Chapter 3 Jody hits the jackpot

Sergeant Reese, a Tennessee native, was slender, taciturn, and neat and capable in camouflage uniforms, completely different from the infantry platoon leader we expected.We soon learned that he was the type—almost a model—into the regular army in the thirties, and stayed there, and became the backbone of the wartime training center, when he let us very surprised.We were naive, and I thought we'd run into more sergeants like that—burly, yelling, and stern, yet cute, like those in old Hollywood movies.Rhys is tough, but he never growls, and we don't love him. During roll call on the first day, he couldn't call us by name, so he distanced himself from us.We were all from New York State, and most of the names did take a bit of effort, but Rhys was stumped by them, and it really made a big difference.Facing the roster, his thin facial features were wrinkled, and every time he said an unfamiliar syllable, the mustache on his lips twitched violently. "T-T-Alice--" he stammered. "Dee Alice—"

"Here," Dalysandro said, almost every name looked like that.When he was done wrestling with names like Schachter, Scogilio, and Sizkovic, he met Smith. "Hey, Smith," he said, looking up and grinning slowly, but not at all charmingly. "What the hell are you doing with these gorillas?" No one thought it was funny.At last he finished the roll, tucking the roll under his arm. "Okay," he said to us. "I'm Sergeant Reese, your platoon leader. That means you have to do what I say." He stared at us for a long time, looking up and down and evaluating. "Full platoon!" he suddenly roared, his chest jumping up. "Un-disband!" His tyranny began.By the end of the day, and for many days thereafter, the image of him, in Dalísandro's words, as the stupid bastard was firmly established in our minds.

I'd better say here that we probably aren't very cute either.We are only eighteen years old, and the whole platoon is full of chaotic city kids, which determines our lack of enthusiasm for basic training.It might not be normal for a lad of his age to be so aloof—certainly not flattering—but this was 1944, war was nothing new, and bitterness was the fashionable mood.Joining the army with enthusiasm just means you're still a kid who doesn't know the world, and no one wants that.Secretly we may yearn for battles, or at least for medals.But on the surface, we are a gang of shameless, self-righteous fellows.It must be a difficult job to train us into soldiers, and Reese bears the brunt and bears the greatest pressure.

But, of course, we didn't think of that at first, only that he was too strict and we hated his perseverance.Rarely do we see the Lieutenant, a fat, young cadet who shows up at long intervals and always says that if we work with him, he will work with us; Company Commander (I don't even remember what he looks like except he wears glasses).But Reese was always there, calm and disdainful, and never spoke except to give orders, only cold, without a smile.When we observed other platoons, we knew that he was very strict with us; for example, he had his own way of managing water ratios. It was summer, and the camp was wilted by the sweltering Texas sun.A plentiful supply of table salt tablets kept us barely awake until night fell; the salt was sweated off, leaving white streaks on our work clothes, and we were always dying of thirst, but the camp's drinking water was from several sources. The water was brought from springs miles away, so there had long been an unwritten rule: use sparingly.Many sergeants were thirsty themselves and were less strict about the rule, but Reese took it to heart. "If you people don't know what a soldier is," he said, "you can learn from drinking water discipline." One was hung at intervals, and although the water was scalding and tasted bitter of chemicals, the moment we most looked forward to every morning and afternoon was the moment when we were ordered to fill up our military jugs.Most platoons would jostle for a hydration bag, letting its little steel nipples work until the bag deflated, shrunk, and left a wet trail on the ground below.But we are not like this.Reese felt that it was enough for each person to fill half a jug of water each time. He would stand next to the canvas water bag to closely monitor, and asked us to line up in two rows and receive water in order.If anyone held the jug under the waterskin for too long, Reese would stop everyone, pull the man out of line, and say, "Pour them out. Pour them all out."

"If I do that, I'm not human!" Dalysandro pushed him back one day, and we all stood there, transfixed, watching them stare at each other in the hot sun.Dalísandro was a burly lad with fierce eyes who had only been our spokesman in a few weeks; I guess he was the only one brave enough to do such a thing. "Who do you think I am," he cried, "a damned camel like you?" We laughed. Reese ordered the rest of us to be quiet, and when the laughter died down, he turned to Dalysandro, squinting his eyes and licking his dry lips. "Okay," he said quietly, "drink it. Drink it all. The rest of you stand back, away from the water bottle, and keep your hands off the jug. You show me. Come on, drink."

Dalysandro grinned at us, a bit nervous despite winning.He started to drink, stopping only for breath, water dripping from his chest. "Give me another drink," Reese would yell every time he stopped.We watched desperately, thirsty as hell, but we sort of figured it out.When the jug was empty, Reese told him to fill it up.Dalysandro complied, still laughing but looking disturbed. "Drink it now," Reese said. "Hurry up, hurry up." Dalisandro panted heavily after drinking, holding the empty water bottle in his hand.Reese said, "Put on your helmet now, and grab your rifle. See that barracks over there?" A white building shimmered in the distance, a few hundred yards away. "Run to the barracks, round it, and run back. Your brothers are waiting for you here, and they'll have water when you come back. Now, go. Go. Run."

Out of allegiance to Dalysandro, none of us laughed, but the way he trotted across the training ground, helmet dangling, was ridiculous.Before reaching the barracks, we saw him stop, squat down, and vomit water.Then, he stood up staggeringly, and we saw his small figure in the dust in the distance, disappeared behind the barracks, and finally appeared on the other side of the barracks, starting the long return journey.Finally he came back and fell to the ground, exhausted. "Now," Rhys said mildly. "Have you had enough?" Only then did he allow the rest of us to fetch water from the jug, two at a time.After we finished catching them all, Reese squatted down nimbly and took half of the pot of water by himself without spilling a drop.

That's what he does, every day.If someone says he's just doing his job, there's definitely a long, unanimous reaction from us. I think we loosened our animosity towards him a little bit early in the training period.One morning an instructor, a tall lieutenant, showed us how to use a bayonet.We take it for granted that in the large-scale modern war we are about to participate in, no one will order us to fight with bayonets (and we also take it for granted that even if we are required to fight with bayonets, have we mastered better blocking and stabbing positions? In fact, there is not much difference), so that morning we were even more lazy than usual. Instructor Ren told us a story, then stood up, and clumsily did different postures according to the main points he described.

The other platoons looked worse than us, and the instructor rubbed his lips at the sight of the entire company looking so dull and incompetent. "No," he said. "No, no, you don't get it at all. You step back and sit down. Sergeant Race, please come forward to the center." Reese had been sitting with the other platoon leaders, usually in a small, boring circle far from the training grounds, but he got up immediately and stepped forward. "Sergeant, I want you to show this gang how to use a bayonet," said the instructor.From the moment Reese raised his bayonet-loaded rifle, we knew we were in for a show, whether we wanted it or not.That feeling is what you get when a big hitter picks a bat in baseball.Under the instructor's order, he did every movement neatly, keeping his slender body still. The instructor squatted down and explained back and forth around him, pointing out the distribution of his body's center of gravity, the angles of his limbs, and explaining why this way.Then, at the climax of the demonstration, the instructor asked Reese to do the full bayonet lesson alone.He moved quickly, but never lost his balance, let alone a superfluous movement. He smashed the wooden shoulder with the rifle butt, and drove the bayonet deep into the trembling human torso made of a bunch of branches. Pull it out and insert it into another.He looks great.To say he stoked our admiration would be an overstatement, but it was refreshing to see him do a job so beautifully, obviously impressing the rest of the platoon.Although no one in our platoon said anything, I think we were a little proud because of him.

The second class of the day was a close formation drill, in which the platoon leader had absolute control. Within half an hour, Reese's scolding made us openly hate him again. "Damn, what is he thinking," Schacht muttered in the team, "now he is a big shot, just because he is a stupid bayonet master?" Just fell for it. We ended up changing our attitude towards him.But it is important to point out that it is not because of his behavior, but because of our attitude towards the entire army, towards ourselves.Rifle shooting is the only part of our training that we absolutely love.After countless hours of formation drills and gymnastics, listening to countless hours of lectures under the sun, and watching countless hours of training videos in the heatstroke board room, it is very exciting to go out and shoot targets. people look forward to.When it comes to actually shooting, you find it really interesting.You lie on the foundation of the shooting ground, the rifle support is pressed against your cheek, the shiny magazine is at hand, it really makes you very happy; you squint your eyes and look out, across a large section of the ground, see target while waiting for the fire signal from the standard voice over the speakers. "Right ready. Left ready. Shooting ground line ready . . . flag up. Flag fluttering. Flag down. Go—shoot!" There's a bang of a rifle in your ear, and you squeeze the trigger and fire The strong recoil from time to time will make you breathless with excitement.Then you relax and watch the distant target slide down, maneuvered by the invisible hand in the pit below.A moment later, when it reappears, a colored disc pops up, shakes, and falls to show your score.The scorekeeper kneeling behind you will mutter "well played" or "so-so," and you're squirming in the sand again, taking aim again.Unlike anything else we encountered in the barracks, shooting fired up our competitive nature, we wanted our platoon to do better than the other platoons, and nothing ignited our true team spirit more than that.

We were on the shooting range for about a week, going early each day, staying there all day, eating lunch in the field cooking class, which was refreshing compared to eating in the big noisy cafeteria. Uplifting change.As an added bonus—and it seemed to be the biggest—the shooting range allowed us to hide from Sergeant Rhys for a while.He led us on a march to the shooting range and back.He supervised us cleaning our rifles in the barracks, but asked him most of the day to the gang who handed us over to the shooting range, they were objective and kind, and they didn't pay too much attention to minute details of discipline, but cared more about your marksmanship . However, when Reese was in charge of us, he still had many opportunities to bully us.However, we found that after a few days at the shooting range, he was less harsh on us.For example, when we are walking on the road shouting passwords, he will not ask us to shout over and over again, louder each time, until our dry voice shouts "Ha, live, eh, ho!" Shout until it smokes.Now, like the other sergeants in the platoon, he would call the password once or twice and forget it.At first we didn't understand how this could be. "What's going on?" we asked each other, puzzled.I guess the reason is very simple, just because we finally started to get it right, the sound is loud enough, and it is very neat.We walked very well in unison, and Reese made it clear to us in his way. The road to the shooting range was several miles away, and the road past the camp was a long one, where goose step was required--before, he had given us permission only after we had thoroughly walked the company road and the barracks.But thanks to our new marching success, we were allowed to walk, which we almost enjoyed, and even echoed Rhys' marching song enthusiastically.This has become his habit: after we shouted the marching password, he would shout a traditional and monotonous rap-style marching song, and we would answer with a slogan, which we hated before.But now the marching song seems unrivaledly stirring, a veritable ballad from the old wars and old armies, deeply rooted in a life we ​​are just beginning to understand.It starts when he expands the always nasal "from... away from..." into a mournful ditty: "Oh, you've got a nice home, you're gone..." We're like, "Yes. !” At the same time, his right foot dropped.Under this theme we have different forms: "Oh, you got a good job, you left (left)—" "Yes (right)!" "Oh, you got a nice girl, you left (left)—" "Yes (right)!" Then he'll change his tune a little bit: "Oh, luckily, you left (left)—" "Right (right)!" We shouted in unison like soldiers, no one thought about the meaning of these words.Jody is your perfidious friend, weak townsman, whom Destiny has given you all you hold dear; the next set of lyrics, full of mocking couplets, makes it clear that Jody always has the last laugh.You can march and shoot to perfection, you can thoroughly learn to believe in a well-disciplined army, but Jody is an uncontrollable force, generation after generation of proud, lonely people, like the sun waving arms, walking on us Like the excellent soldier next to the team, they are facing this fact.He snarled with his mouth twisted: "It's no use going home—Jody snatched your woman and left. Counting—" "Ha, live!" "Report the number!" "Er, ho!" "Every time you rest in place, Jody gets another benefit. Count!" "Ha, live!" "Report the number!" "Eh, ho!" When we were about to reach the camp, he let us walk away, and we became a single person again, with our helmets buckled back on the back of our heads, lazily walking all the way without pace, and the marching song fell in unison. Behind us, we were almost a little disappointed.Returning from the dusty shooting range, our ears deafened by the noise of the shooting, on the last leg of the march, if the official marching command is called, with our heads held high and our backs straight, we answer loudly. Cracking open the cool air, somehow, lifts our spirits. After dinner we spent most of the evening polishing our rifles with the utmost care, as requested by Reese.When we cleaned the guns, the whole barracks smelled of gun bore cleaner and engine oil, strong but pleasant.When the gun was polished to Race's satisfaction, we usually wandered out to the front steps for a smoke and took turns waiting for the shower.We were spending some time on the steps one evening, much quieter than usual, and I think we suddenly found that there was less whining and bullshit than we used to, and it wasn't in harmony with the strange tranquility we've just found these days. .Finally, Fogarty voiced the sentiment.He is very serious, but he is small, he is the dwarf in the platoon, and he will inevitably be the object of everyone's teasing.I guess he just relaxes and doesn't hold it like that, and he has nothing to lose. "Oh, I don't get it," he sighed, leaning against the doorjamb, "I don't get you guys, but I like it like this—going out, to the shooting range, and marching and stuff. Let you Think you really look like a soldier, you know what I mean?" It's extremely naive to say that - because "like a soldier" is Reese's favorite phrase - and we look at Fogarty suspiciously for a second or two.But Dalísandro, with a blank face, glanced at us one by one to see who dared to laugh, and we relaxed and became less nervous.The idea of ​​being like a soldier deserves respect, because in our minds it, along with the word, is inseparably associated with Sergeant Race, and he has become someone we respect.Before long, the entire platoon changed.We are very cooperative with Reese now, no longer against him, we try our best to cooperate with him, instead of pretending to be the best.We want to be soldiers.Sometimes we went so far as to be ridiculous that we might make the little ones think we were joking—I remember, whenever he gave an order, we answered "Yes, Sergeant" very seriously and neatly—but Ray Si listened with a straight face, with incomparable self-confidence, which is the first condition for a good leader.He is also very fair, as much as he is harsh, which is without a doubt the second requisite of a good leader.For example, when appointing a temporary squad leader, he clearly rejected a few people who blindly flattered him in order to gain his appreciation, but picked a few people who he knew we would obey—Dalisandro was one, The rest were selected similarly.His other principles are simple and classic: lead by example and strive for excellence in everything from cleaning rifles to rolling socks.We follow him and try to imitate him as much as possible. But it's easier to admire excellence than to love it, and Reese refuses to be likable.That was his only flaw, and it was a big one, because admiration without love doesn't last long—at least, in the head of a sentimental teenager.Reese rations his kindness like water: we may appreciate every drop, but we never get enough to quench our thirst.He suddenly called our names correctly during roll call, and we were overjoyed when we found that the insults in his criticism were less and less; because we knew these were signs of his affirmation of our growth as soldiers, but somehow, we Felt we were entitled to expect more. The fat lieutenant was a little frightened of him, which pleased us; whenever the lieutenant showed up, Reese had a look of scorn on his face, and it was hard to hide our delight, or when the lieutenant said "well, sergeant ’—and the uncomfortable tone in it, almost apologetic—made us very happy too.It made us feel close to Reese, a proud alliance among the military.Once or twice we winked behind the Lieutenant as he acquiesced to our compliments, but only once or twice.We can imitate the way he walks, the way he squints and stares into the distance, change our khaki shirts to be as tight as his, even imitate his speaking habits, southern accent, etc., but we will never think that he is .He is not that kind of person.During training time, all he wants is rigid obedience, and we know next to nothing about him. At night, he seldom stayed in the camp. On the occasional few nights, he either sat alone, or found one or two cadres who were as taciturn as him, and went to the Army Consumer Cooperative to drink beer, and it was difficult for others to get close to him.Most nights, and all weekends, he disappeared into town.I'm sure none of us expected him to be with us in his free time - in fact, we never did - but even a little knowledge of his personal life would be useful.For example, if he had reminisced with us about his home, or chatted about his conversations with his consumer co-op friends, or told us which pub he liked in town, I think we all would be touched and grateful.But he never does.To make matters worse, we, unlike him, have no real life beyond our usual daily drills.The town is so small, with a labyrinth of gray board houses and flashing neon lights, the town is full of soldiers.For most of us there is nothing but loneliness, yet we have swaggered through its streets.There aren't many small towns around for us to wander around; if there's any fun, those who discover it first want to keep it a secret for themselves.If you're young, shy, and don't know what you want, it's a boring place.You could hang around the United Labor Organization, and maybe find a girl to dance with, but she was always indifferent to the infant soldiers; or you could settle for the next best thing, and find some mediocre pleasure at the watermelon stand and the slot machine, or, You can wander aimlessly around dark back streets with a bunch of people.As usual, there you'll run into another group of soldiers who are also wandering around. "What are you going to do?" we would ask each other impatiently, and the only answer would be, "Ah, I don't know. Walking around, I think." Usually, we would drink a lot of beer until we were drunk or sick, in the On the bus in the same camp, gratefully looking forward to a new day of step-by-step. So it may come as no surprise that our emotional lives are self-sufficient.Like frustrated suburban housewives, we all feed off each other's insatiable hunger; Keep changing.We used short stories to string together the idle time, and many gossips and gossips were things within our platoon; because most of the news outside the platoon came from the company secretary.The clerk is very friendly and works at the desk for a long time.He liked to walk from table to table in the cluttered cafeteria, sipping his well-shaken coffee and spreading gossip. "That's what I heard from the Personnel Department," he always begins, before some unbelievable rumors about some unreachable senior general (the colonel has syphilis; A combat mission; the training mission has been cut short and we'll be heading overseas in a month).But his Saturday noon gossip was less distant; it was what he had heard from the company orderly's office, and it sounded a bit true.For weeks, he told us, Fat Lieutenant had been trying to get Race out; it seemed to be working, and next week was likely to be Race's last as a platoon leader. "His days are numbered," said the clerk vaguely. "What do you mean, transferred?" Dalisandro asked. "Where is it transferred?" "Keep your voice down," said the clerk, glancing uneasily at the sergeants' table, and Reese stared blankly at his meal. "I don't know. Where it goes I don't know. Anyway, it's a very dirty business. If you want to know anything, I'll tell you, you boys have the best platoon leader in camp. Actually, he's too fucking good; that's what's wrong with him. Great, those second lieutenants who don't have any ass skills can't play. In the army, it's never good to be that good." "You are right," said Dalysandro gravely. "It's never good." "Really?" Schacht asked, grinning with his mouth open. "Is that right, monitor? Tell us, monitor." The conversation at our table degenerated into wisecracks.The clerk left without a sound. Reese must have heard about it at the same time we heard it; in any case, that weekend was the beginning of a sudden change in his behavior.When he left camp for the town, his face was sullen and he looked as if he was going to get drunk.He almost missed his wake-up call early Monday morning.Usually, Monday mornings he was a little drunk, but it never interfered with his day's work; he was always there, rousing us up and throwing us out in an angry tone.This time, however, there was an eerie silence in the barracks as we dressed. "Hey, he's not here," someone called out from the door of Race's room on the steps. "Race's not here." Impressively, the squad leaders sprang into action.They hustled and coaxed us until we all scrambled outside and lined up in the dark almost as quickly as they had under Reese's supervision.However, the sergeant on duty at night found that Reese was not there during his patrol, so he hurried to wake up the lieutenant. Generally speaking, company officers seldom get up when the reveille blows, especially on Monday mornings.Now, we stand leaderless on the company road, and the fat lieutenant trots over from the barracks.In the light of the barracks, we see his shirt half-buttoned, his hair disheveled; sleepy, panting, and bewildered.He ran and yelled, "Okay, you guys, uh—" The squad leaders took a deep breath and told us to stand at attention, but they only yelled a hoarse "Stand—" and Reese appeared in the mist, stood in front of the lieutenant, and said, "All platoon! Stand at attention!" He Here it comes, running all the way, still panting, but calmly directing.He was wearing the same crumpled khaki shirt from last night.He called his shift roll; then, kicking out a straight leg, he made a very fine Army back turn, clean, and gave another fine salute to the lieutenant. "All here, sir," he said. The Lieutenant was too startled to know what to do, but returned the salute ramblingly, muttering, "Yes, Sergeant." I think he felt he couldn't even say "This kind of thing must never happen again" because, after all, Nothing happened, except that he was called up at the wake call.I guess he's spent the day wondering if he should criticize Reese for being disheveled; the lieutenant seemed to have begun to worry about it when he turned back to the barracks.After the dissolution, thunderous applause and laughter erupted in our team, but Ke Ruisi pretended not to hear. It didn't take long, however, for Sergeant Race to spoil everyone's fun.He didn't even thank the monitors for helping him in a pinch.For the rest of the day, he was critical of us, and we felt that we had done a good job and he didn't need to be so critical.On the training ground, he picks on Fogarty and says, "When was the last time you shaved?" Like many of us, Fogarty's face was just a dusty layer of down that didn't really need a shave. "About a week ago," he said. "About a week ago, Sergeant," Race corrected him. "About a week ago, Sergeant," Fogarty said. Reese pursed his thin lips. "You look like a dirty bastard whore," he said. "Don't you know that you should shave every day?" "Every day I have nothing to scratch." "Nothing to scratch, Sergeant." Fogarty swallowed, blinking. "Nothing to scratch, Sergeant," he said. We were all very discouraged. "What the hell do you think we are?" Schacht asked that noon, "a bunch of recruits?" Dalysandro grumbled, echoing rebelliously. The hangover could be an excuse for Reese that day, but it couldn't explain how he behaved the next day or the third day.He bullied us for no reason, without compensation, and he ruined everything he had carefully built over so many weeks; our tenuous respect for him crumbled, disintegrated. "It's finally settled," the company clerk said sullenly at dinner on Wednesday night. "The transfer order has been issued. Tomorrow will be his last day." "So," Schacht asked. "Where is he transferred?" "Keep your voice down," said the clerk. "Probably working with those instructors. Half time in field camp, half time in bayonet lessons." Schacht laughed and touched Dalysandro on the arm. "It's damn good," he said. "He'll take it all, won't he? Especially the bayonet class. That bastard can show it off every day. He likes it." "What are you kidding?" the clerk asked, very upset. "Like a bird. The guy loves his job. You think I'm kidding? He loves his job, it's such a sudden change. Nasty. You kids don't know what's going on." Dalísandro narrowed his eyes after receiving these words. "Really?" he said. "You see it that way? You should see him out there every day this week. Every day." The clerk leaned forward very seriously, spilling the coffee. "Listen," he said. "He's already got the news this week—what the hell do you expect him to do? How the hell do you act if you know someone is forcing you to pull out your favorite thing? Don't you see that he's under pressure? How old is it?" But we all stared at him disrespectfully and told him that's no excuse for him being a dumb Rebel bastard. "Some of you guys are too self-important," the clerk walked away with a sullen face. "Ah, don't believe what you just heard," Schachter said. "I'd have to see it with my own eyes to believe he was transferred." But that's true.That night, Reese sat up late in his room, drinking with a buddy.In the dark we could hear their whispers and the occasional clink of their whiskey bottles.On the training ground the next day, he was neither strict nor loose with us, just stood far away, meditating, as if he was thinking about other things in his mind.In the evening, he led us to walk to the same camp in unison. In front of the barracks, before disbanding, he asked us to keep the formation, take a rest, and stand for a while.He swept across our faces one by one, with anxiety in his eyes.Then he started saying in a soft voice we had never heard before: "From now on, I will never see you again," he said. "I transferred. In the military, there's one thing you guys have to be prepared for. It's that if you find something good, a job you like, they're always going to take your ass somewhere else." I think we're all touched—I know I am: it's kind of like saying he likes us.But it was too late.Now it is too late for him to say or do anything, and our main feeling is relief.Reese seemed to sense this, and seemed to cut short what he was about to say. "I know I haven't been asked to give a speech," he said, "and I'm not going to give a speech. The only thing I want to say, and most of all, is—" He lowered his eyes to his dusty military shoes . "I want to wish you all the best of luck. Behave yourself, hear me? Stay out of trouble!" The next few words were barely audible. "Don't let people push you around." Then there was a short, painful silence, painful like the breakup of a couple who are no longer in love.Then he stood at attention. "Full platoon! Stand at attention!" He looked at us again, his eyes shining and stern. "Disband!" When we returned to the barracks after dinner, we found him packed and gone.We didn't even shake his hand. Our new platoon leader arrived the next morning, a dumpy, jovial cab driver from Queens who insisted we be called by his first name: Ruby.He's a good Joe through and through.Whenever he got the chance, he let us fill up under the water bottle, and grinningly confided that through the brethren in the consumption co-op, his own water bottle was often filled with Coke with ice cubes.He was a loose drill officer, and he never asked us to shout orders unless we passed an officer, and never made us sing marching songs or anything, except for the piercing "To Greetings from Broadway," but he can't even remember the words to that song. After Reese, it took us a long time to get used to him.Once the lieutenant came to the barracks to give his speech on cooperation, and after he finished speaking, it was customary to say "OK, sergeant".Ruby put his thumb on the bullet belt and said casually and comfortably, "Guys, I hope you all heard, and remember what the Lieutenant told you. I think I can speak for all of you, and myself, Lieutenant , we are going to work with you, as you said, because here in our row, whenever we see a good Joe, we can recognize it at a glance." Just as flustered by Race's silent disdain before, the Lieutenant blushed at Ruby's words and stammered, "Okay, uh—thank you, Sergeant. Uh, I guess that's all. 。继续吧。”中尉一消失，我们全都开始恶心地大声嘘他，我们捏着鼻子，或装作用铁锹挖啊铲的样子，好像我们站在齐膝深的粪坑里似的。 “天啊，鲁比，”沙赫特叫道，“你他妈的想得到什么？” 鲁比弓起肩，摊开手，好脾气地哈哈笑了。“活着，”他说。“活着，你以为我想要什么？”对我们越来越大声的嘲笑喧闹，他强烈地为自己辩护。“怎么啦？”他说。“怎么啦？难道你们不觉得他在上尉面前也会这样做？难道你们不觉得上尉在营长面前也这样？听着，放聪明点，行吗，你们这帮家伙？是人都这样！人人都是这样做的！见鬼，你们以为军队是怎么回事？”最后，他像出租车司机般若无其事地摆脱了这场谈话。“好了，好了，你们就在这儿呆着吧，你们会明白的。等你们这帮孩子在军队中混到我这个年纪，你们才有资格说。”可到他说完时，我们全都跟着他笑起来；他赢得了我们的心。 晚上，在消费合作社，我们围着他，他坐在一排啤酒瓶后面，打着手势，说着那种轻松的、我们全都能懂的老百姓话。“啊，我的这个小舅子，是个真正聪明的家伙。知道他怎么离开军队的吗？知道他怎么离开的吗？”接着就是一个复杂而不可能的变节故事，对此你想得到的唯一反应就是一阵哂笑。“真的！”鲁比会笑着坚持说。“难道你们不信我的话？难道你们不信我的话？我认识的这个家伙，天啊，说到聪明——我跟你们说，这杂种真是聪明。知道他是怎么离开的吗？” 有时我们对他的拥戴也会动摇，可不会太久。一天晚上，我们一群人坐在前台阶上，游手好闲地抽着香烟，然后我们离开那儿去消费合作社，路上相当详细地讨论——仿佛是在说服自己——跟鲁比在一起以后，许多事让我们非常享受。“嗯，是的，”小福格蒂说，“可我搞不懂。跟鲁比在一起后，似乎不再怎么像个军人了。” 这是福格蒂第二次让我们陷入瞬间的疑惑之中，第二次，又是达利山德罗打消了我们的疑虑。“那又怎样？”他耸耸肩说。“谁他妈的想当个军人？” 说得好极了。现在，我们可以冲着灰尘啐口唾沫，驼背耷肩，吊儿郎当地朝消费合作社走去。我们如释重负，确信瑞斯军士不会再纠缠我们了。谁他妈的想当个军人？“我才不想，”可能我们大家在心里都会这么说，“这个胆小鬼也不想，”我们的刻意藐视提升了这种姿态的价值。不管怎样，我们要的，我们以前要的，不过是种姿态罢了，而这种姿态比瑞斯那严厉苛刻的教条舒服得多。我想，这意味着，到我们的训练期结束后，营地将把一群无耻之徒、一群自以为是的家伙分派到各处去，被极度紊乱的军队所同化。可是，至少瑞斯永远不会看到这一幕，对此也只有他才会在意。

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Notes: