A Midnight Clear. William Wharton

      ‘You won’t believe it, Wont.’

      The rest of the squad has scrambled, sprinted or crawled over to us. Maybe nobody could ever lead this bunch of gregarious genii. The trouble is they always want to know. Wilkins leans down from beside the gun.

      ‘What was it, Mundy? What’s in there? Is there a German patrol?’

      ‘It’s OK, Vance. Only I wasn’t expecting it. I don’t know what’s going on, but you all ought to go look. I’m not exactly sure what I saw. I was so scared I took off without looking much.’

      Shutzer pushes himself up, wiping the frost and dirt from his knees and elbows.

      ‘What’d you see, Father, a little grotto with a mysterious light coming out of it and this lady dressed all in shining blue and white who talked to you? Come on, tell us!’

      Mundy gives Shutzer one of his ‘forgive them, Father’ looks.

      ‘OK, wise guy, what would you think of a German and an American soldier dancing together in the woods there; without music yet?’

      Shutzer’s climbing up to take Wilkins’s place behind the fifty caliber. He should really be squad leader. That’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to think of. He slips into place while Mother Wilkins lets himself slide off the side of the jeep. He must be frozen. Gordon shakes some snow out of his glove.

      ‘What’s this? Father Mundy bucking for Section Eight? Well, fan my jawbone. A little counseling might help, Father; my office hours are two till five. I think I can squeeze you in.’

      It’s time to play sergeant.

      ‘OK, Mundy, let’s see whatever it is. Shutzer, you stay here and cover. Miller, you give us cross fire from behind the other jeep.’

      I figure Miller can get his smoke in up there while we’re gone.

      We start into the woods, rifles at the ready. We get to the spot; Mundy picks up his helmet and points to the left.

      I’m almost ready to believe anything; but I have a hard time with this. They look like a statue. They’ve been standing long enough so the last snows have sprinkled helmets and shoulders like powdered sugar. We advance slowly, Gordon in the lead.

      Somebody’s propped an American and a German soldier against each other in the final of final embraces. Their arms and legs are cocked so they look like waltzers, or ice skaters about to move off into some intricate figure. I stop; I don’t want to look. Mundy and Gordon go on, with Mother behind them; then Mother turns around and comes back.

      ‘I don’t understand, Wont. What’s going on? Who’s standing up these corpses? It’s crazy! This whole war’s gone off the track somehow!’

      I shake my head. I’m afraid if I talk I’ll start bawling. It’s not so much I’m scared; more confused, disgusted, discouraged. I stand there, rifle at the ready, pretending I’m doing something military, while Mundy and Gordon untangle the bodies and lower them to the ground. Mundy does his ersatz Extreme Unction thing, Gordon hovering over the bodies.

      I have time to pull myself together. Gordon and Mundy come back and we move toward the jeeps without saying anything. Even for a bunch of self-proclaimed smart asses with a wisecrack for almost anything, there isn’t much to say.

      Shutzer and Miller won’t believe it when we tell them. They’ve got to go in and see for themselves. We tell them they aren’t ‘dancing’ anymore, how Mundy and Gordon let them down, but they want to check. Faith is going out of style, even in our squad, despite Mundy’s heroic last-ditch efforts.

      We get the rations, grenades, camouflage suits and other junk, including twelve mini chess sets, packed tight in the jeep; Mother climbs in with me behind the fifty. Gordon starts the other jeep and rolls close behind ours.

      When Shutzer and Miller come back, Shutzer’s like a lunatic.

      ‘Those filthy, Nazi, Kraut-headed, super-Aryan, mother-fucking bastards. Only pigs would even think of a thing like that. That whole Goddamned country doesn’t deserve to live with human beings. We should shove them in their gas ovens and wipe them all out. I personally would be glad to supervise the entire operation.

      ‘And don’t give me any crap, Mundy! You tell me why anybody’d do something like that to anybody else! What kind of God lets things like that happen?’

      Mundy’s sitting in the other jeep. He’s quiet. Then he looks at Shutzer climbing in beside him.

      ‘Yes, it’s a terrible thing, Stan, a horrible way to treat the temple of the Holy Ghost, even if the immortal soul has departed. But we don’t know for sure the Germans did that.’

      Miller turns over our jeep and guns the motor so I just pick up what Shutzer says.

      ‘For Chrissake; who else, Mundy, gremlins?’

      We go along slowly, twisting, turning; up and down hills, around cuts in mountains, under snow-covered trees. I stay behind the fifty, head ducked tight into my shoulders, trying to follow on the map where we’re going. It’s a small sector map of the one Love had, a contour job, an inch to a thousand feet, so it should be reasonably accurate. But we’re making more twists and turns than are shown.

      ‘What’s the mileage, Bud?’

      He looks down at the odometer.

      ‘We’ve come about six and two-tenths so far, since K Company.’

      We go through a narrow defile and suddenly there’s a bridge over a small stream, the bridge I’ve been looking for, the one we’re supposed to watch.

      Up a steep road from this bridge is the château. I mean it’s really a château, not just a fancy house. It isn’t all that big, but this is something from a French fairy tale.

      Miller glides to a stop; I hand-signal back to Gordon. We turn off both motors and listen. It’s quiet except for winter birds, running water and the sound of wind through pines. Slopes of forest come down behind, close to the château. Looking at the bridge, I can see there’s no vehicle or foot traffic marks. It appears the place really might be deserted.

      We scramble out of our jeeps. Gordon takes the scope and inches forward to a tree nearest the château with a good view and some cover. He leans the scope against this tree and scans everything for maybe five minutes.

      Nobody’s saying anything. All of us are staring at that château. It’s built in pinkish-gray stone with a blue-gray slate roof and white shutters. All the shutters are closed. It’s three stories tall and has a mansard roof. It doesn’t look real.

      Gordon comes back.

      ‘I don’t see anything, Wont: no smoke, no movement, no tracks. The windows and doors are all closed; there are no vehicles and no smells.’

      ‘What do you think, Mel? Send in a two-man patrol or just charge up that hill with the jeeps?’

      ‘I thought Shutzer and I could ford the creek downstream a ways and approach from that side. We can look around back, then come on down the road in front to the bridge and check for mines. How’s that sound?’

      ‘We’ll spread out and cover for you.’

      If Mel hadn’t gotten trench foot in the mud at Metz, he’d sure as hell be squad leader and that’s the way it should be. Or maybe he’d be dead.

      He and Shutzer start down through the trees. I pass the word for everybody to spread out and be ready to give covering fire if they need it. I slide down to Gordon’s tree, where there’s a good field of fire.

      I watch as they ford the narrow stream on some rocks. Shutzer slips and dunks one foot up over his boot top. They clamber uphill on the château’s left, keeping the hill between themselves and the windows.

      It’s like watching a war or cowboy movie, actually more a cowboy movie with the good guys sneaking up on the shack where the cavalry colonel’s beautiful