Redemption - Leon Uris [254]
“Did you get the machine-gun ammo distributed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much?”
“Sixty boxes…sixty thousand rounds.”
“Any in reserve?”
“Twenty thousand rounds up here. Some more is coming up from the beach tonight.”
“Move the twenty thousand down to the north dump on Artillery Road.”
“It’s already been done, sir,” I said. Maybe I was totally out of line or too tired to care or too hurt to care but it just came out. “Shall I send some more artillery shells up to Russell’s?”
What I meant was clear. After the first Turkish charge, our howitzers were to turn loose on the gullies behind Bloody Angle where the enemy had massed. Not a single round was fired this day.
The Australian, Brodhead’s “competent Jew” Monash, looked at the New Zealander, Colonel Malone. Either Godley or Brodhead at Corps had made a monumental fuckup.
The barrage might have severely slowed the subsequent Turkish charges. As it was, we held on by a hair.
“We have plenty of artillery ammo at Russell’s,” Malone appeased me. “As you know, none was fired today.”
“Well, back to the office,” Monash said. “They won’t wait till midday to resume the attack tomorrow. Good night, Joshua…good night, Landers. You did a fair day’s work, I’d say.”
As Monash left, leaving the door ajar, the wind blew the moans of the wounded into the dugout. I suppose my legs must have wobbled. Malone told me to close the door and have a seat. What the hell do you talk about after a day like this? Colonel Malone…learned just now Joshua was his first name…seldom talked unless it was in the line of duty. He seemed to want to say just any damned thing.
“Think they’ll come back tomorrow?” I asked.
“We killed an awful lot of Turks today. This must sound ridiculous, Landers, but is anything wrong?”
“One of my father’s prophesies came true.”
Malone laughed heartily. “Funny, in the middle of a punch-up we had today and we’re thinking, ‘Will my old da be proud of me when the day is over?’”
Out came the rum. We on the supplies always saw to it Colonel Malone was taken care of. He was growing very tall in the Kiwis’ eyes.
“Well, the lads did themselves proud, today. Jesus, for a minute I didn’t think they were going to come out into no-man’s-land after me.”
“They always intended to do so, sir. They just had to stop for a few seconds and piss their pants.”
“Well, damned if I pissed my pants,” the Colonel said, “I shit mine.”
“I lost my squad today, sir. I think due to my bad judgment.”
“Well, this is the place to do it,” Malone said, shocking me. “Hell, if every colonel and general had to account for the men he’d killed needlessly, nobody would take the damned jobs, and by golly, what would the human race do without the kind of thing that went on out there, today?”
“I pushed a man over the bridge who had no call to be pushed over the bridge,” I said.
“And if you hadn’t and he survived the day, his life would have been ruined. Hell, Landers, those three lads followed you over every hill in this wretched place, day after day. There’s a problem. When someone survives a day like this, his cobber out in no-man’s-land, he then finds himself wallowing in survivor’s guilt syndrome.”
“Yourself, sir?”
“No,” he answered. “Soldiering is an honorable profession. I’m not speaking of Alexander and Caesar, but little soldiers who defend little nations. New Zealand is the smallest nation in this war and has come the longest way to fight. We owe the Brits and the Brits owe us. Unfortunately, no nation ever existed that didn’t need soldiers. It’s the order of things. Soldiering is an honorable profession that makes more mistakes over human life than any other.”
“Does the guilt ever pass?”
“No,” he answered. “But you have to learn to live with it.”
“Why are you bothering with me after a day like this?”
“I admired the way you and Major Hubble and Jeremy and the Gaffers put your unit together in Egypt. I understand you had the best whorehouse in Cairo and