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End Run
17 February 1946
Load ’em up, lads, and break the camp We’re throwing the bomb dumps forward again For Patton’s Armor is off the map And the winged sky-cavalry riding his flank Has need of a rest. So we are off at the dawn in a drizzling rain And we’re wheeling east, though we’re going north, For over there on our left, just beyond Falaise, The whole damn German Seventh Army Is being annihilated. We have them behind the eight-ball And in the side pocket. But not without its cost to us For here and there along the route Are the remains of our gallant little Sherman tanks Who have taken the brunt of the German Tigers And are now clustered among the green trees. Their burned-out turrets have turned a bright orange-red From the oxidizing rain; A color scheme that is not appreciated By the discerning observer. Then out of the rain and into the clear And we are wheeling north for hours on end Until we begin to find Frenchmen lining the road Yelling “Paree libres, Paree libres.” Yes, Paris is liberated. So the Mademoiselles start throwing flowers at us, And the little French kids throw anything they have. Have you ever tried to catch a ripe tomato At thirty miles and hour? Then don’t. But Paris! Ah, Paris . . . And this would be the best of all possible times For an American soldier To be in Paris! But we have a slight matter of a war to win And a job to do So we stop at Chartres instead. Chartres, city of the cathedral of Chartres, Cathedral of the Tower of Chartres, Said to be the most beautiful in the world! But not half as interesting at the moment As setting up this bomb-dump On an abandoned Luftwaffe field Rich with mines. So we are off on the high-way and into the fields Where you are bounced from the truck To land on your heels, And your helmet’s off in the mud. So? You wipe the crud off with the back of your hand And put the bucket back on your head, of course. What-the-hell else can you do? We find a shack to sleep for the night, For the rain has started again, “Unload those trucks” for the long haul back But how do we dump the bombs, without a crane, Which we left back in Normandie To load out the rest of the dump? Oh, it is really very simple, once you know how. “A soldier in the field must find his own expedient” It says here, In The Book. You know, the Ordance Field Manual. Well, Aberdeen would go crazy if they saw this; Wrestling them off by hand, Five hundred pounds of high explosive and pig iron Dropping fifteen feet from the top of a prime mover And thudding into the mud with a shock That jolts the back of your teeth. If there is just one defective bomb in the whole lot, Just one little percipitate of nitrogen against the iron To make something deadly like a ferrous-nitrate (Like the one that blew low-order Back at Strip Three, on the Beach), Then you, and your crew, and the whole damn countryside, Not to mention that brand new six ton truck, Would disintegrate in one heaven shaking blast of thunder. But nothing happens, Not this time, anyway. So you see the convoy off And post your guards, just in case, And bed down in a shack with a leaking roof And forget about it.
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