Dark Full of Enemies(58)

“Don’t mention it.” Stallings dragged at the cigarette a long time and exhaled slowly. “The SS—they was on the island, right back of the little town where we landed. Tank division, panzers and everything. When the sun come up they hit us with artillery and tanks and the Italians attacked us. We beat them back but it wasn’t pretty. We heard about the Tigers through the grapevine that night. Bunch of them overran some positions. I had kind of got used to being scared by the end of that day, kind of numb? But when I heard about that… I didn’t stop being scared until after we got to England. I thought I’d die of it, Joe.”

McKay looked at him. Stallings had spoken barely above a whisper, but now his voice rose and quavered. He sounded like a child. McKay thought of Stallings’s mother, the lumber man’s widow, in her shack in North Carolina.

Stallings took a drag on the smoke and held it away. The glowing tip shook in the dark. He cleared his throat.

“Anyways, we locked horns with them Tigers sure enough. I can’t remember when, but we’d been on the island several days, and they come down on us. A night attack, like those Japs. You could hear those bastards for miles. I mean loud. We wasn’t in a very good position but we were good and dug in. They come down on us with infantry and armor in the dark. I didn’t have a clue what was going on. Still don’t. Farmer—that looey—got hit and the platoon sergeant took over. I zipped through every bit of my M-one ammo and picked up Farmer’s tommy gun and finished that off too, all the time talking to company and battalion and repeating everything they said to me to the sergeant.

“Then the tanks came on us. They had been pushing farther to the left of us and we’d just been getting a lot of machine gun fire and the infantry had pressed us pretty hard, but then come the tanks. God, I—I never. I don’t remember none of it, Joe. That’s it.”

“You don’t remember what happened.”

“Not a damn thing. Just noise is all, and then I was helping with dogtags. That’s when I made sergeant, ya know. Got a Bronze Star, too. I guess I did something during all that mess that caught somebody’s eye.”

McKay grinned. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Stallings waved. “Go to hell. Well, I, uh—I got busted, you know. It was after the fighting had kind of died down. Chickenshit, like I said. We had a coupla days out of the line and I got ahold of some good liquor. Not surprised about that either, huh?”

McKay said nothing. Stallings looked at him, his face guilty.

“Sorry. I know you didn’t have nothing to do with that.”

“I didn’t even know what you’d been doing weekends.”

“I knew you wouldn’t want to get involved, and I didn’t want to—I don’t know—let you down. Or something.”

“What?”

“I never thanked you, for helping me get that far. I wanted to quit, ya know. All the time I wanted to quit. If it hadn’t been for you and my mama I would’ve. And if it hadn’t been for me, I would’ve made it. Just another damn semester.”

You made your choices, McKay thought, and felt badly—Grove had just acknowledged as much.

“Anyways, I did a little time once the authorities got done fighting over me and then I got the chance to get out if I joined up. Well, hell, what would you’a done?”

“I don’t blame ya.”

“Like I said, didn’t take long for somebody to discover my abilities. The Army’s like that, I reckon. Put ya where you can do the most damage. Good aim and no fallen arches—infantry. Mechanical skill—motor pool. Not a goddam bit of brains in your head—officer school. Sorry.”

McKay laughed. “We do things different in the Marines. Don’t one of us start off with any brains.”

Stallings laughed.

“Hell. Well,” he said, and, for a long moment, seemed far away, “just as long as I don’t shit my pants.”

McKay laughed again. Stallings did not.

Outside, the Hardr?de’s engine turned over, caught, revved. Someone knocked twice on the door. McKay stood and inched the door open. Petersen stood outside. When he spoke, his words misted. The humidity had thickened the air.

“They come,” he said.

McKay ground out his cigarette and turned and gestured to the others to stand. They rose, slinging on packs as they did, already walking as they buckled straps and catches. McKay stood aside. They pulled white scarves like balaclavas over their noses as they stepped out into the night. Stallings came out last. McKay slapped him on the shoulder, and Stallings was gone. McKay looked once around the room for forgotten equipment and left the Petersen house for the last time.





11





The dark of the moon had come and a new bank of cloud scudded in from the sea. Norway lay under triple darkness. They would have no moonlight to help them pick their way in the brilliant snow, and no stars to spread even the tiniest glow across the landscape. They moved in darkness, pure dark, blacker even than jungle night. McKay shuddered.

When he stepped out onto the dock, Magnus and J?rgen had wrestled the second of a pair of oil drums onto the Hardr?de’s deck. The boat, its mooring lines already cast off, idled by the wharf, ready to go. The team climbed aboard. McKay nodded at the drums and looked at Petersen.