by Harry Gordon
The CO bet Captain Williams of Delta Company a case of George Dickel Tennessee Sour Mash that we could march from Mainz to St. Goar in eight hours and that all of us would make it. We humped along the Rhine all that day singing at first and with the new airborne lieutenant yelling at us later. Our boots kept working loose and we had to stop and re-cinch them or else the blisters took over. But then you had to sprint to catch up. You had to decide which pain you preferred.
All of a sudden there was nothing but your feet burning there in the boots and your head aching from it and there was no screaming lieutenant and there was no bet with Captain Williams. But there was the M-14 rifle strap chewing your shoulder and your arm pit.
Up past Bacharach, Ridley started to go and so Sergeant Beggs took his rifle from him and carried it over his left shoulder opposite his own. And later he carried Smith’s and Tucker’s, and then Calhoun’s. Calhoun was a little pock-marked redneck from Corinth, Mississippi, not far from where my mother was born. Beggs was a massive black platoon sergeant with big lineman legs and big white teeth behind big purple lips and he was up there in front by the guidon carrying five rifles and his shirt covered with sweat stains that looked like wounds. Every once in a while he’d try to get us to sing “Amen,” but it was no good. We didn’t have much left and what we did have we used on the legs.
When we got to St. Goar in just over seven hours, the CO–who had led the way sitting in a folding lawn chair in the back of a deuce and a half smoking cigarillos–was practically giddy, and Calhoun fell over backwards and swallowed his tongue. Beggs got to him first. He shoved his big hand into Calhoun’s mouth and got the tongue out. He cocked open Calhoun’s mouth and blew in hard. Tucker and Smith looked away. Calhoun’s stomach rose and Beggs pushed it down and blew in again. Calhoun started to come around just as Beggs was giving him another big kiss. At that moment they were both looking into each other’s eyes.
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Harry Gordon is a former newspaper reporter and teacher. He lives in Long Beach, CA. His work has appeared in the Concho River Review, Cutthroat Journal, Southwestern American Literature and Worcester Review.
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