William Wharton: Shrapnel

My job is to make sure his rifle’s clean. I break it down completely. I run rifle patch after rifle patch through the barrel until I’ve shined even the worst of the pits. I scrape out the ridge in the butt plate, oil the strap, even polish the firing pin. As a finale, I steal some steel wool from the mess hall kitchen. It’s strictly forbidden to pull steel wool through an M1 rifle bore but I’ve found this to be a sure way to get that ultimate sheen when an inspecting non-com, using his thumbnail as a mirror, peers down the rifle barrel. He wants to see the pink of his nail reflected along its full length with only the thin, graceful line of rifling showing.

So now we’re ready for the ultimate test. We closely examine Birnbaum for unbuttoned buttons, and set his field cap so it’s exactly straight, two fingers width above his right eyebrow as the army insists. We give him a brief review on how not to get his butt plate dirty when he’s at order arms or at ease. We review how he’s to let go of his rifle as fast as possible on ‘present arms’. We’re sure Perkins will pick on Birnbaum, he always does.

One of the crazy things about military inspection is the ritual of checking to see if our rifles are clean. We’ll all be standing in a line with our rifles at our sides. An officer will yell ‘attention’, then, ‘present arms’, followed by, ‘inspection arms’. We all, in a prescribed manner, hold our rifles out in front of us and snap the bolt open with our thumbs. The inspection officer then strides casually in front of us, looking us over, looking for something wrong, a cap askew, a button unbuttoned, a speck of dirt, etc. Then, at whim, he’ll stop in front of one soldier and stare at him. He can do anything, ask questions, comment on an article of clothing or a haircut, whatever.

Usually a non-com goes along behind taking notes on what the officer says and putting a soldier on report. Not good. When the officer in charge stops in front of you, he’s most likely going to inspect your rifle. That is, he’s going to snap that rifle out of your hands. If he does it correctly, from his point of view, wrong from yours, the butt will swing in and crack you in the groin. Our aim is to practise so we can let go of the rifle as fast as possible, ideally, so fast he’ll miss it, drop it.

We’re watching his eyes and shoulder for signals. He’s trying to fake us out. If we drop the rifle and he doesn’t swing out for it, we’re dead. We really only hope to let go in time so we won’t be hurt. However, in the back of our evil hearts we pray for that miracle of miracles when he’ll swing, miss, and drop the rifle. We’ve heard of it happening but have never seen it. The regimental rule is that if an officer drops a rifle it’s his responsibility to clean it to the soldier’s satisfaction.

Well, Birnbaum is never going to reach the point where an officer would drop a rifle. We work hard just to help him avoid instant emasculation. This I’ve seen often enough, the unfortunate soldier grovelling in the dirt, hands gripping groin, trying not to scream. Twice this has already happened to Birnbaum, once he vomited over Lieutenant Perkins’ shoes. But this time he lets go of it fine. A wave of pleasure can be felt along the entire squad. Perkins inspects the butt plate, the swivels, the action, and then he inserts his thumbnail in the bolt for barrel inspection. I’m feeling confident – I’d inspected that barrel just before putting it in the barracks’ rifle rack, before lights out. It was perfect.

Lieutenant Perkins continues to stare down the barrel. He shifts to get better light on his thumbnail, he peers with his other eye. His face goes white. Then red. I’m two soldiers to the right, and wondering what can be wrong. Lieutenant Perkins looks down at the ground then up at the sky. He hands the rifle to Corporal Muller, just behind him. Muller sticks his nail bitten thumb in and almost gets his eyeball stuck in the end of the rifle barrel he stares so long and hard. Muller’s hands start to shake. He looks over at Perkins, then down the barrel one more time. His jaw is stuck between hanging open and clamping shut in fury. He faces Birnbaum.

‘Private Birnbaum, what the hell have you done to this rifle?’

‘I cleaned it, Sir.’

Birnbaum squares his sloped shoulders. One should never call a non-com Sir, that’s reserved for officers, but at this moment this indiscretion is being ignored.

Muller takes a deep breath and then looks down the barrel again. Lt Perkins takes it from Muller, stares down the barrel as if to verify his worst fears.

‘Soldier, what the hell did you use to clean this rifle anyway, sulphuric acid?’

‘Steel wool, steel wool, Sir, steel wool!’

The whole rank can hear Birnbaum, I feel sweat trickling down my back. Lt Perkins turns to Muller.

‘Put this man on report, Corporal.’

He turns to Birnbaum.

‘Soldier, you’re confined to quarters until I can get together a court martial.’

For once our passes aren’t cancelled, but poor Birnbaum is left alone in the barracks.

Before I leave for town, I ask him what the devil happened, I can’t understand. It turns out, Birnbaum, in his eagerness, in his anxiety, his desire to please, had stayed awake all night, in the dark, running steel wool up and down inside that barrel.

Later, I get to peer down that now infamous rifle and it isn’t like a rifle at all. Birnbaum has been so industrious he’s worn out all the rifling and virtually converted it to a twelve or fourteen gauge shotgun. It’s clean all right; however, any ordinary thirty-calibre bullet would probably just fall or wobble out the end of that rifle when fired.

There’s a summary court martial, Birnbaum must pay eighty-seven dollars to replace the rifle. All his gear is removed from our barracks and he’s sent elsewhere. None of us ever sees him again. ‘Steel wool!’ becomes the rallying call of our squad.

I hope Birnbaum survived the war. He’d probably have made a good soldier. If there is such a thing.

A friend named Williams had been in charge of training Birnbaum for the daily rifle drill. After the court martial, he determines to exact revenge for Birnbaum by faking Perkins into dropping his rifle. The idea has a certain appeal, and so he manages to involve me. We stand by the hour, facing each other, practising, taking turns playing officer, feinting, trying to fake each other into making a false move. We both become better as officers than as enlisted men being inspected. But we also become fearsomely quick at letting the rifle drop. It comes to the point where we can read any slight signal of eye or body, I’ll swear Williams can even read my mind. Whenever either of us can get the ‘officer’ to miss, drop the rifle, he wins a quarter. After two weeks, I’m almost three dollars in debt. That’s a huge sum when your salary is fifty-four dollars a month.

Finally, basic training is behind us and we’re approaching final inspection, after which we’ll be shipped out. We’ll be going out to other infantry divisions being formed, or directly overseas as replacements. It’s beginning to look as if all the rifle snatching practice is going to naught, and Williams is fit to be tied.

For some reason, since Birnbaum, no officer or non-com has stopped at either of us and gone for our rifles. But then, on the big day, full dress parade, it happens. Only it doesn’t happen the way it should. Lieutenant Perkins, with a Captain beside him stops at me. I should have known, they’d never stop at Williams. He’s so spic and span, real soldierly looking, they’d never bother. I’d never be his kind of perfect.

I don’t even have time to think – after so much practice it’s automatic. At a slight wince in Perkins’ eye I let go of that rifle. The rifle spins and hits the dirt, the front sight gashing Perkins’ finger on the way down. I know Williams must be excited, happy. At the same time, disappointed because they’d passed him by. I’m just scared. I stare ahead with my hands still in the present arms position, looking straight where I’m supposed to be looking, not down at the rifle. Perkins looks briefly at his gashed finger then holds it out from his side so no blood will drip on his suntans. He glares into my eyes.