Books: Gun-Shy

A MIDNIGHT CLEAR by William Wharton Knopf; 242 pages; $12.95

The gentle hero of William Wharton’s third novel explains: “Our family name is Knott. My parents wanted to call me Bill or Billy, but because there’s no Saint Bill or Billy, I was named William. They insist no joke was intended. By third grade at school, I was Will Knott. I learned to live with it, my private martyrdom. So I was more or less prepared to grit it out again in the army, Willingly or Knott (Ha!). What I wasn’t ready for was the conglomeration of certified wise guys and punsters called the I and R platoon. They decided my nickname must be Wont or Won’t; only the spelling was contended.”

A Midnight Clear, a Christmas tale of World War II, makes large virtues of the contrary and the contentious. The members of Knott’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance unit are mavericks with high test scores and a low opinion of exposing themselves to hostile fire. Nearly half of them were casualties of a battle in the Saar. The survivors are an antidote to the Dirty Dozen and their sordid spin-offs in film and fiction. The oldest members of the outfit are called Mother and Father; there is a no-obscenity rule, and the favorite pastime is not poker but a demonic version of bridge. The men also share their reading. As Knott, ever the illuminating ironist, puts it, “We rip books apart so we can read them together.” It is a subversive recreation. After a discussion of All Quiet on the Western Front, the group considers quitting the war at first opportunity.

Their chance comes in the Ardennes during mid-December 1944. The unit is ordered to establish an observation post in a deserted château deep in the forest. It is as if Hansel and Gretel had been illustrated by Bill Mauldin. Tired, cold and filthy, the band enters a zone of ominous enchantment. From behind trees and bushes, German soldiers call out greetings, offer whisky and good wishes for a sound sleep. They throw snowballs, not grenades; they return lost equipment and finally leave the perplexed G.I.s a Christmas tree decorated with candles, apples and potatoes.

Apparently the Germans have also read All Quiet on the Western Front, and in the original. Enough said. A Midnight Clear, like William Wharton’s previous novels, Birdy and Dad, does not benefit from having its plot laid bare. The author’s gift is an ability to convey emotional clarity in simple prose that transforms incongruities into sharp visual impressions. Snowy woods are both Christmas cards and killing grounds; the château is fortress and cultural repository. A violin liberated from beneath the rafters becomes part of an unusual still life when it is casually set against a box of hand grenades.

This sense of dislocation is deepened by the knowledge that William Wharton is the pseudonym of an obscure, publicity-shy American painter who served with the Army in World War II. How much of the book is autobiography? Probably a good deal. Generally, the more one learns about novelists, the more one realizes how little they make up from scratch. Those who believe in fiction, however, will find such matters of secondary interest. Will Knott, who sketches his surroundings on the backs of K-ration boxes, speaks to William Wharton’s ideal reader when he says that his drawing “makes things more real; at the same time, not so real.” —By R.Z. Sheppard