by Andre Dubus
A week later, the night after Ted was promoted to Pfc, Hahn and Jensen dragged him to the head again. But as they started to bring him to the deck, he swung once: an impotent blow which he regretted even before it struck Hahn’s chin. Hahn slapped him, five or six times, slowly.
McKittrick wasn’t with them, because he was a corporal now, and his safest act of collusion was noninterference. But he did not stop harassing Ted. When the word got out that Jan was pregnant—somehow the word always got out and everybody, except the First Sergeant and the officers, knew everything—McKittrick teased him about it so often that it finally became boring. But yesterday morning during clean-up he had said more than: Looks like the Detachment’s goin’ to have another Teddy-Baby. He had said: She must be fuckin’ somebody, Freeman. That little pecker you got couldn’t have knocked her up—
So, twenty-four hours out of the brig, when Hahn utterly surprised him by saying We’ll get old Mac he had joined them until he saw what Hahn was doing. Then he had run to the classroom and sat there, in the light, reading a month-old copy of Leatherneck. An hour later, climbing into his bunk, he was beginning to understand why they had gone for McKittrick. But when he thought about it he felt uneasy and wicked too, the way he had felt in high school when he heard that a cheerleader, an older girl with long dark hair whom he watched through every football game, was putting out.
When Burns sat up in his bunk and told him what he had seen and that he was going to tell the First Sergeant in the morning, Ted could not even think of revenge. He only wished that he had never seen this ship or anyone on it, that somehow he could have met Jan without joining the Marine Corps.
At eight o’clock next morning Jack Burns was sitting in his chair, at his desk; First Sergeant Tolleson stood to his left, drinking coffee and frowning; and Lieutenant Tierney sat at his desk, his swivel chair turned so that he was looking at Burns. After a pause, which had not been necessary when he had told the First Sergeant half an hour ago, Burns found a word he could use:
“Then, Sir, Corporal McKittrick ejaculated.”
Lieutenant Tierney’s eyes, in the sudden pallor of his face, were black.
“Tell the Lieutenant the rest of it,” the First Sergeant said.
“Well, sir, then Hahn had shaving cream and that stuff, sir, all over his hands. And he and Jensen rubbed it on Corporal McKittrick’s stomach, sir.”
“Goddamn. Then what?”
“Then, sir, they left and I went to the head and threw up.”
“Good for you. What about Freeman?”
“Like I said, sir, he took off as soon as Hahn started fooling around.”
“He helped them tackle Corporal McKittrick, though—is that right?”
“Yes, sir. But he took off—”
“You already said that, Burns,” the First Sergeant said.
“That’s all for now, Burns,” the Lieutenant said. “Thank you.”
“And you keep your mouth shut,” the First Sergeant said.
Dan closed the door when Burns had left.
“Let me see McKittrick first,” he said.
Tolleson went out, shutting the door, and Dan snatched his swagger stick from his desk and began pacing the length of the office, only six strides, striking the palm of his left hand with the dark waxed cherry wood stick. His back was to the door when they came in, and he spun around, his arm jabbing straight out at McKittrick, the swagger stick a quivering rapier-like extension of it.
“You’re a Pfc now, McKittrick. That promotion of yours is probationary and I just took it away. Administratively. That means you can still come in for official punishment at office hours.”
Now he lowered his swagger stick to his side. McKittrick was at attention, his tropical shirt tight around his chest, his shoes reflecting the overhead light; and Dan was proud that even this inefficient corporal stood so tall and straight in an impeccable uniform.
“Since you’re looking so hurt and innocent,” Tolleson said. “I’ll refresh your memory. The Lieutenant’s talking about last night. What should I call it—a circle jerk, McKittrick?”
“It’s worse than that,” Dan said. “You know what it is? Your friends violated that rank you had. Whether you know it nor not, those two chevrons mean something—a lot of dead corporals in a lot of wars, for one thing. And leadership, McKittrick. But last night you chose to let people take away the dignity of a noncommissioned officer in the Marine Corps. You could have yelled for the First Sergeant—or even the other corporals—but you didn’t because that wouldn’t be popular. Well, you can be popular now. You’re not an NCO anymore.”
He paused, looking at McKittrick’s shameful eyes. Then he said quietly: “Get out of here. Go join your buddies.”
He sent Tolleson for Freeman, who came in, shined and pressed and tailored, and already afraid, so Dan spoke calmly.
“Freeman,” he said, then paused and looked at the silver tip of his swagger stick, tapped his palm with it, and looked at Freeman again. “Freeman, this is getting old. You were in here two days ago for insubordination to Corporal McKittrick. You went to the brig, but you didn’t even have to spend the night there. I let you out, Freeman, when I found out that you had been provoked: and since that man isn’t a corporal anymore, as of a couple of minutes ago—” Freeman looked surprised, then almost victorious, before his face tightened again “—I can tell you that he was wrong. That’s why I let you out. And I told you if you had any more personal problems with NCO’s to come see the First Sergeant”—nodding at Tolleson, who was standing with one foot up on a chair and frowning at his shoes—“or me. Then last night, for some reason that I can’t understand—unless you were drunk and I don’t think you’re hiding booze—you jumped Corporal McKittrick. That might constitute striking an NCO, Freeman: I haven’t decided yet. Maybe it’s just disorderly conduct, since from what I hear, that Corporal was grab-assing as much as anybody else. But what’s important is this, Freeman: you laid hands on a man wearing corporal’s chevrons. And there was a time when you wanted to be a corporal. But if you still want that promotion you’ll have to wait a long time for it, because your first six months as a Pfc are probationary—you know that. And I have just taken away that rank, Freeman. You can still receive disciplinary action for this offense, and you probably will.”
He waited a moment, looking at Freeman’s eyes, then having to look away, at his lips and jaw, for he knew what Freeman was thinking.
“You haven’t helped your girl,” he said. “This means less pay and a hell of a long wait for a chance at corporal. Do you have anything to say?”
“Yes, sir. Am I being busted because—”
“You’re not getting busted,” Tolleson said. “That happens at office hours. You’re being administratively reduced.”
“Yes, First Sergeant. Sir, am I losing my rank because of what they did to McKittrick? Because I left when I saw what was happening, sir.”
“No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about your part in it up to that time. You did help them, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s all, then.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Freeman about-faced and left, shutting the door behind him.
“So we’ve got vacancies for one corporal and one Pfc now,” Dan said. “What do you think about making Burns the corporal?”
“Yes, sir: he’s a good clerk.”
“He also seems to be the only man around here with any guts. Okay: we’ll promote him.”
“All right. Now, sir: we still haven’t figured out what to do, is that right?”
“Office hours. For disorderly conduct.”
“But how we going to write up the specification for the record? Sir, if we put on that unit punishment sheet: to wit, they jacked off the corporal of the guard, we got troubles. Someday an inspecting officer’s going to come down here and look at the files and he’s going to ask questions. What would the Lieutenant give ’em at office hours?”
“Yes, sir: and that officer from Headquarters Marine Corps will want to know how come they got off so easy.”
“I could send them up to Captain Howard and recommend a special court. But I don’t want to do that.”
“Exactly, sir. If this outfit was a rifle company at Camp Pendleton I’d say run ’em up to the battalion commander and let him handle it. But we ain’t: we’re fifty-five Marines and two officers—”
“—Fifty-seven Marines, First Sergeant.”
Tolleson grinned.
“Right, sir: fifty-seven Marines living with thirty-five hundred swab-jockies and if the word gets out, then we’ve shot our reputation all to hell.”
“I know,” Dan said.
He had, in fact, been thinking just that: with the certainty of a father who knows his daughter is pregnant, he saw that his most important function now was to protect the name of the Detachment. He sat down, put one foot on his desk and, looking at his miniature reflection on its shined toe, he tapped its sole with his swagger stick.
“I’m not a Marine just because I like military life,” he said. “If there were no Marine Corps, I’d be a civilian—”
“—So would I, sir—”
He did not look at Tolleson: he kept looking at his shoe and the slow-tapping swagger stick.
“What we have is tradition. We live the lie and make the lie come true: we tell these kids they’re the best fighting men in the world and they believe it and so does everybody else: these sailors don’t like us, because we’re so cocky—but they believe we’re the best. They won’t salute a Naval officer under the rank of commander, but they salute me and Captain Schneider. And I know we are the best—”
“—That’s right, sir—”
Still he did not look at Tolleson; as if they had emerged from the layers of polish on his shoe leather, he felt the presence of ghosts: In the Chosin Reservoir I was a corporal, Captain Schneider had told him. You know what kept us going? Every morning I’d go around, with the platoon sergeant and a couple of corporals, and we’d kick ’em out of the sleeping bags. Some of those troops would still be zipped in their bags if we hadn’t kicked ’em. Then we’d move out and we had to kick their asses all the way. … If Dan had closed his eyes he could have seen them: moving on a road of tire-tracked snow between white ridges, slow columns of boys in heavy parkas, with haversacks and rolled sleeping bags and blanket rolls on their backs, carrying rifles in cold gloved hands, and moving on: thirteen days of fighting to cover thirty-five miles—
“So we’ve got thirty-five hundred sailors here who believe we’re the best. And I’ll be Goddamn if I’ll give them a chance to change their minds.”
Now he looked up at Tolleson.
“We’ll cover for those bastards,” he said. “We’ll hush it up.”
He told Tolleson to arrange office hours for one o’clock, then he left the office, stepping into the classroom where guard school had ended and the troops were standing or moving toward the coffee percolator. Someone said: “Gangway, the XO!“ and they stepped aside and he walked through the corridor they made, to the ladder, his face pensive and stern. He climbed the ladder quickly, without touching the handrails, as if—clutching his swagger stick—he were charging up a hill.
Then he crossed the mess deck, went through two hatches, and up a ladder to the hangar deck: sailors in yellow sweatshirts were pushing a jet bomber onto an elevator and, through the large rectangular hangar bay door he saw the blue ocean and sky. From the flight deck just above him came the short diminishing roar of a jet being catapulted. Dan climbed to a sponson deck on the starboard side of the ship and watched as the elevator below him rose with a bomber and sailors, passed him and went up to the flight deck, and the sailors started pushing the plane off. Above him, out of his vision, another jet revved its engine and was catapulted; alone in that sound, he turned to the ocean, squinting at its glare from the sun he rarely saw.
On most days his duties confined him to the barracks and the interior of the ship and he did not know what the weather was like until he took the troops to the sponson deck, at three o’clock, for physical conditioning. He was on that sponson deck now. It was one of the few places on the ship where he felt he belonged, for every day at sea he stood here, dressed in a T-shirt and utility trousers and boots, and sang out rapid cadences to a spread-out formation of young crew-cutted Marines, frisky and grinning in the ocean air, sweating in the sun, as for an hour they worked their restless muscles. It was where he kept them in condition so they would not shame the Detachment when they were transferred to the infantry; and it was where he kept his own body hard. So he had come there now.
He had postponed office hours to allow himself time for planning. He leaned on the guardrail, touching it only with his hands, keeping his sleeves clear of its moisture. The wood and silver tips of his swagger stick were shiny in the sunlight. He stayed there for nearly an hour, finally oblivious of the catapulting jets above him, and decided what to say at office hours and what to tell the rest of the Detachment.
He avoided rehearsing what he would tell Hahn, for he could not think of him—strong and certain and staring with implacable and narrowed eyes—without rage: and he did not want to expend that rage here on the sponson deck; he wanted it to remain like a submerged log beneath the nervous beating of his heart, to be ejected within the close bulkheads at office hours. So he thought about Freeman.
Two nights ago he had betrayed Freeman, and it had been entirely his fault. He had allowed Jan’s letter to affect him, had started making decisions based on pity, and no leader could afford that. It had been his second day in command of the Detachment and, given another chance, he would have kept Freeman in the brig for three days, right or wrong, and he would have spoken to McKittrick about the relations between NCO’s and subordinates. That was all. He would never have considered sending Freeman home to Jan, who—even now, on the sponson deck—was part of him: as if she stood on one of those hills near San Francisco Bay and gazed across the sea.
He had given in to her and Freeman once, and though he was glad Tolleson had saved him, he wished at times he had followed his own course, as wrong as it was. For two nights and a day—in his stateroom, or talking with Alex Price, or checking posts about the ship—he had heard his own voice: Freeman, if I made an exception for one man I’d have to make it for the whole Detachment, and he had remembered Freeman’s betrayed and bitter face, turning to look at him, breaking the rigidity of parade rest.
During the time since that night he had begun to question his motives. He knew that if Tolleson had not argued with him, he would have sent Freeman home; and at first he had assumed that Tolleson, with his experience, had merely shown him what was right. After a while, though, he thought it was not respect but fear of Tolleson’s experience and certainty which had made him change his mind. That had occurred to him when he was in his bunk, about two hours after reneging on Freeman, and he had lain there for some time, feeling as he had when he was a second lieutenant with his first platoon at Camp Pendleton, when every day he faced his platoon sergeant with indecisiveness and uncertainty. He had not felt that way for about two years: by the time he was promoted to first lieutenant he had discovered that he knew as much as his platoon sergeant—and sometimes he knew more. He had gained a professional confidence which was echoed each time he spoke to his platoon sergeant or gave him a command.
But as a platoon commander his decisions and orders had affected only his platoon, and most of those decisions were made by the company commander. Now it was different: he had no Marine captain to stand between him and the ship. Which brought about his final and worst doubt: he had never, in three and a half years of service, had to make a decision that could affect either higher command or his own career. He had never worried about his future: he hated careerists, those officers who talked lustfully of promotion zones, hurried through Marine Corps correspondence courses to get them entered in
their record books, and tried to get command billets for the same reason; and, once in the command billets, were concerned primarily with how their companies performed when field grade officers were watching; they were the ones who adapted themselves to each new commanding officer, and they were the first to put away their swagger sticks when the new Commandant had implied that he disliked them.
He tried to remember if Tolleson’s warnings about his career had affected him, but he could only recall that as soon as Tolleson had returned from the chief’s mess and entered the office, he had begun to feel like a very young and inexperienced lieutenant. He did not know whether he had realized, when he saw Tolleson, that sending Freeman home was wrong; or whether he had simply felt that he could not resist Tolleson’s objections; or whether it was Tolleson’s mention of his career that had finally worked on his original discomfort until he had weakened and given in entirely to what Tolleson wanted. He could only assume that all these forces had probably influenced him but he still hoped that at least any fears about his future as an officer had been slight, if they existed at all. And slapping his swagger stick on his palm, he wished that he had never got himself into that position. He had taken the wrong hill and, once on top of it, he had given it up to the first probing attack.
He left the sponson deck. During the rest of the morning he inspected posts, spending several minutes with each sentry, asking questions about the special orders for the post, and safety procedures with the .45 pistol. When he inspected the brig, the prisoners were on working parties around the ship; the turnkey, a Pfc, was able to tell him where each prisoner was working and which Marine chaser was supervising. Dan described several imaginary situations, asking the turnkey what he would do if they occurred: an injured prisoner, an attempted escape from the chow line when the mess deck was crowded, a fire on the hangar deck. Without hesitation, the turnkey answered them all. Dan knew he would, just as he had known the sentries would; he had questioned them to show that he knew their jobs as well as they did.
