Ordinary Heroes (2005) Read online

  Rather than commandeer a house in town for himself, as other generals might have done, Teedle had remained with his men in a large tent that served combat-style as both his billet and headquarters. The heavy blackout flaps had been raised in daytime. Inside, a board floor had been installed in sections, and there were several desks, two of them face-to-face, where a couple of corporals were pounding away at Remingtons. Another, larger desk was unoccupied beside a frame cot which was certainly the General's. Two footlockers were stacked there with a kerosene lamp atop them for nighttime reading.

  I approached the first of the two corporals, who was working with a pencil clenched between his teeth, and gave my name and unit. He was a very thin fellow with a wry look and he began to rise. I said, 'At ease," but he tossed off a quick salute from his seat.

  "Corporal Billy Bonner, Paragraph Trooper in the Armchair Division."

  "Oh, isn't that cute?" said the second corporal, without looking up from his work. "Bonner's going back to burlesque when the war is over." Bonner addressed the other corporal as 'Frank,' and told him to shut up. They bickered for a moment.

  "Well, then just don't talk to me at all," Frank concluded. His voice was high and he gave his head a dramatic toss. I exchanged a look with Biddy, who had remained at the tent opening. No need to ask why that one wasn't in combat.

  In frustration, Bonner arose and limped toward Biddy, waving me along. Bonner proved chummy enough that I felt free to ask about his leg. He'd been shot at Anzio, he said, and had opted to become a clerk rather than go home. The reward for his dedication, he said, was working beside Frank. "Welcome to the Army," he added. Listening to him, I remembered a sergeant in basic training who'd warned me not to tell anybody I could type, good advice as Bonner could now attest.

  The Corporal had just finished explaining that Teedle was due back momentarily from an inspection of forward installations, when he caught sight of the General and scurried to his desk like a schoolchild.

  I snapped to attention as Teedle stormed past us. A private from the Signal Corps was trailing him, hauling the body of a huge radio telephone while Teedle screamed into the handset, alternately venting at the poor fellow at the other end and at the signal man, whenever the sound faded.

  "Tell him that I have two battalions down to one ration a day. No, damn it. Two battalions, one ration. One ration. An army moves on its stomach. Ask him if he's heard that one. If the Nazis kill these boys it's one thing, but I'll be damned before I see their country starve them to death." I'd heard that the frontline troops were often hungry. In the officers' mess in Nancy, food was plentiful--canned goods, pastries with honey, tea, Nescafe. Midday meals were often huge. The meat and poultry, requisitioned from the locals, swam in heavy gravies.

  Teedle handed the phone roughly to the signal man and dismissed him, then plunged to his seat, looking unhappily at the papers stacked on his desk.

  He had yet to remove his helmet. The General barked suddenly at Bonner.

  "Are you telling me that Halley Maples sent that pup to deal with Martin?" As far as I had noticed, Teedle hadn't even looked at me.

  Bonner turned my way and said with his subversive smile, "The General will see you now."

  When I'd first heard Teedle's name, I had expected some round little fellow who'd look at home in a Technicolor musical movie like The Wizard of Oz. But the General gave every impression of being a soldier, the kind who would have been happy to be referred to as a rough-and-ready son of a bitch. Teedle was a big red-faced man, with a chest as round as a cock robin's, . And tiny pale eyes set off starkly within lids that appeared to have been rubbed raw, probably from exhaustion or perhaps an allergic condition, or even, I suppose, tears.

  In front of the General's desk I came to attention again, gave name, rank, and unit, and explained that with his permission, I would like to take a statement from him, in connection with the Rule 35 regarding Martin. Teedle studied me throughout.

  "Where'd you go to college, Dubin?"

  "Easton."

  "Uh-huh. I'm from Kansas. None of those fancy-ass schools in Kansas. How about law school?"

  "Easton. If I may, General, I went on scholarship, sir."

  "Oh, I see. A smart guy. Is that what you're telling me?"

  Not to suggest that, sir."

  "Well, if you gad about telling everybody you meet first thing how bright you are, you're not very smart at all, are you, Lieutenant?"

  I didn't answer. He had me pinned and that was the point anyway. Teedle was plainly another of those commanders who wanted his troops to know he was the match of any of them. He took a second to set his helmet on his desk. His hair, what little was left of it, was somewhere between red and blond, and stood up on his head like stray wires. He'd found his canteen and screwed off the cap. Even at a distance of six feet, I could smell the whiskey. He took a good solid slug.

  "All right, so what do I need to tell you about Martin?"

  "As much as you can, sir."

  "Oh, I won't do that. You'll start thinking Martin's a wonderful fellow. You're likely to think he's a wonderful fellow anyway. I'll tell you something right now, Dubin. You're going to like Robert Martin a good deal better than you like me. He's charming, a sweet talker. And brave. Martin may be the bravest son of a bitch in the European theater. You seen combat, Dubin?"

  "No, sir. I'd like to."

  "Is that so?" He smirked and pointedly lowered his line of sight to the JAG Department insignia on the collar of my tunic. "Well, if you ever find yourself in the middle of a battlefield, Lieutenant, what you'll see around you is a bunch of fellows scared shitless, as they should be, and one or two sons of bitches jumping up and down and acting as if the bullets can't touch them. They get hit sooner or later, believe me, but it takes a hell of a lot longer than you'd think. Martin's one of those. Thinks he's invincible. I don't like that either. A soldier who's not afraid to die is a danger to everybody."

  "Is that the problem, sir? The root of it?"

  "Hardly. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that the fucking son of a bitch won't follow orders. He's gone off on several operations without my say-so, even though he's supposed, to be under my command. Successful operations, too, I don't dispute that, sabotaging train lines, mostly, so those Nazi pricks can't get troops and supplies where we're heading. He's a whiz at that. Every railway worker in France seems to bow at Martin's feet.

  "But twice I've sent troops to the wrong position because I didn't know he'd already blown the lines. I've had to hold off artillery because I got late word that Martin and his men turned up in the target area, without any prior communication to me. And I've slowed deployments several times because Martin was off screwing with the Germans, instead of finishing the recons he'd been assigned. And it's not just discipline that concerns me, Lieutenant, although I believe in discipline as much as any other general you've ever met. What makes my hemorrhoids ache is that men were in danger each time, men who didn't need to be killed. Not that day. Not in that place. And I take that personally."

  My face must have reflected some doubt about his choice of words.

  "You heard me, Lieutenant," he said, and stood behind his desk. "It's personal. I get up every goddamn morning knowing that young men under my command are going to die--even now with nothing special happening, I'm losing thirty men a day, and I'll carry their souls with me as long as I live, Dubin. I mean that. While I last on this globe, there will always be some shadow of grief. I wanted this star so bad I probably would have killed someone to get it, but I didn't realize that the dead stick with generals this way. I grieved for plenty who died under my command at lower ranks, but that burden departed, Dubin, and it doesn't now, and when I've asked others, all they can say is that this is just how it is."

  He paused to see how I was taking this. His face, especially his large, lumpy nose, had gained even more color, and he helped himself to another snort from his canteen.

  "That, in a few words, is what I don't like ab
out Robert Martin. I've been a soldier my whole life, Dubin, I know how the game is played, and I realize I'd get nowhere with the General staff complaining about Martin's heroics. But I passed the word to OSS that he's outlived his usefulness here. And eventually they agreed. Told me I should order him back to London. And now we get the melodrama. Because Martin won't go.

  The prick won't go. I've given him his orders in writing three times, and he's sitting there like he's on vacation. I've tolerated the bastard when I had to, Dubin, but I've got him dead to rights now, and I'm not taking any more of his crap. All understood? So type that up, just the last part there, and I'll sign it."

  "I thought there was something to do with a woman, sir. That's what Colonel Maples indicated."

  Teedle laughed suddenly. He was so relentlessly intense that I nearly jumped at the sound. I would have bet the man in front of me laughed at nothing.

  "Oh, that," he said. "I'll tell you the truth, Dubin. I don't give a dry turd about the woman. Patton's G-I cares--they want the same rules for all personnel, naturally. Before D-Day, Martin commanded an Operational Group here on the Continent--Sidewinder, or some such name. They were spying and making the Nazis' lives difficult with little hit-and-run operations. He must have had thirty men under him, a few Allied spies who'd come ashore like him, but most of his command were members of the French and Belgian underground. The Frenchmen have all run home, the spoils of war and whatnot. I suppose the bastards are going to fight each other about who runs the show here.

  "There are still a few odd ducks remaining with Martin, probably because they're not welcome anywhere else. And one of them's a woman, a beautiful little bit from what I hear. He recruited her in Marseilles a few years ago, and she's been beside him, helping with a lot of the ruses OSS is always employing. These OSS women have been damned effective, Dubin. Don't sell them short. You know the fucking Krauts, they think they're gentlemen, so they're never as suspicious of females as they should be. This girl claims to be a nurse sometimes. You can go just about anywhere in a nurse's uniform in the middle of a war.

  "Now it's true, she's probably twenty years younger than Martin, and by all accounts he's been giving her the old one-two and maybe he's even in love with her or thinks he is. That's the theory in London, I suspect, about why he won't go back. My theory is that it just jollies him up to grind his finger in my eye.

  "But as for the fact that he's stuck on the girl, or fighting beside his bed partner, they may not like that in the General staff, think it's bad for discipline when our troops catch on, but I couldn't care less. Soldiers always want sex. Do you know why?"

  Because they were away from women, I answered. Their wives, their girlfriends.

  "You think they'd hop their wives the way these boys go diving after these French girls? I don't. They think they're going to die, Dubin. The reasonable ones anyway. That's what I think. And if you get the time in combat you say you'd like, you'll be thinking that way, too. And when you feel death imminent, Dubin, you don't want to be alone. Isolation is the next stage, in the casket. You desire nothing more than contact with life, and life in its purest form. You want sex. And God. These boys want God, too. They want to fuck. And they want to pray. That's what a soldier wishes for when he doesn't wish he was back home. Forgive me for lecturing, but you're new to all of this and you're better off getting used to the truth.

  "So I don't care if Martin's fucking this girl, or some calf he encounters on the road. We have a few troops doing that, too, I get the farmers in here complaining. Fuck who you want to as far as I'm concerned. But follow orders. So write up what I need to sign and then tell that son of a bitch to get the hell out of my area or he'll have an escort to the disciplinary barracks. That's all."

  Yet again, Teedle lifted the canteen. It was his fifth or sixth drink. He should have been loaded, but his fury burned at such intensity that the liquor was probably vaporized on the way down his throat. I had no idea exactly what to think of General Teedle, especially the eagerness with which he'd invited me to dislike him. He seemed to have been one of those boys picked on all his childhood who grew up determined to be tougher than the bullies, yet who never overcame the hurt of being the odd man out. But his brusque honesty impressed me, especially since it even seemed to go so far as acknowledging his own unhappiness.

  After seeing General Teedle, it made more sense not to return to Nancy, but rather to set out for Major Martin, who was nearby. The General directed his G-i to assist us, and the personnel officer, Lieutenant Colonel Brunson, briefed us further and ordered maps. When we were done, we returned to the motor pool, where the sergeant in charge informed us that they'd dispatched our jeep and couldn't spare another until morning.

  Biddy caught on immediately. "Burnin our gas, not theirs," he murmured to me. He was right, of course, but we still weren't going to get a vehicle. Instead we went off separately to seek billeting. The captain of the headquarters company found me a cot in a four-man tent and showed me where dinner would be in the officers' mess, formed from two squad tents. The meal, when it was served, was hot B ration reduced to a greenish mash, but no one around here was complaining, since even headquarters company, which usually wangled the best, was down to only two meals a day. One of my most embarrassing little secrets was that I had found during training that I did not mind field rations, even what came in tins in the B and C: meat and vegetables, meat and beans, meat and spaghetti. The typical lament was that it looked like dog food and tasted like it, too. But much of it struck me as exotic. My parents, for all their lack of formal religious practice, had never brought pork into our home. Pork and beans was not my particular favorite, but I regarded ham as a delicacy, so much so that even Spam was a pleasure.

  Afterward, I wandered toward the staging area where the enlisted men were encamped to make sure Bidwell had found a place. There was a virtual tent city there encompassing several battalions. It had its own eye appeal. The ranks of pup tents were in perfect lines stretching out hundreds of yards, with the latrine slit trenches dug at regular intervals, all of it illuminated by the brightness of the fires the cooks were still tending. I walked along, exchanging salutes with the enlisted men who took notice of me, trying to find Division Headquarters Company, with whom Biddy was said to be quartered.

  Now and then, when I asked directions, I'd also see if I could swap novels with some of the men. I had stuffed books in every pocket of my fatigues before we left Nancy, eager for new reading material. I sometimes felt I had read every novel in the city. I had been holding on to two of the most popular titles, Lost Horizon and Sanctuary, by William Faulkner, the latter much in demand because of Popeye's foul activities with a corncob. My hope was for more Faulkner, which I was lucky enough to find in the hands of a redheaded private from Texas. I also got a novel by James Gould Cozzens in exchange for The Last Citadel.

  It would be hard to say how important the few minutes I spent reading each night were to me. Thoughts of my parents, of my brother and sister, or of Grace were fraught with emotion. I could not surrender to the comfort of imagining myself among them again, to the security of the life I had left, because I knew I could go mad with yearning and with regret that I'd been so determined to do my duty. But the chance to feel myself in another locale, neither here nor home, if only for a few minutes, was a special reprieve, an essential sign that life would again have the richness and nuance it holds in times of peace.

  I never found Bidwell. But after I made my last literary trade, I bumped into Billy Bonner. He'd been tippling and was holding a cognac bottle, most of the contents gone now.

  "Trying to become acquainted with native customs, First Lieutenant," Bonner said. "French might be onto something with this stuff." He hefted the bottle and missed his mouth at first. Half the off-duty soldiers I encountered in France were pie-eyed, fueled by stores of wine and newer treats like Pernod and Benedictine they'd never seen in the States. Not that the officers were any better. Those of us at headquarters were still rec
eiving the garrison ration of liquor every month, and even officers in foxholes were supposed to get a quart of scotch, a pint of gin, two bottles of champagne, and a bottle of brandy, although it was rarely delivered, given the strains on the supply chain. I traded away most of what arrived. Even at Easton College, where Prohibition had made drinking an adventure, I tended to abstain, never caring much for liquor's loose feeling.

  "You seem fairly deep into your exploration of local culture, Bonner."

  "Yes, sir. Just so long as I can roll out in the morning.

  Bonner saw the pocket book in my hand and we exchanged thoughts about novels for a moment. I promised to trade him Light in August on our next visit. I had turned away when Bonner said clearly behind me, "They've got you investigating the wrong one, Lieutenant."

  I revolved to stare at him.

  "Teedle and Martin?" he said. "You're investigating the wrong one. At least, as I see it. You oughta ask around."

  "Then I'll start by asking you, Corporal. Tell me what that remark means."

  Bonner peered at length into the mouth of the bottle, as if the answer were in there.

  "It probably means I've had too much of this," he said after quite some time. He gave me that thin, conspiratorial smile and without waiting for a response slipped off into the dark camp.

  PART II

  Chapter 4.

  STEWART: MY FATHER'S LAWYER

  Ac cording to the Record of Proceedings of my father's court-martial, a high-ranking JAG epartment lawyer from Eisenhower's headquarters, Barrington Leach, had been Dad's attorney. His name rang a bell, and a search online reminded me why. In 1950, Leach took a leave from the prominent Hartford law firm in which he was a partner to become Chief Counsel to Senator Estes Kefauver in his investigation of organized crime. The televised Kefauver Hearings introduced many Americans to the Mafia and, not coincidentally, to the privilege against self-incrimination. From then on "taking the Fifth" inevitably brought to mind the line of dark gentlemen in expensive suits who answered every question by reciting their rights from index cards adhering to their palms. It was Leach, most often, who was up there making them sweat.