A Midnight Clear. William Wharton

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      I crawl into my sloppy side of our tent and pull out the book we’re reading right now. It’s called A Farewell to Arms. I have pages 215 to 310. Wilkins is ahead of me and Shutzer behind. Shutzer’s been hounding me all day to hurry it up; Wilkins finished last night. It’s just my luck being caught between two of the fastest readers on our side of the Siegfried Line. We rip books apart so we can read them together.

      The book before this was All Quiet on the Western Front. We talked it over and voted as a squad to quit the war first chance we got. We were still together then, outside Saarbrücken. Father Mundy didn’t realize, until we told him, the characters in the book were German. But he might have gotten skipped over with some pages. We usually leave Father until last; he reads each word as if he’s licking it.

      I finish my pages and put them at the opening of our tent for Shutzer.

      This chapter is called briefing. There is a typical military briefing coming up soon but I think I should give our real briefing here while I’m supposed to be drifting off to sleep.

      Briefing, in the army, means explaining. The army mind wants everything short and simple, except wars. Maybe that’s why they call it briefing. But sometimes it’s hard to be short and simple. Probably, in a certain way, this whole book, not just this chapter, is a briefing; but I’m not quite sure for or about what.

      Our squad is half of the I and R platoon, the second half. The I is for intelligence, the R for reconnaissance. The I and R platoon is part of the regimental headquarters company of the Umpty-eleventh Regiment, of the Eighty-tenth Infantry Division. A regimental headquarters company is basically a lot of nothing.

      To give an idea. We have a bird colonel, his adjutant and assistant; all and each with orderlies. There’s the S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, and so on, each a major, each with an assistant, all with orderlies. An orderly in the army is a low-paid military servant.

      Then, we have cooks, cooks’ helpers, cooks’ assistants, permanent KPs, supply clerks, mail clerks, file clerks, typists, messengers; a plethora of personnel people, plus the motor pool crowd. The motor pool is where they park the vehicles, almost exclusively jeeps, staff cars or two-and-a-half-ton trucks; nothing very warlike. Actually these vehicles mostly only carry people and their junk from one place to another. The drivers of this hauling fleet are T4s and T5s; that is, sergeants and corporals who aren’t expected to shoot anybody on purpose.

      We’ve also got the regimental band: thirty of the most unlikely soldiers to be found on the wrong side of division. As I said, they usually stand perimeter guard for the company. I’ve never heard them play, but then there haven’t been many parades. We liberated a violin at Rouen and Mel Gordon wanted a tryout but was told there’s no room for violins in a military band. But wouldn’t it be great, hearing taps or reveille – better yet, retreat – played on a violin?

      Last and least comes the I and R platoon. There are twelve in a squad; squad leader’s buck sergeant, assistant corporal; no orderlies. Our squad is down to six. Mel Gordon became corporal to our squad the same time I made sergeant. It wasn’t for much we did except stay alive. He hasn’t sewn on his stripes yet, either.

      I and R is the eyes and ears for S2. S2 is regimental intelligence. Our S2 is Major Love, both name and job gruesomely inappropriate. Love was a mortician in civilian life. He’s ‘eyes and ears’ to Colonel Douglas Sugger, regimental commander, usually referred to as ‘the Dug Sucker.’ The Dug’s a past master at war costumes and heroic jaw thrusting. Major Love has a slight talent for jaw thrusting, too.

      Love’s main passion is generating business for his professional colleagues, the grave registrars. His most available target has been the I and R platoon, with which he has had some sporadic but notable success. Whistle Tompkins always claimed that any living, moving human body was an insult to Love’s sense of propriety.

      It’s thanks to Love and his military-mortuary skills I’ve made my recent headlong leap to three stripes. We lost half our squad in the Saar, attempting one of his map-inspired, ill-conceived, so-called ‘recon’ patrols. You can’t imagine how meaningless and stupid this was. It’s so bad I won’t tell about it; I hope.

      When I say lost, I mean killed. Nobody in the army ever admits someone on our side is killed. They’re either lost, like Christopher Robin; hit, as in batter hit by a pitched ball, take your base, or they get ‘it,’ as in hide-and-seek, or, maybe, ‘get it,’ as with an ambiguous joke.

      Our squad leader was Max Lewis, twenty. His assistant, Louis Corrollo, nineteen. We called them ‘the Louie [like Louie, Louie, You Gotta Go] twins.’ The other four of us who got ‘it’ that day were Morrie Margolis, Whistle Tompkins, Fred Brandt and Jim Freize.

      Morrie was my tentmate. We shared shelter halfs, buttoned them together to make a pup tent, shared other things, too. Not one of those six had an AGCT (AGCT is another inbuilt military paradox, an army intelligence test) score of under 150; each, intellectually, one in ten thousand. But that’s all another story, a story even more stupid than Love’s patrol. I’m liable to tell that one.

      I have a penchant for telling true stories no one can believe.

      My being squad leader is also another story. It’s another story the way Peter Rabbit is another story from Crime and Punishment.

      Our division took a mauling outside Saarbrücken. We gained a few miles of European real estate and lost the beginnings to untolled (much more than untold) generations of very bright people. I think the U.S. Army considered this a good deal.

      So now we’ve been moved north into the Ardennes Forest to rest and wait replacements. This is supposed to be a sector where nothing’s ever happened and nothing is ever going to happen, a kind of high-class halfway house; a front-line position for adjusting makeup, straightening out nerves and general refurbishing.

      I’m not sure if I myself am recuperable. I’m scared all the time and can’t sleep, not even on a long guard. I’ve already had two crying fits but nobody saw me and I gave them every chance. I hung around Mel Gordon, our unofficial squad doctor and psychiatrist, moaning, but he didn’t even notice. Nobody wants to look.

      My biggest immediate trouble is an absolutely historic case of GIs. Thank God for olive drab underwear.

      The medics here have marked me down as a paregoric addict and won’t give me any more. Yesterday I walked to my old company, Company L, and begged two doses from Brenner, third platoon medic.

      I shat five times going and only three coming back so it must’ve helped. I’m eating K ration biscuits and K lunch cheese almost exclusively; but I’m too gut scared for processing food. Making me squad (try squat) leader might be one of the greatest impractical jokes of the war.

      With this jolly thought, I end our briefing and drift off into what passes for sleep these days; Mother is snoring beside me.

      In the morning, Lieutenant Ware pulls open our tent flap; the pages are gone; Shutzer got them, I hope.

      ‘Sergeant Knott, Major Love wants us at the S2 tent. You chow up, then I’ll come by at o-nine-hundred.’

      He waits to make sure I’m awake, then he’s gone. I lie back and try to think of some appropriate non-obscene word to express my feelings. I’m not awake enough. ‘Shit!’ is all that comes. Father says we are succumbing internally if we think in their terms. I admit it; inside, I’ve succumbed. Maybe that’s why they СКАЧАТЬ