The Collected Stories of Richard Yates

by Richard Yates

  “I envy you,” Betty Miller said softly, in a tone that Miller knew was calculated for dramatic effect, “Lew never talks about the war.” And Miller realized uneasily that for Betty there was a special kind of women’s-magazine romanticism in having a husband who never talked about the war—a faintly tragic, sensitive husband, perhaps, or at any rate a charmingly modest one—so that it really didn’t matter if Nancy Brace’s husband was more handsome, more solid in his Brooks Brothers suit and, once, more dashing in his trim lieutenant’s uniform. It was ludicrous, and the worst part of it was that Betty knew better. She knew perfectly well he had seen almost nothing of the war compared with a man like Brace, that he’d spent most of his service at a public-relations desk in North Carolina until they transferred him to the infantry in 1944. Secretly he was pleased, of course—it only meant that she loved him—but he would have to tell her later, when they were alone, that he wished she’d stop making him a hero whenever anybody mentioned the war. Suddenly he was aware that Brace had asked him a question. How’s that, Tom?”

  “I said, how’d you have it going across? What kind of resistance they give you?”

  “Artillery fire,” Miller told him. “No small arms to speak of; you see, we’d been covered by a good-sized barrage of our own, and I guess whatever German infantry there was had been driven back away from the canal before we got started. But their artillery was still working and we ran into plenty of that. Eighty-eights.”

  “No machine guns up along that opposite bank?” With his free hand Brace fingered his neat Windsor knot and thrust his jaw up and out to free another inch of neck.

  “No,” Miller said, “as I remember it there weren’t any.”

  “If there were,” Brace assured him, winking grimly, “you’d remember it. That was our trouble, right from the start. ‘Member how that canal was? Probably less than fifty yards wide? Well, right from the minute we climbed into those goddamn little boats we were covered by these two Jerry machine guns up on the opposite bank, maybe a hundred yards apart. They held their fire until we were out in the middle of the drink—I was in the first boat—and then they cut loose.”

  “My God,” Betty Miller said. “In a boat. Weren’t you terrified?”

  Tom Brace’s face broke into a shy, boyish grin. “Never been so scared in my life,” he said softly.

  “Did you have to go in a boat too, darling?” Betty asked.

  “No I didn’t. I was just going to say, Tom, that up where we were we didn’t need boats. There was this little footbridge that was only partly blown out, and we just used that and waded the rest of the way.”

  “A bridge?” Brace said. “Jesus, that must’ve been a break. Get your vehicles and stuff across?”

  “Oh no,” Miller said, “not on this bridge; it was only a little wooden footbridge, and as I say it was partly in the water. There’d been a previous attempt to cross the canal that day, you see, and the bridge had been partly destroyed. Actually, my memory of the bridge itself is very vague—it might even have been something our own engineers had tried to put up, come to think of it, although that doesn’t seem likely.” He smiled. “It was a long time ago, and the fact of it is I just don’t remember, Tom. I’ve got a pretty poor memory, to tell the truth.”

  To tell the truth—but to tell the truth, Miller thought, would be to say, Poor memory, hell. I’ve forgotten only what I didn’t care about, and all I cared about that night was running in the dark, first on the concrete of a road, then on dirt, then on boards that trembled underfoot, sloping down, and then in the water. Then we were on the other side and there were some ladders to climb. There was a great deal of noise. I remember that, all right.

  “Well,” Tom Brace said, “if it was at night and you were under artillery fire I guess you weren’t paying much attention to the damn bridge; I don’t blame you.”

  But Miller knew that he did blame him; it was inexcusable not to have remembered about the bridge. Tom Brace would never have forgotten a thing like that because too much would have depended on his knowing. He would have had a plastic-covered map stuck in his field jacket, under the grimy webbing straps, and when the men in his platoon asked breathless questions he would have known, coolly and without excitement, the whole tactical situation.

  “What kind of a unit were you in, Lew?”

  “Rifle company.”

  “What’d you have, a platoon?” It was Brace’s way of asking if he had been an officer.

  “Oh no,” Miller said. “I didn’t have any rank.”

  “Yes you did too,” Betty Miller said. “You were some kind of a sergeant.”

  Miller smiled. “I’d had a T-4 rating in the States,” he explained to Brace, “in public relations, but it didn’t amount to anything when they kicked me into the infantry. I went over as a rifleman replacement, a pfc.”

  “Tough break,” Brace said. “But anyway—”

  “Isn’t a T-4 the same thing as a sergeant?” Betty asked.

  “Not exactly, darling,” Miller told her. “I’ve explained all that to you before.”

  “Anyway,” Brace said, “you say somebody else had tried to cross the canal that day and been thrown back? And you guys had to make the second try at night? That must’ve been a sour deal.”

  “It was,” Miller said. “As a matter of fact it was particularly sour because that afternoon we’d been put back in regimental reserve, our battalion was supposed to get a few days’ rest, and just about the time we got our sacks unrolled we got word to move up to the line again.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Brace said. “That used to happen to us all the time too. Wasn’t that a bitch? So of course your men’s morale was all shot to hell before you even got started.”

  “Well,” Miller said, “I don’t think our morale was ever very high anyway. We didn’t have that kind of an outfit.” And to tell the truth would have been to say that the worst part of the afternoon was an incident about the loss of a raincoat. Kavic, the squad leader, scrawny, intensely competent, nineteen years old, had said: “Okay, everybody check their equipment. I don’t want to see nothing left behind,” and with tired eyes and fingers Miller checked his equipment. But later, on the road, he was touched on the shoulder blade by Wilson, the assistant squad leader, a portly Arkansas farmer. “Don’t see your raincoat there on your belt, Miller. Lose it?”

  And there was nothing to say, after a moment’s slapping of the cartridge belt, feeling the loss, but, “Yeah, I guess I must have.”

  Kavic turned around from the head of the column. “What’s the trouble back there?”

  “Miller lost his raincoat.”

  And Kavic stopped in the road and waited, livid, for Miller to come abreast of him. “Goddamn it, Miller, can’t you hold on to anything?”

  “I’m sorry, Kavic, I thought I had it.”

  “Goddamn right you’re sorry. Next time it rains you’re gonna be sorrier ‘n hell. You know goddamn well what the supply situation is—now why can’t you hold on to anything?”

  And there was nothing to do but walk, shamefaced, with a face grown used to shame. That was the worst part of the afternoon, to tell the truth.

  “What the hell happened to that maid?” Tom Brace said. “Do you see her, honey?”

  “I think she’s in the kitchen,” his wife said. “I’ll go root her out,” and she strode away, hips twitching prettily in an expensive cocktail dress.

  “Tell her we’re all dying of thirst,” Brace called after her. Then he turned back to Miller. “So what happened, Lew? This is really interesting to me, finding out what went on up in your sector that night. Did your company make the assault, or what?”

  “No, one of the other companies was the first to cross,” Miller said, “but it amounted to the same thing for my squad, I mean the squad I was in, because we were farmed out to work for the battalion wire section that night carrying spools of communications wire across the canal, and we followed right after the first company.”

  “I see,
” Brace said.

  “But actually it was a good deal, because all we had to worry about was getting the wire over and staying out of trouble, and then after the crossing we got to hang around while the battalion CP was set up. We goofed off all the next day before we joined our own company again.”

  “Wait a minute now, you’re getting ahead of the story,” Brace said. “I want to hear about the crossing itself. You said you had artillery on you when you crossed?”

  “Started before we crossed,” Miller said. There was no avoiding it now. “As I remember it, the artillery started coming in when we were still a couple hundred yards from the canal, on the road.”

  “Was this at night?” Betty asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Eighty-eights, were they?” Brace said.

  “That’s right.” And now it was all there. The seven years dissolved and it was all there—the dark gray road lined with black trees, the shuffling columns of men on either side. The familiar pain of bandoliers and straps of webbing gripped his shoulders and neck, and there was a new pain cutting the flesh of his hand: a looped and knotted strand of communications wire from which hung, heavily, a big steel spool. Some of the spools had handles, but Miller had drawn one that didn’t, and there was no way to carry it without cutting his hand. “Stay together now,” Wilson urged in a hoarse whisper, “everybody stay together.” The only way to stay together in the dark, five paces apart, was to concentrate on the dim blur of the next man’s back, Shane’s. Shane’s back was short and square, the helmet rode low on its shoulders. Whenever it grew too dim Miller hurried a few steps to catch up; when it seemed too close he held back, trying always to keep the five paces. There was a quick fluttering rush of air and a—Slam!—somewhere on the other side of the road. Like great collapsing centipedes both columns of men rolled into the ditches. Miller fell flat on his belly—it was a good, deep ditch—and the spool banged into his kidneys. Then there was another fluttering rush and another—Slam!—closer this time, and in the shocked silence before the next one there were the inevitable voices: “Eighty-eights” and “Keep moving, men, keep moving.” Miller had raised his head just enough to see Shane’s boots sprawled in the dirt ahead of him, and to touch them with his fingers. When the boots moved, he would move too. The next one was much louder—Slam!—and Miller felt something clink on his helmet and spatter across his back. From across the road there was a tremulous, almost apologetic voice: “Medic? Medic?”

  “Where? Where are ya?”

  “Over here, here he is.”

  “Keep moving, men.”

  Shane’s boots moved and Miller followed, scrambling to his feet and running crouched over, rifle in one hand and spool in the other. At the next fluttering rush Shane and Miller both hit the dirt in time—Slam!—and then they got up quickly and ran again. Everybody was running now. Across the road a new voice broke from baritone to wild falsetto: “Oh-oh-oh! Oh! Oh! The blood’s coming out it’s coming out it’s coming out it’s coming out!”

  “Quiet!”

  “Shut that bastard up!”

  “S’coming out! S’coming OUT!”

  “Where? Where are ya?”

  “Keep moving, men. Keep moving.”

  Shane’s back ran on in the darkness, swerved to the right, up onto the bald surface of the road again, and then went straight ahead, faster. Miller lost it, ran faster and found it. But was it the same back? Wasn’t this one too tall? There was another fluttering rush, the back sprawled out on the road and Miller fell beside it—Slam!—and then he grabbed its shoulder. “Shane?”

  “Wrong man, Mac.”

  Miller started to run again. At the next rush of air he ducked convulsively without changing his stride—Slam!—and went on running. “Shane? Shane?” He slowed down to keep in step with a short figure—a lieutenant, he saw by the white smear on the helmet—who was jogging along calling, “Keep moving, men,” over his shoulder. With absurd politeness he said, “Pardon me, sir, can you tell me where the wire crew is?” “I’m afraid not, soldier. Sorry.” At least the lieutenant, too, was rattled enough to be absurdly polite. “Keep moving, men.”

  Miller pulled ahead of him, then cut out across the road. At the top of the road’s crown there was another fluttering rush, and he dove for the other side like a ballplayer sliding home, just in time—Slam! A figure lay prone in the ditch. “Hey Mac, you seen the wire squad?” There was no answer. “Hey Mac—” Still no answer; dead, maybe, or maybe just scared half to death. Miller ran again, and it wasn’t until much later that he thought:—or maybe wounded. My God, I should have stopped and felt his heart—called a medic. But he ran, back across the road again, only ducking for the shells now—Slam!—and sometimes not even ducking, thinking: my God, I’m brave—look at me, I’m on my feet and everybody else is falling down. He was sure he had never run so fast in his life. The road ended—turned right or something—and he ran with the crowd straight ahead, down a wide slope of muddy earth. The barrage was mostly behind him now, or seemed to be. Then there was the bridge, with men jostling and crowding—“Take it easy, you guys . . . take it easy”—and then the sudden cold shock of water up his legs. Just ahead of him a man fell headlong with a heavy splash and two or three others stopped to help him up. The shore was like the other shore at first, sloping mud, but then came a retaining wall, stone or concrete, fifteen or twenty feet high in the darkness. Somebody muttered, “Ladders . . . ladders,” and Miller, groping, found the dark wooden rungs against the wall. He slung his rifle and clumsily thrust the other arm through the spool’s carrying wire, to free both hands, and then he began to climb, vaguely aware of other ladders on either side of him and other men climbing them. A boot stepped on his fingers and he felt the squirm of other fingers under his own boot. The rungs ended short of the top and there was an instant of wild teetering without a handhold until a pair of arms reached down to help him up. “Thanks,” he said, kneeling on the edge of the embankment, and the man ran off. Miller turned back and reached down to grab the next man’s hands, and the next man said, “Thanks.” All along the top of the embankment there was a babble of voices, excited, out of breath: “. . . this way . . .” “. . . which way? . . .” “. . . over here . . .” “. . . where the hell do we go now? . . .” They were in a plowed field; the uneven earth gave like soft sponge under Miller’s boots. He followed the sounds and shadows into the field, running again, while the shells rushed over his head to explode well behind him—Slam . . . Slam . . . Slam . . .—back on the other side of the canal. And it was there in the field that Wilson’s voice said, “Miller? That you?”

  “Wilson? Jesus, thank God!”

  “Where the hellya been?”

  “Where’ve I been—my God, I’ve been looking all over hell for you!”

  “Keep your voice down. Got your spool?”

  “Sure I’ve got it.”

  “Hang on to it. And for Christ’s sake stay with us this time. Come on.”

  “So what happened,” Tom Brace said, “after you got to the other side?”

  Miller closed his eyes and passed his hand over them. “Well,” he said, “after we climbed the retaining wall we were in a plowed field.”

  “Retaining wall? You mean you had a goddamn wall to climb? We didn’t have anything like that down where we were.”

  “Well it wasn’t bad,” Miller said, “because there were these ladders running up the face of it.”

  Brace frowned, picturing it. “Ladders? Seems funny the Jerries wouldn’t’ve knocked them down, though, doesn’t it?” he said. “Couldn’t they have been something your own people put up?”

  “Well I guess they could have been, at that, now that I think of it,” Miller said. “I’m afraid I just don’t remember.” Uncertain about the bridge; uncertain about the ladders—this was quite a night for uncertainties. “Anyway,” he went on, “we went across this big plowed field, and as I remember it we didn’t run into any more trouble until we got to this little to
wn that was our objective for the night, on the other side of the field. There was some small-arms fire there, more or less of a rearguard action, I guess.”

  “I see,” Brace said.

  “But as I said, all my squad had to worry about was those spools of wire; after that we had nothing to do but find a place to goof off.”

  In the first thin blue of daylight they were crouched in the shelter of a wall, listening to the stutter of machine guns down the street and waiting to be dismissed from the wire detail. That was when Wilson said, “Kavic wants to see you, Miller,” and Miller scuttled up to the place where Kavic sat waiting against the wall, his face gaunt with fatigue, his helmet cocked rakishly on his thin skull.

  “Miller, what the hell happened to you back there on the canal?”

  “I lost sight of Shane during the shelling.”

  “Well why’n the name of Christ can’t you keep up?”

  “It wasn’t a question of keeping up, Kavic, I—”

  “All right, never mind all that, Miller. I’ll put it this way: you give me more goddamn trouble than all the rest of the men in this squad put together. You’re more goddamn trouble than you’re worth. You got an answer for that?”

  “As I remember it,” he told Tom Brace, “we found an empty house and went to sleep in it. Slept for about twenty-four straight hours, except for taking turns standing guard, and when we woke up the town was all cleared. It was the Battalion CP and our own company was a couple miles up the road.”

  “I see,” Brace said.

  “Here you are, gentlemen,” Nancy Brace called. “On the house.” She was bringing a tray with four martinis on it.

  “Good deal,” Brace said. “Thanks a lot, honey.”

  Miller drank greedily, hoping to put the image of Kavic back where it belonged.

  “Did I miss the best part of the story?” Nancy asked.

  “Oh, there wasn’t any story, as usual,” Betty said. “It seems my husband went to sleep for twenty-four straight hours.” She put her pretty lips to the glass and took a sip. Then she said brightly, “But what happened to you on that canal, Tom? The last we heard from you was where you were bobbing around in a boat, getting shot at. Don’t tell me you went to sleep.”