Their platoon spread out in a skirmish line — three squads abreast. The platoon sergeant kept increasing their spacing. Stempel remained in the center with the platoon leader. With a machine gun. He could barely see the platoon’s flanks. They covered a 400-meter front. Fifteen meters of separation.
Each ten-man squad sent a scout out a hundred meters. They moved out. Stempel followed the small platoon headquarters section. They were about thirty meters behind the main line. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing. The crackle of conversations from the radio carried on the back of the lieutenant’s RTO were reassuring. They reached the treeline and headed into the woods.
The going grew more difficult. The ground was scrubby. Deep drifts had gathered around every clump of brush. When Stempel sank up to his knees, they had to pull him out. Their progress slowed. It grew noticeably darker. Quieter. The deep woods were still. Frozen.
Stempel’s thighs began to burn. He felt the first trickle of sweat underneath his got gear. He unzipped his parka. Took his hood off. The tiny hairs on his face were crusted with ice, but he was sweating.
The LT’s hand went up — ‘Halt.’ A quick radio call. The LT put the map in his teeth and jabbed at the ground with his finger. The men dropped their packs and began to dig in the snowy cathedral.
Stempel delivered the extra belts of ammunition to the machine-gunner, then waited for orders. ‘Dig a Goddamn snow hole, buttfuck!’ the machine-gunner cursed. Stempel followed the man’s finger. He dropped his pack onto the snow. Using his folding metal shovel, he dug and dug and dug. The white, powdery snow formed a high mound in front of the hole. He struck hard black soil at the bottom. While the other men set up their weapons and worked out their angles of fire with their squad or fire team leaders, Stempel dug.
The earth was frozen solid. He dug outwards. When it seemed suitably wide, he began to even out the breastwork of snow in front until it was a uniform height of about two feet, and about two feet thick at the base.
‘That ain’t gonna stop bullets,’ the machine-gunner called out from the hole about ten meters to his left. Again the sound carried with amazing clarity.
‘Knock it off!’ the LT snapped.
Stempel was done. He looked down at the little fort he’d built, then back up at the machine-gunner. A hundred-round belt of shiny brass hung from his M-60. The gun pointed through gaps in the line into the trackless woods ahead. The gunner lay behind it. His ammo bearer lay beside him ready to keep the hungry gun fed. About fifteen meters to the other side of Stempel’s hole, the LT held his radio-telephone handset under his helmet. The gloved fingers of his free hand were pressed hard against his exposed ear.
Stempel heard the pounding of his heart. He felt the artery in his neck pulse against his clothing. He sat down behind his wall of snow and stared out into the trees ahead. The widely spread positions on the platoon’s thin line were barely visible. Men wearing white parkas and helmets lay in cottony snow.
The cool and collected platoon sergeant strode along their line. He barked out curt commands through teeth holding a stubby, unlit cigar. He left steady, organized soldiers in his wake.
Stempel was again in the world of the familiar. He drew a deep breath and relaxed. These were good soldiers. Real soldiers. They were ready.
‘Heads down!’ the LT shouted. ‘Splash over!’
There was a faint crackling sound in the sky overhead. The platoon sergeant lay prone on the snow. The LT was now low in his hole. Only the top of his helmet was visible.
A stunning boom rattled Stempel’s insides. The shock wave that pounded his ears had a solid feel to it. Snow drifted from the heavily laden limbs of a thousand trees.
Are we shelling them? he wondered. Or are they shelling us?
He closed his now dry mouth and swallowed. When he heard the faint crackle of another round, he curled up at the bottom of his hole. He felt the thump through the ground a split-second before he heard the boom. Again there was silence. He looked up. There was no blackened crater. No fallen trees. No smoke drifting on the wind.
He took a deep breath to soothe his ragged nerves. Sergeant Giles’s warnings about the ferocity of artillery must’ve been exaggerated. Again came the tell-tale screech of incoming fire. The thump. The stunning boom.
‘Where’s that fire, over?’ the LT shouted. Stempel stuck his head up. The platoon leader was peering over the front edge of his hole. ‘Bullshit, sir!’ he yelled into the handset. Another shell crackled overhead, but the LT didn’t duck and so neither did Stempel. The boom shook the trees again and drowned out the LT’s shouts. ‘… expect us to hold this position? We need fire support, Goddamnit! What about air? Over!’
Stempel glanced over at the machine-gun crew to his left. Their heads were raised also — watching the lieutenant. From the forests up ahead Stempel saw small groups of men hustling back toward their lines. They were shouting both parts of the sign-countersign combination. Their voices sounded panicked.
‘Hold your fire!’ men ordered up and down the line. One returning group headed straight for the platoon headquarters.
The LT hurled the handset into the snow. His radio-telephone operator looked petrified. Stempel began to shiver from the cold as he watched the lieutenant. The platoon leader settled back into his hole. His wide and unblinking eyes looked haunted. Stempel’s next breath caught in his throat. He exhaled in similarly awkward fits.
The two men from the observation post slid to the ground beside the lieutenant. Their backs were to Stempel, but their report was easily heard.
‘God Aw-mighty, LT,’ the large black sergeant said. He gasped for breath. ‘There’s gotta be a whole Goddamn regiment comin’ this way! Fo’ hun’erd meters away! Christ, sir!’ He pulled his helmet and cap off his head. Steam rose from his bare scalp. ‘We gotta call that arty in on them fuckers right now! Them spotter rounds was bang on! Tell ’em to fire for effect!’ The lieutenant muttered something. ‘What? the sergeant shot back. ‘That didn’t do shit! Five Goddamn rounds? For the love of God, LT, they’re gonna…’ He regained control and lowered his voice to an angry whisper. ‘The woods is fuckin’ crawlin’ with ’em, LT! ‘We gotta pull back! They jus’ ain’t no fuckin’ way, LT! No way!’
Again Stempel couldn’t hear what the lieutenant said. But the two men began a string of cursing that continued all the way to Stempel’s hole. ‘Shit!’ the Private First Class said. He slid in beside Stempel, who was forced to the far end of his fortress. The sergeant piled in after him.
They paid no attention to Stempel at all.
‘What’s goin’ on, man?’ the machine-gunner to Stempel’s left called to them.
‘We ’bout ready to git fucked up,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Tha’s what’s goin’ on!’ He began to pull every magazine and grenade he had out. He laid them at the front of the hole. ‘They’s a whole Goddamn regiment comin’ right at us. This is it, man. Those rear area mother-fuckers jus’ sent us here to die, man. Jus’ sent us here to die.’
‘Pardon me,’ Stempel said. His voice trembled. The two men glanced up at him. ‘Could I maybe have a grenade or something?’
‘Say what?’
‘He ain’t got no weapon,’ the PFC said. His breath stank with fear. ‘Stupid son-of-a-bitch is straight outa boot camp!’