by Len Levinson
“Don’t worry about it, general,” she said confidently. “I can handle them.”
Donovan sighed. “I certainly hope so.”
The table became silent again. Laura raised a spoonful of beef stew to her mouth and saw a handsome young lieutenant looking at her from another table. She averted her glance quickly because the last thing she needed was to get mixed up with some soldier while she was on a USO show. That sort of thing would look awfully bad in the papers, although she wouldn’t mind getting mixed up with a nice-looking young soldier for a little while. She was a wild young thing and was accustomed to steady nooky, but she presently was going through her fourth divorce and hadn’t had any nooky for over a month. Sometimes, surrounded by strapping young soldiers, she got a little itchy and scratchy, but she intended to hold out until she got back to Hollywood.
“Where are you from, general?” she asked.
“Atlanta,” he replied.
“Nice town.”
“Yes.”
She continued to exchange pleasantries with the officers, wishing the show was over so she could go to bed. She also wished she could have a drink, but that also was off limits to her while she was on the USO tour.
Well, she thought philosophically, we all have to give up something for the war effort, I suppose.
Chapter Eight
It was night, and the rain had stopped. The men and officers of the Hammerhead Division were gathered around the stage, waiting for the show to begin. They sat or kneeled on the ground, which they’d covered first with their ponchos, and spoke of Laura Hubbard and the chorus girls. The band was tuning up in front of the stage, which was a raised wooden platform protected from the rain by a tarpaulin. Behind the stage were eight squad tents that served as dressing rooms for the entertainers.
“Hey, when’s the fucking show gonna start!” somebody shouted.
“Bring on the girls!”
“Where’s Laura Hubbard! Tell her to get her little ass out here!”
The men had been drinking PX beer all day, and many couldn’t even see the stage. In the first platoon of Charlie Company, Butsko sat with his buddies and wore a worried frown on his face because he didn’t see Mahoney around. Butsko still firmly believed that Mahoney never in a million years could seduce Laura Hubbard, but in a tiny cranny of Butsko’s brain he entertained the possibility that Mahoney actually might do it, for he knew that he had done all sorts of impossible things on the battlefield and might actually pull this one off.
“Anybody see Mahoney?” he asked.
“Naw,” said Berman. “Wonder where the son of a bitch is?”
Sergeant McGhee chortled. “He’s probably got his dick up Laura Hubbard’s ass right now.”
“Boolshit,” said Butsko.
“You’d better say goodbye to your fifty bucks, asshole.”
“We’ll see about that, McGhee.”
“Sergeant McGhee to you, fucknose.”
Suddenly the spotlight lit up the stage, and the band began to play Bob Hope’s theme song “Thanks for the Memory.” The GIs jumped up and clapped their hands wildly as Bob Hope climbed on to the stage wearing baggy fatigues with a steel helmet on backwards and proceeded to the microphone, holding both of his hands out to the side and smiling from ear to ear. He tried to talk, but the applause was too loud. As he paused, holding his hands out to make them quiet down, they only applauded louder. They knew he came all the way from the States to see them, and they wanted him to know they appreciated it.
Bob Hope stood at the microphone, and tears came to his eyes. He bowed once and bowed again, but still they kept on applauding. He looked at his watch and made a funny face, but they continued to applaud. Then he did a pratfall and rolled toward the edge of the stage.
The GIs stopped clapping and held their breaths, wondering if he’d fall off the stage, but he back-flipped neatly to his feet and leaned toward the microphone.
“I knew that one would quiet you down,” he said with a wink.
They applauded and screamed again, this time louder than before. Bob Hope leaned his arm on the microphone and decided to wait until they calmed down. They said the Hammerheads are a little wild, he thought, and I guess they weren’t kidding.
~*~
Mahoney marched smartly toward the Quonset-hut area where the entertainers would spend the night. He wore a plain fatigue shirt with the insignia of a major on his collar plus an MP armband around his sleeve. Around his waist was a cartridge belt with an officers’ Colt .45 hanging from it. He also had a major’s oak leaf on his helmet liner.
Hoping he wouldn’t run into anybody he knew, he made his way to the Quonset hut in which Laura Hubbard would spend the night. A private, first class in the MPs was standing at a stiff parade rest in front of it, and Mahoney marched toward him, frowning the way officers often frown when approaching a hapless enlisted man. When the private first class saw him, he snapped to attention and saluted. Mahoney returned the salute and looked the private first class up and down. “What’s your name, soldier?” Mahoney asked.
“Pfc. Olivero, sir.”
“Everything under control?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mahoney examined Olivero’s face. “Did you shave before you came on duty tonight, Olivero?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Doesn’t look it to me!”
“I did, sir!”
Mahoney harumphed. “Let me see your weapon.”
The private, first class brought his carbine around and opened the bolt smartly. Mahoney took it from him, turned around, and looked down the barrel, dropping some dirt surreptitiously in the chamber as he did so.
“This weapon is filthy, soldier!” Mahoney bellowed.
“But I cleaned it just before I came on duty, sir!”
Mahoney held up the carbine. “You call this clean?”
The MP looked into the chamber and went pale. “No, sir,” he said weakly.
“I think you’d better clean it right now!”
“Right now, sir?”
“Are your ears filthy, too, soldier? Are they all clogged up with dirt?”
“No, sir.”
“Then take this weapon back to your tent and clean it immediately!”
“But, sir!” protested the MP, “who’ll guard this Quonset hut?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mahoney snarled. “Nobody’s here now, anyway. You’ll be back before the person to whom this hut is assigned shows up. I can’t have you standing guard with a filthy weapon. Now get going!”
“Yes, sir!”
“On the double!”
“Yes, sir!”
The MP ran off, and Mahoney smiled slightly, waiting until he was out of sight. Then Mahoney bent toward the door and inserted a pick that McGhee had made out of the tine of a fork. Mahoney had picked a few locks in his day back in New York during the Depression. A person had to get money somehow in those days, and he hadn’t been able to find a job. The lock in the door snapped. Mahoney turned the knob and entered the Quonset hut, pulling the door closed behind him and locking it again. It was dark in the Quonset hut, and he smelled perfume. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he could see women’s garments lying around. He knew he could find a pair of Laura Hubbard’s underpants and bring them back to the first platoon to win his bet, but that would be cheating, and Mahoney wasn’t a cheater. He wanted to win his money fair and square, and he was willing to go for broke. Looking at his watch, he figured that the show would last about two more hours.
~*~
The soldiers finally quieted down, and Bob Hope told a few ribald jokes that he’d never get away with on his radio show in the States. The soldiers, starved for entertainment, howled with laughter and clapped their hands. Then Bob Hope told a few more jokes, and the troops began to get restless, for although they liked to laugh, they’d much rather see females.
One of the soldiers stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted: “Bring on the girls!”
“Y
eah!” yelled another. “Where are the girls!”
“Get the girls out here!”
“We want girls!”
Bob Hope had worked hundreds of USO shows, and he knew how to handle the soldiers. “What did you say you wanted?” he asked, cupping a hand behind his ear.
“Girls!”
“What was that?”
“Girls!”
“Did you say girls?”
“Yeah!”
Bob Hope turned and held the palm of his hand out to the Quonset huts behind him, and the chorus girls came out of a door. They wore skimpy red, white, and blue costumes and climbed on to the stage as the soldiers screamed at the tops of their lungs and threw their hats in the air. The girls formed a chorus line, and the band struck up a tune. The girls sang and danced, wiggling their boobs and behinds and acting as naughty as they dared, considering the circumstances.
The soldiers cheered so loudly they couldn’t hear the band or the girl’s voices. The men slobbered and drooled, and an unseen force caused them to press closer to the stage. Bob Hope saw them coming and realized they looked like a desperate bunch. He began to wonder if it might not have been a good idea to have the MP cordon for protection. The soldiers pressed against the stage and reached toward the girls, begging them to come closer, making disgusting sexual remarks. Although some of the girls wanted to run and hide, they all kicked their legs and sang their little song, just as they always did.
Corporal Butsko, his fingernails clawing the top of the stage, looked into the crotches of the dancing girls and thought the top of his head would blow off. He wanted to rush up there and nuzzle his nose between the legs of the redhead in front of him and then throw her down and ravish her. But he stayed where he was and gazed at her longingly; he knew that if he put one foot on the stage, he’d wind up in the stockade so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him.
It was the same way with the other GIs; they all were afraid of court-martial tribunals and stockades. Many of them already had served time in stockades, and the experience had shattered them for life. They would charge enemy tanks singlehandedly, but they were afraid of being thrown back into a stockade.
The girls shook their fannies in front of the men’s faces, and the soldiers screamed at the tops of their lungs, but not one of them ventured on to the stage. They pounded their fists on the planks of the stage and ogled the girls shamelessly, but that was as far as they dared to go.
The girls finished their act and danced off the stage, but the soldiers hollered so loudly they had to return for two encores. After that, they ran out of material, so they left the stage for the time being, although the soldiers shook the stage and screamed like hyenas.
The next act was the magician and his lady assistant, and the GIs fastened their eyes on the lady assistant, not giving a damn whether the magician pulled the rabbit out of his hat or not. Every time she moved, they cheered, and whenever she bent over, they made obscene sounds, while the magician valiantly made cards disappear and pulled hard-boiled eggs out of thin air.
The magic act was followed by a comedy routine in which Bob Hope played a soldier who’d been assigned to a WAC detachment by mistake. The WACs were played by various chorus girls, who wore skirts much shorter than those worn by real WACs, and it was all so ridiculous and funny that the GIs couldn’t help laughing uproariously. The tension and anxiety of the past weeks exploded out of them, and the wonderful release made them feel euphoric. Somehow all the suffering and danger seemed worth it to them now because they knew somebody cared about them enough to come to where they were and put on this great show. They laughed without restraint at corny and stupid jokes, and perhaps Bob Hope was led to believe that he was a greater comedian than he actually was, but the moments were magic ones, and a good time was had by all.
Finally, the comedy routine ended, and Bob Hope took his bows in front of the girls who’d assisted him. The soldiers pounded their hands together and blew kisses at the girls, who returned to their dressing rooms, leaving Bob Hope alone in front of the microphone.
“Well, boys,” he said, “our next act is supposed to be Laura Hubbard, but—”
He was unable to finish the sentence because the soldiers began cheering loudly. This was the moment they were waiting for, the high point of the show. Every one of them knew who Laura Hubbard was, and every one of them at some time in his life had dreamed of making love to her. Now they were going to see her alive in person and in the flesh. To them it was an event nearly comparable to the Second Coming of Christ.
Bob Hope held his hands up, indicating that they should quiet down, and they realized that Laura Hubbard wouldn’t come out unless they shut up, so gradually the cheering died down, and the men stood on their tiptoes, their eyes glued on the stage and their faces expressing the anticipation of something wonderful.
“As I was saying,” Bob Hope continued, “our next act was supposed to be Laura Hubbard, but she told me a little while ago that she thought you fellers really didn’t want to see her and that you’d rather see Lana Turner or Marlene Dietrich or somebody like that. I told her she was wrong, but she didn’t believe me.” He pointed to the Quonset huts behind him. “She’s right back there right now, but she’s not coming out here unless she’s convinced that you really want to see her, so what do you say, guys, do you really want to see her?”
Pandemonium broke out among the soldiers. Although they knew he was bullshitting them, they were willing to play along. They shouted at the tops of their lungs and clapped their hands. The ones close to the stage pounded their helmets on it. Bob Hope stood at the microphone and felt the stage shaking underneath his feet. He used that same routine before every audience on his USO tour, but he’d never seen a response like this. Now he realized why the Germans called these men “Roosevelt’s Butchers.” If they brought that same emotion to the front lines, they would have to be unstoppable.
The lights went out, plunging the stage into darkness. Some of the soldiers became frightened, thinking they’d broken the electrical connections. They moved around restlessly, wondering what was going on.
Then they heard the voice of Bob Hope on the microphone: “And now, the girl you’ve all been waiting for, the exquisite Laura Hubbard!”
A single spotlight came on, and in its center was Laura Hubbard, standing beside the microphone. She wore a white gown slit up the left leg and covered with rhinestones that glittered in the light. The dress was cut low in front and hugged her curvaceous body like a second skin. She looked unreal, like the vision of female perfection that each of them carried in his mind, and there she was, in front of them, alive and smiling, taking a bow.
At first, the soldiers were struck dumb. They stared at her, their jaws agape, and couldn’t believe she was really there. She was so beautiful and so different from their wives and sweethearts and kid sisters that she seemed like a different species of female. The band began to play, and she held out her arms to them, winking and moving her hips from side to side to the rhythm of the music. She opened her mouth and sang.
The soldiers came back to their senses and cheered. They shook their heads and bellowed like wild animals. Clapping their hands high in the air, they drowned out her voice and the band, but they couldn’t control themselves. Their eyes glazed with madness, they threw all caution to the wind and began to climb on to the stage.
Bob Hope held out his hands and walked toward them. “Now boys,” he said.
But they couldn’t hear him and didn’t give a damn, anyway. Machine guns couldn’t keep them off the stage now, and they didn’t care about courts-martial and stockades. They scrambled on to the stage and rushed toward Laura Hubbard.
She saw them coming and didn’t flinch. After years as one of Hollywood’s top stars, she’d become so vain she thought she was invincible. She just kept on singing, rolling her eyes and shaking her hips. GIs crowded on to the stage and surrounded her, inching closer, their eyes bulging and tongues hanging out of their mouths. “I’m feeli
ng sad and lonely, lonely, as I can be.”
She removed the microphone from the stand and strolled toward them. They couldn’t believe their eyes and stopped dead in their tracks. Her confidence and magical aura was too much for them. She ran the palm of her hand over the crew cut of a nineteen-year-old private who’d once charged a tank with only his M-1 rifle, and he nearly fainted from the thrill of her touch. She patted the chin of an old sergeant who was a known bayonet killer, and he smiled like a little boy. Still singing and carrying her microphone, she moved from soldier to soldier, winking at them and touching them, shaking her hips and almost daring them to get out of line, but they made no move to touch her and only looked at her worshipfully, being transported to a heavenly place where there was no war and no brutality, where only beauty and rapture existed, and where no one would ever die.
Chapter Nine
At ten o’clock in the evening, General Donovan and a group of staff officers escorted Laura back to the Quonset hut where she’d spend the night. The rain fell lightly, and she wore an army field jacket over her glittering dress. Two young lieutenants held a poncho over her head so she wouldn’t get wet.
“It was a wonderful show,” General Donovan said enthusiastically. “Just what the men needed. You were great, just great. You had them all in the palm of your hand, and me, too, I must confess.”
“I enjoyed every minute of it,” Laura replied with a gay toss of her head. “There’s nothing like a real audience to make a performer feel alive.”
Some of the officers thought Laura said those things only to be polite, but she was telling the truth. She’d been invigorated by the show and the excitement she’d produced in the soldiers. It had been similar when she’d been a stage actress; she’d had more energy after a performance than before it. If she were in Hollywood right now, she’d go out and party all night long, but there was no place to party here. All she could do was go to bed, and in the morning she’d travel with the troupe to the next camp and the next show. In a week, she’d return to the States, and maybe President Roosevelt would give her a medal.