by Anton Myrer
The foreman had dropped his eyes, and he talked on quietly and smoothly, making sure the crew heard every word. It was going to go through, because his will was harder than Preis’s; because—because people couldn’t say no to him. Well, if that was how it was, then let it work for him. It was so simple! A simple matter of enforcing obedience, of checking a destructive and foolish defiance, and those moguls and big-time operators up there in the company offices didn’t know how to cope with it. But he did, and he was going to make it work. They would not have understood what made him stand there in the heat, calmly, implacably facing down this petty tyrant: it was not money or advancement or fear or vainglory, but a sense of the fitness of the thing—the essential rightness in doing a job conscientiously and well, bringing order out of chaos.
“But the firm isn’t going to go under,” he went on, pitching his voice so it was clearly audible over the distant whine and drum roll of the plant. “You’re going to stick with it and give me a hand here because it’s for the good of the firm. Because it’s a time of prosperity and this factory is going to grow, get bigger and better in every way, and have its share of that prosperity. It means hard work—a lot of hard work—but once it’s done the whole business will flow like a river, without a hitch or a foul-up.”
Abruptly he broke away from Preis and faced the group directly. “All right,” he said crisply, “let’s turn to. We’re going to load outside, under tarps, and see what we’ve got—and then we’re going to whip this lot into shape. And then we’re going to keep it that way.” He ran his eyes along the crew. They met his gaze, most of them; three of them were smiling faintly, which was a good sign.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
That was step one. Step two took a little longer. He worked hard. He got to the lot before seven in the morning and he worked until after six at night. It took three weeks but he did what no one had done since the plant had started—he accomplished a total and precise inventory. He reorganized all the sheds according to type and function of container, he initiated a coherent and legible system of symbols that were swiftly intelligible to the lot, the plant, and the office; he got the priorities plan in effect for all shipping. It was exhausting but he did it. He got caught up in the problem; he was bursting with ideas, he could think of nothing else. He even changed the boundaries of the lot to facilitate freight-car loading. Then at Downing’s insistence he attacked the raw materials warehouses and set them in order. There was no further trouble with Preis, who pitched in with a vengeance. When Damon heard him bragging to Nickerson one afternoon about the efficiency of the shipping section he knew the campaign was over. Downing was astonished beyond measure; he raised Sam’s salary to two hundred a week, then two fifty.
The lush, late summer days slipped by. Weekends they went for picnics on the lake shore or sailing in the Downings’ boat; and one evening Peggy tapped the living-room wall with the flat of her little hand and said, “This is our other house, isn’t it, Daddy?” and he took her in his arms and kissed her. Tommy was radiant and relaxed. It was an idyll—a lovely summer idyll, for all the hard work at the lot, and he was content to let it go at that. They lay in bed late on Sundays, and swam and fished and had a few couples from the firm to dinner. There were no bugles, no parades.
Tommy said nothing more after that first evening, but he could sense her eyes on him now and then. The days swept away, and finally there were two weeks, and then one; the air turned cool and clear with fall, and the first aspen leaves began to skip through the light air, swirling golden shadows.
Downing called him in one afternoon and told Miss Rainey they were not to be disturbed. “There’s a future for you here, Sam—you must know that by now. I’ll be frank with you. I didn’t think you could do it. The Army—well, you know as well as I do, lots of them are just drifting along, letting Uncle Sam foot the bill.” He chopped at the air with his blunt hands. “You’re different, you’ve got what it takes. Stay on here with us and I can promise you sixteen-five in two years. Why stay on in the Army?—there’s nothing there for your kind of man. Sure, I know you made a great record in the war—but it’s over, Sam. There aren’t going to be any more wars—and if there are we aren’t going to get into them, I can tell you that. Hell, here’s where the challenge is, the opportunity …”
After dinner he sat on the porch, listening to the katydids sizzling like a thousand mechanical buzzers, while the children played in the field and Tommy moved about in the kitchen; and thought about it. It was harder to decide than it had been in ’19. He could make his way as a businessman. Tommy would be happier, unquestionably, out of the world of the Army; there would be money for the good things of life they’d been denied; he might even strike out on his own in time, be his own master—there would be no more Townsends or Batchelders to serve under.
And yet … he was afraid of this world. He feared it; not as an arena where he could not prove himself—he had dispelled that qualm effectively enough—but as a good seaman must fear a recklessly piloted ship. It was too ungoverned, too avaricious, too headlong: in a world where such dizzying profits could be piled one upon another so heedlessly, where bootblacks could make a killing in Allegheny or Union Carbide, he did not want to enlist his services. It was—it was demeaning; his love of the tangible, of concrete and demonstrable values and materials, was assaulted. Erie Container made boxes and boxes were needed, it was true—but that was not what was dominating the mercantile world; what was running it was this roaring Bull Market, this careening skyscraper of brokers’ loans and ten percent margin, of credit capital. It was like a war predicated on incessant advance and continual victory—what would happen at the first setback, the first rush of doubt? It would be an engagement without any power of maneuver, with no reserves—it would be a disaster; and then what would happen to all the banks and factories?
Across the field at the edge of the woods Donny was running, carrying Peggy piggyback. He tripped and fell. There was a commotion and then Damon saw their heads above the tall grass. Peggy was crying and Donny was bent over her solicitously.
“I’m sorry, Peg,” Sam could hear him say. “I didn’t mean to fall down, for heaven’s sake … I told you I’m sorry. You can’t blame a person if they can’t help it …”
Damon rubbed his jaw with his thumb. There was more to it than that, he knew; a lot more. He had chosen to spend his days in the world of men. Life was what mattered, its slow, priceless pulse, its burning fragility; his debt lay with those importunate Flanders echoes that had never really left him. The private could aspire to be a general because both general and private, at their best, recognized the dire importance of strategy, fortitude, the value of their imperiled existence; but when the machinist became the executive he left the world of tangibles and human conjugacy and entered a shadow world of credits and consols—a world that seemed to reward nothing so much as irresponsibility and boundless greed. And when the thunder rolled down upon them—as he knew it would—how would he feel, playing with paper, striving to outwit his fellows, drinking imported Scotch evenings and listening to the brittle parade of comedians on the radio …?
Abruptly he got up and went into the kitchen. Tommy was putting the dishes back in the overhead cabinet. She was humming—a tune he all at once recognized:
It’s so entrancing
To keep on dancing
In toe-tappy, skip-scrappy, jazz-happy Voodooland—!
The song that band had played at the Jongleur Ivre, at Cannes. Long Tom Jethro and His Delta Serenaders. He smiled, remembering. Her figure was as fine as the day he’d met her—that lithe, leaping quality he loved. She reached high above her head with the pitcher, up on her toes. When she puts that pitcher on that shelf our life will change, he thought absurdly.
“Honey,” he began, and stopped. “Honey, I can’t take it. The job. I just don’t think it’s right.”
Turning she nodded. “I knew you’d want to stay in.”
“I’m
sorry. I just can’t see it any other way.”
“It’s all right. It ought to be what you want, Sam.” Her teeth lay on her lower lip. She looked rested and calm and very beautiful; but there was that shadow behind her eyes that always ran a quick tongue of fear through his vitals.
He went up to her and kissed her softly. “You look very lovely,” he said. “You’ve got to admit I’ve got an eye for beauty. Even if I can’t see the woods for the trees.”
She smiled then—a slow, sweet smile. “Oh well. We’ll manage. It’s been lovely. A real vacation. Just like Cannes.”
“Yes. I was thinking of it, too.” He took the little package out of his pocket and gave it to her.
She blinked up at him. “But—what’s the occasion?”
“No occasion. It’s just for you.”
She opened the wrapping like a little girl, pressed back the cushioned top, gazed in silence at the pearl earrings, faintly blue against the black velvet. “Oh, they’re lovely,” she exclaimed softly; she touched one with her forefinger. “They’re—oh, Sam …” And her eyes all at once filled with tears.
“Never mind the money,” he said.
“—It’s not the money …”
“I wanted to buy you these. For years and years. And now I could.”
Her arms went under his and around his waist; her face bore the strangest expression he’d ever seen—a look compounded of love and apprehension and gratitude and boundless dismay; the tears rolled whitely along her lower lids and she shook her head, blinking, to clear them.
“Oh Sam,” she whispered, “you’re such a good old curmudgeon. What’s a woman to do with you?”
He wished he could hold her like this forever—here in this still room with the evening shadows flowing across the field and the katydids a soft roar and the children’s voices like sea birds crying.
“Just stick around,” he murmured; he pressed his mouth to her hair. He felt weak with loving her. “Just stick around.”
6
The military policeman said: “Good evening, Captain.” He stepped aside, the big gate swung open and Damon passed through, conscious of a sinking sensation as he moved inside the crazily laced strands of wire; inconceivable as it was, at times like this he could never entirely rid himself of the idea that he wouldn’t get out again. Following the MP, his eyes roamed professionally around the little street. The stockade was spotless and bare: there were no washlines, no pets, no soldiers playing catch—there weren’t even tufts of grass at the edges of the buildings or around the tent pegs. Everything was invested with that fierce immaculacy of the penal institution; there was no place for evidences of human frailty, human warmth. The cascao had been pounded into a flat, white causeway that hurt the eyes, edged by the faded dun pyramids of tents; all of it motionless, caught in silence, cooking in the tropic sun.
Inside the guard hut the sergeant rose and said, “Sir?”
“Are you holding a man from E Company named Brand?”
“Yes, we are, Captain.”
A hoarse, high-pitched voice called from the office: “Who’s that, Hurley?”
The sergeant went toward the office door with a cautious, bent-kneed gait. “It’s Captain Damon, sir.”
“Well, now …” There was a short pause. “Ask him to come in.”
Damon walked into the office and said, “Hello, Jarreyl.”
First Lieutenant Jarreyl thrust a dog-eared magazine away with his elbow and heaved himself back in the swivel chair, which squeaked shrilly under his weight. “Well, Damon …” He made no effort to get to his feet, salute or shake hands. “Down to give a few words of encouragement to one of your boys?”
“None of my boys are in here right now, Jarreyl.”
“That’s a shame. I always look forward to having one of them down here. You know?”
“Yes, I know.”
Lieutenant Jarreyl grinned up at him, nodding slowly. He was a barrel-chested man with long arms and a short, thick neck in which his head sat like a pumpkin in a tub of tallow. He had been an intercollegiate light-heavyweight champion at a Texas college, then had turned professional for a year or two before enlisting in the Army. In addition to running the prisoners’ stockade he captained the regimental boxing team at Fort Garfield.
“Just a little social call?”
“Something like that.” Damon went over and sat down in one of the two canvas chairs. “As a matter of fact I’d like to talk to Private Brand.”
Jarreyl’s brows rose. “The Indian? What do you want with him?”
“That’s my business.”
“It’s mine, too.” The stockade officer scowled. “I can tell you right now you’re wasting your time. Crazy son-of-a-bitching redskin—he’s gone right off his rocker.”
“That so?”
“Tried to break away from a work detail at Taligán. He was damned lucky Andersen didn’t blow his head off—I can tell you I would have. Then he tried to take on two of my MPs last night. Had to have a short pacification session with him. Tough little monkey. But just not quite tough enough.” He smacked his hands together lightly, fist against paw. “Ah, they all come to me, Damon,” he said in his high, gravelly voice. “All of them—the hellions and the wise guys and the misfits. All the characters that think they’re something special. You know?” His small black pupils glinted under the rolls of gristle; two gold teeth gleamed softly. “They all come to papa.”
“And you iron them out so nicely,” Damon answered, “there’s nothing special about them at all.”
“I make good boys out of them. I get them to see the light. You know?”
“If you’re such an evangelist, how come you have so many repeaters?”
Jarreyl’s mouth made a deep little O. “Well, I guess some of them are just harder to teach than others.”
“And this Brand is hardest to teach of them all.”
“Nothing like that. He’s reverted to type, that’s all. He’ll come round in time.”
“Maybe.” Damon watched the thick, square face, the little ignorant eyes, bright now with suspicion. What was it that made them all so insolent, so ruthless? Proximity to personal degradation? the occupational hazards of the trade? He hated MPs. He knew they were necessary, a necessary evil, men being what they were, the system being what it was—lonely, rootless soldiers marooned at the jungle’s edge, ten thousand miles from home; but he hated them nonetheless.
Jarreyl was gazing up at the ceiling with false indifference. “Tell you what, Damon. If you’ve got a message for him, I’ll be glad to deliver it for you.”
“I’d rather do it myself, thanks.”
The stockade officer leaned forward, his blocklike chest straining against the cut-down shirt, which was damp with sweat. “You know something, Damon?” he inquired softly. “You seem to have got the idea somewhere that you’re pretty special yourself.”
“That’s right.” He smiled for the first time since he’d entered the stockade. “Just special enough.” He turned his face toward the six-bladed fan that was revolving listlessly on a windowsill. He had heard what went on here nights, when Jarreyl rolled in drunk or savage, and decided to have some fun with the inmates; he knew what the “pacification sessions” usually were—he knew the kind of men Jarreyl had surrounded himself with: the brutish, the wily, the dulled. Everyone on the post, who cared at all about finding out, knew. But Jarreyl was the privileged protégé of Colonel Fahrquahrson; his teams usually won the interisland championships, and he could do no wrong.
Damon had seen him fight a few times: a crowding, butting, gouging attack, full of low blows and elbows and heeling, the referee’s angry warnings and the forfeiture of rounds; Jarreyl always had the crowd on its feet, roaring with approval or imprecation. The Colonel was delighted with him. “How that boy can maul ’em!” Damon had heard him cry once, wagging his head. “How he can maul ’em!” Only the native troops were silent: they hated Jarreyl, and with reason. Damon had heard him on the subject of
the Filipino. “He’s a gook, ain’t he? And a gook is second cousin to a nigger.” And then the false, glittering grin. “Maybe even first cousin. You know?”
“What’s a Texan, Jarreyl?” he’d asked in the silence. “First cousin to a Mexican?”
That was the way things had started between them. Ten months earlier Damon had taken over a company whose commanding officer, he’d been tersely informed, had been sent home on a medical survey—which he soon found out was a pleasant euphemism for acute alcoholism. The outfit was slack. The noncoms were good enough but they’d gone stale; they were merely coasting, running out the string. The topkick was a phlegmatic, morose man named Huber who was interested in nothing more than rounding out his fifth hitch and playing cribbage in the company office. The food was catastrophic.
Damon had changed all that in short order. He’d busted Huber and replaced him; heads rolled among the cooks until the food was up to what it should have been. He drilled the company hard, hiked them back into shape, worked on their quarters and their personal appearance. He overhauled the ball team and got it rolling again. He demanded a full, hard day, but he was generous with passes. The company got the word quickly enough; and when they found he was willing to listen to their troubles after retreat and would go to bat for them, they began to respond. At the end of four months they were calling themselves Damon’s Demons, were known throughout Luzon as the Hiking Fools, and were easily the smartest company in the regiment.
As a reward he organized a dance for them in the mess hall. It was a modest enough affair, with a pick-up seven-piece band culled from the battalion, banana leaves and sampaguita and tree orchids for floral decoration, and a fruit punch that tasted like a perfumed soap dipped in licorice. The affair started awkwardly, with the Filipino girls fluttering in a tight knot at one end of the hall and the boys milling uncertainly at the other. Tommy, sensing the situation, improvised a grand march and then danced with First Sergeant Wilberson, whose face wore the expression of a man ordered to carry a priceless tray full of china across a frozen river. After that, though, the men who knew girls began introducing them to some of their friends; the band shook down and started to play together, and the floor began to move, the island girls in their full-sleeved ternos and piña-cloth skirts and high-necked panatelas swirling like rose and saffron birds against the khaki. When a lively corporal named Torgan got up on the stacked mess tables and called for three cheers for Captain Damon and the hall echoed with their roar, Sam felt oddly moved.