From Here to Eternity (90 page)

Lt Ross said furiously. "He wouldnt do it." 'Then he can be court-martialed for malingering!" Lt Ross hollered furiously. "You couldnt make that stick. You're a lawyer, Lieutenant. You know you couldnt make it stick, to court-martial him for refusing to run the mess without the rating." "I cant let him get by with this!" Lt Ross said furiously. "You just dont understand him, Lieutenant. He's a funny guy. He goes on rampages like this every now and then. He did it once at Hickam Field before you got in the Company. He dont really mean any harm. And he never hurts anybody. He's just a cook, thats all. Cooks and mess sergeants are just temperamental, thats all. You never saw a good mess sergeant that wasnt half crazy." "All right,'" Lt Ross said furiously. "You know you cant run the mess without him, Lieutenant." "All right!" Lt Ross said furiously. "I'm only being realistic, Lieutenant. If we had a man could run the mess, I'd be the first to want him busted. But we havent got a man that can do it." "All right!" Lt Ross said furiously. "Its for the good of the Compny, Lieutenant." "I know, I know," Lt Ross said furiously. "For the good of the Company!" "Your responsibility is to the Compny as a whole." "Okay," Lt Ross said furiously. "Okay, okay. I know what my responsibility is." "Yes, Sir," Warden said. With that settled, he informed him of his decision not to accept a commission. "What!" Lt Ross cried furiously. "But, Jesus Christ!" "My mind's made up," Warden said. "I wish to hell I'd got my commission in the Coast Guard!" Lt Ross said furiously. "I'll never understand the fucking Army."

CHAPTER 54

HE SAW HER once more before she left. It was a very strange experience. In the first place, it was a hard thing to arrange. It was not like before the war, when you could put on civvies and go anywhere you wanted simply because you wanted to go there. You could not go anywhere without an official reason now. And you had to have an officially documented explanation. Soldiers were not allowed in civilian clothes. Even to have them was a court-martial offense. And a soldier in uniform running around town in the daytime would be stopped immediately. The ban on liquor by the Military Government was still in effect then, and the bars were closed down tight. The movies did not run at all. The big hotels had suddenly become very inquisitively careful about their registrations. All the tourists had either gone home, or else were sitting tight in their hotel rooms waiting for the Army to evacuate them. There were no new tourists. Even a car stopped along a road in the daytime was liable to investigation and inspection. There was not anywhere they could meet. There was nowhere they could go. Even in the daytime. And at night there was the curfew. At sundown Honolulu crawled quickly into its various holes and died until morning. After dark, nothing moved anywhere, except for the blue headlights of the patrols. She was at Schofield. She would have to drive down. She could only drive in the daytime. She would have to drive back in the daytime, too. But it was an impossibility for him to get away from the CP in the daytime without being discovered. Even for an hour. And an hour was not long enough. He could sneak away at night, after the switchboard relief went on. Stark had been sneaking off every night to see his wahine at the Wailupe Naval Radio Station, which was not far away. But Karen, she could not make the trip at night, not without being stopped. She could not even come down before dark and park and wait for him. The only possible answer was a place, some place, where she could go in the afternoon and wait for him without being noticed, and then stay all night and drive back the next day. The hotels at Waikiki were out. Besides, he was ten or twelve miles from Waikiki out here on the highway, and there were no Motels or Tourist Courts on the highways of Hawaii. He did not know any people out this way to whom she could go. All the people he knew lived either in Waikiki, or else in downtown Honolulu, which was further. Besides, he was not even sure she would be willing to go that far. To come down and stay all night. Even if he could find a place. He sweated with it for over a week from the night that he had made the identification of Prewitt's body. He told himself he meant to have that much, if he never had any of the rest of it. And finally he went to Stark. Stark's wahine was a very beautiful Chinese-Hawaiian girl, the most beautiful blood-mixture type that comes out of Hawaii. She and her husband, a Japanese-Filipino, had one of the little houses in Kuliouou Valley less than two miles from Hanauma Bay. Her husband, who had started out as a mess-attendant in the Navy, was now one of the operators at the Wailupe Station. A very considerable advance in the Navy, for a Filipino. Rather awkwardly, and not without embarrassment, he asked Stark if he could fix it up with them to let Karen have a room there for one night, so he could see her before she left. "Sure," Stark said immediately and without hesitation. "They'll be glad to." "Hadnt you better ask them first?" "No need to. They'll do damn near anything I ask them to. I'm helping them to pay off their FHA loan." "Okay," Warden said. "You let me know what day she'll be there, and I'll tell them next time I go over. I'll show you the way over myself, so you wont get lost." "Okay," Warden said. He could not call her over the field phone, which made its connection into the public system through the Battalion Message Center, but that part was easy. The next time he had an excuse to go down to Position 17 he made the call from the home of the old couple upon whose small estate the pillboxes had been built, and who had practically adopted all the men on the position. The call went through perfect. Karen said immediately and without hesitation that she would come. It was a very strange experience, in more ways than one. As Stark brought him up the little side street that ran inland off the highway in the absolute blackness, the stocky Texan stopped and pointed out the house. "Thats it there," Stark said. "The beach type bungalow with the corner windows." Warden, looking, saw also the intensely familiar old Buick with the well-remembered, long-ago-committed-to-memory license plate. "You can find your way back all right, cant you?" Stark said. "Sure." "Then I'll leave you here and go on back." "But, aint you comin in?" "Naw," Stark said. "I was over last night. And probly will come over again tomorrow night." "But she'll want to thank you." "She dont need to thank me." "But hell, we're running you out of your own home, practicly." "I'm afraid seein me would embarrass her," Stark said. "Anyway," he said, "I dont want to see her. I aint seen her since at least two months before Holmes left the Compny. Why should I see her now?" "Okay," Warden said. "You might -" Stark said, and stopped. "Might what?" "Nothing," Stark said. "I'll see you," he said. He walked away into the lightless blackness and became invisible. Warden listened to his quiet footsteps fade away before he went up to the door. It was a strange experience, in a great many more ways than one. The beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl opened the door for him with brightly luminous eyes. Then the eyes clouded. "Didnt May-lon come? "He had some work to do. He said tell you he'd see you tomorrow." "Ahhh," she said reproachfully, from behind the cloudy eyes. Then she smiled. "Come on in, Sergeant." She shut the door behind him and turned back on the lights. Her husband, in bis dazzling white shirtsleeves and blue Navy pants beneath.the deep mahogany face, was sitting in the dinette with the Japanese-language newspaper. "Your friend is in there," the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said broodingly, and moved her eyes toward the closed door across the room. "She is very lovely, your friend," she said. "Thank you," Warden said. "And also I want to thank you for what you've done for us." "It is nothing, Sergeant. Do not speak of it. Everyone has troubles, now. "John," the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said softly, "come and meet May-lon's First Sergeant, Mr Warden." The husband, in his dazzling white shirtsleeves and blue Navy pants beneath the dark mahogany face, left his Japanese language daily paper and came and smiled and shook hands warmly. "But you will want to see your friend," the beautiful, almost-unearthly-lovely, Chinese-Hawaiian girl said sadly. "Not to stand and talk with us. I will show you." It was all strange, and the sense of strangeness colored everything. Karen was sitting in a big chair by the bed under the floor lamp reading a book, as the girl closed the door behind him softly. She had her legs drawn up against the chair arm in the green skirt tucked tight under her knees. Her small bag that he remembered was sitting on the floor by the dresser. She looked completely secure and at home. She looked at peace. "Hello, darling," she smiled. "Hello," Warden said. "Hello." He went to meet her, and she left the book on the chair arm and rose to meet him, in that same funny odd reserved way she had that he had almost forgotten. He put his arms around her and it was not like touching a foreign object but rather, like touching your own body, the way a man will clasp his own two hands together, in the cold perhaps, to keep them warm, as he has every right to do, without asking anyone's permission, since they are his hands. He could not tell her yet. Not just yet. He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Then she drew away with that funny odd reserve of hers, and he let her go watching her smile that deeper smile. "You'll get yourself all excited," she smiled. "Lets talk a while. Lets sit down." She sat back down in the chair and drew her legs up tight against her with her arms, and smiled at him over her knees. Warden sat down on the bed edge. "You dont look a bit different," she smiled. "I feel different," Warden said. "It was nice of them to let us come here." She said it sincerely, yet there was no gratitude in her, and no surprise, at the free use of a strangers house. It was like her smile, that same smile he had never seen in any other woman, at once so warmly loving and so very very far away. "It was Stark who arranged it," Warden said. "I know," she smiled. "The girl told me. She's a very lovely girl." "Yes." "And she's very much in love with Stark." "Yes." "Is he in love with her?" "I dont know. I think so. Some. But not as much, and not in the same way, as she loves him." "I know," she said quickly. "I've hurt him very much." "No. He hurt himself." He did not mention the six months at Bliss. He looked at it in his mind, and watched it fade away, so that he had no need to say it. "Oh, I do hope he can fall in love with her," Karen burst out suddenly, "the same way she loves him." "Maybe he will," Warden lied. "Oh, I hope so. He deserves it. He's a fine person. I'd like a chance to thank him for this, before he leaves." "He didnt come. He had some work to do and had to go back." "That isnt true," Karen said. "No, it isnt true. He was afraid it would embarrass you." Moisture welled up in her eyes, as he had seen it do before, over Prewitt, and then sank back down quietly, without ever overflowing. "He's a fine person," she said, "a very fine person." "Yes," Warden said. "He deserves much more than he's had." "Everyone does." "Maybe he'll find it with her." "Maybe he will," Warden lied again. He felt a very great tenderness, such as one feels with a beautiful child, and with it the same selfish unreasonable urge to protect it from all the things it does not know yet, not because of saving it hurt, but to keep it beautiful. "Did you have any trouble getting away?" he asked. "No." "Didnt Holmes say anything at all?" "He forbade me to come," she said simply. "And you came anyway?" "Of course, darling," she smiled. "I love you." For a moment Warden thought he could not stand it, not mental agony, but purely physically, physiologically, could not stand it. "I've got something I have to tell you," he said. "Yes?" "Its about my appointment in the Reserve Corps." "I already know," Karen smiled. "Its all they have been talking about back at Schofield for the past week." "And you mean you've known it all along? When I first came in the room?" "Yes." "Even when I called you?" "Yes." "And still you came anyway?" "Yes." "Even when Holmes forbade you?" "Yes." "Why?" "Because you wanted me to come. Because I wanted to come." "I'm not worth it," he said. "I'm not worth it. I'm a long way from worth it." She put her feet down to the floor with a startling suddenness, and leaned over and put her fingers over his mouth. "Hush," she said. "Dont say that. I wont have you say that." Warden moved her hand with an urgency that was almost savage. "I couldnt help it. I couldnt do anything else. I tried, but I couldnt." "I know you couldnt," she said soothingly. "And you knew all the time," he said inexpressively, "even when I called you." "I've known a lot longer than that. I think I've known for a long time. Only I just wouldnt let myself admit it. I think thats maybe why I love you, because I knew all along you couldnt. "Maybe we only love the things we cannot have. Maybe thats all love is. Maybe its supposed to be that way. "I've hated you," she said. "I've hated you bitterly, at times. All love has hate in it. Because you are tied to anyone you love, and it takes away part of your freedom and you resent it, you cant help it. And while you are resenting the loss of your own freedom, you are trying to force the other to give up to you every last little bit of his own. Love cant help but make hate. As long as we're living on this earth, love will always have hate in it. Maybe thats the reason we're on this earth, to learn to love without hating." She was still leaning forward toward him, her arms on the fatless so-lovely knees, her eyes shining, her hand that Warden had moved from his mouth still in his hand. "I tried," he said contortedly. "Nobody'll ever know how I tried." "I'll know." "No you wont. But I looked at them, Ross and Culpepper and Cribbage and the rest of them, and I saw what they were "I couldnt do it." "Of course you couldnt. If you could have you wouldnt really be Milt Warden. And I wouldnt love you." "But the plans. The rest of it. All the rest of it. I've ruined all that." "It isnt important." "It is important." "I've owned a thousand houses that I've never built," she said. "Never had the money to build. Couldnt have used if I had had the money. Never really wanted to build, maybe. But I still own the houses." "Live in your memories," Warden said bitterly. "No. Not at all," she said clearly. "Not that at all. But I still have my houses." "Why does the world have to be like it is?" Warden said, letting himself go completely. "I dont know why the world has to be like it is." "I dont know either," she said. "And I used to be very bitter about it. But now I know it has to be that way. Theres no other way for it to be. Whenever a menace is conquered, a new more subtle menace arises. There is no other way it could be." "I've never done anything but take from you," Warden said contortedly. "You've given and given. I've never given. I've only taken." "No," Karen said. "Thats not true. You've given me my freedom. Dana can never touch me any more. Never hurt me any more. You've made me know I'm attractive. You've made me loved." "Stark gave you the same thing. At Bliss." "What Stark gave me, he took away and nullified in the end. He made sure he destroyed all of it, before he left it." "Like I am doing now." "No. You're not. And, really, the truth, I dont think I would have it any other way. I dont think, now, I would want to marry you. We've both been slowly throttling our love to death. We've been losing it slowly. You know we have." "Yes," Warden said. "Thats true." "But this way we will never lose it. Love either starves to death and becomes a shadow, or else it dies young and remains a dream. The only way we could have kept love was to have never had each other. If we could have gone on here as we were, always hungering, never having, we could have kept love. But neither one of us could do that; we both were fighting that very thing, with every force we knew. To have gotten married would have been the coup de grace to a starving man. But the war has stopped that. Wars have their good sides, too." "Karen," Warden said, "how did you learn the