Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn

Author:Jerome Charyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

2.

THE ALLIES HAD TO TAKE ONE TREE AT A TIME, one machine-gun nest, one German bunker. The Krauts had been here before—they withdrew from the forest and then returned. They recognized every inch of the terrain. They were dug in on the hilltops, and could read every one of the Allied positions, even in the thick foliage. It was like a bunch of belligerent boys battling a band of wandering, footloose children. That’s what the Twelfth had become in the Hürtgen Forest—children.

Sonny lived in a foxhole now, nearby Corporal Benson and several newbies, since the Twelfth had nothing but raw recruits. Most of the regiment had been wiped out in this Green Hell. Sonny survived because of the woolen socks his mother knit for him every week. The weather had gone fierce by the middle of November. There was a whipping rain that left mountains of mud, and not a single pair of overshoes had arrived from the Quartermaster Corps. Sonny shared whatever woolen socks he had left with the corporal and the newbies in their foxholes.

“Sarge,” the newbies said, “your mom’s a saint.”

“Not at all, but she does knit a mean pair of woolen socks.”

Some of the newbies didn’t make it. The constant mortar attacks and flying shrapnel and shards of wood from the treetops drove them half insane. They sat shivering in Miriam Salinger’s socks, their heads under a blanket.

“I can’t cut it, Sarge. The pounding never stops.”

Sonny had grown deaf in one ear from the constant barrage, and though he was now his squad leader, he still didn’t have the authority to send a dogface back to the rear lines with a bad case of the shivers. There were no more medics in this part of the forest. They’d all been wiped out by enemy fire, since they had to move around a lot, seeking out the wounded and dogfaces who had grown hysterical and had lost their senses under attack. Sonny had to soothe them back to sanity.

“You’ll be all right, soldier. Just breathe hard and think of Betty Grable.”

Sonny and the corporal were in a parade of foxholes for misfits. Somehow they had to survive.

“Private Markowitz, you’ll do fine.”

He peeked under the blanket and saw the glaze in the boy’s eyes. He didn’t have much choice. He slapped the private twice, and that glaze vanished.

“If you sit there like that, soldier, you’ll die.”

“But I’m scared, Sarge, I’m so scared.”

“We’re all scared,” Sonny said. “This is the Green Hell. The Krauts own this forest. And we have to take it back.”

They’d become a bunch of tree huggers. That was the only way to defend themselves against the flying debris, or else they built a log roof over their foxholes. But the Krauts had their own spotters, and such roofs were easy to find. Major Oliver, the boy wonder from the Citadel, was still commander of E Company. He’d put Sonny in charge of a rifle platoon, since Sonny and Corporal Benson were the only noncoms he had left.

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