Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(45)

She feels Sergeant Kirkland stiffen beside her. “Captain, Private Marr is—”

“Do not interrupt me, boy. Don’t let those goddamned stripes fool you, Sergeant. You are still just a Nigra talking to a white man!” The captain has gone from placid to red-faced furious in about ten seconds.

The sergeant’s “Yes, sir” takes several long and tense moments to arrive.

“Now, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am attempting to follow orders here and turn a bunch of ‘yassuh, nosuh,’ toe-pickin’ field Nigras into soldiers, but Jesus H., this is bullshit. Not just Nigras, women Nigras, and now this little pickaninny, goddamn, that’s three strikes right there.”

“Captain, I am raising a formal objection to your—”

“Shut the fug up, Kirkland.”

“No, sir.”

The blustery, bullying, hate-filled air turns still and cold now, a dangerous stillness.

Captain Oberdorfer stands, places his fists on his desk, and leans toward them. “Are you back-talking me? Are you telling me how I can talk about this sin-marked child of Ham? Have you never had anyone read the Bible to you, boy? It was Ham who humiliated Noah, and because of that Noah called him Canaan and said his descendants forever would be servants to the white man.”

When this is met with stony silence, Oberdorfer adds, “That ain’t my law, that’s God’s law, and God’s law is above all other law.”

“God’s law says ‘thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’” The words are out of Frangie’s mouth before she can stop them. She barely has the presence of mind to add a belated, “Sir.”

The captain stares at Frangie like he’s just been insulted by a dog. He’s torn between amazement and rage. Rage wins out.

“Do not quote scripture at me, you dirty little—”

“Sir!” Sergeant Kirkland says sharply. “I request that Private Marr be allowed to return to quarters.”

“The hell I—”

“Sir, I have something to say that I would rather—and you would rather—Private Marr not overhear.”

That stops Oberdorfer in midword. He glares at Kirkland, shoots a murderous stare at Frangie, turns back to Sergeant Kirkland, and says, “You are dismissed, Private.”

Frangie snaps a salute that the captain refuses to return. She has no choice but to hold the pose until Kirkland says, “Wait outside, Marr.”

She does an about-face and flees the room. Outside in the humid night air she gasps for breath, doubled over, hands on her knees. She is shaking, shaking worse than she did in the live-fire exercise.

After a few minutes a seething Sergeant Kirkland arrives.

“I’m sorry, Sarge,” Frangie says.

“Shut up, Marr,” he snaps. Then, regaining his composure, says, “It’s not your fault that Cajun cracker bastard . . .”

“You don’t have to stand up for me, Sarge; you’ll lose your stripes.”

“Fug my stripes, and I ain’t standing up for you, Marr. I’m standing up for the rest of the men. He’s not wrong that you don’t belong. No power on earth is ever going to make a soldier of you.”

Frangie, numb with disbelief, nods, then stops herself. She starts to say something but is overwhelmed by emotions that pull her in different directions. She would like nothing better than to be sent home as unfit for duty. But there is still the matter of her family’s finances. And, too, the captain has tapped a reservoir of rebellious anger deep within her.

“I’m getting you through basic; I have no choice now,” Kirkland says bitterly. “I’m getting you through this and hope to hell you don’t get sent anywhere there’s bullets flying.”

Then he pauses, tilts his head, thinking, then snaps his fingers. “Aren’t you the one who put in for medic?”

She doesn’t trust herself to speak without choking, so she nods.

“Well, then, goddammit, I’ll see to it,” Kirkland says. The last of his anger ebbs with sighs and shakes of the head.

“I would like that, Sarge,” Frangie says tightly.

“You’ll most likely be lousy at that too,” he says, but without malice.

“Sarge. Can I ask . . . ?”

“What I said to Oberdorfer?” He laughs. “Nothing much. Just mentioned that the cathouse he visits is off-limits and the steaks and chops he brings them as payment are stolen army property.”

It takes Frangie a few beats to tease out what the word cathouse means. Then she says, “Oh.”

“That’s how it’s done if you’re a colored man in a white man’s army,” he says. “Gotta know something. So I make sure to stay well informed. But you will not repeat that, Marr, or I will come down on you like the true wrath of Jehovah.”

“Right, Sarge.”

“You got three weeks left. Try not to fug up any more than usual. Get out of here.”





14

RIO RICHLIN—CAMP MARON, SMIDVILLE, GEORGIA, USA

“You shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping track of the enemy today,” Sergeant Mackie says. “The red team is actually black soldiers from across the river. Easy to differentiate. Like it will be if you’re fighting Japs—easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys.”