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Most veterans tried to stay away from them those first couple of weeks. That wasn’t fair. It meant even more replacements became casualties than might have been otherwise. But it saved veterans’ lives-and it saved the pain of getting to know somebody who wasn’t likely to stick around long anyway.
A swarm of soldiers waited at the makeshift bus depot to go from the line back to some of the comforts of civilization: hot showers, hot food, clean clothes, real beds. Armstrong surveyed the swarm with a jaundiced eye. “Something’s fucked up somewhere,” he predicted.
“Bet your ass, Sarge.” That was one of the men already milling around. “Goddamn Mormons snuck a machine gun somewhere down the highway. They shot up a bus like you wouldn’t believe. Now everybody’s trying to hunt ’em down.”
“Christ, I hope so,” Armstrong said. “That’d be what everybody needs, wouldn’t it? — getting your goddamn head blown off when you’re on your way to R and R?”
“Sooner we kill all the Mormons, happier I’ll be,” the other soldier said. “Then we can get on with the real war. Finally starting to go our way a little, maybe.”
“Maybe, yeah. Depends on how much you believe of what they tell you.” Armstrong knew damn well the wireless didn’t tell the truth all the time. When he was in Ohio, it had gone on and on about U.S. victories and advances while the Army got bundled back and back and back again. He couldn’t prove it wasn’t doing the same thing about what was going on in Ohio and Pe
The other soldier spat a stream of brown tobacco juice. “There is that,” he allowed. Armstrong had thought about chewing tobacco himself. You could do it where the sight of a match or a glowing coal or even the smell of cigarette smoke would get you killed.
An officer called, “The route south has been resecured. Boarding will commence in five minutes.”
Do I want R and R enough to risk getting shot on the way? Armstrong wondered. He must have, because he got on the bus when his turn came.
When Cinci
“What can I do for you?” the sergeant asked.
“I want to join up,” Cinci
“Sorry, pal. We don’t use colored soldiers,” the sergeant said. “Navy takes colored cooks and stewards. If you want to, you can talk to them. You don’t mind my saying so, though, you’re a tad overage. That cane won’t do you any good, either.”
“You got a uniform on even though you got a hook,” Cinci
“I was in the last one,” the recruiting sergeant said. “That’s where I got it. I’m no damn good at the front, but I can do this.”
“Well, I was in the last one, too,” Cinci
“Ah.” The sergeant looked more interested. “So you want to be a civilian auxiliary, do you?”
“If that’s what you call it these days,” Cinci
“Oh, yeah, pal-and then you wake up,” the sergeant said. Cinci
“Cinci
After the sergeant wrote it down, he glanced over at Cinci
“Yes, suh, that’s right,” Cinci
“You don’t call me ‘sir.’ You call me ‘Sergeant.’ ” The noncom scribbled a note. He handled the pen very well. As he wrote, he went on, “Just so you know, they’re go
“They can do that,” Cinci
“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it all depends,” the sergeant said. “Maybe they got your wife an’ kids down there, and they’ll feed ’em to the alligators unless you play along.”
“My wife an’ kids are right here in Des Moines,” Cinci
“Good for you. Good for them,” the sergeant said. “You know what I mean, though. They’ll check. Now-you say you drove an Army truck in the Great War? What was your base? Who commanded your unit?”
“I drove out of Covington, Kentucky, where I come from,” Cinci
The sergeant raised his right eyebrow. “Think he’d remember you?”
Straubing had shot a Confederate diehard dead on Cinci
“Oh, you might say so.” The sergeant wrote another note. “There’s a Straubing who’s a brigadier general in logistics these days. Might not be the same man, but you don’t hear the name every day, and the specialization’s right. You know what logistics is?”
Are you a dumb nigger? he meant. But Cinci
“Right the first time.” The sergeant nodded. “Bet you did drive a truck in the last war. Where else would you have heard the word?”
“I done said I did.” Cinci
“Oh, you might say so,” the sergeant repeated, deadpan. “You sure you want to go through with this, Mr. Driver?”
“Yes, suh-uh, Sergeant-an’ I tell you why,” Cinci
“Uh-huh.” The sergeant wrote something else on Cinci
“No, suh,” Cinci
“All right. We’ll send you a letter, then,” the sergeant said. “Probably be ten days, two weeks, something like that. We’ll see what General Straubing has to say about you.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” Cinci
Cinci
“Don’t want to jus’ sit here playin’ with my grandbabies,” he told Elizabeth. “I love my grandbabies, but I got some doin’ in me yet.”
“I didn’t say nothin’, dear,” his wife answered.
“I love you, too,” Cinci