by Len Levinson
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what’ll happen to you if you don’t do it?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll have you put back in the stockade, and you’ll get a dishonorable discharge. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“You want an honorable discharge, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to be a good soldier, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go over there in the ranks and take your place beside Private Provolone—I mean Private Tronolone.”
“Yes, sir.”
McGurk kicked out his gigantic leg and did an about-face. He marched toward the ranks, and the others made way from him. Stopping beside Private Tronolone, he did another about-face. Colonel Hutchins swaggered toward Private Tronolone and came to a stop, a mischievous smile on his face.
“You hear what I just told Private McGurk?”
“Yeah,” said Private Tronolone.
Colonel Hutchins looked up at Private McGurk, who grabbed Tronolone by the front of his shirt with his left hand and raised him in the air while drawing back his massive fist.
Tronolone kicked his feet and waved his arms around hysterically. “Let me down, you big goofball!”
McGurk looked at Colonel Hutchins, who nodded. McGurk shot his fist forward and connected with Tronolone’s nose. There was a sickening splat sound, and Tronolone flew backward through the air, landing on his back at the foot of a tree.
“Good work,” Colonel Hutchins said to McGurk.
McGurk beamed with pride. It was the first time anybody had congratulated him since he’d been drafted. “Thank you, sir!”
Colonel Hutchins glanced at his watch; and it was nearly twelve noon. “All right, men,” he said, “you might as well go to the mess hall now and get some chow. Report back here when you’re finished. McGurk—you take Tronolone along with you and make sure he behaves himself, got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fall out!”
The men broke ranks and headed toward the mess hall, and each had a lot to think about. McGurk lifted Tronolone as if Tronolone weighed a few pounds, and dragged him along by his collar. Colonel Hutchins grinned as he took out a cigarette, lit it, and headed toward his command post. My new recon platoon is coming together real good, he thought. That bunch is just what I need.
He pushed aside the tent flap and entered the regimental orderly room. Master Sergeant Koch, the regimental sergeant-major, sat behind his desk to the left, and Pfc. Levinson, the regimental clerk, sat behind a desk to the right. Both looked up at Colonel Hutchins.
“At ease,” said Colonel Hutchins. “Anything happen while I was gone?”
Sergeant Koch had a long, crooked neck and a prominent Adam’s apple, plus a hooked nose and balding head that gave him the appearance of a plucked turkey. He lifted a piece of paper from his desk.
“This is the latest casualty list,” he said.
Colonel Hutchins plucked it out of his hand and walked past the next tent flap to his office. It had a desk, three chairs, and a cot where he slept at night. Taking off his steel pot, he threw it onto the cot, then sat behind his desk, puffing his cigarette.
He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a bottle of GI gin, a cold medicine made primarily of alcohol and codeine with a sugar flavoring that made it taste remotely like real saloon gin. He held up the bottle to the light; it was only a quarter full. Unscrewing the top, he raised the bottle to his lips, threw his head back, and drained it dry.
He held the empty bottle up to the light. There was nothing sadder than an empty bottle. Colonel Hutchins would have to call the regimental pharmacist and get more GI gin, but that would be a problem because the regimental pharmacist was stubborn and insubordinate. He didn’t want Colonel Hutchins to guzzle down all his cough syrup, because it was in short supply on the island.
Colonel Hutchins hadn’t always had problems like that. His mess sergeant had made illegal whiskey in a still before the war, which he’d been able to duplicate in the jungle out of potato peelings, coconut meat, and other garbage lying around. But Sergeant Snider was missing in action. He’d been trapped behind enemy lines and presumably been killed. Colonel Hutchins couldn’t help feeling a keen sense of loss.
This was because Colonel Hutchins was a full-blown alcoholic. If he didn’t drink regularly he started shaking and hallucinating, but he was okay as long as he had a few belts in him. He never overdid it, but he couldn’t underdo it either. He was an unusual alcoholic in that his appetite wasn’t affected very much. He still ate like a hone, and that was probably keeping him alive.
But he needed more GI gin right away. “Koch!” he shouted.
“Yes, sir!”
“Get your ass in here!”
“Yes, sir!”
The tent flap was pushed aside and Sergeant Koch rushed into the office, stopping in front of the desk and standing at attention.
“I want you to do something for me,” Colonel Hutchins said.
“I bet I know what it is,” Koch replied.
“What?”
“You want me to see Lieutenant Rabinowitz and get you some more GI gin.”
“That’s right. Get the fuck going. If he gives you any shit, tell him I want to see him. He’s only a second looie, and if he doesn’t do what I say, I’ll blow his fucking head off.”
Sergeant Koch winked. “You didn’t look at that casualty list yet, did you?”
“As a matter of fact I didn’t.”
“Maybe you’d better take a look at it before you send me to see Lieutenant Rabinowitz. Check out the S’s first.”
Colonel Hutchins’s eyes widened as he pointed his finger at the paper and looked for the S’s. He found them and ran his finger down the names. Halfway through them his finger came to a stop beside the name of Snider, Morris L.
“My god—they’ve found him!”
Colonel Hutchins read the entry beside the name, and it said that Sergeant Snider had been wounded. “He’s not dead!” Colonel Hutchins said. “It’s a miracle! He’s only been wounded! I hope it’s not too bad. Any word yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I’d better go see him. We can’t let poor old Sergeant Snider lie all alone in the hospital tent without any of his chums, buddies, and pals around to cheer him on, right?”
“Right.”
“Tell Bombasino to bring my jeep around.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Hutchins felt elated. Maybe he could bring old Sergeant Snider back to the regiment and have Lieutenant Rabinowitz nurse him to health. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, lit a fresh one, and put his steel pot on his head. In the distance he heard rifle fire and a few machine guns, but it wasn’t much. The battle finally was coming to an end, but it wasn’t over. One side or the other would attack again soon. War was like boxing: The one who got off first would have the best chance of winning.
Colonel Hutchins walked into his orderly room. Sergeant Koch sat behind his desk and Pfc. Levinson was gone, presumably to chase down Pfc. Nick Bombasino, who was Colonel Hutchins’s jeep driver.
“If anything happens,” Colonel Hutchins said, “refer it to Major Cobb.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Hutchins stepped outside. His command post was in a clearing with other tents belonging to his headquarters staff. Soldiers attached to those staffs ran back and forth with pieces of paper in their hands, or on other errands. Jeeps and trucks drove in and out of the clearing, resupplying the regiment.
Colonel Hutchins’s eyes fell on a big burly soldier approaching on the shoulder of the road leading to the clearing. Somebody in a truck waved at the soldier, and the soldier waved back.
“It can’t be,” mumbled Colonel Hutchins.
The soldier walked with a limp and carried a light field pack in his right hand. His uniform was brand new and his boots gleamed in the sunlight. A fatigue cap was on his head and his face
was grayish black, which meant he was in need of a shave.
“My god!” said Colonel Hutchins.
He stepped forward as if in a dream. The soldier approaching looked like Master Sergeant John A. Butsko, who’d been the platoon sergeant of the recon platoon before being wounded during the last days of fighting on bloody Bougainville.
The soldier raised his hand and waved. “That you, Colonel?”
“Butsko!”
Everybody turned in the direction of Colonel Hutchins’s voice. They saw the mighty hulk of a soldier coming at them, limping slightly whenever his right foot came down. They couldn’t believe their eyes. It was Butsko, the meanest man in the regiment, meaner even than Colonel Hutchins, returning to the old righting Twenty-third.
Colonel Hutchins was overjoyed. At last his favorite sergeant was back. He and Butsko had known each other for a long time, even in the States, when they used to go drinking and whoring together. Colonel Hutchins smiled broadly and Sergeant Butsko grinned fiendishly as he held out his hand.
They shook hands as the other men crowded around and slapped Butsko on the back, asking him how he was and where he’d been. Butsko pushed them away. “Get your fucking dick-skinners off me!” he growled.
They all took a step back.
“Ain’t you guys got work to do?” he asked. “Well, do it!”
The GIs moved away. They realized Butsko was back and he hadn’t changed a bit. Butsko was alone with Colonel Hutchins at the edge of the clearing, and Butsko looked around at the bivouac.
“Welcome back,” Colonel Hutchins said.
“I got a problem,” Butsko replied. “I’m AWOL.”
Colonel Hutchins wrinkled his brow. “How can you be AWOL if you’re back here with your regiment?”
“Because I’m supposed to be in that hospital on Oahu where you saw me last. The fucking bastards wouldn’t turn me loose, and I was starting to get crazy.”
“You all right, Butsko?”
“Yeah, I’m all right. I walked all the way here from the airfield, so how can’t I be all right?”
“I thought I saw you limping a little.”
“Ain’t nothing I can’t handle.” Butsko looked at the bandage on Colonel Hutchins’s head and the one on his chest. “You look like you been through a little shit yourself.”
“The Japs’ve been acting up around here. We’ve lost a lot of people. Remember your old recon platoon? Well, there ain’t any of the old-timers still fit for duty.”
“Lieutenant Breckenridge is dead?” Butsko asked.
“He’s in the division field hospital. So’s Sergeant Snider.”
“That’s really bad news.”
“I was on my way up there to see how he’s doing. I hope he hasn’t been hurt too bad.”
“I got something in here to kind of tide you over.” Butsko raised his pack in the air and winked.
“What is it?”
‘Two fifths of Old Forester Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, one hundred proof.”
“Butsko, you’re a good man.”
The other soldiers in the clearing stood around and watched Butsko talking with Colonel Hutchins. Some of the officers among them were jealous, because it didn’t seem right that the colonel should be so chummy with a mere enlisted man. An engine’s roar could be heard, and then Pfc. Nick Bombasino from Philadelphia drove his jeep into the clearing, cutting the wheel hard, skidding sideways and coming to a stop near Colonel Hutchins and Sergeant Butsko.
“Let’s go,” said Colonel Hutchins.
Butsko climbed into the jump seat, and Colonel Hutchins sat in front beside Pfc. Bombasino.
“The division field hospital,” Colonel Hutchins said.
Pfc. Bombasino let out the clutch, and the wheels spun around in the muck that was the jungle floor. Then the tire treads grabbed and the jeep moved forward, bouncing up and down. Colonel Hutchins turned in his seat and looked at Butsko.
“You’d better get one of them there bottles ready,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” replied Butsko, opening up his field pack.
FIVE . . .
Frankie La Barbara lay on the ground outside the hospital, seeing pinwheels of light before his eyes, hearing bells and birds. The work on his nose was finished, and he wore a clean white bandage over it. An Army doctor had pushed the bones together and sewn up the skin. It wasn’t a complex plastic-surgery job—only enough to give Frankie the semblance of a nose so he could return to the front.
Frankie was stoned on the various drugs they’d administered to put him to sleep and kill the pain. He wasn’t unconscious, but neither was he conscious. He was in that intermediate twilight zone where it was hard to know what was real and what was not.
He knew he was lying outside the hospital tent, but he thought he might be in his bed at home, sick with the flu, while his wife Francesca was in the kitchen, preparing lasagna.
“Francesca!” he said. “Get your ass in here!”
She didn’t reply. Frankie thought she was ignoring him, and that made him mad. Who did she think she was, ignoring him? He’d go out there to the kitchen and kick her ass, but somehow he couldn’t get up from the bed.
He thought of Francesca, the dark-haired, olive-skinned girl he’d married when he was nineteen and she was eighteen years old. She was short, with a big ass and big boobs, and she spent much of her spare time in church, saying rosaries. She was quiet, reserved, and shy among strangers, and the only time she really cut loose was when she was naked in bed. Then all her pent-up emotions and frustrations exploded out of her, and she became a really hot piece of ass.
“Francesca!” he said. “Where the hell are you!”
He saw her walking toward him. She knelt beside him and smiled. “How’re you doing, champ?” she asked in the voice of Pfc. Morris Shilansky.
Frankie blinked, and indeed it was Morris Shilansky kneeling beside him. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Frankie snarled.
“Whataya mean—what am I doing here? I’m here to see how you are.”
“Well, take a look and beat it.”
“Boy—ain’t you in a good mood today.”
“Fuck you where you breathe, you bastard. I’m gonna be disfigured for life, and I’m supposed to be happy about it?”
“C’mon, Frankie, you always exaggerate. You won’t be disfigured for life. You just got a broken nose, that’s all. Big fucking deal. They’ll do some plastic surgery and then you’ll have a better nose than the one you started out with.”
“I could never have a better nose than the one I started out with. The broads used to say I looked like Victor Mature. Now they’re gonna think I look like a fighter who got hit too many times.”
“How do you know what you’ll look like? You won’t know until the bandages are taken away. Want a cigarette?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Shilansky lit two cigarettes, put one between Frankie’s lips, and puffed the other himself.
“How’re you feeling?” Frankie asked.
“I’m okay. I got a few stitches here, here, and here.” Shilansky pointed to his head, arm, and stomach. “I’ll have to stay around the hospital for a few days, and then I’ll go on light duty. I decided that I don’t wanna go AWOL with you.”
“Chickenshit son of a bitch.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you too. I always knew you had piss in your blood.”
“Shaddup, Frankie, before I break your fucking nose again.”
“You wouldn’t say that to me if I was up and around, you Jew cocksucker.”
“Kiss my ass, you wop son of a bitch.”
“Get away from me, you prick. I’m tired of looking at you.”
“I hope you croak, you bastard.”
Shilansky stood and walked away between rows of wounded soldiers. Frankie puffed the cigarette between his lips, vowing to murder Shilansky first chance he got.
Shilansky walked toward the front of the hospital tent complex, where truc
ks and jeeps arrived bringing more casualties. He walked in a stoop, because pain from his stomach wouldn’t let him straighten up. Finding a comfortable-looking spot, he sat and leaned back against a thick jungle tree.
He puffed the cigarette and watched orderlies carry wounded men in and out of the tents. He knew that dead men were being lined up on the other side of the tent, awaiting shipment to the nearest grave site.
If that Jap bayonet had intruded another inch or two into his gut, he would have been a dead man too. Or if it had stuck about eight inches higher, it might have punctured a lung or even ripped open his heart. The part of war that scared Shilansky most was its uncertainty. No matter what you did, or how careful you were, it didn’t matter. A bomb might fall on you when you least expected it. A stray ricocheting bullet could shatter your skull. You might slip while fighting hand-to-hand with a Jap and he’d cut you wide open.
Shilansky hated the war and wished he could get out of it somehow. And it wasn’t just the Japs; it was the American Army, too, that got him down. The officers were always pushing you, always making the next battle sound as if it was crucial, keeping you in a constant state of tension and worry, never treating you like a human being, always making everything harder than it had to be.
A jeep drove into the parking area, and Shilansky recognized Pfc. Nick Bombasino behind the wheel. Colonel Hutchins sat beside him, and in the jump seat in back was a tanklike soldier who resembled old Sergeant Butsko, but it couldn’t be Butsko because Butsko was in a hospital in Hawaii, right?
The big tanklike soldier, nearly as wide as he was tall, jumped down from the jeep and walked in a shuffling, bearlike gait toward the tent with Colonel Hutchins. Shilansky would know that gait anywhere. Evidently, Butsko had returned. Shilansky scratched his big nose and closed his big brown eyes, a groan escaping from his throat.
Shilansky felt demoralized, because Butsko was a nightmare. Butsko didn’t go by the book and would kick the shit out of you at the drop of a hat. During the final days on Bougainville, Butsko had got so out of control that the men in the recon platoon had been ready to shoot him in the back. Butsko seemed not to have any decent human feelings. He was a rotten, cruel, vicious son of a bitch through and through.