by David Poyer
“Take it, Sarge. You got stripes to lose.”
“Well, okay. Thanks, Will.”
“Jesus, what was with those guys? All we wanted was a drink.”
“I don’t think they wanted to drink with us, Dippy.”
“Yeah, I got that impression, too.”
Considerably sobered, they took stock. Harner was unhurt, except for his pride; Hernandez had taken a shot to the crotch, and was walking doubled over. Silkworth was okay, but Liebo had a bad limp. Givens found that aside from a bloody nose he was all right. He held his handkerchief to it as they walked downhill. There was no Shore Patrol in sight at the station, and they did not stop till they reached a place Liebo had noticed on the other side. It was tiny, about ten feet frontage on the street, but inside was a spotless stainless-steel bar, an immense nickel cappucino machine, and two tables. They settled in with deep sighs, counting their money.
The barmaid added to their impression that everyone in Sicily spoke English and had cousins in Brooklyn. Looking at her as she bent over the beer tap, Givens wished again he had gone back for seconds.
It was funny. Growing up back in Carolina he had never dared look at a white girl. At LeJeune no one said anything, but somehow blood tended to stay with blood. Here, it was different again; it did not seem to matter, perhaps because they were all foreigners anyway.
Except, he thought, to nuts like Cutford.
The beers came and he drank his off in one go, realizing only now how much the fight had taken out of him. Thinking of the main gunner, probably still back in the compartment, listening to his tapes and reading Soul on Ice, made him mad again. “Man, you know that corporal of ours?” he said recklessly to Silkworth.
“What about him?”
“Nothing. But why doesn’t he come out with us on libs?”
“He was in Nam,” said the sergeant. “He might’ve got himself fucked up a little there. Not too many of them dudes left.”
“So why is he only a E-4?”
“Cutford kind of has a e-motional problem.” Silkworth lifted his beer in a slow way that said let me think about how to say this. “Now, that’s his lookout, I figure. The Corps got no business inside a man’s head, messing with his opinions. They tell you, treat everybody the same, but treating ain’t the same as thinking. Know what I mean?”
He nodded. Silkworth finished the beer, called in another round, then went on, not looking at him. “Now, I don’t mean things ain’t improved. Hell, I remember when you didn’t see a splib dude and a white guy out in town together. You did, they’d find one of ’em in an alley in the morning. You seem like a good head, Will, seem to want to get along more than a lot of—more than some guys. But maybe outside the Corps, you don’t like the Man, either. An’ maybe old Moonshine Breath here wouldn’t care to have you sniffing around his sister. I don’t know. An’ frankly I don’t give a shit.”
Harner smiled slowly at Will, but didn’t say a word.
“Thing is, you and Buck here manage to get along in the squad, whatever you think about each other. Now Cutford—I don’t know why, but he can’t do that. He’s a damn good soldier, don’t get me wrong, but he just can’t keep his mouth shut. That’s why he’s still a corporal.
“Why is he like that? I can’t say. Maybe it was Nam, maybe it was where he grew up—or maybe he just turned mean one morning, like a Angel-of-Death pops up out of the ground. But there it is, and I don’t think he’s going to change anytime soon.”
The six men sat in wrinkling uniforms, the marine edge of neatness gone, and drank beer. The sharpest thirst was off now, the dryness of the cruise broken, and they settled themselves to get slowly, thoroughly, permanently drunk. Silkworth switched back to wine, extolling its taste and cheapness to the rest of them. Buck Harner drank Jim Beam steadily, laying bills out on the table to pay for each double shot. The rest drank beer. Givens tilted his chair against the wall, nursing the long-necked frosted bottle, and looked out past the others to the window, to the street. Two Navy officers passed in short-sleeve whites, carrying briefcases. An Italian policeman, sauntering in the heat.
The bargirl brought a tray with little cookies, amoretti she called them, and they drank and talked idly through the late afternoon. About what teams would go to the playoffs this year, and what they would do when they got back to the States. Then they discussed the bargirl, and from there the conversation went back to Lily’s, but only Liebo and Silkworth wanted to talk about that, so that didn’t last. Then they talked about the last exercise, Valiant Javelin, and about one of the men in the platoon who had drunk all his water in the first two hours of the march, and how the second lieutenant had gotten his map coordinates wrong and took them east instead of north, and the fourth squad had to go around a mountain just to get back to their jump-off point, and then complete the march, which had been planned for a full day even if they hadn’t gotten lost; and how the man had gone nuts from thirst, and that night went looking for the lieutenant with his Ka-bar. The end of the story was how the gunny had to jump him and hold him down until the medevac copter came. He was back in the States now. “Three months ahead of us, the bastard,” Liebo grunted. “The screw-ups always have it easier. Ever notice that? Do your job right and they crap on you, but fuck up and you’re money ahead.”
“Yeah man,” said Hernandez solemnly.
“Sarge, where we going after here?” Will asked Silkworth, noticing that the sergeant was looking gloomy again.
“Greece again.”
“How long will that be for?”
“Couple weeks. Course, most of it we’ll be at sea. Four, five days ashore at Gythion, I guess.” Silkworth stretched, rippling muscle beneath his ribbons. “You guys want to try someplace else?”
“What’s wrong with here, man?” said Liebo.
“You all want to stay?”
“Good as anyplace.”
“This Maria, she treats you nice.” The girl behind the bar smiled to hear her name mentioned. “And you get to see that fantastic ass every time she bends over,” Hernandez added, in a low voice.
“Cowboys like fat calves,” said Harner deadpan.
* * *
It was dark when they left, reeling as if the street were Spiegel’s deck in a storm. They were going down the last street, the fine smell of the sea was growing beyond the city stink, when Will had to stop for a minute. He leaned against a storefront, waiting out the dizziness. He’d barf if he had to—Liebo already had—but a marine had to learn to hold his beer. He was telling himself this when he saw the guitar.
“Man, look at this six-string,” he said to Washman.
“Nice. I like the pearly stuff there on the handle. You play guitar, Will?”
He stared at it. There on the narrow street, he seemed to smell, just for a moment, fresh-cut loblolly pine. “Oh … used to. I wonder how much it is.”
“It’s a pawnshop. Can’t be that much. But it looks new.”
“Yeah.”
“You boys all right?” said Silkworth, not weaving very much as he came back to get them.
“Sure, Sarge. We’re just going in here for a minute.”
“We’ll be down this alley. I got to piss so bad my socks are tight.”
Inside the shop, amid racks of used shoes, cases of cheap watches and red-gold rings, he received the guitar from the hands of the owner. He turned it to examine the neck, then tucked it and tried a “G” chord. It was slack and he tuned it clumsily, feeling Washman’s eyes on him. He brushed another chord from it, and it sounded good; it sounded real good. He swayed and caught himself against a rack. Records cascaded to the floor. “Sorry—I’m real sorry. Guess I must’ve—”
“You want? Thirty thousand lire.”
“Thirty thousand—” but then slowly he figured the exchange rate, and it was not that bad; in fact, that was cheap for a good Gianelli. “Twenty thousand,” he said thickly.
When Harner and Silkworth came in, the owner came down a few thousand. Then he stuck
. “Think we can swing this,” said Givens, and then found his wallet almost empty. Hell yes, he was saving his pay. What for? It didn’t seem important now. “Washout—how about a loan? Ten more bucks would float it.”
“I only got five, but you can have it.”
“No, keep a couple for a last beer. Sarge, you got—”
“I got more balls than I got dollars,” said Silkworth. “But got a pocketful of change here … lemme count.”
Harner coughed up three bucks, and Hernandez produced the last, a beer-soggy, torn old bill that Silkworth handed to Will by its corner. He laid it all on the counter, then suddenly staggered back. The store twirled, his stomach prepared to abandon ship. He flung out a hand to brace himself, and pulled down a rack of shoes. Washman grabbed for them in midair and knocked over a bookcase. The owner began shouting and gesticulating.
“Let’s clear out of here,” said Silkworth, who had drunk more than any of the privates, but seemed unaffected, except that his eyes were glassy. He steered the suddenly inanimate Givens onto the street and leaned him against a lamppost. A ship’s horn boomed out from the harbor as the sergeant examined the guitar, then handed it back. “Nice,” he said. “But where you going to keep it? There ain’t a lot of room in the troop space.”
“Fin’ someplace,” said Will, with some difficulty. His face was going numb. “Maybe one of the squids’ll keep it.”
“They’ll keep it all right. For good,” said Silkworth.
And now the harbor, the bay, sparkling with the lights of anchored ships, opened out from the foot of the street. The pier stretched into darkness; laughter and rock from the bar mixed with a dance band on one of the liners. At the pier bar sailors and marines sat under Campari umbrellas, drinking wine and aperitifs. Two Shore Patrol, the men from the station, sat sullenly in front of Cokes. Fourth squad occupied the last empty table, and ordered beer. “My las’ one,” explained Washman, his hand missing the bottle by a full five inches. “I’m signed up for the cameo trip tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re goin’ right to where they make them. Say they’re real cheap. Like to get one for my mom. You guys going?”
“No,” said Liebo, holding his hand over his mouth.
“’M broke,” said Givens.
“I’m going back to Lily’s,” said Silkworth. A group of women walked past the tables and heads turned to follow them. When they went aboard the liner the marines lost interest; officer pussy. “I’m going to fuck ’em all, one at a time. Give you my profess’nal evaluation.”
Will Givens lifted his glass. The green light shimmered through the dark liquid, turning cheap glass to sapphire, turning the drops of moisture to beads of cloudy jade. He knew he was drunk. But the dizziness was gone, backed off, and now he wanted the next drink and then the next after that, as much as the world held. He was with his buddies, and their color did not matter.
“The Corps,” said Sergeant Silkworth solemnly, and they all, none of them seeing the necessity to add a word, raised their bottles and drank them down to the gurgling end.
4
Giardini, Sicily
“Captain Isaac Sundstrom, U.S. Navy. Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Honored to make your acquaintance, signore.”
The commodore glanced around as he shook hands with the chief of carabinieri. The office was disconcertingly small. The plaster walls were cracked, and the chair that he was shown to did not seem at all new or suitable to his rank. In fact it was shabby. But he smiled nonetheless, and laid his white uniform cap, crusted with gold, on the policeman’s desk.
“A glass, Capitano?”
“Pardon me?”
“We have a fine local grape, ‘Polypheme’—after the Cyclops. Do you know the story of Ulysses?”
“I’ve always meant to read that,” said Sundstrom. “Well, it’s early, but of course I’d like to sample the local wine.”
He checked his watch unobtrusively as the carabiniere poured. Nine—not too bad. Good thing he’d gotten an early start. But there was a limit, in the Med, to how soon you could begin making calls. In fact, he had arrived at the police station before the chief; he’d had to wait in the car.
He leaned forward to accept the glass, smiling, but his mind had moved on already to plan the rest of the morning. Fifteen minutes here, one drink, then on to see the mayor.
Ike Sundstrom knew many squadron commanders who disliked the time-honored, time-consuming ritual of paying calls. Some delegated the task to their commanding officers. But he enjoyed it; he felt he was good at it. And he knew Admiral “Smiling Tony” Roberts, Commander, Sixth Fleet, set store by such things. He tipped up the glass. “Excellent,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted better. By the way, I brought along a little memento. I hope you’ll do me the pleasure of accepting.”
“How handsome! This is fine brass. I have a fine collection of these. It is the souvenir of your ship?”
“Of my squadron. I’m a commodore—in charge of a U.S. Navy task force.”
“Commodore, eh? Of course, you are not just a ship’s captain. Excuse, I do not know the American uniforms as I should.” The carabiniere set the plaque aside and dusted his hands. “I have something for you as well, but it is rather large—when you leave. But, now, let us discuss business. Tell me, you have two ships in this port, that is correct? What is the length of your stay?”
“I planned for four days. Of course, there is always the possibility of change, but we’re scheduled for three more days in your lovely town.”
“I see. And how many in the liberty party?”
“I estimate six hundred a night.”
“Sailors or marines?”
“Uh … I would estimate about three hundred would be marines.”
“You will supply a shore patrol?”
“Ten men a night, based at the pier.”
“Exactly the number I would have asked for. Well, I see no problem to mar your visit,” said the chief of police. He glanced at the bottle, sighed, and put it away after offering Sundstrom another glass; the commodore declined, smiling. “Only four days, I don’t know if the mayor will want to arrange anything special … that will be up to him. You will be calling on him?”
“This morning.”
“Is there any other way in which I can assist you?”
“I would be happy, my friend, if one other thing were understood between us,” said Sundstrom, smiling. “If there are any misunderstandings ashore, I hope you will call me at once. If we can take care of things at our level, not bother higher authority, it’s much simpler for all concerned.”
“I certainly understand. Well, please convey to the mayor my respects. Thank you for stopping by, sir.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
They rose. Sundstrom gripped the policeman’s hand again, they both smiled officially, and the chief accompanied him down the stairs.
The gift turned out to be a huge wickered bottle of Polypheme. “Put it in the trunk,” said Isaac Sundstrom to his orderly, when the Italian went back inside. “I can’t have the men see me drive around with a goddamn ton of cheap wine in the backseat.”
* * *
Ike Sundstrom did not value the smiles, the compliments, the outward flourishes of protocol for their own sake. They were valuable, not of themselves, but for their effectiveness in communicating things that could not be communicated well, or sometimes at all, in words. Trust. Worth. Respect. And above all, success. Every successful man he had ever served with, every officer who had attained the broad gold stripes of admiral, had that in common: a consciousness of appearances. Some were outstanding technicians, some fine administrators, others skilled politicians. They were all, he was the first to say, fine men. But beyond that, they all knew very thoroughly how to make themselves look good.
The Sundstroms were not an old Navy family. But neither were they Wisconsin sodbusters. His father had owned a Hudson dealership in Eau Claire, but had died in 1943; not
in the war, but on a highway, leaving little after the loans were paid off. Isaac, the eldest, had to work his way through college. He had done this with dogged persistence for two years, and then discovered the Navy Reserve officer program. After that his only worry was grades. He was no scholar. But he was stubborn, and he applied himself; and he found that he liked the uniform, the way people looked at him as he walked across the campus on the way to drill.
He was unit commander his senior year.
He wanted to fly, but after a week in Pensacola his eyes gave out. He began seeing double. For a time he was on medical hold, then things cleared up; but still he was out of the flight program, for good.
He called his detailer long distance, and asked for destroyers.
He served in them for ten years, in the Pacific, and then was ordered to Washington as an aide to the Chief of Naval Personnel.
He had never thought about high rank till then. In those days the Pacific Fleet was a casual, rough outfit, still looking back to Midway and the Marianas, and hardly conscious of a larger Navy. It was at the Pentagon that he realized that he could be an admiral. He was in awe of them at first, these tall smooth men in crisp blues or khakis or whites. Academy, most of them, but not all. There was room in the postwar Navy for hardworking men, Annapolis or no, and he worked hard.
He did not like the Washington parties—he felt awkward at them, uncomfortable—but he made himself go. At one of them, he met the former Mary Hyatt, of Rockville. Widowed by Vietnam, she now worked in the Legislative Affairs office of DOD and owned a house in Alexandria. He adopted her daughter by the previous marriage, and they had two more children, both boys.
He went from there to engineering department head on a carrier, then to executive officer of an ammunition ship. A year later his commanding officer retired unexpectedly, for reasons of health. Admiral Dorne was still at Personnel, and Commander Sundstrom made a long-distance call.
He served as captain of the Nitro for two years, then went back to the District on the staff of the Deputy Undersecretary for Logistics. His next sea tour was a deep draft command, of an oiler.
