“Incompetent fuck-ups.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, I did. Okay, we make him think we’re throwing our whole reserve onto the line. Which gives him the option of attacking our machine guns, which are no real threat to him. That about it?”
Baird let out his breath slowly. “With the dynamite, that’s about it, sergeant.”
“Yes, let’s not forget that little item.”
Docker studied the pages spread on top of the revetment and realized he was almost hoping to find a flaw in Baird’s proposals. They were dangerous, of course. God-damn, they were dangerous, but the longer he analyzed them, the more it seemed they were so simple and logical that they had at least a prayer of working. Still he hesitated, feeling the wet snow on his bare head and wishing to Christ he’d had enough sense to put his cigarettes in an inside pocket where they wouldn’t have got soaked in this weather... Finally he said, “I’m not sure we’ve got enough dynamite.”
“We do, sergeant.”
“How do you know that?”
“Tex asked Laurel to check the ammo dump before we came over here.”
Docker nodded and looked at his watch. “I’m not sure we’ve got enough time left, but there’s only one fucking way to find out.”
He waved to Farrel, and when the Texan came running toward him, shouted over the wind, “Get the rest of the guys up here. Tell them to snap ass.”
Docker braced himself against the sleeting blasts and looked at the faces of the men in Section Eight who, except for Dormund and Linari, stood in a loose formation in front of the revetment. Linari and Dormund were on the firing seats of the cannon, leaning forward over the cranking handles to hear what Docker was saying.
“Our only chance is to immobilize that tank,” he said. “If we can stop it, we’ve got enough firepower to handle the crew when they come out of the turret. Baird has an idea how to do it. I’ll spell it out for you, then we’ll talk.”
When he finished, Trankic said, “Are we cutting it too fine. Bull?”
“If they hit us at first light, that still gives us about three and a half hours.”
Trankic rubbed his jaw, his hand making an abrasive sound against his whiskers. “We cut the machine guns with blowtorches and hacksaws, maybe we can make it. No problem setting them up on this side of the hill. But without tripods, wedged into rocks, they ain’t gonna have a three-sixty field of fire.”
“What about detonating caps and fusing wire?”
“We’re talking about maybe forty yards on each flank, we got plenty.”
Schmitzer said bluntly, “You guys are acting like it’s all settled. Don’t I get something to say about this deal?”
Docker looked at him. “All right, Schmitzer. Make it fast.”
There was a deliberate challenge in Schmitzer’s eyes, and anger in his voice. “You say make it fast, that’s what bothers me, Docker. What’s the point of going a mile a minute when you’re talking about something that could get everybody killed?”
“Say what’s on your mind.”
“Maybe I should ask the Boy Scout here.” Schmitzer stared at Baird. “Tell us, kid — what happened the last time you saw German soldiers.”
“Shit! We don’t need this,” Farrel said.
“Listen, goddamn it! I ain’t trying to make anybody look bad. I know how few heroes there are, how many guys shit their pants when a shell goes over.”
“Then get to the point,” Docker said.
“I’m saying we’re up here with a popgun for a cannon, and some rifles and grenades that couldn’t stop a snowball fight. And we’re going up against a Kraut officer and the biggest goddamn tank the Nazis got, and we’re using battle plans figured out by” — Schmitzer swung a long arm around at Baird — “by an eighteen-year-old kid whose only experience comes from playing with lead soldiers and reading a lot of shit about war in his playpen.”
“If I’m right, does it matter where I learned it? I’ll bet you that—”
“You’ll bet what?” Schmitzer said. “Next month’s pay? A three-day pass to Paris? You’re betting our lives.” Schmitzer turned to Docker. “Here’s another goddamn thing you haven’t mentioned. We don’t have to surrender to them Krauts. And we don’t have to stand here and let ’em blow hell out of us either. We can walk. Docker, we can get the fuck off this hill. Take our rifles and fade into the woods till they get what they want and get the hell out of here. That way nobody’s a hero, nobody’s a coward, but everybody’s alive.”
“I don’t care how close it is to Christmas,” Docker said, “we’re not giving them that kind of present.”
“Why the fuck not? It’s just another goddamn hill and you know it. Who cares now about those hills in Africa and Sicily you and me got our ass shot up taking? There’s nothing there now but rag-head Arabs and old ginneys walking up the trails through donkey shit. There’s comes a time when there’s enough of them hills. And that’s where I’ve got to.”
Docker thought fleetingly of jokes he’d heard before they went to war, when most Americans wanted no part of it, and comics in nightclubs made elaborate routines out of nothing but place names, demanding to know who in hell wanted to die for places called Minsk and Linsk and Pinsk and Cracow and Gdynia. Names you not only couldn’t spell but couldn’t pronounce, couldn’t even find on maps, full of people with beards who drank sour milk out of leather gourds and slept with goats and wouldn’t know what to do with an American toilet except maybe wash potatoes in it...
“It’s our hill now,” Docker said. “That’s what makes it different, Schmitzer.”
“Yeah, and for my old lady a couple of thousand square miles of the Pacific Ocean are different,” Schmitzer said. “That’s where my brother bought it on the Lexington. She’s got a telegram on the wall, and under it she wrote the latitude and longitude where the Lex went down, the Coral Sea, twenty-five thousand feet. Latitude fifteen degrees and twelve minutes south; longitude one hundred fifty-five degrees and twenty-seven minutes east. They welded steel plates over portholes to protect blackout. My brother got it when an explosion ripped one of those plates out and took the top off his head. There’s no grave markers there. Nobody’s ever going out there in a fucking rowboat and blow taps over him.” He looked hard at Baird. “Fm not trading my life for your cowboys and Indians.”
“We can handle this job with just five men, Schmitzer.” Docker looked at the group near him and beyond to Linari and Dormund. “I want four volunteers. Sound off.”
Dormund shouted, “I’m with Docker, and don’t you wretched bastards ever forget it.” Solvis and Tex Farrel moved away from the revetment to stand with the sergeant.
“Come on. Bull,” Trankic said. “What’s this volunteer shit? Like you always said, we ain’t a goddamned debating club.”
“Okay, pick yourself a detail and get to work.”
“Count me in,” Laurel said, and hurried to join Trankic.
Baird looked expectantly at Docker, who said, “Sure. What did you think?” Schmitzer stood alone, not moving.
“Schmitzer, you can take off if you want to,” Docker said. Then without any particular emphasis, he added, “But I think you’ve got a stake here, too, and it’s more than a few yards of rocky real estate.”
Schmitzer felt the words like blows. He forced himself not to look at Sonny Laurel, who was saying something to Farrel and Baird, his voice threaded with laughter and excitement. And Schmitzer wondered with a sharp fear how much Docker had guessed, because he did have a stake here, just as much as the other guys. If all the shit you read in the papers was true, they were fighting for what they loved and believed in. And they were proud of it. Well, so was he... Schmitzer allowed himself to look steadily at the boy for a last time, studying the lively eyes and full lips brushed with fleeting snowflakes, knowing that what he wanted so badly he could never have beyond his own fantasies. And yet — the thought was painful and bitter — if what he felt never contaminated anyone else, there might be for him the thing the priests were always talking about, even the rummy priest who told them about his brother — the condition of forgiveness and the state of Grace... He held on to the instant until he saw that Docker was frowning at him. He silently whispered good-bye to the boy and said, “I might as well volunteer, too, sarge. Make it fucking unanimous. I’ll get the ammo belts off them machine guns, Trank.”