Mare's War (8 page)

Lieutenant Hundley has to say most things twice, but Annie say don’t worry. A body has to be here awhile for any-thing to make sense.

Des Moines is cold and dry, but I am getting used to it. What I can’t get used to is how folks talk round here. It isn’t just Annie Brown from New London or Ruby Bowie with her Texas swing who talk funny. Lieutenant Hundley got her ways of saying things, and Captain Ferguson talk like she went to finishing school. This morning, at mess hall, she asked about my uniform. I got my salute up right, and I told her I ain’t got boots yet. She give me a funny look.

“Boylen. Say ‘don’t.’”

“Don’t?” I wonder if I should say “ma’am,” too. I chew my lip.

She gives a sharp sigh. “Yes, Private. Say ‘I don’t have boots.’”

“I don’t got …” My voice chokes off as her eyebrows rise. “I don’t have boots. Yet. Ma’am.” I look at her nervous-like, and she give me a short nod.

“That’s better. Ain’t no ‘ain’t’ in the dictionary, Private,” she says.

Captain Ferguson is short and she don’t hardly raise her voice, but she is the boss lady for sure. She tells Lieutenant Hundley what she wants us to do, and she tells the other two companies what to do, too. I am scared to open my mouth after Cap said ain’t no “ain’t,” but Company Twelve has got to make Captain Ferguson proud, so before I speak, I listen to the girls from the city. Peaches started to look at me funny after a while, because I wasn’t hardly talking no more; I was scared to try.

“I don’t know when I’ve been so sore,” Peach moans one night after marching.

“I …,” I begin, then stop and smile self-consciously. “Tired. Me too.”

“Marey Lee.” Peaches sits up, unlacing her boots. “You know you’ve hardly said a word since Captain Ferguson told you there’s no ‘ain’t’ in the dictionary?”

I look at her warily. “Yeah?”

“Now look,” Peach says quickly. “You can’t stop talking just because you might say the wrong thing! We can all help you with that, you know.”

The skin on my face feels tight and warm. “Now listen here! I don’t need nobody’s charity, Miss Peaches Carter—”

“Anybody’s,” Peaches says. “You don’t need anybody’s charity. It’s a good thing, ’cause I’m not offering charity. I’m offering a deal. Boylen, you show me how you crease your uniform so I don’t keep getting marked down like I always do, and I’ll tell you when you get words wrong and help you say things right. Deal?”

I give Peaches a hard look. “I don’t need anybody’s charity,” I tell her clearly. “You wouldn’t never get marked off if you didn’t do such a slapdash job with the iron.”

“Then show me how,” Peaches insists. “I wouldn’t
ever
learn by myself.” She pushes up her round cheeks in a smile and puts out her hand. “Deal?”

I hesitate for one last second, then stick out my hand decisively. “Deal.”

Yesterday, we got more uniforms. They call ’em “fatigues.” We got a little light seersucker dress and our gym uniforms to wear for “physical training.” After all that marching, Lieutenant Hundley say we got to run around and be “physically fit.”

Lieutenant Hundley put up a bulletin board so we know what uniform to put on and can find out our duty for the day on the duty roster. Today, we got on our Class A uniform, and I have to police the area before my class. We also have to go to the dentist, have him check our teeth.

I have never been to a dentist. Where I come from, only rich folks see the dentist. Mama’s been seein’ to me and Feen’s teeth since we were small. She pulls ’em out when they gets loose and makes us rub them with baking soda. Feen had a
toothache once, and Mama gave her a bit of clove to chew on. Here they give us tooth powder, and we all have to brush.

Peaches says it doesn’t hurt none, they give you gas and you don’t feel a thing, but first thing I see is a needle in there, and I come over sick. They tell me they give me gas if I need it, but I tell them no. They poke at my teeth, and I try not to bite down. Dentist say I got a jaw like a bear trap.

“No cavities,” the man says, and he says he don’t have to drill.

Peaches doesn’t have no drilling, either, but poor Dovey Borland came back with her head all wrapped up in a scarf and lay down in her bed. I wish I had some clove oil. That’s what Mama put on Feen’s teeth when hers got sore. Course, I’m not thinking about Mama or anything.

I wrote a letter to Mama care of Sister Dials, but nobody answered me yet.

Today, some new white girls came in, and I looked at ’em real hard, see if I can see Miss Beatrice Payne anywhere. I wonder if she ever got on to Daytona and away from her mama and her ladies’ college. I wonder if Saphira Watkins’s boy is
really
in the navy, if the colored boys have their own barracks and their own mess and their own company, too. Don’t nobody—nobody—sees no colored boys around here nor any boys, but there are all kinds of men. Some old army men are coming down to see us march next week, I hear. That’s what Annie says, and she finds out all kinds of “latrine gossip.”

Tomorrow, Sunday, is my birthday. Back home, Reverend Morgan at the AME is gonna ask Mama where I am. I wonder
what she will say. Maybe she will stay home so Sister Dials can tell the gossip without her. Maybe Mama won’t go to service anymore at all. Maybe she
and
Toby will stay home.

Tonight, the sad “taps” song, as Peaches calls it, doesn’t make me cry, but it still makes me miss Feen. I did right to come here, I know it. If I can just hide out without anybody sending me home, I will make a little money and put it by till Feen is done with school. They say we going to go to school here, and I will learn something to help me keep body and soul together later on. Maybe I will learn to type and be a secretary and get a good job in a city.

In my mind, I talk to Feen and tell her all about it. I lay in my bunk with my eyes open, listening to the crickets outside. I pretend that this is my room, in my house, and Feen’s tucked up in her bed. I pretend I am twenty-one and we are going to services in the morning, where we will wear our good hats, and I will wear red lipstick from Woolworth’s, and Feen will wear a gold circle pin.

Feen will wear my green coat and borrow my gloves. I will wear pearls.

Someday
.

Lieutenant give us inspection in the morning. Peaches gets full marks, but Annie has her cap tilted on her head, and Hundley tells her to fix it, like she does almost every morning. Annie say that hat is too ugly to go straight on her head. She likes to have a little style. Hundley says if Annie doesn’t cut out that mess, we’ll never win our inspection. Whichever company wins inspection gets to march with the flags and be the color guard. We have not won yet.

The first time I see
KP
by my name on the duty roster Sunday, I know I am in for it. Annie says kitchen policing is the hardest job on the post. They are always tryin’ to tell us to “police” something around here. Those of us who have KP fall in and march toward the mess hall. It smells like dirt in the mess hall kitchen, dirt and grease, and there is steam hissing from big old kettles. It is hot, and something is burning over on the range.

“You gals get an apron on,” the cook hollers, “and lend a hand here!” She looks like Betty from Young’s, and her arms are as big as a man’s.

The Army must think all girls know how to cook and such, but they have another surprise coming. I know for sure Miss Ruby Bowie hasn’t hardly ever turned her hand to a spoon, and she keeps trying to duck out the back door and have herself a break. She picks up a chicken like it’s gonna bite her, and Cook has to tell her two or three times how to pluck it. That girl probably can’t boil water to save her life.

The second time Ruby jumps back from steam in a pot, Annie laughs out loud.

“Ruby, what do you
do
at home when your mama tells you to get in the kitchen?” Annie teases her.

“I make sure I’ve got a good place to hide!” Ruby says, and we laugh.

“Have a heart, Annie,” Ina White says from where she is rolling out biscuits. “You’re the only girl in your family, so you got all your mama’s time to teach you. Not every girl has three brothers!”

“They
all can cook, too,” Annie laughs. “Come on, girls, excuses aren’t the GI way!”

There are potatoes in the mess, and we got to fix potato salad for Sunday dinner. Potatoes is something I know—Mama made me peel potatoes, snap beans, and mix up biscuits for Sunday dinner back home since I was eight or nine. I peel potatoes like I was born doing it.

“Marey Lee,” Annie say, “now, how do you do that, make the peel all come out in one curl?”

I just grin. I might not know nothing about nothing in this man’s army, but I sure can handle myself in a kitchen. Miss Ida should see me now. “Just hold your knife like this,”
I say, and all my squad turns toward me. Sure feels good to teach
them
something for a change.

Later, we go to the post chapel for service. It is a tall brick building with nothing but high windows and a slant roof, but we know where we is when we get inside. The pews is all lined up straight just like at home.

The chapel is blessed quiet, with nobody hollering about nothing to anybody. Some girls from the squad—Doris Smith, Maryanne Oliver, and Dovey Borland—all sit with me in the front pews, right where our mamas taught us to be. Doris and Maryanne are both from little farms and little old towns like me. Doris homesick for a boy she was sweet on, but he got the draft, and she hasn’t got nowhere else to be but here, waiting on him. She tell us she joined up to make the war go shorter. Dovey joined up for the same reason as me—to get away from home.

“I had a look at things, and I can tell you what—I wasn’t going nowhere in that town,” Dovey says, shaking her head. “I could go to secretarial school, but what would that do for me? They weren’t gonna hire a colored woman to work in an office, not where I come from. I was gonna go to the city, but I read about the Women’s Army in the colored paper, and Mama said I couldn’t do better than working for Uncle Sam.”

Peaches comes in almost late and sits with Phillipa and that stuck-up Gloria Madden on the row behind us. Peaches pokes me in my back and smiles, and I smile back, but I don’t have nothing nice to say to Gloria Madden, even in God’s house, so I turn around quick.

Dovey sings real sweet, and we all get quiet to hear her singing the hymn. Then Gloria sing, too, only louder, so we can all hear
her
, and even though Miss Gloria Madden works my nerves, I sure wish I could sing like that. How can a girl with such a sweet voice have such an evil way about her? Mama always say the good Lord don’t make no mistakes, but sometimes I am just not sure.

After hymns, we say our prayers and sit down. We don’t have a reverend, but one of the officers says she is chaplain for the day, and she speaks the Word as good as any man preacher. Captain says we can go to church in town sometime. I might just do that.

Even though she makes full marks on her uniform now, Peaches is still helping me. Sunday night she show me over and over how to make the bed the GI way. We got to have that top sheet folded down six inches, long as our toothbrushes, and they got a measuring stick to tell for sure. I hate them tight sheets, but when we have inspection, Lieutenant Hundley tears it up if it is not “right and tight.” First time I actually saw a quarter dollar bounce on just some sheets, I knew I had to learn that trick.

“Tuck it tighter than that,” Peaches say. “You make it loose, and nothing’s gonna bounce off it but the covers when Hundley pulls it apart. Do it again.”

“Don’t know why anybody wants to make a bed like that anyway,” I mutter. “Can’t breathe in there.”

“You’ll be glad you can’t breathe later on. It’ll be down-right cold in here come winter.”

I learn how to make that bed just right, but it does not
stop me from tryin’ to get into it without messing it up and slide out in the morning to pull it straight. Peaches just looks at me like I’m pitiful and shakes her head.

Monday we get back to the everyday work—rising at 0530, making beds, washing up, and picking up cigarette butts the folk drop down, then sweepin’ the walks the officers walk on. We march to breakfast, stand cleaned and starched and shined and ironed for inspection; we march to classes by 0800; we march to a meal break at lunch, 1200. We eat, and study till 1600, and march some more. We march to the parade grounds and practice raising and lowering “the colors,” which we call the flag.