Dan Wakefield - Under the Apple Tree - A Novel

They had heard that stuff before, but none of them had ever heard anything like what the old Senator told them next.

“You boys are learning the lessons here that will make you the kind of brave soldiers who are fighting and dying for us right now,” he said, “I happen to have personal knowledge that some of those soldiers who used to be Boy Scouts, just like you, and who learned the lessons of loyalty and courage from Scouting, were captured behind enemy lines and brutally tortured by the Nazis, who wanted them to tell the secrets about the strength and positions of the American troops. But these brave boys, these former Scouts, refused to betray a single secret to the enemy, even though the sadistic Nazis beat their privates to jelly !”

At that moment, as if it were part of a rehearsed maneuver, the right hands of more than two hundred assembled Scouts reached automatically to cover themselves protectively between the legs but then in iron discipline forced their hands back to their sides. Only one guy, George Pendennis, actually grabbed his gonads with both hands and doubled over with an awful “Arggggh” sound coming out of him that everyone pretended not to hear because they were still at Attention.

The Senator went on for another couple of minutes about the stars and stripes, and the truths we hold self-evident, and this nation indivisible, under God, but no one heard or anyway remembered anything after the incredible words “ beat their privates to jelly .”

When the Commander dismissed the formation most all the guys went charging off to their cabins so they could hold on to their balls and screech and moan as they writhed around on their bunks imagining Nazis beating their privates to jelly. It was a million times worse than anything they ever had heard before, much worse than the supposedly true life story of the blacksmith in Decatur who was ready to slam down his huge metal hammer on a piece of iron on the anvil but he didn’t notice that one of his balls had got loose from his pants and was lying on the anvil and he smashed the damn hammer down and crushed his own ball! But even if that was true, which lots of guys swore it was who claimed to know eyewitnesses of friends of the doomed blacksmith, just one accidental smash, no matter how awful and crushing, was nothing compared to a bunch of Nazi torturers methodically going at it until they had beat your privates to jelly .

Artie wanted nothing more than to run to his cabin and join the other guys in holding his balls and writhing around whooping and groaning, but the awful thing was—awful now, anyway, after what the old Senator had said in front of everyone—Shirley Colby had driven herself and Caroline Spingarn out to Cho-Ko-Mo-Ko to watch the Sunday Retreat parade along with other relatives and visitors and Artie had to go over and squire them around the place. They were already smiling and waving at him, so he couldn’t even put his hands on his gonads just to check and see if they were all right, that they hadn’t turned to jelly just from hearing the torture story. He was afraid if he even tried to do it on the sly, Shirley and Caroline would think he was playing pocket pool.

Artie forced a smile as he bravely went up to Shirley and Caroline, pretending nothing was wrong or different, hoping they would all agree without saying anything not to mention the horrible torture story. Artie escorted the girls to the Canteen, which used to be the Trading Post before the War, where he treated them to Mounds Bars and root beers but didn’t feel like having anything himself but a stick of Spearmint from a pack already in his pocket. Artie chewed ferociously.

While they were on the porch of the Canteen, leaning on the rail overlooking the little creek called Old Tuscarora, which was supposed to be an Indian name meaning “Babbling waters,” the Camp Commander, Harrison “Ribs” O’Mahoney, came up and started being real buddy-buddy with Artie, which he never had been before in his life until Shirley Colby showed up.

Ribs was a tall guy with a sunken chest and long arms and legs that sort of hung real loose on him, which was good for giving guys the knee or the elbow playing football and basketball. Ribs had just graduated from Oakley Central but the Army, Navy, the Marines, and even the Coast Guard turned him down because of a trick knee he had got in the Thanksgiving game with Geneseo, which gave him a slight limp that got even worse after all the Services rejected him, maybe because he felt ashamed or wanted people to know there was something really wrong with his leg instead of just a yellow streak down his spine.

“Pretty neat Retreat today, huh, Artie?” Ribs said, pretending he gave a tinker’s damn what Artie thought.

“Sure,” Artie said.

“These pretty girls here your sisters?” Ribs asked.

“Nope,” Artie said. “This is Shirley Colby, and this is Caroline Spingarn.”

The girls smiled politely at Ribs, and he flashed a real Pepsodent gleamer at Shirley.

“Friend of the family?” he asked her.

“I go with Roy Garber,” she said, holding up her wrist with the silver ID bracelet on it. She had had some of the links taken out so it fit her now.

“Lucky guy, Roy Garber,” said Ribs.

“If you call being out in the Solomons ‘lucky,’” Shirley said.

“There’s worse things,” Ribs said, and with little spots of red coming out on his cheekbones he turned and limped away, worse than usual. Artie felt sorry for the guy, having to go around in nothing but a Boy Scout uniform when he was old enough for the real thing.

“I didn’t mean to make him feel bad,” Shirley said.

“That’s okay,” Artie said. “Ribs has a trick knee and all. That’s what makes him feel bad.”

“You’d think he could do something,” said the practical Caroline Spingarn. “Couldn’t he drive a tank at least? Sitting down?”

“You got to be a hundred percent, I guess,” Artie said.

“At least he’s working with boys,” Shirley said. “That’s a contribution.”

“Well, it’s nothing much when you think what happened to those boys who were tortured like they were and never gave away any secrets,” said Caroline. “Ughhhh. Jelly .”

“Excuse me,” said Artie.

He knew he was going to heave his cookies and he ran off as fast as he could, hoping to make it in time.

“Where are you going?” Caroline called after him.

Damn her!

“To Old Wasacoma!” Artie shouted back.

A bunch of other Scouts walking to the Canteen broke up laughing, pointing at Artie and slapping their knees and yelping like a bunch of hyenas.

“Old Wasacoma” was the Indian name for the latrine.

Artie refocused his binoculars but he still couldn’t see anything but green leaves.

“There it goes!” shouted Ribs O’Mahoney. “Look at the markings on the wings!”

That made Artie think of Swastikas and Rising Suns, or the Star of America or the Bull’s-eye marking of the RAF fighter planes, and he lost all the concentration he was trying to muster to spot the bird.

“Okay, you guys,” O’Mahoney said, “we saw one. That was a yellow-breasted nuthatch.”

Ribs was leading a Bird Study Hike, and as usual, he kept spotting more and more kinds of birds you had to identify for Bird Study Merit Badge, even though Artie wondered sometimes if he really saw them. The thirty or so birdwatchers were either still squinting up in the air, or looking questioningly at Ribs.

“Okay, you guys,” he said impatiently, “go on and write it down. ‘Yellow-breasted nuthatch.’”

Everyone obediently wrote the name in their Bird Book, making it official that they had “seen” this species, since Ribs O’Mahoney told them they had. Artie wondered if the whole thing was really legal, or whether some National Bird Study Review Board might call him up before them to question whether he had really seen all those birds or only been told he had seen them, which might be cheating, but might be okay since a superior officer had given him the orders to do it.