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Déjà vu
By dawn everything was ready to go. Battery A was within hailing distance, about
a hundred yards away down a country lane. B and C were not far away, but out of sight
of the CP.
A call from Div Arty told us to be ready to move on short notice, so we unpacked
as little as possible and hurried through breakfast. Then we sat down and waited.
And we waited. The infantry had lost contact with the enemy; apparently the
Germans had withdrawn to regroup and prepare to defend somewhere further on.
And we waited. The morning wore on, with no news, no requests for fire, no
nothing. I wondered if the war had been called off and no one had gotten around to letting
us know.
And we waited. I had gotten almost no sleep last night, and none the night before,
when I had been duty officer. My eye, now almost well, felt tired and had a distressing
tendency let its lids close. Finally, about ten o'clock, I decided that as the third-ranking
officer in the battalion, I should take care of myself so as to be ready for action when the
need appeared.
So I told Capt Thomson, "Don, I'm going upstairs and get some sleep. Be sure to
wake me if anything - anything at all- comes in."
"Sure thing," he said.
Just to make sure, I repeated my plan to Capt Wilbourn, my other Assistant S-3.
There was a bed upstairs, or rather two single beds with a common side rail in the
middle, the same dimensions as what we now call a king-size bed. It had mattresses and
featherbed covers, so I didn't need my sleeping bag. I lay down, pulled a featherbed up
around my ears, and passed out. It was the most comfortable I had been since I left home,
and I slept soundly.
I awoke some hours later and lay there listening to the murmur of voices from the
room below me. Then I suddenly sat up. They were women's and children's voices, and
they were not speaking English.
The German family was moving back in!
I leaped up and ran in my sock feet to the window. The field where A Battery had
been was empty: only the ruts in the soft ground showed where they had been. The
barnyard below my window was vacant of soldiers and vehicles. The only sign of our
occupancy was a short length of telephone wire dangling from the window below me,
where the FDC had been.
I had been left behind! I, the third ranking officer in the battalion, abandoned!
Was I indeed superfluous?
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