The Young Lions

From the dice game, the voices floated over. "I'll fade 1,000 francs. The point is nine…"

Michael opened his eyes and stood up quietly and, carrying his rifle, went over to watch.

Pfeiffer was shooting and he was doing well. He had a pile of paper crushed in his hand. The Services of Supply Lieutenant wasn't playing, but the two Sergeants were. The Lieutenant was wearing a beautiful officer's coat, brindle-coloured and full. The last time he had been in New York, Michael had seen such a coat in the window of Abercrombie and Fitch. All three men were wearing parachute boots, although it was plain that they had never jumped from anything higher than a bar-stool. They were all large, tall men, clean-shaven, well dressed, and fresh-looking, and the bearded infantrymen with whom they were playing looked like neglected and rickety specimens of an inferior race.

The visitors talked loudly and confidently, and moved with energy, in contrast to the weary, mumbling, laconic behaviour of the men who had dropped out of the line to have their first warm meal for three days. If you were going to pick soldiers for a crack regiment, a regiment to seize towns and hold bridgeheads and engage armour, you certainly would not hesitate to choose these three handsome, lively fellows, Michael thought. The Army, of course, had worked things out somewhat differently. These bluff-voiced, well-muscled men worked in a snug office fifty miles back, typing out forms, and shovelling coal into the rosy iron stove in the middle of the room to keep out the wintry chill. Michael remembered the little speech Sergeant Houlihan, of the second platoon, always made when he greeted the replacements… "Ah," Houlihan would say, "why is it the infantry always get the 4Fs? Why is it the Quartermasters always get the weight-lifters, the shot-putters, and the All-American fullbacks? Tell me, Boys, is there anybody here who weighs more than a hundred and thirty pounds?" It was a fantasy, of course, and Houlihan made the speech shrewdly, because he knew it made the replacements laugh and like him, but there was a foolish element of fact in it, too.

As he was watching, Michael saw the Lieutenant take a bottle out of his pocket and drink from it. Pfeiffer watched the Lieutenant narrowly, rolling the dice slowly in his mud-caked hand.

"Lieutenant," he said, "what do I see in your pocket?" The Lieutenant laughed. "Cognac," he said. "That's brandy."

"I know it's brandy," Pfeiffer said. "How much do you want for it?"

The Lieutenant looked at the notes in Pfeiffer's hand. "How much you got there?"

Pfeiffer counted. "2,000 francs," he said. "Forty bucks. I sure would like a nice bottle of cognac to warm up my old bones."

"Four thousand francs, " the Lieutenant said calmly. "You can have the bottle for 4,000."

Pfeiffer looked narrowly at the Services of Supply Lieutenant. He spat slowly. Then he talked to the dice. "Dice," he said, "Papa needs a drink. Papa needs a drink very bad."

He put his 2,000 francs down. The two Sergeants with the bright stars in the circles on their shoulders faded him.

"Dice," Pfeiffer said, "it's a cold day and Papa's thirsty." He rolled the dice gently, relinquishing them like flower petals.

"Read them," he said, without smiling. "Seven." He spat again.

"Pick up the money, Lieutenant, I'll take the bottle." He put out his hand.

"Delighted," the Lieutenant said. He gave Pfeiffer the bottle and scooped up the money. "I'm glad we came."

Pfeiffer took a long drink out of the bottle. All the men watched him silently, half-pleased, half-a

"Services of Supply," said one of the infantrymen who had been watching the game. "Now I know why they call it that."

The Lieutenant laughed easily. He was a man beyond the reach of criticism. Michael had forgotten that people laughed like that any more, good-humouredly, without much cause, from a full reservoir of good spirits. He guessed that you could only find people who laughed like that fifty miles behind the lines. None of the men joined in the Lieutenant's laughter.

"I'll tell you why we're here, Boys," the Lieutenant said.

"Let me guess," said Crane, who was in Michael's platoon.

"You're from Information and Education and you brought up a questio

The Lieutenant laughed again. He is a great little laugher, that Lieutenant, Michael thought, staring at him sombrely.

"No," said the Lieutenant, "we're here on business. We heard we could pick up some pretty good souvenirs in this neck of the woods. I get into Paris twice a month, and there's a good market for Luegers and cameras and binoculars, stuff like that. We're prepared to pay a fair price. How about it? You fellows got anything you want to sell?"

The men around the Lieutenant looked at one another silently.

"I got a nice Garand rifle, " Crane said, "I'd be willing to part with for 5,000 francs. Or, how about a nice combat jacket," Crane went on i

The Lieutenant chuckled. He was obviously having a good time on his day off up at the front. He would write about it to his girl in Wisconsin, Michael was sure, the comedians of the infantry, rough boys, but comic. "O.K.," he said, "I'll look around for myself. I hear there was some action here last week, there should be plenty of stuff lying around."

The infantrymen stared coldly at one another. "Plenty," said Crane gently. "Jeep-loads. You'll be the richest man in Paris."

"Which way is the front?" the Lieutenant asked briskly.

"We'll take a peek."

There was the cold, slightly bubbling silence again. "The front," Crane said i

"Yes, soldier." The Lieutenant was not very good-natured now.

"That way, Lieutenant," Crane pointed. "Isn't it that way, boys?"

"Yes, Lieutenant," the boys said.

"You can't miss it," said Crane.

The Lieutenant had caught on by now. He turned to Michael, who had not said anything. "You," the Lieutenant said, "can you tell us how to get there?"

"Well…" Michael began.

"You just go up this road, Lieutenant," Crane broke in. "A mile and a half or so. You will find yourself climbing a little, in some woods. You get to the top of the ridge, and you will look down and see a river. That's the front, Lieutenant."

"Is he telling the truth?" the Lieutenant asked, accusingly.

"Yes, Sir," Michael said.

"Good!" The Lieutenant turned to one of his Sergeants.

"Louis," he said, "we'll leave the jeep here. We'll walk. Immobilize it."

"Yes, Sir," Louis said. He went over to the jeep, lifted the hood, took the rotor out of the distributor and tore out some wires. The Lieutenant walked over to the jeep and took an empty musette bag from it and slung it over his shoulder.

"Mike." It was Noah's voice. He was waving to Michael.

"Come on, we have to get back…"

Michael nodded. He nearly went over and told the Lieutenant to get away from there, to go back to his nice snug office and warm stove, but he decided not to. He walked slowly over and caught up with Noah, who was trudging in the mud on the side of the road towards the Company line a mile and a half away.

Michael's platoon was planted just under the saddle of the ridge which looked down on the river. The ridge was thick with undergrowth bushes, saplings, that even now, with all the leaves off, gave good cover, so that you could move around quite freely. From the top of the ridge you could look down the soggy, brush-dotted slope and across the narrow field at the bottom, to the river, and the matching ridge on the other side, behind which lay the Germans. There was a hush over the wintry landscape. The river ran thick and black between icy banks. Here and there a tree trunk lay rotting in the water, which curved around it in oil-like eddies. There was a hush over the drab patches of snow and the silent, facing slopes. At night there were sometimes little spurts of vicious firing, but during the day it was too exposed for patrols, and a kind of sullen truce prevailed. The lines, as far as anybody knew, lay about twelve hundred yards apart, and were so marked back on the map in that distant, fabulous, safe place, Division.