He had never been so cold before in his life. The bank was steep and greasy with sea-moss and damp, and there was no sign that they would reach a place they could manage before it got light. Calmly, Noah thought of taking his hand from Burnecker's shoulder and floating into the middle of the canal and sinking quietly and peacefully there, once and for all…
"Here," Burnecker whispered.
Noah looked up. Part of the bank had crumbled away and there was a foothold there, rough and overgrown, with rounded rock edges jutting out of the dark clay.
Burnecker bent and put his hands under Noah's foot. There was a splashing, loud noise as he helped heave Noah up the bank. Noah lay for a second on the edge of the bank, panting and shivering, then he scrambled round and helped Burnecker up. An automatic weapon opened up close by and the bullets whistled past them. They ran, sliding and slipping on their bare feet, towards a rim of bushes thirty yards away. Other guns opened fire and Noah began to shout. "Stop it! Cut it out! Stop shooting! We're Americans. Company C!" he screamed.
"Charley Company!"
They reached the bushes and dived down into the shelter behind them. ›From across the canal, the Germans were firing now, too, and flash followed flash, and Noah and Burnecker seemed to have been forgotten in the small battle they had awakened. Five minutes later, abruptly, the firing stopped.
"I'm going to yell," Noah whispered. "Stay low."
"OK," Burnecker said quietly.
"Don't shoot," Noah called, not very loud, trying to keep his voice steady. "Don't shoot. There are two of us here. Americans. C Company. Company C. Don't shoot."
He stopped. They lay hugging the earth, shivering, listening.
Finally they heard the voice. "Get on up out o' theah," the voice called, thick with Georgia, "and keep yo' hands over yo' haid and fetch yo'selves over heah. Do it right quick, now, an' don't make any sudden moves…"
Noah tapped Burnecker. They both stood up and put their hands over their heads. Then they started walking towards the voice out of the depth of Georgia.
"Jesus Christ in the mawnin'!" the voice said. "They ain't got no more clothes on them than a plucked duck!"
Then Noah knew they were going to be all right.
A figure stood up from a gunpit, pointing a rifle at them.
"Over this way, soldier," the figure said.
Noah and Burnecker walked, their hands over their heads, towards the soldier looming up out of the ground. They stopped five feet away from him.
There was another man in the foxhole, still crouched down, with his rifle levelled at them.
"What the hell's goin' on out here?" he asked suspiciously.
"We got cut off," Noah said. "C Company. We've been three days getting back. Can we take our hands down now?"
"Look at their dogtags, Vernon," said the man in the hole.
The man with the Georgia accent, carefully put his rifle down.
"Stan' where you are and throw me yo' dogtags."
There was a familiar little jangle as first Noah, then Burnecker, threw their dogtags.
"Hand them down here, Vernon," said the man in the hole.
"I'll look at them."
"You can't see anything," said Vernon. "It's as black as a mule's arse down there."
"Let me have them," said the man in the hole, reaching up. A moment later, there was a little scratching sound as the man bent over and lit his cigarette lighter. He had it shielded and Noah could not see any light at all.
The wind was gaining in strength, and the wet shirt flapped around Noah's frozen body. He held himself tightly with his arms in an attempt to keep warm. The man in the foxhole took a maddening long time with the dogtags. Finally he looked up.
"Name?" he said, pointing to Noah.
Noah told him his name.
"Serial number?"
Noah rattled off his serial number, trying not to stutter, although his jaws were stiff and salty.
"What's this H here on the dogtag?" the man asked suspiciously.
"Hebrew," said Noah.
"Hebrew?" asked the man from Georgia. "What the hell's that?"
"Jew," said Noah.
"Why don't they say so then?" said the man from Georgia aggrievedly.
"Listen," said Noah, "are you going to keep us here for the rest of the war? We're freezing."
"Come on in," said the man in the foxhole. "Make yourself at home. It'll be light in fifteen minutes and I'll take you on back to the Company CP. There's a ditch here behind me you can take cover in."
Noah and Burnecker went past the man in the foxhole. He threw them their dogtags and looked at them curiously.
"How was it back there?" he asked.
"Great," said Noah.
"More fun than a strawberry social," said Burnecker.
"I bet," said the man from Georgia.
Half an hour later, dressed in a uniform three sizes too large for him that had been taken from a dead man outside the Company CP, Noah was standing in front of the Division G2. The G2 was a grey-haired, round, little Lieutenant-Colonel with purple dye all over his face, staining his skin and grizzled beard. The G2 had impetigo and was trying to cure it while doing everything else that was expected of him.
Division CP was in a sandbagged shed and there were men sleeping everywhere on the dirt floor. It still wasn't light enough to work by and the G2 had to peer at the map Noah had drawn by the light of a candle, because all the generators and electrical equipment of Headquarters had been sunk on the way in to the beach.
Burnecker was standing dreamily beside Noah, his eyes almost closed.
"Good," the G2 was saying, nodding his head again and again, back and forth, "good, very good." But Noah hardly remembered what the man was talking about. He only knew that he felt very sad, but it was hard to remember just why he felt that way.
"Very good, boys," the man with the purple face was saying kindly. He seemed to be smiling at them. "Above and beyond the… There'll be a medal in this for you boys. I'll get this right over to Corps Artillery. Come around this afternoon and I'll tell you how it came out."
Noah wondered dimly why he had a purple face and what he was talking about.
"I would like the photograph back," he said clearly. "My wife and my son."
"Yes, of course," the man smiled even more widely, yellow, old teeth surrounded by purple and grey beard. "This afternoon, when you come back. C Company is being re-formed. We've got back about forty men, counting you two. Evans," he called to a soldier who seemed to be sleeping standing up against the shed wall, "take these two men to C Company. Don't worry," he said, grinning at Noah, "you won't have to walk far. They're only in the next field." He bent over the map again, nodding and saying, "Good, very good." Evans came over and led Burnecker and Noah out of the shed and through the morning mist to the next field.
The first man they saw was Lieutenant Green, who took one look at them and said, "There are some blankets over there. Roll up and go to sleep. I'll ask you questions later."
On the way over to the blankets they passed Shields, the Company Clerk, who had already set up a small desk for himself, made out of two ration boxes, in a ditch under the trees along the edge of the field. "Hey," Shields said, "we got some mail for you. The first delivery. I nearly sent it back. I thought you guys were missing."
He dug into a barracks bag and brought out some envelopes. There was a brown Manila envelope for Noah, addressed in Hope's handwriting. Noah took it and put it inside the dead man's shirt he was wearing and picked up three blankets. He and Burnecker walked slowly to a spot under a tree and unrolled the blankets. They sat down heavily and took off the boots that had been given them. Noah opened the Manila envelope. A small magazine fell out. He blinked and started to read Hope's letter.