"BACK in Tulsa, when I was in high school," Fahnstock was saying, between slow strokes of the hammer, "they called me Stud. From the time I was thirteen years old my prevailing interest in life was girls. If I could find me an English broad in town here, I wouldn't even mind this place." Reflectively he hammered out a nail from the weathered piece of timber he was working on and threw the nail into the tin next to him. Then he spat, a long dark spurt of tobacco juice, from the wad that seemed to be permanently attached to the inside of his jaw.
Michael took out the pint bottle of gin from the back pocket of his fatigues and took a long gulp. He put the bottle away without offering Fahnstock a drink. Fahnstock, who got drunk every Saturday night, did not drink on week-days before Retreat, and it was only ten o'clock in the morning now. Besides, Michael was tired of Fahnstock. They had been together for over two months now in the Replacement Centre Casual Company. One day they worked on the lumber pile, taking nails out and straightening them, and the next day they worked on KP. The Mess Sergeant didn't like either of them, and for the last fifteen times he had put them on the dirtiest job in the kitchen, scrubbing the big greasy pots and cleaning the stoves after the day's cooking was over.
As far as Michael could tell, both he and Fahnstock, who was too stupid to do anything else, were going to spend the rest of the war and perhaps the rest of their lives alternating between the lumber pile and the kitchen. When this realization had sunk in, Michael had thought of desertion, but had compromised with gin. It was very dangerous, because the camp was run like a penal colony and men were constantly being sentenced to years in jail for smaller offences than drunkenness on duty, but the dull, ameliorating effects of the steady flow of alcohol through his brain made it possible for Michael to continue to live, and he took the risk gladly.
He had written to Colonel Pavone soon after he was put on the lumber pile, asking to be transferred, but there had been no answer from the Colonel, and Michael was too tired all the time now to bother to write again or to try any other avenues of escape.
"The best time I had in the Army," Fahnstock drawled, "was in Jefferson Barracks in St Louis. I found three sisters in a bar. They worked in a brewery in St Louis on different shifts. One was sixteen, one was fifteen and one was fourteen. Hillbillies fresh out of the Ozark Mountains. They never owned a pair of stockings till they worked in the brewery for three months. I sure did regret it the day my orders came through for overseas."
"Listen," Michael said, pounding slowly on a nail, "will you please talk about something else?"
"I'm just trying to pass the time," Fahnstock said, aggrieved.
"Pass the time some other way," Michael said, feeling the gin gripping the lining of his stomach.
They hammered at the splintery boards in silence.
A guard with a rifle came by behind two prisoners who were rolling wheelbarrows full of lumber ends. The prisoners dumped the lumber onto the pile. They all moved with a dragging, deliberate slowness, as though there was nothing ahead of them in their whole lives that was important to do.
"Shake your arse," the guard said languidly, leaning on the rifle. The prisoners paid no attention to him.
"Whitacre," said the guard, "whip out the bottle." Michael looked glumly at him. The police, he thought, everywhere the same, collecting their blackmail for overlooking the breaking of the law. He took out the bottle and wiped the neck of it before handing it to the guard. He watched jealously as the guard took a deep swig.
"I only drink on holidays." The guard grinned as he handed back the bottle.
Michael put the bottle away. "What's this?" he asked. "Christmas?"
"Haven't you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"We hit the beach this morning. This is D-Day, Brother, ain't you glad you're here?"
"How do you know?" Michael asked suspiciously.
"Eisenhower made a speech on the radio. I heard it," the guard said, "We're liberating the Frogs, he said."
"I knew somethin' was up yesterday," said one of the prisoners, a small, thoughtful-looking man who was in for thirty years because he had knocked out his Lieutenant in the orderly room. "They came to me and they offered to pardon me and give me an honourable discharge if I would go back into the infantry."
"What did you say?" Fahnstock asked, interestedly.
"Screw, I said," said the prisoner. "An honourable discharge right into a military cemetery."
"Shut your mouth," said the guard languidly, "and pick up that wheelbarrow. Whitacre, one more drink, to celebrate Dday."
"I have nothing to celebrate," Michael said, trying to save his gin.
"Don't be ungrateful," said the guard. "You're here nice and dry and safe and you ain't laying on any beach with a hunk of shrapnel up your arse. You got plenty to celebrate." He held out his hand. Michael gave him the bottle.
"That gin," Michael said, "cost me two pounds a fifth."
The guard grinned. "You was gypped," he said. He drank deeply. The two prisoners looked at him thirstily and longingly. The guard gave Michael the bottle. Michael drank, because it was D-Day. He felt the sweet wave of self-pity sweep alcoholically over him. He glared at the prisoners coldly as he put the bottle away.
"Well," said Fahnstock, "I guess old Roosevelt is finally satisfied today. He's gone and got himself a mess of Americans killed."
"I'll bet he jumped up out of his wheelchair," the guard said, "and is dancin' up and down on the White House floor."
"I heard," said Fahnstock, "the day he declared war on Germany, he had a big banquet in the White House with turkey and French wine, and after it they was all laying each other on the tables and desks."
Michael took a deep breath. "Germany declared war on the United States," he said. "I don't give a damn, but that's the way it happened."
"Whitacre is a Communist from New York," said Fahnstock to the guard. "He's crazy about Roosevelt."
"I'm not crazy about anybody," Michael said. "Only Germany declared war on us and so did Italy. Two days after Pearl Harbour."
"I'll leave it up to the boys," said Fahnstock. He turned to the guard and the prisoners. "Straighten out my friend," Fahnstock said.
"We started it," said the guard. "We declared war. I remember it as clear as day."
"Boys," Fahnstock appealed to the two prisoners.
They both nodded. "We declared war on them," said the man who had been offered an honourable discharge if he would join the infantry.
"Roger," said the other prisoner, who had been in the Air Force before they caught him forging cheques in Wales.
"There you are," said Fahnstock. "Four to one, Whitacre. The majority rules."
Michael glared drunkenly at Fahnstock. Suddenly it became intolerable to bear the pimply, leering, complacent face. Not today, Michael thought heavily, not on a day like this. "You ignorant, garbage-brained son of a bitch," Michael said clearly and wildly, "if you open your mouth once more I'll kill you."
Fahnstock moved his lips gently. Then he spat, a long, brownish, filthy spurt. The tobacco juice splashed on Michael's face. Michael leapt at Fahnstock and hit him in the jaw, twice. Fahnstock went down, but he was up in a moment, holding a heavy piece of two-by-four with three large nails sticking out of one end. He swung at Michael and Michael started to run. The guard and the prisoners stepped back to give the men room. They watched interestedly.
Fahnstock was very fast, despite his fat, and he got close enough to hit Michael's shoulder. Michael felt the sharp bite of the nails in his shoulder and wrenched away. He stopped and bent down and picked up a plank. Before he could straighten up, Fahnstock hit him on the side of the head. Michael felt the scraping, tearing passage of the nails across his cheekbone. Then he swung. He hit Fahnstock on the head and Fahnstock began to walk strangely, sideways, in a small half-circle around Michael. Fahnstock swung again, but weakly, and Michael leapt out of the way easily, although it was getting difficult to judge distances correctly, because of the blood in his eye. He waited coldly, and just as Fahnstock raised his board again, Michael stepped in, swinging his plank sideways, like a baseball bat. The plank caught Fahnstock across the neck and jaw and he went down on his hands and knees. He stayed that way, peering dully at the thin dust on the bare ground around the lumber pile.
"All right," said the guard. "That was a nice little fight. You," he said to the prisoners, "sit the bastard up."
Both prisoners went over to Fahnstock and sat him up against a box. Fahnstock looked dully out across the sunny bare ground, his legs straight out in front of him. He was breathing heavily, but that was all.
Michael threw away his plank and got out his handkerchief. He put it up to his face and looked curiously at the large red stain on it when he took it away from his face.
Wounded, he thought, grinning, wounded on D-Day.
The guard saw an officer turn a corner of a barracks a hundred yards away and said hurriedly to the prisoners, "Come on, get moving." Then to Michael and Fahnstock, "Better get back to work. Here comes Smiling Jack."
The guard and the prisoners went off briskly, and Michael stared at the approaching officer, who was called Smiling Jack because he never smiled at all.
Michael grabbed Fahnstock and pulled him to his feet. He put the hammer in Fahnstock's hand and automatically Fahnstock began to tap at the boards. Michael picked up some boards and ostentatiously carried them to the other end of the pile, where he put them down neatly.
He went back to Fahnstock and picked up his own hammer. Both men were making a busy noise when Smiling Jack came up to them. Court-martial, Michael was thinking, court-martial, five years, drunk on duty, fighting, insubordination, etc.
"What's going on here?" asked Smiling Jack.
Michael stopped hammering, and Fahnstock too. They turned and faced the Lieutenant.
"Nothing, Sir," Michael said, keeping his lips as tight as possible so that the Lieutenant couldn't smell his breath.
"Have you men been fighting?"
"No, Sir," said Fahnstock, united against the common enemy.
"How did you get that wound?" The Lieutenant gestured towards the three raw, bleeding lines across Michael's cheekbone.
"I slipped, Sir," said Michael blandly.
Smiling Jack's Up curled angrily and Michael knew he was thinking. They're all the same, they're all out to make fools of you, there isn't a word of truth in a single enlisted man in the whole damn Army.
"Fahnstock!" Smiling Jack said.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Is this man telling the truth?"
"Yes, Sir. He slipped."
Smiling Jack looked around helplessly and furiously. "If I find out you're lying…" He left the sentence threateningly in the air. "All right, Whitacre, finish up here. There're travel orders for you in the orderly room. You're being transferred. Go on and pick them up."
He glared once more at the two men and turned and stalked away, after exacting a salute.
Michael watched the retreating, frustrated back.
"You son of a bitch," said Fahnstock, "if I catch you again I'll razor-cut you."
"Nice to have known you," Michael said lightly. "Clean those pots nice and bright now."
He tossed away his hammer and strode lightly towards the orderly room, tapping his rear pocket to make sure the bottle wasn't showing.
With his orders in his pocket, later on, and a neat bandage on his cheek, Michael packed his kit. Colonel Pavone had come through, and Michael was to report to him in London immediately. As he packed, Michael sipped at his bottle, and planned, craftily, to take no chances, volunteer for nothing, take nothing seriously. Survive, he thought, survive; it is the only lesson I have learned so far.
He drove down to London in an Army truck the next morning. The people of the villages along the road cheered and made the V sign with their fingers because they thought every truck now was on its way to France, and Michael and the other soldiers in the truck waved back cynically, grinning and laughing.
They passed a British convoy near London, loaded with armed infantrymen. On the rear truck, there was a dourly chalked legend. "DON'T CHEER, GIRLS, WE'RE BRITISH."
The British infantrymen did not even look up when the American truck sped by them.