There Should Have Been Castles
Page 21
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you tell me more?”
“Yes, sir. Holdoffer was a prick and a sadist.”
McArdle let it go, didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “I can’t speak with Sergeant Kuyper until counsel is arranged for him. As you know, he’s charged with homicide.”
“He should be given a medal.”
“Why did he kill Holdoffer?”
“Ask Holdoffer.”
“I want you to be informal—not insulting.”
“Then ask Kuyper.”
“I intend to. But right now I’m asking you.”
“He had his reasons. Someone was going to kill Holdoffer sooner or later. Johnny and I were on our way to do it. Kuyper got there first.”
“You’re lucky.”
“No, sir. It would have been a privilege.”
“Kuyper’s in deep trouble. He’s the one man whose fate is sealed. I’m trying to find out who else is guilty.”
“The following people are guilty: Colonel Cranston, Lieutenant Colonel Beakins, Lieutenant Collings, Captain Mackie, Sergeant Holdoffer—dig him up and shoot him. You’re guilty. The Army’s guilty. And I’m guilty.”
“Let’s take ’em one at a time, shall we?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why is Colonel Cranston guilty?”
“Because he sent us out without an officer.”
“Lieutenant Collings was supposed to have been there.”
“He wasn’t. It was Cranston’s responsibility to see to it that he was. Cranston is Holdoffer’s uncle and—”
McArdle broke in. He didn’t want to tangle with that one. “Why is Lieutenant Colonel Beakins guilty?”
“Because he’s an ass and has no business commanding men.”
“And Captain Mackie?”
“Because he doesn’t like to get his pants dirty, can’t speak English, and wouldn’t listen when I told him that the left stanchion of the machine gun brace was sinking in the mud.”
“Was it?”
“Yes. I told Holdoffer and I told Mackie.”
“And they did nothing about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Who else knew about the stanchion?”
“Johnny Munez, myself, and Tony Wesso.”
“Nobody else knew?”
“Nobody.”
“Mackie will deny it.”
“I know.”
“Okay. Next you said—Holdoffer. We can skip him.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, he’s dead.”
“Hitler’s dead. Should we skip him?”
He sighed. “Let’s not get into political science.”
“Holdoffer got himself a hero’s funeral. His name’s going on a plaque alongside the names of a lot of men who deserve better company.”
“Webber, there is nothing to be gained by—”
“Then why didn’t we allow them to put up a plaque for Hitler?”
“I understand your feelings. I may even agree with them, but I want to get on with this investigation, not Hitler’s, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You say I’m guilty.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because of the way you’re handling this.”
“Care to enlarge on that?”
“Yes, sir. You’re concerned with procedures and legalities and technicalities. You’re not concerned with morality. You’re seeing things through ‘Army-colored glasses.’ Five men are dead and you’re not trying to figure out why, you’re trying to figure out who. Hell, you can figure out who everytime it happens. But if you’d try to figure out why—just once—it might never happen again.”
“You also said you were guilty. Why are you guilty?”
“Because I accepted it.”
“Accepted what?”
“Everything. I accepted being drafted. I accepted the indignities of having to take orders from people who couldn’t properly order around chickens. I accepted the existence of sadists and jugheads in positions of authority. I accepted the nepotism that allowed a man like Holdoffer to get a master sergeant’s stripes. I accepted treatment in the Army that outside the Army I wouldn’t put up with for five seconds.”
“Like what?”
“Like a man freezing to death for no reason.”
“Sergeant Deyo?”
“Sergeant Deyo and whoever else has frozen to death up here and gotten himself buried and had a bugle blown over him—after which everybody went out for a beer.”
“All right, Webber, tell me, if it were up to you where would you fix the blame? How would you proceed? What would you do if you were me?”
“I’d blow my brains out.”
“That’s something that has never occurred to me.”
“Take off your glasses and it’ll occur to you.”
Under the circumstances, he was more tolerant of me than I had a right to expect. “You’re a very bright young man. You speak very well. You make a lot of sense.”
“Yes, sir.”
“From now on it is not necessary that you interrupt me when I’m talking. I just want you to listen. I don’t want to hear your voice until I ask you a specific question. Understood?”
I nodded my understanding.
“You’re a very singular man. Being singular is great. It’s a great trait—in the outside world. But, in the Army it’s catastrophic. If every man in the Army was like you, we’d have no country—because, in a war, we’d have no Army, no men willing to take orders—blindly, if need be. All we’d have would be a lot of individualists, who in situations of stress would take off in a million different directions because their ‘consciences’ would dictate that they do so. We’d be like China used to be: millions upon millions of people, going their own way, contributing nothing to the nation, accomplishing nothing for themselves. Believe me, now that the day has come that the Chinese take orders from a central authority, China is a force to be reckoned with. Do you agree?”
“I don’t know, sir. That’s political science.”
“Go easy on the sarcasm, fella. I’m beginning not to appreciate it.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Any more than I appreciate your ‘Draftee of the Week’ program.”
“I didn’t originate that, sir.”
“No, but you perfected it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If I were to call every draftee on this post into this office, one at a time, if I were to tell each of them, in private, that if he wanted to he could go home and never have to come back, how many of them do you think would take me up on it?”
“All of them.”
“Exactly. Now then, if I were to have them assemble, all of them, on the parade grounds, shoulder-to-shoulder, in uniform, with division flags flying and the band playing, and I were to make them the same offer, over a loudspeaker, how many do you think would take me up on it?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“None. Believe me, Webber. None would do it. They’d either feel ashamed that they’d look like cowards or be afraid that it was a trick…but they just wouldn’t do it. They’d just hold their ranks, no one daring to be the first man to bug out. And that is what the Army is all about. We want to destroy your individuality. We must shave your heads, and dress you in olive drab, and rub your noses in shit collectively because it’s the only way in which we can maintain an army. You call it dehumanizing, we call it mobilizing. We’re at war—it’s a sticky war, undeclared, no one really cares for it. We wouldn’t have a chance in it if we couldn’t take a million free thinking individualists and turn them into an unquestioning mass of willing servility. Yes, we’ll make mistakes. Yes, we’ll put the wrong men in charge from time to time. Yes, that will happen. But over the long haul we’ll hammer out an Army in which the best men will be recognized, and through which our country will be properly represented in battle. Is any of this getting through to you, Webber?”
“Yes
, sir. The philosophy is. I understand why you’re doing it. I just don’t happen to care for it.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
He picked up a folder from his desk. I recognized it. It was my folder again. My 201 file. “You know what this is, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s pretty up-to-date. A lot of unflattering things—and yet, you recently made PFC. How’d that happen?”
“I duped Holdoffer.”
He didn’t want to play with that one, so he continued to make whatever point he was making. “There’s a letter in here. It’s written by Captain Grace, your former company commander. May I read it to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
McArdle read the letter:
Private Benjamin Webber is a very intelligent young man with undeniable leadership potential. Unfortunately, that potential will never be realized in the Army—not for lack of opportunity, but for limitations in the man’s makeup. He cannot really be trusted to give an order because he cannot properly accept one. He would have been fine serving with George Armstrong Custer but in today’s Army, never. He is intuitive and candid, but often to his own detriment. I attach this memo to his 201 file because he and I had been discussing the prospect of his going to Officer Candidate School. I feel that, as much as I like the young man, if asked I would disapprove of his officer candidacy. He is too much the individual and not enough the team man. As an officer, in my opinion, he would be a disaster.
“And it’s signed, Francis Grace, Captain, US Army.”
McArdle put the letter back into my file. “Do you agree with his evaluation of you?”
“Totally.”
“Think you’d make a lousy officer?”
“The worst.”
“Worse than you are an enlisted man?”
“Ten times worse.”
He wasn’t smiling. He was no longer the casual inquisitor. He was the cryptic judgment-passer. “Webber, the infiltration course incident will be settled with or without your assistance or approval. Responsibilities will be fixed and punishments will be set. Even before you came in here I had a small buzz on how it all happened and what would have to be done to see that it never happens again.” He laid into that last phrase, for my benefit.
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn’t think you’d be terribly helpful because that doesn’t seem to be your style. Nor did I think you had any idea as to how much you might have contributed to this tragedy. And I was right. You don’t.”
“No, sir. I don’t.”
“There’s no place for you in the Army, Webber. You’re a square peg and all we’ve got are round holes. Wherever we put you, you’ll make trouble. And the worst part is that you won’t even know you’re doing it. Colonel Cranston informed me of how you continually baited Holdoffer. Lieutenant Colonel Beakins knew all about your Draftee of the Week program. Pissing in a canteen, Webber? Shitting in a boot?”
“I pissed but I didn’t shit, sir.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They may not be your idea of good commanding officers but they did know what was going on in their HQ company. And they did have you slated for a change in MOS number—944-Rifleman, going to the Far East Command as a replacement. Want to see it?”
“No, sir. I believe it.”
“I’d have approved it, too, except, after studying your record, it seemed to me that you were a good bet to be leading a battlefield revolt within ten minutes of reaching Korea.”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t think—”
“Shut up.” And he continued, angry but under rein, the fury of his words made all the more telling by the modulation of his voice. “If you had gotten to Holdoffer before Kuyper did, our worries would have been over. It would be your ass and not Kuyper’s. But no, no such luck. Kuyper’s in the stockade and you’re standing here and—just so’s you know how I feel about the pair of you—I think Kuyper’s a dozen times the soldier you are. So what if he’s a faggot. I wouldn’t care if he fucked trees. He’s a damned good man, as witness the fact that when the moment came he was the one who killed Holdoffer, not you. You never would have done it.”
“I think you’re wrong, sir.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
He went swiftly to what he had been, up till then, only dancing around. “There’s a thing we have in the Army now, we didn’t have it in World War II. It’s called Convenience of the Government. You familiar with it?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s very simple. It’s an honorable discharge in which the Army, in effect, apologizes for having drafted you. In which the Army states that though you’re not making it in the Army, there is no reason to believe that you cannot make it in civilian life. A lot of men function beautifully as civilians but fail as soldiers and have to be mustered out: malingerers, congenital AWOL’s, thieves, fools, cowards, malcontents. In World War II they were given ‘Section Eight’ discharges, which implied that they were mentally unfit. In too many cases that was too sweeping and unfair a designation, and those men suffered when they returned to civilian life because ‘Section Eight’ was stamped all over the papers that prospective employers asked to see. Well, we don’t do that anymore. Now we have ‘Convenience of the Government’ and it slots neatly between ‘Section Eight’ and ‘Honorable Discharge.’ And Webber, at the convenience of the government you’re going home. It’s not a decision I’ve come to lightly. If it were up to me personally, I’d ship your balls to China. But the Army tells me I can’t do that; that as an officer I have a responsibility to all my men, even to you; and that if I see you as unable to function as a soldier, yet do honestly believe that you can function as a civilian, I have to send you home—for your sake and for the sake of other soldiers whose lives you could easily jeopardize in an emergency situation.” He pushed a paper across his desk at me. “Read it. All you have to do is waive all claim on any Army-incurred disability that you may have—and then wave bye-bye. Wouldn’t you like that, Webber?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
His smile was riddled with contempt. “Hey, fella, I’m saying you can go home. Don’t you want to go home? Or do you think you’ll be embarrassed to tell your buddies that you and you alone out of the entire company are the only guy the Army can’t use? Well, you needn’t feel too ashamed. You’ll be in good company. Bedwetters, night-criers, masturbation artists, fainters, sneezers, hiccoughers, one testicle, two cocks, three assholes—there’s a whole bunch of things a man will do and say to get out of the Army. We don’t fight it anymore. Our feeling is that if a man will go to such extremes—if he is willing to wallow in such excrement and cause such conflict—we don’t want to keep him. He’s no good to us. There’s just no time to make him over, no time at all. All we want in the Army are two kinds of men: those who give orders and those who take them. Anybody not in one of those categories gets to go home, and with our apologies. All the freaks, degenerates, fakers, Philadelphia lawyers, agitators, fellow-travelers, college debaters, Draftees of the Week—we apologize to ’em and kick ’em out. You’re Limited Service, kid, knees, back, ears. Just tell your buddies they all went bad at once and that the Army put you in a bag, declared you dead, and sent you home.”
“I don’t think I can do that, sir.”
“Sign it, Webber. Because, if you don’t, we’ll toss you into the psycho ward a couple days, just for observation—and then when you go home, it’ll be as a Section Eight.”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“You behaved exactly as I knew you would, Webber. Exactly as your record indicated you would. The best thing I can do now to shore up the morale of the 42nd HQ Company and get it functioning, is to clear up this infiltration-course business by getting rid of those men responsible—directly, indirectly, obtusely or intellectually. And you’re one of them. We can’t use you, son. Sign the paper, accept our apologies, and get the fuck out of here.”
I discussed the matter with Johnny who thought I was nuts to not sign it before the Army changed its mind. I wasn’t sure. By signing it I’d be admitting to myself that everything that McArdle had said about me was true, and I didn’t want to believe that. Johnny, of course, ever the realist, said that the trick was to not believe and to sign it anyway. That way, I could eat my cake, still have it, and have enough left over to shove up the Army’s ass. The logic was irresistible. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to sign the form, somehow feeling that I would be less of a man from the point of signing on.
We were all allowed out that night, McArdle giving the whole HQ Company Saturday night and Sunday off. He was right to do it because it broke the tension and dispersed the group, dividing us into duets, trios and quartets, each going somewhere else. And no one was left hanging around the barracks to feel sad, angry, futile—or to go bananas.
Johnny and I headed for Leominster and Tiny’s Bar where we hoisted a half dozen beers to the memory of that stylish left-hander, Tony Wesso. We cried on each other’s shoulder, reminisced, joked, and puked. And rolled into Camp at an hour so ungodly that no clock would give us the right time. Just before falling into a sleep that more nearly resembled a trance, I signed the Convenience of the Government form, congratulated myself on my pragmatism, cursed myself for my lack of character, and accepted myself for what I was: an incomplete, befuddled, befouled young man whose buddy was in a fresh grave but whose cock was twitching like a metronome at the thought of the next day with Mrs. Barringer.
I sat in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, watching people skim by who were so far removed from where I was at the time, who were so deep into the pleasantries of civilian life, that it actually jolted me to hear them speaking English. For English had become for me, by then, a rude language in which every third word was a profanity, and to realize that people could truly make themselves understood without a “fuck” or a “shit” to get them over the rough spots was, frankly, an astonishing rediscovery.