The Young Lions Part 35

"Please, Captain," Hope said, "keep your silly mouth closed."

Oh, G.o.d, Lewis mourned within him, the Army, it makes idiots of every man in it. I would never have behaved so badly in a gray suit. "Captain Mason," a voice said in the receiver.

"h.e.l.lo, Mason," Lewis said gratefully. "I have Mrs. Ackerman here. Will you get Private Ackerman down to the visitors' room right away?"

"You have five minutes," the MP said. He stood at the door of the bare room, which had bars on the windows and two small wooden chairs in the middle of the floor.

The main problem was not to cry. He looked so small. The other things, the queer, smashed shape of his nose, the grotesque broken ear, the split, torn eyebrow were bad, but what was hard to conquer was that he looked so small. The stiff blue fatigues were much too large for him and he seemed lost and tiny in them. And they made him seem heartbreakingly humble. Everything about him was humble. Eyerything but his eyes. The soft way he came into the room. The mild, hesitant little smile as he saw her. The embarra.s.sed, hasty kiss, with the MP watching. His low, mild voice, when he said, "h.e.l.lo." It was dreadful to think of the long, cruel process which had produced such humility in her husband. But his eyes flared wildly and steadily.

They sat almost knee to knee on the two stiff chairs like two old ladies having tea in the afternoon.

"Well, now," Noah said softly. "Well, now." He grinned at her gently. There were the sorrowful gaps, between the healed gums, where the teeth had been knocked out, and they gave a horrible air of stupidity and rudimentary cunning to the wrecked face. But Whitacre had prepared her for the missing teeth, and her expression didn't change at all. "Do you know what I think about all the time in here?"

"What?" Hope asked. "What do you think about?"

"Something you once said."

"What was that?"

"'You see, it wasn't too hot, not too hot at all.'" He grinned at her, and not crying became a big problem again. "I remember just how you said it."

"What a thing," Hope said, trying to smile, too. "What a thing to remember."

They stared at each other in silence, as though they had exhausted all conversation.

"Your aunt and uncle," Noah said. "They still live in Brooklyn? The same garden ..."

"Yes," Hope said. The MP moved a little at the door, scratching his back against the wood. The rough cloth made a sliding sound on the wood. "Listen," Hope said, "I've been talking to Captain Lewis. You know what he wants me to do ..."

"Yes," Noah said. "I know."

"I'm not going to try to tell you, one way or another," Hope said; "You do what you have to do."

Then she saw Noah staring at her, his eyes slowly dropping to her stomach, tight against the belt of the old dress. "I wouldn't promise him anything," she went on, "not a thing ..."

"Hope," Noah said, staring fixedly at the swelling belt. "Tell me the truth."

Hope sighed. "All right," she said. "Five more months. I don't know why I didn't write you when I could. I have to stay in bed most of the time. I had to give up my job. The doctor says I'll probably have a miscarriage if I keep on working. That's probably why I didn't let you know. I wanted to be sure it was going to be all right."

Noah looked at her gravely. "Are you glad?" he asked.

"I don't know," Hope said, wishing the MP would fall to the floor in a dead faint. "I don't know anything. Don't let this influence you one way or another."

Noah sighed. Then he leaned over and kissed her forehead. "It's wonderful," he said. "Absolutely wonderful."

Hope glared at the MP, the bare room, the barred window. "What a place," she said, "what a place to learn something like this."

The MP stolidly scratched his back along the frame of the door. "One more minute," he said.

"Don't worry about me," Hope said, swiftly, her words tumbling over each other. "I'll be all right. I'm going to my parents. They'll take care of me. Don't you worry at all."

Noah stood up. "I'm not worried," he said. "A child ..." He waved vaguely, in a stiff, boyish gesture, and even now, in this grim room, Hope had to chuckle at the dear, familiar movement. "Well, now ..." Noah said. "Well, what do you know?" He walked over to the window, and looked out through the bars at the enclosed clapboard courtyard. When he turned back to her his eyes seemed blank and l.u.s.terless. "Please," he said, "please go to Captain Lewis and tell him I'll go any place they send me."

"Noah ..." Hope stood up, half in protest, half in relief.

"All right," the MP said. "Time's up." He opened the door.

Noah came over to her and they kissed. She took his hand and held it for a moment against her cheek. But the MP said, "All right, Lady," and she went through the door. She turned before the MP could close it again and saw Noah standing there, thoughtfully watching her. He tried to smile, but it didn't come out a smile. Then the MP closed the door, and she didn't see him again.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

"I'M GOING to tell you the truth," Colclough was saying. "I'm sorry to see you back. You're a disgrace to this Company and I don't think we can make a soldier out of you in a hundred years. But by G.o.d, I'm going to try, if I have to break you in half doing it."

Noah stared at the twitching pale spot gleaming at the end of the Captain's nose. It was all the same, the same glaring light in the orderly room, the same stale joke pinned on the wall over the Top Sergeant's desk, "The Chaplain's number is 145. Get your TS cards punched there." Colclough had the same voice and he seemed to be saying the same thing, and even the smell, of badly seasoned wood, dusty papers, sweaty uniforms, gun oil and beer, hung in the orderly room. It was hard to realize that he had ever been away or that anything had happened or anything changed.

"Naturally, you have no privileges." Colclough was speaking slowly, with solemn enjoyment. "You will get no pa.s.ses and no furloughs. You will be on KP every day for the next two weeks, and after that you will have Sat.u.r.day and Sunday KP from then on. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Noah said.

"You have the same bunk you had before. I warn you, Ackerman, you will have to be five times more soldier than anybody else in this outfit, just to keep alive. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Noah said.

"Now get out of here. I don't want to see you in this orderly room again. That's all."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir." Noah saluted and went out. He walked slowly down the familiar Company street toward his old barracks. He felt a constriction in his throat as he saw its lights shining through the bare windows fifty yards away and the familiar figures moving around within.

Suddenly he wheeled. The three men who were following him stopped in the darkness. But he recognized them. Donnelly, Wright, Henkel. He could see them grinning at him. They moved softly and almost imperceptibly toward him, in a s.p.a.ced, dangerous line.

"We are the welcoming committee," Donnelly said. "The Company decided you should have a nice old-fashioned welcome when you got back, and now we are going to give it to you."

Noah reached into his pocket. He ripped out the spring knife that he had bought in town on the way to camp. He pressed the b.u.t.ton and the six-inch blade whickered out of its sheath. It caught the light, gleaming new and bright and deadly in his hand. The three men stopped when they saw the knife.

"The next man that touches me," Noah said quietly, "gets this. If anybody in this Company ever touches me again I'm going to kill him. Pa.s.s the good word along."

He stood erect, the knife held at hip level in front of him.

Donnelly looked at the knife, then he looked at the other two men. "Ah," he said, "let's leave him alone. For the time being. He's nuts." Slowly they moved away. Noah remained standing with the knife in front of him.

"For the time being," Donnelly said loudly. "Don't forget I said for the time being."

Noah grinned, watching them until they turned a corner and disappeared. He looked down at the long, wicked blade. Confidently he snapped it closed and put it in his pocket. As he walked toward the barracks, he realized suddenly that he had discovered the technique of survival.

But he hesitated for a long moment at the barracks door. From inside he could hear a man singing, "And then I hold your hand, And then you understand."

Noah threw the door open and stepped in. Riker, near the door, saw him. "My G.o.d," he said, "look who's here."

Noah put his hand into his pocket and felt the cold bone, handle of the knife.

"Hey, it's Ackerman," Collins, across the room, said. "What do you know?"

Suddenly they were crowding around him. Noah backed unostentatiously against the wall, so that no one could get behind him. He fingered the little b.u.t.ton that sprang the knife open.

"How was it, Ackerman?" Maynard said. "Did you have a good time? Go to all the night clubs?"

The others laughed, and Noah flushed angrily, until he listened carefully to the laughter, and slowly realized that it did not sound threatening.

"Oh, Christ, Ackerman," Collins said, "you should have seen Colclough's face the day you went over the hill! It was worth joining the Army for. And did he eat Rickett's a.s.s out!" All the men roared in fond memory of the day of glory.

"How long were you gone, Ackerman?" Maynard asked. "Two months?"

"Four weeks," Noah said.

"Four weeks!" Collins marveled. "Four weeks vacation! I wish I had the guts to do it myself, I swear to G.o.d ..."

"You look great, kid," Riker clapped his shoulder. "It's done you a world of good."

Noah stared at him, disbelievingly. This was another trick, and he kept his hand firmly on the knife.

"After you left," Maynard said, "three other guys took the hint and went AWOL. You set a style there, a real style. The Colonel came down and ate Colclough's a.s.s out, right in front of everybody, wanted to know what the h.e.l.l sort of company he was running, with everybody jumping the fence, the worst record of any company in camp, and all that c.r.a.p. I thought Colclough was going to slit his throat."

"Here," Burnecker said, "we found these under the barracks and I saved 'em for you." He held out a small, burlap-wrapped package. Slowly Noah opened the package, staring at Burnecker's widely grinning baby face. The three books were still there, slightly moldy, but readable.

Noah shook his head slowly. "Thanks," he said, "thanks, boys," and put the books down. He did not dare to turn and show the watching men what was going on in his face. Dimly, he realized that his personal armistice with the Army had been made. It had been made on lunatic terms, on the threat of the knife and the absurd prestige of his opposition to authority, but it was real, and standing there, looking cloudily down on the tattered books on his bunk, with the voices of the other men a loud blur behind him, he knew that it probably would last, and might even grow into an alliance.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

THE PLATOON LIEUTENANT had been killed in the morning and Christian was in command when the order came to fall back. The Americans had not been pushing much and the battalion had been beautifully situated on a hill overlooking a battered village of two dozen houses in which three Italian families grimly continued to live.

"I have begun to understand how the Army operates," Christian heard a voice complain in the dark, as the platoon clanked along, scuffling in the dust. "A Colonel comes down and makes an examination. Then he goes back to Headquarters and reports. 'General,' he says, 'I am happy to report that the men have warm, dry quarters, in safe positions which can only be destroyed by direct hits. They have finally begun to get their food regularly, and the mail is delivered three times a week. The Americans understand that their position is impregnable and do not attempt any activity at all.' 'Ah, good,' says the General. 'We shall retreat.'"

Christian recognized the voice. Private Dehn, he noted down silently for future reference.

He marched dully, the Schmeisser on its sling already becoming a nagging burden on his shoulder. He was always tired these days, and the malaria headaches and chills kept coming back, too mildly to warrant hospitalization, but wearying and unsettling. Going back, his boots seemed to sound as he limped in the dust, going back, going back ...

At least, he thought heavily, we don't have to worry about the planes in the dark. That pleasure would be reserved for later, when the sun came up. Probably back near Foggia, in a warm room, a young American Lieutenant was sitting down now to a breakfast of grapefruit juice, oatmeal, ham and eggs, and real coffee with cream, preparing to climb into his plane a little later and come skimming over the hills, his guns spitting at the black, scattered blur of men, crouched insecurely in shallow holes along the road, that would be Christian and the platoon.

As he plodded on, Christian hated the Americans. He hated them more for the ham and eggs and the real coffee than for the bullets and the planes. Cigarettes, too, he thought. Along with everything else, they have all the cigarettes they want, too. How could you beat a country that had all those cigarettes?

His tongue ached ferociously for the healing smoke of a cigarette. But he only had two cigarettes in his pack, and he had rationed himself to one a day.

Christian thought of the faces of the American pilots he had seen, men who had been shot down behind the German lines and had waited to be taken, insolently smoking cigarettes, with arrogant smiles on their empty, untouched faces. Next time, he thought, next time I see one of them, I'm going to shoot him, no matter what the orders are.

Then he stumbled in a rut. He cried out as the pain knotted in his knee and hip.

"Are you all right, Sergeant?" asked the man behind him.

"Don't worry about me," Christian said." "Stay on the side of the road."

He limped on, not thinking about anything any more, except the road in front of him.

The runner from battalion was waiting at the bridge, as Christian had been told he would.

The platoon had been walking for two hours, and it was broad daylight by now. They had heard planes, on the other side of the small range of hills the platoon had been skirting, but they had not been attacked.

The runner was a Corporal, who had hidden himself nervously in the ditch alongside the road. The ditch had six inches of water in it, but the Corporal had preferred safety to comfort, and he rose from the ditch muddy and wet. There was a squad of Pioneers on the other side of the bridge, waiting to mine it after Christian's platoon had gone through. It was not much of a bridge, and the ravine which it crossed was dry and smooth. Blowing the bridge wouldn't delay anyone more than a minute or two, but the Pioneers doggedly blew everything blowable, as though they were carrying out some ancient religious ritual.

"You're late," said the Corporal nervously. "I was afraid something had happened to you."

"Nothing has happened to us," said Christian shortly.

"Very well," said the Corporal. "It's only another three kilometers. The Captain is going to meet us, and he will show you where you are to dig in." He looked around nervously. The Corporal always looked like a man who expects to be shot by a sniper, caught in an open field by a strafing plane, exposed on a hill to a direct hit by an artillery sh.e.l.l. Looking at him, Christian was certain that the Corporal was going to be killed very shortly.

Christian gestured to the men and they started over the bridge behind the Corporal. Good, Christian thought dully, another three kilometers and then the Captain can start making decisions. The squad of Pioneers regarded them thoughtfully from their ditch, without love or malice.

Christian crossed the bridge and stopped. The men behind him halted automatically. Almost mechanically, without any conscious will on his part, his eye began to calculate certain distances, probable approaches, fields of fire.

"The Captain is waiting for us," said the Corporal, peering shiftily past the platoon, down the road on which later in the day the Americans would appear. "What are you stopping for?"

"Keep quiet," Christian said. He walked back across the bridge. He stood in the middle of the road, looking back." For a hundred meters the road went straight, then curved back around a hill, out of sight. Christian turned again and stared through the morning haze at the road and the hills before them. The road wound in mounting curves through the stony spa.r.s.ely bushed hills in that direction. Far off, eight hundred, a thousand meters away, on an almost cliff-like drop, there was an outcropping of boulders. Among those boulders, his mind registered automatically, it would be possible to set up a machine gun and it would also be possible to sweep the bridge and its approach from there.

The Corporal was at his elbow. "I do not wish to annoy you, Sergeant," the Corporal said, his voice quivering, "but the Captain was specific. No delays, at all, he said, I will not take any excuses."

"Keep quiet," said Christian.

The Corporal started to say something. Then he thought better of it. He swallowed and rubbed his mouth with his hand. He stood at the first stone of the bridge and stared unhappily toward the south.

Christian walked slowly down the side of the ravine to the dry stream bed below. About ten meters back from the bridge, he noticed, his mind still working automatically, the slope leading down from the road was quite gentle, with no deep holes or boulders. Under the bridge the stream bed was sandy and soft, with scattered worn stones and straggling underbrush.

It could be done, Christian thought, it would be simple. He climbed slowly up to the road again. The platoon had cautiously got off the bridge by now and were standing at the edge of the road on the other side, ready to jump into the Pioneers' ditches at the sound of an airplane.

Like rabbits, Christian thought resentfully, we don't live like human beings at all.

The Corporal was jiggling nervously up and down at the entrance to the bridge. "All right, now, Sergeant?" he asked. "Can we start now?"

Christian ignored him. Once more he stared down the straight hundred meters toward the turn in the road. He half closed his eyes and he could almost imagine how the first American, flat on his belly, would peer around the bend to make sure nothing was waiting for him. Then the head would disappear. Then another head, probably a Lieutenant's (the American Army seemed to have an infinite number of Lieutenants they were willing to throw away), would appear. Then, slowly, sticking to the side of the hill, peering nervously down at their feet for mines, the squad, or platoon, or maybe even the company would come around the bend, and approach the bridge.