Two of them were no older than he was, either. Including, he discovered as he came up to the bunk he'd been assigned to, the soldier who'd be sleeping below him.
The situation was:strange. Confusing, too.
The white boy on the middle bunk looked away from the book he was reading and gave Sheff a smile. "Got stuck on the top, did you? Poor bastard. But at least you're in a corner bunk. There's enough cracks in the wattling that you'll be able to breathe. Some, anyway. 'Course, you'll hate it come winter. But who knows? By then you might be promoted, or dead. That's for sure and certain my plan."
Sheff wondered how he'd been able to read at all. The space in the middle bunk was so tight that the boy had had to keep the book pressed practically against his nose.
Now the boy lowered the book onto his chest-which didn't require shifting it more than two inches-and gave Sheff 's little sack a scrutiny. "Won't be no room for that, up there. But there's still some space under the bottom bunk."
Seeing Sheff 's hesitation, his smile got more cheerful still. "Relax. Bean't no thieves in this company."
The black man on the middle bunk across from him snorted sarcastically. "You livin' in a dream world, Cal. Plenty of these curries be thieves. It's just that they terrified thieves."
He rolled over to face Sheff, his shoulder barely clearing the bunk above him. There was no smile on his face, but he seemed friendly enough.
"He's right, though, boy. You don't got to worry about nobody stealing nothin' here. Not from another soldier, anyway."
This soldier was much older than Sheff or the white boy. At a guess, somewhere in his midthirties-about the same age as Sheff 's uncle. On his way down the line of bunks, Sheff had noticed that the age spread among the soldiers was considerable. None of them had seemed any younger than him, but he'd spotted one man who had to be at least fifty.
That seemed a little odd to him, also. But, then, he really knew very little about armies and soldiering.
Yet, anyway. He planned to learn, applying himself to the task.
"My, don't he look fierce of a sudden?" chuckled the white boy. "Must be thinking of the Bible. I just hope he don't talk in his sleep, like Garner does. Not sure how much Leviticus I can take, droning in my ear when I'm trying to sleep."
The older black soldier across from him echoed the chuckle. "Say that again."
That really did seem like a friendly smile on the boy's face. Sheff felt tension he hadn't even realized was there start to fade away.
He had other memories of white people beyond those of hateful and screaming faces beating his father to death, after all. One of his closest playmates, growing up, had been a white boy from a family living nearby. Unticlass="underline"
The world pulled them away from each other. Ed Rankin, his name had been. Sheff still found himself missing him from time to time.
So, finally, he smiled himself. "I do read the Bible," he allowed. "But I don't talk in my sleep-and I bean't too fond of Leviticus anyway."
By then, his uncle had muscled his way onto the top bunk above the older black soldier. "Lord in Heaven," he muttered, edging into blasphemy. "What kind of no-account carpenter built a bunk bed that don't give you no more than two foot of space from the ceiling?"
"His name's Jeremiah McParland," said the white boy immediately. "He's not a carpenter, though. He's the member of the family in charge of the bunk bed department, and he designed them. The space is twenty inches, by the way." The boy shook his head. "I had words with him about it. Pointless though it be. He always was the greediest member of the family."
Seeing the confused look on Sheff 's face, the boy's smile widened. "I'm Callender McParland. Family's rich now that we set up in Arkansas, since we own the biggest furniture company here. And the captain's a cousin of mine. Don't do me no good, though. The colonel's that monster Jones. General Ball's still worse-and the Laird is worse yet. Even if cousin Anthony was inclined to play favorites-which he ain't, the bastard-he wouldn't dare nohow."
There was a commotion at the far end of the barracks. Peering around the corner of the bunk, Sheff saw that two men had come in through the same door he and Jem had used.
One was white; one was black. The white one was average size; the black one was very tall and long-legged. Both of them were officers, from the fancy look of the uniforms.
The three sergeants at the barrel had come to their feet. "TEN-shut!" hollered Sergeant Harris.
Immediately, the white officer said loudly, "At ease, men."
From what little Sheff could tell at the distance, he seemed a friendly enough sort. Although it could just be that he'd been smart enough to realize that it would take nigh on forever for men crammed into three-tiered bunk beds to come to attention on the floor.
The black officer with him, though, didn't seem friendly at all.
The white officer came forward a few steps. "We've had five more recruits since my last inspection. My name's Anthony McParland, for those of you who don't know, and I'm the company captain." He nodded back toward the black officer. "And this here is Colonel Jones. He's in command of the regiment."
They were both young men, Sheff suddenly realized. The uniforms had confused him, at first, automatically imparting an aura of age along with authority. But now he could see that Captain McParland was somewhere in his midtwenties and Jones not more than a few years older.
"Our complement is now full," the captain continued. "That means we start real training tomorrow. Early tomorrow."
Suddenly his face broke into a big smile, and Sheff could easily see the family resemblance to the young soldier in the bunk next to him. "We'll start teaching you how to kill white men. With some exceptions. Me, for starters. Anybody else in a green uniform. Civilians, of course."
The black colonel moved forward. Unlike the captain, his face was marked by a scowl.
"Don't get all eager, you dumb curries. You want to know how you kill white men? Lots of 'em, I mean, in great big heaps. Not just maybe one, here and there, while you're running like rats."
He waited, still scowling, while silence filled the barracks.
"Didn't think so," he grunted. "Well, boys, forget any fancy dreams you got about muskets and cannons and such. The way you kill lots of white men-any color of men-is by learning how to walk better than they do. Walk faster, walk farther, walk longer-and do it while carrying more than they can. Simple as that. By midmorning tomorrow-I guarantee it-you'll have learned that lesson. And you'll keep learning it, and keep learning it, and keep learning it, until even curries as ignorant as you understand it in the marrow of your bones."
He grunted again. "You'll find out." With no further ado, he turned and walked out of the barracks. The captain made to follow but paused in the open doorway and looked back. The smile seemed as wide and cheerful as ever.
"Don't eat much," he said. "I mean it. You really don't want to eat much. Neither tonight nor-specially-tomorrow morning. Of course, you probably won't have time anyway."
Then he was gone.
"I do believe I'm going to forgo the big repast I was planning," McParland said. "Of salt pork and potatoes, that being all we ever get, pretty much, so it ain't no big hardship."
Sheff decided he'd do the same. Despite the smile, he didn't think the captain had been really joking.
They were spilled out of the bunks by the sergeants somewhere around four o'clock of the morning. Felt like it, anyway. It was sure and certain still dark outside.
"This is 'morning'?" complained one of the soldiers. Softly, though, almost under his breath. The sergeants were definitely not in a joking mood.
Sheff shared the sentiment, but:
He reminded himself of the Book of Judges and-most of all-of a mob beating his father to death, and he kept his mouth shut.