Part 26 (1/2)

Joe nodded again.

”What's the matter?” Johnny asked nervously. He was beginning to sweat a little. ”Cat got your tongue?”

Joe grinned at him. ”I'm too scared to talk,” he said. He raised himself to his hands and knees. ”Come on kid,” he said. ”Let's break their a.s.ses!” And then he was running zigzag across the field.

Johnny huddled there for a second, then he followed him.

8.

He lay quietly on the bed listening to the music that came in the open window. His eyes were wide and staring, yet they saw nothing. He didn't turn them toward the window. He didn't want to see the kind of day it was, the sky so soft and blue, the sunlight so golden on the fresh spring green of the trees. With one hand he clutched the sheet that covered him to his chest as if he were afraid it would be torn from him.

The music stilled, leaving a quiet that echoed in his mind. Unconsciously he listened for the next tune. He knew what it would be, they always played it just when the bus was pulling out.

He reached for a cigarette on the little table next to the bed. He put it in his mouth and lit it. He drew deeply on it, waiting for the music to begin again.

The sound of voices came to him. They floated lightly and softly on the breeze. Men's voices. Women's voices. Nice words. Soft words. Tender and somehow gruff words.

”So long nursey, if yuh wasn't a looey I'd kiss yuh!”

A soft warm laugh and then the answer: ”Go ahead, soldier, but watch that arm. Don't forget what the doctor said!”

Other voices. Men's voices. Man talk. ”I coulda got in, bud. Honest. But then she had to go an' pull her rank on me!”

Disgusted agreement. ”Yeanh. They only put out for officers.”

The first two. His voice: ”I'll miss you.”

Her voice: ”I'll miss you too.”

”Kin Ah come back an' see yuh sometimes?”

A second's hesitation, and then the reply: ”What do you want to do that for, soldier? You're going home!”

One at a time the voices faded away. For a moment there was a silence, then the roar of a motor being started.

His free hand tightened on the sheet. Now. Now it was coming. The music hit him like a wave in the ocean. It rolled over him until he felt he was drowning in it. It was loud. It was bra.s.sy. It was written to torment him.

”When Johnny comes marching home again, tra la, tra la.”

He put his hands to his ears to shut out the sound. But the music was loud and it pushed its way past his hands. He heard the gears being meshed, the cries of farewell, and over it all beat the loud, pulsing, dissonant sound of the music.

At last the music died away. He took his hands down from his ears. They were damp with the sweat that had run down his face. He took the cigarette from his mouth and put it in the ashtray on the little table. He dried his hands on the bedsheet.

Slowly the tension seeped from him. His eyelids drooped and almost closed. He was tired. His breathing slowed. And after a while he slept.

The sound of dishes rattling in a tray awakened him. With the same motion with which he opened his eyes, he reached for a cigarette. Before he could light it, a steady hand held a match under it.

Without looking up, he dragged deeply on the cigarette. ”Thanks, Rock,” he said.

”I got your lunch, Johnny. D'yuh want tuh get outta bed to eat it?” Rocco's voice was as steady as his hand had been.

Instinctively Johnny's eyes turned to the crutches at the foot of the bed. They leaned against the bed, a constant reminder of what he had become. He shook his head. ”No.”

He lifted himself with his hands as Rocco straightened the pillow behind him and bolstered it so that it would support his back. Rocco put the little stand on the bed across his thighs. He looked down at the plate and then away.

”I'm not hungry.”

Rocco pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down and looked at him. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He let the smoke out his nostrils slowly. ”I can't figure you out, Johnny,” he said quietly.

Johnny didn't answer.

”You're supposed to be a buggin' hero, an' yet you're afraid to get out of bed,” he continued in the same quiet voice. ”You're the same guy that charged a German machine-gun nest single-handed. They pinned a medal on yuh. In fact, two medals. Ours an' the Frenchies'.” His voice filled with quiet wonder. ”An' yet yuh won't get outta bed.”

Johnny uttered one violent ugly word. He turned and looked at Rocco's impa.s.sive face. ”Let them go walk on their friggin' medals. They gave 'em to Joe too, but it don't do him any good now. I tole yuh enough times that I didn't go alone. If I'da known Joe got it, I woulda quit right there. I didn' wanna be a hero.”

Rocco didn't answer and they sat there silently smoking their cigarettes. Johnny was the first to break the silence.

He gestured toward the seven empty beds in the room with him. ”When is the new batch comin' in?” he asked.

Rocco turned and looked at the beds and then turned back to him. ”Tomorrow morning,” he answered. ”Till then yuh got a private room.” He looked at Johnny speculatively. ”What'sa matter, Johnny, getting lonely?”

Again Johnny didn't answer.

Rocco stood up and pushed his chair back. He looked down at Johnny. The sympathy that showed on his face was not apparent in his voice; it was studiedly casual. ”Yuh could've gone with 'em if yuh wanted, Johnny.”

Johnny's face froze into a mask. His voice was as casual as Rocco's had been. ”I like the service here, Rock. I think I'll stay awhile.”

Rocco smiled slowly. ”This is a transient hotel, Johnny. It ain't my idea of a place to settle down.”

Johnny squashed his cigarette in the tray. He looked up at Rocco. His voice was bitter. ”You can afford to have your ideas, Rock. n.o.body's makin' you stay here, but if you do, keep 'em to yourself.”

Rocco didn't answer; he picked up the tray silently and put it back on the little wagon. He pushed it toward the door of the room, walked back to the bed, and picked up the crutches. He looked at them and then turned to Johnny.

”We got guys here who'd think they was lucky if they kin use these. Get wise to yourself, Johnny. You can't lay in bed all your life.”

Johnny turned his face to the wall, away from him.

Rocco stood there a moment. Something inside him wanted to cry. It had been that way ever since he came across Johnny lying in the little ditch where the machine gun had been.

A few yards away was Joe's body and in the trench near the gun were three dead German soldiers. Johnny was almost unconscious, but he kept saying over and over in a mad sort of delirium: ”My leg, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds stuck it with a lot of needles!”