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"Impossible." I muttered as I sat staring at Chuck's empty bed in the gathering darkness.
I prepared another cigarette, cursing inwardly at my inability to control the violent trembling of my hands.
"Impossible." I repeated with some wild hope that the soothing effect of the smoke might enable me to see some logic in the events of the past few hours or even to convince myself that they hadn't happened. But I knew perfectly well that they had happened.
Hadn't I personally packed Chuck's equipment and placed it in the ambulance beside him? Hadn't I helplessly read the desperation in his eyes as well as in his voice as he pleaded with me: "Tell them I'm not lying; you saw it too; you tell them".
But what could I have done except commit myself to the psycho-ward along with Chuck by vouching for the accuracy of his report? There was no doubt in my mind that Chuck would have been right there in my place staring at my empty bed had I made that report of what we both knew to be true. Now it lay insufferably heavy upon my conscience that I had let him make the report - doubly so because of my inability to help him.
I stared at the smoke rising rapidly from the tip of my cigarette. The weird, half-light of the dying day gave it a peculiar appearance of tangibility. Rising in a vertical rod, it smashed itself against an invisible barrier several feet above my head. There it spread over the room in a uniform blanket of white. Undulating gently like a layer of down floating upon the surface of a quiet pool, it created within me the sensation that I was submerged in some suffocation liquid. Fascinated by the growing illusion, I followed its liquid motion with my eyes until it reached the walls where its edges moved rhythmically up and down like waves lapping the sides of a pool. In that instant, the sense of depression which had been mounting steadily within me became unbearable, and I threw myself across my bed with a hoarse groan. The spell was broken.
Sometime later, I pulled myself together and noticed that it had grown quite dark. Rising, I turned on the light and poured some water into a wash basin from a large china pitcher. I washed my hands and face in the cold water, thinking irrelevantly as I did so that the firms manufacturing these two pieces of crockery must have made a fortune; I had yet to see a German bedroom without both. I studied the intricate designs decorating the pitcher and chuckled mirthlessly as I recalled the concern shown for its safety by the Housfrau when we took over her house.
Sobering suddenly, I wondered if I had violated our orders of strict security by telling her that we would be using the house only until the main body of our task force overtook us. Of course not, I thought; she surely must have known that our small party was only the reconnaissance unit for the larger forces following. That was the way it had been for longer than I cared to remember. We inched our way cautiously ahead, probing in all directions so that those who followed would know what they were up against. I smiled cynically as I recalled that the only relief we knew from the constant strain on the nerves were the occasional breaks like this one when higher headquarters radioed us that we were getting too far in advance of the main force.
We all lived just for these breaks, because, however short they might be, they meant a period of comparative comfort. It was really very simple; we just moved into the most comfortable looking house in the vicinity and proceeded to live the lives of conquerors, secretly enjoying our power over the frightened popu1ation. These brief periods were broken only by regularly scheduled patrols into the surrounding territory to maintain the security of our position.
Patrols: the hated word brought my thoughts back into sharp focus on the patrol Chuck and I had been on early that morning.
Ordinarily, that patrol would have been the job of Smitty and me, but the night before, Smitty had come down with diphtheria and lay delirious in his bed, and Chuck was assigned to take his place. It had been with some misgivings that I busied myself about the jeep, checking fuel, oil, and water and making other routine preparations. In the first place, Smitty was my best friend, and his condition was so serious that it was impossible to move him back to the hospital; he hadn't even recognized me when I went in to see him a few minutes before. Then, too, this patrol was violating all the rules: two men were being sent out in broad daylight to investigate a report that the tattered remnants of the Germen army were rallying just ahead of us for a desperate last stand before retreating across the Rhine River.
"Hell's bells" the Old Man had snorted contemptuously at my protests. "Don't tell me you believe every rumor that comes along. Any damned Kraut in this area has long since dunked his drawers in the Rhine and is still making tracks if he has any sense left ~ you can bet your life on that!"
I was still smarting under his scorn and thinking somewhat bitterly that I was doing just that - betting my life on it. My thoughts were interrupted at that point by the appearance of Chuck.
"Wind 'er up," he said by way of greeting. "Let's deflate this rumor and get back before my coffee gets cold."
"So you think it's just a rumor too," I said, partly to myself, and then, "I still don't like it. You'd think the Old Man would at least have enough sense to let us wait until dark."
"Come, come, Junior," quipped Chuck in tones of mock reproval. "Since when have you taken it upon yourself to question the judgment of your superiors? Me, I don't think it's just a rumor, and I don't think it's not a rumor. I'm just a Pfc. I don't have to think! Anyway, orders are orders. Let's get going."
We threw our "grease-guns" into the back seat of the jeep and headed out of town by way of the lesser-used road which led toward the hills the Germans were supposed to be fortifying. For the next few minutes, we rode in silence, enjoying the sole luxury of the enlisted man: the privacy of our own thoughts. As we neared a curve in the road, Chuck's voice broke the silence startlingly.
"We had better stop at that curve up there; from there the road can be seen from the valley."
The valley he referred to lay between the hills and town. I pulled up just short of the curve and cut the engine.
"Don't you think you'd better leave her turned around, just in case?" asked Chuck, casually.
"Guess so", I grumbled, irritated at his cool presence of mind while I was so obviously upset.
I turned the jeep around, and we both dismounted. Chuck strode on ahead while I adjusted the sling on my gun and checked to make sure I had extra magazines. Completing this, I walked on up to stop beside Chuck who was standing at the beginning of the slope which led off into the valley.
"Look at that." He swung his arm in a wide arc to take in the valley. "Not enough cover out there to hide that little old flap-jack I had for breakfast!"
And he was right. It was one of the widely scattered areas suitable for cultivation in the Harz Mountain range, and for that reason, every square foot of it had been broken for the spring planting.
Glancing sharply at Chuck, I saw that his expression had become quite sober.
"What's the matter? You haven't decided that our little 'rumor' may not be just a rumor at this late date, have you? It I asked with more sarcasm than was called for. But if he was aware of my sarcastic note, he chose to ignore it.
"Of course not, the smell of fresh-plowed ground always makes me homesick." He made a great show of sniffling and wiping mock tears from his eyes. We both chuckled at his joke, then settled down to the business at hand.
As Chuck had mentioned, there was nothing we could use to cover a direct approach across the valley. Still, a direct approach was the only plausible plan. The valley itself was crescent-shaped, curving away from us in either direction to end in the rugged terrain of the mountains proper on our right and in a heavily wooded area several miles farther down on our left. Directly across from us lay our objective: a prominent foothill commanding a view of the entire valley.
"A perfect set-up," I observed aloud.
"That's for damn sure," conceded Chuck. "If those bloody bastards aren't taking advantage of it, they are missing their last chance until they get to the Bavarian Alps."
"Well, we're here to find out whether or not they are taking advantage of it," I said. "There's nothing to do but take off across there and hope they aren't."
On such terrain, it was obviously useless to use the usual procedure of crouching and moving rapidly at short intervals: an erect figure would attract no more attention than a crouched one. Accordingly, we set out boldly, feeling very conspicuous and, consequently, very scared.
After the first quarter of a mile, I stopped regularly to scan the hills through my binoculars. Finding nothing to arouse any further suspicions, I became increasingly confident that no effort was being made to fortify that position. But my confidence was short-lived.
Without warning, the ground in front of me began to erupt in little spurts of earth, and I didn't have to wait for the staccato of explosions immediately following to identify it as enemy machinegun fire. Instinctively, I hit the ground and froze, trying to offer as small a target as possible. But I knew that any security gained from such action was purely psychological; we were about as well hidden as insects under a microscope.
As the firing continued and we both were untouched, I wondered how such prominent targets as we must have been could escape being hit. Turning my head slightly, I saw the reason. The fire was coming from about halfway up the hill. That meant the enemy couldn't hit us with sweeping fire; they had to fire on us directly, and as yet, they hadn't found the correct range. But noticing that the little spurts of earth marking the strike of the bullets were getting nearer, I realized that finding the correct range was only a matter of time.
I closed my eyes and cursed. I cursed my failure to convince the Old Man that this was a job for a night patrol; I cursed the peasants who had plowed up the ground, destroying the grass and wheat straw. Above all, I cursed my helplessness, expecting each instant to feel the next bullet smashing into the flesh of my exposed back.
Then I remembered Chuck.
I glanced back and saw him flattened out on the ground some fifteen yards to my rear. I also saw the little geysers of earth springing up between us as well as behind him. Somehow, in spite of my mounting panic, I realized that he was yelling wildly at me and pointing in a direction to our left.
"Look, you damned fool~ that way! Look!"
Mechanically, I turned my head again to look in that direction. I was astounded to see another prone figure making signs that we were to follow him. In the instant that passed before he turned and started crawling away from us, I recognized him as Smitty.
In a flash, I forgot the fear which had held me paralyzed. What stupid fool had let Smitty come out here in his condition? Seething with rage, I turned loose another tirade of profanity directed at the person responsible for Smitty's care.
Splat! My anger was cooled quite suddenly by a handful of black dirt thrown in my face by an uncomfortably close bullet. Fear seized me again, and I started crawling rapidly as possible in the direction Smitty had taken.
Chuck had a few yards' start on me, and I could tell from his movements that his progress was as agonizing as my own. The soft, black clods made crawling very difficult. They crumbled under my attempts to pull forward with my hands. They moved backward under the pressure of my feet. The black dirt mingled with the perspiration on my face and ran into my eyes. It stuck to my hands and plucked at my clothing, trying to hold me back.
I raised my eyes to look for Smitty, but he was nowhere in sight. Puzzled, I shifted my glance toward Chuck just in time to see him suddenly disappear from sight. "What the hell gives?" I asked myself, and finding no immediate answer, I frantically increased my efforts. A few yards farther, I saw the answer. A drainage ditch cut across my path at right angles - a small ditch, but large enough to deserve the prayerful thanks I gave for its being there. I crawled the few remaining yards and dropped into the ditch beside Chuck who was still panting from exhaustion.
"Where's Smitty?" I demanded as soon as I could speak.
"He must have gone on back toward the jeep. I guess you know we played hell by not seeing' this ditch before we left the jeep; it runs into the road not far from where we stopped." Chuck was as disgusted as I with our lack of foresight.
After waiting a few minutes to catch our breath, we set out toward the road. The going was somewhat easier in the ditch, as we could crawl along on our hands and knees. The machine gun fire became sporadic and finally subsided altogether as we neared the road. At the road, we stood up and sprinted the remaining distance to the jeep.
Smitty was not there, nor was he anywhere in sight.
"Why do you suppose he didn't wait for us?" I didn't expect Chuck to answer my question; it was more to ease my irritation.
"He must have had another jeep," he said, annoyed at my stupidity. "Anyway, it's for damned sure we didn't leave him behind."
Climbing into the jeep, we headed toward town with our information. I kept a sharp lookout for Smitty on the way back, but failing to see anything of him, I accepted the logical explanation that he had his own jeep. But I was still worried.
Back at the command post, I let Chuck out to report to the Old Man while I waited in the jeep. From inside, I caught snatches of the conversation - enough to hear the Old Man's surprised snorts. He hated to admit that any of his conclusions were wrong, and his humiliation was greater than his concern for the seriousness of the matter. I chuckled at the thought of him sitting there spluttering to soothe his ruffled pride.
Then from inside, I heard Chuck mention Smitty's name and everything grew quiet. The Old Man's voice broke the silence, but I couldn't quite catch what he said. Whatever it was, Chuck's reaction was audible enough.
"What in the hell are you talking about?" Chuck was demanding. "Are you crazy?"
That was enough for me; something was going on in there. Nobody talked like that to the Old Man. It just wasn't done. I jumped to the ground and ran toward the door. It was then that Chuck threw open the door and yelled at me: "Tell them I'm not lying'. You saw it too! You tell them!"
Before I could interfere, two non-coms pinioned his arms and forced him back inside. A third, who had come outside, remained and spoke to me in a low voice.
"What the hell happened out there?" Before I could answer, he went on: "The poor devil says Smitty was with you. We didn't want to tell you this morning, but about ten minutes after you left him to get ready for the patrol, Smitty - - died."
 By
s/Billy T. Manning
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