Read Standing at the Scratch Line for Free Online Page B

He began packing his equipment.
    “This isn’t patriotism, man,” Professor answered. “This is standing with one’s own people. If we figure out a way to bring that gun, we’re going to save colored men’s lives. Nobody else is worrying about it, so I think it’s up to us.”
    “Shit, we don’t even know half these niggers!”
    “It don’t matter,” LeRoi said. “They’re our people. They got our color skin or something close to it. We know a little about what they been through, ’cause we been through it. They are family! The only family we got is the colored soldiers fightin’ next to us.”
    “What family?” Slick scoffed. “You been niggers together?
    LeRoi pulled a knife from his boot and threw it with his left hand in one motion. The knife stuck in a log beam and quivered about four inches from Slick’s face. “Don’t forget who you talkin’ to,” LeRoi advised. “I’ve told you before that I don’t like the word
nigger
!” Slick edged away from the knife as LeRoi came over to collect it.
    “Let’s pull out,” LeRoi said, lifting his pack on his back and picking up his guns.
    The men left the bunker and headed uphill, straight for the trees. The snow continued to fall. Beyond the valley, the distant mountains’ jagged outlines dominated the landscape with dark uneven shapes and snowcapped peaks. There was no breeze, but there was a slight chill in the air. They trudged single file in silence, hearing only the crunching sounds of their boots. There was ten feet or more between each man. The trees of the forest closed in around them like silent mourners at a funeral. They were headed for an old riverbed that was covered by brush and scrub trees. The riverbed was a deep, long-running scar down the face of the hillside, yet it could not be seen for any distance due to the density of the surrounding trees. The men descended into it and followed the defile down the hill toward the German lines.
    At the bottom of the hill two hundred yards of snow-covered barbed wire extended in circular rolls across an uneven, bombed-out meadow to the first line of the German trenches. Halfway down the hill, the riverbed was joined by another creek. The men had to be careful because the footing was extremely slippery. There were two or three inches of water now flowing at the bottom of the bed underneath the snow and the men sought to stay out of it if they could.
    LeRoi was in the lead and signaled a halt. He began pulling away several large pieces of brush on the uphill side of the riverbed and exposed a culvert that was four and a half feet in diameter. After taking a careful look at the surrounding landscape with his German binoculars, he quickly entered the darkness of the culvert on his hands and knees. He was followed one by one by his companions. The last man had the responsibility of pulling the covering brush back in place.
    The culvert was part of an old reservoir drainage system that had been bombarded into disrepair. There were several places along its length where the walls had been totally ruptured by bombs through which the snow-covered hillsides could be seen. For the most part, the interior of the culvert was dark and was only occasionally illuminated by LeRoi’s flashlight. The length of the culvert extended from where LeRoi and his companions had entered it to Saint Die Reservoir, high above the town that was its namesake.
    The men did not leave the culvert until they had traveled nearly a mile within it. When they did exit, they were surrounded once more by a dense evergreen forest. From their previous forays in the area, they knew that there was a small German patrol station above them, guarding the road that entered Saint Die from Luneville. Below them were the lights of the German trench lines spread out like an endless maze. Their objective was a partially destroyed small town named Côte d’Saar, two miles on the other side of Saint Die. The trail was rocky and steep and the men