The head of the column started walking and after a while the movement carried down the line to Melvin, who found himself paired off with somebody wearing fancy pointed shoes and a paper carnation. It seemed to Melvin that his partner marched unevenly, taking shorter steps with one foot than with the other; in any event they could not get together and went along the brick road, up and down, following the heads that bobbed along in front of them. After a hot, tiresome walk they turned a corner and marched through the center of town where myriads of locusts sang in the elm trees.
There was no naval station, only a small college, half of which had been requisitioned by the government. In front of a dormitory that now bore the name of an aircraft carrier the column was brought to a halt and quarters were assigned for the night.
The next morning at five o’clock they were wakened by a bugle call over a loudspeaker. After a breakfast of beans, powdered eggs, coffee, and cold, greasy bacon, they left the dining hall and were mustered into platoons in front of the dormitory. A lieutenant commander, who turned out to be the executive officer of the base, addressed them from the steps.
“You have signified your desire to become naval aviators. Your presence on this station indicates your wish to wear the gold wings of the United States Navy and by so doing to perpetuate a worthy tradition. Some of you will achieve that goal. Others”—and he paused—“will not.”
At that moment one of the college girls came walking by, her pleated skirt swaying from side to side, and the men stirred restlessly. Melvin, who was standing in the last rank of the fourth platoon, turned his head.
“You, there!” the executive officer cried, striding down the steps and advancing halfway to the fourth platoon. “You in the last rank! What’s your name?”
“Melvin Isaacs,” he responded, flushing and grinning.
“Let me hear that again,” the executive officer demanded.
“Melvin Isaacs!” he called, still grinning, and heard somebody advise him in a low voice to add “sir,” but the warning had come too late.
“Isaacs!” the commander echoed, “Isaacs! The first thing a cadet learns is that an officer is to be addressed with respect. Following this muster you will report to the flagship Langley to be assigned four hours of extra duty and ten demerits. The second thing you will learn—this applies to the entire company—is that you will have neither the time nor the energy to be looking after women.”
He turned on his heel, mounted the steps, and spoke to an ensign who was standing by with a clipboard.
“Mr. Sarkus,” the cadets heard him say in a positive voice, “you will take over.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the ensign replied. They exchanged salutes. The commander strode away.
“Now hear this!” Ensign Sarkus began. “These will be your permanent quarters.” And he started reading the list.
As soon as the company had been dismissed Melvin hurried into the dormitory and ran up to the second floor and along the corridor, hunting for his room; he had been billeted with a cadet named Horne and wanted to beat Horne to the room in order to get first choice at the beds. He planned to lie down on whichever he wanted until Horne appeared, then, having established a claim, he could go over to the Langley to see about the extra duty and demerits. He found his room, flung open the door, and stepped inside. There were two bunks, one above the other. On the lower bunk lay the ugly farmer, and his cap was resting firmly in the center of one of the desks.
After a pause Melvin asked, “Are you sure you’re in the right room?”
The farmer’s eyes were extremely cold and blue, pink-rimmed, close together, yet despite their coldness they burned wickedly, like the eyes of a savage little pig. He arched his back away from the bunk, expanded his chest until it looked as thick as a keg, flexed his arms, exhaled, and collapsed so heavily the springs creaked.
“You must be Isaacs,” he said in a hoarse, rasping voice. “You’re off to a great start, Isaacs. Ten and four the first day.” Suddenly he doubled up his legs and kicked the underside of the top bunk. “I was afraid this was going to happen. Horne and Isaacs. Out in front there I said to myself, ‘Well, Sammy boy, cross your fingers and pray that ain’t him.’ ”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I mean that I was afraid you were going to draw the other half of this room because your name begins with an I and mine begins with an H, that’s what I mean.”
“I know that, but I want to know why you didn’t want me for a roommate.”
Horne bounced himself on the bunk and appeared to be thinking. “Go get your demerits,” he said finally. “You got enough to think about for one day.”
“I’m not going anywhere till we get this settled,” Melvin said.
“All right, you asked for it,” Horne replied, and sat up. His nose had been smashed at one time and crookedly set. There was an indented white scar on his forehead just above his right eye, as though he might have been kicked by a mule. “I didn’t want nothing to do with this war, see?” he remarked. “I was working on my old man’s farm and doing all right. I just wanted to be left alone, then I found out I was going to get drafted because I got a kid brother who can help out on the farm, so I signed up for this program ahead of the draft and I’m going to get through this program with no strain. I don’t want anybody hanging around my neck, see?”
“I don’t hang around anybody’s neck.”
“Good. You go your way and I’ll go mine. We got snookered into this rat race, so we got to make the best of it.”
“That’s fair enough as far as I’m concerned, and in case you haven’t realized it, we’re here for a damn good reason. Hitler and Hirohito have got to be stopped and it’s up to us to do it.”
“My busted banana!” the farmer muttered. “Isaacs, we’re cannon fodder. It’s the same old story. In every war the suckers get mowed down like ducks. When are you going to wise up? One thing I can’t take is a hero.”
“You’ll change your mind.”
“Beat it! Go get your demerits before he gives you twenty.”
“You said you were afraid this was going to happen, that you and me would get thrown together. I’ll tell you one thing: you’re no sorrier than I am.” They stared at each other for a few moments, then Melvin left the room. As he walked across the campus toward the administration building he attempted to calm himself. After all, there was more than one point of view to anything. But in the end he could feel nothing except contempt and disgust. He thought about reporting Horne’s attitude to the officers, but decided they would discover it soon enough.
“Just what do you suggest?” he inquired that evening. “Allow the Nazis and Japs to overrun the world?”
“Knock it off,” Horne replied, “I got work to do.” He had begun to study the textbooks they had been issued, although they had not yet attended their first class. He glanced across the desk, saw that Melvin was writing a letter, shook his head, and resumed studying.
In the days that followed they said very little to each other, and yet, somewhat to Melvin’s surprise, Horne evidently bore no grudge and even went out of his way now and then to be friendly. Melvin first noticed this one afternoon during the boxing period. The gymnasium was crowded with cadets, all boxing at once, while officers walked back and forth on the balcony and shouted at them through megaphones to stop dancing and start fighting. From the beginning it had been apparent that Horne knew how to box; when the first gong sounded he had advanced with a menacing shuffle, his shoulders hunched professionally, feinted quickly, and then all at once Melvin came to his senses on the canvas. He got to his feet with blood dripping from both nostrils and rushed forward flailing away, and Horne carefully knocked him down again. But a few minutes later while they were in a clinch Horne glanced up at the balcony to see if any officers were watching, and whispered, “Take it easy, Isaacs. If you don’t rush me I won’t have to hit you.” Melvin was outraged by this; he burst free and crouched, panting desperately, prepared t
o spring forward, but lost his balance at the last moment and fell down. He jumped up, wild with anger, and Horne, with an irritated expression, knocked him down again.
That was the way it went whenever they boxed, and after about a week Melvin’s nose had become swollen and extremely sensitive; he thought it might be broken but he did not go to the dispensary to find out because he was afraid the doctor would keep him there.
In the dormitory one evening Horne had difficulty studying; several times he passed a callused hand across the reddish-blond stubble on top of his head, and at last he slapped the desk. “Honest to God, Isaacs,” he said, “I don’t know about you.” And he continued in his hoarse, belligerent voice, “I really don’t! What makes you so eager?” He began to get excited; the indignation of his own voice was arousing him. “Where do you think you are—in the South Pacific? You can’t win the war in a gymnasium! And as far as that goes you ain’t going to win it in any navigation class either—like today. Why didn’t you simply do what the man told you instead of asking him why?”
“I wanted to know the reason,” Melvin said, gazing at him in mild surprise.
“Officers don’t like to be asked why,” Horne replied. “Officers usually don’t know why. That’s why they don’t like to be asked. You don’t understand officers. You should watch how I treat officers. I give them no trouble, they give me no trouble.”
Melvin had already noticed this and wondered at it. “I suppose you’re right, but in navigation class I just wanted to know the reason.”
“That’s beside the point!” Horne shouted, jumping up from the desk with his fists clenched.
“I don’t feel that it is,” said Melvin. They stared at each other a moment and then Horne sighed as though he were confused.
Later that evening he asked, “You figure you’re going to make it through this program?”
“I don’t know,” Melvin answered. “I hope so, but I don’t know.”
Their days began about sunrise, which was nothing new to Horne, who was accustomed to dressing by the light of a kitchen stove or a lantern, and who had often been in the fields at dawn; but Melvin could not get used to being awakened while it was dark. For the first few days he had not known whether he would be able to get out of bed, partly on account of the medical injections which had almost paralyzed him. Immediately after receiving these injections the company had been sent to the athletic grounds to play football, and after the football game they went on a cross-country race—a circumstance so unbelievable that while he was running over the hills with an arm full of serum he continually and plaintively inquired of no one in particular if the order had not been a mistake; he thought they should have been sent back to the dormitory to rest. But it was no mistake. An officer drove along behind them in a station wagon and honked the horn and occasionally leaned out the window to shout at them to run faster. The cadets who fell down and were unable to get up were placed in the back of the station wagon with a medical corpsman who looked after them but also passed their names to the officer, who put them on the pap sheet for ten demerits and four hours of extra duty. After the company had been running along the road for about half an hour Melvin became sick at his stomach, but managed to keep running while he vomited and presently he felt a little better, though quite weak and dizzy, and when the company ran past the depot and through the middle of town to the campus he felt rather proud that he was no more than a hundred yards or so behind Horne, who had led the race all the way.
He understood by then that so much exercise immediately following the injections had not been the result of confusion in the battalion office; it had been deliberate, not punishment so much as an example of what they might expect in the future. The Navy was advising them that if they were not prepared to accept such treatment for the next year they should resign from the aviation training program.
Room inspections occurred several times a day. Ensign Sarkus came around, followed by an enlisted man with a clipboard. If the ensign felt displeased with a room he would hunt about until he found some reason for giving the occupants the customary number of demerits and extra duty. Melvin and Horne would stand side by side at rigid attention looking straight ahead while Sarkus prowled around and picked up the chairs to examine the bottoms of the legs for dirt and leaned out the window to see if the ledge had been scrubbed, and if he could find nothing objectionable there, or anywhere else, he would flip a coin on Melvin’s bunk and no matter how high the coin bounced he would then observe that the cover had not been stretched taut and the corners had not been squared; with this he would suggest that some little triangles of cardboard be slipped into the corners beneath the cover in order to square them, and having offered this advice he would then nod to the enlisted man, who, after about three weeks, no longer needed to ask Melvin his name. Why it was that Ensign Sarkus never flipped the coin on the lower bunk and gave Horne the demerits was something Melvin could not understand.
In addition to boxing, football, and cross-country races, the athletic schedule consisted of some calisthenics which he thought were extraordinary—such as lying on one’s back with one’s feet held precisely six inches off the ground for a period of ten or fifteen minutes—an obstacle course built of logs, ropes, barrels, hurdles, walls, and various traps, nets, and parapets joined by trenches and pits filled with water, and a game which the Navy called basketball. This was played on a court, with a basketball, and there were goals at either end; otherwise there was no similarity to basketball. No fouls were called. In fact there was no referee. There was, however, the usual officer who ran back and forth bawling through a megaphone and threatening them with demerits unless they played harder. Horne seemed to have an instinctive grasp of the fundamentals of this game, knocking down anyone who got in his way, and the officer looked on him with approval. He also broke the battalion record for the obstacle course, and in the gymnasium he established a new mark for climbing a rope hand over hand to the ceiling. Melvin displayed a great deal of energy in these various athletics, but was frequently brushed aside or stepped on, and it seemed to him that a day never passed without at least one officer shouting at him.
Most of their time, however, was spent in classrooms where they studied military sciences: navigation, recognition, communications, and theory of flight, all of which Sam Horne assimilated with no apparent difficulty; whenever an examination was given he scored not far from the top of the battalion. Melvin’s score was apt to fall somewhere near or slightly below the median. Aircraft recognition gave him the most trouble. Lantern slides were flashed on the classroom wall, or on the ceiling or in a corner, for a fraction of a second—one-tenth, one-fiftieth, sometimes one-hundredth of a second—and the cadet wrote down what he had seen. As often as not Melvin saw only a flash of light with a blur in the center. He had been issued a deck of recognition cards, and every night after the conclusion of the study period he would remain at his desk until taps, turning over these cards, squinting, rubbing his face in an effort to concentrate, attempting to recall what he had learned.
One evening, unable to stand this any longer, Sam Horne crumpled a magazine he had been reading and threw it at the wastebasket. “Now look,” he began, spreading his hands in the lamplight and staring truculently across the desk. “You make everything tough for yourself. Relax! Take it easy!”
Melvin ignored him, turned up another card, and said, “SBD Dauntless. Forty-two.”
“Forty-one,” Horne remarked patiently. “Forty-one feet, stupid, not forty-two feet. Forty-two feet is the wingspan of the SNJ, not the SBD. Why can’t you remember such a simple thing? You’re going to need this information for gunnery at Pensacola. If you ever get to Pensacola.”
“Forty-one, you’re right,” Melvin answered nervously, and repeated while shuffling the deck, “SBD forty-one. SBD forty-one. SBD forty-one.”
Sam Horne watched, listened, and occasionally corrected him, and presently the notes of the bugle came echoing through the corridor. Horne switched
out the light and rolled into his bunk with the powerful ease that distinguished him on the athletic field. “Good night, Isaacs,” he said in the darkness, and Melvin was oddly touched, though he did not know quite why—Horne had never bothered to tell him good night before.
“Okay,” he answered brusquely, “good night, Horne,” and sprang into the upper bunk. After the security patrol had gone by the door he pulled a flashlight from beneath his pillow and resumed studying the cards.
September was over, and with October came their first free Saturdays, the first evenings of liberty in the dusky bronze Iowa autumn. There was not much to do in Vernon—it was a very small town lost among the great fields of corn—and cadets were restricted to a radius of three miles from the Langley; furthermore the liberty period lasted only five hours, but they looked forward to it all week. And it was in this month that Melvin became attracted to one of the civilian girls employed by the Navy to serve food in the dining hall. He did not care much for Navy food and even when he was hungry he had been in no hurry to join the line, but now, all at once, to Sam Horne’s astonishment, he often asked what time it was and then observed that it would soon be time to eat. In the line he would stand on tiptoes trying to see where she was, but when he got to her he would gaze seriously in another direction while she, with phlegmatic lack of interest, dropped an ice-cream dipper of scrambled eggs or coagulated beans on his tray.
It seemed to him that she was lovely and sensitive, and between visits to the dining hall he berated himself for lacking the courage to speak to her. He decided it was because there were so many cadets around; they began to push and mutter, as he himself did, whenever it appeared that someone up ahead was delaying things.
The Patriot Page 2