by James Jones
“Well, Sir,” Capt Holmes said. “We’ve got a fifty-fifty chance so far. We’re ahead of the 27th on points; but not with enough margin to have a cinch,” he added.
“Then you dont think we’ll win it?” Col Delbert said.
“I didnt say that, Sir,” said Capt Holmes.
“Well,” the Col said, “either you think we’ll win it, or you dont think we’ll win it. Dont you?”
“Yes, Sir,” Holmes said.
“Then which?”
“What?” Holmes said. “Oh, we’ll win it, Sir.”
“Good. Good,” the Col said. “There hasnt been enough work put on athletics here the last two years.”
Capt Holmes considered carefully. “Yes, Sir,” he said. “But I think all we coaches did our best.”
The Col nodded, emphatically. “Think so too. But we ’ve got to get results. Our S-3 training is all very fine, soldiers need to drill to keep them busy. But in peacetime we both know its our athletic programs that keep us before the public’s eye. Particularly here in the Islands where there are no big-time sports. Have talked to the rest of our athletic heads, except for you; your season isnt over yet. Am relieving Major Simmons from football.”
The Col smiled significantly and the little mustache became a chicken hawk. “Results. Results what counts. He has requested reassignment to the Mainland, of course,” he added.
Capt Holmes nodded, thinking fast. This was recent. Today. Or he would have heard about it. That left a majority open—unless they imported somebody. Of course, the rating wasn’t open, but the job was, and if a man got appointed to the job it would probably mean his own promotion would be recommended.
The Col placed his big hands flat upon the serenity of his desk. “Well,” he said. “What was it you wanted, ‘Dynamite’?”
Holmes had almost forgotten what he came for. “Oh,” he said. “One of my old men, Sir. Came to see me a week ago. Wants to transfer up here with me. He’s at Fort Kamehameha, Coast Artillery. Served with me at Bliss. I wanted to see you about him so I could be sure it went through all right.”
The little mustache flapped its wings slyly. “Another fighter, eh. We’re little over strength, but it can be arranged. I’ll even write letter to Department on ’t.”
Capt Holmes bent down to pat the Colonel’s dog. “Why, no, Sir. He’s not a fighter. He’s a cook. A good man, though. Best cook I ever had.”
“Oh,” the Col said.
“He served with me at Bliss, Sir. I’ll vouch for him personally.”
“I’ll have it attended to,” Col Delbert said. “Tell me, how ’s that outfit of yours getting along? Still balling the jack? Your company interests me. It proves my theory: good athletes make good noncoms and good leaders; good leaders make a good organization. Simple logic. Plenty of cattle in this world, that have to be driven. But without good leaders nothing’s ever accomplished.”
Capt Holmes’s eyes went opaque and out of focus with his shyness. “I flatter myself, Sir,” he smiled, “that I have the most efficient outfit in the Regiment.”
“Yes. Now First Sergeant Warden is an example of my logic. An all around athlete before he—ah—took up the grail, as I call it.”
Capt Holmes laughed.
“I imagine he bitches a lot,” the Col said, “but a good soldier always bitches. Good for him. Good soldiers are born—born wild and wooly, like Sergeant Warden. Only time to worry about a good soldier is when he stops bitching. My grandfather taught me that.”
Capt Holmes nodded vigorously. “Yes, Sir,” he said, although this philosophy had not originated with the Colonel’s grandfather. It was widespread and he had heard it all before. But it was good. That about Warden, particularly, was so true. He was feeling better.
Col Delbert suddenly brought his swivel chair back up level and scooted it up to the desk. He spoke sharply.
“Now tell me, Captain: Just what are your prospects for next year? You say you’ll win this year, so we’ll dismiss that. You’re as good as your word with me, sir. But if we are to win we must begin to plan early. That’s a maxim, my grandfather. Winning this year is not enough. We must plan on winning next year. In this world it is the winner who gets spoils. I dont know about the next world but I imagine it ’s the same thing there, in spite of what our skypilots tell us. Would you say we’ve a good chance of winning?”
Capt Holmes felt suddenly hedged in. There was a condition attached to the majority, provided of course he won this year, and he was being pinned down for it.
“Well, yes, Sir,” he said.
“As good a chance as we have now? of winning this year?”
“Well, Sir. No. I wouldnt say exactly that.” Capt Holmes racked his brain. “We’re due to lose three Class I boys, Sir, you know, as short timers.”
“Ah,” the Col said. “I know. But you still have Sgt Wilson and Sgt O’Hayer. Do we have nothing else by way of replacement?”
“I have one new man who did fairly well this year in the Bowl. Pvt Bloom. I’m thinking of grooming him for a shot at the middleweight next year.”
The Col kept staring at him and his eyes kept slipping out of focus off the Colonel’s face, hard as he tried to keep them there. His left cheek itched and he wished he had a stick of gum. But then he could not chew it. He wished he’d never come up here in the first place.
“Bloom?” the Col said. “Bloom. Great big Jewish boy with a flat head and kinky hair? And that’s all?”
“Well, Sir, no, Sir. I wanted to ask you about that. I have no heavyweight worth a damn. Corporal Choate was Heavyweight Champion of Panama not so long ago. I’ve been trying to get him to go out ever since I came here.”
“Ah,” the Col said. “He wont go out.”
“No, Sir.”
“Corporal Choate is probably the best firstbaseman in the Islands. We dont want to lose our firstbaseman, do we?”
“No, Sir.”
“I’m afraid you couldn’t count on Choate.”
Capt Holmes nodded. The baseball team would lose out anyway, but they wanted you to win. They always wanted you to win. The winner gets the gravy. The Colonel’s goddamned dog was still boredly asleep, hind legs spread flat and belly to the floor, front legs crossed as nonchalantly as a male lead in morning trousers. Every officer in the Regiment had to coddle the little bastard.
Why dont you chuck it, Holmes? he thought. And do what? Go where?
“I have one new man, Sir,” he said, though he had meant to save this one back. “Name is Prewitt. Fought for the 27th. Runnerup in the welterweight division. He was transferred to my Company from the Bugle Corps.”
The fatherly smile appeared. “Well now, fine. That’s fine. You say he was in the Regiment? in the Bugle Corps?”
Holmes was tired. “Yes, Sir.” That damned smug dog. “Been here a year.” Sleeping and eating and allowing himself to be coddled. “Ever since last boxing season.” Son of a bitching little fat dog with such a goddamned easy life.
“Remarkable!” the Col said. “In the Bugle Corps. Too bad we didnt know about it this year. Could have used him. But then no one ever knows who’s in the Bugle Corps. You’ve talked to him?”
“Yes, Sir,” Holmes said. Might as well give him all of it, now. “He refuses to go out.” If you had an ounce of guts, Holmes, you would have added, “too.”
Col Delbert turned his head on stiff shoulders. “He cant refuse to go out.”
“He did, Sir.” Capt Holmes realized he had made an error. He didnt give a damn, to hell with it. Still, where would you go? He refrained from mentioning the Company Bugler job.
“No, he didn’t,” the Col said precisely. His eyes were curiously flat. “You just think he did. It’s your job to see th’t he does go out.
“If he knew it was for the Regiment’s sake he would want to go out. All you have to do is convince him. Let him know how much the Regiment needs him.”
The Regiment, Capt Holmes thought. Thats all. The honor and reputation of the Regi
ment. Col Delbert’s Regiment. And he doesnt even want to know why he wont go out. At least I asked him that, he told himself. You already knew it, himself said.
The fatherly smile lubricated the flatted eyes, creating a peculiarly imperfect picture. “If you’re going to need the man, you must convince him.
“And from what you’ve told me I gather you will need him?”
“I could certainly use him, Sir.”
“Then convince him. I might as well be frank. We have got to win that next year. Because that is all we can win. Keep that in mind. I want you to keep your hand in. A few workouts now and then. You can have the gym afternoons now and then. Start building now. That’s important: Plan Now.”
“Yes, Sir,” Capt Holmes said. “I’ll start in soon.”
But his voice was overwhelmed by the screek of an opening drawer, the traditional indication that the interview was ended. Col Delbert raised his eyes from the drawer and looked at Holmes inquiringly, but Capt Holmes was already on his feet replacing the chair against the wall. Anyway, he had gotten a green light on Stark’s transfer and that was what he came for.
The wood noises woke the cocker and he rose and stretched himself, one leg at a time, unrolling his pink tongue in an insolent yawn. He licked his chops and stared at Holmes accusingly. Holmes stared back, lost in sudden thought, his hand still on the chair, enviously watching the sleek black wellfed arrogance stretch itself back out on the polished floor and resume its interrupted meditation. He remembered his hand on the chair then, removed it, turned around for the impersonal ritual of saluting. With all its time-stopping associations of the Point, and God, it seemed to draw him in again to the Old Man, by its very deliberateness. But he knew it did not change anything.
“Oh,” the Col said, as Holmes reached the door. “How is Miss Karen getting along? She feeling better?”
“She’s feeling a little better lately,” Capt Holmes said, turning back. The Colonel’s eyes had lost their flatness and become deep, very deep with a little red light at the bottom.
“A fine lady,” Col Delbert said. “Last time I saw her was at General Hendricks’ party at the Club. My wife is giving a bridge party this week. She would like to have her come.”
Capt Holmes forced himself to shake his head. “I know she’d be delighted,” he said, “but I doubt very much if she’ll be feeling up to it, Sir. She’s none too strong, you know. Things like that excite her so.”
“Ah,” the Col said. “Too bad. Told my wife I was afraid of that. Ah, will she be feeling well enough by the time the Brigadier’s party comes up?”
“I hope so, Sir,” Capt Holmes said. “I know how badly she would hate to miss it.”
“Ah,” the Col said. “Certainly hope’ll be able to come. We all enjoy her company so much. Charmin’ lady, really, Captain.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Capt Holmes said, not looking back at that red light at the bottom of the deepness.
“By the way, Captain, I’m giving another little stag next week. I’ve secured the same apartment upstairs at the Club. You’re invited, of course.”
Holmes’s eyes went opaque again as he grinned, shamefacedly. “I’ll be there, Sir.”
“Ah,” the Col said, opening his mouth and tilting back his head and looking at the other down his nose. “Fine. Good. Thats good.” He opened another of his desk drawers.
Capt Holmes left.
The stag made him feel a little better, in spite of the pinning down. How could anyone say positively who would win? But at least he wasnt on the shitlist yet, those stags were exclusive, nothing but rank there.
But down deep it did not change a thing and the porch and stairs, as he went down going home now to lunch, had lost their sense of permanence. Some day he would be reassigned, back to the States he hoped, anyway some place where there was Cavalry again. What a wild idea this had been, this going in the Infantry just to do a tour in the Islands, the goddamned Paradise of the Pacific.
Still, he told himself, it isn’t as if you’re going to spend the rest of your life in Schofield Barracks. What can he do?
He would have to speak to Karen, though. The Colonel would want her at the Brigadier’s party. He would have to talk her into going, some way. If she would only consent to be nice to the old duffer, it might mean the majority even if the squad lost, this year or next. He didnt want her to sleep with him or anything like that. Just be nice to him.
Walking out the truck entrance he returned the salutes of several privates coming from the PX without seeing them, and crossed the street to the house.
Chapter 6
KAREN HOLMES WAS ABSORBED in the brushing of her long blonde hair when she heard the back door slam and the heavy tread of Holmes across the kitchen floor.
She had been brushing it now almost an hour, rapt in the purely sensual pleasure of it that required no thought, free for once in this that did not make her think of freedom, alive to these long golden hairs that singly and in masses curved themselves about the stiff long bristles of the brush, until it had, as she desired, entranced her, away from all of it. Away where nothing else existed but this mirror in which she saw the rhythm of this moving arm that was herself.
That was why she loved to brush her hair so. She loved to cook, too; for the same reason. She was an excellent cook, when she felt like it. She also read voraciously. She could even enjoy the poor books, when she had to. She was not, accurately, of the stuff from which an Army wife is made.
The slamming door broke the rapture, and she found that she was staring into the eyes of her own deathmask, pale and wan with all the blood sucked out by a modern vampire called Embalmer, leaving only the gashed bloody wound that was her lipsticked mouth. It was urging her to hurry up and find the thing.
Leave me, Mask, she said at it.
If, replied the Mask, you shrink from evil when its cloak is flung upon your shoulders, the more closely will it wrap its suffocating folds around you.
She laid aside the brush and covered with her hands the face that haunted her most of all with its futility of emptiness, hearing the footsteps of Military Doom coming swift across the dining room.
Holmes barged into the room, his hat still on his head.
“Oh,” he said, guiltily. “Hello. I didnt know you were home. I just came in to change my uniform.”
Karen picked up the brush and went back to her hair. “The car is parked outside,” she said.
“It is?” Holmes said. “I didnt see it.”
“I went over to the Company this morning,” Karen said, “looking for you.”
“What for?” Holmes said. “You know I dont like to have you over there, around the men.”
“I wanted you to get some things for me,” she lied. “I thought you’d be there.”
“I had some business to attend to before I went in,” Holmes lied. He undid his tie and threw it on the bed and sat down with the boot jack. Karen did not answer. “That was all right, wasnt it?” he protested.
“But of course,” she said. “I have no right to inquire into your actions. That was the agreement.”
“Then why bring it up?”
“Because I wanted you to know I’m not as stupid as you maintain all women are.”
Holmes stood the boots up by the bed and stripped off sweat-damp shirt and breeches. “Now what does that mean? What are you accusing me of now?”
“Of nothing,” Karen smiled. “Its no longer any of my business how many you go out with, is it? But I wish for God’s sake you could just be honest about it once.”
“Now,” he cried disgustedly, seeing the excitement of the riding date fading rapidly before him, “Now! All I did was come home to change my uniform and get some lunch. Thats all.”
“I thought,” she said, “you didnt know I was here.”
“I didnt, goddam it. I just thought, you might be here,” he finished lamely, flustered at being caught in the lie. “God damn,” he blustered. “Other women. What brings that on this time? Ho
w many times do I have to tell you I havent any other women before you’ll believe me?”
“Dana,” Karen said. “Give me credit for a little brains.” She laughed, and looking in the mirror, broke off suddenly, shocked at the hatred that was on her face.
“If I had them,” he said, self-pity in his voice, putting on fresh socks, “dont you think I’d admit it to you? Theres no reason I should try to hide it, is there? the way things are between us now?” he asked her bitterly. “What right have you to always be accusing me of that?”
“What right?” Karen said, looking at him in the mirror.
Under the indictment of her eyes Holmes cringed. “All right,” he said dejectedly. “That again. How long will it be, I wonder, before I am allowed to live that down? How many times do I have to tell you, It Was An Accident?”
“That makes it all all right, I suppose,” she said. “That takes all the scars away, and we can just pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I didnt say that,” Holmes cried. “I know what its done to you. But how was I to know? I didnt know it myself until too late. What more is there for me to say, except I’m sorry?” Looking back at her in the mirror he tried to be indignant, but had to drop his eyes. The uniform on the floor shamed him with the existence of the wet spots of his body water on its cloth.
“Please, Dana,” Karen said shrilly, franticness in her voice. “You know how much I hate to talk about it. I’m trying to forget it.”
“All right,” Holmes said. “You brought it up. I dont like to think about it either, but neither one of us will ever be allowed to forget it. I’ve lived with it for eight years now.” He stood up wearily, walking to the closet for another uniform, temporarily defeated. All the anticipation of this afternoon’s adventure was gone now, hardly seeming worth the trouble.
“So have I lived with it,” Karen called after him. “You got off easy. At least it didnt scar you any.”
Furtively, on the side away from him, privately, she slipped her hand down to her belly, feeling with her fingers the thick ridge of the scar. There lies the evil, she thought hysterically, the grape torn open and the seed plucked out and left withering on the vine. All the foulness of all the soppy secret dampness, the sliding slippery airless dark came back on her now and overwhelmed her as the gaseous bubble burst in her mind, scenting it with the memory of foulness that she must escape.
