by Irwin Shaw
The orientation lectures. Military courtesy. The causes of the war which You Are Fighting. The expert on the Japanese question, a narrow, gray-faced professor from Lehigh, who had told them that it was all a question of economics. Japan needed to expand and take over the Asiatic and Pacific markets and we had to stop her and hold onto them ourselves. It was all according to the beliefs that Michael had had about the causes of war for the last fifteen years. And yet, listening to the dry, professional voice, looking at the large map with spheres of influence and oil deposits and rubber plantations clearly marked out, he hated the professor, hated what he was saying. He wanted to hear that he was fighting for liberty or morality or the freedom of subject peoples, and he wanted to be told in such ringing and violent terms that he could go back to his barracks, go to the rifle range in the morning believing it. Michael looked at the men sitting wearily beside him at the lecture. There was no sign on those bored, fatigue-doped faces that they cared one way or another, that they understood, that they felt they needed the oil or the markets. There was no sign that they wanted anything but to be permitted to go back to their bunks and go to sleep …
In the middle of the speech Michael had resolved to get up and speak in the question period scheduled after the speaker had finished. But by the time the professor had said, “In conclusion, we are in a period of centralization of resources, in which … uh … large groups of capital and national interests in one part of the globe are … uh … in inevitable conflict with other large groups in other parts of the globe, and in-defense of the American standard of living, it is absolutely imperative that we have … uh … free and unhampered access to the wealth and buying power of China and Indonesia …” Michael had changed his mind. He had wanted to say, as he thought, “This is horrible. This is no faith to die by,” but he was tired, and like all the other men around him, he wanted to go back to his barracks and go to sleep.
The Army was several beautiful things too.
The flag dipping at Retreat, with the anthem over the public-address system making you dimly think of other bugles that other Americans had listened to for a hundred years at equal moments.
The soft Southern voices on the barracks stoop, after Taps, the ends of the cigarettes glowing in the dark, the voices counting over the treasures of former lives, the names of children, the color of a wife’s hair, the shape of a home … And your feeling at that obscure, lonely hour no longer separate or apart, no longer judge or critic, no longer weighing words and motives, but blindly and faithfully living, weary and at peace in the heart of a troubled time …
In front of Michael, as he marched, Ackerman stumbled. Michael quickened his pace and held Ackerman by the arm. Ackerman looked at him coldly. “Let go,” he said, “I don’t need any help from anybody.”
Michael took his hand away and dropped back. One of those Jews, he thought angrily, one of the proud ones. He watched Ackerman’s rolling, staggering walk without sympathy as they crossed the brow of the bill.
“Sergeant,” Noah said, standing before the desk in the orderly room behind which the First Sergeant was reading Superman, “I would like permission to speak to the Company Commander.”
The First Sergeant did not look up. Noah stood stiff in his fatigues, grimy and damp with sweat after the day’s march. He looked over at the Company Commander, sitting three feet away, reading the sports page of a Jacksonville newspaper. The Company Commander didn’t look up.
Finally the First Sergeant glanced at Noah. “What do you want, Soldier?” he asked.
“I would like permission,” Noah said, trying to speak clearly through the downpulling weariness of the day’s march, “to speak to the Company Commander.”
The First Sergeant looked blankly at him. “Get out of here,” he said.
Noah swallowed dryly. “I would like permission,” he began stubbornly, “to speak to …”
“Get out of here,” the Sergeant said evenly, “and when you come back, remember to wear your class A uniform. Now get out.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Noah said. The Company Commander did not raise his eyes from the sports page. Noah went out of the small, hot room into the growing twilight. It was hard to know about the uniform. Sometimes the Company Commander saw men in fatigues and sometimes not. The rule seemed to change every half hour. He walked slowly back to his barracks past the lounging men and the loud sound of many small radios blaring tinnily forth with jazz music and detective serials.
When he got back to the orderly room, in his class A uniform, the Captain wasn’t there. So Noah sat on the grass across the street from the orderly-room entrance and waited. In the barracks behind him a man was singing, softly, “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier, the dying mother said.…” and two other men were having a loud argument about when the war would end.
“1950,” one of the men kept saying. “The fall of 1950. Wars always end right as winter sets in.”
And the other man was saying, “Maybe the German war, but after that the Japs. We’ll have to make a deal with the Japs.”
“I’ll make a deal with anyone,” a third voice said. “I’ll make a deal with the Bulgarians or the Egyptians or the Mexicans or anybody.”
“1950,” the first man said loudly. “Take my word for it. And we’ll all get a bullet up our ass first.”
Noah stopped listening to them. He sat on the scrub grass in the darkness, with his back against the wooden steps, half asleep, waiting for the Captain to return, thinking about Hope. Her birthday was next week. Tuesday, and he had ten dollars saved up and hidden away at the bottom of his barracks bag, for a gift. What could you get for ten dollars in town that you wouldn’t be ashamed to give your wife? A scarf, a blouse … He thought of how she would look in a scarf. Then he thought of how she would look in a blouse, preferably a white one, with her slender throat rising from the white stuff and the dark hair capping her head. Maybe that would be it. You ought to be able to get a decent blouse, even in Florida, for ten dollars.
Colclough came back. He moved heavily up the orderly-room steps. You could tell he was an officer at a distance of fifty yards, just by the way he moved his behind.
Noah stood up and followed Colclough into the orderly-room. The Captain was sitting at his desk with his cap on, frowning impressively at some papers in his hand.
“Sergeant,” Noah said quietly. “I would like permission to speak to the Captain.”
The Sergeant looked bleakly at Noah. Then he stood up and went the three steps over to the Captain’s desk. “Sir,” he said, “Private Ackerman wants to talk to you.”
Colclough didn’t look up. “Tell him to wait,” he said.
The Sergeant turned to Noah. “The Captain says for you to wait.”
Noah sat down and watched the Captain. After a half hour, the Captain nodded to the Sergeant.
“All right,” the Sergeant said. “Make it short.”
Noah stood up, saluted the Captain. “Private Ackerman,” he said, “has permission from the First Sergeant to speak to the Captain.”
“Yes?” Colclough did not look up.
“Sir,” said Noah, nervously, “my wife is arriving in town Friday night, and she has asked me to meet her in the lobby of the hotel, and I would like to have permission to leave camp on Friday night.”
Colclough didn’t say anything for a long time. “Private Ackerman,” he said finally, “you are aware of the Company rule. The entire Company is restricted on Friday nights to prepare for inspection …”
“I know, Sir,” said Noah, “but this was the only train she could get a reservation on, and she expects me to meet her, and I thought, just this once …”
“Ackerman,” Colclough finally looked at him, the pale spot on the end of his nose white and twitching, “in the Army, duty comes first. I don’t know whether I can ever teach that to one of you people, but I’m goddamn going to try. The Army don’t care whether you ever see your wife or not. When you’re not on duty you can do whatever you pleas
e. When you are on duty, that’s all there is to that. Now get out of here.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Noah.
“Yes, Sir, what?” Colclough asked.
“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” Noah said, remembering the lecture on military courtesy. He saluted and went out.
He sent a telegram, although it cost eighty-five cents. But there was no answer in the next two days from Hope, and there was no way of knowing whether she had received it or not. He couldn’t sleep all Friday night, in the scrubbed barracks, lying there knowing that Hope was only ten miles from him after all these months, waiting for him in the hotel, not knowing, perhaps, what had happened to him, not knowing about people like Colclough or the blind authority and indifference of the Army, on which love had no claims, tenderness made no impression. Anyway, he thought dreamily, as he finally dozed off right before reveille, I’ll see her this afternoon. And maybe it was all for the best. The last traces of my black eye may disappear by then, and I won’t have to explain to her about how I got it …
The Captain was due in five minutes. Nervously, Noah checked the corners of his bunk, the arrangement of the towels in his footlocker, the shine on the windows behind the bunk. He saw the man next to him, Silichner, buttoning the top button of the raincoat which hung in its ordered line among his clothes. Noah had made certain before breakfast that all his clothes were buttoned correctly for the inspection, but he looked once more at his own clothes. He swung his overcoat back and then blinked. His blouse, which he had checked just an hour ago, was open from the top button down. Frantically, he worked on the buttons. If Colclough had seen the blouse open he would have been certain to restrict Noah for the weekend. He had done worse to others for less, and he had made very clear the fact that he was not fond of Noah. The raincoat, too, had two buttons undone. Oh, God, Noah thought, don’t let him come in yet, not until I’m finished.
Suddenly Noah wheeled around. Riker and Donnelly were watching him, grinning a little. They ducked their heads and flicked at spots of dust on their shoes. That’s it, thought Noah bitterly, they did it to me. With everyone in the barracks in on it, probably. Knowing what Colclough would do to me when he found it … Probably they slipped back early after breakfast and slipped the buttons out of their holes.
He checked each bit of clothing carefully, and leaped to the foot of his bunk just as the Sergeant shouted “Attention!” from the door.
Colclough looked him over coldly and carefully and stared for a long time at the rigid perfection of his footlocker. He went over behind him and fingered every piece of the clothing hanging from the rack. Noah heard the cloth swishing as Colclough let the coats fall back into place. Then Colclough stamped past him, and Noah knew it was going to be all right.
Five minutes later the inspection was over and the men started to pour out of the barracks toward the bus station. Noah took down his barracks bag and reached in to the small oilskin sack at the bottom in which he saved his money. He drew the sack out and opened it. There was no money in it. The ten-dollar bill was gone. In its place there was a single piece of torn paper. On it there was one word, printed in oily pencil. “Tough.”
Noah stuffed the paper into his pocket. Methodically he hung the barracks bag up. I’ll kill him, he thought, I’ll kill the man who did that. No scarf, no blouse, no anything. I’ll kill him.
Dazedly he walked toward the bus station. He wanted to let the men from his barracks leave on another bus. He did not want to see them this morning. He knew he would get into trouble if he stood beside Donnelly or Silichner or Rickett or any of the others, and this morning was no time for trouble.
He waited for twenty minutes in the long line of impatient soldiers and got into the gasoline-smelling bus. There was no one from his company there, and suddenly the faces, shaved and scrubbed and happy with release, seemed like the faces of friends. The man standing next to him, a huge soldier with a broad, smiling face, even offered him a drink out of a pint bottle of rye he carried in his pocket.
Noah smiled at him. “No, thank you,” he said. “My wife just arrived in town and I haven’t seen her yet. I don’t want to meet her with alcohol on my breath.”
The man grinned broadly, as though Noah had just said something most flattering and agreeable. “Your wife,” he said. “How do you like that? When was the last time you saw her?”
“Seven months ago,” Noah said.
“Seven months ago!” The man’s face grew sober. He was very young and his skin was fair, like a girl’s, on his tough, agreeable face. “Seven months and this is the first time.” He bent over to the man who was sitting in the seat against which Noah was standing. “Soldier,” he said, “get up and let this married man sit down. He hasn’t seen his wife for seven months and she’s waiting for him now and he needs all his strength.”
The other man grinned and stood up. “You should have told me in the beginning,” he said.
“No,” said Noah, embarrassed but laughing. “I’ll do all right. I don’t have to sit down …”
The man with the bottle pushed him down with an imperious, gentle hand. “Soldier,” he said solemnly, “this is a direct order. Sit down and preserve yourself.”
Noah sat down and all the men around him grinned at him.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a photograph of the lady?” the big man said.
“Well,” said Noah, “the fact is …” He got out his wallet and showed the big man the photograph of Hope. The soldier looked at it soberly.
“A garden on a morning in May,” he pronounced. “By God, I’m going to get me married, myself, before I let them shoot me.”
Noah put the wallet back, smiling at him, feeling, somehow, that this was an omen, that from now on things would be different, that he had reached the bottom and begun to climb up to the other side.
When the bus stopped in town in front of the post office, the large man, with elaborate care, helped him down the bus steps to the shabby street, and patted him gently and encouragingly on the shoulder. “Go along, now, Sonny,” the man said, “and have a very nice week-end. And you forget that there is such a thing as the United States Army until reveille Monday morning.”
Smiling, Noah waved at him, and hurried toward the hotel where Hope was waiting for him.
She was in the crowded lobby, among the surging khaki and the other wives.
Noah saw her before she saw him. She was peering, a little short-sightedly, through the milling soldiers and women and dusty potted palms. She looked pale and anxious. The smile that broke over her face when he came up behind her and lightly touched her elbow and said, “Mrs. Ackerman, I presume,” was on the brink of tears.
They kissed as though they were all alone.
“Now,” Noah said softly, “now, now …”
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m not going to cry.”
She stood back, holding him at arm’s length, and peered at him. “It’s the first time,” she said, “the first time I’ve seen you in uniform.”
“How do I look?”
Her mouth trembled a little. “Horrible,” she said.
Then they both laughed.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he said.
“We can’t.”
“Why not?” Noah asked, feeling a clutching sense of disaster.
“I couldn’t get a room here. Full up. That’s all right.” She touched his face and chuckled at the despair she saw there. “We have a place. A rooming house down the street. Don’t look like that.”
They joined hands and went out of the hotel. They walked down the street silently, looking at each other from time to time. Noah was conscious of the polite, approving stares of the soldiers they passed who had no wives, no girls, and were only going to get drunk that afternoon.
The rooming house needed painting. The porch was overgrown with grape vines and the bottom step was broken. “Be careful,” Hope said. “Don’t fall through. This would be an awful time to break your leg.”
The doo
r was opened for them by the landlady. She was a thin old woman in a dirty gray apron. She stared coldly at Noah, exuding a smell of sweat, age and dishwater. “This your husband?” she asked, her bony hand on the doorknob.
“Yes,” said Hope. “This is my husband.”
“Ummm,” said the landlady, and did not smile when Noah grinned politely at her. The landlady watched them as they mounted the stairs.
“This is worse than inspection,” Noah whispered as he followed Hope toward the door of their room.
“What’s inspection?” Hope asked.
“I’ll tell you,” Noah said, “some other time.”
Then the door closed behind them. The room was small, with one window with a cracked pane. The wallpaper was so old and faded that the pattern looked as though it somehow was growing out of the wall. The bed was chipped white iron and there were obvious lumps under the grayish spread. But Hope had put a small bunch of jonquils in a glass on the dresser and her hairbrush was there, sign of marriage and civilization, and she had put a small photograph of Noah, laughing, in a sweater, taken on a summer holiday, under the flowers.
They avoided looking at each other, embarrassed.
“I had to show her our marriage license,” Hope said, “The landlady.”
“What?” Noah asked.
“Our marriage license. She said you had to fight tooth and nail to maintain a respectable establishment with a hundred thousand drunken soldiers loose on the town.”
Noah grinned and shook his head wonderingly. “Who told you to bring the license down?”
Hope touched the flowers. “I carry it around with me,” she said, “all the time, these days. In my handbag. To remind me …”
Noah walked slowly over to the door. There was an iron key in the lock. He turned it. The clumsy noise of the primitive tumblers screeched through the room. “There,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about doing this for seven months. Locking a door.”