Front Lines

by Michael Grant

  “Like I said, that’s one way to get out of the army,” Sergeant Kirkland says. “You handled that well, Private Marr.”

  It is almost the first time he has referred to her by name rather than as Okaninny.

  That evening, after chow, Sergeant Kirkland calls her from the barracks. “Captain wants to see you.”

  This is not happy news. Privates are not called to see the captain. Ever. She searches the sergeant’s face for a clue, but he’s already done an about-face and Frangie rushes to catch up to him.

  “What’s up, Sarge?”

  “Captain wants to see you.”

  “I know, but why?”

  “The ways of officers are not for mere enlisted men to question,” Sergeant Kirkland says, then in a less pompous voice adds, “and sure as hell the orders of a white West Point captain are not for colored noncoms to question.”

  Captain Dan Oberdorfer is in his forties, with crew-cut red hair and a fireplug build that causes his uniform to fit like a sausage casing. Many rumors surround Oberdorfer: that he had carnal knowledge of a general’s daughter, that he once punched a visiting foreign observer, that he is a drunk or a homosexual or even an escaped lunatic. The rumors are all by way of explaining how a seemingly competent white officer ended up training colored troops.

  The sergeant and Frangie snap salutes as they enter his office and stand five feet from the front edge of his battered old gray steel desk. The captain returns the salute properly, then says, “What the hell are you here for, Kirkland?”

  “Sir, you ordered me to present Private Marr.”

  “Ah. So I did. At ease.” He has a heavy accent of a type that Frangie cannot identify. He looks at Frangie and lifts a folder from his desk. “I see here, Private Marr, that you are the worst goddamn soldier on this post.”

  “Sir?”

  “You can’t shoot, you can’t throw a grenade far enough to avoid blowing yourself up, you can’t manage five miles in a pack without falling out from heat exhaustion, you got marked down on the last inspection for your bunk, your foot locker, your uniform, and your weapon. In short, you are one piss-poor soldier, even for a coon. Even for a woman coon. What are you, four feet tall? You’re a goddamn midget with not enough strength to level a goddamned rifle, and yet it says here you enlisted.”

  “Yes, sir.” The words are automatic. She feels as if she’s falling, as if she just stepped off the edge of a cliff. Sergeant Kirkland has yelled at her, as have other sergeants, but this attack is categorical and brutal.

  She feels Sergeant Kirkland stiffen beside her. “Captain, Private Marr is—”

  “Do not interrupt me, boy. Don’t let those goddamned stripes fool you, Sergeant. You are still just a Nigra talking to a white man!” The captain has gone from placid to red-faced furious in about ten seconds.

  The sergeant’s “Yes, sir” takes several long and tense moments to arrive.

  “Now, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am attempting to follow orders here and turn a bunch of ‘yassuh, nosuh,’ toe-pickin’ field Nigras into soldiers, but Jesus H., this is bullshit. Not just Nigras, women Nigras, and now this little pickaninny, goddamn, that’s three strikes right there.”

  “Captain, I am raising a formal objection to your—”

  “Shut the fug up, Kirkland.”

  “No, sir.”

  The blustery, bullying, hate-filled air turns still and cold now, a dangerous stillness.

  Captain Oberdorfer stands, places his fists on his desk, and leans toward them. “Are you back-talking me? Are you telling me how I can talk about this sin-marked child of Ham? Have you never had anyone read the Bible to you, boy? It was Ham who humiliated Noah, and because of that Noah called him Canaan and said his descendants forever would be servants to the white man.”

  When this is met with stony silence, Oberdorfer adds, “That ain’t my law, that’s God’s law, and God’s law is above all other law.”

  “God’s law says ‘thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’” The words are out of Frangie’s mouth before she can stop them. She barely has the presence of mind to add a belated, “Sir.”

  The captain stares at Frangie like he’s just been insulted by a dog. He’s torn between amazement and rage. Rage wins out.

  “Do not quote scripture at me, you dirty little—”

  “Sir!” Sergeant Kirkland says sharply. “I request that Private Marr be allowed to return to quarters.”

  “The hell I—”

  “Sir, I have something to say that I would rather—and you would rather—Private Marr not overhear.”

  That stops Oberdorfer in midword. He glares at Kirkland, shoots a murderous stare at Frangie, turns back to Sergeant Kirkland, and says, “You are dismissed, Private.”

  Frangie snaps a salute that the captain refuses to return. She has no choice but to hold the pose until Kirkland says, “Wait outside, Marr.”

  She does an about-face and flees the room. Outside in the humid night air she gasps for breath, doubled over, hands on her knees. She is shaking, shaking worse than she did in the live-fire exercise.

  After a few minutes a seething Sergeant Kirkland arrives.

  “I’m sorry, Sarge,” Frangie says.

  “Shut up, Marr,” he snaps. Then, regaining his composure, says, “It’s not your fault that Cajun cracker bastard . . .”

  “You don’t have to stand up for me, Sarge; you’ll lose your stripes.”

  “Fug my stripes, and I ain’t standing up for you, Marr. I’m standing up for the rest of the men. He’s not wrong that you don’t belong. No power on earth is ever going to make a soldier of you.”

  Frangie, numb with disbelief, nods, then stops herself. She starts to say something but is overwhelmed by emotions that pull her in different directions. She would like nothing better than to be sent home as unfit for duty. But there is still the matter of her family’s finances. And, too, the captain has tapped a reservoir of rebellious anger deep within her.

  “I’m getting you through basic; I have no choice now,” Kirkland says bitterly. “I’m getting you through this and hope to hell you don’t get sent anywhere there’s bullets flying.”

  Then he pauses, tilts his head, thinking, then snaps his fingers. “Aren’t you the one who put in for medic?”

  She doesn’t trust herself to speak without choking, so she nods.

  “Well, then, goddammit, I’ll see to it,” Kirkland says. The last of his anger ebbs with sighs and shakes of the head.

  “I would like that, Sarge,” Frangie says tightly.

  “You’ll most likely be lousy at that too,” he says, but without malice.

  “Sarge. Can I ask . . . ?”

  “What I said to Oberdorfer?” He laughs. “Nothing much. Just mentioned that the cathouse he visits is off-limits and the steaks and chops he brings them as payment are stolen army property.”

  It takes Frangie a few beats to tease out what the word cathouse means. Then she says, “Oh.”

  “That’s how it’s done if you’re a colored man in a white man’s army,” he says. “Gotta know something. So I make sure to stay well informed. But you will not repeat that, Marr, or I will come down on you like the true wrath of Jehovah.”

  “Right, Sarge.”

  “You got three weeks left. Try not to fug up any more than usual. Get out of here.”

  14

  RIO RICHLIN—CAMP MARON, SMIDVILLE, GEORGIA, USA

  “You shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping track of the enemy today,” Sergeant Mackie says. “The red team is actually black soldiers from across the river. Easy to differentiate. Like it will be if you’re fighting Japs—easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

  They are grouped into platoons and squads, combat formations different from the organization for other training. Rio knows most of the people in her squad, likes some of them, can’t stand others, Luther Geer being prominent among that second group. Rio, Jenou, and an older woman named Arabella
DeLarge are the only females in their squad. Cat Preeling is with a different group.

  They carry full gear, including rifles loaded with blanks.

  “They’ll make noise, they just won’t kill anyone,” Mackie says laconically. “Only your own stupidity will get you killed. Try not to be stupid. The army would like you to get into the war before you get yourself killed.”

  They are deep in the trees and deeper still in the mosquitoes, which fly like dive bombers through the clouds of harmless but annoying gnats. The day is hot and, worse yet for girls from California, humid. Humidity at Camp Maron has been torture for Rio and Jenou.

  Rio slaps a mosquito on her neck.

  “Did you apply your mosquito repellant, Private Richlin?” Mackie demands.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Rio says. “The mosquitoes don’t want to be repelled.”

  “Richlin’s just too sweet,” Tilo says.

  “Today’s exercise is simple. The Red Team—”

  “The coons,” Luther interrupts.

  “—will be coming from the east looking to take the only bridge over this stream. Then they will attempt to hold that bridge. You will beat them to that bridge and hold it.”

  “Hell yes, we will,” Luther says loudly. He has left his contraband kitten back in its enclosure beneath the barracks.

  “If we find this bridge,” Kerwin mutters just loudly enough for Rio and a few others to hear.

  “Your compass heading is north-northeast,” Mackie says. “The objective is approximately four miles from here. We will begin . . .” She looks at her watch, waits, waits, waits. “Now!”

  And no one moves.

  “I take it from your cowlike immobility that you are waiting for me to show you the way,” Mackie says. “I will not be showing you the way. The theoretical for this war game is that this platoon has lost its sergeants as well as its lieutenant, so, ladies and gentlemen, I will be back at my quarters filling out reports and drinking coffee while you are hiking through the woods. There will be proctors wearing yellow armbands. They will evaluate your performance and decide who’s dead and wounded. And they will evacuate you when and if you break an ankle or are bitten by a snake.”

  Arabella DeLarge emits a small shriek at the mention of the word snake. So does one of the men. Sergeant Mackie grins, which is not a reassuring sight.

  There are blank looks all around. The platoon consists of forty-eight men and women, and not one of them has any particular reason to think they’re in charge. Finally someone actually pulls out a compass and says, “Northeast is that way,” and makes a chopping motion.

  Stick has just elected himself as guide. Some of the other men grumble and make a point of taking out their own compasses as if to double-check, but in the end the consensus is that they should all follow the young man with the widow’s peak who spoke up first. They set off through the woods with all the discipline of a herd of sheep, and all the stealth of a brass band. They reach a proctor a few minutes after plunging into the woods. He nods as they pass.

  Within minutes the complaining begins.

  “If you soaked wool blankets in steaming hot water and then wrapped them around yourself, it would not feel as miserable as this,” Rio says.

  “Humidity,” Jenou agrees darkly, catches her boot on one of the many aboveground roots, and trips.

  “And snakes, don’t forget snakes,” Kerwin says, and snatches Jenou’s pack, keeping her from hitting the ground face-first.

  “Thanks, Cassel.”

  “Well, we’re a team, right? I’m pretty sure I heard that somewhere.”

  Rio swats another mosquito. “I keep killing these mosquitoes, but they keep coming.”

  “So where are these Nigras?” Luther demands. “Let’s find ’em, pretend-shoot ’em, and head back.”

  “Be careful they don’t pretend-shoot you,” Rio snaps. The contempt in Geer’s voice sets her teeth on edge.

  “No Nigra ever beat a white man,” Luther says breezily. “Just like no woman ever beat a man.”

  Rio bites her lip, not wanting to waste energy on a pointless argument. She does not like humidity, that’s the main point; in fact, she hates humidity. It’s grown steadily worse over the last few weeks, and she now thinks of the humidity and heat as personal insults. And she hates mosquitoes with an intensity of feeling she has never felt for anything before.

  Rio comes out of her sour rumination on climate, and the insects that climate brings with it, in time to hear Geer say, “. . . we string ’em up.”

  “What?” Rio demands.

  Luther grins and pantomimes a rope around the neck, yanked upward. He sticks his tongue out comically. “Nigra talks back, Nigra shows disrespect for a white woman, what else are you going to do? You get some boys, go around to their shack, frog-march them to the nearest tree, and watch ’em dance while you pass the bottle around.”

  “Shut up, Geer.” This from Kerwin.

  “Screw you, Cassel, I know where you come from, and it ain’t any different there.”

  “Not every southern man is you, Geer,” Kerwin says, and accelerates his pace to put distance between them.

  “Tell you what,” the unapologetic Luther continues, “it’s a damn mistake giving Nigras uniforms and guns.”

  “There’s one behind you! And he’s got a gun!” Jenou yells.

  Luther spins around, catches himself, and spots the grin on Jenou’s face. “Yeah, screw you, Castain.”

  The mood has gone from sullen to resentful to downright angry as they march now through boot-sucking mud and swat at bugs and shy away from roots that look like snakes and just generally comport themselves like sullen kids on the worst field trip ever, which is not far from the truth.

  “Oh, good: someplace to sit,” Jenou says as they step into a triangular-shaped clearing. She pulls out her canteen and raises it to her lips. Three drops fall.

  “I can spare a swig,” Rio says, and hands her canteen to Jenou, not without some reluctance.

  Stick surveys the trees around them, ignored by men and women who have flopped down onto the ground or are sneaking off to pee. Rio is one of the few interested when Stick says, “That’s the direction. But we should send scouts out ahead.”

  “Yeah, you get right on that, GI Joe,” someone says sardonically.

  “I’ll go,” Kerwin says.

  Rio can’t pass up a chance to take a shot at Luther. “I’ll go, as long as Geer doesn’t.”

  She’s not excited about walking ahead; she just wants to get away from the sound of people complaining. And, truth be told, she has carefully preserved her water and doesn’t want to have to share what’s left with Jenou. She loves Jenou, but Jenou needs to manage her own canteen; there are no soda machines out here.

  She also half hopes and half fears that Jack will volunteer to join them. He’s good company, she tells herself, and he carries his own weight and doesn’t beg water off other people. Besides, she has had no second dream about him, but receiving a very affectionate letter from Strand has—she believes—put all thoughts of the Englishman out of her mind. She sees him now as nothing but a fellow soldier, more charming than most, less likely to smell—some of the men are not great fans of deodorant. Plus he tells amusing stories about England, about how they drive on the wrong side of the road, and how the king—who is definitely called George but may be either the fifth or the sixth, Rio can’t be sure—came to be king only because his older brother ran off with an American floozy.

  But as it happens Jack is in dire shape having split a bottle of moonshine with a corporal from supply the night before. He is lying flat on his back, helmet pulled over his eyes to shield them from the sun. From time to time he moans.

  Rio and Kerwin agree with Stick that they’ll start off ten minutes ahead and fire off a shot if they get into trouble, or come running back if they learn anything useful. Sticklin goes over the compass reading with them, and both Rio and Kerwin pull out their compasses and pretend to know what he’s talki
ng about.

  Then they forge ahead, leaving the gaggle behind. The platoon soon disappears from sight and then sound.

  “If you can get past the heat and the bugs, it’s kind of pretty,” Kerwin says, looking around.

  Rio considers that. The trees are draped with Spanish moss, forming a great shroud that makes even young trees look ancient. A pure white bird with ungainly legs folded beneath it flies overhead, screeching a warning. Mushrooms the color of caramel erupt from decayed logs. The sky is a rich blue void framed by ornate patterns of branch and leaf. There are puffs of cloud but too little to offer any hope of relief from the sun.

  “Uh-huh,” Rio says, unconvinced.

  “Freeze or I shoot.”

  The voice does not belong to Kerwin. It belongs to a young black man who rises from concealment behind a pillow of moss. He’s holding a rifle leveled at them, and he is wearing a red armband.

  Rio glances back, looking for a place to run, but two other black soldiers wait, each with rifle leveled.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Kerwin says.

  “Maybe, but first you’ll be a prisoner.” This from a small black woman soldier Rio has overlooked in her search for an escape route.

  Rio and Kerwin exchange looks of consternation mixed with relief: now they don’t have to keep marching through the damp forest.

  “Put down your weapons,” one of the male soldiers says. “You are officially prisoners of the Red Force.”

  Rio shrugs and slings her rifle, as does Kerwin.

  “All right, Marr, you keep an eye on ’em till we can find a proctor.”

  The young woman shrugs. “There’s a fairly dry log we can rest on over there.”

  On impulse Rio sticks out her hand. “Rio Richlin. This is Kerwin Cassel.”

  They shake briefly, and Rio glances at her palm.

  “How you doing?” Kerwin says.

  “Frangie Marr. And I’m doing fine now that I get to sit down.” She sits on the log with Rio and Kerwin, who chooses to stretch out on his back, indifferent to the large beetle he nearly crushes.

  “I don’t suppose anyone’s got a smoke,” Kerwin says, looking up at the sky.