The Deserter

by W. E. Turner

“I tell ya, boys. I did not join the army to get spit on,” Jason Tanner told his companions. “An' I didn't join up ta have some God damned officer call me a thief or a coward or both. I'm leavin'. Leavin' tonight if any of y'all wanna come with me.”

In the small, dimly-lit cabin the four of them built as their winter quarters, the quiet was as thick as the fetid air; air surrounded by mud-chinked logs that held in both the heat and much of the smoke from the wood fire in the fireplace. The smell of the smoke mixed with the smell of their supper of fried beef and cornmeal dodgers. And overlying all smells was the soldier smell of wet wool and the odor of too many bodies confined in too small a space for too many days.

The other three men sitting by the fire or lying in their bunks just stared at Jason. They were not really dumbfounded at what he was proposing to do; each of them knew the homesickness and frustration that caused Jason to make his statement. Perhaps each wished he had been the one to whisper the sentiment. The Confederate Army of Tennessee had not moved from Murphreesborough since it arrived two months ago and the inactivity was beginning to fray the men's nerves.

Paul Redfern spoke in the same hushed, almost whispered, tones Jason had used; no need to allow others outside their cabin to overhear. “That's desertion,” he said.

Desertion. There. The word was out in the open for all to hear and think about.

“They'll shoot you for that!” Paul went on. “You know they will.”

“I don't care,” Jason said evenly. “That bastard Harpool's done had me bucked and gagged for the last time. Hell, I kin just barely stand up straight now, after four days since they done that.” The memory of the punishment made the young man flex his arms and legs, using the stiffness and the ache in his joints to remind him of how it felt to be trussed up for eight hours, arms wrapped abound his drawn-up legs with a stick run through the gap between the elbows and knees. Jason could almost still taste the putrid ball of leather with which he was gagged; a piece of rawhide covering his mouth and chin to hold the ball in his mouth. The lingering taste of the gag made him want to spit. But he knew the others would not like it if he spit there inside the cabin. They didn't have a cuspidor.

Johnny Ray Harris could not bear to look at Jason any more, so he turned away. After all, Johnny Ray was the one who stole Captain Harpool's canned ham from the officers' mess tent, then shared it with his pards. Jason was just the one caught with the empty tin, scraping out the last bit of gelatin in which the ham was packed. But, when confronted, Jason never implicated Johnny Ray.

The older boy told the captain he was sorry about the stolen ham but refused to name the thief. “On my honor, sir,” Jason had said, “I can not tell you.” Even when the captain ordered him directly to name the culprit, Jason refused. That brought a charge of insubornation to add to that of theft and led to the bucking and gagging, the usual punishment for an insubordinate soldier.

Johnny Ray felt his face flushing with embarrassment as he remembered the sight of Jason, trussed up like a pig going to market, sitting on a barrel in front of the Colonel's tent with a placard proclaiming him “Theif” hanging around his neck.

“So,” Jason asked, “Who's goin' with me?”

None of the other three soldiers soldiers could meet Jason's eyes now.

“How are you gonna get past the Provost Guard?” Micah Altman asked. “And the pickets? Then, I hear they's Yankee calvary all the way from Murphreesborough on up to Nashville.”

“An' our own calvary, too,” Redfern chimed in, mispronouncng the name of that branch of the army the way most soldiers did.

“They ain't no way in hell you can make it all the way back to Hardin County,” Micah said. “No way 't all.”

“Hell,” Paul said, “if that's where yer goin' why didn't you just join the calvary? You'd be up there in Kentucky right now, with ol' John Morgan.
Then you could desert and have less of a walk home.”

“Who says I'm goin' back to Kentucky, anyways?”

“Well, ain't ya?”

“No,” Jason said, smiling now. “I figured I'd take off fer California. 'Er else the gold fields in Nevada. Might even hop on a ship in San-Fran-cisco an' go all th' way out to them Hi-waiian Islands. Go fishin' fer pearls.”

Johnny Ray looked up when he heard Jason's plan. It sounded like what he had proposed to Jason just last week.

Life in the Confederate army was not nearly the romantic adventure the four of them imagined when they left home back in May of 1861. Now, after 19 months of defeat and retreat, with only two short offensives that ended up thwarted at Pittsburg Landing and Baton Rouge, the prospect of leaving the army to anywhere was appealing. Anything was more appealing than camp life. Though some officers tried to spice up the bleak existence of the men with drill competitions or theatricals, living in winter quarters was still boredom at its worst.

None of the boys had seen their families since they left home. Since Kentucky had not seceded from the Union, like many people expected her to back in '61, the men of their unit were even cut off from help from their home state, unlike soldiers from loyal Confederate states like Mississippi or Alabama. Now the Kentucky regiments were known as the “Orphan Brigade.” Even though some uniforms and most equipment and supplies were furnished by the Confederate government, those necessities were never sufficient, it seemed. Luxuries like canned ham were either purchased at a dear price or donated by charitable southerners who were now having trouble supporting troops from their own states. Periodically, volunteers with special passes and the help of southern sympathizers would go north to Kentucky to secure new clothing, extra food or other necessities for the soldiers from their families and smuggle the goods south to the army. When these so-called “blockade runners” returned, the Kentuckians lived better for a time, but without a steady influx of these luxury items, life was barely tolerable. The boys all remembered the bad days of nonexistent or barely-edible commissaries that featured rancid, green-coated beef and corn meal so poorly ground that eating pone made from it was like eating shards of glass.

“But don't you wanna see your folks?” Micah asked.

“Sure, I wanna see 'em,” Jason said. “But how could I face 'em if I was to desert? Well,... Answer is: I couldn't. My Pa didn't want me goin' off to the army in the first place, so I run off. Went an' got ol' Johnny Ray there, an' we ran off together. Met up with y'all and th' four of us all joined up with ol' Sidney Johnston at Bowlin' Green. Been with the army ever since then. But now, I'm tarred of it! Tarred o' just sittin' 'round doin' nothin'. 'Er else bein' marched off to someplace like Vicksburg like ol' Bragg had us Kentuckians do while he takes th' army an' goes on up to Perryville, not mor'n fifty mile from our homes!”

“Hell,” Paul said. “The army went right through Munfordville, where my uncle lives. That's only twenty miles from our farm.”

“Yeah.” Jason agreed. “But then he retreated. 'Stead o' whippin' them Union like he had a chainst to, he jist come on back here again. Said he couldn't get no re-cruits in Kentucky. Well, if he wanted more men for his army, he shoulda had us Kentuckians along with 'im. Lotsa other boys woulda come along, then. Lotsa our friends. But did he? No. Sent us off ta Miss'ippi 'cause he don't trust us.”

“Don't trust us,” Micah said, disgustedly. “Hell fire. Ol' Bragg don't trust nobody. Never has.”

“Well, I'm just tarred of it,” Jason said. A sad look came into his eyes, replacing the excited, eager, then angry expressions that had been on his face only moments before. He picked up a twig that was lying on the dirt floor and threw it forcefully into the corner of the cabin.

“Tarred o' eatin' rotten food we wouldn't even feed to pigs back home,” the boy went on. “Tarred o' always bein' too cold or too hot 'r too wet. Tarred o' all the dirt an' the stink an' the bugs what's always crawlin' all over me.” As if to emphasize this last point he reaches inside his muslin shirt, scratched around and caught a “bluebelly” louse near his armpit and flipped it into the fire. He enjoyed the satisfying “pop” the fire made about the time the bug's body hit the hot coals.

“Tarred o' always havin' the drizzlin' shits,” he continued. He gave a rueful grin that pulled up the skin of one cheek covered with peach fuzz that only recently turned into real whiskers. “Jist once,...” Jason said. “Jist once I'd like to go take a dump an' not have it come out in squirts.”

The cabin fell silent as each young man was lost in his own thoughts. The only sounds were the crackling and popping of the fire and the sound of the wind and the wind-driven rain pattering against the cabin walls.

“So,” Jason said after a long while, raising his cheek from his drawn-up knee where he rested it as he stared at the fire. “Who's goin' with me?”

Micah and Paul remained silent, as if they hadn't even heard Jason's question. Jason looked back and forth between the two of them. They want to go, he thought, but they're scared to.

“They'll shoot ya,” Redfern said again after a long pause. “They'll catch ya an' shoot ya, sure.”

“They gotta catch me, first,” Jason said.

“They will,” Redfern insisted. “They caught ol' Asa Lewis twice, after he run off. Give him a second chainst after the first time. Now, they're gonna shoot 'im.”

“No, they ain't,” Micah insisted. “Gen'ral Breckinridge is gonna get 'im outta that. You'll see.”

“He ain't gonna,” Jason said, hopelessly. “Who do you think it was that turned down Asa's request fer a furlough in the first place? Breckinridge.”

All the men of the Sixth Kentucky were familiar with the case of Asa Lewis. Lewis was a brave boy from Barren County who fought with distinction at Shiloh, Vicksburg and Batton Rouge. But when the news arrived that Lewis's widowed mother's house had been burned by Unionists back in Kentucky, he requested a furlough to return home and see to his mother's welfare. The request was denied on the grounds he could not be relied upon to return to the army after the furlough's term expired.

“Ol' Bragg'll shoot 'im,” Jason said with finality. “You done seen it too many time to think it's gonna be any other way.”

“And we're gonna have to watch it,” Paul said.

The men remembered all too well what it was like to witness an execution. Just last week, a man from one of the Tennessee regiments was shot for desertion. The whole division had been required to witness the execution; each brigade standing as one side of a huge open box on the parade ground beside the river. The prisoner was brought out in a wagon, then made to sit on his own coffin as the firing squad was aligned before him and the commands, “Ready. Aim. Fire,” were given. His was just the latest of the many executions ordered by General Braxton Bragg during this second winter of the war of the rebellion. Rumor had it that more than a dozen men had been executed for desertion or other crimes already that winter and it wasn't even Christmas yet.

“I'll go with ye, Jason,” Johnny Ray croaked out at last, barely able to get the words out through his phlegmy throat.

Jason turned his eyes toward the skinny boy in the bunk.

“I'm feelin' lots better,” Johnny Ray said. As if to prove it, he sat up and let his threadbare blanket fall off his shoulders. “Fever's almost gone,” he went on, eagerly. “I won't slow ya down, none. I kin keep up.”

“You sure?” Jason asked.

“Sure, I'm sure,” Johnny Ray said. “Wouldn't say it if I wasn't.” He reached underneath his bunk, found his brogans and began pulling on his right shoe. “We got any food we can take with us?” he asked.

Jason kept watching Johnny Ray. He knew Johnny Ray really wasn't well enugh to be out in the cold, wet night air, but didn't know how to tell his friend 'no.' Hell, Jason thought, Joining the army was all Johnny Ray's idea in the first place. So was going to Nevada. So was San Francisco. So was Hawaii. Why, I would have never even run off from Pa's farm in the first place if Johnny Ray hadn't put the idea in my head. How can I tell him 'no” now?

“I got one or two biscuits o' that hardtack stuff left,” Johnny Ray said. “They was too hard for me to chew, yesterday, so I saved 'em till I could soak 'em in some water or milk or somethin' an' fry 'em up. We can take that iffen the weevils in it ain't ate it all up yet. Then I still got one or two o' them apples lef' that ol' Mrs. Cranford give us. An' we oughtta be able to get more o' them on our way. Good year for apples.”

“You ain't goin' Johnny Ray,” Jason said. He stood up as tall as he could under the low split log roof of the cabin. Even though the floor of the cabin was sunk six inches below ground level, Jason had to lean forward slightly to stand up. If he hadn't had to bend over, he would have thrust out his chest, too, to show Johnny Ray how serious he was. “Ye're too sick,” Jason went on. “You wouldn't even make it as far as the picket line.”

Johnny Ray got to his feet. He looked around the cabin. Paul and Micah refused to look up and meet his eyes. “But I told ya I'm better,” the boy said in a pleading voice. “I kin make it.”

“No, Jason said, firmly. “You can't.”

“Yes, I can.” Johnny Ray said. It was a desparate sound, almost crying. “I can do it.” He looked around at his friends again. They all looked down at the sunken dirt floor. “Well, then,” he said, “if I ain't goin', you ain't goin' neither, Jason Tanner. I'll turn you in to the Provost. I'll call out the Sergeant of the Guard.” Even the minor effort of saying those few words seemed to sap Johnny Ray's strength. His body began to sag and he sat back down on the bunk. He buried his head in in hands. When he looked up again, tears were in his eyes. “Please, Jason,” he said. Let me go with ya.”

Jason looked down at the floor again and shook his head. “I can't,” he said. “I can't take ya with me.” Jason walked over and sat down on Paul's bunk, opposite that of Johnny Ray. Now he could talk softly and privately with his friend. “I cain't take the chance. It's like Paul said, Johnny Ray. If I get caught, they'll shoot me fer desertin' And it's cold and wet out there. I know ye're feelin' better , now...., but ye're still sick. If you 'uz ta go outside, now, you'd just get sicker.”

“So, wait a few days,” Johnny Ray said. “I'll be all better all better by then. That'd give us time ta gather up some more supplies an' stuff an' make some plans. It's gonna be Christmas in just another week. That'll mean they'll be lotsa food an' stuff around. We can stock up an' have enough ta last us a while. Mebbe even get us some new clothes an' stuff from the folks in town. We're gonna be needin' some more clothes. California's all the way on t'other side o' the Rocky Mountains. It gets cold up there in them mountains.”

Jason thought about what Johnny Ray was saying. Now he knew why he had asked the other men in the cabin if they wanted to go, too. He knew Johnny Ray, at least, would have some good ideas on how to go about deserting, just like he had good ideas about everything else.

“When were ya plannin' on leavin'?” Johnny Ray asked.

“Why, tonight, o' course,” Jason said. “But if you think we oughtta...”

“No, I mean what time? After retreat roll call'd be a pretty good time 'cause they wouldn't miss us 'til next mornin'. That'd give us about eight hours head start.”

“Yeah. That'd be good. We could get a long ways away in eight hours.”

“But we'd have to hurry to get outta camp before tattoo,” Johnny Ray pointed out. They both knew the Provost Guard would be suspicious of anyone abroad in the camp after the bugle call telling all personnel to go to quarters, ten minutes before taps.

Jason knitted his eyebrows as he thought about that. Then his face brightened. “We could take our muskets and accout'ments with us. That way, if somebody was to ask, we could tell 'em we was part of the picket relief.”

“Not without a sergeant or a corporal o' the guard along to be postin' us, we couldn't,” Johnny Ray said. “Wouldn't look right. That'd make them provost suspicious. Besides, we can't take our muskets.”

“Why not?” Jason protested. “We're gonna need 'em ta shoot some game on the way. Then there's Injuns an' stuff out there on the prairies. We'll need them rifle muskets for protection.”

“But if we have rifle muskets and military accout'ments the citizens'll know we're either deserters or else bushwackers. If they think we're deserters, they might turn us in for the bounty. If they think we're bushwackers, they might hang us.”

“Huh,” Jason snorted. “Get shot or get hung. What difference would it make?” The boy fell into a stubborn, sullen silence, stung by Johnny Ray's objections. Seems like now he don't want me to go, Jason thought. Now that I told him he can't go, he don't want me to go, neither.

“You know what we could do, though,” Johnny Ray said brightly, “is wait 'til we're both on picket. Or better still, just one of us on picket. Then t'other one can bring out the supplies and ever'thing. Then we could both of us leave from there. We wouldn't have to worry 'bout getting' past the pickets thataway.”

Jason was aghast at the suggestion He tried to force himself to keep his voice low. “Walk off picket?”

Still, the loudness of his question caused Paul and Micah to look up from the card game they had started in front of the fireplace.

“What the hell are you sayin'?” he asked more quietly. “We couldn't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Why?” Jason couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Why, we just couldn't. That's all. What if the Federals.... Well, it just wouldn't be.... Wouldn't be honor'ble.”

“Honorable?” Johnny Ray asked. “You figure you got any honor left after what Cap'n Harpool done ta you? Tied you up like a dog? Had men spit on ya? What kinda 'honor' is that?”

Jason stared at the wall above Johnny Ray's bunk for a moment before looking back at the other soldier. “Well, maybe 'honor' ain't the right word,” he said. “I don't know many fancy words like you do, Johnny Ray, or like Harpool does. But I know what I mean. 'Honor' was as close as I could come to sayin' it in a word. Harpool kept on talkin' 'bout it. Said I didn't have none. Said poor white trash like us don't know nothin' 'bout no honor. Said th' only honor we know 'bout is honor 'mong thieves. But I know I do got honor and Harpool ain't. I said I knew it wasn't right to steal that ham an' he could punish me for it. Punish me for all of us. But then I tol' 'im I warn't no trash an' the rest of us fellas here ain't trash, neither. Just 'cause we're 40-acre farmers an' ain't got us a bunch of land and slaves an' all like he does don't make us no trash, neither. We're volunteers, an' here because we wanna be. Ya don't measure trash by how much land ya got ner how much book learnin' ya got, ner anything like what a man's got. Ya measure trash by what a man is. An' trash is any man who'll betray a frien', like Harpool want me to do. Ordered me to, then tied me up like a dog when I wouldn't do it. Well, ta my mind that makes him trash, not me.” Jason's barely contained fury caused his jaw muscles to quiver.

“An' that's why I'm leavin', Jason went on. “I wanna keep as much o' that 'honor' or whatever you wanna call it as I can. I ain't got much o' nothin' that's mine, but I do know I got that 'honor' or whatever you wanna call it. Harpool ain't got none an' he cain't have none of mine. He cain't take it outta me by buckin' an' gaggin' me an' he cain't take it away by callin' me a coward an' a dog. All I know is, I'm a man, not a dog. There's some dogs'll stay an' take it if you whip 'em. Put their tails down twixt their legs an' take it. They'll whine an' holler, but they'll take it. Come back fer more. Others'll run off, first chainst they get. But there's more to a man than there is to a dog. An' jist because one man don't know no fancy words like 'tother does, don't make him any less a man. Don't make him have any less 'honor.' Some folks might think it ain't honorable ta desert, but ta my mind, it's the only way ta keep any o' the honor I got. Stayin' here an' lettin' Harpool think what he done was right.... Now that ain't honorable.”

As Jason talked, Johnny Ray lay back down on his bunk. He spread the blanket back over himself. He closed his eyes tiredly and looked like he was going back to sleep.

Jason still stared at the wall, almost unaware of Johnny Ray's actions. After a few minutes, he inhaled deeply, then let the breath out heavily; almost a sigh, but not quite. Finally, he looked at his friend.

“You ain't goin' back ta sleep are ye, Johnny Ray?” he asked. “Better not. We're gonna hafta go out ta roll call 'fore long. Almost time fer retreat.”

Johnny Ray didn't say anything, but did open his eyes. He looked up at the underneath side of Jason's bunk but his eyes did not seem to focus on it. He closed his eyes again and a shiver ran through his body.

“Are you all right, Johnny Ray?” Jason asked. “Little while ago you said you 'uz feelin' better.” Jason reached over and placed one hand on his friend's forehead. “Land,” he said. “Ye're burnin' up, Johnny Ray. Here you 'uz tell us how ye're fever 'uz almost gone. It ain't neither. An' ye're shiv'rin', too.” Jason reached up to his own bunk, pulled down his quilt and spread it over Johnny Ray. He reached up again and grabbed his shell jacket. “I'm gonna go get somebody, Johnny Ray. You stay right there.” Jason put on and buttoned his shell jacket, then put his poncho on over the shell. The poncho was only a blanket with a slit in the middle to allow it to slip over his head.

“Who's corp'ral in our section, now, Paul?” Jason asked as he buckled on his waist belt to hold the poncho down. It embarrassed Jason to have to ask Paul that. Until last week and the incident of the stolen ham, Jason had been a corporal.

Paul looked up from the card game. “Well, I guess ol' Elco Tinga is,” he said. “Either him or Howard Bilbrey. Whatcha wanna know for?”

“Johnny Ray's awful sick. He ain't got no call to be goin' out in this rain for no roll call. I 'uz gonna go tell 'em. See if they couldn't get the Surgeon over here ta have a look at 'im.”

Paul and Micah looked over at Johnny Ray. Paul shook his head slightly, then both went back to their cards.

“Jason,” Johnny Ray called out weakly from his bed. Jason leaned down over his friend. “Promise me you ain't gonna leave without me,” Johnny Ray said. His eyes were wet.

Jason smiled at the thin, young soldier in the bed, giving out a half laugh. “What d'ya wanna go with me for, Johnny Ray? Heck,” he said, looking around the cramped cabin, “Lookit what ya got here. Nice, warm, dry cabin,... Friends ta look out for ya. Ya get fed, purty reg'lar, most o the time, now. Kin even buy things from the folks in town. Why'd you take a chainst on goin' with me, anyway? Take a chainst at getting' shot?”

“'Cause I ain't done nothin' yet,” Johnny Ray said. “Ain't even been in one big battle. Just some little skirmishes when we was there at Vicksburg.”

Jason almost lost his smile, but not quite. “That's right,” he said, softly, sitting back down on Paul's bunk. “You was sick when we all went up there to Shiloh. Kept yerself safe an' warm an' dry back there in Corinth, you lucky devil.”

“An' I was sick again at Baton Rouge.”

“Hell, Johnny Ray. We was all sick at Baton Rouge. I had the dia-rears so bad I had ta fall out. Thought I 'uz gonna die.” He paused and remembered the feeling of weakness and fatigue he had felt before that battle, then turned his attention back to his friend.

“But I tell ya, Johnny Ray,” he said. “You don't wanna see no battle. That elephant ain't nothin' ta see. Just a lotta folks in pain. An' the mud an' the blood an' th' dead.... Horses an' men. Folks screamin' when they's wounded. Ya don't never fer sure where ye're going', ner why, ner wat ye're gonna do when ya git there. Don't seem like nobody never knows fer sure what's goin' on. An' it stinks.” Jason shook his head. “You don't really wanna see that elephant, Johnny Ray. You don't wanna see that, at all. It ain't nothin' good ta see.”

Johnny Ray turned his face back up toward Jason's bunk, blinking his eyes as if to bring it all into focus.

“Besides,” Jason said, “you did get ta see some stuff. Got ta see a whole lotta the worl' ya wouldn'ta been able ta see if you just stayed on the farm. Ya got ta see Tennessee an' Miss'ippi and Louisiana.... An ' ya got ta see the Mississippi River, an' Vicksburg and all them Union gunboats out there on the water. An' ya got ta see the ol' Ar-kin-saw come a-runnin' into the city. 'Member that? Ya got ta see 'er come just a-bustin' an' a-bangin' right on through them Union boats. An' they couldn't even touch 'er. The shells'd just go 'clang' offen her sides an' she'd go a blastin' away right back at 'em. You 'member how we all whooped and cheered when we seen that? An' then I jumped right up there up there on them breastworks an' throwed my hat up in the air. Then I hollered out, 'Three cheers fer th' Ar-Kin-Saw,' an then we all started hollerin'. An' 'member when them Union boats started in ta poppin' away at me whilst I 'uz up there? Put a piece o' shell right through m' canteen an' it commenced to leak all over me. Made it look like I done pissed my pants. 'At 'uz funny. An' y'all jist laughed an' laughed at me. But I gotta admit, it prob'ly was a purty commical sight.”

Jason looked back over at Johnny Ray. He was asleep, Jason tucked his quilt closer around Johnny Ray, then stood up. He lifted his haversack off the end of the bunk, placing the strap over his head so the pack rode on his left hip, picked up his slouch hat and headed out the cabin door.

The rain in the camp was not falling heavily, but it was a cold rain, just on the verge of sleet. The wind that whipped the icy spray down the company street allowed drops of rain to come up under Jason's slouch hat brim. His face had been warm in the heated cabin and the cold rain was a shock as it splashed onto his cheeks while he walked.

Jason found Elco Tinga playing 'Chuck-a-Luck with several other men in one of the mess tents at the head of the company street. Company First Sergeant John Kelly was there, too. Neither man seemed to be having much luck at the game and semed to welcome the diversion Jason's arrival brought. Kelly told Jason that the regimental surgeon would not be available until the next morning, the normal time for sick call.

“I'll go look at Harris, though,” Kelly said, standing up and donning his rubber-coated poncho.

“I recon I will, too,” Tinga said.

“I'll be along directly,” Jason told the two non-commissioned officers as they exited the mess tent and started off toward Jason's cabin. “I gotta go visit the sinks.”

As Jason turned and started toward the latrines, Kelly stopped. “Hey, Tanner,” he said. He turned back toward Tinga, “You go on and see how Harris is, Elco. I need ta talk to this man.”

Tinga nodded, then turned and started toward Jason's cabin.

When the corporal was out of hearing distance, Kelly asked Jason, “How you gettin' along, there, Tanner? Feelin' okay, now.”

Jason nodded, folding his arms in under the blanket poncho to keep them out of the cold rain.

The first sergeant seemed nervous and awkward, as if unsure of himself. “You know, Tanner,” he started, slowly, “you got plenty o' right ta be bitter. What Captain Harpool done to you wasn't right.” He paused. “All of us sergeants and Lieutenant Campbell and all... we know that.”

Jason nodded again and looked down at the ground. He watched as the rainwater collected in his hatbrim poured out in a strem to fall at his feet. “So how come you let 'im do it?” he asked.

“'Cause he's the captain,” Kelly said. “He's the one in command here,”

“Yeah,” Jason said, bitterly, looking back up at Kelly. “But ye're the first sergent. You run this comp'ny. You coulda stopped 'im. Coulda talked 'im inta givin' me extra duty or somethin' like that. I know it wasn't right to steal that ham. But still wasn't no call to have me bucked an' gagged. I wasn't insuborn't.”

"He felt like he had to do it. You didn't give him a choice. You wouldn't tell him who did take it.” Kelly paused for a moment. “It was Harris who stole it, wasn't it?”

Jason stared hard at the first sergeant. “If I wouldn't tell Harpool,” he said, “just what makes you think I'll tell you?”

Kelly looked down and shook his head, then looked back up at Jason. “You're a good man, Tanner,” the first sergeant said. “You was a good corporal.”

Jason continued looking at Kelly, wondering why the man was telling him this.

“Give it a few days, Tanner,” Kelly told him. “It'll all blow over. Then we'll see about getting' your stripes back.”

“What makes you think I want 'em back?”

Kelly shrugged, causing tiny rivers of rainwater to cascade off his poncho. “Just give it some time,” he said.

“Do you mind?” Jason asked, irritably. “I gotta go visit the sinks.”

“Well, don't be gone too long,” Kelly told him. “Almost time for retreat.” He turned and followed Tinga's path toward Jason's cabin.

Jason turned away and trudged up the slippery, muddy path toward the latrines. The latrines were dug into the far side of a low hill that overlooked the camps. The hill was west of the camp and offset from the camp's edge so the latrine's miasma, traveling on the wind, would not affect the soldiers. The latrine, actually one of many for the army camped in and around Murphreesborough, had already been relocated several times already, each location less accessible to the soldiers of Jason's regiment. The night was dark but a faint glow reflecting back from the misty clouds overhead made it somewhat less than pitch black and Jason was able to find his way, but traveling as much by memory as by sight.

Jason paused at the top of the hill, turned and looked back at the encampment. By viewing the glowing lines of fires built at the head of each company or regimental street, he could tell where his unit was billeted. By counting down the row of huts and tents, he could even pick put his own cabin; the where Johnny Ray lay dying. Jason knew Johnny Ray was going to die. He had seen it happen too many times.

Other lines of fires and rows of tents and cabins told Jason of the placement of other regiments. Beyond the infantry camp was the artillery, he knew, and farther on, beyond the woods, was the cavalry camp, then more infantry. A deeper line of gloom showed where the tree-lined banks of Stone's River wound northward, away from the town of Murphreesborough. In the distance, the houses of the town showed friendly, glowing windows to the boy, telling him of families inside gathered around dinner tables to enjoy a late supper or congregating in parlors; reading, talking, mending clothes, singing hymns together; perhaps even decorating a Christmas tree.

The hollowness and aching emptiness deep in his chest, just behind the place where his heart should be, reminded him that his own family, far away in Kentucky, might be doing the same thing right at that moment. He took off his slouch hat and looked up at the night sky. Letting the cold, misty rain fall full onto his face, letting it try to wash away the grime and dried-on sweat. He felt a trickle of rainwater run in through the slit of his poncho, then roll on down his chest.

Jason walked slowly down the far side of hill toward the long privy built over the slit trench that served as his regiment's latrine. A slight pull of the handle opened the privy door a crack, letting the noxious smell of human waste roll out of the blackness within, cascading over him, engulfing him, assailing his nostrils, warning him of the putrification inside.

Violated, Jason let the handle go, letting gravity shut the door again.

The young man turned away and walked on through the gloomy, misty rain, making a new trail down the far side of the hill, heading west.

Fight

NAVAL HOSPITAL, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA—AUGUST, 1969

Bob Kornfeld could walk now, four months after he'd been wounded in Vietnam, but there was still no strength in his left side.

“You're doing great, Bob,” said Ray Peña, the little Filipino corpsman at Bob's side.

“Yeah,” Bob said happily. “Next thing ya know, I'll be runnin' down that hall. Thanks, Ray.” He nodded a farewell to the corpsman as the pair entered the ward and Ray went back to the nurse's station to update charts.

Ray had been Bob's “spotter” on the trip down to hospital's H-Wing corridor to the telephones and back to Ward H-9. Ray was ordered by the duty nurse to go along in case Bob became too fatigued to continue the trip. It was also Ray's job to help the patient back to his feet if Bob fell, or prevent the fall if possible; a difficult task considering Bob was a head taller and outweighed Ray by 60 pounds or more.

If he'd stopped to consider the thought, Bob might have been irritated by the fact someone thought he needed a keeper. But Bob was simply too overjoyed at still being alive to be bitter about anything. Bitterness would come later.

For now, Bob just thought it was frustrating to be partially paralyzed.

So many things were difficult for him now; a contrast from the first 20 years of his life when, as a three-sport athlete, anything that required physical skill had come easily, fluidly, almost without effort.

Now even simple movements like walking took careful thought and execution to be certain the correct muscles moved in the proper direction. Bob found it required a well-planned series of actions for him to travel from one point to another.

Walking, for Bob, consisted of leaning on a cane in his right hand and pivoting his body to make his useless left foot and leg swing outward to a position more or less between the pivot point and his destination. He would then quickly shift a part of his weight to make the sole of the left foot contact with the floor. It was necessary to shift the weight quickly, he found, or the pendulum action of the leg would bring the foot back beneath his body. Next, keeping most of his weight on the right leg, he would put the cane forward and lean on it. Finally he would take a step with his right foot. Bob would then slowly repeat the process. It often took as long as 15 minutes for Bob to get from one end of the ward to the other.

The step with the right foot was the tricky part, he found, for then Bob had to trust at least part of his weight to the left leg. Even though he tried to keep the left knee rigidly locked, the muscles of the leg were of little or no assistance and sometimes the joint would bend. When that happened, Bob fell down.

Bob fell down a lot. Not nearly as often now, he remembered, compared to last month, when he first attempted to walk. Then, just the trip across the aisle between the rows of beds had been more of an exercise in getting up off the floor than practice in walking.

No, no, Bob reminded himself, that was getting up off the “deck,” not the floor. Funny how those sailors talk.

“Hey, Willie,” Bob called out as he approached Pugh's bed. “I walked all the way down the hall to the telephone and only fell on the floor twice.” Bob put special emphasis on the words “hall” and “floor,” knowing Pugh—as he always did—would take exception to the lack of correct Naval terminology.
Actually, it was difficult for Bob to place emphasis on words because he spoke in the slow, loud monotone used by most of the head wound cases in the Neurosurgery/Neurology Ward. In addition to varying degrees of paralysis, hearing and speech were usually affected in these men. They often spoke like bad, slightly deaf actors reading an unfamiliar script. Even though the words were all there, the correct emphasis was lacking. Also like bad actors, the head wound cases invariably held their heads and upper bodies rigidly straight while they talked; as if any body movement would break the concentration on what they were trying to say.

Willie Pugh was also a head wound case and spoke much the same way. “That's a deck, you dummy,” Pugh said in an exasperated voice. “And that's a passageway, not a hall.”

Bob slowly hobbled up to Willie's bed and sat down on its edge. He was suddenly aware of how tired he was from the walk down the corridor. But again, Bob was in no mood to reflect negatively on his infirmity.

“Oh, yeah?” Bob asked. He pointed upward with his cane. “And I suppose you're gonna tell me that's not really a ceiling.”

“That's right," Willie said. “It's an 'overhead.' Anybody but a dumbshit ground pounder like you would know that.”

“Who you callin' a 'ground pounder?' Ain't you one, too?”

“No way. I'm a 'Grunt.' Proud member of the United States Marine Corps.”

“Oh,” Bob said. “Big difference.” In his mind, Bob was nodding his head in a sarcastic manner but because of the paralysis his head merely moved erratically, like the head of a fuzzy plastic dog in the rear window of a car.

Bob looked up at the ceiling, forcing the muscles of his neck to tilt his head back. The head leaned slightly to the right when it tilted, then slipped into the desired position like the ball in a pinball machine that rims around the bonus hole before it drops in place.

“So that's an 'overhead,' huh?” Bob said. “Sure looks like a ceiling to me.”

“It's over your head, isn't it?” Willie asked him.

“Wouldn't be if I was twelve feet tall,” Bob said. With an effort, he forced his head to an upright position again. He was immensely pleased when he found himself able to bring it straight forward.

“Hey, Willie,” Bob said, “how come you use all that Navy talk, anyway? You're a Marine, ain't ya?”

Pugh nodded. “My Dad's a Marine, too. Master Sergeant down at Parris Island. But he used to be stationed on ships all the time. Had to use that lingo. He used it and us kids just learned it from him. Never even knew there was any other way to talk.”

“Seems kinda silly to me, though.”

“Not if you want to be a good Marine.” Willie changed the subject. “Whatcha go down to the phone for?” he asked.

“Just to see if I could. But I talked to my mother while I was there, anyway. We had a scheduled phone call at eight o'clock. Almost didn't get to talk to her, though.” He chuckled. “Like a dummy, I picked up the phone with my right hand when it rang and was standin' there with the receiver up to my right ear. Couldn't her a goddam thing.”

“You can't hear nothin' outta your right ear?”

“Naw,” Bob said. “Just the left one. 'Bout the only thing on that side that still works right. Good thing I've always been right handed. How about you?”

“I'm ambidextrous. Or at least, I used to be. Looks like I'm gonna have to use my left hand from now on.”

“Yeah,” Bob agreed. “You put us two together and you'd have one whole person and one paraplegic.”

“You mean 'Quadriplegic,'” Willie corrected him. “If you can move your arms but can't move your legs, you're a paraplegic. But if both arms and both legs are paralyzed, you're a quadriplegic”

“Oh, yeah? Well, what if your dick's paralyzed?”

“Then you're a fag.”

Both young men laughed, then fell silent. Pugh turned his attention back to the baseball game he'd been listening to on the radio.

“Braves winnin'?” Bob asked.

“One to one in the seventh.” Willie gave a hopeless sigh. “They'll blow it. They ain't got no pitchin'.”

“Who they got on the mound?”

“Neikro. Knuckleballer. But he'll blow it.”

“Shit, Willie. I thought you were a Braves fan.”

“I am. That's how I know they'll blow it. They always do. Only way they can win is seven to four or something like that. They always blow these close ones.”

“Ya gotta have confidence, Willie. They ain't never gonna win if you don't have confidence in 'em.”

“Yeah? Well, how much confidence do you have in those Yankees of yours?”

Bob laughed. “Not a goddam bit. They're pathetic, this year." He thought a moment. "Hey, I ever tell you the Yankees drafted me when I was in High School?”

“What as?" Pugh asked. "Bat-boy?”

“No. Catcher. Fourteenth round. I was better as a linebacker, but the Yankees didn't need one of those.”

“So, what happened? Did they offer you any money?”

“Three thousand a season. Wanted me to start out in the Rookie Leagues at Ft. Lauderdale. Class A.”

“So, why didn't you sign?”

“Oh,” Bob said with a bit of a sigh, “I don't know. You know.... Well, Florida State had offered me a scholarship for football. And I thought I had a whole lot better chance at the NFL or the AFL than I had at makin' it to the majors.”

“So, what happened?” Willie asked.

“Shit,” Bob answered, giving his head an erratic shake. “No one ever told me you had to study, too, while you were in College. So I didn't. That's why I only lasted one year there at Florida State. They took my scholarship away. So I said, 'Fuck it” and dropped outta school.”

Bob paused, thinking back with regret on his college career. He heaved a sigh, the intake of breath swelling his barrel chest. He was a burly, hairy-chested young man. One look at his solid upper torso and well-muscled arms and it was easy to picture him plugging holes in a football defensive line or blocking home plate to prevent a runner scoring from third base.

“I went to see the Yankees again afterwards,” Bob went on. “They offered me a tryout, but no money. But I got drafted again right after that, anyway.”

“By who?”

“By the Army,” Bob laughed, his depression lifted by the chance to make a joke. “I got to play in the Southeast Asia League, then.”

“Oh, yeah? They gotta league over there?”

“No, dummy. I mean I got sent to 'Nam.”

Willie's attention was diverted by the radio. “Shit,” he said. “Didn't score. This fuckin' game's got 'extra innings' written all over it. Thought it'd be over by lights out.”

“Can't you listen to it with your ear plug?”

“I can't hear it very well through that thing. And Nurse Beamon won't let me leave it on, anyway.”

“That bitch got the duty tonight?” Bob asked.

“Yeah,” Willie said. “All fuckin' week. Four to twelve.”

“She's a hard ass, ain't she?”

“More like a 'Fat Ass.' She heard me call her that last week: Fat Ass. That's why she don't like me.”

“Oh,” Bob said with a lopsided grin. “I thought it was just because you're ugly.”

Willie looked over at Bob. “Well you ain't so fuckin' pretty yourself, melon head. Anybody ever tell you your head looks like a watermelon some asshole dropped on the sidewalk?”

Bob grinned self-consciously and reached up to the right side of his head. With his fingers he lightly traced around the hole in his skull. There was a concave oval depression in his scalp where the bone shattered by the Viet Cong bullet was removed. The hole was about five inches long and about two-and-a-half inches wide. Through Bob's stubbly black hair a tracery of bright pink scar tissue was clearly visible where the doctors had closed the wound after smoothing the edges of splintered bone and removing any remaining shards and slivers from the gray matter underneath. Persons seeing Bob for the first time were amazed that anyone could lose such a large portion of his cranium and survive.

Bob was wounded during a night action near the Cambodian border while on an ambush patrol. Following the usual practice of his company on a night ambush, his squad had been certain to make a considerable amount of noise as they moved into position along their assigned stretch of trail to alert any VC in the area to the ambush location. Any infiltrating Viet Cong on the move, the common reasoning went, would then take a wide turn past the ambush site and go on about their business while the men of the patrol slept. Instead of avoiding the location, though, the VC massed their available forces in the area to ambush the ambushers. Bob and the others of his squad woke suddenly when the enemy hit. When he'd gone to sleep, Bob slipped off his helmet and laid it beside him. As he awoke to the sound of gunfire, locating and putting on the “Brain Bucket” was not his primary concern and Bob manned his machine gun that night with his head unprotected. As the VC withdrew after a quick, vicious firefight, one of their parting shots struck a glancing blow off Bob's skull about three inches above the corner of his right eye. The bullet did not enter the brain, it only shattered the skull as it ricocheted off.

No one in his squad expected Bob to live as they Medevaced him, two other wounded and two dead men out of the area the next morning. No one at the Fire Base aid station expected Bob to survive such a ghastly wound, either, so they treated the other two wounded men first.

But Bob did survive. The compressed skull fracture left him paralyzed on the left side and unable to hear in the right ear, but otherwise healthy. After the doctors in Saigon repaired the damage as best they could and his condition stabilized, he was evacuated back to the U.S. Mainland.

Even though Bob was a member of the U.S. Army, he was sent to Charleston Naval Hospital for reconstructive surgery because the chief of Neurosurgery there, Dr. Paul Schodroff, had a national reputation as one of the best in the business and because Charleston was the closest military hospital to Bob's hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida.

As Bob examined his wound, he looked at Pugh, trying to devise an insult similar to the “melon head” crack to hurl at his friend.

Pugh had been at the siege of Khe San, suffering through bombardments—almost constant during the nights and sporadic during the day—by VC artillery and rockets. He lived in a mud-filled dugout during the nights and either manned the perimeter or went out on patrols to try to find the enemy rocket positions during the daylight. Life in Khe San was filled with cries of “Incoming” and continual flopping to the ground to avoid the enemy fire. Once, however, a rocket landed too close. The concussion of the exploding round caved in the top of Willie's helmet, pushing the metal down onto Pugh's head and causing a compressed skull fracture near the top of his cranium.

As with Bob, the doctors in Vietnam could do little to help Willie other than removing the broken bone fragments from the brain tissue and smoothing out the jagged edges of the break. Since Pugh's “home of record” was in South Carolina, he too was sent to Charleston for reconstructive surgery and to help him try to regain some of the movement in his now-useless right side. He had been in the Hospital for 10 weeks and made a great deal of progress. He was able to use his right hand a bit, could walk fairly steadily and seldom fell anymore unless he was trying to negotiate one of the inclined ramps where the wooden structures housing
the Hospital's different wards branched from one of the building's main hallways.

Bob looked at Willie's head, noting there really wasn't much disfiguration. There was a slight flattening of the top of the skull and a shallow depression there, but it was fairly well covered with hair. Bob could think of no name to call Pugh and so let the previous comment pass.

“They give you any word about when they're gonna put the plate in your head, Willie?” Bob asked his friend.

“No. But it probably won't be for a couple of months, yet. I heard Dr. Schodroff usually gives you your 30 days convalescent leave first. Lets you go home to show all the folks how bad you got fucked up before he makes you all pretty again.”

Bob smiled his crooked smile. “Hey, that'd be nice. Lotta people back home I'd like to see.”

Willie gave a half shrug. “Probably wouldn't be such a good idea for me to show myself around too much. You know, my old man's down there at Parris Island. I'd probably scare the piss out of the Boots. But I bet I could go into any bar there in Beaufort wearin' my uniform and medals—my Purple heart and all—and never even have to pay for a drink, meal,... Nothin'.”

“Sure,” Bob agreed. “Hell, you'd probably even get ya a mercy fuck or two from some o' the local honeys.”

Willie grinned at the prospect. “Yeah,” he said, then thought for a moment. “But I'll tell ya who I'd like to get a mercy fuck from.”

“Nurse Beamon,” Bob interjected.

“Fuck you, asshole,” Willie said disgustedly. “I wouldn't fuck her with your dick.” Willie paused and thought for a moment. “Now, there's some of the other nurses....” He gave his head a quick half shake.

Pugh leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. “The one I'd like to get somethin' from would be his sister.” Willie pointed across the aisle to the bed next to Bob's.

In the bed was a tall, thin wraith of a man named Tommy Richardson. Every weekend Tommy was visited by his mother—-a matronly woman in her fifties—plus one of the most gorgeous women Bob, Willie or any other man on the ward had ever seen. Priscilla Richardson, Tommy's sister, had a figure like a Playboy centerfold and a face like a Madonna. When she walked down the aisle between the beds of the ward to sit beside Tommy, all conversation stopped as each patient, corpsman and doctor in the place stared in horny fascination at her every action.

“Good God, who wouldn't?” Bob said. “That girl even makes my tongue hard.”

Bob changed the subject, slightly. “You know,” he said, “my dick ain't half paralyzed, like the rest of me.” He smiled at Willie's quizzical expression. “I think I really expected my dick to only work on one side, like everything else I got.” He nodded at Willie's now-skeptical look. “Yeah. I really thought that when I got a hard-on, it would curve off to the left, cause that side wouldn't work. But it don't. I got one the other night. Straight as a fuckin' arrow. But I tell ya.... It really had me worried there for a while. Thought I'd never be able to get it up at all, to tell you the truth.”

But Pugh's mind was still on Priscilla Richardson. “God,” he said. “That woman. How'd a creep like Tommy ever get a sister like her, anyway?”

“He ain't a creep,” Bob said. “He's really a pretty nice guy. Used to be, anyway. We used to play ball against each other. He's from Tampa. We played his school in the state baseball tournament once. Tommy pitched. Ninety fuckin' miles an hour. I tell ya.... I never even saw the goddam ball. Only got one hit off him, by sheer luck. Just stuck the bat out and the ball hit it. It was goin' so fast it bounced all the way into center field.” Bob paused and thought a moment. “But he was wild, though. I also walked twice in that game. And he hit four or five guys. That's probably why Tommy never got drafted very high by the pros. But I heard he got a baseball scholarship to Miami. Wonder what happened?”

Both Bob and Willie looked over at Tommy as he lay curled up in his bed.

Marine Lance Corporal Tommy Richardson, as he was now, was six feet six inches tall and weighed 110 pounds. On each of Tommy's temples was a thick patch of criss-crossing scar tissue marking the path where a bullet entered one side of his head and exited the other. Tommy fired that bullet himself from a .38 caliber pistol he'd purchased in a pawn shop. Tommy shot himself the day before he was to leave for Vietnam.

All that was left of the old Tommy, it seemed, was a pair of bright, lively eyes that moved constantly and seemed to drink in everything he saw. But what he saw and what he comprehended these days, no one really knew.

Almost daily, Tommy was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled to some office or clinic in the hospital, or else to physical therapy. The testing showed that Tommy was alive, but little else. Anything that required a cognitive response from the young man was useless—he could not or would not follow instructions or even indicate he comprehended what he was asked to do. The physical therapy's purpose was to both strengthen his weak muscles and to flatten his body out of the fetal position he kept attempting to draw it into. Tommy's condition continued to deteriorate.

Up until about three weeks ago, Tommy even fed himself his soft-food menu. Or at least, he attempted to feed himself. Most of the food either went onto the bedclothes or down the front of his light blue hospital pajamas. At that time the doctors—concerned about Tommy's constant weight loss—ordered a nasal-gastric tube installed to force-feed the young man three times a day.

Even though the feedings were a bother, both ward corpsmen and nurses welcomed the change from constantly cleaning up Tommy's spills and splatters and the food he intentionally smeared over the bed table, the bedstead and his sheets. At least, at first they welcomed it. Now, Tommy would simply wait until he had a bowel movement, then spread shit everywhere he could get his hands. The ward personnel had lately begun tying Tommy's hand to the bed's siderails to prevent this feces “art” form occurring.

“You mean you recognized him?” Willie asked incredulously.

“Well, I recognized the name,” Bob answered. “Then, I got to talkin' with his Mom and Penny. I asked them if this was the same Tommy Richardson. Turns out we all know some of the same people.”

“Who's this 'Penny' you're talkin' about?”

“Priscilla. She'd rather be called 'Penny.' Tommy's sister."

“Oh. The creep. He's a creep,” Willie repeated. “And a fuckin' coward. A stupid coward, too. If he wanted to kill himself, why didn't he do it right and use a .45? Or use anything else but a fuckin' steel-jacketed .38 that's just go right on through. Woulda saved everybody a whole lotta trouble if he'd just done the job right in the first place and killed his fuckin' self.”

“Maybe,” Bob admitted, feeling uncomfortable about his friend's harsh words toward another whom he also considered a friend. Bob looked up slyly at Willie. “But if he'd done that, we'd 'a never got to meet his sister.”

“Yeah,” Willie admitted, shaking his head spasmodically, “I guess not.”

Again Pugh's attention was diverted by the radio. “Good. Got 'em out. And we got Aaron comin' up next inning. Come on, Hammer! Let's get hold of one!”



“What is it now?” Bob asked. “Still one-to-one?”

“Yeah,” Pugh said. “The Cards had a guy on there in the top of the eighth but Neikro got out of it.”

“Well, I hope they win.” Bob looked back over at his bed, then looked back at Pugh. “Say, Willie, you got any water in your jug there?” Bob asked, indicating the water pitcher on Pugh's bed table. “Mine's empty.”

“Yeah. But I only got one glass. You'll have to get your own if you want some.”

“What's the matter? You think I got somethin' you'll catch?”

“Yeah. I'm afraid I'll turn up stupid, just like you, Melon Head.”

“Well,” Bob said as he got stiffly to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. “At least my head doesn't look like a fuckin' zit that's just about ready to pop. That's what yours looks like. All it needs is for someone to squeeze your neck and then all the pus'd come gushin' out the hole in the top o' your head.”

Bob didn't wait for a response. He began his awkward stroll over to his bed to get a glass off his bedstand. As he picked up his glass, Bob's eyes met those of Tommy Richardson as the other young man lay, curled up into a ball, tied to his bed.

“How you doin' Tommy?” Bob greeted him. “OK? Almost time for lights out, you know.”

Tommy's eyes grew wide, as if he'd beheld something astonishing. His mouth moved, but no sounds came out.

Bob gave Tommy an awkward bow of acknowledgment, then stood up straight again, turned and went back across the aisle to Pugh's bed.

As Bob poured ice water from the pitcher into his glass, Willie set another glass on the bed table next to Bob's. “Pour me one, too."

“Sure,” Bob replied. But when he poured the second glassful, his aim was a bit off the mark and water sloshed out onto Willie's bed table. From the table, the water ran down onto Pugh's leg.

“Hey, watch it, will ya,” Pugh called out. “You're getting' me wet.”

“Sorry,” Bob said. He set the pitcher down, then wiped the water from the table with his hand. The water pushed by his hand ran over the edge of the bed table onto Willie's leg and the sheets of his bed.

“Hey, motherfucker. I didn't want a god damned bath!” Willie exclaimed. He swung the bed table out of the way and climbed awkwardly out of bed. He attempted to wipe the water off the sheets.

Bob, holding his water glass, sat down heavily in the chair beside Pugh's bed. “Hell,” he said, “ya need one.”

“Oh, yeah,” Willie replied, picking up the water glass Bob half-filled. “Let's see how you like it.” Pugh dumped the ice water into Bob's lap.

“You cocksucker,” Bob said, his voice rather quiet considering what his friend had done.



Pugh pushed past Bob's chair and hurried away, limping and leaning heavily on his cane. Bob sat, staring stupidly into his wet lap. Pugh stopped fifteen feet down the aisle between the rows of beds and stood grinning back at his friend.

Bob got to his feet again, leaning on the cane in his right hand. He reached out toward the glass of water with his left arm by constricting his bicep. That movement and a slight clenching of the left hand was about the extent of his dexterity with his left side. Shaking his head slightly, Bob realized he could not both carry the water glass in his right hand and use the cane to walk. Keeping the left arm cocked, he hung the crook of the cane in the hollow of his elbow and picked up the water glass with his right hand.

Bob kept his eyes locked onto Pugh as his friend stood in the aisle. Pugh's presence was mocking, taunting and inviting retaliation. Bob pivoted to swing his left leg forward, paused for a moment, shifting his weight to the left leg, then stepped out quickly with his right foot. He took another set of steps, then another, exhiliarated by the experience of walking without the aid of a cane for the first time since Vietnam. But on the fourth step with the right leg, the left knee buckled and Bob could feel himself falling. As he tumbled toward the floor Bob tossed the water from the glass toward Pugh. The liquid gushed forth in seeming slow motion, forming a wide arc as it rose, then fell. Though most of the water landed on the floor between the two men, a good portion of it splashed squarely against Willie's chest.

On the floor, Bob rolled himself over onto his back. He transferred the glass to his left hand, then reached up with his right to the to the top of a bed frame and pulled himself to a standing position, beaming and laughing at what he'd just done. He began looking to see if other men in the ward had seen it, too. But when Bob turned, he found he was looking directly at the stocky, white-clad, humorless, hands-on-hips figure of Ensign Mary Beamon.

“Hi, Miss Beamon,” Bob said, still grinning. “Ya see me walk?”

Nurse Beamon was the lowest-ranking and newest of the half-dozen nurses who rotated the evening and night duty in the hospital's “H” wing. She'd often heard during training how “old hands” among enlisted men tended to take advantage of new officers and—-knowing in her mind that she didn't have what it takes to be a strict disciplinarian—determined to take a hard disciplinary line with corpsmen and patients.

“Just what's going on here?" Nurse Beamon demanded, then set her mouth into a thin-lipped hard line.

“Kornfeld. Pugh,” she said, indicating Bob and Willie. “Get some mops and get this water up off the deck. Then put on some dry pajamas. It's time for light out.” She turned to the sound of Pugh's radio. “And shut off this goddam noise.”

“Aw, Miss Beamon,” Willie protested, “the game's almost over. Can't I just...”

“Turn it off, I said.”

The nurse stood her ground until Willie hobbled up to his bed table and turned off the radio. He and Bob then limped over to the utility closet where brooms, mops and other cleaning paraphernalia were stored. Nurse Beamon turned and went back to the nurse's station at the end of the ward.

“What the fuck you trying' to do, Corn Field?” Willie demanded of Bob as they got mops out of the closet. “You tryin' to get me in trouble?”

“Me?” Bob asked. “You're the one started it!”

The two men, using the mops for canes, arrived back at the spill and began sopping up the water into the long strings of the swab heads. Bob started at one end of the long puddle of water and attempted to push the mop in a straight line through the liquid. Willie, with only one useful hand, attempted to swing the mop from side to side in the long, sweeping arcs traditionally used by sailors swabbing a deck. On one of his sweeps Willie maliciously allowed his mop to collide with Bob's. This caused Bob's swab to jump to one side and destroyed the friction between mop head and floor that kept Bob erect.

Bob fell, instinctively twisting his body to fall on the left side and tightening the muscles of his neck to prevent his already-damaged head from striking the floor.

Bob scrambled to his feet again using the mop for support. Once erect, he balanced on his right foot while he lifted the mop head to waist level, keeping the long handle of the swab braced under his arm. He twisted to the right, his forearm extended to give the mop head as much deflection to the right as he could, then twisted back the other way. The long, wet, heavy strings of the swab swung out and around, missing Pugh by at least a foot yet spraying him with a few drops of water. The mop's moving weight pulled Bob off his precarious balance and sent him crashing back to the floor.

Grinning, Pugh turned away to continue mopping.

In frustration, Bob rolled across the floor until he could reach Pugh's left leg with the mop handle. A push with the handle's tip against the back of Willie's left knee sent that man, too, crashing to the deck.

The two men were soon on their feet again, facing each other with about six feet between them. The two mops, each braced in the one good arm each man possessed, crossed like outlandish fencing foils. The men both pivoted and swung their mops. The swab handles came together with a “crack” like the sound of a wooden bat making solid contact with a baseball. Water droplets cascaded in a fine mist off the mop heads, spraying the two protagonists and other patients watching the duel from their beds. Again the two men swung their mops and again they cracked together and bounced away.

On the third swing Pugh was quicker than his opponent and his mop slapped up against Bob's shoulder. Again Bob hit the floor. But the momentum of the swing also caused Pugh to fall and he crashed down on top of Bob.

Bob raised his head and looked around at the other ward patients sitting up in their beds, laughing. He chuckled too, realizing how comical he and Pugh must have looked.

Nurse Beamon, though, was not amused. She stood—all crisp white cotton and righteous indignation—over the two men lying on the floor in their wet blue pajamas.

Bob looked up at her. Her hands were again on her hips and fury was again in her eyes. His own eyes strayed down her short length to her white stocking-encased legs. The legs were really quite shapely, he thought. Solid, but not unpleasant looking. She was quite close. With no more than a half-roll to the right, Bob knew he would be able to look up her dress. He resisted the temptation to do so.

“Do you two children want to be put on report?” she asked in the most acid voice she could manage.

Neither Bob nor Willie said anything, they just stared at her.

“Well, that's what's going to happen if you two don't get your mess cleaned up and get to bed right this instant.”

“Hell, Miss Beamon,” Willie said slowly and tonelessly, looking around, “we done got all the water cleaned up.”

“Yeah,” Bob said. “We couldn't get it up with the mops so we just rolled around on the floor till we soaked it up with our clothes.”

The nurse simply looked at them, her mouth still set in a hard line. “Go get some dry pajamas on,” she said at last. She turned and went back to the nurse's station, gave a quick order to Jerry Fuscia, the duty corpsman, then went on up the corridor out of the ward. As soon as she left, Fuscia turned out the ward lights.

Willie and Bob came back to their beds after changing their wet pajamas. Willie looked at the now-silent radio, wondering who won the game or if it was even over yet. “Hey, Bob,” Willie asked as he climbed into bed, “is that all you ever wanted to do? Play ball?”

“Yeah, I guess. Either that or...” Bob shook his head. “Hell, I don't know. What did you want to be?”

Willie sighed. “All I ever wanted to be was a Marine, like my dad. I probably woulda gone for thirty, like him. Looks like they'll give me a medical discharge, now."

“Yeah. I guess so. Well, good night, Willie.”

“Night, Bob.”

Bob stood beside his bed transferring a few items from the top of his nightstand to its single drawer. As he closed the drawer, he looked over at Tommy.

Tommy's mouth moved soundlessly. His eyes looked like those of a frightened, cornered animal.

“Hey, Tommy,” Bob said, taking a step toward the thin young man's bed. “What's the matter?”

Tommy reached a bound hand toward Bob. The restraint that tied his hand to the side rail would not allow him to reach the other young man.

Bob loosened the piece of torn sheet with which Tommy's arm was tied.

Immediately, Tommy gripped Bob's right wrist. The frightened look still in Tommy's luminous eyes.

“What's the matter, Tommy,” Bob asked again. “Were you scared or somethin' when me and Pugh was fightin' with the mops?”

Tommy nodded slowly and made a strangling sound deep in his throat.

“Aw,” Bob said. “We were just havin' a little fun. We weren't really mad at each other. We were just kinda like... Like playin' a game,” Bob went on, as quietly and as soothingly as he could. “Just playin', Tommy. Just a game. Only a game.”

The scared look slowly began to fade from Tommy's face. He loosened his grip on Bob's arm a bit.

“A game. A game,” Bob droned on in his monotone, trying to get Tommy to close his eyes and go to sleep. “We were playin' a game. Just havin' some fun. A game. A game. Playin' a game.”

“What the hell are you doing, Kornfeld?” Miss Beamon's voice demanded from behind Bob, startling both him and Tommy and causing both men to jump.

Bob looked over his shoulder at the nurse. “Well, I was tryin' to get Tommy, here, to go to sleep,” he said. “It was workin', too, until you showed up.”

“If you don't get into bed right now, Bob, you're going to be in big trouble,” Miss Beamon said through clenched teeth.

Bob turned fully to look at the woman. She was considerable shorter than he was. She wasn't really fat, he realized. Her shortness and stocky build simply gave her an impression of heft. She had a round face, not pretty but not unpleasant, either, with cool gray eyes and very short eyelashes. Bob was suddenly conscious of how long it was since he'd been with a woman. He looked away, staring off across the ward.

“I said get in bed,” the nurse said in a hoarse, furious whisper. “And if you don't do it right now, you'll be in serious trouble.”

Bob spun back toward her with a fury that matched hers. “Just what are you gonna do to me, Fat Ass?” Bob said in an angry whisper. “You gonna draft me and send me to 'Nam?”

Nurse Beamon stood wide-eyed in stunned silence. Her lips parted as though to say something, then closed. The jaw clenched, then slackened. “Don't you dare talk to me like that,” she said in a whispered voice barely under control.

Bob stood for a while, staring out over the ward, his head bobbing slightly up and down. He took a couple of shallow breaths. Neither person spoke for a long time.

As Bob stood there, he was aware that he could smell just a hint of the nurse's perfume—not much, but just a bit of something soft and feminine. Again he realized how long it was since he'd been with a woman. But God, he chastised himself, why do I have to be nice to her? He looked over at he nurse again. No, he told himself. I may be horny, but... He let the thought drop.

“OK, Miss Beamon,” he said at last. “I'm very sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

The nurse paused before she said anything else. “Get to bed, Bob,” she finally ordered, quietly.

“I will, ma'am, as soon as Tommy here goes to sleep.”

The two people stood staring at the other's faces.

After a while, Miss Beamon spun sharply on her heel and walked away.

Bob turned back to look into Tommy's frightened eyes. “It's all right, Tommy,” he said softly. He continued to stand there with Tommy's strengthless fingers in his own strong right hand until Tommy went to sleep.


Tommy did not go to sleep until after ten clock, when Jerry Fuscia went around the ward checking vital signs—temperature, blood pressure and pulse of certain patients who had undergone operations or certain tests recently or who were especially ill.

Fuscia stopped by Willie's bed when he noticed Pugh was still awake. “Braves won,” Fuscia told Willie. “Cepeda hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the twelfth.”

“Hear that, Bob,” Willie called softly over across the aisle. “Braves won.”

“Yeah,” Bob said as he climbed into his bed. “Hell, maybe they'll win the pennant.”

“No way,” Pugh said. “They ain't got no pitchin'.”

Bob didn't answer. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Soon Willie was asleep, too.


In the examining room at the end of the corridor leading into the Neurosurgery/Neurology ward, Nurse Mary Beamon sat on a couch. On a small table beside her was a cup of quickly-cooling coffee and a smoldering cigarette burning to ash in an ashtray. Mary was crying softly. She wanted to be angry with Kornfeld, but found she couldn't bring herself to be. She wanted to be angry at Pugh, whom she disliked heartily, but found she had no good reason for malice toward him, either. She decided the only one to be mad at was herself, but she couldn't even do that. She sniffed, then took a deep breath and let it out in a long, quavering sigh. She shook her head, slowly, wondering why she ever decided to become a Navy Nurse.


In the ward, some men slept peacefully while others writhed in pain or in tortured dreams.

Tommy Richardson woke about midnight. He'd had a bowel movement. He took the hand Bob untied, reached into his pajamas and began to smear the still-warm feces over the bedclothes, the siderails and everything else he could reach out and touch with his free hand.