“That’s just what I’m going to buck like,” Bookworm muttered half aloud. “Like a crazy jackass. Buck myself right out of this white man’s Army.”
Solly said to Bookworm, “That’s the wrong approach completely.”
“They don’t give out many Section 8’s around here,” Jim said. “You got to be a raving lunatic to get one. They had a ofay stud over in the other area last week did everything crazy trying to get out. He met reveille in his underwear; he pissed in the middle of the mess hall every morning, he wore his trousers backwards. He did everything. It didn’t make any difference. One of the captains saw him in the latrine taking a crap one day and walked over to him and pulled him up off the stool and told him, ‘Prove to me you crazy, soldier. Eat that shit you just shitted and I’ll personally see to it that you get a Section 8.’ The soldier told the captain, ‘You must think I’m a goddamn fool!’”
The men were stunned for a couple of seconds and then the laughter began to ooze out of them and they began to laugh and laugh and laugh some more at this fabulous place called the Army and at the soldier who came from Solly’s block. Some of it was frightened laughter.
Solly said to Taylor, “That being the case, my friend, you better give up on the Section 8 and do like I’m going to do. Face the facts. You’re a freedom-loving American citizen and Hitler is the enemy of everything we stand for.” He really liked the little sawed-off heavyweight, but his attitude was ass-backwards.
“Who the hell is we?” Lincoln said.
“Are you for real?” Worm asked Solly. “Or is this your pitch for a Section 8? That’s a smooth mother-loving curve you throwing. It might even fool the captain.”
“You’re in the Army,” Solly said seriously, “so you might as well believe in what you’re fighting for. I mean it. If Hitler conquered America, the Negro would be a hundred times worse off than he is now. Furthermore we’re American citizens and the country is at war and they need us, and when we get back we won’t let them forget that we fought like everybody else. This war is not like the last one. This is the real damn thing this time. Your commander-in-chief is the best damn president we’ve had since Abraham Lincoln.”
Lanky stood tall with his six-feet-five and made like he was sawing on a violin. “Somebody sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”
Solly argued, “What else can you do anyhow? You got to be in the Army. This is our country as much as anybody else’s. It was built on the backs of our forefathers.”
Worm said, “Any time Hitler wants to make a landing here, I’ll damn sure be his guide. I’ll point out all the high spots and hold the friggin’ candle.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Solly said. “You want the same right and privileges of every other American, don’t you?”
Bookworm gazed wide-eyed at Solly. “Hell yes!” he said angrily. “But—”
Solly said, “All right then. When these rights are jeopardized, you have to fight just like everybody else. You don’t think your Uncle is going to let you park your backside on the sidelines during the War, and after it’s all over he’s going to say, ‘All right, you colored folks, you can have your freedom now, even though you didn’t do a damn thing when we had to defend against the common enemy.’ You don’t think freedom is that easily won, do you? You don’t think your Uncle is that big a fool?”
Bookworm stared at Solly and shook his head. “That’s some weird shit you putting down.”
“You better listen to somebody with some sense in his head,” Rogers said. “You little sawed-off stupid-talking sapsucker.”
Rogers came close to Solly and whispered with his brassy voice: “I dig you, pops. These other cats don’t talk our language. They don’t have the faintest notion what you putting down.”
Solly stared blank-faced at Rogers. He could feel the soldier’s breath on his cheek. “What’re you putting down?”
Rogers said, “War or no war, you going to be a big colored man in this white man’s jungle. These squares around here ain’t in your class. What I mean, I admire a cat like you that knows where he’s going and got definite plans for getting there.”
Solly thought angrily of Millie as he backed away from Rogers. “I haven’t the faintest notion of what you’re talking about.” Thinking to himself, you know damn well what he’s talking about, like you know what Millie’s talking about.
Rogers laughed. “But I know what you talking about, sweet-talking pop-o. You better believe me when I say so. You may fool these other cats with all that hifalutin red-blooded patriotic bullshit, but I’m like you—I’m an opportunistic bastard my-own-damn-self. I just wish I had your polish.”
Solly was overheated in his collar. This soldier very quickly grated on the tenderest part of his nerves. He turned to Jim Jackson. “Let’s get some fresh air, buddy. I’ll walk you back to your barracks.”
He and Jim walked off together. Rogers laughed and laughed and laughed.
Next morning after breakfast they had a formation and a pink-complexioned man, with gleaming silver tracks on his shoulders and cap and an educated Southern accent that was almost disguised, called out some of their names, not including Solly or Buck or Bookworm or Lincoln. The men whose names were called were told to step out of line and to fall back into the barracks on the double and prepare immediately for Showdown Inspection of all their Government Issue, clothing and equipment, and out again with barracks bags and dressed to travel—destination undisclosed. And this kept happening all day long. And all the while in the back of his mind, and sometimes in the front of his mind, there was Millie and Mama and Mama and Millie, and what if his name were called and he had to leave for God-knows-where before seeing them again, and he wouldn’t even have the chance to telephone them? Drill Drill Drill. He was the best driller amongst the new recruits, TO THE REAR MARCH! BY THE RIGHT FLANK MARCH! It came easy and felt good to him. He learned faster than the rest. But then there was formation again and more names called out, and lay everything out for Showdown Inspection and get ready to travel and drill drill drill in the burning sunshine, and later that morning Solly was put in charge of some recruits who had just come in wearing their strange-looking civilian clothes, and it seemed impossible to him that just a couple of days ago he had been in their same tissue-paper shoes. His feet ached for the new recruits. They sure did look peculiar.
“HUNT TWO THREE FOUR . . . HUNT TWO THREE FOUR”
It felt good to drill the new men. He was going places in a hurry. Rogers looked at him with envy.
That noontime at lunch Solly and Bookworm Taylor and Lanky Lincoln bought bogus passes from the bogus sergeant Kalloran, and they were going home that night AWOL, and nothing in the camp could hold them back. But right after lunch, it was: “Fall out—fall out—every living . . . ” And the captain called his name, and all the rest of the men who had come the day he had come, and some who had come since his group, and even a few of the men who had just come yesterday. The medium-height chalk-faced captain looked up from the roster and into the eager faces of the men. “All right, boys, I want you to fall out and back into the barracks and be ready to roll in fifteen minutes.” He spoke close-mouthed, and the words slid through his crooked teeth. His dark blue eyes roamed from face to silent anxious face. “Any questions?” The new recruits stood tall and silent for the captain. “You boys don’t have any questions at all? Very well—”
Bookworm’s hand went up, his large eyes wide and innocent-looking. “I’ll show ‘em how to buck,” he mumbled to Solly, who stood next to him. “And I ain’t gon eat nobody’s shit either. Just watch my dust. Section 8, here I come.”
“All right, boy, what’s on your mind?” the captain said.
“I just want to know Captain, please, sir, are we in the Army?”
“What do you mean, ‘Are—we—are you in the army?’”
“I mean, Captain, sir, are we in the Army? The United States Army?”
“You are not in the United States Army.”
“I d
idn’t think we were, sir. On the other hand—”
“You are not in the U.S. Army. You are in the Army of the United States.”
Bookworm stared at the captain with an innocent and completely guileless look. “Wait a minute, Captain, sir. You getting us all confused now. You mean we are in the Army?”
The new recruits threw quick sly glances at one another. Buck Rogers nervously batted his big bug eyes. Solly fought hard to keep a straight face. The captain’s cool chalky-white face turned redder and redder, warmer and warmer. “Of course you’re in the Army, boy. You are not in the Regular United States Army—I told yer—you’re in the Army of the United States. Where in the hell did you think you were? The goddamn Boy Scouts?”
Bookworm answered softly and sweetly as if he were licking an ice cream cone, “I thought we were in the Army, Captain, sir, with all these soldier suits and everything, all this ‘Hunt, Hu, He, Ho,’ and all that foolishness, marching up and down all day long, but you keep calling us boys, so I thought maybe we were somewhere else, cause I read in the Daily News where Mr. Roosevelt, the commander-in-chief his-self, said he wasn’t going to bring nothing but men in the Army. Gonna leave the boys alone right long in here. So if I’m a boy, I just wondered if you could arrange it so I could go right back home to Mama and Papa, please, sir. I sure do miss ‘em and I’m a heap too young to die on foreign soil. Khaki don’t become me nohow. You understand—”
Laughter up and down the formation now—uncontrolled. Solly stopped laughing suddenly. Enough was enough. Bookworm was carrying it too far.
Worm stood still and silent and sweet-faced and at attention. He didn’t move a muscle. Lincoln bent over, slapping his thighs and shaking all over. Soldiers passing the formation stopped and stared.
“I don’t see nothing funny,” Bookworm said aloud to no one in particular. “I really don’t look good in khaki.”
“At ease, men!” the captain shouted. “At ease, goddammit! Quiet! At-ten-chunt! Fall out of line, soldier, and report to me front and center.”
Private Taylor stood straight, silent, serious.
“You, soldier! You! You hear me, soldier! Front and center on the double!”
Bookworm looked innocently at Solly standing next to him, and Solly felt an angry pain in his stomach as he struggled to keep from laughing aloud. At the same time he was scared for Taylor. Bookworm glanced at the soldier standing on the other side of him. There was an angelic look about the Worm, as if he might sprout wings any minute and go on to heaven where all the other angels dwell and study war no more.
“You, soldier, you!” the captain screamed. “Don’t look at anybody else! I’m talking to you!”
“Me?” Worm pointed to himself. The captain could not possibly be addressing Private Joseph Taylor. He was the only soldier who wasn’t laughing.
“Yes, you! On the double!”
Bookworm stepped out of line and did a beautiful right face and put his two arms up in a fighter’s pose and trotted toward the center of the formation like an old soldier and did a sharp left face which was a pleasure to behold, and he came to a halt in front of the captain, saluting him smartly. “Private Taylor reporting as ordered, sir.”
The captain said, “Soldier, we’re not going to toler—”
“Captain, please, sir, you forgot something. You really did.” Sweet and gentle.
“Soldier, goddammit—”
“Captain! Please, Captain. You forgot to return my salute.” The tenderest-hearted soldier in the Army of the United States of North America.
“You’re in the presence of an officer, soldier. You—”
“Captain, please—”
The captain saluted, his forehead creased and bursting red like overripened pomegranate.
“That’s more like it,” Bookworm said. “I knew you had it in you.” The soldiers laughing unrestrained. Lanky Lincoln bending his long body in half and howling.
The captain turned away from Taylor. “Take him away!” he screamed and motioned to two of the men. “Take him to the guardhouse. I’ll teach him how to talk to an officer.”
“Just treat me like a man, and I’ll treat you like one, Captain, sir!” Bookworm shouted as they took him away.
They went back into the barracks to get ready to ride, Solly wondering what they would do to the Bookworm. He wanted the short squatty soldier to go with them. Even though he violently disagreed with Bookworm’s campaign for a Section 8, there was something about this soldier, something real and warm and militant. Something enviable and honest.
The captain came up to the second floor and went from one man to another, taking their names as witnesses against the Bookworm. Solly’s bunk was located in a corner farthest from the stairway, and he hoped the captain would have enough witnesses and stop before he came to him. He didn’t want to be a witness against the spunky little soldier, and what kind of morale would a company have whose men were made to gang up on one of their comrades the first week in the Army? He cleared up the area around his bunk and put the last thing in his bag, and when he straightened up, the captain stood about four or five feet away from him.
“Your name and serial number, soldier.”
You must get along with men like the captain if you’re to get ahead in the Army, so give the man your name and number as if you don’t know why he wants it, and later when it comes to bearing witness, you can cross that bridge when you come to it. You have a legal mind. You know damn well it makes no sense at all to snag your pants the first damn week. His face broke out in a nervous perspiration and a storm raged in his stomach. He needed another bowel movement.
“Is your hearing all right, soldier? I asked you for your name and serial number.”
He stared at the red-faced captain and his tongue slipped noiselessly over his bottom lip and he cleared his scratchy throat. He could hear the other soldiers listening. “I think, sir, that to ask soldiers to testify against a fellow soldier, especially in their own outfit the first week they’re in the Army, is just the worst thing that could happen in terms of morale. I think—”
Veins stood out like whipcord on the captain’s forehead. “I don’t ask you for anything, soldier. I command you. And I do order you now and forthwith to give me your name and serial number!”
Solly swallowed the stale air of the barracks. “My name is Solomon Saunders, Junior, and my serial number is 33-052-176, sir.”
“Get one thing straight, boy—soldier,” the captain said. “You were not brought into the Army because it needed your enormous brain power. Thinking is out of your jurisdiction. You’re here to do what you are told to do, and nothing else. Is that clear?”
“Very clear, sir.” He’d made a fool of himself. This was not the way to do it in the Army.
The captain turned and said to all of the soldiers: “All right, men, you have five more minutes.” And walked angrily toward the stairway.
Solly stared after him, thinking if he is a typical Army officer, they are desperate for good officers. All the more reason to get promoted in a hurry.
After the men were ready to ride, a few of them came over to Solly’s bunk. Lanky Lincoln said, “I’m with you, daddy-o. I wouldn’t testify against the Bookworm either. I dig it the most what you told the man. White folks ain’t no goddamn good.”
Solly said, “You can’t lump all white folks together. I—”
Buck said, “Shame on the goddamn Worm. He should have known better than to be so stupid. And you better learn to keep your mouth shut,” he said to Solly. “I’m surprised at you. I thought you had some sense in your head. You act like one of them bums in Union Square.”
Clinton Moore, the soft-spoken soldier, said, “None of us are going to be a witness. Not in Fort Dix. We’re going to be long gone in the next few minutes.”
Clint is absolutely right, Solly thought. I let my stupid emotions lead me by the nose instead of my intelligence. That’s the thing I’ve got to watch.
The whistles blew a half of
an hour later, and they fell out downstairs in front of the barracks, kicking up dust and ready to travel, but they stood around for over fifteen minutes more before anything happened. Then a lieutenant came up and called the roll and the trucks pulled up. “All right, men, we’re ready to go.” He turned and talked to another lieutenant and got in a jeep and drove off again. Lanky Lincoln growling cheerfully, “Everything in this goddamn man’s Army is hurry up and wait.” And the men standing around grumbling and cussing and laughing and sweating in the midday sun that came down through the barracks and the bright green trees with a red-hot vengeance and set the day on fire. The lieutenant drove up about twenty minutes later, and the men were getting into the trucks now, Solly feeling angry and helpless about Millie and Mama and about leaving Bookworm behind, when the captain drove up in a jeep with the Worm, and Worm jumped out of the jeep and bounded upstairs, and in a few minutes he was back down again and into the truck and sitting next to Solly.
Solly laughed and said, “Bookworm Taylor, you’re just about the most. Holding up the whole United States Army.”
Bookworm said, “That ain’t all I’m going to hold up before this foolishness is over.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t keep you in the guardhouse.”
Worm laughed angrily. “It wouldn’t have made my business bad. I wouldn’t mind staying in Dix for a while. I could walk to New York from this place. I asked the captain when he come for me, ‘Ain’t you gon keep me in guardhouse, please, sir?’ He was so mad he wouldn’t answer.”
Solly laughed and leaned back in the truck. And now they were on their way out of the camp, just like they came a few days before, in a convoy of big Army trucks and whirlwinds of dust. It seemed like such a long time and so much had happened; yet he wondered if anything at all had happened, now that he was really in the Army now. And waving at the friendly white-faced civilians, a few of them colored. “Give ‘em hell, boys!” And the big trucks bumped and bounced through the rough and rugged streets of old-fashioned Trenton, where another war was fought, the war of the great Revolution. It felt good to be part of this. He thought about home and Mama and Millie and Millie and Mama and the law school and love and career and future and success and—all of it seemed such a long ways away—farther and farther—maybe unimportant even. All of his future was a thing of the past. And everything merged madly into the present. And the present and the future was the Army and the Army life. And the War to Save Democracy. It was his war and he believed in it, and he would throw all of himself into it. And he would get promoted in a hurry and assume some leadership. He would have to talk to Bookworm. He had the wrong attitude completely.
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 4