The next night, Major Gordon, the battalion’s second in command, visits to relay the commands of Colonel Hobson, the colonel having departed to the rear to meet with his own superiors.
“Hello in here!” he shouts.
“Good evening, Major,” someone answers in greeting. “Lovely night for a stroll, isn’t it?”
“Why on earth you’d want to visit this shell magnet is beyond me,” criticizes Jim with a cynical smile as he emerges from the shadows, the bouncing bead of his cigarette conducting his words in the dark in a pyrotechnic illumination of disdain. “Why didn’t you just ring me up by field telephone? We’ve been hit more times than I have fingers and toes.”
“And hello to you too McFarlane,” is Gordon’s rejoinder. He is wet and miserable; it has begun raining again. “I would have called you up, but the wire’s been cut by an explosion. I bring you all good news. It looks like we will be moving, at last. The 5th Armoured is to punch through and seize the ridge.”
“When?” Jim asks, incredulous that the battalion has finally received marching orders. “I was beginning to think we’d be stuck on this hill forever.”
“The whole regiment moves in the next few nights, in the wee hours. We know this much from our intelligence, from prisoners and local informers—the local German commanders in this sector wonder why we have not bypassed the ridge to take Rimini by the coast. They probably think we’re too petered out to go on now, that we need some time to lick our wounds. Or they expect us to bypass the ridge in order to capture Rimini at some point soon. Who knows? We get relieved tomorrow night and rest for two days.”
Jim exhales a lungful of cigarette smoke, and answers with a tone of tired reluctance, “We do so need time. And the Germans are right—we are too petered out. Christ, we’ve had thirty casualties in my company in the last week alone. I’m leading a company that’s about, oh, two-thirds strength. And we’ll get no fuckin’ reinforcements, because we’re just a shadow now. Those boys up in France and Belgium get the resources.”
“Every rifle company and every tank squadron and what have you in the Canadian Corps right now are exhausted. But we have to move forward. That’s our orders and we have to follow them. We’re in the middle of a major offensive, we can’t stop now. It is not as if I make these decisions, you know.”
“Our company can’t put up with much more over the next bit,” Jim states matter-of-factly. “Not without reinforcements. We’re getting whittled down just sitting here.”
“You will. After Coriano is taken, likely we’ll get some from the holding units. We could even get some before that. And starting tomorrow we get a momentary reprieve.”
“Uh huh. A reprieve? That can mean anything. I have one of those every time I take a leak.” He smiles at this to try to show he’s not demoralized.
“It’s the best we can get. This is a big push we’re on, and we have to be back in the game soon. Sorry.” He looks at Jim intently for a moment, and adds with words chosen and enunciated carefully, “And McFarlane, remember for the moment that you are not the only company commander around here. The others all have the same manpower problems you do, have been in the same action you have, and yet you don’t see them whinging for special treatment. And those boys in 1st Division and 1st Armoured Brigade, they get double our action. Do you see them screeching for a break?” Pardon me? He shoots Gordon a look from under a furrowed armour of brows. He relaxes before saying anything stupid. Insufferable fusspot Gordon, with his martinet’s moustache, all disapproving twitch and huff. Orange Order uppity bastard. Never got along with him much.
“Duly noted, sir.”
“Yes, we’ll just be going into reserve for a couple days. Most likely, I’m sorry, for one day. But who am I to know? Once we take the ridge, I think it is fairly obvious, and incumbent on the brass, to give us leave. That’s how it always works.”
“Huh. Still in artillery range. So in effect, no reprieve, because that’s just the standard rotation of units. This is not because I feel under the weather, you know. I just realize that we can’t keep carrying out these offensives without significant reinforcements.”
“Understood. But there is little I can do about it. That, I am afraid, is the reality of a volunteer army. Reinforcements are thin, and every man must thereby do the job of two.”
“True,” Jim acknowledges thoughtfully. He shifts on his feet, coughs, and declares, “Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to have a drink now.” He slugs a large mouthful of whiskey, and offers some to Gordon. Gordon, however, is a Calvinist teetotaller and says, with a trace of disdain, “I’d sooner take one in the arm.”
“I’ve already done that,” retorts Jim, feeling the knotted dent of his healed arm wound from the Liri Valley battle, “and I’ll tell you, I prefer booze, thank you very much.” He notes on a glance that his wound resembles a closed sphincter.
“Damn you McFarlane, you’re a smartass.” Within his stance of supercilious disapproval can be detected a modicum of good-natured banter. At least he tries on occa-
sion, Jim thinks, at least he tries. The whole church shakes violently under the impact of a shell. Everyone hits the
floor. Dust and masonry crash from the ceiling and coat everyone and everything. Stunned, the soldiers pick themselves up.
“Everyone okay?” Jim calls out into the pall of smoke and dust, his voice shuddery. “Casualties?” There are none, this time. Jim holds out his flask to Gordon and asks him with a wry grin while waving it in his face, a wellspring of whiskey sloshing within, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?” Gordon scowls, stung.
“Oh, can it, McFarlane. Just get back to your duties. The sooner you do so, the sooner we can end this conversation.”
“The feeling is mutual, Major.”
“I am out of here.” With a nod and a salute. “Captain—”
“Major.” Jim returns the salute. Gordon eyes him carefully a moment, officious doubt in his eyes. He does a smart about turn, stamps his right foot, and marches out of the church and into the rain in exemplary parade square fashion.
“Gentlemen!” Jim addresses the hollows of the ruined church with a stentorian echo. “We are being relieved in one day’s time!” The men cheer.
“Briggs!” he shouts to one of his orderlies.
“Yessir!” answers Briggs from his card game in the corner with Cooley and Lafontaine.
“Go out and inform Olczyk and Therrien that we are pulling out tomorrow!”
“Yes, sir!” Briggs immediately drops his cards and excuses himself from his game, leaving through the main door.
As he exits the rain increases in intensity again and is soon cascading through the holes in the roof and slanting through the shattered windows. Artillery thuds in the distance. Jim moves to a dry alcove next to the altar where is set the company No. 18 wireless set and field telephone, Private Thibeault monitoring transmissions from his headphones as if divining ethereal messages from a deep and meditative trance.
“Anything new?”
“No, sir, other than Staff Sergeant Nichols wired in and asked how we are for fresh water.”
“Tell him we’re fine, as we’re out of here tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he turns around to face the door a fusillade of artillery bears down on their position in a terrific overlapping thunderclap. Everyone standing or sitting hits the floor for cover. Stones crash to the floor. Jim looks up from the floor and sees a flash beyond the door, the stunned silhouette of a soldier framed in its exposure. The soldier falls to his knees in the doorway and wobbles like a bowling pin before collapsing backwards. Cooley and Lafontaine and several soldiers from Doyle’s platoon all run to the man in the doorway as outside the shells flash and flicker.
“It’s Briggs!” shouts Cooley over his shoulder from a squatting position. He cradles Briggs, and Lafontaine joins him, and Briggs writhes in the hands of his comrades, face blackened, eyes white, shivering. Several soldiers crowd around in a protective hunch. There is a cluster of explosions outside the door in the distance that captures their faces in its staccato flicker like a great bursting of flashbulbs. Briggs’ breathing is rapid, his hands are trembly, and his eyes shine wide with pain. But he scarcely whimpers, perhaps because of the morphine styrette with which Lafontaine has just pricked him in the thigh.
Cooley speaks softly to Briggs, soothing him as though he were his mother or his nurse as he applies the dressing, “It’s okay there Briggs, you just hang in there buddy, you’re gonna be okay, you just hold on tight and breathe, that’s it, just breathe there buddy, in and out, that’s it, okay, here you go, take a bit of water, you still gotta cash out that full house you were holding,” and he dribbles water from his canteen into Briggs’ mouth, the water splashing on his trembling chin, glistening in the flare of a bursting shell, “that’s it, nice and easy, take it in, soak it up, that’s a good sport there Briggsy—”
“My legs,” Briggs interjects with a hint of rising panic, “My legs, they’re bad, aren’t they?” His pronunciation is off, his face taut and stiffened with pain, “They’re really bad, aren’t they?” At this Jim sees through the weave of supporting arms and hunched shoulders that Briggs is missing both legs at the knees. The stumps shine in the flare of an explosion.
“Jesus, get a shell dressing on there!” Jim shouts, and Lafontaine pulls one looped to his belt and unwinds the gauze. “Make a fucking tourniquet or something! Are there no medics in here? Goddamnit, where are the medics?”
“Stretcher-bearers! We need stretcher-bearers here on the double!” hollers Witchewski into the howling thunder night beyond the door.
“You’re gonna be fine, Briggs,” Jim says, joining in, “You’ll be good as new, you get to spend some time with the nurses, you lucky bastard, it’s off to Blighty for ya, and then you’re homeward bound.”
“No, I won’t, I’m broken aren’t I, I’m broken and all messed up and they won’t be able to fix me right will they—” His voice is whimpery and swimmy with panic and pain and morphine. Cooley calms him, shushes him, speaks softly to him as he gently cradles him.
A pair of exhausted stretcher-bearers enter the church, having just tended to wounded from other nearby positions. Cooley and Lafontaine and Jim defer to the medics as they tie a tourniquet around Briggs’ stumps, stemming the flow of blood that has soaked the bandages, and they jab him with more morphine and speak soothingly to him, “That’s it buddy, hold on tight, we’ll get you back to the aid post good as new there boy, don’t you worry,” patting his shoulders as he looks up and shakes and clenches his teeth. They slide him onto their well-used, bloodstained stretcher and hoist him up and carry him away into the night in a low hunch.
Another volley of shells bears down. A chunk of the roof collapses and lands just short of the altar with a weighted, crumbly crash, and Jim hits the stone floor again as a wash of dust rolls over all. The stones on which he lies turn in his gaze as he picks himself back up to his knees, the room turning in a daze as the crash of the explosion slowly dissipates. He turns around to see a pile of stones on the broken altar and a torrent of rain pouring down through the gaping hole in the ceiling.
“I think we should abandon this church before it falls on us, sir,” says Doyle, crouched against a corner nearby. “I think we should’ve abandoned this fucking church yesterday.”
“Good idea,” says Jim, his heart racing, “good idea.” He faces the rest of the men. “Form up and abandon this position! Onward and on the double! Move into the trenches on the reverse side and dig in! Decamp and let’s move out!” The men set about gathering their kit, slinging packs and weapons, radio and telephone equipment, ammunition and ration boxes, and they head out as more artillery bears down, and Jim runs out into the lanes and shouts, “Able Company! Abandon your positions and fall back! Abandon your positions! Fall back!” He sees another shell hit the church and then another, and much of the rest of the pitted and broken roof caves in, leaving only a blasted, gutted shell of a building. They wend their way squad by squad through the mucky lanes to the reverse slope of the hill, and they leap into the trenches many would hold during the day, bailing them out, digging deeper, heaving clots of sodden muck with their spades. Jim oversees at a crouch, his fevered breath misting with each panicked exhalation in the driving rain, and he helps several soldiers with their digging and bailing, using his helmet to ladle muddy water from sodden slit trenches. He opts to use the crumbled ruin of a farmhouse at the very edge of the town as a headquarters, and he orders Witchewski, Cooley, Lafontaine and Thibeault to set up shop in there. He invites soldiers to come rest and dry themselves out in shifts, as the rain pours in sheets and the night is rent by the artillery that peals like thunder, and Jim lies on his thin mat in the corner while soldiers sit and huddle with their knees against the wall in the clutter of the broken house, waiting, waiting, waiting through the hours for relief. Waiting, Jim thinks, and helps himself to a pull of whiskey from his flask to steady his nerves for another day of holding the line. Sooner or later we have to wade in and fight the undertow.