A Fistful of Fig Newtons (15 page)

“At that point we will assign each of you a shipment number. At my command you will file into the troop train which will be waiting for us. We will do this with a minimum of lost motion. As of this moment, Company K is on full alert, which means you will not move an inch out of the company area and will remain on this spot until the convoy arrives.”

Somewhere I heard the muttered voice of Elkins: “Oh, God Almighty, I knew it!”

“This troop train will be sealed, since we are part of a highly secure troop movement. There will be no intermingling with other units, which will be assigned to their own cars on the train. On the train itself, you will be allowed to choose your seats, but after that you will remain in that seat as much as possible. A few of you may be assigned work details while on the train. If you are, I will notify you. Sergeant Kowalski has notified me that all your GI insurance forms are in order, that your medical records are up to date, and that for once you all successfully passed this morning’s short-arm. I am pleased. I add my personal ‘good luck’ to the entire company.”

He handed his clipboard back to the sergeant just as the first rumbling troop carrier lumbered into the company street.

From behind me in the darkness I heard the voice of an unknown terror-stricken Radar man mutter: “Christ, for one’st I wish I had the clap.”

There was an answering ripple of tense tittering. Company K at long last stood silent and ready for come-what-may.

BRRRRROOOOOMMM … BRRRROOOOOOOMMM … BRRRRRRROOOOOOOM.

A pair of baleful, glaring headlights rounded the corner at the end of the company street, where the road ran between the Day Room and our fragrant mess hall, scene of so many painful events and unforgettable meals. In the blackness, the first truck in the convoy lurched to a halt, its engine burbling angrily. Another roared around the corner and formed up behind the first. One after another they came. Whistles blew. Scroggins and
Kowalski yelled orders. Squad after squad peeled off at a dog-trot and piled into the black, menacing vehicles. The usual Company K give-and-take of Quit shovin’, you son of a bitch, Up yours, TS Mack, and Blow it out your ass was, in this grim predawn moment, notably absent.

My squad–Gasser, Zynzmeister, Elkins, and the rest–trotted woodenly to the rear of the third truck in line. We huddled side by side in the darkness on the hard wooden seats. I peered out the rear of the truck as the troop carrier slowly began to move with that malevolent suppressed thunder of all military trucks, with their special mufflers and oversized transmissions. The smell of GIs on the move seeped through the cold black air; sweat, gun grease, cartridge webbing, gas mask rubber, and, of course, fear. We rumbled past Barracks 903-T, now standing silent and empty, its yellow light bulbs gleaming sullenly on lonely butt cans. On our left, the doors of the silent Supply Room yawned blackly. Even the Supply Room hangers-on had been loaded into trucks like the rest of us.

“And so our happy band of warriors take leave of their old familiar haunts and …”

“Will you stuff a sock in it, Zynzmeister!”

Someone lit a cigarette. Gasser unpeeled a Baby Ruth bar.

“Y’know, I never thought I’d miss this dump, but already I …”

Elkins interrupted me instinctively, as he had for the past two years:

“Boy, when I think that you guys all laughed at me.”

“Gentlemen, let us all satisfy Elkins for once by according him a round of laughter. All together now, men. Let’s hear those guffaws.”

The squad guffawed hollowly in unison in the rumbling, noisy darkness.

“Okay, you guys, you just wait.”

Someone hummed tunelessly Elkins’ beloved Air Force song:

“Off we go, into the wild blue …”

“Screw you.”

“Clever, Elkins. The perfect riposte.” Zynzmeister needled Elkins. The two were great friends, and their friendship consisted of Zynzmeister using Elkins the way a basketball uses a bounding board.

The convoy droned on through what remained of the night, past the rifle range, the Motor Pool, the BOQ, and the Number One Service Club. The squad now rode in silence. It was beginning to sink in that we really were leaving and that we’d probably never see this place again.

Finally, the convoy crept through the gates of the high tough chicken-wire fence that surrounded Area Two. A red and white sign gleamed in the headlights:

Two MPs stood with rifles in the port position as Company K growled by to its uncertain fate. We passed a few dark buildings and a couple of dimly lighted offices. The convoy finally lurched to a halt. Whistles blew, and we poured out onto the gravel road.

For the first time we saw It–a long black string of railroad cars that stretched off into the night fore and aft. A dozen floodlights lit up the scene like a stage set. A grasshopper would have had trouble getting out of the area without attracting seven MP’s. Any thoughts of sneaking away into the night disappeared instantly. Under the glare, our uniforms looked unnaturally green and the scratches on our helmets showed up like scars on a fish belly. Our faces, normally tanned, looked milky and tinged with bluish beards. I glanced at Edwards. He looked about twelve under his pile of field equipment. Even Zynzmeister was silent.

We assembled into our usual company formation. Being Radar, ours was a small company, little more than a swollen platoon. Lined up next to the train sidings under the floods, we looked curiously small and sad.

Lieutenant Cherry, flanked by two alien officers, a major and
a captain, both bearing large yellow envelopes and thick folders, gave us our instructions in his molasses-and-grits voice:

“At ease, men. This is Major Willoughby, our troop train commander.”

Major Willoughby, a sagging billowing man with the face of a pregnant basset, smiled briefly from amid his jowls. His piss-cutter hat, square on his head, was pulled down low so that his two pendulous ears swung out to either side like fleshy barn doors. On his rumpled sleeve was sewn, carelessly, the patch of the Transportation Corps. It was a patch few of us had ever seen. He had the look of an old-time railroad man whose life revolved around timetables, green eye shields, cigar butts, and traveling salesmen.

“This is Captain Carruthers, the Deputy Commander.” Carruthers was thin, dapper, and had a worried look on his pinched white face.

“Captain Carruthers is responsible for the safe arrival of every man on this train. He has assigned each one of you an individual number and he will personally check each of you off and on at the embarkation point and the point of debarkation. I cannot stress enough the importance of remaining in your seats as much as possible while en route.”

Someone coughed behind me in that phony way you cough when the medical officer is giving you a short-arm. I knew what he was thinking. Apparently, so did Cherry.

“There is a latrine at the end of every car. You will ask your squad leader’s permission to use it, in order to avoid crowding and confusion. We will leave our car only for meals, and then in the order of your transit numbers. At my command we will file into the car by squads. Each of you will give your name, rank, and serial number and will be handed a card bearing your transit number. Do not lose this. You will then immediately board the train and select a seat. You will do this with a minimum of bitching and seat changing.”

He paused. From way off in the distance came a blast of the locomotive’s
horn: short, impatient. Lieutenant Cherry glanced at his watch. It was precisely 0400. Kowalski, at Lieutenant Cherry’s nod, bellowed:

“Atten-HUT! First Squad in column, right face. Move out.”

First Squad, ahead of us, clanked forward in single file toward the open door of our car. For the first time I noticed that the car appeared to be painted a dull green color and on its side was its name:
The Georgia Peach
. My squad moved forward. Up ahead of me, on either side of the metal train steps, were the major and the captain, checking off names and handing out cards. One by one, Company K disappeared into the
The Georgia Peach
. I half-expected someone to scream at the last instant:

“NO, NO! I CAN’T GO. I FORGOT MY CLOTHES AT THE DRY CLEANERS!” or to unsling his carbine and scream:

“YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE. COME AND GET ME, YOU RATFINK ARMY BASTARDS!”

But no. Like sheep following their leader, one by one, we silently went over the cliff. Major Willoughby stared into my face with moist brown pouch-lined eyes. I barked out my name, rank, and serial number. For a long moment he gazed at his clipboard. I had one wild moment of hope.

He can’t find my name! My name ain’t there! Whoopee!

“Ah yes, here we are.” Major Willoughby’s voice sounded like the rumble of steam in a friendly old overheated boiler. When you’re around locomotives long enough you begin to sound like one. He shuffled through a stack of cards and finally handed me mine. It was small, blue, and to the point. My name, rank, and serial number were typed at the top above the decisive black numbers. They stood out bold and aggressive: 316. The major rumbled:

“Have a good trip, son.”

I mounted the step and entered the car. Already it seemed that half the seats were taken. I moved down the aisle and found an empty. I unhooked my heavy field pack and hung it on the rack made of piping which was above the seat, hanging my helmet
and carbine next to the pack. I took off my gas mask and flung it up on the rack. Finally, at least a half-ton lighter, I slipped into the seat next to the window. It was hard, and seemed to be covered in material made from old hairbrushes, scratchy and unyielding. Amid the hullabaloo as the rest of Company K found its seats all around me, I examined the car.

Lit by dim overhead lights, it had been stripped of anything resembling civilian comfort. The windows were sealed with black, tightly stretched canvas. Ahead of me, Zynzmeister addressed the throng:

“You will notice the deluxe accommodations which are a featured part of our holiday tours. Our guide will describe the scenic wonders as we roll …”

Gasser, who had sat down next to me, laughed his irritating braying laugh.

“Hey, Zynzmeister,” he yelled, “hey, Zynzmeister.”

Zynzmeister was busily stowing his gear above his seat. With casual elegance he turned.

“Already I am being paged. Ah, I am pleased that you have decided to come with us, Gasser, on our mystery tour.”

“What’s your number, Zynzmeister?” Gasser yelled from beside me.

“Ah … I believe I have been designated number three eighty-four.” Zynzmeister waved his card in the air.

“Boy, don’t tell me,” Gasser yelled above the din, “they gave you just an ordinary number, like the rest of us slobs?”

Zynzmeister smiled benignly. “Of course not, Gasser. Three eighty-four is an old Zynzmeister family number. It is the street number of our family mansion on Chicago’s posh North Lake Shore Drive. It is also, coincidentally, the berth number that the Zynzmeisters were issued on the
Mayflower
, so naturally …”

He was drowned out by a roar of Company K–style badinage, which ran heavily to Bullshit, What a lot of crap, and Some guys are so full of it that their eyes are turning brown. Zynzmeister waved to his fans and eased himself into his seat.

After that, things happened very quickly. Lieutenant Cherry strode up the center aisle with his clipboard, glancing at each seat as he went. His face was expressionless, almost as though nothing unusual was happening, that in fact he spent his life embarking into the unknown. Kowalski struggled with Goldberg’s bloated, overweight barracks bags. Golberg, in spite of the fact that we all carried, theoretically, the same equipment, had managed as he always did to make his barracks bag fatter and bulkier than anyone else’s. He was the only one in the company who had gained weight in our mess hall. He had found a home in the Army.

“What the hell you got in here, Goldberg? It feels like you got eight bowling balls in here.”

Gasser leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I’ll bet he’s got his wife in that B bag.”

Goldberg, a newlywed, and one of the few Company K members who was married, had managed to take his wife Sylvia wherever we were shipped. It was rumored that she even managed to go over the Obstacle Course with him one day.

There was a shudder and a couple of heavy thumps and the troop train began to move. We heard the sound of distant train whistles as we picked up speed. I have since seen countless movies on late TV that purport to show a troop train. None were remotely like the real thing; no guitars, no crap games, no scared GIs writing a last letter to their loved ones, no exchanging of photos of “sweethearts” and wives. Our car rolled along with just a minor mutter of restrained conversation. Gasser dozed off next to me, and I read a Raymond Chandler which I had picked up at the PX. Edwards leaned over the seat in front of me and said:

“I hear we’re being shipped to Georgia. Fort Benning.”

“Come on. They don’t give you new carbines to go to Fort Benning. And whoever heard of a Radar company going there anyway?”

Edwards shook his head. “Well, that’s what I heard.”

“Yeah?” I continued. “Well, keep me informed on the next one you hear.”

Kowalski stalked up and down the car, checking equipment and answering questions here and there. Occasionally someone got up and asked permission of the corporal to go to the toilet. We squeaked and rumbled on. Not a sliver of light from the outside world, where it now must be broad daylight, entered
The Georgia Peach
. We could just as well be taking a train through hell, which some of us suspected we were. I stuck the copy of
Farewell, My Lovely
into the crack between the seat and the wall next to me. Gasser’s head lolled against my shoulder. I opened up my shirt to let in a little air. It was hot as hell in
The Georgia Peach
.

I had just begun to drop off into the great dark sea of sleep when someone shook me roughly. I glanced up in a daze, at first not quite remembering where I was. I was confused for a moment because the barracks seemed to be swaying. It was Lieutenant Cherry smiling down at me. I sat up to attention instantly, since in the past the lieutenant had rarely addressed me personally, and then never by name, calling me “Soldier” and “You there.” Gasser was also sitting bolt upright next to me. The lieutenant addressed us both.