Collected Fiction

by Irwin Shaw

  All he had to do was to remain on one knee.

  He stood up.

  He put up his hands and waited for Brailsford to come at him. Slowly, Brailsford’s face swam into focus. It was white and splotched now with red, and it was very nervous. Noah walked across the patch of grass and hit the white face, hard, and Brailsford went down. Noah stared dully at the sprawled figure at his feet. Brailsford was panting hard, and his hands were pulling at the grass.

  “Get up, you yellow bastard,” a voice called out from the watching men. Noah blinked. It was the first time anyone but himself had been cursed on this spot.

  Brailsford got up. He was fat and out of condition, because he was the Company Clerk and always managed to find excuses to duck out of heavy work. His breath was sobbing in his throat. As Noah moved in on him, there was a look of terror on his face. His hands waved vaguely in front of him.

  “No, no …” he said pleadingly.

  Noah stopped and stared at him. He shook his head and plodded in. Both men swung at the same time, and Noah went down again. Brailsford was a large man and the blow had hit high on Noah’s temple. Methodically, sitting with his legs crumpled under him, Noah took a deep breath. He looked up at Brailsford.

  The big man was standing above him, his hands held tightly before him. He was breathing heavily, and he was whispering, “Please, please …” Sitting there, with his head hammering, Noah grinned, because he knew what Brailsford meant. He was pleading with Noah to stay down.

  “Why, you miserable hillbilly son of a bitch,” Noah said clearly. “I’m going to knock you out.” He stood up and grinned as he saw the flare of anguish in Brailsford’s eyes when he swung at him.

  Brailsford hung heavily on him, clinching, swinging with a great show of willingness. But the blows were soft and nervous and Noah didn’t feel them. Clutched in the big man’s fat embrace, smelling the sweat rolling off his skin, Noah knew that he had beaten Brailsford merely by standing up. After this it was merely a matter of time. Brailsford’s nerve had run out.

  Noah ducked away and lashed out at Brailsford’s middle. The blow landed and Noah could feel the softness of the clerk’s belly as his fist dug in.

  Brailsford dropped his hands to his sides and stood there, weaving a little, a stunned plea for pity in his eyes. Noah chuckled. “Here it comes, Corporal,” he said, and drove at the white, bleeding face. Brailsford just stood there. He wouldn’t fall and he wouldn’t fight and Noah merely stood flat on the balls of his feet, hooking at the collapsing face. “Now,” he said, swinging with all his shoulder, all his body behind the driving, cutting blow. “Now. Now.” He gained in power. He could feel the electric life pouring down his arms into his fists. All his enemies, all the men who had stolen his money, cursed him on the march, driven his wife away, were standing there, broken in nerve, bleeding before him. Blood sprayed from his knuckles every time he hit Brailsford’s staring, agonized face.

  “Don’t fall, Corporal,” Noah said, “don’t fall yet, please don’t fall,” and swung again and again, faster and faster, his fists making a sound like mallets wrapped in wet cloth. And when he saw Brailsford finally begin to sway, he tried to hold him with one hand long enough to hit him twice more, three times, a dozen, and he sobbed when he no longer could hold the rubbery bloody mess up. Brailsford slipped to the ground.

  Noah turned to the watching men. He dropped his hands. No one would meet his eyes. “All right,” he said loudly. “It’s over.”

  But they didn’t say anything. As though at a signal, they turned their backs and started to walk away. Noah stared at the retreating forms, dissolving in the dusk among the barracks walls. Brailsford still lay where he fell. No one had stayed with him to help him.

  Michael touched Noah. “Now,” Michael said, “let’s wait for the German Army.”

  Noah shook off the friendly hand. “They all walked away,” he said. “The bastards just walked away.” He looked down at Brailsford. The clerk had come to, although he still lay face down on the grass. He was crying. Slowly and vaguely he moved a hand up to his eyes. Noah went over to him and kneeled beside him.

  “Leave your eye alone,” he ordered. “You’ll rub dirt in it this way.” He started to pull Brailsford to his feet and Michael helped him. They had to support the clerk all the way to the barracks and they had to wash his face for him and clean the cuts because Brailsford just stood in front of the mirror with his hands at his side, weeping helplessly.

  The next day Noah deserted.

  Michael was called down to the orderly room.

  “Where is he?” Colclough shouted.

  “Where is who, Sir?” Michael asked, standing stiffly at attention.

  “You know goddamn well who I mean,” Colclough said. “Your friend. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know, Sir,” said Michael.

  “Don’t hand me that!” Colclough shouted. All the Sergeants were in the room behind Michael, staring gravely at their Captain. “You were his friend, weren’t you?”

  Michael hesitated. It was hard to describe their relationship as friendship.

  “Come on, Soldier! You were his friend.”

  “I suppose so, Sir.”

  “I want you to say yessir or nosir, that’s all, Whitacre! Were you his friend or weren’t you?”

  “Yes, Sir, I was.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “You’re lying to me!” Colclough’s face had grown very pale and his nose was twitching. “You helped him get out. Let me tell you something, Whitacre, in case you’ve forgotten your Articles of War. The penalty for assisting at or failing to report desertion is exactly the same as for desertion. Do you know what the penalty for that is in time of war?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “What is it?” Suddenly Colclough’s voice had become quiet and almost soft. He slid down in his chair and looked up gently at Michael.

  “It can be death, Sir.”

  “Death,” said Colclough, softly. “Death. Listen, Whitacre, your friend is as good as caught already. When we catch him, we’ll ask him if you helped him desert. Or even if he told you he was going to desert. That’s all that’s necessary. If he told you and you didn’t report it, that is just the same as assisting at desertion. Did you know that, Whitacre?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Michael said, thinking, this is impossible, this could not be happening to me, this is an amusing anecdote I heard at a cocktail party about the quaint characters in the United States Army.

  “I grant you, Whitacre,” Colclough said reasonably, “I don’t think a court-martial would condemn you to death just for not reporting it. But they might very well put you in jail for twenty years. Or thirty years. Or life. Federal prison, Whitacre, is not Hollywood. It is not Broadway. You will not get your name in the columns very often in Leavenworth. If your friend just happens to say that he happened to tell you he planned to go away, that’s all there is to it.’ And he’ll get plenty of opportunities to say it, Whitacre, plenty … Now …” Colclough spread his hands reasonably on the desk. “I don’t want to make a big thing out of this. I’m interested in preparing a company to fight and I don’t want to break it up with things like this. All you have to do is tell me where Ackerman is, and we’ll forget all about it. That’s all. Just tell me where you think he might be … That’s not much, is it?”

  “No, Sir,” Michael said.

  “All right,” Colclough said briskly. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  Colclough’s nose started to twitch again. He yawned nervously. “Listen, Whitacre,” he said, “don’t have any false feelings of loyalty to a man like Ackerman. He was not the type we wanted in the Company, anyway. He was useless as a soldier and he was not trusted by any of the other men in the Company and he was a constant source of trouble from beginning to end. You’d have to be crazy to risk spending your life in jail to protect a man like that. I don’t like to see you do it, Whitacr
e. You’re an intelligent man and you were a success in civilian life and you can be a good soldier, Whitacre, in time, and I want to help you … Now …” And he smiled winningly at Michael. “Where is Private Ackerman?”

  “I’m sorry, Sir.” Michael said. “I don’t know.”

  Colclough stood up. “All right,” he said quietly. “Get out of here, Jew-lover.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Michael said. “Thank you, Sir.”

  He saluted and went out.

  Brailsford was waiting for Michael outside the mess hall. He leaned against the building, picking his teeth and spitting. He had grown fatter than ever, but a look of uncertain grievance had set up residence in his features, and his voice had taken on a whining, complaining note since Noah had beaten him. Michael saw him waving to him as Michael came out the door, heavy with the porkchops and potatoes and spaghetti and peach pie of the noonday meal He tried to pretend he had not seen the Company Clerk. But Brailsford hurried after him, calling, “Whitacre, wait a minute, will you?” Michael turned and faced Brailsford.

  “Hello, Whitacre,” Brailsford said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “What’s the matter?” Michael asked.

  Brailsford looked around him nervously. Other men were coming out of the mess hall and passing them in a food-anchored slow flood. “We better not talk here,” he said. “Let’s take a little walk.”

  “I have a couple of things to do,” Michael said, “before formation …”

  “It’ll only take a minute.” Brailsford winked solemnly. “I think you’ll be interested.”

  Michael shrugged. “O.K.,” he said, and walked side by side with the Company Clerk toward the parade ground.

  “This Company,” Brailsford said. “I’m getting good and pissed-off with it. I’m working on a transfer. There’s a Sergeant at Regiment who’s up for a medical discharge, arthritis, and I’ve been talking to a couple of people over there. This Company gives me the willies …” Michael sighed. He had planned to go back to his bunk and lie down in the precious twenty minutes after dinner.

  “Listen,” he said, “what’s on your mind?”

  “Ever since that fight,” Brailsford said, “these bastards have been pissing on me. Listen, I didn’t want to sign my name on that list. It was a joke, see, that’s what they told me, the ten biggest guys in the Company, and I was one of them. I got nothing against the Jew. They told me he’d never fight. I didn’t want to fight. I’m no fighter. Every kid in town used to lick me, even though I was big. What the hell, that ain’t no crime, not being a pugilist, is it?”

  “No,” said Michael.

  “Also,” Brailsford said, “I have no resistance. I had pneumonia when I was fourteen, and ever since then I have no resistance. I’m even excused from hikes by the doctor. Try and tell that bastard Rickett that,” he said bitterly. “Or any of the others. They treat me like I sold military secrets to the German Army, ever since Ackerman knocked me out. I stood there and took it as long as I could, didn’t I? I stood there and he hit me and hit me and I didn’t go down for a long time, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes,” said Michael.

  “That Ackerman is ferocious,” Brailsford said. “He may be small, but he’s wild. I don’t like to have no dealings with people like that. After all, he gave Donnelly a bloody nose, didn’t he, and Donnelly was in the Golden Gloves. What the hell do they expect from me?”

  “All right,” Michael said. “I know all about that. What’s on your mind now?”

  “I ain’t got no future in this Company, no future at all.” Brailsford threw away his toothpick and stared sorrowfully across the dusty parade ground. “And what I want to tell you is neither have you …”

  Michael stopped. “What’s that?” he said sharply.

  “The only people that’ve treated me like a human being,” Brailsford said, “are you and the Jew that night, and I want to help you. I’d like to help him, too, if I could, I swear I would …”

  “Have you heard anything?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah,” said Brailsford. “They got him at Governor’s Island, in New York, last night. Remember, nobody is supposed to know this, it’s secret, but I know because I’m in the orderly room all the time …”

  “I won’t tell anybody.” Michael shook his head, thinking of Noah in the hands of the Military Police, wearing the blue fatigues with the big white P for prisoner stenciled on the back, and the guards with the shotguns walking behind him. “Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t say. Colclough gave us all a drink of Three Feathers to celebrate. That’s all I know. But that ain’t what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to tell you something about yourself.” Brailsford paused, obviously sourly pleased with the effect he was going to make in a moment. “Your application for OCS,” he said, “the one you put in a long time ago …”

  “Yes?” Michael asked. “What about it?”

  “It came back,” Brailsford said. “Yesterday. Rejected.”

  “Rejected?” Michael said dully. “But I passed the Board and I …”

  “It came back from Washington, rejected. The other two guys from the Company was passed, but yours is finished. The FBI said no.”

  “The FBI?” Michael stared sharply at Brailsford to see if this was some elaborate joke that was being played on him. “What’s the FBI got to do with it?”

  “They check up, on everybody. And they checked up on you. You’re not officer material, they said. You’re not loyal.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Michael said.

  “Why the hell would I want to kid you?” Brailsford asked aggrievedly. “I don’t go in for jokes no more. You’re not loyal, they said, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Not loyal.” Michael shook his head puzzledly. “What’s the matter with me?”

  “You’re a Red,” said Brailsford. “They got it in the record. Dossier, the FBI calls it. You can’t be trusted with information that might be of value to the enemy.”

  Michael stared out across the parade ground. There were men lying on the dusty patches of grass, and two soldiers were lazily throwing a baseball to each other. Across the parched brown and dead green the flag whipped in a light wind at the top of its pole. Somewhere in Washington at this moment there was a man sitting at a desk, probably looking at the same flag on the wall of his office, and that man had calmly and without remorse written on his record …“Disloyal. Communist affiliation. Not recommended.”

  “Spain,” Brailsford said, “it’s got something to do with Spain. I sneaked a look at the report. Is Spain Communist?”

  “Not exactly,” Michael said.

  “You ever been in Spain?”

  “No. I helped organize a committee that sent ambulances and blood banks over there.”

  “They got you,” Brailsford said. “They got you cold. They won’t tell you, either, they’ll just say you don’t have the proper qualities of leadership or something like that. But I’m telling you.”

  “Thanks,” Michael said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “What the hell,” Brailsford said, “at least you treat me like a human being. Take a tip. Try and wrangle yourself a transfer. I ain’t got no future in this here Company, but you got a lot less. Colclough is crazy on the subject of Reds. You’ll do KP from now on till we go overseas, and you’ll be first scout on every advance in combat, and I wouldn’t give a used condom for your chances of coming out alive.”

  “Thanks, Brailsford,” Michael said. “I think I’ll take your advice.”

  “Sure,” Brailsford said. “A man’s got to protect his ass in this Army. It’s a cinch the Army ain’t interested in protecting it.” He took out another toothpick and poked between his teeth. He spat, reflectively. “Remember,” he said, “I ain’t said a word.”

  Michael nodded and watched Brailsford lounge slowly along the edge of the parade ground, back to the orderly room which he had no future.

  Far away, thin and metallic over the
whispering thousand miles of wire, Michael heard Cahoon’s voice, saying, “Yes, this is Thomas Cahoon. Yes, I’ll accept a collect call from Private Whitacre …”

  Michael closed the door of the telephone booth of the Rawlings Hotel. He had made the long trip into town because he did not want to make the call from camp, where somebody might overhear him. “Please limit your call to five minutes,” the operator said. “There are others waiting.”

  “Hello, Tom,” he said. “It’s not poverty. It’s just that I don’t have the necessary quarters and dimes.”

  “Hello, Michael,” Cahoon said, sounding very pleased. “It’s all right I’ll take it off my income tax.”

  “Tom,” Michael said, “listen very carefully. Do you know anybody in the Special Services Division in New York, the people who put on shows and camp entertainments and things like that?”

  “Yes.” Cahoon said. “Quite a few people. I work with them all the time.”

  “I’m tired of the infantry,” Michael said. “Will you try to arrange a transfer for me? I want to get out of this country. There are Special Services units going overseas every day. Can you get me into one of them?”

  There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire. “Oh,” Cahoon said, and there was a tinge of disappointment and reproof in his voice. “Of course. If you want it.”

  “I’ll send you a special-delivery letter tonight,” Michael said. “Serial number, rank, and organization designation. You’ll need that.”

  “Yes,” said Cahoon. “I’ll get right on it.” Still the slight coolness in his voice.

  “I’m sorry, Tom.” Michael said. “I can’t explain why I’m doing this over the phone. It will have to wait until I get there.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Cahoon said. “You know that. I’m sure you have your reasons.”

  “Yes,” said Michael. “I have my reasons. Thanks again. Now I have to get off. There’s an. expectant Sergeant here who wants to call the maternity ward of the Dallas City Hospital.”

  “Good luck, Michael,” Cahoon said, and Michael could sense the effort at warmth that Cahoon put into the words, almost convincingly.