Уильям Макгиверн - Soldiers of ’44

“How’d he get permission?”

Baird told him that the troop secretary wrote to the provost marshal’s office listing the date they preferred and an alternate choice. They received pass cards by mail usually within about a week... Baird was able to smile tentatively now as some of his confidence seemed to return and touches of color showed on his sharp white cheekbones. He went on to mention other features of the Point, parades in the Central Area and snapshots he’d taken of changing colors in the trees along Lee and Jefferson Roads, talking with increasing assurance until Docker held up a hand. “Okay, that’s fine. Let’s talk about your rifle and dog tags. Your rifle first. How’d you lose it?”

“Just like I told you, sergeant.”

“Tell me again, Baird.”

The abrupt switch in subjects obviously jarred the young soldier; an expression of remembered panic pinched his wind-raw face.

“I... I got knocked down by a shell that exploded near me and when I got up I couldn’t find my rifle.”

“You sure you looked for it?”

“Yes, I crawled around but I couldn’t find it.”

“And your dog tags?”

“It’s just like I said. I tripped and rolled down the side of a hill. That’s when I lost them, they must have got hooked on a branch or something...”

Trankic studied him. “You have your overcoat and shirt open?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t remember.”

“Well, unless you were running around bare-ass like Tarzan, there’s no way a tree branch could rip off your dog tags.”

“That’s what Shorty Kohler thinks,” Baird said flatly. “He thinks I’m a deserter.”

“You’re the only one knows the truth,” Docker said.

“It’s not that simple. It’s possible I could be a deserter and not even know it.”

“How do you figure that?”

Baird wet his chapped lips. “Well, I read about a witchcraft trial in New England once. They were trying an old lady. Some kids said she gave them stomachaches, nightmares, things like that. And a farmer said the old lady had put a hex on his cow and made her lose a calf. So the judge decided she was a witch and sentenced her to be burned to death. He asked her if she had anything to say... and this is what I mean, sergeant... the old woman didn’t disagree with him, just asked him if it was possible that she could be a witch and not even know about it.”

“So what did the judge tell her?” Docker said.

“He told her sure, and that’s why they were going to burn her at the stake.”

Docker took out his canteen and uncapped it. “You want a drink, Baird?”

“No, no thanks.”

Docker drank and tucked the canteen back into the pouch on his cartridge belt.

“Baird, my guess is that thousands of GIs got cut off from their outfits the last few days. A lot of them may have dumped their weapons. If they’re Jews, they got rid of their dog tags too. They’d be idiots to risk being captured with that H for Hebrew ’round their necks. I think you’re smart enough to know all this. So what’s bothering you?”

“It’s just...” Baird looked down at the river and its cover of fog, and Docker saw that his lips were trembling. “It’s just that my family is strict about things. I mean if there was any talk about my being a deserter, they couldn’t live with it.”

“Listen to me,” Docker said. “Forget about that old lady they burned for a witch, and forget about being a deserter and not knowing it. Just don’t fuck up around here and you’ll be all right.”

When Baird had trudged off through the snow to the cannon, Trankic shook his head and said, “He’s still not leveling with us. Bull. Is that something we got to worry about?”

“Well, we’re worrying about everything else,” Docker said. “Why make any exceptions?”

“Merry Christmas,” Larkin said, and took the bottle of Cutty Sark from his overcoat pocket and handed it to Docker.

Docker opened it and sniffed it. “Goddamn it. Matt, it’s scotch. ”

They were seated in the cave near the cannon revetment, the tarpaulin tight across the entrance. The canvas had iced over and occasionally the winds made it crack like pistol shots. The blasts stirred the fire and started shadows running like quicksilver across the walls.

“Your professor pal, Hamlin, fascinates me,” Larkin said. “Remember the letter he wrote about therapy sessions for returning GIs?”

In the firelight. Docker saw that Larkin’s eyes were hot with more than whiskey, and his resentment was obviously deep because that letter from Hamlin had arrived at least three months ago.

Dave had written: “With the usual disclaimers, consider the source and all that crap, I think we need something like a decompression chamber for GIs honorably home from the wars. It’s a pragmatic thing... it’s not their fault, and it’s not ours. They’ve seen the ugliness, we haven’t. That’s all there is to it. It would be reasonable to expect more forbearance on our part, but in all honesty we don’t know what exactly we should be forbearing about .

“Here’s an example: Tim Ryan was invalided home from the Pacific. The following sequence is arguably not entirely his fault, but please consider the details and specifications of the charges: 1) Tim got in two brawls with guys in bars. The first was a 4-F like your humble servant, deferred for a perforated testicle, I imagine. The other chap happened to be a Marine with a pair of Purple Hearts. 2) Tim’s account of a strafing raid on Guadalcanal caused three young children (remember the Hansens?) to go screaming for cover under the dining room table. 3) He has had a total breakdown in communications with his parents and also with the man he used to work for, a branch manager at Sears, Roebuck...”

Dave Hamlin had an idea that returning combat veterans should be put through a process roughly the opposite of basic training. Instead of close order drill and the manual of arms, they would be given counsel by psychiatrists and clergymen and business leaders to help them to merge smoothly into the flow of life in their communities.

“They could have a great course for amputees,” Larkin said. “How to handle a teacup with hooks on your wrist. But maybe your pal Hamlin should turn his idea around. A training camp for civilians is what we need, for 4-Fs and football and baseball players who haven’t missed a game the last four years. For a lot of guys with doctors who gave them a wink past the draft board.”

“All right, let’s have it,” Docker said.

Larkin sipped whiskey, and said quietly, “There’s millions of guys who paid no more attention to this fucking war than if it was a Rotary parade going by in the next county. I’m twenty-nine. I got drafted when I was twenty-six. I spent seven years before that at Railway Express, and nineteen months before that looking for a job. I’ve got an apartment at Thirty-second Street and Third Avenue that costs sixty-five a month, living room, a bedroom, a kitchen. And I got Agnes and a three-year-old daughter. Those years at Railway Express are just seven times Christmas and seven times Thanksgiving for me. I worked those holidays, every fucking one of them at the Grand or the Penn watching college boys come home and whooping it up waiting for their parents or whoever the shit was meeting them. And you know something, Bull? I wrote my boss at Railway Express six months ago to see about my job and he took about four months to answer me, and I got his letter the same day that prick, Hamlin, wrote to you about decompression chambers for GIs. My boss told me some neighborhood news and he told me who Connie Mack had picked for his all-time all-star baseball team, and then he got to the point of saying they’d hired some older guys and some deferred guys and they were cutting the mustard real good, and while he wanted to be fair to everybody he couldn’t promise me I could go back to work.”