大象传媒

This is submitted by Mr Fred Walker of Grimsby and has been typed up in Grimsby Reference Library on behalf of Mr Walker.

NIGHT PATROL
OCTOBER 1944
THE ITALIAN FRONT
NORTH OF FLORENCE

It was close to three o'clock in the morning. We had been in the abandoned farmhouse since the previous night. There were twenty of us on the patrol, including a young officer.

We had taken positions at the glassless windows and one man, Trooper Greenfield, was outside in a slit-trench. Since the farmhouse was in no-mans land I guessed that the Germans would be out there somewhere. There was no sleep allowed and we were warned to remain on the alert. We waited for something to happen, and one could imagine that each shadow and every skeletal tree could transform into human figures.

Suddenly there was a burst of machine-gun fire and the officer charged into the room. He yelled, his voice throaty and shaking, "Quick, two men, follow me."
I didn't move.

A few minutes later the officer and two men came back into the room. They were carrying Trooper Greenfield. There was one table in the room. The men sat Greenfield on it and took off his shirt. A line of jagged holes had made a pattern across his bare back, from his waist to his right shoulder. There wasn't any blood. Greenfield began to laugh.

"He'll have to be taken back," said the officer, "rig something up".

A blanket was found and with that and two rifles a crude stretcher was made. Four of us were ordered to carry the wounded man back to base. We marched down into the road. I was at the rear and to the left of the quartet. The rifle slung on my shoulder had the semblance of a white flag tied to the muzzle. A moon had risen to bathe the landscape into a scene that would have been picturesque on another occasion. Now such a night was fraught with danger. The enemy must have been watching, but they didn't open fire.

At the base, which was in Borgo-San-Lorenzo, we handed Trooper Greenfield over to the medics. he was unconscious.

None of us saw Greenfield again and a week later we were granted four days leave in Rome, at the American Fifth Army rest camp.

The leave truck was to depart at one minute to midnight, but long before that we were ready to go, to get away from the front line. There were eighteen in the party. There should have been more.

Someone asked the orderly sergeant about Trooper Greenfield.
The NCO's tone was unemotional when he said, "He died this afternoon".

The conversations that had been going on came to an abrupt end, and then, as the truck pulled away, a lone voice in the darkness said, "The poor sod".

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.