Soldiers of ’44

Chapter Thirty-One

February 15, 1945. Hotel Empire, Liège, Belgium. Thursday, 1000 Hours.

A heavy-weather front moved toward Liège that night. Dark clouds drifted over the city the following day and the ballroom of the Empire Hotel was gloomy with shadows, the light from the chandeliers shining palely on the faded carpets.

Lieutenant Bart Whitter sat in a chair between Sergeant Corey’s desk and the conference table, dressed for his appearance at First Army’s board of special inquiry in a carefully pressed class-A uniform that included an olive drab tunic with light tan trousers and polished brown oxfords secured by leather straps.

In giving testimony Whitter frequently consulted a small black notebook and, on occasion, spoke in pronounced southern accents, apparently in deference to the major’s oak leaves and the faded swank of the ballroom.

“Ah can assure the members of this inquiry I’m clear on that point, crystal clear,” he said, in answer to a question from Captain Walton. “My orders to Docker were to proceed due east with his gun section.”

“Lieutenant Whitter, would you give us the time and date of those orders,” Karsh said.

“Yes, sir. I got that information in writing. It was about six-fifteen a.m. on December thirteenth.”

Walton said, “Did you always keep a written record of such orders?”

“When they were important, I surely did, captain. March orders to my gun sections, changes in Air Corps ID signals — things like that, they’re all written down in the book. But if it was just a piffling matter, I didn’t bother.”

“I’d like you to identify that book for the record,” Karsh said.

Whitter approached the conference table and gave the book to Walton, who flipped through it and said, “Sergeant, take this down. ‘Lieutenant Whitter referred to a personal notebook in answering questions relating to orders he gave Lieutenant Docker on thirteen December. Said questions and answers are included in transcript. The notebook pages are numbered consecutively, contain handwritten notations of orders given by the lieutenant to gun sections covering the time from’ ” — Walton looked at the first and last pages of the notebook — “ ‘from the middle of September, 1944 through January of the following year. Notes are made in both pen and pencil. The notebook is a blue-covered Cerberus, number fifty-two.’ ”

“Lieutenant Docker, you heard Lieutenant Whitter’s testimony,” Karsh said. “Did he give you such orders?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But after reaching the town of Werpen, isn’t it a fact that you withdrew several thousand yards to the west?”

“Yes, sir.”

“On whose orders?”

“Lieutenant Longworth’s, sir, second-in-command of our platoon.”

“Were his orders in writing?”

“No, sir.”

“Did any of the men in your section hear Lieutenant Longworth give you those orders?”

“No, sir, they didn’t.”

“So it follows they can’t confirm their existence.”

“That’s right, sir. Lieutenant Longworth and I were alone when he countermanded my original orders.”

Major Karsh turned to Whitter. “Lieutenant, did Lieutenant Longworth advise you that he’d given Section Eight a change of orders?”

“No, sir, he did not.”

“Did Lieutenant Longworth discuss the situation at Werpen with you in any way at all?”

“No, sir. But you got to understand, major, we were damned busy at Battery with them V-4 sightings to check out for Battalion and the Ninth Air Defense Command. But I can say this, major, I don’t know nothin’ about why Docker here went high-tailin’ it out of Werpen, contrary to my orders.”

Karsh turned to Docker. “Lieutenant, let’s look at the facts. One, you didn’t follow the orders Lieutenant Whitter gave you. Two, we have only your word that Lieutenant Longworth countermanded those orders. Three, Lieutenant Longworth is dead and can’t confirm your story. Therefore — unless we accept your unsupported version of the incident — it would be difficult to blame anyone for concluding that you had retreated from a combat area without authorization. Would you disagree with that conclusion?”

“Am I restricted to a yes or no answer?”

“It seems to me a yes or no would be sufficient, but I’ll allow you any leeway you feel necessary.”

“Thank you, sir. Unless I’m mistaken, this line of questions is aimed at establishing a parallel between what I did at Werpen and what Jackson Baird told me he did on December sixteenth, the first day of the German offensive.”

“For the record, I must state that you’re making a not necessarily accurate evaluation of Lieutenant Whitter’s testimony.”

“Perhaps that’s true, sir, but to be as objective as I can, I’d like to review what happened before we got to Werpen. And to do that, I need to ask Lieutenant Whitter a few questions.”

Whitter jerked around as if he’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. “That’s just like you, trying to drag me into it. I’m not on trial here, you are, Docker.”

“Lieutenant Whitter, you will be in order,” Karsh said.

“I’ll answer any damn question he’s got the guts to ask—”

“Lieutenant Whitter.”

“You ain’t dumpin’ on me like you did Korbick, Docker, ’cause I got nothin’ to hide.”

Karsh banged his fist on the table. “Goddamn it, I will not tolerate—” He drew a deep breath and said, “Sergeant, strike the profanity. Lieutenant Whitter, no one is on trial here, and you will conduct yourself in a manner consistent with those silver bars on your shoulders. Is that clear?”

“It’s crystal clear,” Whitter said. “My daddy was a county sheriff in Alabama and I don’t take a back seat to anybody far as respecting the law is concerned.” Squaring his shoulders, he looked stonily at a point about two feet above Major Karsh’s head.

“Lieutenant Docker, you may question Lieutenant Whitter, but I’ll be the judge of the relevance of your line of inquiry. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Docker stood and walked to where Whitter sat stiffly in a straight-back wooden chair, fists braced on his knees.

“Lieutenant, the day you gave me those orders, do you remember telling my gun section anything else?”

“I might or might not. Docker. But if it’s important, you can bet I’ve got it written down.”

“Let me help you out,” Docker said. “Do you remember telling my section they’d be starting home by Christmas? And that we had the Krauts in a meatgrinder?”

“So what if I did? That was just my way of boosting morale, putting a little starch in their backbones.”

“You remember I objected to it?”

“What if I do?... Okay, sure, you thought it would make them overconfident or some such damn fool thing. If that’s what you want me to say, I’ll say it. But it’s a fact, if you had your men on the ball, a pat on the back from me wouldn’t hurt ’em.”

“You also gave us a fall-back position. Do you remember the name of the town?”

“You can bet I got it written down. Docker. The name of that place was Lepont.”

“So you had quite a lot to say that morning, Whitter. You told us we’d be home for Christmas and like a Horace Greeley in rear gear, you kept saying, head east, head east, and at the same time you gave us a fall-back position to defend if we ran into enemy strength we couldn’t handle—”

“That’s right, make it sound like some Joe College joke. But the fact is, Docker, you didn’t follow orders. You turned tail at Werpen before running into any Germans.” Whitter’s eyes narrowed, a small smile on his lips. “I see what you’re after. Three of your men got killed in an empty town looking for souvenirs in a booby-trapped house like a bunch of recruits. Now you’re trying to twist it around to look like it was my fault, because I got ’em relaxed and off guard, talking about getting home for Christmas.”

Docker felt an involuntary stir of pity for Whitter, a man so paranoid he couldn’t wait to put the nails in his own coffin. But this was no time for pity... he might be paranoid, but he was also a lying son of a bitch who was trying to destroy him.

“How did you know the town was empty?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how you knew the town of Werpen was empty when my section got there. You testified to that effect. Would you like the sergeant to refresh your memory?”

He glanced at Sergeant Corey, but to his surprise she was already flipping back through her notebook and before Karsh could direct her to repeat Whitter’s testimony, she had begun reading: “Three of your men got killed in an empty town looking for souvenirs...”

She looked intently at Docker. “Is that enough, sir?”

He nodded, realizing that she had slightly accented the word “empty.”

The major cleared his throat. “Young lady, you will wait for permission from an officer of this board to recap testimony. Is that clear?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Docker turned to Whitter. “My question was, how did you know Werpen was empty?”

“How in hell you expect me to keep track of things like that?”

“You couldn’t have known firsthand because you weren’t there. I didn’t tell you and no one else in my section had an opportunity to. And you’ve testified you didn’t discuss the matter with Longworth. So who told you?”

“Well, maybe I heard somebody talking about it at the battery—”

“Then that had to be First Sergeant Miles Korbick. He was at Werpen driving Longworth’s jeep.”

Whitter looked suddenly relieved. He crossed his legs and smiled quickly at the officers of the board. “I’m sorry about wasting everybody’s time with something that frankly don’t make a doodly-do bit of difference. But it was Sergeant Korbick, all right.”

“Did Korbick tell you about the meals left on the tables? And the pots that were still warm on the stoves?”

“Yeah, he mentioned that.”

“So what action did you take?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I didn’t take any action at all. Docker. I didn’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“What the hell you mean — why not? Docker, you got something on your mind, I wish you’d say it—”

“You knew my gun section was in an exposed and vulnerable position, didn’t you?”

“I’m no mindreader, Docker. But if I did, you’re forgetting one little thing.” Whitter’s smile, embracing Sergeant Corey and the officers at the table, had become more confident. “There was a shootin’ war goin’ on, and lots of line troops were in exposed and vulnerable situations—”

“But you’re too smart a soldier not to know what we were up against. Plain common sense would tell you how many German troops would be needed to evacuate a town like that, every man, woman and child pulled out only a half hour or so before we got there. But you’ve testified not that you didn’t take any action, but that you didn’t have to take any action. Why, lieutenant? Why didn’t you have to take any action?”

“Because you already had your orders. Docker, and you damn well know it.”

“Whose orders? Yours — or Longworth’s?”

“It don’t make no never-no-mind. You had all the damn orders you needed—”

“I’m going to suggest why you didn’t have to take any action, lieutenant. Isn’t it because you knew that Lieutenant Longworth had already given my gun section new orders?”

“Now hold on, you’re goin’ just a mite too fast” — Whitter uncrossed his legs, squirmed around in the chair — “thing is. Docker, there’s an understanding between officers. When I said Longworth didn’t talk to me about you pulling back that was another way of saying we didn’t have to spell everything out in so many words. You got to trust each other, trust the men under you to figure out a situation and take care of it, so I know Longworth was doing what’s right even if he doesn’t tell me every little thing because he was gone from the battery a lot with those V-4 sightings anyway and I...”

Whitter lost the thread of his thought, but in searching for a connecting pattern he blundered onto another tangent, saying, “...But you never believed we were any good, did you. Docker? Thought we were all layin’ around the battery in our fart sacks, ninety-day wonders...” He frowned at his hands. “It ain’t easy, which is something people always forgot.” Whitter’s tone had become almost conversational, and the conversation could have been as much with himself as with Docker or anybody else in the room.

Major Karsh shifted his papers about, pausing now and then to make penciled notes on his legal pad. Finally he cleared his throat, looked at Weiffel and Captain Walton. “You gentlemen have any questions?”

Lieutenant Weiffel shook his head. “I have no questions,” Walton said.

Whitter seemed puzzled by the silence in the room. He smiled at the officers and Sergeant Corey, rubbed his hands together and looked at Docker.

Karsh said, “Lieutenant Whitter, you’re excused now. But before you leave, I’d like to express my thanks to you for appearing before this board.”

“I appreciate that, major, but I don’t expect any commendation for doing my plain duty. I learned that at my daddy’s knee, and sometimes over it.”

Whitter, Docker realized, wasn’t aware of the dismissal in Karsh’s tone and eyes; in fact, he seemed to have accepted the major’s cool words as a generous tribute. His mood was once again expansive as he relaxed and presented the officers at the table with a friendly, conspiratorial smile.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to mention one other little incident I guess hasn’t come to the attention of you gentlemen.”

“Is it relevant to these hearings?” Karsh said.

“Well, sir, I think it is.”

“Then let’s have it, lieutenant.”

“We had a mighty fine top kick in Battery D, major. Korbick, Miles Korbick. I’d like to tell you why he’s no longer with the battery and who’s responsible for it...”

As Whitter began to talk about that particular night at Battery headquarters, to tell it as he saw it, Docker remembered it as he saw it... the clerk from Graves Registration (was his name Nessel?) fretting over Spinelli’s missing poncho and hood, and Corporal Haskell backing away and raising the empty hands he had bloodied on Larkin, and Kohler dumping a helmetful of waste over Korbick’s head while the first sergeant sat in his sudsy metal bath... and as Docker listened to Whitter’s voice rising with his conviction and indignation, it occurred to him again that one of war’s most upsetting — most dangerous — legacies was the confusion forced on even tolerant men about where the truth, where the reality of it was...

“Korbick worked his ankle off,” Whitter was saying, “trying to make a soldier out of a New York character, a boy name of Sam Gelnick. But Docker always stood up for Gelnick. Did his level best, level worst would be more like it, to keep Korbick from making a man out of him.”

“If there’s a point to all this,” Karsh said, “I’d appreciate it if the lieutenant would—”

“There’s a point to it, sir,” Whitter said. “Naturally, Docker’s men took their cue from him. They made jokes about Korbick, not to his face but behind his back. And one night, sir, they took out their spite against him in a way you wouldn’t think white men were capable of.” He fixed a righteous stare on Docker. “While he was sitting in the tin barrel he took baths in, I hate to say this in front of the lady here, they dumped a helmetful of latrine dirt over Sergeant Korbick’s head. Ruined a fine man’s army career, turned him into the kind of person you see and laugh at in some nuthouse. And all that because he was putting the blocks to that Jew-boy, Gelnick, trying to make it plain to him that the things he got away with where he came from just didn’t sit right with the people running this man’s army...”

There was a mindless anger in Whitter’s voice now, a gleam of sweat like oil on his forehead. He paused to take a deep breath but before he could say another word Major Karsh removed his glasses and looked evenly at him, the rictus smile back. And as Whitter opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, once again glancing nervously toward Docker, Karsh sighed, dropped his pencil on the table and said, “The board has expressed its appreciation for your earlier testimony, lieutenant.”

He rapped gently on the table with his knuckles. “We’ll recess now, gentlemen, and reconvene at fourteen hundred hours.”

The weather had turned colder. A feathery snow was dissolving on the surface of the river. Docker sat on an iron bench under bare poplar trees and looked through the tracery of a bridge toward buildings that had been battered into rubble by bombs and rockets.

He smoked a cigarette and thought of Gelnick, the Hogman, with his squinting, suspicious eyes (and what good reasons he had to be suspicious) and the flecks and crumbs of food that frequently ringed his mustache, and he thought of Gelnick’s wife, Doris, whom he had never met or even seen a picture of, and remembered the way Larkin had described her, and the ache (intended or not, you couldn’t tell with Larkin) there had been in the words he had used. Not your all-American cheerleader type, Larkin had said, little, almost thin, but great legs and great black hair and brown eyes that made you think she could be Spanish or something... When he looked away from the river he saw Elspeth Corey walking through a park on the opposite side of the boulevard. He had an impulse to join her but hesitated because he felt it probably wouldn’t be proper under the circumstances... A military convoy pulling 75-millimeter cannons rolled past, and when it was gone, the big tires grinding solidly through the grime of sleet and ice in the street. Docker saw no one in the park, except two old women in black coats gathering fallen twigs under the trees.

When Docker returned to the Hotel Empire an hour later, the double doors to the ballroom were open and the MP corporal was not at his post. Karsh was seated alone at the conference table, glancing through a sheaf of typewritten pages. There were no other papers on the table or on the desk that Sergeant Corey had been using. Everything else was gone, too — note pads, files, coffee cups and even the mason jars that had held sharpened pencils.

Major Karsh observed Docker’s reactions and smiled. “Sit down, lieutenant,” he said. “Have a cigarette, if you like. This is no longer the seat of First Army’s special board of inquiry.” The major glanced around and snapped his fingers. “Like that, the hearings are over and we have only a few last details to check out.”

Docker took off his overcoat, folded it on Sergeant Corey’s desk and sat down facing the major.

“You’re surprised, I’m sure,” Karsh said.

“In addition to that, I’m pretty damn curious.”

“That’s a normal reaction, but the explanation is simple. During our recess I telephoned Colonel Rankin. After we discussed the matter, he agreed with my recommendation to terminate the hearings.”

“Then you and the colonel agreed on a verdict?”

“No, we didn’t,” Karsh said. He took a leather cigarette case and a Zippo lighter from a pocket of his tunic and put them on the table. “There is no verdict, lieutenant. No conclusions or recommendations, not even any educated guesses.”

“Then can I ask you what the hell this charade was all about?”

“Of course, you can. But it was no charade. I can assure you this board of inquiry wasn’t convened for trivial or ulterior reasons. We hoped to get the truth, or a good piece of the truth in regard to Private Jackson Baird. I’ve now decided that isn’t possible. You and I could sit across this table exchanging questions and answers for” — Karsh paused to light a cigarette — “for another week or another month, but we still wouldn’t be any closer to agreeing on the truth of these issues. It’s like that black whiskey your gunner cooked up for Section Eight. Personally, I’d accept your version of what occurred at Utah Beach. But do you think you could convince Lieutenant Whitter of that?”

“I wouldn’t bother—”

“Then you see my point.”

“Yes, but I don’t think you see mine, major. I wouldn’t bother because it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference one way or the other, that whiskey is no more important than the sears we filed off our rifles, or the helmet of crap dumped over Korbick’s head. The important question from the start was whether or not Jackson Baird deserted his post under fire. And now you’ve called the hearings off because you say there’s no answer to it.”

Karsh frowned down at his Zippo lighter, which was decorated on each side with tiny replicas of the First Army shoulder patch — the letter A in black on a field of gray.

“It’s a difficult question, lieutenant.” He blew a fat smoke ring then, and broke its symmetry with a flick of his finger.

“However, I didn’t say I couldn’t answer it. What I suggested was that we probably couldn’t find an answer we could agree on. If you want my opinion, based on the boy’s bloodlines, I would say no to the question. The Baird family didn’t put its name in the history books and on grave markers across the country’s bloodiest battlefields by breeding cowards. But we’re not talking about something as uncomplicated as studs and mares and bloodlines—”

“No, I presume we are still talking about your gray areas,” Docker said.

“You can disparage that legal and moral no-man’s-land if you want, but in all warfare, and that includes business and politics and every other form of human competition I know about, there are very few blacks and whites. Docker. Which is why the world needs judges and juries who can hear both sides of an argument and establish some ground rules for compromise.”

Docker didn’t entirely disagree, but wasn’t sure he needed the lecture.

Major Karsh blew another smoke ring, seemed pleased by its completeness, and poked a finger through it. “Practically everything we touched on in these hearings had a couple of different shadings to it. We know the Baird youngster soldiered well in your section, and that he fought and died, not just honorably but even heroically. That’s a series of events we can call facts. As for the rest of it... who’s to say? Matter of fact, who’s to say about your friend Larkin?...”

Larkin? What the hell, Docker thought. He suspected Karsh had been talking, at least partly, to justify himself for the way he’d grilled him. It had been pretty clear to him, after a while, that the hearing was designed to reach one conclusion — the exoneration of Baird — regardless of what he or anybody else said, and Karsh seemed to need to make this right — for himself as well as Docker...

Karsh pointed the tip of his cigarette at Docker. “Yes, Larkin, lieutenant. He’s somebody else who told you something incriminating about himself — I’m accepting for the moment what you said Baird told you. But take it a few steps further. You also said Larkin had never been involved in anything like black-marketing. The Germans were on their way. You gave him a mission to take a little Jewish girl to a safe place. Who’s to say he didn’t change his mind about the black market goods, decide not to go through with it after, or maybe even before, he delivered that little girl? Are we supposed to take the word of Bonnard, a known dealer in contraband and probably a German collaborator? Maybe Larkin was no more guilty of what even you, his good friend, thought he was, than Baird. I’m willing to consider that possibility, are you? You wanted to know what this so-called charade was all about. A fair shake for a couple of good soldiers... that’s what it was about... at least for me...”

That last was said mostly under his breath, but Docker caught it. He didn’t buy any more than before that that was all there was behind it, but still, the underlying point was the same one that had occurred to him during the hearings, and it wouldn’t go away. He picked up Karsh’s cigarette lighter, watched the light gleaming on the square black A painted on its side. He put it down, looked at Karsh. “Major, could I have another look at the statement I gave to Captain Grant?” Docker suddenly felt very tired. “The one we decided to call File A, I believe.”

“Of course,” Karsh said. “I’ll call Brabant Park and have a copy sent over by courier. May I ask why?”

“I’m not really sure. Can you understand that?”

“I think so. You want to be very sure. Isn’t that it?”

Docker nodded slowly. “I remember the words Baird used, and how his voice sounded. I understood the words, but I’m not sure now that he did.”

Karsh looked at him. “Do you want to make what you’ve just told me a part of the record, lieutenant?”

“Yes,” Docker said. “If I can get it straight in my own mind.”

“But why rip at yourself this way? I believe I know what you’re thinking, and writing briefs is my line of country. Why not let me put your thoughts in an amendment to File A? And to adjust the transcript of the hearings? I could have both documents delivered to your hotel within a few hours. You just sign them and we’ll put an end to this business.” Karsh stood and came around the table. “Doesn’t that make sense, lieutenant?”

Docker nodded because it did make sense, he thought, standing and pulling on his overcoat.

The major walked across the room with Docker, a hand resting lightly on his shoulder in a gesture of support and encouragement.

“I’m hosting a little party here at the hotel tonight,” he said. “Some of General Adamson’s people and a few local bureaucrats. Would you care to stop by after supper?”

“Thanks, but I’d better get back to my unit.”

“Then I’ll say good-bye to you here.” Karsh smiled, not the rictus — this time — and took the cigarette lighter from his pocket. “I saw you looking at this. A driver in our motor pool makes them up for us. Would you care to have one as a souvenir of the hearings?”

“Thanks, but why not give it to Sergeant Corey? I noticed that she smokes.”

Karsh nodded. “All right. I’ll do that tonight. With the lieutenant’s compliments.”

They had stopped under the tall arch of the double doors. Docker turned and looked back into the ballroom, where the light from the windows and chandeliers caught sparks in the golden ceiling and fell softly across the old carpets and empty tables and chairs.

He stepped back a pace, gave Karsh a salute and went down to the lobby and out into the snow blowing through the streets.