The Captain was feverishly engrossed in controlling the ship, and nodded without expression when the call came in about Pfc. Peach, the man Brill had sent down to guard the gear in the troop quarters. He turned to Patch, who had been sitting pinch-faced on a small bench on the bridge, feeling a little queasy.
“Colonel, one of your men has been hurt. You might want to check on him. He fell down the Number Two companionway just midships outside the enlisted men’s lounge.”
“Thank you, I certainly will. Is he hurt bad?” Patch said.
“We don’t know yet. The doctor is with him now—he may have broken something. He shouldn’t have been on those stairs in this weather.”
Again Patch shrank from the disapproval of the Navy Captain. Resentfully, he started down the corridor toward the stairwell.
By the time he got to the spot, they already had Pfc. Peach strapped to a litter. He was a smallish pale man anyway, and the shock of his shattered hipbone had turned his face a ghostly white. He was bleating like a sheep. They had cut away his trousers and undershorts, and Patch could see the jagged white bone of the upper thigh sticking out through the skin.
A sailor in a white corpsman’s jacket was holding a bloody compress just below the wound as they carried Peach away, still bleating, toward the sick bay. Patch and the doctor walked behind.
“I’m gonna have to do something pretty quick about that boy, but I don’t know how in hell I can, with the ship bouncing like this—I just don’t know,” the doctor said.
“We’ve got our own medical people aboard,” Patch said. “Can we give you any help?”
“Yes, tell your orthopedics man I can use him—or at least, he can use me . . . and for God’s sake, try to keep these men out of the companionways in this weather,” the doctor said, turning into the sick bay, leaving Patch alone in the writhing corridor with only the straining cantations of the engines and the distant bleating of Private Peach.
Damn that little bastard, Patch thought, looking after the doctor. Damn his nerve to say that to me. Patch couldn’t figure out at the moment whom he was most mad at, the insolent Navy doctor or Peach, who had caused the trouble in the first place. What a fool thing to try to negotiate stairs in this stuff. And now one less man in the field . . . Besides, Patch thought, he was probably going down there to steal something anyway.
The fiercest part of the typhoon raged through the night and into early morning. There were times everyone truly believed the ship could not stand being dropped into the hollow of another swell. Each time the transport’s bow would rise, its cargo of frightened men would brace themselves, stomach muscles tightened, jaws clamped together, chins lowered to their chests as if they were passengers on an elevator broken free in its shaft. Chaplain Greaves continued to pray, and his congregation increased tenfold.
Each time the sea caught the ship up on a crest, there was a terrifying tremor from stem to stern, as though the transport were a patient in an asylum being given an electric-shock treatment, followed by a roller-coaster plunge down into the water with a terrific roar. This went on for hours, but none of the men ever got used to it, and many of their secret prayers dealt only with the hope of getting through the night, leaving the rest to further Providence.
A sickly pink dawn brought a slackened wind and an end to the rain, and it signaled that the typhoon itself had passed over. What remained was mountainous seas, higher even than the bridge of the ship, some of them cresting with a great rush of foam and roar of dirty-looking water. But the swells had a definite direction now instead of the chaotic raving at the height of the storm, which gave a predictable and less frightening cadence to the rising and falling of the ship. On the slopes of some of these waves, exhausted gulls and terns bobbed crazily, flying up at the onslaught of a breaker and screeching mightily before settling back down again.
By late afternoon the seas had subsided a little, and down in sick bay the doctor informed the bridge that they were ready to reassemble Pfc. Peach’s smashed bones. This was necessary so that the helmsman would turn the transport directly into the waves—a course that would increase the pounding, but negate the rolling which had prevented them from operating up to now. As the ship began to pound once more, the relief of the men cooped up in the lounges and dining room turned to anguish, since again no one had bothered to tell them the reason, and they were not enough attuned to the sea to figure it out for themselves.
Earlier, Kahn allowed some of Bravo Company to return to the troop quarters to look after their personal belongings. They reported back that several packs and duffel bags had been gone through and things had been stolen out of them.
12
Sharkey signed himself up for the boxing matches mainly to get out of his confinement to quarters following the laundry incident.
“You’re crazy. You’ll get brained. Don’t do it,” Kahn told him, secretly wishing he’d had the guts to sign up too.
“I’m so ugly already it wouldn’t make any difference. Anyway, I gotta get outta here. I’m getting cabin fever,” Sharkey replied.
Four days after the storm, Crump had been leaning on the fantail watching a school of flying fish when he noticed the laundry floating past. At first he thought he was merely observing the flotsam of the sea: green, shapeless blobs streaming past the stern and into the wake. Then he looked down and saw a huge stream of water gushing from a port in the ship’s side about ten feet above the waterline, every so often disgorging a fatigue blouse or trousers. Crump looked back curiously along this line of clothing, which stretched as far as he could see into the distance. At that moment a sailor happened to be walking past, and Crump stopped him and pointed out the phenomenon. The sailor’s face contorted into a mask of horror, and he dashed off down the deck and disappeared into a companionway. A few minutes later the flow of water and laundry ceased.
No one, not even Sharkey, ever found out how it had happened, but someone had apparently turned a wrong valve, causing the laundry of four hundred men to be systematically discharged into the Pacific. The transport steamed on, however, a destination to reach and a schedule to meet, clothing or no.
Sharkey had been nowhere near the laundry when the mishap occurred, but this did not stop Patch from punishing him, since the Laundry Officer was theoretically responsible for everything that went on in his domain. He was confined to quarters for a week except to attend to his laundry duties and eat meals. After four days of lying in his bunk, Sharkey would have done almost anything to get out.
“I want to see the fights anyway,” Sharkey said good-naturedly. “I’ll have a firsthand view.”
“You’re nuts,” Kahn told him again. “Don’t do it.”
Actually, Kahn had relished Sharkey’s misfortune in the laundry room as poetic justice for the prank he and Donovan had played on him a week earlier. The two of them had conspired to start a rumor that a sub was following the transport, and within a few hours this news had become so rampant that Kahn, as Rumors Control Officer, was forced to embarrass himself by checking it out with the Navy command and make a contrary announcement over the loudspeaker system.
A week after the storm the sea swells were still running high, but Patch, sensing that the troops were restless and needed to blow off steam, announced there would be fights. On his crossing to Korea, there had also been fights, but Patch had not entered them because he hadn’t liked the possibility of getting knocked on his ass by an enlisted man. Now, fifteen years later, he wasn’t troubled by it, having decided it was a healthy thing occasionally for his officers and men to engage in this kind of athletic activity. At first he toyed with the idea of restricting the bouts to enlisted men, but later decided to open them to anyone willing to fight.
The response was overwhelming—over a hundred men signed up, and the sergeants in charge spent the afternoon weighing and pairing them against each other. A ring had been erected on the bridge deck, consisting of thick canvas mats laid on the deck and wrapped around four corner posts. Shark
ey was fighting light-heavyweight class—in the eighth three-round bout—against a man from Charlie Company, Second Battalion. Sharkey was five feet eight inches tall, one hundred eighty pounds, and had done some boxing at West Point, but seemed like a man better designed to withstand punches than to deliver them, considering his limited reach. He ate lunch but decided against the evening meal, not wishing to hamper himself with a full belly in case he took a punch there.
Crump had also decided to enter the boxing matches, to the astonishment of DiGeorgio and Spudhead and others who believed it would have been the farthest thing from his mind. When they were convinced he wasn’t kidding, they offered to second for him, and after a while everyone became caught up in the idea of the fights.
Crump hadn’t been in a real fight since the time he’d whipped another boy in a Mississippi schoolyard. His mother had been furious because he’d torn his trousers at the knees, and he had spent the next weekend at home, pickling pole beans. Somewhere in the back of Crump’s bony head, he knew his decision to fight had something to do with his mother’s not being here now to get after him, because all of his life, even before his father had died, she had gotten after him for something. The only thing Crump missed about his mother was her cooking. Ever since he could remember, Crump had looked forward to supper at home, with pot roasts and mashed potatoes, home-grown peas and beans, hams, yams, corned beef and cabbage, pork chops with applesauce and beets, and corn bread and fried chicken—she as big as a house, he as thin as a rail. Crump couldn’t keep his mind off it, this great mother-cooking, and whenever he got a chance he talked about it as though this would make his dream meals come true.
Like Sharkey, Crump eschewed the evening meal, but only because the food he was offered was so unappetizing; the thought of being hit in the gut never entered his mind. He was lying on his bunk talking to Spudhead and DiGeorgio about the fight when he lapsed into recollections of one of his favorite suppers.
“You guys’d think you was in heaven if you could of sat down to that ol’ leg of pork and mashed potatoes—real mashed potatoes with little pieces of hard potatoes in them—and gravy and good hot turnips and greens—and iced tea . . .”
“For crissake, Crump, you wannta fucking drive us all nuts with your mother’s cooking?” DiGeorgio said. “You’re gonna get in the ring with some big gorilla and all’s you can talk about is your mother’s goddamned cooking.”
“Everybody’s mother’s cooking is good, Crump. You better start worrying about that fight tonight,” Spudhead said.
“You don’t have to worry about that fight—I’ll take care of it all right—but damn, I sure wish I had a real dinner before,” Crump said. “How da they think you can eat the stuff they give you on this boat? It ain’t fit for dogs,” he said disgustedly.
“Christ, Crump, will you stop talking about food? You orta go out and punch that bag on deck or somethin’,” DiGeorgio said.
“You wanna Hershey Almond Bar?” Spudhead said, his voice almost in a whisper.
“What? Whatd’jew say?” Crump sat up on the bed.
“He says you want a Hershey Almond Bar, for crissakes—you got one, Spudhead?” DiGeorgio asked, leaning closer.
“Sure I got one.”
“Bullshit—they been outta ’em for a week. They said we won’t be able to get any till Okinawa; said some cocksucker bought ’em all.”
“I got one. I got more than one,” Spudhead said.
“You lyin’, you bastard,” DiGeorgio said.
“In my bag—I got hundreds of ’em.”
“You lying bastard,” DiGeorgio said.
“I ain’t lying—I got ’em in my bag,” Spudhead said.
“Let’s see,” Crump said. “C’mon, let’s see.”
Spudhead sidled over to his bunk, reached beneath it and fiddled with the combination lock of his duffel bag. He reached down inside as though he were going to come out with precious jewels. Carefully drawing out the Hershey Almond Bar and sticking it up the sleeve of his fatigue blouse, he walked back and let it slide out onto the wool blanket just beside Crump’s thigh.
“Jesus—you really do,” DiGeorgio said. “You been saving it?”
“I told you, I got plenty of ’em—didn’t I?” Spudhead said.
Crump ripped open the wrapper and devoured the contents like a starved wolf. He even ate part of the paper when it wouldn’t come unstuck from the chocolate.
“Christ, Crump, you gonna choke yourself to death,” DiGeorgio said.
Spudhead returned to the duffel bag for more bars—one each for the three of them this time.
“Hey, thanks, Spudhead,” DiGeorgio said.
“Yeah, thanks, Spudhead,” said Crump, wolfing down the second bar as he had the first.
“I thought if you ate something it might help you tonight,” Spudhead said.
“It might help,” Crump said.
DiGeorgio ate half of his candy, folded the paper around the rest and stuck it into his blouse pocket.
“Just stop talking about your mother’s cooking, for crissakes,” he said.
The matches began after evening chow. It was impossible for more than a handful of people to see much of the fighting, because the makeshift ring was surrounded by such a crush of bodies the only thing a man in the back could see was the tops of the fighters’ heads and an occasional aerial blow. It resembled a barracks brawl more than a boxing match.
Brill had been waiting nearly half an hour for the fights to get under way. It amused him that these stupid bastards about to be thrown into a real war would willingly smash each other around for fun—but as long as they would, he was going to enjoy the spectacle. He particularly liked the prospect of seeing officers get the shit kicked out of them by enlisted men, since most of them had made it a point to be so snotty to him.
Standing beside him was Sergeant Groutman, with whom he had shot craps in Trunk’s cabin that night. Brill both liked Groutman and also feared him a little. Something about him reminded Brill of himself; yet Groutman, with his big, hulking frame, was more self-assured, and this made Brill uncomfortable. Groutman went out of his way to be friendly, but it seemed to Brill that he wished to manipulate him in some way. Groutman was very much excited over the prospect of the fights and craned forward over people’s shoulders, his eyes wild; grinning; yelling, though he didn’t seem to care who won.
The first fight was a total mismatch. If it proved anything, it was that people who have had some experience boxing can beat the hell out of people who haven’t, this revelation becoming apparent in less than a minute as a thick-necked soldier from Guam destroyed a taller Italian boy from New York in a welterweight bout. After a flurry of fists had pounded his head and body for a few seconds, and the Guamanian stepped back for a breather, the Italian signaled he wanted no more by raising a hand into the air. The second fight was a replay of the first, ending when one of the combatants signified he had no interest in continuing. Between bouts, there was gregarious talking and joking and sizing up of the fighters.
As the names and outfits of the fighters were announced, there would be loud cheering and encouragement from their respective units, but when the bout actually started the yelling became chaotic, as though the men had turned into a crazed mob raging for blood and vengeance. When the third fight ended with a blow delivered so hard the defeated man seemed as though he had been lifted with a kick, everyone felt he had gotten to see what he had come for. And yet amid all the hollering and yelling, there seemed to be a collective nervous tremor, as though the defeated fighter had somehow paid dues for all of them.
Crump and Sharkey fought bouts that were back to back, and Bravo Company nudged as close to the ring as they could. Crump drew a solidly built blond boy who looked as if he had arrived that very afternoon from a Southern California beach, surfboard and all. His honest deep-blue eyes blinked rhythmically as he relaxed against the corner ropes, looking away from the opposite corner where Crump was, into the sea of excited faces arou
nd him, but with an expression that suggested he might have preferred to look beyond the crowd, at the real sea instead.
Crump, on the other hand, looked steadfastly at his opponent while DiGeorgio massaged his long neck and bony back.
The brass Navy bell rang, and Crump started slowly toward the beautiful blond boy in an odd, contorted stance, as though he were trying to crouch and stand up at the same time. The blond soldier fought a bobbing and weaving game, and he hit Crump first with a fast combination of left jabs, ducking beneath Crump’s defenses. Crump kept pursuing him, and each time he got close the blond hit a couple of licks, then spun away. Crump hadn’t thrown a solid blow, and it was already the middle of the round. His nose was starting to bleed a little, and the blood was trickling down to his lower lip, coloring his mouth guard.
Kahn had drunk half a pint of Scotch in his cabin after chow, and was smoking a cigarette in the back of the crowd. He couldn’t see much of what was going on, except for Crump’s tall head encased in his own gloves, and Kahn thought it strange that Crump should carry his gloves so high. In front of him, Trunk was yelling with the rest.
“Attaboy, Crump, attaboy—kill the bastard. He can’t hurt you, Crump—he’s a pussy. Go after him, Crump.”
Trunk was proud of Crump for getting into the fights. Crump was one of those he never could really figure out, and this surprised him even more than the time Crump had won the mile run on Company field day. Trunk knew the boy was kind of dumb, but you never could tell about these big dumb farm boys. Trunk had first taken notice of Crump after a fifteen-mile forced march when Crump had been brought to him by Sergeant Groutman, the squad leader, who found him in barracks hobbling around in shower shoes with blisters that looked as if they had been branded into the skin with molten-hot quarters. How the hell Crump had ever gotten through that march—and never complained—Trunk never knew; but when they sent him off to sick call, Trunk had said to Groutman, “That shithead’s either awful dumb or awful tough,” and Groutman had laughed his crazy, snarling laugh and said, “Naw, the fucker’s just scared shitless to speak up.”