Leon Uris (45 page)

“Rory, you are paddock master?”

“Aye.”

“And yourself, Johnny?”

“I’ve got a title, I’m not sure what it means or how to do it. Apparently there is nothing in the books on my kind of duty.”

“What is it?” Modi asked.

“I’m to be the beach master. Indicates we’ll be landing from ships, I’d say.”

“That answers a lot of questions about destroying the animals. We’re probably to be supplied from the sea. Well, Rory, you and I will have to make the decisions to destroy…and when we get the pack master, he can also do it.”

Rory led a silence in which he came close to fainting. He felt Pearlman pat his shoulder over and over. “That’s war. It’s worse to see men die.”

“At least they had a choice,” Rory mumbled.

“I don’t think so,” Modi answered, with a knowing of wars past.

Two days later Serjeant Yurlob Singh, Third Sikh Mountain Howitzers, was brought to Pig Island. He was slender but military-ramrod, turbaned, his beard meticulously groomed hair by hair. From a sect of legendary fighters, Yurlob was annoyed to be transferred, yet totally proper
and totally unfriendly as he snapped out his answers. He gave off an air that anyone who asked him a question was to be answered as though he were an idiot for asking.

For the next several days Yurlob tortured Chester Goodwood, demanding letter-perfect instructions on the very intricate art of packing.

“Yurlob is driving us nutty,” Rory complained to Johnny Tarbox. “You can’t get near the bugger.”

“We’re lucky to have him,” Johnny retorted.

“He treats us like we’re monkeys.”

“We are, according to him.”

“What’s going on, John? You on that raghead’s side?”

“Hey, Rory. Yurlob has had to work a hundred times harder to earn his respect and get his chevrons than we did. His dignity is his entire life…but don’t you know, he’s a man. He’s away from his own cobbers and he’s a little bit scared inside. Remember, he’s covering his fears. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Rory said, “I know. It’s only, I wish, maybe a smile. Maybe some trust?”

“That will come,” Johnny said. “Meanwhile, he’ll teach this battalion packing like they were loading fine porcelain on the backs of those animals.”

Rory had become more and more amazed by Johnny Tarbox and the way he sized up men. Christ, if men could only admit fear without being ashamed.

As the mule manual slugged to conclusion, a large shipment of equipment arrived, including saddles, blinds, shoes, ribbings, lines, canvas, leather, coronas, and a blacksmith shop.

This allowed a detailed training schedule to be laid out, including daily lectures by Yurlob Singh, Modi, and Rory. Everything was falling into place. They had a hardened battalion of nearly seven hundred men with animal experience, enough equipment to train with, and a manual.

They had everything now. Everything except mules.

Rory had been emotionally wracked since learning that Lieutenant Jeremy was the very same Jeremy Hubble, the Viscount Coleraine whom Conor had befriended as a child. Jeremy apparently held Conor in the same high esteem he did. He had worked alongside Conor on the great screen at Hubble Manor and learned and played Gaelic football as a member of the Bogside team.

But more than Jeremy, his mother was the fabled Countess Caroline, Conor’s childhood longing and later his patron and unfulfilled love.

After Conor left New Zealand his first letters to Rory told of a joyous reunion with Jeremy and Caroline and later of the tour of the English Midlands. He chaperoned, trained, and tutored Jeremy, and the Boilermakers had won the Admiral’s Cup.

Rory now reckoned that Jeremy must have lost personal contact with Conor after Sixmilecross. In all likelihood Jeremy and Conor never spoke or wrote to one another again.

Why, Rory wondered, couldn’t he just go to Jeremy straightforward and say, “Landers isn’t my real name. I am Rory Larkin and Conor was my uncle?”

This was Rory’s frustration. His secret about Conor being his uncle was so deep he could not even share it with Chester.

There was a final dark reason. Rory eventually had to find his way to Ireland. Once Jeremy knew that Rory was a “once removed” Irish republican with the Larkin name it stood to sour their relationship. Moreover, if the men of the battalion I learned, it would change his standing. Men whose trust he had gained would have an attitude of apprehension.

Maybe someday he and Jeremy might be close enough to share the secret and share Conor, but it hardly seemed likely. The bottom line of it all was to keep on playing Rory Landers.

Being Landers was not all that bad. He was with some lively cobbers and included Lieutenant Jeremy as a kind of friend. He wore an armful of British chevrons and was doing a job to his liking.

Then came the shock of Georgia’s letter and the earth beneath him opened up and he plunged into a bottomless hole and the earth swallowed him up.

He read the cruel words he already knew from memory, as though one more reading might change them on her pages.

Rory toughed it out, determined not to let it take him down. Bad news from home was killer stuff. He made himself believe he’d weather it. Hell, Georgia was right. He knew how she loved him, but as she had told him on that final morning, “It was never on between us.”

The initial pain was dulled by a climb to the top of a pyramid by moonlight and a bottle of deplorable Egyptian wine.

For morning after morning he awoke to remembering the letter, reading it again, bullying through the day, and turning fierce energy into the mule manual. One morning, he just plain knew he was going to keep on living.

There were a few corrections to make in the manual. Rory marked them carefully and jotted a requisition.

He put it in the message center basket, looked about the office and secured it, flicked off the light, and locked the door.

There was a light down the hall coming from Lieutenant Hubble’s office. “Probably forgot to turn it off,” Rory mumbled. He stepped in to see Lieutenant Jeremy with his face buried in his folded arms on the desk. Rory turned to go, then decided not to and cleared his throat.

Jeremy lifted his head. He looked awful. Rory closed the door behind him. “You all right, sir?”

“Hell, no,” Jeremy answered.

Rory saw a letter on the desk, apparently the object of Lieutenant Jeremy’s discomfort.

“Shall I go, sir?”

“No, no, no, sit down, Serjeant. Anything going on?”

“I made a final check of the manual. Looks fine. I
ordered three copies printed, one for us, one for the Major, and one to submit to Dr. Ellsworth at Corps Should I hold that one up?”

“Major Hubble is at staff school. He won’t be back for several days, much to the battalion’s sorrow, I’m sure. No, we can’t lose any more time. Send a copy through to Corps, I’ll explain it to the Major.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So it’s really finished. Great job, Serjeant.”

“We’ve got a super little squad, even…well, never mind.”

“That asshole Yurlob?” Jeremy said.

“Well, let’s put it this way. He’s good. The soldiers in this battalion will still be packing mules in their sleep when they are old men.”

It was apparent that Lieutenant Jeremy was in need of a friend at this moment. He didn’t seem to hang around with the officers and certainly didn’t hide his feelings about his brother. Yet, despite the closeness of the gaffer squad, non-fraternization rules between officer and enlisted men made intimate conversation extremely difficult.

“What happened, Lieutenant?” Rory dared ask.

Jeremy wanted to dump the centuries of ancient military tradition but merely shook his head.

“You’re hurting, sir,” Rory continued boldly. “We all feel very strongly about you, Lieutenant. You can trust us with your life. If we didn’t have you between us and the Major, we couldn’t have gotten our work done.”

“I’m flattered, but you are exaggerating.”

“May I say something that will never leave this room?”

“Go ahead.”

“That’s a real fine battalion the Major has built out there…but…enough is enough. If he pushes them any further he may be asking for trouble. Well, thank God the gaffers didn’t have to deal with him. He would have
flicked up our squad to a point where the entire battalion’s training would be in trouble. We pushed through this manual and training schedule because of your protection.”

“That’s treason, you know. Mutiny,” Jeremy said, smiling. “Let me tell you something, Serjeant. The last time I felt so good was when I was with men like you playing on the Boilermaker rugby squad. If I could have only held that moment of life, captured it, and put it in a bottle. Only time in my life I really felt like a…man…was with those mates. One of them in particular was my mentor, a big brother…even more.”

Rory’s heart raced.

“We do have a magical group of men: you—Tarbox, Chester, Modi…I really like Modi. Yurlob will come around. Bloody crime we just can’t all go into Cairo and get pissed together.”

“That would be a blast. You can count on us, Lieutenant, on duty or off. We’re here for you. Excuse me, sir.”

“Serjeant.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t go. I feel very comfortable and very strongly about the friendship you and I have developed. Jesus, I’ve got to unload.”

Rory slipped into a chair and Jeremy soon closed his eyes and spoke as if in a trance. The silent friendship had already begun by Jeremy’s censoring Rory’s letters. He was in on Rory’s life. It was not difficult at all to suddenly find himself speaking about his own past.

Jeremy slowly wove the talk of his love affair with Molly O’Rafferty, his betrayal of her, his betrayal by mates of his own class, his years of drunken remorse. He spoke of the loss of his mother’s love and the regaining of it. Time and again Conor Larkin’s name came up, but in vain. Conor had already gone into an underground life when Jeremy and Molly ended their affair.

Jeremy then realized that this was the first time he had ever spoken the story aloud to anyone.

“This came today,” Jeremy said, sliding the letter over the desk. “Please read it.”

“She writes beautifully,” Rory said.

“She writes as she is,” Jeremy said. “She’s a glorious woman, Rory.” On hearing his first name spoken by the officer, Rory knew their relationship would not be as officer to enlisted man, except when on duty. “Call me Jeremy.”

“I’d like that, but Jaysus, if I slip up in front of anyone.”

“Fuck it, call me Jeremy.”

“All right, cobber, Jeremy it is.”

“Please read on.”

Rory laid the letter down. “Sometimes I wish the fucking mail boat would sink before it gets here,” he said. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I feel better just having talked about it. Yes, I’m going to tough it out. My days of rolling over and dying are done with.”

The letter in Rory’s breast pocket suddenly burned. He reached up, unbuttoned his pocket and withdrew it. Jeremy took it from his hand.

“From Georgia?”

Rory looked at him quizzically.

“I don’t get any pleasure out of snooping, but I have to censor the outgoing mail. The married lady, heavy with lousy husband?”

“Aye,” Rory grunted.

“After I read what goes out, I often wonder what comes back in,” Jeremy said. “She writes beautifully as well.” When he finished reading, the two letters lay touching, two more of war’s uncounted casualties. The two men sat silent and motionless for a long, long spell.

“I guess this makes us pals to the death,” Jeremy said at last. “I need a girl,” he went on suddenly. “I need to close my eyes and maybe pretend. No, I’ve done enough pretending. I won’t see Molly for five years, if ever, if she’s alive…if…if…if…. Am I being a rotter for needing a woman?”

“We’re soldiers heading for battle. We’ve nothing to come back to. Who’s to pass judgment?”

“Hell, my family is a cascade, a landslide of judgments. Now Christopher, there’s the king of judgments. He can do it because he is sexless. He’s got a wife who is sexless. They can’t procreate. Nothing excites him, nothing puts him into despair. He feels no moral pain or moral joy. Anger is his mother’s milk, as though he were weaned from a pit bull. Well, once he terrified me, and my father terrified me, and the earldom terrified me. That’s why I gave up Molly. No…the thought of poverty terrified me.”