Once there was a war

In the afternoon land shows through the haze and, as we get closer, the neat houses and the neat country, orderly and old. The men gaze at it in wonder. It is the first foreign place most of them have ever seen and each man says it looks like some place he knows. One says it looks like California in the springtime of a wet year. Another recognizes Vermont. The men crowd to the portholes and the rails.

The troopship moves into a harbor and drops her anchor. She is surrounded on all sides by shipping and by naval units. The men will go ashore in lighters, but not yet, for disembarkation is, if anything, more complicated than embarkation. Men can easily be lost or mixed with the wrong units.

The night comes and in the staff room officers gather and wait until they are assigned the transportation for their men. It takes a good part of the night. At an exact time each unit must be in an exact place, where a lighter will be waiting to take them on. The troop trains will be waiting ashore. It has been a perfect crossing. No trouble, no sickness, no attack. The ship’s officers show the strain. They haven’t slept much. After a few voyages they must be relieved. The responsibility is too great for a man to bear for too long a stretch.

In the morning the lighters come in and hug the sides of the troopship. The big iron doors open and the troops move out and take their places on the decks of the little boats. The portholes high above are filled with heads looking down. Men for a later debarkation. The little boat moves off, puffs up the bay among the tugs and the destroyers and the anchored freighters. The soldiers are self-conscious in a new place. They regard this new land skeptically as one must when he is not sure of himself. The little boat puffs up to the dock, which has mysteriously become a quay, pronounced “key,” which is, of course, ridiculous.

Now as the lighter ties up an astonishing thing happens. A band of pipers marches out in kilts, with bagpipes and drums and the swingy march of pipers. The harsh skirling cuts through the air. The most military, the most fighting music in the world. Our men crowd the rail. The band approaches, drums banging, pipes squealing and, as they draw abreast, the soldiers break into a great cheer. They may not like the harsh music; it takes time to like it; but something of the iron of the music goes into them. The pipers wheel and march back and away. It was a good thing to do. Our men, in some deep way, feel honored. The music has stirred them. This is a different war from the one of training camps and strategy at post exchanges.

From the deck of the lighter the men can see the roofless houses, the burned-out houses. The piles of rubble where the bombs have fallen. They have seen pictures of this and have read about it, but that was pictures and reading. It wasn’t real. This is different. It isn’t like the pictures at all. On the quay, the Red Cross is waiting with caldrons of coffee, with mountains of cake. They have been serving since dawn and they will serve until long after dark. The gangplank to the lighter is fixed now. The men, carrying their heavy barrack bags, packs on their backs and rifles slung over their shoulders, struggle up the steep gangway to the new country. And in the distance they can hear the sound of the pipes greeting another lighter-load of troops.

A PLANE’S NAME

A BOMBER STATION, June 26, 1943—The bomber crew is getting back from London. The men have been on a forty-eight-hour pass. At the station an Army bus is waiting, and they pile in with other crews. Then the big bus moves through the narrow streets of the little ancient town and rolls into the pleasant green country. Fields of wheat with hedgerows between. On the right is one of the huge vegetable gardens all cut up into little plots where families raise their own produce. Some men and women are working in the garden now, having ridden out of town on their bicycles.

The Army bus rattles over the rough road and through a patch of woods. In the distance there are a few squat brown buildings and a flagstaff flying the American flag. This is a bomber station. England is Uttered with them. This is one of the best. There is no mud here, and the barracks are permanent and adequate. There is no high concentration of planes in any one field. Probably no more than twenty-five Flying Fortresses live here, and they are so spread out that you do not see them at once. A raider might get one of them, but he would not be likely to get more than one.