Уильям Макгиверн - Soldiers of ’44

“If all that makes you feel better, fine,” Karsh said. “Frankly, I don’t know what the final tab might have come to. Just be grateful you didn’t have to pay it.”

“It may come to that yet.”

Karsh looked at him sharply. “I’ve told you as flat-out as I can that this business is over, Docker. As a lawyer and as a man who knows how this system works, I’d advise you to accept that.”

The door opened and Colonel Rankin walked into the room. “Now just what the hell’s going on in here? That correspondent from London, his ears are coming up to a point.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Karsh hesitated, then let out his breath slowly. “The lieutenant has reservations about the Baird transcript.”

The colonel closed the door and looked with a puzzled smile at Karsh and Docker. “I just plain don’t understand this,” he said. “But I’d like you gentlemen to satisfy my curiosity on the double. Your board of inquiry, major, has fulfilled its function. As of about fourteen hundred hours today, it closed down shop. The areas you investigated are no longer subject to discussion. So what’s all this piss, shit and corruption about reservations, lieutenant?”

“Colonel, I received a letter only an hour or so ago written by Baird the night before he was killed. I think you should read it, sir.”

Rankin put his half-empty glass on a chest of drawers. “All right, where the hell is it?”

He accepted the pages from Karsh and read through them quickly, a frown darkening his blunt, flushed features. Then he read them again, but more slowly this time, and when he’d finished he looked directly at Docker and crumpled both pages in his big hands and tossed them in the direction of a frayed leather wastebasket.

“That won’t do it, sir,” Docker said.

“I’ll tell you something, soldier,” Colonel Rankin said. “Don’t ever use that tone to me again or you’ll fucking well regret it. Now I’ll tell you what / think. There’s no date on that letter so we don’t know when it was written. Lots of it’s smeared and smudged, so we don’t know for sure who wrote it. So that’s the end of this business, gentlemen. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

“Sir, don’t you think General Baird should make that decision?” Docker said.

Rankin stared at him. “Jesus, boy, you are a dummy. I respect your combat record, lieutenant, and because of that and only because of that, I’ll overlook that last remark. But you’ll return to your unit immediately. And that’s an order.”

Docker looked around the room, feeling for an instant a strange loss of orientation, even identity. It wasn’t an alarming sensation, it was a rather comfortable one, in fact, because it seemed to place him at a safe remove from Rankin’s authority... He saw that Baird’s balled-up letter had struck the side of the wastebasket and lay on the rug beside it. He went over and picked it up, smoothed out the pages. The look of Baird’s handwriting reminded him acutely of the night of the attack and the overwhelming noise the German tank had made coming up the hill to their position...

Colonel Rankin and Karsh watched him expectantly. The moment had a certain finality about it. Docker knew.

“I’ve got just one question, colonel,” he said, and heard with some surprise the deceptive mildness in his voice. “How far do you want to take this, sir?”

“Docker, you’re buying yourself a whole shithouse full of trouble.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t answer my question, sir.”

“I don’t intend to answer your question.” Colonel Rankin’s face was as red as a fresh burn. “What I will do, soldier, is nail your ass to the floor for insubordination.”

Karsh cleared his throat. “Sir, I think we might consider the fact that Lieutenant Docker has been under a severe emotional strain—”

“Goddamn it, Karsh, keep your mouth shut until I ask you to open it. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir, that’s very clear.”

“Good. I’m pleased to find there’s some courtesy and discipline left in this man’s army, although I’m not optimistic about finding any efficiency and competence to go along with it.” Rankin turned to the chest of drawers, picked up his drink and took a long pull, then stared at Docker and Karsh, once again, apparently in control of his temper and emotions.

“I’ll tell you something. Docker. You’re not Army. And neither is Sid Karsh here. You’re just a pair of goddamn civilians we lent some uniforms to. When the war’s over, you pack ’em away in mothballs, air ’em out for Armistice Day or a Legion convention. That’s all the army means to you. But it’s not your life.” There was a raw, honest anger in the colonel’s words, though the only physical manifestation of his feelings was the white of his knuckles against the weathered tan of his clenched fists... “We shot a man in Paris two weeks ago for desertion,” he went on. “A private soldier name of Slovik. But mark this, and mark it well, he’s the first soldier court-martialed and executed for that offense since the goddamn Civil War. But in the Baird matter I find officers bandying that charge around as if it’s no more significant than a recruit throwing a cigarette butt on a parade ground.”

The colonel finished his drink and put the glass down so hard that a piece of ice bounced out and rolled across the top of the chest of drawers. “Well, I’ve got some news for you gentlemen. When this war is over and done with, when you’re back getting tanked-up on Saturday nights at your country clubs and telling everybody how you won the damn thing, when the time comes, there will still be an Army of the United States standing ready to defend America in any part of the world it’s called on to, and that army doesn’t need help from any Lieutenant Dockers or Sid Karshes... And I’ll tell you one last thing. This army isn’t going to let either one of you soil its reputation or the good name of the officers who care about its principles in war and in peace, not just your damn summer soldiers but winter soldiers too...” He jabbed a finger at Karsh. “You told me you could wrap up the inquiry your way, and I let you try, although I had a feeling in my goddamn gut we should prepare a transcript of what we wanted and call the witnesses to attention and order them to sign the goddamn thing.”

“I’d like to point out, sir,” Karsh said, “that when we discussed procedure none of us knew about this letter from Jackson Baird.”

Rankin looked steadily at Karsh. “What letter are you talking about, major?”

There were always two separate wars going on. Docker thought. He preferred the one with guns... “This is the letter Major Karsh referred to, sir.” Docker folded the two pages of Baird’s letter and put them in the breast pocket of his tunic. “I think General Adamson might want to see it. If not, I’ll try General Middleton and General Bradley. And if that doesn’t do the job, I might interest that newsman outside drinking your whiskey.”

“Major Karsh, you’re a witness to every goddamn word of this,” Rankin said. “Now you want to know how far I’ll take it. Docker? Just as far as it takes to lock your wise ass away in a military stockade for about twenty years.”

Docker opened the door that divided the suite and saw that the group in the living room was staring at him and Colonel Rankin. He said quietly, “With respect, sir, I believe my orders from Major Karsh take precedence here. He told me that my job and the responsibility of First Army’s board was to get the truth. I’ve been following those orders to the best of my ability. I intend to continue following them, sir. I also don’t give one damn about these gold bars or a court-martial, colonel, if that’s where you want to take it.”