From Here to Eternity

by James Jones

Capt Holmes had met the Brigadier before, of course. He knew who he was. But he had only met him formally. An informal party of this kind was a very different thing, with a general officer. And this Brigadier was a big man on the Post. He was newly from the States and was considered a brilliant tactician and thought to be a comer. The Rumors had it that his present unconventional position in Brigade was only a temporary expedient, until the crotchety old Major General could be eased out and retired to pasture to make room for the younger man. Capt Holmes was glad that he was young enough to see through Col Delbert.

  “There’ll be five of us,” Col Delbert puffed as they climbed the stairs. “Six women. More excitin’ that way. Eh? And these, sir, ’re all dark. Two Japanese, one Chinese, two Chinese-Hawaiians, and one pure nigger—or damn’ near pure: Th’ say th’ are no pure Hawaiians any more.”

  “Col Delbert,” said Capt Holmes, “believes in taking advantage of the locale in which he’s stationed.”

  The Brigadier laughed and glanced at him slyly. He grinned back happily cynically.

  “B’ Gad yes,” the Col puffed. “Wont be in th’ Hawaiian D’pa’tm’nt all m’ life life. I hope. But this full blood Hawaiian is a rare bird th’ts hard to catch.”

  “Fine. I’ve never fucked a pure Hawaiian,” the young Brigadier said and grinned at Capt Holmes as if to say, tie that.

  Col Lalbert tried not to look shocked. “I’ve only had a couple of them m’self,” he said modestly, and led them into the first room, which was without bed.

  Col Delbert had, as usual, hired all three of the apartments and opened the connecting doors between, so that there were six rooms in a shotgun row. The apartments had originally been built on to provide temporary quarters for new officers or visiting officers but they were never used for that any more so that the Club Officer hit upon the idea to rent them out for private parties, in order to make the Club as near self-supporting as possible. After the idea caught on the Club was not only self-supporting but began to show a profit.

  “Well, sir,” Col Delbert asked proudly. “What do you think of it. Eh?”

  There were several Haig & Haig pinchbottles and a few Old Forresters, all with unbroken seals, set artistically about. There were also three trays of syphon bottles and the long thick-bottomed highball glasses with game fowl in color on them.

  “Ah.” The Brigadier, who was a tall man, stretched himself full out and sniffed the tired air that the open windows had not yet refreshed. “Reminds me of the old secret societies back at the Point.”

  Col Delbert laughed solicitously. “Already have the steaks arranged for. My orderly, Jeff, takes care of it. Had him bring this stuff from home. Always been a stickler for th’ proper equipment, whether in the field or in the bed. Makes all the difference. Eh? Jeff’s down in the kitchen arranging for a cook and gettin’ some ice.”

  The Brigadier examined the label on a bottle and did not answer.

  Col Delbert spread his arms and said facetiously, “Gen’r’l Slater, we representatives of th’ —th Regiment welcome you to th’ haven of th’ male oppressed.”

  Capt Holmes was studying his nervous Colonel happily.

  The Brigadier collapsed his thin frame into an overstuffed chintz covered chair. “Sam Slater,” he corrected. “Sam Slater from Sheboygan. Dont give me that rank crap, Jake. There is nobody who believes in the efficacy of rank and privilege more than me, its my bread and butter. But in the proper time and place, see? Which is not now and here.”

  “Okay, Sam,” Jake Delbert grinned uneasily, “‘stand corrected. I . . .”

  “And you,” Sam Slater shot at Holmes, “might as well call me Sam, too. However, if you ever do such a thing outside on the Post, I’ll bust you back to a shavetail, see?”

  “Okay,” Holmes grinned, liking him still better. “I never been good at blackmail anyway.”

  Sam Slater look at him a moment. Then he laughed. “You know, I like your protege, Jake,” he said.

  “He’s a good boy,” Jake said apprehensively. “But he’s not exactly what you’d call my protege,” he started to explain.

  Sam Slater was watching both of them speculatively, like a piano virtuoso studying the keys from which he draws his music. “Frankly,” he grinned at Holmes, “when old Jake here said he had a young Captain going along on a party I thought oh balls.” He looked at Jake. “But I might have known old Jake Delbert knew his onions, mightnt I?” he obviously lied. Even to Jake it was plainly a lie.

  “I knew you’d like him though,” Jake lied back stoutly. His mustache raised its little wings nervously, like a fledgling that had not quite got used to flying yet.

  “I’m sure he gave me quite a build up,” Holmes said.

  “Oh, he did,” Sam Slater said. “Didnt you, Jake? Told me all about you. And about how sorry he was you’d lost that championship, that by rights you really should have had.”

  “I always try to be as honest as I can,” Jake said.

  “I would not,” Sam Slater said, “have said what I just said, about calling me Sam, to just any junior officer. Even here under these circumstances. Most of them wouldnt understand it, would they, Jake?”

  “No, Sam. They sure as hell wouldnt,” Jake said, a little dubiously. He had been watching Holmes. He had never seen him in this irreverent mood before.

  Capt Holmes, who had never felt this mood with Col Delbert, felt now some subtle understanding with the Brigadier that not only drew him on but promised safety. He wanted to chuckle. It wasnt often that he got to see the Colonel on the hook and with his back against the wall and frightened.

  Jake was obviously relieved when S/Sgt Jefferson came in with the ice. He set him to mixing the first drinks and supervised him relentlessly, then made him bring the field glasses that were within reach on the table and, without thanking him, irritably sent him to Wahiawa for the women.

  “And be god damn’ careful none of th’ civil’ns see you drivin’ them around in my official car. Or it ’l be your neck, Jeff. See?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Jeff said impassively. You felt he should have bowed.

  Jake did not even turn around. He was standing carefully back from the window, adjusting the glasses on the lighted windows across the gulch that were the nurses’ quarters.

  Jake always brought his glasses on the stags since the first time he had brought them for a lark and happened to tune them in on two lesbians in action who had left their blind up. It had livened up the stag considerably when he passed the glasses to all hands, including the women. The two nurses, of course, were through; one of them had resigned her commission and gone back home; the other transferred to PI. Since then Jake had no luck except for an occasional undressing, but he would not give up hope.

  “Not a damn’ thin’,” he said disconsolately, and flung the glasses on the table. “Not even a bloody nude, b’ Gad.”

  Neither of the others answered him. Sam Slater was still talking to Holmes. He had gone from the particular into the general, concerning junior officers.

  “The thing that immediately struck me was you were not afraid. Most junior officers today are just like the EM—insanely afraid of their superiors. Their every thought and action is governed by this perpetual apprehensiveness of official disapproval. In fact, most senior officers are the same way. Its very seldom you can find a man amongst all of them with whom you can talk reasonably, which makes it hard for a man like myself, see?”

  “But its always been that way, hasnt it?” Holmes said.

  “Ah,” Sam Slater smiled. “Thats just where you’re wrong. And a little objective thinking will prove you are wrong. It hasnt always been that way. I’ve got quite a theory about that”

  “Well, lets hear it,” Dynamite said enthusiastically. “I’m all ears. It isnt often I find a reasonable man to talk to either,” he said happily, grinning at Jake.

  Jake did not grin back. He had heard this theory before and did not like it. It frightened him somehow and he could not bring himself to be
lieve that life was really like that. Also, he considered it an injury to General Slater’s dignity and to his own for the General to discuss it with a Captain, who was not even an aide but only a company commander. He nursed his drink in silence, wondering how such a brilliant man as young Slater, of whom he had always been afraid, could so unbend himself.

  “In the past,” Sam Slater said carefully, “this fear of authority was only the negative side of a positive moral code of ‘Honor, Patriotism, and Service.’ In the past, men sought to achieve the positives of the code, rather than simply to avoid its negatives.”

  He was obviously choosing his words gingerly, as if worried that they would not be understood. And as he talked, he grew still more charming than before as his enthusiasm increased. Sam Slater’s enthusiasm, Holmes noticed, affected the man strangely. He did not get excited. Instead of leaning forward and talking faster, he seemed to relax and talk slower and slower, growing calmer and more cold than ever. And yet he was more charming.

  “But the advent of materialism and the machine age changed all that, see? We have seen the world change,” he said, “in our time. The machine has destroyed the meaning of the old positive code. Obviously, you cannot make a man voluntarily chain himself to a machine because its ‘Honorable.’ The man knows better.”

  Holmes nodded his agreement. It was an original idea.

  “All that is left, then,” Sam Slater went on, “is the standardized negative side of the code as expressed in Law. The fear of authority which was once only a side issue but today is the main issue, because its the only issue left.

  “You cant make a man believe it is ‘Honorable,’ so you have no choice but to make him afraid of not chaining himself to his machine. You can do it by making him afraid of his friends’ disapproval. You can shame him because he is a social drone. You can make him afraid of starving unless he works for his machine. You can threaten him with imprisonment. Or, in the highest efficiency, you can make him afraid of death by execution.

  “But you cant tell him it is ‘Honorable’ any more. You have to make him afraid.”

  “By god!” Holmes said. He smacked his fist down into his palm excitedly.

  Sam Slater smiled indulgently. “Thats why, today, our junior officers (and our senior officers) have only this fear and nothing else. They are living by the only code their time allows them. In the Civil War they could still believe they fought for ‘Honor.’ Not any more. In the Civil War the machine won its first inevitable major victory over the individual. ‘Honor’ died.

  “Therefore, it is asinine to attempt to control men with ‘Honor’ any more. It leads only to inefficiency and ineffective control. And in our 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 indust
rialists, 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.