Ledford watched Erm crawl between the two men. One of them wore a thin mustache, the other was clean-shaven. They were rail thin. Young as McDonough. Ledford looked at the lids of their closed eyes, barely discernible in the low glow of their lantern, its oil nearly spent. He watched the eyeballs rolling wildly underneath. It was deep sleep. Dream sleep. He wondered for a moment what haunted these men, and then he watched Erm looking from one to the other and back. He chose the one on the left, put his hand over his mouth and drove the jackknife into his jugular vein, pulling it across the throat with all the muscle his forearm could muster. Blood came fast and heavy, surging in time with the young mans heart. Erm waited out the few soft gurgles, his eye on the other soldier, who continued to snore. He wiped the blade across the dead mans still chest, one side and then the next, so that it made a red X next to the empty rice ration. He folded the blade shut and handed it to Ledford.
They left the tent and maneuvered back to blackness. On their way, Ledford considered the young soldier theyd left alive. He envisioned him stretching awake come morning, wiping the sleep from his eyes and turning to face his comrade. What horror the young man would experiencewhat confused detriment to arise to such a sight. This type of warfare could not be measured. It was more than payback for McDonough, more than putting a chopped head on a stick. More than taking a father forever from a baby girl whose picture he carried. This was what their drill instructor back in boot had told them would win wars. The man had sat in earshot until daybreak just to hear the screams of German boys echoing across the French forest. The awful screams. Nothing like it for defeatin the enemy, hed told them. That was so long ago now. Now here he was.
Before him, Erm walked in silence and thought of his cigarettes, dry inside a tin in his foxhole.
Ledford trailed behind. The jackknife jostled in his breast pocket as he walked. He thought of his father scoring glass.
He wondered how hed come to follow such a man as Erm.
Rain beat his shoulders numb. Its sound was everything.
ON ASATURDAY, in front of the pagoda at Henderson Field, Erm Bacigalupo said something he shouldnt have. What followed would confuse every eyewitness, for it showed them that in wartime, friends and enemies are difficult to discern.
Erm enjoyed messing with those he deemed country. It was a hundred-degree afternoon, the last day of October, and Erm had picked a heavyset seventeen-year-old from Mississippi whod just sailed over from Samoa with the Eighth Regiment. Three men sat on the skinny bench against the front wall, watching Erm size up the new boy. He up-and-downed his utility uniform, fresh-issued. Look at the sharp dresser, Erm said, fingering the coats buttons. Like everybody else, he knew the boy only wore the coat to hide his baby fat, and Erm wanted him to take it off so he could make his life more miserable than it already was. Look at the buttons on this thing. Anybody told you about the copper pawn, Country?
Huh-uh. The pits of the coat were sweated straight through in circles the size of a phonograph record.
Ledford was under the pagodas corner, his reading spot. He closed his Bible and slid out. The Bibles bookmark was a letter hed gotten from Rachel that morning. Eli Mann, her grandfather, was dead at ninety-one.
Ledford propped his elbow on the dirt and watched the men on the porch.
Erm kept at it. Copper pawnll give you ninety-five cents a button. You know how to get there?
Huh-uh. He tried to remember what hed been told about this kind of northern talk from this kind of northern man.
Its at the top of Mount Austen, but theyre only open from midnight to two a.m.
Somebody laughed and somebody else told Erm to shut up. Ledford stood up and started to walk inside.
The boy from Mississippi said, Mount Austin, Texas? and everybody laughed at him. Ledford looked at the boys face, the way it wore a confused, familiar look. He stopped and stood behind Erm.
This one isnt even worth it, Erm said. This ones dumber than Sinus. Sinus was what some of the men had called McDonough, as he never shut up about his sinus problems. You watch out, Country, Erm said, tearing the copper buttons off the boys coat one by one. Sinus ended up on a Jap spit with an apple stuck where his mouth used to be. All but one of the men quit laughing. Erm stuck the buttons in his pocket and turned to the two still seated. Old Sinus doesnt have to worry about his clogged head anymore, does he? he asked them. Japs opened it up wide.
Ledford grabbed Erm by the back of his neck, just as his father had done the dog that day on the porch so long ago. With a fistful of shirtcollar, he lifted the other man an inch or more from the ground and slammed him, face first, into the dirt. Then he took a knee next to the Chicagoan with a smart mouth and rolled him over, blood already thick with dust, front teeth already broken. Ledford raised his fist as high as he could and brought it down square on Erms face. He got in two more before they pulled him off, the other man half-asleep and gagging on sharp little pieces of tooth, bitter little rivers of blood.
November 1942
IF THERE WERE ANY boys among them, Bloody Ridge and Matanikau had made them men. Bayonet-range fighting will do that, quick. Ledford didnt worry on the enemy any longer. If he kept an eye open, it was for Erm. The sureness of deaths liberation had sunk in. Someone was coming for him, and it didnt matter much whether that someone was his comrade or his enemy.
When a man accepts that he will no doubt die, he is free to live.
The pagodas shade was cooler. The rice rations tasted better. The whiskey was like drinking the sun.
Ledford grew accustomed to seeing things hed not imagined stateside. One Marine safety-pinned six enemy ears to his belt. Heads stuck on a pole were not uncommon. Erm had joked of the sight, and now Ledford knew why. It was just another thing to look at while you smoked.
Still, Erm never spoke to or looked at Ledford after having his top teeth knocked out. He didnt speak much to anyone. Hed developed a noticeable lisp since the fight. The mans tongue knew not where to go.
Once, hed gotten excited about a rumor that was spreading. The division is about to be relieved, hed said, lisping all the way. Well be parading in Washington by Christmas. The next day, his eyes were back to staring blank at nothing, all pupil. Black as jungle mud.
Some said Erm was shooting morphine hed won in a stud game.
Ledford felt guilty for what hed done to the hard Mac from Chicago. In some ways, he hated the man, the secret they shared of a maneuver in darkness. In others, he admired him. It crossed Ledfords mind to apologize, but he couldnt. He couldnt speak on much of consequence to anyone in those days of preparation. They were to push the Japanese out of the airstrips artillery range.
Ledford found himself uncharacteristically hungover on the morning he marched toward Kokumbona on the heels of an Air Fleet strike. Positions were to have been secured and the movement through the jungle was to have been a safe one, but something was not right. Ledford felt it in his headache and in his bones. He looked at the Marines around him. They felt it too.
It was quiet. Ten yards to his right was Erm Bacigalupo. He looked as though he might vomit. His cheekbones stuck out. His lips were in a pinch.
Then came the hard clap of a single Japanese rifle, and Ledfords every muscle seized. He dropped and rolled toward a thicket of green, but the noise had got to him this time. A burst of machine-gun fire originated somewhere too close, and then the thump of a mortar shell blew out his eardrums. All was still. Then ringing. His vision went seesaw. He stood, and just before another mortar landed before him, he made eye contact with Erm, who was running in his direction. Then another thump, and then silence. Ledford was aware of hurtling through the air. Something had gone through him, and he lay on his back, touching at a torn spot on his chest. Air emanated to and from this spot. It had gone clear through, and he breathed from it. He was deaf, but he could hear it plain as day, in and out, pfffffffffff-hooooooo. The left shin was also torn, smoking gray wisps and spilling black blood on the ground cover.
The thought came. This is it.
But then a corpsman was there, and he stuck in a shot of morphine. And then there was a stretcher and some movement, and then nothing.
The night ahead was something Ledford would never forget. He lay in a wounded dugout, eight feet deep, at Henderson Field. The heat inside the earth there was too much to take, and the men were packed shoulder to shoulder. They screamed. The smell induced gagging. Ledford tried to keep deaf, but his eardrums were healing. He tried to shut his eyes, but the swirls on the black stage of his eyelids erupted like they never had. His stomach jumped and his throat crawled up his tongue. He breathed through his mouth, labored, like a dog.
Once, before passing out, he turned and saw Erm, three men away from him, his forehead wrapped in bloody gauze. He stared at Ledford, and a corpsman came by and stuck Erm with morphine, and he smiled, toothless.
The next morning they were flown out to a Navy hospital. Espiritu Santo it was called. It was there that Erm said to Ledford, I told you wed be home by Christmas for the parade.
The USS Solace carried the men to New Zealand. On board, an infantryman younger than Ledford cried with joy in his bunk. Everyone ignored him. They all spoke upwards, to the ceiling. Loud. Some perched on an elbow to see their surroundings. It didnt seem real that they could be out of the jungle.
Think theyll have any KJ billboards up back home? somebody said.
Whats a KJ billboard? It was the teary kid. Aint you had your eyes open doggie? Ledford said. He was drunk and delirious. Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs. Theres one plastered across every piece of plywood in the Solomons.
The kid shivered. Jungle disease was in his blood. Im done with killin, he said. Japs or no Japs. He looked down at his shaking fingertips. I just want my fingernails and hair to start growing again, he said. As dysentery came, such growing went. The jungle blood could rot you inside out.
Yeah, Ledford said. Youre done with it all right doggie. You go on and turn soft. Let those nails and hair grow real long.
A couple Marines laughed. Another one said, Damned pansy Army dogs.
Erm Bacigalupo said, Put some panties on while youre at it and bend over. Everyone laughed hearty. There was no longer any room for soft. A code needed to be kept. Among men whod done what theyd all done together, none could ever speak of going soft again. To do so would invite their nightmares to the waking world.
That night, Ledford made his way on crutches to Erms bunk. He apologized for knocking his teeth out. Im truly sorry for it, he said. He held out his hand and they shook. Ledford pledged that once stateside, he would buy his friend some new teeth.
August 1945
IT WASMONDAY, the sixth. The grandstand at Washington Park Race Track was filled. Elbow to elbow they sat and waited, Southside Chicagoans and out-of-towners together. Theyd come for the match race between Busher and Durazna, for which the purse was twenty-five grand.
Under the grandstand overhang, Ledford and Erm swilled from their respective flasks. They studied their short forms in silence. A fat lady in a flowered hat sat down in front of them and Erm made a farting sound. She turned, frowned, and fanned herself with a program. Excuse you, Erm said to her. He flashed his smile and winked at her. His teeth were white as ivory, set solid and paid in full. When the woman left to find a more suitable seat, Erm hollered, Keep fannin honey, you dont know from hot. He stood for no reason and wobbled a little on his feet. He sat back down. Did you see that broad? She was wide as she was tall.
They were drunk. Had been so for three straight days, nine hours of sleep in total.
Whats the skinny on Duraznas trainer? Ledford said.
Erm didnt answer. He was eyeballing the suits down front. Look at these cocksuckers, he said. I paid good money for these seats. I gotta look at these silver-haired bastards all day?
Ledford licked his pencil and drew a circle around the words Oklahoma bred.
Whats the point in standin? Theres twelve minutes to post, for cryin out loud. Erms ears were turning red. He got like this, and there was no point in trying to stop it. Look, he said. See how they all hold their binoculars with their pinkies out? How much you think they paid for those binoculars? He stood up again. Hey, Carnegie. Hey. The men down front knew not to turn around. They recognized that kind of voice.
Carnegie came from dirt, Ledford said. He didnt look up from his Racing Form.
What? Erm thought about sitting back down, but didnt. He ground peanut husks with the soles of his Florsheims.
Carnegie came from poor folks. He was a philanthropist.
Philanthra-who-in-the-what-now? Erm cleared his throat and spat on the ground. Pipe down, college boy. He kicked popcorn at the empty seatback in front of them and sat down. Choke those fuckin suits with their binocular straps, he mumbled.
Ledford said he wanted to go to the paddock and see the horses running in the fourth.
Erm looked at his wristwatch. You go on, he said. Hed set up a three-thirty meeting with his uncle and needed to be in his seat.
Down by the paddock, the horseplayers tried to blow their cigarette smoke above the heads of the tourists kids. It was hot and drizzly. Undershirt weather. A track made soft by summer rain. Ledford was in the bag and it wasnt yet three oclock. He drew another circle around the number nine in his short form, put it up over his head like a rain canopy, and walked inside, away from the paddock. He chewed cutplug tobacco. Homesick Dynamite Boy, he said as he walked. It was the name of the number nine horse, and at 7 to 1 it was an overlay if hed ever seen one. He looked at his short form again. His left shoulder knocked against the side of a pillar, so he sidestepped, and his right shoulder knocked against a man in a black shirt and matching derby hat. There were no Excuse mes. This was expected. Ledford felt the mans eyeballs on him as he walked away.
He had a fifty, three twenties, and a ten left in his billfold.