Suddenly without thinking Solly threw a diving tackle at the General and dragged him kicking and protesting underneath the truck.
And suddenly the storm ended as it began and the silver comets raced back toward the sun and disappeared, and the guns got quiet and the earth settled down in the awful heat. And the Special Men went back to work. And the war was far away again.
Every day the silver comets peeled off the sun and paid the island a brief exciting visit and always left their calling cards. The earth erupted and people died and life went on and on and on. Every day the Special Men unloaded the ships, and every night they were eaten alive by the mosquitoes. But one day about three months later the Ducks arrived and they became real Special Men.
CHAPTER 3
One evening about 1800, there was a special formation and Rutherford told them this was it. They would be a part of the second wave to hit the beach in a big important invasion. Their job would be to carry the anti-aircraft boys and their guns from the LST to the shore and help put up the gun emplacements. “We’ll be about fifteen hundred miles from any American or Allied base or airstrip. We’ll have to establish a beachhead and hold it under any and all circumstances. The only airplane protection will be from our Navy flattops. “At ease, Private Taylor!” The CO’s tiny eyes went up and down the formation from man to man as if he were trying to look through them and inside of them and to read their thoughts their doubts their fears. The men stood tall and serious and silent for the captain. Even the mosquitoes stopped and listened. “From this minute on every man has to pitch in like a member of a team, like a member of a family. This is the most important task you ever had in all your life. This is why you were born.”
Now my life makes sense, Solly thought. Now I know why I was born. Thank you, Captain. Now I can die in peace.
“I’m your commanding officer, but I also want you to look upon me as your friend.”
There was a tremble in his captain’s voice. His cockiness was gone. He wanted the men to love him. Really love him. Yeah, Solly thought, remembering the colored outfit who in the heat of the battle strangely lost their Southern officers and their colored Topkick. And the captain was remembering. Solly understood his captain. He wanted the boys of the 913th to regard him as their benevolent Great White Father. “Ain’t nothing to be afraid of,” he said shakily. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. After the first few days everything’ll be safe and sound. It’ll be just like garrison. Just like it is here on this base.” He paused and stared at the arrogant face of Private Joseph (NMI) Taylor. Two lady mosquitoes sat idling on Worm’s forehead, but Worm didn’t bat an eyelash. He stared back at the captain with a look on his face which seemed to his Great White Father to say: “You know what you can do for me and your just-like-garrison.” The captain said, “All right, Taylor, any more guff out of you and I’ll charge you with insubordination and throw the goddamn book at you.” Taylor didn’t move a muscle, not even in his face. Yet there was a subtle change in his expression which made him seem to be howling with laughter at the captain.
Rutherford shouted, “At ease, Taylor! That’ll be enough outa you, goddammit!”
Rutherford hitched his trousers with his elbows. “Now I know we’ve had disagreements and sometimes some of you thought I was hard and strict, but I’ve always done what I thought was best for you. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. That’s how come they put rubbers on the tip of pencils. And now it’s time for us to let bygones be bygones. Let’s put our shoulders to the wheel cause we’re in this thing together.” He paused and stared at the earth and waved the mosquitoes from his face. “Lieutenant Graham got a few words for you.” The captain walked away.
The lieutenant paced back and forth, white-faced and perspiring, and cleared his throat. “Men—speaking of morale and esprit de corps and all that stuff, I want to bring a question before you.” He was sweating and uncertain. He was scared. Scary scared. “Men, I’m talking about respect for one another. Every time I walk up the company street I hear somebody calling somebody else a mother-fucker or a sonofabitch. This ain’t nice, men.” Most of the men stood tall and straight-faced. Sympathetic, understanding. “All over the place it’s ‘Good morning, mother-fucker’ or ‘Good evening, sonofabitch!’ It’s like you were saying to each other: ‘Hello, sweetheart.’ It’s a goddamn shame and we got to put a stop to it.” He could feel the men laughing at him behind their faces. “Goddammit, I ain’t gonna have no more mother-fucking and sonofabitching in this outfit. All of you come from good Christian families, and we’re going into combat and you should be praying stead of cussing, and I’m going to put a stop to it. It’s not all of you. It’s just rotten apples spoiling the barrel. And it’s demoralizing. And I want my non-commissioned officers to help me in this determination.” He searched their faces. They were colored and they should be especially scared of death and prayerful at this moment in their lives. He couldn’t understand it. They were denying their culture. Maybe just to spite him and the U.S. Army.
“Sergeant Rogers!” he shouted gruffly.
Sergeant Rogers came briskly and smartly front and center and saluted the ruddy-faced lieutenant.
Buck said, “Sir, I want you to know that we non-commissioned officers are with you one hundred per cent in this noble determination, and we will discuss this question with the men and root it out of their systems.”
Lieutenant Graham said gravely, “Thank you, Sergeant.” He and Buck saluted and he walked away toward the officers’ quarters.
Buck turned to the quiet men and by the time he thought Graham was out of earshot he shouted huskily, “I want every one of you mother-fuckers to stop saying mother-fucker.”
The men broke up with howling laughter.
All week long they got ready for the Big Invasion. And it seemed like Hopjack finally was going to get the chance he had been begging for. Every evening he’d start down the company street shouting, “Let me at those buckteeth bastards!” All of the men laughed and joked as they got ready for the Big Day, but it was a grim and heartless laughter. Cleaning guns, checking gas masks and helmets and equipment, mounting guns into the Ducks, remembering home and cracking jokes and filling sandbags. Singing, laughing, letter-writing. Some praying. Some cussing. All of them scared, courageous too.
Captain Charlie said don’t be scared, but he was scared himself. And Lieutenant Graham was scared to death and obvious. He drank jungle juice with the men and helped put sand into the sandbags and put his arm around their shoulders. He laughed and joked with them. Got roaring drunk with them. But nothing stopped the time from running out.
Lieutenant Samuels and Sergeant Saunders talked a lot but had very little to say to each other, as they grimly worked together getting the company records ready for the grand invasion. Once or twice Samuels tried to start a discussion about the war’s morality, but Solly didn’t want to hear it. One evening Worm and Quiet Man Larker were helping Samuels and Solly to pack the company files. Samuels started to talk about how different this war was from World War I and how things would have to be different when they got back home. But when he turned to Saunders for corroboration, Solly said, “Excuse me, Lieutenant, I have to go to the latrine.” And he walked out into the night.
Nine days later they steamed out of Calhoun Bay on an LST and made off to another point where they would join a task force made up mostly of Landing Ship Tanks. Their Ducks were aboard the ship with them. Two days later they joined the rest of the convoy and put boldly and nervously out to sea. It was the biggest task force Solly ever dreamed of. As far as you could see in all directions were LSTs bobbing up and down on the vast Pacific with the curious rhythm of a prize fighter like hammering Henry Armstrong. Bobbing and weaving—weaving and bobbing. The LST was sturdy and seaworthy, they said, but she had no keel and her bottom was flat and shapeless, and when the waves were foamy she gave you many anxious moments.
And now it was the night before the great invasion morning. Solly stayed on
deck till late. It was moonless. Not a single star up there. A perfect night for invasion. He stood gazing over the side of the ship. He had wanted to be with himself all by himself on this night that might very well be the last he’d ever know. He could see nothing but vast spaces of funereal blackness and white foamy waves around the ships as they ploughed grimly and perpetually forward.
He didn’t know how many ships were in the task force. He estimated about a hundred and seventy-five LSTs, a complement of destroyers and mine sweepers and battleships and troopships and a couple of giant aircraft carriers, destroyer escorts, torpedo boats, and God and General Buford Jack only knew what others or how many others. This was it. Like the captain said, this is why your mama’s baby boy was born.
He thought about home and his mother and Millie and their baby forming slowly forming really forming in her belly pretty belly. He thought of their frantic love-making at Fort Ord and up in Pittsburg. The LST went shromp shromp from side to side and so did his poor nauseous belly. He hoped she believed he loved her, because he did love her. He loved her loved her. But his love for Fannie Mae was something altogether different. Maybe there were two kinds of love. Maybe three or four or five. You must not think of Fannie Mae. He should go downstairs and join the men. The cold salty sea whipped his hot face. He felt a nearness to death as never before, as if it were somewhere out there ahead of them, waiting for them, and they were moving calmly to the fatal rendezvous. His mouth was cold with the taste of death. His face filled as he thought again of the baby who was surely in Millie’s belly this time and who might never see its father. He might be born an orphan just because his gutless daddy was on this particular ship in this particular task force and might be dead before day in the morning. My father died in the war to end all wars, and my child’s father will die in the war to end all wars, and my child’s child’s father. And why and why and why goddammit! Why and why and why? Did it go on and on and never end? How could a few measly-minded men make decisions that committed the lives and deaths of millions? And the millions seemed to never mind. He tried to remember things about his childhood but they were vague now, like the ocean’s blackness. He just had a feeling of his Time’s great waste and Time squandered and Time pissed away and Time lost and never found, and now it never would be found. And Time as deep and fathomless as the waters underneath the boat. He wondered why men took life so seriously and yet gave it up so willingly on the altar of patriotism at the behest of high-priest politicians and high-priest ammunitions makers and high-priest newspaper publishers and all the other Bee-Essers and highpriest profiteers, and what do we ever really get out of it excepting death and destruction and widows and orphans and Tag Day for the Disabled Veterans? Times Square—won’t you buy my poppy, Lady? Black clouds hanging separately in the sky like ragged shrouds, and the whole world was in mourning. If he had the guts he would go at this late hour of Time’s great space, he would go below to the place where the loudspeaking system was and cold-cock the one in charge gently but firmly on the head with the butt of his carbine and wake up the ocean itself with this announcement, “Now hear this! Now hear this! Turn back you miserable fools before it is too late! Turn back all of you poor crazy bastards. If the bigshots are mad with each other let them fight their own battles, let them blow each other’s few brains out!” He wished he had the nerve to do it!
You’re thinking wrong now, buddy boy. Use your head and not your stomach. You’re a sergeant and you’re a little old morale builder, I & E man, and you have a great future ahead of you when you get home. You have looks and education and intelligence and personality. You are not like Worm and Scotty. You are positive.
The motion of the LST was getting to him now as the sea tossed it from side to side. A funny tumbling in his stomach and a swimming in his head. He wished he had the nerve to do it. But he was a coward like the rest of them. All of them were cowards excepting probably Private Jerry Abraham Lincoln Scott—maybe. He stared at the nearest LST as it bobbed and weaved from one side to the other. Its port side seemed to come up out of the water and reach vainly for the black sky, which seemed to reach for it, and then with the same rhythm it seemed to submerge beneath the ocean’s black and foamy surface. Scott was the freest bravest meanest bastard in the world. He was glad he wasn’t Scotty.
If only he believed like Samuels believed, that the war was being fought for something. For Freedom and Democracy. Let me believe! Great God almighty, let your doubting son believe. He wasn’t even sure he believed in God who closed his eyes to so much injustice and his ears to so much weeping. Solly closed his own eyes and imagined a world after the war, in which he was walking everywhere in his country and through the whole world from Mississippi to Stalingrad to Calcutta to Johannesburg, with his eyes up and his shoulders back, a world in which his son could grow up knowing who he was and why he was, not cooking his hair or bleaching his face, but proud of the image in his mirror, and Millie and Mama proud and free and Fannie Mae in Ebbensville. And me, goddammit, me! In his vision he saw millions of people of all sizes and sexes and ages and colors and religions walking together everywhere, with the love of living glowing in their faces.
He said aloud, “Let me believe in this damn war. Let me believe things will be different. Let me believe it strong deep deep deep down in my bowels. Let me believe it’s worth the dying and even worth my own damn death!”
The LST hit another heavy wave straight on and jumped up and down like it was doing a wild dance without musical accompaniment. It was completely at the mercy of the deep black sea, and it shook the vision out of him and brought him back to the here-and-now time.
Suddenly he felt sad and sorry for himself and for Mama and for Millie and the baby and Fannie Mae and Scotty and Samuels and Bookworm and Clint and Quiet Man and Hopjack and Lanky and Topkick, for all the poor helpless fools in the convoy riding toward a date with death and human destruction. He felt attack after attack of loneliness, wave after wave assaulting everything inside of him. Fannie Mae! Fannie Mae! You’re with me tonight, my darling! My only darling! You know how I feel. You are the only one who knows! His aloneness was a black cloak wrapped around him like the night weighing him down and leaning heavily against him. Time was catching up with him, and he wanted to know what he was here for. He went below to look for Bookworm.
The stale air in the hatches hit him in the face with more force than the ocean wind on topside. The sultry closeness was mixed with the unsavory stink of sweaty humans, scared, brave, anxious and nervous and breaking wind, and soiled clothing and overused toilets. It was funny how the heads on troopships got fouled up so quickly. He thought of locker rooms and school and basketball and Rover Boys and better times and pure tremendous expectations.
Solly found Worm in Hatch Number 3, shooting crap with a group of white soldiers from a combat engineers’ outfit. The game was going strong and right smack down in the middle of one of the aisles. The dice came around to the Bookworm and he winked his eye at Solly and went to work. He made seven passes in succession. Everything in the book. Nines, tens, fours, everything. Now he was sweating over a five. The skin stretched tight over his wide sweaty forehead.
“Fever, dice! Five when you stop!” he pleaded in soft earnest tones. He supplicated. He remonstrated. Finally the dice rolled three and two. Worm raked the green stuff in without a word.
A voice said softly, “Look at that little lucky black bastard!”
Pieces of breeze drifted quietly and determinedly through the funk of the stinking hatch. Somebody sneezed ferociously. Solly looked from face to face of the white men. Which one was it? Worm looked up and around, pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his face. He threw a four and said tonelessly, “Little Joe from Chicago. Be four when you stop, good dice.” He immediately bucked it back again.
The same soft voice said, “Will you look at that little ol’ lucky-ass nigger! Goddamn I reckin!”
Solly stood up and Worm stood up with the dice in his ha
nd and looked down into the red-haired soldier’s face. They were sure they had the right man. Worm said, “One more from you like that and one of us won’t live to see the grand invasion! Cause I’ll go to hell this very minute just to whip your ass good-fashion.”
Solly said, “That goes for both of us. You better believe it.” The big soldier looked around at the rest of the men all of them white. He had a good mind to teach these black boys some manners, he seemed to be thinking. He might be killed tomorrow any-damn-how. Everything was quiet waiting for him to make his move. And he debated with himself. He could whip either one of them any day in the week fair and square, but they probably toted razors. All of them did. Goddamn their sneaky souls. Solly swallowed hard and the saliva stuck in his throat like glue. His nerves were sharp as a razor’s edge double-edged. They were outnumbered twenty to one but he was ready. He didn’t have to debate about this war right here and now.
The big redheaded bastard said in a husky voice, “Ain’t no needa gitting all het up, fellers. I didn’t mean no harm. After all, we in this thing together.”
Solly said quietly, “All right now. We told you and we mean every damn word of it. We’d sooner die today as tomorrow morning.”
A big blond soldier spoke with soft persuasion, “Don’t pay my buddy no mind, mates. Overlook him. He’s drunk, that’s all, and he’s scared of tomorrow’s invasion. I swear to God he’s drunk as a cooter.”
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 34