Red Ball Express Page #4

you've lost readers by the hundreds already.

There's no point in you

going back empty, Lieutenant. Give these Krauts a ride...

back to the P.W. enclosure

at Cherbourg.

We don't have anyplace to keep prisoners up here.

We'll take good care of 'em.

Halten Sie!

All right, Red Ball,

we got passengers.

Load 'em up, Sergeant.

There's nothin' that guy

won't have us do to make him look good.

You know

by the time that we reach Cherbourg,

we'll have driven

550 miles...

in 72 hours...

without sleep.

That's a miracle,

Wilson.

Y'know,

I'll have the...

first... book...

You all right?

Fine, fine.

How 'bout you?

Think so. I just fell asleep.

You two go somewhere to relax and settle your nerves.

We'll take care of your truck.

Sorry, Wilson.

As of now, I'm on detached service.

Hey, wait a minute.

I'm not selling anything. I just want...

Lachez-moi.

Je ne suis pas sur que vous n'etes pas un bon conducteur.

Ce n'est pas a vous que je souriais. Allez-vous-en!

Well, I see...

I'm gonna have

a little trouble here.

Say, do you know

the semaphore code?

That's, uh, hello.

You understand?

Au revoir.

Au revoir?

That's "good-bye"!

Hey! Hey,

what's your name?

You. Uh, name.

Nom.

Marie?

Claudette? Cherie?

Hey! Hey,

wait a minute.

All I wanna know is your name.

Antoinette DuBois.

Ronald Partridge.

Me, Ronald.

Ronald?

Whew. This is like Tarzan and the apes.

Tarzan?

Yeah!

Tarzan, Jane.

No. Antoinette.

Hey, wait.

I can't run and talk

at the same time.

Say something to me,

even in French. S'il vous plait.

Shove off.

Hey, wait a minute.

That was English. You don't speak English.

Not only do I speak English; I speak English without an accent.

That's remarkable.

Say, where'd you get that "shoove off" stuff?

You have heard, perhaps, of the Eighth Air Force?

Oh.

They were here?

Mm-hmm.

Well, I guess

I will shove off.

I heard that American soldiers

fight for what they want.

Honey, if those

big-winged birds came down out of the sky first,

with $280 a month plus

flight pay and that line they teach 'em at basic training,

there's nothing

left around here worth scrounging for.

Wait a minute,

Ronald.

You remembered.

Don't worry about the air corps.

We just helped send

some of them back, through the underground.

Oh, well.

Uh, uh, friend!

Americano!

Uh, uh, amigo!

Yeah, cheri. Antoinette!

Say, cigarette? Si vous

saviez seulement, qu'il n'y a pas de cartouches dans le fusil.

I'm with her.

Americain?

Oui.

Oh, merci!

Monsieur, entrez. Je veux vous offrir I'hospitalite...

de notre maison,

s'il vous plait.

Entrez, monsieur.

Entrez.

Je suis tres content

d'avoir un Americain a la maison. Louise!

Oui? Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Un Americain.

Ma femme. Un Americain.

Hi, uh, uh...

Oh, bonjour.

How do you do?

Et ici ce sont

mes deux enfants.

J'en ai une autre toute petite comme ca.

Marie? Oh, la voila.

Oh, cute! Hi!

Elle est gentille, mais c'est une petite gamine celle-la.

Non, non pas

sur la table hein. Donnez-la moi.

Eh, bien, asseyez-vous.

Oh.

Asseyez-vous.

Mettez-vous

la a votre aise, monsieur.

Faites comme si vous etiez chez vous.

C'est Americain, n'est-ce pas?

Eugene!

Tu n'as pas honte?

J'allais seulement le sentir.

Je te connais.

Oh! Say, this is great!

C'est le meilleur vin de la maison.

Uh... No, go ahead.

Non, non, non.

Go ahead.

Non... Oh, merci, merci.

Marie!

Say, come on.

I'll get you some food.

Oh, non, non!

Je vous en prie, monsieur, prenez cette soupe.

Prenez cette soupe.

Elle est tres, tres bonne.

Thanks very much, but I'll get you some food.

Mais non! Ecoutez!

I'll be back.

Oh, bon, bon. Au revoir, monsieur.

Let's take off.

Wait a minute. I gotta find my buddy...

If he isn't here, that's his tough luck. Take off!

Wait a minute!

Hey! Wait for me!

Whoo, I'm in a lot of trouble.

Let me borrow your bicycle.

I'll come back with plenty of food. You wait for me.

I will wait, Tarzan.

Oh, ho, ho.

All right, you guys,

grab your socks.

We gotta be

loaded and rollin' in 20 minutes.

We gotta be outta here

by 0500.

Aw, man, if this is what they

call a soft touch, I'll go back to combat duty any day.

Now what would you wanna

go back to combat duty for?

Personally, I think that this is a pretty...

Okay, okay. Knock it off.

Okay, fellas,

up and at 'em.

Brother.

And load

One for Hitler

And one

for the road

Lift and load

What are they tryin' to prove?

These men need 40 hours' sleep, not four.

Patton took the supplies

we brought him yesterday, moved up 25 more miles.

Guess he needs supplies

more than we need sleep.

Are we the only company in this

Red Ball? What's the matter with the rest of 'em?

They were dropping stuff

at their forward dump ten minutes after we left.

The line of trucks

between here and the front is almost continuous.

Tomorrow there'll be

a truck every 50 yards of that 250-mile road.

A load of supplies will be

dropping behind Patton every minute, day and night.

What'd they do,

give you a speech to learn?

If you spent half as much time

workin' as you do gripin', we'd make an outfit out of these men.

Now get to work!

One for Hitler

And one

for the road

Lift and load

Lift and load

- Good morning, sir.

Where do we sleep? - Where've you been?

Oh, that. Sir, if I live

to be 100 years old,

I hope I never

get into a hassle like the one I just got out of.

Due to a failure of the steering

mechanism, our vehicle sustained superficial damages yesterday.

In an effort to follow

your example as a thorough and cautious soldier,

I felt it my duty

to put out a one-man security patrol...

while the able mechanics

were tending to the needs of the vehicle.

During the course

of my investigation of the surrounding terrain,

I flushed out a very

suspicious party.

She was... He was...

I...

It's a very long

story, Lieutenant.

Okay. But I oughta make you

go through the whole thing just for punishment.

- After this, see your French

girls on your own time. - Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

My own time?

My own time. Yeah, I had a lot of that...

at least

two whole seconds a day.

We climbed into those trucks

and didn't get out of 'em for the next three weeks.

And I was the guy who

once said drivin' was a cinch,

just a matter of

pickin' stuff up here and puttin' it down there.

Well, my vast

driving experience... ahem...

had left out something

quite important:

little things like

your hands swelling up into two big blisters...

and your feet gettin'

slow-baked on the floorboards...

and more aches and pains

than were ever squeezed into six feet of human body.

Cobblestones, dust, blackout

lights and hairpin turns weren't enough, it seems.

Somebody had to throw in

eight days of rain,

followed by 65 miles

of freshly churned mud.

The road was not only long;

it now became deep,

and we fought a war

within a war... with time and distance.

This mud was

strictly G.I. issue,

not to be confused

with the ordinary variety.

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