by James Jones
Grace came straggling along a few moments later. He too sat down by the tent doorway numbly.
“And after this you leave my pistol alone,” Mast said through puffy lips, staring at him through puffy eyes. “Or I’ll give you the same thing again. And if I want to leave my pistol lying in the tent, I will, and you’ll leave it alone.”
“Okay,” Grace said thickly. “But if you hadn’t landed that kick, you wouldn’t have whipped me. Maybe I’ll try you again sometime.”
But it was apparently mostly bravado, because during the week more that they remained he did not try again. Mast was glad. Nevertheless, and even though he had stated categorically that he would leave his pistol lying openly in the tent, Mast did not take it off again. It just wasn’t worth the chance. He started wearing it in his waist belt buttoned down under his shirt again when he went to bed, and he wore the rifle belt with the clips and holster on the outside. As soon as he was able, which was not until evening on the day of the fight, he informed Grace that he was moving out. He was not bunking with any cheating thief. He took down the tent, unbuttoned his half of it, his shelterhalf, took his rope and his share of the tentpegs, and made himself a bunk with his own shelterhalf and blankets on the other side of the fire.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. About the tent, or about wearing the pistol again. The harmony and accord which had characterized Marconi Pass and the historic first Marconi Pass patrol were shattered. Grace continued to make his bed where the tent had been, sullenly; the other two kept to their own tent quietly. The awareness that they were, after all, still in the Army, and that the Army and their world were in a state of war, came back over all of them. The curious, and almost idyllic, vacation from life as they must live it was somehow over from the moment the fistfight started. When their relief did not show up that day, and then again did not show up the next day, nobody really cared. The day before the fight they would have been overjoyed that the relief did not show up, but now no one wanted to meet anyone else’s eyes and there was almost no talking except when absolutely necessary. Needless to say, Mast did not speak to Grace. When, with shouts from below the rock chimney, their relief did show up and began to scramble up onto the slope, they were down to their last half can of water, their last half case of C ration and had already debated sending one man down to see what had happened. No one was unhappy to see the relief, or to be relieved.
Even Mast was not unhappy. As he rolled his pack and collected his gear, the main thought in his mind was what O’Brien had told him over a week ago, about how once they were down he would be after Mast’s pistol any way he could. Once as he worked he stood for a moment and looked down the long, long slide to the bottom, where flint-sized cars still crawled along the thread of highway. It was a beautiful sight and just to look at it you would not know that down there lurked men conspiring to take from him his pistol, his chance of being saved. But then, it was a beautiful view from there, looking up here, too. And look what had happened. His serenity long gone, even his memory of happiness destroyed, for the moment, Mast, his face nearly healed by now, prepared to descend again into the maelstrom of Makapoo to do battle for his salvation. At least there, there was Authority. And with Authority, there were rules. At least no one could assault him physically for it. Here, on the mountain, there wasn’t even that. Mast, like the rest of them, had become disillusioned with Marconi Pass.
One thing remained, and that was the awareness that they were veterans. It began as they reached the bottom of the rock chimney they had not seen for two weeks and then looked back up, and it increased as they went on down and around the boulders of the runlet to the truck, and it kept on increasing as they rode down in the truck, first out to the highway, then on along it to the CP. They had been the first Marconi Pass patrol, and they had been somewhere and done something these other men had not done.
Ten
MAST DID NOT have long to wait for the next assault against his salvation to take place, once he arrived back at Makapoo. Less than a week, in fact. He had been tricked, lied to and cheated, bribed, and manhandled, in that order. He thought he knew, and had become experienced in, just about every method. But there was one he had never considered: the honest man. In many ways this one was the worst.
But out of it came something else, something good for Mast. And that was confidence: for the first time, real, genuine confidence.
It was now more than three months since the Pearl Harbor attack and Mast’s arrival at Makapuu Head with the pistol. During that three months, in which Mast had battled so desperately to keep it, two things had emerged. One was that no one had ever actually assaulted him physically and taken it from him by force; even Grace hadn’t done that. And no one had tried to kill him for it. Not that, Mast suspected, someone wouldn’t have been willing to try. But the efficiency of Authority precluded that. There was hope to be seen in this, Mast felt.
The second thing which had emerged during the three desperate months was that never yet had anyone gone to higher authority, such as the lieutenant or the two platoon sergeants, about the pistol. Apparently none of these three, neither the lieutenant nor Sergeants Pender and Cowder, knew anything at all about Mast’s loose pistol. With all the pistol’s changing of hands, the attempted thefts, the jockeyings for position, the angers and rages and fights and near-fights, never did the three position commanders find out about it. With the wisdom of soldiers, or people under the hand of Authority anywhere, all this was carefully kept from them. And not once during all this time had anyone, not even Mast though he had contemplated it, as had some of the others probably, deliberately gone to them and told them about it. That distinction was reserved for Sergeant Paoli, the honest man.
Paoli came up to Mast one afternoon four days after he had returned from Marconi Pass. Short, chunky, dark, a former butcher from Brooklyn, he was a section sergeant in the machine gun platoon under Sergeant Pender and thus wore a pistol himself. Always a ‘book soldier’ and known laughingly in Mast’s company as ‘The Book Says’ Paoli, he was stupid, unimaginative, mechanically a genius with a machine-gun, and short with words.
“I see you got a pistol,” he said to Mast, who was working quietly on a detail that was putting up siding on another new hutment. “I seen you walking around here with it long time now, pretty cocky. I know some the stuff that’s went on with it.”
“Yeah?” said Mast, who did not like Paoli. “So what?”
“It’s screwing up the whole position. That’s what. It’s causing all kinds a trouble and inefficiency round here. That’s what.”
“Nobody else has noticed any inefficiency that I know of.”
“Yeah?” Paoli folded his chunky arms authoritatively. “The book says—”
“I know what the book says, Paoli,” Mast said.
“The book says,” Paoli said doggedly, nevertheless, “riflemen carry rifles. It don’t say they carry pistols. Machine gunners carry pistols.”
“Okay, so what?”
Paoli jerked his head backwards, at the command post hole behind him. “I’m taking that pistol. And I’m turning it in to Sergeant Pender.”
“You’re not taking this pistol anywhere, Paoli,” Mast said quite positively. “And neither is anybody else. Nobody’s taking this pistol off of me.”
“Yes. I am,” Paoli said. “And that’s an order.”
“Order be damned. Nobody’s taking this pistol off me except an officer or Sergeant Pender himself. I’ve had that stuff pulled on me before.”
“You won’t obey my order?”
“That order, no.”
“The book says—” Paoli began.
“To hell with the book!” Mast said fierily.
“The book says,” Paoli said anyway, “to refuse to obey a order of a noncom is a court-martial offense.” Again he jerked his head backward at the CP hole. “You come with me.”
“Sure,” Mast said. “Any old time.” But the confidence that sounded in his voice was not inside him. Here, n
ow, descending upon him, was the thing he had dreaded most: To be turned in with the pistol. He stood and watched the event shaping itself in time; even though it hadn’t happened yet he was already now into the sequence, and it would happen, and nothing could prevent it. It twisted his stomach crampingly. Once again his old friend the Jap major charged down on him screaming, saber high, while he sat and watched him, pistolless. And after all of this, after all of what he had gone through, it would have to be Paoli who would be the agent. He followed Paoli to the hole.
“Tell you something, Mast.” Paoli slowed his pace. They threaded their way between two outcroppings. “You got no right to have a pistol. Where you get it?”
“I bought it,” Mast said wearily. “From a guy in the 8th Field.”
“Well, you got no right to it. And somebody stole it. You’re a buyer a stolen equipment. That’s bad. And how you think I feel? Me and my boys in my section? We got pistols. We was issued them. But we ain’t got rifles. You got a rifle. You was issued it. But you wasn’t issued a pistol. Yet you got one. You got a rifle and pistol both.” His voice was accusing.
“So has Sergeant Pender,” Mast said. “And so has the First Sergeant.”
“They’re first-three-graders,” Paoli said. “You’re a private. Everybody knows the pistol’s the best defense against them Samurai sabers. Okay. But what about the defense against a rifleman? For that you need a rifle. I ain’t got a rifle. Me and my boys in my section. All we got is pistols. But you got a rifle.”
“In other words, if you can’t have a rifle, I can’t have a pistol?” Mast said.
“That’s it,” Paoli said.
“Why don’t you buy yourself a rifle?”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Look around.” But Paoli, having had his say, characteristically did not answer this and clumped on.
They found old Sergeant Pender sitting outside on a rock outcropping scratching himself in the sun. He looked up at Paoli noncommittally as they came up.
“This man refused to obey a direct order, Sergeant,” Paoli said without preamble.
“Yeah?” Pender said. “Well. What was the order?”
“I ordered him to give me that pistol. So I could turn it in to you. He refused, Sergeant.”
“Well,” Pender said. He scratched his three-day stubble of beard.
“He says he bought it off a guy in the 8th Field,” Paoli said stolidly. “So it’s stolen equipment. He’s a buyer of stolen equipment.”
“Looks like that, doesn’t it?” Pender said thoughtfully.
“That’s a court-martial offense,” Paoli said, and Mast looked at him, at his dull, perpetually injured face, at his bulling-head stolidity, that did not know it was injuring Mast, or anybody or anything else in the world for that matter. It merely went bulling ahead. Mast hated him. He stood and thrust hate at him as if it were sacks of cement, or bricks.
“That’s right, it is,” Sergeant Pender said.
“And he refused to obey a direct order from me,” Paoli said. “I want to turn him in to you for that too. The book says—”
“I know what the book says, too, Paoli,” Pender said.
“Yes, Sergeant,” Paoli said.
“Mast’s not in your section, is he?”
“No, Sergeant. He’s in a rifle platoon. But he’s got a pistol.”
“If he’s not in your section, why’d you take it on yourself to turn him in, Paoli?”
“Because he’s got a pistol. That’s what. The book says riflemen supposed to have rifles but not pistols.”
“Okay, Paoli,” Sergeant Pender said. “Thanks. I’ll take care of it. You can go.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Paoli said, and turned on his heel and left, the set of his chunkily muscled back showing how well he thought he had done his duty. Pender stared after him thoughtfully.
“Well, Mast,” the old sergeant said, and scratched his stubble again. He made a wry grin and shook his grizzled head. “Looks like I’ll have to take that pistol of yours and turn it in to the supply room.”
“I suppose so,” Mast said, feeling sick at his stomach. He put his hands to his rifle belt to unclasp it. He knew Sergeant Pender fairly well, although he had never run around with him or got drunk with him of course, any more than he had with any of the first-three-graders.
“Look, Sarge,” he said suddenly. “Isn’t there any way I can keep it? Anything I can do to keep it. It’s— it’s—important to me.”
“Why?” Pender said.
“Well, it’s—Well, I bought it, you know? And it—it makes me feel more like a soldier, sort of. You know? And it’s a mighty good defense against those Samurai sabers you know.”
“Yes, it is that,” Pender said in his gentle way. “You mean you sort of feel it’s insurance.”
“Yes, I guess. Sort of.”
“But not everybody has them,” Pender said. “You know that. Riflemen don’t carry them and machine-gunners who have pistols don’t carry rifles. Do you want to have a better break than the next man?” He peered at Mast shrewdly, his eyes glinting.
Mast didn’t know what to answer, whether to tell him the truth or to lie. If he lied and said he didn’t want a better break than the next guy, he would be forced by sheer logic to give up the pistol. And anyway, old Pender would know whether he was lying.
“Well, yes,” he said finally. “Yes, I guess I do want a better break than the next man. Let me put it this way,” he qualified, “let’s say I want every break I can get for myself. Whether the next guy has them or not. But I don’t want the next guy not to have them.”
“Unless it’s your pistol,” Pender said.
Mast nodded. “Unless its my pistol.”
Pender’s eyes glinted again, even more so, and he suddenly grinned, showing his stubby, broken, stained teeth. “Well, I guess that’s only human, hunh, Mast?” he said. Mast’s answer seemed to have pleased him in some way. For a moment he scratched his grizzled head. “Well, you know, I saw you with that pistol before. And I wondered where you got it. But I figured what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me any. So I didn’t see it any more.” Pender raised his eyebrows and shrugged ruefully. “But now that it’s been brought to my official attention by Paoli, and everybody knows it, I don’t see what else I can do but take it and turn it in.”
“I don’t think much of anybody knows it’s been brought to your official attention, Sarge,” Mast said. “Unless Paoli tells them.”
“Paoli will tell them,” Pender said.
“I suppose so. Then there isn’t anything I can do to keep it?”
“I don’t see what, Mast. Do you?”
Mast bobbed his head. “You’ve got one, Sarge. And you’ve got a rifle, too. The First has both a pistol and a rifle, too.”
“I’m supposed to be issued a pistol.”
Again Mast bobbed his head at it. “But everybody knows that that one’s your own, and that you brought it with you into the company.”
Pender looked down at his grimy thigh and slapped the holster on it. “This one? I’ve had this one since 1918 in the first World War.”
“Please let me keep mine,” Mast forced himself to say.
Again, Sergeant Pender scratched his grizzled head. “I tell you what, Mast. This is what I’ll do. I’ll just forget Paoli brought you up here and turned you in with it. How’s that? I can’t guarantee any more than that. If the lieutenant or somebody tells me I have to take it away from you, why I’ll have to do it. But until then, I’ll just forget Paoli brought you up here. How’s that?”
“That’s fine,” Mast said, smiling all over. “That’s swell.” Then his face sobered. “But what about Paoli?”
“I’ll handle Paoli. You send him back up here when you go down.” Pender paused a moment. “Paoli’s a genius with a machine gun,” he added apropos of nothing, in an expressionless voice, and looked off at the road. Mast felt it was a partial explanation.
“You know this might really save my life som
eday, Sarge,” he said gratefully. “Thanks. Thanks again.”
“Yes, it might,” Pender said. “It might do that.”
Mast turned to go. “Sarge, how did you come by your pistol? In the last war.”
“I stole it off a dead American,” Sergeant Pender said expressionlessly.
“Oh,” Mast said.
“But his bad luck was my good luck. He did me a big favor. Because it saved me twice,” Sergeant Pender smiled. He scratched his beard, and his face sobered slowly. “And I don’t really believe he had any more use for it. Do you?” he asked.
“No,” Mast said, feeling suddenly strange. “How could he?”
“Well, I’ve wondered about it,” Sergeant Pender said. “Sometimes.” He coughed. “You send Paoli up.”
“I will, Sarge,” Mast said eagerly, smiling all over again.
The chunky Paoli did not change expression or say anything beyond an expressionless, clipped “Okay,” when Mast came up to him still wearing the pistol and told him Sergeant Pender wanted to see him. And Mast stood and watched him go on off chunkily up the hill. Then he picked up his hammer, but he could not go back to work yet. For one thing his hand was trembling violently, and so were his legs, and the thought of his near-escape made him suddenly go weak all over. He sat down by himself on an outcropping, the hammer dangling from his hand.
Out of this had come the best of all possible things, the best position he had been in since first getting the pistol. He had Sergeant Pender on his side. If the lieutenant, who rarely seemed to notice anything, or some other officer, didn’t notice it and made him give it up, he practically had it made. And why would an officer notice it? and if they did, how many of them would give a damn?
There would be other attempts to steal it, undoubtedly. Other bribes, attempting to gain Mast’s salvation. Other tricks, other subterfuges. But Mast was sure he could handle all of them. And the thing which all along had troubled him most, since he had bought this pistol from that man in the 8th Field Artillery, the thing he feared the worst—that of being turned in with it—was no longer a problem. Mast felt safer now with his pistol, and with the chance of survival it gave him, the chance of being saved, than he had ever felt since he had had it. What could possibly happen to it now?
