Irwin Shaw - The Young Lions

It was very quiet in the living-room. A single fly buzzed irritably around the room, and Riker swiped at it savagely twice with his helmet, but missed each time.

Noah sat down on the floor and took off his right legging and shoe. Very carefully he smoothed out his sock. It was very satisfactory to rub his foot gently with his fingers and pull the sock straight. The other men in the room watched him soberly as though he were performing an intricate and immensely interesting act. Noah put his shoe on. Then he put the legging back and laced it meticulously, pulling the trouser leg carefully over the top. He sneezed twice, loudly, and he saw Riker jump a little at the noise.

"God bless you," Burnecker said. He grinned at Noah and Noah grinned back. What a wonderful man, Noah thought.

"I can't tell you people what to do," Lieutenant Green said suddenly. He was crouching near the entrance to the diningroom, and he spoke as though he had been preparing a speech in the silence, but then had been surprised at hearing his own voice coming out so abruptly. "I cannot tell you which is the best way to try to get back. Your guess is as good as mine. You'll see the flashes of the guns at night, and you'll hear them during the day, so you should have a good general idea of where our people are. But maps won't do you any good, and you'd better keep off the roads as much as possible. The smaller the groups the better chance you'll have of getting back. I'm sorry it's worked out this way, but I'm afraid if we just sat here and waited, we'll all end up in the bag. This way, some of us are bound to get through." He sighed. "Maybe a lot of us," he said with transparent cheerfulness, "maybe most of us. The wounded are as comfortable as we can make them, and the French people downstairs are trying to take care of them. If anybody has any doubts," he said defensively, "he can go down and look for himself."

Nobody moved. From upstairs came the ripping, hurried sound of a BAR. Rickett, thought Noah, standing there at the window.

"However…" Lieutenant Green said vaguely… "However… It's too bad. But you have to expect things like this. Things like this are bound to happen from time to time. I will try to take the Captain back with me. With me," he repeated, in his weary, thin voice. "If anybody wants to say something, let him say it now…"

Nobody wanted to say anything. Noah suddenly felt very sad.

"Well," said Lieutenant Green, "it's dark." He got up and went to the window, and looked out. "Yes," he said, "it's dark." He turned back to the men in the room. By now many of them were sitting on the floor, their backs against the walls, their heads drooped between their shoulders. They reminded Noah of a football team between halves, in a losing game.

"Well," said Lieutenant Green, "there's no sense in putting it off. Who wants to go first?"

Nobody moved. Nobody looked around.

"Be careful," Lieutenant Green said, "when you reach our own lines. Don't expose yourselves before you're absolutely sure they know you're Americans. You don't want to get shot by your own men. Who wants to go first?"

Nobody moved.

"My advice," said Lieutenant Green, "is to leave through the kitchen door. There's a shed back there that'll give you some cover and the hedge isn't more than thirty yards away. Understand, I am not giving any orders any more. It's entirely up to you. Somebody had better go now…"

Nobody moved. Intolerable, thought Noah, sitting on the floor, intolerable. He stood up. "All right," he said, because somebody had to say it. "Me." He sneezed.

Burnecker stood up. "I'm going," he said.

Riker stood up. "What the hell," he said.

Cowley and Demuth got up. Their shoes made a sliding sound on the stone floor. "Where's the goddamn kitchen?" Cowley said.

Riker, Cowley, Demuth, Noah thought. There was something about those names. Oh, he thought, we can fight all over again now.

"Enough," Green said. "Enough for the first batch."

The five men went into the kitchen. None of the other men looked up at them and nobody spoke. The trap-door to the cellar was open in the kitchen floor. The light of the candle came up dimly through the dusty air, and the bubbling, groaning sound of Fein dying. Noah did not look down into the cellar. Lieutenant Green opened the kitchen door very carefully. It made a harsh, grating sound. The men held still for a moment. From above there came the sound of the BAR. Rickett, Noah thought, fighting the war on his own hook.

The night air smelled damp and farm-like, with the sweet heavy smell of cows coming through the crack of the open door. Noah muffled a sneeze in his hand. He looked around apologetically.

"Good luck," Lieutenant Green said. "Who's going?"

The men, bunched in the kitchen among the copper pans and the big milk containers, looked at the slight pale edge of night that showed between the door and the frame. Intolerable, Noah thought again, intolerable, we can't stand here like this. He pushed his way past Riker to the door.

He took a deep breath, thinking, I must not sneeze, I must not sneeze. Then he bent over and slid through the opening.

His shoes made a sucking sound in the barnyard earth and he could feel his helmet straps slapping against his cheeks. The sound was flat and seemed very loud so close to his ears. When he got to the shadow of the shed in the deeper shadow of the night, he leaned against the cow-smelling wood and hooked the catch under his chin. One by one the thick shadows moved across the yard from the kitchen door. The breathing of the men all around him seemed immensely loud and laboured. From inside the house, from the cellar, there was a long, high scream. Noah tensed against the shed wall as the scream echoed through the windless evening air, but nothing else happened.

Then he got down on his belly and started to crawl towards the hedge, which was outlined faintly against the sky. In the distance, far behind it, there was the small flicker of artillery.

There was a ditch alongside the hedge and Noah slid down into it and waited, trying to breathe lightly and regularly. The noise of the men coming after him seemed dangerously loud, but there was no way of signalling them to keep more quiet. One by one they slid in beside him. Grouped together like this, in the wet grass of the ditch, their combined breathing seemed to make a whistling announcement of their presence there. They didn't move. They lay in the ditch, piled against one another. Noah realized that each one was waiting for someone else to lead them on.

They want me to do it, Noah thought, resenting them. Why should it have to be me?

But he roused himself and peered through the hedge towards the artillery flashes. There was an open field on the other side. Dimly, in the darkness, Noah could see shapes moving around, but he couldn't tell whether they were cattle or men. Anyway, it was impossible to get through the hedge here without making a racket. Noah touched the leg of the man nearest him, to indicate that he was moving, and wriggled down the ditch, alongside the hedge, away from the farmhouse. One by one, the men crawled after him.

Maybe, Noah was thinking as he crawled, smelling the loamy, decayed odour from the wet ditch, maybe we're going to make it.

Then he put his hand out and touched something hard. He remained rigid, motionless, except for his right hand, with which he made a slow, exploratory movement. It's round, he thought, it's made out of metal, it's… Then his hand felt something wet and sticky and Noah realized that it was a dead man in the ditch in front of him, and he had been feeling the man's helmet, then his face, and that the man had been hit in the face. He backed a little and turned his head.

"Burnecker," he whispered.

"What?" Burnecker's voice seemed to come from far away, and from a throat near strangling.