Standing at the scratch.., p.5
Standing at the Scratch Line, page 5
Inside the truck, the keys were still in the ignition. LeRoi pushed the igniter button, and the engine sputtered, then began to purr. He backed up to where Big Ed was waiting.
“Goddamned dog attacked me! It caught me by surprise,” Big Ed explained as he clambered in the back of the truck. “I had to beat it off with the butt of my rifle. Goddamned thing came flying out of the falling snow like some kind of ghost! Still, I got three of them boys!”
“You need a tourniquet?” LeRoi asked.
“Naw, it ain’t spurtin’! I can wait till we get out of here,” Big Ed said as he made himself comfortable between the benches. “All the noise we made, this whole town will be crawling with Germans in no time! We best pick up and get out! I never liked this town no way. Can’t grow nothing here, the soil’s too rocky.”
“Where’s your buddy?” LeRoi inquired as he swung the truck around and drove over to where he had last seen Slick. He slid down the window, then called out, “Slick! Slick! We got to head out, man! You better get your ass over here or you gon’ get left!”
Slick appeared, scrambling over the rubble of the fallen building. He beckoned to the truck, indicating he wanted them to follow him. He turned to go back the way he had come when LeRoi shouted, “We gon’ leave your grave-robbin’ ass!”
Slick turned and shouted back, “I found a box of gold! A real box of gold! It’s too heavy for one man to carry. I can use some help!”
“Leave it!” LeRoi ordered. “We need to get out of here! We gon’ have Germans down on our necks any minute!”
“This is a real box of gold! It’s right here! All we got to do is lift up and carry it away! We can’t walk away from this! Our money problems will be over!”
LeRoi left the truck idling with the brake on and scrambled up the mountain of debris. “If you’re lying, yo’ ass is mine!”
Slick led him to the back side of the destroyed building and there in the snow where Slick had dragged it was a squat metal box. “Open it,” Slick urged. LeRoi flipped back the lid and saw that the box was filled with coins and jewelry made of gold. Slick was excited. “There’s two more boxes like this! This buildin’ was some kind of bank! There’s a big crack in the vault showin’ paper money and everythin’. With a little diggin’ we gon’ be rich!”
“Sorry, Slick, this is all we got time for.” LeRoi closed the box. “I wants that gun mor’n I wants gold! I’s ready to carry this one, but no mo’!”
Slick was aghast. The prospect of unlimited wealth was being turned down. “Nigger, you must be stupid! We got a treasure for the takin’ and you gon’ leave it for some damn gun? Nigger, please!”
LeRoi growled, “Pick up the box! We’ll take this one back to the truck!”
Slick saw something in LeRoi’s eyes that made him swallow any more words of contempt. He bent down and grasped the handle and lifted it in unison with LeRoi. The two men struggled and staggered with the weight of the box, but finally wrestled it back to the truck. Big Ed slid over so that they could push the box onto the truck bed.
“We best get on and pick up that Vickers,” Big Ed suggested. “Them Germans got to come and investigate!”
Slick looked back toward the building’s ruins and then into LeRoi’s eyes. He decided on the wiser course and got into the back with Big Ed. LeRoi jumped in the cab and drove the truck without lights back to their storage site.
Professor met them at the door. “I saw lights coming this way down the road from Saint Die. Looks like a couple of squads coming right for us.”
“Let’s get the gun loaded,” LeRoi urged.
“Damn! What about my supplies, my cigarettes, my uniforms?” Slick groused.
“We’s only taking ammunition and mortars. Everything else got to stay! We ain’t dyin’ over no cigarettes and uniforms!” LeRoi barked as he headed down to the basement to get the Vickers.
With Big Ed keeping lookout, it took them twenty minutes to load the ammunition and the guns onto the truck. LeRoi was directing as he worked. Professor and Slick were sweating from exertion when the last box was loaded. Big Ed gave a warning whistle, indicating that the German trucks were within a mile of the town. LeRoi disappeared in the darkened building one last time. He emerged after a couple of minutes, climbed into the cab, and gunned the truck’s engines as he sped out onto the darkened highway.
The two-lane road was a tortuous, twisting ribbon that followed the contours of the mountainside as it slowly climbed above the placid Saar. In the dark, with no lights, it was sometimes difficult to determine where the road actually lay beneath the snow. LeRoi did not let up on his speed and he barely kept the skidding, careening vehicle on track. Several times the truck actually scraped against the railings built to prevent vehicles from hurtling down the steep mountainside. The road dropped and curved into a pass between two peaks that turned into a straightaway with a half-mile visibility. LeRoi could see the lights of a small roadblock in the distance. He did not decrease his speed, but kept barreling down the highway with the accelerator pushed to the floor.
As the truck neared the roadblock, they saw lights being waved back and forth by the men staffing the checkpoint, but LeRoi ignored the signal and veered partially off the road in order to knock down the shelter upon which the telephone line was connected. There were shouts and curses as the German soldiers leapt out of the way. One fired two shots at point-blank range. None of the occupants was hit but two windows were shattered and flying glass was everywhere. The truck slammed into the post that served as support for the wooden pole that swung down and blocked passage. The post snapped and flew off to the right, and then the truck hit the wooden shelter and splintered the whole front of it. As it collapsed, the truck continued down the highway. More shots were fired by the Germans, but the bullets went astray.
The ride was rough and bumpy as the truck sped around a sharp curve that led out of the pass and down along the side of the mountain. By now, the snow had stopped falling and the sky appeared to be lighter. For the first time, they could see, high above them, the glow from the lights of Saint Die in the surrounding darkness. Each time the truck hit a bump in the road, everything in it was momentarily airborne. Professor, who was occupying the front passenger seat, had one foot braced against the dashboard. He looked across at LeRoi and saw him smiling. “What are you smiling about?” he asked as he cleaned his glasses. “We nearly got our asses shot off back there! And I can’t figure out how you’re planning to get to the ridge.”
“You remember that old logging road that was a couple of valleys south of Saint Die? If I can find it, it’s got to end up somewhere near Saint-Germain. How you doing back there, Big Ed?” LeRoi called over his shoulder.
“He’ll make it,” Slick answered. “It ain’t deep, but it’s a long gash. He can’t talk right now ’cause he’s biting down on leather. I poured some schnapps on it and gon’ pour some more as soon you stop bumpin’ around.”
“You gon’ have to wait a minute. I want to get off this roadway first,” LeRoi answered. He drove on for several more miles, then took the first large dirt road leading off into the trees. The road curved around the mountain and began to climb sharply. LeRoi followed it until it forked. He killed the engine and said, “We got to scout from here on. I don’t want to drive into no German patrols. The ridge can’t be but three, four miles from here.”
“I’ll stay here with Big Ed, if you don’t mind,” Slick offered.
LeRoi got out of the truck and walked around to the back. He pulled the canvas back and saw that the metal box was open. “You want to bury the gold now and split it between the four of us? Or do you want to wait and share it with the whole platoon?”
Slick sputtered, “How you get four? They’s only three people in on this.”
“What about Professor, or don’t he count?”
“What gold?” Professor asked.
“Don’t get greedy, Slick,” Big Ed advised. “There’s plenty for all of us. You can’t leave Professor out. He’s one of us.”
“What gold?” Professor asked again.
“Show him, Slick,” LeRoi said.
Reluctantly, Slick opened the box and Professor climbed in the back to view its contents.
“My God!” Professor exclaimed. “This is a fortune! And because they’re coins and jewelry, it’s probably worth more than just the gold. I can’t even remember the last time a country minted its coins in gold. This is an heirloom!”
“I say we bury it now and get on with our mission,” LeRoi said.
“Nigger, I found it,” Slick declared. “I should be the one who says what happens to it. You the one that walked away from two more boxes just like this!”
“Get out of the truck, Slick. I wants a word with you.”
There was a moment of silence. “Why I got to get out of the truck?”
LeRoi growled. “Get out of the truck!”
Professor looked at LeRoi. “What’s going on, LT?”
“Stay out of it, Professor!” LeRoi warned. “This is between me and Slick!”
“What I do to you, man?” Slick questioned, making no move to get out of the truck.
“I’ve told you befo’ not to call me nigger! I hates that word! Whenever I hears it, don’t matter who’s sayin’ it, I see white skin and white thinkin’! The white man got you callin’ yo’self what he calls you when he don’t want to be polite! That ain’t me. I ain’t never gon’ be a nigger! If you don’t know me well enough to call me by my first name, call me Mister! Now figure out what you want done with the gold. Professor and me are going to scout for a road leading up to the ridge.”
“That’s fine with me,” Slick answered, unable to keep the smile off his face. “Me and Big Ed will take charge of it.”
“Let’s go, Professor,” LeRoi said as he started uphill into the forest. He knew that Slick was not a woodsman. If he hid something the size of the gold’s metal box, its location would be obvious to a practiced observer. Professor picked up his gun and pack and trudged after him.
They were in a heavily wooded area. As they passed through a clearing, a loud explosion echoed through the mountain gorges and a bright flash shimmered and turned into flames along the highway from Saint Die.
“What the hell is that?” Professor whispered, dropping to his knees as a precautionary measure.
“Côte d’Saar,” answered LeRoi, kneeling beside his companion. “It’s a little welcoming present that I left for our German friends. I was gon’ be sure that they couldn’t use none of Slick’s armory.”
Staring across the canyon at the distant flames, which were reflected on the wide, black surface of the meandering Saar, Professor nodded his head. “Looks like you did a pretty good job.”
“Yep,” LeRoi answered as he rose and continued uphill. They kept the winding road to their left as they climbed. The hill they were climbing was but a low branching arm of a curling spine of mountains that reached white fingers into the night sky. Even as LeRoi and Professor breasted the shoulder of the hill, they were still beneath the tree line. Their progress was slowed because the forest was not always able to provide cover. There were great stands where unregulated logging had left acres of snow-covered tree stumps. They skirted these open areas and stayed within the cover of the trees, but each time they would take the precaution to kneel in the underbrush and search their surroundings for movement.
During one such stop, after they had assured themselves that they were alone, Professor turned to LeRoi and said, “Why don’t we take a break here? We must have climbed a couple thousand feet.”
LeRoi nodded and moved deeper under the snow-laden branches of a big pine.
Professor followed suit and shortly they were both seated on their packs with their backs to the tree’s trunk. Professor rubbed some pine needles between his fingers and then smelled the essence. “For a moment back there at the truck I thought you might attack Slick.”
“It was close,” LeRoi admitted.
Professor was surprised. “You would have fought him over a word? Slick’s been with us since Fort Dodge.”
“Nigger ain’t just a word! It’s a way of thinkin’. They want you to think that the colored man is weak and lazy, and ain’t got no determination! It ain’t so and I ain’t gon’ play the part. I wants respect and I don’t mind fightin’ to keep it! I don’t plan on livin’ my life in them little cramped billets America has set aside for colored men! Despite all its prejudice the army taught me one good thing—how to fight—and I plan on usin’ everythin’ I learned when I get home!”
“That’s the problem all around: man is much better at killing than he is at understanding, better at killing than at living. History is written in the blood of those made invisible by the victors. As if killing was the measure of man.” Professor shook his head in disgust. He looked at his friend’s calm, undisturbed expression and realized that his words had blown past LeRoi like bits of debris carried on a strong wind, seen but not remembered, just patterns of light and shadow. “Aren’t you afraid of dying?” he asked.
LeRoi responded slowly, but kept his eyes probing the shadows of the surrounding forest. “I ain’t worried about it. Anyways, I figure I got some time befo’ my page gets filled in.”
“What do you mean, ‘Before your page gets filled in’?”
“Oh, just somethin’ a schoolteacher once told me. Don’t remember her exact words, but she said somethin’ like all of us starts life with a blank page and you die when yo’ page is filled up. Way she got it figured, everythin’ you do and everythin’ that happens to you is writ on that page.” LeRoi checked his watch. “Let’s move it.”
They hoisted their packs and backtracked around the outskirts of the logged clearing and followed a streambed down through a small valley. As they were climbing out of the valley, a break in the trees revealed the glint of railroad tracks winding through a distant pass below them. They knew that their destination was close. As they crested another ridge, they saw dark shapes moving in the darkness of the trees above the railroad tracks. A line of men emerged and marched single file down the slope toward the tracks.
Professor slumped down into the snow. “Holy shit! Are those Germans?”
LeRoi, with his binoculars focused on the distant men, smiled. “No. That’s the Three hundred Fifty-first! I can tell by the walk. Look.” He handed the binoculars to Professor. “Tell me if that ain’t Fat George Cunningham from the Second Platoon waddling his big ass down the hill?”
F R I D A Y, D E C E M B E R 2 8, 1 9 1 7
It was 0700 before LeRoi’s team got the big Vickers set up to guard the pass from Kastledorf to Ribeauville. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees since the snow had stopped falling, which made assembling the big gun all the more difficult. If bare skin touched the larger metallic pieces, it immediately adhered to the frozen steel. Even the lubricant was gunky and resistant. LeRoi and Big Ed toiled in GI-issue woolen mittens, which limited their dexterity with the numerous screws and bolts, but the men’s persistence was eventually rewarded. The machine gun sat on a platform made of ammunition boxes in a recess that was dug out of a frozen earthen ridge of the mountain by pick and shovel. The recess was set among the trees and was not visible from the road below. The gun’s firing lanes covered the entrance to the near side of the bridge as well as the highway and adjacent checkpoint structure on the far-western span of Kastledorf Bridge.
The sky was cloudless and blue, and a chill breeze eddied in and through the mountain gorges. Big Ed pushed himself to his feet. The dog bite was beginning to throb again. The medic had stanched the flow of blood and taped him up. Now he had to move around to avoid the paralyzing stiffness that resulted from prolonged sitting in cold weather. He had a makeshift crutch that allowed him to hobble slowly back and forth.
“Remember what the medic said,” advised Professor, who was squatting down, writing in his diary. “You don’t want to walk around too much and start the blood to flowing again.”
“Gotta move, Professor,” Big Ed explained. “I sit too long, the pain just comes roaring up my leg. Man, I wish that white platoon that’s ’sposed to join us would get here. I know their medic’s got something for pain.”
Professor turned a surprised face toward Big Ed. “What? They’re actually sending some white boys to fight alongside of us? This doesn’t sound like the American army I know.”
“Yes siree. That’s straight from the sergeant. You can write that in your book.”
LeRoi emerged from a stand of trees above the recess. “What are you doin’ walkin’ around?” he asked Big Ed.
“My leg was freezin’ up on me. I had to get up and move,” Big Ed answered. “Tell Professor, ain’t it true that Sarge said a white platoon was being sent here?”
“Yes, Sarge said they was coming in support,” LeRoi agreed. “But don’t get it twisted. The way he said it, didn’t sound like they was gon’ fight side by side with us.”
“Same old stuff,” Professor commented with resignation as he closed his diary. He took off his glasses and wiped his forehead. “They’ll wait until the Germans have shot us up before they expend a bullet.”
LeRoi stated with cold emphasis, “I don’t intend to die behind no ‘Okie Doke.’ I told you, Professor, I’s plannin’ on seein’ New Orleans again. And if I do go down, I plans to go down shootin’, takin’ peckerwoods with me. German or American, they all the same to me.”
Sergeant Williams strode out of the trees. “Tremain, your voice carries. You’re a good soldier. It would be a shame to have your military record tarnished because of your mouth.” He leaned his rifle against a nearby tree and saluted.
The men stood and saluted. Even Big Ed clambered to his feet. The sergeant took off his helmet and knelt down. “As you were, men.” Characteristically, he looked neat. “We got a problem. We got a couple of German squads coming up the railroad track by handcar. A scout flashed us a warning with a signal lamp. We’re talking around twenty men. We’re going have to deal with them before they get dug in. They’re sitting on our exit route.”
