A Midnight Clear. William Wharton

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      2

      The Longest Night

      It snowed during the night, but lightly; temperature’s dropped at least ten degrees. The first snow fell in the Saar for my nineteenth birthday.

      I was on a full-day artillery observation post with the squad twenty-power scope. I’d spent the morning peering through drifting whiteness, trying to keep from breathing on the lenses. It was beautiful, even the black blossoms of mortar; they were far enough away. I’d pick a spot and wait till it happened; you can do this when you get to know the patterns. Now, when I look at the Brueghels in Vienna, I remember my nineteenth birthday.

      Here, this morning, going out, there are frozen leaves and pinecones on the ground when we pass through K Company and drive into the forest. The road’s just two hard ruts; the light, new snow’s blown into them. No sign of other traffic; rough riding, slippery, cold. Miller’s driving our jeep; Wilkins and I, in back, take turns on the fifty caliber. I’m up; it’s miserably cold sitting there in the icy wind.

      As we go deeper into the forest, huge pines loom dark on both sides. Some light is coming into the sky. We drive along not saying much; absolutely beautiful sniper targets.

      Gordon’s driving the other jeep, with Father Mundy and Shutzer; I look back to see if they’re still with us.

      Wilkins taps me and I slide down. He uses the handhold to climb up and crouch behind the sights. Wilkins looks scared, but we’re all looking scared most of the time. We haven’t said anything about our cross-country jaunt through the woods. Maybe it’s because we can’t figure out who won. Wilkins is acting as if it didn’t happen. That’s OK; just thinking about something like that scares me.

      Mother has a piece of blanket cut into a long scarf; he’s tucked it under his helmet like a burnous, then wrapped it around his neck and stuffed it inside his field jacket. It gives him a sad Lawrence of Arabia look. Thank God Sergeant Hunt isn’t around for this.

      Mother’s glasses have slipped to the end of his nose. I’m not sure if he can actually see anything through those sights, anyway. His nose is long, bright red against his face, but he looks all right: maybe it was only a bad moment, something to forget.

      ‘I’ll tell you, Wont. I feel exactly like a target being towed across a firing range.’

      ‘Don’t sweat it, Mother; pretend we’re going for a winter Christmas stay at the family château. Imagine yourself a member of the old European élite.’

      I look ahead, over Miller’s shoulder. The road’s tough, twisting, narrow. We’re winding along switchbacks now, working our way deeper into the forest.

      I’m just checking the map again to see if we’re on the right road, going the right way, when the world seems to explode. The jeep jumps so only Miller could’ve kept it from turning over. I think at first we’ve hit a mine but then realize it’s Mother firing off a long burst. He’s shooting past Miller’s left ear at something on that side of the road, so the jeep’s reared up on its two right wheels. I’m already clambering out before it gets settled back on four. Miller cuts the motor, grabs his M1 and dives, crawling under the jeep. Half our junk we’d piled in back, behind the gun, is spread along the road. I’m hunched in the middle of it.

      Jumping out, I banged a knee on that damned handhold and my stupid mind is more wrapped around this pain than on keeping me alive.

      Wilkins is still up behind the gun. He’s not firing but continues sighting down the barrel. I can barely get my voice together for a whisper. I’ve crept behind the right rear wheel, away from the direction Mother fired.

      ‘What is it, Wilkins? What’d you see?’

      There’s a moment before he answers. He stands up from his crouch behind the gun. He pushes his glasses farther up his nose and leans forward.

      ‘There was a German soldier standing behind a tree – there. I think I got him; he’s lying on the ground. I don’t see any others.’

      ‘You’re sure. Mother? And you can still see him?’

      Mother takes off his glasses, wipes the lenses with the leather fronts of his woolknit gloves and peers again.

      ‘Yeah, he’s there. You can see him yourself if you stand up.’

      This is not the kind of thing anybody who likes being alive does. But if it’s an ambush why aren’t they shooting Mother off the jeep?

      Bolstered by this slight bit of hasty logic, I scurry into trees beside the road. I look back and see everybody’s dispersed from the other jeep; the motor back there’s still running.

      God, I’m scared, I’m expecting the BBBrrrRRRppppPP of a burp gun any minute. I sling my rifle and take a grenade off my jacket. Anything close, I’m better off with a grenade than a rifle. I slide my finger in the ring and move up two, then three trees. It’s a German all right and he’s sure enough dead.

      About one minute later, after I’ve carefully snuck up in good infantry manual procedure on our ‘dead German,’ I look down on something I’ve seen in dreams at least a thousand times during the past thirty-seven years.

      He’s been dead a while and is frozen with one arm over his head and the other twisted across his stomach. He’s lying on his back but he died on his stomach with his head turned. One side of his face is iced and flaked so pieces of frozen flesh hang from the bones; this flesh is bluish green and there’s no sign of blood. I see where one of Mother’s fifty-caliber bullets went through his neck just below the chin, a perfect unbleeding fifty-caliber hole.

      I’ve seen the dead and the dying but I’ve never seen anyone dead, shot. They call a sharpshooter a dead shot, but this is a real one, shot while dead. It seems to me, then, like the final violation.

      Miller comes СКАЧАТЬ