Bullet Bridge Read online

“Yes ma’am.”

  “You don’t seem all right to me. I think I’d better ask Doctor Fields to check you out.”

  “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

  “Is your appetite all right?”

  “I eat everything they put in front of me, ma’am.”

  Nurse Jackson turned and walked away, and Cranepool stared with lust at her round little ass. He wondered why short women so often have those nice power-packed asses. His erection was at its peak now and he thought he’d have to go to the latrine and jerk off so it would stop bothering him. He didn’t think the angels would let him get killed just because of some harmless masturbation.

  Just as Nurse Jackson approached the door, Mahoney entered the ward, saw her, removed his helmet, and started talking with her. Cranepool was astonished to see Mahoney, who was unshaven and filthy and looked like he’d just returned from the front. He was about to wave, but his hand stopped in midair when he realized that Mahoney obviously was trying to sweet-talk Nurse Jackson into the nearest sack. Mahoney shuffled his feet and grinned like a baboon, but Nurse Jackson treated him curtly, pointing toward Cranepool and walking swiftly away.

  Mahoney put his helmet on the back of his head and strolled toward Cranepool’s bunk, waving at soldiers whom he knew. He seemed to know everybody. Finally he reached Cranepool. He stopped at the foot of the bunk, beamed at Cranepool, and said:

  “Through shit, through blood, through snow, through flood, Mahoney always comes through for his buddies.”

  “What’re you doing here, Sarge?” Cranepool asked, overjoyed to see his old platoon sergeant.

  Mahoney sat on the foot of Cranepool’s bed, although that was forbidden by hospital rules, and took out a cigarette, lighting it up. “I come to spring you out of here, kid.”

  “You have?”

  “That’s right. I got Higgins out back in a jeep.” Mahoney blew a column of smoke into the air.

  “But I can’t leave here without orders!” Cranepool protested.

  “Sure you can. C’mon, let’s go.”

  “What if I get caught?”

  “You’re not gonna get caught.”

  “Does Captain Anderson know about this?”

  “Of course. Do you think I’d do a thing like this without telling Captain Anderson?”

  “I don’t know, Sarge...”

  Mahoney stood up and grabbed Cranepool’s arm. “We’ve talked enough. C’mon—let’s go.”

  “But Sarge...”

  “You’re all better, aren’t you?”

  “I think so, but...”

  “C’mon!”

  Mahoney dragged Cranepool out of bed. Cranepool put on his slippers and robe, and Mahoney led him out of the ward and down a corridor where doctors and nurses were bustling about.

  “Going someplace, Corporal Cranepool?” asked Nurse Jackson, who was checking somebody’s health chart in the nurse’s station.

  Cranepool opened his mouth to reply, but Mahoney spoke first. “He’s just taking a little walk with me, ma’am.”

  “Who’re you?”

  “I’m just his old platoon sergeant, ma’am—come to see how he’s doing.”

  “I hope you’re not going too far with him.”

  “Oh no ma’am, just down this corridor and back.”

  Mahoney gripped Cranepool’s biceps tightly as they continued to move along.

  “What a piece of ass she is,” Mahoney said. “If I ever stuck my dick into her she’d be my slave for life.”

  “I been thinking about something, Sarge,” Cranepool replied.

  “Don’t do that, kid. It’s liable to give you a headache.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Cranepool continued, “that how come it’s okay for you to fuck around and you don’t get killed, but if I fuck around I’ll get killed?”

  Mahoney blew smoke out the corner of his mouth. “I thought I explained this to you last time I was here.”

  “You did but I have trouble understanding it, especially when I saw you trying to put the make on Nurse Jackson when you walked into the ward a few minutes ago.”

  “It’s like this, kid,” Mahoney said. “I wasn’t even good when times were good, but you were. I’ve always been a rotten son of a bitch, and that’s why I keep getting shot and cut up all the time, but you, you were like Christ himself before you started fucking up.”

  “I never started fucking up until I met you, Sarge.”

  “Well that’s all over now. You’re gonna behave yourself from now on if I have anything to say about it.”

  Mahoney didn’t bother to add that he’d always thought he’d stay alive as long as Cranepool was alive, but now, since Cranepool had stopped a bullet, Mahoney was worried that his own number might come up any day now. That’s why he wanted to watch over Cranepool and make sure he stayed alive. Cranepool was his good luck charm.

  They traversed corridors and passed through wards until they came to the rear of the building. Barrels of garbage were lined up near a door that led outside, and Mahoney paused, looking both ways.

  “Higgins is right outside with the jeep,” Mahoney said. “Let’s go.”

  “But it’s cold out there!”

  “We got clothes for you in the jeep. Let’s go.”

  Mahoney opened the door and pushed Cranepool through it. A light rain fell and Cranepool saw the jeep, covered with a canvas top, straight ahead. He ran across the cobblestones to the jeep, feeling like a convict escaping from jail.

  Chapter Five

  The jeep stopped in front of the command post tent of Charlie Company, and Higgins turned off the ignition switch.

  “Well, here we are kiddo,” Mahoney said to Cranepool.

  Cranepool wore the new fatigues and combat boots Mahoney had obtained from the quartermaster for him. He looked like the old Cranepool, the Cranepool of crap games and heroic deeds on the battlefield, instead of the demoralized mess who’d lain in a hospital bed earlier in the day. “Yep, here we are,” Cranepool replied.

  “Listen kid, when we go in there to see Sergeant Tweed, let me do the talking, okay?”

  “How come I gotta let you do the talking? How come I can’t talk?”

  “Because it’ll be best that way.”

  “How come it’ll be best that way? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing’s going on. Everything’s fine.” Mahoney smiled reassuringly.

  Suddenly a terrible thought entered Cranepool’s mind. “Oh-oh,” he said.

  “What’s the matter?” Mahoney asked.

  “I got a sneaky feeling you lied to me, Sarge.”

  “Me lie to you?”

  “Yeah. I got a funny feeling that Captain Anderson really doesn’t know anything about this.”

  Mahoney looked surprised. “What makes you think Captain Anderson knows something about it?”

  “Because that’s what you told me in the hospital.”

  “I said that?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “Well you did.”

  “You must be having hallucinations.” Mahoney shrugged. “Captain Anderson doesn’t know a fuck-all about this.”

  Cranepool closed his eyes. “I knew it. I’m AWOL from the hospital. Something told me you were lying to me in the hospital, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

  Mahoney winked. “Maybe you should’ve believed it, but anyways, it’s too late for that now.”

  “I’m AWOL,” Cranepool sighed. “Mother of Christ.”

  “Stop turning my life into a soap opera,” Mahoney said. “Didn’t you tell me, on the day they took you away, that you were afraid you wouldn’t be sent back to Charlie Company?”

  “Yes but...”

  “Well you’re back in Charlie Company, so shut the fuck up.”

  Higgins cleared his throat. “I gotta return this jeep,” he said. “Are youse two gonna talk all night?”

  “He’s right,” Mahoney said. “He’s gotta return this ratt
letrap we’ve been riding in and he’s gotta pull maintenance on it too. Let’s go, Cranepool.”

  Mahoney and Cranepool climbed out of the jeep, and Higgins drove off toward the motor pool.

  “Is he as crazy as he used to be?” Cranepool asked, looking at the retreating jeep.

  “It varies,” Mahoney replied, “but he’s a good man anyways. He got shot up a few days ago, but here he is trying to spring you out of the hospital, and do you appreciate it? No, you don’t.”

  “I appreciate it,” Cranepool said. “But I’m afraid all of us are going to wind up in the stockade for this.”

  “Let me handle it. C’mon, let’s go talk to Sergeant Tweed.”

  “You think he’s still up?”

  “Tweed never sleeps. He’s always up at night, just like a vampire.”

  Mahoney pushed aside the tent flap and entered the field office of the First Sergeant of Charlie Company. Tweed was at his desk doing paperwork, and on the other side of the office, Pfc. Drago, the company clerk, was trying to get a head start on the next day’s morning report.

  Tweed looked up at Mahoney and Cranepool, and then stared at Cranepool. “Where in the fuck did you come from?” he asked Cranepool.

  Cranepool looked at Mahoney.

  “He just came from the hospital,” Mahoney said.

  “Who asked you?” said Tweed. “Can’t the little fucker talk anymore?”

  Cranepool didn’t like to be called little, since he almost was six feet tall. “I just came from the hospital,” he said.

  Tweed touched his ear. “I’m hearing echoes in this tent, I think.” He looked at Cranepool. “Where’s your orders, young soldier?”

  Cranepool looked at Mahoney.

  “He ain’t got no orders,” Mahoney said.

  “How come he ain’t got no orders?”

  “Because he ain’t got none.”

  “Then what the fuck’s he doing here?”

  Mahoney smiled and showed the palms of his hands. “Because he’s all better and he wanted to come back to his regular company.”

  Tweed narrowed his eyes, and Cranepool thought Tweed did indeed look like a vampire.

  “C’mon now,” Tweed said, “this ain’t his company unless there are orders that say this is his company.”

  “Don’t be a hardass, Tweed,” Mahoney said. “If the kid stayed in the hospital, they would’ve transferred him to some company where he don’t know anybody and where he wouldn’t feel right. How would you feel if somebody dropped you into another company?”

  “I couldn’t be any unhappier than I am in this fucked-up outfit.”

  “Yeah, well Cranepool don’t feel that way.”

  Tweed shook his head sadly. “Sounds to me like the little fucker is AWOL.”

  “How can he be AWOL if he’s in his regular company?” Mahoney asked.

  “This ain’t his regular company if he ain’t got orders.”

  “Fuck orders,” Mahoney said.

  “What do you think—you’re back in civilian life, Mahoney? If you go anywheres in this man’s Army, you gotta have orders.”

  “Well,” Mahoney said, taking out a cigarette, “I was a first sergeant like you for awhile myself, and...”

  “Wasn’t that at Fort Leonard Wood when you got thrown in the stockade for punching your C.O. in the mouth?”

  “That has nothing to do with anything,” Mahoney said stiffly.

  “Just thought I’d mention it,” Tweed replied, a little victorious smile on his face.

  “Anyway,” Mahoney said, “when I was a first sergeant I knew how to get around regulations and I know just how I’d handle this.”

  “Tell me,” said Tweed.

  “I’d just write in the morning report that Cranepool was transferred back here as per division order number something, and make up a fucking number.” Mahoney lit his cigarette and took a puff.

  “Just like that,” Tweed said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a court martial offense, fucking around with morning reports like that,” Tweed wheezed. “No wonder you’ve been in trouble ever since you’ve been in the Army, Mahoney. You never want to go by the book.”

  “Fuck the book,” Mahoney replied. “Listen Tweed, if you do what I say, who’ll know the difference? We’re in the middle of a war and everything is fucked up in the whole ETO. Who’s gonna give a shit?”

  “If somebody does, my ass’ll be in a sling.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I won’t be able to produce the fucking orders if somebody asks for them, that’s why.”

  Mahoney waved his hands in the air. “So you say they got blown up, Tweed! We’re a combat outfit! People and things get blown up all the time! Don’t be such an asshole all your life! You can’t go by the book all the goddamn time!”

  Tweed nodded. “That’s true.”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it,” Tweed mumbled.

  “You’re a good man, Tweed,” Mahoney said with a big smile. He leaned over the desk and slapped Tweed on the shoulder, nearly dislocating it.

  “Thanks a lot, Sarge,” Cranepool said to Tweed. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Both of you get the fuck out of here,” Tweed grumbled. “I got work to do.”

  Chapter Six

  Dawn brought the crackle of small arms fire. Mahoney awakened in a muddy foxhole, rubbed his eyes, and looked around. The 1st Battalion was deployed on either side of a road between two blue-black hills that were almost the size of mountains. They were in the Saarland, but they didn’t know whether they had crossed the border into Germany itself yet.

  Mahoney licked his teeth, which felt as though little wool sweaters had been knitted over them during the night. He was chilled to his bones and had difficulty moving. Yawning, he smelled his foul breath and couldn’t stand himself. He looked at his watch and it was six o’clock in the morning.

  Pfc. Joe Knifefinder, a full-blooded Indian from Oklahoma, was in the foxhole with him, wide awake, the walkie-talkie hanging from his neck. Knifefinder was Mahoney’s new runner, replacing Riggs who still was in the hospital recovering from his wounds.

  “The sun come out today I think,” said Knifefinder, looking at the cloudy sky.

  “Don’t look it to me,” Mahoney said.

  “Look it to me.”

  “I’m going to take a shit. If anybody wants me, I’m in the latrine.”

  “Hup Sarge.”

  Mahoney crawled out of the foxhole and walked in a crouch to the latrine that had been dug in the woods nearby. He’d learned, after many years of fighting, that it was best to move your bowels as early in the day as you could, so that you wouldn’t get involved in a battle and then suddenly realize that you had to go—because it would be too late then.

  He went to the latrine, washed his hands in water from his canteen, and returned to his foxhole in anticipation of a nice breakfast consisting of cold C rations and a Lucky Strike cigarette.

  “Hey Sarge,” Knifefinder said, “you’re wanted at the command post.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  Mahoney turned around and trudged back to the command post, wondering why he was wanted. Something told him that Tweed had got cold feet and was going to make some trouble about Cranepool. That Tweed could be a chicken-shit son of a bitch at times.

  A bullet zipped over Mahoney’s head, and in the distance a German mortar round landed. It was a quiet morning with neither side attacking but everybody doing something to make the enemy realize he was alive and kicking, it had been like this when the Germans had launched that tank attack several days ago, and Mahoney’s nerves still were on edge because of it. He wouldn’t have been surprised if a hundred German tanks came tearing down that road at any moment.

  Finally he reached the command post tent and saw a dozen soldiers milling around in front of it. Now he knew what was going on. Some new replacements had arrived and he was going to get some of them. They were a bunch of sorry-l
ooking bastards, and he figured they were the five percent skimmed from headquarters and service units. A bunch of fucking clerks.

  He entered the tent and saw Tweed sitting behind his desk. “Who unloaded all that shit outside the tent, Tweed?”

  “Them’s new replacements,” Tweed said, “and you’re getting three of them.”

  “Do I have to take them?”

  “Yes you have to take them. Here’s their names. Have them fall out and take them back with you to your platoon.”

  Tweed handed Mahoney a slip of paper and Mahoney read the names. He needed twenty four soldiers to bring his platoon back to battle strength, and instead they were giving him three anemic clerks.

  “When are we going to get some real rifle soldiers, Tweed?”

  “Get out of here, Mahoney. I don’t have time for your bullshit. I have enough headaches because of you.”

  “There mustn’t be any real men back in America,” Mahoney said, “if we have to make rifle soldiers out of shit like what’s standing outside your tent right now.”

  “I said get the fuck out of here, Mahoney.”

  Mahoney walked out of the tent and saw the replacements milling around with hangdog expressions on their faces. They probably were sick over having been yanked from their nice warm offices far behind the lines and sent to the front. A hot rage built up in Mahoney’s breast because he’d always hated these rear echelon typewriter commandos.

  “TEN-HUT!” he screamed.

  They looked at each other and wrinkled their foreheads as if to say: what’s wrong with him?

  Mahoney charged into the midst of them, pushing, punching and kicking. “I said TEN-HUT, goddamnit!”

  The soldiers snapped to attention and stood tall, realizing a maniac had descended upon them. Mahoney walked among them, growling and snarling like an angry lion. “I never saw so many scumbags together at one time in my life,” he said. “You desk jockeys won’t last a fucking week out here. When I say fall out I want all of you to fall out and form one rank over here. FALL OUT!”

  The replacements ran to the spot Mahoney indicated and formed a rank, standing stiffly at attention. But they weren’t accustomed to soldiering and their postures were awful. Mahoney closed his eyes and groaned. This bunch didn’t look as if they could hold off the lingerie department of Macy’s.