Уильям Макгиверн - Soldiers of ’44

“That’s right, make it sound like some Joe College joke. But the fact is, Docker, you didn’t follow orders. You turned tail at Werpen before running into any Germans.” Whitter’s eyes narrowed, a small smile on his lips. “I see what you’re after. Three of your men got killed in an empty town looking for souvenirs in a booby-trapped house like a bunch of recruits. Now you’re trying to twist it around to look like it was my fault, because I got ’em relaxed and off guard, talking about getting home for Christmas.”

Docker felt an involuntary stir of pity for Whitter, a man so paranoid he couldn’t wait to put the nails in his own coffin. But this was no time for pity... he might be paranoid, but he was also a lying son of a bitch who was trying to destroy him.

“How did you know the town was empty?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how you knew the town of Werpen was empty when my section got there. You testified to that effect. Would you like the sergeant to refresh your memory?”

He glanced at Sergeant Corey, but to his surprise she was already flipping back through her notebook and before Karsh could direct her to repeat Whitter’s testimony, she had begun reading: “Three of your men got killed in an empty town looking for souvenirs...”

She looked intently at Docker. “Is that enough, sir?”

He nodded, realizing that she had slightly accented the word “empty.”

The major cleared his throat. “Young lady, you will wait for permission from an officer of this board to recap testimony. Is that clear?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Docker turned to Whitter. “My question was, how did you know Werpen was empty?”

“How in hell you expect me to keep track of things like that?”

“You couldn’t have known firsthand because you weren’t there. I didn’t tell you and no one else in my section had an opportunity to. And you’ve testified you didn’t discuss the matter with Longworth. So who told you?”

“Well, maybe I heard somebody talking about it at the battery—”

“Then that had to be First Sergeant Miles Korbick. He was at Werpen driving Longworth’s jeep.”

Whitter looked suddenly relieved. He crossed his legs and smiled quickly at the officers of the board. “I’m sorry about wasting everybody’s time with something that frankly don’t make a doodly-do bit of difference. But it was Sergeant Korbick, all right.”

“Did Korbick tell you about the meals left on the tables? And the pots that were still warm on the stoves?”

“Yeah, he mentioned that.”

“So what action did you take?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I didn’t take any action at all. Docker. I didn’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“What the hell you mean — why not? Docker, you got something on your mind, I wish you’d say it—”

“You knew my gun section was in an exposed and vulnerable position, didn’t you?”

“I’m no mindreader, Docker. But if I did, you’re forgetting one little thing.” Whitter’s smile, embracing Sergeant Corey and the officers at the table, had become more confident. “There was a shootin’ war goin’ on, and lots of line troops were in exposed and vulnerable situations—”

“But you’re too smart a soldier not to know what we were up against. Plain common sense would tell you how many German troops would be needed to evacuate a town like that, every man, woman and child pulled out only a half hour or so before we got there. But you’ve testified not that you didn’t take any action, but that you didn’t have to take any action. Why, lieutenant? Why didn’t you have to take any action?”

“Because you already had your orders. Docker, and you damn well know it.”

“Whose orders? Yours — or Longworth’s?”

“It don’t make no never-no-mind. You had all the damn orders you needed—”

“I’m going to suggest why you didn’t have to take any action, lieutenant. Isn’t it because you knew that Lieutenant Longworth had already given my gun section new orders?”

“Now hold on, you’re goin’ just a mite too fast” — Whitter uncrossed his legs, squirmed around in the chair — “thing is. Docker, there’s an understanding between officers. When I said Longworth didn’t talk to me about you pulling back that was another way of saying we didn’t have to spell everything out in so many words. You got to trust each other, trust the men under you to figure out a situation and take care of it, so I know Longworth was doing what’s right even if he doesn’t tell me every little thing because he was gone from the battery a lot with those V-4 sightings anyway and I...”

Whitter lost the thread of his thought, but in searching for a connecting pattern he blundered onto another tangent, saying, “...But you never believed we were any good, did you. Docker? Thought we were all layin’ around the battery in our fart sacks, ninety-day wonders...” He frowned at his hands. “It ain’t easy, which is something people always forgot.” Whitter’s tone had become almost conversational, and the conversation could have been as much with himself as with Docker or anybody else in the room.

Major Karsh shifted his papers about, pausing now and then to make penciled notes on his legal pad. Finally he cleared his throat, looked at Weiffel and Captain Walton. “You gentlemen have any questions?”

Lieutenant Weiffel shook his head. “I have no questions,” Walton said.

Whitter seemed puzzled by the silence in the room. He smiled at the officers and Sergeant Corey, rubbed his hands together and looked at Docker.

Karsh said, “Lieutenant Whitter, you’re excused now. But before you leave, I’d like to express my thanks to you for appearing before this board.”

“I appreciate that, major, but I don’t expect any commendation for doing my plain duty. I learned that at my daddy’s knee, and sometimes over it.”

Whitter, Docker realized, wasn’t aware of the dismissal in Karsh’s tone and eyes; in fact, he seemed to have accepted the major’s cool words as a generous tribute. His mood was once again expansive as he relaxed and presented the officers at the table with a friendly, conspiratorial smile.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to mention one other little incident I guess hasn’t come to the attention of you gentlemen.”

“Is it relevant to these hearings?” Karsh said.

“Well, sir, I think it is.”

“Then let’s have it, lieutenant.”

“We had a mighty fine top kick in Battery D, major. Korbick, Miles Korbick. I’d like to tell you why he’s no longer with the battery and who’s responsible for it...”

As Whitter began to talk about that particular night at Battery headquarters, to tell it as he saw it, Docker remembered it as he saw it... the clerk from Graves Registration (was his name Nessel?) fretting over Spinelli’s missing poncho and hood, and Corporal Haskell backing away and raising the empty hands he had bloodied on Larkin, and Kohler dumping a helmetful of waste over Korbick’s head while the first sergeant sat in his sudsy metal bath... and as Docker listened to Whitter’s voice rising with his conviction and indignation, it occurred to him again that one of war’s most upsetting — most dangerous — legacies was the confusion forced on even tolerant men about where the truth, where the reality of it was...

“Korbick worked his ankle off,” Whitter was saying, “trying to make a soldier out of a New York character, a boy name of Sam Gelnick. But Docker always stood up for Gelnick. Did his level best, level worst would be more like it, to keep Korbick from making a man out of him.”

“If there’s a point to all this,” Karsh said, “I’d appreciate it if the lieutenant would—”