"The longest train I ever saw, runs down that Georgia line.
The engine passed at six o' clock,... the cab passed by at nine.
Chorus: In the pines, in the pines, Where the sun never shines,
And we shiver when the cold wind blows..."

After several weeks of compass and map work in daylight - uphill and downhill (with and without field packs...), and hours and hours of Pecan Grove Drill about azimuths, back-azimuths, bearings, declinations to deviations – and all “points” (compass points that is, ha ha!) in between, and protracted marches through swamps, uplands, abandoned farms, old sawmills, and mile after mile of the Georgia “Pineys,” we were deemed ready for “night maneuvers” and so one evening after chow, Depp formed us up outside the barracks.

“Capt’n sent down word couple hours ago, that Charlie here goin’ to do a nighttime march up to Sector 8,” he said. “Each Platoon will have an objective, and something y’all’s got to retrieve when you make your rendezvous point to prove y’all’s were really there. Y’all’s the Blues tonite.”

By that he did not mean anything as to our spirits: he meant we were the “Blue Army” tonite. Sometimes we were the “Reds.” That is how we knew enemy from foe in our mock battles out in the woods. Sometimes, even, we had red and blue helmets (respectively), brought out first to us in trucks – or sometimes red and blue armbands. But that was in the daytime. You could see.

(Even when you could see sometimes it didn't help: once I had Point and was way out in front at Depp's earlier urging - pushing through clumps of brush and I didn't see them till the very last minute: "Reds" - the red helmets all close together as they huddled down in their machine gun nest and let go on me with a stream of blanks. The Umpire pulled me out pronto and for the rest of the day I was "dead."

(Like the real thing, it wasn't "...all it's cut out to be," and was a strange and rather sobering event...).

I wondered how could we tell Blue from Red in the dark – and if it made any difference anyhow. But I didn’t ask. And no one else did. I was sure it would all “out” someway – at its own time and place. I was right...

Depp added, as sort of an afterthought it seemed... “An’ since y’all’s Yankees are the most crim-nul bunch of trainees I ever had, I ‘spect that it is more’n likely that none y’all’s will even make it back here in one piece.”

Thus admonished, and heartened by our Instructor’s confidence in us, Third Platoon, Charlie Company, set off jauntily down the Company Street..

“Hup!... Hup!.... HUP – One, two, three,” said the Cadence Caller. “Hup!... Hup!... HUP!.... ”

About an hour later, and far away, we halted on a vague dirt road. It was almost dark – not quite. A least out on the dirt road, that is. Back in the surrounding Pineys, it was black as ink already. There was to be no moon tonight.

We were told off by squads, and each squad sort of fanned out and disappeared into the woods as they were ordered. It was all very quiet and mysterious: Charlie Company just sort of melted like an icecube or something, squad by squad into the stygian woods at the side of the cart track - and then everyone was gone. There was no more Charlie Company. Through the treetops you could see a now starlit sky – but little penetrated through to our depths.

You were alone – all alone – lost in the woods – like Hansel and Gretel maybe. (It might have been better if there had been a Gretel, but “all’s” there was – was Shorty Metcalf way off on my right and (maybe?) Bert McClelland and Ivy Lee Johnson in a ravine or something that had showed up to our left.) We pushed on – low whispers now and then here and there as someone ran into something: Orb spider webs maybe, or tripped on fallen logs and the like.

I became aware of Redding at my elbow. “Want you should stay close to me now,” he said.

“What for?”, I hissed back. “We going steady now or what? If I am Assistant Squad Leader – I’m not even supposed to be in front anyhow – Manual says No. 2 “brings up the rear” of his squad. This here is not the rear ..it’s the front!” Then added, “But you likely couldn’t tell the rear of this squad from its front anyhow...” My churlish rejoinder was lost on Redding. He had taken his teeth out for the occasion, and was slipping them into his fatigue jacket pocket. Now he was just a sibilant whispering noise off in the dark: “ ‘Cuzzzz th’ cummpasss” he said. “Compass? What about the compass? I said. “You Squad Leader – you got it – not me!”

“Freeeding it” he said. “You gud at freeding it.”

“I’m good at shit,” I said. “I read it and I am wrong – then I get the blame. You read it!”

More mumbles... but inaudible.

Now and then we came out into abandoned clearings. Old fields. Old cotton fields I guess. Peanuts maybe. This had all been farms before the Government took it for an infantry “Repple Depple.” (Replacement Depot – where they trained and assembled the “Replacements” as we were artfully sometimes known...). Kinda like distributor caps maybe.... It made you think you were kinda like (spare) distributor caps for a vast unseen machine. Somewhere...

In the clearings, you could see the star canopy overhead. It was really surreal. Here and there in the far distance you could see star shells burning and swinging in their ‘chutes as they descended slowly earthward: accompaniments to other “night manuvers” far distant from ours. Now and then streams of red-hot tracers ricocheted silently into the starry night sky – some distant nighttime range so far away no sound carried back. But here and there – in all different directions out of the dark, Georgia woods, out of the Pineys -would come the abrupt crackle of occasional machine gun fire – faint staccato burps – then silence. All of Camp Wheeler was out crawling around in the underbrush tonight – thousands of guys just like us – running hundreds of different “operations.” From out in the clearings, and from the occasional cleared hilltops and ridges, you could see sometimes to a distant horizon – and the impression was that you were, indeed, in the middle of an actual unnamed battlefield somewhere...

“...as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night”.

Yet only some 15 miles distant, the lights were brightly shining in downtown Macon, and the old “Snakepit” and other bars and hotspots favored by the troops were in full swing...

We had come a long way. Heck of a long way. Almost by accord, First and Second Squads had emerged in this small clearing that sloped up to a distinct cleared crest beyond us. Redding and another Squad Leader told everyone in low tones to “Spread out, .. .and lie down.” Dark shapes melted into the darker ground. And waited.

Redding said to me – hopefully – “We best check the map....”

I couldn’t wait.

He went down on his knees as the sergeants had showed us, and pulled the map from his helmet liner. He unfolded it and spread it in front of him then bent further forward on his elbows. That was my cue.

I pulled my folded poncho from my ammo belt where it hung down behind me and with a practiced flip shook it open, and then knelt all in the same motion beside him and spread it over our heads and upper bodies.

In the miniature, stifling hot, dark ”tent” thus formed (already shared by a couple of humming mosquitoes in there with us...), I heard the “pop!” of his Zippo – and Voila! – there was light in our abode – a flickering yellow flame of rather dubious intensity and duration...

We looked at the map. Redding slid the compass onto it...sort of pushing it in my direction...

“Damn, Redding!” I said with some exasperation. “I told you first thing you always got to do is o-r-i-e-n-t! Looking at everything hindside-to, backside front, and upside down all the time, is meaningless...”

He offered no argument. And waited. I made a show of inspecting the map, and then said, “Look! I think we may be near where we supposed to be.” (Then) “Maybe that is...maybe not. Maybe we are clear off the Reservation – part way toward Atlanta! ...Maybe. Or, let me see...maybe near the old Snake Pit (a favored dance hall and bar in Macon...). ”

I could see he was not much in the mood for my joking around, so I shifted to a more serious tone...

“Actually, old buddy,” I said, “I think we are right here,” and put my dirty finger on the map. “Right here this little white patch in the green topo overlay. This white area means it is cleared, Redding,it means there are no trees here. The green tint means where the trees and all are. And these parallel brown lines mean a slope where they come closer together: the backside of this little slope we are on right now!”

He nodded, but I had no sure way whether in agreement or exasperation.

We were supposed to “rendezvous” at a bridge over a nameless small creek. The map showed a dotted cart track (the damned Reservation was full of these vague paths and trails so you never knew if you were on the one the map showed or not). And it is true there was a sort of double “Y” forked figure right below the slope – symbol for a bridge I was sure...

The Zippo flickered uncertainly. In the airless hood of our lightproof poncho, it was sweaty and stale. Redding kept sucking his toothless gums. I threw back the poncho as his Zippo went out. As we both rose to our knees, we heard murmurs off to our left... “It’s a wire!” said someone. Then, “Don’t touch it,” said someone else. “Maybe it’s a trip wire,” whispered another voice. Then: “I can feel it running through the grass over here, too." Silence then maybe for 20 or 30 seconds, then a rather desparate voice said out loud...”Don’t touch that wire!”

Too late.

Curiosity killed the cat on that one: someone (it was never, of course, determined “who”) pulled that wire. Suddenly, “Poof!” a magnesium flare shot skyward and popped right over our heads and you could see us all lying there plain as day in the wet grass. “Well shit, don’t look at it,” said someone resignedly... recalling the admonishments in some forgotten Pecan Grove lecture: Never look at star shells if they trip at night: the human face is a perfect reflector and lights right up for your enemy to spot...

But there was to be more – much more! Almost simultaneously to the tripped flare, rose an animal-like howl of pure pain from the other side of the ridge top... we all squirmed up for a looksee.

What we saw was indeed, the little hollow with the massive bridge to nowhere. (When I say massive, I mean it only spanned a small wadeable “branch”, but it was a massive, beefed-up concrete span and abutment – it would have supported a tank you might have said. And you would have been right!) For all these little bridges over "runs" out in the boonies here, were massive concrete engineering works, they were – because supporting the occasional tank was just what they had to be able to do!

Sigh...

But what was most striking in the tableau below us, down the slope, was there on the entrance up to the bridge, where the remains of the magnesium flare were still sputtering and sparking, almost but not exactly on top of it was the silhouetted figure of a trainee, squatting, with his pants down around his ankles ...and even as we watched, standing up and continuing to howl and curse in anguish, and he was right beside the burning flare remnants!

“Jeezul!” “What in hell is THAT?” said someone. From further down the crest, a matter-of-fact voice said, helpfully, “Guy’s taking a dump.”

And he was right! Incredibly, in the dark (unaware that we had crept to just below the ridge above his head), a “Red” had crawled out of the woods right in front of us and needing to “...heed Nature’s call” had headed for the only “civilized” area he could spot in the dark: the dim, shining pavement of the bridge! He had dropped trou, squatted, and was so-heeding, when an unknown Blue tripped the light fantastic on him – pardon! – tripped the wire on him as it were, and initiated a most untoward series of events.

The flare fired – almost up his backside – burning sparks of magnesium popped sideways – onto his bare bottom (Ouch! indeed)... and his howl ended Night Manuvers at Sector 8 right on the spot!

Flashlights began to appear out of the brush on the other side of the road. There had been Reds in there – lots of them! – and just that close to us, too – and their noncoms and officers began to emerge. Some Blues ran down to join them. Voices rose to where Redding, still sucking his gums, and I and the others, lay prone – watching.

“Sonabitch! What Squad is this man in, Sergeant?” Then, “Man! He has went and burnt his ass real bad-d-d-d!” Cooler heads were calling for transportation: “This man has got to be taken to the hospital.” I guess someone had a walkie-talkie or maybe a field phone over there in Red Land (most of us Blues just stayed back in place – watching). Soon, we could hear an engine and much shifting and grinding of gears back down the cart-track – louder and louder, and around the bend came a Weapons Carrier with little, blacked-out slit headlamps. It jerked to a stop on the bridge.

With much hub-bub, the burnee (now pantless) was hoisted into the back and flashlights were everywhere now. Two of his fellow Reds it seemed were to accompany him and all three could be seen in the back of the Carrier. The burnee was standing (not through choice, one presumes!) and hanging on to the cover framework right in the back of the truck – his comrades seated alongside him.

The Weapons Carrier growled into gear and disappeared up the track.

It had to be 0100 at least – or later – (by now many, but not all, of us “thought” in universal “time” increments. The Army was creeping into our brains...) before we back-tracked out of the Pineys and the onetime peanut fields (“goobers,” as the locals all knew them) and reassembled in the original cart-track.

We marched back in total silence to the Quad.

Depp came out to greet us.

Silence. No movement. He was asking for the “evidence” we had made it to our destination.

“What? You all crim-nul Yankee misfits you – you mean no one retrieved the token?

What in hell’s was y’all’s doin’ up there, anyway?”

Someone in the ranks said, “There was this guy taking a dump, Sergeant...”

“A ‘dump’,”? he cried, his voice rising. “A ‘dump' - what in Hell’s y’all’s been up to anyway? Where at were you at anyway?”

Eventually it all came out and he heard us (collectively) through. Like a Mother Hen listening to the confused peeps of her chicks, as they related how the hawk flew over the coop.

Then – without a word – he turned and stormed up the steps to his quarters (a room of his own, at the end of the barracks – with a door and all – the only such). The door slammed shut. Our Squad leaders dismissed us and we followed suit.... and so to bed.

Scrape Here for more 'Barrel...'