said.
Sergeant Pine had slid back the door three inches from the jamb. “It sure ain’t Kansas, sir,” he replied. “I’d say we’re in the outhouse.”
I crawled to the door and looked out. The countryside was shrouded with fog that resembled and smelled like industrial smoke, rather than vapor from rivers and lakes, the sun a lemon-colored piece of shaved ice on the horizon. There were bomb craters, rows of them, in fields that could have contained no military importance. “Sometimes the flyboys pickle the load before they get to the Channel,” Pine said.
“We need to get off the train,” I said.
“Sir, I found something at the other end of the car. There wasn’t just livestock in here. There’s human feces stacked in the corner. It’s frozen. That’s why there wasn’t any stink,” he said. “You think there were POWs in this car?”
“GIs or Brits would have marked up the walls,” I said.
“You’re saying maybe this train carries Jews, sir?”
“Who else would it be?”
“I’m not sure, Lieutenant. I don’t know if I believe those stories.”
“You saw the SS at work.”
“That doesn’t make the stories true.”
“Maybe not.” The train was going faster and faster, the boxcar shaking, the lines of chaff on the floor eddying back and forth like seawater sliding across sand.
“I’ve never been this hungry. I’d eat the splinters out of the wall. You reckon we’re going to get out of this, sir?”
“If not, it won’t be for lack of trying.”
“Can I ask what you did in civilian life, Lieutenant? The reason I ask is you were having a dream. You said something about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the outlaws. Dreaming about those two has got to be a new one.”
“I knew them. Friends of my grandfather killed them. My grandfather was a Texas Ranger who put John Wesley Hardin in jail. I went to school in Texas and Louisiana and have a degree in history from Texas A&M and plan to go to graduate school and become an anthropologist. Does that help you out?”
“Jesus Christ, sir.”
“What is it now?” I said, my attempt at affability starting to slip.
“Look yonder,” he replied. He pointed through the crack in the door.
Two fighters made a wide turn in the sky and came in low, right down on the deck, directly out of the sun, the muzzles of their fifty-caliber machine guns winking. A white star inside a blue red-rimmed disk was painted on their wings. I saw dirt spout in a straight line across a cultivated field just before I heard the rounds smack like a bucket of marbles into the sides of the boxcars. It was thrilling to see my countrymen appear almost miraculously in the sky, their wings emblazoned with an insignia we associated with the light of civilization. Unfortunately, our countrymen were shooting at us as well as at the enemy.
The planes roared overhead and made another turn and came in for a second pass, this time with rockets mounted under their wings. The rockets caught the locomotive dead-on, blowing the cab and the boiler apart, the coal car jackknifing and taking half a dozen boxcars down the embankment with it.
Our boxcar rolled to a slow halt and was stock-still on the tracks. The sergeant and I pushed open the sliding door and began running down a ditch that led to a canal overgrown on both banks with scrub brush and gnarled trees, so grotesque in their disfiguration that I wondered if they had been sprayed with herbicide. The current in the canal was brown and sluggish, more like sewage than creek water, the air as thick and gray as the inside of a damp cotton glove. Above the canal was a narrow, rutted road, bone-white in color, a viscous green rivulet running down its center. I thought I heard a sound like a metal sign clanging in the wind. I climbed up the embankment to see farther down the road, with no success. The wind changed direction, and the sergeant cupped his hand over his nose and mouth, trying not to gag. “God, what’s that
Sergeant Pine had slid back the door three inches from the jamb. “It sure ain’t Kansas, sir,” he replied. “I’d say we’re in the outhouse.”
I crawled to the door and looked out. The countryside was shrouded with fog that resembled and smelled like industrial smoke, rather than vapor from rivers and lakes, the sun a lemon-colored piece of shaved ice on the horizon. There were bomb craters, rows of them, in fields that could have contained no military importance. “Sometimes the flyboys pickle the load before they get to the Channel,” Pine said.
“We need to get off the train,” I said.
“Sir, I found something at the other end of the car. There wasn’t just livestock in here. There’s human feces stacked in the corner. It’s frozen. That’s why there wasn’t any stink,” he said. “You think there were POWs in this car?”
“GIs or Brits would have marked up the walls,” I said.
“You’re saying maybe this train carries Jews, sir?”
“Who else would it be?”
“I’m not sure, Lieutenant. I don’t know if I believe those stories.”
“You saw the SS at work.”
“That doesn’t make the stories true.”
“Maybe not.” The train was going faster and faster, the boxcar shaking, the lines of chaff on the floor eddying back and forth like seawater sliding across sand.
“I’ve never been this hungry. I’d eat the splinters out of the wall. You reckon we’re going to get out of this, sir?”
“If not, it won’t be for lack of trying.”
“Can I ask what you did in civilian life, Lieutenant? The reason I ask is you were having a dream. You said something about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the outlaws. Dreaming about those two has got to be a new one.”
“I knew them. Friends of my grandfather killed them. My grandfather was a Texas Ranger who put John Wesley Hardin in jail. I went to school in Texas and Louisiana and have a degree in history from Texas A&M and plan to go to graduate school and become an anthropologist. Does that help you out?”
“Jesus Christ, sir.”
“What is it now?” I said, my attempt at affability starting to slip.
“Look yonder,” he replied. He pointed through the crack in the door.
Two fighters made a wide turn in the sky and came in low, right down on the deck, directly out of the sun, the muzzles of their fifty-caliber machine guns winking. A white star inside a blue red-rimmed disk was painted on their wings. I saw dirt spout in a straight line across a cultivated field just before I heard the rounds smack like a bucket of marbles into the sides of the boxcars. It was thrilling to see my countrymen appear almost miraculously in the sky, their wings emblazoned with an insignia we associated with the light of civilization. Unfortunately, our countrymen were shooting at us as well as at the enemy.
The planes roared overhead and made another turn and came in for a second pass, this time with rockets mounted under their wings. The rockets caught the locomotive dead-on, blowing the cab and the boiler apart, the coal car jackknifing and taking half a dozen boxcars down the embankment with it.
Our boxcar rolled to a slow halt and was stock-still on the tracks. The sergeant and I pushed open the sliding door and began running down a ditch that led to a canal overgrown on both banks with scrub brush and gnarled trees, so grotesque in their disfiguration that I wondered if they had been sprayed with herbicide. The current in the canal was brown and sluggish, more like sewage than creek water, the air as thick and gray as the inside of a damp cotton glove. Above the canal was a narrow, rutted road, bone-white in color, a viscous green rivulet running down its center. I thought I heard a sound like a metal sign clanging in the wind. I climbed up the embankment to see farther down the road, with no success. The wind changed direction, and the sergeant cupped his hand over his nose and mouth, trying not to gag. “God, what’s that
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