"Thanks," O'Brien said uncertainly. "But if it's all the same to you, I'll meet you here."
The Chaplain peered across Noah at the Lieutenant. Then he stuck his hand in his pocket and came up with a five-hundred-franc note. "Here," he said, giving it to O'Brien. "I forgot you weren't paid."
O'Brien's face broke into an embarrassed smile as he took the money. "Thanks," he said. "Thanks." He waved and started back to the cafe, two blocks away.
"Now," said the Chaplain briskly, starting the jeep, "we'll get you two jailbirds away from these MPs."
"What?" Michael asked stupidly.
"AWOL," the Chaplain said. "Plain as the noses on your face. Come on, lad, wipe that windshield."
Grinning, Noah and Michael drove through the grim old town. They passed six MPs on the way, one of whom saluted the jeep as it slithered along the wet streets. Gravely, Michael returned the salute.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE closer they got to the front, Michael noticed, the nicer people got. When they began to hear the enduring rumble of the guns, disputing over the autumnal German fields, everyone seemed to speak in a low, considerate voice, everyone was glad to feed you, put you up for the night, share his liquor with you, show you his wife's picture and politely ask to see the pictures of your own family. It was as though, in moving into the zone of thunder, you had moved out of the selfishness, the nervous mistrust, the twentieth-century bad manners in which, until that time, you had always lived, believing that the human race had for ever behaved that way.
They were given rides by everyone… a Graves Registration Lieutenant who explained professionally how his team went through the pockets of the dead men, making two piles of the belongings they found there. One pile, consisting of letters from home, and pocket Bibles, and decorations, to be sent to the grieving family, the other pile consisting of such standard soldier's gear as dice, playing cards, and frank letters from girls in England with references to delightful nights in the hayfields near Salisbury or in London, which might serve to impair the memory of the deceased heroes, to be destroyed. Also, the Graves Registration Lieutenant, who had been a clerk in the ladies' shoe department of Magnin's, in San Francisco, before the war, discussed the difficulties his unit had in collecting and identifying the scraps of men who had met with the disintegrating fury of modern war. "Let me give you a tip," said the Graves Registration Lieutenant, "carry one of your dogtags in your watch pocket. In an explosion your neck is liable to be blown right away, and your identification chain right along with it. But nine times out of ten, your pants will stay on, and we'll find your tag and we'll make a correct notification."
"Thanks," said Michael. When he and Noah got out of the jeep, they were picked up by an MP Captain, who saw immediately that they were AWOL and offered to take them into his Company making all the proper arrangements through channels, because he was understaffed.
They even got a ride in a General's command car, a two-star General whose Division was resting for five days behind the lines. The General, who was a fatherly-looking man with a comfortable paunch, and the kind of complexion you see in the blood-temperature rooms in which modern hospitals keep newly born children, asked his questions kindly but shrewdly. "Where you from, Boys? What outfit you heading for?"
Michael, who had an old distrust of rank, frantically searched in his mind for an innocent answer, but Noah answered promptly. "We're deserters, Sir, we're deserting from a repple depple to our old outfit. We have to get back to our old Company."
The General had nodded, understandingly, and had glanced approvingly at Noah's decoration. "Tell you what, Boys," he said, in the tone of a furniture salesman softly advertising a bargain in bridge lamps, "we're a little depleted ourselves, in my Division. Why don't you just stop off and see how you like it? I'll do the necessary paper work personally."
Michael had grinned at this vision of a new, more flexible, accommodating Army. "No, thank you, Sir," Noah said firmly.
"I've made a solemn promise to the boys to come back there." The General had nodded again. "I know how you feel," he said. "I was in the old Rainbow in 1918, and I raised heaven and hell to get back after I was hurt. Anyway, you can stop off for dinner. This is Sunday and I do believe we're having chicken for dinner at the Headquarters mess."
Captain Green's CP was in a small farmhouse, with a steeply slanting room, that looked like the medieval homes in coloured cartoons in fairy stories in the movies. It had been hit only once, and the hole had been boarded up with a door torn off from a bedroom entrance inside the house. There were two jeeps parked close against the wall, on the side away from the enemy, and two soldiers with matted beards were sleeping in the jeeps, wrapped in blankets, their helmets tipped down over their noses. The rumble of the guns was much stronger here, most of it going out, with a high, diminishing whistle. The wind was raw, the trees bare, the roads and fields muddy, and apart from the two sleeping men in the jeeps there was no one else to be seen. It looked, Michael thought, like any farm in November, with the land given over to the elements, and the farmer taking long naps inside, dreaming about the spring to come.
It was amazing to think that they had defied the Army, crossed half of France, making their way arrow-like and dedicated through the complex traffic of guns and troops and supply trucks on the roads, to arrive at this quiet, run-down, undangerous-looking place. Army Headquarters, Corps Headquarters, Division, Regiment, Battalion, CP Company C, called Cornwall forward, the chain of command. They had gone down the chain of command like sailors down a knotted rope, and now that they were finally there, Michael hesitated, looking at the door, wondering if perhaps they hadn't been foolish, perhaps they were going to get into more trouble than it was worth… In that most formal of all institutions, the Army, they had behaved, Michael realized uneasily, with alarming informality, and the penalties for such things were undoubtedly clearly specified in the Articles of War.
But Noah did not seem to be bothered by any such reflections. He had walked the last three miles at a blistering, eager pace, through all the mud. There was a tense, trembling smile on his lips as he threw the door open and went in. Slowly, Michael followed him.
Captain Green was talking over the handset, his back to the door. "My Company front is a joke, Sir," he was saying. "You could drive a milk wagon any place through us, we're stretched so thin. We need at least forty replacements right away. Over." Michael could hear the thin voice of Battalion, over the wire, angry and abrupt. Green flipped the lever on the handset and said, "Yes, Sir, I understand we will get the replacements when the goddamn Corps sees fit to send them down. Meanwhile," he said, "if the Krauts attack, they can go through us like Epsom salts through an eel. What should I do if they put in an attack? Over." He listened again. Michael heard two crisp sounds over the wire. "Yes, Sir," said Green, "I understand. That is all, Sir." He hung up the phone and turned to a corporal who was sitting at an improvised desk. "Do you know what the Major told me?" he asked aggrievedly. "He said if we were attacked, I should notify him. A humorist! We're a new branch of the Army, notification troops!" He turned wearily to Noah and Michael.
"Yes?"
Noah didn't say anything. Green peered at him, then smiled wearily and put out his hand. "Ackerman," he said, as they shook hands, "I thought you'd be a civilian by now."
"No, Sir," said Noah. "I'm not a civilian. You remember Whitacre, don't you?"
Green peered at Michael. "Indeed I do," he said in his almost effeminate, high, pleasant voice. "From Florida. What sins have you committed to be returned to C Company?"
He shook Michael's hand, too.
"We haven't been returned, Sir," Noah said. "We're AWOL from a replacement centre."
"Excellent," said Green, grinning. "Don't give it another thought. Very good of you, very good of you indeed. I'll straighten it out in no time. Though why anyone should be anxious to come back to this miserable Company, I won't inquire. You boys now constitute my reinforcements for the week…" It was plain that he was touched and pleased. He kept patting Noah's arm in a warm, almost motherly gesture.
"Sir," Noah said, "is Johnny Burnecker around?" Noah was trying to keep his voice level and casual, but he was not having much success with it.
Green turned away and the corporal at the table drummed slowly with his fingertips on the wood. It's going to be awful, Michael realized, the next ten minutes are going to be very bad.
"I forgot for the moment," Green said flatly, "how close you and Burnecker were."
"Yes, Sir," said Noah.
"He was made Sergeant, you know," Green said. "Staff Sergeant. Platoon leader, way back in September. He is a hell of a fine soldier, Johnny Burnecker."
"Yes, Sir," Noah said.
"He was hit last night, Noah," Green said. "One freak shell. He was the only casualty we've had in the Company in five days."
"Is he dead, Sir?" Noah asked.
"No."
Michael saw Noah's hands, which had been clenched into fists along his trouser seams, slowly relax.
"No," Green said, "he isn't dead. We sent him back right after it happened."
"Sir," Noah asked eagerly, "could I ask you a favour, a big favour?"
"What is it?"
"Could you give me a pass to go back and see if I can talk to him?"
"He might have been sent back to a field hospital by now," Green said gently.
"I have to see him, Captain," Noah said, speaking very quickly. "It's terribly important. You don't know how important it is. The field hospital's only fifteen miles back. We saw it. We passed it on the way up. It won't take more than a couple of hours. I won't hang around long. Honest, I won't. I'll come right back. I'll be back by tonight. I just want to talk to him for fifteen minutes. It might make a big difference to him, Captain…"
"All right," Green said. He sat down and scribbled on a sheet of paper. "Here's a pass. Go outside and tell Berenson I said he was to drive you."
"Thanks," Noah said, his voice almost inaudible in the bare room. "Thanks, Captain."
"No side expeditions," Green said, staring at the cellophane-covered sector map, symbolled in crayon on the wall. "We need that jeep tonight."
"No side expeditions," Noah said. "I promise." He started towards the door, then stopped. "Captain," he said.
"Yes?"
"Is he hurt bad?"
"Very bad, Noah," Green said wearily. "Very, very bad."
A moment later, Michael heard the jeep starting up, and moving through the mud, making a chugging, motor-boat kind of noise into the distance.
"Whitacre," Green said, "you can hang around here until he gets back."
"Thank you, Sir," Michael said.
Green peered sharply at him. "What kind of soldier have you turned out to be, Whitacre?" he asked.
Michael thought for a moment. "Miserable, Sir," he said.
Green smiled palely, looking more than ever like a clerk after a long day at the counter in the Christmas rush. "I'll keep that in mind," he said. He lit a cigarette and went over to the door and opened it. He stood there, framed against the grey, washed-out colours of the autumnal countryside. From afar, now that the door was open, could be heard the faint chugging of a jeep.
"Ah," Green said, "I shouldn't've let him go. What's the sense in a soldier going to watch his friends die when he doesn't have to?"
He closed the door and went back and sat down. The phone rang and he picked it up languidly. Michael heard the sharp voice of Battalion. "No, Sir," Green said, speaking as though on the brink of sleep. "There has been no small-arms fire here since 7.00 hours. I will keep you informed." He hung up and sat silently, staring at the patterns his cigarette smoke was making before the terrain map on the wall.
It was long after dark when Noah got back. It had been a quiet day, with no patrols out. Overhead, the artillery came on and went off, but it seemed to have very little relation to the men of C Company who occasionally drifted into the CP to report to Captain Green. Michael had dozed all the afternoon in a corner, considering this new, languid, relaxed aspect of the war, so different from the constant fighting in Normandy, and the wild rush after the break-through. This was the slow movement, he thought sleepily, with the melody, such as it was, being carried by other instruments. The main problems, he saw, were keeping warm, keeping clean and keeping fed, and Captain Green's big concern all day had seemed to be the growing incidence of trench-foot in his command.
Michael heard the jeep coming up through the darkness outside. The windows were covered with blankets to show no light, and a blanket hung over the doorway. The door swung open and Noah came in slowly, followed by Berenson. The blanket flickered in the light of the electric lantern, blowing in the raw gust of night air.
Noah closed the door behind him. He leaned wearily against the wall. Green looked up at him.
"Well?" Green asked gently. "Did you see him, Noah?"
"I saw him." Noah's voice was exhausted and hoarse.
"Where was he?"
"At the field hospital."
"Are they going to move him back?" Green asked.
"No, Sir," Noah said. "They're not going to move him back."
Berenson clattered over to one corner of the room and got out a K ration from his pack. He ripped open the cardboard noisily, and tore the paper around the biscuits. He ate loudly, his teeth making a crackling sound on the hard biscuit.
"Is he still alive?" Green spoke softly and hesitantly.
"Yes, Sir," said Noah, "he's still alive."
Green sighed, seeing that Noah did not wish to speak further.