Free A Midnight Clear: A Novel by William Wharton Page A

bridge hands rather than the hand of God.
     
    Pencils are pure gold in our squad. If one pencil has arrived for each pleading request, Love must have enough to start a stationery store after the war, no one duffel bag could possibly hold them all.
    I cherish my trusty 2B and a 4B, wide lead, carpenter’s pencil. I bought the 4B in a hardware store at Shelby and have carried it all the way. It’s more than half worn down. It’s a race to see which ends first, my 4B, the war or me. Pencils like that are ruined if you drop them, because they break inside the wood; I keep it wrapped in toilet paper and tucked under the bandage in my aid kit. I use those pencils exclusively for drawing. That 4B might be the one thing that’s holding me together. I won’t lend either pencil to anybody for anything; some things are private even when you’ve just been kicked up to sergeant.
    I don’t even use them to make up bridge hands; I use an ordinary 2HB for that. I’m the only one in the squad with three pencils. I’d rather leave off a bandolier than be without them.
    Most times I draw on the inside of torn open K ration boxes; the whole squad saves these K boxes for me. I can’t carry the drawings with me, so I roll and bury them ten at a time. I have a list of burial places. It’s in my duffel bag on the kitchen truck. I also have ten or twenty of the best drawings in that bag.
    I’m thinking then how maybe after the war I’ll come back, use my maps and dig the drawings up. I didn’t think they’d rot; I hoped not; K ration boxes are waxed on the outside.
    I draw everything. I have good drawings I did of Morrie and Max, Jim and Fred, Whistle and Louis. I draw our equipment and different places we’ve been. I draw trees and pinecones, farmhouses, scenes, mess cups, bottles; anything. It makes things more real; at the same time, not so real.
     
    Actually, my duffel bag with maps and drawings—everything I owned—got lost when I was wounded on the Moselle. Even so, twenty years later, I did go back with my wife and kids. I didn’t find anything; it’d all changed so much and I couldn’t remember any exact places.
     
    It’s getting to be four o’clock. Miller and I are on from four to eight. I’m counting it a day guard with only one of us in each hole but most of it will be dark. I put myself up on the hill to have a good look at things. I’ll especially be watching for smoke or fires. Maybe I can catch them cooking dinner, figure out where they are; if there is somebody; there must be.
    On the way out, I ask Bud to listen for any vehicle traffic while he’s down there. Hell, I should tell him. I crank up the phones to let Mundy and Wilkins know we’re coming. I have a horror of being shot by somebody on guard when I’m coming out as relief. It’s the way I’m liable to go, a friendly useless casualty.
    Miller and I check rifles, hook grenades in our pockets. I’m hoping the damned hole is finished up there. With both Shutzer and Mundy digging over the past four hours, it should be. Digging at dusk through roots is miserable. You get yourself sweaty, then have to sit out in wet cold as the dark comes on.
    Going uphill, I can feel the temperature dropping. The sky’s an even, low white; if it drops a few degrees more, we could have snow; that’s all we need. I go back for my shelter half. If it snows, I’ll need to work out a less visible path for climbing to this post.
     
    Father’s about frozen. He’s standing up out of the hole stamping his feet. The hole’s finished but the dirt’s still in a pile. Shutzer and Mundy should know better.
    “Wow, Wont, is it ever getting cold up here.”
    “Yeah, well it’s warm inside. Bud put some hot water on the primus before we came out; there’s even a fire and comfortable beds, with quilted silk covers.”
    “Aw, come on, Wont. Don’t kid me.”
    “No kidding; you’ll see for yourself.”
    He slings his rifle on his shoulder, takes off his helmet. I sit