Souvenir (24 page)

Chapter Thirteen

1945

Jake knelt in the snow, one knee down and the other up. The dampness of the wet snow on his knee told him that today wouldn’t be as frigid as yesterday, but the air was still filled with cold moisture, a damp, thick, heavy fog settling into the folds of terrain all around them. He held his right hand up, palm forward. Clay stopped beside him. Tuck and Shorty came up quietly, lowering themselves into the snow with care, hands on their gear, holding down the sounds of leather, clothing and metal as they settled in.

Behind them, men flopped down, dropping rifles, groaning, helmets off and rolling in the snow. Turning, Clay glared, raising his finger to his lips, then flattening out his hand in a downward motion. Sound carried in these woods, and he knew Jake had stopped because he’d heard something. He knew by the slight swivel of Jake’s head, the slow turning of ears left to right, right to left, searching out who else might have heard all this replacement clatter. Didn’t they teach them anything in Basic? Clay doubted the Army had changed a thing since he went through Basic himself. They were probably still teaching them how to set up pup tents for a good night’s sleep at the front. Out of sight of the enemy, they had said, in a grove of trees for camouflage. Too bad they never took into account the Krauts setting their artillery fuses to burst in the treetops, sending wooden splinters like daggers showering into G.I.s below. Clay looked at the men behind him as they whispered to each other. Not even enough sense to shut up and set up a perimeter guard. The walking dead.

Jake tried to quiet himself, to let his beating heart settle down so the thumping in his chest and ears would die away, leaving only the sounds of the forest. They had just climbed a ridgeline, and he could feel the fatigue in his thighs and in his lungs as they gasped for oxygen. Gulping air he signaled for Oakland, up ahead on point, to come back. No need to ask twice. Oakland slid down the next ridgeline and ran low, crouching, scurrying over to them. As he neared the bottom of the gully separating the ridges he all but disappeared in the thick fog. Jake saw the top layer of fog swirling as Oakland moved through it, the current creating a tiny gap for the grayness to fill in behind him. Coming up out of the fog as if rising from a dive into a deep lake, he flopped down on his knees next to Jake, hauling in a lungful of air, his eyes on the ground, M1 pointed straight at Jake. With an irritated frown, Jake pushed it away. Tapping Oakland’s helmet he waited for the kid to look at him. He pointed at his eyes, then waited some more. The look on Oakland’s face was quizzical, uncomprehending. Jake leaned in until his nose was up against the chinstrap hanging off the side of Oakland’s helmet.

“Did you see anything?” Jake whispered, desperately wanting to add
asshole
, but not wanting to expend the effort or the sound.

“No, no. Everything looks the same out there. Fog, trees, snow.”

There was enough truth to that. They had spent most of yesterday lost after they’d left the Kraut position where they’d spent the night. Jake was certain they were headed in the right direction today, or at least what once was the right direction. Maybe the Krauts had pushed the line back so far they’d never get home, just wander around in these frozen woods until they ran out of food, ammo, and hope. There were no maps to go by, all those were in the pockets of dead lieutenants and sergeants, caked in blood and frost, under the snow. Nothing but the setting sun to point the way back.

Jake tapped Oakland on the shoulder and jerked his thumb back to the gaggle of replacements behind them. Oakland didn’t need that gesture explained. He took off in snap, obviously glad to not be point man anymore. Jake watched Oakland settle in and heard the murmur of his pals asking him what was up. Lifting his finger to his lips, the kid cut them off, turning away from them and watching the trees instead. Nothing like an hour on point for a guy to learn the virtues of silence. Behind Oakland, Big Ned and Miller came up from the rear. Big Ned gave Jake a slight nod and turned away, watching their rear. Miller laid down next to him, his M1 aimed along the trail they had made.

Jake waited some more. Waited for all the sounds of movement to vanish from his mind. Waited for the natural sounds of the snow-laden woods be heard. The pines here were small, interspersed with brush and small trees. Streambeds ran between ridges, and Jake could imagine it in the spring, a mad profusion of running water, rocks covered with green moss, ferns and flowers popping out everywhere. It would be pretty.

He saw a single bird fly out of a pine tree off to their right. A dark, small form, it darted and dove away from them, vanishing in a cover of green pine branches. He looked from where it had flown; letting his eyes travel down the ridgeline ahead of them, off to the right where it tapered down to nothing but a white flatness.

Without moving his eyes, he lay down in the snow and tapped Shorty on his leg. Shorty went prone too, crawling up, his head next to Jake’s. Not moving his head, Jake squinted his eyes, trying to focus on what he thought he’d seen. He put two fingers up to his eyes and pointed straight out along his sightline. Shorty looked for about ten seconds, then nodded, motioning Clay into his spot, scuttling back to make room for him. He pointed, then ran his hand back and forth, left and right, indicating a spot ahead about ten degrees wide.

Raising his binoculars, Clay scanned the area ahead. At first all he saw were trees and brush, snow heaped up on boulders. Then he spotted it. Down at the end of two ridgelines, on a flat stretch of forest floor. A road. Muddy, snow-caked ruts showed between the ridges for only ten yards, but it was unmistakable. Clay nodded and handed the binoculars to Jake. Looking through them, he studied the road, and then all around it. Nothing stirred.

Jake raised his eyebrows to Clay as he handed the binoculars back.

Clay tilted his head. Yeah, why not?

Jake looked at Shorty and Tuck. Tuck shrugged and Shorty grinned. What the fuck. Why not?

Jake tapped Shorty and pointed at Big Ned and Miller. Go tell them. Crouching low, Shorty crawled away from the top of the ridge, quick-stepping through the other men, his hand out, palm down, going slowly up and down. Stay put and shut up.

Jake looked back at the road, but he still worried over the noise he’d heard. What had that sound been? Deeper than a snapping twig. Maybe snow falling from a tree limb, or a deer jumping a log. Or a boot stomping off snow. He strained to listen, sitting quietly letting everything come to him. But he couldn’t quiet himself, couldn’t turn off the voice in his head, second-guessing everything. The road forced him to think ahead, decide on a course of action, maybe get them back, maybe get them all killed. The fear of failing the men gathered behind him gnawed at his mind, sending up a drumbeat of doubt pounding his head.

The road, the road. Was it a good sign or not? Where would it lead? Was it guarded? By them? By us?

He rubbed his fist against his forehead, trying to drive out the questions and make some sense of things. Everyone was waiting, waiting for a decision that he had to make, a decision that could get them all killed. Or home. Home. Funny how a foxhole in the frozen earth became home when you couldn’t get back to it.

Should we stay put? Was it better to stay in the woods?

No. It wasn’t. They’d gotten lost yesterday and walked in a big circle, ending up back at their own tracks six hours later. It was too easy to get lost, too easy to fool yourself into thinking you were headed in the right direction when you were going off at an angle, your mistake growing each hour until you made more mistakes trying to correct the first one and you ended up right where you started. Fucked.

Okay, the road. It’s gotta lead somewhere, and that somewhere should tell us where we are. We’ll have to go slow, point and rear guard close in so they can signal to get off the road at the first sound of vehicles. Or a checkpoint. And if it’s our guys, the problem then is how not to get shot when we jump out of the woods and start yelling and screaming. The road.

Jake smiled in spite of himself. Soon as he could, he’d say to Clay, there’s bad news, bad news, and good news…bad news is it could be a Kraut road and they’ll shoot us. Other bad news is it could be our road, and dogfaces’ll shoot us. Good news is there’s no one else left to shoot…

What’s that?

A noise, a
thump
from beyond the next ridge. Another bird flew up from the trees in front of them, a large black crow, or maybe a raven. Then another, then five or six more from the trees farther down on their right.
Caw, caw, caw,
they called, disturbed, as they floated down to another thick stand of pines below the ridge.

Thump,
again.

Jake looked around, trying to locate the source of the sound. He caught sight of Shorty, headed back from Big Ned and Miller, as he froze in place. Even the replacements were hushed, looking up into the trees from where they were nestled in a small draw. Shorty moved his head slowly, looking around, his hand flat again, signaling quiet. Miller shifted his rifle towards the sounds. Big Ned kept the BAR on their rear.

Tuck brushed his hand against Clay and Jake as he pointed his finger down towards their right, into the fog-settled gully between the ridges. His hand shook but the finger aimed true. In the fog below them, the top of a helmet broke the surface and floated along, a disembodied steel prow, leaving a wake of gray haze behind it. It was painted white, winter camouflage, and underneath it, shielded by the fog, was a German, not twenty yards from them.

Jake watched the helmet. He could see it turn left and right, then dip down to look at something on the ground. It dipped beneath the fog and vanished, with the sound of another
thump.
The German had stumbled and fallen. This close, Jake heard the grunt as the guy got up. Walking through the fog and deep snow, it was easy to trip over a hidden log or rock. There could be plenty of them out there, falling over themselves. Jake looked behind the first helmet and saw more white-washed steel following. Two, three, four. If they had crouched, like Oakland, they would have been invisible. But these Krauts were standing up straight, not hiding. The sounds from beyond the ridge meant there were more over there too. A search party, looking for their tracks, hunting them.

Jake lifted his hand slowly and spread out five fingers, then pointed towards the Krauts, and signaled left, the direction they were headed. He felt a hand pat his shoulder, and sensed Clay moving off. Jake and Tuck were up front, Shorty on their right flank baby-sitting the replacements, and Big Ned and Miller holding the rear. They were blind on the left, above the small depression where the rest of the men were huddled together.

Clay cradled his M1 in his arms and crawled, all elbows and knees, pulling himself through the snow as it mounded up in front of him, forcing itself into his mouth and nose. Inching his way around a small pine tree he stopped behind a clump of birch, its thin shoots spread like a fan in front of his face. As the Germans crossed in front of Jake’s position, moving up out of the gully, their faces and torsos became visible as the fog fell away behind them. They looked like swimmers emerging from an ocean, draped in wisps of fog and trailing whiteness. Clay could see their faces and expressions clearly, searching the terrain around them with wary, determined, hard eyes. He watched as they came out of the fog, not grouping together, but falling into a four-man diamond, guarding their flanks. Clay saw one of them signal to someone on the next ridge, where he made out other forms flitting through the trees in their white winter camouflage suits. These weren’t replacements.

The Kraut who signaled didn’t signal in both directions. That was good. It meant this group was the left flank of the patrol. If they were looking for them, they were probably sweeping sections off the road, looking for footprints. If they kept going dead straight, what would they find? Clay tried to remember which way they’d walked in to this point. Had they curved in, so the Krauts would cross their tracks behind them?

It was all a jumble in his head, he couldn’t remember. The Kraut closest to him walked right by, about five yards away. Smelling him, that odor of sweat, leather and sausage that always clung to Krauts, Clay wondered what he smelled like to them. Real tobacco, maybe, or coffee? Good thing they’d all run out of smokes yesterday. His stomach grumbled and he prayed it wasn’t really as loud as it sounded. The Kraut stopped, shifting his feet and turning his head, as if he were a dog sniffing the air for the scent of cat.

Clay froze, not even wanting to blink. Keeping his gaze on the Kraut, he studied him. Potato masher grenade stuck in his boot. Schmeisser submachine gun hung on a black leather strap over his shoulder. Two four-clip ammo pouchs on his belt, along with two more grenades. The hood to his white snow suit was thrown back and open at the neck. He was close enough for Clay to see the SS letters on his collar tab, sharp-edged lightning bolts. Fuck. SS and loaded for bear. He wished he knew how many of them there were. Five here, probably the same at the next ridge. Make that one squad. Two or three more, a full platoon, maybe? Two they could handle. Three, and they were fucked good. Not much ammo left, three or four clips apiece. But everyone had a couple of grenades at least. They hadn’t been able to use them from inside the house, but they had gone through most of their ammo.

Yells rose up from the other ridge. The Kraut in front of Clay turned away from him. Clay heard a gasp, a surprised intake of breath behind him. The yelling had spooked one of the replacements. A slight rustling of clothing told him someone was scared, fighting the urge to blot, to drop his rifle and run through the snow, away from everything. It was a powerful urge, and Clay had felt it more than once. Away always seemed like it would be a safe place when your fear got a hold of you. Away was where he’d like to be too, but right now he had a Kraut in front of him who didn’t look like he was going away anytime soon.