Easy Company Soldier (21 page)

“Malark, give us a hand over here,” Roe said while working on Guarnere.

There was no time to grieve. The war had to go on.

Or did it?

One shot.

That's all it would take, I figured as I warmed my hands around the campfire with a few other shivering soldiers a few days later. It happened all the time, these “accidents.” Why not now? Why not here? Why not me?

I stared at the embers, stretched out my fingers, then closed my hands when they got too hot. Hell, everyone found their way out of this, whether intentional or not. Hoobler and Ranney—shots to the leg. One dies, one doesn't, but both got their get-out-of-jail-free cards. Toye and Guarnere—legs blown to bits. Buck—blown to bits, too, but just in a different way—emotionally. Not his fault. The guy busted his butt for us. The last time I saw him, he was like a ghost. His eyes seemed to look right through me, as if I weren't even there and he was seeing something else completely.

That was two days earlier. I put my right hand onto the holster, then around the cold stock of the P38. I thought I
was a pretty tough kid, growing up in a hardscrabble place like Astoria. I got tougher on Mount Currahee. And on that road to Atlanta, lugging a sixty-five-pound mortar 118 miles. And jumping into the darkness of Normandy. And surviving seventy days in the muck and mutton of Holland. But standing around that fire, you realize the price for surviving is seeing so many around you
not
survive—and having to stuff that pain in your musette bag every friggin' day and keep walking, with so little hope of ever getting to whatever's at the end. And you think,
Maybe they're the lucky SOBs.
The ones who are suddenly gone, not that I'd wish death on anyone. Like that telegram my grandfather had sent from Denver when my uncle Bob was dying:
If he is to pass at this time he begs of you all… not to grieve unduly for he will be released from suffering and at peace.

Once, I asked Skip about swimming the Niagara. He and his pals had started about ten miles above the waterfalls. It was nearly a mile across with a swift current. They knew that to get across they'd wind up at least a few miles downstream. Anyway, about four or five miles from the falls, he said, was a point-of-no-return sign. If you weren't able to get your boat or body out of the river by this point, your fate was sealed. You were going over the falls, period. And staring at those embers, that's exactly how I felt right now: beyond the point of no return. Helpless to do anything but relax and go over the edge.

I looked at the fire, careful not to look in the eyes of the men standing around me, the other survivors. I'd lost eight Toccoa buddies since those days in Georgia, not even counting the busted-up ones such as Toye and Guarnere. Slowly, my right forefinger curled around the icy pistol's trigger.

I wanted to leave it all behind: the cold, the eerie quiet of the forest before you heard the whistle of a shell, and the helpless look in Joe Toye's eyes when he'd said, “What's a guy gotta do to die, Malark?” Above all, I think, for the first time I realized that this war had no end and that I'd never smell late-summer blackberries or see Bernice again unless I—

“Sergeant Malarkey?”

The voice came from behind, scaring the hell out of me. I slid the gun back in its holster. It was some soldier who'd arrived by jeep.

“Winters sent me, Sergeant. There's someone back in the woods who wants to see you.”

Buck Compton looked nothing like the soldier who'd walked off the line a few days before. Well-starched Class A uniform. Hair combed. He was taking quick drags on a cigarette. His driver was waiting for him in a jeep.

“I've been reassigned, Malark,” he said. “Some desk job in Paris. Director of athletics and entertainment or something.” He'd wanted to stay with the company but Winters wouldn't allow it.

“That's great, Buck,” I said.

“Dick said I could come say good-bye.”

“I'm glad you did. I'm happy for you.”

He looked around. “Don, there's something I need to know.” He paused and looked beyond me, back toward the woods where I'd just made fresh tracks in the snow. Back to where the others were.

“What, uh—what do the other guys think of me?”

I couldn't lie. “They think you're a hell of an officer, Buck.”

“Really?”

“Really. They wish you the best. Honest.”

He nodded, his lips pursed a bit.”Thanks, Malark.”

He looked at me and saluted. I saluted back. And we left to go to the different places we each needed to be.

I didn't cry after learning Skip Muck was dead. That would come later. Much later. Not that it didn't hurt. Hell, I'd never felt pain so deep. He was like my brother. No, closer than my brother. But by January 9, when he'd died in a shelling about one hundred yards east of where I was, I was too mentally numb to really react. Too tired. I didn't sleep a wink for two nights after Roe broke the news to me. And after seeing Toye and Guarnere carted off, and Compton leaving, it was like dumping ice on a guy who was already frozen stiff.

But the main reason I didn't crumble at his death is I couldn't. That wasn't allowed. With Compton gone, I realized I had to step up and lead. After Guarnere went down, Winters had promoted me to permanent sergeant status.

Now, Buck was gone. From day one, you're taught that the good of the whole is more important that just
you.
That you can't let your emotions get in the way of the task at hand. So like a doctor who deals with pain and death each day, you just bury it somewhere deep down inside, thinking it'll go away on its own.

If I'd put that bullet through my leg or gone to pieces when Toye and Guarnere had been wounded, or when Skip had died, what would it have done to the rest of these guys? Hell, we were all at the breaking point. Hanging on to whatever shred of resolve we still had in us. And if a few of us didn't stand up and lead as if we were going to somehow survive this cold and outlast this last-gasp push by the krauts, what would happen to Easy Company? You might as well bury us all beneath one giant headstone, etched with the words the s.o.B.s quit. Hardly a fitting legacy to those left behind, including my uncles.

Not that I thought this all out back when it was happening, back when I heard the crunch of feet in the snow and turned to see Roe coming my way. I could tell by the look on his face that this wasn't a social visit.

“Malark, I'm sorry, but it's Skip,” he said. “He's dead. Penkala, too.”

I simply sat on the edge of a slit trench like a man who'd been out in the cold too long. Numb. My brain told my mouth to speak but it was like the words were frozen in place.

“How'd … it… happen?” I asked, my voice but a whisper.

“‘Bout a hundred yards down the line. A major shelling. Muck and Penkala were caught out in the open, then finally found a hole. George Luz had been scurrying around during the blitz, too. Muck and Penkala yelled for him to get in their foxhole.”

Roe paused. I kind of nodded, rocked forward and backward a bit. Put my hands over my face, fingers as numb from the cold as my brain from the news.

“Luz is down on the snow, snaking his way toward them, and—boom—direct hit on the foxhole. Shell found them as if it had eyes.”

I looked away, toward nothing. Thought of Faye Tanner back in Tonawanda.

I didn't need to think on that one long; later, I'd hear that beyond a shredded sleeping bag and a few body parts, there wasn't much to see. I shook my head sideways. That wasn't Skip Muck back there in that foxhole. Skip Muck was sitting on the floor of the PX with me, listening to the Mills Brothers sing “Paper Doll” on the jukebox. He was getting my food for me when my legs had given out on the march to Atlanta. He was swimming the damn Niagara River at night, a thought that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time, the crazy fool.

I did neither.

“Thanks, Roe. I'm fine.”

He reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said, pressing the cross of some broken rosary beads in my hand. “He'd want you to have it.”

I held that cross in my hands for who knows how long, frozen like a statue. A few hours later, Roe came to see me again. I was staring off at nothing, still holding that cross.

“Malark, uh, Winters wants to know if you want to come back and spend a couple of days with him at headquarters. Help out there, ya know. Be a runner.”

Sounded inviting. But I looked around at the others, heads bowed, some of their eyes red, crying over Skip. First time I'd ever seen that in war. Everybody in tears. Everybody
but me. I was a staff sergeant now. We had no officers left. I was in charge. And staff sergeants can't lead by sipping hot coffee a quarter mile back from the line. Or crying. Who cares how fast the current's going; you gotta swim the friggin' river.

“Tell him thanks, but I'll stay put.”

“Sure, Malark? You could use a break. Everyone needs a breather now and then.”

“I'm OK, Roe,” I said, nodding as if to convince myself.

Easy Company was through playing games with the German soldiers at Foy. Other companies, like F, had attacked Foy and gotten pretty badly chewed up. The Germans had been bringing in trucks and tanks. But, after a couple of days of rest, we figured it was now or never. We'd swept the woods left and right. It was time to head straight in.

Besides the Jerries, two things worried me about this attack. First, there were no two ways about it: At some point, we were going to have to charge across an open field of snow, a soldier's worst nightmare against an enemy that's entrenched with buildings and trees to protect them. Second, a guy who'd hardly seen any combat, Capt. Norman Dike, would be leading the assault. Dike was Compton's replacement, some nose-in-the-air Yaley who knew someone high up. He spooked everyone. He was Sobel without the toughness. In the blasts that got Guarnere and Toye, Dike had scurried off like a scared rabbit. But, in war, sometimes you gotta dance with who brung ya, as they say.

Winters was feeding Dike instructions like a coach to a rookie quarterback. We moved out. Our covering fire opened up. A smoke barrage was laid down in front of the
buildings the Germans were using for defensive positions. We headed across the field. The 3rd Platoon went in on a frontal attack and were in an orchard about a hundred yards from the buildings when the smoke lifted. They were taking heavy fire and casualties. We flanked in from the west. First was in reserve and would later come in to help 3rd.

I spotted one of the machine-gun positions. “Fire mortars!” I yelled to my mortarman, some replacement I hardly knew.

We were standing in the open, alongside a rock fence structure while I pointed out the gun I had seen. The mortarman crouched to set the tube.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.
He was ripped by eight rounds of machine-gun fire. Not dead, but seriously wounded. Still, there was no way in hell we could get him out of there until we had Foy in our hands. He bled to death.

By now, I'd later learn, our attack was in total disarray. Dike had frozen behind a haystack. Flat-out refused to lead the charge. Winters was going nuts on the radio, trying to get Dike's butt in gear, trying to get him to move the men forward. Finally, Winters had had it; he put Speirs in charge, the same Speirs who'd been rumored to have mowed down the German POWs and once killed one of his own sergeants. But, as it turned out, a wise replacement for Dike, who was wetting his pants. I never totally respected Speirs because of the times he'd gone too far with his tommy gun, but he knew how to lead in combat and always was fair with me.

Our platoon continued to work our way in. We found cover behind an outbuilding. I heard German gunfire from an adjacent outbuilding, apparently coming from a single soldier. Breathing heavily, I looked at the corporal next to me.

“I'll get him,” I said, my back to the building. I inched sideways, getting ready to spin around the corner and open fire.

“Sarge, you're in charge of this outfit,” the corporal said. “I'll go.”

Reluctantly, I nodded a yes. He stuck his head around the corner of the building.
Pfffft.
A bullet killed him instantly, a yard from where I stood. Angered, I hopped over him, dashed around the corner, and opened fire with my tommy gun. There was a German soldier in a barn window, obviously the guy who'd just killed that corporal. I mowed him down, then came up on the barn itself. I poked my head inside. My heart was pounding.

“Anybody else in here need killing?” I yelled. No movement. I looked around to make sure nobody was hiding, then relaxed, assured I was safe. I saw the soldier I'd just killed, sprawled on the barn floor, helmet off. Two or three bullets had bloodied his chest, which, against his gray uniform, looked more crimson than red. Damn, he looked so young. I bent over and found his soldier's record—the Germans called them pay books—and glanced at it. Holy mother of God, this kid was only sixteen years old. Looking back, it was like the time as a kid I'd shot what I thought was my first quail. Only, when I ran to where it had nose-dived into some tall grass, I realized it wasn't a quail after all, but a robin. I felt like two cents.

The kid was probably part of Hitler Youth. He'd had no choice in all this. Just swept up in a madman's pursuit of evil. I looked at his face, eyes fixed forever. A face that I wouldn't forget. Not the next day. Not the next month. Not ever. I tucked his pay book in my pocket and moved on.

As I moved up to the wall of a house, I realized the 3rd
Platoon had already gotten there because the place was littered with the dead and dying. We surged forward, Easy Company and others of the 506th, dumping everything we had on them: M1s, tommy guns, bazookas, light machine guns, mortars, and grenades. Resistance was strong. By now it was house-to-house fighting. Snipers, well placed in high positions, were picking off our guys right and left. Finally, Shifty Powers spotted them and opened fire with great success.