A Glibertarians Exclusive:  North Country, Part III

The Netherlands, September 1944

There was a chill in the air as the Sherman rattled down a dirt road, bound north.  Three other Shermans and five personnel carriers followed Ted Paige’s Sherman.

The crew had a new tank commander, Staff Sergeant Ronald Hampton, a tough professional soldier in his forties.  “I’m here from the infantry,” he had told the crew when he joined the unit the month before.  “I’m not too familiar with tanks, but I know the tactics, so I’ll thank you all to help me along with the technical details.  Do that, see to your own jobs, and I expect we’ll get through this.  My job is to kill Jerries and get you all home safe, and I’ll do my best to get both of those things done.”

The day before, as the Canadians were waiting in an assembly area in Belgium, Staff Sergeant Hampton had returned from company headquarters with a new order: “We’re bound north again, boys.  Monty’s go at the Netherlands proved to be a fuck-up, so our division is going to help open the port at Antwerp.  At 0400 tomorrow we’re moving towards some place called Breskens.  The objective is to clear the Scheldt Estuary.  Get the tank cleaned up, check the tracks, there will be trucks coming around with fuel, ammo, and rations.  Get that done and get what rest you can.  We’ve got a few busy days ahead.”

Ted climbed into the Sherman’s turret.  Albert was already in the drivers’ station, cleaning his viewing periscope with a rag and a bottle of spirit.

“Monty,” Ted grumped.  “What an over-rated tit.  Who the hell thinks driving an entire army up one highway is a good idea?”

“Too bad it didn’t work, though.  We’d have been home by Christmas.”  Albert took a look through the periscope, grunted, and stowed the bottle of spirit and rag back in a toolbox.  “Sure hope my gal’s getting along all right.  Be winter soon, back home.”

“You don’t talk about her much,” Ted said.  He went about methodically checking the gunsight.  “Have to boresight the gun before we move out.”

“Yeah,” Albert agreed.  He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “I guess I don’t talk about her much, do I?  Kind of seems easier not to, I guess.  Don’t miss her so bad.  Figure on marrying her when I get home, always did, but now, sitting here, well, somehow she don’t seem quite real.”

“Well, you’re talking about her now.  So what’s she like?  You’re lucky, I don’t have a gal waiting for me.  Just my sister and my folks.  ‘Course I was in one of those houses back in France, you know, but that ain’t the same.”

“What’s she like?”  Albert reflected.  “Well.  She reminds me of my Ma.  Probably the strongest gal I ever met.”  He grinned.  “Oh, her hair.  Hangs to her waist.  Long, black hair.  Like raven feathers.  On a windy day it just blows all ‘round, hangs down in front, in back, all over.  Sometimes I reckon she looks more like some forest spirit than a woman.”

“You’re a lucky man, buddy.”

“S’pose I am,” Albert smiled.  “But we got work to do – best not sit here cackling like a couple of jaybirds, Sarge will get pissed.  Come on, I’ll help you boresight the gun.  If you shoot at a Kraut tank, I want to make sure you hit them.”

After two days of sporadic fighting, now, the Canadians were moving north again.  As usual, Ted was moving the turret back and forth, scanning the countryside for threats.  Staff Sergeant Hampton was standing in the turret with binoculars.  The sun was lowering into a gray sky.

“Don’t much like moving down a road,” Ted groused, for at least the tenth time that day.  “We’re sitting ducks.”

“Fields are flooded,” Sergeant Hampton reminded him.  The radio crackled, and the NCO spoke into his mike for a few moments.  Hampton dropped into the commander’s seat.  “We’re ordered to move into a village about a mile north on this road.  The infantry will be setting up a perimeter, and the supply column is coming up with fuel and rations.  We’ll probably be there for the night.”

“Could do with a bit of sleep,” Private McDonald muttered from the loader’s station.

“Once we’re supplied, we’ll let half the crew at a time get some rest,” Hampton promised.

The sergeant proved to be a man of his word.  It was good and dark by the time they were refueled and rearmed, and the tank thoroughly checked over.  “Corporal Paige and I will take first watch,” Sergeant Hampton announced.  “You three, get some sleep.  We’ll wake you in four hours.”

The tank was parked on a lightly graveled laneway in front of what looked to have been a stable, on the edge of the abandoned village.  As the other three crewmen climbed down, sleeping bags in tow, and crawled under the tank to sleep.

The four hours on watch seemed to last forever.  Ted conversed with Staff Sergeant Hampton some, then concentrated on watching the narrow streets of the village, even though he couldn’t see much.  Just after midnight there was a burst of firing off to the west; the angry chatter of German sub-machine guns was punctuated by grenade bursts and louder bangs from Canadian Enfields.  Somewhere a Bren gun hammered out a few bursts.  Then, things went quiet again.

“Keep your pecker up, Corporal,” Sergeant Hampton urged in a low voice.  “Jerry may well try something over here, too.”

Finally, the four hours was up.  Ted woke the rest of the crew.  Once they were alert, Sergeant Hampton simply wrapped up in his field jacket and went instantly to sleep in the tank’s turret, slumped in the commander’s seat.

“I’m gonna stretch out a bit,” Ted said to no one in particular.  He climbed out of the gunner’s hatch and dropped off the tank to find himself facing his friend.

Albert slapped him on the shoulder.  “Climb underneath,” he said.  “Ground’s hard but it’s dry.  Go ahead and use my fart sack, I left it down there for you.”

“Thanks buddy,” Ted grinned.  He crawled under the tank, pulled one side of the sleeping bag over himself, and dropped off to sleep.

A shout awoke him sometime later.  He came to fuzzily, wakened by shouting somewhere in the village; a voice shouted a challenge in English, followed by a loud bang and someone shouting back, in German.

“Oh, shit.”  Another burst of fire, closer, then the tank’s bow machine gun started stuttering.

He heard George Lesk shouting as he fired the bow gun: “Infiltrators!”

Ted heard a sound, strange, like stones hitting a tin roof, realized it was bullets bouncing off the tank.  A grenade went off nearby.  The German voices, still shouting, were drawing closer.

There was a stunning white flash, right in front of the tank.  Ted never heard the grenade burst, just a white-hot needle of pain in his right shoulder.  He rolled to one side, tried to get to his holstered revolver – like so much of their equipment, it was Yank-made, a Smith & Wesson .38.  His right arm wouldn’t respond.  He saw running feet up the street, growing closer, then the bow gun chattered again, making the feet withdraw.  Across the street another tank started its engine and rolled forward, spraying death from its coaxial machine gun.  More shouting, this time in English, as the infantry charged up the street, Enfield rifles banging away.

The bottom hatch clanged open.  “Ted!” It was Albert.  “Are you hit?”

“My shoulder,” Ted replied through gritted teeth.

Strong hands reached down, dragged him into the tank.  He found himself face-to-face with Sergeant Hampton, who ripped Ted’s uniform tunic open.

“Looks like it went through the muscle,” the sergeant grunted.  “Can you move your fingers?”

Ted tried.  It hurt, but he could wiggle all five fingers.  Hampton quickly, efficiently bound up the wound with a field dressing, then examined it critically.  “Good.  Maskwa, get the tank started.  Stations, everyone.  Paige, get back in the commander’s seat and stay there.  I’m not sure I’m much of a gunner but I’ll have a go at it.”

It proved unnecessary.  Stung by the Canadian armor and infantry, the German raiding party withdrew.  Before the regiment moved out the next morning, Ted was handed over to the medics.

“Guess you don’t have to plan a trip to Edmonton just yet,” Ted told Albert as they were loading him aboard an ambulance.

“That’s good,” Albert said.  “Hell, that’s nothing but a scratch you’ve got there.  You’ll get sewed up, get one of those new wound stripes to wear to impress the girls, and you’ll be back here in a week.”

“Let’s hope.”  He shook hands with his friend, awkwardly, left-handed.  “See you soon.”

“Don’t get too tangled up with all those pretty nurses,” Albert called after ambulance as it pulled away.

***

Please see for me if her hair hangs long

If it rolls and flows all down her breast

Please see for me if her hair hangs long

For that’s the way I remember her best