Irwin Shaw - The Young Lions

Recklessly, Rickett was exposing himself at the window, firing in short, spraying bursts, from the hip, his arms and shoulders jerking with the recoil.

Now, thought Noah craftily, when he is not looking. I can crawl under the bed and nobody will know where I am.

Burnecker was at the other window, firing, shouting, "Noah! Noah!"

Noah took one last look at the bed. It was cool and neat and like home. The crucifix on the wall behind it suddenly leapt out from the wall, Christ in splinters, and tumbled on the bedspread.

Noah ran to the window and crouched beside Burnecker. He fired two shots blindly down into the lane. Then he looked. The grey figures were running with insane speed, crouched over, in a bunch, towards the house.

Oh, Noah thought, taking aim (the target in the centre of the circle, remember, and resting on the top of the sight and even a blind man with rheumatism can't miss), oh, Noah thought, firing at the bunched figures, they shouldn't do that, they shouldn't come together like that. He fired again and again. Rickett was firing at the other window and Burnecker beside him, very deliberately, holding his breath, squeezing off. Noah heard a high, wailing scream and wondered where that was coming from. It was quite some time before he realized that it was coming from him. Then he stopped screaming.

There was a lot of firing from downstairs, too, and the grey figures kept falling and getting up and crawling and falling again. Three of the figures actually got close enough to throw hand-grenades, but they missed the window and exploded harmlessly against the walls. Rickett got them all with the same burst of the gun.

The other grey figures seemed to glide to a stop. For a moment there was silence and the figures hung there, motionless, reflective, in the clayey barnyard. Then they turned and began running away.

Noah watched them with surprise. It had never occurred to him that they would not reach the house.

"Come on, come on!" Rickett was screaming. He was reloading feverishly. "Get the bathtards! Get 'em!"

Noah shook himself, then carefully aimed at a man who was running in a curious, clumsy, limping way, his gas-mask can banging on his hip and his rifle thrown away. Noah squinted, pulled the trigger gently, feeling the metal hot against the inside of his finger just as the man was turning behind the barn. The man fell in a long, sprawling slide. He did not move.

"That's it, Ackerman, that's it!" Rickett was at the window again, shouting hilariously. "That's the way to do it."

The lane was empty now, except for the grey figures that weren't moving any more.

"They've gone," Noah said stupidly. "They're not there now."

He felt a wet pressure on his cheek. Burnecker was kissing him. Burnecker was crying and laughing and kissing him.

"Get down," Rickett yelled, "get down from that window."

They ducked their heads. A second later they heard the whistle through the window. The bullets thudded into the wall below the Normandie.

Very nice of Rickett, Noah thought coolly, very surprising.

The door opened and Lieutenant Green came in. His eyes were granular and red and his jaw seemed to hang down with weariness. He sat on the bed, slowly, with a sigh, and put his hands between his legs. He wavered back and forth minutely, and, for a moment, Noah was afraid he was going to fall back on to the bed and go to sleep.

"We fixed 'em, Lieutenant," Rickett said, happily. "We gave 'em a good dose. Right up the old dog."

"Yes," said Lieutenant Green in his squeaky voice, "we did very well. Anybody hurt up here?"

"Not in thith room." Rickett grinned. "Thith is a rugged team up here."

"Morrison and Seeley got it in the other room," Green said wearily, "and Fein has one in the lungs downstairs."

Noah remembered Fein in the hospital ward in Florida, enormous, bullnecked, hard, saying, "After the war you can pick whatever company you please…"

"However…" Green said with sudden brightness, as though he were beginning a speech. "However…" Then he looked vaguely about the room. "Isn't that the Normandie?" he asked.

"Yes," said Noah, "it's the Normandie."

Green smiled foolishly. "I think I will sign up for a cruise," he said.

The men did not laugh.

"However," Green said, passing his hand across his eyes, "when it gets dark, we're going to make a break. We're almost out of ammunition downstairs, and if they try again, we're fried. French-fried with ketchup," he said vaguely. "You're on your own when it gets dark. Twos and threes, twos and threes," he chanted squeakily, "the Company will dissolve in twos and threes."

"Lieutenant," Rickett said, from the window, where he was still peering out, with just a thin slice of his face exposed past the window-frame, "Lieutenant, is thith an order from Captain Colclough?"

"This is an order from Lieutenant Green," the Lieutenant said. He giggled. Then he caught himself and looked firm. "I have assumed command," he said formally. "Command."

"Is the Captain dead?" Rickett asked.

"Not exactly," said Green. He lay back suddenly on the white spread and closed his eyes. But he continued talking. "The Captain has retired for the season. He will be ready for next year's invasion." He giggled, lying, with his eyes closed, on the lumpy feather bed. Then, suddenly, he sprang up. "Did you hear anything?" he asked, anxiously.

"No," said Rickett.

"Tanks," said Green. "If they bring up tanks before it gets dark, French-fried with ketchup."

"We have a bazooka and two shells in here," Rickett said.

"Don't make me laugh." Green turned and stared at the Normandie. "A friend of mine once took that boat," he said.

"An insurance man from New Orleans, Louisiana. Got laid by three different women between Cherbourg and Ambrose Light. By all means," he said gravely, "by all means use the bazooka. That's what it's for, isn't it?" He got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the window. Slowly he lifted his head and peered out. "I can see fourteen dead Krauts," he said. "What do you think the live ones're planning now?" He shook his head sadly, then crawled away from the window. He had to hold on to Noah's leg to pull himself up to his feet. "The whole Company," he said wonderingly, "the whole Company is fini. One day. One day of combat. It doesn't seem possible, does it? You'd think someone would have done something about it, wouldn't you? When it gets dark, remember, you're on your own, try to get back to our own lines. Good luck."

He went downstairs. The men in the room looked at one another. "All right," Rickett said sourly, "you ain't hurt yet. Get up to those windows."

In the dining-room downstairs, Jamison was standing in front of Captain Colclough and yelling. Jamison had been next to Seeley when he was hit in the eye. Jamison and Seeley were from the same town in Kentucky. They had been friends since they were boys, and had enlisted together.

"I'm not going to let you do it, you goddamn undertaker!" Jamison was yelling wildly to the Captain, who still sat at the dark table with his head despairingly in his hands. Jamison had just heard that they were to leave Seeley in the cellar with the rest of the wounded, when they made the break at dark. "You got us in here, you get us out! All of us!"

Three other soldiers were in the room now, staring dully at Jamison and the Captain, but not interfering.

"Come on, you coffin-polishing son of a bitch," Jamison yelled, swaying slowly back and forth over the table, "don't just sit there. Get up and say something. You said plenty back in England, didn't you? You were a big man with a speech when nobody was shooting at you, weren't you, you bloody embalmer? Going to make Major by the Fourth of July! Major with the firecrackers. Take that goddamn toy gun off! I can't stand that gun!"