Through his periscope he tried to penetrate the smoke that hovered over Bretten: he remembered the pattern of hedgerows and remembered the route they had to follow to knife their way through: the rows worried him: supposing their engine conked.
There was a dangerous delay on the bridge, the pontoons fluctuating, exhausts smoking, GI's streaming past on the starboard, jogging by the hundreds. What's the delay, fussed Landel. He roared on the intercom.
Carefully, Dennison eased 9 along, working the carburetor gingerly: he edged to the starboard, increasing his speed little by little, fighting for space with the jogging GI's.
"We'll make it ... we'll get across," he muttered through the phone. "Here we go again! Hang on! Nah, have to cut speed ... have to give those guys a chance ... better run it on the center ... better chance ... won't tilt ... won't tilt..."
"Slow ... slower," Landel yelled. "Watch it ... watch it!"
The bridge had submerged as they approached the town, water sloshed across, brown, crawling with oil slicks.
A GI, wearing an orange helmet, gun belted, wigwagged the route into town. Yet water deepened and chunks of wood floated across the pontoons in front of Dennison. He wallowed through a quagmire at the last pontoon; down she dropped to solid ground with a terrific bump; slobbering and smoking she climbed a grade, the hedges to the right.
Word had gotten around that the Nazis were to stage a last ditch stand here: SS troops, reserves, god knew what all: the engineers had had ample time to plant mines, there was no doubt about that: earlier Landel had picked up radio warnings: three divisions in the vicinity. Now it was mud, smoke, hedgerows, hedgerows, with red leaves, red hedgerows raked by gunfire.
A week or so ago the Corps had lost eight tanks to skillfully laid mines and tank traps.
Dennison braked and brought 9 around to avoid a pile of rocks a farmer had heaped up for a boundary.
"Hedgerow," Landel belted through the phone.
Slicing through the first was rough: branches and leaves swept over the periscope and viewer, climbed onto the cab, then toppled to one side. The ground held. They climbed toward Bretten. Smoke foamed out of a tree. A shell exploded. Climbing higher, 9 ran into machine gun fire. Dennison snaked the bus, falling, rising, smashing bushes. Leaning forward in his seat he tried to say something to Landel.