He said, “My wife is going to have a baby.”
She looked into his eyes with her wide black troubled ones and the bright glow dying in them. He said, “All I can say is I love you and I’ll always love you.”
She almost lost her voice. “All right then.” I won’t cry. I will not cry. I must not cry. She felt the world move out from under her, and she reached desperately for him and he took her and he kissed her and her arms went up around his neck and her open mouth wet against his open mouth and she strained her entire body for him and felt like she was falling from the peak of some high mountaintop, and she felt like screaming: Save me, Solly! Save me! But she did not really want him to save her. Maybe just this time if she gave herself to him and let it never be again. She was burning up with wanting him.
She said, “Just this one time, darling. I mean just this one kiss. Nothing more.” And she kissed him one more time and she moved away from him and straightened her dress and wiped her eyes.
She said speaking firmly now, “I’m strong now, Solly darling, and it’s time for us to go.”
He said, “It’s early.”
She said, “No—no—no—it’s much too late.”
CHAPTER 16
A few days later the regimental commander sent for Captain Rutherford.
The captain—every inch a soldier, all seventy-six inches and a half of him—strode across regimental headquarters to the colonel’s private office. A tan-faced tech sergeant came out of the office.
“Go right in, Captain, sir. The colonel’s expecting you.”
Captain Rutherford hitched up his trousers with his elbows and walked through the door and closed it behind him. He sized up the situation with a quick glance. The colonel was seated behind his desk. The battalion commander, Major Davidson, was seated on one side of the desk and Captain Murdock, the regimental adjutant, was seated on the other. It must be something damn important! He almost smiled. But he was too much of a soldier to show his emotions. He saluted the colonel smartly.
“Have a seat, Captain,” the Colonel said, and motioned to a chair in front of the desk.
The captain said, “Yes, sir,” and sat down with a prideful dignity and looked the colonel in the face and glanced at the major and then at the captain and back to the colonel. It was one thing about his own make-up that really annoyed him—his eyes were always fidgety. Always had been. Almost anybody could outstare him, especially Colonel Spiggel-miser.
The colonel was a relaxed-faced well-fed man of about fifty years and of strong and medium proportions. Life was a stage and he seemed bored with the whole damn show. But Rutherford read an excitement in the colonel’s expression which was unfamiliar, and he smiled deeply inside of himself. This must be damned important!
The colonel said, “How’s H Company, Captain? Or is it Hell Company?” The colonel laughed a short dry laugh, which was like anybody else howling with laughter, Captain Rutherford thought.
“Just fine, sir. Couldn’t be much better. Except that we’re always working for perfection. That’s our motto.”
“And the morale of the men?”
“The best, sir. The very best. Best morale in the whole regiment.” He glanced at Major Davidson’s face, dark and brooding. That was the way with these New York Jews. Sly and not to be trusted and you could never read their faces. “I don’t like to sound immodest, Colonel. The major can speak more objectively.”
The major cleared his throat and spoke in a flat voice. “The captain has some very capable men in his company. His company clerk is one of the best in Camp Johnson Henry. And H Company also has the best motor-pool record in the battalion.”
Captain Murdock coughed. He was an All-American boy, blond and clean-faced and blue-eyed and crew-cut and perfectly and precisely chiseled and looked just like a goddamn German to Captain Charlie Rutherford. “Best motor pool in the whole Fifty-fifth,” Murdock said. “But you’ve been falling down in that department ever since you broke Sergeant Greer.”
The Colonel leaned back in his chair and the springs squeaked and he leaned forward again. “Any troublemakers in the outfit? Any agitators? Any Communists?”
“No, sir. And nobody would listen to them if we did have one or two. We pride ourselves in our esprit de corps.”
The colonel stared at Rutherford long and hard, as if he didn’t believe what his ears heard or his eyes beheld, and a sudden warmth began to collect on the captain’s neck and a redness moved into his face.
“You have an extraordinary outfit,” the colonel said.
The captain said quietly, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
The colonel said, “H Company has become famous without firing a shot. Haven’t even been on the rifle range yet. Getting more publicity than Carlson’s Raiders.”
“We’re due for the rifle range Monday after next, sir, and I have no doubt, sir, the men will make a name for themselves.”
The colonel stared at him. “You have no doubt,” he repeated after Rutherford slowly and quietly. “Do you know what the NAACP is, Captain?”
Rutherford pondered the question and debated his answer. If he answered in the affirmative the colonel might ask him for a definition. You couldn’t trust Colonel Spiggel-miser. He was almost like a Jew. So he played it straight and said, “No, sir.”
Well, you should. Every officer with colored troops should know about the NAACP. It’s worse than the labor unions.”
He almost lost his voice. “Yes, sir.”
“Do you read the newspaper, Captain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you aware of this little tidbit in The Afro-American?” He picked up the paper from his desk and shoved it under the captain’s nose and Rutherford broke out in a cool dampish sweat. He took the paper and stared at it and looked around at the adjutant and the major and back to the colonel.
The colonel said, “Direct your attention, if you please, to the little item in the center of the page regarding that famous outfit with the most outstanding esprit de corps and the greatest morale, to wit, Company H of the Fifty-fifth Quartermaster Regiment. Better known as Hell Company, on Captain Rutherford’s old plantation.”
Captain Rutherford was reading and sweating and changing colors like a chameleon. He finished the story but could not lift his eyes from the page to face the angry stare of Colonel Spiggel-miser. His mind went blank. He started to reread the story and his gaze wandered to another story entirely unrelated.
The colonel’s voice blasted the agonizing quiet. “I think even you’ve digested the story by now, Captain.”
The captain opened his little mouth but the words did not come easy now. Finally he said in a sickly voice, “Yes, sir.”
The colonel said, “Of all the irresponsible unmitigated hypocritical liars I have ever met in my entire life, you undoubtedly take the cake.”
“But, sir—”
“Do you take the important question of morale so lightly, Captain?”
“No, sir, but—”
“Here your men are two or three minutes away from mutiny, and you look me squarely in the face and tell me they have the greatest morale in the world. Of all the gall—” The colonel was working himself into a small volcano. His face was red and apoplectic. “I have a letter here from the War Department countersigned by the post commander calling our kind attention to the incredible morale of your outfit. It seems your men had such tremendous morale they wanted to tell the world about it, including the colored papers and the NAACP and the President of the United States.”
“Sir, I think I can explain—”
“I’ve had enough of your explanations for one day, Rutherford. But don’t worry. Your day will come again and damn quick. Meanwhile you get down to that outfit and get yourself some explanations. If there is an investigation by the War Department there’s going to be hell to pay. I have to see the base commander at eleven-thirty. Now get down there and get to the bottom of things and damn quick. I want you back up here at thirteen hundred
on the dot.”
The captain jumped to his feet and saluted the colonel “Yes, sir!”
The colonel said, “Dismissed!”
Rutherford, carrying the newspaper, turned and went hurriedly out of the colonel’s office and literally ran out of the headquarters building and jumped into his jeep and almost ran down everybody in his way, turning corners on two wheels in clouds of red dust, till he got to the company and jumped out of the jeep and long-legged it upstairs four steps at a time and strode into the orderly room, where Sergeant Anderson sat peaceably with his feet on the desk.
“Goddammit, Sergeant, look lively! Where the hell is Saunders?”
The sergeant jumped to his feet. “What’s the matter, Captain Rutherford?”
“I asked you where the hell is Saunders?”
“He—he’s down to battalion, tending to something or other.”
“Something or other?” the captain shouted. “In the future you’re to know every time he moves out of this office exactly where he’s going. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
He threw The Afro-American newspaper on the desk in front of Anderson. “Here,” the captain said. “Here, I want every one of these soldiers whose names are signed to this letter to report to my office in five minutes, including you, Sergeant Anderson. And I don’t give a damn where they are or what they’re doing!” The captain’s long frame was shaking with anger.
“Wha-what’s the matter, Captain?”
“You can read, can’t you, Sergeant? I said I wanted every one of them and I want ‘em right away, and I don’t care how you get ‘em in here, just so you do it in five damn minutes.”
It took twelve minutes to round them up.
They sat there glancing nervously at one another. Topkick, Saunders, Bookworm Taylor, Baker, Lincoln, Moore, and Greer. Solly cleared his throat against his will. The captain’s face had turned so white, it didn’t seem to have any color at all. Rutherford stood up and hitched his trousers. He picked up The Afro-American newspaper and hit it with the back of his long skinny hand and he opened his mouth to talk but his tongue was tied momentarily. He put the paper back on his desk. Solly stared into space like the rest of the men and he heard the cadenced footsteps of a company of soldiers marching down on the company street below, and the shouted commands: “BY THE RIGHT FLANK MARCH! BY THE LEFT FLANK MARCH!” He could even hear the rhythmic rustle of their OD trousers. And it was so quiet in the captain’s office he could hear a soft breeze roaring past his ears like listening to a seashell and at the same time there was no breeze blowing at all in the hot stuffy office, which was getting hotter and ready to blow apart any minute, the tension expanding expanding expanding . . .
The captain suddenly slapped his desk with all his might and a couple of the nervous soldiers jumped. “Goddammit, I’m getting damn sick and tired of all this plotting and scheming behind my back! And I’m going to get to the bottom of it this morning if I have to burn every damn last one of you. I’m going to find out what’s behind it, too and who’s behind it. Every time I go up to headquarters I catch hell about something H Company’s done.” He paused and looked from face to face. “All right now, what you boys got to say for yourself?”
Nobody spoke or even moved or even glanced or even blinked or even breathed. The captain stood tall and lean and mean. He hitched his trousers and pulled an olive-drab handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face. “What happened to y’all tongues all of a sudden?” he demanded. “All this bitching behind my back and now you suddenly catch the lockjaw.” He looked from one to the other of them, his high-pitched voice getting higher and higher. “What about you, Sergeant Anderson? What do you know about all this mess?”
The Topkick cleared his throat and his voice came out of it clear and clean. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain Rutherford. I don’t know what this is all about.”
The captain spoke more softly now. “Now looka here, Topkick.” He did not usually call him Topkick. “I ain’t blaming you for all this mess. You’re my first sergeant and I know you’re loyal. If you been duped or misled or whatever you might want to call it, we want to know about it. That’s the only way we can get to the bottom of this business. It’s an awful mess, Sergeant, but me and you can straighten it out. We come from the same State and I know we can get along. And I know you want to do what’s right. Now isn’t that the truth?”
Solly listened harder than ever before but he didn’t want to hear. He was afraid of what the Topkick’s answer would be. Don’t do it, Topkick!
The Topkick answered the company commander. “I really want to do what’s right, Captain Rutherford. I always try to do the right thing.”
Solly closed his eyes and wished for something to stuff up his ears. His respect for the Topkick was in serious jeopardy.
“All right then, Sergeant. Open up. Who’re the trouble makers around here? Who’re the letter writers? Who’s doing all this plotting against the United States Army in time of war?”
Perspiration crawled all over Solly. Maybe I should tell the captain I’m the guilty one. Tell him I did it when I first went into the hospital.
“What plotting are you talking about, Captain, sir?” The sergeant’s voice was soft and earnest.
Right after the beating, when I wasn’t all there. That’s when I wrote the letters, sir! Tell him—tell him. Tell the captain.
“Sergeant, don’t I try to be a good commanding officer? Don’t I try to do what I think is best for the men?”
Tell him I was sorry immediately afterward but it was too late then.
The sergeant cleared his throat again. “Yes, sir.”
I was out of my head from the beating, or I never would have done it. It’s all my fault, sir.
“Sergeant, you’re a good man and I don’t want you messed up in this business. It’s real serious business too. This—this—this Communist plotting against the government of the United States at a time when our very life as a free nation is in danger. You understand that, don’t you, Sergeant?”
Follow your head now, Solly Saunders. Don’t let your feelings lead you wrong. Plead guilty, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.
The serious faces became more serious and the men were worried now even more than before, and the captain’s office got hotter and hotter. Solly smelled the awful heat in the room. He smelled the fear, including his own, even as he told himself he was not afraid. He was glad he’d written the letters, he told himself. He was glad.
“I understand, Captain, sir,” the sergeant said.
“I told you once, Sergeant,” the captain continued, his voice hardening. “I told you I didn’t believe you had anything to do with the plot, but the only way you can make me absolutely sure of it, so I can stand up and testify in your behalf at the court-martial—the only way is to come clean. Tell me who was back of it. Tell me who duped you, who misled you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain, sir,” the sergeant repeated.
“Sergeant Anderson, I’m talking about all this goddamn N-A-C-P business—this—this—these letters to the colored newspapers—” He stirred up the papers on his desk. “This letter to the War Department—this letter to the goddamn President of the United States. What about it, Sergeant?”
“What about what? Sir?” he added.
“Who started this whole thing?”
“I haven’t the slightest notion.”
“Whose idea was it to send letters to the newspapers?”
“I do not know.”
“You signed it, didn’t you? Or did somebody forge your name?”
“I signed it my own self,” the sergeant said with a tremble in his voice.
“I’m trying to help you, boy, cause we from the same State and I know you didn’t know what it was all about. But first you got to help your own self, and so far you haven’t given me any co-operation at all.”
The sergeant’s silence rang in the room.
“This is serious business, Sergeant. This is conspiracy against the government of the United States. You aren’t letting me help you, boy. You’re tying my hands.”
Use your head, Solomon Saunders. Outsmart the Texas peckerwood. Cop a plea of guilty and throw yourself upon the tender mercy of the court. With all the captain’s Southern prejudices, he likes you in his own way, even though you despise the bastard. He wants to be your Great White Father.
He hated the thoughts he heard in his head, but they were there pleading their case, demanding to be heard.
The sergeant was silent and Solly could hear his own heart beating and he also heard the footsteps of some soldiers coming up the stairs to the second floor, and heard a jeep speeding past downstairs on the dusty street and somebody gunning its noisy motor. And smelled the stifling odor in the room of heat and fear and anger and felt the fire building in his stomach.
“What about the rest of you boys?” Captain Rutherford demanded. Nobody answered, and Solly was so nervous he could not have moved even if he had wanted to.
“What about you, Greer? I’m trying to help you.”
The ex-motor sergeant stared at the captain with a scowl on his face. “Just like you helped me when them MPs beat me over in Ebbensville.”
“How about you, Lincoln? You want to talk?” No answer—and Solly was sweating all over now and churning buttermilk in his stomach. Now is the time, he told himself. Now! If you have any guts you’ll do it now. Outsmart the bastard!
“You, Taylor?”
Tell him you were not responsible at the time.
“I got nothing to say, Captain.”
He turned to Solly, his small eyes aflame with anger. Solly looked up and stared at the captain and stared through him as if he didn’t exist at all. He thought of Fannie Mae in the profoundest place where he was. Have no regrets she told him. But—And he looked like the calmest soldier in the world, but the perspiration all over his body and the fire in his boiling stomach and the aching in his buttocks told an altogether different story. He was scared. He felt her all around him, heard her tell him she was proud. And he was scared.
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 23