They were in the center of the town now. It was a big, empty, cobblestoned square. The column drew up in ranks and halted. They swung their packs from their shoulders and rested their guns on the ground. Somewhere to the north they could hear a distant rumble of big guns. It sounded like thunder in the distance.

Johnny's hand on the muzzle of the rifle could feel the vibration coming up from the ground through it. He waited quietly. Idly he wondered whether they were going on through tonight or were going to stay here.

A little French official bustled up to the captain importantly. They talked rapidly for a few minutes, then the captain looked up. "We'll stay here for the night," he announced. "We're shoving off at four a.m., your noncoms will give you sleeping-quarters. Make the most of it. You'll be lucky if you see a bed in the next few weeks." He turned and walked away with the little French official.

"The h.e.l.l with that," Joe said through motionless lips to Johnny, "I'm gonna get me a dame."

Rocco overheard him. "You're turnin' in," he said to him. "This ain't no picnic we're goin' on. This is business."

Joe scoffed at him. "I heard that before. All we're gonna do is march up there an' then they're gonna march us somewhere else. This isn't a war against Germany, it's all a conspiracy against my feet."

A lieutenant was coming down toward them. "Shut up," Johnny whispered, "the looey's comin'."

The lieutenant gestured to Rocco. He stepped forward and the officer spoke to him quickly. He gave Rocco a slip of paper and went on down the line to the next platoon.

A few minutes later they were dismissed.

"Where can you get a drink around here?" Joe asked. There wasn't a light visible in the town.

No one answered him. A few seconds later they followed Rocco down the street. They stopped at a small gray house. Rocco knocked at the door.

A man's voice answered in French through the closed door.

Rocco waited until the voice had finished. "We're the American soldiers."

The door opened. A tall man with a swarthy black beard opened the door. The yellow light streamed out from behind him. He held his hands wide. "Les Americains!" he said. "Come in, come in."

They followed him into the house. He shut the door behind them. "Marie!" he called out. Some rapid words followed in French which they did not understand.

They stood awkwardly just inside the room. Rocco took off his helmet and the other boys followed sheepishly. A girl came into the room carrying some large bottles of wine.

Joe looked around him triumphantly. "I should have known the army would fix us up before we went into battle," he crowed.

The Frenchman smiled at him. "Fix," he said, "yess, fix." He opened the bottle of wine and poured it into gla.s.ses. Ceremoniously he pa.s.sed them around. He held his gla.s.s toward them. "Vive l'Amerique!"

They drank their wine. He refilled their gla.s.ses, then waited. Johnny was the first to guess what he was waiting for. He smiled at the man. "Vive la France!" he said.

Joe was already trying to talk to the girl.

Rocco was shaking his shoulder. He awoke like a cat; one minute he was lying there asleep, the next moment he was awake. Actually he had been waiting for this moment all night. Now when it came, his first reaction was to stay in bed.

"Where's Joe?" Rocco whispered.

"I dunno," Johnny answered. "Isn't he here?"

In the dark Rocco shook his head.

Johnny sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. He laced on his shoes. "I'll find him," he said to Rocco.

He walked quietly out of the room into the small hall. He stood for a second until his eyes became used to it and then walked to a door. He opened it and walked in. He went over to the bed in the corner of the room. As he walked toward it, a figure on the bed rolled over and gave forth with a loud familiar snore.

He grinned to himself. He bent over the sleeping figure and suddenly shot a heavy hand down and grabbed Joe by the shoulder. With one tug he pulled him out of bed and onto the floor. "Voowolla," he whispered in his best imitation of a French accent. "Zo thees iss what happen behin' my back!"

Joe struggled fiercely on the floor while Johnny held him there. "I'm sorry, mister," Joe gasped. "I didn't mean anything."

Johnny began to laugh. He let Joe get to his feet. "Come on, sleeping beauty," he said. "We got a war waitin'!"

Joe followed him out into the hall. "How did you know I was in there?" he asked.

Johnny knelt at the door and picked up his shoes and handed them to him silently.

Joe looked at him bewildered. Then he began to grin. "The French, they are a funny race, parley vous," he half sung.

Johnny motioned for him to be quiet.

"I don't care what happens now," Joe said, still smiling. "I've had everything!"

7.

It was early morning. The fog of night had not yet lifted from the ground and it rolled in heavy gray mists across the earth. The men stood silently, uncomfortably, in the deep long trench that honeycombed the earth around them.

The new captain was talking. This morning as they had filed into the trenches they found out that they had all new officers. The old ones had been transferred and new officers had been a.s.signed to them. "They're afraid we'd plug some of them in the back," Joe had said when they learned the news.

"Bunk," Rocco had answered. "These guys got experience in this business and they ain't taking any chances with amateurs."

It looked as if Rocco was right. The new captain was young-much younger than the previous one-but there was an air of quiet competence about him that was rea.s.suring. His young face was stolid, seamed with tired lines, and his deep-set brown eyes were continually alert. He seemed to see everything while apparently looking at nothing. His voice carried down the line; he didn't raise it or speak loudly, yet every man could hear him distinctly.

"My name is Saunders," he said, "and I'm an easy guy to get along with." His eyes looked down the line. Every man felt he was talking to him alone. "All you have to do to get along with me is to stay alive." He paused again and looked at them. "From here on, you forget everything you ever heard except what you learned to stay alive. I want men, not heroes. Men, not corpses.

"To stay alive you must remember a few simple things. One, keep your head down. By that I mean don't get curious and try to look over the top of the trench to see what the Heinies are doing. Lookouts will be posted for that job. Don't do it if it's not a.s.signed to you. Two, keep your weapons clean and in good working order. The guy who lets his gun get fouled up is generally a corpse before he can get around to cleaning it again. Three, do what you're told and nothing else. What we tell you to do is designed with but one thought in mind: your safety or-as little risk as can be afforded."

He stopped talking and looked down the line again. "Do you understand me?" He waited for a reply. There was no answer. He smiled. "Follow those rules and we'll all be on the same boat together going home. Don't follow those rules and you might make the same trip home, but you won't know it. Any questions?" he asked. There were none. He stood there for a few seconds looking at them; then he turned and walked to the edge of the trench.

Silently he placed his hands on a block of wood and raised himself cautiously toward the top of it. Slowly his head appeared over the top of the trench. There was a slight ping and a mound of dirt jumped into the air near his head as he quickly dropped back into the trench. He sprawled on his hands and knees for a moment before he rose and faced them. There was a strangely mocking light in his eyes as he spoke.

"See what I mean?" he asked.

The three of them formed a little triangle as they squatted on the ground at the bottom of the trench. Their hands held little metal cups of coffee, and the steam from it rose in clouds up to their faces.

Rocco lifted his cup to his lips and took a long sip of the inky black fluid. He put it down with a sigh. "I hear talk we're goin' over in the mornin'," he said.

"c.r.a.p," Joe replied comfortably. "I been hearin' that ever since we got here, and that's more'n five weeks ago."

Johnny just grunted and drank his coffee.

"This ain't the c.r.a.p," Rocco insisted. "If it was, why would they be pilin' all these guys in here every night? I think we might be about ready now."

Johnny thought it over. Rocco's statement added up. Every night since they arrived more men had been coming up. Last night was the first night no new arrivals had come. Maybe they had their quota and were ready to kick off.

"To h.e.l.l with it," Joe said, finishing his coffee and putting the metal cup down. He loosened his belt and leaned comfortably back against the wall of the trench and lit a cigarette. "I wish I was back in that little village where we were the night we came up. Those French babes know how to please a man. I could stand a little of that right now."

A soldier came up to them. Rocco, looking up, saw it was the lieutenant and started to get up.

The officer stopped him with a gesture. He looked down at them. "Savold," he said talking to Rocco, "get your platoon inspected. See that everything's in shape and let me know what you need by tonight."

"Yes sir," Rocco answered.

The officer walked away. Rocco got to his feet. "It's beginning to look like I was right," he said.

Johnny looked up at him. "Yeanh."

The officer came back. He seemed to be hurried. "Savold!" he called.

Rocco turned to him. "Yes, sir."

"Take over as acting sergeant," the officer said. "Johnson just got hurt. Got someone for corporal?"

"How about Edge here?" Rocco gestured with his hand.

The officer turned and looked at Johnny. After a moment he spoke. "All right. Edge, you're acting corporal." He turned back to Rocco. "Tell Edge what he has to do, then come down to meet me at the captain's dugout." He turned on his heel and walked away rapidly.

Johnny turned to Rocco. "What did you go and do that for?" he asked.

"You can use the extra ten bucks a month, can't you?" Rocco grinned.

There was a puddle of water at the bottom of the sh.e.l.l hole and they clung to its side to keep from getting wet. Not that it would make a great difference now. It had been raining all night and their clothes were soaked through and caked with mud. It was just instinctive-an inner desire to retain some degree of comfort.

"Where in h.e.l.l are those guys Rocco said would meet us here?" Joe grumbled.

Johnny puffed at his cigarette in his closed palm. "I don't know and I don't care," he answered. "I'm willing to stay here an' wait for them for the rest of the war if I have to. I don't like it out there, it ain't healthy."

Joe grubbed a cigarette from him. He lit it carefully from Johnny's cigarette, shielding them so the glow would not reveal their sanctuary. The chatter of a machine gun rose in a crescendo over their heads. They could hear the whine of the bullets as they pa.s.sed over them.

"They're gonna have to knock out that gun before we kin go any further," Joe said, listening to its noise.

Johnny looked at him. "Whatta yuh worryin' about? In a hurry?"

Joe shook his head. "Nope, but I was thinkin' maybe they expect us to do it."

"What if they do?" Johnny asked. "We're not mind-readers. n.o.body told us to do it. Remember what the captain said? Just do what you're told, no more. We did what we were told. From here on out, I stay until I'm told different."

Joe didn't answer. He began to scratch his head reflectively under his helmet. Suddenly he swore. He pulled something from his hair and threw it into the water. "Those G.o.d-d.a.m.n cooties are drivin' me nuts," he said.

Johnny leaned back against the wall of the crater and shut his eyes. He was tired. For three days they had been pushing forward. No rest. Now he felt he could go to sleep right in the middle of no man's land.

Joe shook him. He opened his eyes. It was night again. When he had shut them it had been late evening and the last traces of daylight still hung around in corners of the sky. "I must have been sleeping," he said sheepishly.

Joe grinned at him. "I'll say you were. You were snoring so loud I was afraid they could hear you in Berlin. I gotta hand it to yuh though, if you can sleep out here."

The chatter of the machine gun drowned out Johnny's reply. They were silent for a while. Joe fumbled in his knapsack and took out a bar of chocolate. He broke it in two and gave half to Johnny. They chewed on it, letting the rich chocolaty sweetness fill their mouths.

"I been thinkin'," Joe said.

"Yeah?"

"They must expect us to get that gun," he said. "Otherwise they wouldn't be waitin'."

"That ain't our worry," Johnny said. "n.o.body told us."

Joe looked at him, his eyes narrowed a little. "This is a case where n.o.body can tell us and you know it. We have to make up our own minds."

"My mind's made up," Johnny answered. "I'm following orders. I'm staying here."

Joe watched him for a minute, then he shifted over onto his knees. He took two hand grenades from his belt and examined them. Then he looked over at Johnny. "I'm gonna take a whack at 'em."

"You're stayin' here," Johnny said flatly.

Joe leaned his head to one side and eyed Johnny speculatively. "You gonna make me?" he asked. His voice just as flat as Johnny's had been.

They stared at each other a moment, then Johnny smiled. He shoved Joe with the flat of his hand. "Okay," he said. "If yuh wanna be a hero I better go along and look out for yuh."

Joe took his hand gruffly and squeezed it. He smiled. "I knew you'd see it, kid."

Johnny smiled back at him. He took two hand grenades from his own belt and looked at them. Satisfied that they were in working order, he turned back to Joe and said: "I'm ready if you are."

"I'm ready." Joe began to crawl to the top of the sh.e.l.l hole. He looked behind him at Johnny, who was crawling up to him. "I couldn't stand those cooties any more nohow."

They were on the edge of the crater. Cautiously they peered over it. The chatter of the machine gun revealed flashes of light coming from ahead of them.

"See it?" Johnny whispered.

Joe nodded.

"You take it from the right, I'll hit from the left," Johnny whispered.