“Nineteen.”
“Lived up in the hills all those years?” Fisher inquired.
“Yup,” Jed replied. “This is the furthinest I’ve ever been.” His normally cheerful face fell slightly. “Kinda makes me lonesome in a way, though. Folks back home jest plain don’t talk thataway one to the other.”
Fisher leaned over the edge of his bunk. “Let me tell you something, Jed. Don’t let talk like that worry you. First of all, he’s no officer. And second, he doesn’t really mean it and it’s just a way the Army has of making men of us. You’ll hear lots more and lots worse before you get back to those West Virginia hills of yours.”
Jed lay back down on the bunk. “Mebbo so,” he admitted. “Don’t mean I gotta like it much, though. Ma never talked thataway to me, no matter how bad a thing I done.”
Jed closed his eyes and thought of home. Ought to say goodnight to Ma. He let his mind reach out to the cabin almost two states distant.
The lights went out in the barracks, two of the crapshooters started swinging at each other in the dark and the commotion drifted upwind to the platoon sergeant’s room in another barracks two buildings away.
In the confused yells and the shouting of Corporal Weisbaum, Jed gave up trying to say goodnight to Ma and opened his eyes again.
The lights in the barracks came back on just as Platoon Sergeant Mitchell walked in the front door.
The two crapshooters were tangled in a heap in the center aisle of the barracks, still swinging. Corporal Weisbaum had the Brooklyn recruit by the front of his T-shirt, waving a massive fist under the boy’s nose.
“AT EASE!” Mitchell boomed. The barracks shook and suddenly there was quiet. “Now just what is going on here?” he demanded.
Weisbaum released his grip on the recruit and the two brawlers scrambled to their feet. The corporal glared at the forty-odd recruits in the barracks. “I warned you mush heads what would happen the next time one of you fiddled with them lights. Now I’m gonna give you just five minutes to fall out in front in fatigues and combat boots. MOVE!”
“Lay off,” one of the recruits muttered, “nobody touched the lights. They just went off.”
Weisbaum turned a cold stare on the youngster. “Just went out, eh? O.K. Let’s see. Sergeant Mitchell, did the lights go out in your building?”
The sergeant shook his head.
“Did you notice if the lights were out in any other buildings when you came up?” Again Mitchell shook his head.
“Just this barracks, huh?”
Mitchell nodded.
There was a moment of silence. “Five minutes, you jugheads,” Weisbaum roared. “Five minutes or I’ll have your flabby hides hung like wallpaper in my room.”
By the time the platoon got back in the barracks after a five-mile walk around the perimeter of the post, Taps were sounding and the lights went out as soon as the men hit their bunks. The talking was over. Jed felt better after the pleasant walk in the night air. He decided Ma would be asleep anyway by this time. He turned his head into his pillow and was snoring in ten seconds.
Once Jed began getting the feel of what was wanted of him, his training improved and the wrath of the platoon sergeants and corporals was directed elsewhere. The recruits moved rapidly through the hardening period and with each day, Jed found the going easier. By the time the platoon was ready for the rifle range, Jed hadn’t had time to give more than a brief occasional thought about home.
When the supply sergeant issued him his M-14 rifle, Jed carried it back to the barracks like a young bridegroom carrying his beloved across their first threshold.
“Harry,” he said in an awed voice to his bunkmate, “ain’t that jest about the most bee-ootiful thing you ever did see?”
Fisher was sitting on the lower bunk beside Jed, working the action on his own rifle. “It’s a lovely weapon, allright. I just hope I can hit the side of a barn with it.”
“Hit a barn with it,” Jed said in amazement, “why, Harry, with this here gun I could hit a squirrel in the eye two ridges away and let you pick which eye.”
Fisher grinned. “I’ve heard you mountain boys are pretty good with a rifle. We’ll see just how good you are next week when we go out on the range.”
The following Monday morning on the range, the platoon gathered around Corporal Weisbaum.
“Awright, you bums,” the corporal sneered, “here’s where we separate the men from the boys. Don’t let the noise shake you too bad and if it kicks you in the shoulder a little, don’t flinch. Remember what you learned in dry fire practice—hold ‘em and squeeze ‘em off. This is just familiarization fire, so don’t worry if you don’t hit the first few shots.”
He gestured. “Awright. First order on the firing line.”
Twenty men of the platoon, Jed included, moved up the embankment to the firing positions. Two hundred yards away the big targets were lined up like billboards along the line of pits.
From the range control tower in the middle of the firing line, the bullhorn speakers blared. “Familiarization fire. Prone position.” Twenty riflemen dropped to their knees and then forward onto their bellies, their cheeks cuddling the stocks of the rifles.
“Twenty rounds. With ball ammunition, load and lock.” Twenty bolts snapped shut.
“Ready on the right? Ready on the left?”
The flank safety officers signaled. “Ready on the firing line,” the speakers blared. “Commence firing.”
Jed squinted down the sights and carefully squeezed off a shot. A ragged volley followed down the line. Jed was in position Number Eighteen and down range, his target atop a large painted sign bearing the same number, dropped. Jed rolled over and yelled at Corporal Weisbaum. “Hey, corporal. I must have done shot ‘n broke that there target. It just fell down.”
Weisbaum grinned. “You didn’t break nothing, hillbilly. You just got lucky and hit somewhere on the target. Every time you hit it, they pull it down and mark where your shot hit so you can correct your sights. See, here it comes back up again.”
Target Number Eighteen rose above the pits. In the dead center of the small black bull’s-eye was a small white dot. Weisbaum stared at the target, then swung a pair of binoculars to his eyes. “Man, talk about luck. You hit it smack in the center of the black.”
The target dropped again for a pasted patch over the hole. Then it came up.
Jed grinned happily and rolled back to the prone position, looked briefly down the sight and squeezed off another round. The target dropped again. In a moment it was back up, the same white marker disk showing in the black. Weisbaum put the glasses to his eyes again. “I knew it was luck. You musta missed it, hillbilly, cause that’s the same mark you had last shot.”
Jed frowned and waited for the target to be pulled and pasted, then fired again. Once more it came up with the identical white marker in the center. It was Weisbaum’s turn to frown. “Better check that sight, Cromwell. You can’t shoot on luck forever. Them last two rounds never touched the target.”
The range radio safety operator came up to the corporal and handed him the walkie talkie. “Pit wants to talk to you, corporal.”
Weisbaum took the handset and held it to his ear. “This is Corporal Weisbaum. Yeah. He WHAT! You sure? Yeah, pull it and paste it. This I want to see.”
He handed the handset to the radioman and glared at Jed. “So now you’re some kinda wise guy, huh, hillbilly? You think you can keep shootin’ on luck? The pits say you been hitting the same spot every time. Nobody can do that. Now, go ahead, hillbilly. I want to see you do it again.”
Jed rolled over on his belly, looked and fired. Down went the target to come up again with another dead-center marker.
“He did it again,” the radioman declared to the corporal.