James Benn: Blood alone

"Shit!" One of the troopers held up his entrenching tool. The shovel was bent, yet all he had to show was a pile of broken shale. He threw it away and lay down flat behind a scrubby bush, the bazooka hidden in the branches.

I wasn't doing much better. The ground was as hard as rock. Which it was, gray shale beneath hard, crusty earth. The edge of my shovel bent too and I tossed it, settling down as deep as I could, which wasn't very far. Hutton had done a little better. He had the shovel from the jeep and could do more with it. Lying down he almost filled his hole, except for a helmet at one end and boots sticking out the other. I looked back at the Tiger. It hadn't moved or fired. I could see Germans in desert khaki and dusty brown helmets running for cover behind it. Raising my M1, I closed my left eye and tried to find one in my sights, but they were moving too fast and low. The weight of the stock against my shoulder felt familiar. I'd done this before, filled my sights with the form of a man, felt my heart beat faster with forbidden excitement. The idea of killing didn't seem to bother me a bit. And that bothered me.

"What do you think's gonna happen?" Hutton's eyes darted over the landscape. We were a few yards below the top of the ridge, and a steep gully ran to our right. In front of us the ground rose up a bit about thirty yards out, which made it hard to see the enemy. I wondered why Gavin hadn't placed us up there, under better cover.

"We'll be OK," I said to Hutton. "This Slim Jim fella seems to know what he's doing." An explosion punctuated my answer, followed by a scream and cries for a medic. I didn't make any more promises. We'd passed the aid station in an olive grove as we brought up the ammo and doled it out. Corpses were lined up behind it and the wounded waited on the ground in front. Not knowing my name didn't seem so bad to me after I saw that. As a medic patched up the lightly wounded they went right back to the line. The colors up here were brown, dirty white, and rusty red.

Hutton was watching a medic dodge bullets to get to the wounded man.

"Look ahead of us, not to the rear. Watch the Tiger," I said to Hutton. "So, what's your job with Rocko?"

He looked at me and I pointed forward as I swiveled my head left and right, taking in as much of the scene in front of me as I could. I wanted him on the lookout, but I also wanted to distract him from dwelling on the wounded behind us. Bad for morale.

"I'm with the Signals Company," he said, eyes front. "Guess because I worked for the telephone company back home. I like to work with radios too. Built my own from a kit. When I was a kid, that is."

Hutton was still a kid, but old enough to need to let me know he didn't play with kits anymore.

"But Rocko's Quartermaster Company. What are you doing with him?"

"Rocko does favors for people. When he needs something, they do favors for him. What's that?" He pointed to a clump of low green shrubs, and I saw a flicker of movement. We both opened up, emptying a full clip each to no visible effect. Tracers from the machine gun behind us sprayed the bushes too. Nothing moved.

Beyond the small rise in front of us the ground was dotted with swaying stalks of knee-high grass. Or was that wheat? The stalks were topped by seeds or grains or something. Guess I didn't grow up on a farm. Yellow wildflowers gathered in clumps all the way down to a dirt road that snaked around the ridge. The road to Gela. The road to Rocko's riches. The road we couldn't let the Germans pass.

I laughed. A memory had popped up and it seemed funny. Hutton noticed I was smiling and gave me a look.

"I remember why you should wear a helmet with netting," I said, raising my voice over the machine-gun chatter.

"Why?"

"Because a plain helmet gets shiny when it rains. Gives you away." I lay my face down on the warm ground and laughed as the bullets flew overhead. It felt like everything was wired wrong inside my head. The things I could remember were useless. Or terrible, like lining up a man in my sights and feeling the thrill of it. Yeah, now I was all set if it rained. Lucky me.

The Tiger moved. It backed out of the ravine and started up the slope. Lines of Germans came forward at a steady trot, rising up from behind what cover they had. I saw a Kraut, pistol in one hand, waving his men on with the other. The pistol marked him as an officer and within seconds he was cut down, a dozen guys zeroing in on him. Red sprayed from his chest as he toppled backward. Slim Jim was pretty smart to carry a rifle.

I raised my M1 and filled the sight. I fired, and fired again. A figure dropped and I was glad. I looked up again. It was important not to get tunnel vision, to remember to look up from the sight.

Finally, a useful memory. I searched for the closest Germans and fired at a group of them clumped together. Stupid, they were being stupid. I cursed them as they dropped. I could only see them from the waist up with that rise in the way, but it was enough. Turned out I was a good shot. They kept coming, trotting through the yellow flowers, stopping to fire while trying not to get out in front of the Tiger. I heard bullets ricocheting off it as it drew fire like a corpse draws flies. Its machine-gun muzzle swiveled and bright sparkling bursts sought out our firing positions as it tried to protect the infantry around it.

I let loose my last round and the stripper clip ejected, hitting the ground with a metallic ping. As I grabbed another eight-round clip and slid it in, I remembered someone saying that was what he didn't like about the M1. That sound could give you away, and you couldn't reload until you were all out of ammo. Same guy who told me about wet helmets. Some guy who played every percentage. Who?

I aimed again. Germans filled up more of the sight as they got closer to the rise in front of us. I heard our machine gun and watched as men went down, hit or seeking cover. Yellow flowers were clipped by flying lead, scattering bouquets over the dead and dying. The Tiger was almost to the rise. It halted in front of it, raking the ground as its turret swung and fired in the direction of our machine gun. A loud explosion hit behind us and the MG went silent. I heard the hydraulic whir of the turret, as if the dark machine were thinking, calculating. Gears ground and it lurched forward, tilting back as it began to mount the rise. In a second it would be over the top and free to kill us all. It made no sense, but I began firing at it. I should have been scared, but there was no time. I should have run. I don't know why I didn't.

The paratroopers next to me sprang up, and I saw two more come from the other direction. Two bazooka teams. Then I knew why we were positioned here. The German infantry was down, waiting for the Tiger to get over the rise and finish us off, none of them wanting to risk getting killed when the Tiger was a sure bet. Each bazooka man knelt while his partner fed a rocket in, tapped his helmet, and ducked. They waited for the tank to reach the maximum angle, its front up in the air and its unarmored belly showing. They fired, bright orange flashes blossoming out from the metal tubes. One missed. The other hit square between the treads, a white flash followed by a searing explosion that blew the hatches off. Flames roared out of the tank as it lurched forward, falling hard, nose down, silent except for the roar of contained flames. Roiling black smoke from burning fuel and flesh filled the sky, and I cheered. I clapped Hutton on the shoulder. He didn't move. His head rolled toward me and his helmet tilted off. There was a hole in it dead center that matched the one high on his forehead. One hand lay flat on the ground, the long fingers splayed out as if he'd tried to ward off the shot that got him. His nails were still clean.

Some of the paratroopers crawled to the rise and began firing at the retreating Germans. I didn't know what to do about Hutton. Aloysius Hutton. A good solid name. A bit old-fashioned, but he'd said it like he didn't mind. I took his ammo bandolier and went forward. I saw Germans, more distant now, giving us their backs. I shot two and wondered what their names were.