Love is a Wounded Soldier Read online

  “Ja! Ja! Docta!” he beamed as the light came on.

  “OK, good then,” I picked up my rifle and turned to go.

  “Sank you! Gott bless!” he called out to my retreating back.

  “Yeah, you too,” I almost chuckled. For some reason, I felt better than I had all day. Gott bless. The square-headed, baby-killing son of Satan believed in God, too! Who would have thought that?

  “We were about to send a search party for you,” Johnny grumbled when I returned. I detected irritation in his voice.

  “From now on, don’t go wandering off by yourself. Please. Staff Sergeant.” He softened his order by tacking manners and formality on the end as an afterthought. Had anyone but Johnny addressed me in that manner, they would have received a sharp reprimand, but I knew my friend hid genuine concern behind his rough speech.

  “We found a stretcher, sir,” Jedidiah informed me.

  “Good,” I nodded. “I found three dead Krauts,” I told the men, “and one wounded one to the south of them, right around where you can see that dead tree sticking up above the hedgerow,” I pointed to the approximate location I’d left the wounded German.

  “Capriotti and Gunn, I want you two to take this stretcher, go back there, find him, and bring him back to the aid station. We’ll try to get Frankie over there without the stretcher, and meet you there.”

  They picked up the stretcher and trudged off. I looked down at Frankie’s maimed body, wondering where to grab onto him. I could tell the men were thinking the same thing, just they were all looking at me, waiting for me to tell them what to do.

  “Don’t just stand there, grab on!” I said finally, not wanting to look like I didn’t want to get my hands dirty.

  Hankins, Johnson, and Johnny all stepped up to help. Taking the lead, I took hold of his left arm and lifted. His body didn’t lift, but his arm bent unnaturally between his elbow and shoulder. The bone was shot off. I dropped it, and it flopped back limply, the lower three-quarters of his arm cocked at a 90 degree angle from the upper quarter. I tried not to look like I felt ill.

  “Grab onto the uniform if you can,” I instructed. We all grabbed fistfuls of khaki cloth and lifted. His arms dangled lifelessly, and I tried to hold him away from my body to prevent the bloody pendulum his arm had become from hitting my leg as I walked. He was a small man, but even after I’d helped carry him 20 yards, my injured leg was giving me stern reminders that it was far from being functional.

  “Staff Sergeant, let me,” Rudd said, noticing my obvious pain.

  “Thank you,” I said, allowing him to take it from there. I wiped the sweat from my brow and walked slowly behind the macabre procession. I looked at little Frankie. Blood poured from the exit holes in his back. All I could think of were the words Johnny had said repeatedly just days before, down at Omaha Beach. “What a waste.”

  “He’s dead,” I waved off a medic as we set Frankie down at the aid station.

  We were all tired and hungry, so while we waited for Eddie and Francis to meet us, we rested outside beneath several trees that looked like they’d been there as long as the house. We ate our K-rations and smoked in silence. It had been another hard day. Strangely enough, the one bright spot in my day had been sparing the life of my enemy. As I slowly chewed my canned meat and biscuit, I thought about what kind of man he was. I wondered if, after it was all over, he would someday be a guest at my table. I could imagine us enjoying some of Ellen’s southern hospitality as the two of us talked about what a damn shame the whole war had been. I wondered if perhaps the only difference between us was the cut and color of our uniforms and our mother tongue. I would have to find out, someday. I had to get his name.

  “Johnny, can I get a shot of your water?” I asked, lowering my empty canteen and screwing the cap back on. Johnny tossed me his, and I took several swigs.

  “Thanks.” I handed it back and lapsed back into deep thought.

  “There come Eddie, Francis, and Jerry,” Charlie pointed at the two men approaching with the stretcher between them. I stood up, eager to catch the name of the soldier before they took him inside for treatment. They set the stretcher abruptly down on the grass. I stared at the too-still body.

  “He looks . . .” I started.

  “Dead,” Francis finished my sentence. His face had a pained “don’t blame me” look on it.

  “Jerry here told us he didn’t want any shootin’,” Eddie grinned. “So I obliged him and scored another point for Betty Bayonet.”

  ~~~

  It lay cold in my hand. I felt the smooth roundness of the barrel and traced my fingers around the edge of the trigger guard. I picked it up by the grip. It warmed to my hand. It felt like it was made for my hand. I could feel the quality of the Luger, even in the darkness of a foxhole.

  What were you thinking, sending Crazy Eddie to pick up a wounded Kraut? What the hell were you thinking?

  It was six hours since Eddie and Francis had dropped a stretcher with a dead German soldier named Karl Heinz on it. I knew his name, because I found a letter addressed to him on his body. Six hours, and I still had nothing to say to Eddie. Oh, I’d wanted to say plenty of things. I’d wanted to rip him a new one. But six hours later, I still hadn’t found words that I wished I could go back in time and share with him.

  Technically, Eddie hadn’t disobeyed any orders. He had played by the rules of warfare. I suppose I could have tried to explain a higher moral law to him, but I felt that I might have better success explaining to a shark what it is to be human. There are certain things that can’t be understood by explanation. Things that your human spirit tells you that you need not attempt to intellectualize.

  Who was Karl Heinz? I thought. What kind of man was he? More importantly, what kind of man would he have been? Had he felt betrayed by me, as Eddie coldly stabbed his chest with his bayonet? As his newfound zest for life ran out of his body through the hole in his ribs, had he thought of me as a Judas, or was I his last memory of decency and humanness? Had I renewed his faith in humanity? Had I solidified his faith in a God of mercy? Who was Karl Heinz? I would never know.

  “Gott bless you, Karl,” I murmured to myself, and slipped the pistol back into my pocket.

  “Huh?” Johnny grunted from the other side of the foxhole.

  “Nothin’,” I said.

  “Oh, thought you said something,” he said in the darkness.

  “Yeah, just mumbling to myself.”

  “Humph.”

  I repositioned my game leg carefully, leaned back, and closed my eyes.

  “Robert?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why’d you let him live?” I rested my chin on my chest as I thought.

  “Well, Johnny, I guess I just couldn’t think of a very good reason to kill him,” I finally replied.

  “Humph.”

  I thought my answer must have satisfied him, because he fell silent again. I closed my eyes.

  “Robert, I know why you didn’t kill him,” Johnny spoke up again.

  “You tell me, Johnny,” I said wearily. The tip of his cigarette glowed brighter for a moment as he took a drag.

  “Because the eye is the window to the soul. It’s easy to blow the head off a faceless uniform when you’re five hundred yards away, but when you stare into a man’s soul, you gotta be hard to kill ’im. You gotta be fuckin’ insane.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I answered sleepily.

  Suddenly, his words soaked through my skull and into my brain. Not “maybe,” it was true. It wasn’t natural to kill. We had to be trained to kill, brought to insanity by degrees, and then placed into a hostile situation where our only recourse to save our lives and the lives of our brothers was to fight back in terror. To fail or show weakness in front of your comrades was the ultimate disgrace. I knew that, because just a few days before, in a bout of temporary insanity, I’d run my bayonet through a man’s throat, for no other reason than to show my men that I was strong. I’d sacrificed his life for respect. It was a
thought so horrible I banished it from my mind.

  I closed my eyes a last time. I’d need some rest before the insanity resumed in the morning.

  ~~~

  Death was inescapable. It lurked in church belfries in town, lay in wait in the country hedgerows, and loitered around the edges of our foxholes, ready to make a call without knocking. Everywhere we went its fetid stench greeted us. Dead cattle lay in the fields, bellies bloated, all four feet pointed skyward. Dead American paratroopers swayed gently by their harnesses from the tree branches. Flies buzzed around their wounds and crawled into their ears and noses. The ground was littered with dead Americans. Dead Germans. Dead tanks. Dead half-tracks. It seemed everything around us was dead, or in the process of someone trying to kill it.

  It was a grim reality, and as I sat down one night to write a letter to Ellen, I struggled with how to describe the horrendous events that now made up my life. I began writing them down in some detail, but just reading what I’d written was ghastly, even for me, so I ripped up my letter and wondered how I could write it in a way that wouldn’t sound so terrible. There was no such way. There was no way to make the facts sound like I was engaged in a friendly tussle with the enemy that should be no cause for alarm. The last thing I wanted to do was cause Ellen to worry any more than she already did, so I decided telling the truth would be no virtue if it caused my bride distress.

  I picked up my pen, and began writing again. This time, it was a work of fiction, alloyed with just enough truth to give it the strength to hold up.

  ~~~

  June 10, 1944, Normandy, France

  Dear Darling,

  Thank you for your last letter. Every word I hear from you refreshes me like the spring rain. I also appreciate that you continue to put some of your perfume on each letter. Last night as I lay in my foxhole, I took your letters out of my breast pocket, where I keep them. It was too dark to read them, but just drinking in the familiar scent of them was heavenly. I felt connected to you across the miles, and for a moment, as I lay there in the darkness, I almost believed you were there. It will be a joyous day when I no longer have to make believe.

  As you and the entire world most likely know by now, we have successfully invaded France. This is a great leap forward, and it’s something of a relief for us all, since we are done the arduous business of training, which had sometimes seemed would stretch on for perpetuity. Now each man feels it’s within his power to hasten the good ship Destiny toward the certainty of victory, and inevitably, peace and home.

  All things considered, I am healthy and doing very well. We have plenty of good food to eat, and although our accommodations tend to be decidedly makeshift, they are quite livable.

  As for encounters with the enemy, they are few and far between, and when they do occur, the Germans appear to have little fight in them. Most of them surrender without incident. Casualties in my company are almost unheard of. Other fellows have heard reports of terrible fighting and casualties sustained by other units. On this I cannot comment, for this has not been my experience where I’m at. Perhaps the fighting is more intense in other sectors of the conflict, but my suspicion is that the news is being sensationalized in order to sell papers. All I know is that being away from you is far closer to being hell than anything else this war is putting me through.

  Have you planted much of a garden this year? How has the weather been? Have you gotten a good amount of rain?

  I’m glad to hear Mr. Matthews has decided to continue renting the land. I’m sure you find the income most useful, and it relieves me to hear you have no unfulfilled needs (except me, of course!). Your well-being is of great concern to me, and it makes being away much more bearable to know you are well.

  Well, I must keep this short. There is much to get busy doing if we are to whip these Germans and be on our way home. I have great reason to believe that before too long, you and I will be reunited. I long for that day, for I love you so.

  Till we walk hand in hand again,

  Robbie

  ~~~

  The days ran together into weeks as we fought town to town, hedgerow to hedgerow. My leg slowly regained its functionality, but though the wound healed, it retained a degree of stiffness it never lost.

  Each day began to feel the same. Each day we fought battles that felt identical to the ones we’d fought the day before. The only thing that changed was the faces we buried. Each day we buried another friend we knew so well, but not nearly as long as we’d have liked to.

  Replacements were plopped in to fill the gaps. I felt sorry for them. It was hard to be accepted by a group of guys that had trained together, fought in horrific battles together, saved each others’ lives a time or two, and together buried common pals. It took months to earn the respect and friendship of the original core of the platoon, and unfortunately, few of the replacements lasted long enough to prove themselves. For whatever reason, it seemed the enemy weaponry could sniff out these terrified greenhorns, and it was eerie how often a replacement would get picked off beside an unscathed veteran.

  Most men that had stayed alive for any length of time seemed to carry something they believed brought them good luck. Johnny carried the casing of the bullet he’d killed his first German with. Charlie held a half-smoked, unlit cigarette in his mouth whenever there was the possibility of a skirmish with the enemy, which was almost always. He had been smoking it when the replacements on either side of him got killed in a slit trench, but he had sustained not so much as a scratch. He held it in his mouth even when he was smoking another cigarette. I filed each of Ellen’s letters in my breast pocket together with her picture. They served more so to inspire me to return safely to her as to ward off bad luck. Or so I told myself. Jedidiah Hankins claimed he wasn’t superstitious, but he was never without the pocket-sized Bible he carried over his heart. Each day we buried another man with his lucky charm. We never considered that our own might fail us.

  ~~~

  My head ached. It had ached for a night and a day.

  “Kill me already!” Johnny screamed, holding his head in his hands as another shell came screeching in.

  We were huddled in a slit trench where we’d been since German artillery had begun pounding our position 24 hours earlier. Our mandate was to take the French city of Saint-Lô, but it appeared the Germans would require some persuasion.

  We lay flat on the floor of the trench as the shell landed nearby. It shook the earth so violently I could feel my guts vibrate. The ringing in my ears became even louder. I thought my eardrums would pop. We coughed as the yellow dirt from the trench roof sifted down through the wooden slats that held it up. The grit stuck to our sweaty skin and irritated our eyes. The stench of our own feces and urine permeated the trench. Time ceased to exist as hours and minutes, but rather was measured in short periods of unsettled silence in between the steady hail of deafening artillery. I knew how Johnny felt. In certain moments, death felt like a welcome friend.

  The next morning the shelling stopped. We survivors raised our throbbing heads, scarcely believing our shell-shocked ears. We staggered out of our holes like drunken moles, wiping the grime out of our bloodshot eyes. When I came to the surface, I couldn’t believe the state of the hilltop. When we’d sought refuge in trenches and foxholes, we’d been surrounded by lush beauty. Now, it seemed we’d entered earth, lived two days in underground hell, and emerged on the dark side of the moon. The relentless shelling had cratered, pockmarked, and scarred the area, denuding it almost entirely of vegetation. Skidding shells had plowed long, deep furrows in the earth. It was a terrifying display of man’s ability to destroy his own habitat.

  “Fuck!” was all a bleary-eyed Private Rudd could say as he and Dick Johnson crawled out of their foxhole and surveyed the ravaged landscape. There wasn’t much more to say. I stood on shaky legs for a moment, hoping my head would clear, but to no avail.

  “Split up and check for wounded,” I heard my voice say, as though I was hearing myself from outside
my body. Johnny, Rudd, and Johnson fanned out north, east, and south, and I started out west.

  Dazed, haggard men continued to cautiously poke scruffy heads out of foxholes and clamber to the surface.

  “You OK?” I asked Francis Capriotti. He was lying stone-faced on the floor of his foxhole, staring skyward.

  “Cappy?” He slowly shifted his gaze toward me. He didn’t look at me, he looked through me. The thousand-yard stare.

  “Yeah,” he said. The blazes that his eyes had once been were only empty ash pits. The burning eagerness for life and the fight had been replaced with an apathy more toxic than despair. Gone were the visions of valor and a hero’s welcome. The romance of soldiering had been trampled by the reality of battle. He was cracked.

  The next hole had taken a direct hit. Pieces of its occupants were scattered in and around it. It was impossible to determine who they were by the remains, but I believed that two recent replacements had sought refuge in that particular foxhole. I picked up parts of limbs and larger pieces of flesh and bone around the edge and tossed them into the hole. I wished I could remember their names.

  There were few wounded men still alive. Most that had sustained injuries had already succumbed to them many hours before. I saw to it that the few survivors were helped, and trudged back toward my foxhole.

  To my left I could see Johnny sitting on the edge of a foxhole a hundred and fifty paces away. The nausea I’d felt a short while before seemed to have abated somewhat, so I rummaged through my K-rations and found a compressed cereal bar to eat.

  As I prepared to sit down on a heap of dirt to eat and smoke, I saw Johnny still hunched over the foxhole. I assumed he was doing the same as me, and decided to walk over and join him. As I neared him, I could see his shoulders shaking. I walked up behind him and looked down into the hole. Jedidiah Hankins sat at the bottom, his faithful acolyte, Honky-tonk, beside him. Honky-tonk had his tousled head leaned on Jedidiah’s chest, like a toddler finding comfort from his father. It looked so serene, as though they had both just drifted off to sleep. But it wasn’t sleep that rendered them motionless. The Angel of Death had gently extracted their souls without disturbing their bodies.