The Young Lions

"Yes, Sir," said Lieutenant Green, in his high voice. "I heard you."

"We must get it down on paper," Colclough said, staring down at the worn oak table, "as soon as possible."

"Captain," said Lieutenant Green, "it's going to be dark in another hour, and if we're ever going to get out of here that's the time to try…"

But Captain Colclough had retired into his private dream at the farmer's dining-room table, and he did not speak, nor did he look up when Lieutenant Green spat on the carpet at his feet and walked back into the living-room, where Corporal Fein had just been shot through the lungs.

Upstairs, in the bedroom of the master and mistress of the house, Rickett, Burnecker and Noah covered a lane between the barn and the shed where a plough and a farm wagon were kept. There was a small wooden crucifix on the wall and a stiff photograph of the farmer and his wife, rigid with responsibility on their wedding day. On another wall hung a framed poster from the French Line showing the liner Normandie cutting through a calm, bright blue sea.

There was a white embroidered spread on the lumpy fourposter bed, and little lace doilies on the bureau, and a china cat on the hearth.

What a place, Noah thought, as he put another clip in his rifle, to fight my first battle.

There was a prolonged burst of firing from outside. Rickett, who was standing next to one of the two windows, holding a Browning Automatic Rifle, flattened himself against the flowered wallpaper. The glass covering the Normandie shattered into a thousand pieces. The picture shivered on the wall, with a large hole at the water-line of the great ship, but it did not fall.

Noah looked at the large, neatly made bed. He had an almost uncontrollable impulse to crawl under it. He even took a step towards it, from where he was crouched near the window. He was shivering. When he tried to move his hands, they made wide senseless circles, knocking over a small blue vase on a shawl-covered table in the centre of the room. If only he could get under the bed he would be safe. He would not die then. He could hide, in the dust on the splintery wood floor. There was no sense to this. Standing up to be shot in a tiny wallpapered room, with half the German Army all around him. It wasn't his fault he was there. He had not taken the road between the hedges, he had not lost contact with L Company, he had not neglected to halt and dig in where he was supposed to, it could not be asked of him to stand at the window, next to Rickett, and have his head blown in…

"Get over to that window!" Rickett was shouting, pointing wildly to the other window. "Get the hell over! The bathtards're coming in…"

Recklessly, Rickett was exposing himself at the window, firing in short, spraying bursts, from the hip, his arms and shoulders jerking with the recoil.

Now, thought Noah craftily, when he is not looking. I can crawl under the bed and nobody will know where I am.

Burnecker was at the other window, firing, shouting, "Noah! Noah!"

Noah took one last look at the bed. It was cool and neat and like home. The crucifix on the wall behind it suddenly leapt out from the wall, Christ in splinters, and tumbled on the bedspread.

Noah ran to the window and crouched beside Burnecker. He fired two shots blindly down into the lane. Then he looked. The grey figures were ru

Oh, Noah thought, taking aim (the target in the centre of the circle, remember, and resting on the top of the sight and even a blind man with rheumatism can't miss), oh, Noah thought, firing at the bunched figures, they shouldn't do that, they shouldn't come together like that. He fired again and again. Rickett was firing at the other window and Burnecker beside him, very deliberately, holding his breath, squeezing off. Noah heard a high, wailing scream and wondered where that was coming from. It was quite some time before he realized that it was coming from him. Then he stopped screaming.

There was a lot of firing from downstairs, too, and the grey figures kept falling and getting up and crawling and falling again. Three of the figures actually got close enough to throw hand-grenades, but they missed the window and exploded harmlessly against the walls. Rickett got them all with the same burst of the gun.

The other grey figures seemed to glide to a stop. For a moment there was silence and the figures hung there, motionless, reflective, in the clayey barnyard. Then they turned and began ru

Noah watched them with surprise. It had never occurred to him that they would not reach the house.

"Come on, come on!" Rickett was screaming. He was reloading feverishly. "Get the bathtards! Get 'em!"

Noah shook himself, then carefully aimed at a man who was ru

"That's it, Ackerman, that's it!" Rickett was at the window again, shouting hilariously. "That's the way to do it."

The lane was empty now, except for the grey figures that weren't moving any more.

"They've gone," Noah said stupidly. "They're not there now."

He felt a wet pressure on his cheek. Burnecker was kissing him. Burnecker was crying and laughing and kissing him.

"Get down," Rickett yelled, "get down from that window."

They ducked their heads. A second later they heard the whistle through the window. The bullets thudded into the wall below the Normandie.

Very nice of Rickett, Noah thought coolly, very surprising.

The door opened and Lieutenant Green came in. His eyes were granular and red and his jaw seemed to hang down with weariness. He sat on the bed, slowly, with a sigh, and put his hands between his legs. He wavered back and forth minutely, and, for a moment, Noah was afraid he was going to fall back on to the bed and go to sleep.

"We fixed 'em, Lieutenant," Rickett said, happily. "We gave 'em a good dose. Right up the old dog."

"Yes," said Lieutenant Green in his squeaky voice, "we did very well. Anybody hurt up here?"

"Not in thith room." Rickett gri

"Morrison and Seeley got it in the other room," Green said wearily, "and Fein has one in the lungs downstairs."

Noah remembered Fein in the hospital ward in Florida, enormous, bullnecked, hard, saying, "After the war you can pick whatever company you please…"

"However…" Green said with sudden brightness, as though he were begi

"Yes," said Noah, "it's the Normandie."

Green smiled foolishly. "I think I will sign up for a cruise," he said.

The men did not laugh.

"However," Green said, passing his hand across his eyes, "when it gets dark, we're going to make a break. We're almost out of ammunition downstairs, and if they try again, we're fried. French-fried with ketchup," he said vaguely. "You're on your own when it gets dark. Twos and threes, twos and threes," he chanted squeakily, "the Company will dissolve in twos and threes."

"Lieutenant," Rickett said, from the window, where he was still peering out, with just a thin slice of his face exposed past the window-frame, "Lieutenant, is thith an order from Captain Colclough?"

"This is an order from Lieutenant Green," the Lieutenant said. He giggled. Then he caught himself and looked firm. "I have assumed command," he said formally. "Command."

"Is the Captain dead?" Rickett asked.

"Not exactly," said Green. He lay back suddenly on the white spread and closed his eyes. But he continued talking. "The Captain has retired for the season. He will be ready for next year's invasion." He giggled, lying, with his eyes closed, on the lumpy feather bed. Then, suddenly, he sprang up. "Did you hear anything?" he asked, anxiously.