A Midnight Clear

A Midnight Clear
William Wharton

A reissue of this classic World War II novel.Set in the Ardennes Forest on Christmas Eve, 1944, A Midnight Clear is the story of Sergeant Will Knott and five other GIs ordered to establish an observation post in an abandoned chateau close to the German lines. Here they play at being soldiers in what seems to be complete isolation-until the Germans begin leaving signs of their presence.

WILLIAM WHARTON

A Midnight Clear

To those ASTPRers who never

Reached majority

… We need you now.

FEAR

I gasp in the still of one breath;

A wisp of bird feathers burning,

The smell of death in a flower.

Nothing to see and nothing to say;

Afraid to look, I can’t turn away;

My blink of emptiness pearling gray.

I watch myself watching me watching me.

The names in this

wintry Christmas tale

have been changed to

protect the guilty …

—W.W.

Table of Contents

Title Page (#u431d1f15-5df1-5b91-8487-587c725a4248)

Dedication (#u059abfc1-d2b6-5101-adfa-7598a6b74cd4)

Epigraph (#uead3049f-f898-53fa-b1cb-85efc322d410)

1 Briefing (#u2760febc-cdf3-5653-a338-c33cc05b3140)

2 The Longest Night (#ua4ecfb22-59dc-544d-85cb-8dcb522b3aa1)

3 Foo Kit Lur (#litres_trial_promo)

4 Throw Me a Why Not (#litres_trial_promo)

5 Don’t Tell Mother (#litres_trial_promo)

6 A Statement of Charges (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by William Wharton (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

1

Briefing

‘Holy God, Mother! What’s the matter?’

He pushes me back hard against my shelter half. He struggles, elbows, presses himself to his feet, boots sinking ankle deep in mud and melted snow at the bottom of our dent. He stands there, looming over me, staggering, slipping, not saying anything; staring into the sky.

Then he unslings his M1, grabs it in his right hand, arches his lean body into a tight spring and tosses that rifle, like a javelin, out of our hole, in a long, twisting arc at least a hundred feet downhill. He throws so hard his metal-rimmed GI glasses fly off his face, bounce against my chest and slide slowly into mud and water. They’re going to get smashed for sure.

He doesn’t look at me. Without his glasses, Mother’s face seems empty; he probably couldn’t see me anyhow, even if he did look.

We’ve been squatting in what could be a leftover one-man trench from World War I, but is probably only a root hole from a rotted, blown-down tree.

Over the past two and a half hours we haven’t said much. We’re on for four. Sometimes I think Mother might be crying but I don’t look; I’m so close to it myself, I don’t want to start anything. Mother’s scrambling now, rifleless, up onto the edge of our hole. He’s pulling at his webbing equipment, trying to unhook it.

Normally, the band would be standing this perimeter guard, but they’re in town with the officers entertaining Red Cross ladies. The Red Cross battled its way up to our regiment yesterday and sold us doughnuts, ten cents apiece, two lines, enlisted men and officers. I didn’t peek to see if officers paid. I bought one and shat it half an hour later.

Squatting there with Mother, I’d been watching one of those little buzzing L5 artillery observation planes circling over us. The motor has a peaceful sound like an airplane on a summer day at the shore dragging an advertisement saying

PEPSI – COLA

in the sky. Only now it’s winter and it isn’t peaceful.

I lean down, carefully pick up Mother’s glasses, then shove myself off from the bottom of our hole, pushing against my muddy shelter half. The frame’s twisted but nothing’s broken; the lenses are thick as milk-bottle bottoms; they’d be hard to break. But they’re slippery, gritty, wet and smeared with mud.

Mother’s up on the lip of the hole. Now he’s crying hard but isn’t making much noise. I start scrabbling my way out; I want to pull him back down before someone sees us.

We’re on the side of a hill at the edge of a forest. In fact, we’re surrounded by hilly forests. It’s snowed a few times but green’s showing through today and mostly everything’s either thin hard-crusted snow or mud. I know it’s somewhere around mid-December, but that’s about all. Even though we’re in reserve here, for some reason neither mail nor Stars & Stripes has been getting through.

Now Mother takes off. He’s gotten himself unhooked and slings his ammo belt, his pack, entrenching tool, bayonet, canteen; the whole kit and caboodle, looping, twisting through the air, downhill. Just before he disappears into the trees, he flips his helmet, discus-style, off in the direction of his rifle. He acts as if he really is quitting the war!

I’m torn between running after him and not deserting the post. After all, I am sergeant of the guard; can you believe that? I don’t.