The Young Lions (43 page)

Five weeks later, Noah was back in the infirmary again. Two more teeth had been knocked out of his mouth, and his nose had been smashed. The dentist was making him a bridge so that he could eat, and the surgeon kept taking crushed pieces of bone out of his nose on every visit.

By this time Michael could hardly speak to Noah. He came to the infirmary and sat on the end of Noah's bed, and they both avoided each other's eyes, and were glad when the orderly came through, crying, "All visitors out."

Noah had worked his way through five of the list by now, and his face was crooked and lumpy, and one ear was permanently disfigured in a flat, creased cauliflower. His right eyebrow was split and a white scar ran diagonally across it, giving the broken eyebrow a wild, interrogating twist. The total effect of his face, the steady, wild eyes, staring out of the dark, broken face, was infinitely disturbing.

After the eighth fight, Noah was in the infirmary again. He had been hit in the throat. The muscles there had been temporarily paralysed and his larynx had been injured. For two days the doctor was of the opinion that he would never be able to speak again.

"Soldier," the doctor had said, standing over him, a puzzled look on his simple college-boy face, "I don't know what you're up to, but whatever it is I don't think it's worth it. I've got to warn you that it is impossible to lick the United States Army singlehanded…" He leaned down and peered troubledly at Noah. "Can you say anything?"

Noah's mouth worked for a long time, without sound. Then a hoarse, croaking small noise came from between the swollen lips. The doctor bent over closer. "What was that?" he asked.

"Go peddle your pills, Doc," Noah said, "and leave me alone."

The doctor flushed. He was a nice boy but he was not accustomed to being talked to that way any more, now that he was a captain.

He straightened up. "I'm glad to see," he said stiffly, "that you've regained the gift of speech."

He wheeled and stalked out of the ward.

Fein, the other Jew in the Company, came into the ward, too. He stood uneasily next to Noah's bed, twisting his cap in his large hands.

"Listen, Pal," he said, "I didn't want to interfere here, but enough's enough. You're going at this all wrong. You can't start swinging every time you hear somebody say Jew bastard…"

"Why not?" Noah grimaced painfully at him.

"Because it ain't practical," Fein said. "That's why. First of all, you ain't big enough. Second of all, even if you was as big as a house and you had a right hand like Joe Louis, it wouldn't do no good. There's a certain number of people in this world that say Jew bastard automatically, and nothing you do or I do or any Jew does will ever change 'em. And this way, you make the rest of the guys in the outfit think all Jews're crazy. Listen, they're not so bad, most of 'em. They sound a lot worse than they are, because they don't know no better. They started out feeling sorry for you, but now, after all these goddamn fights, they're beginning to think Jews are some kind of wild animal. They're beginning to look at me queer now…"

"Good," Noah said hoarsely. "Delighted."

"Listen," Fein said patiently, "I'm older than you and I'm a peaceful man. I'll kill Germans if they ask me, but I want to live in peace with the guys around me in the Army. The best equipment a Jew can have is one deaf ear. When some of these bastards start to shoot their mouths off about the Jews that's the ear you turn that way, the deaf one… You let them live and maybe they'll let you live. Listen, the war isn't going to last for ever, and then you can pick your company. Right now, the government says you got to live with these miserable Ku Kluxers, O.K., what're you going to do about it? Listen, Son, if all the Jews'd been like you we'd've all been wiped out two thousand years ago…"

"Good," Noah said.

"Ah," Fein said disgustedly, "maybe they're right, maybe you are cracked. Listen, I weigh two hundred pounds, I could beat anyone in this Company with one hand tied behind me. But you ain't noticed me fightin', do you? I ain't had a fight since I put on the uniform. I'm a practical man!"

Noah sighed. "The patient is tired, Fein," he said. "He's in no condition to listen to the advice of practical men." Fein stared at him, heavily, groping despairingly with the problem. "The question I ask myself," he said, "is what do you want, what in hell do you want?"

Noah grinned painfully. "I want every Jew," he said, "to be treated as though he weighed two hundred pounds."

"It ain't practical," Fein said. "Ah, the hell with it, you want to fight, go ahead and fight. I'll tell you the truth, I feel I understand these Georgia crackers who didn't wear shoes till the Supply Sergeant put them on their feet better than I understand you." He put on his cap with ponderous decision. "Little guys," he said, "that's a race all by itself. I can't make head or tail of them."

And he went out, showing, in every line of his enormous shoulders and thick neck and bullet head, his complete disapproval of the battered boy in the bed, who by some trick and joke of Fate and registration was somehow linked with him.

It was the last fight and if he stayed down it would be all over. He peered bloodily up from the ground at Brailsford, standing over him in trousers and vest. Brailsford seemed to flicker against the white ring of faces and the vague wash of the sky. This was the second time Brailsford had knocked him down. But he had closed Brailsford's eye and made him cry out with pain when he hit him in the belly. If he stayed down, if he merely stayed where he was on one knee, shaking his head to clear it, for another five seconds, the whole thing would be over. The ten men would be behind him, the broken bones, the long days in the hospital, the nervous vomiting on the days when the fights were scheduled, the dazed, sick roaring of the blood in his ears when he had to stand up once more and face the onrushing, confident, hating faces and the clubbing fists.

Five seconds more, and it would be proved. He would have done it. Whatever he had set out to demonstrate, and it was dim and anguished now, would have been demonstrated. They would have to realize that he had won the victory over them. Nine defeats and one default would not have been enough. The spirit only won when it made the complete tour of sacrifice and pain. Even these ignorant, brutal men would realize now, as he marched with them, marched first down the Florida roads, and later down the roads swept by gunfire, that he had made a demonstration of will and courage that only the best of them could have been capable of…

All he had to do was to remain on one knee.

He stood up.

He put up his hands and waited for Brailsford to come at him. Slowly, Brailsford's face swam into focus. It was white and splotched now with red, and it was very nervous. Noah walked across the patch of grass and hit the white face, hard, and Brailsford went down. Noah stared dully at the sprawled figure at his feet. Brailsford was panting hard, and his hands were pulling at the grass.

"Get up, you yellow bastard," a voice called out from the watching men. Noah blinked. It was the first time anyone but himself had been cursed on this spot.

Brailsford got up. He was fat and out of condition, because he was the Company Clerk and always managed to find excuses to duck out of heavy work. His breath was sobbing in his throat. As Noah moved in on him, there was a look of terror on his face. His hands waved vaguely in front of him.

"No, no…" he said pleadingly.

Noah stopped and stared at him. He shook his head and plodded in. Both men swung at the same time, and Noah went down again. Brailsford was a large man and the blow had hit high on Noah's temple. Methodically, sitting with his legs crumpled under him, Noah took a deep breath. He looked up at Brailsford.

The big man was standing above him, his hands held tightly before him. He was breathing heavily, and he was whispering, "Please, please…" Sitting there, with his head hammering, Noah grinned, because he knew what Brailsford meant. He was pleading with Noah to stay down.

"Why, you miserable hillbilly son of a bitch," Noah said clearly. "I'm going to knock you out." He stood up and grinned as he saw the flare of anguish in Brailsford's eyes when he swung at him.

Brailsford hung heavily on him, clinching, swinging with a great show of willingness. But the blows were soft and nervous and Noah didn't feel them. Clutched in the big man's fat embrace, smelling the sweat rolling off his skin, Noah knew that he had beaten Brailsford merely by standing up. After this it was merely a matter of time. Brailsford's nerve had run out.

Noah ducked away and lashed out at Brailsford's middle. The blow landed and Noah could feel the softness of the clerk's belly as his fist dug in.

Brailsford dropped his hands to his sides and stood there, weaving a little, a stunned plea for pity in his eyes. Noah chuckled. "Here it comes, Corporal," he said, and drove at the white, bleeding face. Brailsford just stood there. He wouldn't fall and he wouldn't fight and Noah merely stood flat on the balls of his feet, hooking at the collapsing face. "Now," he said, swinging with all his shoulder, all his body behind the driving, cutting blow. "Now. Now." He gained in power. He could feel the electric life pouring down his arms into his fists. All his enemies, all the men who had stolen his money, cursed him on the march, driven his wife away, were standing there, broken in nerve, bleeding before him. Blood sprayed from his knuckles every time he hit Brailsford's staring, agonized face.

"Don't fall, Corporal," Noah said, "don't fall yet, please don't fall," and swung again and again, faster and faster, his fists making a sound like mallets wrapped in wet cloth. And when he saw Brailsford finally begin to sway, he tried to hold him with one hand long enough to hit him twice more, three times, a dozen, and he sobbed when he no longer could hold the rubbery bloody mess up. Brailsford slipped to the ground.

Noah turned to the watching men. He dropped his hands. No one would meet his eyes. "All right," he said loudly. "It's over."

But they didn't say anything. As though at a signal, they turned their backs and started to walk away. Noah stared at the retreating forms, dissolving in the dusk among the barracks walls. Brailsford still lay where he fell. No one had stayed with him to help him.

Michael touched Noah. "Now," Michael said, "let's wait for the German Army."

Noah shook off the friendly hand. "They all walked away," he said. "The bastards just walked away." He looked down at Brailsford. The clerk had come to, although he still lay face down on the grass. He was crying. Slowly and vaguely he moved a hand up to his eyes. Noah went over to him and kneeled beside him.

"Leave your eye alone," he ordered. "You'll rub dirt in it this way." He started to pull Brailsford to his feet and Michael helped him. They had to support the clerk all the way to the barracks and they had to wash his face for him and clean the cuts because Brailsford just stood in front of the mirror with his hands at his side, weeping helplessly.

The next day Noah deserted.

Michael was called down to the orderly room.

"Where is he?" Colclough shouted.

"Where is who, Sir?" Michael asked, standing stiffly at attention.

"You know goddamn well who I mean," Colclough said.

"Your friend. Where is he?"

"I don't know, Sir," said Michael.

"Don't hand me that!" Colclough shouted. All the sergeants were in the room behind Michael, staring gravely at their Captain. "You were his friend, weren't you?"

Michael hesitated. It was hard to describe their relationship as friendship.

"Come on, Soldier! You were his friend."

"I suppose so, Sir."

"I want you to say yessir or nosir, that's all, Whitacre! Were you his friend or weren't you?"

"Yes, Sir, I was."

"Where did he go?"

"I don't know, Sir."

"You're lying to me!" Colclough's face had grown very pale and his nose was twitching. "You helped him get out. Let me tell you something, Whitacre, in case you've forgotten your Articles of War. The penalty for assisting at or failing to report desertion is exactly the same as for desertion. Do you know what the penalty for that is in times of war?"

"Yes, Sir."

"What is it?" Suddenly Colclough's voice had become quiet and almost soft. He slid down in his chair and looked up gently at Michael.

"It can be death, Sir."

"Death," said Colclough, softly. "Death. Listen, Whitacre, your friend is as good as caught already. When we catch him, we'll ask him if you helped him desert. Or even if he told you he was going to desert. That's all that's necessary. If he told you and you didn't report it, that is just the same as assisting at desertion. Did you know that, Whitacre?"

"Yes, Sir," Michael said, thinking, this is impossible, this could not be happening to me, this is an amusing anecdote I heard at a cocktail party about the quaint characters in the United States Army.

"I grant you, Whitacre," Colclough said reasonably, "I don't think a court-martial would condemn you to death just for not reporting it. But they might very well put you in jail for twenty years. Or thirty years. Or life. Federal prison, Whitacre, is not Hollywood. It is not Broadway. You will not get your name in the columns very often in Leavenworth. If your friend just happens to say that he happened to tell you he planned to go away, that's all there is to it. And he'll get plenty of opportunities to say it, Whitacre, plenty… Now…" Colclough spread his hands reasonably on the desk. "I don't want to make a big thing out of this. I'm interested in preparing a Company to fight and I don't want to break it up with things like this. All you have to do is tell me where Ackerman is, and we'll forget all about it. That's all. Just tell me where you think he might be… That's not much, is it?"

"No, Sir," Michael said.

"All right," Colclough said briskly. "Where did he go?"