by James Jones
The third man, a thin young Indiana farmboy, tried to watch the Major from the corner of his eye as the Major looked over his equipment. He would have been better off if he had not worried. His equipment was excellent. S/Sgt Judson said “You’re at attention, Prisoner. That mean eyes, too” without turning or even lowering his notebook and swung his grub hoe handle backhand by one end like a man warming up with a bat, across his chest loosely, all in one movement lightly, from where it hung at his side loosely just aft of the balance. The flat of the headend caught the farmboy accurately with just the right force in the side of the head without touching the vulnerable temple and the farmboy began to walk sideways, tacking off across the barrack as if he had decided to go away from this place, but his knees went out from under him almost immediately and he hit the floor on his face tiredly without getting far. S/Sgt Judson said “Pick him up” without looking up from his notebook that he was entering the demerit in, and the two men on either side jumped out and stood him up and started him back but his knees sagged as soon as they let go and he started down again so they just stood and held him up by his armpits helplessly and looked guiltily, as if it was their fault he would not stand up, at S/Sgt Judson. S/Sgt Judson said “Slap his face” as he and the Major moved on to the next bunk, and one of them slapped him and he came back enough to control his legs although he looked like he resented it. His head was bleeding some and some of the blood was on the floor where he had fallen and S/Sgt Judson said “Get a rag and wipe that blood up, Murdock, before it dries and you have to scrub it” as he and the Major came out into the aisle again to move on to the next bunk. The boy turned to his shelf, where there was no rag, and stopped. Then he had an inspiration. He got his GI khaki handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood up carefully dreamily and then as an afterthought wiped off his head too, still looking as if he was listening to a faroff musical concert of infinite beauty, and put the khaki GI handkerchief back into his hip pocket meticulously. By this time the Major and S/Sgt Judson were already finished with the last bunk which was only four up from the boy’s, and on their way to the door where the two riotgunned giants stepped aside for them while the third giant outside unlocked the doors.
S/Sgt Judson stopped in the door, without looking to see if the blood was wiped up, and said “At ease. Rest” and was gone. The guard outside locked the doors after him and followed. A sort of collective silent sigh seemed to go up from the barrack.
Cautiously at first like accident victims who dont know yet if they’re hurt, then with increasing confidence, the men inside began to move around stiffly, vague-eyed and self-conscious like bus passengers stretching after a long ride. They cleared their throats and began to talk loudly against a great silence which they could not dent and rolled themselves cigarets out of their Duke’s Mixture thirstily, avoiding the three casualties guiltily in the same way combat soldiers avoid their own wounded.
Prew stood by himself, without smoking. He wanted one, bad, but he would not let himself smoke one. He watched the others coldly, feeling himself begin to fill up slowly like a large bucket under a hard-pouring tap with the greatest disgust he had ever felt in his life. He did not know whether the greatest part of this disgust was directed at them or at the Major and S/Sgt Judson. Or at himself, for being a member of the human race. But he did know, with a kind of first-dawning understanding, why Angelo and Jack Malloy and Beer Belly Berry not only preferred to be in Number Two barrack, but were proud of it. He would be proud of it, too, when he got in Number Two, and he wanted to get there now, in a hurry.
Stonily he sat himself on the floor at the end of his bunk until the whistles blew Work Call, and the men seemed to sense his distaste because they left him alone and none of them tried to talk to him. Only when the rest of them had eased off from that first hungry smoke, did he compromise and let himself roll a cigaret.
The men did not try to talk to the three casualties either. They were like the neighbors who feel guilty because omniscient disaster has struck and burned down the home of a friend and left their own standing. The casualties themselves did not seem to care whether they were talked to or not; it was as if they understood they had moved into a class by themselves where the consolations of the lucky would not help them anyway.
The fat man, still standing at attention staring straight ahead crying silently long after Fatso had gone, suddenly collapsed himself down onto his carefully-made drumtight bunk that he would have to tighten again now, and put his head in his hands and began to sob rackingly.
The first man, the one with the foot, had sat down on the floor in his tracks immediately, as soon as Fatso was gone, and taken off his shoe tenderly. Then he just sat, momentarily happy with the relief, like a fat woman just out of her corset, massaging his foot concentratedly, his lips moving silently cursing disgustedly.
The Indiana farmboy didnt do anything, but just stood in the same spot, still staring dreamily at his shelf, as if wondering why no rag had been there, or perhaps still hearing his music.
Prew watched all three of them through the cold hard crystal of his general disgust, wondering with a kind of dispassionate scientific interest just how this would affect them overall, and making a mental note to watch and see.
Within a week the fat man had wangled an angle and got himself assigned to the kitchen as an apprentice cook. Two days later he was a trustee, and moved over to Number One, the east barrack, where the trustees bunked together, and Prew did not see him any more.
The man with the foot limped around for two days before he got his nerve up to go on Sick Call. He was pleased to find, when he finally did, that he was suffering from a broken metatarsal for which the Stockade doc sent him up to the prison ward at the Station Hospital with a report on how a rock had fallen on his foot while at work on the rockpile. He rode off in a recon happily, expecting to spend four or five weeks of vacation in a cast. He was back in four days, very bitterly, in working splints and eventually he ended up in Number Two where he and Prew became quite friendly.
The Indiana farmboy, who had looked the worst, had less trouble than any of them. He stayed in his daze all that day and had to be led out to work and led in to chow. At the rockpile they put his hammer in his hands and he stood in the same spot all day swinging it dreamily while the rest of them, including Prew, more or less tried to keep an eye on him. The next morning he came out of it in a fighting rage and knocked three men down, cursing and yelling, before the ones working nearest him could swarm over him, leaving an arm waving and a leg kicking here and there out of the press, and hold him down and quiet him. After that, he was his same old mild placid uncomplaining self again as if nothing had happened.
That was all there was to it. By that time there were other no less interesting casualties to observe, and by that time Prew had lost that first overwhelming disgust. Perhaps that was what horrified him the most: that he had lost it. He was afraid if he was not very careful he might even get so he did not mind any more. Because try as he would, he could not find anybody to fix the blame on. He felt it would help a lot if he could only find somebody to blame. He hated Major Thompson and Fatso, but that was not the same thing as being able to blame them. He also hated the casualties who let themselves be beaten around like somebody’s burro, and he certainly could not blame them. He hated the Major and Fatso, he analyzed shrewdly, because he feared them; and the casualties because he feared being like them. Both hates were personal. He felt morally obligated to refrain from basing the blame on personal hatreds. He could not even blame the Army. Angelo could blame the Army; Angelo hated the Army. But he didn’t hate the Army, not even now. He remembered what Maureen had told him once; that it was the system that was at fault, blame the system. But he could not even blame the system, because the system was not anything, it was only a kind of accumulation, of everybody, and you could not blame everybody, not unless you wanted the blame to become diluted into a meaningless term, a just nothing. Besides, this system here in this country
was the best system the world had ever produced, wasnt it? This system was by far and above the best system anywhere else in the world today. He felt if he did not find somebody to blame pretty soon he would hate everybody.
He talked on the rockpile about it to Angelo, when the little guy came back from the Black Hole the morning of the third day, and especially Prew mentioned that swift lessening of the disgust; that was what bothered him most. Even worse than fixing the blame.
“I know,” Angelo Maggio smiled at him grimly out of the flinty battered new face that never failed to surprise Prew each new time he saw it. “I know, the same thing happen to me. I even got scared I might even turn into a trusty.”
“So did I!” Prew confessed.
“But you wont feel that way when you’re the one getting hit,” Angelo advised, “when its you that its happening to.”
“It hasnt any of it happened to me yet though, except that interview the first day.”
“Thats one of the reasons I’m glad I’m in Number Two,” Angelo grinned at him wolfishly. “Least they know where I stand. And,” he said, “when you’re in Number Two you dont have to worry about if you will try to keep it from happening to you. You aint got no choice.”
Angelo grinned again, savagely, from behind the new scar he had brought back from the Black Hole. His left eyebrow had been split and the dark line of the new scab ran down through it diagonally like a meticulous part in a balding man’s hair. It made the one eyebrow look derisively lifted.
“Thats why you need to get into Number Two yourself, Prew, soon as you can. Bein in Number Two gives a guy’s conscience a rest.”
Angelo had talked the plan over with Jack Malloy, both before he went into the Hole and last night after coming out. The Malloy was all for it. It was the best plan available to get yourself disciplined just enough to get yourself in, but it was still a minor offense like making mistakes at inspection which only got you demerits and a trip to the Hole (if you got enough demerits) but did not ever get you thrown into Number Two. Also, this plan never failed because they were strict about food complaints, so that you did not have to worry about having to go through with it two or three times before it finally clicked. The Malloy absolutely swore by it.
“I’m sold,” Prew said. “You dont have to sell me. I was sold before you took this last trip. The only reason I waited at all was because you made me promise I would.”
“An a damn good thing for you, too, buddy,” Angelo said fervently. “The Malloy passed along a couple of tips that will help you plenty. An I wount of thought to tell you any one of them.
“The first thing,” he warned, “is to not ever let them know you want into Number Two. You want to make them think that compared to getting threwn into Number Two, the being worked over and the time in the Hole are heaven-sent pleasures.”
“Okay,” Prew said.
But the main thing, Jack Malloy said, the secret, was to not fight back with the guards when they worked him over; take it and keep his mouth shut. That was the really important thing. The other thing was how to handle himself after they locked him up in the Hole.
“Why the hell not fight them back?” Prew said quickly.
“Because it will only get you a worse working over and not accomplish a damn thing.”
“I dont aim for none of them to get the idea I’m yellow.”
“Yellow my big fat ass,” Angelo said. “Yellow my balls. You go into it thinkin like that, you sure to fight them back.”
“Well, I notice you and Berry both fight back.”
Angelo grinned bitterly. “Sure, an we aint the ony ones. But its a mistake on our part, not somethin to copy. Thats one of the things The Malloy is awys givin all us guys hell over.
“I know he’s right,” Angelo said, “but when I get in there I just cant help it. Berry, he dont know no better; but I do. But I get in there with them I awys forget. I fly off the handle and then I dont care if they kill me or not.”
“Maybe I cant help it, either,” Prew grinned, wishing they could stop talking about it and get on with it. Three days ago the excitement had been a pleasantly thrilling escape from the rockpile. Now it was so strong it had become distinctly unpleasant.
“Its not for to joke with,” Angelo bored on inexorably. “A guy is a sap to get himself messed up when he dont have to. And you can get under their skin worse that way than you can by fighting them. The Malloy calls it the Principle of Passive Resistance. Says Gandhi invented it. And it works, too, because I’ve seen Jack Malloy make it work. If I dont do it, its because I just aint that good of a man yet, not because I dont want to.”
“Okay!” Prew said irritably, “I’ll do what I can. How do I know I can do it or not? What makes you so sure I can do it? when you cant do it yourself?”
“Because I know how you work,” Angelo said defiantly. “I aint never seen you fight in the ring, but I have heard about that also. You’re a good soljer,” he admitted grudgingly unwillingly, “just like The Malloy’s a good soljer,” he said. “Ordinarily, I aint got no use for good soljers; but it takes a crack soljer with plenty control, to beat another good soljer like Fatso who’s holding the reins and got all the cards,” he said angrily, “and you mights well admit it.”
“Balls!” Prew said, embarrassedly because Angelo had touched him on his soft spot, derisively because he felt a sunburst of pride, pride that he knew he had no right to in front of any man who had earned this face from behind which Angelo Maggio of Atlantic Avenue looked out at him so devotedly.
“You ask me!” Angelo said argumentively. “I tole you!”
“Awright, awright,” Prew growled. “Now what else?”
“Theres just one other thing,” Angelo said. “And thats the Hole. You got to know how to act, in the Hole.”
“The Hole? I thought you were all by yourself in the Hole.”
“Thats just it, you are. Thats what makes it bad. The Malloy says you can beat that too, if you just go at it the right way, but I never been able to do it. And neither has anybody else I know of, except The Malloy.
“The main thing,” Angelo said, “is to remember to make yourself relax. You got two, maybe three days, maybe more, to do in there. Theres no way to get out of it, and no way to cut it short. You mights well accept it and get use to it, and relax.”
“Thats logical,” Prew said. “Whats hard about that?”
“Well,” Angelo said “you aint never been in there.”
“Course I aint never been in there. Thats why you’re briefing me, aint it?”
“Well, I dont want to scare you off nor nothing.”
“You wont scare me off,” Prew said quickly. “Lets have it. Lay it out.”
“I’ve been in there five times myself you know. I dont look no differnt, do I?”
“Well,” Prew said, “not much differnt. Come on, lay it out.”
“Okay, I’ll see can I explain it to you. But it aint really near as hard as it sound, when you tell it. You got to remember,” he said sheepishly, “that it aint near so hard as it sound.”
He went on swinging his hammer, carefully, punctuating his sentences with the hammerblows, carefully, so the guard would not notice and interrupt, as he talked.
“The first half hour,” Angelo Maggio said, “after they throw you in, that aint so bad. They’ve probly work you over a little bit and the relief of gettin free from that carries you a while. You just lay there and relax for a while.”
“Yes,” Prew said.
“Ony, that begins to wear off after a half hour or so,” Angelo Maggio said. “Thats when your mind starts to workin again. The Malloy says thats what causes it: Theres nothin to do but sit, and of course there aint no light, and you aint got no outlet for your thinking, see?”
“Yes,” Prew said.
“Well,” Angelo said. “I dont know what causes it myself,” he said apologetically, “but after the first half hour or so you awys get to imaginin, somehow or other, that the walls is on wheels li
ke, see?”
“Yes,” Prew said.
“Well, you think they’re closin in on you, like, on them wheels,” Angelo Maggio said, “and thats when you first get so you cant breathe. Now I know it sounds silly as hell,” he said.
“Yes,” Prew said.
“You see, there aint enough room to stand up in there without bending over, and if there was you’d ony be able to take three steps from front to back. Course, theres no room to walk sideways at all. So you cant walk it off, you have to just sit, or lay, on the bunk, and do all your relaxin in your mind. I know it sounds stupid,” he said.
“Yes,” Prew said. “Come on,” he said.
Angelo took a deep breath like a man about to dive from a board too high for his ability but that he cant back down from now that he is up there in front of everybody.
He let part of the breath out. “The first time I was in I thought I was goin to suffocate to death. It was all I could do to keep from startin to yell. If you once start to yell you’re gone. Dont start to yell. You’ll still be yellin when they come to take you out. Or until you get hoarse and lose your voice. And then you’ll still be yellin inside. Even then.” He stopped.
“Yes,” Prew said. “What else?”
“If you can sleep a lot, that helps, but some guys its hard to sleep because you see the bunk aint really a bunk. Or a cot. Its ten or twelve iron pipes hung lengthwise from a wall on two chains and course theres no mattress nor blankets on it.”
“Yes,” Prew said. “Is that all?”
“The Malloy says you can beat all that if you can control your mind. I never can,” Angelo Maggio said. “The Malloy can control his mind to stop thinkin. I cant do that. I’ve pick up a few little tricks that help some, but I cant do that other. One way I learn myself was count your breaths off: pull in eight, hold four, let out eight, hold four; that way helps that feeling how you are suffocating.”
“All that happens to you every time you’re in there?” Prew said.
“Another thing, I get hungry. They give you one slice of bread and a tincup of water three times a day.