by James Jones
It was as if in moving from Fandalack to Lake Lawler Sylvanus had moved from one end of a teetertotter to the other, a teetertotter whose bar and fulcrum was the great Middle West heritage and culture he had almost been ready to believe he had escaped. But he was willing to overlook this because he felt the widow would be a good antidote. Sylvanus had discovered he needed an antidote.
The cabin he had got at Lake Lawler was only one room and there were no trees around it. It was very hot, now that the rainy spell had finally broken, and at night the jukebox music from the pavilion pervaded the cabin and helped the heat keep Sylvanus awake. The sound of the cars that kept driving down toward the swimmers’ outhouses to park at the foot of the hill where his cabin was did not help either. A lot of giggling and laughter came from the cars. The people in the cars sounded very happy, they did not seem to mind losing sleep. Sylvanus Merrick, on the other hand, felt he needed a lot of sleep very badly. This was because the heat and the music and the cars kept him awake. And because he was determined to work.
Then, quite suddenly, the novel began to come again. Out of a clear sky. For no apparent reason. Coming all at once, the way the last dozen pieces of a jigsaw suddenly fall into place. He could even see the end of it. That was the fine thing about writing. Sylvanus even quit worrying about the Book-of-the-Month Club. Maybe that was what helped him to sleep. But then writing was the only religious ritual Sylvanus Merrick had ever found that did not require a third party and he worked at it very seriously in the same way a good Catholic has to go to Mass every morning, so that by evening he was always very tired now. Tired enough to sleep.
He gave up going over to see the widow. It embarrassed him to find himself suddenly defending the Middle West which he did not like, and he did not want to upset the balance now, or stop it, now that it had started coming again. He fly-fished for bluegill and drank beer at the concession and slept. Every now and then a great pressure would wake him up in the middle of the night and he would get up and get dressed and tramp hard four or five miles out on the highway under the burnished gunmetal sky that sparkled pulsatingly now that the hot corn-growing weather was here.
VIII
It was on one of these walks that it suddenly came to Sylvanus that maybe he should try living in the Far West, when this novel was done. He had never lived in the West. But he had read that it was the Western women who had first forked a horse, when the side saddle was still a God-given law of propriety. Surely, with mountains and deep woods all around them, they ought to be different out there, Sylvanus Merrick decided. All you had to do was get out of the great Middle West.
Greater Love
I’ve already given most of the interesting bits on this one in the Introduction. I remember it was the summer when they were filming Intruder in the Dust down in Oxford. A friend of mine studying to be a photographer on the GI bill wanted me to go down there with him and introduce ourselves to Faulkner, but I didn’t want to. Almost anybody can recognize Sgts Warden and Welsh in “The First.” I once served on a Graves Registration Corps detail where a man helped to dig up his own brother. That memory set me to thinking. Published in Collier’s, Summer, 1951.
“HERE’S THAT DETAIL ROSTER,” Corporal Quentin Thatcher said.
“Thanks,” the first sergeant said. He did not look up, or stop working.
“Would you do me a favor?”
“Probably not,” the First said. He went on working.
“I wish you wouldn’t send Shelb down to the beach on this unloading detail. They’ve been bombing the Slot three or four times every day since the new convoy got in.”
“Pfc Shelby Thatcher,” the First said distinctly, without stopping working, “just because he’s the kid brother of the company clerk, does not rate no special privileges in my outfit. The 2nd Platoon is due for detail by the roster; you typed it out. Pfc Shelby Thatcher is in the 2nd Platoon.”
“So is Houghlan in the 2nd Platoon. But I notice he never pulls any these details.”
“Houghlan is the Compny Commander’s dog robber.”
“I know it.”
“See the chaplain, kid,” the First said, looking up for the first time. His wild eyes burned the skin of Quentin Thatcher’s face. “That ain’t my department.”
“I thought maybe you would do it as a favor.”
“What are you going to do when we really get into combat, kid? up there on the line?”
“I’m going to be in the 2nd Platoon,” Quentin said. “Where I can look out for my brother Shelb.”
“Not unless I say so, you ain’t.” The First grinned at him evilly. “And I ain’t saying so.” He stared at Quentin a moment with those wild old soldier’s eyes. Then he jerked his head toward the typing table across the mud floor of the tent. “Now get the hell back to work and don’t bother me. I’m busy.”
“Damn you,” Quentin said deliberately. “Damn you to hell. You don’t even know what it is, to love somebody.”
“For two cents I’d send you back to straight duty today,” the First said calmly, “and see how you like it. Only I’m afraid it would kill you.”
“That suits me fine,” Quentin said. He reached in his pocket and tossed two pennies onto the field desk. “I quit.”
“You can’t quit,” the First grinned malevolently. “I won’t let you. You’re an ass, Thatcher, but you can type and I need a clerk.”
“Find another one.”
“After I spent all this time training you? Anyway, there aint a platoon sergeant in the compny would have you. And I still got hopes maybe someday you’ll make a soldier. Though I wouldn’t know the hell why. Now get the hell out of here and take them papers over to the supply room like I told you, before I throw you over there with them bodily.”
“I’m going. But you don’t scare me a bit. And the last thing on this earth I’d ever want to be is a soldier.”
The First laughed. Quentin took his own sweet time collecting the papers. The two pennies, lying on the field desk, he ignored.
The pennies were still there the next morning when Quentin came out of the orderly tent for a break. He watched the First legging it off down the road toward Regiment, then he walked across to where the four men were sitting on water cans in the tracky mud in front of the supply tent like four sad crows on a fence. They had only got back from the detail an hour before.
“Any news yet?” his brother Shelb asked him.
“Not a bit,” Quentin said. “Nothing.”
The waiting was beginning to get into all of them. The division had been here a month now, and both the 35th and 161st had gone up to relieve Marine outfits on the hills two weeks ago.
“Where was the first sergeant going, Quentin?” Al Zwermann asked hopefully. “He looked like he was in a hurry.” Al Zwermann’s brother Vic was in C Company of the 35th.
“Just to Regiment,” Quentin said. “See about some kind of a detail.”
“Not another detail!” Gorman growled.
“Sure. Ain’t you heard?” Joe Martuscelli said sourly. “They done transferred the whole Regiment into the Quartermaster.”
“You don’t think it might be the order to move, then?” Zwermann asked.
“Not from what I heard over the phone. From what he said over the phone it was just another detail of some kind.”
“A fine clerk,” Gorman growled. “Why the hell dint you ask him what kind of a detail, you jerk?”
“Go to hell,” Quentin said. “Why the hell didn’t you ask him? You don’t ask that man things.”
“How’d the unloading go?”
“The unloading went fine,” Shelb grinned. “They only bombed twice, and I stole a full fifth of bourbon off an officer’s orderly on one of the transports.”
“Yeah,” Martuscelli said sourly. “A full fifth. And he has to save it all for his precious big brother.”
“You think you’ll have time to help drink it, Quent?” Shelb said, getting up, “before the First gets back?”
; “Sometimes I don’t think we’ll any of us ever get to see any action,” Gorman growled.
“To hell with the First,” Quentin said.
“I’ll go get it then,” Shelb grinned.
“A hell of a fine way to treat your own squad,” Martuscelli said sourly, watching him leave.
“I took a bust from corpul to transfer into this outfit,” Gorman growled. “Because it was shipping out. They put me in Cannon Compny and I took another bust from pfc to get in a rifle compny. All because I wanted to see action.”
“We all enlisted,” Martuscelli said sourly.
“All I ask is they give me a rifle,” Gorman growled. “None of your 155s for this soldier. Just a rifle, a bayonet and a knife. That’s all. Gimme that and I’m ready.” He thought a second, then added inconclusively, “Maybe couple grenades.”
“You talk like my brother Vic,” Zwermann said.
Somebody grunted. On the road that had not been a road a month ago a couple of jeeps hammered by, fighting the mud that came clear up to their belly plates. From where the men sat, the rows of coconut trees wheeled away in every direction like spokes from a hub. The sun was bright and clear in the sea air under the tall trees of the grove. It was a fine summery morning. Whenever the wind veered you could hear the sound of the firing from back in the hills.
“Vic’s up there now,” Zwermann said wonderingly.
“Well, when we do go up,” Quentin said suddenly, committing himself, “I’m putting in for straight duty. With the 2nd Platoon. Soon’s we got our orders to move.”
“What the hell for?” Gorman asked, startled.
“Because I want to,” Quentin said.
“If you do, you’re nuts,” Martuscelli said sourly.
“Ha,” Gorman growled. “He won’t. You know where he’ll be when we go in, don’t you? He’ll be sitting under a hill on the first sarnt’s lap punching his typewriter. That’s where.”
“You think so?” Quentin said.
“I know so. You don’t think the First is going to let his protégé get where it’s dangerous, do you?”
“I’m putting in to the Company Commander,” Quentin said. “Not to the first sergeant.”
“So what, clerk? you think that’ll make any difference?”
“Don’t worry about the clerks,” Quentin said. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about soldiering, too.”
“What do you want to do it for, Quentin?” Zwermann said.
“Oh, a lot of things,” Quentin said vaguely, “but mainly so I’ll be able to look after Shelb.”
“I’m glad my brother’s in Africa,” Martuscelli said sourly.
“I’m gladder yet,” Gorman growled, “I ain’t got one.”
“Vic can take care of himself,” Zwermann said. “Better than me.” He was looking away from them.
“In a war,” Gorman growled, “every man’s got to take care of himself. That’s my philosophy.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say!” Quentin said. Then he began to laugh, feeling a wild need to do something—he didn’t know what—and there was nothing to do.
“What’re you laughing at, clerk?” Gorman said stiffly.
“Because,” Quentin said, stopping himself. “I’m laughing because here comes Shelb with the bottle, and here comes the First back from Regiment just in time to spoil everything.”
“What’ll I do with it?” Shelb said.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Martuscelli said savagely. “Hide the damn thing.” He grabbed the bottle desperately and stuck it down between two of the stacked water cans.
“If he finds it,” Gorman said bitterly, “I know where it’ll go.”
“Thatcher!” the First bellowed. He was raging.
“Yes, sir,” Shelb said resignedly.
“Not you,” the First raged, “damn it.”
“What do you want?” Quentin said.
“Go down and get Sergeant Merdith. Tell him to get his men together and report to me. The 2nd Platoon is going out on a detail.”
There was a dull pause of adjustment.
“But hell, First,” Martuscelli protested, “we just now got back from one.”
The First said, “And you’re just now going out on another one. Ain’t you heard? There’s a war on. The 1st and 3rd Platoons and the Weapons Platoon already out. Who you think I’m going to send? the cook force?”
“What kind of a detail is it, Sergeant?” Zwermann asked.
“How the hell do I know! You think they tell me anything? All they tell me is how many men. And how soon.” He ran his fingernails through his hair a moment. “You’re going up in the hills,” he said, “with a shavetail from the Graves Registration Corps. You’re going up to dig up casualties and carry them down to the graveyard so the Quartermaster Salvage can come in and clean up.”
“That’s great,” Martuscelli said.
“Well,” the First raged, “what the hell’re you waiting for, Thatcher? Get a move on. The truck’s on its way.”
“Sergeant,” Quentin said, “I’d like to have permission to go along on this detail.”
“What do you think this is, Thatcher? A vacation resort? There’s work to be done.”
“I’ve done everything you had laid out for me.”
The First looked at him shrewdly. “Okay,” he said. “Go. Now get the hell down there and get Sergeant Merdith.”
“Right,” Quentin said, and took off.
Behind him, he heard the First say, “The rest of you men can wait here. But first Martuscelli, I want that bottle. Maybe it’ll teach you not to be so slow the next time. You men know better than to have whisky in camp. It’s against Army Regulations.”
There were four trucks with the GRC second lieutenant. The detail rode in the first two. They wound away down through the endless coconut grove, breasting the mud like swimmers, the two empty trucks lumbering along behind.
“I always wondered how they got them down to the cemetery,” Martuscelli said.
“Well, now you know,” Gorman growled.
It took them an hour to get through the belt of jungle in low gear. Then they came up out of it into the hills like submarines surfacing and ground on for another hour up the hills before they stopped at one that had a crumbling line of slit trenches along the rearward slope.
“Okay, everybody out,” the GRC lieutenant said briskly, climbing out of the cab of the first truck. “Each man get a shovel.”
The drivers dropped the tail gates and the detail clambered down and went immediately to the lip of the hill. Beyond the crest was a wide saddle that led up to the next hill. The saddle was littered with all kinds of equipment—packs, entrenching tools, helmets, rifles, bayonets, abandoned stretchers, even stray shoes and empty C ration cans. It gave the impression that everyone had suddenly dropped everything in a mad rush to cover ground.
“If any of you are interested in tactics,” the GRC lieutenant said, pointing to a faint haze of smoke three miles to the east, “that’s the present line of the 35th Infantry over there. Three days ago the 35th was here, and jumped off across this saddle.”
The men looked at the distant hills, then at the far-off line of smoke from which sporadic sounds of firing came faintly, then at the saddle below them. There were a few half-muttered comments.
“Okay, fellows,” the GRC lieutenant said briskly. “First, I want to warn you about duds and unexploded grenades. Don’t touch them. There’s nothing to worry about as long as nobody gets wise, but the Ordnance hasn’t been in here yet.
“Now,” he said, “I want you to spread out. We’re only covering the saddle today. Make a line and whenever you see a grave, stop. Some of them, as you see, are marked with bayoneted rifles stuck in the ground. Others are marked with just helmets on sticks. Still others aren’t marked at all, so be watchful. We don’t want to miss any.
“If there are dog tags on them, make sure one is fastened securely to them and give the other to me. If there’s onl
y one, leave it on them, and come get me and I’ll note the information. If there’s no dog tags, just forget it.
“It’s best to work in threes or fours. Two men can’t handle one very well, as advanced as the decomposition is by now. And there’s no rush, men. We’ve got all day to cover the area and we want to do a good job. Someday after the war they’ll be shipped home to their families.
“There are shelter-halfs to roll them in in the last two trucks. The best way is to work shovels in under the head, the knees and the buttocks; that’s why it’s best for three to work together on one; and then roll them up out of the hole with one concerted movement onto the shelter-half which you have already placed alongside. That way you don’t get any on you, and you also keep them from coming apart as much as possible.
“Now. Any questions?” the GRC lieutenant said briskly. “No? Okay then, let’s go to work,” he said, and sat down on the running board of the first truck and lit a cigarette.
The line spread out and moved forward down the crest out onto the saddle and began breaking up into little huddles of moving shovels from which there began to come strained exclamations followed by weak laughter and curses.
As each mound was opened, the smell, strange and alien as the smell of the jungle, burst up out of it like a miniature explosion and then fell heavily back to spread like mercury until it met and joined the explosions from other mounds to form a thick carpet over the whole saddle that finally overflowed and began to drip down into the jungled valleys.
“Just like a treasure hunt back home in the Y.M.C.A.,” Martuscelli muttered sourly, sweating heavily.
“You don’t reckon I’ll ever look like that, do you?” Gorman growled, grinning.
“If you do,” Shelb said, “I won’t speak to you.”
“What his best friends wouldn’t tell him,” Quentin laughed wildly.
“Well, I hope you’re happy now, clerk,” Gorman growled. “You finally got to come along and find out what straight duty in a rifle company’s like. You still putting in for it?”