Soldiers of ’44

Chapter Thirty

February 14, 1945. Hotel Empire, Liège, Belgium. Wednesday, 1800 Hours.

“We will turn our attention at this time to the matter of Jackson Baird’s alleged desertion,” Major Karsh said when the hearings were resumed at six o’clock that evening.

“I propose to summarize certain events which occurred in your gun section, Lieutenant Docker, on Friday, December twenty-second from” — Karsh consulted his notes — “from approximately twelve noon, when your men first sighted the German tank, until about ten-thirty that night when, according to your testimony, Baird confessed to you that he had deserted his post under fire on December sixteenth, the first day of the Ardennes offensive.”

The major unstrapped his watch and placed it on the table.

“Since we will be at this for some time, I think we might have some coffee. Sergeant, would you mind?”

Elspeth Corey poured coffee into thick china mugs, her movements fluid and economical, but when she glanced at Docker, half-smiling and making a tentative gesture with a cup, he shook his head.

Karsh thanked her and placed his cup on a blotter beside his briefcase. “Lieutenant, we’ll start at the time Baird pointed his rifle at you and other members of your section. First. Did you think he was ready to use it?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Then you did not feel threatened by his actions?”

Docker hesitated. “No, I didn’t think he’d fire. But that was only a guess.”

“A guess based on what, lieutenant?”

“For one thing, sir, he never took his rifle off safe.”

“Under the circumstances, I’d say that was pretty observant of you. So you obviously thought he was bluffing. Right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Karsh picked up a file from the table and looked through it briefly.

“When you became aware of that German tank, the Tiger Mark II, you decided to pull your cannon and make a run for it. Baird told you that would be unwise. In your own deposition, lieutenant, you’ve explained his reasons very cogently. Since they’re part of the record, I won’t repeat them unless you want me to.”

“There’s no need for it, sir.”

“But you didn’t act on his proposals?”

“Not immediately, sir.”

“And that’s why Baird pointed his rifle at you? To make you listen to him?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“To emphasize that point, I’m going to read a portion of Harlan Farrel’s deposition.” Karsh took another file from his briefcase and ran his finger down a page until he found the paragraph he was looking for, then said, “I’m quoting Private Harlan Farrel now. ‘Baird begged Docker to listen. He said something like — just let me finish, or hear me out—. Whatever it was, he just wanted to explain the problem. And I remember him saying to Docker — then you can have the damn gun.’ ”

Karsh looked at Docker. “Did Baird say that to you, lieutenant?”

“Yes, that’s what he said, sir.”

“Speculation is speculation, but I’d like to ask you a question, lieutenant. You don’t have to answer if you don’t care to. But in your judgment, what would have happened if you had ignored Baird’s advice?”

“I’ve no objection to answering,” Docker said. “If we’d tried to pull our cannon and get down that hill, the German tank would have had us in its sights in about sixty seconds. Some or all of us would have been killed.”

The major nodded and there was something in his expression that puzzled Docker; it was neither complacency nor resignation, but he couldn’t come any closer than that to defining it.

“I’ve no further questions at this time,” Karsh said.

Lieutenant Weiffel and Captain Walton did. Walton wanted to know in detail how Trankic had subdued Baird, how often he had struck him, whether the blows had been to the boy’s face or body, how much damage they had done. Weiffel, between sips of coffee, asked why it had been necessary to tie Baird’s wrists behind him. He opened a folder and read an additional segment of Harlan Farrel’s deposition into the record: “ ‘You can’t blame Trankic for hitting Baird, he was mad as hell. But he’s a powerhouse, he didn’t have to lower the boom that way. Sonny Laurel came right out and said it to him. Sonny told Trankic right on the spot he didn’t have to bust him up like that.’ ”

Captain Walton said, “Tell me this, lieutenant, when that tank fired into the side of the mountain and over your gun position, when shrapnel and rock fragments were exploding around you, was Baird lying helpless on the ground all that time, hands tied behind his back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What action did you take when the firing stopped?”

Fucking civilian. Docker thought, but he said, “I checked to see who was hurt. Then I told Chet Dormund and Sonny Laurel to untie Baird, put some sulfa on his cuts and get him under blankets.”

“And didn’t you also place him under arrest at that time, lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And detailed a man to stand guard over him?”

“Yes, sir. Private Farrel.”

“Then I’d like to point out a contradiction in your testimony. You told us you couldn’t arrest Corporal Larkin because you were short of men. Now you tell us you arrested Baird and in addition assigned a man to stand guard over him. How do you explain the inconsistency?”

Docker thought a moment, then said, “If you’d been there, captain, you wouldn’t need an explanation.”

“I’ve warned you once about your insolence, lieutenant.”

“It wasn’t my intention to be insolent, sir. But your line of questions forces me to be insultingly specific, just as I thought you were when you reminded me that my gun section’s actions on Utah Beach took place during the Allied landings at Normandy. You may know that from reading about it in the newspapers, sir. We knew about it because we were there—”

“Now I’ve had just about as much as I’m going to take—”

Major Karsh broke in, “Lieutenant, you will answer the questions as briefly and responsively as possible.”

“All right, I’ll try to, sir,” Docker said, but saying it realized that there was no way, no goddamn way to make them really see it, because how could he re-create the winds and the sounds of the cannon and the fear and pain around a damn conference table...?

“There wasn’t anything inconsistent about arresting Private Baird and not arresting Corporal Larkin,” he said. “When I arrested Baird an eighty-ton German tank was sitting a few hundred yards below our gun position. In a firefight against those odds I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about how a green, unstable soldier would handle himself. I’d rather be shorthanded than have to depend on anybody I wasn’t sure of.”

Karsh said, “Captain, I’d like to postpone this line of inquiry for a moment.” He turned back to Docker. “Lieutenant, let’s go directly now to your conversation with Jackson Baird on the night of December twenty-second. No one else was present at that time. Correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It was then, according to your deposition, that Baird finally told you the truth. Told you his father was Major General Jonathan Baird and that he’d deserted his post under fire on the first day of the German offensive.”

“Yes, that’s what he told me, sir.”

Karsh looked through several folders, frowning. “You’ve testified that on December seventeenth, the day Baird joined your section, you questioned him about his unit, how he’d been separated from it, and so forth. Then you and Corporal Trankic queried him again on related subjects on December twentieth. And on both occasions you testified that you believed his answers to be candid and credible. But here — the night of December twenty-second — after the boy had been through a dreadful ordeal, here you are hammering at him again.” Karsh looked steadily at Docker. “Why were you so convinced he was lying to you?”

Docker wished that the “truth” of this matter was as tangible, as demonstrable as the broken ring of enemy troops around Bastogne and the squadrons of Allied planes in the skies above the Ardennes. All he could say was, “Because his stories didn’t check out, sir.”

“I might ask you what stories, lieutenant, since you haven’t mentioned any so far that don’t hang together pretty well. But I won’t challenge that answer at this time.”

For what seemed the thousandth time to Docker, Major Karsh removed his glasses and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. This time, though, in the glare of the light from the chandeliers, it seemed to Docker that the major’s eyes had lost some of their coldness and intensity.

“According to strict rules of procedure it’s not our business to make assumptions,” the major said. “But let’s assume for the moment that Baird told you the truth the first time you questioned him, lieutenant. And let’s assume he told you the truth the second time. Now try to imagine that youngster’s mental and emotional frame of mind. He had been through a terrible ordeal. He had been knocked unconscious by Corporal Trankic, left helpless and exposed during a bombardment.” Karsh hadn’t raised his voice, but now its tone had become harder and more insistent... “Yet after that harrowing experience, he still had to face a third grilling from you, lieutenant. Hasn’t it occurred to you that Baird might have been so shaken by all this that he finally reversed his original story and told you the one he was convinced you wanted to hear?”

The question was unexpected and jarring in its implication. Docker hesitated, felt a stir of doubt as he thought back to that conversation with Baird, remembering not only the words but the cold wind tearing at the tarpaulin in front of the cave, the caked blood on the boy’s lips, the bruises on his face and the anguish and pain in his voice when he talked of his father and those absent friends in the Hall of Gentlemen. And Docker wondered if Karsh had come on the real truth at last, an ultimate “true” truth. Could it possibly be that simple? That Baird had given up hoping to be believed, was so in need of acceptance, which he’d never gotten from his father... where he’d needed it most... that he’d lied because he thought that was what was wanted of him? And if that were the case, it made a joke of his own noble conviction about what Baird would have wanted... He remembered with bitter distress his moralistic tone to the major at the beginning of these hearings, tiresome banalities about men respecting courage because they’d lost it, talk from survivors about what the dead would truly want... wasn’t that just a way of establishing black and white moral categories, damning this, praising the other, all stemming from — what had Karsh’s phrase been? — opinions based on subjective evaluations? Had he simply been too goddamn righteous in this whole business, exercising the German colonel’s last bequest, the arrogance of total conviction?

Maybe... and yet Docker still believed, though not so strongly now, that he had at least tried in these hearings to give Baird a last chance to explain himself to his father...

“I won’t press you for an answer,” Major Karsh said. “But I can assure you I would be most interested in whatever response you might care to make. Specifically, to repeat myself, do you think Baird was simply telling you what he thought you wanted to hear?”

Docker shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure, sir.” His voice sounded muted in the drafty ballroom. “I can only give you my opinion, major—”

“Then let’s have that.”

“I felt the best thing Baird had going for him, the only thing, in fact, was to tell the truth. I thought he did. I still do, but I grant you I can’t be absolutely certain—”

When a knock sounded abruptly, the mood in the ballroom was so intense that Sergeant Corey visibly started. The MP corporal swung open the doors, accepted an envelope from an elderly lobby attendant and delivered it to Major Karsh, who opened the envelope and read the note inside it, then strapped on his wrist-watch and began collecting his notes and folders and putting them into his briefcase.

“Gentlemen, we will recess until ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said, but as he closed his briefcase, another thought seemed to occur to him and he looked directly at Docker. “Lieutenant, I said at the start of these hearings that I’d conduct them as openly as possible. Therefore, I will tell you that I have just received a confirmation from Lieutenant Whitter that he will be available to give testimony when the hearings reconvene tomorrow morning.”

There was mail at the Hotel Leopold for Docker, two letters someone had brought to his room and left on the bedside table. Since he had left Battery headquarters that morning before mail call. Docker assumed Captain Grant had sent them over to Liège with the supply truck.

One of the letters was from Dave Hamlin, dated February 2nd. There was mention of his commission, and of his father, who in Hamlin’s words looked worn and tired, and something about the German shepherd, Detroit, and coming down with dysentery. The other letter was from Lepont, his name and address written in ink, the script ruler-straight and graceful on the coarsely fibered envelope.

He showered in a thin drizzle of water and shaved before a mirror whose flecked surface reflected the overhead lighting in erratic patterns. As his face emerged with the strokes of the razor, he was puzzled by the bitterness in his expression. Still, it seemed an appropriate match to his cold eyes and the slivers of gray at his temples, the gray he still wasn’t used to... it had come too soon, he hadn’t been gone that long from the walks through the campus and the talks with Hamlin, the tubs of beer at beach parties and the noisy rides to New York in old cars and the long empty Sunday afternoons with his father... Putting on a fresh uniform, he tried to understand his depression. He uncapped his canteen and poured a splash of black whiskey into a glass and stared at his reflection, drinking slowly, feeling a coldness at first and then small explosions of warmth in his stomach. He touched the gold bars of his tunic and wondered what kind of soldier he had really been through all these years, knowing there would probably never be a “real” answer.

At the same café where he’d lunched, Docker now settled at a table in the rear, as far as possible from the GIs along the zinc-topped bar. He ordered a brandy from a white-haired waiter with a towel draped over his jacket. A radio tuned to the armed forces network was playing loud country music.

Docker drank the brandy, which tasted faintly of beets and made him think of the old man they had bought vegetables from a long time ago. He opened Denise Francoeur’s letter while the brandy warmed him and the music drifted through layers of blue cigarette smoke.

Her note was brief, and Docker could imagine her pale face and black hair as he read it. The village was quiet again, she had written, the soldiers gone. She had walked into the woods on a mild afternoon and collected fresh green fir boughs and bunches of holly to put on the mantel and windowsills. The big dog — she didn’t know his name — had run away from the Bonnards. Jocko had seen it at the river one evening and was keeping a watch for it. The boy from his section, Tex Farrel (she had spelled it “Tix”), had come back to Castle Rêve to see Felice Bonnard. The nuns would keep Margret until everything was safe. On sunny afternoons, the snow was melting in the low parts of the hills and the water was collecting in puddles along the river road—

The radio music stopped and the voice of an announcer sounded sharply, silencing the noisy laughter at the bar.

“We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin from Paris. In massive attacks over the past twenty-four hours, British and American bombers have dropped thousands of tons of bombs and incendiaries on the Germany city of Dresden. In one of the heaviest raids ever launched in the European Theatre of Operations, the city has been — according to eyewitness observers — almost completely demolished. Hundreds of fires are raging through the ruins and can be seen from fifty to a hundred miles by the crewmen of approaching aircraft. American Flying Fortresses and British Lancasters have been flying round-the-clock bombing missions over the ancient city, once called by Germans ‘the Paris of the north’...”

The old waiter asked Docker if he wanted another brandy. Docker nodded, but he was hardly aware of the noisy talk resuming at the bar, or the heavy cigarette smoke mingling with the smell of damp boots and sour wine.

He was thinking of the German, Karl Jaeger, the thoughts merging with memories of Denise Francoeur. He had seen her only twice after the clash with Karl Jaeger’s tank, one night in her home and again in the square before the church where she had stood with other villagers waving to the trucks and guns of Section Eight as they wheeled through Lepont on their way west to the bivouac area at Namur. She had told him of Jaeger’s distraught behavior, the angel’s head he had smashed from the camouflaged wall and the photographs of his rosy blond daughters he had put on the pillows of her bed...

“Fire storms have gutted most of the city. Bridges have collapsed into the Elbe River. The population of Dresden has swollen recently to more than one million, every available building crowded by German refugees from the east and an unknown number of American and British prisoners of war. And because of these conditions, it is now estimated that the death toll in Dresden may exceed one hundred and fifty thousand persons—”

After an erratic burst of static, the country music sounded again and the waiter asked Docker if he wanted something to eat; he was going off duty presently but would be pleased to bring the lieutenant a sandwich if he wanted it. Docker asked the old man for another brandy.

He sat in the noisy bar trying to remember what Karl Jaeger had said to him in the last minutes of his life on the torn, rocky slope of Mont Reynard... “I give you righteousness. Condemn me if you wish, but at least I’ve lived by rules. By my rules, I have been a good soldier.”

The village of Lepont and the rooms in her home were places where he had left part of himself, he knew, as he had left something in the other towns of the war, on the roads where there had been faces and weather to remember before they were swept away into the past beyond retrieving.

Still, Denise’s letter had created a sense of a remembered permanence... the melting snow and the holly she had picked for the mantelpiece, he could see that with her eyes, and Jocko, bent and crooked, whistling in the dusk at the river’s edge for their dog... and Tex Farrel walking up the castle road again to see the girl Sonny Laurel had loved there... Docker had thought that when the hearings were over he would return to the battery by way of Lepont, but when he read the last paragraph of Denise’s letter he knew he would never do that, and knew that the village of the Salm was one more place that was gone from him. She had written:

“My husband is alive. I have a letter from him. It may be a long time but he is free and will be coming home. As I look at these words, I must say to you I feel they are like the broken links of a circle and I am able to believe my life can be whole again...”

There were a few more words, the gentle and falling close to all such letters, and then her signature, the first letters clear and precise, the rest running into jagged scratches.