'I bet you wonder what I'm doing here,' the Lieutenant said.
'Oh, no,' said Michael hastily, not wishing to get into that conversational department. 'Not at all.'
'I'm having a hell of a time,' the Lieutenant said, 'trying to locate my glider group.'
Michael wondered how you could lose a whole group of gliders, especially on the ground, but he didn't inquire further.
'I was on the Arnhem thing,' the Lieutenant said, 'and I was shot down inside the German lines in Holland.'
'What happened?' Michael asked. Somehow it was hard to imagine this pale, gentle-faced boy being shot down out of a glider behind the enemy lines.
'It's the third mission I've been on,' the Lieutenant said.
'The Sicily drop, the Normandy drop and this one. They promised us it would be our last one.' He grinned weakly. 'As far as I'm concerned, they were damn near right.' He shrugged.
'Though I don't believe them. They'll have us dropping into Japan before it's over.' He shivered in his wet, outsize clothes.
'I'm not eager,' he said, 'I'm far from eager. I used to think I was one hell of a brave, hundred-mission pilot, but I'm not. The first time I saw flak off my wing, I couldn't bear to watch. I turned my head away and flew by touch, and I told myself, 'Francis O'Brien, you are not a fighting man.'
They drove in silence for a long time between the vineyards and the signs of old wars in the grey rain.
'Lieutenant O'Brien,' Michael said, fascinated by the pale, gentle boy, 'you don't have to tell me if you don't want, but how did you get out of Holland?'
'I don't mind telling,' said O'Brien. 'The right wing was tearing away and I signalled the tow plane I was breaking off. I came down in a field, pretty hard, and by the time I got out of the glider all the men I was carrying had scattered, because there was machine-gun fire coming in at us from a bunch of farmhouses about a thousand yards away. I ran as far as I could and I took off my wings and threw them away, because people're liable to get very mad at the Air Force when they catch them. You know, all the bombing, all the mistakes, all the civilians that get killed by accident, it doesn't do any good to be caught with wings. I laid in a ditch for three days, and then a farmer came up and gave me something to eat. That night he led me through the lines to a British reconnaissance outfit. They sent me back and I got a ride on an American destroyer. That's where I got this jacket. The destroyer mooched around all over the Channel for two weeks. Lord, I've never been so sick in my life. Finally they landed me at Southampton, and I hitched a ride to where I'd left my Group. But they'd pulled out a week before, they'd come to France. They'd reported me missing, and God knows what my mother was going through, and all my things'd been sent back to the States. Nobody was much interested in giving me orders. A glider pilot seems to be a big nuisance to everybody when there's no drop scheduled, and nobody seemed to have the authority to pay me or issue me orders or anything, and nobody gave a damn.' O'Brien chuckled softly, without malice. 'I heard the Group was over here, near Rheims, so I hitched a ride back to Cherbourg in a Liberty ship that was carrying ammunition and ten-in-one rations. I took two days off in Paris, on my own, except that a Second Lieutenant who hasn't been paid for a couple of months might as well be dead as be in Paris, and here I am…'
'A war,' the Chaplain said officially, 'is a very complex problem.'
'I'm not complaining, Sir,' O'Brien said hastily, 'honest I'm not. As long as I don't have to make any more drops, I'm as happy as can be. As long as I know I'm finally going back to my diaper service in Green Bay, they can push me around all they want.'
'Your what?' Michael asked dully.
'My diaper service,' O'Brien said shyly, smiling a little. 'My brother and I have a dandy little business, two trucks. My brother's taking care of it, only he writes that it's getting impossible to get hold of cotton materials of any kind. The last five letters I wrote before the drop, I was writing to cotton mills in the States to see if they had any material they could spare…' The heroes, Michael thought humbly, as they entered the outskirts of Rheims, come in all sizes.
There were MPs on the corners and a whole batch of official cars near the Cathedral. Michael could see Noah tensing in the front seat at the prospect of being dumped out in the middle of this rear-echelon bustle. Still, Michael couldn't help staring with interest at the sandbagged Cathedral, with its stained glass removed for safe- keeping. Dimly he remembered, when he was a little boy in grade school in Ohio, he had donated ten cents to rebuilding this Cathedral, so piteously damaged in the last war. Staring at the soaring pile now from the Chaplain's jeep, he was pleased to find that his investment hadn't been wasted. The jeep stopped in front of Communications Zone Headquarters. 'Now you get out here, Lieutenant,' the Chaplain said, 'and go in there and demand transportation back to your Group, no matter where they are. Raise your voice nice and loud. And if they won't give you any satisfaction, you wait for me here. I'll be back in fifteen minutes and I'll go in and threaten to write to Washington if they don't treat you well.'
O'Brien got out. He stood, looking, puzzled and frightened, at the shabby row of buildings, obviously lost and doubtful of Army channels.
'I have an even better idea,' the Chaplain said. 'We passed a cafe two blocks back. You're wet and cold. Go in and get yourself a double cognac and fortify your nerves. I'll meet you there. I remember the name… Aux Boris Amis.'
'Thanks,' O'Brien said uncertainly. 'But if it's all the same to you, I'll meet you here.'
The Chaplain peered across Noah at the Lieutenant. Then he stuck his hand in his pocket and came up with a five-hundred-franc note. 'Here,' he said, giving it to O'Brien. 'I forgot you weren't paid.'
O'Brien's face broke into an embarrassed smile as he took the money. 'Thanks,' he said. 'Thanks.' He waved and started back to the cafe, two blocks away.
'Now,' said the Chaplain briskly, starting the jeep, 'we'll get you two jailbirds away from these MPs.'
'What?' Michael asked stupidly.
'AWOL,' the Chaplain said. 'Plain as the noses on your face. Come on, lad, wipe that windshield.'
Grinning, Noah and Michael drove through the grim old town. They passed six MPs on the way, one of whom saluted the jeep as it slithered along the wet streets. Gravely, Michael returned the salute.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE closer they got to the front, Michael noticed, the nicer people got. When they began to hear the enduring rumble of the guns, disputing over the autumnal German fields, everyone seemed to speak in a low, considerate voice, everyone was glad to feed you, put you up for the night, share his liquor with you, show you his wife's picture and politely ask to see the pictures of your own family. It was as though, in moving into the zone of thunder, you had moved out of the selfishness, the nervous mistrust, the twentieth-century bad manners in which, until that time, you had always lived, believing that the human race had for ever behaved that way.
They were given rides by everyone… a Graves Registration Lieutenant who explained professionally how his team went through the pockets of the dead men, making two piles of the belongings they found there. One pile, consisting of letters from home, and pocket Bibles, and decorations, to be sent to the grieving family, the other pile consisting of such standard soldier's gear as dice, playing cards, and frank letters from girls in England with references to delightful nights in the hayfields near Salisbury or in London, which might serve to impair the memory of the deceased heroes, to be destroyed. Also, the Graves Registration Lieutenant, who had been a clerk in the ladies' shoe department of Magnin's, in San Francisco, before the war, discussed the difficulties his unit had in collecting and identifying the scraps of men who had met with the disintegrating fury of modern war. 'Let me give you a tip,' said the Graves Registration Lieutenant, 'carry one of your dogtags in your watch pocket. In an explosion your neck is liable to be blown right away, and your identification chain right along with it. But nine times out of ten, your pants will stay on, and we'll find your tag and we'll make a correct notification.'
'Thanks,' said Michael. When he and Noah got out of the jeep, they were picked up by an MP Captain, who saw immediately that they were AWOL and offered to take them into his Company making all the proper arrangements through channels, because he was understaffed.
They even got a ride in a General's command car, a two-star General whose Division was resting for five days behind the lines. The General, who was a fatherly-looking man with a comfortable paunch, and the kind of
