Shrapnel

by William Wharton

  He’s older than any of the company officers, including the new CO, by far. Probably in his late thirties, he seems like an old man to us. He just keeps his mouth shut, does whatever he’s told, no matter what, even things he doesn’t have to do, like mop the barracks floor every morning before reveille. And nobody knows arm regulations, word and verse, as Hunt does. I’m convinced something bad is coming.

  It doesn’t take long. He somehow manages to be transferred to ‘C’ Company. Then, nobody ever went up through the ranks the way Hunt does. He stitches each new rank on with big loose stitches until he’s finally back to three up, three down, with the diamond of a Master Sergeant. These he stitches on tightly.

  Starting right then, he begins arranging transfers from Headquarters to C Company of about twenty non-coms and PFCs. These twenty are those who had given him the worst time. We all go down to look at the bulletin board every morning with dread. We never hear from any of those soldiers again except to see their names on the demotions list, if they had any rank. He wears them down, one at a time. Since then, I’ve harboured a fear of big, smiling, fat, southerners. It’s a form of personal bigotry.

  WATER

  At Fort Jackson, the last part of our training is a series of thirty-mile ‘water hikes’. We hike thirty miles in one day, camp overnight, then come back thirty miles the next. We do this on one canteen of water, so we go sixty miles on a quart of water, which isn’t much, because it’s hot and humid.

  Right away, a friend of mine, named Pete, decides he’s going into business. He solders, or tapes together, three number ten cans with the bottoms and tops cut off of them; I don’t know how he does it, but he does. He even builds in a small plug. I watch him do this after field duties, in the dark, and I begin to think he’s going crazy.

  We normally carry a full field pack on those hikes, along with our M1s, ammo and bandoleers. The rest of the pack is our mess kit, blankets wrapped around a tent, a tent pole, tent pegs and underwear. We carry it vertically sticking up higher than our heads, and it weighs about sixty pounds with everything in it.

  Now Pete has several gallons of water in his contraption, but no shelter half, no blankets, no tent pole, no tent pegs. I know a cubic foot of water weighs about seventy pounds, so it’s heavy. When we go out on the hike, he straps his water on his back. I admit, it looks like a regular field pack.

  At the end of the hike, at the bivouac, everyone is dying of thirst. It’s very difficult not to drink water on the way, and there’s no water out there. The officers make the trip in jeeps, blowing dust in our faces as they go by with Jerry cans full of water. The idea is for us to fill up with as much water as we can before we start, then keep our water drinking down. But everyone is perspiring and urinating, so we’re lucky if we can save half a canteen for the night and the next day.

  My mouth starts sticking to itself, my tongue to the top of my mouth, my teeth to my lips, my lips to each other. After a few hours our tongues are hanging out of our mouths.

  Pete starts charging two dollars for a canteen cup half full of water. He must have twenty canteens full in that pack, which is a lot of money. But he winds up with no shelter half, no blankets, no tent pole, no tent pegs. He has no place to sleep.

  Luckily for him, it’s a hot night and he camps out behind my tent. We pile a bunch of brush and pine needles around him so nobody will see him.

  Now, the way you build a tent in the army is this. Each GI carries a half tent called a shelter half. Then two GIs get together, button the shelter halves together, and using two tent poles and all the tent pegs, have enough for a tent. Pete’s tent buddy, who isn’t in on the water ploy at all, has half a tent. All he can do is hide, along with Pete, trying to sleep under his shelter half. He definitely isn’t happy about this whole shenanigan.

  But Pete pulls this nutty thing off. He divvies the water out until he has over forty dollars. He gives five of this to his deprived tent mate to shut him up. But he makes one mistake, he forgets to save any water for himself. However, this looks good in terms of his alibi if he needs one. He’s as thirsty, or thirstier, than any of us. He’s almost outfoxed himself. The good thing is that his full field pack is empty and doesn’t weigh more than ten pounds on the way back. But Pete’s problem is he likes to gamble. Within a week, he loses his thirty-five dollars, plus a bit more.

  Of course, something like this can’t be kept quiet; the whole squad thinks it’s so incredible. The platoon leader finds out and calls Pete in. He asks if he’s really done it. Pete denies everything and insists somebody made it up. He shows he has no money, and by this time, he’s gotten rid of the cans. There’s no evidence whatsoever.

  I’m sure the officers think it’s a pretty good scam, too, because no one ever does persecute or prosecute Pete, or even try to make his life miserable. But they check everybody’s full field pack after that. From then on, our ‘water marches’ are for real.

  3. SHIPPING OUT

  DOCTOR SMET

  Well, finally we’re getting ready to ship out. We’ve been prepared for sixteen months now, to go to the South Pacific. We’ve been doing mock beach landings, jungle survival and those water marches. They issue special equipment and uniforms for fighting in the South Pacific. That’s a place we don’t want to go.

  Then, at the last minute, we’re issued new equipment. Overcoats, galoshes, wool knit caps, olive drab long johns with trap doors. After a long train trip with the blinds down, we’re packed into the biggest damned boat I’ve ever seen in my life. Going up the gangplank it looks like a wall with round windows. It turns out it is the biggest ship in the world at that time – the Queen Elizabeth. We dash across the Atlantic at twenty-three knots per hour in five days, without escort. We’re supposed to be faster than submarines can shoot or something like that. But I doubt it, I rarely take my life jacket off. There are fifteen thousand of us packed into that ship, most of us are seasick after the first day. I spend as much time as possible floating in an old bathtub I find. The water sloshes over the sides with each lurch, but I stay more or less steady, waterlogged but not sick. Simple physics.

  Eight of us pack a tiny third class cabin built for two. The mess lines are so long, one can just finish one meal in time to stand in line for the next, but most of us aren’t into eating much anyway.

  We land in Scotland, and are then shunted from train to train. European trains, all darkened, shades drawn, with little cabins, chock full, smothering in full field packs and new uniforms. Finally, in the middle of the night, we arrive at what had been an old textile mill in the town. We’re supposed to be hidden here, for who knows how long. But this is impossible. You can’t really hide a whole division and there’s division after division hidden all over England waiting for the big moment.

  We’re virtual prisoners in that smelly mill. Then somebody finds out that a black transportation unit had stayed in this mill just before us. So, without asking anybody, the goofy southern crackers throw all the mattresses out the window, into the courtyard, and burn them. After that, we sleep on the woven canvas straps of the bunks. Max Corbeil would have felt right at home.

  One day I’m picked for a detail moving officers’ footlockers out of some trucks. I don’t know what these officers store in these footlockers, but they’re heavy enough for dead bodies. There are too many officers and not enough enlisted men in a Regimental Headquarters Company.

  Pushing a heavy one up onto a truck, I really hurt myself. I’m sure I have a hernia, I hope I have a hernia. I’m transported to a hospital in a civilian ambulance. It turns out what I’ve done is develop a varicocele. I don’t know what it is, but hope it’s serious. It turns out to be a varicose vein in one of my testicles. It’s tender and I can feel it, like little worms, but it’s not what the doctors call ‘disabling’. We’re within weeks of the big move, nobody knows anything for sure, and if they do, they’re not telling.

  I spend as much time as possible complaining, writhing, moaning, groaning. They give me a lit
tle canvas bag to wear on my balls. It’s like a cross between a G-string and a jock strap. They even give me an extra for when one gets too smelly. Two days later a doctor stands at the foot of my bed. He smiles.

  ‘I guess we ought to operate on this, but it’s not going to kill you and you won’t need to do any heavy lifting.’

  I can tell he’s never carried a full field pack or an officer’s footlocker.

  ‘You just stay in bed here and I’ll have you back to your outfit in no time. Don’t you worry about it.’

  He says this as if ‘getting back to my outfit’ is my fondest dream, like going home.

  After he leaves, I’m really in pain; mental anguish. This could have been the chance of a lifetime for me to stay in England, practically like a civilian for the whole damned war.

  My prime qualification is as rifleman. That’s the worst MOS you can have. The second worst is scout, that’s my second MOS, but my third is typist. I’d learned to type in high school and had gotten a good score on the army typing test. It’s my ace in the hole, a deep hole, unfortunately probably a foxhole. I know that if the outfit leaves without me, they’d need me in England. I’ll volunteer to type out forms, or maybe some Major’s personal war novel. Anything. My fingers itch to type.

  The next time Doctor Smet comes around I’m curled up in agony out of habit more than anything; but he’s written off that varicocele. Yes sir, he’s going to do me a big favour and get me back to my outfit. He’s my friend. He’s going to save me from that nasty operation. I think he expects me to kiss his hand.

  But now, of all things, he becomes interested in my right foot. I’ve always had a bump sticking out on the back of my right heel, since I was a kid. Whenever I buy new shoes I develop a blister there. It’s one of those things you learn to live with. He probes it with a finger, then a needle. He tries jiggling it back and forth. He keeps asking me if it hurts and I yowl. Tears come to my eyes. He writes on his little clipboard.

  He brings another doctor over to look at it. I scream some more, pretending to be brave. He tells me I have what’s called a calcaneus spur. He asks me if it hurts when I walk.

  ’Well, yes Sir, it does. It gets all red and swells up on marches and I have blisters it’s so sore.’

  He writes some more on his clipboard. Maybe I have a second shot at England.

  I’m in the hospital four more days. Every time I have a chance, and nobody’s looking, I bang that calcaneus spur on the metal siding of the bed. I start limping when I go to the bathroom. It begins to hurt so much I need to limp. I stay awake and moan at night a lot. The nurses give me aspirins to shut me up.

  The next day, Doctor Smet comes around with another doctor. This one seems to be a specialist. He turns me on my stomach, bends my knee up, twists my ankle in all directions and starts hitting the back of my foot with a little rubber hammer.

  Of course, I’m screaming, howling, the whole time. I don’t need to fake it much because with all my thumping on the bed, that foot’s practically a piece of hamburger meat. The two doctors step back from the bed, ‘consultation time’ I figure. Maybe they’ll decide to discharge me, give me a medical discharge. I’ll have a disability pension. The second doctor comes up to the side of the bed. He has his clipboard at his side.

  ‘You’re in Headquarters Company, Regimental Headquarters, isn’t that right Soldier?’

  ‘Yes sir, I&R.’

  ‘Well, you won’t need to march much then. Just take care of that foot.’ He writes on the clipboard. He looks down at me and winks. Doctors, especially military doctors, should never wink.

  ‘I’m assigning you back to duty. The nurse will give you some Band-Aids for that foot. Nice try.’

  And so the future painter, engineer, teacher, psychologist, writer is condemned to death, with a wink!

  NEED A BODY CRY

  When I come back to our mattress-less mill, I flop out on the canvas strap bed, trying to get it into my mind that I’m still in the army, the same army. All I have to show for my medical malingering is two dinky ‘ball holders’ and a sore Band-Aided foot. It isn’t an hour later when Diffendorf, our balding mail orderly, comes in. He’s the one who first announced to me the happy fact that I would be balder than he is before I reach thirty. Perhaps it was a classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyway, from then on, I’m aware of my constantly expanding forehead. I now have a forehead that goes practically all the way down the back of my neck, a fore and aft affair.

  This time Diffendorf gleefully announces to me that the regimental S2, Major Love, wants to see me, and on the double.

  I change shirts, check buttons, brush the fronts of my new combat boots on the back of my pants. This is just dumb habit. The boots are clean, and the shiny leather is inside, the outside is rough like suede, ‘All the better to absorb water with, my dear.’ Blotter boots.

  I hustle up the street of this small English town called Biddulph in the middle of the Midlands of nowhere. The S2 has his headquarters in the city hall. It’s one of the few buildings in town that still has the ornamental iron fence in front of it. All other gates, fences, grilles have been ripped out and contributed to the war effort, melted down and turned into shrapnel, I suppose. I dash past the sentry at the ornamental gate. His name is Thompson, he plays trumpet in the regimental band. As I dash by, he tries to hide a cigarette.

  Inside, Taylor, Love’s assistant, is sitting at a desk. I salute; go through the whole military routine.

  ‘PFC Wharton we think we have an assignment for you.’

  ‘Yes Sir.’

  We’re playing the whole thing out. He reaches down into a drawer and pulls out a portfolio filled with papers and plastic overlays.

  ‘I understand you had top marks in map reading and map making back at Jackson.’

  He smiles at me and lights a cigarette. Damn, I’m still at attention, he hasn’t even put me at ease. I wonder if I should just go into ‘at ease’ by myself. This jerk probably wouldn’t even notice. Then again, maybe he’s got a message from that bone doctor at the hospital and he’s about to pull some kind of wild bamboozle on me. I keep my mouth shut. I stay at attention. He must have read my mind.

  ‘At ease, Soldier.’

  I slump appropriately.

  ’Major Love feels we ought to have a map of this town and the surrounding territory. It’s good military procedure to be prepared. One never knows. Those Nazis are capable of anything, look at that guy Hess who practically jumped down the queen’s chimney. He had to give himself up; these Limeys could never have caught him.’

  I don’t say anything. To be honest, I don’t even know about Hess. I’m not very political. This war to me is something like whooping cough or measles you try to get through, or maybe more like chicken pox where you aren’t supposed to scratch or you’ll have big craters all over your face and body. I’m trying my damnedest not to scratch.

  He reaches across the desk and hands me the portfolio. This is about to be one of the weirdest things to happen to me so far. Little did I know how weird things can get in the army. I can feel it in my bones, especially in that calcaneus spur. Does he expect me to go out and make little drawings of all the houses in town? I tuck the folder under my arm and come to attention again, half way.

  ‘What we need is a complete map showing locations of all buildings, and what they’re being used for. Indicate the mills we’re living in as barracks, show where the motor pool is located. Get in all the important roads and even the little paths. Show the distance from one place to another in yards. Try to do the whole thing to scale. If there are some details, make detailed maps of those parts. If possible, indicate the topography with elevations. You can work out the scale, too, but be sure to have a legend so the Major can quickly have an idea of the terrain. I’ve taken you off all other duties and here’s a pass to get you around town without any trouble. Try to make yourself as inconspicuous as possible. If you need a map table, you can get one from supply, also anything else you
might need.

  ‘You got all that?’

  I hardly know what he’s talking about. However, having a pass to go anywhere I want to in town without being locked inside that mill is just fine with me. I nod vigorously.

  ’Yes Sir. I’ll do my best.’

  He salutes and I whip him back a good one and spin on my heels with the portfolio under my arm. I’m going to need some pencils and drawing pens but I don’t want to screw anything up.

  I stop outside at the orderly’s desk and he has the pass. He also lets me have two 2B drawing pencils and, after some convincing, a black fountain pen. I figure I’ll stroll around town and look for any kind of a stationery store with a real drawing pen and some India ink. I’ll also need a ruler and maybe a T square. I’m deep into the map making business.

  More than that, I’m now practically a tourist. I stroll up the hill to look at the town church, it’s something I’ve wanted to see. On the way, two MPs jump out of doorways and start hassling me. I show them my magic pass and do everything but salute. I could be a Nazi spy who just counterfeited that pass and I’ll bet those idiots’d let me by anyway.

  Maybe Williams is right, nobody’s doing much of a great job running this war. Hey, maybe I can do all these drawings and sell them to the Germans. They might give me a German discharge in exchange. I could work on my German, disappear in the Alps somewhere and nobody would know the difference. No, they’d get me. With my luck, some hot-shot American skier would discover me in my little hut on the side of the hill and turn me in.

  The church door is locked, but just down the hill on the other side is a little combination newspaper stand and stationery shop. There’s an old lady and a very pretty girl running it. As I move toward the pretty one, the old one blocks my way. She’s surprised to see a soldier walking around in broad daylight. All these people must know we’re here but there’s some kind of agreement that we’ll all pretend we don’t see or know anything.