Shrapnel

William Wharton

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780062257383
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Author of such classic wartime novels as Birdy and A Midnight Clear, William Wharton was one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. However, he was also a very private man—he wrote under a pseudonym and rarely gave interviews—so fans and critics could only speculate how much of his work was autobiographical and how much was fiction.

Now, for the first time, we are able to read the author's own account of his experiences during World War II—events that went on to influence some of his greatest works.

These are the tales that Wharton never wanted to tell his children. Together, they illuminate a deeply personal, transformative experience: of learning to kill, to "abandon my natural desire to live, survive, and to risk my life for reasons I often did not understand and sometimes did not accept." Moving and insightful, Shrapnel is a powerful, timeless workfrom an acclaimed Americanmaster.

1. BASIC TRAINING

BIRNBAUM

Basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1944 was a minimum of twelve weeks. During this time we suffered through thirty mile long hikes, rifle range, infiltration courses, crawling under machine guns firing over us, all the nonsense and misery the army can think up.

There is a young man in our outfit called Birnbaum (his name means ‘a pear tree’.) He is Jewish and really wants to learn how to be a soldier so he can kill Germans. He’s more aware of the horror and racism of Hitler’s world than most of us.

Birnbaum is a great clod, a real klutz, a zaftig, a baby-faced fellow with two left hands and two left feet. It seems he can never do anything right, buttoning his clothes is a challenge for him. Even with help, he can barely make his bunk up to pass inspection. He isn’t a goof-off on purpose; he’s really trying to do what’s asked of him. It is absolutely pitiful. His inept concentration on the simplest of tasks could bring tears to your eyes. He just does things wrong somehow, no matter how much we all try to help him.

At each Saturday inspection, poor Birnbaum has something wrong, his webbing will be dirty or tangled, his entrenching tool dirty, his canteen or mess cup filthy, coated with sugar, stained brown by coffee, or something critical is missing from his full field pack. The military punishes not just the individual. Birnbaum is given additional KP or some messy job such as cleaning the latrines, and they cancel weekend passes into town for the whole squad or platoon.

On one general field inspection, our entire company has its weekend leave revoked. So, it isn’t out of pure altruism that we all try to help Birnbaum – we’re going stir crazy. The non-coms and officers in charge just can’t seem to accept the obvious fact that Birnbaum is never going to be their kind of soldier. We do everything we can, but the more we try, the worse he gets.

For daily rifle inspection, we have an absolutely vicious Lieutenant. He’s part of the regular training group, called the cadre, pronounced not as one syllable as in the original French. Lieutenant Perkins is from Tennessee, a former member of the Tennessee National Guard, and he really takes it out on poor Birnbaum.

Once, we do get Birnbaum through barracks inspection. We’ve already missed two weekend passes in a row so we all pitch in. We scrub his webbing clean, polish his shoes, make him practise his manual of arms until he’s perfect, at least as perfect at that kind of dumb thing as Birnbaum is ever going to be. All that’s left is rifle inspection out on the drill field.

My job is to make sure his rifle’s clean. I break it down completely. I run rifle patch after rifle patch through the barrel until I’ve shined even the worst of the pits. I scrape out the ridge in the butt plate, oil the strap, even polish the firing pin. As a finale, I steal some steel wool from the mess hall kitchen. It’s strictly forbidden to pull steel wool through an M1 rifle bore but I’ve found this to be a sure way to get that ultimate sheen when an inspecting non-com, using his thumbnail as a mirror, peers down the rifle barrel. He wants to see the pink of his nail reflected along its full length with only the thin, graceful line of rifling showing.

So now we’re ready for the ultimate test. We closely examine Birnbaum for unbuttoned buttons, and set his field cap so it’s exactly straight, two fingers width above his right eyebrow as the army insists. We give him a brief review on how not to get his butt plate dirty when he’s at order arms or at ease. We review how he’s to let go of his rifle as fast as possible on ‘present arms’. We’re sure Perkins will pick on Birnbaum, he always does.

One of the crazy things about military inspection is the ritual of checking to see if our rifles are clean. We’ll all be standing in a line with our rifles at our sides. An officer will yell ‘attention’, then, ‘present arms’, followed by, ‘inspection arms’. We all, in a prescribed manner, hold our rifles out in front of us and snap the bolt open with our thumbs. The inspection officer then strides casually in front of us, looking us over, looking for something wrong, a cap askew, a button unbuttoned, a speck of dirt, etc. Then, at whim, he’ll stop in front of one soldier and stare at him. He can do anything, ask questions, comment on an article of clothing or a haircut, whatever.

Usually a non-com goes along behind taking notes on what the officer says and putting a soldier on report. Not good. When the officer in charge stops in front of you, he’s most likely going to inspect your rifle. That is, he’s going to snap that rifle out of your hands. If he does it correctly, from his point of view, wrong from yours, the butt will swing in and crack you in the groin. Our aim is to practise so we can let go of the rifle as fast as possible, ideally, so fast he’ll miss it, drop it.

We’re watching his eyes and shoulder for signals. He’s trying to fake us out. If we drop the rifle and he doesn’t swing out for it, we’re dead. We really only hope to let go in time so we won’t be hurt. However, in the back of our evil hearts we pray for that miracle of miracles when he’ll swing, miss, and drop the rifle. We’ve heard of it happening but have never seen it. The regimental rule is that if an officer drops a rifle it’s his responsibility to clean it to the soldier’s satisfaction.

Well, Birnbaum is never going to reach the point where an officer would drop a rifle. We work hard just to help him avoid instant emasculation. This I’ve seen often enough, the unfortunate soldier grovelling in the dirt, hands gripping groin, trying not to scream. Twice this has already happened to Birnbaum, once he vomited over Lieutenant Perkins’ shoes. But this time he lets go of it fine. A wave of pleasure can be felt along the entire squad. Perkins inspects the butt plate, the swivels, the action, and then he inserts his thumbnail in the bolt for barrel inspection. I’m feeling confident – I’d inspected that barrel just before putting it in the barracks’ rifle rack, before lights out. It was perfect.

Lieutenant Perkins continues to stare down the barrel. He shifts to get better light on his thumbnail, he peers with his other eye. His face goes white. Then red. I’m two soldiers to the right, and wondering what can be wrong. Lieutenant Perkins looks down at the ground then up at the sky. He hands the rifle to Corporal Muller, just behind him. Muller sticks his nail bitten thumb in and almost gets his eyeball stuck in the end of the rifle barrel he stares so long and hard. Muller’s hands start to shake. He looks over at Perkins, then down the barrel one more time. His jaw is stuck between hanging open and clamping shut in fury. He faces Birnbaum.

‘Private Birnbaum, what the hell have you done to this rifle?’

‘I cleaned it, Sir.’

Birnbaum squares his sloped shoulders. One should never call a non-com Sir, that’s reserved for officers, but at this moment this indiscretion is being ignored.

Muller takes a deep breath and then looks down the barrel again. Lt Perkins takes it from Muller, stares down the barrel as if to verify his worst fears.

‘Soldier, what the hell did you use to clean this rifle anyway, sulphuric acid?’

‘Steel wool, steel wool, Sir, steel wool!’

The whole rank can hear Birnbaum, I feel sweat trickling down my back. Lt Perkins turns to Muller.

‘Put this man on report, Corporal.’

He turns to Birnbaum.

‘Soldier, you’re confined to quarters until I can get together a court martial.’

For once our passes aren’t cancelled, but poor Birnbaum is left alone in the barracks.

Before I leave for town, I ask him what the devil happened, I can’t understand. It turns out, Birnbaum, in his eagerness, in his anxiety, his desire to please, had stayed awake all night, in the dark, running steel wool up and down inside that barrel.

Later, I get to peer down that now infamous rifle and it isn’t like a rifle at all. Birnbaum has been so industrious he’s worn out all the rifling and virtually converted it to a twelve or fourteen gauge shotgun. It’s clean all right; however, any ordinary thirty-calibre bullet would probably just fall or wobble out the end of that rifle when fired.

There’s a summary court martial, Birnbaum must pay eighty-seven dollars to replace the rifle. All his gear is removed from our barracks and he’s sent elsewhere. None of us ever sees him again. ‘Steel wool!’ becomes the rallying call of our squad.

I hope Birnbaum survived the war. He’d probably have made a good soldier. If there is such a thing.

WILLIAMS

A friend named Williams had been in charge of training Birnbaum for the daily rifle drill. After the court martial, he determines to exact revenge for Birnbaum by faking Perkins into dropping his rifle. The idea has a certain appeal, and so he manages to involve me. We stand by the hour, facing each other, practising, taking turns playing officer, feinting, trying to fake each other into making a false move. We both become better as officers than as enlisted men being inspected. But we also become fearsomely quick at letting the rifle drop. It comes to the point where we can read any slight signal of eye or body, I’ll swear Williams can even read my mind. Whenever either of us can get the ‘officer’ to miss, drop the rifle, he wins a quarter. After two weeks, I’m almost three dollars in debt. That’s a huge sum when your salary is fifty-four dollars a month.

Finally, basic training is behind us and we’re approaching final inspection, after which we’ll be shipped out. We’ll be going out to other infantry divisions being formed, or directly overseas as replacements. It’s beginning to look as if all the rifle snatching practice is going to naught, and Williams is fit to be tied.

For some reason, since Birnbaum, no officer or non-com has stopped at either of us and gone for our rifles. But then, on the big day, full dress parade, it happens. Only it doesn’t happen the way it should. Lieutenant Perkins, with a Captain beside him stops at me. I should have known, they’d never stop at Williams. He’s so spic and span, real soldierly looking, they’d never bother. I’d never be his kind of perfect.

I don’t even have time to think – after so much practice it’s automatic. At a slight wince in Perkins’ eye I let go of that rifle. The rifle spins and hits the dirt, the front sight gashing Perkins’ finger on the way down. I know Williams must be excited, happy. At the same time, disappointed because they’d passed him by. I’m just scared. I stare ahead with my hands still in the present arms position, looking straight where I’m supposed to be looking, not down at the rifle. Perkins looks briefly at his gashed finger then holds it out from his side so no blood will drip on his suntans. He glares into my eyes.

‘At ease, soldier.’

I take the position the military calls ‘at ease’. That is, you spread your legs about eighteen inches apart, stiff-legged. If I’d had my rifle, I’d have gone into something called ‘parade rest’.

‘Soldier, deliver that rifle to the orderly room when inspection is over.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

He wheels away, still holding his hand out at his side. The Captain takes over the rest of the inspection. I know I’m on ‘private report’ and dread what is sure to come.

The rifle is still lying in the parade ground dust and dirt. I reach down and pick it up. I’m probably breaking at least five army rules doing this, but I don’t care. I love that rifle. I’ve carefully zeroed it in to ‘expert’ level for everything from two hundred to five hundred yards. I still remember the serial number of that rifle, 880144.

The crazy thing, among many crazy things, is when I finally do go overseas, they issue me a new rifle, one I didn’t get to zero in, don’t know at all. I feel nothing for that rifle. I kill human beings with that ‘piece’ but it’s never really mine. I feel I don’t actually do it. Maybe that’s the way military planners want it to be – nothing personal.

When we get back to the barracks, Williams is frantic with excitement. He pulls me aside and into the latrine. He has a paper sack full of coal dust and a tube of airplane glue. I watch, numb, as he mixes them into a gooey running paste and pours this mess down my rifle barrel and into the action. He’s trembling with a combination of fury and mirth.

‘Now that bastard’s really got something to work with. Birnbaum’s revenge. I’m almost tempted to include a package of steel wool.’

I decide that would be too much, they might stand me up before a firing squad.

I deliver the rifle, with Williams pushing behind me, to the orderly room. We dash back to the barracks. Next morning the rifle is delivered by the mail clerk, it’s like new. I check the serial number and it’s mine all right. I don’t know who cleaned out that mess, or how. Not a word is said. I hope it’s Muller, I’m sure it isn’t Perkins – I suspect it’s the mail clerk.

We ship out three days later. I’m sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, to an infantry division. I’m hoping I’ll never see Lieutenant Perkins again and I don’t look very hard.

CORBEIL

During basic I got to know Corbeil, the fellow who sleeps in the bunk below me. He’s one of the few in our group who has much education beyond high school. He’d been in the Master’s programme at Columbia when they drafted him and he hates the army even more than I do. He’d been a philosophy major with a special interest in existentialism, and considers the whole war an uncalled for, unjustified, interruption of his life. His name is Max and he reads books, half of them are in French, which he had sent from home. He considers the post library a literary garbage pit. I’ll admit I don’t even know where the post library is. One weekend he comes back from town with an alarm clock. Now the last thing in the world you need in the army is an alarm clock.

Regularly, before light, about fivethirty, the Corporal of the Guard comes through yelling. He makes sure everyone’s rolled out of bed, he’s kicking the beds as he goes along, yelling and hollering. If you pull your covers over your head he’ll rip them off the bed and dump them on the floor. This means starting the bed from scratch.

Most of us make the b...