The Young Lions

The hours passed in a long, cold, grey haze for Noah, and much later, when he tried to remember how he had felt, while the boat was rolling helplessly, its decks slimy with blood and sea water, and the shells hitting at random around him from time to time, he could only recall isolated, insignificant impressions – Burnecker's joke; Lieutenant Green bent over, holding his helmet with weird fastidiousness for a wounded man to vomit in; the face of the Naval Lieutenant in command of the landing craft, when he hung over the side to inspect the damage, red, angry, baffled, like a baseball player who has been victimized by a nearsighted umpire; Do

Fear came in waves, during which he could only crouch against the rail, helpless, holding his lips still, not thinking about anything. Then there were periods when he would feel above it all, as though it were not happening to him, as though this could never happen to him, and because it could not happen he could not be hurt, and if he could not be hurt there was nothing to be afraid of. Once he took out his wallet and gravely stared for a long time at the picture of Hope, smiling, holding a fat baby in her arms, the baby with its mouth wide open, yawning.

In the periods when he was not afraid, his mind seemed to run on without conscious direction from him, as though that part of him were bored with the day's activities and was amusing itself in recollections, like a schoolboy dreaming at his desk on a June day with the sun outside and the insects humming sleepily… Captain Colclough's speech in the staging area near Southampton a week before (was it only a week, in the sweet-smelling May woods, with the three good meals a day and the barrel of beer in the recreation tent, and the blossoms hanging over the tanks and ca

"This is the showdown, Men…" (Captain Colclough used the word "Men" twenty times in the speech.) "You're as well trained as any soldiers in the world. When you go on to that beach you're going to be better equipped, better trained, better prepared than the slimy bastards you're going to meet. Every advantage is going to be on your side. Now it is going to be a question of your guts against his. Men, you are going to go in there and kill the Kraut. That's all you're going to think about from this minute on, killing the bastards. Some of you are going to get hurt, Men, some of you are going to get killed. I'm not going to play it down or make it soft. Maybe a lot of you are going to get killed…" He spoke slowly, with satisfaction.

"That's what you're in the Army for, Men, that's why you're here, that's why you're going to be put on the beach. If you're not used to that idea yet, get used to it now. I'm not going to dress it up in patriotic speeches. Some of you are going to get killed, but you're going to kill a lot of Germans. If any man…" And here he found Noah and stared coldly at him, "If any man here thinks he is going to hold back, or shirk his duty in any way just to save his hide, let him remember that I am going to be along and I am going to see that everyone is going to do his share. This Company is going to be the best damned Company in the Division. I have made up my mind to it, Men. When this battle is over I expect to be promoted to Major. And you men are going to get that promotion for me. I've worked for you and now you are going to work for me. I have an idea the fat-arses in Special Service and Morale back in Washington wouldn't like this speech. They've had their chance at you, and I haven't interfered. They've filled you full of those goddamn pamphlets and noble sentiments and ping-pong balls, and I've just laid back and let them have their fun. I've let 'em baby you and give you soft titty to suck and put talcum powder on your backsides and make you believe you're all going to live for ever and the Army will take care of you like a mother. Now, they're finished, and you don't listen to anyone but me. And here's the gospel for you from now on – This Company is going to kill more Krauts than any other Company in the Division and I'm going to be made Major by July fourth, and if that means we're going to have more casualties than anybody else, all I can say is: See the Chaplain, Boys, you didn't come to Europe to tour the monuments. Sergeant, dismiss the Company."

"AttenSHUN! Company, disMISS!"

Captain Colclough had not been seen all day. Perhaps he was below decks preparing another speech to signalize their arrival in France, perhaps he was dead. And Lieutenant Green, who had never made a speech in his life, was pouring sulphanilamide into wounds and covering the dead and gri

At four-thirty in the afternoon, the Navy finally got the engines working as Lieutenant Green had promised, and fifteen minutes later the Landing Craft Infantry slid on to the beach. The beach looked busy and safe, with hundreds of men rushing back and forth, carrying ammunition boxes, piling rations, rolling wire, bringing back wounded, digging in for the night among the charred wrecks of barges and bulldozers and splintered field-pieces. The sound of small-arms fire was quite distant by now, on the other side of the bluff that overlooked the beach. Occasionally a mine went off, and occasionally a shell struck the sand, but it was clear that, for the time being, the beach was secured.

Captain Colclough appeared on deck as the Landing Craft nosed into the shallow water. He had a pearl-handled forty-five in the fancy leather holster at his side. It was a gift from his wife, he had once told somebody in the Company, and he wore it dashingly, low on his thigh, like a sheriff on the cover of a Western magazine.

An Amphibious Engineer Corporal was waving the craft on to the crowded beach. He looked weary, but at ease, as though he had spent most of his life on the coast of France under shell and machine-gun fire.

The ramp went down on the side of the Landing Craft, and Colclough started to lead his Company ashore. Only one of the ramps worked. The other had been torn away when the boat was hit.

Colclough went to the end of the ramp. It led down into the soft sand, and when the waves came in it was under almost three feet of water. Colclough stopped, one foot in the air. Then he pushed back on to the ramp.

"This way, Captain," called the Engineer Corporal.

"There's a mine down there," Colclough said. "Get those men…" he pointed to the rest of the squad of Engineers, who were working with a bulldozer, making a road up across the dunes, "… to come over here, and sweep this area."

"There's no mine there, Captain," said the Corporal wearily.

"I said I saw a mine, Corporal," Colclough shouted.

The Naval Lieutenant who was in command of the vessel pushed his way down the ramp. "Captain," he said anxiously, "will you please get your men off this vessel? I've got to get away from here. I don't want to spend the night on this beach. We'll never get off if we hang around another ten minutes."

"There's a mine at the end of the ramp," Colclough said loudly.

"Captain," said the Engineer, "three Companies have come off barges right in this spot and nobody got blown up."