The Brick Foxhole

by Richard Brooks

  “Tough. Tough. Everything’s tough. Always crackin’ down on us cabbies.”

  “Use the black market?”

  “Who? Me? Not me. I’m legit.”

  Tonight you don’t have to worry, cabby. You’ve got your money. Money in advance. Twenty bucks for two, from D.C. to the Post. Twenty bucks is half a month’s salary for a soldier. Four bottles of bourbon. Four good whores. Two classy whores. One woman who won’t lay. Twenty bucks is a dinner, a drink, and one night at the Stewart. Twenty bucks is spit in the ocean.

  The night is hot and wet and filled with a billion bugs. Watch them slam-bang into the headlights. Blind. Zeros. A million Zeros crashing into your headlights. Out of the way. Smash their formation. Crack the Virginia night with the motor. Sing it to sleep with the tires.

  “Alexandria,” said the cabby. “This is Alexandria.”

  “Who lives here?”

  “I don’t know. Somebody.”

  “What’s the statue in the middle of the street?”

  “Looks like Scarlett O’Hara’s uncle.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Saved the South.”

  “What is the statue, cabby?”

  “Aw, that’s for them who died in the war.”

  “War? What war?”

  “The Civil War.”

  “Was that a war, too? What the hell were they fighting about?”

  “I don’t know. Folks say they’re still fighting.”

  “Good. Let ’em fight. Serves ’em right.”

  Faster, cabby. Ever watch the front of your cab eat up the white line? Gobbles it down like a string of spaghetti. Runs after the white line like a dog after the rabbit on the race track.

  “Look at the motor courts,” said the cabby. “Wonder who lives in motor courts?”

  Who lives in motor courts? Why, people. People like me. People who love their wives and people who hate their wives. People sleeping. People praying. People hoping. People who want to get out of Virginia. Men and women who get hungry and sleepy and hungry again. People who want to win the war. But not while there’s Monty. People live in motor courts and some of them are like Monty. The hell with all the Montys of the world.

  “Fort Belvoir. Here’s Fort Belvoir.”

  Who’s in Fort Belvoir? Soldiers. Soldiers who go to D.C. and love the planes at night and wonder about the cars outside the Pentagon Building and lug their bodies through Alexandria with the statue in the middle of the street which is Scarlett O’Hara’s uncle fighting the Civil War all over again and eat bugs on the road and take their girls to the motor courts to say “I love you” to the tune of squeaking springs. That’s Fort Belvoir. Fort Belvoir for victory. And there are Monty-men in Belvoir. Find them. Get them. Get them one and all.

  Not much time left before the dawn. Not much time left before reveille. The time is short and running out. Faster, cabby. Make her bust. Let her go. South. South into Virginia. That was just Accotink. Ever heard of Accotink? A gas station and railroad trestle was Accotink. A dip in the road. A pimple on Virginia’s belly. Somebody drinks cokes there and near beer and sells black-market gas.

  “Bull Run. What is Bull Run?”

  What? You never heard of the Battle of Bull Run? Fought up there in the draw between those two hills. It’s where America had a Caesarean operation and gave birth to the United States. Something new in the world. No ancient gods and no ancient temples. No ruins for visitors to gawk at. No leaning tower of Pisa. No balcony for a pope to talk from. Just Bull Run. Man, there’s something for you. The Battle of Bull Run. Yeah. But who wants to see Bull Run? Who’s got time? Who will stop the rubber tires that slam-bang on the highway? Who will turn off the highway to see where the greatest battle of all the world was fought? Who cares? Who stops to read the little steel-gray sign? Nobody. Look. You’re passing your birthplace. Look or it’s too late. Take a look at what you’re fighting for. Look, damn you, look. Men died at Bull Run and nobody stops on the highway to see their graves, so we’ve got to die over again. Then die, damn it, die. It’s too late to look now. We’ve passed Bull Run.

  Faster, cabby. It’s almost five—0500. That’s a term, cabby. That’s a zero hour someplace. The time they call D-Day, H-Hour … 0500. Synchronize your watches. The password for D-Day is dillpickle. Plenty of l’s. Japs can’t say l’s. Dillpickle. When you hit the beach, fan out. Skirmish line. Dig in. Second wave follow up. Get those OP’s set up. At 0510 hit the deck. Strafing for ten minutes. Lift the naval fire inland. Four hundred yards ahead of the troops.

  “Look! Manassas!”

  What is Manassas? A place. Off there to the right. West of the road. The Manassas Mauler—that’s all we know. Dempsey. Long count in Chicago.

  Faster, cabby. Pull out the cork. Open her up. You can’t have thirty-five for victory with Monty. That’s where we’re going. To Monty. Keeley goes to Monty. Tinker to Evers to Chance. Mitchell to Keeley to Monty. Fastest double play in the world.

  “Look. Military reservation.”

  Ah, the crossroads. Now you got to take it easy. Twenty-five an hour for victory. It was twenty-five an hour before the war and before anybody thought of victory. What for? Because they’re slow, that’s what for. They got all the time in the world and nowhere to go. Because they don’t want to kill anybody. Because it’s twenty-five an hour and the M.P.’s will stop you. And if you don’t stop they’ll bang your silly head flat with a stick. Three miles of Virginia road in the middle of a reclaimed swamp. Bugs. Bugs by the billion. Stupid bugs. Virginia bugs. Bugs off the river. Bugs in your mouth and ears and nose.

  “Look. A streak of something over the river.”

  Light. The dawn. Coming soon. Stop at the little white guardhouse, cabby. Stop over there. There where the boys stand the watch.

  So long, cabby, you son of a bitch. So long, bloodsucker.

  Come on, Max Brock. Come on, champion of the Jews. Let’s go. You go and find Monty. I’ll be there. There in the big brick building. There where the post theater is, and the PX, and the restaurant, and the little rooms upstairs where the visiting wives come to be clutched between the legs of their husbands. Up there on the second floor, in the museum. Up there I’ll be waiting.

  Bring him, Max. Bring him alone. We’ve got to be alone. You know what to say. Say it with conviction. The museum is the only place. Say it so he’ll believe it and he’ll come. To the museum where I’ll be waiting. Just Monty and me.

  Don’t wait up for me, Max. Go to bed. I’m off to war, Max. So don’t wait for me. It’s H-Hour, D-Day. Dillpickle. The museum is the beachhead.

  CHAPTER XXII

  This was the museum.

  History caged behind plate glass. Glittering history with shiny brass buttons and wax figures and exotic uniforms. Old history dating back to John Paul Jones and World War I, and now World War II. Heroes in tight pants and in dirty khaki, in lovely itchy woolens and in fatigues.

  Here behind the glass was the embalmed glory of the greatest fighting man the nation has ever known. His pistols and machine guns and rifles and hand grenades and ancient pieces and medals and banners and captured trophies. There in that case, the flag of Japan with its glaring red eye. And the Japanese officer’s sword lying on the flag. And there, there the bayonet of this war, rusted now with blood and history. And on the wall the symbol of these men. Proud symbol of proud men. Fighting men should be proud. But fighting men can become prouder than the country for which they fight.

  But now the heroes of more than a hundred and fifty years lay quiet and in darkness. Here the visitors would come with the morning. History is boring for those who live in it. But not for visitors.

  Keeley knew Monty would come. He was coming now. Entering the large brick building. Climbing the first set of wide stairs to the museum. He was coming because Max Brock had told him that Floyd Bowers was waiting. Monty had been awakened out of sound sleep to hear that Bowers was waiting. The same Bowers he had left in D.C. strangled with his own necktie. The same Bowers wh
o could open his mouth and hang Monty with a word. It was impossible that Bowers should be there at the Post … in the museum … waiting for him. Impossible, but Monty had to see, to know, and, if it were true, to kill him over again. Why would Bowers come back? Why would Max Brock bring such a message? Monty was coming to find out. In twenty minutes it would be daylight. In twenty minutes the bugle would sound and life would begin again in the barracks.

  Monty walked carefully. He stepped softly. If it were Bowers, he would have to be quiet. But he might as well have been walking with bells on his shoes. For Keeley heard him. Keeley listened to each footstep and grinned to himself. The enemy was approaching. His landing boats were coming in. This is the way the enemy came, softly. This is the way it was at Bataan. This is the way it was when the Japs plastered Corregidor for a month with a hundred batteries of guns. This is the way it was to wait, living on a bull’s-eye. And you couldn’t shoot back because they had piled up Americans around their guns. Yes, the wounded as well as the dead. They were using our men for sandbags. Living sandbags.

  Ah, come on Monty, thought Keeley. Come, boy. Up. Up. Take it easy. You’re going to surprise Bowers. Bowers is waiting. The ghost of Bowers and the ghosts of a million other men are waiting. Come, Monty. Up the stairs. Did you bring your pistol, Monty? Got a belly to shoot at, Monty? Got a nigger you want to kill? A Jew to cut up?

  Now he was at the turn of the stairway to the second floor. Now there were only a few more steps to go and he would be at the open doorway of the museum. Now he was at the top. He stood there uncertainly in the darkness, his breathing a bell buoy in the night.

  “Hello, Monty,” whispered Keeley.

  “Floyd? Is that you Floyd?” came back the whisper.

  “Yeah, Monty. It’s me.”

  “It don’t sound like you, Floyd.”

  “No? How’s a dead man sound, Monty? How?”

  “Light a match, Floyd.”

  “You light a match, Monty.”

  Monty struck a match and held it up. “Keeley!” he rasped. The light went out.

  Keeley’s hands had found Monty’s throat. “Yeah. I’m Keeley all right. Keeley, you scum. Say it again if you can. Keeley Keeley.”

  Keeley’s fingers sank deeper into the soft flesh of Monty’s throat. The suddenness of the attack had sent Monty to his knees. His hands clawed at Keeley’s fingers. They were iron hooks, hooks of flesh not to be unbent by frenzied hands. Monty drove his fist into the groin of Keeley. Then again. And again. The fingers loosened. Monty rolled away and a sigh, low and long-drawn-out, dribbled through Keeley’s lips.

  “You dirty Irish mick. You mick sonofabitch,” Monty swore hoarsely. “What’ve you got against me? What, huh? What?” He was groping for Keeley, and Keeley was crawling away. A sickness greater than any he had ever got from drunkenness was flooding over him. His breath was somewhere beyond his grasp. He was broken in the middle. Smashed. Torn and ripped. He dragged his body under a glass case where history glittered. He waited for Monty to get close. Then he toppled the case and sent it crashing on Monty. The sword clattered to the floor and the Japanese flag went with it. Monty fumbled in the dark and his hands closed on the sword. He drew it with a rusty grating sigh from its scabbard.

  “Where are you, mick?” growled Monty. “What do you want? What you got against me?”

  “I’ve got you against you,” said Keeley with a sob. “I’ve got Jeff against you. I’ve got everything you stand for against you.”

  “Crazy,” whispered Monty. “Crazy drunk.”

  Keeley rose and, doubled over, drew away to the far wall. The pain would subside soon. He needed strength. Strength from his groin, from his middle, where he had been crushed.

  “You killed Edwards, didn’t you, Monty?”

  “Where are you Keeley? Where?” Monty was again groping for him, moving slowly, bumping into cases of history, slouching ahead with the sword before him.

  “I’m here, Monty. Here.”

  “What the hell’s going on here? What’s the matter with you?”

  “This is a jungle, Monty. A jungle. Never thought you’d be in a jungle, did you, Monty? Never thought you’d live to see the day when you’d be in the war, did you, Monty? This is a piece of the war.”

  “What war?” muttered Monty. He was still coming on with the sword, creeping softly. “You’re crazy,” he said.

  “This is the same war people are fighting all over the world, you poor sack. The same war. And you’re the same enemy. Ah, Monty, tell me. You killed Edwards, didn’t you?”

  Monty thought he had found Keeley. He ran furiously to the wall and slashed the darkness with the sword. The steel clattered against the wall. Monty’s rage was like the Wild fury of a trapped beast. “Damn right I killed Edwards!” He almost shouted it. “Killed him like he deserved to be killed!” He felt along the wall but could not find Keeley.

  Pressed against a trophy case was Keeley, holding his breath. He thought of training camp. Snapping in on the range. Hold your breath and squeeze the trigger. Hold your breath and squeeze them off. If you breathe it’ll throw the barrel of your rifle off. Don’t breathe. He held his breath and Monty passed by, slashing at the air before him, slashing through the glass of the trophy case within which lay hand grenades with their powder removed, and tarnished medals with their glory removed, and a bayonet of World War II with its bloodied rust. Keeley felt among the medals and grenades and broken glass. He found the bayonet and fondled its dulled edge. But the point was there. It felt good. It was Kwajalein and Saipan over again. Bayonet in hand and the enemy ahead in the darkness. The same enemy.

  “Keeley?” called Monty softly. “Where are you, mick? Where are you, you Irish sonofabitch? Where are you, Jew-lover? Where are you, Papist bastid? You ain’t fit to wear the uniform. Come out! Come out and fight!”

  “I’ll be there, Monty. I’ll be there,” Keeley called softly to him.

  “Ah, Keeley, what do you want? What’s the matter, friend?”

  “You’ve got to die, Monty.”

  “Me? Why? What did I do to you? Tell me. What did I ever do to you?”

  “You’re alive … that’s what you’ve done to me. You’re alive. And this is the war and you’ve got to die. This is the war that will kill the enemy, and you’re the enemy.”

  “You’re crazy drunk, Pete Keeley. We’re on the same side. We’ll beat the Japs together. You ’n me.”

  “No, Monty. You’re the enemy, too. And you’ve got to die. The enemy always has to know he’s going to die. How’s it feel, Monty? How’s it feel to know you’ve got to die?”

  “There’s nobody can kill me. Never was. You ain’t a soldier. Not a real soldier. Come on and kill me if you think you can. Come on out!”

  “Atta boy,” said Keeley. “Counterattack. When everything’s lost, counterattack.” Keeley lay down on his belly and began to crawl forward. It was the jungle all over again. Keep your head down. Look for cover. Up ahead ten yards. Up ahead, the enemy.

  Monty circled toward where he thought Keeley was. He chose the right direction. He was walking to meet Keeley. He gripped the handle of the sword tightly. Too much sweat. He wiped his palm on his pants leg and took a new grip. He would have to be faster now. Not much time. A few minutes and the bugle would sound. There was no fear in Monty’s heart. He knew only that he had to kill and kill swiftly. He hated Keeley now as he hated everything else. Hate drove the spittle to his lips.

  A sudden pain seized Keeley where he was hurt and a gasp got past his lips. Monty heard and lunged. The sword cut a swath at Keeley. The broadside struck him on the back. It was almost like the lash of a whip, a whip of pliant, supple steel. He rolled over and away. It had been a glancing blow that slid off his back so that the blade hit the floor. Keeley yanked at Monty’s leg and brought him down. He stabbed his steel at Monty and the bayonet found its mark. A deep “AH” came from Monty’s lips. The sword carved another arc and missed. Keeley plunged his bayonet into the form be
side him.

  Monty still fought on. Fear and death were unknown to him. His fingers had never loosened their grip on the handle of the sword. He held it in both hands now and brought up the point. Brought it up, up, and impaled Keeley on it. Thrust it in and in, deeper and deeper where there were no bones. And when he pulled it out, he knew he was pulling with it Keeley’s life. Monty wanted to laugh and opened his lips in exultation. But the laugh never came. It died in his throat. A breath came from deep inside and formed the words, “Mick bastid,” and with those words Monty Crawford died.

  Keeley knelt in mortal agony, and his fingers, spread with blood, clutched at his fleeing life.

  Hold your breath and squeeze them off. Keep the sights of your rifle at six-thirty and squeeze them off. Don’t forget your windage.… Stand up, boy! Where the hell you think you are? You’re a soldier now. Stand up! Get those shoulders back!… Saipan! Take the airfield first. How about a wire, Major? I’d like to send this story, please. Yes sir. Thank you sir. Colonel, if it wasn’t for you I’d get out of the outfit.… Ah, Jeff, you’re no soldier. They’ll never make you one.…

  Keeley was close to the stairs. He wanted to get to a doctor. He had to plug up the hole out of which his life was oozing.

  Put your finger in the dyke. Save the nation. Got to get to Lower California and fish. Fish as big as your leg and all anxious to get caught.… When in doubt, salute. Salute within six paces. Salute within thirty paces. Smartly. That’s it. Fingers and thumb together. Bring the forefinger up to the tip of your right eyebrow.… What’s your second general order? To walk to my post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing.… What is military courtesy? A form of politeness practiced by members of the services. You will salute women officers just the same as men officers.… Don’t worry, Helen. You’re free now. You’ll get ten thousand dollars insurance, Helen. You’ll look wonderful in black, Helen.… You’re not a killer, Jeff. What are you trying to do? Prove you’re a hero? Don’t fight the service, Jeff. The service will win the war. Fight the enemies, Jeff.… Why did you enlist, Peter Keeley? Why?… Take a new lead. New York, August 7:—Slamming out two doubles and a home run, Joe DiMaggio paced the Yankees to their fourth consecutive victory when they defeated the Washington Senators, 4 to 1, at the Yankee Stadium here today.