Time, Jacob Levy thought, time, time. It would be a matter of days. Allright, how many days? It was better to know than to worry. Those poor bastardly replacements, he said to himself, and observed eight wooden-faced soldiers and two contemptuous sergeants working with light machine guns. Nothing the soldiers did pleased the sergeants, and they looked half frozen.
The replacements acted like they wanted to beg your pardon but at the same time they tried to seem tough. They were young was what, twenty or so, or maybe younger, and fresh from home. And they were all thinking the same thing: what’s it like? And they were all scared they’d be scared, when it started. And they all wished they were back in camp in the U.S.A., where they’d spent their whole time wishing they’d get going.
Ah stuff the replacements, Jacob Levy thought. If he could only dope out the Colonel now, that would make things easier. It was the uncertainty of it. He couldn’t figure where the Colonel stood with Dotty. Why didn’t they get themselves fixed up so you could say for sure they’d be dating every night? This way he couldn’t make his own plans, with the Colonel maybe liking Dotty, maybe not liking Dotty.
And there was no use kidding himself it was life’s young dream with Kathe; it had been rough last night. He couldn’t take it this way much longer. Last night he felt as if his body was full of hot wires, jumpy and hurting. There she was and there he was and nothing happened; a guy wasn’t made of stone. If he could talk to Kathe, maybe they could straighten it out. But what if he did look up some words in Sergeant Postalozzi’s dictionary, then what? Ask her, “what do you want to do?” How did Kathe know what she wanted? And he was afraid to start; he didn’t have any idea how virgins were. Kathe could get disgusted, or scared off, and she wouldn’t want any more to do with him.
His mother wrote him a letter today, when he had all this on his mind besides, and said: I keep hoping you’ll be home for Christmas. She couldn’t be so foolish as to think he, or anyone else, had a prayer of being home for Christmas. But he could imagine her, his good pretty little mother who didn’t look old at all, and who didn’t understand anything, and just baked some more cookies and boiled some more fudge and sent her son another package, because she didn’t know what else to do. It must be kind of tough on them too, sitting there in the house by themselves.
When did it start that he got so much to think about all of a sudden? Jacob Levy kicked at the thin crust of frost on the grass and thought: snow next. That’ll be fine to fight in, fine and dandy. Snow was the only thing he’d missed; rain mud heat dust and the Italian flies, but no snow. His heart began to beat heavily. No, Jacob Levy warned himself, skip it, cut it out, leave it alone. No. That Colonel’s got luck for two.
“Ah, to hell with it,” Jacob Levy said, under his breath.
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers came out of the farmhouse, pulled up his coat collar and said, “So long, Paul.” He climbed into the jeep and muttered, “H Company now.” He sat hunched into his coat and all Jacob Levy could see of him was a thick brown eyebrow which looked as if it had been dented, and a chill blue eye.
Allright, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said to himself, they’ve got it easy and they want to live. Who doesn’t? That’s what’s eating them. Rod Blackmer, commanding E Company since old Nick got knocked off, was not up to the job. He wasn’t using his head or else he didn’t have enough experience. It was half-witted to put the replacements through weapons drill, as if they were still at home, instead of sending them out on tactical problems so they could learn what to do with their weapons, aside from fire them in the general direction of the enemy. The platoon leaders felt Rod’s lack of confidence and pretty soon the men would too. And the paper work beat Rod entirely; here he was four days late in sending up the court martial papers on those two corporals of his who had to stand trial. Knowing he wasn’t doing things right made Rod sullen; he took it out by beefing. That beef about snow suits, for instance; sure, there was going to be snow and plenty of it, sure the men would show up like big black targets against a white background; sure, he himself requested snow suits from Regiment who had already requested them from Division. No doubt Division spoke to Corps, Corps spoke to Army, Army spoke to Ike and Ike spoke to the President. Result: there were no snow suits. It wasn’t Rod’s business anyhow.
Joe Huebsch, commanding F Company, was tired. He was so tired he couldn’t relax. He was just the opposite of Rod and was driving his men crazy, running after them like a cop the whole time, raising trouble about the kitchen not being clean enough and the latrines not deep enough and the vehicles not shiny enough, and the men were getting sore, and had reason to. They were old hands and they did their work allright; Joe had the fewest replacements of any Company and could have worked them into the outfit easily enough. Instead it almost smelled like mutiny down there and that was no good either. Joe was going nuts on chastity, maybe, being faithful to that blonde basketball player in Belleville Illinois. He’d have to get Joe over to his CP and fill him full of drinks and try to make him loosen up. But he wished Joe would shake himself out of it; there was enough to do around here without worrying over mental problems.
As for Paul Willcox, at G Company, that cluck seemed to think this was the Christmas vacation or something. Half his transport had the radiators frozen and ten of his men were in hospital with clap and the whole Company was having a high old time, enjoying the pants off themselves. He had had to chew Paul and now Paul would feel like a heel and he felt like a heel himself; you couldn’t want a better man in combat than Paul and this Battalion hadn’t been out of the line enough to train a Company commander in rear area discipline. It wasn’t Paul’s fault but if he didn’t hurry up and change, he’d lose his command.
And now we will see what kind of trouble there is at H Company, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said to himself. Then he had to go back and finish writing those letters to the families of the dead. The General encouraged unit commanders to write personal letters and it probably was a decent idea but he hated this more than any other single feature of his job. How do I know what to say to a mother, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers thought. And half the time he didn’t even know who the guy was that got killed, or how he got killed. If he could write the truth he’d just say: Dear Madam, when you’ve seen as many deads as I have you stop noticing; they aren’t people once they’re dead; and the best thing you can do is forget them because you know there will always be more anyhow and what can we do about it?
The only pleasure he had was watching Bill Gaylord train his Intelligence section. Bill was making a bunch of murderers out of those boys. They were goofy the way Bill was, but getting a kick out of it. Bill was full of new tricks and ideas and he’d have a time holding Bill once they got back in the line. Probably Bill picked up all these fancy angles from those mystery stories he was always reading. The army got in Bill’s way a lot: what he would have liked was to operate with his section as a private task force, committing heroic deeds behind the enemy lines.
I guess Bill will want to go to town tonight, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers thought. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to go to Luxembourg again and he couldn’t figure himself out. Dotty was giving it away, as generous as you could ask for, but how did he know she didn’t lay some other guy the night before and the night after him? She had plenty of opportunities and there was nothing to stop her. She didn’t make any bones about being his girl: easy come, easy go was her motto. He wasn’t in love with her, so what law said she had to be in love with him? She was straight about it anyway. But he didn’t have any satisfaction for himself; he couldn’t fool himself it was Johnny Smithers she wanted. If she’d just say something once, he thought, I don’t even care if it’s a lie.
And Dad writing about the chicken farm; okay, they were too old to handle it if they couldn’t get help. But he’d bought the chicken farm from the money he saved for five years, by selling cars in La Harpe to people who couldn’t afford them and then collecting the installment payments like pulling teeth. It was mean
work and that money was supposed to keep his folks so he wouldn’t have to worry. Now he had to worry all over again. The old man was bound to be robbed when he sold the place; Dad knew no more about business than a poor dumb flea.
“Ah, to hell with it,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said, under his breath.
9
Jacob Levy sat with his hands inside his sleeves, hugging himself. He was bent over as with cramp. A drizzle, that was almost ice, fell on the sagging canvas top of the jeep. At ten o’clock the last soldiers came out of the Red Cross Club and walked fast, in the rain, towards their billets.
They looked cold and bored. You couldn’t help thinking about Christmas and naturally that made everyone feel sick. The rain didn’t help; the cold didn’t help. Ten o’clock and this dead foreign city closed down. Everybody has something except me, they thought, walking inside their loneliness. Might write a letter home. What can you say? I love you, for you are heaven and earth, you are everything I have lost, you are more beautiful than the morning because you are mine. Hell, what could a fellow say in a letter? Maybe there’d be mail from the U.S. in the morning. Write to me: write to me on pink paper, on blue paper, on a ruled pad from the dime store. Write to me with a pen, with a pencil, put a stamp on the envelope and address it with my name. So that I may know I am someone, came from somewhere, am waited for, loved, and exist. But Christ, you sweated out the mail and when you finally got it, you read it over and over, and you didn’t know, you couldn’t tell, everybody seemed different. What can anybody say in a letter? When you’re so pissed-off you don’t know what to do with yourself, when you’re so pissed-off you don’t even want anything; when you’re so pissed-off you wouldn’t move if a truck was going to run over you, you can always climb between the khaki blankets and sleep. The street lay oily and empty, under the rain.
Jacob Levy shivered and hugged himself tighter. The Colonel would be out soon. The Colonel probably stayed in the office until the men left. It wouldn’t look good for him to hang around where the men could see him, though they must know he was there. Dotty wasn’t too smart, but maybe she didn’t give a damn anyhow. It looked as if she was saying to the guys: I’m paid to work for you but I date the officers.
What Dotty did was her business but it would be very nice if she would hurry before he became a corpse. Kathe was waiting in this rain, too. He was tired of this street, and the night that settled on your skin like leeches, and he was tired of thinking about Kathe and the unfinishedness of Kathe, so Jacob Levy went to his stream in the Smokies. It was spring and there were small pale flowers between the trunks of the birch trees. From his shack, he could see the fast water making mirror flashes in the sun. He was building a field stone fireplace now and it was a big handsome job that took up the whole east wall of his shack. He was going to make the sides of the fireplace like steps, so he could put stuff on them, a clock, or a cigarette box, or some magazines. The question was, how to finish off the top? Would it look better with a sort of board for a mantelpiece, or should he leave the plain stone?
The voices, loud and confident, banged against the invisible housefronts and echoed in the street. Jacob Levy came back from the Smokies, slowly. You could get arrested for making so much noise. They were talking under the glass and iron porte cochere of the Red Cross Club, and could not see him where he was parked on the street at the end of the curved private driveway.
“But I can’t walk, Sammy!” She don’t have to scream like that, Jacob Levy thought. That would be the other Red Cross girl, the blonde one with the baby-talk face.
“Where in the hell is that beautiful dumb driver of yours, Johnny?” A man’s voice, must be a friend of the Colonel’s, the baby-talk’s date.
“What?” the blonde said. “Have you been holding out on me, Johnny? What’s this about a beautiful driver?”
“Haven’t you seen him? He’s Johnny’s pet. Name of Jacob Levy,” the man’s voice answered.
“Oh no!” the girl said, laughing.
Jacob Levy tried not to listen. He would act as if he were asleep and pretty soon the Colonel would come looking for him. He could not drive up now, and know they’d know he had heard them. Why did they have to talk about him; he wasn’t anything to them; he’d never gotten in their way.
“He’s very nice,” that was Dotty; Jacob Levy knew that cool precise voice. “And he’s always on time.”
“Look how Dotty sticks up for him!”
“I’ve got to see him,” the girl squealed. “But why do you call him Jacob Levy? Or did you make that up?”
“Because it’s his name,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers answered. “Why are you Ruthie Maxton, as far as that goes?”
“Say, what’re you sore about?” the man’s voice interrupted. “Who did anything to you? Lay off Ruthie.”
“Lay off Levy,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said.
“Well, for Christ’s sake, what is this? Come on, Ruthie, let’s go. We can walk.”
“I don’t mind.” She would have had to toss her head, as she said it. They started down the driveway towards the Officers’ Club. Ruthie’s voice drifted back, “I can’t stand people who pick fights.”
“Levy’s probably asleep,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said. “I’ll go and see.”
“I’ll come with you,” Dorothy Brock said.
Jacob Levy kept his eyes shut until he felt Lieutenant Colonel Smithers’ hand on his shoulder. “Wake up, Levy! We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Yes sir,” Jacob Levy mumbled, pretending to wake. “I must of fallen asleep.”
“That’s allright. Rue Philippe, now.”
Miss Dorothy Brock sat silent in the jeep, hating the cold and thinking that her partner Miss Maxton was at once too stupid and vulgar to live, and that Miss Maxton’s beau, Major Ricks, was too stupid and vulgar to live, and that Johnny was really a nice man, though not an interesting one, and that she needed a vacation because everyone was beginning to get on her nerves.
“Usual time, Levy,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers said, as he jumped out of the jeep.
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers followed Miss Brock into the ugly parlor, and walked past her to the table of bottles in the dining room.
“What’re you thinking about, Johnny?” she asked. Now why chandeliers? Of all the hideous, cheerless, unbecoming light in the world.
“Nothing.”
“Yes you are. Not too strong for me.”
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers brought her glass.
“Don’t these guys ever use their apartment?” he said.
“That’s not what you were thinking.”
“I was thinking I was glad Levy was asleep so he didn’t hear those jerks.”
“Yes.”
“That fat-assed Ricks was never anywhere he could get hit.”
“True.”
“Oh well, the hell with it. Here’s to you.”
They drank in silence. The room, though heated, was not a place you felt like taking your coat off in.
“Why didn’t you ever get married, Dotty?” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you go home and find yourself a good man and have kids and settle down?”
“There aren’t any men at home now. Remember?”
“This is no life for a girl,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers observed. “It’s just no good. There’s nothing good about it.”
“It’s allright.”
“No, it isn’t. You meet a lot of men but they—” He had started to say, “take what they can get,” and it did not seem a tactful remark, considering that he was one of them.
“Aren’t serious?” Dorothy Brock asked. “Is that what you mean, Johnny? Maybe I’m not serious, myself.”
“That’s what’s wrong about it. A girl gets mixed-up about things and then the war will be over—”
“It’ll never be over,” Miss Brock interrupted, lightly.
“It sure as hell will. I’m going ba
ck to Georgia, I am.”
“And find a good girl?”
“You bet. And have kids. And live the way people ought.”
“I’m not arguing.”
Lieutenant Colonel Smithers tried to find a comfortable position on the sofa. It was covered in grey velours, dented with upholstery buttons as if strewn with navels, and it was unyielding. It had muscles of its own and if you moved, they flexed and hardened against you. He sighed and said, “Want another drink?”
Dorothy Brock handed him her glass. She was staring at the empty grate under the marble mantelpiece. The mantelpiece would look lovely in a mausoleum. How had anyone ever lived in this loathsome apartment?
“You see,” Lieutenant Colonel Smithers began, holding the two glasses, “a man gets to thinking after he’s seen some action.”
He could find no place for his shoulders on this lousy sofa. Better drink and forget it. “He certainly doesn’t want this sort of life.”
“I know. Georgia. A good girl. A white picket fence. The little toddlers.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Dorothy Brock said. “Nothing.”
What was she sneering about then? Did she imagine this was what a man was fighting for; to sit around strangers’ houses that were so miserable you had to get drunk to be comfortable, with a girl who didn’t mean a thing to you.
“I have a friend,” Dorothy Brock said, “awfully sweet girl, from Charleston. We were together in England. She fell in love with a paratrooper. She never thought of anything except how to get to Leicester or how to meet him in London. She’d sit up all night in a train, and go to a pub and hold hands with him for two hours, and come back. She wrote him twice a day and if she didn’t get a letter she couldn’t eat. Then his Division parachuted in, on D-Day. She read about that in the papers but she didn’t hear from him. She walked as if she had rheumatism and I wouldn’t have been surprised if her hair had turned white. She got frightfully thin, and she wouldn’t talk about him. We shared a room and I’d hear her thrashing around and crying all night. I kept saying, I know Dick’s allright, and she’d look at me as if it wasn’t a thing you could speak about.
Point of No Return Page 9
