Rogers’s buck eyes looked worried for the very first time. “Wonder where we’re going.”
The men laughed nervously. Bookworm said, “If they send us all the way to Chittling Switch, Mississippi, it won’t make Buck’s business bad. He’d be like a rabbit in the briar patch. He comes from one of those towns down there so little, you can stand in the middle of town and piss a stream to the city limits. You can tell he’s a down-home boy. Been up North just long enough to get big-city slick and pick up a brogue.”
They all laughed a loosening-up laugh, even Buck, but all of them were worried-looking.
“I’m so glad I’m a British subject,” Buck said.
“You a British subject all right,” Bookworm said. “Them crackers down home subject to kick your big fat rusty-dusty.”
This time they howled with laughter.
And now they were standing in the Trenton railroad station, and Solly looked around and looked at the two doors leading to the train platforms. He turned to Rogers and the Book-worm. “We’ll all know in a few minutes which way we’re going. If we go up to the platform through the door on the right, we’ll know we’re going to a camp up North, but if we go through that other door, it’s shame on us.”
A boy came through the station selling pop and hot dogs, and the men broke ranks and gathered around him. And suddenly Solly remembered and looked around him and started to run around in the station like it was a matter of life and death.
“It’s over there,” Bookworm said.
“I’m not looking for the latrine,” Solly said, and he suddenly spied what he was looking for and he ran toward the newspaper stand to get some change and then to the telephone booth.
There was no air inside of the booth at all. He felt like meat being cooked in an oven. “Long Distance—” He didn’t hear himself give the number to the operator. She’d better be home, he thought. Damn her sweet soul, she’d better be! It’s Saturday and she’d better be home. He heard a faraway voice say, “New York City—” His heart beat angrily and his clothes stuck to him as if he’d been caught in a thunder shower. Why didn’t she answer the phone in a hurry? The captain blew his whistle for the soldiers to assemble, and then he heard her voice come through like a piece of great uplifting music to him, and he started to laugh and talk at the same time and his face filling up, overflowing almost, and the captain’s whistle blew again. She was so glad he called; if he had called two minutes later he wouldn’t have caught her. She was getting ready to go to the grocery store. The whistles blew and she wasted the most valuable time in the world with chitchat about the grocery store, and there was so much to be said to each other, but it didn’t matter, there was no time to say important things. “Take care of yourself, Solly. Don’t worry about your mother and me. We’ll be all right.” . . . ”I love you,” he said. She said, “I know it, silly, and I love you too, and I know you’re going to be all right in the Army and have a successful Army career.” . . . ”I love you, and don’t you worry—I’m going to be the best damn soldier in my Uncle’s Army and Schicklgruber’s days are numbered. Just let me get my hands on him.” Her presence in the booth with him was a physical thing that he could touch and smell and taste, and yet she felt so far away from him, farther and farther receding like the sands at Coney Island.
The whistles were blowing impatiently, and the telephone booth opened and Bookworm pulled at his arm. “Time to go, good kid. The man’s looking for you.” He told her, “I have to go now. Good-bye, I love you—love you—love you, dammit!” She said good-bye, and he listened in vain for her to hang up. “I have to go now,” he repeated violently. Let her hang up first! She said, “I love you.” The Bookworm tugged at his arm again. “Come on, man, before they put you in the guardhouse! I can see right now I’m gonna have to look after you and keep you outa trouble.” Solly said once more to Millie, “I have to go now. Good-bye, sweetheart.” And she said, “Good-bye, darling. Take care of yourself.” And he put the receiver onto its hook and stood staring at it for a moment, and he felt like he had just said good-bye to the outside world and the Army was closing in on him forever.
The men had already picked up their bags and were following a lieutenant through the door on the right. And now they were up on the platform with the sun shining on their hot sweaty faces and most of them smiling nervously.
“We’re going up North!” Buck Rogers shouted softly.
Yes, they were going up North, Solly thought smilingly, and maybe their camp wouldn’t be so far from New York City and Millie and Mama, and the Army would be even greater than he ever dared to hope. They might be going to a camp even closer than Dix to the City and Millie and Mama. He was the luckiest soldier in the world. Look out, Hitler! Beware, Tojo! He felt like shouting “Hallelujah!” He thought his eyes had filled with tears of gladness.
But then another whistle blew from the platform across the way from them. And when Solly looked he saw the chalk-faced captain’s silver bars blinking in the sunlight and the captain waving his arms to the lieutenant.
“Over on this platform, Lieutenant. Bring the men over here.”
CHAPTER 3
“HELL AIN’T GOT A THING ON Georgia,” Bookworm said the following day. And they got off the train and onto some trucks and rode over the red and flat terrain of southern Georgia amongst weird-looking multicolored camouflaged barracks till they reached the company area, and they stood in a red-clay field, ankle-deep in dust to meet their new commanding officer, a long tall red-necked thin-faced man, who walked back and forth in front of them, hitching up his trousers with his elbows. He didn’t have any hips to hold them up. His feet were so tiny they seemed not up to the job of carrying his long body around.
“Men, I want to welcome you to H Company of the Fifty-fifth Quartermaster Regiment,” he began. It was difficult to place his accent. Midwestern? No. Boston? No. Southern? Maybe. But not quite. “My name is First Lieutenant Charles J. Rutherford. I’m your commanding officer. Lieutenant Bamum here is your motor officer. Lieutenant Samuels is your executive officer. We’re going to have the best damn outfit in the Fifty-fifth Quartermaster . . . ”
The next few days things went so fast and looked so good they made Solly Saunders’s head swim, and he had a hard time keeping sober and his feet upon the ground. Yet he had not had a drop of whiskey. The third evening he lay on his cot catching his breath and recapitulating the three days that had just galloped by. One of these days he would write it all down, he promised himself. The first night Worm and I met a pretty girl at the Post Exchange and Worm fell like a sack of bricks. She was pretty enough, and I could have gone for her myself, if I were not a married man. She wasn’t pretty, hell naw, she was absolutely beautiful. Our eyes met once or twice or thrice, but I’m a solid married man. Forget it. And Worm is my best buddy.
SECOND MORNING we were interviewed one by one by the long-legged company commander. And then marched all day long in red-hot Georgia sunshine. That girl was pretty in the Post Exchange. Good luck, old buddy Bookworm. I was put in charge of drilling a squad of men. I’m not wasting any time.
SECOND EVENING I’m invited by the mess sergeant to eat with the non-commissioned officers at their table in the mess hall. I play it cool and nonchalant. But the big bruising gray-eyed motor sergeant gives me a bad time before I can sit down at the table and get myself together.
“What’s your claim to fame, little old uppidy-looking Crute?”
“Beg pardon?”
“What is that you got, make the man think you so hot?”
I see smirks and hear some snickers. But I’m nonchalant. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.”
“Don’t wantchoo to follow me nowhere. Just answer me my questions. You know anything about motors? Can you break down a two-and-a-half-ton truck with one hand tied behind your ass?” Laughter. I hear it and I’m hot but I keep cool. “You know anything about supplies? Can you make out a Morning Report? Know the Table of Organization? Army Regulations? Any kind of
shit like that?”
“I—er—”
“What in the hell do you know?”
They laugh at me and loudly now. I start to get up from the table and tell the big bastard off. The first sergeant says something like, “He can read writing and write reading and that’s more than can be said for half you ignorant bums.” The men laugh but this time not at me. The first sergeant says, “And he’s a lawyer too, so watch your step, and ain’t no use to being jealous of him ‘cause none of you didn’t come within fifty points of the hundred-and-forty-two he made in his Classification test.”
The gray-eyed motor sergeant says to me politely now, “Corporal Crute, you don’t supposed to be in no dog-ass Quarter-master outfit. You sposed to be with the Judge Advocate’s office or some kind of hifalutin shit like that. You too educated for us dumb-ass colored soldiers.”
All of them are laughing now. I stand up and I’m mad enough to throw my plate at him. “Eating with you guys is no great big deal, you know. Especially you, you big—”
The first sergeant says quietly, “Sit down, Saunders, and eat your dinner. Get your hindparts off your shoulder.”
Sergeant Perry, the mess sergeant, says, “Take it easy, greasy. You got a long ways to slide.”
I sit down and pick up my fork. I got a long ways to slide all right, only I’m not going to slide. I’m going to climb and in a hurry.
Later. Same night. Worm tries to get me to go with him to the PX. I stay in the barracks and write to Millie. When Worm comes back he tells me, “Man, she asked about you.”
“Who asked about me?”
“Fannie Mae Branton—the PX lady.”
“Nice of her.” I grow a little warm all over.
“She’s got a friend almost as pretty as she is.”
“So what, man? I’m not interested.”
THIRD MORNING. I’m called to the orderly room, and Lieutenant Rutherford tells me that due to my qualifications I’m being appointed the company clerk, temporarily, of course. I’m getting ahead and fast. I’ll climb right past those smirking non-coms. I thought about you Millie, as I listened to the company commander. I felt good—damn good! “You can go a long ways in the Army, Saunders, with your unusual qualifications for a colored man. Take my advice. All you got to do is have the right attitude and play ball by the rules of the game.” I don’t like the CO’s accent which is only faintly Southern, disguised, but out of Texas, and I don’t particularly like his kind of advice. But I will not be prejudiced. What the hell—
Same morning First Sergeant Anderson teaches me the Morning Report. “It’s complicated,” the Topkick says, “and you have to keep your mind on what you’re doing when you’re doing it, but you won’t hardly have no trouble, a man with your ability.” The Topkick is a real nice guy. The only trouble, this is his fifth year in the Army and yet he doesn’t carry himself like a Regular Army man. He refuses to take the Army seriously. But that’s his business.
This afternoon a session with Lieutenant Samuels, the officer I’ll be working in the office with. He’s the executive officer. Tan-faced white man from New York City where I come from. How lucky can you be? I know his type. I’ve had friends like him in New York City. A liberal. Maybe even pink. “You and I will get along,” he tells me confidentially as he offers me a cigarette and gives me a light. “We’re from the same background. City College—law school.” I say to him, “Fine, Lieutenant.” And why not? He could almost pass for colored with his Florida tan. Tells me he just came from Officer Candidate School three days before I came to the company. “You’ll get to go to OCS,” he says. “You’re definitely officer material.” How do you like that, darling Millie, and you, big-mouthed Buck Rogers? I’m not letting any grass grow under my feet. Worm can have the pretty PX lady. I haven’t the inclination or the time. I’m a married man and I’m too busy going places. And winning the war.
It was nine o’clock in the morning, and the men were lined up outside in front of the barracks, getting ready to march to the motor pool. Topkick brought a little sawed-off heavily mustached brown-skinned soldier into the orderly room.
“You take care of this man, Corporal Saunders, till I get back from the motor pool. His name is Jerry Scott. Damnedest soldier in the Army. Been Absent Without Leave for more’n three weeks. He’s under arrest in your charge.”
“Yes, sir,” Solly said, his entire body warm and tense, a million questions running around in his head and bumping up against each other. He knew of Scotty’s reputation.
“We’ll have to draw up the charges when I get back. He’ll get a court-martial this time for sure. Sit down, Scotty.”
“All right, Sergeant,” Scotty said humbly.
“Remember,” the first sergeant said to Solly, “you’re responsible for him. If the prisoner gets away, you do his time in the stockade. The Army never loses.” And the Topkick turned and walked out of the office and down the steps, as Solly stood looking at the little heavily built man, with the black shaggy bush over his lips and a sense of humor crinkling the corners of his mouth. There was something about the little soldier that reminded Solly of a lion. Maybe his massive head, maybe his angry orange-colored eyes, maybe the broad thick power in his shoulders and in his husky chest. Solly heard the Topkick as in a far-off distance—
“COMPANY—ATTEN-nn—CHUTT!” and footsteps of the men of H Company of the Fifty-fifth Quartermaster leaving him behind, heavily armed with pen and pencil and typewriter, with a prisoner for whom he was entirely responsible, because the Army never loses. He sat down at his table. He felt like running downstairs and catching up with the company. This was his fourth day at Camp Johnson Henry, and suddenly he felt his good luck running out.
He began to type the K.P. roster, glancing up now and then at the smiling harmless-looking prisoner. Solly’s entire body was tense and rigid. Every time the little man cleared his throat or moved his feet, Solly jumped. He felt like a prisoner, and Scotty his guard, armed to the teeth. Why in the hell didn’t guys like Scotty understand they could not beat the Army?
“If the prisoner gets away,” the sergeant had said, “you do his time in the stockade.” If the prisoner gets away, you do his time in the stockade. The Army never loses!
“You the new company clerk?” the prisoner asked.
“That’s right,” Solly said.
“I’m the best damn cook in the outfit,” the prisoner said as a matter of fact. “In the whole damn mama-jabbing regiment. I just don’t like the goddamn mama-jabbing Army, that’s all. Too damn refining or whatever you call it. Like being in jail.”
Solly said, “I like it fine in the Army. Not to make a career of course.”
“You look like a nice guy,” Scotty said. “What you got against me?”
“Nothing at all.” Where did that question come from?
Scotty laughed. “See what I mean? I ain’t never done you nothing and you ain’t never done nothing to me, but here I sit and I’m your prisoner and you got to hold me till they get ready to lock me up in the stock-damn-kade.” He shook his head. “The Army—the Army—the mama-jabbing Army—” He laughed. “All this HUP-HUP-HUP drilling and carrying on—for what? The Quartermaster ain’t no Army. Didn’t but one man get killed in the whole Quartermaster during World War I, and didn’t no bullet kill him neither. A bag of potatoes fell on his head.” He stared at Solly and roared with laughter, slapping his thighs, and Solly laughed in spite of himself. But he stayed nervously on guard even as he laughed, waiting for the lion to make his move. He’d heard of this cat’s reputation.
“And look at you, a smart intelligent fellow, should be using your own head about things and stuff, but look atcher. I’m under arrest in your charge. I get away you have to do my time, and they didn’t even given you a little biddy cap pistol to guard me with. Now ain’t that a mama-jabber? Supposed I wanted to get away, what could you do to stop me? I could pick up something or other and knock you into the middle of next week. Now don’t that make you feel lik
e a fool? It sure do make you look like one.” He laughed to himself. “I ain’t got nothing against you, understand? But you just look so goddamn stupid, that’s all. You look like Ned-in-the-First-damn-Reader.” The lion stared at Solly and slapped his thighs and roared with laughter.
Solly felt his entire body burning with anger. He banged away at the typewriter, making mistake after mistake. He could imagine the stupid look on his face that Scotty had mentioned. He felt a sharp salty perspiration dripping from his forehead into his eyebrows into his eyes. Suddenly Scotty stopped talking and the typewriter sounded like pistol shots to Solly, but Solly’s mind was on the little man grown suddenly quiet, and what would he do if Scotty suddenly made a run for it? Maybe he should turn his table around and make Scotty sit on the side of the room where he could keep an eye on him. He looked down at the paper and it wasn’t the K.P. roster at all he was typing. It was FOUR SCORE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. When he was first learning to type, he always used Lincoln’s speech to practice his speed, instead of NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN . . . He continued to type the Gettysburg Address till Scotty cleared his throat and said, “Hey, Corporal Sandy, excuse me, but I got to go downstairs to the latrine. You wanna go along and keep me company?” He laughed to himself. “I gots to make wee-wee.”
Solly didn’t see a damn thing funny. The man was trying to make a fool of him and having a howling success. Maybe it was a trick!
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 5