'Nothing,' Noah shouted. 'Nothing! I'll tell you after the war! Now pack your things and let's get out of here!'
Hope dropped her hands. 'Of course,' she said, in a low voice. She went back to folding her clothes and placing them precisely in her bag.
Ten minutes later they were ready. Noah went out carrying her valise and the small canvas bag in which he kept his extra shirt and shaving kit. He didn't look back as he went out on to the landing, but Hope turned at the door. The lowering sun was slanting through the breaks in the unhinged shutter in thin, dusty gold. The jonquils remained in their glass on the dressingtable, bending over a little now, as though the weight of approaching death had made their blossoms heavy. But otherwise the room was as it had been when first she entered it. She closed the door softly and followed Noah down the stairs.
The landlady was on the porch, still in the grey apron. She said nothing when Noah paid her, merely standing there in her smell of sweat, age and dishwater, looking with silent, harsh righteousness at the soldier and the young girl who walked up the quiet street towards the bus station.
There were some men sleeping in the barracks when Noah got there. Donnelly was snoring drunkenly near the door, but no one paid any attention to him. Noah took down his barracks bag and with maniacal care he went through every article there, the extra shoes, the woollen shirts, the clean fatigues, the green woollen gloves, the tin of shoe-dubbing. But the money wasn't there. Then he got down the other barracks bag, and went through that. The money wasn't there. From time to time he glanced up sharply, to see if any of the men were watching him. But they slept, in that snoring, hateful, unprivate, everlasting way. Good, he thought, if I caught any of them looking at me, I would kill them.
He put the scattered things back into the bags, then took out his box of stationery and wrote a short note. He put the box on his bunk and strode down to the orderly room. On the bulletin board outside the orderly room, along with the notices about brothels in town that were out of bounds, and regulations for wearing the proper uniforms at the proper times, and the list of promotions that had come through that week, there was a space reserved for lost-and-found notices. Noah tacked his sheet of paper up on top of a plea by PFC O'Reilly for the return of a six-bladed penknife that had been taken from his locker. There was a light hanging outside the orderly room, and in its frail glare Noah re-read what he had written.
To the Personnel of Company C: Ten dollars has been stolen from the barracks bag of Private Noah Ackerman, 2nd Platoon. I am not interested in the return of the money, and will press no charges. I wish to take my satisfaction, in person, with my own hands. Will the soldier or soldiers involved please communicate with me immediately. Signed, PRIVATE NOAH ACKERMAN Noah read what he had written with pleasure. He had a feeling, as he turned away, that he had taken the one step that would keep him from going mad.
The next evening, as he was going to the mess hall for supper, Noah stopped at the bulletin board. His notice was still there. And under it, neatly typed, was a small sheet of paper. On the sheet of paper, there were two short sentences.
We took it, Jew-boy. We're waiting for you.
Signed,
P. Donnelly B. Cowley
J. Wright W. Demuth
L. Jackson E. Riker
M. Silichner R. Henkel
P. Sanders T. Brailsford
Michael was cleaning his rifle when Noah came up to him.
'May I talk to you for a moment?' Noah said.
Michael looked up at him with annoyance. He was tired and, as usual, he felt incompetent and uncertain with the intricate clever mechanism of the old Springfield.
'What do you want?' Michael asked.
Ackerman hadn't said a word to him since the moment on the route march.
'I can't talk in here,' Noah said, glancing around him. It was after supper, and there were thirty or forty men in the barracks, reading, writing letters, fiddling with their equipment, listening to the radio.
'Can't it wait?' Michael asked coldly. 'I'm pretty busy just now…'
'Please,' Noah said. Michael glanced up at him. Ackerman's face was set in withered, trembling lines, and his eyes seemed to be larger and darker than usual. 'Please…' he replied. 'I've got to talk to you. I'll wait for you outside.'
Michael sighed. 'O.K.,' he said. He put the rifle together, wrestling with the bolt, ashamed of himself, as always, because it was so difficult for him. God, he thought, feeling his greasy hands slip along the oily, stubborn surfaces, I can put on a play, discuss the significance of Thomas Mann, and any farm boy can do this with his eyes closed better than I can…
He hung the rifle up and went outside, wiping the oil off his hands. Ackerman was standing across the Company street in the darkness, a small, slender form outlined by a distant light. Ackerman waved to him in a conspiratorial gesture, and Michael slowly approached him, thinking, I get all the nuts…
'Read this,' Noah said as soon as Michael got close to him. He thrust two sheets of paper into Michael's hand.
Michael turned so that he could get some light on the papers. He squinted and read first the notice that Noah had put up on the bulletin board, which he had not read before, and the answer, signed by the ten names. Michael shook his head and read both notes over carefully.
'What the hell is this?' he asked irritably.
'I want you to act as my second,' Noah said. His voice was dull and heavy, and even so, Michael had to hold himself back from laughing at the melodramatic request.
'Second?' he asked incredulously.
'Yes,' said Noah. 'I'm going to fight those men. And I don't trust myself to arrange it myself. I'll lose my temper and get into trouble. I want it to be absolutely correct.'
Michael blinked. Of all the things you thought might happen to you before you went into the Army, you never imagined anything like this. 'You're crazy,' he said. 'This is just a joke.'
'Maybe,' said Noah flatly. 'Maybe I'm getting tired of jokes.'
'What made you pick on me?' Michael asked.
Noah took a deep breath and Michael could hear the air whistling into the boy's nostrils. He looked taut and very handsome in a rough-cut, archaic, tragic way in the blocked light and shadows from the hanging lamp across the street. 'You're the only one,' Noah said, 'I felt I could trust in the whole Company. ' Suddenly he grabbed the two sheets of paper. 'O.K.,' he said, 'if you don't want to help, the hell with you…'
'Wait a minute,' Michael said, feeling dully that somehow he must prevent this savage and ludicrous joke from being played out to its limit. 'I haven't said I won't help.'
'O.K., then,' Noah said harshly. 'Go in and arrange the schedule.'
'What schedule?'
'There are ten of them. What do you want me to do – fight them in one night? I have to space them. Find out who wants to fight me first, who wants to fight me second, and so on. I don't care how they come.'
Michael took the sheet of paper silently from Noah's hand and looked at the names on the list. Slowly he began to place the names. 'You know,' he said, 'that these are the ten biggest men in the Company.'
'I know.'
'Not one of them weighs under a hundred and eighty pounds.'
'I know.'
'How much do you weigh?'
'A hundred and thirty-five.'
'They'll kill you.'
