From Here to Eternity (31 page)

life." If Ike had not mentioned him by name, with Holmes in there listening taking it all in, he could still have stomached it. But quite suddenly the words were beating against his ears, on and on, so that instinctively he wanted to shake his head to clear it. "What the hell do you want, me to grow a cOuple more arms for Chrisake?" he said violently suddenly, hearing his own voice outhollering Ike's astoundedly, yet seeing in his mind the Great God Holmes sitting grinning at his desk listening relishingly to his favorite sergeant. For once maybe The Man might like to hear what his men thought of his favorite sergeant, for a change. "How?" Ike said flabbergastedly. "What?" "Yas, what," Prew sneered. "You want this job done so perfect and so fast why dont you grab a bush yourself? Instead of standing around giving orders nobody listens to." The men stopped mechanically washing and all stared at him, just as mechanically, and he looked at them, the rage filling him, now knowing why. He knew it was senseless, absolutely senseless, even dangerous, but for a moment he was wildly proud. "Now listen," Ike said, thinking hard. "This back talk are you giving me do I not want. To work get back on the lip shut button." "Oh blow it out your ass," he said savagely, still mechanically scrubbing with his rag, "I'm working. What do you think, I'm floggin my doggin?" "What," Ike gasped. "What." "AT EASE!" roared Capt Holmes, appearing in the door. "What the hell is all this racket, Prewitt?" "Yes, Serr," Ike grunted, popping to attention. "Dis man bolshevik da back talk is giving to a noncom." "Whats the matter with you, Prewitt?" Capt Holmes said sternly, ignoring the momentarily shattered illusion of his favorite sergeant, "You know better than to talk back to a noncommissioned officer, and in that tone of voice." "To a noncom, yes, Sir," Prew grinned savagely, aware now of the watching eight wide pairs of eyes. "But I have never liked being pissed on, Sir. Even by a noncommissioned officer," he said, twisting the phrase. The Warden appeared in the door behind Holmes and stood looking at all of them, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully, himself aloof from it. Holmes looked as if someone had dashed a glass of ice water in his face absolutely without reason. His brows were up with disbelief and his eyes were wide with hurt and his mouth was open with surprise. When he spoke his voice quivered openly with both rage and start. "Private Prewitt, I think you owe both Sergeant Galovitch and myself an apology." He paused and waited. Prew did not answer. He felt a shrinking in his belly at the thought of what this stupidity would do to his chances Payday, wondering what in hell had possessed him to do a thing like that. "Well?" Holmes said authoritatively. He was as surprised by it as any of them, as surprised as Prewitt even, and had said the first thing that came into his head but he could not show that. He had to back it up. "Apologize, Prewitt." "I dont think I owe anybody any apology," Prew said savagely doggedly. "In fact, if apologies are in order, I think they're owed to me," he went on recklessly, wanting suddenly to laugh at the comedy of it, like a mother chastening a child to bring it back in line. "But then thats the way they always treat us, isn't it?" "What!" Holmes said. It had not occurred to him that an EM could refuse. He was as much at a loss now as Old Ike had been before and his eyes that had become almost normal size now got wider even than before. He looked at Galovitch, as if for help, then he turned and looked at Warden behind him, then he turned and looked vaguely out the corridor doorway. Corporal Paluso, a second-string Regimental tackle with a big flat murderous face that he tried to make people forget by adopting a heavy-handed bull-laughing sense of humor, and who had not missed a chance to work on Prew at drill all morning, was sitting on one of the backless chairs out on the porch and had turned and looked inside, his hard eyes in the murderous face as wide now as any of the others, as wide as Holmes's. "Corporal Paluso," Holmes roared, in his battalion close order voice, which was the best in the Regiment. "Yes, Sir," Paluso said, and jumped up as if stabbed. "Take this man upstairs and have him roll a full field pack, a complete full field, extra shoes helmet and all, and then take a bicycle and hike him up to Kolekole Pass and back. And see that he hikes all the way. And when he gets back, bring him to me." It was a pretty long speech for his battalion close order voice that had been developed more for short commands. "Yes, Sir," Paluso said. "Come on, Prewitt." Prew climbed down meekly off the board without a word. The Warden turned around and disgustedly went back inside. Paluso led him to the stairs and a still-shocked silence reached out after them from the corridor like a cloud. Prew bit his lips. He got his envelope roll out of the wall locker and the combat pack off the bed foot. He laid them on the floor and opened the light pack. Everyone in the squadroom sat up and watched him silently and speculatively, as they might watch a sick horse upon whose time to die they had gotten up a pool. "Dont forget the shoes," Paluso said apologetically, in the voice one uses in the presence of a corpse. He got them off the rack under the footlocker and had to unroll the roll to put them in and then build the whole thing up from scratch in the deadness of the silence. "Dont forget the helmet," Paluso said apologetically. He hung it under the snap of the meat can carrier, and picked the whole solid-heavy mess of straps and buckles up and shouldered into it and went to get his rifle from the racks, wanting only to get out of this sad, shocked silence. "Wait'U I get a bike," Paluso said apologetically, as they came down the stairs. He stood in the grass and waited. The sixty-five or seventy pounds of pack dragged at his back, already starting to cut in on the circulation of his arms. It was just about five miles to the top of the pass. In the corridor the great silence still reigned. "Okay," Paluso said, using his clipped official voice because they were downstairs now. "Lets shove." He slung his rifle and they went out the truck entrance, still followed by the silence. Outside of the quad the rest of the Post moved busily, just as if there had not been a cataclysm. They passed Theater #1, on past the Post gym, past the Regimental drill field, and went on up the road, into the sun, Paluso riding embarrassedly beside him, the front wheel wobbling precariously at the slowness of the pace. "You want a cigaret?" Paluso offered apologetically. Prew shook his head. "Go ahead and have one. Hell," Paluso said, "theres no reason to be mad at me. I dont like this any better than you do." "I aint mad at you." "Then have a cigaret." "Okay." He took a cigaret. Paluso, looking relieved, started off ahead on the bike. He cut capers on it and looked back grinning with the big murderous face, trying to make him laugh. Prew grinned weakly for him. Paluso gave it up and settled down to the monotony, wobbling along beside him. Then he had another idea. He rode a hundred yards ahead and then circled back, riding fast, a hundred yards behind, waving as he went by, and then circled back up, pumping as hard as his legs would go, to skid the brakes and slide alongside Prewitt. When this bored him he got off and walked a while. They passed the golf course, went on past the officers' bridle path, past the Packtrain, past the gas chamber, last outpost of the Reservation, and Prew plodded on concentrating on the old hiking rhythm, swing up and drop, swing up and drop, using only the thigh muscles on the upswing, not using the calf or ankle or foot muscles at all but letting the feet hit willy-nilly, the body's momentum carrying it forward as the thigh muscles tensed for the next swing up, that he had learned from the old timers at Myer a long time ago. Hell, he could do ten miles standing on his head carrying two packs, he cursed, as the sweat began to run in bigger rivulets down his spine and legs and drip from under his arms and down in his eyes off his face. When they reached the last steep rise that curved left up to the top of the pass, Paluso stopped and got off his bike. "We might as well turn back here. Theres no use to go up to the crest. He'll never know it anyway." "To hell with him," Prew said grimly, plodding on. "He said the pass. The pass it is." He looked over at the Stockade rock quarry cut back into the side of the hill on the right of the curve. Thats where you'll be tomorrow this time. All right. So fine. Fuck em all but six and save them for the pallbearers. "Whats the matter with you?" Paluso said angrily dumbfoundly. "You're crazy." "Sure," he called back. "I aint going to walk this bike up there," Paluso said. "I'll wait on you here." The prisoners, working in the heavy dust with the big white capital P on the backs of their blue jackets standing out like targets, whooped at the two of them, razzing about the extra duty and hard life of the Army. Until the big MP guards cursed them down and shut them up and put them back to work. Paluso waited, smoking disgustedly, at the bottom of the rise and he climbed it doggedly by himself, sweating heavier now on the steeper rise, until at the top the big never-flagging breeze hit him and chilled him and he could look down the steep-dropping snake of road, dropping way down, at least a thousand feet, among the great sharp lava crags, down to Waianae where they had gone last September, where they went every September, for the machinegun training that he liked, fitting the heavy link-curling web belts of identical clinking cartridges every fifth one painted red into the block and touching the trigger lightly between thumb and forefinger and feeling the pistol grip buck against your hand as the belts bobbed through, firing off across the empty western water at the towed targets, the tracers making flat meteor flights of light in the night firing. He breathed some of the stiffness of the breeze. Then he turned around and went back down, the wind dying suddenly, to where Paluso was waiting. When they got back to the barracks his jacket and his pants down to his knees were soaked clear through. Paluso said, "Wait here," and went in to report and Capt Holmes came back out with him, and he unslung his rifle and came to attention and rendered a smart rifle salute. "Well," Holmes said deeply, humorously. Sharp lines of lenient humor cut indulgent planes and angles in the handsome aquiline face. "Do you still feel you need to offer advice to the noncoms about how to manage details, Prewitt?" Prew did not answer. In the first place, he had not expected humor, even indulgent humor, and inside in the corridor they were still scrubbing down the walls, exactly as they had two hours ago, and they looked very safe and secure in their weary bored monotony. "Then I take it," Holmes said humorously, "that you are ready to apologize to Sergeant Galovitch and myself now, arent you." "No, Sir, I'm not." Why did he have to say that? why couldnt he just have left it? why did he have to demand it all? couldnt he see what he was doing, how impossible that was. Paluso made a startled noise behind him that was followed by a very guilty silence. Holmes's eyes only widened imperceptibly, he had better control this time, he knew more what to expect. The indulgent planes and angles of his face shifted, subtly and were neither humorous nor indulgent any more. Holmes jerked his head at the pass. "Take him back up there again, Paluso. He hasnt had enough yet." "Yes, Sir," Paluso said, letting go of the handlebars with one hand to salute.' "We'll see how he answers next time," Holmes said narrowly. The red was beginning to mount in his face again. "I dont have a thing planned for all night tonight," he added. "Yes, Sir," Paluso said. "Come on, Prewitt." Prew turned and followed him again, feeling bottomlessly sick inside, and feeling tired, feeling very tired. "Goddam," Paluso protested, as soon as they were out of sight, "you're nuts. Plain crazy. Dont you know you're ony cuttin your own throat? If you dont give a damn about yourself, at least think about me. My legs is gettin tard," he grinned apologetically. Prew did not even manage a weak grin this time. He knew that, if there had been any chance within the indulgent humor, it was gone now, that this was it, this was how you went to the Stockade. He hiked the ten miles carrying the sixty-five or seventy pounds of pack with that knowledge making an added weight inside of him. What he did not know was what had happened in the orderly room to put Holmes in the indulgent mood, nor what happened this time, the second time. The Man's face was congested a brick red when he stomped back inside, the anger he had managed to conceal in front of Prewitt backing up now like a flood behind a bridge. "You and your bright ideas of leadership," he raged at Warden. "You and your brilliant ideas of how to handle bolsheviks." Warden was still standing by the window. He had watched all of it. Now he turned around, wishing The Mouth, or would you say The Sword, The Flaming Sword, would step outside to talk to Ike, so The Warden could open up the file cabinet and get a drink. "Sergeant Warden," The Man said thickly, "I want you to' prepare court martial papers for Prewitt. Insubordination and refusing a direct order of an officer. I want them now." "Yes, Sir," The Warden said. "I want them to go in to Regiment this afternoon," The Man said. "Yes, Sir," The Warden said. He went to the blank forms file, where the useless bottle was. He got out four of the long double sheets of the forms and shut the drawer on the bottle and took the papers to the typewriter. "You cant be decent to a man like that," The Man said thickly. "He has been a troublemaker ever since he hit this outfit. Its time he had a lesson. They tame the lions in the Army, not appease them." "You want it recommended for a Summary? or a Special," The Warden said indifferently. "Special," The Man said. His face got redder. "I'd like to make it a goddamned General. I would, if I could. You and your bright ideas." "Its nothing to me," The Warden shrugged, beginning to type. "All I said was, we've had three court martials in the last six weeks and it might not look so good on the records." "Then to hell with the records," The Man almost, but not quite, shouted. It was the peak. He sat down in his swivel chair exhausted and leaned back and stared broodingly at the door into the corridor that he had carefully closed. "Thats all right with me," The Warden said, still typing. The Man did not appear to hear, but The Warden, typing, still watched him, gauging carefully, making sure it was the peak. You could not handle this time like the last time.'This was stronger. This was the last time squared, and you would have to square the