a final visit with Tree. All this talk of the unknown future had gotten to me. And I wanted to see Angry Smith back with his crew, in his element as a gunner. I headed south, navigating my way through heavy traffic, hundreds of trucks, flatbeds, jeeps, and every conceivable vehicle the army owned, it seemed. All heading in the same direction, south. Toward the invasion ports. Someday soon, a huge fleet would set sail. Me, I was probably sitting it out. Not a lot of crime in the middle of an amphibious invasion. But the 617th could be in on it. If not the first to hit the beach, then among the follow-up units once the initial landings were successful.
I hit Hungerford in the late afternoon, and drove out to the Common where they were bivouacked. The roads were choked with vehicles, and as I maneuvered the jeep closer, I saw a dozen or so flatbed trucks, the same kind I’d seen on the road with tanks chained down on them. I was just in time; they were moving out.
I drew closer, and could see that the tents had been struck and that men were drawn up in platoons, some of them already boarding trucks. Officers-all of them white-stood by the flatbeds and directed the men who’d driven the TDs up onto them back to their platoons. The officers were laughing, the enlisted men were quiet. The privilege of rank.
I asked for Tree’s platoon and was directed down the line by a sullen corporal. I spotted him as his crew moved to board their truck.
“Tree,” I yelled, running over to him. “You’re shipping out?”
“Yeah, we’re shipping out,” he said, not meeting my eyes.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” I looked around to get a clue as to what the problem was. It looked like the 617th was joining the long march to the sea, along with everyone else.
“They took our TDs away,” Angry Smith said, his voice a low growl. “They make us drive them up those flatbeds and they’re going to take them away.”
“What? Are you getting tanks? Where are you going?”
“We’re not getting tanks, Billy!” Tree shouted, exploding in a fury I hadn’t seen since we parted in Boston. “They’re giving our TDs to a new battalion, a
“But what’s happening to you?” It didn’t make any sense.
“Plymouth,” Tree said, spitting out the word as if it were foul and rotten. “We’ve been designated a quartermaster battalion. Lots of ships to unload in Plymouth. Supplies for the invasion. So they take a well-trained unit like ours and turn us into stevedores, then give our TDs to white boys who don’t know them. It ain’t right, Billy.” He was up against me, his anguish paralyzing, his agony awful to see.
“Don’t bother, Tree,” Angry said, taking him by the arm. “Don’t give them an excuse.” A squad of white MPs stood at the ready near the knot of white officers. Just in case.
Tree took a breath and calmed himself, turning back into a US Army sergeant. “Okay men, grab your duffles and board the truck. Let’s go!”
“I’m sorry, Tree,” was all I could get out. It was pathetic. He brushed by me, unable to look at me. His hand squeezed my arm, briefly, a sign from the depths of a childhood friendship, and then he was gone, swallowed up by the shaded darkness of the truck.
Angry was the last to board. He leaned over the tailgate, and beckoned me closer.
“What I said last night? It don’t hold no more. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
The truck lurched forward, dust rising from the road as it followed the rest of the battalion, six hundred strong. They passed by their Tank Destroyers, loaded on the flatbeds. Most looked away. One man saluted.
I stood to attention and returned the salute, keeping my hand to the brim of my cap until the last of the trucks passed.
