408
PARTISAN REVIEW
We'd been going about five minutes-long enough to get to the edge
of the grove, when we heard some shouts coming up the incline that
rolled back to the trees. Some of our riflemen were down there at a
fence and they were calling to us to pass these guys on back to the rear.
Couple of Kraut prisoners they were. Davis understood right away–
and almost all the rest of us. He waved and the prisoners started up the
hill. Davis was out ahead where he should not have been, of course,
and with him was the chap by the name of Bonjumo who was his
walkie-talkie man and his favorite almost from the beginning in the
States.
When Bonjurno started to yell I thought that it was almost the first
time that I'd ever heard his voice-he was the quietest in the platoon.
But I didn't have much chance to reflect on his voice because the
case was that he'd gone off his head. He screamed-God what a sound it
was-"They're coming, they're coming!" Over and over he screamed it
and he pawed at Davis like a small, frenzied ape.
Davis was so shocked he could do nothing but push out at him
awkwardly in what I'd guess now was simply profound embarrassment,
not even disgust. The Germans were about 75 yards off; they knew
something was wrong but like the rest of us the spectacle-it was that
and nothing else-fixed them and they just stood watching. But to be
safe, one of the Germans raised his hands high up.
That set it off. Bonjurno threw himself down on the ground, pulled
at his carbine until it came off ripped with the walkie box from his
shoulder, and he started to fire. He was wild, way wild-half a clip
went up at the dead stars-all of us standing there like stone men, no–
body really aware of what he was after. Then suddenly he let out one
mad shriek-"I've got them!"-and leaped up and ran at them firing.
The Germans knew; they went for the ground. But on the way one of
them caught it, right in the middle of the face.
Bonjurno turned around, quivering, looked at us. He started to
cry. Davis headed toward him. I don't know what he had in mind
doing, what could have been done--he'd taken our names in vain,
that was all, damned us. Anyway Bonjurno saw Davis and ducked past
him on an end-around, brushed right by me-his face wet and tom
and wild as a winged rabbit at the brook-and disappeared on the run
into the forest.
When his ships were down, pikes cooled, blood thick, the wind
standing firm, Due William sent to the Pope and rehearsed once
more the oaths of Edward and of Harold. Before my court, upon
