A Midnight Clear by William Wharton
Just then a mortar explodes in front of us; it’s close enough so clods of dirt hit the jeep with loud clunking sounds. Then another hits downhill on our right, fragments burying in the hill. I keep bearing down. When the next one hits behind us, between our jeep and Miller’s, my first instinct is to stop; then I realize we’re bracketed, our only chance is to keep moving. Mel stands up and looks back.
“They’re OK, I think! Miller’s hunched over the wheel and I can’t see Mother, but Miller isn’t signaling or anything. Just keep on rolling.”
He slides down below the hood again, his knees on the floor of the jeep. I try shifting up one gear and holding to it. We’re going about fifteen miles an hour; in the dark and snow it’s all I can handle and stay on the road.
The next mortar explodes up on our left; it’s close. Fragments ricochet and sing off the jeep. One piece somehow shatters the windshield flat on the hood. There are clangs against metal and a dull thump.
“You hit, Mel?”
“No; Mundy.”
“Damn!”
Mel lifts his head again.
“I think they’re still OK back there. Another hundred yards and we’ll be out of range.”
Two more come close but we’ve passed the place where they can lay one in directly; the ridge is between us. Either they’ll chase now or we’re out of it. There’s a long downhill stretch coming up. I try holding it in second. The road’s still only a cut into the side of a hill and I know it’s a long drop on the right. I should downshift to low-low again but the panic’s strong. We start picking up speed, and when I try braking, we slide. Snow’s jammed in the treads and the damned jeep’s like a toboggan. I hold her on around the first curve but by the second, we’re going too fast.
“I can’t make it, Mel! Jump!”
We’re going too fast to jump. I keep pumping the brakes and I’m shifted down now but still sliding. I lose control completely. We go off the downhill side and hit sideways against a tree. We spin, bounce against the bank, twist and end up teetering off the deep edge, front first, over a drop of at least forty-five degrees. From our tilted-forward place in the front seat it looks like a cliff. All four wheels are free from the ground and spinning. I turn off the motor. Gordon moves to sit on his seat and the jeep tips farther forward, down.
“Hold it, Mel! We’ll go over if we move.”
I turn my head; Mundy hasn’t budged. As I look, the other jeep pulls up behind us. Miller carefully brakes and comes to a stop. Wilkins jumps out of their jeep, runs toward us.
“You guys all right?”
“We’re fine, Mother; but our jeep’s about to slide over! Hold us down!”
Miller pulls the emergency on his jeep and leaves the motor running, gets out and comes over. He goes around and looks under our jeep.
“Christ, you guys are on a regular seesaw! Don’t move! I’ll get the towrope and see if I can pull you off.”
We sit still while Miller and Wilkins hook the rope onto our back bumper and their front one. We all keep looking back up that hill, expecting hordes of Huns to charge down at us. Mundy’s weight in back is keeping us from tipping over the edge. When the rope’s secure, Miller runs to his jeep and begins backing uphill, but all he does is slip, even with the four-wheel drive and chains. He jumps out and runs back again.
“I could go downhill and tie to my back bumper. We’d have the hill in our favor then, but the angles are all wrong; you might go on over the edge. I’ll tell you what; I’m going to back up and pull with the rope while you two climb out over Mundy. It should hold.”
Before we can say anything, he runs to his jeep, backs up and pulls tight on the slack rope. Mel and I crawl over Mundy and off the back of the jeep. After we’re both out, Miller unties the rope from his jeep and rolls downhill past ours. Without us in the front seat our jeep’s more secure. Mother ties the rope to Miller’s back bumper; Miller begins pulling again. He swings our jeep around but it slips farther over the edge. There’s no way to pull it off now.
“Won’t and Mother, you get Mundy out of the jeep while I hold it here.”
Mother and I cut the satin strips holding the bedspring with Mundy to the jeep. Mel helps lift the whole thing off and lower it to the road. We take out the whitener, the camouflage suits and the 506, stuff them into Miller’s jeep. There’s no room for the fart sacks. Miller gives another pull but it only gets worse; our jeep’s over the edge.
“Won’t, cut the rope with your bayonet and stand away so you won’t get caught in the whiplash when the rope breaks loose.”
I hack away at the rope with my bayonet. The last few strands unravel and break themselves. The jeep twists slowly, then turns around and begins rolling, sliding, down. It hits a few trees but rebounds and disappears in the dark, crashing and picking up momentum. It doesn’t explode and finally there’s silence. One U.S. jeep at the bottom of a ravine in the Ardennes Forest. Miller puts his brake on again, comes back and stares down the hill.
“That was the best of them, too.”
Together we lift Mundy and jam him, feet first, under the mount of our fifty caliber. His head is up at least two feet higher than the top of the gun; he’s practically standing up. We all climb in. With the radio, the phones, the rations and all the other crap, there’s not much room. I get in front beside Miller and stash the 506 at my feet. Mel and Mother are in back, half under Mundy’s bedspring. Miller starts the jeep rolling. Chains sure make a difference.
When we get to where regiment was, there’s no one. The snow has covered everything, even the bare spots where our squad tents were. Only the kitchen tent space is still warm enough so there’s mud and grass showing. They’ve been gone for more than twenty hours. We drive in a circle around that regimental area, looking for the jeep, looking for some sign, but there’s nothing. Miller stops and turns to me.
“Well, Sergeant Knott, what the fuck do we do now?”
“Christ, I don’t know, Bud. What’s your idea, Mel?”
“Look for tracks, probably. They couldn’t move a whole regimental headquarters without tearing things up.”
Mother is staring from behind Mundy out the back of the jeep.
“There could be Germans anywhere around here.”
Miller shoves the jeep in gear.
“The best thing is, get moving. The most tracks go off on that road; it’s the way out of here, so we go that way. Go west, young men! At least I think it’s west.”
I’m thinking if we run into any Germans, a squad or more, we give up. We keep looking for tracks but it’s practically impossible. The road goes under trees and there, without lights, it’s pitch dark. And the snow’s coming down harder. We roll along in the dark, jammed together, each of us alone, not talking much. We’ve all put ourselves in Miller’s hands.
Then we come out of the forest and into more or less open farm country. We only know we’re on a road from the fence posts along both sides. The snow blows from every direction in gusts and we’re miserably cold. Miller slows, stops and turns to me again.
“I don’t know where I’m going anymore. I could be driving us straight to Berlin.”
Not one of us has a compass. At Shelby we did maybe five hundred field exercises, shooting azimuths, all the rest of it, but we’ve never used a compass since. I think mine’s in my duffel bag somewhere in the kitchen truck. My whole full field pack’s in that truck; my whole life, practically.
It’s bitching cold. My feet are numb, the fronts of my legs iced to my pants. We’re covered with snow except where Mother and Mel are jammed under Mundy. Father Mundy looks like a statue; the snow’s stuck to his face and packed in his eye sockets.
I don’t know what to do. If we stop, we’ll freeze. We can’t build a fire; it’d attract any Germans in the vicinity. Also, all the wood’s wet and I don’t want to waste gasoline just burning it for heat. At the same time, riding along, going nowhere, isn’t helping either. But what else?
I climb onto the hood and stretch out
We’ve gone maybe five more miles when it happens. I’m out in front but I don’t see anything. Everything’s white against white, but set in darkness. I’ve lost any ability to separate close from near, up from down. Suddenly the right side drops. Our whole jeep rolls on its side and slowly turns over with the motor still running!
Without even knowing it, we were going over a small unrailed bridge. The drifts are so high it was invisible. It happens slowly so nobody’s hurt; even Mel and Mother wiggle out from under Mundy. Miller leaps back to the jeep and turns off the motor.
The jeep’s settled upside down, with Father and the fifty caliber jammed into and through the ice of a small running stream.
Together, we slip and struggle in the snow till we’ve pushed the jeep back onto its wheels. Mundy seems all right. I brush the snow and mud off his face. It’s wet from the water and starts to freeze almost immediately.
We’re all puffing. Even with four, it’s tough righting a jeep in the snow. By the time we’re finished, I’m sweaty but my hands and feet are wet and cold. Miller is going around checking. He reaches under the jeep and comes up, his hands smelling of gasoline. He looks at me, then points under the rear end. I get down on my knees. There’s a puncture slash in the gas tank and gasoline is coming out in a steady stream at about the same speed and trajectory as horsepiss. Miller shakes his head.
“Must’ve scraped something going over the edge. There’s a gash the length of my hand.”
He slides under and packs one of his gloves into the hole, stoppering it somewhat. We kick snow over the leaked gasoline, then Bud tries turning the motor over but no response. He checks everything under the hood and tries again. Nothing. All four of us push to get her back on the road; but the embankment’s too steep. By the time we give up, we’re all sweaty and pooped out. The falling snow seems to get thicker, heavier.
We pull Father Mundy from under the fifty caliber. Mother and I carry him up a slight hill to the edge of a wood overlooking the bridge. Miller and Gordon detach the fifty caliber, haul it up, too. The only thing I can see for us to do is dig in, wait for some light and try to find out what’s happening. We have enough rations for a few days.
After the fifty’s off, we swing back the mount and bend down that wire cutter on the bumper. We shove the jeep as best we can under the bridge. This is a low stone arch and we just clear. We push upstream till it’s tucked away. In the process, we get totally soaked in ice water. We’ve taken off both jerry cans of gasoline. One’s full, the other’s three-quarters empty from the flambeaux.
Up under the trees it isn’t snowing so hard. We take turns digging. First we scrape away the snow and leaves, then work our way through the first few inches of frozen ground with our entrenching tools locked at an angle. After that the digging’s easy, dark loamy soil with strings of small roots easily cut. We dig two holes, slit-type trenches, only deeper, with fire steps for sitting at each end. We string our shelter halfs as low lean-tos over the holes. Our fart sacks were in that first jeep down the ravine, so we’re going to be cold.
We use gas from the jerry cans to soak sticks and brush. That way we get small fires going in our helmets in the holes. Mother and I are together in one hole; Gordon and Miller in the other; Father Mundy is behind and between us. Wilkins and I take off our boots and socks, wring out the socks and try drying them over the fires. There’s nothing to be done with our boots. We have a shelter half tucked under us. The top shelter half is stretched so we have a six-inch slit looking down toward the bridge. The smoke goes out the slit but we begin to get warmer. I gnaw on a piece of K lunch cheese and try to forget where we are. Wilkins seems fine, better than I am. The snow’s settling on the shelter half, so, except for the smoke, gray against white, we’re practically invisible from the road.
At about seven-thirty, before it’s even light, but when you can just tell it’ll be light soon, I slip on my damp socks and frozen shoes. I slither out of our slit. Miller hears me and crawls out from the other hole. We have the same thing in mind and discuss how to do it. We’re being very warlike.
We go down to the jeep. Miller unhitches the fifty-caliber mount and together we carry it uphill. Then the two of us, taking turns, dig a hole outside Miller’s slit and set the mount into it, jamming rocks from the streambed around the sides. We haul up an ammo box, lock the fifty into its swivel and feed one end of an ammo belt into the chamber. We’ll probably be surrendering within the hour if things’re bad as we think, but at least we’ve carried through. If anyone can hold that damned gun down while it’s firing and still hit anything, it’s Miller. We go gather more sticks, dip them in the jerry can and scurry back to our holes. We’ve finished playing soldier. I don’t think we exchange more than thirty words through the entire operation, and most of those Father Mundy wouldn’t approve. While we’re down at the jeep, I also pull our 506 from the front seat. I lower it into the hole with Mother.
The sky’s beginning to lighten and it looks as if east is in exactly the opposite direction I thought it would be. From the light, it seems we were driving straight to Berlin before we were intercepted by an edgeless bridge. It’s one bridge game I wish I could replay; not duplicate, replay.
I warm up the radio and fool around with different frequencies. All I’m picking up is what sounds like German; there are background tank noises. I get two bands of this, surrounded by static; not very encouraging. I’m wishing Shutzer were here; he might have some idea. This kind of “off the cuff” war is his specialty.
Wilkins and I take turns every fifteen minutes keeping an eye on the road. While I’m sitting up, I try to figure out what day it is, the day of the week and the date. I’m completely confused. What’s the difference? I also try bearing down on what to do next. I know we can’t stay here, and there’s no way to get the jeep going. What do we do with Mundy? We could bury him in one of these slit trenches, like a roll of drawings, but I don’t want to.
It’s almost eight o’clock by Mundy’s watch when we begin hearing sounds. There’s no mistaking the noise of tanks; it’s clanking and metal rumbling, a loud diesel roar like heavy construction machinery. They seem to be coming along the road we’re on; only, according to the sun, they’re headed east. Maybe they’re retreating. Maybe a mob of GIs will come charging behind them, cavalry chasing the red-skins back to the reservation. Then we see the real thing!
These are Mark V panthers, with German infantry in black hanging on to the back and top! Automatically I count; eighteen tanks, nine weapons carriers. Our fifty caliber looks like a peashooter. I only hope to hell they don’t see the jeep, our tracks or the fifty. Thank God they’re going so fast. Please, Miller, don’t do it! When they’re past and the rattling, ear-pounding din dies down, I look over at Miller and Gordon in the other hole. Bud’s behind the fifty; Mel, closer to me, beside him, looks across.
“Did you see those uniforms, those markings. That was honest-to-shit SS!”
Wilkins’s face is’s white, drained as I know mine must be. God, they looked so hard, so professional, so unbeatable.
“What do you think we should do, Wont? What’ll we do?”
“One thing I know, Mother. We’ll stay’s far away as possible from that bunch; they’re not the ones we’re looking for.”
“There really were white skulls and crossbones painted on the sides of the tanks. Did you see that?”
“I saw it, Mother. I saw it. Maybe they’re only trying to scare us, but it worked. I’m scared! Anybody have any ideas?”
The silence is sure and deep as the snow in front of us. There’s nothing we can do but burrow deeper. I lower myself into the hole and drop enough gasoline-soaked sticks into my helmet to keep a fire going. It’s time to think.
Half an hour later I go down to the jeep again. It’s definitely light now. East is still in the wrong direction. I find the whitening. I drag up the camouflage suits. I wonder what the squad will think; maybe this will convince them I’m over the edge. We’ll have a mutiny. I’ll join it. But I can’t think of anything else. I signal Mother to come with me and we climb into Miller and Gordon’s hole. I explain my idea as best I can. There’s something of plotting a trick chess strategy about it: the “play dead” opening. I finish and wait.
“How about the radio?”
“Bury it.”
“And the fifty caliber?”
“Bury it.”
“Bury the rifles, too?”
“No other way.”
Gordon, as usual, asks the hard one.
“If we actually pull this off and get back, what’re we going to say?”
“We were captured. They took our weapons. We escaped. They’ll have to send us back and clear us then; a few days of luxury. But we stick to our story. I’m betting things are so confused nobody will ask anybody any questions anyway.”
Wilkins looks at me as if I’m past all understanding.
“Holy cow!”
“As I said, we do this together or nothing. There’s no other way. If anybody has any objections, any at all, you don’t have to explain; just speak up now.”
There’s a long silence. It takes some thinking. It’s so typically ASTPR it stinks even worse than the German capture deal. Miller’s first.
“I’m for it.”
Gordon looks at him, at me.
“Me too. The whole idea’s so wild I’d be sorry the rest of my life if we didn’t try it. Then again, the rest of my life might just be today.”
I turn to Wilkins. He’s in a terrible spot.
“Don’t let us pressure you, Mother. Make up your own mind.”
“Oh, I’ve already done that. I was only waiting for the other guys so I wouldn’t be putting pressure on them. This could be the deepest finesse in squad history.”