by James Jones
“I dont want you to get down sick,” Prewitt said. “You can quit worrying about it now.”
“Well . . . thanks, Prew,” Anderson said painfully. “I dont want you to think I . . . I mean I didnt . . .”
“Go to hell,” Prewitt said. “And dont call me Prew. I’m Prewitt to you.” He turned on his heel and went back inside. He picked up his cigaret that was still burning on the cement floor and took a deep drag, listening to their slow steps on the stairs. With a sudden movement of bitterness he picked up some of the scattered cards and ripped them across. Then he threw them down on the bed. Unsatisfied, he picked up the rest of the deck and methodically tore each card in two. Might as well; they were no good now anyway. A hell of a fine start; as if he would try to rob them out of a stinking twobit job.
He pulled his mouthpiece out of his pocket and sat, hefting it in his hand, running his thumb over the cup. It was a fine mouthpiece; it was undoubtedly the best investment he ever made for thirty bucks of crap money.
He wished the weekend would hurry up and come, so he could get out of this screwedup rathole and go up to Haleiwa and see Violet. A lot of guys went around bragging about a shackjob here and a shackjob there. Very few of them were ever lucky enough to have one. They all talked about it, trying to convince each other and themselves of the wonderful women they had—and then they went down to the Service Rooms or the New Congress and had their ashes hauled at three dollars a throw. Prewitt knew how lucky he was to have Violet to shack up with him.
He sat on his bunk, angry and disgusted, waiting for chow, waiting for the weekend.
On the way to the PX Clark kept looking at Anderson sideways. Several times he started to speak.
“You didnt have no call to think that, Andy,” he blurted out finally. “He’s a good joe. You can see he’s a good joe.”
“I know it, goddam it,” Andy burst out. “For Chrisake, shut up about it. I know he’s a good joe.”
“Okay,” Clark said. “Okay. We’ll be late for chow.”
“To hell with it,” Andy said.
When the chow whistle blew Prew went down in the thronging crowd that stampeded for the messhall. They swarmed down the stairs and clustered on the porch before the door that would not admit them fast enough, looking like good material for a recruiting poster with their shining laughing faces and clean hands and fatigue blouses splashed with water, for unless you knew them or looked closely you did not see the black high-water mark around their wrists or the line of dust that ran down from their temples past their ears and on their necks. There was much goosing, grabbing of crotches and accusations of “You eat it!” with the hooting laughter. But Prew was outside of all of it.
Two or three men whose names he knew spoke to him soberly with great reserve and then turned back to share their laughter with the others. G Company was a single personality formed by many men, but he was not a part of it. Amid the gnash and clash of cutlery on china and the humming conversation he ate in silence, feeling from time to time the many curious eyes inspecting him.
After chow they wandered back upstairs by twos and threes, subdued now and with full bellies, the boisterousness caused by the prospect of an hour’s recess replaced now by the unpleasant prospect of Fatigue Call and working on full bellies. The scattered horseplay that broke out now died in infancy, bayoneted by the cynical glances of the others.
Prew took his plate and got in the line to the kitchen, scraped his slops off in the muggy bucket, dropped his plate and cup into the hectic scrabbling KP’s sink where Maggio paused long enough to wink at him, and went back up to his bunk. He lit a cigaret and dropped the match into the coffee can he had hunted up to serve as ashtray and stretched out on the bunk with all the sounds around him. His arm behind his head, and smoking, he saw Chief Choate coming toward him.
The huge Indian of full Choctaw blood, slow-spoken, slow-moving, level-eyed, dead-faced—except when in the midst of some athletic battle and then as swift as any panther—sat down on the bunk beside him, with a shy brief grin. They would have shaken hands, under these new circumstances, if it had not been a conventionalism that embarrassed both of them.
The sight of Chief’s great slow bulk that exuded confidence and calm for a radius of twenty yards about him, wherever he might be, brought back to Prew all the mornings they had sat in Choy’s with Red and argued over breakfast. He looked at Chief wishing there was some way to communicate all the memories, to tell him how glad he was to be in his squad, without embarrassing both of them.
All last fall, during the football season when Chief Choate was excused from drill, almost every morning, they had, with Red, had their breakfasts together in Choy’s restaurant, the two buglers on Special Duty and the big Indian who was excused from drill because it was football season. After he had got to know the bulky moonfaced Choctaw, he had gone religiously to every game and every meet the Indian participated in, which was almost every one, because Wayne Choate jockstrapped the whole year round. Football in the fall where Chief played guard and was the only player on the team who could stand a full sixty minutes of the Army’s brand of football; in the winter it was basketball and Chief playing guard again, the third highest scorer in the Regiment; and in the summer baseball, Chief playing, some said, the best first base in the whole of the Army; and track in the spring, where Chief was always good for a 1st or 2nd in the shotput and the javelin and worth a few more points in the dashes. In his youth before he had acquired a GI beer paunch Chief had set a record for the 100 yards in the Philippine Department that still stood unbroken, but that had been some years ago.
He had never pulled a single day’s fatigue in his four years in the Company, and if he had consented to fight for Holmes he would have been a Staff Sergeant in two weeks. No one knew why he did not transfer to some other company where he could better himself or why he did not fight for Holmes, because he did not talk about his reasons. Instead of bettering himself, he stayed in G Company, a perennial Corporal, and drank himself into a stupor every night in Choy’s on beer so that on an average of three times a week he had to have a five-man detail come and get him and cart him home in one of the steel-wheeled machinegun carts.
He had a foot locker full of gold medals from PI, Panama, and Puerto Rico upon which he drew for beer money when he was broke, selling them or pawning them to various would-be athletes on the Post, and every time he moved on to a new post left a wastebasket full of athletic citations behind him. His fans and admirers all over Honolulu would have been shocked to see him bleary-eyed every night in Choy’s with his enormous gut drum-tight full of unbelievable amounts of beer.
Prew watched him now, thinking wonderingly of all these things, and since he could not say the things he wanted to say, waiting for him to speak.
“The Top says you’re put in my squad,” Chief said, in his solemn bearlike way. “So I figured I come over and give you the Story on the outfit.”
“Okay,” Prew said. “Shoot ’em.”
“Ike Galovitch is the platoon guide.”
“I’ve heard a little about him,” Prew said, “already.”
“You’ll hear more about him,” Chief said with slow solemnity. “He’s quite a character. He’s acting platoon sergeant now. Wilson is the regular platoon sergeant but he’s excused from drill durin fightin season. You wont see much of him till March.”
“What kind of a guy is this Champ Wilson?” Prew said.
“He’s all right,” Chief said slowly, “if you understand him. He never talks much, nor runs around with anybody. You ever see him fight?”
“Yeah,” Prew said. “He’s tough.”
“If you seen him fight, you know as much about him as anybody does. He buddies around with Sgt Henderson who takes care of Holmes’s horses. They served together in Holmes’s company in Bliss.”
“Way he fights,” Prew said, “looks like he’s got a mean streak in him.”
Chief looked at him levelly. “Maybe he does,” he said. “If a man
leaves him alone though, he aint no trouble. He dont bother much with anybody, unless they argue with him, then he’s just as liable to pull his rank and turn them in as not. I’ve seen him ride a couple guys right into the Stockade.”
“Okay,” Prew said. “Thanks.”
“You won’t see much of me around here,” Chief said. “Galovitch takes all the responsibilities in this platoon. Even when Wilson’s here, Old Ike does all the work. The only thing you’re responsible to me for is I have to check your stuff for Sataday morning inspection, but Old Ike checks everybody himself anyway, after the Corporals turn in their report, so its the same thing.”
“What do you do around here then?” Prew grinned.
“Nothin much. Old Ike does it all. There really aint no need for corporals in this Compny, because there really aint no squads. Everything is by platoons, instead of squads. We fall out for drill by platoons, not squads.”
“You mean we dont have any squad roster at all? No BAR men or rifle grenadiers? We just fall out anyway?”
“Thats right,” Chief said slowly. “Oh, we got them, on the books. But when we fall out the corporals git at the head of the column and everybody else just falls in any way.”
“Hell,” Prew said. “What kind of soldierin is that? Back at Myer we’d line up everybody in his proper position in each squad.”
“This heres the Pineapple Army,” Chief said.
“I dont know whether I like that or not,” Prew said.
“I dint figure you would,” Chief said. “But thats the way she is. Old Ike ought to be around pretty soon, to inspect you, and tell you what your duties is. The only time a corporal really has charge of his men here is in the morning when his squad is on latrine police, but Old Ike is always there to check it anyway.”
“This Galovitch must be quite a guy.”
Chief pulled a sack of Durham from the pocket of his shirt and dropped his eyes to it. “He is,” he said. He rolled a cigaret very delicately with his sausage fingers. “He was at Bliss with Holmes too. Use to be the boiler orderly. Took care of the boilers in the winter. I think maybe he had a Pfc.” He lit the brown thin lumpy cigaret and dropped the match in Prew’s can, took several drags. But he did not look at Prew, instead he watched the exhaled smoke blandly. “Old Ike is our Close Order expert. On the Drill Schedule we got an hour’s Close Order every morning. Galovitch always gives it.” The rolled cigaret burned down quickly and Chief dropped it in the can, still not looking up.
“Okay,” Prew said. “What is it? Whats eatin on you?”
“Who? me?” Chief said. “Why, nothin. I was just wonderin if you aimed to start trainin now, this late in the season, or if you meant to wait till summer and be eligible for Company Smokers.”
“Neither one,” Prew said. “I aint doin any fightin.”
“Oh,” Chief said noncommittally. “I see.”
“You think I’m crazy, hunh?” Prew said.
“No,” the other said. “I guess not. It kind of surprised me though, when I heard you’d quit the Bugle Corps, a man who plays a bugle the way you do.”
“Well,” Prew said savagely, “I quit it. And I aint sorry. And I aint doin no fightin. And I aint sorry about that either.”
“Then I guess you aint got nothin to worry about, have you?” Chief said.
“Not a goddam thing.”
Chief stood up and moved over to the bunk next to Prewitt’s. “I think thats Galovitch comin now. I figured he’d be along.”
Prew raised his head to look. “Say, Chief. Is this guy Maggio in whose squad, anyway? The little Wop.”
“Mine,” Chief said. “Why?”
“I just like him. Met him this morning. I’m glad he’s in your squad.”
“He’s a good boy. He’s only out of recruit drill a month, and he messes up and catches all the extra details, but he’s a good boy. He’s got a plenty big sense of humor for such a little guy, keeps everybody laughin all the time.”
Galovitch was walking toward them down the aisle. Prew watched him and was astounded. He came on between the bunks, bigfooted, bentkneed, bobbing his trunk and head with every step as if he carried a safe upon his back. His long arms reached awkwardly almost to his knees so that he resembled an ape balancing on his knuckles as he walked, and his small head covered with a cropped brush whose widow’s peak came almost to his eyebrows, the tiny closeset ears and long lippy jaw carried out the similarity. He would have been truly apelike, Prew thought, had not the insignificance of his deepset eyes and his scrawny neck made him ineffectual as a monkey.
“Is that Galovitch!” he said.
“Thats him,” Chief said, a twinkle gleaming faintly from the depth of his slow solemnity. “Wait’ll you hear him talk.”
The apparition stopped before them, at the foot of Prewitt’s bed. Old Ike stood looking at them, the red eyes set in a well of wrinkles, and worked his loose-hung lips in and out ruminatingly, like a toothless man.
“Prewitt?” Galovitch said.
“Thats me.”
“Sargint Galovitch, platoon guide am I of dis platoon,” he said, proudly. “When assigned to dis platoon you are, you become under me. Consequental one a my men. Am coming to give for you the lowdown setup.” He paused and rested his knobby hams of hands on the bed end and pulled his chin in and worked his lips in inexpressively and stared at Prew.
Prew turned to look at Chief to show his wonderment, but the Indian had lain down on the bunk, his big legs dangling over the side, and his head back on the olive blanket square-cornered over the pillow. He was suddenly outside of all of this, disclaiming all participation.
“Don’ look to him,” Galovitch commanded. “To you talking it is me not him. He is only corporal. Sargint Vilsahn is platoon sargint and it is for him say to you anything I do not say if for you to do.
“When in the morning you get up the first thing is the bunk to make. With no wrinkles and the extra blanket on the pillow tucked in. I inspect in the platoon every bunks and ones not made up right tear up and the man make up again.
“I am not expecting to be any goldbricks, see? This squad detail every day to clean over the Dayroom the outside porch. After you clean up under you own bunk you get the mops help the porch.
“No man this platoon from fatigue or drill be taking off without I find him gets plenty extra duty.” The little red eyes glared at Prew challenging, almost hoping for some disagreement that would force Old Ike to prove his loyalty to Holmes, Wilson, the Company, and the cause, which might be Better Soldiering; Peacetime Preparedness; or the Perpetuation of An Aristocracy. Nobody could have named the Cause, but then its name was unimportant, as long as the Cause itself remained to levy loyalty.
“And don’ think,” Old Ike went on, “can come over here a fighter everybody beating up on just because are tough guy. Quickest way to Stockade is who tough guy pulls.
“And now is Fatigue Call five minute you fall out for him,” Old Ike concluded, glaring at Prew shortly, looking accusingly at Choate lying back relaxing. Then he clumped back to his own bunk where he took up again his interrupted litany to his unknown god by picking up the shoes he had been shining.
After he was gone, Chief Choate heaved his bulk upright, making the chain springs on the bunk squeak in protest.
“You kin gather what his Close Order Drill sounds like,” he said.
“Yes,” Prew said. “I can. Is the rest of the outfit as bad as that?”
“Well,” Chief said solemnly, “not in the same way as that.” He rolled himself another cigaret slowly and with great care.
“I guess he’s found out that you aint goin to fight for Holmes,” Chief said with slow solemnity.
“How could he have found it out? So soon.”
Chief Choate shrugged. “Its hard to say,” he said unmoved to exaggeration. “But I think he has. If he hant, knowing you was a fighter come to this outfit, he would have offered you the Compny on a silver platter and sucked your ass from here to Wheeler Field.”
Prew laughed but Chief’s round solemn face betrayed no hint of humor, or of any other feeling. He only looked a little surprised to find there was cause for laughter, which made Prew laugh the harder.
“Well,” he said to the big man, “now we got that figured out, you got any more instructions for me before I take the oath and begin me consecrated life?”
“Not much else,” Chief said solemnly. “No bottles in the bottoms of the footlockers. The Old Man doesnt like his men to drink and inspects for them every Sataday, and unless I take them first he takes them.”
Prew grinned. “Maybe I’d better get a notebook and make a note of that.”
“Also,” Chief said slowly, “no women in the barracks after ten o’clock. Unless they’re white. All the others, yellow black and brown, I got to turn in to the Orderly Room, where Holmes gives me a receipt and turns them over to the Great White Father.” He looked at Prew solemnly as the other pretended to write a note down on his cuff.
“What else?” he said.
“Thats all,” Chief said.
Grinning at the Chief, Prew thought about his shackjob at Haleiwa at the mention of the dark-skinned women; it was the third time he’d thought about her since this morning, but strangely, this time the thought did not hurt, and he could think about her freely, believing almost for a minute that there were lovely women standing on each corner, waiting for him to pick them up and be their lover, give them what they wanted, even though he knew it was not so. The warmth of Chief Choate’s slow deadpan friendship had filled an empty spot inside him.
Downstairs the whistle blew, and simultaneously the guard bugler began to blow Fatigue Call in the quad, and he could even listen to the call objectively. It was, he decided, very badly played, not near as good as he could have played it for them.
“Its time for you to fall out,” Chief said solemnly, heaving his great bulk from the bunk. “I think I’ll go take a nap and get a little sacktime.”
“What a prick!” Prew told him, picking up his hat.
“Then, at four,” Chief said, “I’ll hit Choy’s a lick and find out how the beer holds out. This is my training season.”
