Mac wingate 10, p.12
Mac Wingate 10, page 12
“Now, don’t ease out on me, boys,” Bender replied, catching the exhaustion in the officers’ tone. “The job isn’t over yet. We still have to double-check the shack.”
Mac looked at the devastated shed; its walls just managing to stay upright. He could only see smoky nothingness through the shattered window, but the major did have a point. Gathering up his flagging resolve, he called Dodson and Glynn over. The five men walked over to the tottering structure, Woolcott staying half in and half out of the tank.
Mergallo and Dodson were sent around either side, while Bender, then Wingate, then Glynn entered through the broken door. Bender waved some smoke out of his face, looking at the ruined interior. What wasn’t eradicated by the tank blast was broken by the bullets. The only thing that still seemed to be in one piece was the dead, burned body of a German soldier face down on the ground. Even with the roof off, the stench of the man was powerful.
Glynn almost doubled over again, having to place one hand on the door frame to stay straight. Still his head jerked forward and his cheeks puffed. He had gotten an undiluted lesson of what real war was like in a very short time.
“Do you want to wait outside?” Wingate asked.
Glynn shook his head. “No,” he said with more bravery than Wingate had a right to expect. “I’ll be all right.” He swallowed. “Just give me a minute.”
Wingate turned to find Mergallo looking through the far window and Bender kneeling next to the dead German.
A bit disgusted by the major’s pompous action, Wingate walked over to the window the sergeant was looking through.
“A great way to start an operation,” Mergallo muttered as Mac leaned up against the shattered window’s shaky frame.
Wingate nodded. “We’ll have to handle the rest by the seat of our pants,” he quipped with the lightness of an anvil. “Let’s just hope the Nazis are too concerned about the large units to come down hard on us. We’ll have to pray we can slip through to the broken front lines before it all blows up in our faces.”
Wingate glanced casually at the sergeant as he finished and saw Mergallo looking back at the major, his eyes open wide. Mac quickly looked over his shoulder in time to catch Major Bender wrapping his fingers around a Walther PPK automatic, which was nestled just under the dead body. Wingate surged forward at the same moment Private Glynn did. Only Glynn did not have the restraining fingers of Sergeant Mergallo wrapped around his coat lapels.
The sergeant pulled Wingate right off the floor and out of the open window just as Bender lifted the gun and Glynn tackled the major. Mac saw the scene out of the corner of his eye as he dropped to the ground with Mergallo. Bender was hurled toward the wall by Glynn’s block, the Walther still in his hand. Wingate could just barely see the wire attached to the PPK’s trigger guard snap as Bender fell back.
Suddenly Glynn was between the major and the corpse. A second after that tableau was struck, the dead body exploded.
Wingate and Mergallo rolled away as the detonation lifted Glynn and slammed him into the wall above the major’s form. The force of the private was too much for the already weakened structure. It fell outward with Glynn twisting amid the wreckage. The wall fell and shattered practically at Wingate’s feet as his roll came to a halt.
As soon as Mac regained his balance, he pulled himself off the ground and ran to where Glynn lay. As soon as the booby-trapped body had blown up, Woolcott had nervously popped out of the tank and run toward the major.
Wingate lifted the private’s head, and saw that his back was covered with deep, slashing wounds. Blood pumped out of the gashes, coloring the snow-covered forest floor. Glynn’s eyes were blinking rapidly, his mouth working.
“Keep still,” Wingate said. “Take it easy. We’ll get the corpsman.” He looked at Mergallo, who took the hint—scrambling to his feet and running across the clearing.
Glynn was not interested in first aid. “I knew that trick,” he said proudly in a whisper. “They tried to catch us with that in a war game back at training camp. Murphy picked up the gun and then, bam! The firecracker went off.” He coughed. “The SOS ...” Suddenly he looked up at Wingate with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Captain,” he said. “I mean the Services of Supply said we couldn’t use real explosives during training. Too dangerous. So they used firecrackers.” The private paused, looking back at the mined shack and twisting uncomfortably. “No firecrackers here,” he said, and died.
“Captain!” Woolcott yelled to him in shock. “Leave that man! The major’s hurt!”
Wingate lowered Glynn’s head gently and then marched with increasing speed toward the lieutenant. Only he didn’t stop over the form of Major Bender. He reached down with both hands like claws, sunk them into Woolcott’s jacket and lifted the slight Englishman bodily. He kept walking until he could pin Woolcott against the trunk of a tree. He held the squirming inferior against the bark with straight arms.
“Don’t ever give me an order again,” Wingate warned steadily. Then, after a second, he let the lieutenant go and started back for the destroyed shed.
“Are you mad?” Woolcott asked stridently, trying to shrug himself back together.
Wingate stopped and turned. “The only reason your jaw is still attached to your skull,” he said without a hint of malice, “is because I didn’t want to risk hurting my fist. The only reason Conrad isn’t picking lead out of your brain is that we need you to maintain communications. Remember that.”
When Mac got back into what remained of the shack, Dodson was crouching over Bender. “He’s asking for you,” the soldier reported.
Wingate looked down at his commanding officer. The beachhead booby traps were inordinately sadistic—most of them consisting of spinning shrapnel which left the flesh torn and almost unhealable. Bender had discovered that first-hand, his exposed skin looking like the canvas a frustrated artist had taken a knife to. Unlike Glynn, his eyes were open and hardly blinking, his fists clenching and unclenching.
When Mac leaned down, the major’s fist gripped his jacket with unnatural strength. “You’ve got to take me back,” he said, his mouth opening wide, but the words hardly having any volume.
“Major, you know as well as I do that my first responsibility is to the men,” Wingate said unmercifully. In his present state of mind, he figured the man got what he deserved. It was incredibly stupid of him to pick up the gun for examination or as a souvenir. “Meyer can go.”
“You’ve got to take me back,” Bender repeated painfully. “A direct order,” he gasped. “You’re the only one ... trust ...” Then he lost consciousness. His fingers loosened from Wingate’s coat and fell to his side. Wingate glanced up to see Dodson staring at him.
He knew what the engineer was thinking. Would Wingate follow the order or would he lead the men to Cassino?
“I’ll go,” Woolcott nearly demanded from the doorway. Wingate looked over. He didn’t bother to reply. Instead he turned back to Dodson.
“Help me get the major on the tank-dozer.” When Woolcott ran over to help, Wingate growled, “Get back to your radio, lieutenant, and stay there.” The Englishman could no more disobey a direct order than Wingate could. He left and the two engineers got Bender lying comfortably in the driver’s cab. By the time Dodson had started the engine and got the tank turned around, Mergallo had returned with Meyer, Samuels and Conrad.
“How’s Schwartz?” Wingate asked, when the corpsman vaulted up to the cab and started working on the major.
“He’s hanging on, but he’s lost a lot of blood. If either he or the major are going to make it, we’ll have to get them back to Nettuno.”
“Not we,” Wingate told him, turning to the others trailing behind the vehicle. “Sergeant Mergallo, you are in charge until I’m able to meet you at the 4th Indian Division at the base of Monastery Hill and the banks of the Rapido River. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Mergallo said it almost in the form of a question.
“I have to get Bender and Schwartz back to Anzio if they’re going to live,” he continued, his stomach boiling.
Wingate knew that Dodson would explain once he had left.
Corporal Meyer needed no explanation. “Just remember,” he called after Wingate. “Just remember the captain who lost his girlfriend because he forgot where he laid her.”
Seven
The American hospital at Anzio had two names. The doctors and nurses who were forced to work there called it a “Casualty Clearing Center.” But the troops—the men who had to go in or the men who had to bring their buddies in—had a different name for it. Around the beachhead, it was known as “Hell’s Half Acre.”
Even from a distance it didn’t inspire faith. Wingate came rolling toward the structure, his eyes and teeth set as he drove the tank-dozer with the living forms of Schwartz and Bender as well as the corpses of Taplinger, Parker, O’Connell and Glynn. It seemed as if the major had gotten his casualty quota after all.
The “CCC” was just a gigantic tent, as if a circus had been plopped down in the middle of Nettuno. Only this circus was well within the range of the Nazi guns. The tent spires were rolling in the wind, as if the circus were floating on a none-too-sturdy raft out at sea. As Wingate got closer, he could see why. The structure wasn’t so much secured on the ground, as on an ever-shifting ocean of mud. The constant traffic in and out of the place insured that even the frozen ground would be tenderized and mixed with the falling sleet to make a deep sticky mixture on which nothing could hold up for long.
And make no mistake, the place was busy. Wingate could see the line going in at the tent’s entrance from more than a quarter mile away. Men on stretchers, men on crutches, men being carried by others, men being dragged and many others were all making their way into the makeshift hospital.
Wingate could only get so close before the dozer risked crushing a few jeeps beneath its treads. Then, once it slowed down, Mac found he couldn’t maneuver in the mud. This was not the way it was supposed to be, Wingate told himself.
The army medical system was a valid one in its original form. Ostensibly, Wingate was supposed to be able to evacuate his wounded to a battalion aid station. An ambulance would then move them to a division collecting company where any heavy surgery could be done. Following that, they could recover—or die—in a field hospital. If the situation was really dicey, they could be sent all the way to the rear and a station hospital.
Only Wingate was unable to utilize that medical chain in his situation. The only thing Corpsman Conrad was able to do was attach a tag to each wounded man with the details of the injury, then give Wingate directions to the Casualty Clearing Center. Once he arrived, Wingate looked back at his passengers. Schwartz was sleeping fitfully. Although his bandages looked clean, Wingate wasn’t sure how much blood had been washed away by the snow, sleet and rain. The man could have been as empty as if a vampire had drained him and Wingate wouldn’t have known.
One thing he did know, however, was that there were some disconcerting spots of color beginning to appear on the bandages’ edges. Wingate was fairly certain that was a sign that gangrene could be starting. The captain then turned to Bender. The major’s face was a death mask of dried blood streams, dribbling down from the sliced flaps of skin on his face and neck. Since he sat beside Mac on the driver’s seat—Conrad saying that Schwartz should lie flat—the rain was unable to wash clean his wounds. He sat still, chin on chest, strange sounds burbling through his lips. Occasionally his hands would shake.
Wingate turned off the dozer’s motor and hopped out of the vehicle. Running toward the tent, he kept his eyes peeled for an extra stretcher and any military orderly who could help. The only thing he saw was wounded soldier after wounded soldier. Some were sitting up, coughing and choking on hunks of lead in their throats and lungs. Some stood uneasily, blood dripping out from either their sleeves or pants cuffs.
Some lay curled up, trying to keep their guts from falling out after a stomach wound. Some lay unconscious, either snoring through their mouths or breathing irregularly. Too many lay screaming, their bodies wracked with broken limbs or gouted flesh. Far too many lay dying, their bodies gross lampoons of human shape—parts or whole limbs twisted, torn, snapped or completely missing. And all stayed in the mud and the cold.
Finally, Wingate followed a wounded man inside, taking the stretcher from the hands of the military medical men when they transferred him to the operating section. “Hey,” said one of the men, “you can’t do that.”
Wingate unholstered one of his Brownings. “I have to,” he said. “And I have to have your help,” he told the man, pointing the gun at him matter-of-factly. “Yours too,” he said to the other carrier.
The men reacted to the weapon with a little fear, but not much surprise. “There’s an easier way of getting a stretcher, you know,” said the second, seemingly less concerned man.
“I don’t know what it is,” Wingate told him, “and I don’t have time to find out. Two of my men are dying.”
The second orderly waved one hand blandly around him. “Everyone is dying.”
Wingate paused for a second. Then he put the gun away. “I’m sorry,” he said. The whole conversation had gone on as if they had been talking about the most mundane of things. Everyone else witnessing the scene simply carried on with whatever he or she was doing. They let the situation play itself out. It wasn’t that they weren’t concerned, it was just that they had more pressing things to do.
“How do I get my men seen to?” Wingate asked civilly.
The answer was no less and no more than the usual army insanity. At least the orderly didn’t speak in armiese. Recruiting a passing soldier, Wingate carried Schwartz on a stretcher to the “pre-op” site just inside the tent. Then he retrieved Bender by carrying the man in his arms.
By the time he returned with the major, Schwartz had been seen to—his wounds were that pressing. Mac pretty much had to leave his man’s recovery in the hands of the harried experts here. If he delayed a passing person with too many questions, it might cost someone his life. So Mac simply stood, holding Bender like a baby in his arms until a nurse came by and looked at the major’s wounds.
It was the wildest stretch of luck that the woman was attractive. Wingate had no right to expect that anyone better looking than Quasimodo should wind up with a stethoscope and tongue depressor in this hellhole. But be that as it may, the nurse with the muddy, blood-soiled coat over her uniform was good looking. Mac knew because he looked at her instead of looking at Bender. She didn’t even bother looking at the captain.
“A major,” she mused, poking at the man’s facial lacerations. “How did he get in the way of a fragmentation bomb?”
“Stupidity, pure and simple,” Wingate answered honestly. “Tried to pick up a toy with a bomb attached to it.”
“Doesn’t sound like you like him much,” she said, looking over the rest of his body for any hidden wounds.
“A good man died because of his mistake.”
The nurse nodded, having heard the story before. Or at least, Wingate assumed so, saying no more about it. The woman took Bender’s pulse.
“Bad news, then,” she told Mac. “He’ll live.” Only then did she look into Wingate’s face.
“That’s the way it goes,” he said. “At least we’ll be out of each other’s way.”
“At least for a while,” she answered. “He’s in shock and he’ll have some scars, but he has a much better chance than most of the others to pull through. Just put him over on one of the tables near the operating section. A surgeon will be out shortly to remove the fragments and sew up the slits.”
“Thank you,” said Wingate. “I’d ask what time you got off except I won’t be here and you people probably never get off.”
“Not so you’d notice,” the nurse regretfully agreed. “And when we do, we’re in no shape for anything—even sleep.” Then she smiled philosophically up at Mac. “Thanks, though. After working here awhile, you wonder if you’re still human.”
“You are,” he said simply.
“Thanks again,” she said, walking away. “It’s good to look at a soldier and not see death.”
When she turned the corner, Mac’s appreciative smile drifted away. She didn’t see death on his face. He was only glad he didn’t have a mirror to look at himself. Death would probably be all he’d be able to see. He wouldn’t be able to distinguish his features from the all-encompassing skull and gravestone he would see.
Wingate carried Bender to the first operating section he came to. He gave the nurse’s instructions to the orderly there, who made a table on wheels available to the major.
“You should have brought him to Cassino,” the orderly said, getting the cart ready. “They moved neurosurgeons up to the front line because of all the casualties. Ever since the Nazis sank the Saint David, it’s been terrible here.”
“What’s that?” Wingate inquired, gently laying Bender on the sheet-covered table.
“The hospital ship the Germans sank the day after we landed,” the orderly explained, starting to work on the major. “Two days after that, the U.S. 3rd Division went out and the 1st British Division went out and the wounded haven’t stopped since. I shouldn’t complain, of course. It must be awful at the front. Whole battalions move out and not one man comes back ... Jesus!”
Wingate jumped forward as the orderly jumped back, Bender’s fingers wrapped around his throat. The major’s eyes were open and crazed as his hand tightened on the medical man’s neck. Mac grabbed Bender’s wrist and placed his other hand against his chin. With a push and pull, the wounded man was thrown back on the table and his hand was waving in the air, free of the orderly’s flesh.
“Good God!” the orderly cried. “That man’s insane. Doctor!” he called. “Get an anesthetic. Quick!”
Wingate grabbed both of Bender’s arms and kept the bucking man pressed down. It didn’t even get better once he recognized Mac. His contortions became all the more violent and words began to pour out of his mouth.
