Front Lines

by Michael Grant

  “No idea what you’re referring to, Private,” Green says after he’s climbed back up in the truck. “Nothing happened here. Any of you fellows see anything happen here?”

  There comes a false but cheerful chorus of “No, Sarge” from the truck’s occupants, and even one smart-aleck who says, “I’ve lost my sight altogether, Sarge. Can I go back home now?”

  The truck starts off again, and in a few minutes Frangie is safe and sound in her barracks. She sets her bundle down on her cot and goes to the latrine to vomit into the toilet bowl.

  16

  RIO RICHLIN—CAMP MARON, SMIDVILLE, GEORGIA, USA

  “What is that filth on your belt buckle, Private Castain?”

  It’s inspection. It is the very last inspection they are to endure under Sergeant Mackie. The lieutenant has come to witness, as has the captain, two officers Rio has barely glimpsed during her weeks at Camp Maron.

  Rio winces as Jenou makes the mistake of glancing down at her belt to see whether she can identify the “filth” in question. Jenou observes a single, greasy fingerprint and, in the process of observing this, realizes she has looked down while at attention—a sin, a crime, a travesty, an offense against all that is good and holy, quite possibly a form of treason, and the moral equivalent of offering to serve coffee and donuts to Mussolini, Tojo, and Hitler.

  “Private Castain, after thirteen weeks I would have thought you understood what it means to be at attention! Obviously I have failed you, Private. I have failed you, I have failed the lieutenant, I have failed the captain, and I have failed whatever sad unit ends up having you when you leave this place.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Neither the lieutenant nor the captain seems remotely upset, but the lieutenant makes a point of putting on his disappointed face, while the captain just looks as if he has an appointment elsewhere.

  Once the inspection is complete and the officers—having done their duty—are gone, Mackie keeps them all lined up and at attention.

  “In a few minutes you will be dismissed. At that time you will proceed to the bulletin board outside Company HQ to learn where you have been assigned.” Sergeant Mackie’s pacing has not grown less sinister, but Rio is used to it now.

  “Some of you will man a typewriter. Some of you will drive a truck or a jeep. Some of you will go off to specialist training. A lot of you will draw safe and easy duty.” Pace. Pace. A glance at this private or that, still judging, still searching for fault. “And some of you will be going to active frontline outfits. But wherever you are assigned, you will be soldiers in the army of the United States of America. You will be part of a history that stretches back two centuries. A proud tradition. The American army has never failed in its duty. You will not fail.”

  That last catches Rio by surprise. Suddenly she feels tears in her eyes.

  Mackie stops in the center, arms clasped behind her back, a position that leaves her very close to Rio.

  “Some of you may not make it back,” Sergeant Mackie says. “But you will not fail me. You will not fail yourselves. And you will not fail our beloved army. You are far from being the best I have trained.” She sighs. “But you’re not the worst. Dismissed.”

  Rio turns away to hide the emotion that makes her feel silly and vulnerable. She glances over and sees Jenou rolling her eyes sarcastically. And beyond her, Stick, with a tear rolling down his cheek.

  There should be a sense of elation. This is their last day of basic training, their next-to-last day at Camp Maron before heading home on a week’s leave and then going on to their next assignment. But the few cheers and hoots die out quickly, and suddenly the rush to the HQ bulletin board is on.

  “A nickel says it’s a desk job,” Jenou says. “And while I love your crazy dream of driving big trucks around between mortar shells, Rio, I think a nice office in which you and I are the only pretty girls surrounded by unattached officers would be just swell.”

  “Oh, come now, Jen. You know you’ll miss all this.”

  There is a slight downhill slope to the one-story HQ building, and since so many have gone running on ahead, Rio and Jenou take their time, ambling along under puffy clouds with a blessed breeze pushing the humidity back into the forest.

  “Have you heard from Strand?”

  “He’s going on leave at the same time we are. He’ll be back in Gedwell Falls, so I imagine I’ll see him.”

  “Oh, you imagine that, do you? Of course you’ll see him.”

  “Most likely.” Rio smiles to herself.

  Jack and Kerwin come running up behind them, and Jack puts a hand on each of their shoulders, embracing them as if they were long-lost chums, despite having just parted minutes earlier.

  “Are you as excited as I am? Or are you as anxious as I am?” Jack asks.

  “We’re giddy,” Rio says dryly. “Can’t you tell?”

  “Think of it as a huge department store full of wonderful choices you might pick up and take home with you. There are motor pools on freezing arctic islands with walruses. There are dreary offices deep underground in London so you can keep typing right through the bombing. There’s the unloading of ships, the handing out of gear, the care and feeding of outraged forest-dwelling pigs . . .”

  “I knew that was coming,” Kerwin says ruefully. “But you left out a few things. Like shooting and firing off howitzers. You know, all that stuff.”

  “Oh, that.” Jack waves it off. “The army won’t waste four such intelligent and, may I say, pretty soldiers on anything so crude. I rather doubt we’re going to the front lines.”

  “You think I’m pretty?” Kerwin asks with a grin that grows to consume most of his face.

  “You were exactly the one I was thinking of,” Jack says, and gives Kerwin a friendly punch in the arm.

  Stick is twenty yards ahead.

  “What about Stick?” Cassel asked.

  “Not pretty.”

  “He’ll most likely volunteer for some elite outfit. That young man intends to win the war all by himself.”

  “You don’t?” Rio asks, still puzzling over whether “pretty” refers to Jenou or herself. Most likely Jenou. In fact, certainly Jenou. No one who sees the two of them together would pick Rio as the prettier one.

  Well, maybe someone would. Not every man preferred voluptuous blondes to brunettes with impressive biceps.

  It doesn’t matter anyway: Rio is taken. She has a boyfriend. And while Jack is funny, charming, and not bad looking in a certain light, he is no Strand Braxton.

  The bulletin boards are surrounded by a school of agitated piranhas anxiously shoving and pushing and exulting and bemoaning. Luther’s overbearing voice demands, “What’s a 745 designation mean? Why don’t they speak plain English?”

  “Hopefully 745 means permanent latrine duty,” Rio mutters.

  “Rifleman,” Kerwin says. When he sees their surprised looks, he says, “Hey, I pay attention to the important stuff, just not the boring stuff. 745 is ‘rifleman,’ which is just the army’s sweet way of saying, ‘You’re going to war, Private.’”

  “Well, I pity the outfit that gets Geer,” Jenou says.

  They wait with growing impatience and nervousness as the crowd slowly thins out. Men and women cluster in little groups, discussing their assignments and what it might mean, and who else has the same. Words like artillery, logistics, jump training, and motor pool float by. There are numbers, meaningless but life-altering numbers, of classifications and also of units.

  Finally Rio reaches the sheets stapled to the plywood board. She finds her name and puts her finger on it. Then follows the line to the right and sees her number.

  No, she must have lost her place. She retraces. And then, just to be sure, she counts the lines and once again finds the number.

  To her left Jenou emits a soft cry. A whimper. It’s too vulnerable, that sound. Jenou is never vulnerable.

  Rio cannot look away. She stares far too long at the number after her name. And beyond it the division
al number. The 119th Division. She stares at these two numbers until Jenou leans her head on her shoulder.

  “Rifleman,” Rio says dully. “It’s that stupid Sharpshooter badge.”

  “Maybe,” Jenou says, “but that doesn’t explain why I’m in the same boat.”

  Kerwin and Jack and a late-arriving Tilo are the same: riflemen. All assigned to the 119th. So are Cat and a girl named Jillion Magraff, who Rio has never warmed up to.

  Stick joins them, looking worried, but not about himself. “I drew light machine gunner,” he says, and nods as though it was not only inevitable, but correct. “Going to the one-one-nine. What did you guys get?”

  Rio exhales a long, shaky sigh and says, “My parents are going to kill me.”

  She makes excuses for why she won’t join the others at chow and heads alone back to the barracks. She finds it empty. Perfectly orderly of course, with blankets all tight and foot lockers all squared away, but empty. She goes to her bunk, conscious of the fact that tonight will be her last night here.

  She sits down, careful not to pull the woolen blanket loose. Later, when she stands up to go, she will smooth it carefully and eliminate any slight crease. She spots a thread of lint, picks it off, and sticks it in her pocket for later disposal. Then she hears the steady tread of boots on tile and knows who owns those boots.

  “What did you draw, Richlin?”

  “Rifleman, Sarge,” Rio answers. “The 119th.”

  Sergeant Mackie is quiet for a long time. Rio looks down at the floor, down at those perfectly spit-shined boots. She has the terrible feeling that she might cry, and she would rather Mackie not see that.

  “What did you put in for?”

  “Transport. I thought . . . Well, I’ve driven a truck before, back home, so I figured . . . I mean, a friend of mine, the air corps snatched him up because he’d flown a plane . . .”

  Mackie says, “I guess the army needed riflemen more than drivers.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you scared, Private?”

  “I’m scared of telling my folks. My sister . . . she was in the navy. Jap bombers . . .”

  Rio waits, expecting the sergeant to tell her to knock it off, or else clean something or paint something. The old saw in the army goes, “If it moves, salute it; if it doesn’t move, pick it up; if you can’t pick it up, paint it.” The mission of noncoms is to keep soldiers constantly busy, even if that means painting rocks, and Rio has done some rock painting during her weeks at Camp Maron.

  “I knew you were from a gold-star family,” Mackie says after a while. “It’s in your file. But you know, the odds of getting hurt bad or killed are pretty low, even up on the line. Pretty good chance you won’t even get a scratch.”

  “I’ll tell my mother you said that.”

  “Well.” For a pregnant moment it almost seems Sergeant Mackie might pat her on the shoulder, but no such touch occurs. “You have potential, Richlin. You’re young—too young. But you never came running to me for help, and that tells me something. Keep your head down, your eyes open, listen to your sergeants—your squad sergeant, your platoon sergeant. They’ll be trying to keep you alive.”

  Rio nods, unable to speak. That tells me something. It isn’t the most effusive compliment, but it touches her.

  She wants to thank Mackie, an urge she never expected to feel. Sergeant Mackie has never been abusive or harsh as some DIs were, but she has never shown Rio any favor either. She’s pushed, tortured, and exhausted Rio the same as she has every other soldier, male or female.

  The next words are out of Rio’s mouth before she can stop and think. “I’m afraid I might be a coward.”

  Sergeant Mackie slows and stops. She turns and walks back, pace, pace, leather on polished tile.

  “Private Richlin, every soldier is a coward some of the time.” She sighs and for just a moment she isn’t a sergeant, she’s a woman, an adult woman, though probably no more than seven or eight years Rio’s elder. For a moment she’s just another human being. “I was at Bataan, Richlin.”

  Bataan, where American soldiers and marines were beaten by the Japanese. The captured soldiers were sent on a brutal death march that had become a notorious symbol of Japanese inhumanity.

  “I was pulling desk duty when the Japs hit us, day after they hit Pearl. Bombing, strafing, naval shelling, and I hadn’t even been issued a rifle. I found one. I took it off . . . off a fellow who didn’t need it anymore.”

  She sits down on the edge of Jenou’s cot, though even seated she looks spring-loaded, like she might leap up like a jack-in-the-box at the slightest provocation.

  “They came ashore, and all of us were ordered to go and fight them. No plan. The officers were all dazed and confused. Training was . . . Well. Anyway. So, we fought them. And they beat us. Damned good fighters, the Japs. They beat us and they beat us, and we’d retreat, and they’d keep coming. They pushed us right across the island. Men dying everywhere. Heat. Malaria. We’re telling ourselves help is coming, but deep down we know better. GIs start surrendering. Were they cowards? No, they were sick and hungry and exhausted.”

  “Did you surrender?”

  “No.” For a while she is silent, staring past and through Rio at memories. “No, I did not surrender, but it wasn’t on account of me being braver than anyone else. Somehow I ended up close to General MacArthur, which was no picnic, but better than what was happening to the men taken prisoner. Then the president finally ordered Mac to abandon the Philippines. The general . . . well, I shouldn’t say it, but he’s a pompous ass and a showboat, but he’s important to the war effort, so they ordered him to abandon the place and slip away on a PT boat at night. General took me along, part of his bodyguard supposedly.” She makes a disparaging face.

  “But you were ordered to leave, same as the general.”

  “Yep.” Mackie slaps her hands down on her thighs as if signaling the end of the conversation. But then she goes on. “I’d have run if I could. I’d have surrendered if I could. Many good soldiers, brave men, strong men, after weeks of it, they were just done. Just done. And I was as done as any of them. If I’d had somewhere to run to, I expect I would have.”

  “I overheard Sergeant Etcher talking once. . . . He said he ran.”

  Sergeant Mackie makes a wry laugh. “Etch loves telling that story on himself, how he was a coward, broke and ran away. It’s true, he did.”

  “Is he a coward?”

  “Tell you what, Richlin.” She does the knee slap thing again and this time stands up, as does Rio. “Tomorrow we have the ceremony where we send you off home and then off to the war. We’ll all be in Class-As, fruit salad and all. So you find an excuse to get close enough to Sergeant Etcher and look at some of that fruit salad on his chest. You take a look at what’s on his uniform and decide for yourself whether he’s a coward.”

  Rio suddenly sticks out her hand.

  Sergeant Mackie looks at the hand, obviously torn between disdain and acceptance. In the end she shakes Rio’s hand.

  “Thank you, for . . . I . . . You’re . . .” And now the tears come, silent but unstoppable. Rio forces a small laugh. “I don’t even know your first name.”

  “Sure you do, Richlin. It’s Sergeant.”

  At that Sergeant Mackie walks away.

  17

  RAINY SCHULTERMAN—NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA

  Rainy is pretty sure this will be her last opportunity for quite some time to enjoy New York. Her family lives on the Lower East Side, in a neighborhood that was once almost all Jewish but which has begun to change as many Jews have been driven by high prices to the refuge of Brooklyn across the river. Once almost all the store signs had been in Yiddish with smaller English subtitles, but now the Yiddish has grown steadily smaller and the English larger.

  It is a neighborhood of four- and five-story brick buildings, narrow cross streets and broad avenues, cars parked haphazardly, wedged in between horse-drawn carts loaded with scrap to be taken away or barrel
s of ale to be brought in. Laundry lines are still slung across iron fire escapes, and rugs are still draped from open windows to air out, but this has come to seem low class and fewer pairs of underwear and nightgowns and baby diapers are on display.

  It is a fine day, and people are out, taking what sun they can. A trio of shopgirls take their cigarette breaks on the sidewalk, sitting in rickety bentwood chairs, and pass a chipped pottery ashtray between them. Housewives in dowdy dresses and comfortable shoes haul string bags of canned goods and newspaper-wrapped fish. Wild young boys just released from school run and tease and shove, while their female counterparts, no older but far more mature, look on with disdain and trade secrets behind hands held over their mouths.

  There are businessmen in suits and ties, ancient grandfathers with untrimmed gray beards, hurrying shopkeepers in stained aprons, teamsters flicking whips at their tired horses, taxicab drivers lounging and gossiping between fares. And the newest and most obvious addition to the life of the neighborhood: soldiers and sailors on leave, few entirely sober.

  Rainy loves these streets. This is her home. But her affection does not diminish her restless desire to see very different places. She knows this place; she’s spent much of her life running errands here: to the fishmonger, to the kosher grocery, to the sewing shop.

  She knows it, she loves it, she’s ready to see something new.

  As she heads away from the Fulton Market, she sees three drunk sailors and one very sober young man. They are just inside an alley, and the situation looks a lot like a mugging.

  Rainy stops. She scans around for police, but New York’s Finest are not in view. One of the sailors pushes the civilian. He is putting up no resistance, but he is arguing loudly and without apparent fear.

  “Hey, don’t push. I just got this suit pressed.”

  “Don’t push, huh?”

  “Yes. You didn’t hear me the first time?”

  “Don’t wise off to me, you dirty Jew.”

  “I apologize. I thought since you were pushing me, you would be the one to wise off to. Is there someone else I should be wising off to? How about you?” He addresses a second sailor. “Are you in charge here?”