"Andy Duncan - Fortitude" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Andy)

offensive. We were about 625 yards south of the village of Cheppy. If I
acted as I had before, in about 45 minutes I would take a bullet in my
left upper thigh, a life-threatening wound, and would lie suffering in a
shell hole for two hours before being rescued; and so my Great War would
end, and I'd be sent home to Beatrice for many years to come.
I knew all this. And all morning, all week, all month, I had pondered what
I might do differently to avoid this calamity. Giving up my tank command
was out of the question; it would leave a greater scar on my career than
any bullet. Ignoring this holdup in the column, too, was impossible; our
men needed relief, and fast. No, I knew that I had played a crucial role
at this location, at this time. How could I be elsewhere? I was an
officer. I had to do my duty.
Mouth dry at the thought of that oncoming bullet, I shook my head, raised
my walking stick, and drummed on the steel plates of the nearest
Schneider. "Let's get this column moving," I bellowed. "These tanks are
needed up there in the field, not sitting in a goddamn ditch."
The hatch flung open, and out leaned a greasy-faced soldier with a big
chew inflating his cheek. "Colonel, if somebody don't dig us a path
through this trench, we ain't going nowhere." Bullets stitched the side of
the tank in a diagonal. "Jesus!" the tank man cried, and ducked inside.
"We tried to dig 'em out, Colonel," one of the men in the trench called
up, "but then the krauts got us pinned down."
"Pinned down, shit. You don't see them shooting me, do you? Where are your
officers?"
"Dead, Colonel."
"You've got a new one, then. Come on, boys," I yelled. I holstered my
pistol and picked up a shovel, held it out. "The sooner we dig a path for
these tanks, the sooner we all can get out of here."
Slowly, the man who had spoken reached up and took the shovel from my
hand, holding it as if it might explode.
"Come on, goddamn it," I cried again, holding out another shovel. "Let's
get a move on. You don't have to dig the Panama Canal." Just as a soldier
reached for the shovel, a bullet hit the blade, knocking it out of my
hand. The soldier drew back with a cry. "Never mind that," I said,
grabbing another shovel from Angelo, who was stacking his arms with them.
"A lucky shot, that's all. No Buffalo Bills over there. They haven't got
our range yet."
"Tell that to Phillips," the soldier said, snatching the new shovel from
my hand. A dead man lay a few feet away, his eyes and mouth open, his arms
still wrapped around his shovel. The soldier who had spoken glared at me
and fell to, digging like a madman. Good. Bravery works, and honor, but so
do spite, and hatred.
"You'll all die like Phillips if we don't get this column moving," I said.
By now Angelo was distributing shovels at a frantic pace; as I expected,
the men were glad to have something to do, something other than panic. I
stepped over to Phillips, tugged free his shovel, and offered it to a man
beneath me, the last man to huddle against the trench wall, eyes wide.
"Come on, son. Take the shovel. Finish what Phillips started."
No reaction.
"Take the shovel, goddamn it!"