Part 4

Dennison led Chuck by the arm, Chuck moaning and trembling. They both fell into a sand hollow. Directly in front of Dennison lay a pair of arms, intact from finger to shoulders, the dog tag visible on the wrist, above the greasy fingers.

_Lawrence_, Dennison saw:

Lawrence Robinson, from California.

Dennison jumped away, shrank back, dragging Chuck, almost hurling him down, bumping into Landel.

"What's wrong with you?" Landel scoffed. "Watch where you're going! A pair of kooky arms scare ya!"

Without hesitating, Dennison whirled on Landel, and knocked him down: he tried to jump on him but Chuck clung to him, moaning, saying "no ... no..."

"Jeez, man!" Landel gulped. "Are you nuts again?"

"That was Lawrence Robinson," Dennison yelled. "Larry Robinson ... it could have been me!"

"Fuck you," said Landel, picking himself up, remembering a corner of the Argonne, where men's bodies had been blown about like chips. Glaring at Chuck's bloody eyes he felt no pity for him: he felt they should save themselves for their machines and the job of fighting: let scabs go to hell!

But remembering his job as captain he ordered Dennison to take Chuck to Corporal Willits ...

"He's over there ... he's Red Cross ... take him, then let's get our bus rolling. He's not been hit. Not bad!"

"Not bad," Dennison said to himself, angrily.

He saw himself returning to Base Camp with Chuck; he would see him hospitalized; on leave, he would rest by the ocean; ships would be unloading; the surf would be warm; he'd have good chow.

Assisting Chuck, Dennison sat down by him as Willets examined the lidless eyes: in the sun the imbedded sand glistened like glass; blood glistened like glass. Chuck was trembling, his hands quivering on his lap, fingers wholly uncoordinated.

Willets was talking kindly to Chuck.

"Can you hear?" Dennison asked, bending close.

"No."

"Willits is looking after you ... he's from the Medical Corps..."

"Who?"

"Willits."

"He a doctor?"

"Medical Corps."

"Where am I?"

"By a half-track ... there are wounded here ... Willits and Cobb are helping the men ... we'll be moving out of this gully..."

"Don't go, Dennison."

"Can you move your head ... to the side? ... I want to put medication in your eyes," said Willits.

"Okay."

"The stuff won't hurt."

"Okay."

"Hold still."

"Light me a cigarette, Dennison."

"Sure..."

Dennison began fumbling through his clothes, expecting his cigarettes to be shredded; the pack was badly squashed but he straightened a cigarette, lit it, and put it in Chuck's mouth.

Chuck drew a puff or two and then pain doubled him up as smoke trailed across his eyes; the cigarette dropped to the sand; rolling his head from side to side, he groaned, and flailed his arms.

"My eyes ... my eyes!"

"Keep your hands off them!" Willits ordered.

"Are they so bad?"

"Yeah ... they're bad--keep your hands down..."

The wind shook a dwarf thorn tree behind him.

"Lift your head up ... higher ... I'm using more medication ... soothing..."

"Can ya gimmie a drink?"

"I will," said Dennison.

Willits was a dark skinned man, very Italian, with greying moustache and grey animal-kind eyes. When Dennison returned with water, he nodded at him, jerked his head toward Chuck, then shrugged his shoulders: hopeless.

"Now you keep your hands off your eyes ... I'm gonna put cool antiseptic salve on a bandage, real loose ... gonna put that around your head ... over your eyes ... we'll get you to a doctor soon as we can ... I'll use the transmitter ... others ... other guys ... you know ... get help ... they need help..." Groggily, he went on repeating, talking to himself.

Chuck was still shaking as Dennison walked away--back to his machine.

He and Zinc removed shovels from the rear of the tank: it was slow digging but they released a tread, cleaned the hatches, freed the guns: Landel had a shovel: there was no Al, no Millard, no Chuck: climbing inside Dennison switched on lights, checked dials, checked the intercom and radio: something about the white interior helped.

Switching on the transmitter he shouted:

"Dennison calling ... Lieutenant Dennison calling ... calling X2B ... calling X2B ... Dennison reporting for Fred Landel ... M4-221 reporting ... bombers caught us at point L-T ... place we call "The Dam" ... tanks badly damaged ... several wounded ... one man dead ... can you send medics? Dennison calling ... can you hear me?..."

A little of the horror abated: there was promise in the lights around him, in the transmitter, the old seat cushion, the thermos on the floor, the gleam of dials: with the earphones over his ears he waited.

The radio spluttered:

"X2B ... we read you ... roger ... we've got you on the maps ... news has been coming in ... we know your conditions ... medical help enroute ... tanks moving forward ... medical help coming ... tanks coming ... pass on the word ... over..."

Climbing out of the tank, into the dying day, Dennison notified officers and crewmen. Enjoying a smoke he perched on the rear of his bus: crews were shoveling sand away from the tanks, bedding treads with tarp and gravel. A star specked the horizon. For an instant, for several minutes, he contemplated the ancientness and greatness of this continent: perhaps some of that greatness could resurrect mankind. How absurd the steel hulks, primitive without claiming any antiquity, primordial because of weight and shape. Yet their hellish threats were not absurd. They had crawled into sand as if it was their birthplace, as if returning home after millennia.

After dusk, after the takeover of the sky, tanks, trucks and halftracks arrived: there were two makeshift ambulances, a corps of medics: "the dam" became an encampment, a black-in of men and steel. Dennison, at the door of the ambulance, did his best to break through to Chuck who was lying beside an unconscious GI.

It seemed to Chuck, as he fought his pain and depression, he was losing his best friend: everything was out of proportion as he talked to Dennison.

" ... sure ... sure ... and you know there's my sister in London. You've got to meet her ... somehow you've got to meet her. She's, she's pretty ... was the prettiest girl in Racine ... She's stationed at Red Cross ... Dalton Station ... Red Cross ... Dalton ... remember ... if you are ever in London on leave ... remember ... Jeannette..."

The roof lights in the ambulance blinked off.

The chauffeur said: we're shovin' off.

"Here ... take her pic ... her photo from my billfold ... here ... tell her I sent you ... take it ... you can find her ... send me word when I'm at Hopkins ... tell me ... find her..."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

London, Dennison thought, as he shovelled away more sand: I'll never see London again. Perspiration made his hands slip on the shovel handle. He and Zinc were digging by lantern light, their shadows mugging each other: arms, heads, legs, shovels, machine. They were able to hear the hissing sound of sand. Nearby someone revved a motor.

In the light of a tank, Jeannette's photo showed a beautiful woman. Slipping it into his billfold he called her his pinup.

"Hell ... I'm hungry," he said to Zinc.

"There's chow," said Zinc. "I saw the truck ... yeah, there's chow," he repeated, rubbing his beard. "We gotta get some sleep ... gotta sit ... rest." He was trying to rub away intestinal pain with his right hand: he had strained muscles as he helped load wounded into the ambulances. Somebody had given him a sticky candy bar, he could still taste it; maybe it would stay down.

"Chuck's had it ... he's lost his sight ... he's..."

He went on mumbling to himself.

He and Dennison had located Robinson by flash. Dennison had brought his arms and placed them across his mutilated body, on a stretcher in a converted supply tank. Robinson's ID fell beside the tank and Zinc brushed off sand and stuck it inside Robinson's torn shirt and buttoned the shirt over the crushed leather.

"Well, he doesn't have to be buried here," Dennison said, folding some canvas over him. "Who's better off ... Chuck ... or Robinson? Chuck or..."

Zinc was too weary to reply; his eyes were swollen from the heat, sand, and lack of sleep: numb, he stumbled toward the chow wagon, shoes sinking into the sand: everything he saw was indistinct: everything difficult.

Behind trucks, sitting on the sand, on gasoline drums, oil drums, boxes, the crewmen ate, no light, no smoking.

Shivering as night came on, the two bedded together on the floor of a truck, under blankets and tarpaulin. Wind scraped at the tarp with a sandpapering sound: it tapped on the truck cab and clicked on its glass.

"We attack early in the morning," Dennison said.

"I know," Zink said.

"Hope we have luck."

"Yeah."

Overhead, Libyan sleep was dropping lower and lower: Dennison squinted at the stars, wondering how many more miles they had to travel before the war ended. Three stars burned in a ragged triangle: gradually, the upper star assumed a greenish pallor. While digging out Robinson's body a star had glittered above the cliff ...

Dennison felt the expanse of the desert around him, felt its thousands of square miles. Pulling the tarp over his head he imagined himself in a grotto, Atala's grotto: ah, that pitiful story: beauty obliterated by superstition, by folly: lovely Atala had been his companion in Ermenonville, as boy, she and her Chactas ... Chactas the blind man ... the lover ... the wanderer ... Dore's wonderful engravings--those days in E ...

And now ...

The desert rustled the tarpaulin. The truck swayed.

Still cold, Dennison hunched closer to Isaac, needing all of the warmth he could steal: his arms and shoulders ached: sand grubbing had done that: sand, he felt it in his shoes, in his shin, between his fingers ...

Poor Chuck ...

Soon, dawn threw out its flag of light; soon men were yelling, talking, pushing, urinating, shitting, coughing, eating ...

Motors throbbed.

The radio in a truck blared boogie-woogie, from Casablanca.

Dennison read his wristwatch.

Their tank motor refused to start.

Landel transferred them to another Sherman--number 58. 58 started easily, warmed easily, and they rolled out of the gully, rolled across a flat of sand and sandstone that could have served as an airport, the full moon its beacon.

Everything about the new tank pleased Dennison: it was a pleasure to get away from the old bus.

Little by little, he coaxed 58 into top speed, glancing at his watch, leaning back against the seat, the cushion solid. A shaft of light came in. The periscope was excellent. The viewer clean. He leaned forward and wet his lips with his tongue, something like a smile on his face.

Landel was occupied with his map, his phone wobbling against his Adam's apple, black, cancerous: his bald skull teetered stiffly, pencil between his fingers.

Directly in front of 58, a tank rolled along, another M4, grey, lobbing up dust.

Dennison contrasted its size with the immensity of the desert.

The M4 climbed out of a bomb crater, flicked its fantail, ducked, disappeared.

Dennison realized that the men inside were as lonely as he: men riding inside nothingness, gaping at dunes and flats of sand.

Wasn't that a knock in the motor?

What was that strange vibration in the port tread?

Wasn't that a clicking sound in the transmission shaft?

And the motor temperature?

Heat began to close in.

Driving ports were wide open, the turret was open, the fan was rotating; yet it was growing hot rapidly. Dennison mumbled to himself about the vents. The roaring of the treads knocked the roof of his brain; he felt that the old deafness was returning.

When gasoline and oil fumes increased he let up on acceleration but not before Zinc came down with a harsh coughing spell.

Fear came ...

It crawled along his spine, yesterday's fear, last week's, the past mucking up death, Robinson's arms in the sand, Al screaming, a village gouting smoke and fire. He saw, as in another world, another man's world, his years in Ithaca, at Cornell. The bronze figure of Ezra Cornell was hazed by leaves--then blurred by falling snow. He saw tree-fogged paths winding to his flat on the hilltop above Cayuga. He saw the lake gleaming, blue as a smudged blueprint. He saw himself rowing with the university crew, his body synchronized to the dim bodies of his mates: Locksley ... Neilson ... Murphy ... Lee ...

Lee was coxswain:

Steady boys, steady now ...

But all this was dead: his mother was dead: Aunt Therese was dead, Uncle Victor, Landel and Zinc were dead: all were travelling through a fog, a distant fog.

Without being aware of it, Dennison began to rub his neck at the base of his skull. His head was pounding. He wanted to drink. He wanted to close his fingers around a tangerine, strip the peeling, smell the strong smell. His mother used to buy tangerines at Christmas, tangerines from California, tangerines and purple grapes, oranges, avocados--pile them on a platter on the dining table.

He wanted a piston to jam, he wanted the radiator hose to split.

He longed to sleep during the afternoon or all night.

Sleep, he thought, sleep ...

* * *

*2*

The Ermenonville rain was a cold autumn rain, falling out of a dull sky, slanting in a light wind.

Orville stood beside the grave of his father, weather streaks across the red granite tombstone, across Robert St. Denis, and the dates: 1893-1921. Orville warped his hat to shed the rain and tried to button his makeshift coat closer, broken umbrella hooked over one arm, umbrella and coat from a Paris flea market. He had left Paris early in the morning, on a heaterless bus, a trip of delays and Nazi harassment.

When he started to walk to his dad's grave the sky had been bleak but not threatening. Maybe the sky was trying to flip its calendar, turn it back to another rainy day in June, when Robert had been wounded at Bermicourt, his little Renault tank exploding from a direct hit, on that muddy battlefield of World War I.

Orville was peeved that the rain had caught him; he had wanted to sit on the grass and think of other times in Ermenonville. He noticed other graves in this family plot, those of Aunt Irene, Uncle Mark, his cousin, Marcel ... graves under leafless Lombardies. The rain made him resentful of the place and of death. The ground was spongy; the sod could absorb little more; he kicked at weeds with a quick kick. Through the poplars he observed the Petit Lac, its placid water grey: the small poplar covered island, at one side of the lake, with its carved Rousseau tomb, seemed adrift in the falling rain.

Well, here we are, father and son, in the rain. I wish we could have shared our lives. You might have been a pretty fair provincial lawyer. The rain has had you a long time. If I'm killed in my tank I'd be carted here ... I guess we like it in Ermenonville.

So long, Bob.

He had never called his dad Bob. He had no memory of him except from photos: one of them came to mind, young face, maybe like his own. Moustache. Blond moustache. A tall man, lean, a horseman, dead for twenty-seven years. Tall man who had taken years to die the invalid's death.

So long ...

A swan, on the little lake, close to the poplar planted shore, moved without any apparent effort, its reflection now bright, now dark, now in the rain, now in the clear.

There were swans here when Jean Jacques Rousseau lived here ... swans ... chateau swans ... and when Rousseau said we should return to nature, had the swans influenced him?

Walking toward his aunt's house, Orville felt undercurrents as a boy in E, when the wind vane on Lautrec's house had thrilled him, when the spire on the stone church had prodded more than clouds. In those days there had been frogs to spear in the Nonette, kites to fly, boats to sail on the Petit Lac.

He passed the bronze statue of Rousseau in the village, a rain beaten thing. Cobbled streets fanned out from the figure. The statue was unchanged. The cobbles were the same. Smoke from peasant houses climbed as it had years ago.

The rain was coming down as it had years ago: a beautiful scene.

He tried to raise his umbrella but had no luck; it banged against his leg as he began to walk faster, hustling into the wind, his aunt's home a few blocks away.

Old Claude Bichain, the family servant, opened a side door; he had been watching for Orville, his bearded face close to a window. Orville, glancing at the rambling breaktimber house, saw his face and, cane-like, lifted his umbrella.

"My, you're soaked! Mon dieu, Orville, come in..."

"I shouldn't have tried ... but it's not far to the cemetery," Orville said, and handed Claude his umbrella and hat, shedding his coat in the doorway.

"I came in the back way ... the front lawn's flooded."

"Yes, it's a heavy rain. The gutters are poor ... we haven't been able to find anyone to repair them. Come with me," Claude suggested. "I have a fire in the kitchen."

Orville followed him through the butler's pantry, perturbed by the house, somehow stiff, apart, unfriendly. The weather, no doubt.

"Change here ... it's the warmest place. I'll bring your clothes, the things that you left here ... we've kept them for you."

"Claude, how has life been?

"Ah, well enough, I guess ... well enough."

"You haven't gotten married again?"

"At my age!"

Orville enjoyed his laughter, the restrained laughter of old age.

"And you?"

"Me ... I'm glad to be here. Seven years since I was here ... seven or eight."

Bichain nodded, remembering.

"And the war?" he asked, unsure of himself, trying to interpret Orville's sad face.

"It goes on and on ... I sometimes..." but he stopped.

"I'm glad you made it ... your bus was late, but buses are always late now ... let me get your clothes ... I put some pots of water on the stove ... you see the boiler isn't working for the bathtub." He found it hard to speak: he was troubled by Orville's greasy mechanic's clothes, his bearded face, his staring eyes, grim mouth.

Orville found it comfortable washing himself by the cast iron stove--polished as always. Copper pots and copper spoons decorated a wall. The fire was crackling in the stove; there was plenty of hot water, Claude had stacked several towels on a chair. Cakes of soap.

The rain guttered down the windows.

Orville stood on a braided rug, probably braided by Annette long ago. He appreciated Claude, so thoughtful, respectful: his beard was longer and whiter. Annette was in the village but what had delayed the Rondes? Where was Jeannette? On duty at the hospital, no doubt. He wondered whether the hospital was overrun with wounded.

It was a long way in space and time, from Africa to London, to Ermenonville's kitchen: that bombed railway station, that taxi ride through bombed streets, past the British Museum spewing books and walls, blocking the street, one siren triggering another until the city howled like dying children. It had taken some doing to locate Jeannette Hitchcock, at the Dalton Street Red Cross station.

Opening the stove door, Orville poked the fire and shoved in a couple of sticks: the light played on his naked body. Dumping dirty water down the sink he poured himself a hot pailful. Soap and hot water relaxed him as he washed his legs and thighs.

Claude had his arms full of clothes; stopping in the doorway he envied Orville his hard, white body.

"Can't find anyone to repair the heater," he said.

"This is fine ... I guess this is where I scrubbed when I was a kid."

"Use all the hot water."

"Will Aunt Therese be home soon?"

"I think so."

"I'd forgotten it could rain so hard around here."

"Where did you get off the bus? Did they let you off at the wrong place?"

"No ... I got off in the village..."

"You shouldn't have gone to the cemetery. Not today."

"No matter ... I wanted to look around ... to think..."

Claude spread Orville's clothes on the kitchen table, arranging them carefully--the valet's touch. He hoped everything would fit. Orville hadn't put on weight. Was I ever built so well?

He limped away and Orville saw his hand on the closing door, remembering it as a boy, the red "v" on the back: it wasn't so much the redness, it was the ragged shape of the thing. Bichain had the face of a Pole; his Cracow ancestor's grey eyes that faded into nothingness, his beard went to his chest, the hair was always brushed and immaculate.

As he toweled, Orville glanced at the scars across his stomach, where he had been burned by an engine explosion during training at camp. It was pleasant picking up his clothes from the table, holding them up, remembering. He thought everything would fit. Socks first. That old crew neck shirt from mom.

He was eager to telephone Jeannette.

The trousers were okay ... Claude had remembered his belt.

By god, maybe it was going to be good after all, this leave, this Ermenonville, his Jean.

Somebody ought to shut off the rain.

It was growing dark: the eye of the fire poked across the door. Across the braided rug.

The phone was at one end of the long living room, unless someone had rewired it. Without switching on lights or lamps, he walked across the room, hoping it had not been altered: the phone ... he lifted the receiver and waited:

"What number, please?" a pleasant voice asked: the voice was Ermenonville French and yet Orville thought of a girl in Ithaca, a face with yellow hair around it, a happy face.

"Can you get me the hospital?"

There was a pause as if the operator was trying to identify Orville or was puzzled by his accent.

"One moment, please."

Then the hospital responded--someone, a man, spat through an earful of static:

"What do you want?"

It was the voice of war, with a German accent.

"This is Claude Bichain," Orville lied. "I want to speak to Mlle. Jeannette Hitchcock," he said. "She may be on duty."

"If she's on duty, I can't call her."

"It's an emergency ... damn you!" he snapped out. "Important ... get it? Important!" He hated the guy.

"You'll have to wait ... I'll call you back, M. Bichain. Are you at the residence?"

Orville waited on the tapestry upholstered telephone chair; listening to the rain his mood began to adjust: drops were racing down the French doors: Claude was switching on lamps, tending a fire in one of the fireplaces. Firelight blurred the walls. It was an elegant room. 1788, he recalled. The Rondes had purchased the property from some member of their family. He couldn't remember who the builder was.

Both fireplaces were constructed of yellow glazed brick, their white mantels rested on rococo Caen stone pillars. The furniture, of several periods, blended well, touches of ormolu, marquetry, rosewood, mahogany.

The phone jangled.

"Hello ... hello ... is this M. Bichain? This is Jeannette Hitchcock."

"Hi, Jean?"

Orville had to bring himself round suddenly, snap into the present.

"Hi, darling!"

"Orv, Orv ... oh, it's you. How's everything?"

"Fine. And you?"

"Fine ... Orv, you're here, you're safe!"

"When am I going to see you?" he asked, excited now, wanting to see her at once. "Can I see you tonight?"

"Not tonight, darling." Her voice trembled. "Can't be tonight. I'm on emergency shift. Surgery. Maybe for three hours ... a bad case. I don't want to see you when I'm tired. We've waited ... I can't spoil it."

"When?" he asked.

"Tomorrow morning. I'll meet you anywhere you say. How about that, Orv?"

"Can a hospital car bring you here?"

"But I don't want to be with your family. Not now. When did you get here?"

"On a late bus ... I have gotten into some clothes ... get a lot of rest, turn in early, if you can. I'll come in the morning." He wanted to say it's marvelous, hearing your voice, being in Ermenonville; she was already saying good night, and he heard himself saying good night with woodenness; then the phone went dead in his hand--the crude, dumb thing.