JULY 27, 1944
 

        The lull was temporary and the men of the 2nd Platoon, King Company were well aware
of that fact.  That’s why it came as a complete shock when Lieutenant Gil Hanley made the
decision to go back to the squad’s original position, alone.
        “No, Lieutenant, you can’t go back there!”  Caje put a hand on the officer’s arm as if to
hold him back, at least delay him so the PFC could talk sense to him.
        “Curtis is dead, Lieutenant!  I saw ‘im get it!”
        “You checked on him, Caje?  Felt for a pulse?  Well, did you?”  Hanley countered,
shrugging the Cajun’s hand off his arm.
        Caje was grim, the set of his lean jaw tight.  He shook his head in the negative.
        “No sir, I didn’t do that, but sir, I didn’t have to.  Curtis got it in the head - that I did see
and he’s dead, Lieutenant!”
        “I will not argue with you, Private!  Hanley’s eyes were narrowed in determination.  “I’m
going back to get Curtis.  I will not leave him behind.  You stay right here, and Caje, that’s an
order!”
        “Yes, sir,” the scout replied.
        Already Hanley was crabbing his way back to the squad’s original position.  That area and
in fact the woods all around them were more than likely still crawling with Krauts.
        Caje worked his way over to where Littlejohn and Kirby were dug in.
        “You heard?”  Caje questioned.
        “Yeah, most of it and Caje,” Littlejohn checked the clip of his carbine before continuing.
“We, Kirby and me, got no orders from the Lieutenant to stay put.”
        “Let’s go then,” Kirby added.  “Come on!”
        “Watch your backs,” Caje cautioned, but already the two were on their way back to where
Hanley had disappeared into the tree line.
 

        Hanley had a bit of trouble locating Curtis’ position. The corporal had been on the right
flank, that he knew.  For a moment he was disoriented before he spotted a rifle barrel propped up
on a small hummock.  The owner of the rifle was nowhere in sight, but Curtis had had decent
cover.  There were several fallen trees sheltering the spot.  Hanley inched closer.
        “Curtis!  Corporal Curtis!” he hissed, knowing Curtis was alive, praying he was.  But
there was no reply.  Taking a chance, the lieutenant got to his feet and bolted the final yards,
throwing himself over a log, rolling to a stop inches from Curtis.
        The  corporal was most certainly dead; the top portion of his skull had been blown away.
 

        Kirby and Littlejohn called to Hanley as they neared Curtis’ position.  They didn’t need to
get shot by their own officer.  They called every few yards but received no answer.
        “I hope the Lieutenant didn’t get it,” Littlejohn whispered to Kirby.  Sweat ran down from
beneath his helmet and stung his eyes.
        “Nah, Littlejohn...we’d a heard somethin’ - some kinda commotion even if it was a Kraut
with a knife.”
        Impatiently, Kirby moved ahead of the big PFC, crawling over the log that blocked off
Curtis’ spot.  Littlejohn followed, bumping into Kirby, who angrily pushed the big man off.
        Hanley was sitting, his helmet off, cradling the dead corporal in his arms.  His uniform was
covered in blood and gore from the dead man.  Hanley was whispering to Curtis, begging him not
to die, to hold on.
        “I’ll get you home, Saunders.”  Tears tracked down his cheeks and dripped from his
bearded chin.
        “Saunders?!”  Kirby and Littlejohn exchanged shocked looks.
 

JULY 29, 1944

        “We got the Lieutenant outta that foxhole, Captain.  It wasn’t easy, no sir.  He didn’t
wanna come.  Couldn’t stand to leave Curtis behind.  But him thinkin’ all the time it was the
Sarge he was leavin,.”  Kirby shook his head in sustained disbelief at the memory.  “No sir,
Captain, I never saw anything like that.”  Nervously Kirby ground out the cigarette he’d barely
taken a drag from.  He lit a fresh Lucky.
        Captain Jampel leaned toward Kirby, his gaze inquiring, penetrating.  “Private, I want you
to tell me, honestly now, how did you feel when you heard Lieutenant Hanley had left Sergeant
Saunders behind when the squad was captured by the enemy July 18th of this year?”
        Jampel had no pen and paper before him so Kirby figured this was all off the record,
Jampel’s need to know and all that, for whatever reason officers needed to know things.  Kirby
figured but thought he’d ask anyway.
        “Captain, is this off the record?”
        Jampel nodded.  “It is.”
        The private ground out the butt of his smoke.  “Okay then, I’ll say my piece.  Hanley was
wrong, sir.  Dead wrong.  He never shoulda left the Sarge behind.  Saunders would never a done
that to Hanley if things was reversed.  No sir.  Sarge woulda checked - to make sure Hanley, or
any of us, was alive.  He woulda checked himself, sent Caje on ahead maybe with the rest of the
squad, then gone back hisself, to be sure.  But not Hanley.  No sir.  When Billy wanted to go back
for Saunders, the Lieutenant wouldn’t let him, not Caje neither when he questioned Hanley’s
order.  No sir, Lieutenant Hanley was wrong.  If I’da been on that patrol, I’da gone back for
Saunders no matter what the Lieutenant said.  And Captain...I just want ya to know, if the
Lieutenant comes back...I don’t wanna be in his platoon no more.  I just...I just don’t that’s all.”
        Kirby was infinitely sad.  He would sure miss the guys and it was pretty certain Saunders
was going to be shipped stateside because of the severity of his burns.  Kirby was mad as well -
damn mad and it was at Lieutenant Gil Hanley.  Kirby had liked Hanley.  He was a good
lieutenant, the best officer the private had ever had the fortune or misfortune to serve under.
Now it was all ruined - all because Hanley had screwed up and left the Sarge behind.  It was a
rotten thing to do and Kirby couldn’t - wouldn’t ever forgive him and he still liked Hanley, that
was the hell of it!
 

        “Private Lemay, Private Kirby has already told me his story.  I’d like your report on the
incident with Lieutenant Hanley and Corporal Curtis.”
        The slender Cajun showed none of Kirby’s nervousness.  He’d never been in trouble
before so had no preconceived fear of officers.
        His story of the Hanley/Curtis incident matched his squadmate’s in all important details.
But his opinion of the lieutenant’s actions of July 18th were considerably different than Kirby’s.
He had been there.  Kirby had not.
        “Yes, Captain, Billy, Private Nelson,  had wanted to go back and see if Sarge was...well -
dead.  I wanted to go back too.  Sergeant Saunders is our sergeant, sir.  We live with him, eat and
sleep and fight the enemy with him, side by side since D-Day.  Sir, we all wanted to go back for
Saunders, even the Lieutenant I’m sure.  But he’s an officer, sir, and beggin’ your pardon,
Captain, but officers are different.  The Lieutenant, he had us all to think about.  And he knew
Sergeant Saunders better than any of us, I think.  They were sergeants together.  Lieutenant
Hanley, he knew Sarge was the best.  He had... has this great faith in Sergeant Saunders as a
soldier and I really believe he figured if Saunders was alive, he’d make it on his own.”
        “What do you think of Lieutenant Hanley now, Private, at this moment?”  Jampel leaned
back in his chair.  The aged wood creaked under his weight.
        “Captain, I think Lieutenant Hanley is a fine officer.  He did what he thought was right.
It’s not what I would’ve done...but he’s an officer.”
        “But he’s an officer...” Jampel echoed.  He noticed the PFC seemed inclined to add
something.  “Go on, Private,” Jampel encouraged.
        “It’s just, sir...I sure wish the Lieutenant would’ve sent one of us back for the Sarge - for
Saunders’ sake...and for the Lieutenant’s.”
        Jampel nodded. “Thank you, Private.  You’re dismissed.”
 

JULY 20, 1944

        Gil Hanley was overwhelmed with guilt and grief.  Moments earlier it had been joy.
Saunders was alive!  Somehow he’d survived the artillery barrage at the German encampment and
had made his way to the road to be picked up, even as the rest of the squad had been, by a column
of advancing U.S. troops.
        Joy was transformed to horror when Hanley got a look at Saunders.  The sergeant had
been terribly burned escaping from the barn where the squad had been held, tied with ropes to
wooden stall supports.  They’d all been cut free when American artillery had set the barn and its
contents ablaze, all freed but Saunders.  His arms from the elbows down to the tips of his fingers
were charred black.  Strips of skin hung like tattered cloth, exposing the raw flesh beneath.
        It was Hanley who had held Saunders’ head in his lap on the never ending truck ride back
to the field hospital.
        Saunders was out of his mind with pain.  Even morphine couldn’t dull the agony.  At
every bump in the pock filled road, the sergeant cried out.  It had torn Hanley to pieces.
        The stony silence of his men did little to alleviate his guilt and grief.  He didn’t ask them
and they didn’t volunteer.  “Do you blame me for this?  AM I to blame?”
        They busied themselves with Saunders, taking turns giving him sips of water, finding
more blankets to cover him against the chills he couldn’t shake, wetting fresh dressings for the
medic to change the bandaging on Saunders’ arms and hands.
        None of them could even imagine what the wounded sergeant had gone through in the
two days he’d dogged the squad back.  They’d had it bad enough, freezing rain, hunger,
exhaustion, the loss of Kelly at the German supply tent.  Was this Hanley’s fault too?  If he’d let
Kelly get his boots from the German who’d taken them during their imprisonment, the young
soldier wouldn’t have had to steal a pair from the Kraut supplies and gotten shot in the process.
He’d be alive now.
        But Saunders - it was unimaginable.  But Gil could and did picture it all, vividly.  Saunders
haunted his dreams and his waking hours.  He’d visited the sergeant every day while he was at the
field hospital before he was stable enough to be transferred to the hospital in England.
        There were moments when Saunders was actually lucid.  He recognized Hanley and was
glad to see him.  That should’ve been enough to assuage the guilt, but somehow it only made it
worse.
        The men were polite, respectful as always, but to Hanley weren’t they distant?  And Kirby,
he was downright hostile and made no bones about showing it.
 

AUGUST 13, 1944

        Rain drummed against the canvas roof and walls of the medical tent, wind driving drops
through every tiny tear.  The summer air was warm and dense and the atmosphere within the large
tent was oppressive.
        Wounded and ill men moaned and tossed.  Doctors, nurses and medics moved between
cots administering medication and soothing words in equal doses.
        Gil Hanley was unaware of any of it.  Strapped to his cot, he drifted in and out of reality,
preferring his own world, the one with no war and no guilt and no grief.
        Almost overnight his thick dark hair had become salted with white; the weight dropped
alarmingly off his tall frame and his green eyes grew unfocused and dull.  He responded to no one
and nothing.
 

        Sergeant Chip Saunders was going home to stay.
 

        Lieutenant Gil Hanley was going home to stay.
 

        War is hell and all too often the demons that lurk there are found within ourselves.
 
 

Copyright October 1997; Susan Balnek-Ballard