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  The Brick Foxhole

  Richard Brooks

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  To my friend, Ed Aswell, whose infinite patience, personal courage, and editorial skill, comforted me, fortified me, and helped me bring this book to birth. I am humbly grateful to him.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  A brick foxhole is a barracks somewhere, anywhere, in America. There are many brick foxholes like the one in this book.

  They house millions of men, men of all kinds, who have been suddenly wrenched from the normal pursuits of civilian life and thrown together under the abnormal conditions of preparation for war. Almost everything about their new life is unnatural: the discipline, and tedium of standing in endless lines and waiting around, the drilling, the fatigue, the excess of animal spirits they finally know as their bodies are toughened up and they become more physically fit than they have ever been before, the lack of privacy, the dearth of feminine companionship, and the sharpening of every male tendency under the daily impact of a thousand factors and incidents that go into the making of a soldier’s world. It is all strange and unnatural, and one of the strangest things about it is the role that rumor plays in military life. A soldier must learn to obey orders instantly and without question. The word of command is what gives direction to his existence. It is what he acts upon, and all the interstices of his days are spent in waiting for it to come. Meanwhile, from hour to hour, he knows nothing. He does not know what he will do tomorrow, nor where he may be sent, nor what will become of him. So, not knowing, yet needing to know, his mind gnaws like a hungry rat at every shred of information and gossip that he hears. Something happens, a little thing, perhaps—a mere incident or a casual fragment of conversation overheard in passing—and instantly it is relayed and spun out and built upon in the ceaseless talk that makes up the soldier’s favorite pastime of scuttlebutt. It may be something, anything, nothing at all, yet if it answers the soldier’s need for knowing he will seize upon it and believe it and be ready to stake his honor upon the truth of it because it is all he has with which to fill the void created by not knowing.

  Among the millions of men in brick foxholes there are thousands whose lot is the least enviable of any in the armed services. These are the warriors who will never fight in this war. And theirs is the task of the damned. They want to carry a rifle like all the rest. They may be among those who did not wait for the draft but volunteered right after Pearl Harbor because they felt that this was their fight and they wanted to be in it. But through some flick of chance, or because they possessed some special aptitude, they were assigned to desk jobs or to some special service that keeps them forever out of battle. These men see others trained and shipped off to ports of embarkation, but they themselves are always left behind. They brood over it, and in the end they become disappointed, introverted, and embittered.

  On the beachheads and in the foxholes scratched out of the mud of battlefields, fighting men know the terrible tensions of combat. Perhaps the worst tension they know is generated by the fear that they may buckle under the test of enemy fire. This fear of being a coward may sometimes goad them into such strange and wonderful actions that we call them heroes and give them the Purple Heart.

  The peculiar chemistry that often goes into the making of a hero is pretty generally understood, for the bravest men are usually the first to admit that when they were seemingly most brave they were also afraid. But many of us do not realize that a similar chemistry, compounded of other tensions, may also lead to actions just as strange and unpredictable in the more sheltered arenas of military life. For the disillusioned soldier who finds himself trapped in a brick foxhole is a victim of another kind of fear. From day to day he wonders whether he will be able to hold up under the corroding strain of slow disintegration. He is too far away from the battlefront and at the same time too far removed psychologically from the home front to become conditioned to either. He lives in a limbo of his own where he is bedeviled by frustration, loss of dignity, and all the most fantastic shapes that rumor can breed.

  This is a novel about a handful of men who happen to be trapped in a brick foxhole. It is a work of fiction. So far as I am aware, the events related in these pages never occurred in real life anywhere. Yet the men whose story is presented here are neither fictitious, nor are they symbolic. They are real—in the sense that, although I have never known any one of them in the flesh, I know that men like them do most certainly exist. And how, the reader may ask, can I be so sure? Because I have been there myself. This is not an autobiographical novel. That I should make altogether clear. But I know what I know, and what I know I have written.

  So I can say, long after Sherman, that if war is hell, then a brick foxhole is damnation. And as a man who has tried to write honestly some part of the truth that is in him I can say, too, that if God created man in His own image, then it is time God looked to His images.

  RICHARD BROOKS

  January, 1945

  CHAPTER I

  He lay on the upper bed of the double bunk and tried to shut out the voices. The voices belonged to some of the other men in the crowded barracks. It was Friday, the twentieth and Friday the twentieth was payday, so the voices were louder than usual. The voices said the same things they always said on payday.

  “Two to one he don’t Joe.”

  “Covered.”

  “He won’t make it. He ain’t got faith himself.”

  “Deal the cards.” This from another part of the barracks.

  “What do you hafta do to get a lousy blackjack in this game?”

  “Seven. He sevened out.”

  “I better go get me a nigger with my luck.”

  That’s the way it was every payday. A couple of dice games. A few card games. Some borrowing. Very little lending. A bit of stealing. And talk. There was always talk. A soldier went overseas to fight and he forgot how to talk. A soldier stayed in the States, cooped up in a brick coffin, and all he did was talk.

  Corporal Jeff Mitchell didn’t want to hear the talk. He wanted to think of Mary. He threw his arm across his eyes to stave off the yellow glare that came from the light fixture directly above his bunk. That was better. It made it much easier to see her that way. In a week he would be eligible for a furlough. A soldier was allowed only fifteen days a year furlough. The second year would begin next week. Fifteen days. It would take at least four days to get home by train. Four days back. That would give him seven days with Mary. Seven days. And there would be seven nights, too. But after a year, he thought, the days and nights would be the same. He saw himself arriving at the station. There was the long walk up the ramp. Then the usual crowd standing behind the ropes. Then there was Mary. Then she was in his arms. That’s where a wife should be, he thought. In her husband’s arms. He let the words run through his mind, words he had stored up for a year.

  “Mary. Darling, darling.”

  Those were the words. All of them. That’s all a man saved up in a year. He began with millions of words and then each day they became fewer until at the end nothing was left but a woman’s name and “darling.” All the words you began with never amounted to much anyway. Only, “Mary, darling.”

  He saw himself with her at the railroad station. There were tears in her eyes and he kissed them. An
d her lips trembled and he kissed them. And then he held her close to him and thought she had become thinner. And that would be because she had missed him. The smell of her hair made him weak and the pressure of her breasts made him tremble and her legs against his accentuated the dull pain at the pit of his guts and high in the chest. And finally she said with a smile that people were staring at them. No matter how many times he had replayed that scene in his mind, she had always said that. And then they went to the car, which was parked diagonally outside the station and she drove because he was too nervous to hold the wheel. The moment they were in the house and the door had closed, he kissed her again and his throat became dry even as it did now on the barracks bed. I’m glad you let your hair grow in again, she said. And she touched his hair and he kissed her fingers. When he had played this game in his mind a year ago he had always told her, I’ve got to take a bath, darling. You know how trains are. But now he didn’t have to say anything. He just went upstairs and took his bath. And she sat on the edge of the tub and soaped his back and shampooed his hair and finally he pulled her into the tub with him, ruining her dress. But it didn’t matter. They both laughed and splashed and played and the awful pain at the pit of his guts began to go away.

  Now that he had finished the game in his mind, he was ready to begin it all over again. The same scene. The same actions. The same way. He knew every part of it. It had become so real that it actually relieved the aching in him. It was a mental morphine that he would take several times a night to quiet him, so that he wouldn’t suddenly go over the hill, so that he could stand the claustrophobia of confinement one more day, and another day, and then another. And because the time was drawing near, he went more and more often to his game. But the voices around him were like tiny spears thrusting themselves into his game.

  “Did you hear? Red’s back from Pearl.”

  “The hell with Red. Roll the dice.”

  “When he get back?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “I hear they made him a platoon sergeant.”

  “Sometimes they even make you a Looey.”

  “Yeah. Red’s a hero now. Platoon Sergeant Appleton.”

  “How many yellow bastids he kill?”

  “Twenty, thirty. I don’t know. His picture was in the paper.”

  Jeff was arriving at the railroad station. He was walking up the long ramp. Up ahead he saw the crowds behind the ropes.

  “After he left San Diego, Red went up to Los Angeles. They gave him a big party.”

  “Free drinks, huh?”

  Then there was Mary. Then she was in his arms. That’s where a wife should be, he thought. In her husband’s arms.

  “Any dames?”

  “Plenty. Hollywood stars and everything.”

  “Boy, that’s what I’d like to get me. One of them actresses.”

  Mary. Darling, darling. There were tears in her eyes and he kissed them.

  “Red meet any of them actresses?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Oh, Mama.”

  Her lips trembled and he kissed them. And he held her close and thought she had become thinner.

  “They drank champagne, Red says.”

  “Christ, I’d kill a thousand bastids for something like that.”

  “Don’t listen to him. Red gave him a snow job.”

  “Yeah? Listen. One of those dames was so hot for him she couldn’t wait to get at him. She wasn’t no movie star, but Red says she knew her lines all right.”

  The smell of her hair made him weak and the pressure of her breasts made him tremble and her legs against his accentuated the dull pain.…

  “Sure. Some gal by the name of Mary. That’s the place to be, all right. L.A. They treat heroes right.”

  The last spear had punctured Jeff’s game. The crowd at the station, his wife, everything was gone. He was listening to the voices now. He remained just as he was, his arm shielding his eyes but his mouth open like a hooked fish, his gills caught by the barb.

  Some of the voices were laughing nervously. It was the kind of story they liked to hear. It was like looking at obscene photographs. Only this was better. It had happened to someone they knew. Red Appleton. One of their own was part of the obscenity, and that made it more enticing, far more exciting. If it could happen to Red, it could happen to them.

  “How was she?”

  “According to Red, none better.”

  It wasn’t his Mary. She wasn’t the only woman called Mary. Oh, God, don’t let it be her. Please, dear God, I’ll do anything you say. Ask me to do anything, anything at all, only don’t let it be my Mary.

  “Don’t tell us she knocked him over right there at the party.”

  “Sure. Don’t you know Red? Irresistible.”

  “Only one girl? Red must be slippin’.”

  “Just a minute you guys. This is on the level.”

  “Listen to him, will yuh?”

  “We’re listening, daddy.”

  “She took him to her house. Red says it was a little house on a street that runs uphill.”

  No, God. No!

  “It was at night and he couldn’t see good but he said there was a lot of little houses in a kinda court.”

  The hook was going deeper and the edge of the water was receding swiftly. Dear God let me faint. Don’t let me hear any more. Don’t!

  “Did he stay all night?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  “Did he get any money out of her?”

  “I’ll bet she was an old bag.”

  “Red did say she was kinda old. About thirty.”

  “That’s the best kind. They like it better.”

  “You mean they’re easier.”

  “The easiest kind is the married ones.”

  “Billy’s right. If she’s married and is got a husband in the service she’s easy. Ask anybody.”

  He wanted to leap down and make a heroic gesture of fighting. Fighting was the answer. The only answer. Even if beaten and bloodied he would feel better. He would begin by saying “You’re liars! Mary’s my wife. I don’t want any of you to even mention her name!” Stronger words came to his mind. Words that would lash them into feeling ashamed. Words that would give him the dignity he needed for what was to come. And then there would be at least one among them who would sneer. He would have to sneer. And then he would fight them. He would begin with the man who had told the story and then continue and take them on one at a time. Until they all were lying on the floor bloodied and apologetic. For a moment he wondered whether he could do it. Why not? Hadn’t his officers, his noncoms, the papers, the magazines, the movies told him over and over again that he and his comrades were heroes, that his branch of the service was the greatest, the most courageous? And what of the tradition that had battered its way into his brain every day? He had been trained to fight. Well, now was the time to fight! To get up and destroy the enemy, the hateful voices which sifted into his ears and dropped with a crash into his belly.

  But he lay glued to his blanket. His hands clutched the steel frames of the bunk in a wet grip. He knew he would do nothing, say nothing. It would have been easy enough to begin a fight. But to begin a fight would mean the voices would stop. And now he wanted to hear them. He had to be sure of what they were saying. Doubt at a time like this would be worse than the dishonor of not fighting.

  “All right. Knock it off.”

  It was a new voice. It belonged to the Duty N.C.O. He came toward the group, the forty-five automatic pistol swinging in its holster at his right thigh.

  “What’s the matter, general?” one of the old voices asked. “They need us at the front?”

  “Show us your pistol, general.”

  “I said to knock it off. You’re making too much racket.”

  “Is that how you got to be corporal? Being quiet?”

  “Naw. Ain’t you heard? The general’s an ear-banger.”

  “Look,” complained the Duty N.C.O. “I don’t make the rul
es. You don’t like the rules, go see the top.”

  The corporal walked back to his small desk in the hallway and started thumbing the pages of a picture magazine again. The voices around Jeff grumbled and swore and laughed and then began to move off.

  “Aaaah, he’s buckin’ for sergeant.”

  “That guy? He’d spit on his own mother.”

  That was how they dismissed authority. Mothers were sacred and to desecrate them was to desecrate authority.

  Jeff lay motionless, exhausted. The tightness in his chest spread to the base of his throat and then it was hard for him to breathe. He tried to persuade himself it was all just talk. He insisted that a few moments of loose talk could not possibly shake the foundations of the last bridge with the world he knew.

  I won’t believe it. They were talking about somebody else. Not her. If she’s married and is got a husband in the service she’s easy, ask anybody. Not her. Not Mary. She’s God. She’s the Bible. She’s something to believe in.

  Did he stay all night? It was the same voice over again, whacking him, tearing the flesh. He didn’t say. Now he saw himself coming home unexpectedly. No thought of the railroad station. He was on the steep street leading up to his house. He was in the court walking along the narrow cement path. The neighboring houses were dark, quiet. It was late. He noticed the car in the garage. She would be home. This was the way to do it. Suddenly. Without warning. He reached out for the doorknob and stealthily fitted his key in the lock. He opened the door and the house was dark. He entered quietly. He put his furlough bag down lightly. No noise. Then he went up the stairs carefully. At the head of the stairs his hand touched the rough softness of a towel. Then he turned left toward their bedroom. He reached out with his left hand across his body and snapped on the light. He knew beforehand exactly how it would be.

  They were in bed. Mary and Red. He saw her plainly. He didn’t know how Red should look, so he just saw a figure. A man asleep. They both were asleep. Drunk and asleep. And her right leg was thrown across the body of the man as it always had been across him. It was painful to see. Yet it was a pain he would not shut off from his mind. It set him on fire. Then he saw Red reach out to Mary and his hand was dark against the whiteness of her. He saw her stir and then open her eyes. She blinked at the light. Then she saw him, saw him standing there, and was surprised. He wanted to stop thinking. No more. He didn’t want to think any more!