J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [37]
CIC agents were in essence spies for the army, but not spies in the traditional sense. In years past they had been infiltrated into army units to monitor the patriotic reliability of domestic troops. The outbreak of the Second World War had changed their purpose completely. By the end of 1943, the long-anticipated Allied invasion of occupied Europe was drawing near. Each regiment involved was to be assigned a contingent of two CIC agents responsible for communicating with the native population and weeding out any Nazi offenders who might be hiding among them. As an agent, Salinger would be embedded into an army unit for the duration of the war and, besides fighting side by side with these soldiers, was expected to use his talents to increase the safety of their advance by arresting and investigating elements of the population that might pose a threat.
In preparation for his new assignment, Salinger was relocated to Fort Holabird, Maryland, an army base on the outskirts of Baltimore.* There he was reclassified as a corporal and began counterintelligence training. Reporting his transfer to Burnett on October 3, he confided that he was finally bound overseas for the invasion of Europe. Still, it was Burnett he sought to comfort: “I haven’t forgotten the book,” he reassured him.44
After nearly two years of preparation, the approaching reality of war caused Salinger to react in the way that had become usual for him: by writing. “Last Day of the Last Furlough” represents a defining moment both in Salinger’s career and in his life. Initially, he was unsure of the quality of “Furlough” and was uncharacteristically neutral about it.45 At the time he had no way of knowing the impact it would have upon his future writings. Indeed, when Salinger wrote “Furlough,” he was not certain there would be a future at all. Ian Hamilton interpreted “Last Day of the Last Furlough” as Salinger’s letter home to his family in the event of his being killed in action. The result is a moving story laden with significance.
It is the third Caulfield story and expands upon themes and emotional conflicts that first appeared in “The Last and Best of the Peter Pans.” In many ways, it is a continuation of that story and the second installment of a series that follows Vincent Caulfield and his friend Technical Sergeant John “Babe” Gladwaller throughout the war. Although Vincent Caulfield plays a major role in the story, Babe is the character in whom Salinger appears to invest part of his own self. The story’s first line identifies Babe by his army serial number of 32325200, Salinger’s own.
Trying to strike as many notes as possible, Salinger divided “Furlough” into five scenes, each delivering its own message. The first scene depicts Babe caught between youth and adulthood, a twenty-four-year-old soldier temporarily surrounded by the props of his childhood. The story opens with Babe at home from the army on furlough, in his room surrounded by books. Like the author himself, Babe has been reading Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and Lardner. Babe’s mother, meanwhile, who has just presented her son with chocolate cake and milk, sits quietly in a corner, studying his face with love. In the second scene, Babe meets his little sister Mattie in front of her school with his sled, another article of his youth. This is a short scene, made up of seemingly insignificant events. Yet Salinger had developed the ability to imbue the ordinary with deeper meaning and the scene actually speaks of responsibility, compromise, and the strength derived from