For What He Could Become Page 5

  “Now,” he said. “How many socks you got on?”

  “Two pair.”

  “Take one off and stick your feet in there slow-like.”

  “It feels funny,” Sims said, moving his foot around in the boot.

  Leon tried several steps. “I don’t know,” he said. “This thing’s too damn big.”

  Bill twisted the grass and fitted more into the boot.

  “That’s better,” Leon said. “That’s better. Feels like I’m walking on carpet thick enough for a king.”

  Bill turned to Sims. “Unbutton your coat and slip your arms out but leave the belt tight.”

  When Sims had done that, Bill placed a layer of grass over his back and pulled the coat up over it.

  “What have you got for mittens?”

  Sims showed him their issue mittens.

  “You need something soft and warm on the backs of those. Maybe trade with some of the Indians around here for rabbit skins and sew them on the backs. Then you can put them to your face once in a while and warm up. You should blow your breath up by your face every so often, that’ll help. And keep your parka hoods up and breathe in them.” He smiled. “And if you keep working, you’ll stay warmer.”

  There was a general groan.

  “Bill,” Leon asked, “how we going to keep warm at night?”

  “Wrap one of those blankets around you before you get in your sleeping bag and move your cot away from the side of the tent. Put some paper and a blanket on top of the cot—if we could get some moss it would be better.”

  When Peck and Bill left with the pack string the next day, three of the engineers were stooped under a bulldozer pulling grass.

  Bill yelled at them. “Hey—how’s it going?”

  They looked up. “We just shuckin’ and jivin’,” one said. “Got plenty of grass to pull.”

  They hadn’t gone a hundred yards when Bill asked Peck, “What do you think they mean by shuckin’ and jivin’?”

  “Don’t know,” Peck said. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Letter for you,” Peck said when he came back from mail call. “Looks like it went all the way through hell and half of Georgia. Has four forwarding stamps on it.”

  Bill, who had never received a letter before, turned the tan envelope over several times before tearing it open. It requested Bill Williams to report to Fairbanks, Alaska, for a selective service examination.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bill entered a line where the recruits took off their outer clothes and moved forward in their underwear. Bill didn’t wear underwear. He stood in the line naked, his clothes in a bag with a shipping tag attached to it. They all moved forward and were grabbed by one arm while a medic jabbed a needle in.

  The line proceeded into the quartermaster section, where a short man with immaculate hair and a thin mustache asked him his shirt size.

  “I don’t know,” Bill said.

  The guy handed him a shirt and the line moved on.

  Bill didn’t have time to examine the shirt before he was in the pants line.

  “Waist?”

  “I don’t know.” Bill looked at the guy in front of him. “What size are you?”

  “Thirty-two,” he said.

  “Thirty-two,” Bill said.

  The soldier handed him a pair of pants and a belt.

  “Boots?”

  Bill listened to guys ahead of him yelling out their shoe sizes and looked at their feet. One recruit who looked about the same size as Bill said “ten.”

  “Boots?”

  “Ten,” Bill said.

  A private with pimples on his face slid the boots across the counter along with two pair of socks and a set of underwear.

  The line went through a door into a large room, where the Drill Instructor was standing on a footlocker near the wall. He shouted, “Take off your underwear. Put it in the bag. Put on your beautiful OD U.S. army underwear and your beautiful OD U.S. army socks, then proceed to dress yourself if you are capable of doing that without crying for your mommy. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT complain, whine, bitch, moan, or cry out about the clothing or size of clothing your government has given you to wear. Put it on. If it doesn’t fit we’ll find a way to make it fit.”

  Bill felt a nudge from his side and looked around to see a large well-built man with brown skin and dark eyes stuffing his underwear in a bag.

  “You Indian?” the man asked.

  Bill nodded.

  “What tribe?”

  “Athabascan.”

  The man’s eyes focused on the ceiling a few seconds as if trying to locate the tribe in his mind.

  “I’m Shoshone,” he said. “Where’s Athabascan?”

  “Alaska.”

  “I’m from Wyoming. Ever been there?”

  Bill shook his head.

  He had the pants up and they fit in the waist but were long in the leg. The shirt was too small. He was dressed and had his clothes in the bag when he looked at the Indian beside him again. The clothing he’d been given didn’t begin to close around his chest or his waist. He put the belt around his middle and it was about four inches too short to buckle, but he smiled at Bill.

  “Anybody who cannot, I repeat, CANNOT walk in the clothing they were issued stay where you are. Everyone else, right face. Forward march on the double.”

  Bill went out the door at a jog, his clothing bag slapping his leg, following the line that lead back to the barracks.

  The bunk to the right of Bill was vacant, and the guy on his left was asleep already and snoring. By the time Bill had dumped his clothing bag and gotten his cot made, the Indian from Wyoming limped in and threw his clothing bag on the vacant cot. His belt wasn’t fastened but the pants covered his bottom half and the shirt, although straining at all seams, was buttoned. There was a big smile on his face and his teeth were the whitest Bill had ever seen.

  “They don’t have boots to fit me,” he said.

  Bill looked at his feet. The boots had no laces in them and the man’s feet bulged out of the open tongue area, the eyelets spread wide. When he sat on his bunk and removed the boots, he wiggled his toes and laughed, then stuck out his hand.

  “Name’s Wayne Turner.”

  Bill reached for it and Wayne’s large hand enveloped his.

  “I’m Bill Williams.”

  Wayne added a nod along with his big smile.

  “What size boots do you need?” Bill asked.

  “Twelve and a half. These are elevens.”

  “What’re you gonna do without boots? You can’t go barefoot.”

  “I did on the reservation.”

  Bill couldn’t conceive of that, although he’d heard from elders about the Athabascans in Prince William Sound who went barefoot all year round. He wondered what Corporal Refines Sims Jr. would do about this. No sooner had that thought struck him than he knew what Sims would do.

  “Where’s the boot tight?”

  Wayne pointed to the sides and toe.

  “Give me one of them.”

  He took a pocketknife from his footlocker and cut half-moon chunks out of both sides of the boot at the widest part and at the toe area. Now they looked like high-topped sandals.

  “Try that,” he said.

  Wayne pulled the boot on, stood up, and wiggled his toes.

  “Feels good,” he said.

  “You put the laces in and I’ll cut the other one,” Bill said.

  When Wayne put both boots on and laced up, he walked up and down the aisle.

  “They feel good. Can’t wear socks, though. Thanks.”

  “At least you have some foot protection. You’re welcome.”

  It was after 3rd Platoon had finished mess that the DI noticed Private Wayne Turner’s footwear and commented on it loudly about four inches from Wayne’s nose.

  “Who in the living hell said you could cut up U.S. Government property, maggot?”

  Wayne looked at Bill.

  “Look at me, maggot, I’m talking to you. Talk to
me, maggot!”

  “They didn’t have any boots that fit, sir.”

  “I see. The United States Army Quartermaster Corps could not produce boots to fit your oversized feet, so you made your own.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “On the ground, maggot, and give me fifty pushups, then you will remove those disgraceful shoe covers and go barefoot. Do you understand me, maggot?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Turner did the fifty pushups without a hitch, jumped to his feet, and removed the boots.

  “Sir, what do you want me to do with them?”

  “Maggot. those are not U.S. Army combat boots, they are sandals and you shall place them in your foot locker for one week to see if the leather will grow back and in the meantime you will report for all activities in your bare feet. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Lights out was at 2200 hours. It was the first chance Bill had to talk to Wayne since the boot incident.

  “Doesn’t make any difference,” Wayne said. “I’m used to going barefoot. Feels good.”

  “How’d you do those fifty pushups so fast?”

  “Where I come from the elders said physical exercise was a good substitute for sex. I can do a hundred if I have to.”

  “Why would you want to do pushups instead of have sex?”

  “I didn’t. Just nobody but the ugly ones were putting out, so I did pushups.”

  “What’s it like on your reservation?” Wayne asked.

  “KNOCK IT OFF, YOU GUYS!” someone yelled.

  “Talk to you in the morning,” Bill whispered.

  “’Night,” Wayne said.

  Bill pulled the blanket over his head and with a flashlight started to write.

  December 8, 1942

  Dear Ilene,

  I’m sorry I haven’t written but things have been happening fast. I made it to Venetie okay and got on a riverboat and then to the highway and got a job right away with a supplypacking outfit. But then I got drafted in the army and I’m in Fort Ord, California, going through basic training.

  We’re supposed to be here eight weeks then get shipped overseas. I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t know when I can write again—they keep us real busy here.

  What I wanted to ask is if you would wait for me. All the way to Venetie and on the river I thought about you and was wondering if you would write me. You can write to me at Pvt. Bill Williams, General Post Office, Fort Ord, California and it will get to me.

  I suppose everybody’s still laughing about my bear hunt and when I think back on it, it is kind of funny, but I don’t know of anyone ever being stepped on by a bear before. The claw marks still show on my leg.

  I miss you and the village but I’m sure seeing a lot of country.

  He thought about how to sign it: “Love, Bill.” “With love, Bill. “Fondly yours, Bill.” “Sincerely yours, Bill.’” Finally he signed it, “With love, Bill.”

  He tucked it under his pillow. Tomorrow after training and before the evening meal he would slip over to the post office and mail it. He figured he would just address it to Ilene Chulpach, Arctic Village, Alaska, and it would get there.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They spent two years in training. Groups came and left but Bill and Wayne were never in them. Finally the government activated the US 106th Infantry Division and dubbed them the Golden Lions. They took the remainder of the draftees. Two days before they shipped out, the company commander, Captain Clark, found Bill and Wayne lounging in the barracks. They stood up in unison.

  “At ease,” Captain Clark said. “I’ve got some stripes for you, Williams. Seems we need another corporal, and you’re it. Think you can handle the job?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” He glanced at Wayne’s feet. “I see they found some boots for you, Turner. Take care of them, that was the only pair they got in.”

  They saluted and the captain walked through the barracks almost like he was doing an inspection.

  “Do I have to take orders from you now?” Wayne asked Bill.

  “Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  The division shipped for England on 20 October 1944, the plan being that they would slip across the channel and land at Le Havre, France, on December 3nd to relieve the 2nd Division on a quiet front. There they would be given an additional three weeks of combat training and be ready to support other divisions in the push to the Ruhr and into the heart of Germany.

  On December 11, 1944 the division was stopped on a road in Belgium, the men soaked to the skin from their threeday ride through France and Luxembourg in open trucks. Snow began to fall, covering the mud on the ground and hanging in the trees. A disheveled three-man reconnaissance patrol materialized through the snow, their collars shoved up and buttoned against the cold.

  A sergeant looked at Bill. “Who’s in charge here, Corporal?”

  “Captain Clark, sir.”

  “Know where I can find him?”

  “Yes sir, he’s back by those trucks.” Bill pointed at a collection of trucks where men were unloading and grouping at the end of the dirt road.

  “They better break up that crowd, the Jerries will drop one on them if they get the chance.”

  The three men walked and slid down the road in the falling snow.

  Bill’s men stayed where they were and stomped their feet to put off the chill and get the blood flowing in their legs. Some did deep knee bends and swung their arms.

  Bill pulled out a piece of paper he’d saved since they left the troop ship, pressed the wrinkles out of it on his leg, and started a letter to Ilene.

  “Somewhere in Europe.

  Date unknown.

  Hi Ilene,

  Well we landed and the war is still on. I know you probably thought once I got here it would scare them so much they’d give up, but it hasn’t happened so far.

  We’re waiting to go into our positions and we just spent three miserable days riding in trucks in the rain and snow and now we’re just standing around in the mud waiting. Seems like there’s a lot of time wasted in standing around waiting. Herb would do good in the army, he’s such a good waiter.

  I just wondered if you’ve thought about what I said in my last letter. About waiting for me, I mean. It sure would mean a lot to me. They’ll censor this letter if I put any locations in it so you can just write me at Corporal Bill Williams, General Post Office, Fort Ord, California. Oh, yeah, they made me a corporal and I boss some people around now. Not many, but some. I miss you. Corporal Bill Williams”

  He handed the letter to the company runner, who promised to get it into the mailbag that was headed to the port and to bring up the company’s mail if he could find it.

  One of the new men in Bill’s platoon sauntered over, cleared the snow off his helmet and put it back on.

  “Corporal, what’s the scoop on where we going?”

  “Colonel Descheneaux said we’re going into the Second’s positions and there’s nothing to it. Their guides will be here pretty soon and take us in. We’re supposed to get another three weeks of combat training.” Bill looked at the kid. He wasn’t even shivering. “You’re not cold?”

  “It gets colder than this in Omaha.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Coric. Coric Sloboda. I came in with the last group. You probably wouldn’t remember me .”

  “It’s something I should remember.”

  Wayne stuck out his hand. “I’m Wayne Turner from Wyoming. You ever been there?”

  “No, I never left Boy’s Town after I got there.”

  “I’ve heard of that place. That’s for orphans, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Coric said.

  “Guess we’re all orphans now,” Bill said.

  Coric looked down at his wet boots and twisted them in the mushy surface.

  Sgt. Reginald Conner, the assistant platoon leader, came over and called the non-coms in for a huddle. Bill, as the acting squad leader, went to it and
came back with the information.

  “The guides are here from the Second, so get lined up and we’ll follow them in. You have ammunition but don’t load up. They say it’s quiet and they don’t want anything going off behind them.”

  “Where are we, Bill?” Wayne said.

  “They tell me we’re right on the Siegfried line.”

  “Hey, that means concrete and steel, hot showers and good food,” one GI said.

  “You wish,” Bill said.

  The men started out and slipped and slid for about a mile until they turned right across a small stream, then took a trail up a hillside to the first of the bunkers. After the platoon leader and assistant leader took the first bunker, Sgt. Connor paired the men off in either a bunker or a timber-roofed dugout. They moved further, then he pointed to a dugout and indicated Bill and Wayne were to take it.

  “You guys are used to living in log houses, aren’t you?” he said.

  The entrance required them to slide into the opening. Bill went first, landing in two inches of water, then Wayne slid in beside him.

  “Crap,” Wayne said as he hit the water. “Our own private swimming pool.”

  Bill found a knob on one of the logs forming the roof and hung his pack on it.

  “Come on, let’s drain this sucker.”

  In half an hour they had gotten the water out of the bottom and had a fire going to dry the place out.

  “I was just thinking,” Wayne said. “My people got out of caves and tents with smoky fires fifty years ago and here we are, right back into one.”

  “Yeah,” Bill said. “But this time, you have a rifle instead of a bow and arrows.”

  “Big deal.” Wayne looked out the firing slit at the front of the dugout. He squinted his eyes in the dim light and ran his hands over the top and bottom.

  “Hell, those guys never got shot at.”