Melville Goodwin, USA

by John P. Marquand

  “Come now, Muriel,” he said, “you wouldn’t want me to be out of this show.”

  “For heaven’s sakes, don’t make a little speech,” Muriel said. “I just wish you didn’t make me think …” she stopped a moment … “that you’re glad I won’t be around.”

  “Now, Muriel,” was all he could think of saying, “now Muriel.”

  “Melly,” she said, “you’re all I have.”

  “Now, Muriel,” he said, “you’ve got the boys.”

  The mention of the boys pulled everything together, and besides, Muriel was a service wife who knew a wife must not upset things when the army was off to war.

  “Forget what I said, will you, Melly,” she told him. “Of course you’re not glad you’re going—except at the same time you can’t help but be.”

  “Now, Muriel,” he said, “now, Muriel.”

  “And now we’re on the subject,” she said, “just see you keep your own nose clean.”

  He saw plenty of other farewells. You could not avoid them when they took place, openly, all around you in every railroad station. They always created a personnel problem whenever troops were alerted for overseas, and every one of those scenes was characteristic of all the others. There was a staff sergeant, for instance, at Paisley named Cathgart, a well-set-up kid who had a lot of the army in him in spite of his having been an insurance agent on the outside. When the train was moving east from Paisley to the embarkation point, Mel Goodwin stepped off to get some air at some Middle Western whistle stop and there he saw Cathgart kissing a girl who was down at the station passing coffee for the USO and who acted like a wife, and he hoped she was, because she had a little two-year-old golden-haired kid with her. He never asked how Cathgart had arranged to have her meet the train. The man had broken security to do it, but sometimes it was advisable not to take cognizance of everything. At any rate there were Cathgart and the girl and the child in a threeway clinch on the platform, and when the word was given to get aboard again, Cathgart was sobbing like a baby, and he sent word to Cathgart to report to him in his compartment up in front. It was funny how you began traveling in style once there was a war. He had rated a private car and a driver at Paisley and plane priorities when he took trips from Washington. He rated a drawing room now because he had to do routine administrative business on the train.

  “Listen, son,” he said to Cathgart, “I happened to see you outside there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cathgart said. “Christ, sir, I had no idea she would be there.”

  “Oh, hell,” Melville Goodwin told him, “that’s all right, Cathgart, but everybody in this outfit has to say good-by to somebody. I had to say good-by to my own wife in Washington. I know how it takes it out of you, but we all go through it. Just remember that, and if you feel bad, son, and if you want to talk about it, just take your weight off your feet and light up a cigarette and tell me.”

  “Thanks a lot, sir,” Cathgart said. “It just got me, seeing Milly.”

  “So her name’s Milly, is it?” Melville Goodwin said.

  “Yes, sir,” Cathgart said, and then he went on for a while about Milly. It seemed that he had married Milly three years before, at a time when he was selling farm machinery.

  “Well, here’s something else to remember, son,” Melville Goodwin told him. “We’re all teammates, no matter what the rank, and nobody lets a teammate down.” It never hurt to let men know you were a human being.

  God had kept him safe so that he could hear the guns again, and now he had his chance to pay his debt to God and to his country. There was no wonder that he looked as though he were going to a party, as Muriel had said. He had been working for quite a while to get dressed up for that party. He was not a shavetail any longer. He had been to the War College with its extremely limited and selected enrollment of officers who were almost certain to become top brass. He had the equipment to make a stab at any job that was handed to him. There had been a lot of white-haired boys in tough competition at Paisley, and he had been able to keep his place. What was more, he learned when he got to Africa that he was able to say to hell with all this accumulated knowledge when necessary. He meant that he was not weighed down by all his intellectual equipment, like these pedants or theorists who bored the hell out of sensible people. By the time North Africa was secure, even though he got a shell fragment in his shoulder before the show was over (which fortunately did not keep him off the beach where those damned Greek temples stood near Salerno), he was pretty handy.

  Frequently you had to learn fast in North Africa if you wanted to be around next day to absorb more knowledge. Uncle Sam needed every horseshoe he had in his pockets for that operation—with the best units still green and none of them battle-wise. Sometimes he felt like old Rip van Winkle himself when he saw the self-propelled guns and the tanks and the jeeps and the trucks and the tactical air cover and compared them with the stuff around Château-Thierry in the other war. Nevertheless the basic elements were all the same, and all the old logistics headaches.

  After the landing he was up ahead on the way to Tunis with a tank unit known by the code word “Force Goodwin”—but there was no use being technical about groupings. If they didn’t reach Tunis before the Jerries, you could blame it on the mud and roads, because they certainly tried like hell to make that play. He began to realize in a few days that you had to blow every instrument in the band. When it came to a pinch, you had to be an artilleryman or an engineer or a tank specialist, and you never knew how things would be balanced or grouped from one day to the next.

  North Africa, in spite of its Frenchified cities, looked like something in a Sunday school picture book. He had read in ancient history that the country was semiarid, whereas, books to the contrary, it was always raining when you wanted air cover, and the gumbo on the roads was like glue—but somehow there was always good weather and good footing for the Jerries and the Italians. The Arabs fitted right into that mess. They could have the country any time as far as he was concerned, and anybody who wanted could have the Arabs. They were always around everywhere like flies.

  Once when he was a whole lot farther away from everything than he should have been, trying to get a look himself at a German concentration—because nobody had sent any coherent word back—he and a walkie-talkie boy were suddenly pinned down by machine-gun fire. Just as he was trying to figure out some way to get some solid terrain between his party and the gun and was hoping the Krauts weren’t going to open up with the mortars next, he felt a pull at his leg. You might have thought it was someone in the group with a bright idea about something, but instead of that it was one of those Arabs trying to sell him half a dozen eggs. That was the way it always was with Arabs. They came right out of the ground like prairie dogs, and when they weren’t selling something, they were stealing, but he did not mean to deliver a travelogue. He never did see much of North Africa except for various portions into which his nose had been rubbed.

  If he wanted, he could give a good lecture about Kasserine Pass, where we came so near to being pushed back on our behinds, but now he was not talking before the War College. His tanks and some other units that came under his command took a whipping there, but they pulled out all right, and maybe he had a little to do with this. Anyway, some people still thought that he had.

  In order to refresh his memory about North Africa and subsequent operations, the General produced a packet of letters which he had written home and which Muriel had brought from Washington after hearing he was to be interviewed. He read excerpts from them to Philip Bentley and lent the whole lot to me later, and, though the letters did not shed much more light on North Africa, in certain ways they did help to round out the Goodwin picture.

  DEAR MURIEL,

  Babe, who just dropped in to say good-by, says he will give you this on his return to Washington, if he doesn’t wet his feet. Don’t ask Babe about his future plans because they won’t be bright, if you know what I mean. The poor guy just hasn’t got what it takes out here,
and he’s on his way out. Poor Babe. I am replacing him, and naturally it hurts like hell. Funny, isn’t it? Remember how you used to say you wished I got around the way Babe did? Well, well.

  I don’t need any socks or anything. Just now dry goods, including brassieres, are running out our ears. However, if you can pick up a handful of new westerns and whodunnits, give them to Bud to give to Gerald if he’s still in there with the Chief. Gerald can wangle them out here, but say to hold them with Smitty at Algiers. Maybe I’ll get back to that dream town someday and hang out in the Aletti—maybe. They have sawed-off beer bottles for glassware there and wrapping paper for napkins, all except the Limey boys, who have silver and napery. Well, well. Whoever said Africa was hot? It’s all mud. I’m even holed up in a mud hut with a mud wall around it. Goats jump over the wall and get in the yard. We ate goat yesterday and it still stays with me. Just now I picked a piece of him out of my back molar. Slim sends you his regards. He’s a real comfort to me. If you’re writing to Katie Burwell, tell her from me that Jim did fine. There wasn’t enough of poor old Jim to pick up, and a piece of him landed on my helmet, but you needn’t tell her that.

  It’s cold as Greenland here but last week it was hot in certain sectors. Don’t worry about me and don’t go around asking questions. I’m feeling fine, and everything’s beginning to get in the groove. You know I’ve always liked this stuff, and everybody else here is beginning to like it. By God, they’d better. It’s building up, and if they want to slap us down, they’d better do it quick. I have a hunch they’re going to make a try for it, but don’t ask questions. Old Heinzy called me in last night, five miles in the mud, and all the usual yakety-yak. I hope he doesn’t drop it if he’s given the ball.

  It’s nice to think of you in Washington. Give Charley my love and tell him we raised our little boy to be a soldier, and please tell Bob if he wants to try for the Pacific it won’t hurt my feelings. It looks as though they need a little help there. There’s something itching and I’d better read my shirt a while. We’re out of lice powder.

  Love, and don’t worry,

  MEL

  DEAR MURIEL,

  Shorty, who is going over to have a little talk about certain things that have happened, says he will get this to you, but don’t go trying to get hold of him. He’s got a lot on his mind. Oh yes, I’m in the base hospital with a piece of hardware in my shoulder, but I’m walking around already and playing gin rummy with the other hand, so don’t worry. I was lucky not to get my block blown off, and I walked out of it under my own steam, without running to the nearest exit, and no one else did either. They were a fine selfless bunch of kids. All they need is a little straight talk and they’ll do anything.

  If you read the papers maybe you’ll know what all this is about. I’d like to read the communiqué myself. It will have to be a masterpiece because we really got a bloody nose and a few right in the guts—and maybe the Limeys rather like seeing us over the barrel. The orders were to pull out and it was pretty late to pull. I took over the cover-up job, between you and me, without consulting Heinzy. It looked for a while like old Custer making a last stand with a lot of Sitting Bulls around us. In fact I thought maybe I was going to be Custer, but they dug in when I got some heavy stuff around their right end. I mean they thought it was heavy, and we walked off. Slim got himself killed, you may have heard. There never was a finer kid. Please write Edwina that I’m writing personally. Who do you think I saw when I walked off? Old Folsom, my Tac at the Point. Do you remember? The one who told us to stroll on Flirtation Walk. He was dead—air strafing—but I had time to gather up some of his letters and things personally. You see the hardware in the shoulder didn’t slow me up, so don’t worry and don’t start pulling strings. I am not going Stateside because I shall be fit for duty in three weeks. I got the word this morning.

  By the way, they came around this afternoon and pinned something on me and took some pictures. You can ask the Chief about it if you want. He or Gerald ought to have the details by now. Now don’t worry, I’m feeling fine. I’m reading Agatha Christie when I’m not playing gin rummy. The word is the shoulder won’t even be stiff. Give my love to Charley and Robert.

  With love,

  MEL

  This letter was all he had ever set down regarding his part in the Kasserine Pass action, except for his report and recommendations now somewhere on file in the Pentagon, and a report would have been too technical to have made much sense—and he was not giving any military lecture anyway. The staff work was faulty, and a lot of people in back got the wind up. It was easy enough to give orders for a quick withdrawal, if you were sitting somewhere looking at maps—but this was off the record and he was not going to expert anything that happened. The order to withdraw came through at three in the morning—when anyone physically in touch with anything could see that there would have to be some sort of holding action along the high ground on the front known as Area 20, which overlooked a track along which the enemy would obviously move part of his armor. It was an elementary problem of buying time. When Melville Goodwin received the order, his chief, Arty Watson, who was commanding the area, saw as clearly as he did that a complete withdrawal would leave everything wide open. He had no criticism to make of Arty Watson, who immediately began sending back everything that was feasible, but half an hour later mortar and eighty-eight fire began dropping on them.

  Mel Goodwin was still with his chief trying to straighten things out when one of those eighty-eights landed under a weapons carrier, and a minute later he was chief. He sent back everything that wasn’t needed, and by the time it was daylight he was alone with his combat team all dug in, plus three one-fifty-fives and four tanks, one of them disabled. It was light enough by that time to secure some information. The Jerries were coming right down the track just where he expected them, tanks and trucks and everything, evidently thinking that it was clear ahead. Sometimes the Jerries weren’t as bright as you thought they were going to be, considering their experience. It was something to remember, watching that column snaking toward their position over that Godforsaken country, with the sun just rising. The only problem was how to stop them for an appreciable period of time, and he waited until they were on the level ground in front before he let them have it with everything available. They were like sitting ducks, only there were just too many ducks. Nevertheless they certainly acted surprised, and their whole column was in an unholy mess. He always believed that if there had been more fire power available they might have turned back permanently. As it was, they overestimated his force, and they were confused when he got his tanks firing into them well on the left. It took personal persuasion to keep everything cracking, but just the same, it was a good fight. He only wished he could have had more time to observe it instead of being so continually busy.

  At any rate by afternoon what was left of his group was still holding the high ground in Area 20. They had bought the time, and there was no use hanging around any longer. When the sun was setting, he sent back everything that could roll, and the rest of them began walking and they walked all night until they were picked up around daylight. He had brought off the wounded, but a lot of equipment and dead remained back in Area 20. He was not familiar with all of the night’s events. His shoulder had been bandaged and it had stopped bleeding, but the wound may have made him lightheaded. Nevertheless he kept everything under control all the way personally, and he could still put one foot ahead of the other when he walked into headquarters and made the report. His memory was vague as to just what he said, but other people told him later, probably making it into a good story.

  The story was that he saluted old Heinzy, which he probably did, since his right hand was all right, and then he said:

  “There’s been a little trouble up in Area 20, sir, but we’d all like to start going back as soon as we’ve had some coffee.”

  That was what they said he said, and it made a good story, but he never could have said anything like that to a major general who
knew the score. Nevertheless he always did think that they should have moved forward instead of pulling back farther. There was nothing in any of this to be proud of because he was paid to work out problems like Area 20, but there was one thing he did remember that pleased him. When he walked out of the headquarters—and he was still walking—he heard a master sergeant say, “The God-damned fighting bastard.”

  That meant a lot to him, coming when it did, because his shoulder was full of red-hot needles and his left arm was numb. The man who had spoken was standing with three or four others beside a jeep, and Mel Goodwin walked right up to him.

  “Son,” he said, “if I go first, I’d like to have you write those words on my tombstone.”

  This was true, whether or not it made a good story, and he did not care who knew it.

  He was in the hospital when Task Force Headquarters was reorganized. In May he did desk work in Algiers because the medics were still checking on his shoulder. He got his star in June ’43 but did not see the Sicilian show or any more fighting until he was on the beach at Salerno as an assistant division commander. He was a specialist in armor by then and he knew it. When he was yanked out and sent to England to take command of the Silver Leaf Armored and whip it into shape in preparation for the cross-Channel invasion, he knew that he was equipped to take armor anywhere, anytime and anyhow, and that was all there was to it. He did not want to be technical, but he did know quite a little about contemporary warfare, and why not? He had spent most of his life studying war and he had been presented with fine opportunities to perfect himself in practice. He wrote some of his thoughts in a letter to his wife in April 1944, and perhaps the letter would cover most of what he had to say.

  DEAR MURIEL,

  I don’t see what harm there is when you get this in asking the Chief or Gerald or somebody to tell you confidentially if they can what they’ve pinned on me over here. I don’t mean any more chest spinach either, though sometimes they do seem to pass decorations here as easily as we used to pass the buck. I mean the job they handed to me. Old Skeet Shaw felt kind of upset when he got the word to turn it over to me, and I felt kind of mean about taking it from Skeet after he had shown me around, but you know Skeet, and he knows we have to take what’s dished out to us on this picnic. Skeet said he would rather have it me than anybody else and he said kind words about me to the officers when he turned it over. The kids don’t seem to mind the idea of having someone who’s been there before help them get shaken down. They are nice kids, and Skeet has done a lot of pulling and hauling on them so they look about as much in the groove as they can be until they get their try-out. By the way, Bugsy Waters and Long John Gooch are both here with me. We’re making up into quite a team. I even like the padres. They look like athletic babies who will hand out the good word right.