Worm didn’t look in the blond soldier’s direction. “You better talk to him then. He bet not get so drunk he can’t smell my whiskey. Cause I ain’t most gon overlook him.” He got down on his knees again and threw the dice. He threw six and then immediately threw a seven and gave up the dice and quit the game.
He stood up and said to Solly, “Let’s get for home before we start us a private beachhead.”
Solly said, “I’m with you, good buddy.”
They went back to their own quarters where most of the men lay on their bunks wide awake in private conferences with themselves. The only man in the entire hatch who was fast asleep was Lanky Lincoln. Worm stood over the long rangy soldier who lay there with his mouth open and snoring evenly and calmly as if he were at home in bed dreaming about ice cream cones and apple pies and Coney Island and Nathan’s hot dogs. Over on the other side of the hatch, a soldier was plunking on his old guitar and making like Josh White. Singing a chain-gang song:
“Take this hammer—”
Worm waved his hand close to Lanky’s long eyelids. “This long tall mama-jabber would sleep through hell on Judgment Day.”
“Cair it to the captain—”
A few of the men were gathered over by the Quiet Man’s bunk, telling lies and laughing and talking nervously. Worm said, “You bastards better get right with God instead of all this lying and bullshitting and carrying on.”
“Take this hammer—Cair it to the cap’n . . .
Tell him I’m gone—”
Buckethead said, “Man, this was down in ‘Bam where Worm and all them little Worms come from. This colored stud comes into town from the plantation riding one of old masser’s big white horses and walks into the back of old masser’s shop buck naked as a jaybird in whistling time. I mean this stud wasn’t even wearing a G-string.” The men began to chuckle. “Boss man told him, ‘All right, I’m gon string your black ass up by the balls, but before I do, just tell me what the hell got into you?’ Old Jim told the boss, ‘Masser, I was coming into town minding my own business when this white woman rode up to me and gave me an order to follow her into the woods and I followed her orders. She went into the woods a piece and got down off her horse and pulled off all her clothes and laid down on the ground and told me to pull off mine. I followed her orders again and stood there naked and then she say come over to me, and I came over to her, and then she told me, all right, black boy, get in the saddle and go to town, and Boss Man, here I is!’”
“If he asked you was I running . . .”
The nervous men laughed long and loud, detonating the tension for the moment. They did not wake up Lanky Lincoln, but they disturbed Hopjack. He said, “You stupid sapsuckers keep up so much noise I can’t hear myself think.”
“Tell him I was flying . . .”
Buckethead said, “Boy, I have gotten so much pussy in my day, of various races and nationalities, when I do die, they gon say, I died with my hammer in my hand.”
Worm said, “Yeah goddammit, that’s bout the only place you ever had your hammer. A woman would have to have a grudge on her cunt to give you some.”
The men laughed louder than before.
Hopjack said, “I told you suckers to be quiet. They can hear you from here to Tokyo.”
Solly said, “One thing is sure. Hopjack is going to get plenty opportunity to do a whole heap of ass-kicking instead of going home on rotation.”
Hopjack laughed weakly and said, “Let me at the squeencheyed mother-hunchers.”
“If he axe you . . . Was I laughin . . .
Tell him I was crying . . . .”
The bull session broke up gradually. The men went to their separate bunks. Buck Rogers came over to Solly’s bunk. His eyes were bigger than ever before. He said, “Move over, baby, I’m going to sleep with you tonight, you beautiful heifer.”
“Take this hammer . . . Cair it to the Cap’n . . .”
Solly said, “Sorry, old buddy, but you ain’t my type.”
Worm looked down from the upper berth. He said, “Furthermore, you bubble-eyed punk, it’s against Army Regulations for two men to sleep in the same bunk, but I guess that wouldn’t include you nohow.”
“Tell him I’m gone . . .”
Buck said, “All right then, baby, I’ll settle for one sweet kiss, you gorgeous bitch.” He sat on the bunk beside Solly and reached for him. Solly shoved him off the bunk. He had not made up his mind yet whether Buck was joking or really a queer. Buck came toward him again. “Come on, you good pussy bitch, and give me your tongue, and I’ll be satisfied. I’ll go out of here in the morning and kill every Jap on that mother-hunching island.” He stuck out his fat tongue.
Solly sat up on his bunk. “If you don’t get the hell away from me I’ll knock you on your big fat ass.” He didn’t feel like horsing around. He wanted to lie on his bunk and think and think and feel and feel and live and relive and live and think and think and live. It might be the last time. He had no way of knowing.
Worm said, “Sergeant Buck, are you really a queer? I mean if you ain’t, you really do some good imitations.”
Buck said, “Watch that shit, soldier. I’m only kidding.” He looked around at the other listening soldiers. “Anybody don’t believe I’m a man or think he’s more of a man than me, just hit the goddamn deck and I’ll meet them in the head.”
Worm said, “Man, go on over to your bunk and beat your meat one more time. Ain’t nobody gon say nothing about it.”
The soldiers snickered.
Buck said, “That’s the trouble with you ignorant bastards.” His eyes were bigger than ever and he was angry and perspiring. “Can’t treat you on the same level. Play with a dog he’ll lick you in the mouth every goddamn time.”
Worm leaped from his upper berth for Buck’s neck. “Who in the hell you calling a dog, mother-huncher?” Buck moved just in time and Worm landed on the floor and was up in the same motion going for Buck. Both of them were raging mad. Solly jumped from his bunk and in between them and kept them from each other.
“There’ll be plenty of fighting for everybody tomorrow morning. Both of you can give Hop jack a helping hand kicking asses and taking names.”
Somehow this struck both of them funny, Worm and Buck, and they started to laugh and they laughed and they laughed. And Worm climbed back to his upper berth.
Buck spoke to all of them except the sleeping Lincoln. “That was just a little exhibition to loosen you men up. It’s twelve-fifteen now and all of you better get some sleep, like Corporal Lincoln is doing, cause every living got to hit the deck at 0300. Because we expect every man in 913 to cover himself with courage and glory on tomorrow and all that kind of shit. Don’t forget we’re Special Men.”
Scotty sang in his powerful rusty baritone:
“’Oh say can you see
Any bedbugs on me . . .’“
Billy “Baby-Face” (no-swimming) Banks shouted from his bunk, “No—no! No, goddammit, no! I don’t wanna go on no invasion. I ain’t mad with no damn body! I ain’t mad with nobody!” He jumped down from his bunk and came toward Buck and Solly. “Why, Sergeant Rogers? Why? Tell me why I should be shooting at people tomorrow morning and ducking bullets? People I ain’t got nothing against and ain’t got nothing against me! People I ain’t never seen and ain’t never done me nothing!”
Buck said, “Take it easy, Baby-Face. You’ll be all right tomorrow. You got more guts than you think you got. You the one soldier I’m not worried about.” Banks was getting on everybody’s nerves.
Baby-Face started to shake his head and cry, “No! No! It don’t make no sense—don’t make no sense atall!” Tears streamed down his babyish face unashamedly.
Buck’s voice hardened, “Straighten up, soldier, goddammit. You a non-com. You’re supposed to set an example for the men. So shut up that bawling or I’ll throw your ass in the brig.”
Baby-Face turned to Solly. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Does it make sense to you, Sergeant Sol
ly? I’m scared, goddammit. Does this war make sense to a man like you?” He sank down on the bunk next to Solly. Buck Rogers moved quickly away from them.
What the hell could Solly tell him? “You’re an intelligent educated man, Sergeant Solly. You tell me what it’s all about. You’re Information and Education.”
Solly said in a husky voice, “You’re not the only one scared, Baby-Face. I’m scared. Every man on this boat—every living ass in this task force is scared. A man who says he isn’t scared in combat is either a fool or a liar. Officers, non-coms, enlisted men, every living is scared shitless unless he’s a lunatic. But the things that divide the men from the boys, the brave ones from the cowards, is self-control.” Baby-Face wiped his eyes and sucked the tears back up his nostrils and down into his throat, and what the hell could Solly tell him? “We owe it to ourselves and to the rest of the men to keep our fear under control.” Even as he spoke Solly wondered how he himself would be on tomorrow with death exploding all around him. He almost wished the time would hurry up so the show could get on the road.
Baby-Face asked him, “Does this war make any sense to you, Sergeant? That’s what I really want to know.”
Solly felt like shutting up Baby-Face’s mouth with his fist. He brought all of Solly’s own misgivings to the surface. All his doubts and fears and trepidation. All his shitty idealism. He looked at Banks. What could he say to him? He felt his face filling up and through his shoulders. Let Banks find his own answers. He was only a few years younger than Solly. What could he tell this baby-faced man who probably never shaved nor ever even had a girl, hadn’t had time to sow any oats. What could he say to Baby-Face Banks on the eve of the battle? Tell him the truth? What was the everlasting truth?
“Does it make sense to you, Sergeant Solly? That’s all I want to know.”
Solly swallowed the stale funky air of the hatches, and he was positive. “Yes. Yes, it makes a whole lot of sense,” he said. What else could he tell him? “But let’s talk about it after we get this particular job done. Right now we’d better get some sleep.”
“All right, Sergeant Solly,” the corporal said. Baby-Face went back and climbed up on his bunk and Solly lay on his, but nobody slept a wink excepting lanky Lanky Lincoln.
CHAPTER 4
And now it was a few minutes after 0400 and hell had been let loose on God’s green earth. And fire and brimstone and thunder and lightning and Fourth of July and Judgment Day. There were from five to eight men in each of the Ducks on the decks of the LSTs. Most of them standing, watching the glorious colossal fireworks of this Hollywood production. Every warship in the bay was talking, yelling, barking, howling, screaming murder, bloody murder, as they moved closer and closer in toward the bleeding shore.
Schrruummpp—Schrruummpp—
POW! POW! POW! POW! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ocean quivered underneath them. The big guns the medium guns the little guns, all of them sounding off all at once and separately.
Does it make sense to you, Sergeant Solly?
The sky had changed from the night before, and it seemed like every star that ever was looked down on them that early morning. When the LST went into its rocking motion a sky full of winking stars seemed to dip downward toward the boats and up again and slide from side to side above them and down again and up and down and up and down, the heavens playing ring games with them.
Wheerrrrrrrrrrr—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!
POW! POW! POW! POW! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! BOOM!
Does this all make sense to you?
The entire world was thunder and lightning. Sound and fire. The bay exploding before his eyes. The battleships, the cruisers, the carriers, the destroyers and their escorts, big black prehistoric monsters belching fire and death and destruction onto the dark green island that lay helpless in the moonless night of early morning.
Solly looked at the serious faces of the other men in the Duck with him. Worm’s face had a quiet humorous quality, as if he were chuckling at the world which had completely flipped its lid. Worm was frightened and amused. Baby-Face Banks was scared and sweating bullets, but when he caught Solly staring at him, he smiled a trembly smile as if to say, “Don’t worry about me, Sarge. I’ll make it this morning. I’m scared just like everybody else is, but I got everything under control even though it makes no sense to me.” A couple of the men were from the Anti-Aircraft group. They were sweating like everybody else. The big friendly-faced dark-haired soldier closed his eyes every now and then to shut out the madness. The other one was blond and sad-faced and bluish-green-eyed and Irish and New York and slightly built and talkative.
“I’ve had twenty months of this fucking Island-hopping, and you supposed to be sent home on rotation at the end of eighteen goddamn months, and my papers were going through till they got all bollixed up. Another week and I’da been on my way. You’d think these bastards woulda left me back at the other base. It ain’t fair. After all the invasions I already been in, to risk my life another time, after my time is already up. And I might get my head blown off this very morning.”
Somehow the soldier’s story made Solly hot and angry and helplessly sad, and he felt a crazy fullness in his face. The Army was heartless as well as senseless. The Army was a great big civilized beast.
But the war itself made sense, he argued with himself. You must always distinguish between the Army and the war. It is a war against the enemies of freedom and democracy. If you die today you die for freedom.
Over on shore he could see the planes like ghostly buzzards circling their targets and going into their dives and laying their death eggs and pulling straight up again as the earth below them erupted like a mad volcano. Circle and dive and drop the bomb and pull up again and set the goddamn world on fire. No anti-aircraft to challenge their rhythm. Solly watched the planes with a strange fascination, as if they were something detached from reality, a game the pilots were playing and a boring one-sided game at that. But they were on the side of Freedom and Democracy. You had to keep remembering. You had to be a true believer.
The battleships, the cruisers, the destroyers moving in closer and closer, the LCIs, the LSTs, the bombardment went on and on and on. Solly looked from face to face of the men again and back toward the shore which was closer now and clearer in its handsome rugged outline, as dawn barely began to lift itself from behind the mountain about a mile in from the coast. It was still dark but it wouldn’t be long before daybreak and day might never break for him again. This day in the year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and whatever-it-was (he couldn’t even remember at the moment) he might cross that separating line and leave this world behind. But he would die for Freedom. He remembered all the old-fashioned songs his mother used to sing. Songs they used to sing down home at church on New Year’s Eve at midnight. He couldn’t have been more than three or four or five years old.
“It may be the last time
It may be the last time
It may be the last time
It may be the last time
I don’t know . . .”
and
“This time another year
I may be gone
In some lonesome graveyard
Oh Lord, how long?”
and he remembered:
“Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Thou who has brought us
Thus far on the way . . . ”
and he remembered:
“Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of liberty . . .”
His heart was one great sad and joyful song of hope and angry desperation. He wondered about the men hidden somewhere in the darkness on the island, dedicated to defend it with their flesh and blood. He mustn’t think these kinds of thoughts, mustn’t write this kind of novel. Men like himself, frightened and courageous men with eyes and mouths and teeth and hearts and souls and penises and bowel movements and ears
and thoughts and feelings and dreams and hate and laughter and tears and religion and desires and aspiration and love and mothers and fathers and wives and children and bad guys and good guys. What the hell did he have against these men whom he had never gazed upon? He mustn’t think like this. It isn’t healthy at a time like this. But what the hell was the killing all about? He told himself it was for Freedom pure and simple. Nothing else. Nothing else, Billy Boy, but Freedom pure and simple. But he felt a raging anger chewing up his insides and filling up his face. He was part of the glorious patriotic flag-waving murderers, the most passionless, the most meaningless murderers the world had ever known. They were murderers for kicks and the bigshots’ profiteering and for ticker-tape parades down the great Fifth Avenue. This was the damn wrong way for him to be thinking.
The sun was coming up from behind the silently suffering mountains now and splashing the land with soft pink colors clashing and tenderly blending with the dark green of the morning jungle. Things will be better when we get back home, somebody said somewhere some time. The new day was aborning now with all the subtle daybreak beauty and the first wave was hitting the beach now and the dying had begun in sweat and blood and in very very earnest. We are dying for a better world. From where he was out in the bay he could see the Ducks and the Higgenboats and all kinds of landing barges come up to the beach and the scared courageous men jumping out of the boats and moving forward, sideways and backwards like a host of desperate reptiles of all sizes and description.
SCHOOM-SCHOOM-SCHOOM-SCHOOM—WHEEEEERRREE—
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM POW POW POW POW!
It was almost 0600 now and they were letting the gate down on his LST, and he saw the first Duck of the 913th back out into the strange dark water and turn around and head toward the island and disappear in the morning mist. And for some stupid reason he remembered the face of a pretty girl when he was ten years old in elementary school. The sharp smell of the sea saturated all of his senses. He had never thought of her again since he left P.S. Whatchamacallit. The hard pain in his belly made him think his guts would burst wide open. She had a round scared face and big black eyes and that was easily thirteen years ago. Worm got quietly behind the wheel and took a deep breath and backed noiselessly into the water and turned toward the burning island. Solly thought, great God, if I must die this morning, let me lose my life for something.
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 35