A BOY IN FRANCE
by J. D. Salinger
(Saturday Evening
Post, March 31, 1945)
After he had eaten half a can of pork and egg yolks, the boy
laid his
head back on the rain-sogged ground, hurtfully wrenched his
head out of
his helmet, closed his eyes, let his mind empty out from a
thousand
bungholes, and fell almost instantly asleep. When he awoke,
it was
nearly ten o'clock--wartime, crazy time, nobody's time--and
the cold,
wet, French sky had begun to darken. He lay there, opening
his eyes,
till slowly but surely the little war thoughts, those that
cold not be
disremembered, those that were not potentially and
thankfully void,
began to trickle back into his mind. When his mind was
filled to its
unhappy capacity, one cheerless, nightful trend rose to the
top: Look
for a place to sleep. Get on your feet. Get your blanket
roll. You
can't sleep here.
The boy raised his dirty, stinking, tired upper body, and
from a
sitting position, without looking at anything, he got to his
feet.
Groggily he bent over, picked up and put on his helmet. He
walked
unsteadily back to the blanket truck, and from a stack of
muddy blanket
rolls he pulled out his own. Carrying the slight, unwarm
bundle under
his left arm, he began to walk along the bushy perimeter of
the field.
He passed by Hurkin, who was sweatily digging a foxhole, and
neither he
nor Hurkin glanced with any interest at the other. He
stopped where Eeves was digging in, and he said to Eeves, "You on tonight,
Eeves?"
Eeves looked up and said, "Yeah," and a drop of
sweat glistened and disengaged itself from the end of his long Vermont nose.
The boy said to Eeves, "Wake me up if anything gets hot
or anything,"
and Eeves replied, "How'll I know where you're gonna be
at?" and the boy told him, "I'll holler when I get there."
I won't dig in tonight, the boy thought, walking on. I won't
struggle
and dig and chop with that damn little entrenching tool
tonight. I
won't get hit. Don't let me get hit, Somebody. Tomorrow
night I'll dig
a swell hole, I swear I will. But for tonight, for just now,
when
everything hurts, let me just find someplace to drop. All of
a sudden
the boy saw a foxhole, a German one, unmistakably vacated by
some Kraut
during the afternoon, during the long, rotten afternoon.
The boy moved his aching legs a little faster, going toward
it. When he
got there he looked down into it, and his whole mind and
body almost
whimpered when he saw some G.I.'s dirty field jacket neatly
folded and
placed on the bottom of the hole, in the accepted claim. The
boy moved
on.
He saw another Kraut hole. He hurried awkwardly toward it.
Looking down
into it, he saw a gray woolen Kraut blanket, half spread,
half bunched
on the damp floor of the hole. it was a terrible blanket on
which some
German had recently lain and bled and probably died.
The boy dropped his blanket roll on the ground beside the
hole, and
then he removed his rifle, his gas mask, his pack and
helmet. Then he
stooped beside the hole, dropped the little distance to his
knees,
reached down into the hole and lifted out the heavy, bloody,
unlamented
Kraut blanket. Outside the hole, he rolled the thing into an
absurd
lump, picked it up and threw it into the dense hedgerow
behind the
hole. He looked down into the hole again. The dirt floor, he
saw, was
messy with what had permeated two folds of the heavy Kraut
blanket. The
boy took his entrenching tool from his pack, stepped into
the hole and
leadenly began to dig out the bad places.
When he was finished he stepped out of the hole, undid his
blanket roll
and laid the blankets out flat, one on top of the other. As
if they
were one, he folded the blankets in half the long way, and
then he
lifted this bed thing, as though it had some sort of spine
to it, over
to the hole and lowered it carefully out of sight.
He watched the pebbles of dirt tumble into the folds of his
blankets.
Then he picked up his rifle, gas mask and helmet, and laid
them
carefully on the natural surface of the ground at the head
of the hole.
The boy lifted up the two top folds of his blankets, placed
them aside
slightly, and then he stepped with his muddy shoes into his
bed.
Standing up, he took off his field jacket, bunched it up
into a ball,
and then he lowered himself into position for the night. The
hole was
too short. He could not stretch out without bending his legs
sharply at
the knees. Covering himself with the top folds of his
blankets, he laid
his filthy head back on his filthier field jacket. He looked
up into
the darkening sky and felt a few mean little lumps of dirt
trickle into
his shirt collar, some lodging there, some continuing down
his back. He
did nothing about it.
Suddenly a red ant bit him nastily, uncompromisingly, on the
leg, just
above his leggings. he jammed a hand under the covers to
kill the
thing, but the movement caught itself short, as the boy
hissed in pain,
refeeling and remembering where that morning he had lost a
whole
fingernail.
Quickly he drew the hurting, throbbing finger up to the line
if his eye
and examined it in the fading light. then he placed the
whole hand
under the folds of the blankets, with the care more like
that proffered
a sick person than a sore finger, and let himself work the
kind of
abracadabra familiar to and special for G.I.'s in combat.
"When I take my hand out of this blanket," he
thought, "my nail will be
grown back, my hands will be clean. My body will be clean.
I'll have on
clean shorts, clean undershirt, a white shirt. A blue
polka-dot tie. A
gray suit with a stripe, and I'll be home, and I'll bolt the
door. I'll
put some coffee on the stove, some records on the
phonograph, and I'll
bolt the door. I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and
I'll listen
to music, and I'll bolt the door. I'll open the window, I'll
let in a
nice, quiet girl--not Frances, not anyone I've ever
known--and I'll
bolt the door. I'll ask her to read some Emily Dickinson to
me--that
one about being chartless--and I'll ask her to read some
William Blake
to me--that one about the little lamb that made thee--and
I'll bolt
the door. She'll have an American voice, and she won't ask
me if I have
any chewing gum or bonbons, and I'll bolt the door."
The boy took his hurting hand out of the blankets suddenly,
expecting
and getting no change, no magic. Then he unbuttoned the flap
of his
sweat-stained, mud-crumbly shirt pocket, and took out a
soggy lump of
newspaper clippings. He laid the clippings on his chest,
took off the
top one and brought it up to eye level. It was a syndicated
Broadway
column, and he began to read in the dim light:
Last night--and step up and touch me, brother--I dropped in
at
the Waldorf to see Jeanie Powers, the lovely starlet, who is
here to attend the premiere of her new picture, The Rockets'
Red
Glare. (And don't miss it, folks. It's grand.) We asked the
corn-fed Iowa beauty, who is in the big town for the first
time
in her lovely lifetime, what she wanted to do most while she
was
here. "Well," said the Beauty to the Beast,
"when I was on the
train, I decided that all I really wanted in New York was a
date
with a real, honest-to-goodness G.I.! And what do you
suppose
happened? The very first afternoon I was here, right in the
lobby of the Waldorf I bumped square into Bubby Beamis! He's
a
major in public relations now, and he's stationed right in
New
York! How's that for luck?" . . . Well, your
correspondent
didn't say much. But lucky Beamis, I thought to my--"
The boy in the hole crumpled the clipping into a soggy ball,
lifted the
rest of the clippings from his chest, and dropped them all,
on the
natural ground to the side of the hole.
He stared up into the sky again, the French sky, the
unmistakably
French, not American sky. And he said aloud to himself, half
snickering, half weeping, "Oo la-la!"
All of a sudden, and hurriedly, the boy took a soiled,
unrecent
envelope from his pocket. Quickly he extracted the letter
from inside
it and began to reread it for the thirty-oddth time:
MANASQUAN, NEW JERSEY,
July 5, 1944
Dear Babe: Mama thinks you are still in England, but I think
you
are in France. Are you in France? Daddy tells mama that he
thinks you are in England still, but I think he thinks you
are
in France also. Are you in France?
The Bensons came down to the shore early this summer and
Jackie
is over at the house all the time. Mama brought your books
with
us because she thinks you will be home this summer. Jackie
asked
if she could borrow the one about the Russian lady and one
of
the ones you used to keep on your desk. I gave them to her
because she said she would not bend the pages or anything.
Mama
told her she smokes too much, and she is going to quit. She
got
poisoned from sunburn before we came down. She likes you a
lot.
She may go in the Wacks.
I saw Frances on my bike before we left home. I yelled at
her,
but she did not hear me. She is very stuck up and Jackie is
not.
Jackies hair is prettier also.
There are more girls than boys on the beach this year. You
never
see any boys. The girls play cards a lot and put a lot of
sun
tan oil on each others back and lay in the sun, but go in
the
water more than they used to. Virginia Hope and Barbara
Geezer
had a fight about something and dont sit next to each other
on
the beach anymore. Lester Brogan was killed in the army
where
the Japs are. Mrs. Brogan does not come to the beach anymore
except on Sundays with Mr. Brogan. Mr. Brogan just sits on
the
beach with Mrs. Brogan, and he does not go in the water, and
you
know what a good swimmer he is. I remember when you and
Lester
took me out to the float once. I go out to the float myself
now.
Diana Schults married a soldier that was at Sea Girt and she
went back to California with him for a week, but he is gone
now
and she is back. Diana lays on the beach by herself.
Before we left home, Mr. Ollinger died. Brother Teemers went
into the store to get Mr. Ollinger to fix his bike and
Mr. Ollinger was dead behind the counter. Brother Teemers
ran
crying all the way to the court house and Mr. Teemers was
busy
talking to the jury and everything. Brother Teemers ran
right in
anyway and yelled Daddy Daddy Mr. Ollinger is dead.
I cleaned out your car for you before we left for the shore.
There was a lot of maps behind the front seat from your trip
to
Canada. I put them in your desk. There was also a girls
comb. I
think it was Frances. I put it in your desk also. Are you in
France?
Love,
MATILDA
P.S.: Can I go to Canada with you next time you go? I won't
talk
much and I'll light your cigarettes for you without really
smoking them.
Sincerely yours,
MATILDA
I miss you. Please come home soon.
Love and kisses,
MATILDA
The boy in the hole carefully put the letter back inside the
dirty,
worn envelope, and put the envelope back into his shirt
pocket.
Then he raised himself slightly in the hole and shouted,
"Hey, Eeves!
I'm over here!"
And across the field Eeves saw him and nodded back.
The boy sank back into the hole and said aloud to nobody,
"Please come home soon." Then he fell crumbily, bent-leggedly,
asleep.
Copyright (C) J. D. Salinger
