The Pistol
James Jones
This book is not dedicated to
anything or anybody.
I would dedicate it to
my wife Gloria,
who helped as wife and as reader,
were it not that I am tired of books
dedicated to wives by men
who are grateful to their wives
for being wives.
My wife agrees with me.
One
W
HEN THE FIRST BOMBS
lit at Wheeler Field on December 7, 1941, Pfc Richard Mast was eating breakfast. He was also wearing a pistol. From where Mast sat, amidst the bent heads, quiet murmur, and soft, cutlery-against-china sounds of breakfast, in a small company mess in one of the infantry quadrangles of Schofield Barracks, it was perhaps a mile to Wheeler Field, and it took several seconds for the sound of the explosions, followed soon after by the shockwave through the earth, to reach his ears. Obviously, as far as Mast was concerned during those few seconds, the United States was still at peace, although in actual fact she was already, even then, at war. Consequently, during those moments, Mast had no idea at all of getting to keep the pistol he was wearing.
In one way it was unusual for a soldier in peacetime to be wearing a pistol at breakfast, but in another way it was not. The day before, on Saturday’s duty roster, Mast and three other men had been named to go on Interior Guard duty. This guard duty lasted from four in the afternoon to four in the afternoon, twenty-four hours, and the men assigned to it daily from the various companies drew pistols, pistol belts, arm brassards and pistol lanyards from their company supply rooms. They were required to sign for these, required to wear them at all times when they were not actually sleeping, and twenty-four hours later when they came off guard, required to turn them back immediately. This was a strict rule. No exceptions to it were allowed in any form. There was a good reason for it.
In our Army, back in those now-dead, very far-off times, pistols were at a premium. The regulation .45-caliber automatic pistol adopted by the Army was a beautiful thing; it was also a potent weapon at close range. But perhaps even more important, it was small enough to steal. It would be pretty hard for any soldier who was being discharged to steal a rifle, even if he dismantled it completely. Not so with the pistol, and any man would have dearly loved to get his hands on a loose one, without signed records following it around. This, however, was next to impossible to do. Not only was very careful track kept of them, but they were also very scarce in an infantry regiment, since they were issued only to Headquarters personnel, officers, and members of machine-gun squads. As a result, about the only time a straight duty rifle private like Mast ever got to put his hands on one, was the twenty-four hours when he went on guard.
All this, of course, went into Mast’s enjoyment of wearing, handling and possessing, for twenty-four hours at least, a pistol. But for Mast, who was nineteen and imaginative, there was an even greater pleasure in it. Wearing a pistol on his hip made him feel more like a real soldier, seemed to give him an unbroken lineal connection with the Army of the days of the West and Custer’s Cavalry, made him feel that he was really in the Army, a feeling Mast did not often have in what to himself he termed this crumby, lazy outfit. It was almost enough to offset his irritation at having his weekend pass spoiled by guard duty on Sunday.
After the first rack of bombs went off and the sound and shockwave reached the little company mess, there was almost a full minute of thoughtful silence during which everyone looked at everyone else. “Dynamiting?” somebody said. Then another rack fell and exploded and at the same time the first plane came screeching over the quadrangle, its machine guns going full blast. After that there wasn’t any doubt and the entire mess jumped up to rush outside.
Mast, being careful to catch up his Sunday half pint of milk so no one could steal it, went too, his pistol riding reassuringly on his hip. A pistol obviously wasn’t much good against strafing airplanes, but just the same it felt good to him to have it. It gave Mast a sort of swaggery confidence. He wished rather wistfully, as he watched the next plane come over, that he did not have to turn it in tonight when he went off guard.
It was pretty exciting outside the quadrangle in the street. Out here you could see a big column of black smoke beginning to rise up through the bright morning air from down at Wheeler Field where they were bombing the planes. You could see them twinkling up there in the sun. They looked innocent, as though they had nothing to do with the destruction going on below.
Every few minutes a fighter with the red discs painted on the wings and fuselage would come screeching and blasting over, his MG fire raking the street. Then everyone would surge back against the building. As soon as he was gone, they would surge right back out again and stand staring at the smoke column as if they were personally responsible for it and proud of their achievement. They looked as though they wanted to take credit for the whole thing themselves, without giving the Japs any at all.
Mast, surging backward and forward with them, had an excited feeling of being in on history, of actually seeing history made, and he wondered if any of the other men felt that way. But Mast doubted if they did. Most of them weren’t too bright, or very educated.
Mast happened to be one of three high school graduates in his company, and this fact often worked against him, in many ways. Of the other two, one was company clerk and a sergeant, and the other had been carried off on special duty to work in battalion intelligence and was a tech sergeant. But Mast had steadfastly refused to be inveigled into any such job. If he had wanted to be a clerk, he could have enlisted in the Air Corps. As a result, Mast was the only high school graduate doing straight duty as a rifle private in his company, and in a company like this, where almost nobody had completed grade school, almost no one liked or trusted a man who had finished high school.
For a moment, excitedly, Mast thought of drawing his pistol and taking a few blasts at the low-flying planes as they came over, but he was afraid of looking absurd or ridiculous so he didn’t. Even though he had made Expert in pistol on the range, he was reasonably sure he would never hit one. But, boy! Mast thought, what if he did hit one? did bring one down single-handed all by himself with his pistol? What a hero he would be, and at only nineteen! Hell, maybe he’d even get a medal. He could imagine the whole thing in his mind as he allowed himself to be jostled back by the men in front as another plane screamed over: the general, the regimental band playing the parade on the division parade ground, the whole business. Boy, what would they think about
that
back home in Miseryville? Even so, he was still too embarrassed, too afraid of being laughed at, to haul the pistol out.
Actually, Mast was the only man present with a weapon, since the other three men on guard with him had to stay over at the guardhouse and sleep there. That was where Mast himself would have been, if he had not been picked as orderly at guardmount yesterday. Wishing he dared draw it, Mast let his hand fall down to his side and massaged the holster flap of his pistol he knew he would have to turn back this evening.
Just then a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder. Startled, Mast turned around to see First Sergeant Wycoff, a big man in his thirties, looking at him with angry eyes and the same numb, stupid, half-grinning expression on his face that all the others had, including his own.
“Mast, aren’t you on guard orderly today?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Then you better get your tail on over to Headquarters and report,” the First Sergeant said, not unkindly. “They’ll probably be needing you for carrying messages.”
“Okay,” Mast said; “yes, sir,” and began to shoulder his way back inside through the press, finishing his bottle of milk as he went. Now why the hell hadn’t he thought of that himself? he wondered.
Inside the quadrangle, after he had gone back through the building, Mast found men were running everywhere. Whenever a plane came roaring, sliding over they broke and scattered like bowling pins. Then they would get back up and go back to their running. Mast saw one man actually get shot in the leg. It was unbelievable. He simply fell down and lay there with his head up beating his fists on the ground, whether in anger or anguish Mast could not tell. After the planes passed he was helped to the side lines by two men who ran out, dragging his leg for all the world like an injured football player being helped out of the game.
Up on the roofs of the quadrangle men had begun to appear with machine guns and BARs and were now firing back at the planes as they came over, and from his vantage point under the porch Mast watched them, envying them hungrily. Of all days, he would have to be on guard today; and not only that, would have to get himself picked as guard orderly.
Mast had been on guard plenty of times in the past, but he had never before been chosen orderly. This was because he always became nervous when it came to answering the General Orders questions. He always looked as polished at inspection as everyone else, and he had the General Orders memorized. But whenever the Officer of the Day asked him the questions he would freeze, and his mind would go blank.
And now today of all days, Mast thought regretfully, he would have to make it for orderly. Usually it was the most coveted job, because all you had to do was sit around Headquarters all day outside the Colonel’s office and you got your whole night off to yourself, while the rest of them had to stand two hours on and four off, around the clock.
Well, that was just about what he might have expected, Mast thought sadly, have figured on, his customary luck: guard orderly on the day the dirty Japs attacked Oahu.
Standing in under the covered porch and watching the scene before him, a sad, bitter melancholy crept over Mast. It was a feeling that even the longest life was short and the end of it was death and extinction and then rotting away, and that about all a man could expect along the way was frustration, and bitterness, and phoniness in everybody, and hatred. Perhaps being a high school graduate in a company of oafs contributed to it a little bit.
Disdaining to run like the rest of them, even though he could not help feeling a certain nervousness, Mast composed his face into a contemptuous smirk and came out from under the protection of the porch and walked slowly around the square, his pistol swaying bravely on his hip. Twice as he walked flame-spitting planes came sliding over, churning up twin rows of dust across the grass and richocheting screamingly off the brick, and Mast could feel the muscles of his back twitch, but he refused to let himself run or even walk faster.
From under one of the porches of the 3rd Battalion an officer yelled at him, angrily, indignantly, outraged: “Hey, you silly son of a bitch! Get out of there! Are you crazy? Move! Run! That’s an order!”
Mast turned his head to look at him, but he did not stop or change his gait. Then suddenly emotion spurted out of him like blood gushing out of a wound. “Go to hell” he shouted happily, knowing that for once he was invulnerable even to an officer. Just then a third plane came screeching, blasting over and his eyes began to blink themselves rapidly, as if that act in itself would offer him protection. Then it was gone, just like that, off over the quad. In some odd way of possessive ownership, of just knowing it was there, the pistol on his hip helped shore up Mast’s courage. He sure wished he didn’t have to turn it in tonight. It wasn’t like a rifle. Didn’t give you the same feeling at all. What the damned government
ought
to do was issue every trooper a rifle and pistol both. They used to. In the Cavalry.