From Here to Eternity (73 page)

and he did his job thoroughly and methodically. When he had worked his way through the line, he came back to the Major and they both went down the line and stopped in front of Blues Berry. "Who broke Murdock's arm for him?" Major Thompson said. Everybody knew they knew, then. Berry stared straight ahead without answering. Fatso hit him. "Did you break Murdock's arm for him?" Major Thompson said. Berry stared straight ahead, at attention, without answering. Fatso hit him. "Did you break Murdock's arm for him?" Major Thompson said. Berry stared straight ahead, at attention, without answering. Fatso hit him. . "It just happens," the Major smiled, "that we already know you was the man who broke Murdock's arm for him." Berry grinned. Fatso hit him. "Step forward," Major Thompson said. Berry took two paces forward, still grinning. Fatso hit him across the bridge of the nose with the head of the grub hoe handle. Berry went down to his knees. He stayed there several seconds, nobody helping him, before he got back up shakily. Blood was pouring out of his nose, but he did not raise his hands or move his eyes from the wall. He licked his lips with the tip of his tongue and grinned at the Major. "I'm going to make an example out of you, Berry," Major Thompson said crisply. "You're too big for your pants. I'm going to cut you down till you fit them. You think you're too tough. I'm going to show these men what happens to a man who gets too big for bis pants and thinks he's too tough. Did you break Murdock's arm?" "Fuck you," Berry said huskily. This time Fatso hit him in the mouth with the head of the grub hoe handle. Berry's knees went loose but he did not quite go down. His eyes came unfocused but he did not move them from the wall. When he straightened up, he worked his mouth a little and spat two teeth out at Fatso's feet contemptuously and grinned at him. "And I'm going to kill you, Fatso," he grinned. "If I ever get out of here, I'm going to hunt you down and kill you. So you better get me first. Because if I ever get out, I'll kill you." Fatso was as unmoved by this as he had been by the general contempt and uncooperativeness. He raised his grub hoe handle again, methodically, diligently, impassively, but Major Thompson stopped him. "Take him down to the gym," the Major said. "I dont want to dirty the barracks up any more than necessary. Some of you men clean this mess up." Fatso took Berry by the arm and started to lead him to the door but Berry jerked his arm loose and said, "Keep your fat paws off of me. I can still walk," and walked to the door by himself. The guard outside unlocked the door. Berry walked through it. Fatso and the Major and then the two guards followed him. "The crazy son of a bitch," Jack Malloy said contortedly. "Thats not the way to handle them. I told him thats not the way to handle them." "Maybe he's tired of handling them," Prew said narrowly. "He'll be tireder," Malloy said unforgivingly. "They're serious." It was the first time any of them had ever heard a man scream when he was in the gym getting a work out. The fact that it was Blues Beny whom they heard screaming proved they were serious, that this time the Major and Fatso were out to make it or break it, showdown or else. In Number Two they cleaned up the floor and settled down to wait. It was already after nine-thirty, and the fact that the lights were still on showed this was really going to be an occasion. They managed to find out from Pfc Hanson who passed by the door under arms hurriedly, that it was one of the guards up on the cliff who had seen him. It was eleven-thirty when Major Thompson, wearing his sidearms, came for them with the guards. There were ten guards, each wearing sidearms and carrying a riotgun. They were lined up in a column of twos and marched down to the gym. The guards were spaced along the walls with their riotguns at port arms. More guards lined the walls of the gym. Apparently, every guard on the place had been called out tonight. The column from Number Two was marched into the gym and distributed around three of the walls with the guards in back of them. Blues Berry stood against one of the side walls in his GI shorts under the lights, still trying to grin with a mouth that was too swollen to do more than twist. He was barely recognizable. His broken nose had swollen and was still running blood in a stream. Blood was also flowing out of his mouth, whenever he coughed. His eyes were practically closed. Blows from the grub hoe handles had torn the upper half of both ears loose from his head. Blood from his nose and mouth, and the ears which were not bleeding much, had spotted his chest and the white drawers. "He's dead," somebody whispered behind Prew with finality. Fatso and two other guards, Turnipseed and Angelo Maggio's old friend Brownie, all looking exhausted, stood near him. Major Thompson, wearing his sidearms, stood off by himself near the corner. "We want to show you men what happens to men who think they can run the Army," he said crisply. "Sergeant," he nodded. "Turn around," S/Sgt Judson said. "Put your nose and toes against the wall." "You better kill me, Fatso," Berry whispered. "You better do a good job. If you dont, I'll kill you. If I ever get out of here, I'll kill you." S/Sgt Judson stepped up and drove his knee up into Berry's testicles. Berry screamed. "Turn around," S/Sgt Judson said. "Put your nose and toes against the wall." Berry turned around and put his nose and toes to the wall. "You son of a bitch," he whispered, "you fathog son of a bitch. You better kill me. If you dont, I'll kill you. You better kill me." It was as if it was the one solitary idea he had left and he had fixed his mind on it to keep something with him. He said it over and over. "Did you break Murdock's arm for him, Berry?" S/Sgt Judson said. Berry went on whispering his passion to himself. "Berry, can you hear me?" S/Sgt Judson said. "Did you break Murdock's arm?" "I can hear you," Berry whispered. "You better kill me, Fatso, thats all. If you dont, I'll kill you. You better kill me." "Brown," Fatso said. He nodded at Berry. "Take him." Cpl Brown stepped into position like a man stepping into the batter's box at the plate and swung his grub hoe handle with both hands into the small of Berry's back. Berry screamed. Then he coughed, and some more blood splashed down from his mouth. There are two kinds of grub hoe handles, curved ones and straight ones. The straight ones are longer and heavier than the curved ones. A pick handle is longer and heavier than any ax handle, and a grub hoe handle is longer and heavier than a pick handle. A straight grub hoe handle is about four inches longer than a pick handle and around a pound heavier in weight and can be recognized by the double hump at the head end. The steel head of a grub hoe, which is like the mattock half of a pick-mattock with the pick half left off the other end, fits between these two humps on the handle and makes the grub hoe a fine tool for clearing brushy root-matted ground. "Did you break Murdock's arm?" Fatso said. "Fuck you," Berry whispered. "You better kill me. If you dont, I'll kill you. You better kill me." They kept them there fifteen minutes. Then they marched them back between the lines of guards to the barrack and turned off the lights. The occasional screams from the gym did not stop however, and there was not much sleep. But in the morning they were got up at 4:45 just the same. At chow they learned that at one-thirty Blues Berry, unable to urinate and with his ears knocked half loose from his head, had been taken up to the prison ward of the Station Hospital for treatment of a fall from the back of a truck. He died the next day about noon, "from massive cerebral hemorrhage and internal injuries," the report was quoted as stating, "probably caused by a fall from a truck traveling at high speed." Prew did not tell Jack Malloy what he intended to do until after Berry had died. He knew what he was going to do before Berry died, but he waited till then to tell Malloy. "I'm going to kill him," Prew said. "I'm going to wait till I get out of here and then I'm going to hunt him up and kill him. But I'm not: going to be stupid like Berry was and go around advertising it. I'll keep my mouth shut and wait till I get my chance." "He needs to be killed," Malloy said. "He ought to be killed. But it wont do a damned bit of good to kill him." "It'll do me some good," Prew said. "It'll do me a lot of good. It may even make me into a man again." "You couldn't kill a man in cold blood," Malloy said. "Even if you wanted to." "I dont aim to kill Fatso in cold blood," Prew said. "He'll get an even break. Theres a bar he hangs out at downtown all the time; I've heard some of the guys talk about it, and about how he always carries a knife. I'll kill him with a knife. He'll have as good a chance at me with his knife as I'll have at him with mine. Only - he wont kill me; I'll kill him. And nobody'll ever know who did it arid I'll go on back home to the Compny and forget it just like you forget other carrion." "It wont do any good to kill him," Malloy said. "It would have done Berry some good." "No it wouldnt. Berry would have got what he got eventually anyway. Berry was slated for it from the day he was born in a shack down on the wrong side of the tracks in Wichita Kansas." "Fatso was born on the wrong side of the tracks, too." "Sure he was," Malloy said. "And he might have been Berry, and Berry him, just as easy. You dont understand him. If you want to kill something, kill the things that made Fatso what he is. He doesnt do what he does because it is right or wrong. He doesnt think about right or wrong. He just does what is there to be done." "So do I. I've always clone what is there to be done. But I've never done anything like Fatso's done." "Yes, but you have a strong sense of right and wrong. Thats why you got in the Stockade in the first place, same as me. But if you asked Fatso if he thought what he did was right, he would probably look surprised as hell. Then, if you gave him time to think, he would say yes it was right; but he would be saying it simply because he had always been taught that he ought to do what is right. Therefore, in his mind, everything he does must be right. Because he did it. And because he knows he had been taught it is wrong to do what is wrong." "You're only talking now," Prew said. "You're not saying anything. Fatso's wrong. Too wrong. And there will be plenty of guys go through this Stockade after you and me are out." "Did you know Fatso was a Life Scout once?" "I dont give a damn if he was President." "If it would do any good to kill him, I'd say go ahead, kill him. But all that will happen will be they will get somebody else just like him to take his place. Why dont you kill Major Thompson?" "They'd just get somebody like him to take his place, too." "Of course," Malloy said. "But he gave Fatso the orders." "I don't know," Prew said. "I've never felt about him like I've felt about Fatso. Major Thompson's an officer; you expect that from officers; they're on the other side of the fence. But Fatso, Fatso's an enlisted man. And that makes him a traitor against his own kind." "I can see what you mean," Malloy said. "And you're right. But you are wrong to kill him - just simply because it wont do any good." "I got to do what I got to do," Prew said impassibly. "Yes," Malloy said. "So have we all. So has Fatso." "Then thats whats the matter," Prew said, falling back on the old phrase of finality. "You love the Army, dont you?" Malloy said. "I dont know," Prew said. "Yes. Yes, I do. I'm a thirty-yearman. I've always been one. Ever since I first signed up." "Well, Fatso is as much a part of the Army you love as your 1st/Sgt, Warden, that you're always talking about. One as much as the other. Without the Fatsos you couldnt have the Wardens." "Someday we will." "No. You never will. Because when that day comes you wont have any Armies, and there will be no more Wardens. You cant have the Wardens without the Fatsos, either." "You dont mind if I go on thinking we will?" "No. You ought to think that. But what you want cant be achieved by killing off all the Fatsos. When you kill your enemy Fatso, you are also killing your friend Warden." "Maybe so. I still cant help what I got to do." "Okay," Malloy said, and grinned. "And is this the end-product of all I've tried to teach you about passive resistance? You didnt understand it any more than Berry or Angelo did." "Passive resistance did them a lot of good, didnt it?" Prew said. "They both used it, and look where they are now." "Neither one of them used it," Malloy said. "Their resistance was always active, not passive." "They didnt light back." "They didnt have to. In their minds they fought back. They just didnt have access to clubs, that was all." "You can only expect so much of a man," Prew said. "Thats right," Malloy said. "But listen. A guy named Spinoza wrote a sentence once. He said: Because a man loves God he must not expect God to love him in return. Theres a lot in that, in lots of ways. I dont use passive resistance for what I expect it will get me. I dont expect it to pay me back any more than it ever has. That isnt the point. If that was the point, I'd of given it up years ago as a flop." "I understand that," Prew said, "and I was wrong. But I'm going to kill Fatso, just as sure as God made little green apples. I aint got no choice. Thats the only thing a fathog prick like him understands. Thats the only way." "Okay," Malloy said. He shrugged and looked away, down the barrack. The lights had been out quite a while, and the others were already in their bunks. The two of them sat on their bunks facing each other talking, their expressions lit only by the glow of their cigarette ends. Prew had, by a common tacit consent, moved into Angelo's bunk next to Malloy after the little guy went up to the hospital. Malloy kept on looking down the darkened aisle, as if debating something. "All right," he said finally, turning back. "Now I'll tell you something. I hadnt meant to tell you. But maybe it'll do me good; just like your telling me about Fatso done you good. Sometimes it helps to talk about something you're going to do that you dont want to do. I'm going to bust out of here," he said. Prew felt a stillness that was not of the quiet night creep over him slowly. "What for?" "I dont know if I can explain it," Jack Malloy said. "You see, theres something wrong with me." "You mean you're sick?" "No, I'm not sick. This is something else. Something that has to do with what I told you about being born in the wrong time. Theres something lacking in me that keeps me from doing what I want to do. You see, I'm responsible for what happened to both Angelo and Berry, just as surely as if I had signed the Discharge and swung the club. Just as surely as I'm responsible for you killing Fatso." "Aw now,