Souvenir by James R. Benn

Author:James R. Benn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

1945

Jake knelt in the snow, one knee down and the other up. The dampness of the wet snow on his knee told him that today wouldn’t be as frigid as yesterday, but the air was still filled with cold moisture, a damp, thick, heavy fog settling into the folds of terrain all around them. He held his right hand up, palm forward. Clay stopped beside him. Tuck and Shorty came up quietly, lowering themselves into the snow with care, hands on their gear, holding down the sounds of leather, clothing and metal as they settled in.

Behind them, men flopped down, dropping rifles, groaning, helmets off and rolling in the snow. Turning, Clay glared, raising his finger to his lips, then flattening out his hand in a downward motion. Sound carried in these woods, and he knew Jake had stopped because he’d heard something. He knew by the slight swivel of Jake’s head, the slow turning of ears left to right, right to left, searching out who else might have heard all this replacement clatter. Didn’t they teach them anything in Basic? Clay doubted the Army had changed a thing since he went through Basic himself. They were probably still teaching them how to set up pup tents for a good night’s sleep at the front. Out of sight of the enemy, they had said, in a grove of trees for camouflage. Too bad they never took into account the Krauts setting their artillery fuses to burst in the treetops, sending wooden splinters like daggers showering into G.I.s below. Clay looked at the men behind him as they whispered to each other. Not even enough sense to shut up and set up a perimeter guard. The walking dead.

Jake tried to quiet himself, to let his beating heart settle down so the thumping in his chest and ears would die away, leaving only the sounds of the forest. They had just climbed a ridgeline, and he could feel the fatigue in his thighs and in his lungs as they gasped for oxygen. Gulping air he signaled for Oakland, up ahead on point, to come back. No need to ask twice. Oakland slid down the next ridgeline and ran low, crouching, scurrying over to them. As he neared the bottom of the gully separating the ridges he all but disappeared in the thick fog. Jake saw the top layer of fog swirling as Oakland moved through it, the current creating a tiny gap for the grayness to fill in behind him. Coming up out of the fog as if rising from a dive into a deep lake, he flopped down on his knees next to Jake, hauling in a lungful of air, his eyes on the ground, M1 pointed straight at Jake. With an irritated frown, Jake pushed it away. Tapping Oakland’s helmet he waited for the kid to look at him. He pointed at his eyes, then waited some more. The look on Oakland’s face was quizzical, uncomprehending. Jake leaned in until his nose was up against the chinstrap hanging off the side of Oakland’s helmet.

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