Birdy

telling Birdy some of the good parts; the funny things; riding in trucks in fine weather behind tanks. Then, all the French girls and after that the mud in the Saar. Then, I tell about Metz and the Twenty-eighth charging upthat stupid hill at Fort Jeanne d’Arc and how Joe Higgins got it there. Higg played left tackle beside me at U.M. I’m having a tough time getting to the real part.
    By the time we go into Germany and are up against the Siegfried Line, I’ve actually gotten to be a sergeant all right. It’s not because I’m any hell-fire soldier, but there just isn’t much of anybody else left. One thing I didn’t know about myself is I’m lucky. That’s not the only thing I didn’t know about Al Columbato either.
    I find out I get more scared than most people do of things I can’t do anything about; things like artillery. Little punks, guys afraid to look anybody in the eye, guys I could wipe out with my left hand; can sit under fire in a hole with the sides falling in and eat chocolate bars or make jokes. They’re scared but they can live with it. I don’t know how to be scared with any dignity. I’m scared deep into my bones about being mangled. I see gore, my gore, in a thousand different ways. My fucking love for my own body wipes me out. I get to a point where I’m even scared of being scared. I’m scared I’ll take off and run sometime, and it takes all my nerve just to stay, even when nothing’s happening. Everybody gets to know I’m the tough wop with no balls.
    There’s a little Jew-boy, not big enough to wrestle bantam and he gets to be squad leader. He deserves it. He always knows when to move, when to stay; he’s thinking all the time. That’s what a real soldier does. Big-shot Al is spending his time trying not to crap his pants, literally. I’m breathing deeply in and out, trying not to hotfoot it back to the kitchen truck.
    And every time I get up enough nerve to turn myself in, go psycho, take my section eight, we’re taken off the line and I try to put myself together again. I’m not sleeping much; I’ve got the GI’s all the time. My hands shake so much I can hardly load a clip. This is all the time, not just when things are tough. It’s like my freaking body has some kind of controls all its own. My mind, my brain, has nothing to do with it.
    Lewis and Brenner, Brenner’s the Jew-boy, get it at the crossroads in Ohmsdorf. There’s nobody left from the old group so they make me assistant to Richards. Richards came in as areplacement in the Saar. I sew on the stripes while we’re in battalion reserve. I sew them on with big easy stitches. I don’t figure I’ll have them for long; they’re bound to find me out.
    I’m bunking with Harrington. Harrington’s ex-ASTP and got trench foot in the Ardennes in the snow. He came back two weeks ago. He’s smart and knows I’m about to crack. Just before we came off the line he took one of Morgan’s stupid patrols for me. There’s no greater gif t than taking another guy’s patrol. Harrington comes from California. I never knew anybody with the kind of nerves he’s got. He’d sure as hell be squad leader if he hadn’t got trench foot.
    I shit bricks day after day in reserve, waiting, thanking God for every extra day. Then we get the word we’re going up to relieve the first battalion in a town called Neuendorf. We’re smack against the Siegfried Line there.
    We go in around the edges of the hills under a barrage at night, about two hours before dawn. The first battalion passes us going the other way. They’re giving out with all kinds of cheery messages like ‘Good luck, fuckers, you’re going to need it,’ or ‘Welcome to eighty-eight alley.’ Really great for the old morale; I can feel my stomach turning sour. Three or four eighty-eights and mortars hit near us on the way in. They’re near enough so we have to hit the dirt. Shrapnel is flying. Even in the dark we can see the dark places where they hit. They dig up clods of pasture and scatter them thumping around like cow flop.
    We get into the town and there’s not a building standing. It must’ve been bombed; artillery alone couldn’t flatten a town like that. We’re herded into the cellar of what used to be a house. It’s beside the church. The church has a front wall almost intact, the rest is rubble.
    Lieutenant Wall, the liaison officer from the first battalion, is still there. Richards and I go over to talk with him. He tells us there’s a