From Here to Eternity (38 page)

present time we must have complete control, because the majority of men must be subservient to the machine, which is society. "Of course, we still pay 'Honor' lip service in the recruiting posters and the industrial editorials, for the sake of appearances, and they eat it up because they are afraid. But do we depend on recruiting for our manpower? It would be absurd, wouldnt it? No, we have a draft, a peacetime draft, the first in our history. Otherwise, we would not have the men. And we must have the men, and have them ready for this war. We have no other choice; its either that, or defeat. Modern armies, like every other brand of modern society, must be governed and controlled by fear. The lot of modern man has become what I call 'perpetual apprehension.' It is his destiny for several centuries to come, until control can become stabilized. If you dont believe me, look at our insane asylums and the increase of their patients. Then look at them again when this war is over." "I believe you," Holmes said, thinking suddenly of his wife. "But wait a minute. You dont have this fear yourself." Sam Slater grinned thinly. Rather sadly, Holmes thought. "Of course not. I understand it. I govern. I am blessed (or cursed) with a logical mind and am capable of perceiving the trend of the time. I, and men like me, are forced to assume the responsibility of governing. If organized society and civilization as we know it is to continue at all, not only must there be a consolidation of power but there must be a complete unquestioned control to head it." "Yes," Holmes said excitedly. "I can see that. I've seen that for a long time." "Then you are one of the few," Sam Slater smiled at him sadly, "in this country. The Russians, of course, already know it. The Germans are learning it, and learning it remarkably swiftly. The Japanese have always known it, and applied it; but they are unable to adapt to the modern machine techniques, and I doubt if they will - in time. With us here this war will tell the tale. Either we learn it and win the war with it, or else we'll be through. Like England and France and the rest of the decadent Paternalisms are through. And the scepter will pass to other hands. But if we learn it, with our productive capacity and industrial machine techniques we will be invincible, even against Russia, when that day comes." Capt Holmes felt a little chill run down his back. He looked at Sam Slater and the great personal charm of the man swept over him again like the warm light from a revolving beacon, bringing with it a sense of tragedy for this man whom life had forced into such a responsible position. "Then we'll have to learn it!" Capt Holmes said. He could feel Jake Delbert looking at him sideways with a kind of horror. But Jake Delbert was a long ways off now. This was like something that he had known for a long time, that had lain dusty and misplaced in a back room of his mind and he had suddenly opened the door. "We have no choice but to learn it!" "Personally," Sam Slater said crisply, "I believe it is our destiny to learn it. But when that day comes, we must have utterly complete control, as they over there already have complete control. Up to now, it has been handled by the great corporations like Ford and General Motors and US Steel and Standard Oil. And mind you, they have done quite well with it, under their banner of 'Paternalism.' They have achieved phenomenal control, and in a rather short time. But now consolidation is the watchword, and the corporations are not powerful enough to bring it off - even if they were willing to consolidate, which they are not. Only the military can consolidate them under one central control." Capt Holmes saw a sudden picture of a nation with six-lane highways thrown like a web across it. "The war will take care of that," he said. "I believe so," Sam Slater said. "Historically, the corporations are already through. They've served their historical purpose. Besides, they have one grievous fault that, unless stopped, can be deadly." "Whats that?" Holmes asked. "The fact that they themselves are afraid of authority, even though theres no authority over them," Sam Slater said. "They have put out their paternalism propaganda so long that they believe it themselves, they believe their own Cinderella story, their own Horatio Alger myth of honest poor boy rises to riches. And of course that hamstrings them with a certain amount of sentimental moral obligation; they must play the role of father that they imagined." "Wait," Holmes said. "I dont quite get that?" Sam Slater set his empty glass down and smiled at him sadly. "Its the same thing that I was talking about that is wrong with a great many (far too many) of our senior officers. They are all anachronisms of a former generation that grew up in the Victorian era. "The men who control the corporations and our senior officers are really very much alike, you know: They both utilize this new social fear they have helped develop; and they both are reluctant morally to use it full strength. Its a kind of holdover of Victorian moralism and the dying British school of Paternal Imperialism, the school that would never work the Colonial natives to death unless there was a missionary there to give them their last rites." Holmes laughed convulsively. "But thats stupid." Jake Delbert cleared his throat, and set his own glass down. "Of course its stupid," Sam Slater smiled thinly. "Its a logical absurdity. But all our great industrialists, and most of our present senior officers, still play that role. That same fatherly Britisher role. You can see what it has done to their efficiency of control. "Social fear is the most tremendous single source of power in existence. The only source, in fact, now that the machine has destroyed the corollary positive code. Yet they waste this power by directing it against such asinine trivialities as the advisability of virginity at marriage, which nobody believes in anyway, and which is like training a firehose on a burning sheet of paper." Holmes laughed again, so powerfully this time it was almost a seizure. Then he thought of his wife, again, and the laughter dropped out from under him leaving him feeling absolutely nothing, except a startled amazement in the absolute truth in Sam Slater's argument. "It isnt funny," Sam Slater smiled. "Their absurd false morality causes even greater inefficiency and harm in other ways. When they direct their power on really important problems, problems that need immediate solution, like whether to go to war or not, it is made so diffuse by conflicting sentimentalities of public opinion (such as patriotism versus the love of 'peace') that it does absolutely nothing, it neutralizes itself completely, so that, in the end, we with all our industrial power will sit back and vacillate (when everybody knows war is inevitable) until somebody or other attacks us and makes us fight - and incidentally gets a great big drop on us." "Thats worse than a logical absurdity," Holmes said angrily. "Thats.. ." he could not say it. Sam Slater shrugged. "It makes my blood boil," Holmes said. Jake Delbert cleared his throat again. "Gentlemen," he said. "It cant continue to go like that, though," Sam Slater said. "Dont think that in Russia and in Germany the consolidation of power and its control are not being utilized to their fullest. We either have to get rid of our moralists ourselves and replace them with realists, or the Russians and the Germans (not to mention the Japanese) will do it for us, see?" he said, vehement for the first time since he started talking. "Gentlemen!" Jake Delbert said again. He charged up to his feet. "Ah -" he said. "Your glasses are empty, gentlemen. Dont you think its about time for another drink. Jeff isnt back yet. I'll - ah - do the honors. Eh?" Nobody laughed. "This is a party, gentlemen," Jake joked insistently, "not a convention, you know. Eh? Dont you think we ought to perhaps possibly maybe ah.. ." Both of them were looking at him blankly, and gradually he ran down like a phonograph and tapered off into a nervous silence. "I'm thirsty," Jake said desperately, finally. Sam Slater smiled at him, openly contemptuously, and Jake felt a spasm of nameless fear. "Of course, Jake," Sam Slater said soothingly. "Let us have another. Let us all have another." "But what I dont see," Holmes said suddenly. "What do you suppose makes them all afraid like that? I'm not afraid, not of the truth." And he meant it truly. He looked deep inside himself, there was no fear there. Sam Slater shrugged. "Environmental training, I suppose. Psychologically, its a sort of subjective association of oneself with the external object. Some boys cant shoot birds because they put themselves into the place of the injured bird. Same thing." Holmes was irritated. "But thats stupid." "Gentlemen," Jake Delbert said urgently. "Your drinks, gentlemen." "Thanks, Jake," Sam Slater said soothingly. Somehow, Jake thought, Sam's solace is always ominous. "Of course its stupid," Sam said to Holmes. "Nobody claimed it wasnt stupid. Still, it happens to them." "Ha," Jake Delbert said aloud, and to hell with them, what are they anyway? "Tell me, Dynamite," Jake said. "How are you makin' out with that new man, whats his name, Prewitt. Have you convinced him he should go out yet?" "Who?" Holmes said. He looked up startled, jerked from the clarity of the abstract back into the turbid concrete, where the application always has to take place. "Oh," he said. "Prewitt. No, not yet. But my boys are working on him." "Giving him The Treatment?" Sam Slater interjected. "Yes," Holmes said reluctantly. "Thats a good example of my theory. How long do you think we could run an army without noncoms who fear our class so much they will tyrannize their own?" "Not very long, I guess," Holmes said. "The secret," Sam Slater said, "is to cause every caste to fear its superiors and be contemptuous of its inferiors. You are wise to have your noncoms do it instead of doing it yourself. That makes even the noncoms more aware of the gulf between EM and officers." "But has it done any good yet?" Jake insisted, swinging it back again to the concrete, away from that infernal theory of young Slater's. "Your Smoker season is in June this year, instead of August. You haven't as much time to pull him into line as you would have had last year, and he hasnt given in yet, has he?" "I told you no," Holmes said violently, finding he was suddenly just a Captain again. "But I've taken all that other into account. I know what I'm doing. Truly, Sir." "I 'm sure you do, m' boy," Jake said sympathetically. He was back on familiar ground now. He could risk a pointed glance at Slater. "But dont forget, son, that this man is apparently a bolshevik, a true fuckup. They 're diff'r'nt from the average run, you know. I firmly believe in leading men, myself, but with bolsheviks you have to drive them. Its the only way to handle them. And you cant ever let them best you or you lose prestige with the men and they 'll all be tryin' to take advantage of you." "That's true," Sam Slater interjected. "If you've made an open issue of the thing, you must follow it through. Not that the issue itself is important, but because of the overall effect it has on the men." "I haven't made an open issue of it yet," Holmes said, feeling badgered. "The men are doing it practically by themselves, without my help." Immediately he realized he had trapped himself. "What I mean," he said. "Oh," Jake grinned. He was not missing any tricks now. These young flibertygibets who were always sucking in with the rank; it was all very well to talk theory, but it was the application of it that counted. "But dont you think that 'll look to the men as if you're tryin' to evade the responsibility?" "No," Holmes said, seeing what he was doing. "Not at all. I was trying to accomplish it with the noncoms, without coming into it myself, as the General said." He nodded at Sam Slater. "I wouldnt depend on that completely," Jake said. "If he doesnt come around soon, so that he gets full benefit of the trainin' season, he wont be any good to you anyway, will he?" "Oh, yes," Holmes said. "What I want him for is the Bowl season next winter, not the Company Smokers." He smiled a little condescendingly, feeling he had won that round. "Yes," Jake pressed him, "but if he gets out of going out for Smokers, he's still made you back down and lose face. And thats no good. Eh?" he said to Slater. "Am I right?" Sam Slater looked at him some time before he answered. He had been sitting back, watching both of them, knowing they were playing for his approbation now. It warmed him. Jake of course had all the rank, but Jake was a coward and a member of the old Paternalism school that inevitably someday he and his generation would have to fight. And he liked young Holmes. "Yes," he said, finally. 'Thats right. The important thing," he said to Holmes, "is that you as an officer must not allow even a suspicion that an EM has made you back down. The boxing thing itself is unimportant," he added, looking at Jake. Jake preferred to ignore that one. He had gained a temporary advantage, and he had changed the subject; that was enough for now. But it was outrageous that he should even have to struggle with Holmes, he a Lieutenant Colonel. "If he doesnt come around soon," he told Holmes coldly, "you have to break him. Have no choice. Throw the book at him, so that at least by winter and the Bowl Season he will be ready to talk turkey." "Yes," Holmes said doubtfully. He had sensed the Brigadier's favor in that last crack about the boxing, but he did not know whether he had enough collateral to plunge. "But I don't think it will work that way," he said, deciding to risk it. "I don't think you can break this man." "Ha!" Jake said. He looked at the General. "Of course you can break him." "You can break any man," Sam Slater said coldly. "You are an officer." "Thats right," Jake said stoutly. "I remember when I served here at Schofield as a Captain and John Dillinger was a private. If there ever was an honest to God maverick that couldnt be broken, there was one. But by God they broke him. They broke him right here in the Post Stockade. I bet you he served most of his enlistment in the Post Stockade, by God," Jake said indignantly. "Thats when he swore he'd get even with the United States if it was the last thing he ever did." "That doesnt sound like they broke him," Holmes said, unable to back out now. "From the way he went after he got out of here, I would say they never broke him." "Oh yes they did," Jake said. "J E Hoover and his boys broke him. They broke him right in two, that night in Chicago. Just like they broke Prettyboy Floyd and the rest of them." "They killed him," Holmes said. "Not broke him." "Its the same thing," Jake said indignantly. "What the hell 's the difference?" "I dont know," Holmes said, deciding to give