Here Endeth the Lesson
(Chapter 1)
ETO, 1944
[A/N: © 2010, Janet Aldrich. Plot and OCs are mine; I'm not being paid for this and don't expect I will be.
Just doing it for the love of it.]
"Sir, I think the replacements could use a stop."
Hanley looked at his BAR man wryly. "And I imagine you could too, Kirby."
"Nossir. I was thinkin' about these new men. It's hard to go so far on your first day."
"Is that a fact?" The lieutenant asked with a straight face.
"Of course! I remember …"
Hanley cut off Kirby's reminiscence. "Caje!"
The scout came back.
"We're going to take five. Kirby thinks the new men need a break." The two of them exchanged a humorously knowing look and somehow managed not to smile.
"Yes, Lieutenant." Caje went to crouch under a tree ahead of the others, vigilant even in repose.
"Take five!"
The three new men collapsed gladly in the shade. Hanley went to talk to Caje about his forward observations and to go over the map. Kirby leaned back and surveyed the recent additions to King Company.
"So, Flanders, I hear you're from Cleveland. Is that the one in Illinois, like Sarge, or the other one, in Ohio?"
"Ohio! My dad works at the Cleveland Press, the best newspaper in the city. He covers the Indians." The short, chunky blond grinned. "I get to meet the players, like Bob Feller and Tris Speaker."
"Ah, you oughta talk to Nelson. He's the one who's all baseball crazy."
"You don't like baseball?"
"It's okay, I guess. Just never had time for it." Kirby yawned and leaned back.
"Yeah, baseball's okay, but I played basketball." This was Morgan, the lanky Texas redhead who gave Littlejohn a run for his money when it came to height.
The others hooted.
"No kidding! Are you tall enough?" Docherty, who hailed from Southie in Boston, mocked. "Besides, I thought all you Texas boys all played football."
"Football? No, sir. No football for me." Morgan yawned. "Why should I want some big galoot to break my limbs? Basketball takes finesse and intelligence, not brute force."
"Well, I'm with Flanders," Docherty asserted. "Baseball is my game, although I'm a Braves fan instead of the Indians. Ain't neither team worth much with all the guys in the service or goin' there. Won't be the same 'til they're all back. Us, too."
"Yeah. Feller went in right after Pearl Harbor …" The two soldiers trailed off into what promised to be a long discussion about their respective teams, and Kirby tuned them out. He surveyed Morgan. The kid seemed okay, but he'd seen guys fall apart before when they came to the front, especially for the first time; it was why he tended to keep new replacements at a distance for a while unless they had line experience. The BAR man knew how thin the thread was that kept people alive and felt his own stretch a little more every time someone he knew went down. He watched Caje and Hanley going over the lieutenant's map and hoped with all his heart that the three of them would come back safely. Losing the repple-depple guys was bad enough, but each time a man who'd been with them a long time went – Doc Walton, Braddock, Kelly, Brockmeyer – Kirby wondered if it would be his turn next. He breathed a quick prayer to a God he wasn't even sure he believed in - Don't let anything happen to us this time, just there and back quiet like – and waited, resting, for Hanley to move them along.
X X X
Caje was the first one on his feet when Hanley ordered them to move out. After D-Day, the Cajun had put an invisible wall around himself. He respected Sarge and Hanley and he got along all right with his squad mates, but his number one rule was still "Don't get close."
Losing Theo had been a horrible shock. Their friendship went back to the days when they were very small children and he trusted his friend as he had no other person in his life. No one else in the squad understood the world he had grown up in; while he supposed it was a compliment on some level that the others in First Squad treated him as though he were just like them, only with a different accent, he knew he wasn't. Or was he? He thought sadly that the people he had grown up with might not recognize him any more and he wondered more than once what his life would be like after he went home.
He liked being on point for the simple reason that he didn't have to spend much time talking to anyone but the man commanding the detail. Caje gave his best effort because he regarded himself as the first line of protection for the others. He took his duties seriously and while he didn't particularly like the hands-on killing often necessary in his position – it was one thing to shoot the enemy from a distance and quite another to throttle or stab a man or cut his throat and feel his heart stop under your fingertips – he accepted it wearily as a necessary evil, pushing each incident far back in his mind to be thought of later, if at all. I don't want to do this any more, but what choice do I have?
There was movement ahead of him under a small linden grove and he dropped quickly and froze, raising his hand in a clenched fist. He sensed that the others had frozen as well, and felt Hanley come up behind him quietly.
"What is it, Caje?" the lieutenant whispered.
"A Kraut over there, under those trees. Do I take him out?" Caje replied, sotto voce.
"Did he see you?"
"I don't think so, sir, no."
"Then let's hold on for a moment and see if he's moving or staying put. If he's moving, we'll just wait until he's out of range. If he's staying put, then …" Hanley let his voice trail off; he knew Caje had more than enough experience to understand the implications.
"Yes, sir." Caje understood the lieutenant very well. One more life … one more face I hope I can forget someday.
The two soldiers waited, the rest of the squad poised behind them.
X X X
Gil Hanley never wanted to be a commissioned officer. For a moment, when Captain Jampel called him in on D-Day plus two and told him about the proffered promotion, he seriously considered turning it down. Being a sergeant was more responsibility than he needed sometimes. I guess I missed that class in college about sending men out to die. In the end, he decided to accept the position, especially after he heard that the Army would waive the usual transfer to a new unit, that he'd be staying with King Company. There was a certain comfort in continuing to lead the men who had followed him onto Omaha Beach and to the apple orchard on D-Day.
He glanced at the soldier next to him; he understood Caje's reserve, although sometimes he missed the happier, more open man he remembered from England. Hanley thought that the kind of work Caje had been ordered to do time after time, far more than any other member of First Squad, had probably changed him as much as losing Theo. I've taken out Germans with my bare hands, but not on the scale he has. And now I'm going to have to order him to do it again. "Caje …" He nodded toward the sentry.
The Cajun nodded, slung his Garand and glided silently away, taking out his bayonet as he went. Less than five minutes later, he stepped out from the linden trees and waved toward the others. When Kirby and the others caught up with him, he was wiping his blade on the grass.
Morgan and Flanders looked queasily at the dead German and the blood, while Docherty's face wore an unconvincing expression meant to convey that he was unimpressed, that he'd seen it all before.
"Caje, take the point. Kirby, take the rear."
"Yes, Lieutenant." "Yessir."
Flanders eased back to Kirby. "How can he do that? Doesn't it bother him?"
"What do you think?" Kirby said scornfully. "Sure it does. But he does it because he has to, and because it's his job to keep things straightened out up front. Now get where you belong. I got to keep an eye out back here and I can't do that when you're talking to me."
Flanders swallowed hard, nodded and moved back into his place.
X X X
Morgan was gone not fifteen minutes later. Caje halted at the top of a rise, sensing out of his experience and sometimes-uncanny intuition that the plot of land ahead of them was not as innocent as it appeared. He once again signaled for a stop.
The gangling redhead contemptuously brushed aside the astonished Cajun's attempt to keep him from entering the field. Four long steps later, the mine he triggered tore him apart in front of the horrified detail.
"What t'e hell did he t'ink he was doing?" Caje muttered, so quietly that only Hanley heard him.
The officer shot a sharp glance at his scout. "We all saw you try to stop him, Caje. It's not your fault."
"Yes, sir."
Docherty glanced at Flanders, who shrugged and nodded. The Irishman walked up to Caje. "There's something you ought to know. Morgan said his Da worked in the oilfields in East Texas and there were a lot of Cajuns there. I don't think he had much use for 'em. Morgan kind of hinted that way when he found out you were a Cajun."
"And now he's dead. Damn' fool." Caje said something in French under his breath and then crossed himself. After a pause, Docherty followed suit.
"All right. Kirby, Flanders, Docherty, gather rocks - and stay well back from where Caje is. Caje, start here –" Hanley picked a spot that would keep their path away from what was left of Morgan.
The scout nodded briefly, and then pulled out his bayonet and knelt down at the edge of the field. He began testing the ground in front of him, moving slowly forward. Kirby and Flanders, who arrived at almost the same time, followed along behind him, laying stones, careful not to deviate even the smallest amount from the ground tested by Caje.
What should have been an easy, untroubled five-minute walk across a field was a tension-filled half-hour crawl. No one breathed easily until they were all back in the trees on the other side.
"Caje, there's a road on the other side of this wooded area. Check it out and make sure we don't have any unfriendly traffic to worry about."
The Cajun took a deep breath, nodded and left.
Flanders spoke up. "How did Caje know there was a minefield or something there?"
"Kid, you're just a bundle of questions. You gonna be a newspaper reporter like your old man?" Kirby inquired sarcastically.
"Hey! I'm just trying to learn! I want to stay alive and get home to watch a game and eat a hot dog in League Park. You don't have to be such a jerk!"
"Whoa, easy." Kirby raised his hand. "None of us understands how Caje gets things, to tell you the truth. Maybe when we get back you can ask him. Although –" the BAR man shook his head, "he'll probably just tell you 'he knew'."
"Oh."
Caje came back on the double. "Lieutenant, there's a Kraut patrol, about six or seven of them, heading straight for us. They must have heard the mine go off."
Hanley motioned back towards the woods. The group trotted back to drop in the thickest underbrush. "Nobody fires," he said from the corner of his mouth. "We're not here to draw attention to ourselves."
The squad sank quietly into the brushwood, waiting.
The German squad was on the alert. One of the men saw Morgan's remains and called to his Feldwebel.
The non-com looked around, and called out: "Reisdel!" The patrol watched, but no response came.
"Probably the sentry," Hanley muttered and Caje nodded.
None of the Germans entered the minefield. The Feldwebel gathered his detail and they wheeled back the way they had come, double-time.
Hanley's shoulders sagged. "They know we're here."
Kirby, Flanders and Docherty moved up behind the other two. "So what do we do now, Lieutenant?"
"We go on, Kirby." Hanley bit his lip and thought. "We have to get this information to the Underground. Too much counts on it."
Caje nodded. "Yes, Lieutenant. What now?"
"Let's go. Double-time."
The patrol moved out, quickly. Branches tore at hands and uniforms, sprang back and lashed across faces. Periodically, Hanley would wave for a stop and they would listen for pursuit. He sent Caje forward; each time, the scout would come back with a negative report. They had less than a third of the distance to cover when Docherty tripped and fell on his gun. It went off, he jerked once and died.
"Ah, God," Kirby muttered. "This whole thing is cursed."
"Shut up, Kirby!" growled the discomfited Hanley, who almost felt as though he agreed with the wiry Chicagoan.
Caje rolled Docherty over and gingerly picked up the man's rifle, affixed Docherty's bayonet and stuck it in the ground. He took the helmet and propped it on the top of the rifle. The scout reached down and snapped off a dog tag. Hanley accepted it reluctantly.
"Hande hoch, Leutnant."
"That's not funny, Kirby."
"That's not me, Lieutenant."
In unison, the patrol looked up. The squad they had seen earlier was facing them, rifles aimed at their hearts. Slowly, each of them dropped his weapon and raised his hands.
"We surrender."
END OF PART ONE