Acts of Heroes

By Rob Rice

World War II recedes ever faster now from recollection, but it is the intention of the Esterhazy Press to refresh those fading colors with a series of new adventures into the labyrinth of military memories. Leo Davis, sired and trained by survivors of The Great War, faces the fury of Imperial Japan and the intense and sophisticated savagery of Nazi Germany with his four feet firmly planted. Read within of his and others’ acts of courage and determination to prevent the victory of unendurable evil. In the course of his service Davis acquaints those who read of his exploits with determined, doomed generals; beaten tankers with one last fight left in them; SS killers and a donkey-eared pilot out to find and destroy Hitler’s Vergeltungswaffen. From Luzon to the frozen misery of Bastogne, heroes of different minds and bodies act together in a world-wide victorious struggle against foes and beliefs that human and all other manifestations of kindly intelligence could not allow to conquer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365490415

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Acts of Heroes

Acts of Heroes

By Rob S. Rice

Copyright 2016, by Rob S. Rice

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their enquiries to:

Esterhazy Press, PO Box 123, North Pembroke, MA 02358

ELECTRONIC EDITION

Esterhazy Press

PO Box 123

North Pembroke, MA 02358

Cover and interior illustrations by Donna Barr

http://donnabarr.blogspot.com/2014/03/hire-artist-rates.html

Dedication

I dedicate this book respectfully to Matt Link, John Kelley, Robert Stepp, Bob Harvey, Fred Anderson, Bruce Telford, Alex Ware, Joseph Ravitts, Chuck Milligan, Brian Wilson Jr., Bob Peloso, Herbert and Susan Roth, Robert Stein, Donald Jacobson and Mary Stuhr; the memories of Leo Rice, Norman Morris, Don Wagenbach, Wallace K. Barth, Samuel Abraham Schneider, Dr. Janice Gabbert—and to the others, thousands upon tens of thousands of them—who stood guard over us all, facing war and death so that we would be able to think of other things.

‘Thank you’ isn’t enough, or adequate—but I hope it’s a start.

Acts of an Apostle

Julesburg, Colorado, Autumn, 1935

The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

When Jesus heard it, he marveled…

His father had read the good story to them all, Lukas kneeling next to his brothers and half-brothers on the Sabbath, and it had been Zachariah’s task, nearest in age to him, and gentle, to explain to Lukas what a ‘centurion’ was, and he had thought it a good thing to be, and marveled in his turn.  So many years ago, yet within the span of his lifetime.  The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.

And he had been a wide-eyed bristle-tailed little colt, clattering over the boardwalks leading to the General Store, awed by his father’s trust with a task and money, to pay the coin and return with the jug filled with kerosene for the lamps.  And the Folk of Soft Feet had received him kindly, smiling, and given him a piece of sugar candy, and suffered him to listen a while to tales of their own.  They had started again a story in the middle of the telling, and he well remembered the words:

And when those poor darkies saw us throw open that infernal iron gate, they had cried out, so scared they were, and we spoke ‘em kindly and told ‘em that Mister Lincoln had said they should be free and that no one would ever whip them ever again—and one old Uncle had said it was like the opening of the tomb on Easter.  And we were all of us in tears at that point.

He had asked questions of the gentle men in faded blue, and they had told him of the Great Rebellion, and the Union, and how they had gone forth to crush the enemy and free the black men and their families, and he had thought that, too, good, and marveled.  He had spent much time thinking upon those words.

Older, motherless and yet loved, for his father was kindly, and so were his brothers and half-brothers who tilled the soil and lived in gentle peace with their neighbors.  He had known himself to be the youngest of the family.  His father had not married again after the death of Lukas’s mother, his father’s second wife—bereft twice, his father had never wedded after the fashion of Lamech or the eldest fathers of their race, but had taken a second wife after the death of the first.  It had been a hard life, was still a hard life, and yet Lukas knew himself loved, by the living, and the dead.

Lukas was restless and superfluous in the fields, and they had given unto him an ancient rifle, and with it he had driven the birds from the crops and the coyotes from the chicken coops, so that the neighbors had asked him for aid and he had stood vigil.  Many more had marveled at his skill with the weapon, and he had pondered on the significance of that.  And yet older, still restless, and seeking adventure though he feared that was a sin, he had heard the word of a new war, that many were needed to free the people of Cuba from the dungeons of the tyrants—and he had remembered the old men in faded blue and knelt before his father.

He had told him of how he had felt when his father had read the story of the Centurion    who had come to Him. There was the other tale of the later Centurion who had bid Paul and the passengers on the ship swim, and they had been saved—and how fine a thing he had thought it, even as a foal, that those in bondage should be freed and protected by those who served in Faith and who kept to their oaths.  And the old Stallion had thought much concerning the matter, and put his hands on his youngest son’s head, and blessed him.

My son, go forth, if you feel that is your calling, and do the bidding of your hearts—but remember the ways of peace and simplicity, and know that the doors of mine own and your brothers’ abodes will ever open to you.  Face the wicked with valor, face the helpless with kindness, spare the innocent and hold the guilty to judgment.  Remember to serve, but remember also to keep the faith, and love, as you have been and will be loved.  Remember Him that gave his life on the Cross for us all, and he who gave his life in agony to free Prometheus from suffering—and strive ever to be worthy.  To walk the path of the Savior of men and the teacher of heroes is no easy road.

And he had felt it strange to be weeping as he put his bundle of things upon his lower back and set forth upon his life’s adventure.  It had been frightening, but he had mastered his fears, and had in his hand the leaflet from the War Office urging his folk to join the war in Cuba.  The men had looked at it, and given him guidance, and he had bought a ticket at the station for a place called ‘Fort Robinson.’ Kneeling in the rear cars of the railway train he had couched and thought for long hours, looking out through the open doors at lands he had not yet seen—and felt disappointed that they looked so much like the fields around his home.  And the whistle had blown, and he had come forth to look his first upon the United States Army.

He had entered the long low building where others of his kind had stood and waited, and there had been a paper, and an oath, and a bounty to send home to his father.  And there he had met his first Centurion—‘Sergeant’ in the army of the Republic, one of the soft-feet, who had eyed him with distrust and a lowering eye and sworn him and others, that they would: bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States of America, and the orders of the officers appointed over them.  And he would also obey always the God whom the Sergeant had called upon to witness that oath.

He had done well, from striving to do well, and held himself up with the pride of what he conceived to be a noble purpose.  He had gone to be a soldier; he would devote himself to being a good soldier with the same resolve with which he devoted himself to God.  There was pride, too, as later on centurions of his own kind, the horse-folk, told him of his new unit, with a simple name they and others spoke with honor, that of the 2nd United States Cavalry (C, unmounted).  The centaurs alone of all the Cavalry used the rifle and not the carbine. 

Its troopers had rescued frightened women and children in the second war with the British, they had fought the red men and the silenoi after the Wabash disaster, they had found the Mexican soldiers and stood against the Mexican dragoons in Mr. Polk’s war.  They had to a stallion stayed loyal in the Rebellion and faced ‘That Devil Forrest’ and the best of their own kind in gray—and they had prevailed.  And Lukas held himself up even higher, and strove always to be worthy of those who had gone before and those now who had trusted and taught him.  He sought to deserve his place in the Regiment.  And they had clothed his upper body in blue, like that worn by the old men who had fought in the Rebellion, and he thought that good.

Then the regiment had taken train and ship to Cuba, long hours in the cars, again, kneeling, and listening to the old troopers say little, but every word a jewel.   The younger ones spoke more, out of nervousness, and out of eagerness to see what the war might be.  Lukas had said little and listened much, and read in the Book of the Lord once the tents were pitched in the evenings.  The lands around the train cars no longer resembled the fields of his youth.  They became greener, and he saw many of the black folk at work in those fields, and wondered if they, also, had seen iron gates opening like the door of His tomb.

He had been confused, and listened to a sailor’s laughing correction at the name of the long rusty ship that sat beside the transport allotted to him and his fellows, for it was Merrimac, but Lukas knew from his schooling that a ship of that name was long since destroyed in the Rebellion, and it troubled him.  Only the name was the same, the sailor had told him, and he had not at that time known that the steamer would, like many around him, perish while trying to do something brave.

And his father and his brothers had warned him that there would be evil and viciousness in the world outside, and so he was only angry, but not surprised, when one of the transport’s sailors had gone into the long cabin in which the troopers stood and thrown down a hay bale, and told them to feed themselves.  And the leader of their thousand, a centurion in fact, had taken the man by the shoulder, and thrown him out again, and his hay bale after him, and it was right and proper that impudence, anger, and foolishness receive reproof.  The other sailors were kind and dutiful, and had told him of the sea and shared the names of the night stars shining over the waters through which the old ship labored.

And they had come to land on the far island of Cuba, where the people spoke strangely and musically, and lived in a poverty in which Lukas thought he saw indeed the traces of slavery, as he had seen them in the green fields of the south of his own land.  There had gathered a great army under generals with names such as Wheeler and Shafter, upon whom the gray-pelted captain of his own host, Brigadier General Hiram W. Frye, attended.  ‘Old Hiram’ brought back the word to the troopers that they would soon storm the ridge of hills surrounding Santiago. Many moved their feet at the news.  Lukas had prayed much to keep his fear from gnawing at him.

First had gone the volunteers, the Rough Riders, and when the fire of the Spanish Mausers slowed and slew some of those, next had come the dark-skinned troopers of the 10th ‘Buffalo’ cavalry, valiant men who had surged forward in their turn and fought still further upward.  At the end they had called upon the 2nd to assist the others, despite the fears that the Spanish rifles would find the horse-folk too easily.  The fire of the centaurs was as accurate as the Spaniards’, the Gatlings chattered, and as the troopers approached the ridge the cries arose that the Spanish had fled from their blockhouses and that the Americans had the victory.

And some of the soft-footed commanders had wished to withdraw, and ‘Old Hiram’ and Colonel Roosevelt had demanded that they stay and hold the heights they had taken.  Lukas and his comrades had moved into the little thickets nearest to Santiago and brought back in a few hours report that the Spanish were moving out from the city and up to retake the conquered hills.  The troopers were to fall back into the rear, and so would Lukas have done, in obedience, had he not heard the frantic swearing of desperate men.

The Gatlings had done great execution in the morning’s advance, they were desperately sought as the Spanish line surged up toward the Americans in the trench along the ridge, but mules remain mules and men, like horses, take fright.  Then had Lukas in his course to the rear seen the mules bolt, heard the war machine clatter into a ditch, and he had marked the pleading shouts of its crew for aid.  And as he would have done, as he had done, for a neighbor troubled by a team and plough, Lukas had lent his strength and taken a firm grip on the trail of the Gatling and with all his force pulled it loose from the ditch.  Paying heed to the pleas of the men, he had pulled and pushed the heavy weapon up the crest on its two wheels. 

There again the Spanish bullets were finding their marks, so Lukas had fired his rifle at the enemy and stayed with the others, slapping cartridges from his belt into the door on the weapon’s side.  In the end it had come to him, the last fit, to thrust a drum of cartridges upon the top of the Gatling, and turn its crank with all his strength to drive the advancing Spanish back again with the vomit of its bullets, which he directed into the advancing enemy. And so had he done until the firing ceased and the battle had ended.

And in the fading noise of the fighting and the quiet thereafter he had heard one cry out, ‘Madre, madre,’ and he did not know if it was the Madre de Dios of the Spanish religion, or a son in dire pain calling out in his agony to his mother, but he had made his way down the slope to a small declivity, obscured from view by a blood-stained bush, and he had moved that aside to find the wounded Spaniard who had been crying out so piteously. 

He had knelt and given the human water from one of his canteens, and stemmed the flow of blood from the uncomprehending man’s wound and beheld the dire nature of it.  He himself, perhaps, had inflicted the man’s hurt with the Gatling and the thought troubled him.  And he had borne the Spaniard up the hill, and the man had died in his arms, whimpering still to his madre.  And so Lukas had come to know that killing is a very serious and unhappy thing, and he had prayed to God that he would have to do as little of it as he could.

***

And Lieutenant Parker of the Gatlings, and a Lieutenant Pershing of the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ had seen his actions before and during the fighting, and they had spoken to Colonel Roosevelt, who had spoken to ‘Old Hiram,’ and his own officer had made Lukas a corporal and done him honor, not knowing how he had wept over the body of the dead Spaniard, for Lukas never told another soul of that terrible evening.  God alone besides himself and the Spaniard knew.  But Lukas had straightened himself up proudly, for all of those who praised him were worthy men, and he resolved to vindicate them in their praise and trust.

The 2nd had made its way back to Fort Robinson, in a different ship, and he could see where the wreck of the Merrimac lay in the harbor channel when the 2nd sailed forth from Santiago.  For the sailors had sunken her in an effort to block the channel, and failed.  And Lukas had leave to visit his father and brothers, and he had told those who were curious of the war, and his deeds therein, and they had sensed the hurt that lay somewhere behind his recounting and only loved, not pressed him. 

He had first met the Colonel, a mere lieutenant then, upon his return to Fort Robinson.  And Burton Davis had struck him as wise, and dutiful, if less godly than Lukas thought meet, but so had many other officers and men, and he had himself the minding of his own platoon in a troop of one of the 2nd Cavalry’s squadrons.  And he had busied himself with the arrangement of his kit, and the appearance of those under him, and sought to emulate and please those who had served long in the ranks with distinction, so that in time he might rise as they had—and perhaps they were troubled less by the suffering of a dying enemy.  Lukas became even more silent than he had been himself upon enlisting, and more forbidding in aspect, for he sensed in himself weakness that would lessen his authority with those beneath him, and his trustworthiness to his superiors.

Thus had he committed another great failing.  His troopers had lacked for nothing, the sergeant had found no fault with them or him, and he had seen to the inspection of the troopers’ hooves.  He had made sure that the heavy straw-filled pallets upon which they lay were in good repair and free of vermin, and in his pride he had thought that all the troopers were stallions such as himself, clear in purpose, strong to endure, and guided by a desire to serve the Republic and the Lord.  And there had been one among them, who had joined after the return from Cuba, and he had stood apart from the others when duty did not call them all together. 

And Lukas had seen the trooper stand many times solitary, and thought nothing of it, for he himself quite often found silence alone with his thoughts preferable to the rough words and coarse conduct of the other troopers.  He had stopped the harsh words of the others toward the young one, but he had accepted the matter as the normal establishment of rank and authority among any gathering of young males.  And Lukas had not known of the trooper’s hidden sadness and sense of shame.  It was his duty to the young trooper and those above him that he should know, and take action.  And then he had had to weep in secret a second time.

In effecting his death the young trooper had shown much ingenuity, for he had found an elm tree some distance from the barracks, and over a stout branch he had thrown the noose, which he had tied off before rearing up and thrusting his neck within.  His own weight in falling down had torn the soul from his body and it was a horrible thing to