On the west bank of a narrow river in the Saar Valley, Spring, 1945... The Chimney
by Israel Lewis
Copyright 1989
Master Sergeant Thrasher, little stump from the back hills of Missouri, stood up on the decking of the uncompleted Bailey bridge, under the visor of his steel helmet his blue eyes clouded with anger. A hundred men on both sides of the bridge, knee-deep in mud, leaned weaily against the steelwork. A big bulldozer, its diesel engine throbbing at idle, rested with its blade against the rear transom of the bridge.
"Listen, you jackasses. The whole U.S. Army is sitting back there with their thumbs up their you-know-wheres waiting for this fuckup outfit to get this bridge across. Let's get on the money here and get this goddamn thing moving!" he shouted. Actually, it was only a division waiting, but Thrasher was not loathe to do a little Missouri-style exaggeration. "Get with it, Dudley, and do some good with that dozer. O.K. now, everybody get set. Lay ho! Heave!"
The diesel roared, its tracks churning in the mire, and a hundred bodies strained against the morbid weight of steel and the suction of the mud. There was a tremor of motion.
"Lay ho! Heave!" again, and the bridge began to move, rumbling on its rollers and gaining momentum. Suddenly, Thrasher heard shouting below him and sensed trouble. "Whoa, Hold it back!" he yelled. The men dug in and the bridge stopped.
"What the hell is happening down there?"
"It's Bilkington, Sarge. He slipped and fell under. We got him. He's O.K."
Bilkington! It was always Bilkington. World class fuckup and misfit. Damn it, Thrasher thought, we would have been better off if the damned thing had rolled over him and put an end to his misery. "Well, stand him up. If you jackasses can stay on your feet for one more fucking minute we can get this goddamn piece of iron out of here. O.K. Everybody get set.
"Lay Ho! Heave!" The bridge was out of the grasp of the mud and moved easily. The launching nose edged out over the river until the overhung weight overbalanced the weight behind the rollers. It teetered and then dropped precisely on the rollers on the opposite shore with a metallic clang.
Thrasher climbed down. The men were breaking up into small groups, each assigned to a task. He looked for Bilkington among the crowds of green, muddy uniforms. He spotted him in a team carrying truss panels. The panels weighed almost six hundred pounds and were carried by six men in pairs, each pair holding a wooden shaft thrust through the panel trusswork. Bilkington could screw up even on the end of an idiot-stick, thought Thrasher.
As he watched, Bilkington stepped into a depression. Thrasher heard the other idiot-stick holders grunt and curse as the weight shifted onto their arms. Bilkington recovered and continued on, his back bowed under the weight, his shoulders turned inward.
Thrasher watched after him. Bilkington was like nothing he had ever seen back in Missouri, not that there weren't odd ones in his neck of the woods. He was all odds and ends, open shoelaces, and unconnected web straps. It was a dark day at the draft board in St. Louis when they decided that the army would need the likes of Private Oliver Bilkington, Thrasher mused. Maybe they think we're losing the war and are that desperate. A few more Bilkingtons and we will lose the war.
Bilkington's crew had deposited their panel and were going back for another load. Thrasher called to him. He came up and waited behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his light gray eyes watery and impassive. Little rivulets of sweat ran down around his nose and dropped from the precipice of his receding chin into his shirt.
"Take yourself over to the supply truck and help hand out nuts and bolts," said Thrasher. "And send Bearfat back to take over your end of that idiot-stick. Try not to fall down." Bilkington moved off silently, his oversized fatigues propelled along by his runty body.
There I go getting motherly again, Thrasher rebuked himself. Bilkington did that to people. Thrasher remembered how it was when he came into the outfit, a last minute replacement just before they shipped out to Europe. The other guys had a good time teasing him and making him the butt of practical jokes. But he was just so good-natured and dumb that they got tired of it and left him alone. Big old Bearfat, the swamp angel from Alabama, became his protector. Nobody messed with Bearfat. Bearfat covered Bilkington's mistakes. When things got sticky, Bearfat was always around to look after him.
Things had never gotten too sticky. They had come up late and hadn't lost anybody under fire. The Germans had retreated away from this river. Putting up this bridge was like a training exercise. The way things were going, they would probably just be lucky.
As the panel crew came by, Bearfat looked towards Thrasher and smiled. Big Bearfat could probably carry that panel all by himself, thought Thrasher. A few hours later, the bridge was finished. The division unlimbered their thumbs from their you-know-wheres, started engines, and began to move, rumbling and clattering, into Germany.
From up the river a pair of P-38s came streaking in, treetop high. As they came over the bridge, they banked steeply, their wingtips almost touching the steelwork. They flashed by, silver birds trailing their odd twin tail booms like the legs of storks. They vanished down the river in thundering sound and a rush of wind.
Unpainted airplanes, reflected Thrasher. The war is over. He hadn't seen a German airplane in weeks.
It was June and the war had ended in Europe. The battalion was now in the road-repair business, filling craters and patching. Thrasher's platoon worked among the ruins of a big power plant making asphalt macadam. They looked aloft and rested on their shovels as they heard the thrum-throb of heavy bombers, B-17s from the Eighth Air Force, coming back with ground crews to show off their handiwork. The bombardiers could be proud of the work they had done at this power plant. Nothing remained but scorched, twisted steel, and rubble. Only the big smokestack stood, three hundred feet of brick and mortar that had defiantly survived the blasts of high explosives and trembling of the earth.
The troops had made a dryer for the sand and gravel, a jury rig of steel drums with their tops and bottoms cut out, laid end to end, with a fire inside. Shoveling the material over the drums was hot work in the warm June weather. The smoke from the burning wood was acrid, stinging eyes and lungs. Nobody was hurrying very much and nobody was pushing. Bilkington was at it with his shirt off, his dogtags bouncing off his chest, his skinny arms pumping a shovel. He worked steadily and quietly without complaint, a lonely man who didn't share in the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers. Thrasher wondered if maybe he hadn't been better off as the object of their taunting and jokes. At least, they had acknowledged his existence.
The mess truck arrived. The men broke away, hot and tired, and gathered their mess kits. Thrasher took his meal to a shady place under a ruined wall. He finished eating and lay back, tipping his helmet liner over his eyes.
He heard the voice of Bearfat. "I think I'll climb up 'at chimney. They's a ladder all the way up to the top. It looks easy. Anybody want to come?"
Thrasher heard voices in assent. He rolled his head and squinted at the smokestack. The ladder was caged. A catwalk circled the top. Several men walked towards the base of the chimney, Bilkington bringing up the rear. Thrasher had an impulse to call them back. Stop being a mother hen, he said to himself. He let them go on.
They climbed inside the ladder cage, silhouetted against the sky like small insects. Several figures reached the top and sat on the catwalk. One small insect still climbed. A figure got up and stood on the rim. The figure raised its arms and pounded its chest and bellowed. It was Bearfat playing King Kong. Maybe it's King Kong playing Bearfat, mused Thrasher. King Kong danced. He kicked a piece of iron loosened by the bombing. It fell into the ladder cage.
The iron came to Bilkington like an arrow of destiny. His body crumpled and wedged in the cage.
They brought him down and laid him on the bed of a six-by-six. His face was purple, his shirt soaked in blood, his head bent away from his body at a right angle. The men were silent and moved slowly. There was no need to hurry.
Thrasher climbed into the back of the truck. "Let me go with you," said Bearfat. Thrasher nodded. Bearfat climbed up and sat on the bench opposite Thrasher, Bilkington's broken body between them. The truck drove off slowly, winding between the piles of rubble.
"It were an accident, Sarge," said Bearfat, his voice choked.
"It was my fault. I should have stopped you guys from climbing that chimney. He really had the talent for fucking up, didn't he, Bearfat? World Class, all right. It takes a special kind of talent to go through this whole war and then get yourself killed some fool way like that. It just had to be Bilkington."
"He has him a mama in St. Louis."
"Probably never even had a girlfriend." Thrasher looked down at the body. "Never even got laid, did you, Bilkington?" The battered head rolled from side to side.
"Too bad you missed even that. Too bad."