Toby. Mama. That night. It is all I could think of.
I didn’t do it anymore after the first time, but it makes me want to die every single time they pop those guns off over our heads. There is smoke and bright flashes, and it’s like we are out running in the fires of hell. It works my nerves to hear all that noise, but Staff Sergeant Hill says a battle would be much, much worse, so we carry on, and we don’t let her hear us complain. I get used to filth and dust and dirt, sweat and grime and splinters, and I do myself proud, keeping my mouth closed when one of them smoke bombs goes off next to me. Can’t nothing scare me. I got muscles in my arms and legs now something fierce.
When Staff Sergeant Bothwell takes us out on long marches, he gives the order, “Cover!” and we got to fall in ditches, then hop out again quick when he give the signal and form up again at a run. Gloria Madden was in the same ditch as me and Dovey one morning, and she ducked her head down, whispering, “You girls can’t hide here. We’re too full.” Dovey and me didn’t pay her no mind. There were five of us in there, and we fit just fine. Miss Gloria Madden with her little airs and graces doesn’t bother me none at all. Only thing that set me back one time was there was a rat in one of those ditches. Dovey and me both jumped up screaming that time. Lord Jesus, don’t make me lie down in the dirt with no rats on me.
One morning out to the training field, they say we’re going to learn to climb ropes.
“Ropes?” Ruby looks at the tangled-up snarl, all confused. “This isn’t rope like at school, Sarge. I could climb ropes at school. What kind of ropes are these?”
“Actually”—Staff Sergeant Hill pushes the edge nearest her with her foot—“this is a cargo net. If ever you are required to get aboard ship where there is no dock, you must be able to board a ship by way of the cargo net. Now climb, ladies. Go!”
It is a hard drill. First we climb the rope net, then we climb a rope with knots in it. I can hardly stand the burning pain in my arms. We hang there until we either fall or make it to the top. Lieutenant Hundley says we have lots of time to practice this one because some of us will be doing it every day.
She smiles when she say that.
We come away from ropes drill every day so tired that it is all we can do to keep up doing the double-time Lieutenant Hundley has us marching back to barracks. When she dismisses us, we break and run for the drinking fountains. We line up behind each other, hot and tired and ready to head to the mess hall for supper.
“I hear we got surprise drill,” Charline Spencer say, leaning against the girl in front of her. “Ina White heard it from Doris, who heard it from the supply sergeant. They’re gearing up to take us on a night run.”
We all groan. I’m so beat I can’t see how I’m going to make it. Gloria Madden is in front of me, taking her time drinking from the fountain. “Leave some for the rest of us,” somebody say, and everybody laughs.
I’m so tired I want to lie down. And then I realize we are lined up behind Gloria, and the whites-only fountain is free. Didn’t anybody even think to use it.
Would it really change something if I stepped over to take a drink? Does it taste better? I chew my lip and look over my shoulder at the girls behind me. I take a breath….
I move fast, before anyone can say a word. I bend and suck down sweet water, splashing cool wetness across my cheeks and over my teeth and tongue. I am hot and thirsty, and water when I’m thirsty is good. I don’t care what the sign above it says. As soon as I have my drink, I stand up and move aside, looking at the others.
A few girls behind me cluster over to the fountain. Some of them are still skittish and take a look behind them before they bend to drink. Others wait, all nerves, for Gloria to finish, staying safely in the colored line. One of those girls is Ruby, and I wave to her as I pass.
“Make sure to get to bed early for the night drill, huh?”
Ruby looks away from me.
“Hey, girl.” I pause my steps and look at her closely. “What’s the matter?”
“I can’t do it, Marey,” Ruby says, her voice low. “When I was home, I saw a girl get beat down bloody for less than using the wrong fountain. I just can’t.”
“I only did it ’cause I was thirsty,” I tell her. “Can’t anybody call me an anti-segregationist or anything like that. You don’t have to do it, Ruby.”
Ruby looks down at her boots. “I’m just not brave like y’all are,” she mumbles.
“You are brave just fine,” I tell her, and stand with her in the colored line until she gets her drink.
We walk to mess together in gut-tight silence. Ruby Bowie is in my team, in my squad. I am downright ashamed that Ruby feels like she is less than me. I hate that these folks put up signs to remind us to keep our place. Whites only. Like they the only ones in the U.S. of A.
Lieutenant Hundley told us that we are to be sure not to do anything to cause comment, and already I am breaking the rules because they are wrong. And they are wrong, I know that. But Ruby being scared is wrong, too.
It’s a shame a body’s got to be brave these days just to get a drink of water.
16.
then
It is hard to believe, but while everybody is gossiping about where we’re going and where we’re shipping out to, December comes, and Christmas is on top of us before we know it. Our company gets together and puts on a show for the whole base. There is singing and dancing and skits. We all dress our parts, and Phillipa recites a Christmas poem, while I read the story from the book of Luke. Peaches says I have come a long way with my elocution.
Dovey sings “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” and, of course, that Gloria Madden has to do her one better by singing something new we heard on the radio, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” She sure has a pretty voice for being such a low-down snake. Our whole show gets written up nicely in the base newspaper, Special Delivery, and I am proud as a peacock that my reading voice is complimented. I clip out the story and think about sending it home to Mama, but I send it to Sister Dials instead, since sending it to her is as good as telling all the colored folks in Bay Slough.
Suddenly Christmas is on everybody’s mind. Of course, it means nothing to Lieutenant Hundley. She doesn’t play around about holiday decorations and says the Third Platoon had better not try to “deck the halls” with anything, or else we all have policing details for the rest of the month. Still, even Hundley can’t stay grouchy. When we sound off, she makes up marching songs about Santa Claus that get most of us laughing, even at 0530.
Though my heart is aching to, I don’t dare go see Feen. On base, I am safe from the likes of Mama, Aunt Shirley, and Miss Ida Payne and anyone else who might think to drag me off and send me home. Like everyone else with no place else to be, I go to the Christmas Eve service the chaplain gives, and there I see Lieutenant Hundley, singing the hymn. She wishes me a merry Christmas same as everyone, and she looks really nice in her dress uniform. I think she even wears a little rouge on her cheeks—which is almost against her precious regulations!
Most of us have a little bit of money set by, so for Christmas we treat each other to a few gifts from the PX and some things from town like a lipstick, a handkerchief, or some scent. Mostly, though, we trade movie magazines and get into the kitchen and do a little KP, hoping to talk the cook into letting us make more cookies or pies to share. It is a quiet Christmas, but it is just fine.
In quiet moments, I think of Feen and where we were last Christmas. I hope that she is happy. Doris got a camera, and my gift to Feen is a photograph of myself in uniform. Doris took it the day we came to Fort Oglethorpe.
I look a sight different than I did back home. I think I grew another inch or so, and I am wearing stockings, but the picture still shows the muscles in my legs. My arms are full of muscles, and with my hat on, I don’t hardly look like myself.
I look like Mama.
Soon as I realize that, the shakes hit me. Why won’t she write? How can Mama be like this to her own blood? Would she tre
at Feen like this? Would I ever be like this to a child of my own?
I have no answers. I put the picture in its paper frame, seal up my Christmas card, and take it to the post.
After a few days, folk start coming back from leave, and Dovey brings me back some “tipsy cake” from her auntie Bess. She tell me we’d better eat it while the liquor is still good. That cake smell like a still; they doused it with that sour mash whiskey and sugar. Ooh, Mama would’ve had a fit if she could have seen me! We did not dare let Lieutenant Hundley find us with food in our quarters. We ate it all at once, and boy, that cake was good, good, good.
New Year’s Day, we came back to the freezing cold barracks to hear Annie in her bunk crying like her heart had broken. She called home, and they told her one of the boys she grew up with is missing in action. His unit got shot down somewhere in Belgium, and they can’t find him. Annie was so torn up she couldn’t hardly breathe, and we all sat with her until Captain Ferguson came. Ferguson told her “missing” doesn’t mean “dead” and that Annie’s got to pull herself together and decide what she gonna do now.
Annie might go on home, and no shame to her, Cap says, but I sure hope she doesn’t go. I am used to all my girls, and I don’t want to think of doing without them. I pray Annie’s friend gets found so nothing has to change, but Annie’s tears are a reminder that this is serious all over again. The U.S. Army is fighting a war, and I am part of the U.S. Army.
Annie says she’s got to do her part and her place is here, but for a while, the Third Platoon is serious and quiet. For Annie’s sake, we work hard to get ready for whatever is coming.
Once again, we get gas masks and do gas drill every morning, only this time, we got to smell and say what kind of gas it is. By now, I know I can do it right, but my knees want to give out every time. Staff Sergeant Hill runs us through our paces most every day, and by now, even the rope climbing comes easier, although I sure hope nobody ever is after me to get somewhere quick trying to climb up a straight rope.
“Brown, can you do this?” I hear Lieutenant Hundley ask one morning when we come back from drill.
“Yes, ma’am,” Annie says, and she stands up straight, even though she cries in her pillow at night. She doesn’t think we hear her, but all of us know.
“You can go home,” Captain tells her. “You don’t have to go overseas. You have served your country.”
“This is where I need to be,” Annie tells Hundley, and that’s what she tells me every night when I hand her a cold cloth to wash her face. She says her prayers have to be prayed by her getting up and walking on her feet. She’s got plenty of praying getting done, as often as we’re on our feet here at Fort Oglethorpe.
The news is that the Soviets got back Warsaw. The Polish folks have been on the run from the Nazis for almost longer than anybody, and folks around here give a cheer when they hear it. With the Russians hitting ’em from the east and the Allies hitting ’em from the west by way of France, it can’t be no time at all before we run that Hitler and those Nazis out of town.
As I wait for Dovey to finish shining her shoes, I write some more to Feen:
January 17, 1945
Dear city sister, Miss Josey,
It is nice to get so many letters from you! I got two today!
Here at Fort Oglethorpe, there are no men at ALL, colored or_ white, not even officers, so you can tell Aunt Shirley AGAIN that she’s got her story wrong.
I told you before about my buddy Miss Ruby Bowie. Ruby is from Dallas, and she is so citified she can’t boil water! Don’t you forget what you know now, Philadelphia girl. I’d hate to have to come back for you and find out you are too citified to slop hogs!
After New Year’s, the girls in my squad decided to roast some chestnuts Ruby brought. Well, we put ’em on the heater, then forgot about them. Feen, you should have heard us hootin’ and hollerin’ like Sister Dials on Sunday when those things popped off of that heater! The chestnuts were good, though. Not like our pecans, but sweet—starchy like sweet potatoes and tasty. They left our fingers black from the ash, though. Someday I will buy you some.
I can’t tell you where I am going, but we are getting on a ship to go a ways away to free up more men to fight. I am not sure whether to be excited or scared, but I am in this man’s army, and I am prepared to do what I can. I will write more when I can tell you more.
Tell Sister Dials that I am still faithful and go to services every week. Don’t pay Auntie Shirley too much mind, but don’t give her any sass, either. If you hear from Mama again, tell her I am thinking of her. I know she is still put out with me, but don’t let that worry you.
Till we meet again, I am,
Your loving army sister,
Marey Lee Boylen
In the dead of night, we fall in at the signal, our coats pulled on over our pajamas. They give us orders, tell us to pack up to ship out. They been doing this to us too many nights, so it is like habit by now to roll out of bed, pack my footlocker and duffle up tight, and fall in. We don’t leave a thing in our barracks, not one toothbrush nor one tube of hand cream. We lock our footlockers, shoulder our packs, and then we march, fast.
But this time, it is not too long before we realize this is not no drill.
“Double-time!” Staff Sergeant Hill say, and we all but flat out run, our packs jouncing up and down on our backs. Down the road, through the big gates, in six lines of six across, an arm-long space apart. The sound of our feet is like rifle shots in the ice-cold air. We might be half asleep, but at least when we’re marching, we get warm.
I wake up hours later when the train stops. We are in Virginia and heading further north. There is not much time to rest or stretch out; the train only stops for a minute, and after this, they say it won’t stop anymore. Lieutenant Hundley passes out box kits, and we eat where we sit. It is long hours until we reach Camp Shanks, New York, and by then it is almost morning. The train is full of our smells from hours of riding, but it is still a shock to get off into the cold wind again.
We fall into formation and march in our wrinkled field uniforms to a ferry and onto a loading pier. The icy air off of that water cuts us sharp, and I stomp my feet down real good in that cold till my breath billows out like white clouds. I’m moving by habit, but I’m scared out my mind. I could be still in my bunk back at Oglethorpe, working in the kitchen or doing specialist training at motor transport school to drive around the commanders, generals, and all the other folks wearing brass medals. Why didn’t I stay?
My teeth chatter. I am cold and scared, but isn’t nothing I can do about it now. I take a deep breath, square up my shoulders, pray a little prayer that God bless Feen and Mama. Then I get on the boat. After all this time, I don’t aim to be left behind.
17.
now
The best blackberry pie I have ever had can be found at a truck stop somewhere in the back of beyond in southern Arizona off of Interstate 10. What’s even better than blackberry pie is having it for breakfast.
Mare is nursing black coffee and buttered toast, as if her stomach is still bothering her. She is buried in the newspaper, catching up on world news and probably reading “Dear Abby” like she’s done every morning of the trip so far.
“So, where were they sending you?” I ask when she emerges from her reading for a moment.
Mare sighs. “Girl, let me read my paper and eat your … pie,” she says, shaking her head and giving my breakfast an amused look.
I shrug and fork up another mouthful.
Mare doesn’t bother to make us eat anything in particular, and especially after the incident with the plums, she really has no room at all to complain about what we eat, which is why for breakfast this morning I opted for pie and ice cream. Tali is eating hash browns and slurping down a milk shake. If Mom were here, she’d say that someday eating like this is going to catch up to us, but today, I don’t care.
“More coffee?” The waitress hovers.
“Thank you.” Mare glances up as s
he turns the page. Her glasses make her eyes look huge and watery.
“Another milk shake for you, hon?” The waitress looks dubiously at my sister.
“No. I think I’d like a biscuit now. With honey butter.”
“All righty. And for you, miss? More pie?”
“Yes, please,” I say, blissfully licking my spoon. This is the best breakfast ever.
Last night, we got to the hotel early enough to have time for a nice shower and a decent meal. We drove away from the interstate to eat at a place with tablecloths and then walked through the town for a while as the cooling desert encouraged us to stretch our legs.
Ms. Crase would have loved observing someone else’s town. We saw flyers for the June Jamboree Play Day Tractor Pull and Car Show and a school with a big marquee in front that said Congratulations, Graduates and had Seniors! singed into the front lawn. We saw little kids trying to roller-skate on the sidewalk and whole families lined up at a hamburger joint, getting soft-serve ice cream, the little ones whining when their cones dripped. On a lawn in the middle of a sprinkler spray, a terrier lunged and barked at the bubbles in his wading pool.
It was kind of a surprise, but people looked the same to me as they do back home on a warm summer night—glad to be out and about, ready to say hello to their neighbors and enjoy a cool breeze. Most of the people we saw were even friendly enough to smile and nod at us as we walked by.
When we reached the town square, Mare was the first one to notice the tiny theater.
“Look at this,” she said, and dragged us toward a small building with a lit marquee. “A movie house.”
“That can’t have more than two screens,” Tali said, wiping her forehead. “Do you think they have AC?”
“Let’s go see.” Mare sounded like a little kid, and Tali looked at me and sighed.
“Mare, do we have to?” she groaned, but Mare bustled off ahead of us and peered through the tinted glass.
Mare's War Page 10
