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On June 9, while Salinger was at Normandy, “Elaine” was accepted by Story magazine for the “usual fee of twenty-five dollars.”10 On the same day, in a letter to Harold Ober, Whit Burnett also reconsidered his offer to publish the Young Folks anthology, preferring to wait for Salinger’s novel instead.11 With survival a daily challenge, one might assume that short-story collections and payments of $25 now meant little to Salinger, but throughout this time, his ambition remained undiminished.

Dorothy Olding wrote immediately to Salinger about Burnett’s change of mind. Salinger addressed the issue from Cherbourg on June 28, two days after the city was taken. His reaction was acquiescent and calm. He stated that he understood Burnett’s reluctance to publish the collection, assuring him that he would continue the Holden Caulfield novel after the war. He believed that, given the opportunity, he could make short work of the project and complete it within six months.12

Burnett was no doubt relieved to receive such a response, but there were reasons for Salinger’s tone that the editor could never have grasped. Since D-Day, Salinger’s persona had taken on a childlike quality of wonder and gratitude that was in stark contrast to his cynicism during previous years. He poked fun at his frayed nerves, describing himself as jumping headlong into ditches at the slightest sound of an explosion. He admitted that he was scared; and of his combat experiences he could write nothing. They were beyond words. In June 1944, Sergeant Salinger was happy just to be alive, but the Young Folks episode would not be forgotten.

With the fall of Cherbourg, Normandy was secured for the Allies. Into the city’s port poured thousands of fresh troops and countless tons of supplies, all heading south along country roads that soon became congested with crawling tanks and swarms of soldiers. The challenge that now faced the army was to break out of Normandy and sweep into the heart of Europe.

Amid the fields at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, the city of Saint-Lô rose up like a dream, an ancient citadel that now blocked the Allies’ exit from Normandy much as Montebourg had stood in the way of Cherbourg. And like Montebourg, Saint-Lô would have to be taken, regardless of the cost. The fight for Saint-Lô was painstakingly slow and bloody. The city lay in a region perfect for guerrilla warfare. The landscape was dominated by a patchwork of fields divided by hedgerows, the same unrelenting growth that had confounded Salinger and his men the night of D-Day. These obstacles encircled Saint-Lô like a labyrinth of earthen valleys, with foliage so intertwined with the ground that it drew the earth upward, creating natural ramparts. Cutting through them proved impossible. Worse still, they hid the unit from air cover, making the soldiers vulnerable to “friendly” bombs and fire, and prevented the passage of tanks.

Within this maze of growth and fields, the 4th Infantry Division was forced into hand-to-hand combat. Every field held its own battle. After stepping over bodies, soldiers would find themselves in another field looking exactly like the last. For the 12th, the first troops to enter this insanity, it was Émondeville on a grand scale.

What is now known as “the Battle of the Hedgerows” was a bitter discouragement for American troops. The common soldiers had expected to sweep from Normandy into open France and quickly rout the Germans. Instead, they encountered stiff resistance and circumstances of which their superiors had been unaware. The sight of thousands of Allied tanks being unloaded at Cherbourg had rallied them. The signal to open the campaign on Saint-Lô and the carpet bombing of the city and its outskirts had given them confidence in their strength. But they soon found themselves in a medieval brawl, their airpower and tanks useless. When Saint-Lô was finally taken on July 18, nothing was left of the city. It became known as “the Capital of Ruins.”

Salinger