W E B Griffin - Men at War 1 - The Last Heroes

by The Last Heroes(Lit)

  But then Brandon Chambers got to his feet and waved at Ed's chair.

  "Oh, sit down, Eddie," he boomed. "I promised your mother I'd give it my best shot to talk you out of it, and I have. I also told her that I thought it would be a waste of time." He looked at Dick Canidy. "I'm sorry I had to put you through this, Dick. I hope you understand."

  "Yes, sir," Canidy said. "No problem."

  "Robert!" Mr. Chambers called out.

  THIS LAST REROES "Yes, sir?"

  "Enough of this stuff," Mr. Chambers said. "Bring us some whiskey."

  The servants set up a supper buffet by the pool, but the bugs came out; so before they could start to eat, Jenny Chambers ordered the whole thing carried back inside the house.

  The separation by generation went into effect. The girls and Charley Chambers and his friends were drafted into helping the servants move the dishes and the tables. Ed Bitter and Dick Canidy went into the bar with the "adults.

  Charity saw her watching them go in, and whispered in Sarah's ear: "I like the tall one."

  "All you think about is boys," Sarah replied cattily.

  "And you don't?" Charity laughed.

  Not normally, Sarah thought.

  The "adults" took their supper alone, too. Servants went down the buffet and filled plates for them. The "kids" went through a line. But then the meal was over, and everybody went to the playrooma screened-in porch on the right side of the house. More ice was added to the galvanized tub, and more beer.

  "What can I get you, Miss Sarah?" Robert asked.

  "I get blown up when I drink beer," she said.

  "Fix her a weak Scotch," Ann Chambers ordered.

  Sarah's drink tasted like medicine, but she sipped on it anyway, so as not to look like a child.

  She was more than a little unnerved when a warm hand tapped her bare shoulder (she had changed into a peasant blouse and skirt) and Ed Bitter's voice said, "Dance, Sarah?"

  There was a phonograph playing, but no one was dancing, and Sarah blurted out thin" comfortino, tnith.

  "I know," Ed Bitter said. "I have been dispatched by my aunt because of that. She hopes you and I will inspire people."

  "Us?" she said. "Oh my." But she had to giggle. She raised her arm so that he could take it.

  They danced for a moment, and then he said, "Hey, you're good!"

  She quickly changed the subject. "I understand you're going to China?"

  "Christ, who told you that?"

  "Is it supposed to be a secret?" she asked. "I'm sorry.9' "Nothing to be sorry about," he said, and he gave her a little hug. That pressed her breasts against his chest; but he sensed that made her uncomfortable, and quickly released her. A moment later, she felt her breasts against his chest again, and she knew that she had moved against him.

  She felt strange, dizzy, confused, out of control, as though she were trying to run on sheet ice.

  "Dick and I have joined something called the American Volunteer Group," he said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I said that Canidy and I are going over there with the American Volunteer Group, and fly for the Chinese. Against the Japs."

  "But we're not at war with the Japanese," she said.

  "That's why we had to volunteer," he said.

  "When are you going?" she asked. "How long will you be gone?"

  "In the next couple of weeks," he said. "We should be back in a year. I mean, the contract is for a year."

  A year didn't seem like all that much time. it was sort of like going away to college.

  She felt his fingers graze and then flutter away from her brassiere.

  And then she felt him, in front. It made her feel even funnier, all flushed and dizzy.

  "I need something to drinks" he said, breaking away from her, fl and she saw that his face was ushed, too.

  A little touch of Scotch, please, Robert," he said, and then he seemed to remember that he was still holding her hand, and let go of it as if it burned him.

  "And you, miss?" Robert asked.

  "Nothing for me, thank youg" she said.

  "Want to try it with me, Sarah?" Davey Bershin asked.

  She turned and smiled at him. "Thank you ' " she said.

  It wasn't the same, dancing with Davey. His hand felt like any other boy's hand on her shoulder felt, and she didn't get dizzy or feel funny down there.

  She desperately wanted Ed Bitter to dance with her again, but he didn't. He spent the rest of the evening sitting around a table with his friend and Mr. Chambers. From the way they were moving their hands around in the air, making believe they were airplanes, she knew what they were talking about.

  Carrying drinks, Mark and Sue-Ellen Chambers walked to where Ed Bitter, Dick Canidy, and Brandon Chambers were sitting and@/ dragged up chairs.

  "If you come down on a guy," Brandon Chambers was saying, using his hands to illustrate his point, "and he tries to evade you by pulling up into a climb, then it's a test of engine power. You either keep up with him, climbing after him, which means overcoming the inertia of the dive, and you get your fire into him; or your engine won't do it, and he gets away from you, and then he's on top."

  "Can two civilians join this ghastly conversation?" Mark Chambers said.

  "Certainly," Brandon Chambers replied, a little embarrassed. "I have a small announcement to make," Mark Chambers said.

  "I just called Mobile, and in the morning Stuart's going to bring the boat up."

  "That's a good idea," Brandon Chambers said.

  "It's near a hundred miles against the cuffent, which means it'll be nearly noon before it gets here," Mark Chambers went on. "Would that be too late for you to fly Stuart and me back to Mobile?"

  "I thought you and Sue-Ellen were going back tomorrow night?" Brandon Chambers asked.

  "No. What Sue-Ellen did was call her mother, and the kids will be gotten out of bed at four, then Stuart will pick them up, and they'll come up and they'll stay with Sue-Ellen. I have to get back, but there's no wason the kids can't have some fun. They love the boat, and Charley's friends, and Ann and her friends...." He left the rest unsaid.

  "But who's going to operate the boat?" Brandon Chambers asked.

  "You've just insulted an officer-two officers--of the United States Navy. You can run it, can't you, Eddie?" Mark asked.

  "Why not?" Ed Bitter replied a little thickly.

  "And if he's still drunk," Sue-Ellen Chambers said bitchily, "I'm sure Lieutenant Canidy can."

  "Not drunk," Ed coffected. "Tiddly. There is an enormous difference.

  "I'll take you to Mobile whenever you have to go," Brandon Chambers said. "I'm just sorry you have to go."

  "You know what things are like at the yard," Mark Chambers said. "We're running three shifts, seven days a week. And you'd be surprised what comes up when I'm away just a couple of hours."

  "Well," Brandon Chambers said. "It's very nice of you to think of the boat, Mark."

  "Don't be silly," Mark said. "Anyway, it was Sue-Ellen's idea."

  "It's clearly my patriotic duty," Sue-Ellen Chambers said, thickly sarcastic, looking directly into Dick Canidy's eyes, "to do whatever I can to bring a little joy into the lives of lonely sailors."

  "What you're really doing," Dick Canidy said, "is drafting two sailors to amuse a bunch of college kids."

  "That was uncalled for, Dick," Brandon Chambers said.

  "Sorry about that, Sue-Ellen," Canidy apologized.

  He looked across the room and found Sarah Child looking at him. Without thinking what he was doing, he winked at her. She looked quickly away, but then she looked back. He shrugged his shoulders. She smiled at him.

  The boat, a fifty-two-foot Chriscraft, appeared around a bend in the Alabama River just before noon the next day. It blew its horn as' it passed The Plantation wharf, went several hundred yards upstream, turned, and then came into the wharf and tied up.

  Dick Canidy thought that there was a good chance, if he wasn't careful, that the five-year-old boy stan
ding forward with a rope in his hands would wind up in the river. But he threw the rope as if he knew what he was doing, and then the girl in the back of the boat threw one from there, and Ed Bitter and Brandon Chambers caught them and tied it up.

  The children jumped ashore and were embraced by their grandparents, and then introduced, rather formally, to Dick Canidy. They were nice, polite kids, and when they had started up the wide lawn to The Lodge, Canidy said so.

  "Nice kids, Mrs. Chambers he said.

  "Thank you, Lieutenant Canidy," she replied.

  "Unless you want me to come to the airstrip," she said to her husband, "maybe I'd better stay here and help the Navy fuel her."

  "Right," Mark Chambers said. He was dressed in a suit, ready to go to work as soon as he returned to Mobile. He walked up to Eddie and somewhat awkwardly put his arm around his shoulders.

  "You be careful when you get over there, hear?" he said, not comfortable with the emotion.

  "Thank you, Mark," Eddie said, just as embarrassed.

  Mark Chambers turned to Dick Canidy. "You, too, Dick," he said. "We're counting on you two fellas to take care of each other."

  "Thank you," Canidy said.

  "Good luck," Mark Chambers said, and shook his hand.

  Then he kissed his wife perfunctorily on the cheek and started up the stairwell from the wharf to the lawn.

  "So much for the husband," Sue-Ellen said softly.

  "I'm flattered," Canidy said.

  "I thought that if you had the balls to show up here," she said, "it was up to me to give you an answer."

  She stepped up behind him and slid her hand up the leg of his shorts, her hand moving surely past his underwear to grab him gently but firmly.

  "I'm a pushover for men with balls," she said, laughing deep in her throat.

  She squeezed him and let him go. She stepped to the side of the cockpit and called to Ed Bitter: "It's run about seven hours," she said matter-offactly. "And it bums about twenty-five gallon hour against the current, so it'll take about two hundred gallons. Charley to watch the dial."

  She turned back to Canidy.

  "Everything all right with you?" she asked.

  The coolness of Charley Chambers and his friends toward him was understandable, Ed Bitter thought. They didn't mind competing among themselves for the virgins of the tribe, and they understood that there were not enough virgins to go around. But what they had rlot counted on was visiting warriors from a distant tribe, whom their own virgins found fascinating.

  Ann Chambers had told him she thought Dick Canidy was a "doll." Dick Canidy showed absolutely no interest in any of the girls. Dick, Ed thought, was an accomplished woman chaser, and not interested in girls who had just completed their freshman year of college. Dick was interested in women whom he could lure into his bed with only perfunctory attention to the ritual of courtship. He barely concealed his lack of interest, which of course made him more attractive to them.

  What really surprised Ed Bitter was how much Sarah Child excited him. When Jenny Chambers had sent him over the night before to make him dance with her, the moment he'd touched her warm back there had been a stirring in his groin.

  There was no way in the world that he would so much as pat t ' be delightful little rear end of a nineteen-year-old college girl... but the thought was not uninteresting.

  His profound philosophical reverie at the wheel of the Time Out was interrupted by the appearance of Sarah Child herself. She was wearing white shorts and a sheer white blouse.

  She handed him a bottle of beer.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Why don't you make Mr. Canidy take his turn?" she asked.

  ""Mr. Canidy'?" he answered, gently mocking, aware that she thought of him and Canidy as adults and not boys. "Why, Miss Child, I will tell you the shameful truth. "Mr. Canidy' confessed to me just as soon as we had let loose the lines that he had never piloted a boat like this before. Can you believe that? A naval pilot who can't steer a boat?"

  She chuckled "I like him," she said. "Are you sure he's telling you the truth?"

  "I hadn't thought about that," he said. Now that he did he realized it was entirely possible that Canidy had told him that because he didn't want to spend the afternoon at the wheel of a cabin cruiser moving slowly up a river.

  He looked at her and met her eyes, and she looked away and flushed.

  "I've been thinking about the riverboats," she said.

  "You almost expect to see something out of Mark Twain coming around the next bend, with tall smoke stacks and a paddlewheel."

  "All there is on the river these days," he said, "are diesel tugboats. They push barges of coal downstream, and gasoline up."

  "Pity," she said. She had an adorable expression as she said that.

  "Yes, it is," he agreed.

  Davey Bershin came up the ladder to the flying bridge a moment later, to ask Sarah Child if she wanted to play cards, and she went with him.

  Ed Bitter was sorry to see her go, but realized it was probably a good thing. He had been unable to keep his eyes off her, and sooner or later she would have caught him at it.

  When they returned to The Plantation at sunset, Dick Canidy spent the evening talking flying with Brandon Chambers, while the others played noisily at Monopoly in the game room. Ed Bitter sat quietly with them, not playing, drinking more than he knew he should, unable to keep his eyes off Sarah Child at the Monopoly board.

  When the game was finally over, Ann Chambers got the phonograph going again and walked over to them. She stood there until her father noticed her.

  "You need something, honey?" he asked.

  "No, I'm just standing here with a sad look on my face, waiting to be asked to dance."

  "You dance with her, Dick," Mr. Chambers said. "I'm old, fat, and tired, and I'm about to go to bed."

  Canidy got up. "I'll dance with her," he said. "And then because I'm young and tired, I'm going to bed."

  THE LAST MENGES as What the hell, Ed Bitter thought and went over to Sarah. She stood up and walked to him, as if she had known he would come to her. Her eyes met his, and then she averted them, flushed, and then looked at him again. There was something electric about the look, he thought.

  When he put his hands on hers, it was warm, and thirty seconds after he had her in his arms, he actually started to tremble. He could feel the warmth of her belly against him.

  When the record was over, he turned her over to Davey Bershin and went to the bar and drank a straight shot of Scotch to see if that wouldn't calm him down-knowing that drinking was the worst thing he could be doing. The next-worst thing was staying in the room with Sarah, especially since Canidy had made good on his promise to go to bed. Sue-Ellen was gone now too. He had no business here with these kids.

  There was a flash of lightning and a moment later a clap of thunder, and he remembered that the convertible was sitting in front of the house with the roof down. After he put the top up, he would go to bed.

  He went out the screen door behind the bar to avoid walking through the playroom, then went around the side of the house to the car. He got the boot off and into the trunk and got in the car and started the engine. He had just leaned across the seat to latch the fastener when Sarah Child appeared at the window.

  Their eyes met, and this time, although she flushed, she didn't look away.

  "Going for a ride?" she asked. Her voice was artificial, as if she were having difficulty controlling it.

  "I was just putting the top up," he replied, in a tone as artificial as hers. He could feel his heart beating. "Would you like to go for a ride?"

  She got in the car and closed the door.

  He drove down the dirt road to the airstrip. Neither of them said a word until he had stopped beside the stagger-wing Beech.

  He looked at her, and saw that she was looking at him. He reached his hand out and ran the knuckles against her cheek.

  "Jesus!" he said.

  She smiled and caught his hand in
hers. He had never seen eye, brighter than hers were now.

  "Jesus," she said, mocking him. "Fm trembling," he said.

  "Me, too," she said. She reached up and turned the ignition key off, and then pushed the armrest between the seats UP Out of the way and slid over to him.

  He held her tightly against him, his face in her hair, aware of her breasts against his chest. It seemed to be a very long time before he kissed her, first on the hair, and then On the forehead, and only at long last on her mouth.