Prisoners of War (22 page)

After the Okie pilot crashed his plane on the levee, Marty Stark said the most intense moment of his life had come when he gazed into the eyes of a man who meant to kill him. “For just a second, before an officer hollered at him and he ran off down the road, he’d decided to blow my head off. And as I knelt there in that stinking water, I told myself, ‘All right, this son of a bitch is fixing to do something that’ll force him to carry me with him wherever he goes. Every time he looks at his son, if he has one, he’ll see the man he murdered. Looks into a woman’s eyes, he’ll see mine, and when he shoves into her real hard and she whimpers, it’ll be me that’s whimpering too.’ Taking another person’s life don’t just mean you killed them. It means they’re
upon you.
”

Dan now felt as if he were some combination of himself and his father, with double sets of virtues and vices, with his own sins to atone for as well as ones he’d never even had the pleasure of committing. He’d tried and failed to apologize to L.C. that morning, but he might just as well have told his mother he was sorry for blaming his father’s death on her and Alvin. Maybe he needed to apologize to his uncle, too.

He parked the truck on the turnrow and climbed out. L.C. also got out, though there wasn’t anything for him to do except wait beside the truck while Dan distributed sacks.

“There’s not much cotton left out there,” Dan told the prisoners. “Today and tomorrow ought to about finish it on this place.” He couldn’t tell how many of them had understood him, and it didn’t really matter. After strapping on their sacks, they moved off, stooping over and picking smoothly, as if they’d grown up in these fields.

Kimball climbed lazily out of the scout car, leaving his rifle stuck in the boot, and walked over next to Dan. “Guess you heard about the big excitement,” he said.

“Yeah.” Dan kept his voice low, because the prisoners weren’t that far away. “I’m surprised they put Schultz back out here. I figured they’d send him to a different camp.”

“Your buddy tried to get ’em to.” Kimball pulled a pack of chewing gum from his pocket, withdrew a stick, unwrapped it and laid it on his tongue. He put the pack back in his pocket without offering a stick to Dan or L.C., whose presence he hadn’t even acknowledged. “Stark’s an odd one,” he said. “He always like that?”

“Like what?”

Kimball’s jaws clicked while he worked at the gum. “So goddamn jumpy.”

“He used to be about the calmest fellow around.”

“That so?”

“Yeah. That is so. One year, we were five points down to Indianola, starting on our own three-yard line with four or five minutes left. Playing for the conference title. Well, we had three fourth-down plays on that drive. No time-outs, folks in the stands going crazy, coach standing stock-still on the sideline, praying—but Marty’s just as cool as ice water. Called most of the plays right at the line and finally carried the ball in himself after breaking two or three tackles.”

“He’s not breaking any tackles lately, so I imagine that’ll prove the high point of his earthly existence.” Kimball stretched, then yawned. “I stood watch last night,” he said, “and maybe I’ll pull off the road somewhere and take a little nap. That be all right with you?”

“I don’t give a shit. But won’t you get in trouble if they catch you?”

Kimball laughed. “Nah, I’m trouble-free. Huggins has some pretty good connections, and if the army fucks with him or any of his pals, somebody’ll fuck with the army.”

He walked back over to the scout car and drove off. Dan stood there for another few moments, watching the prisoners as they picked toward the far end of the field. Then he looked at L.C. and said, “Well, let’s go sell some neck bones and cracklings.”

They drove by the house, where Dan’s mother got behind the wheel and dropped him and L.C. off at Alvin’s, and they stocked the rolling stores and headed out on their routes. The morning remained cold and gray, but the sun popped out in the afternoon, and they sold a fair number of sodas and even some ice cream.

Around a quarter to four, they off-loaded their Deepfreezes back at Alvin’s, and Dan told L.C. that if he’d help him weigh up, he’d treat him to a hot dog and soda after they dropped the prisoners off. Shoving his hands into his pockets, L.C. said that would be okay.

They drove back down to the field, where the Germans waited on the turnrow, two or three of them sitting on their stuffed cotton sacks, the rest standing. Several yards away, Schultz squatted by himself, his sack only half-full.

L.C. helped the Germans hang their heavy canvas bags from the scales, and Dan recorded the weights in his notebook. As always, Schultz was last.

“Forty-one pounds, dead even,” Dan said.

The others had already climbed into Alvin’s truck, so nobody except L.C. noticed when the prisoner stepped close to Dan and pressed two cards into the palm of his hand.

Dan looked down and discovered his State Guard ID and his driver’s license.

“They don’t find these,” the prisoner said. “Now you have back. All right?”

“Sure,” Dan said. “Thanks.”

“All right, yes. You maybe need.” Dipping his head slightly, the prisoner walked around to the back of the truck and climbed over the tailgate.

THIRTY EIGHT

MARTY PULLED the bottle out from under the seat, screwed the top off and took another swallow. He’d been drinking off and on all afternoon, sitting on the turnrow in the scout car, his feet flat on the ground, the Enfield resting on his knee.

Lately, whenever he’d had a good bit to drink, he imagined himself alone with Shirley Timms. The setting varied every time, but their conversations always began with him confessing that as a kid he’d dreamed about calling her by her first name. While he fully intended to then profess a romantic interest, she always seized on his opening statement and told him to go right ahead and call her Shirley, and in that moment all his other needs evaporated. It was uncanny, the way it always happened. “Shirley,” he’d say, and everything else would just fall away. He guessed this ought to worry him, and knew damn well that the psychiatrist who’d examined him a few months ago would’ve considered it evidence of some malaise. But the truth was, he couldn’t get too worked up about it. If saying a woman’s first name could satisfy you, why not be grateful for such a cheap and simple solution?

What he could get worked up about was the sight of the tall prisoner they’d reassigned to Frank Holder. You could tell that lanky bastard’s heart was full of mayhem. Once, he dropped his sack near the end of a row and stood there, hands on hips, staring at Marty and looking as if he couldn’t control his breathing, his shoulders rising and falling like pistons.

Gesturing with the bottle, Marty said, “Hey,Voss—want a little nip?”

The German’s mouth twisted into the semblance of a grin.

“I mean it. Just back off and I’ll stand it at the end of your row, and when I get back over here where I can point my trusty peashooter right at your navel, you can have you a sip. Don’t drool in the bottle, though, ’cause I still got an itchy finger from combat.”

Voss turned his chin up, as if to give Marty a clear view of all the snot in his nostrils, and fired a ball of spit straight up into the air.

The wad hung for an instant at the top of its arc—long enough for Marty to flick off the safety and raise the rifle. He didn’t hit it, but neither did he miss by much. At the report, Voss dived between the cotton stalks, doing his best to burrow with his elbows. Spread out in the field behind him, the others flattened themselves, too.

“On your feet, Adolf!” Marty laughed, but it sounded shrill even in his own ears. “Ain’t you a lucky son of a bitch, playing out here where all the cotton and the corn and taters grow?”

THIRTY NINE

THOUGH MUNSON had always enjoyed football and was a fair tailback himself, it was the last thing on his mind when he picked up the phone and placed his call. But it was all the person on the other end cared to discuss. If Munson hadn’t put any money yet on the Army-Navy game, he said, he might want to, because word coming out of the Point was that Red Blaik had a big surprise to spring on the middies. Nobody would say exactly what it was, but Navy’s winning streak was sure to stop at four.

“Thank you, sir,” Munson said. “I’ll put a dollar down, if I can find anybody around here to bet with. What I was calling you about, though, is the situation with our intended escape.”

“Did you get them back in the fields today?”

“Yes sir.”

“Any problems?”

“They should be back at camp in a little while. As far as I know, everything’s gone smoothly.”

“Good. You’ve done a fine job there, Munson, and it won’t go unnoticed. We’re working to get you out of there, I believe I mentioned?”

“Yes sir.”

“Just be patient. You’ll get to hit the beach before it’s over— I can almost guarantee it.”

“Thank you, sir. But what I wanted to ask is whether or not there’s been any decision about transferring this guy who tipped us off. We kept him in the infirmary last night, because of course he’d faked that accident, but—”

“You
did
send him back to work today, right?”

“Yes sir.”

“Fine. If you let them start thinking they can claim they’re hurt or sick or whatnot, they won’t hit a lick. And like I told you, we don’t want to lose the confidence of our labor contractors. You’ve done a good job, Munson. On all fronts.”

“Thank you, sir. But my question now is what to do with him tonight. Because since I put him back in the field today, I can’t really send him back to the infirmary.”

“Of course not. You’d look dumb as shit—like you’d buy any bag of trash he’s selling.”

“Yes sir. But if I put him back in with his tentmates tonight—”

“So don’t. Use your brain, Captain. Today you broke up the regular work details, right?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“And the fellows trying to escape were in his tent, weren’t they?”

“Two of them were, but a couple were in another tent. And those are just the ones we’re sure of.”

“So tonight you adopt the same tactics. Change everybody’s tent assignments. Break up the cliques. Put your mystery man in with a new bunch of guys—or leave him where he was and put a new bunch in with him. End of story, right?”

“Yes sir. I hope so anyway.”

“Of course it will be.”

“Sir, I don’t suppose we’ve ever located any papers on the prisoner?”

“No, and we may not for a while. Some of these guys we’re using as file clerks can hardly read, let alone file. Even so, your prisoner’s nobody important, because if he were, his papers would’ve have been handled by somebody with an actual IQ. Now tell me something, Munson.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Did you ever, even in your worst nightmares, think the Naval Academy would defeat us four years in a row?”

FORTY

RIFLE HANGING OFF his shoulder, Marty stood just inside the tent, slurping bourbon-laced coffee from a GI mug. The tent was badly lit, a single lightbulb dangling from the socket ring that held the sheet-iron tubing in place.

“Come on there,” he said, “hurry up.”

The men who were leaving stuffed their belongings into their packs, while the one who would stay sat on his cot, both hands resting on his knees, and studied the potbellied stove that stood in the center of the tent, providing what warmth there was.

Voss had been surly ever since Munson announced tent assignments were being changed. Earlier, in the mess hall, he’d banged his fist on the table, knocking pinto beans all over the floor. Now he moved about the tent in a cold, silent fury, grabbing one item after another and shoving them into the canvas pack. The last thing he produced was the big yellow can stashed beneath his cot. Because it had surfaced during the search for forged documents, Marty already knew what was in it: German butter, probably two or three years old by now and rancid as hell. Normally, Marty wouldn’t have given a damn if Voss wanted to lug the can around with him, but the bastard had spit at him that afternoon. He’d enjoyed seeing Voss throw himself on the ground, and he’d laughed when the German finally stood up and began to brush the dirt off his knees and elbows.

“Hey, Adolf.”

Voss turned to look at him.

“Our butter’s not good enough for you? Why you got to tote that shit around?” He nodded toward Voss’s cot. “Just leave it over yonder.”

The can must have weighed five pounds, but Voss flicked it back and forth, from one huge hand to the other, then held it out with a flourish and said something in German.

Marty understood:
If you want it, come take it.
Suddenly, the tent seemed crowded.

He drained his mug and dropped it on the ground, then unslung his rife. He meant to tell Voss one more time to put the can down and step away from the cot. Once the German complied, Marty would open the door to the stove, shove the can inside and shut the door. Before long they’d hear the container pop open, and if it was loud enough, a few of them might flinch. A moment later, they’d smell the burning butter.

But before he issued his order, Schultz said, “He won’t give.”

“What?”

“Won’t give. To him this can mean something. He fight for it.”

They all stood there looking at the Pole: Voss with the can of butter in his hand, Marty with his rifle, the other men with various keepsakes—a pair of leather slippers, a tiny square pillow hardly big enough for a man to rest his head on, a roll of toilet paper so brown from age and dust that it looked as if it had already been used, and such a large assortment of dolls and stuffed animals that you might have thought you’d entered a nursery.