A Midnight Clear. William Wharton
the coffee I’ve drunk scared; but the smell, the taste, the feel of coffee makes me jumpy, shattery, scared shitless, to be precise. It still does today.
I take my mess kit and climb into one of the communications trucks, slink down and try to eat carefully, quietly, in peace, chewing each mouthful twenty times and swallowing slowly.
I’m almost finished when Lieutenant Ware finds me. He’s standing looking over the tailgate, his helmet pushed back on his head. He’s Van Heflin playing Van Johnson in a war movie with Marlene Dietrich as the Nazi spy.
A word here about Ware while I’m trying to get down the last two forkfuls and mediating my stomach into some kind of operational order.
Ware was in the Aleutian campaign. After that, he was reassigned to the Eighty-tenth Infantry Division, and more or less retired from the army. As Mel Gordon puts it, ‘He says he’ll do anything and then does nothing he says.’ Stan claims that when he starts his Shutzer Surefire Advertising Agency after the war, he’s going to hire Ware; talent like his shouldn’t be wasted.
Colonel Sugger brought Ware into headquarters company to form the I and R platoon. Ware caught the I part. He had the regimental records sifted until he came up with the twenty-four people in the regiment with the highest AGCT scores. This was a wild idea in itself, but what made it even more bizarre is the way this goofy division was put together in the first place.
Two years ago, that original National Guard division Love worked out with between funerals, was spruced up and prepared for combat. But before it was shipped overseas, a maneuver with two similar divisions was held across the states of Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana. This was an overwhelming catastrophe. How can all three divisions lose in a war game? They did.
In the aftermath, someone realized that somehow the average AGCT for these particular divisions was in the mid-eighties. When it came to brains, they were on the down side of the second standard deviation to the left. Everybody with ability had been picked off by the air corps, the signal corps, the tank people, artillery and so forth. This was the sludge.
The military solution was shipping off to the South Pacific, as replacements, all the privates in these three divisions. This left cadres of not very bright officers and noncoms.
Meanwhile, back in civilization, another scenario was being played out. In the year 1943, most U.S. male graduating-high-school seniors were tested for entrance into what were called the A12 and V12 programs. Those selected would be sent to universities and trained in engineering or medicine. A12 was army. Their idea was to train us and rebuild our world after the nasty war.
Several thousand were selected and, upon duly enlisting, sent to universities. Since many of us had in the course of our scholastic careers been double promoted once or twice, we were too young for enlisting. At that time, the accepted age limit for being allowed to kill or be killed in a war was eighteen. So we were placed in the ASTPR, or Army Specialized Training Program Reserve. We were sent directly to universities, and were to be given our basic training when we came of age, then sent back to the university. It was sort of an early kindergarten arrangement.
However, while we were in infantry basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the ASTPR and most of the ASTP were disbanded; taken off the drawing boards by the powers that be. We were sent to various infantry divisions to play at being real soldiers. It was like being super promoted from nursery school to grad school.
We ASTPRers have many outrageous theories about what actually happened. We’re strong on suspicion. The theories go all the way from selective genocide (to make the mediocre feel superior) to the idea that the whole ploy was a rather clever recruiting device.
Many of us were plugged in as replacements for those privates of the National Guard divisions who had been sent off to die in the South Pacific. This did boost the average AGCT and so solved that slight quantitative problem.
A large group of very young, arrogant almost soldiers unwillingly joined the Eighty-tenth Division in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, to help form a strange topsy-turvy organization: moron officers and noncoms trying to lead a disgruntled group of smart-ass privates. In retrospect, it wasn’t actually such an unusual situation.
So when Lieutenant Ware pulled us from the regimental records, he was wittingly, or unwittingly (if he had a whit of wit), tiptoeing through the tulips, culling the called, the chosen. Except for Father Mundy and Mother Wilkins, all our squad is, or was, ex-ASTPR, all with impressive AGCT scores.
ASTP is an unpronounceable acronym. However, Whistle Tompkins insisted it was easily pronounced; that the TP was a Babylonian diphthong pronounced as ‘S.’ Shutzer counterclaimed that the TP went with the AS for wiping purposes.
That’s a lot to squeeze around two bites and some stomach settling, with Ware standing there tilt-hatted, watching me. I either chew exceptionally slowly, or I think very fast.
‘Come on, let’s go, Knott! Love’s waiting.’
He looks at his watch.
Everything in the army is run by the clock, o-five-hundred and all, but they don’t issue watches. In our squad there are now three watches; there were once five. I don’t have one myself. In the world I come from, having a watch or a telephone is a privilege of the upper classes.
We move off toward the S2 tent. I do the usual thing, like an old-time Japanese wife, or a dog well-trained to heel, walk beside and about a step behind Ware; it’s part of the conditioning. He stops and looks around at me.
‘Jesus Christ, Knott! Haven’t you gotten those fucking stripes sewn on yet?’
‘The supply sergeant says he doesn’t have any buck stripes in right now, sir. They’re waiting for a new shipment.’
‘Hell, get some staff stripes and cut off the rocker.’
‘That’d be destruction of government property, sir. I suggested it to Sergeant Lucas.’
I’m hoping that’s ambiguous enough. What happened was Lucas tried to push off staff stripes on me to be cut up and I suggested it would be destroying government property and we’d need to make out a Statement of Charges. This scared Lucas; he’s from the original division and somewhat slow.
‘Well, I just hope to hell that son of a bitch Love doesn’t notice.’
You’d be surprised how much profanity goes on in the army when you’re tuned to hear it. At first, stopping cold was like going on a crash diet. For a while there, Father Mundy was running his private Profanity Anonymous Therapy Clinic.
At the S2 tent Ware goes in first. Just inside the flap, we snap to attention. It’s the usual setup. In the center, by the tent post, is a field table with a map covered in celluloid. At the rear tent wall is an extra-large cot and a down sleeping bag, already neatly arranged by one of Love’s orderlies.
On the left wall of the tent, Major Love is shaving in front of his portable sink and portable mirror. He’s wearing his tailored trousers (no other kind, even his fatigues) and a tailored OD undershirt.
We stand there at attention; I know he knows we’re there. Pfc. Tucker, his first orderly, is playing altar boy, standing beside him, holding out towels and a soaping dish. Tucker tailors his uniforms, too; he does this on his own and gets away with it, thanks to Love.
Finally, after we’ve watched some rigorous efforts to get a few last hairs from under the nostrils, Love glances at us, first using the mirror, then turning his head.
‘At ease, men.’
Ware and I slouch, giving correct submission signals. Tucker hands Love a steaming towel from a bowl. Love sinks his face in it, rubbing strenuously. He continues to the top of his head, massaging with even greater vigor, then hands the towel to Tucker and takes a fresh, dry one. All our towels are army OD, so you can never tell if they’re filthy or clean, except by the smell; but these look fresh off supply.
Next, we have the privilege of watching Major Love comb his hair. First, he rubs in a few drops of Vaseline hair tonic. He has the