Scott Turow - Ordinary Heroes

He died the next day. We were trapped in the woods, while inching our way north and east toward Noville. The artillery again had devastated the German position, but two snipers had climbed into the trees, trying to shoot down on us as if they were hunting deer. In the process, they made themselves insanely vulnerable, but rather than trying to lob bazooka rounds at them, I radioed for tank support, and ordered my men to dig in on the other side of one of those thick-walled Belgian farmhouses. Suddenly, Wallace stood up, as if it was a new day and he was getting out of bed. I don't know what he figured, that the snipers were disposed of, or perhaps the battlefield had simply gotten to him. In the instant I saw him, he looked as if he had a question in mind, but a shot ripped all the features off his face. A buddy pulled him down. I thought Wallace was now going back to his family, albeit without a nose or mouth, but when I crawled up later, he was gone. I wrote to his wife and sons that night, describing his bravery.

In the wake of battle, one of the principal preoccupations of my company, like every fighting band, was collecting souvenirs. German firearms, Lagers and Mausers, were most prized, and everyone, including me, eventually acquired one. One of the men found a good Zeiss photographic lens and gave it to Biddy. My troops also removed wristwatches, flags, pennants, armbands-and cut off ears, until I put a stop to that. I understood this trophy hunting, the desire to have some tangible gain for what they had been through.

The day that Wallace went down, after two Sherman tanks had arrived and blown up the trees where the German snipers had perched, I watched another replacement soldier, Alvin Liebowitz, approach Wallace's body. I hated Liebowitz most among my new men. He was a lean boy, red-haired, with that New York air of knowing every angle. During several of the brief firefights we'd had, he'd seemed to disappear. Wallace and he had come over together, and I thought Liebowitz was reaching down to pass some kind of blessing. I was shocked when the sun gleamed before his hand disappeared into his pocket.

I came charging up.

"What?" Liebowitz said, with ridiculous feigned innocence.

"I want to see your right pocket, Liebowitz."

"What?" he said again, but pulled out Wallace's watch. He could have told me he was going to send it to Wallace's family, but then he might have had to hand it over. Alvin Liebowitz wasn't the kind to give up that easily.

"What the hell are you doing, Liebowitz?" "Captain, I don't think Wallace here's going to be telling much time."

"Put it back, Liebowitz."

"Shit, Captain, there're guys over in the woods picking over the Krauts' bodies right now. Germans, Americans, what's the difference?"

"They're your dead, Liebowitz. That's all the difference in the world. That watch may be the only thing Wallace's sons ever have of their father's."

"Hell, this is a good watch, Captain. It'll disappear a long time before that body finds its way home.

That was Liebowitz. Smart-ass answers for everything. The Army was full of Liebowitzes, but he got under my skin to a degree unrivaled by any other man I'd commanded, and I felt a sudden fury that did not visit me even in battle. I lunged at him with my bayonet knife, and he barely jumped out of the way as he yelped.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?" he asked, but put the watch down. He went off, looking over his shoulder as if he was the aggrieved party.

Biddy had witnessed the incident. When we were settling in the empty train car where we billeted that night, he said, "That was dang good, Cap. Lot of the men liked seeing you put Liebowitz in his place, but it looked for all the world like you was actually gonna cut him."

"I meant to, Biddy. I just missed."

He gave me a long look. "I guess we all harder on our own, Captain."

By January 8, the battle had turned. Every day we were securing large chunks of the ground the Germans had taken back with their offensive. I woke that morning with a dream I'd had once or twice before, that I was dead. The wound, the weapon, the moment-I felt the bullet invade my chest and then my spirit hovering over my body. I watched the Graves Detail approach and take me. Fully awake, I could only say as everybody else did: Then that is what will happen.

It was Bidwell who had roused me inadvertently. He had my toothbrush sticking out of the corner of his mouth. We were quartered in a church school and Biddy, without apology, had taken a little water from a sacramental font.

"I dreamed I was dead, Biddy. Have you done that?"

"Captain, it ain't any other way to be out there but that." Then he pointed to the doorway, where a young private stood. He'd come to tell me that Lieutenant Colonel Algar wanted to see me on the other side of Noville.

Algar, as ever, was at his desk, looking at maps. He'd acquired a supply of narrow black cheroots and had one in his mouth whenever I saw him these days. He answered my salute, then pointed me to a canvas-back chair.

"David, I got a teletype this morning from a Major Camello. He's General Teedle's adjutant, or assistant adjutant. They were trying to determine your whereabouts. When I answered you were here, he wrote back wanting to know when you could resume your assignment. They're concerned for your welfare."

They were concerned about Martin, at least Teedle was. I asked if he'd told them Martin was dead.

"I thought I'd leave that to you. Besides, you said you needed to see a body. I asked General Teedle for your services for one more week. We're going to be a long way toward kicking Dietrich out of the Ardennes by then. If things go well, I hope to be able to relieve your entire unit."

I found the thought of Teedle, still up in the middle of the night, still incensed as he thought about Martin, richly comic. I would have laughed, except that I knew I was going to get killed in the next seven days. That was a certainty. If I didn't, then it would be Biddy. But I said, "Yes, sir."

"You've done your part. There's a first lieutenant in A who's ready to take over a company. So I'm relieving you, effective January 15. You and Bidwell. You're to follow your prior orders and, when complete, report to General Teedle." The i8th Armored had met the 6th Panzers and contained them, and was now pushing them back. They were south of us in Luxembourg.

Algar said he'd have written orders in the morning. With them, we'd find he had put Bidwell and me in for medals. The Silver Star, he said. For our jump and for volunteering for combat.

"A Section Eight would be more appropriate," I said.

He said he felt a Ditinguished Service Cross was actually in order, but that required an investigation which might reveal the condition of my trousers when I'd hit the ground in Savy.

We laughed and shook hands. I told him what a privilege it had been to serve under him.

"I'm going to look you up, if I get to Kindle County, David."

I promised to do the same when I was in New Jersey, another wish that went unfulfilled. Hamza Algar was killed in July 1945 in Germany, after the surrender, when his jeep ran over a mine. By then, 4,500 soldiers out of the 5,000 men in the 'loth Regiment which had faced the first German assault of the Ardennes campaign along Skyline Drive were dead or wounded. So far as I know, Hamza Algar was the last casualty.

On the morning of January is, Luke Chester assembled E Company and First Lieutenant Mike Como formally took command. It had been a hard week. The Germans seemed to be resisting Patton and the nth Armored Division, behind whom we'd been fighting, with much greater ferocity than the armies of Montgomery and Hodges coming down from the north. I think Dietrich was unwilling to abandon his dream of capturing Bastogne, or perhaps he simply wanted to waste his last fury on the forces that had stopped him. My company lost six more men that week, and suffered thirteen wounded, all but four seriously. But there would be no casualties now for a few days. Most of the infantry elements in the 5o2nd, including E Company, were being relieved by the 75th Infantry Division. My men would head for Theux for a week's R & R, battlefront style, which meant nothing more than warm quarters and running water. Nonetheless, I told them they would have my enduring envy, because each man was guaranteed a bath. It had been a month since any of us had washed, other than what was possible by warming snow in a helmet over a camp stove, which generally meant a fast shave once a week when we were housed indoors. The smoke and grease from our guns had more or less stuck to our skin, turning all of us an oily black. We looked like a minstrel troupe, which made for a few private jokes between Bidwell and me. Now standing next to Como, I told the men that it had been the greatest honor of my life to command them and that I would remember them as long as I lived. I have never spoken words I meant more.