NOW THAT SPRING IS HERE
D-Day and Shortly After
[ A/N: For the love, the glory and the money – pretty much for the love of it, since
there's precious little of the other two to be had! © 2010, TEC4, OCs and plot only. ]
"Hey, big guy! It says here your name is Hutchens, Robert Hutchens. I don't see Littlejohn on here anywhere!" There was a clatter of dog tags falling to the end of their chain.
"Could you say that louder, Mikalka? I think there's someone in Easy Company at the back of the boat who didn't hear you." Sergeant Roylott glared over his shoulder at the little Chicagoan. "I'm trying to brief you here. If you want to get off the beach alive and know where we're going next, it would be nice if you'd pay a little attention. You, too, farm boy." The non-com slapped the arm of the large man sleeping next to him.
Littlejohn sat up slowly and yawned. "Right, Sarge. I'm listening."
He rubbed his eyes blearily and tried to focus on Roylott's voice. It surely wasn't that he couldn't handle early mornings or long days. His father had always run their farm on a daylight basis; that is, be ready to work when the sun came up and finish the barn chores when the sun set. From the time he was a child, when the chickens and ducks were his responsibility along with mucking the stalls, he had been up as early as 4:30 and had often worked more than 12-hour days in the hot, dry summers. Maybe it was the food. No one in the Army could cook like his ma. Even in the worst days of the Depression, she'd been able to put solid, filling meals on the table. Whatever it was, by the time Taps was played, it left him exhausted.
"Have you got that, farmboy?"
"I think so, Sarge." It didn't help that the rough seas made him even less of a sailor than he would have been usually, nor that the other company sharing this compartment never seemed to stop making noise. There'd been two guys singing a song or talking to each other in what sounded like French for most of the night and another guy counting a big wad of money over and over again and chatting with a sad-faced young man at his side. Two of the sergeants, one a brunet who looked like a movie star and the other a blond who he had seen around the base wearing what Littlejohn had been told were North Africa and Sicily campaign ribbons, seemed to spend most of their time sniping at one another about a woman. Littlejohn just wished they'd all be quiet and let him nap.
The Tannoy squawked. "PA-139, PA-139. Landing craft PA-139, board from the starboard side, board now from the starboard side."
"That's us, big guy!" Mikalka chirped. "Let's go show those Krauts what's what!"
"Right." Littlejohn smiled ruefully and shook his head. Mikalka's frequently-expressed enthusiasm bemused the Nebraskan a little. He came from a family of simple, quiet people and he'd never met anyone like his buddy before. Grandma Hutchens would have said it was a clear case of "opposites attract" and that there were no rules about being friends with someone. He guessed she'd have been right.
He followed the others in his squad back up to the top of the boat. The deck, he thought, and they said this is a ship, not a boat. Why they make up a bunch of different words for something that doesn't make any difference, I'll never know.
"Starboard? Is that right or left?" their captain asked.
"Right," came the laconic voice of Schuyler, whose well-to-do family had sailed on Lake Michigan for most of his life. "Remember, 'port' and 'left' have the same number of letters."
"There's a piece of knowledge I'll never use again," Mikalka said out of the side of his mouth to Littlejohn, who snorted in amusement.
"What, MIkalka? Never going sailing when you get back?"
"Not if I have anything to say about it!"
Captain Hammond turned right and headed to the rail where a rope netting hung off the rail. He stepped back and indicated it to the men following him. "Over the side, gentlemen! Over the side! Move it!"
Littlejohn and Mikalka were the first two in line, and the smaller man launched himself over the rail with enthusiasm. Littlejohn followed more slowly and eased himself down the netting.
"C'mon, buddy! I'll catch ya' if you fall!"
Littlejohn rolled his eyes, and caught a glimpse of a sardonic grin on the face of Eismann, his fellow Nebraskan.
"I don't know how you put up with him!"
"He's all right."
Eismann shook his head. "If you say so." He scampered down and jumped the last couple of feet into the LTC.
"Hey, big guy! Hurry up, I saved you a place!"
Littlejohn was diverted by Mikalka treating a place on the landing boat like a good ticket at a ballgame or the best table at a fine restaurant. "Thanks, pal."
"Hey! Now you gotta tell me why I've been calling you 'Littlejohn' all this time when it's not your name. In fact, now that I think about it, everyone does it."
"Lieutenant Granby doesn't."
"Ahhh, who listens to him anyway? Only the sergeants have to listen to lieutenants."
"That's not what they told me."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I guess so. Anyways, I was always a big kid. And when my class read 'Robin Hood', one of the guys said I was like Little John in the book."
"I saw that movie! Errol Flynn, right?"
"Yeah, Errol Flynn was Robin Hood, but –"
"- but that Little John guy was -, " Mikalka snapped his fingers. "Ah, c'mon. I know this." He waved Littlejohn off when he would have told him.
The farm boy grabbed his friend and pulled him down as Kraut artillery roared overhead and fell far behind them.
"Stupid Krauts. Can't they see we're over here?"
"I hope not, " Littlejohn muttered.
The boat bounced in the rough waves and more than one of Littlejohn's platoon had a face that matched his uniform. Littlejohn wasn't surprised to be one of them; the closest he had been to water was Old Man Haftmeyer's pond back home and even then, swimming wasn't something he did well. On the other hand, he mused, it's hard to learn how to swim when you're too tall to ever get in over your head.
The LTC pitched and Barnabo from Second Squad slammed into Mikalka, who nearly began a domino effect into Eismann. About five minutes later, the LTC jerked again as it grated on a sandbar. Had they already gotten there? Were they really about to hit the beach?
"I know – "
"Shh. Let's get going. You can tell me later."
"Yeah, yeah." Suddenly, Mikalka looked less confident.
The big man was amused that his buddy seemed to be sticking to him in a way that reminded him of a new calf with its mother. Reality is a little different than the movies, I guess.
The squad shouldered their packs and held their guns at the ready as Lieutenant Granby led their platoon off the boat. They skittered through the shallows, following Sergeant Roylott.
"Spread out! Don't bunch – " The lieutenant's instructions were interrupted by a German machine gun that fired at them from the cliffs ahead.
Sergeant Roylott grabbed Granby's shoulder "Lieutenant?" They watched in horror as Lieutenant Granby turned slowly toward them, half his face gone. He wavered and fell like a downed tree.
"Don't stand there! Move!" Sergeant Roylott screamed at them. "You got no time for this! Spread OUT! MOVE!"
Littlejohn snapped out of his shock and pulled Mikalka behind him as he ran forward and dropped to his stomach behind a barricade of wood and barbed wire.
"Did you see that? Did you?" the smaller man's eyes seemed to take more than their usual space. "He was, big guy, he was – did you see it?"
"I saw it." Littlejohn said grimly.
"First Squad, Love Company! This way! Stay down!" Sergeant Roylott waved them on. The two soldiers crawled after him and the rest of the squad, guns raised above the bloody sand, ignoring with set faces the bodies of the others who had tried the beach and lost. Amid the interminable noise, Littlejohn heard the sad-faced man from the boat calling for his sergeant. And he's a corpsman. He shook his head. Why isn't he out helping the wounded?
"Poor guy." Mikalka rolled to the left to avoid the body of a small, dark-haired man who had been carrying his squad's radio, now riddled with bullets.
"Yeah. This way." Littlejohn pushed his friend ahead of him. "Go! Catch up to Sergeant Roylott." He was distracted by noise from the path on the cliff ahead. One of the men who'd been speaking French in the compartment on the boat was being dragged off by his comrades, screaming back down the path at another man who'd fallen to German bullets. "Poor guy," he said, echoing Mikalka, not sure if he meant the man who'd been shot or his grieving friend. He crawled forward to advance with his squad.
Suddenly, the machine gun roared again and a swarm of bullets buzzed in from the right. Littlejohn watched, horrified, as his entire squad went down. He would have been with them … he would have … He stared in incomprehension, stunned. Sarge? Eismann? "MIKALKA!"
Stung into movement, he crawled to his friend, who was gasping for breath, staring beyond Littlejohn to some place only he could see. "Hey, I remembered … that Little John guy … it was – no, don't stop me …" His head lolled over Littlejohn's supporting arm.
"Alan Hale. It was Alan Hale." Littlejohn shouted, even though he couldn't be heard over the furor of artillery, mortars and bangalores, men screaming and the rattle of gunfire, "It was ALAN HALE! Dammit, Mikalka!"
A man with a corpsman's distinctive helmet and white armband crawled up to him. "Hey, there. You hurt?" he said with a border South drawl.
"No, " Littlejohn said flatly. "No, I'm not hurt. My whole squad … I just got my buddy killed, that's all. I pushed him ahead of me because I thought he'd be safe, and … I just killed him. They're all dead."
"You got that wrong, now. The Germans killed him, not you. There's no safe place on this beach. You did what anyone would have done and you couldn't have known what would happen." The medic looked around him, searching for someone. "Sergeant Flynn!"
The non-com turned around. 'What is it, Doc?" he called.
"Got a guy here without a squad!"
"Send him over!"
"Come on, now. You got to move on." He gently lifted Mikalka's body from Littlejohn's arms and laid him on the rocky outcropping. "He's not there any more, you know?"
"Yeah. I know." Littlejohn looked at his friend. "See you later, Mikalka." He picked up his rifle and scrambled, crouching, down the beach to Sergeant Flynn. It was only later that he realized he'd never thanked the medic, or even really looked him in the face. Too bad. He was a nice guy. But I don't even think I'd know him if I saw him again.
Two days later, on the road to Paris, Sergeant Flynn dropped back to the big man who had become an involuntary part of his squad. "Hutchens!"
"Yeah, Sarge."
"Lieutenant just gave me the heads up. Turns out they're putting you in King Company. They took some heavy losses on the beach and they need replacements."
"Okay."
"Take this kid with you, willya?"
A fresh-faced young man followed the Sarge. "Hi, I'm Billy. Billy Nelson."
Littlejohn looked him over. Town kid – small town, though, not city, not like - He nodded. "Robert Hutchens, but no one ever calls me anything but 'Littlejohn'."
"Littlejohn. All right. Good to meet you."
The big man turned back to the Sarge. "Where do we find King Company?"
"They're ahead of us. Go up about a mile and check at the bivouac area. You want Second Platoon, First Squad. Non-com's a guy by the name of Saunders, Loot's a guy named Hanley."
"Let's go, Billy." They moved ahead, Billy taking two steps for every one of Littlejohn's
"Whaddya think this guy Saunders'll be like, Littlejohn?"
"Don't know, Billy. Guess we'll find out when we get there."
"Yeah, guess so. Hope the guys in the squad will be okay."
"Won't know until we meet 'em. No point in worrying about it now."
"Suppose not. Hey, Littlejohn."
"Yeah?"
"You like baseball?"
Littlejohn made an indistinct noise, and it was all Billy needed by way of encouragement. As he listened to the young man rattle off earned run averages and batting percentages, he thought he could almost hear Mikalka say Hey, big guy! You don't want to spend the rest of the war without a pal, do you? This kid… hey! He's not me, but he's not bad! Don't forget me, ya know? He thought about what the medic had told him on the beach. You got to move on.
"That's good advice, buddy." Littlejohn murmured.
"What?" Billy asked, confused.
"Nothing. Go on with what you were saying."
"My favorite player's this pitcher, unbelievable arm and great ERA …"
Littlejohn smiled and shook his head. Looks like I got another chatterbox on my hands. But that's okay. Someone's got to do the talking. And it's never gonna be me, anyway.
-30-