No Time For Sergeants

by Mac Hyman

  And he really was the most interested in latrines of any man you ever seen in your life. He was a nice old fellow too, gray-headed with a little mustache and looked like an uncle of mine, but I knowed it warnt as my uncle hadnt been drafted that I had heered—anyhow, he headed right back for the latrine and went in and looked around, nodding his head and smiling, and seemed mighty pleased with it. And I was myself when I seen the look on his face and seen Sergeant King kind of cutting his eyes around at him. But I didnt want to take all the credit for myself, so when he come back by me on the way out, I said, “Colonel, I hope you like how we fixed up the latrine for you.”

  And when he turned to me and said, “What?” I said, “The reason it is so clean was mainly because of Sergeant King there. He’s the one behind it all; I just done the cleaning. He said he had never seen a man in his life care more about latrines than you do, and that’s the reason . . .”

  “Attention!” the Captain yelled out. “You’re at attention there!” and he come bounding over with his face all red like he was going to jump all over me.

  But I didnt pay much attention to him because I warnt talking to him nohow, and besides the Colonel held up his hand at the Captain to shut him up, and then he looked at me for a while and asked me to go over what I had said again. So I did, and this time I really laid it on good too. I told him how Sergeant King had told me to clean it up so good because he had never seen a man in his life that would come back and stick his head right down in the bowls the way he done, and I think the Colonel kind of appreciated it too, because he looked around and said, “And which one is Sergeant King?”

  So I pointed him out, though Sergeant King was right embarrassed and kind of white in the face, and the Colonel went over to speak with him for a minute. I couldnt make out what he said, though, because the Captain begun talking to me, and seemed like he had got kind of interested in the latrine himself. He asked me if I had been doing all the cleaning by myself, and I told him, “Yessir, I been cleaning it for about two weeks now. I’m the permanent latrine orderly.”

  “You mean you havent even started classification yet? You’ve been here two weeks and havent even started . . . Oh, Sergeant King, step over here a minute, will you, when the Colonel finishes speaking with you.”

  So we all kind of gathered around, the Colonel and the Captain and the Lieutenants and Sergeant King and myself, and had a real nice chat about it. They wanted to know about what I had been doing and I told them about the latrine and how Sergeant King let me work there, and how at first I was on KP for a while, and how nice Sergeant King had been to me, not making me bother with classification but letting me help wash his car and all; and we kept talking about it, only Sergeant King didnt say much but kept his head ducked down and kept blushing and acting modest and everything—anyhow, we talked and talked—and finally they got ready to leave, and the Captain said, “King, you come over and wait in the office. I want to talk to you a little while,” and Sergeant King come to attention and said, “Yessir,” so it all seemed to come off all right. And they was about the nicest bunch of officers I had ever seen and must have knowed me from somewhere too because just as they were leaving, the Captain looked at me and said, “You must be Stockdale.”

  And I said, “Yessir, that’s right, but I dont recall meeting you . . .” but he didnt stay around no longer; he only turned to the Lieutenant and said, “That one’s Stockdale,” and the Lieutenant looked at me and said, “Oh, yeah,” and I said, “Yessir, that’s right, but I dont recall meeting . . .” but they were already headed out about that time.

  Anyhow, you could never tell how Sergeant King would feel about things, as changeable as he was, and when he come back from talking with the Captain, he was most wild-looking in a way. He stood in his room and kept blinking his eyes and shaking his head like he didnt even know I was there. “You didnt have to do it,” he finally said. “You really didnt have to do that.”

  “I know it,” I said. “But I didnt see no sense in me taking all the credit when it was your idea and all. You done a lot for me and I thought I could help out some and . . .”

  But he kept shaking his head, and said, “Yes, but did you think that would be helping . . .” and then he stopped and rubbed his hands over his face and said, “Yes, I guess you would. I’m not surprised at all. But look here now, you dont have to help me out no more, see? I get along all right here. I got four stripes and my own barracks and I dont really need no help. You’ve done enough for me already. Look, you help somebody else out for a while. Look, I know a loud-mouthed, low-down, four-striper over in the orderly room, why dont you help him out a little bit? Why . . . ?” But then he waved his hand like he didnt want to talk about it no more, and I said I would if I got the chance, but he waved his hand again and turned back around and said, “Look, Will, just forget everything else now. The main thing now is to get you classified. That’s something we’ve got to do.”

  And then he seemed to get all upset about that too. He got to pacing up and down talking about it, seeming right anxious about it, and looking all worried again. So I tried to calm him down a bit; I said it probably didnt amount to much and that there really warnt that much to worry about because I liked the latrine fine and had just as soon stay right there as long as I was on the field.

  But that seemed to upset him too. He said, “No, Will, no! You wouldnt want to spend the rest of your hitch here, would you? You want to get out and do something. Nosir, what we want to do is get you classified and shipped out of here, because the Captain said that if you didnt, you would stay right here and . . . Look, Will, if it’s the last thing we ever do, I think we ought to get you classified. It’s the only thing.”

  “Well, I was only thinking about the latrine and helping you out and . . .”

  But he was the most upset I ever seen him. He said, “Nosir! Nosir! Absolutely not! The Captain said . . .” and then he got all jumbled up with it all. He shouted “Nosir!” a few more times, and then, “They’ll ship you a thousand miles away from here!” and a lot of other stuff like that, getting more and more upset. And finally he wore himself out and just laid down on the bunk and covered up his face with his arms, upset the way he was. So just as I was leaving, I said, “Well, if they do ship me a thousand miles away from here, I might manage to hitch a ride back every once in a while,” but it didnt do no good. He only moaned, his face still covered up and didnt answer me at all.

  13

  So anyhow, that next day I got started with classification and there really warnt too much to it ifn Sergeant King hadnt of been so anxious the way he was. But he kept trying to tell me all the time just how to do and how I should act and all; he would get me off to the side and tell me how I must try hard because if I didnt, I might just have to stay there in his barracks all the rest of my life, and how he knowed I wouldnt like that and all, and he kept on that way until he made me feel kind of anxious too after a while. But I found out soon enough there really warnt that much to it. It warnt nothing really but fitting a bunch of pegs in squares and things like that, and sitting in chairs that spin you around and all that kind of thing, so it was easy as pie, and wouldnt have been nothing ifn Sergeant King hadnt kept worrying at me all the time.

  But I still done good on it all. I had one little argument with a fellow down at the radio place, and that didnt amount to nothing really—it didnt bother nobody but Sergeant King. What happened was, they set us at a table and give us a headset and a piece of paper and this fellow was standing up there talking about how we were supposed to mark down the dots and dits on a paper, but after they got started I couldnt hear no dots and dits at all over mine and told the fellow so. But then he got right unreasonable; he come bounding over saying, “Dont you know how to put a headset on? You got the thing on backward. How do you ever expect to hear anything with it that way?” And he said, real rough, “Look, put it on right. Dont you have good sense?” and some more stuff like that which I didnt appreciate too much. Then he got b
ack up front and said this next one would be a trial run and in a minute everybody got to writing on their papers, but I didnt because they didnt sound like nothing but dots and dits to me, so I didnt do nothing but just set there, but then he come bounding back over saying, “You’re supposed to mark them down! Cant you write?” which made me kind of ornery so I said, “I can write as good as the next man.”

  “Well, write them down then.”

  But he had made me kind of mad talking about writing, so I said, “How can I write down things like that? Those little dots and dits dont mean nothing to me.”

  “Look,” he said. “It dont matter what they mean. All you’re supposed to do is mark them in this column if they sound alike, and in that one if they dont. It dont matter a bit what they mean . . .”

  And I said, “Well, as far as that goes, it dont make no difference to me neither, but they still dont sound like nothing but dots and dits . . .”

  And he fumed and fussed some more with it, and said, “It dont make any difference what they sound like to you. I know what they mean and they dont sound that way to me; and they dont sound that way to the fellows that made them up, and they dont sound that way to the generals—so who are you to say they dont sound like anything but a lot of dots and dits.”

  And he kept on that way until I got right tired of it. I got up and told him he was probably right and that if him and all the generals said it didnt sound like that to them, then I just wouldnt bother with it and let them listen to it all day long if they wanted to, but then he looked at me and yelled, “Sit down!” which I didnt like too much.

  “How’s that?” I asked him.

  “You sit down there and put those headsets back on. What do you want to cause trouble for anyhow?”

  “I dont want no trouble.”

  And he said, “Well, sit down and take the test then. You do just what I said and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Well, I can write just as good as the next man,” I said.

  And he said, “Well, go on and do it then,” and didnt say it so rough this time, but more like he was asking, so I set back down and listened to the dots and dits and marked them down like he said. But it was like I told him in the first place, they just sounded like a bunch of dots and dits to me, so I just marked them all down in the same column and left, because I really didnt care too much about it nohow.

  So I didnt have no trouble with it really, only Sergeant King got all upset about it and took it mighty hard. But he agreed the fellow had acted pretty unreasonable; he said, “As a matter of fact, the most unreasonable thing he did was ever putting the headset on you so you could hear the things.” But then he took on some more how I must try hard and all like that; he said, “The rest of them wont all be that hard, Will; and if you do like they tell you, I really think we can swing this thing. You hear what I say now? Are you listening to me now? Look, I’ve got copies of most of the tests and we can go over them here in the barracks before you ever take them, and that way, you ought to manage all right. But you’ve got to try, Will. You got to do just like they tell you.”

  So I did that and got along better on the rest of them, just to please Sergeant King more or less. We took some more and I done right good on them and Sergeant King was right proud of it too. And one of them I done good on, he said he bet nobody had ever done anything like that as long as the field had been there. That one made him the happiest of all, I think. What it was, was this puzzle made out of steel about as thin as your little finger, and the trick was to put it back together once the Corporal had took it apart, and they was going to time us to see how quick we got it done. The Corporal explained all about it before we started; he took it apart and put it back together and showed us, and said, “There aint but one way of doing it, so you have to use your heads,” and all like that, and then they passed them out to us, one each, and one fellow got a stopwatch and the other one said, “All right now: Go,” and the other one mashed the watch, and everybody took to fitting them this way and that.

  So I got to fitting mine too, but it didnt work out at first, so then I just reached down and got a right good grip on one of the pieces and straightened it out and slipped back inside the other one and tied them back up together, which was a right good way of doing it because I was the first one finished. So then I got up and give it to the fellow, ready to leave, but he looked kind of funny and turned it over in his hand, and looked at it some more, and said, “What did you do with this thing?”

  “I put it back together like you told me,” I said.

  So he looked it over again and twisted it in his hand, and then he tried to pull it loose, only he couldnt make it as I had tied it up real good, and then he said, “You just wait over here for a minute until I get the Sergeant and see what to do about it.” So he went over to the Sergeant and showed it to him and the Sergeant looked at it and tried to bend it and shook his head and said, “Which one done it?”

  And the fellow pointed at me and the Sergeant come over and said, “What did you do to this thing?” and I told him the same as the other, and then he went at it some more but couldnt get it loose neither.

  And then they started arguing about it, and the Corporal said, “Well, how would you mark him on that?”

  Then the Sergeant looked at him and said, “You’re supposed to be grading this. Cant you do a simple job like that?” and kept twisting it and pulling at it and getting red in the face.

  And the other fellow said, “I’m supposed to mark it down if they put it back together or not and there aint supposed to be but one way of doing it, and he sho didnt do it that way. How are you going to mark a thing like that?”

  So then they called the Lieutenant over and by that time I was beginning to think I hadnt passed it. They all went off in the corner and talked about it some more, and then they got together on a work bench in the corner and got a pair of pliers and a hammer and the Lieutenant held on to it while the Sergeant started whamming away at it, and they mighty near got it loose that way, only he hit the Lieutenant’s hand and the Lieutenant jumped up in the air and started cussing and slinging his hand around; and they took on that way for a while so I finally got tired of waiting and left. And it warnt until I got back and talked to Sergeant King that I found out I had passed it. And I was right glad I had when I seen how he felt about it. It made him the happiest I had ever seen him; he patted me on the back and said, “Yessir, Will, I think we are going to get you classified yet. It just goes to show what the Air Force has come down to.”

  So then we went back to his room and went over some of the other tests I had to take.

  So I done right good on all of them and didnt have no trouble at all to speak of, only I run into this Major at one of the tests and nearly had some trouble with him, but I seen there was something the matter with him and stopped myself. But he was a real peculiar fellow and had a way of saying rough things at you; he wore these big thick glasses that made his eyes look about the size of a cow’s, and when we come into this room, he was standing there with his hands folded behind his back, rocking back and forth on his feet, staring right at me, like he might have knowed me from somewhere. So I looked back at him, and he kept standing there looking at me, and I thought maybe I had met him from somewhere, so I nodded and said, “Howdy,” but all he done was just keep staring at me, and never opened his mouth.

  So I couldnt figger him at first, and we stood around a minute and then he turned and went over to the Corporal at the desk and started talking to him, looking up at me every once in a while, and the Corporal nodded his head, and then the Major turned back around and looked at me again, and then went in this other room.

  And in a little bit, they led us all in there where we set down at desks that had chairs on both sides of them, the desks lined up and down the wall, and then a bunch of officers come in and set on the other side of the desks, and then I looked up and seen this same Major just taking his chair right across from me. So I nodded and said, “Howdy,
” again, but he still didnt say nothing. He shuffled some papers around on his desk, not saying a word, and I waited until he had finished, and then he looked up at me, and started staring again like he did out in the hall. Then he asked me my name and I told him, and he wrote that down without even looking at the paper, staring at me all the time. And I guess he had the most peculiar eyes I ever seen. I said they was like a cow’s but they warnt; they was gray and had black specks in them, and he kept them pointed right at me so I looked back at him, and it seemed we done that for a minute or so until he finally said, “Where you from, Stockdale?”

  I told him Georgia, and he come back with: “That’s not much of a state, is it?” which didnt sound very polite to me.

  But I said, “Well, I dont live all over the state. I just live in one little place in it.”

  Then he kept staring and said, “That’s where they have the tobacco roads and things, isnt it?”

  “Maybe so, but not around my section,” I said. “I never seen no tobacco planted in a road. Maybe you from some other part than me.”

  “No, I never been there,” he said. Then he looked harder and said, “And I dont think I ever would go there. What do you think about that?”

  He let it bust out and kind of leaned over the table at me, and I really didnt know what to make of him for a second. The way he kept making conversation I figgered he was trying to be friendly, but the things he said didnt make much sense, and I never had seen anybody stare like that before. So I didnt know what to make out of him. I said, “Well, I dont think nothing about it. Fact is, I aint ever thought about it before.”

  He said, “I dont think I would ever want to live in your rotten state. How about that?”

  “Well, I guess you know where you want to live,” I told him. “Besides that, things is getting right crowded around home anyhow. Some folks moved in not long ago about two miles down the road from us and land aint as cheap as it once was. So it really dont make no difference to me whether you live there or not, not that we wouldnt be mighty glad to have you . . .” I finally quit talking because he didnt seem to be listening nohow. He kept staring and by this time I was staring too.