Military Secrets

Only the furthermost bunks of our platoon bay were illuminated, and beneath the single fluorescent light, Maurice Windley and I doggedly got on with our lives.

I was sitting on my bunk, its olive drab blanket warm and coarse to my touch; the springs of the upper bunk no more than a few inches from my close-shorn head. My fatigue shirt lay at the foot of my bunk, my rank, Specialist, showing on its sleeves. I held a box of stationery and a pen, about to write a letter home.

Maurice stood by his wall locker and ran an index finger across a row of brightly colored shirts displayed to the left of his uniforms. The muscles in his bare shoulders rolled like dark waves as he reached for a pale blue shirt. The smell of his cologne hung about him.

“Another Saturday night in Southern Pines?” I asked.

Maurice didn’t answer. He worked his arms through his shirt’s starched sleeves and stuffed it in his trousers, then fastened his narrow black belt, checking to see if the buckle was centered. For a moment, he stood at attention, then sat on the bunk opposite me and leaned forward. “Things ever fuck with you at night?”

I wondered what my friend with the slow, sad eyes, and now a brightly scarred face, was talking about. “Something bothering you, Maurice?”

He straightened and looked at me. “Yeah, a tent rope.”

“A tent rope?”

“Yeah, my tent rope.”

I set the box of stationery and pen on my bunk. I’d known Maurice since we sat next to each other on the train the day we joined the Army. He’d just turned eighteen, spoke with a slight lisp, and was clutching a scuffed red gym bag. He looked as scared as I felt.

During that endless train ride from Philadelphia to Colombia, South Carolina, I never would have guessed that the Army would keep him and me together, whether it be at Ft. Jackson or Ft. Bragg, eventually assigning us to the same nine-man squad in Company E of the 325th Airborne Battlegroup.

“Okay, a tent rope,” I said. “What’s that all about?”

“I don’t know, man,” Maurice answered. “Forget it.”

In the shadow cast by the bunk above him, I could make out the raw scar that swept over his left eyebrow into his short black hair; the scars that cut over the bridge of his nose and beneath his left eye and traveled to his pink-flecked upper lip. Tears began to leave shiny trails on his freshly scrubbed, dark face, and suddenly Maurice looked as young and scared as he did the day I met him.

I asked if he was alright.

He wiped his tears with the fisted knuckles of both hands. “I’m in deep shit.” He stood, turned in a circle, and sat back on his bunk. “You remember all that nasty shit up in Southern Pines?”

How could I forget it? Six weeks before, on a Sunday morning, I had thrown my feet on the barracks floor and had begun to get up when I noticed Maurice was lying on top of his bedding, fully clothed, one eye staring vacantly at me, the rest of his face so swollen and caked with blood and orange North Carolina clay that at first I wasn’t sure it was him. Or if he was alive.

When he returned from sick bay, I learned that he and his gang had made their routine Saturday night trip to Southern Pines, where the locals had decided they were tired of their women being courted by the brothers from Ft. Bragg. A group had held Maurice’s friends at bay with pistols and a shotgun while others beat him with chains and brass knuckles until he stopped moving.

I told him that I remembered.

Maurice stared at the polished linoleum floor between our bunks. “Well,” he paused. “This is bad shit, Groome. Bad shit. A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I went back to Pines and caught one of those mother fuckers and . . . ” He paused again. “And we hung him with my tent rope.”

“Jesus, Maurice, you killed a guy? Why are you telling me this? I don’t — ”

“Quiet, man,” he interrupted. “I’m not finished. One of the guys from E Company shot the dude — you know, to make sure he was dead — and last night, the MPs found his pistol in a shakedown inspection and locked him up.”

“And you’re worried he’s going to squeal on you?”

Maurice closed his eyes and nodded.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do for you, and now I know something I shouldn’t. Why the hell did you tell me?”

“Because you’re college and can tell me what to do. Besides, I need a friend.”

“Okay, as a friend,” I said, “my advice to you is not to tell anyone else. Not another living soul.”

Maurice leaned forward. “You won’t say anything?”

I reached for his hand. “Not a word.”

He took my outstretched hand. “Promise?”

I promised.

Monday, after reveille, our First Sergeant called us to attention. Two men wearing gray suits, white shirts, and dark ties walked down the barracks’ steps and stood behind him. Before I heard the First Sergeant call out, “Specialist Windley, step forward,” I knew why the men were there.

Maurice moved through the ranks to the front of our platoon and stopped, and drew himself to attention.

“Come here, son,” the First Sergeant said.

Maurice looked over his shoulder at me. His sad eyes were questioning. He mouthed my name.

I shook my head, no.

He stared at me a second longer, then walked to the First Sergeant and snapped to attention again. The men in civilian clothes stepped forward and handcuffed him, and led him away. A moment of silence passed before the First Sergeant bellowed, “Fall out!”

I glanced to my left, but Maurice was gone.

A month later, I headed to Ft. Benning to attend the Infantry Officer’s Candidate School. As I’d promised Maurice, I hadn’t said a word — but wondered if I could find the word that bridged his world and mine.