From Here to Eternity (89 page)

issue shoes. "Livin on a goddam powder keg!" Pete hollered. "Thats all primed to blow, the minute this country starts to fight!" Warden jumped up off the cot and grabbed him, still leaning like a defiance of the law of gravity, with both arms around him. "All right, all right, Pete, all right. Sit down. Have another drink. Lets listen to the music for a while." "I'm allright," Pete said strangledly. "I guess my enthusiasm just got the best of me for a minute. Let go of me." Warden let him go and he sat back down. "Wheres my drink?" "Here," Warden said, holding him out a canteen cup of whiskey. "Guess who I ran into up to Schofield today, Milt," Pete said painfully, in an almost rupturing effort to be casually conversational. "I don't know," Warden said. "Who." He held out his cup. "I'll have to get the other bottle," Pete said, getting up. "This one's done." He went back to the table. Behind them the music stopped and the announcer came on. "Lucky Strike green has gone to war," the announcer said. "Yes, Lucky Strike green has gone to war." "Who did you run into up at Schofield, Pete?" Warden prompted as Pete came back. "Your Lucky Strikes have put on khaki and enlisted," the announcer said. "Capt Holmes's wife," Pete said. He poured whiskey into Warden's cup. "Imagine that? Aint seen her for months. She was in the Evacuation Office at Regiment when I went in to get my chit. She's going back to the States on'the same boat I am." "Haw!" Stark guffawed drunkenly. "Who?" Warden said. "Capt Holmes's wife," Pete said. "Hell, you remember Capt Holmes's - Major Holmes's - wife, dont you?" "Sure," Warden said, "I remember her." "Haw!" Stark hooted drunkenly. "Well," Pete said, "seems they're still living in their old quarters in the Regiment's M O Q, so she had to report to Regiment instead of Brigade for her evacuation number and shipping list chit for her and her kid. Christ, there was a whole bunch of them in there; Major Thompson's wife; Col Delbert's wife; I dont know who all. And Holmes's wife is booked for the same boat they got me booked for. Leaves on January 6th." "Haw!" Stark guffawed explosively again. "Whats the matter with you?" Pete said. "Nothin," Stark grinned. "I just happen to think of something." "Of course," Pete went on, "she'll be goin back First Class, and I'll be down in the hole, but still she's goin on the same damn boat I am. Its sure a damn small world, you know it?" "Haw!" Stark giggled. "It sure is." "You want another drink, Stark?" "Naw," Stark grinned. "I'm doin fine. Just fine." "Well?" Warden said casually. "What'd she seem like? What'd she have to say?" "Haw!" Stark guffawed drunkenly. "Ask about the Compny," Pete said. "Wanted to know how the Compny Administration was making out. And how the supplyroom was makin out with the new supply sergeant. And ask how you were getting along with the new Compny Commander." "Me?" Warden said. "Haw!" Stark guffawed. "Yes," Pete said. "Say, whats the matter with you?" he said to Stark. "Nothin," Stark giggled happily. "You know," Pete said to Warden, "she knows a hell of a lot more about this Compny than I ever thought she did." "She ought to," Stark said. "She even ask me if Prewitt was back yet." "Him too?" Stark grinned. "She loves this Compny," Stark grinned. "All of it. Aint that right, Milt?" "You know I believe she does," Pete said. "It surprised me. How much she knew about it. I liked her a lot." "You did, hunh?" Stark grinned. "Well then you ought to look her up on board ship. Dont you think, Milt?" "She'll be upstairs," Pete said. "Officer Class. I'll be down the hole. I wont even see her." "Dont let that bother you," Stark grinned. "Just look her up and ask her to invite you up to her stateroom. She'll do it. Aint that right, Milt?... And then while you're there ask her for a piece of ass. She'll give you that, too. She loves this Compny." Pete was a little slow on the uptake. But a shocked look began to spread over his face, as it dawned on him what Stark had said. "Shut up, you son of a bitch," Warden said. "You think I'm lyin, Pete?" Stark guffawed. "I aint, though. Ask Warden; she give him some. She had him fooled. Ask me; she gave me some, too. Ony she never fooled me any. "But you want to watch out though," Stark said confidentially, "and take a good pro afterwards, or you're liable to come out with a good dose of the clap." Warden, watching the thin mask of ribald laughter on Stark's face that just barely hid something else, felt a pause coming. He'd have to run down in a minute, and Warden was content to wait. A tremendous gratification filled him. This was what he had been looking for all day and couldnt find. "All right, you son of a bitch," he said when the pause came full. He enunciated it carefully and clearly. "Now I'll tell you something. You want to know how she got the clap at Bliss? You want to know who gave it to her? I'll tell you. It was her beloved husband, Capt Dana E Holmes, who give it to her." Under the flush of the whiskey, Maylon Stark's face went white as a sheet. Warden watched him with a completely inexpressible, absolutely luxurious, positively exquisite satisfaction. "I dont believe it," Stark said. "Its true, though," Warden said, feeling himself grinning supremely happily. "I dont believe it," Stark said. "They said it was a Lieutenant who was Adjutant at the Officers' Club. He got relieved for having it. I talked to a couple of the guys who said they seen them. Besides, it happened six months before I ever met her. But I talked to them." "The story wasnt true, though," Warden said. "I dont believe it," Stark said. "It has to be true." "Its not, though," Warden said gently. "It has to be," Stark said. "Its not, though." Pete was watching both of them, a first faint glimmer of dawning beginning to push up into his face through the bewilderment. Behind them the music went off the radio and the announcer came on. "Lucky Strike green has gone to war," the announcer said. "Yes, Lucky Strike green has gone to war." "I'll kill him," Stark said, working his whole face to get the words out of his throat. "Ill kill the son of a bitch. I'll kill him." "You wont kill anybody," Warden said sympathetically tenderly. "Any more than I killed anybody." "I was going to marry that woman," Stark said. "She was eight years oldern me, but I was going to marry her. I was going to get out of the Army, so I could marry her. I would have married her, too." "And done what?" Warden said gently. "Taken her, a rich man's daughter, to live on a Texas cropper's farm?" Stark's face was chalk white. "She was in love with me, too. I know she was. A guy can tell when a woman's in love with him. We went together on the sly in Bliss for over six whole months. I was going to marry her, too." "But you didnt," Warden said kindly. "Instead you threw her over." "I would have," Stark said. "Without even givin her a chance to say her side of it," Warden chided tenderly, aware of Pete still watching them, first one then the other. Well, it ought to take his mind off his troubles. You didnt come by a juicy tidbit like this every day. "She didnt tell me," Stark said desperately. "But you didnt ask her," Warden said tenderly, determined to leave no loopholes. "Shut up," Stark said. "Shut up, shut up." "You Southern men," Warden censured kindly. "You're all alike. With your drinking and whoring. You're the worst moralists there are." Stark stood up and threw the canteen cup of whiskey at Warden's gently solicitous face, in the same unthinking reflexive way that a cat that has been pinched will unsheath its claws and strike. "You think I wont kill him?" Stark screamed at him. "I'll kill him. I'll kill him. I'll chop his fucking head off." Warden, who was watching, ducked the cup but Pete, who was a little older, a little drunker, and a little more preoccupied, caught both cup and whiskey in the chest, drenching his shirt. Stark was gone, out through the flap of the tent. Warden slumped back on the cot, feeling as completely empty and relaxed as if he had just had orgasm. Except for one thing, one tiny fly in the ointment, it was perfect. He suspected all along they had gone together longer than she said, but all along he had hoped it wasnt true. "Jesus!" Pete said. "I smell like a goddam brewery." He daubed at the dripping shirt. "You better go after him, Milt. He's pretty drunk? He might hurt himself." "Okay," Warden said. He got his rifle from the corner. Behind him as he went out the music went off and the announcer came back on. "Lucky Strike green has gone to war," the announcer said. "Yes, Lucky Strike green has gone to war." Outside, the moon had risen further and the grove, the parking space, the whole earth, was a colorless painting done in black and white. He took the path that crossed the blacktop to the kitchen tent. So they had gone together six whole months at Bliss. That was almost as long as he had gone with her himself. He wondered what it had been like with them. She was much younger then, for one thing. He wondered what she had been like when she was younger. What things had they done? What places had they gone? What things had they laughed at? He wished, suddenly, he could have been present, as an unseen third party, so he could have shared it. He felt that way about everything about her. Not envy so much, not jealousy, as just a tremendous hunger to have shared. Poor old Stark. In the kitchen tent he found a small cluster of frightened cooks, huddled together like sheep as far away from the meat block as they could get. "Where'd he go?" "I dont rightly know," one of them said. "I dint really feel like asting him. All I know, he come chargin in talking and cussin and got his cleaver and took off." He started back toward the supplyroom, thinking he might have gone down on the beach to sleep it off and if he had the best thing was to let him go. He stopped in the middle of the blacktop and looked up it up the hill where it curved up to the highway in the moonlight, but nobody was on it. Stark was not drunk enough to start off to walk to Schofield with his cleaver after Major Holmes. As he came back up to the supply tent, a figure came flying out of the dark and collided with him. "Top!" Company Bugler Anderson's scared voice said huskily. "Is that you, Top?" "What the hell're you doin out here. Why aint you in the wagon with the switchboard?" "Top, Stark's up there! He's got his cleaver and he's tearin it up! He's bustin everything! He's ruinin it!" "Come on!" Warden said. He unslung his rifle and took off up the path. "He come in cussin and yellin and sayin he'd kill him," Andy yelled breathlessly behind him. "He kept yellin he'd kill him, he'd kill the son or" a bitch. I thought he meant you. Then he says Capt Holmes, he'll kill Capt Holmes. Capt Holmes aint been around here for months, Top. And he's a Major. I think he's went off his nut." "Save your breath," Warden said. Stark was already gone. But the little popcorn wagon was a shambles. Both spindly homemade tables that served him and Ross for desks had been chopped down into kindling and smashed flat. Of the four chairs not one was left in a suitable condition for sitting. Warden's field desk, that was still locked, lay on the floor with a great gash in the top. His Art-Metal lockbox had a foot-long dent in it. Papers, and pieces of chopped papers, were scattered everywhere. There were long tearshaped gashes in the thin plywood walls. Only the panel switchboard, luckily, appeared to be untouched. And in the middle of all this holocaust, lying on the floor, pure white, virgin, unmarked, untouched, like a baby sitting unharmed and indifferent in the middle of a fallen house, was a War Department letter with a sheaf of endorsements stapled on it, Warden's confirmation of appointment as Second Lieutenant (Infantry) in the Army of the United States. Warden stood a moment in the doorway and surveyed the wreckage. Then he threw his rifle viciously into the corner and the little wagon rocked on its wheels as the stock of the Star Gauge '03 burst across the grip. Andy, who had been raised in the Regular Army where to drop your rifle on the ground at drill was a major sin punishable with no less than two weeks' extra-duty, gasped audibly and looked at him with open horror. "Get on that thing," Warden said thinly, indicating the switchboard, and grinned at him wildly slyly. "Start at the bottom and call every position for a check call to see if they're all coming through. Then check Battalion and the Message Center. Check every tab." "Okay, Top," Andy said, and got on it. Warden picked up the two pieces of the rifle contritely, the stock butt dangling limply from the sling. He had had that rifle four years; he had brought it into A Co with him, and taken it out of A Co with him into G. He had nosed out Sgt/ Maj O'Bannon for Regimental high score with that rifle. He checked the action lovingly. It was all right. He could get a new stock, but the action could not have been replaced. He laid the two pieces down tenderly by the door, feeling a little better. Then he picked up the offensively unharmed, still virgin, War Department letter with its endorsements and tore it across, then across again, then across a third time, and scattered it over the floor. With the rest of the wreckage. "They all check in okay, Top," Andy said from the switchboard. "Okay. Good. You still got two and a half hours of your shift to do yet. I'm going to bed." "Well, what about the Orderly Room? What about the wagon? Aint you going to clean it up any?" "Let Ross do it," he said, and got the pieces of his rifle and went out. Outside, everything was still as death. After a while, after so long a time, there wasnt anything left but to go to bed. You went so long, and did so much, and were done so much, until finally there came a time when there was absolutely nothing anywhere left on earth to do but to go to bed. Warden put the pieces of the rifle at the foot of his cot and went gratefully to bed. In the morning they found Stark down on the beach sleeping peacefully in the saad with his tear-stained cheek resting on his trusty cleaver. Warden, who was up fresh and early, had already taken it up with Lt Ross, who was furious (furious was no word to describe it), before they had even found Stark. "You cant bust him, Lieutenant. He's the only man we've got who can come anywhere near running the mess at all,, with the men scattered all over hell's half acre like they are." "The hell I cant bust him!" Lt Ross said furiously. "I'll bust him if every manjack in this Company starves to death!" "Who'll you get to run the mess for you?" "I dont give a damn who runs the mess for me!" Lt Ross said furiously. "Look at this place! My god, Sergeant, I cant let a man get away with a thing like that! We'll never have any discipline! We've got to have discipline!" "Sure, but we got to have food, too." "He can run the mess as a private!"