“The point is,” the captain said, “the Army is not based on sob stories. It is based on discipline, and you men are guilty of serious breaches—insubordination and inciting to mutiny and riot. These are the only points under consideration.”
Scotty said to the major in a sweet disarming voice, “I don’t know who’s running this, sir, you or the captain. He keeps interrupting everybody.”
The major said, “As you were,” to Scotty, and he continued to stare at Solly.
Solly said, “Major, how would you feel if you were brought into your country’s Army only to be treated as something filthy and unclean and to be spat upon contemptuously? Put yourself in our place.”
The major looked at him long and hard then at Scotty and back to him. “Have you finished, soldier?”
“I am through, Major, sir.”
“And you, Corporal er—er—”
“Technician Fifth-Grade Abraham Lincoln Scott. I’m the best cook—”
“And what have you go to say?”
“Nothing, sir,” Scotty said with deep solemnity. “I’m not much of a talker, sir. I’m just naturally bashful, me, but we got Corporal Sandy here to speak for me and all the rest of the poor mistreated colored soldiers so far away from home, and thank God for that, sir, and I—”
“All right, soldier, that’ll be enough. Just—”
“We just try to do the best we know how, sir, and ain’t nobody can beat me cooking, and thank God for that, but these paddy officers—”
The major got to his feet. “All right, soldier! I said, all right, goddammit!”
“Yes, sir, Major, sir,” Scotty said very very meekly.
The major turned to Solly. “Now you, Corporal. Take this man back to the company area and he is confined to quarters till further notice, and beginning tomorrow morning he is on permanent K.P. till your company leaves Fort Ord. I’ll contact your commanding officer tomorrow morning.” The major turned again to Scotty. “And you, soldier, are getting off extremely light, if you get no more punishment than this. You are undoubtedly the most insubordinate, the most undisciplined, the most mutinous soldier in the Army of the United States.”
Scotty opened his angry mouth and Solly tried to head him off. Solly said, “Major—Major—” He had no idea what else he would say.
The major said, “And as to the questions you raised very—eloquently, Corporal, they are well taken, and will not go without immediate consideration.” The major’s voice hardened deliberately and he pounded his desk with his open hands. “Nevertheless, the Army cannot and will not tolerate any soldier taking matters into his own hands. I don’t give a damn how righteous he may think his cause to be! That goes for both of you and anybody else, regardless of race or creed or color. Is that clear?”
“Very clear, sir,” Solly said.
“Both of you are dismissed. Go immediately back to your company area.”
“Who gon take us back, sir?” Scotty asked humbly, sweetly. “My feet are very tired.”
“That’s your problem soldier. Just get back to your area and get the hell out of here.”
Solly said, “Yes, sir,” and took Scotty by the arm. “Let’s go, goddammit!” he whispered violently.
They started their long walk back to the East Garrison. They walked quietly, not speaking, through the soft California night. Solly knew that Scotty could feel the heat of Solly’s anger, and he also knew that Scotty realized all of it was not directed against the white men they had left at post headquarters. This was one time Scotty must have figured that silence was purely golden. He would have made a great military tactician. At the same time the anger kept building up in Solly and he wanted the little mad soldier to give him some excuse to take it out on him. Just any little stupid comment. Any excuse at all. And he became even more furious when the biggest talker in the Amphibs suddenly clammed up on him. They rounded a sharp wide curve in the road and Solly was so hot he could not see straight. He turned suddenly upon the other soldier and grabbed him by his collar.
“Why is it ever since I’ve been in the Army I always find myself in some crazy fuck-up with you?”
Scotty looked up at him meekly, like a nice little baby lion with his feelings hurt. He smiled gently. “You took the words right out of my mouth, Corporal Sandy. I’m gon stay away from you from now on. You too hot tempered with the white man. You get a poor soldier in a whole heap of trouble.”
Solly stared at him, controlling himself. The penalty for murder in California was the gas chamber. He released the soldier. “Why do you fuck with me so much, man? There are millions of other people in this Army.”
Scott said sweetly, “Cause I like you the bestest. And I’m gon stick to you like stink on shit. Make a man out you or break you.”
Solly turned from him exasperated and they went walking up the road again. Solly said, “You’re going to screw up once too often.”
“So let them throw my ass in Leavenworth stead of putting me on the boat. You’ll see me do some crying then.”
Solly stopped and looked at Scott again and for the first time saw him clearly. It was one of the most lucid moments in Solly’s life, with everything in focus. Scott was the only soldier in all of the United States of America that Solly knew of who had Uncle Sam over a barrel and could say, “All right, do me something!” He didn’t seek to get ahead, he wanted no promotions, no extra-special privileges, no stripes, no nothing. He demanded nothing from the man but manhood.
The following night the supermarket Post Exchange was opened up to all American soldiers, excepting Scotty, who was confined to the company area and permanent K.P. duty and busted again from T-5 to private. And two days later the PX at the top of the hill closed down, and what happened to the colored clerks? They were transferred down to the supermarket.
A few nights later Solly came up from the PX and looked into the orderly room and saw his conscientious G.W.B. They talked till after midnight.
Samuels told Solly he had already spoken to the adjutant about the PX situation a couple of days before the flare-up. “He’s a friend of mine from college days.”
Solly said, “Big deal.” A few beers that made Milwaukee famous did not bolster his enthusiasm. The one thing they never forgot when they were with each other was the Saturday they went to Ebbensville together in search of the MP colonel. It was always there between them.
Samuels said, “They had already decided to open it up to the regiment, based on my most vigorous recommendations.”
Solly said, “Fine.” And thought, he wants me to give him a citation.
“The adjutant is a liberal anyhow. Maybe even radical. He always has been.”
“Makes me happy,” Solly said. He also wants a citation for the major.
“It was just a matter of time and patience. All things are.”
Solly stood up and exploded. “Don’t you ask me to have any more patience than you would have, and don’t be so damn happy-go-lucky with my life. I’m the one that’s smothering. I’ve been a second-handed American all my life, but I damn sure haven’t gotten used to it, you better believe I haven’t. And I don’t have any future plans for getting into the patience habit.”
Samuels was speechless for a moment. “Corporal, I—”
“And if you’re sitting there trying to take credit for opening up that Post Exchange, forget it! Everybody knows that Permanent K.P. Private Jerry Abraham Lincoln Scott is the responsible party and nobody else. Not you or your fraternity brother or anybody else!”
“The adjutant was very impressed with your intelligence, Corporal.” Give the lieutenant credit. He tries to keep his calm about him.
“And you openly insult my intelligence. Sir!” he added. He paused. “And now if I may go, Lieutenant, I have important matters to take care of an extremely personal nature. And I really don’t feel like hearing any more tonight about such revolutionary slogans as Patience and Fortitude and how great my liberal white friends are.”
They stare
d into each other’s face, Solly and his Great White Buddy.
“If I may leave, sir—”
“Good night, Corporal Saunders.”
“Good night, Lieutenant—sir.”
CHAPTER 2
The days raced by and there was never enough time to do anything, there was so much to be done. The records were a holy mess, but every man’s file had to be in perfect order before he could be shipped out. Everything every man was required to do before embarking had to be entered on his record, whether he actually did it or not. Marksmanship, infiltration course, swimming, judo, amphibious training, obstacle course, dental history, medical history, shots taken, Short-arm Inspection, the works and nothing but the works. There was a man named Bell who refused to shoot his rifle on the rifle range. They faked the record. A nineteen-year-old boy named Banks who would never learn to swim. They faked his record. Captain’s orders. Solly was responsible to the captain for every soldier’s record, plus he had to go through all the frantic training the others went through, so that his own record would look just like the others. He was so tired at the end of each day he thought he’d never get rested in this life. Every evening about eight-thirty or nine o’clock he’d leave the orderly room and drag himself down to the PX and have a couple of beers and smile tiredly at the tired anxious sweet-faced lady across the bar and remember Fannie Mae and go back up the hill to his hut and fall on his sack and find that he was too damn weary to fall asleep.
And yet somehow there was time to arrange for Millie to come—with the help of Samuels and even Captain Charlie Rutherford. The relationship between Rutherford and Solly had simmered down and cooled off, based as it was now on a realistic evaluation on both of their parts of the actual situation. Rutherford faced the fact that Solly was the best damn company clerk available. Rutherford’s arrogance and ambition dictated that he have only the best. So if they had to work together they might as well bury the hatchet, at least superficially. Solly understood it, bought it. He was no longer a pouting boy. He was a man. He could not be out of it like Scotty. And since he would be in it, he might as well make the most of it.
Rutherford said, “Don’t worry about anything, Saunders. You’re my company clerk, and you just keep up the good work and stay out of mischief and I’m gon see if I can’t get you a sergeant’s rating.” They had no illusions about each other’s mutual love and admiration.
Solly called Millie the day before she caught the train, and that very night a full-blown rumor hit the breeze. They would be moving out in seven days. He heard it in the latrine where they all began and he paid it no mind. He heard it in the mess hall and got uneasy. He heard it at the Post Exchange, and by that time the seven days had changed to five. He left the PX and did not stop till he found the captain. The captain told him he’d heard the same rumor. He couldn’t vouch for it, but what he did know was that everybody in the regiment had just been put on a twenty-four hour alert.
Solly said, “But my wife is coming out here. She’s already on her way!”
The captain said, “There is nothing I can do about it. It might be three weeks before we move out, it might be three months, then again it might be three days. Man appoints, but God and the Army disappoints. That’s what I’ve been trying to teach you ever since I’ve known you, but you insist on acting like you think you’re in the Boy Scouts.”
Solly went down to the Post Exchange and called New York, even though he knew she had left already. It took fifty minutes to get through to the City, and when he did there was nobody home. He went over to the beer counter and drank beer till the place closed up. He went uphill to his hut with the knowledge that by the time she arrived he might be gone already. He lay on his sack with the meaningless chatter of the other soldiers swirling around him and the laughing and the kidding and the rumors flying thick and fast, and his head going around, and he thought he was in a madhouse, and he was crazy and the whole thing was a dream, a nightmare, and he would wake up any minute. His mind made an image of Millie. She was sitting on a train, beautiful and confident. He felt like crying, she looked so happy and alone, and gradually she began to fade and he could only see her face, and when he tried to look more closely, the face had changed to Fannie Mae’s, and he was surely out of his mind.
All the men kept tight hindparts from hour to hour. It was now we’re going, not yet awhile. And they were getting ready all the time. If a soldier sat in his hut and saw another soldier running down the street he wanted to know the reason why and when and where. Everybody busy as a dog scratching fleas and twice as nervous. In the middle of the third day the orders came. They would be moving out to the staging area at Camp Stoneman on the second day after Millie was due to arrive. Solly was slowly going mad with anger and frustration. He drank beer like it was going out of style. She was coming and he was going. Man appoints and the Army disappoints. Well, maybe he himself would do a little disappointing. Maybe when Millie got there he would fake some papers and steal a jeep and take off for Mexico and Guatemala and eventually South America. Sometimes he thought he still believed in the War against Fascism, which was being fought somewhere in some far-off place. He had a vague concern with its outcome. But he felt no loyalty toward this Army where he found himself.
He was serious enough to look at a map and trace the imagined journey. He took this idea around with him and at night he went to bed with it and dreamed about it. It was not entirely unrealistic. Every day he heard of soldiers, white and colored, stealing jeeps and command cars and taking off for destinations undetermined by military necessities. In his dream he and Millie drove along the gorgeous coast of Southern California and through the hills of Mexico and further south down down out of the hills from Mexico City, and her face changed gradually to Fannie Mae’s, and he woke up on his sack, and he wasn’t going to desert to any damn where, he didn’t have the guts. He wasn’t even going AWOL, as a couple of the men in the company had already done, including Scotty, who left two hours after the orders came. Before he left he told Solly he was just going to take about a month’s vacation, he wasn’t deserting, he was just allergic to big white boats, he didn’t like any more water than you could get into a tub.
He stared at Solly and his voice got husky. “What you gon do in these white folks’ Army without me here to look out for you?”
Solly knew a warm feeling in his shoulders. He laughed. “You’d better look out for your own self.”
Scotty said, “So what can they do me when I come back? Put my ass in Leavenworth? That’s better’n ducking bullets.” Sometimes Solly wished fiercely he was Scotty. But he wasn’t—he was educated. And had prospects for the future.
Solly borrowed the captain’s jeep to meet Millie in Salinas. The train was more than two hours late, and he went into a tavern near the depot, and by the time it arrived he was almost drunk. Maybe it was the whiskey, but when he saw her get off the train and walk toward him he thought, great God almighty! She’s more beautiful than I ever remembered! It’s impossible! He took her into his arms and put his mouth against her eager lips, and maybe it was just another crazy dream of his—maybe she wasn’t there at all.
“You’re here—you’re here,” was all that he could think to say. I should put you in this jeep and head for Guatemala all the way down to South America. Venezuela—Argentina.
“Yes, I’m here, all in one piece, and everybody else in the station is aware that I am here.”
“You——you’re beautiful!”
“Now how could I be beautiful? I’m exhausted and you’re prejudiced, and I wish the natives would stop staring.”
He said, “And how’s the baby?” Anxiously.
She said, “Which baby? Me or it?”
He took her around the corner from the station to a little country restaurant and they ordered a big dinner, but he ate nothing at all as he sat there, drinking her into all of his senses, oblivious to the food and the friendly-looking natives who openly stared at the handsome couple. Millie was starved and
ate both of their dinners. He had not remembered her as a big eater. She’s pregnant, you fool! The added weight just made more of her to be beautiful.
They drove along the countryside and the land made love to her, the land which lay blossoming green and yellow and red and blue and violet and gleaming on each side of them and rolling all the way to the hills and rolling back from the hills, and blowing its breath sweetly, and complacently pregnant with the beauty of giving birth and growing—you could almost see and hear the growing of the fruit and shrubbery. But he wanted to talk about the City with a different kind of beauty, with a different kind of full-of-lifeness. The City, his City, ugly and loud and boisterous and violent and uncouth and cold and smelly and disinterested and gangster-controlled and minding-its-own-damn-business and everybody else’s, going nowhere and going everywhere, and in the maddest kind of rage to get there in a hurry.
He took one hand off the wheel and put it around her waist and asked her, “How’s the City?”
“It was snowing when I left, and you know how nasty it is when it snows in New York City. I was glad to get away.”
She looked around at the teeming growth of the countryside and breathed the air permeated with the deep fragrance of its growth and growing. “I can’t believe it. I just cannot believe it. Just four days ago I was in New York City, and it was ugly and cold and snowing, and look at all of this. The weather the land—”
“I mean how’s the City?” he asked. “I don’t mean the weather. I mean what’s happening in the City?”
She stared intently at his profile. “Nothing,” she said. “I told you—it’s snowing. That’s all.”
He changed the subject. “How’s the baby and how’s Mama?”
“Your mother’s in great shape. As healthy as a horse.” His mother had never been that-kind-of-healthy. “She told me to tell you, ‘Don’t be no hero, doll baby. Just do everything he possibly kin to come back in one piece.’” She laughed. “Your mother is the most.”
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 27