The sleeping men are missing something tremendous,
as last things are usually missed. The clerks and farmers, salesmen, students,
laborers, technicians, reporters, fishermen who have stopped being those
things to become an army have been trained from their induction for this
moment. This is the beginning of the real thing for which they have practiced.
Their country, which they have become soldiers to defend, is slipping away into
the misty night and they are asleep. The place which will fill their thoughts
in the months to come is gone and they did not see it go. They were asleep.
They will not see it again for a long time, and some of them will never see it
again. This was the time of emotion, the moment that cannot be replaced, but
they were too tired. They sleep like children who really tried to stay awake to
see Santa Claus and couldn’t make it. They will remember this time, but it will
never really have happened to them.
The night begins to come in over the sea. It is
overcast and a light rain begins to fall. It is good sailing weather because a
submarine could not see us 200 yards away. The ship is a gray, misty shape,
slipping through a gray mist and melting into it. Overhead a Navy blimp watches
over her, sometimes coming in so close that you can see the men in the little
underslung cabin.
The troopship is cut off now. She can hear but
cannot speak. Her outgoing radio will not be used at all unless she is hit or
attacked. For the time of her voyage no one will hear of her. Submarines are in
the misty sea ahead, and of the men on board very many have never seen the
ocean before and the sea itself is dark and terrifying enough without the
lurking things, and there are other matters besides the future fighting that
frighten a local boy—new things, new people, new languages.
The men are beginning to awaken now, before the
call. They have missed the moment of parting. They awaken to—destination
unknown, route unknown, life even for an hour ahead unknown. The great ship
throws her bow into the Atlantic.
On the boat deck two early-rising mountain boys
are standing, looking in wonder at the incredible sea. One of them says, “They
say she’s salty clear down to the bottom.”
“Now you know that ain’t so,” the other says.
“What you mean, it ain’t so? Why ain’t it so?”
The other speaks confidently. “Now, son,” he
says, “you know there ain’t that much salt in the world. Just figure it out for
yourself.”
SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND, June 22, 1943—The
first morning on a troopship is a mess. The problem of feeding thousands of men
in such close quarters is profound. There are two meals a day, spaced ten
hours apart. Mess lines for breakfast form at seven and continue until ten.
Dinner lines start at five in the afternoon and continue until ten at night.
And during these times the long, narrow corridors are lined with men, three
abreast, carrying their field kits.
On the first day the system does not take
effect. There are traffic jams and thin tempers. At ten in the morning a
miserable private in chemical warfare whines to a military policeman, who is
keeping the lines shuffling along. “Please, mister. Get me out of this line. I
have had three breakfasts already. I ain’t hungry no more. Every time I get out
of one line I get shoved into another one.”
Men cannot be treated as individuals on this
troopship. They are simply units which take up six feet by three feet by two
feet, horizontal or vertical. So much space must be allotted for the physical
unit. They are engines which must be given fuel to keep them from stopping. The
products of their combustion must be taken care of and eliminated. There is no
way of considering them as individuals. The second and third day the method
begins to work. The line flows smoothly and on time, but that first day is a
mess.
The men are rested now and there is no room to
move about. They will not be able to have any exercise during this voyage.
There are too many feet. The major impression on a troop ship is of feet. A
man can get his head out of the way and his arms, but, lying or sitting, his
feet are a problem. They sprawl in the aisles, they stick up at all angles.
They are not protected because they are the part of a man least likely to be
hurt. To move about you must step among feet, must trip over feet.
