groan and grabbed at his head and neck."We're being flooded ... it's the Nazis ... they've opened steel flood gates up the river ... the Roer's flooding ... it's on the radio," Dennison shouted.Icy water eddied about Landel's pew where other men lay: the swift moving water carried straw, hay, a man's jacket, wood chips, towels, bandages."Too many flashlights!" somebody yelled."Douse the lights!""Give a guy a chance!""There's a hill behind the church ... everybody's going there!"Men were evacuating GI's on stretchers.Outside, it was cold but windless, the stars were numerous around a new moon. A jeep soused through the rising flood, its black-out lights weak. Shelling had resumed but it was in the distance. Lights flickered behind the ruined church: at the rear of the building a truck was loading wounded.Dennison returned to the church to aid a wounded youngster who had a serious stomach laceration: he got him a new blanket, water, and found him an orderly ..." ... got hit at a minefield ... got me bad ... Eeee ... not hard, Doc. Not so hard, like ... Eeee..."The orderly very abrupt, very savage, told the tanker to shut up, lie down.The fellow stared at Dennison and then at the medic: he stared beardedly at the ceiling as the doctor gave him an injection: he had the face of someone who had suffered malnutrition most of his life."See if you can get him into a truck or ambulance," the doctor suggested, limping off through the icy water.Dennison secured stretcher bearers.Landel had disappeared. Zinc was nowhere. Someone squawked a walkie-talkie and the two-way sputtering began as officers conferred by the tarpaulined altar, water already at the steps; all lights had dimmed; it was almost day.Going outside to piss, Dennison heard a puppy whimpering; at first he could not see it, then there it was, at his feet, padding through muck. Lifting it, he recognized it as the stray the officer had been holding. The collie pup's belly and paws were cold; it cried and snuggled; Dennison popped it underneath his jacket. He was comforting it when Zinc tapped him on the arm." ... Radio says that sluice gates on the Roer were opened during the night ... our whole area is flooded ... hell ... You an' me an' Landel are to transport wounded guys in a Lee." Zinc was playing with the pup's ears. "Where'd you pick up this lil guy?""Here ... in the water.""Whatcha gonna do with him?""Stash him in the church ... leave him...""The river's a mile or two wide in places," Zinc said."Do you know where the tank is--the one we're to use?""Sure ... I know.""Let's go," Dennison said. Reentering the church, he placed the pup on a pew. "Gotta go, old boy ... gotta go ... just stay there and yelp."A lingering glance at the antique windows, then he followed Zinc toward the hill behind the church: a ditch drenched them to the knees: swearing, they floundered ahead, past a group of tanks, to the Lee, higher on the slope, out of the menacing flood water."That's her!" Zinc yelled."Okay."Fred Landel was inside, in the driver's seat, warming the motor: the cab was jammed with wounded, some standing, leaning against walls, some on the floor, huddled against each other."Where do we go?" Dennison asked Landel, mouth to his ear."You drive!" said Landel. "We go to Gex ... I have the map ... I know the route ... take a long look at those red lines; let's pull out of this goddamn place ... lights out ... we leave the wounded at a Red Cross station ... (he jabbed the map with his forefinger) ... I'll let you know ... sit down ... check the dials ... lights out ... this bus has had it rough..."As they got rolling, the sunlight was filtering, but the clouds were thick and seemed on the verge of blanketing the sun. Dennison drove carefully, trying to familiarize himself with the Lee: he had piloted others but this one was different and he wanted to work out any differences; the engine power, the tread maneuverability, gear shift, traction, carburetion? He had tried to memorize the route and compelled his mind to re-establish landmarks.God, it was raining!Rain and more mud, lousy traction, anything to foul us up! The Lee was climbing a slope, doing well: no flooding here. Beyond this slope there was supposed to be a road; he was to follow that paved road, toward Gex. Yeah, there it was ... a road, trees, fences, farms in the distance."You'll have to help me," a fellow screamed, grabbing at Dennison's leg. "It's my knee ... shrapnel ... Aaah-hhh!" Pain-sobs gushed out of him as he pawed at Dennison. Dennison slowed and stopped the tank."Let me see your knee," he yelled.His kneecap was dangling, bleeding: Dennison and Landel could do no more than press it into position, re-bandage. Dennison crouched beside him, using his flashlight: again and again he was aware of leaves, leaves and sunlight: he was not sure where. The GI was sobbing.A Red Cross official beat on the forward door; Landel admitted him; somehow he managed to find room, his face rain streaked, satchel in his arms, a bayou figure: the gaze fixed on some everglade of the mind.Okay, Landel signalled.Okay.Landel felt the jolting of the bus: pain, from his neck wound, was beating through him."Where?" the Red Cross man asked."Gex."The Lee crawled by a winery, a bombed complex, dinosaur ribs of buildings, passed rows of barrels, tall grass waving in the rain: some of the barrels were moulded: the road curved in a long curve; there, at the apex of the curve, was the Red Cross station, aerial designation and the familiar flag. No one appeared.An ambulance had a jack under its differential.Landel, Zinc and Dennison assisted the wounded; they climbed out; Landel climbed back into heat, began checking their armament, began arming his gun.Dennison glared numbly at a strip of black sky as he drove away. Zinc fussed about with his gun, pleased that he had space to move around. Landel, making every effort to shake his pain, hanging to the sides of his seat, was remembering Panama, nights of pleasantry, dancing,Cuba Libres, marimbas, time, that was the time, time for a cigarette, time for a drink.A shell boomed in front.Widening his ports, Dennison observed a Sherman ejecting shoelaces of black smoke; as he drew nearer flames spouted and enveloped the tank completely.Go on, came the signal.Dennison leaned back in his seat and wet his lips with his tongue ... destroy ... shall we destroy?I suppose there's a lot of tall grass in Wisconsin.She wants ...The terrain is solid ... no road ... fields ... Gex is a mile or so in front ... the radio was crackling ... Landel at the dials ... the Lee rolled and rolled again ... they passed under trees ... they passed a giant barn with two cows visible in a stall ... there were no hedgerows ... they passed a country school ... they passed a row of burning homes and rolled into Gex ...Gex ... Gex ... what about the guys who had burned to death in that Sherman?Gex ...God, it was raining hard.An awkward four-legged windmill was batting at the rain."Gex, Gex!" exclaimed Landel, and closed his eyes and hung on, worried that the gas indicator was so low.Gex was smoke and paved streets and ravaged buildings, a man fleeing, a gunnysack over his shoulder. Girders jabbed out of ripped apartments. Burning beams smoked in cottages. In a hotel fire escapes were twisted. Again more smoke ...A squad of riflemen sniped from a smashed grocery."Get them," Landel ordered.Their guns began to pound and Dennison wormed his bus closer and closer to the grocery: the bow crushed its windows and wall: the bow seemed to be raiding for meat and potatoes. Gunfire shredded the glass counters. Machinegun bullets cut down the store's sign: it fell. Bullets tore into a refrigerator.No riflemen escaped.A narrow street, trees along one side ...Dennison readbakeryandmeat marketand wondered when he would sidle up to a counter and order a loaf of whole wheat..."four center-cut pork chops." And in the coffee shop, how about liverwurst and beer?What a way to enter a town! Gex: who wanted Gex? What would the USA do with Gex? Right now, a beefsteak was worth more!"Who's that guy?" he yelled on the intercom.A helmeted GI blocked a doorway in a ruined building and flagged the tank; other GI's spewed from an aperture left by a shell; Dennison hesitated to stop the Lee under the riddled wall, yet he obeyed.Inside de-ribbed apartments he saw a fireplace, book shelves, shoes on a carpeted floor, clothes on wardrobe hangers, a toilet ... on a brass plate: Dr. Horace Kreutger,Child Specialist. A church dome glistened in a sewage of light.The helmeted GI in the doorway was signalling ...Starboard ... sharpshooters ... balcony ... port.Dennison sent the bus to the port, crawled over garbage in an alley, saw a piece of sky, and then the sharpshooters on a grilled balcony.Zinc fired and a fellow sagged to his knee, another dropped his rifle on the balcony floor, another began dragging a wounded comrade, both crawling on hands and knees: the wounded man seemed to be shouting: his dentures popped from his mouth, bounced and smashed in the street. Landel killed the remaining pair.
* * *
3
Dennison examined the lanky civic tower of the town of Bretten, across the Roer River: he noticed the Teutonic coat-of-arms on its tiled side, the ivy climbing its brick walls. He guessed the tower might be 12th century. The clock face was of bronze and brass. The time was 8:10. Lowering his binoculars, he checked the buildings below the tower, then he studied the expanse of hedgerows between the town and the river.
"Can we get through those goddamn hedgerows?" Landel shouted.
"Yes," Dennison yelled.
As he raised his binoculars, at 8:12, he saw the tower explode: the disintegration directly inside the lens appalled him: dust burst from the ancient bricks and mortar, the big clock leaned, crumpled, its gears protruded, a hand tore off, brass inlay twisted, ivy rippled and fell. Bronze and brass gears shot upward, outward, pitched down onto roof tops, accompanied by a shower of debris.
Dennison lowered his binoculars, feeling that he had seen time destroyed: he said nothing.
A series of explosions ripped across the town as the heavy U.S. bombardment got under way: roofs collapsed, walls collapsed, fires broke out, smoke enveloped streets. With another glance at the base of the clock tower, Dennison leaned against his tank and witnessed the destruction as wave after wave of bombers dropped from a mackerel sky. He was architect enough to gauge the losses and realize how costly it would be to reconstruct after such bombings.
And the guys in those houses ... had they been born for that kind of death? Where was man's dignity? His sanity? Landel had a broad grin on his face: it said let the whole lousy German country blow up like this!
The Nazis have had it coming to them, had it coming to them for years: fucking around with their militarism! Bastard Hitler! Jew killer! Maniac!
Landel was sorry the war was drawing to a close.
Bretten ... what a sleazy town!
He timed their advance, eager to push on and crash his tank against opposition: kill. He wished he could invade Germany at the command of a tank division!
Zinc was tightening bolts on the hedge blades: large knives the crew had fixed across the front: without them it was impossible to buck the hedges. The blades gleamed in the bombed sun. Zinc's face shone, clean and fresh: after several days of good food and sleep he appeared rested. The length and toughness of the blades were in contrast to his jockey-built body and boyish face. Helmet on the ground, the wind whipped his hair.
Lord, Lord, he said to himself, they're sure as hell wipin' out that pretty town ... listen ... listen. Ah, there goes a rough one. There's another! Jesus! Yet he did not pause to watch.
Bolts tight, he opened the tank turret and dropped inside, started the engine and began dickering with the carburetor, adjusting it to a faster, more dependable idle. Swiftly, expertly, he dumped in two quarts of oil--tossing away the empties.
Good engine, good V-8, good horses, good wiring.
They had twenty-two machines ready for this attack, most of them parked in a ruined dockyard along the Roer: tumbled bricks, fallen beams, smashed glass everywhere: four-by-fours, bent girders, bent pipes, and mauled boats around: a life preserver dangled from a post near Zinc: HEINRICH VARNA was lettered in red.
Orville, Zinc and Landel had tank 9: a fifteen ton Lee, measuring twenty by eight, nine feet high at the turret. 9 was tough, battered, lame on the port side. Rough terrain had knocked off some of her grousers. Zinc knew how to nurse the Chrysler engine but it drank excess water and extra oil. Her armament was first rate: her machine guns had been reconditioned and a new 78 cannon had been installed--for Landel.
Zinc lit a cigarette under the open turret, feet dangling from the driver's seat.
Jesus, god, we ought to be on our way--they don't know how to coordinate nuthin'--them brass. Peeling a stick of gum he chewed it quickly, spitting on the floor, longing for his 18-footer, slipped on the Vermillion River. As neat a boat as any! She could tack round like a frog.
With Millie they had sailed across Lake Erie, good ole windy Erie ... sunny weather, lie back, drink beer, toss the cans over ... Millie crawlin' over me, unzipping my zipper ... ah, Millie ... Millie ... good Buckeye kid ...
Suppose she's moved away by now: she said she was gonna move ... in her last letter ... job with the county welfare ... what a screwy kid ... beer and more beer ... but she wasn't fat ... now, now do you want to make me pregnant!
She liked it when we went to the synagogue ... Isaac, when you get back, sure ... you'll see, it was better to wait till after the war.
She'll have my letter pretty soon.
Okay, okay ... there's the signal: now, we'll move forward, we'll settle that dumb town, clean it up proper ... okay, I got the signal ... yeah, I've bolted the turret ... okay, Dennison, you okay? Okay, Captain? Okay ...
Caterpillar fashion the tanks crawled from the dockyard and headed for a pontoon bridge across the river: radio reported it should be a routine crossing, keep to the center, the artillery will throw in everything for cover.
The road leading to the bridge had craters and shelled potholes. Fog appeared.
Landel complained bitterly.
The bridge wobbled.
9 shook the planking violently: Dennison clung to his controls, feeling that the bus might keel over on the port side; the motor went sluggish; treads dragged; a Sherman in front of 9 bent the flooring; swayed, then shot ahead.
Say, Dennison thought, that guy's good. Send him to Indianapolis!
Waiting for radio communications, he leaned against the seat and wet his lips with his tongue. Crooked springs in the cushion jabbed him and he tried to avoid them by inching to one side. He wanted a drink. He wanted to rush across the bridge, rush through the town, finish. Wasn't this crossing something Napoleonic?
Through his periscope he tried to penetrate the smoke that hovered over Bretten: he remembered the pattern of hedgerows and remembered the route they had to follow to knife their way through: the rows worried him: supposing their engine conked.
There was a dangerous delay on the bridge, the pontoons fluctuating, exhausts smoking, GI's streaming past on the starboard, jogging by the hundreds. What's the delay, fussed Landel. He roared on the intercom.
Carefully, Dennison eased 9 along, working the carburetor gingerly: he edged to the starboard, increasing his speed little by little, fighting for space with the jogging GI's.
"We'll make it ... we'll get across," he muttered through the phone. "Here we go again! Hang on! Nah, have to cut speed ... have to give those guys a chance ... better run it on the center ... better chance ... won't tilt ... won't tilt..."
"Slow ... slower," Landel yelled. "Watch it ... watch it!"
The bridge had submerged as they approached the town, water sloshed across, brown, crawling with oil slicks.
A GI, wearing an orange helmet, gun belted, wigwagged the route into town. Yet water deepened and chunks of wood floated across the pontoons in front of Dennison. He wallowed through a quagmire at the last pontoon; down she dropped to solid ground with a terrific bump; slobbering and smoking she climbed a grade, the hedges to the right.
Would the terrain support her weight?
Were there minefields?
Word had gotten around that the Nazis were to stage a last ditch stand here: SS troops, reserves, god knew what all: the engineers had had ample time to plant mines, there was no doubt about that: earlier Landel had picked up radio warnings: three divisions in the vicinity. Now it was mud, smoke, hedgerows, hedgerows, with red leaves, red hedgerows raked by gunfire.
A week or so ago the Corps had lost eight tanks to skillfully laid mines and tank traps.
Dennison braked and brought 9 around to avoid a pile of rocks a farmer had heaped up for a boundary.
"Hedgerow," Landel belted through the phone.
"Okay!"
Does the fool think I'm blind?
Slicing through the first was rough: branches and leaves swept over the periscope and viewer, climbed onto the cab, then toppled to one side. The ground held. They climbed toward Bretten. Smoke foamed out of a tree. A shell exploded. Climbing higher, 9 ran into machine gun fire. Dennison snaked the bus, falling, rising, smashing bushes. Leaning forward in his seat he tried to say something to Landel.
Landel grabbed the butt of his gun: he had no notion of being caught: if the Nazi gunners raked their underbelly it would not be because he was slow: where were they: camouflaged: over there, higher, behind those bushes ... yes?
A tank appeared, off starboard, a Pershing, traveling fast.
Zinc detected riflemen behind a hedge: through a slot in the smoke he shot low, retracing, raising the muzzle, screaming his anger as he triggered the gun.
"You won't get away ... I've got you..." he yelled.
9's motor was working hard: she was doing her best at 8 mph, the heat increasing, hitting against the white walls, oozing out the ports, clogging the ceiling: African, German heat. Heat of combat swung the machine.
Landel's burst, as Dennison cut through a hedgerow, accounted for men at an anti-tank gun: the men were assembling it, one was rigging the tripod, another hoisting the barrel: gun, knapsacks, rifles, and ammunition spun into the air. Machinegun slugs plowed into a fellow as he attempted to flee. With a half turn, Dennison rolled over the gun crew and crushed men and gun.
A shell burst beside 9.
Another detonation, and they were in the midst of a barrage, explosive forces yanking at the treads, hammering at the armor plate, slugging mud and gravel against the turret, smoke and acid penetrating inside.
The tank rocking, Dennison stopped until the smoke cleared: they stripped to the waist and dumped their shirts on seats and floor. The sky crackled. The sky flamed. Dennison let the engine idle--he felt the pressure of shellfire on his skull, outside and inside his skull.
Landel was firing: the recoil of his gun made him snap open his mouth and hang his jaw. The cab reeked of cordite and powder.
Move ... advance, Landel signalled.
Dennison worked the tank over rough ground, butting, rearing. He beat his hands on his knees to limber them. A shell hole gaped directly in front; he swung his bus expertly. His mind was numb: he was unafraid: he felt he would get Landel and Zinc through. When the tank stalled, the treads circling, circling, Dennison swore shrilly.
His hands felt greasy and he rubbed then over his trousers and on the seat cushion.
Landel signalled:
Left
Dennison watched the compass fluctuate, watched the gas gauge, the engine temperature: heat was climbing.
Smoke bombs were dropping.
Some bastard should bob up with a flame thrower, he told himself. Here he comes from behind that hedge. Look at those infantrymen retreating ... now we'll cross that plowed field ... other M4's ... cross together ... what did they raise here, wheat? Isn't that a horse over there, across the field?
As they advanced it was curious how the smoke trapped them and then exposed them. Several houses appeared out of the smoke trap; riflemen fronted one of the houses; others rushed into a small barn; a geyser of earth and smoke replaced the barn.
Dennison grinned when the barn disappeared.
He observed a grove of elm trees: are we lost? No grove was indicated on the maps! He tried to signal Landel but a plunge of the machine almost pitched him out of his seat. Shellfire sprayed white, like flung salt, over the line of vision.
Not on any map!
Up front someone was signalling: standing in the path of their tank he waved both arms. An officer? Some Nazi trick, Dennison thought. Then he saw another GI and identified them as Americans. The nearest GI had his helmet squashed over his eyes; stooping, he pointed to the ground. Hands upraised, he signalled stop.
Without hesitating he rushed to their bus and beat on a forward port. Landel let him inside.
"Minefields," the GI screamed.
"What?" Landel yelled. "Can't hear!"
"Minefield!" the sergeant yelled.
"Louder."'
The fellow grabbed at Landel's leg pad and scribbled on it:
TURN AROUND. STOP OTHERS. USE RADIO. MINEFIELD. SIGNAL OTHERS.
"No use turning our bus around," Landel shouted.
"Radio ... the radio," the sergeant shouted.
"Ok," Landel yelled, reading his lips.
Dennison took over the transmitter.
They had stopped near a woodland; other tanks grouped around them; the barrage had lifted.
It was chilly: the autumn air nipped their nakedness: they huddled behind their machines, talking, urinating, smoking: as soon as they could they donned shirts and jackets: the earth, they discovered, was peppered with apples, exploded from nearby trees--part of the woodland.
Zinc picked up a red-yellow apple, bit it, and smiled.
Dennison grinned as he bit one.
"Come on, Captain, have one!" Zinc said.
"Worms."
But he picked up an apple and found it delicious.
A crewman from their Corps, a corporal named Jim Moore, ran up, flopping his hands and jerking his head crazily.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" Dennison shouted.
Moore could not hear him, and yelled:
"Mine!"
"What?"
"Mine ... minefield."
"Yeah ... sure ... we know. That's why we're here, Jim. Have an apple!" Jim shuffled over, flopping his arms, coughing, lurching, eyes glazed.
"He's nuts!" Landel said.
His apple was wormy and he threw it down and tried another. Apples ... apples ... we stand around eating apples ... there's some way out of this ...
Biting and sucking the apple, he circled his tank, trying to get a lay of the land, looking for other GI's who might have information, instructions. Dennison had climbed inside, and was radioing: perhaps information was being broadcast. By now six machines had lined up along the woodland, some of them using foliage for camouflage.
Low flying planes ripped the sky.
Another tank approached Dennison and Zinc.
A GI's face was scrawled with grime and sweat, his helmet had been ripped; he carried shirt and jacket over his arm--the knuckles of one hand were bloody.
"Where's the mine?" he bellowed.
"Dunno," said Zinc.
"How many tanks we lost?"
"Where's the mine?"
"Apple?"
"What?"
"Have an apple."
"Can't hear ya."
"Sit down."
"Cigarette?"
"Had to wait ... dangerous..."
Landel appeared, mud on his clothes. Squatting by Zinc, he hollered:
"Get in the bus!"
"Wait?"
"No, get inside!"
"Hell no, let's wait here," Zinc objected.
"All of us inside ... we move!"
"Where?"
Nobody had a chance to hear that directive: a shell exploded: Zinc dropped his apple, picked it up, and cleaned it warily. Landel and Dennison settled onto their seats; the heat clamped around them: leaving the turret open had not cooled the bus.
Dennison had stuffed apples into his pockets ... what were they expecting, a signal? Landel unfolded his map, he munched an apple carefully, read his wristwatch, and wiped his face with the back of his hand. Grease streaked his jaw. He thought it must be blood till he stared at his fingernails. Sagged in his seat, Dennison saw him bite the apple, saw him dig grease from under his nails, welcoming this respite.
It wasn't so long ago Mother and I strolled about Heidelberg ... we had spent two or three weeks there, boating, climbing, sampling pastries, sight-seeing.
Munching his apple he began to despise the tank, began to fling his mind: Landel ... look at him, chewing away on his apple! Damn ass!
In Heidelberg they had strolled along the Neckar, boats and bridges, chinks of river between trees and houses.
She had sketched a castle that had a heraldic glove chiselled above the door.
A girl had waited on him in a shop, a slender girl, very blonde, very blue-eyed: a woman to lie with ...
Dreams ...
A GI brought Landel a message.
He read it and passed it to Dennison.
Head West. No minefields.
"I hope they know what they're doin'!" Dennison yelled.
West... he consulted the compass.
Dennison warmed the motor and chewed an apple and swung 9 west, west across dry ground, climbing gradually. The treads beat down a hedgerow. The cab was getting hotter so they stripped and climbed and wormed 9 and filed through a woodland and crossed a field. The battle swept around them. Battle without immediate barrage. For Dennison driving became a matter of mechanical movement, goading of muscle, endurance of heat, tolerance of gasoline stink, smell of oil and gun powder ...
Dennison was amazed to see a flock of sparrows in a hedgerow.
At the top of a slope he saw Jeannette's face.
What are you doing there?
9 was working toward the port side.
He braked.
Dead Nazis lay in front, their bodies in a clot of equipment: they were sprawled in a maw of bicycles, smashed machine guns, duffle, rifles, coils of telephone wire, helmets.
Dennison remembered that their infantry had fought here yesterday. Last night's rain had soaked the dead men ... their bodies were sinking into the ground, into weeds and grass.
They blurred as he jazzed 9.
A saddle sloped below the tank and he nosed the bus along it seeing a machine gun emplacement on the next crest, its sandbagged front standing out. Dennison signalled Landel and Landel loaded his gun, swaying, grabbing for handholds, helmet slipping.
For a dozen yards the slope was easy going: it seemed to be sod all the way: then the ground leveled to a sort of pasture, oddly green, brilliantly green: vaguely, Dennison tried to figure out why the green was different: his brain was too tired to register. Green snagged at the treads and then he caught the flash of water; before he could swerve, before he could brake, he felt 9 sink.
No amount of power budged her.
Cleverness at the controls meant nothing: he reversed both treads, tried the port tread, tried the starboard tread, 9 bogged deeper and deeper. They were trapped in a runoff, a swampy catch basin--mud and water under tractionless treads. Sweat poured down Dennison's face and he wiped it from his eyes, scrutinizing Landel, aware now that Landel had been yelling at him as he struggled to extricate 9.
"God," he groaned, "we're stuck, sure as hell."
Stop, Landel signalled.
Grabbing a note, Dennison wrote:
Motor overheated
Landel scribbled:
Don't leave tank. Intercom out.
As he read the scrawl, Dennison thought he would rush outside: Landel's grey face and jittery scrawl maddened him; he thought angrily: we can't crawl out of here--we'll die in this hole. Then he recalled the machine gun emplacement above them.
He wiped his face--waited.
Bullets ripped across 9's cab: they crawled and re-crawled over the armor plating. Battening their ports they checked their ammunition, checked the fan, checked the turret bolts.
In a short time Landel returned their gunfire, using all of his skill: he lobbed four single shots, waited.
Dennison stumbled to the rear to urinate.
He bumped against Zinc who was clinging to his gun, blacked out: their half-naked bodies slapped. Locating their canteen, Dennison passed it to Zinc who drank, canteen tipped up, his eyes shut. Shoving Zinc into the driving seat, he took over his gun.
How good to stand up. Yet he had to fight off sleep. Swaying against the machine gun butt he drowsed, trusting Landel, Captain Fred Landel. If the bastards unlimbered an anti-tank gun or hurled grenades or mounted a flame thrower! If!
Probably the Nazis were trapped in their own emplacement.
Let somebody else wipe them out!
Anyhow, 9's beat. Battery weak.
Maybe another tank could drag her free.
Maybe ... a requiem of shells!
Tonight ... what time was it?
Tonight was a long way off.
He shivered and drowsed. Sleepily, he fingered his automatic, and found its steel warm.
... Bretten's bombardment seemed to be going on and on.
... The clock tower was still exploding.
... His world shifted, perception by perception.
... Christ, it had been a tussle, piloting the tank to the Roer River: debris: men and trucks: fog along the river: mental fog: like London fog: walked and walked in the fog: that was in Tunbridge (or was it Tunbridge?): that was the night he had slept with Raymonde: the hearth in her room had a Solomon's seal on each tile: they had talked and talked: warm: warmth of her body: nice little breasts: nice and warm: warm covers: Raymonde very tired: warm ...
... Strange--that hammering sound: mortar shells?
... Strange, Zinc asleep.
... Strange, to be an Ithacan!
He woke when a shell rocked the tank. He shouted.
He felt inside the stomach of death. When could they crawl out? Another shell whined. His throat tightened. He felt cold and buttoned his shirt and zippered his jacket and licked his lips and listened: was Landel shouting? Was it dark outside? It seemed to him that 9's motor was running. Bending over Zinc, he tested the switches. No, the motor was not running. Zinc was asleep.
Fumbling about, reaching for Dennison, Landel pulled him close and yelled:
"No ... they'll shoot you down."
"You stay ... try the radio ... I get nothing ... stay."
The flesh under Landel's eyes was quivering.
He realized he could not weather out their rescue: frantically, he clawed at the jacket: an hour, another hour.
"I'll make it ... get help. Fire my gun!"
"Hell, they'll cut you down."
"No ... they don't return my gunfire ... when I fire ... nothin!"
"A trick," Dennison warned.
"No," Landel said
"Hell," Dennison yelled.
Landel was gone.
Dennison lined up the emplacement, arching and depressing the gun accurately: there was no return fire when he fired. He fired again. Five minutes. Ten. No return fire.
Perhaps Landel had made it by now.
Dennison eased into the seat, wondering about Zinc.
He was still asleep; his sleeping face was repulsive; his warped body, his jockey body, was repulsive.
Eyes on the emplacement, he studied its arrangement of sandbags, ripped off branches, wilted and shredded leaves: he estimated that four or five men had done the job: why had they selected this location? The emplacement looked old, a week, a month. Some sort of rear guard. They could have depleted their stock of ammunition. They could have retreated.
He slept.
Zinc woke.
He fished in his pocket for an apple and ate it. Somewhere they had K-rations on board. Without lighting the cab (it was dark now), he brought out the rations and the canteen. They ate and slept. Fired guns and ate. Cheese, K, chocolate bars. Without tasting anything they ate everything. The radio was out because the battery was low. Water was oozing over the floor: the bus had sunk that far. They had to sit with their shoes on the dash or on the walls of the tank. As their hearing returned to normal they talked a little. It seemed to them that the radium hands of the chronometer were glued to the dial.
There was no shelling except in the distance.
It was colder.
Raising his jacket collar, Zinc thought of home: home and steam radiators, his dad smoking his pipe, the neighbor kids ... yeah, they poked fun at my hair ... Red ... Red ... banter across his dad's grocery counter ... why you little Jew pissant, how the hell are you? Heah, runt, reach me a box of saltine crackers ... no not that size ... the giant one....
At school they pestered him, name, age, color of hair ... His dad had said, over and over, get yourself a job, boy, the sooner the better. Life had been stupid until Millie came along, Millie and his boat. Millie wouldn't fail him: her letters (he tapped his pocket), kept him going.
Eyes on his machine gun slot, he mouthed chocolate and it adhered to his teeth and stuck between them and clotted his palate (the bar had threads on it from his pocket); he tongued the piece down with a sticky tongue.
He imagined himself thumbing a magazine, the fold-out of a naked girl: someday, soon, he'd have time to read the Sunday comics; someday he'd find a 32-footer in the classifieds, Buick engine, cabin good condition, sleeps 4, galley, 2-way radio--terms ... a price he could afford ... someday he'd open a deli and make damn good money.
Somehow the lull in the shelling became threatening: it was ugly, heavy, a part of the armor plate, part of the menace of the emplacement.
Dennison hunched his legs, unzippered his trousers, and picked lice from among his hairs. He searched with the help of his flash. On his belly the engine scar seemed to have a thicker scab; he tested the scab and scratched it soothingly.
He wanted to masturbate but something prevented him, perhaps the eye of the compass. He swayed, let himself sag, when he shoved back against the cushion the bent spring bothered him.
Apple cores floated on the water.
Change, that was it: war was change, if nothing else, the slap of rain, slug of wind, whistle of death. Fear had its changes too. Fear was possessive. Then change was possessive. Change ... you ate and slept and that was change.
Your scrotum shrank between your legs. Another change. Your genitals crawled inside your body. Your penis crawled in. Sometimes shellfire drove them in, penis and scrotum.
Sanctuary.
Abruptly, clearly, Jeannette spoke to him: "Orv, don't stare at the floor like that ... turn out your flash ... you've got to get out of that bus ... crawl out ... tell Zinc ... both of you have to leave ... do something about getting out ... get up..."
He dragged himself to the engine and leaned against it.
Can't stay here ... move!
Eyes to the periscope he submerged: below surface he observed his mother painting a watercolor, a stand of trees along the Nile, brilliant green against brilliant sun on the river: The torpedo raced toward Persepolis, sand, Persian sand, sun, flies, flies on the ruined city, flies in the shah's palace: another ruin to the starboard: flies on our food: the dune moved: this was Notre Dame, its buttresses bombed, water high along the apse: wasn't that bell from Claude Debussy's music?
Water had flooded the Louvre, or was it the bombings that had wrecked the building? Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa lay on the floor. Gold was washing over the frame: if he hurried he might save the painting. Save? How?
Hunkered over, cold, he felt he had been isolated for years: everywhere was the impenetrable: dazed, he sagged against the wall; then, peering out, he realized the sky was a flame above the emplacement. So Bretten was burning. Shelling grew distinct. Burning clouds seemed to be approaching.
Dennison regarded the sand bags for a long time.
"They're gone," he said to Zinc, hand on his shoulder.
"There's nobody up there. See. Look. Nothing. See in the light from the sky, nothing. Landel ran for it. He got away. Come on ... let's get out of this mess..."
Through wavering light from the town and the clouds he thought he saw somebody stumbling toward 9.
"Zinc, look, somebody's coming."
"Where?"
"It's Landel."
They waited, waited.
It was nobody and Zinc sank into pain. Dennison lit his flash and fumbled about for their canteen. Shaking its near-emptiness, he drank, then pushed it at Zinc, who drained it.
"Bah, it tastes bad."
"Let's go."
"Where?" Zinc asked.
"Look at the sky ... there's light enough for us to see ... Bretten's done for..."
"What about Landel?" Zinc asked.
"Hell with him!"
"Then, let's go."
He found his flash; the canteen was floating on the tank floor, cap off; Dennison unbolted the turret; as he spun a bolt he felt for his automatic; leaning down he yelled at Zinc:
"Have we any grenades?"
"No grenades."
Outside, in the protection of the tank, they saw that their shovels were still wired to the cab. They thought of putting the bus in action. Could be safer than wandering. What about the battery? Gas but not enough juice. Splashing in water they walked a few steps.
"Hopeless," said Dennison.
"Leave the damn thing."
Crewmen appeared--stepped out of the dark, the sky coloration on their helmets: there appeared to be eight or ten, plastered with mud, sopping, their flashlights hooded. A guy loosened his helmet strap and said:
"I'm Captain Kernie. You two alone?"
"Bogged down ... our bus..."
"No battery power," said Dennison.
"Gas?"
"Yeah, we lost two tanks ... nearby ... hey, Walt, get a battery ... get Mack to help you ... bring a battery ... we'll put this bus back in action..."
"Captain went for help, hours ago," Dennison said.
"What about the machine gun emplacement?" Zinc asked.
"My guys wiped it out ... crew's dead," said Kernie.
"Good."
"There's timber ... logs ... by the woods ... We'll put your bus on rollers ... have her out in no time."
Zinc unwired a shovel.
"We're in luck," said Dennison mournfully.
Light crept over Kernie's face, then face and light went. His men placed scraps, logs, branches, replaced the battery, the engine fired. Cab light went on. Zinc reloaded his gun--sleep at his elbows.
9 backfired, rocked, rolled, apple cores bobbed on the floor, floated toward the rear. Easing the bus forward, on a rise, the water began to drain. Someone in Kernie's gang banged on the driving port.
Dennison worked her to the starboard, slipping, slipping; but she began to climb, stuck, climbed. With a wild teetering the treads grabbed and rolled away, rolled steadily downhill, to solid ground. Kernie and his crewmen had melted away.
Zinc stood beside Dennison.
He mopped the periscope with a rag.
In the cab light, dial light, they smiled at each other.
The down terrain held tough: the land had been tilled but was sodded: 9 rolled through a maze of vineyards and truck gardens. When a hedgerow blocked their way, Dennison sliced through it, slewing. He followed the remains of a paved road. Smoke mushroomed. Instinctively, he wobbled the tank. A shell hole gaped. Then another. A shell careened, spraying shrapnel. The cushion crushed against Dennison's testicles and pain tore through his body and magnified the roar of the engine and the treads. Nauseated, he could not see: blobs shook in his brain. Bending over, he closed the ignition.
A shell threw dirt and rocks onto 9.
Mouth open, both waited, clinging to their seats.
Another shell whined, then became a rumble.
His will drained from him: the nerves in his arms and hands ached: he tried to talk to himself as earth spouted over the port side, another shell at the rear. Something rattled and clanged. Light spat: every aperture admitted flame: it glazed their hands, their faces, the walls, the instruments. Shrapnel pounded blows.
Recoiling, Zinc's brain slid in on itself, whimpering, grimacing like a monkey, something Neanderthalic: he doubled up on the floor by the engine, head on his arms, legs jerking: death was here!
Dennison jabbed his hands into his stomach: Christ, not to vomit. Opening his mouth over and over, he tried to lessen the concussions.
Why can't it stop? Stop ... yes ... this muck ... those arms in the sand, those flies on Robinson's arms ... dust, all that heat, arms, hands, wrists, arms ... we got away ... we got away ... got to get away from this ... I'm comin, back, Jean ... I'm going mad, Chuck and I.
"No, Zinc, I'm all right. Okay, the shelling's stopped ... I'll drive ... we'll make it out of this!"
What, what was this?
It was Paris ... and they were stripping her in the street, the beautiful Princesse de Lamballe ... they were hacking off her breasts ... they were hacking off her legs ... Do you speak French? May I help you, mademoiselle? Long live the guillotine!Vive la révolution!
Dennison saw his dad lying on the floor of his little Renault: he was seriously wounded: nobody was helping him: his tank lay on its side.
Dennison was urinating on the floor.
He would not drive the tank again: he would refuse to drive any tank: what could they do? They could do their damnedest and he would go AWOL. But now, now the shelling had stopped, just cut itself off, leaving a ditch of silence.
He tried to figure out the cessation: it seemed to him it was his duty to figure it out: he must unravel enigmas, supply answers. That was what life was for.
The bent springs in the cushion bored into his back and he leaned forward and wet his lips with his tongue. Fingers and arms trembling, he cupped his head in his hands, closed his eyes.
Miraculously--he felt he was a boy, playing the game he used to play, playing soldiers on the living room floor: he had his troop in line and rolled something against them and they reeled and fell, the entire line fell.
And something else: the half-frozen needle of a phonograph was spinning music for their skating on Beebe Lake, light-hearted music. The chimes of the library tower struck ten o'clock in solemn notes. A girl was skating with him, Cathy Bowers: her slip-on sweater hugged her, they hugged each other, circling the lake quickly, their skates scraping softly.
But it was over ...
The barrage was over; yet he could not stir; he began to count the minutes on the chronometer; the greenish face of the chronometer was trying to say something; he inched forward a little, inched more, pushed the brake lever. Presently, he considered all of the dials:
Got to check, got to see where the shell hit us, got to estimate ... estimate the damage ... got to climb out ... put on my flash ... climb ...
He signalled Zinc with his flash; Zinc responded; together they left the bus, the air acrid with smoke, as if burned in a filthy oven, raw with slugged mud.
At the bow, with dimmed lights, they stooped over the starboard tread. Then the port tread. Plates had been torn out and the entire tread had been folded back like a strip of hide: there was no power there: they could do nothing to restore mobility.
Dennison motioned Zinc inside the cab.
"I'll destroy our maps," he said.
"What? Couldn't hear you."
He could not repeat himself.
Risking interior lights, he gathered the maps, ripped them into shreds, tramped them underfoot. Thinking of clips for his automatic he shoved them into his pocket. His helmet. Jacket. Was that all? No canteen? No thermos? No apples?
"Okay," he said.
"The ammunition," Zinc yelled.
"Leave it."
"Not much ... outside."
He hurled his belts; Dennison threw out Landel's shells; the floor was a mess of sludge and they slipped as they worked.
"Put out the lights."
"Lights out."
Behind the bus they crouched down for cigarettes: as Zinc lit his fag something expanded inside him: a vague, battered sense of freedom: freedom? He wasn't sure what kind it might be. He sucked in smoke, looked up: something was there?
Dennison felt no loss: he had had enough of 9: enough, enough, that thought continued as they slogged down a slope: he was sorry for his Isaac Jacobs, so small, so vulnerable: he led him across barren fields, toward the Roer, expecting shellfire, expecting death.
It was a long way to the Roer River, black-walking. They had to avoid corpses, had to avoid barbed wire, shell holes: their dimmed lights were sometimes useless. They thought they remembered a farm house and argued about it, then stumbled on, uncertain. Seeing lights they became more cautious, stopping, waiting, listening. MP's challenged them, and one of them acted as guide to the remnants of their division.
Men from the Corps had bedded down in a barn; they might be crowded there; somebody suggested the country church: there was room at the rear: shellfire had blasted the small, gothic thing: its altar was a contrivance of boards and tarp and cross. They entered through a gaping wall. Windows of antique glass remained: blue, rose, yellow, mauve against the night. Both stopped to see leaded glass on bits of steel.
Dennison recognized Landel, woebegone on a pew, his head and neck bandaged, face drawn, hand to his mouth, his beard peppered with grey. A medic was adjusting his neck bandage, talking.
Dennison had hoped Landel was dead.
He refrained from speaking to him: motionless, wanting to sit or lie down, he rubbed his hands over his jacket, unsteady, hating his grime: he smelt his own stench: he craved a drink. Zinc, too, hesitated, ready to buckle from fatigue.
GI's sprawled on pews, lay in the aisles, sat on the altar platform: they were sleeping, eating, talking, smoking, bedding down. The beautiful window had died. Coleman lanterns sputtered on tables, pews, ledges. Dennison and Zinc headed for the altar where there seemed to be space to lie down. Before they could reach it, Fred Landel saw them, approached them.
"Hey, you guys!" he shouted, his neck injury paining him. "What's eating you? How'd you make out?"
Zinc faced about, without a word, helmetless, his filthy face and clothes a little dirtier than most of the others.
Dennison looked at Landel scornfully.
Landel's eyes were bloodshot; he, too, was filthy, mud-spattered; he raised an arm, stopped, resentful of his crewmen, aware, by their attitudes, they had marked him off.
"Couldn't find help ... shrapnel hit me..." Why should I make excuses: can't they see? "What happened to 9?"
"Tank's done for," Dennison yelled.
"You guys just walk off and leave it?"
"Naw, we put it in mothballs!" Zinc cracked.
Landel took a long look at him.
"Shell hit us ... we lost a tread," said Dennison.
"Lost a tread," Zinc repeated, smiling, knowing that sleep was going to knock him out at any moment.
"I'll get us another machine," Landel yelled.
Pain was flashing through his head; he walked to a pew and sank down on it, moaning. Far off, he heard Dennison say something about getting washed, getting something to eat, Landel wasn't sure.
Okay ... okay ... am I crackin' up? There were slits in the floor, cracks, slits ... a cockroach was busy ... there had been swarms of cockroaches in Panama, cockroaches, fever, heat. Arm hooked over his eyes, lying on the pew, he sank into a fitful sleep.
Dennison and Zinc found a wash basin and some soap, and then ate, ate without exchanging a word, nine of them at a table made out of a door, an army cook doling grub: the men humped over their food, jaws mechanical: stew ... canned peaches ... bread ... coffee.
Dennison hoped that food would stop a cramp in his belly. His eyes fixed on a fork: it seemed to him that the tines were moving, the handle was forming a half circle. Something peeled off in his mind: he felt he was at home: the fork had a "D" on it: Mama was humming in the kitchen: there were candles on their dining table: he felt about in his pocket for a pack of matches to light them.
More GI's jammed the church, most of them yammering for food.
"Jesus Chriz ... if it ain't Dennison! Hiya!"
"Hi, Pete ... Hi, Vic ... ,"
Pete and Vic were tankmen out of Sherman 446, grizzled, smiling, punch drunk; they had participated in attacks with Dennison, always helpful: both were New Yorkers, Vic had been a physics major at NYU, Pete was a cutter, in a suit shop, in Harlem.
"How did you guys make out?" Pete asked.
"We lost our bus."
"9?"
"Yeah." Dennison was biting a section of a peach.
"What's news about the minefield?" Zinc asked.
"We lost twenty-three," said Vic, squeezing himself in at the table.
"Twenty-three tanks?" yelled Dennison.
"Twenty-three men," Vic said. "Wounded ... dead ... don't know how many..." Elbows on the table he covered his face with his hands. Near him a pot of stew was puffing.
"It's been a hell of a day!" said Pete, standing behind Dennison. "They had their minefield planned ... they know they're licked but they make us fight on and on. Dumb. All that waste of life." He picked his nose mournfully, his bleary eyes on the crowded church, the milling GI's, the men at the door-table.
"Bretten's ours," said a lieutenant at the table. "We took it a couple hours ago."
"Will there be street fighting?" someone asked.
"I don't know."
"Jus' lemme sleep," said Zinc, liking his cup of coffee. God, it smelled good.
"The Germans are burning their towns as they retreat," someone said.
"We've got them on the run!" said Vic.
Vic and Pete ate, others left the table, an officer was asleep over his food; medics sat down, complaining of lack of supplies.
Dennison and Zinc bedded down on hay and straw, a light from a Coleman somewhere in the distance, Red Cross men aiding the wounded, a GI on guard, in case of fire. Soon every sag in the hay and straw slept a man. A sergeant had his bazooka beside him. Someone, screwed up in his fatigues, curled up tight as a ball, had a puppy in his arms.
There was no such thing as a peaceful interval: men came and went throughout the night: a wounded man died: a patrol was lugged in on a stretcher: doctors whispered and hovered: toward morning there was a lull and during that lull water began to spread throughout the church. Someone thought it was the rain ... but it was not raining. The fire guard saw straw drifting on the water, then he observed a man's boot floating by: getting up he splashed about, mumbling, asking questions, mumbling:
"Lie still over there ... I'll find out what's wrong ... no, it ain't rainin' ... maybe it poured somewhere nearby ... sure a lot a water comin' in from somewhere..."
With his flash he waded outside: water had inundated the yard in front of the church and it seemed to be inches deep: as the guard stood on the lowest step a GI splashed by, with a lantern, rifle crooked in his arm.
"Heh, what's up?"
"River's flooding," the GI bellowed.
Someone with a racking cough warned the guard the Roer was rising rapidly: Nazi's are flooding us out. Inside the church the guard began waking men, asking everyone to spread the word: already the water was ankle deep. The wounded had to be shifted at once. Lights and flashlights took over. All of the pews had water around them.
The general hubbub woke Dennison.
"We're being flooded out," someone explained.
Dennison woke Zinc.
Grabbing his shoes and jacket, he scrambled higher on the pile of straw and hay; putting on his shoes he hollered at the men around him.
"Where do we go?"
"Outside."
"What for?"
"Everybody out!"
"Almost dawn."
"Yeah, gettin' light."
Dennison spotted Landel and waded across flooded straw to wake him: he woke with a groan and grabbed at his head and neck.
"We're being flooded ... it's the Nazis ... they've opened steel flood gates up the river ... the Roer's flooding ... it's on the radio," Dennison shouted.
Icy water eddied about Landel's pew where other men lay: the swift moving water carried straw, hay, a man's jacket, wood chips, towels, bandages.
"Too many flashlights!" somebody yelled.
"Douse the lights!"
"Give a guy a chance!"
"There's a hill behind the church ... everybody's going there!"
Men were evacuating GI's on stretchers.
Outside, it was cold but windless, the stars were numerous around a new moon. A jeep soused through the rising flood, its black-out lights weak. Shelling had resumed but it was in the distance. Lights flickered behind the ruined church: at the rear of the building a truck was loading wounded.
Dennison returned to the church to aid a wounded youngster who had a serious stomach laceration: he got him a new blanket, water, and found him an orderly ...
" ... got hit at a minefield ... got me bad ... Eeee ... not hard, Doc. Not so hard, like ... Eeee..."
The orderly very abrupt, very savage, told the tanker to shut up, lie down.
The fellow stared at Dennison and then at the medic: he stared beardedly at the ceiling as the doctor gave him an injection: he had the face of someone who had suffered malnutrition most of his life.
"See if you can get him into a truck or ambulance," the doctor suggested, limping off through the icy water.
Dennison secured stretcher bearers.
Landel had disappeared. Zinc was nowhere. Someone squawked a walkie-talkie and the two-way sputtering began as officers conferred by the tarpaulined altar, water already at the steps; all lights had dimmed; it was almost day.
Going outside to piss, Dennison heard a puppy whimpering; at first he could not see it, then there it was, at his feet, padding through muck. Lifting it, he recognized it as the stray the officer had been holding. The collie pup's belly and paws were cold; it cried and snuggled; Dennison popped it underneath his jacket. He was comforting it when Zinc tapped him on the arm.
" ... Radio says that sluice gates on the Roer were opened during the night ... our whole area is flooded ... hell ... You an' me an' Landel are to transport wounded guys in a Lee." Zinc was playing with the pup's ears. "Where'd you pick up this lil guy?"
"Here ... in the water."
"Whatcha gonna do with him?"
"Stash him in the church ... leave him..."
"The river's a mile or two wide in places," Zinc said.
"Do you know where the tank is--the one we're to use?"
"Sure ... I know."
"Let's go," Dennison said. Reentering the church, he placed the pup on a pew. "Gotta go, old boy ... gotta go ... just stay there and yelp."
A lingering glance at the antique windows, then he followed Zinc toward the hill behind the church: a ditch drenched them to the knees: swearing, they floundered ahead, past a group of tanks, to the Lee, higher on the slope, out of the menacing flood water.
"That's her!" Zinc yelled.
"Okay."
Fred Landel was inside, in the driver's seat, warming the motor: the cab was jammed with wounded, some standing, leaning against walls, some on the floor, huddled against each other.
"Where do we go?" Dennison asked Landel, mouth to his ear.
"You drive!" said Landel. "We go to Gex ... I have the map ... I know the route ... take a long look at those red lines; let's pull out of this goddamn place ... lights out ... we leave the wounded at a Red Cross station ... (he jabbed the map with his forefinger) ... I'll let you know ... sit down ... check the dials ... lights out ... this bus has had it rough..."
As they got rolling, the sunlight was filtering, but the clouds were thick and seemed on the verge of blanketing the sun. Dennison drove carefully, trying to familiarize himself with the Lee: he had piloted others but this one was different and he wanted to work out any differences; the engine power, the tread maneuverability, gear shift, traction, carburetion? He had tried to memorize the route and compelled his mind to re-establish landmarks.
God, it was raining!
Rain and more mud, lousy traction, anything to foul us up! The Lee was climbing a slope, doing well: no flooding here. Beyond this slope there was supposed to be a road; he was to follow that paved road, toward Gex. Yeah, there it was ... a road, trees, fences, farms in the distance.
"You'll have to help me," a fellow screamed, grabbing at Dennison's leg. "It's my knee ... shrapnel ... Aaah-hhh!" Pain-sobs gushed out of him as he pawed at Dennison. Dennison slowed and stopped the tank.
"Let me see your knee," he yelled.
His kneecap was dangling, bleeding: Dennison and Landel could do no more than press it into position, re-bandage. Dennison crouched beside him, using his flashlight: again and again he was aware of leaves, leaves and sunlight: he was not sure where. The GI was sobbing.
A Red Cross official beat on the forward door; Landel admitted him; somehow he managed to find room, his face rain streaked, satchel in his arms, a bayou figure: the gaze fixed on some everglade of the mind.
Okay, Landel signalled.
Okay.
Landel felt the jolting of the bus: pain, from his neck wound, was beating through him.
"Where?" the Red Cross man asked.
"Gex."
The Lee crawled by a winery, a bombed complex, dinosaur ribs of buildings, passed rows of barrels, tall grass waving in the rain: some of the barrels were moulded: the road curved in a long curve; there, at the apex of the curve, was the Red Cross station, aerial designation and the familiar flag. No one appeared.
An ambulance had a jack under its differential.
Landel, Zinc and Dennison assisted the wounded; they climbed out; Landel climbed back into heat, began checking their armament, began arming his gun.
Dennison glared numbly at a strip of black sky as he drove away. Zinc fussed about with his gun, pleased that he had space to move around. Landel, making every effort to shake his pain, hanging to the sides of his seat, was remembering Panama, nights of pleasantry, dancing,Cuba Libres, marimbas, time, that was the time, time for a cigarette, time for a drink.
A shell boomed in front.
Widening his ports, Dennison observed a Sherman ejecting shoelaces of black smoke; as he drew nearer flames spouted and enveloped the tank completely.
Go on, came the signal.
Dennison leaned back in his seat and wet his lips with his tongue ... destroy ... shall we destroy?
I suppose there's a lot of tall grass in Wisconsin.
She wants ...
The terrain is solid ... no road ... fields ... Gex is a mile or so in front ... the radio was crackling ... Landel at the dials ... the Lee rolled and rolled again ... they passed under trees ... they passed a giant barn with two cows visible in a stall ... there were no hedgerows ... they passed a country school ... they passed a row of burning homes and rolled into Gex ...
Gex ... Gex ... what about the guys who had burned to death in that Sherman?
Gex ...
God, it was raining hard.
An awkward four-legged windmill was batting at the rain.
"Gex, Gex!" exclaimed Landel, and closed his eyes and hung on, worried that the gas indicator was so low.
Gex was smoke and paved streets and ravaged buildings, a man fleeing, a gunnysack over his shoulder. Girders jabbed out of ripped apartments. Burning beams smoked in cottages. In a hotel fire escapes were twisted. Again more smoke ...
A squad of riflemen sniped from a smashed grocery.
"Get them," Landel ordered.
Their guns began to pound and Dennison wormed his bus closer and closer to the grocery: the bow crushed its windows and wall: the bow seemed to be raiding for meat and potatoes. Gunfire shredded the glass counters. Machinegun bullets cut down the store's sign: it fell. Bullets tore into a refrigerator.
No riflemen escaped.
A narrow street, trees along one side ...
Dennison readbakeryandmeat marketand wondered when he would sidle up to a counter and order a loaf of whole wheat..."four center-cut pork chops." And in the coffee shop, how about liverwurst and beer?
What a way to enter a town! Gex: who wanted Gex? What would the USA do with Gex? Right now, a beefsteak was worth more!
"Who's that guy?" he yelled on the intercom.
A helmeted GI blocked a doorway in a ruined building and flagged the tank; other GI's spewed from an aperture left by a shell; Dennison hesitated to stop the Lee under the riddled wall, yet he obeyed.
Inside de-ribbed apartments he saw a fireplace, book shelves, shoes on a carpeted floor, clothes on wardrobe hangers, a toilet ... on a brass plate: Dr. Horace Kreutger,Child Specialist. A church dome glistened in a sewage of light.
The helmeted GI in the doorway was signalling ...
Starboard ... sharpshooters ... balcony ... port.
Dennison sent the bus to the port, crawled over garbage in an alley, saw a piece of sky, and then the sharpshooters on a grilled balcony.
Zinc fired and a fellow sagged to his knee, another dropped his rifle on the balcony floor, another began dragging a wounded comrade, both crawling on hands and knees: the wounded man seemed to be shouting: his dentures popped from his mouth, bounced and smashed in the street. Landel killed the remaining pair.