Dulce et Decorum Est

That yell brought the staff running. I was starting to get dressed as the nurse arrived. She said sternly, "You have GOT to get back in that bed Mr. Scheffler!"

I said, "I can't, I have to go to London and find my wife." Then, I began to pull on my shoes. Then there were a couple of confusing seconds, involving a couple of burly orderlies and a doctor with a hypodermic needle and I woke up the following day in a slightly more rational state.

I accepted that both Jane and Peter were gone, taking all of my reason to live with them. But I wasn't going to kill myself over it. I was going to let the Germans do it for me. I planned to put myself in situations that would make Ernie Pyle look like a pussy.

Wechsler knew what I was thinking. But he couldn't exactly accuse me of wanting to off-myself. So, he embedded me with Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. They were the forward observers for the American 155 Long-Toms. It was frustrating since it wasn't at the spearhead of the attack where I'd wanted to be.

Wechsler must have thought that he'd gotten me far enough out of the action that I couldn't accomplish what I had in mind. How WRONG he was!! A week later I was interviewing the battery commander for an article for Stars and Stripes when he got urgent orders to move the entire battery from Schevenhutte to St. Vith.

I asked him why the whole VII Corps was shifting south, and he didn't know. Later that day we learned that earlier that morning the Krauts had launched a huge offensive, later nicknamed "The Battle of the Bulge," into the Ardennes.

We left Schevenhutte at 0800 the next day in jeeps and deuce-and-a-halfs. We turned southwest and then south down secondary roads through Eynatten and Eupen. We then passed through the Baraque Michel moors to a crossroads north of Malmédy.

It was a typical day in Belgium, gloomy and overcast, with a freezing wind. Everybody who ever served in that dour country thinks that it's the place where God will stick the hose if he ever wants to give the earth an enema. As we got into Malmédy proper, we were stopped by a Colonel who told us that one of his patrols had seen a German armored column southeast of there.

He warned the two officers leading us that they shouldn't proceed any farther. But those two pigheaded morons wouldn't listen. I was two jeeps back, and I heard them arguing that they had their orders and besides, there was no way the Germans could be that far west. So we went a few miles further down the road to Baugnez, which is where five roads meet. Of course, we Americans called it, "Five Points."

The only building at the crossroads was a Café, on the southwest side with two farms beyond, and another farm on the north side of the road, just south of the Five Points junction. That would become very important to me later on.

Our column stretched about a half a mile north-to-south from where I was situated at the front, all the way back to the crossroads. It was shortly after noon and the visibility was lousy because it was so overcast. The temperature hovered barely above freezing and there was some fog along with the light snow. It was miserable.

That's when a tank round from the non-existent Germans blew up the first jeep. I later learned that we'd stumbled onto the lead elements of Kampfgruppe Peiper. The Kampfgruppe's commander was a Waffen-SS Colonel named Joachim Peiper. His force was the lead element of the First Panzer Division, Leibstandarte SS Adolph Hitler. It was spearheading the push toward the Meuse River.

Pieper was renowned as a brilliant panzer leader, but he must have been feeling frustrated that day. The first American units he'd encountered had put up a much tougher fight than they'd expected. So, he was twelve hours behind his critical attack schedule.

Our convoy only had carbines and jeeps to fight Tiger and Panther tanks. So, we did the logical thing. We hauled ass into the ditches. The German tank commander stopped his shooting and waved his arm in our direction indicating that we were to surrender and march back up the road to Five Points. By 14:00 the Krauts had 113 of us assembled in the snowy field next to the Café.

I could see that Pieper was furious at yet another delay. He yelled at the guy in the tank for a couple of minutes and that fellow then jumped into one of their halftracks and rode it over to where we were all forlornly standing. Somebody stood up in the front of the thing and that was when the shooting started.

It was all over by four thirty. The Germans went their merry way, leaving nothing but stillness and a field strewn with mutilated bodies.

I might have had a serious head wound. But I swear that I wasn't hallucinating when I heard Jane's voice whisper to me, "You have to survive, my love. Peter and I will only be truly dead when everybody else's memory of us fades." THAT hit me like Saul on the road to Damascus. I couldn't let the remembrance of my dearest ones fade into nothingness.

Likewise, the sheer inhumanity of what had just occurred filled me with rage. The rest of the world had to know what species of barbarian they were dealing with. So, lying there with my face ground into the frozen turf I made a solemn vow. I was a reporter. I would publicize this atrocity and the world would never forget Jane and Peter.

It was almost full dark, and there were no sounds. I carefully extricated myself from the pile of bodies and stood up. The world shifted, and I immediately fell flat on my face. My left leg was only vaguely under my control, and I couldn't feel my left arm.

I knew that I had to get into cover. It was freezing and the Germans might come back. I struggled to my feet, awkwardly balanced, and took a step with my right leg. That moved me perhaps a foot and a half. I dragged my uncooperative left leg back beneath me, balanced and took another step.

There was a barn less than a quarter of a mile away, which was approximately thirteen hundred feet. Each awkward step took me a foot and a half closer. Which meant that I'd only need eight-hundred and eighty steps to reach my goal.

I had my cheap glow-in-the-dark military watch on. So, I used it to chart my progress. I could manage a step every ten seconds. Which meant that I would cover the requisite distance in a little over a hundred and forty minutes -- or two and a half hours. It seemed like an impossible task, but Jane and Peter were depending on me, and I couldn't let them down.

I was beginning to hallucinate as I stepped-balanced-and dragged myself past obscene piles of bodies. I knew that I was going to freeze to death if I didn't keep moving. It was well below zero, as the temperature dropped in the dark.

I swear I could feel Jane's presence on one side and Peter's on the other helping me along. It gave me the strength to finally lurch through the door of the old barn and bury myself in a big rack of hay. I instantly fell asleep, or perhaps the term is "passed out."

I came back to the living with the sound of an engine outside the barn. The sun was shining through the gaps in the boards. It was morning. My left side was almost useless. But I found I could turn myself over. So, I rolled across the floor and peeked out. Hallelujah!! I saw an American jeep with two soldiers.

I started making loud, oddly inarticulate croaking noises. Was that me trying to yell??! The jeep stopped and a minute later I felt strong hands lifting me. A voice said, "We've got you buddy. You're going to be all right." In my head I could hear Jane say, "We made it my love."

The jeep was from the unit guarding Malmedy. The Colonel, who had warned the two fools in the lead jeep about the Germans, had heard the shooting and he'd sent out recon to try to determine what happened. They'd already found that dreadful field and now they were checking around to see if anybody had survived.

I went the typical casualty route, battalion aid-station, to regional hospital and then evacuated to the general military hospital in Paris. I was out of my mind most of the time.

Emergency surgery remedied the depressed skull fracture, which was the reason my left side wouldn't cooperate. There was no bleeding in my brain. So, they installed a steel plate and sent me back to the wards. I would have to stay away from metal detectors and strong magnets from then on.

*****

I awoke in heaven. It must have been heaven because Jane was holding my hand and Peter was looking down at me with concern. The moment I opened my eyes Jane began to cry. It was almost like she was real. She called over her shoulder, "Nurse!! He's awake!!"

That was odd. Why would you need a nurse in paradise? A kindly woman in starched white, bustled up exuding competence. She took my pulse and flashed a little light in my eyes. That hurt!! I thought things were supposed to stop hurting in heaven. Yikes!! Maybe I was someplace else?

I said panicked, "Where am I?" The Nurse gave me a bleak smile and said, "You're in the critical care ward of the 194th Evac in the Lycée Claude Bernard Mr. Scheffler. Your wife and child are here because your editor has a lot of influence with our command staff."

I looked at Jane, or maybe it was her ghost and said, "Are you real?" She certainly LOOKED real.

Jane burst into tears. Still squeezing my hand she said, "Of course I am you silly goose. What would make you think otherwise?"

I said, "But Wechsler told me our entire block was blown to smithereens."

Jane laughed and said, "That would have been us if we'd been there. But Peter and I were in Cambridge arranging for his rooms at Kings. They gave him early admission, don't you recall?" She added lightly, like I was my usual forgetful self, "You never remember those things."

Jane had missed the fact that I thought they were dead. I thought it best not to bring that up, given that I had tried to kill myself over the news. Instead, I just looked at her dumbfounded.

Jane continued. "We came back to find a hole where our lovely home had been." She laughed ironically and said, "I guess I should get used to having that happen." Then she added seriously, "I sent you a v-mail letter telling you about it." I'd probably get it next month.

Jane's face turned sad, "I found out that you had been wounded right after I sent you the letter. So, I called Mr. Wechsler and begged him to get me over here to visit you. He fixed it up with the Army. He said he owed it to you, whatever that signifies."

I knew what it signified, a tragedy of errors and miscommunication. You can't expect there to be any bodies after a ton of explosives delivered from fifty miles up hits your house. So, the authorities, "just assumed."

Wechsler had heard about it right away. He knew what losing my family would do to me and he'd chosen to break the news personally. I realized on balance, that Jim Wechsler was just trying to be a good friend. So I decided not to kill him after all.

Of course, when Jane and Peter showed up the next day there was no need for the authorities to report anything and Wechsler was never informed. He'd only found out that he'd jumped the gun when Jane called him to ask for his help. Hence, he was absolutely right. He owed me.

So, while I was being transported down from St. Vith Wechsler had used his leverage to get Jane and Peter on a C-47 to Le Bourget. There was something dripping into my arm, my head was torturing me, and it was the happiest moment of my life.

Jane was beside herself over the ghastliness of my wound. I have to admit that I must have looked like a Sikh with my head wrapped in plaster and bandages. But I knew that I'd get better. The important thing was that we were alive together and I appeared to have all of my faculties.

Peter was hanging back in his shy, self-effacing way. I motioned to him. He came over to the bed and I took his hand with the one that Jane wasn't holding and said, "You did your duty. I'm proud of you, my son."

Peter's demeanor went from Ivanhoe to frightened little boy in seconds. He threw himself face first on my chest and began to sob. He said, "I thought I'd lost you, father." His mother joined him from the other side of the bed, and we all wept.

*****

The bullet that hit my tin pot had come at an angle. In fact it might have been a ricochet. But it grazed past the side of my skull forcefully enough to crack it and depress the boundary between my frontal and parietal lobes. There was no bleeding on the brain, just concussive shock. As a result, once the pressure was relieved my abused brain started to heal.

Several weeks passed and the people overseeing me were confident that there was no lasting damage. I'd already filed a story about what happened at Malmedy. That was on December 28th, a mere ten days after I'd been rescued. Jane typed it from my bedside because I was still incapacitated. But the word had to get out.

The article appeared in Stars and Stripes the following Friday. The news of the massacre, spread like wildfire among American units. The new attitude was, "If they want to fight that way then so can we." My reporter colleagues told me that very few SS prisoners were taken alive after that.

My survival got me back to minor celebrity status. It was a puzzlement how the simple act of being captured and shot qualified me as a hero. But of course, I was one of the few remaining eyewitnesses. So, my story was in demand.

I got a literary agent, which led to a substantial advance for a book. It wasn't best seller cash. But Jane and I suddenly had more money than either of us could imagine. That was fortunate because I'd been more-or-less kicked out of the Army.

Well actually... I was never IN the Army. But there was no way Wechsler would let me go near the fighting now, and the military didn't want to embed me with a plate in my head. So, I just stayed home and wrote commentary for the AP wire.

We were in Paris because I had to be near the American hospital for rehab. We'd rented a place on the Rue Guynemer across from the Luxembourg Gardens. It was incredibly opulent by normal standards. Of course our usual standards involved a one room flat and a small semi-detached house.

Paris in March isn't as romantic as it is in May. But the grass is green and there is the beginning of the leaves and flowers. We were sitting in the Luxembourg near the Statue of Liberty. I hear you asking, "Statue of Liberty??!!" Yes indeed - there's an exact replica in the Jardin du Luxembourg, except it's only thirty feet high. It was the model that the guy who built the one in New York used.

Peter was leaving for the Easter term at Cambridge, which is a monumental step for a fifteen-year-old boy. But my son was already a very cool customer. He was excited. On the other hand, his parents were watching a milestone pass and they were sentimental - at best. You know how it is when one era of your life ends. You only see the little boy, not the young man.

Peter was taller than me now and starting to fill out. His sweet choir-boy voice had deepened to a soft-spoken man's tone. But he still had the special manly beauty that he'd always possessed. I think that was the reason why the little girl, who had been playing with two others approached him.

I say little girl because she was tiny and perhaps eight, or nine. But this blond angel had the self-assurance of Charles De Gaulle. She came up to Peter and said, "Voulez-vous marcher avec moi?"

Peter looked at her puzzled and said in pidgin French, "Ne parle Français." She switched immediately to English, "Would you like to tour around the garden with me?" She really was a gorgeous little thing with bright blue eyes and a halo of blond hair. But the extraordinary part about her was her self-assurance.

Her mother came bustling up with the other two girls. She was a beauty, huge brown eyes, and a perfect face. In many ways she was Jane's doppelganger, at least when it came to looks and presence. Except my wife radiated steadfast camaraderie, while this one had the je ne sais quoi "something" that only sophisticated and knowing French women have.

The woman said in perfect English, "I'm sorry about Josette. She's really a twenty-five-year-old woman trapped in a little girl's body. She has no concept that she's only eight." Since that pretty-much described my son I laughed and said, "My boy's the same way. They must be fellow travelers."

The woman added, "Josette's relentless when she makes a decision and she's very brave. Nothing stops her, and apparently, she fancies your son." Peter blushed the loveliest shade of scarlet.

I said, "Well maybe they'll meet again someday. But he leaves for Cambridge tomorrow."

The woman said interested, "He looks too young to be at university."

I said, "He is - by two whole years. Nonetheless the people up there think he's ready to begin advanced study and of course we want him to have all the advantages." I didn't add that that simple decision had saved both Peter and Jane's life.

The woman turned and collected her wayward daughter. As they were walking away, she said, "I wish you well Peter," and Josette called back confidently, "I WILL see you again."

*****

There was a stone balcony off our second-floor bedroom. Jane, and I liked to sit there in the early evening. We'd look out over the Luxembourg, talk, and sometimes just sit there holding hands, reveling in each other's presence.

Even so, there was a sizeable pachyderm sitting between us every night. It was the important piece of information that I was holding back from my wife... and I hated it. Jane just assumed that my wounding was due to me being stupid, not suicidal. Of course, that wasn't true, and you just don't keep something that brutally self-revelatory from your wife.

I should have manned-up and told her about my short trip into insanity. But I didn't have the guts. I mean seriously!! How could I admit that I'd been THAT weak and hope to keep her respect.

I've always had a hard time sharing my feelings. Peter and I are very much alike in that respect. His excuse is that he's British. Mine, no-doubt, has something to do with watching too many Hollywood westerns. At any rate, I couldn't bring myself to say, "Hey guess what... I thought you were dead, so I tried to off-myself." It would simply be too embarrassing.

The weather had turned uncharacteristically spring-like, and we were sipping a really superb Bordeaux. I don't remember what we were talking about. But whatever it was, I finally just blurted it out. Okay - I admit it. My relationship skills need serious work.

I said with deep pain in my voice, "There's something I really have to tell you."

Jane stared at me shocked. She'd read my anguish and she must have thought that I was about to tell her that I preferred men, or I'd like to see her hog-tied in leather.

I said, "You've probably been wondering why I was so close to the front when I was wounded."

She looked relieved and then puzzled. She said, "Well it DID cross my mind. But I thought you were doing something silly like when you went on that bombing raid."

Then she stopped and said lovingly, "I know it's been bothering you. So, I want to assure you that I forgive you for whatever it was."

I said, "What if I told you I was trying to kill myself." She looked aghast and whispered, "What?!"

I said, with all of the grief that I'd experienced when it first happened, "I thought that you and Peter were dead, and I couldn't bear it!!!" Then I dropped my head in my hands. What would she think of me!! I couldn't even look at her.

Jane said, "Why would you think something that awful." Then it hit her. She said with horror, "You thought that we were in the house!!!"

I said guiltily, "Yes -- that's what Jim Wechsler told me. I went a little bit nuts after that. And it just seemed like the right thing to do to join you."