"Do you know what common sense is, Willeford?" the first sergeant said.
"I think so."
"Well, I'll tell you anyway. It's the kind of sense that tells you the world is tlat."
"I know what you mean by that."
"Socky here is the best horseshoer in the regiment. I know you don't know the first thing about shoeing horses, but if you can't learn from Socky you can't leam from anybody. That is, if you're willing to leam."
"I'm willing to learn," I said, "especially if it's for the good of the troop. But what happens to me when Wheeler gets back from his ninety-day leave?"
"You go back to straight duty, but by that time you'll also know how to shoe horses."
"Back to Corporal Kayo's squad?"
"That's right. That is, if Wheeler comes back from his furlough. He left two days ago, with ten dollars in his pocket, planning to hitchhike home to Buffalo. There's about a seven-to-one chance he won't come back."
"If he re-enlisted, he has to come back, doesn't he?"
"Sometimes, Willeford, when a man's made it on his own for a couple of months on the outside, he doesn't feel any need to come back."
"Knowing," Socky added, "that he'll be shoeing horses for three years without another leave when he does come back."
"Third horseshoer calls for P.F.C.," Sergeant Bellows said.
"Do you mean I get promoted to P.F.C. now if I go to the stable gang‘?"
"No," the first sergeant said. "The rating still belongs to Wheeler. He won't be A.W.O.L.—that is, if he does go A.W.O.L.—until the ninety days are up. And, of course, he may not go A.W.O.L. at all. In all probability, he'll be back before his three months are up. Without any money, it's hard to survive for ninety days on the outside. No one knows for sure what Wheeler'll do."
"But if he does go A.W.O.L., then I'll make P.F.C.?"
"If," Sergeant Bellows amended, "you work out okay as a horseshoer."
"All right, then," I said, "what happens if Wheeler comes back? I go back to straight duty, and all the guys I took basic training with will be three months ahead of me. I'll be three months behind them in training and proficiency. If you order me to go to the stable gang, I know I'll have to go. But if I have a choice, what you're doing to me is handing me the shitty end of the stick. Deserting the Army is serious shit; but a man'll think twice before he deserts the Army, even though, as I understand things, they no longer look for deserters."
"I don't want a lawyer in the stable gang," Sergeant Bellows said, turning to the first sergeant. "I need a horseshoer."
"He's just showing a common-sense attitude," Socky said.
"Go outside on the porch, Willeford," the first sergeant said, "and smoke a cigarette."
I went outside, rolled and lit a cigarette, and sat on the porch steps. I didn't know why I had been singled out to Whee1er's replacement, but it seemed that whatever the reason, I was back in a familiar pattern. I had been singled out in the Air Corps to be a fireman, where there was no chance for promotion, and I had been fucked out of my P.F.C. stripe when they made me a gas truck driver.
Straight duty was the only path to advancement, and I knew it, but I had a hunch I was going to be in the stable gang whether I wanted to go or not. If I told them I didn't want to go, and they got someone else, I would then be on the topkick's shit list. I was in another no-win situation.
Socky opened the screen door and beckoned. I fieldstripped my cigarette and joined the group inside.
"Here's the deal, Willeford," Sergeant Brasely said. "I can't always make people happy, but I want them to be satisfied. If you work out as a horseshoer, here's what I'll do. When Wheeler comes back, I'll make you the next D.R.O. as soon as the job becomes vacant again. Dining room orderly, as you know, calls for P.F.C., but for some reason no one ever wants to keep the job for more than five or six months. But that will be a guaranteed stripe for you—that is if you work out to Socky's satisfaction. If you don't work out after a couple of weeks, you'll just go back to Kayo's squad."
This was a generous concession; after all, he didn't have to promise anything. All he had to say was "Report to the stable gang," and that would be it. However, the men in the stable gang, in close quarters and with regularly assigned jobs, had to get along. If one member of the stable gang dogged it, the other guys would have to pick up the slack. The D.R.O. job, on the other hand, was another dead end. Sure, it called for P.F.C., but when you got tired of working seven days a week taking care of the mess hall, cleaning the tables and sweeping and mopping the floors after every meal, and finally decided to quit, you lost your P.F.C. stripe to the next D.R.O. Then you would be back in your squad, no further along than before. Any asshole could do the donkey work of D.R.O., but only a donkey would want the job as a permanent assignment.
I shook my head. "That's okay, Sergeant Brasely. After thinking it over outside, I decided I'd probably like to learn something about shoeing horses. The more a man learns about horses, the better off he'll be."
"Okay, Willeford," Socky said. "Eat your chow, change into fatigues, and report to the horseshoeing shack by twelve-thirty. We've got us four horses to shoe this afternoon, maybe five."
"Should I move my stuff up to the stable shack?"
"Not on my time," Socky said. "You can move your stuff after chow tonight. Me and Halkins'l1 help you."
And that's how I became a horseshoer.
TWENTY-SIX
THE STABLE GANG, WITH ITS SQUALID LITTLE squad-room in the front part of the stables, was physically isolated from the rest of the troop. Because we always ate early chow, we were separated from the other men at mealtimes, too. I no longer saw any of the guys I knew, and I didn't make friends with the other members of the stable gang easily. None of them came from cities—they all had smalltown or rural backgrounds—and each man, in his own way, was self-absorbed. As a poet I too was self-absorbed, and I was aware of it, but these other guys didn't seem to be aware of their self-absorption. It occurred to me that that might be another reason the topkick had singled me out for the stable gang—thinking I would fit in okay with these other loners.
Sergeant Bellows was married. He worked an eight-hour day and rarely came around to the stables on weekends. Except for doing the necessary paperwork, he wasn't needed by any of us, beause we each had our own jobs to do. When certain things have to be done every day no matter what, close supervision is not required.
Baldy Allen, the saddler, had his own tack room, tools, and a large stock of leather. If something could be made out of leather, Baldy would make it. In addition to keeping all of the bridles and saddles in repair, he prepared extra halter shanks. In his spare time he carved leather wallets and elaborately intaglioed western belts, and he sold them to a clothier in downtown Monterey. Allen was an artist, all right, and he was the only guy in the stable gang besides me who ever read any books. He had John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat out of the library, and I borrowed it from him before he returned it. I liked the book because each chapter could be read as a separate story, and I was so tired I at night I could only read one chapter before I fell asleep. The little book also gave me some new insights into some of the other kinds of people who lived in Monterey, although they were not the kind of people I would want to
meet socially.
Allen also told me that he remembered Steinbeck from a few years back, when the author and his wife used to fish off the end of the pier. They were so poor then, he said, if they didn't catch any fish they didn't eat. Steinbeck was still living in Pacific Grove, the little town full of churches next to Cannery Row, but now that he had sold a couple of books he was finally making a living with his writing. Except for reading that one book, I hadn't read anything but a few magazines and training manuals in the day-room since I joined the troop. After dinner each night I usually listened to Socky's radio in our squad-room, and often fell asleep before eight o'clock. I was incredibly fatigued by nightfall, and all of my muscles ached.
Sokoloski, who had no l
ips at all, resembled an angry lizard. He was carving a wooden chain out of a solid two-by-four, link by link. So far he had about six links, which meant he had a long way to go. Why he would want a four-foot wooden chain, I cannot fathom, but he concentrated on it every night while he listened to big band music on his little radio.
Bill "Wild Horse" Halkins, the second horseshoer, had thick, curly russet hair, and there were always one or two straws caught in it. His acne-scarred face was deeply seamed, and he looked much older than he was. His left shoulder was lower than his right, and he lurched slightly when he walked. Halkins was almost forty, and had been in the cavalry for fourteen years.
During Halkins' first enlistment, according to the story Baldy Allen told me, they had sent Halkins to the Cooks and Bakers School at the Presidio of San Francisco. When he came back he cooked for about two weeks and then managed to get out of the kitchen and into the stable gang. But a year ago, one of the cooks finished his enlistment and didn't re-enlist. Sergeant Brasely, looking through his records, discovered that Halkins had once been to Cooks and Bakers School, and he assigned him to the kitchen.
The same evening the captain dropped by the kitchen and told Halkins that he would be in for breakfast the next morning at eight o'clock. The following morning, at eight A.M. , Halkins had fried two eggs, four strips of bacon, and some hash browns, and put them on a table in the mess hall, with two pieces of buttered toast.
The captain didn't get to the mess hall until nine-thirty.
"I'll have my breakfast now," he told Halkins as he entered the kitchen door.
"It's on the table," Halkins said.
Captain Bradshaw sat at the table for about five minutes, Baldy Allen said, staring at the cold, congealing bacon and the cold fried eggs, the greasy potatoes; then he got up and went to the orderly room. Ten minutes later the first sergeant came over to the kitchen and sent Halkins back to the horseshoeing shack.
I relished the story and thought a little better of Halkins for not offering to prepare a new hot breakfast for the captain. He had also ensured that he would never be assigned to the kitchen as a cook again. Halkins was from Missouri, from a part of the state so remote that there was no nearby town he could claim as a hometown. What I disliked about Halkins was his failure to take daily showers. We had a toilet with a urinal and a washbasin in it at the stable, but no shower. We walked over to the barracks to take a shower, wearing a mounted raincoat and carrying our soap and towel. Every night, after shoeing horses all day, I could hardly wait to get under that hot sluicing water. I would stand under it for fifteen or twenty minutes, trying to wash the tiredness and horsy smell away. But Halkins, after we finished shoeing, stripped to the waist and washed himself at the watering trough in front of the stables, after turning on the cold water spigot. He just washed his face and upper body and called it cleaning up. He only took a shower on Saturday nights, before he and Socky drove downtown in Socky's car to eat chop suey at the Chinamanls in Monterey. It was a ritual with these two guys: chop suey every Saturday night. They went to the fights once a month, but they never went to any of the dances at the rec center. Halkins snored, too, and. when he let out his breath after his deep snores, he whistled through his nose.
We were in very close quarters in our stable gang squad-room, but no one else seemed to mind. It always smelled of horseshit, naturally, being at the end of the stable, but it also reeked of dirty socks and underwear, sweat, ammonia, lingering farts, and the odor from our doorless toilet. Sergeant Bellows should have made us keep the place a little cleaner, but he didn't give a damn because he went home at night. Goyette, the assistant stable orderly, who we called the Clean Old Man, was responsible for keeping our toilet and quarters clean, but he did a half-assed job. Goyette was a French-Canadian who had served in the American Expeditionary Force during the World War, and he was far from clean, even though we called him the Clean Old Man. He had a gimpy leg, which was bad enough to keep him on permanent dismounted duty, so the first sergeant, not knowing what else to do with him, had assigned him to the stable gang. Sergeant Brasely had tried to persuade Goyette to transfer to the Soldiers' Home in Arlington, but the Clean Old Man liked living in the stable gang squad-room and being around horses. He wasn't much help to Hampe, the stable orderly. He couldn't help Hampe load or unload the wagon because he couldn't throw a pitchforkful of manure that high. But he could prowl around the stables at night, checking for slipped horse blankets, and he took care of the sick horses in the morning when the vet came around. I guess Goyette made himself as useful as he could, but it wasn't like having another able-bodied man in the gang.
That left Milam Hampe, the stable orderly, who did enough work for two or three men, although his harelip made it uncomfortable to be around him. You hated to keep saying "What?" every time he said something, so we usually tried to avoid getting into any prolonged conversations with Hampe.
Anyway, such was the stable gang, and, we were isolated in almost every respect from the rest of the troop. We didn't go out to drill with them, and we didn't use the day-room at night because we had our own squalid room at the stables.
When the troop went to the field, the stable gang rode along, too, but at the back of the troop. As soon as we got into camp, Socky would set up his hand forge, which went ahead on the troop truck, and we would shoe horses until it was time to eat. We also hayed out on the field picket line, and we had our own horses and riding equipment to take care of in the field.
In garrison, my day started at five A.M., when Hampe got up. He and Goyette got the feed wagon and gave each horse a half gallon of oats, dumping the oats into the manger in each stall. I didn't have to get up until five-thirty, but I could always hear the horses stomping and whinnying for their oats even when Hampe and Goyette didn't make enough noise to wake me. I had a section of twenty stalls (two horses to a stall), and when the horses finished gobbling down their half gallon of oats they were released so they could run into the corral.
Breakfast was always a big meal, with a heaping plateful of S.O.S., when they had it, or four fried eggs with home fries and thick-sliced bacon. We ate fast because we had work to do, and we were always anxious to get started. I had to muck out my stalls, which meant shaking out the straw and piling up the wet straw and horseshit into small piles in the aisle. Later on Hampe harnessed the wagon and loaded all of this manure by himself. When I finished my stalls, I went into the corral with an armload of halter shanks—as did the others—and caught horses to tie on the line. When the troop arrived, either for drill or horse exercise, all of the horses were already tied on the line. The troopers found their own horses on the line, brushed off the shit marks, and saddled up.
Sergeant Bellows and Socky separated the sick horses and the horses to be shod that day and tied them on short, separate picket lines. Socky and Sergeant Bellows each maintained separate rosters. There were always a few horses that stayed in the corral all day and didn't get exercised, but not many, because, on the whole, we took very good care of the animals. After all, a horse cost $145, whereas a new man to take care of this expensive horse could be found under almost any railroad bridge in America—even if the man turned out to be, like Wilcox, a Mormon missionary.
After the horses were sorted out and tied on the line, Socky got his forge going (we had an electric-powered bellows in the garrison), and Halkins and I started pulling shoes on the first two horses of the day. We trimmed the hooves, rasped them smooth, selected cold shoes from the barrel, and then Socky, at the forge and anvil, made the shoes fit the horses. This was the number one rule in horse-shoeing:
Fit the shoe to the foot, not the foot to the shoe.
The rule is a tough one to follow because it would be much easier the other way around. We had to avoid severe paring or too much rasping. Also, the length of the foot had to be reduced evenly at both the toe and the heel. The frog in the middle of the foot must be able to touch the ground when the shoe is tacked on to the foot because the frog acts as a so
rt of shock absorber, giving the foot its spring. This meant that enough of the hoof had to be pared so the frog would indeed touch the ground when the shoe was tacked on. An adequate number of nails had to be used so the horse wouldn't lose the shoe or have it loosen up after a couple of days. The standard rule for this was three nails on the inside and at least four on the outside, although Socky always wanted one or two more nails for insurance. If a horse threw a shoe during ordinary horse exercise or drill, Socky took it as a personal affront.
So we had to be sure we tacked in enough nails and crimped them and cut them off without any jagged edges. Clenches had to be neat, in line, and the right distance up the wall. If Socky saw any daylight between the shoe and the foot after you told him the horse was ready, he would curse you and make you pull the shoe again. The other hazard was inadvertently getting a nail inside the white line (the quick) instead of into the wall. I was particularly careful about this, because it could make a horse lame. I was a novice, but I became very familiar with a horse's foot after a few days and I learned there was only one right way to shoe a horse—Socky's way. When a horse had a split hoof, or needed a leather pad, Socky or Wild Horse took care of it. After all, it would be a long time before I could learn all that these guys knew.
Altogether we had 160 horses, so if we shod eight a day, or forty a week, by rights we would be able to get to them all once a month. But there was payday, a half day of work, so we usually only completed two horses before pay A call. We also had to fit extra shoes, one for the front feet and one for the back feet, as spares for each horse. Making these shoes during the regular working day took extra time. There were also some horses, very few, luckily, that didn't want to be shod. They got shoes anyway, but then it took all three of us, a nose twitch, and a sideline to get them on. So the way it worked out, on the average, each horse got new shoes about every five weeks, and sometimes six.
This meant that there was never a time that a horseshoer could sit back and say, "I'm all caught up—it's time for a breather." There would never be time for a breather because the work was unending, backbreaking, and no matter how hard you worked today there would be another eight horses to shoe tomorrow. Forever.
Something About a Soldier - Charles Willeford Page 24