the way ahead was tough but he knew it was the right way.
They gave him a standing ovation.
As for the raiders, early the next morning they were informed that Mr. Becker had decided the best thing for them to do would be to go on vacation for a bit. All their weapons were to be secured and they were to drive back to their training headquarters at the Red River Army Depot, and from there commence a week off.
But of course there were two private chats to be gotten out of the way. One took place between Earl and Frenchy and, surprisingly enough, was initiated by Frenchy, in the ramshackle room that served as Earl's operations center in the pumping building.
'I wanted to apologize,' he said early. 'I fucked up.'
'How's that?' said Earl.
'With those two Negro women. I fired those shots. I was racing up the steps, I tripped on a shell, I'd just loaded the BAR. I felt it firing. I?'
'You was in a battle zone, why wouldn't you have had your finger on the trigger? At any time a Grumley might have jumped out at you with a gun.'
'I'm still sorry. If only?'
'Don't waste no time on ifonlys. You can run it through your head a thousand times and if this thing or that thing is different, it all turns out different. But maybe it turns out worse, not better, don't forget that possibility.'
'Yes sir,' said Frenchy.
'Good,' said Earl.
'Thank God,' said Frenchy, 'that they were only Negroes.'
Earl said nothing. But then he thought a second, as Frenchy returned to the bunk area, and said, 'Just hold on.'
'Yes sir.'
'I wish you hadn't said that.'
'Mr. Earl? I guess I meant, think of the problems we'd have if they'd have been white. That's what I meant.'
'No, that ain't what you meant. I know what you meant. You meant, hey, they was only niggers.'
Frenchy said nothing, but he seemed to squirm with discomfort. Then he replied, 'They were only Negroes. I would never say nigger because my parents told me it was uncouth, but still, they were only Negroes. And the truth is, some of the boys are wondering why we went to so much trouble and risked so much to save some black prostitutes.'
'Okay, you listen here, Short, and you listen good. Third day on Tarawa, third day after that long walk in through the cold water, I got plugged by a Jap sniper. I like to bled out but two boys from the Ammunition Company that we used as litter bearers, they crawled out and got me. Lots of fire going on. Japs everygoddamnwhere, you hear me? They drug me in, they dumped me on their litter and they carried my bleeding ass back to the aid station. Didn't say a word. Negro boys. I'm dead but for them two, and a few hours later one of 'em hisself was drug in, and they laid him next to me, and he died. I watched him die. Damned if his blood weren't the same goddamned color as mine. Bright red, when it come out, then turning sort of blackish. So don't you tell me they're any goddamned different.'
He didn't realize by the end he was screaming, but as Frenchy shrank back further and further it became clearer and clearer and he looked up to see everybody else around him staring, all the guys.
'So any other bird got a complaint?'
There was silence.
'You are good, brave boys. You are as good as any Marines. But underneath, your blood is the same color as any Negro's, so when a Negro dies it's a real hard death. Anybody have any goddamned problem with that?'
'No sir,' came a comment.
'Then get your asses back to packing up. We have to move back to Texas before we can take some time off.'
If Earl seemed to have a particularly brutal edge to his voice, they were all unaware of a reason. But perhaps it had to do with a previous discussion Earl had just concluded with D. A., which developed along different lines.
'Earl,' D. A. said, 'this smells of so many kinds of bad I don't know where to start.'
'Start at the top, finish at the bottom,' said Earl.
'The kid who killed them two gals? Becker wants him dumped. He wants his ass gone. He says it's the smart move. It'll quieten the Negroes, it'll show we're responsive to community pressures and that we've got hearts and consciences.'
'If that boy goes, I go,' said Earl intractably.
'Earl, I?'
'If that boy goes, I go. No other way.'
'Earl, Becker and some of his people are beginning to think we are out of control.'
'I can't fight no other way, Mr. Parker. Fighting's too goddamned tough as it is to do it while being second- guessed by folks who've never done a lick of it and don't have no stomach for it nohow.'
'Earl, in truth, you made some faulty decisions.'
'I know I did. But it ain't on the boys, it's on me. If mistakes were made, I made 'em. You'd best fire me, Mr. Parker, and leave them boys alone.'
The old man just shook his head.
'Damn,' he said, 'you are a stubborn man. You don't have some kind of craziness in your head that makes you want to die, to be with your pals in the Pacific? They say that's common. Is that what's going on with you? Is that why you didn't wear the vest?'
'I didn't wear the vest because I had to move fast. The vests ain't no good when you move fast. They're heavy, they're cumbersome, they eat up your energy real fast, and they only stop shotgun and pistol. They wouldn't have stopped that big German machine gun a lick.'
'But you keep jumping into the guns.'
'It's the only way I know.'
'You are a hard piece of work, Earl. But I keep having to say the same goddamned things. You have to wear the damned vest. That's how I want it done. You were to command from outside, not inside. This isn't the Marine Corps. You are a law officer, sworn true, and your job is to follow the instructions of your superior, which is me. Earl, I will not steer you wrong. Don't you trust me?'
'I do trust you. You are a fair and decent man. I have not a doubt about that one.'
'But you don't trust Becker.'
'Not a goddamned bit.'
'He wanted me to fire you too, Earl. I told him if you went, I went. Now you tell me if that Short goes, you go. This don't sound like it's working.'
'It's the only way I know, Mr. Parker.'
'Call me D. A., goddammit, Earl. Okay, Short gets one more chance, you get one more chance.'
And what he didn't say was that he had only one more chance.
'Now I want you to go home. The boys go home for a week, you go home for a week. And get those goddamned pellets plucked out of your hide, so you won't be so disagreeable, do you understand? And see your wife. The poor woman is probably very upset with you.'
Chapter 25
They got back to the Red River Army Depot, were paid in cash the money owed them, and left early the next morning for Texarkana and from there to all points for a week of pleasure. Some went home, some, whose homes were too far, headed down to the Texas beaches, but a day away by train, some headed for that lush and Frenchy town, New Orleans.
