(AUTHOR'S NOTE : Okay, so, first of all, sorry for not making a chapter in forever. Second, I tried something... This whole chapter is written in the third person and with quotation marks instead of those little lines. I don't love the third person thing, I think it was more personal before, when it was in James's head. The only thing that I'll be keeping from this chapter is the quotation marks. I apologize if it's confusing, it's just that my writing style is evolving, and I'd love for this book to evolve along with it! Thank you all so much for reading and for baring with me!)
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The men of division six - and all the others, for that matter - stood in rows, alphabetical order, each holding pieces of string in their hands. The deck was not a calming place, although it would seem like it was, thanks to the delicate swaying of the blue ocean and the sunny sky lighting up the universe. But the ‘delicate blue ocean’ was black and violent and the sky was rainy and tearful. It seems like the weather finally caught up with the war. The stench of sorrow making James’s nose burn, he quickly glanced around to see other soldiers from other divisions. Each one of them was as nameless as the last. James couldn’t complain, he was the most nameless out of all of them. It led him to wonder, if the ship sank, there would be no one to tell anyone that they were all dead, especially since no one knew that they were on their way to Germany. Suddenly, Maj. Solomon walked out onto the deck, hands behind his back, a superior look on his face, something that he always had. He cleared his throat before speaking.
“Soldiers, today, you will all learn how to tie a knot.”
“I’m knot doing that,” muttered Marty to Jo.
“As you are on this boat, you will work on it, help it move forward. You will learn how to run it. By the end of your trip, you’ll be ready to fly the ship into Australia, if you’d want to.”
Marty shot up his hand. At the sight of this, Maj. Solomon sighed.
“Yes, Pvt. McAllan?”
“Isn’t this the navy’s job?”
“No, because we’re not attacking from the water, we’re using it as transport so we can fight on land, once we get to Germany. We’re trying to get you all acquainted with the functionment of a boat, so we can make you all get used to doing what you’re told.”
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He said that last part, staring right at Marty. Maj. Solomon kept talking, but James stopped listening. What was he going to do, now that he had to work on a boat? He didn’t know how to, he’d never lived near a canal. Suddenly, without knowing the spoken words that lingered in the air, Maj. Solomon stopped talking and nodded his head. He looked around to see all the other men fiddling with the rope. He had missed the instructions. Hopefully, they weren’t supposed to hang themselves with it. James almost instinctively shifted his gaze toward Art, hoping for an answer. He was also fiddling with the rope, trying to do something. In alphabetical order, James (Baxter) and Art (Johnson) were beside each other. There was nobody else with a last name that started with B to J. James leaned over a little bit.
“What are we supposed to do?” he asked.
“Tie a knot. He said it at the beginning,” Art whispered back.
“How?”
“With his mouth.”
James rolled his eyes. “How do you tie a knot?”
Art sighed. “Not sure,” he lifted his rope, ‘unknotted’.
He then smiled. James looked back at his rope and pretended to look busy.
“What are you smiling about?”
“That was kind of strange…”
“What was?”
“The private thing.”
“What private thing?”
“Maj. Solomon. He called Marty ‘Private McAllan’. That was new.”
“Ugh… gross,” said James, squinting.
“Why is it gross?”
“Well, it just makes everything seem so much more real… I mean, we’re soldiers. We’re soldiers in a war. We’re going to war. I’m Pvt. Baxter. I still can’t believe it.
Art snorted. James furrowed his eyebrows.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Private Baxter.”
James groaned.
“I hate that.”
Art chuckled.
“I like it…it’s catchy…” he paused. “Private Baxter.”
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Maj. Solomon walked by. They immediately went back to pretending that they were doing something. Curious to see if anyone was actually doing a good job, James observed the other men in his unit. Marty was struggling, letting out a sigh every other minute, Jo had one knot done and Simon had a whole pile of them. It didn’t surprise them. Simon seemed to just be the best at everything he did, which was highly unfair. He was a real G.I, the type of guy to make Maj. Solomon and all the other army guys shed tears from their eyes. James couldn’t imagine what it could be like to be competent in the military. Simon was lucky to be born with that very specific set of strange army skills. Marty sighed again. Art’s eye twitched at the sound. That had to be the fiftieth time. About a short twenty seconds later, he sighed again.
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“Sigh a little louder, maybe then you’ll get a discharge,” said Art, not looking up.
“Sorry, Private Johnson,” started Marty with a knowing smile, “if I bothered you.”
“Come on, cut that out,” said Art.
“Yeah, that private stuff really gives me the creeps,” said Jo.
“If you need to cry about it, Jo, just say so and I’ll give you some privacy,” said Marty.
“For God’s sake,” said Art with a sigh.
“No, no, that one was good, Art, you gotta admit…”
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Art involuntarily laughed and focused back on his rope. James smiled to himself as well, at the sight of them patching things up. At the sound of speaking, Maj. Solomon came back to supervise, trying to check if anyone was actually getting any work done. Art, James, and Marty hadn’t made a single knot, but Jo had a couple and Simon had a pile. George Jones, who was next to Art, also had about three or four. He wouldn’t say a word. Maj. Solomon passed by and threw an admiring nod to Simon, deciding to stand and watch him for a couple of minutes.
“Very good, Pvt. Weisz,” said the man.
“Thank you, Major,” said Simon simply, not looking up or having any facial expression.
Maj. Solomon walked away, leaving them alone. Marty stared, amazed.
“How’d you do that, Weisz?” he asked.
“I see a lot of yapping and not a lot of working,” said George Jones in a violent tone.
“It talks!” said Marty.
“It could always talk,” said George, almost triumphantly.
Art and Marty shared a look, both holding in their laughs.
“Division six, quiet down!” said Maj. Solomon.
“Yes, Major, sorry, Major,” muttered Marty, mockingly to himself, fluttering his eyelashes.
“Excuse me, Pvt. McAllan?” he said, turning around.
“Oh, nothing, Major.”
Maj. Solomon nodded and walked away.
“Major pain in my ass,” he muttered.
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Maj. Solomon whipped his head back around. Marty smiled in an innocent way, trying to prove the fact that he didn’t say anything. Supposedly. The officer let it pass and continued along his way. Marty threw a look to Jo. James smiled down at his rope. He had finally managed to tie a knot. He put the rope down and took a second one, trying to tie another knot. Meanwhile, Art had a few done. The group moved along quite nicely. George put another one down and pushed his round glasses up onto his nose and sighed loudly.
“Another one down,” he looked over at Art’s pile to compare their results.
Art noticed his nosiness and squinted.
“Want a picture? It’ll last longer.”
“That’s four, Private,” said George with a look of superiority on his face.
“Oh, come on, we’ve known each other since kindergarten, you don’t have to call me ‘private’, Georgie,” said Art, pronouncing the nickname with a knowing smile.
George turned red in embarrassment.
“That’s Pvt. Jones to you.”
“Okay, Pvt. Georgie,” said Marty.
“You shut-up!”
“Now, now, Pvt. Georgie, is that any way to speak to someone?” said Marty.
Art continued doing his knots and finally added another one to his pile while George was busy being embarrassed and ashamed of everything that happened. He smiled.
“That’s five, Private.”
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George scowled and went back to tying knots. James thought that these were the strangest people he had ever met in his entire life. They were so angry all the time, so perturbed, but then they were all making fun of each other and laughing. They were contradictory, but then again, so was the concept of war. And so, it didn't really matter to him that they couldn’t decide which side they were on. He could cry with them and laugh with them at the same time, willing to overlook the slight bipolarity. Art kept working on the rope and Maj. Solomon came back, walking over. Thanks to Marty, their division was now most likely going to be the main attraction of Maj. Solomon’s watchful eye. He considered himself unlucky on that matter, but at least he got to hang around a relatively sane group of people. The definition of sane became fluid. Before, to James, it meant someone normal. In his mind, someone normal was sane. That whole thing changed once he got on this boat. Almost everyone seemed to be normal, but those same people were far from sane. There were a rare few who were sane, but not normal. Like Marty McAllan, for example. He was sane but not normal : He made jokes about the situation and carried on with his life as if none of this had ever happened (that was the sane part, he wasn’t freaking out), but he was but he wasn’t normal, everyone else was freaking out. Suddenly, a big splash was heard, followed by yelling. The other divisions stood up to go see what was going on, so division six did so as well. They huddled over the railing. On one of the spikes, two dog tags hung, and in the water, a man lay dead, his back facing upward, the rest of him, drowned in the water. James covered his mouth with his hand and tried to push down the nausea rising in his stomach. He heard George, who was standing next to him, mutter ‘coward’, under his breath. To the other side, Art was staring at the body. The general grabbed the dog tags, read them, and put them into his pocket. He looked over at the crowd and scowled.
“What are you all staring at? Get back to work!” he yelled.
They complied. No one dared say a word. Division six all sat down. Marty had a disgusted look on his face. He clenched his jaw and furrowed his eyebrows.
“The general…” he muttered. “He didn’t even care… He didn’t even look twice…”
“That wasn’t the general,” muttered Simon simply.
They all looked over at him.
“He’s a colonel,” he continued.
“Well…where’s the general?” asked Marty.
“Somewhere in America, close to home…”
“What do you mean?” said Jo.
“The generals don’t fight,” Simon said, shrugging.
Everyone went silent and averted their eyes back to what they were doing. Uncle Sam is one cruel asshole.
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