Once an Eagle

by Anton Myrer

  “He didn’t promise me anything.”

  “The hell he didn’t—he painted a life of riotous pleasures, island girls and tuba by the flowing gallon, lolling under the palm fronds all day and all night too—and you fell for it! You ignorant sod, they’ll wipe out the latrines with you for reveille! They’ll have you holystoning the range and currying every bloody officer’s horse in Fort Riley …”

  Sam stared at him in dismay. Uncle Bill was shouting and swearing, and his mother was too distraught to say a word; even Mr. Verney was nodding in grim agreement.

  “But Uncle Bill, you went to Tientsin and Samar, you told me yourself you—”

  “I told you nothing! nothing at all! You’ll wish you were dead …”

  “I’ll make my way up in the ranks. The sergeant told me there would be lots of advancement—”

  “You’ll what? Oh, you poor sod. You’ll be sorry you ever were born! Why in Christ’s sweet name didn’t you listen to me—!”

  “But I did, Uncle Bill—”

  Wild Bill Hanlon smote his forehead. “God forgive me. I should never take a drop nor open my mouth for anything but victuals …”

  “It’s no good upbraiding the boy,” Mr. Verney concluded with hollow resignation. “He’s taken the action, and he must pay the price of it.” He turned his sharp old eyes on Sam. “But how in Tophet a fine, promising lad like you could throw away his life in so foolish a manner is beyond me.”

  “But Mr. Verney, how can you say that? You were at Shiloh and Missionary Ridge, you marched to the sea with the Army of the Tennessee, the greatest hiking army the world has ever seen …”

  “And so we were,” the old man cried softly, “we swung along thirty miles to the day, a blanket and a canteen full of molasses, and before old Johnston knew it we were snapping at his flanks, burning ties and twisting iron—and when we took Atlanta even Jeff Davis knew the game was up … But that was war, boy!” Sam had never seen him so agitated. “You don’t join the army in peacetime, to consort with thieves and drunkards, ignorant moonshiners and the riff-raff of the cities of the East …” Sam glanced at Uncle Bill, expecting him to flare with anger, but the old sergeant was only wagging his head unhappily and scratching his chin. “Outlaws, and men without names—that’s what the Army’s filled with now, boy …”

  “Did you sign?” Billy Hanlon demanded wildly. “Did you sign a paper in his presence—?” Sam nodded. “Then there’s no hope. You ringtailed, horn-headed prince of fools. You’ll be sorry you ever took that train to Lincoln. You’ll wonder why there ever was a human race—”

  Wilgus, a tall, quiet ex-cavalryman, swung from the heels and lashed a tremendous liner to right that landed not three feet foul and skipped and bounded on down to the stables with Mason chasing it. Merrick danced up and down on his stovepipe legs with joy, roaring, “Here we go! Everybody hits! Everybody hits away …”

  Uncle Bill had been solidly, mountainously right. He had been drilled until he staggered, he’d been kept at attention under a merciless sun and swarms of gnats, he had dug great square holes in the ground; he had done KP duty for a bunk that looked as far as he could see just like all the others, he had scrubbed mess tables and dug out latrines. Sadistic and horny-handed sergeants rode him, he did more manual labor in less time than he would have believed possible. He was woefully disconcerted. He kept his rifle spotless, he mastered the intricacies of close-order drill and the care of his personal equipment—and it all led to nothing. It was even as Uncle Bill had said: he was a rookie and he was made to feel it. There was no field marshal’s baton anywhere in this dusty world of incessant guard duty and drill and fatigue details, let alone in his private’s pack. As for the colonel, he had laid eyes on him just twice in the first three weeks. There were only sergeants and they were as omnipotent as God.

  Jumbo had just thrown what was nearly a wild pitch, Thomas making a fine stop on his knees. Hassolt, quick as a cat and twice as bold, danced off first, chirping and hollering. The Company B bench with its supporters was all alive now. Sam moved back a step or two and pumped his glove.

  What had rescued him—partly—were his marksmanship and his athletic prowess. On his first day at the range, wild with release from the dreary, interminable sighting and aiming drills, he had fired a possible at five hundred yards—nothing exceptional for the noncoms but impressive enough for a raw rookie, and Lieutenant Westfall had begun to keep an eye on him. Keen eyesight is a prerequisite for good shooting; he had always been an excellent hunter, and he didn’t need to have the sergeants tell him that in the Springfield he had the finest infantry rifle in the world. He qualified as expert on his first record day.

  The other avenue of escape was the company ball team. He could throw and hit a baseball harder and farther than most men, and he knew it. Captain Parrish had been delighted at the rare good fortune that had sent him this tall, rawboned Nebraskan with the quick hands and feet. The company commander was a lean, leathery man with bright blue eyes and fine silver mustachios, and he was a rabid baseball fan. He had played constantly in his younger days, but a Spanish bullet at El Caney had put an end to that. He could get around all right, he could ride superbly and walk the line like a clockwork soldier, but he couldn’t field ground balls or run the bases anymore. All his passion was centered around a ball team that could whip those arrogant, invincible sons in Company B, and when he watched Sam convert two of Kintzelman’s best curves into savage line drives that first practice evening, his joy was unconfined. Captain Parrish and Ted Barlow were as different as two American males could be, but they would have understood each other perfectly. There was suddenly, magically, far less KP duty for Private Damon.

  Wilgus swung now, the ball lifted nicely, high, hanging in the dry Texas air off to Sam’s left. He loped back easily and got under it, set himself, gathered it in. Slattery was right where he knew he’d be, a step or two up from the bag, crouched, his hands low, waiting, and he threw to him smartly to hold Hassolt, though there was no need for it—Company B already had a very healthy respect for his arm. Thomas came out toward the mound with his mask off, the little and forefingers of his right hand waving above his head in the traditional sign. Two out. Maybe they’d beat them after all, this time. The infield chatter started up again and Sam joined it, that crackling litany he loved. The dust churned around him fiercely again, and subsided; he rubbed his eyes and pulled his visor lower.

  Davis was standing in: a spray hitter, crowding the plate, waving his bat back and forth like an angry cat switching its tail. Kintzelman, staring at him, took off his cap and wiped his forehead with his forearm. Sam knew what the big man was thinking: if he didn’t get Davis he would have to face Corporal Hansen, the big blond Swede who had hit him all afternoon, who could always hit him—who would drive in the two runs and the game would be over. Company B would have won still again, in the late innings. Merrick was dancing up and down again, taunting him; he called something to Hansen, who was flailing three bats around his head and grinning. Sam glanced at Parrish; the Captain was standing now in front of the bench beside the water bucket, his arms folded. His face was expressionless.

  Thomas gave Kintzelman a sign; he shook it off, shook off another. Sam scowled at his burly back. Jumbo was a good sergeant as sergeants went, but he thought too slowly, and along only one line. Couldn’t he see Thomas wanted him to throw something different? Jumbo wouldn’t. Two fast balls and a curve, two fast balls and a curve. He never varied the pattern no matter what Thomas or anyone else tried to tell him. Wisconsin Dutchman. And now he was tired, and worried; his mind was on Hansen more than the batter. But Captain Parrish would never take him out: Jumbo had once played with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Jumbo could therefore do no wrong.

  The nervous tension of waiting in the outfield while Kintzelman fiddled around, the sense of powerlessness in a crucial situation, was irksome. He kicked at the withered stalks of buffalo grass about his ankles, swung his arm round and round to loosen it, and cr
ept back another step. Captain Parrish had not moved. He could go in there and get Davis on curves if Parrish would only give the word; but he was a rookie and Jumbo was a sergeant and had played with the Pirates. Inflexibility—it was the worst human failing: you could learn to check impetuosity, you could overcome fear through confidence and laziness through discipline, but rigidity of mind allowed for no antidote. It carried the seeds of its own destruction.

  The first pitch was in the dirt, Thomas making another fine stop and keeping Hassolt from breaking for second. The Company B crowd were all roaring and yelping now, riding Jumbo for all they were worth. Now he’ll groove this one, to try to stay even, Sam thought; he’ll put it right down the pipe, and Davis will know it’s going to be a fast ball, a Fiji Islander would know it’s going to be a fast ball, and he’ll belt it. He crept back one more step and came to the set position as Jumbo reared back and threw. Davis’ bat licked around like a yellow wagon tongue. Blue darter. It was coming toward him on a line, over Slattery’s outstretched glove—then all at once it began to curve, bending down and away from him toward left center, coming very fast, bounced once flatly and kept on. He just had room to cut it off. Just barely. He was vaguely aware of everyone roaring, a shrill cry from Devlin at third, the streaking figures—and then, racing to his right, bending, in the most luminous and evanescent of flashes the thought: Merrick will hold Hassolt at third, they’re afraid of my arm, he won’t gamble on tying it up now, he’ll hold Hassolt at third and Hansen will come up and knock them both in; and here I am, running through this particularly heavy patch of scraggly old buffalo grass—

  Without any conscious thought he dipped down, trapped the ball deftly; then spun around in the wilted yellow grass as though bewildered, took a step back. There was an outcry and he could hear Merrick distinctly now, shouting, “Go on, go on!” He wheeled and threw with all his might. The ball went in low, just to the right of the mound, skipped once—and everything took on a perfect clarity: Thomas, his mask off, standing like a bulldog, waiting, Hassolt racing down the line from third, the ball taking a nice hop into the big black mitt and Hassolt falling into his slide early, much too early, and Thomas reaching down to him, the cloud of ocher dust that hid everything for a second, and then Sergeant Major Jolliffe’s arm shooting into the air. Out. Out a mile. The game was over. He came running in with the others to the milling knot of players and spectators halfway between third and home. Merrick was protesting violently, square black mouth spread wide, his brows drawn down. He began to push his way toward Damon.

  “Why you sneaky little rookie—what kind of a play is that?”

  Devlin was capering with glee. “Go on,” he crowed, “he gave you the decoy and you fell for it!”

  Hassolt put a restraining arm on Merrick, who flung him off. He was livid with rage. “—a cheating trick! That’s a cowardly, underhand farmer’s trick …”

  Sam stopped grinning. “You can take that back, Merrick,” he said evenly. “You aren’t in uniform now.”

  “Why, you insolent hayseed recruit,” Merrick shouted. He lunged at the outfielder, swinging both hands. Sam took the blow on his shoulder, ducked the right and drove his own left hand into the Sergeant’s side and felt the heavy man grunt with pain. Then there were arms pulling them both apart, holding them, everyone was shouting something—all of it silenced by Captain Parrish’s thin, metallic voice:

  “Men! Men! Come to attention!” Everyone became rigid. “I won’t have this! On a field of sport. Disgraceful! Any more of this and I’ll have you up for company punishment, each and every one of you….” Severe and precise in his tight khaki uniform, wasp-waisted, the waxed points of his mustaches gleaming, he paced back and forth in front of them as if on a wound-up spring, while they stood there at attention, panting.

  “Now. We strive to the utmost in contests of skill and strength—that is the way games were meant to be played. But we are sportsmen. Good sportsmen at all times. We do not cease acting like gentlemen and good Americans even in the heat of endeavor. Now …” He stopped pacing back and forth; and for all the priggish punctilio in his manner there was a steely force about him that destroyed any thought of laughter. Captain Parrish had come out of West Point to fight the Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek, he had assumed command of the remains of a company at Santiago de Cuba while shaking with dysentery and Yellow Jack, and he looked as if he was ready to do it all over again if he had to. He fixed Merrick with his cold blue eyes and raised thumb and forefinger.

  “Item one: Private Damon’s maneuver—if it was that—was a perfectly permissible one, in the same category as a batter feigning a bunt, or a base runner bluffing a steal of base. You were perfectly at liberty to hold your man at third, Sergeant Merrick: you elected to commit him. Item two: you therefore had no just cause to assault Private Damon in any manner. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Merrick said.

  “Item three.” The icy blue eyes rolled around to Damon and the Nebraska boy knew it was his turn. “Private Damon—even though in some measure provoked, you are guilty of striking a noncommissioned officer. A grave offense in itself. Very grave. I trust you are aware of that. Are you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well.” Captain Parrish dropped his hand and resumed his pacing, and Sam saw that there was a method in the officer’s madness. This ostentatious display of analysis and army regulations was artfully designed to allow time for tempers to cool. “Item four: however, you were both under stress, the incident was not in line of duty. And the occasion”—and Sam thought he saw the trace of a frosty smile quiver the company commander’s mustaches—“we might all agree, was a highly unusual one.” He struck his yellow leather riding crop against his breeches. “The incident will therefore be closed. Is that clear to everyone concerned?”

  There was a low chorus of respectful assent.

  “Very good. Sergeant Merrick, Private Damon: I want you to shake hands.”

  Sam stepped forward, his hand extended. They shook hands, but the Sergeant’s eyes glinted in anger.

  “Well met,” Captain Parrish concluded. He glanced at the group again and brushed at one end of his mustache. “There may be those among you who feel the gesture superfluous. But it is ceremony that ennobles our everyday lives. We salute as a ceremony of respect, not to the man, but the rank which he wears and of which he aspires to make himself worthy; at colors we salute, not the flag itself, but that fluttering symbol of this great nation, one and indivisible …” Captain Parrish caught himself up, barked a cough, and slapped his thigh viciously with the riding crop. “We are a family,” he pronounced. “A select and honorable family. We work hard and play hard, but at all times we practice good fellowship, personal honor, and fair play. We are the vanguard of the nation. We must be worthy of it.” He brought himself to attention in a fierce little quiver, as a sign that the scene was to be concluded. “Very well. We will consider the incident formally closed. At ease, men. As you were and carry on.”

  The groups broke into talk again, a little subdued but still jubilant. Company B left the field dejectedly. Devlin was again capering for joy, his eyes dancing, his red hair gleaming in the afternoon light.

  “Did you see old Sam give him the decoy?” he asked Thomas. “Did you see it? Ah, what a jewel of a play! Did you see it, Sarge?”

  Jumbo Kintzelman nodded. As they started back toward the barracks the big man slapped Sam on the shoulder and murmured: “Nice going, younker.”

  “Damon…”

  Sam turned, recognizing the voice. “Yes, sir?”

  “Was that intentional?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Parrish’s gaze was bright and piercing. “I played a good deal in my palmy days. Sometimes a fielder is unaware that he’s trapped a ball in his glove.”

  “No, sir. I knew I had it.”

  “I see. That’s interesting. You thought it out, then, as you were playing the ball?”

  “No, sir—it was more li
ke a picture: Sergeant Merrick would hold Hassolt at third, and Hansen would hit safely again. And then the grass around my feet.”

  “I see. Remarkable.” Captain Parrish ran one fingernail to each side of his mustache. “Of course if you had thrown wildly—”

  “I didn’t intend to throw wildly, sir.”

  “No, of course not.” Captain Parrish’s face broke into one of its rare smiles, a tight grimace involving scores of seams and wrinkles. “First rate. Let me congratulate you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The Captain frowned faintly at this reply—a rookie was not supposed to thank an officer for commendation; Sergeant Kintzelman among other noncommissioned officers had impressed this fact on Sam, and he realized his error the moment he’d made it—but this was a moment of celebration, the realization of a dream, and Parrish merely nodded and smiled his bizarre smile as he walked away, murmuring: “Remarkable …”

  Sam found himself staring after the officer. Devlin was tugging at his sleeve, saying something about the look on old Traprock Merrick’s face, but he only half heard him. Was it remarkable? He didn’t know. It had happened: it had worked. That was all he could for the life of him say.

  The land was endless. Flat plains, and then arroyos whose channels were littered with boulders big as grain sacks. They slid or half-fell down one sheer water-cut side and crawled up the other, hauling each other up laboriously. There were mesas like huge rose-and-ocher hills sliced flat by giants, and more arroyos, and again more plains that stretched out and away until their eyeballs ached trying to stare to the end of them. There were hills, and thickets, and here and there enormous cactus trees with arms like signposts to nowhere erected by idiots. And over and under and through everything was the heat, and the wind, and the dust it bore, that coated them as they walked until they looked like a horde of tramps made out of dough.