One to Count Cadence Page 9

  Then word came that Capt. Saunders was going to take a month’s leave after the school. That meant another six weeks without Town, and that was unbearable for the men. It is one thing to be a soldier, to live in a world of close order drill, of Physical Training each morning, equipment maintenance, maneuvers, training lectures, and another thing to be a clerk, a changer of typewriter ribbons, a cleaner of keys. Being a soldier gives you the feeling of accomplishment no matter how stupid you think the whole idea is: you survive in spite of everything they can do to you. Being a clerk has all the stupidities, all the same injustices as being a soldier, but none of the pride: anyone can survive being a clerk. It is the same problem which attacks men on assembly lines and in paper-shuffling office jobs when they discover that their life is as senseless as their work. They take to the bottle, join lodges, coach little league teams, have an affair — anything to forget what they are. The men in the 721st had Town to cover all these areas of memory-killing. Oh, sure, some of them made their tours in the Philippines on library books, camera trips and butterfly collections, but most needed Town. That is why it was there. And Lt. Dottlinger had taken it away. So what happened had to happen. (Or at least I like to tell myself that it did.)

  If Morning had come to me with his idea in the beginning, I would have, as he so aptly noted, stopped him, but he came near the end, when it was ready for enactment, and it was too late to stop him.

  He came in my room the night before the mass confession, grinning and excited, popping his fingers and pushing his glasses back up on his nose. “We got him,” he said, opening my door without knocking.

  “Who?”

  “Slutfuckingfinger, man. Lt. Big Butt Dottlinger. Pinned to the wall by his mangy cock. Betrayed by his own words.”

  “What? Who?…”

  “I got every one of them, man, every last swinging dick.” He danced around my room as if he needed to pee.

  “Wait a minute. Slow down. Sit down and let me know who has got whom where.”

  He swung a chair in front of the bunk, straddled it, and said, “The man said, ‘No passes until the guilty one confesses.’ Right? Right! Tomorrow he is going to confess.”

  “You know who it is?”

  “No, but it doesn’t make any difference.”

  “You elected a savior to sacrifice?” I laughed. I wondered who.

  “No.” He smiled and rubbed his thighs as if he had a magnificent secret. “Tomorrow morning at 0700, beginning with the day-trick before it goes to work and ending with the mid-trick, every enlisted man in the Operations section will go see the commanding officer and confess…”

  “Don’t tell me. Not another word.”

  “What do you mean? We got that son of a motherfucker dead. Dropped him down, man.”

  “Don’t tell me. Jesus, Morning,” I said, getting off the bunk. “This kind of crap is… damnit, it’s mutiny or inciting to mutiny or conspiring to mutiny or something. I don’t know the name, but I do know it is Leavenworth talk. Don’t you know that? Goddamn don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I can’t know. Get the hell out of here. Now!”

  “What’s with you? He can’t touch a hair on our heads. He hasn’t got the guts to court martial the whole outfit, and he can’t get me unless somebody breaks.”

  “Morning, don’t you understand, somebody will shit out. Somebody will! Somebody always does. Even a single trick couldn’t pull this off, much less forty men. They’re going to send you to jail, babe, forever.”

  “Somebody shits, they get busted!” He popped his fingers loudly, and I knew it would happen. There was no doubt in his voice. “Besides, it will never get that far. Dottlinger will blow his stack, hit an enlisted man or have a heart attack or something. I go in first, and you know how he hates me, and he hasn’t got the brains to think that I’ve got the guts to organize this and still go in first. He thinks I’m crazy.”

  “What if he takes just you.”

  “So fucking what? I only have one stripe to lose for my country.”

  “But what about…” I moaned, waving my arm in the general direction of heaven and hell. “Do any of the other trick chiefs know?”

  “You’re not even supposed to know. But I thought you’d want to.”

  “How sweet. I don’t know! I don’t know you! Get your ass out of here!” I took the cigarette he offered. “At Leavenworth, kid, they got even a literary magazine, but no women, no beer, but lots of walls. You won’t like it there.”

  “It’ll work. What are you afraid of? It will work.”

  “Don’t tell me. I don’t want it to work. I hope you guys never get your passes back. Never. You’re all crazy. I hope they lock you up forever. Jesus, what a mess. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.”

  “What!” he shouted. “And let that half-assed Arkansas farmer do this to us. Man, we have to fight back, and now! What kind of men are we if we let him do this to us and we don’t fight back.”

  “Write your congressman. Consult the chaplain. Shit in the air. But don’t try to fight the Army. Don’t.”

  “We tried that. A guy whose godfather is a senator wrote him. You know what he answered? ‘Part of being a man, son, is learning that we all have to suffer for the misdeeds of a few misguided individuals. Why, I was in the Army, the Old Army, for two years before I even heard about passes, and then I didn’t get one for another six months. Buck up, son, it will make you a better man.’ How about that, huh? Great. And the chaplain told me to pray for strength. Me! Fuck they don’t care. They’re on the other side. They always will be.” He stood up and started pacing around the room as I was. “You’re not some old rummy sergeant who thinks the Army is his mother. You can see we have to do this. Cagle’s shaving the palm of his hand, Novotny’s screaming about Dear Johns in his sleep, and Franklin is sneaking out the gate with a pass and ID card he bought from an airman. We have to do something. You don’t want to know…” — he shrugged — “… then you don’t want to know. Okay. But don’t tell me not to do it.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Ah, shit, Krummel, there’s more than just passes involved here. Damnit, there’s principles, and dignity too. We’re not animals. We have some rights. We’re human beings, living, breathing, thinking people, and that dickhead needs to learn he can’t get away with that nineteenth century Capt. Bligh shit. Who the hell does he think he is? And where’s he going to stop? Gas chambers or…”

  “Joe, sit down again,” I interrupted. “Joe, you don’t have any civil rights. None. Not a single one. So settle down. It’s your pass he’s pulled, not your pecker. You’re going to make too much out of this — like that senator said, twenty years ago you wouldn’t be worried about a pass ‘cause you’d only see one twice a year — and the whole works is going to explode right in your face. There’s no dignity: privates aren’t allowed any. There aren’t any principles involved. You’re in the Army, and you’re wrong on top of that. You joined, you swore, you made a contract to remove yourself from the human race for three years, and just because it’s getting uncomfortable doesn’t mean you have any right to break the contract. If you want dignity, there’s dignity in being responsible, in not taking oaths lightly. As long as you stay straight, Lt. Dottlinger is wrong. Do this tomorrow, and you’re wrong. You’re in the Army, and they have your permission to do anything except cut your balls off. They can demand your life for no other reason than the fact that some dumb bastard wants it. You don’t have to like it, don’t have to believe in it, or even try to understand that armies are this way because they have to be, but you have to do what they say. Or pay for it.” I sighed. His face had closed against me almost before I started.

  “It’s cheap at the price. I’ll pay. They may take my life someday, but I’m sure as hell not going to give it to them, nor my dignity. You think I’m going to fight if they send troops to Vietnam? Fuck no. Maybe you can kiss that bastard’s ass, but not me.” He stood up again.

  “Okay. You know what you’re going to do —
then get the hell out of here. You don’t want my advice — then shove off.” I had been afraid he wouldn’t listen, but this was not just a case of not hearing. He believed, which I admired, but which was sad too. He came too late in time to be part of any of the great, violent revolutions, and now had to waste himself on a foolishness.

  “I came because I thought you would understand, not to ask advice.”

  “And maybe brag a little bit? But I do understand. That’s why I’m afraid. There’s a good chance nothing will happen to anyone except you. I’d be sorry to see that, but it might as well happen now as later. You’ll end up in jail or dead someday, anyway. Might as well be now. But what if other men who don’t know what they really want, or are doing, follow you into the shit.”

  “You afraid of losing your stripes?” He looked for a moment as if he had found the answer, but then thought not.

  “Maybe a little. I didn’t come back to lose them over anything like this. Right now they’re heavy on my arm, but I like the money, the things they buy. And they are on my arm.” I sat in the chair he had vacated.

  “What are you — for sale?” He flopped on the bunk.

  “Until I get a better offer. I fight for the best price.”

  “Bullshit.” He grinned. “You just think that.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “Okay,” he said, standing up. “Maybe they’ll make me editor of the magazine in Leavenworth, and I can get my shitty poetry published.”

  “Bullshit. Not even you have such bad taste.” It was my turn to smile.

  “Wish me luck,” he said, lazily strolling toward the door.

  “Aren’t you going to ask if I’m going to turn you in?”

  “Of course not. You’re a revolutionary too. I just haven’t convinced you yet,” he said, then smiled and left. His confidence in my silence, his trust, was quite a compliment, and no one’s head can be turned any easier than mine, but it was also a burden I would just as soon not have.

  * * *

  Only Joe Morning had the personality, the voice and the gall to convince so many men to even agree to such madness, much less carry it out. But he did it. He talked in private to every enlisted man in the Operations section, and then hit them again with a band of converts. I learned from Novotny that Morning had first mentioned the idea during the wee hours of a ditch party, but only mentioned it. Then the next day, when everyone had forgotten, he spoke about it again in the back of the three-quarter going to work, and then again coming back. He convinced Novotny in a long talk that night. Quinn and Franklin wondered why they hadn’t thought of such a great idea. Cagle was ready for anything. The rest of the Trick was easy to convince. Once he had the Trick, he had their close friends on the other tricks, then their buddies, then the whole damned Company. That they only had to use physical persuasion on two men is an indication of the mood of the Company. And keeping it quiet was even easier, since the men were already security conscious because of the work.

  It was beautiful and funny and I loved and feared the whole idea, but stayed in my room, sleeping with the door locked, while it took place.

  * * *

  I was blasted out about midmorning by Lt. Dottlinger on the handle of a bull horn. It was so loud I didn’t understand what had been screamed, and I charged out in my shorts, thinking partly of Pearl Harbor and partly of a public execution. Lt. Dottlinger stood at my end of the hall calmly announcing, “Company formation in fifteen minutes!” He had known what was up when he opened the door to Morning and saw the line, but he didn’t say anything. He had already given a blanket permission for anyone knowing anything about the broken bottles to see him without going through the 1st Sgt. He let them all in, asked questions about the bottles, made notes, and took names. Outside Tetrick was racing up and down the line, bald, sweat-shining head in hands, pleading with them to break it up and go away before they were all killed. He remembered a pile of heads he had seen in Burma left by the Japanese. But Lt. Dottlinger was calm and controlled through it all, though his control must have been the absolute hold which marks the final stage of hysteria. He quietly ordered each man back to his quarters after the interview. The men in the back of the line were frightened, as well they might have been, by this quiet approach of the lieutenant’s. Many might have broken line, but Morning, intrepid, wily Joe Morning, had placed men he could trust on either side of those he couldn’t; and he knew just exactly which were which. But he hadn’t counted on Lt. Dottlinger’s anger taking this form. More than men have hung on the nature of another man’s mood in the morning. When I saw Lt. Dottlinger in the hall, speaking pleasantly into the electric megaphone like a daytime television game-show announcer, I knew Morning’s plans had failed. I wondered what was going to happen, as I got into uniform; I should have wondered who was going to pay. When Lt. Dottlinger had first seen me in the hall, he had smiled, nodded, and said, “Good morning, Sgt. Krummel.” How little he knew.

  * * *

  The Company had been assembled on the volleyball court between the barracks and the drainage ditches for nearly an hour before Lt. Dottlinger came out. He was walking from the waist down, a smug, arrogant strut like Brando in The Wild One. Ah, he was loose. I thought for a moment he might mumble too, but he had added an English undertone to his Southern accent to strut a bit more. He accepted Tetrick’s “Hall pre’nt an’ ‘counted for, sir,” with a salute of languid grace. I wanted to laugh. But it would have been a nervous giggle. I, the whole Company too, was caught by that creepy version of fear which only comes when you’re faced with someone who is crazy. It isn’t so much that you’re frightened that you might come to physical harm, but that you’re faced with something not human anymore. You don’t know what it is, and you don’t care because you realize what it isn’t, and you can only run and run until you wipe the face of insanity from the deepest regions of your memory; but as you run, you understand that some unsuspecting night you will dream that tormented, twisted face, and wake, oh my God, scream for the savior you had forgotten, and scream again, for the face is yours. Dottlinger scared us like that. If he had taken a rifle and shot the first rank of men or snatched a rose from his shirt and sniffed, none of us would have blinked.

  “Well,” he began, striding along the Company front, his hands clasped casually behind him. For once he didn’t have his ball-point swagger stick. “It seems we have a small mutiny on our hands, troopers. Or at least a conspiracy to mutiny, troopers, which carries an equally harsh penalty. I would only guess, but I could probably put each and every one of you behind bars for the rest of your natural lives.” He pivoted, paused and reflected. It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but two large sweat stains were slowly creeping from under Lt. Dottlinger’s arms like cancerous stigmata. He wasn’t quite so frightening now. He was beginning to lose his edge, and was forced to begin to play himself. It had taken too long to write his speech. “But I’m not going to do that,” he continued. “At least not right this minute. I’m sure most of you men didn’t mean to cause this much trouble, or face such a stiff charge. Certainly your leaders lied to you about this — you’re surprised I know there were leaders. Don’t be, don’t be. It was obvious. Yes, I’m sure there were leaders, perhaps even a single organizer.” He paused, “And I would like to put him behind bars. I really want that. I want him!” He could barely control himself now.

  “But I’ll let that go. Let it go,” he said, smiling suddenly, a forced, theatrical smile. “Yes, even that. Just to let you know I’m a fair and understanding officer. Yes, I’ll forget this whole little affair ever took place, and I’ll even lose the names of the men. Yes.

  “But I want, I still want, and I will have the man whobrokethe… bottles.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I have an idea, mind you, just a hint of an idea, that he will be the same man who organized this childish little demonstration.” Morning grunted with anger behind me. “This same whining disrespect for authority applies to property too and comes out of the same God
less overeducated under-spanked children.

  “Until such time as the man who broke the four cases of Coke bottles, the ninety-six bottles, confesses, you are restricted to the Company and Operations Area, and to your quarters when not working, eating, or relieving yourself,” he said, very businesslike now. A communal moan drifted up from the men. Morning grunted again, this time like a frustrated wart hog preparing to charge.

  “At ease!” Tetrick growled.

  “The day-trick will relieve the mid-trick after noon chow, and then make up the lost time by going to work at 0400 tomorrow morning.” Nice move. The day-trick was going on Break, and my Trick would have to make up the time.

  It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t disaster either. Then I heard another grunt from Morning, a furious exhalation, and he started to say, “Request permission…” But I overruled him.

  “Request permission to speak to the Company Commander, sir,” I sang out. Dottlinger wouldn’t hold to his word about forgetting about the mutiny charges if he got hold of Morning. Why he hadn’t figured it out by this time was a wonder to me.

  “Certainly, Sgt. Krummel.”

  I said dreadful things to myself as I walked toward him, but I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I just didn’t know what I was going to say.

  “Could I speak to you in private, sir?” I asked after saluting. The sweat blackened areas of his shirt had grown, and his face was pale, but his eyes still glittered with fire enough for one more encounter. He told Tetrick to have the men stand easy. I followed him a few steps toward the barracks.