by James Jones
“You’ll need to restock on flour,” Preem said. “Dont forget it.”
“I wont,” Stark said. “In fact, it was me pointed it out to you.”
Stark did not go back to his work. He sat motionless, watching Preem intently, waiting. Preem closed the doors into the KP room and then came back to the homemade desk.
“Well, Stark, its all yours,” Preem said. “And you can have it.”
“Thanks,” Stark said dryly, the deep crease down the right side of his mouth fixed and unrelenting.
“I’m gettin what I deserve,” Preem said, “and I know it. I got no complaints.”
“Well now thats fine,” Stark said.
Preem ignored him. “I’m through,” he went on. “You think you got a good break, Stark. And maybe you have. You just moved in, and this heres your first permanent berth. You makin a lot of changes and you snappin these people up, just like they ought. Its new and you like it. It looks like rosy.”
Preem paused, and with what seemed a great effort put his foot up on a crate and leaned on his knee.
Stark said nothing.
“I was the same way when I got my first mess,” Preem said. “You cant see nothin bad ahead. But when the new wears off is when you’ll see it. In six months Holmes’ll find himself a new fair-haired boy; Warden’ll have a new iron to burn. Then you’ll have to fight for ever spud you get. They’ll be too many people puttin their oar in and tellin you how to run your mess. They cramp you ever way you turn.
“It wears you down after a while. After one hitch there aint no hotshot mess sergeant. And its the same ever place you go.
“I’m sober, Stark. I’ll be drunked up tonight, but I’m sober as a judge right now.
“I dont hold no grudge because I’m gettin what I deserve. I aint makin excuses neither, but a man can only take so much and then he gets tired. It wears you down. Its hard to see somethin you love patchworked by politicians. After twenty years service, I’m goin back to bein a buckass private in the rear rank.”
“You werent no hotshot mess sergeant down at Bliss,” Stark said. “You was just a cook, like me. And you got this rating the same way I got it: you come up here and pushed some other guy out of it, because you been at Bliss with Holmes.”
“Thats right,” Preem said, “a guy who never done me no harm in his life. A man thats smart will get out before its too late. Its too late for me. Its better to be a buckass private in the rear rank all a time, rather than go back to it after twenty years. Drill at eight and Fatigue at one. Be smart, Stark, and get out. Thats my advice to you.”
“I aint never been smart,” Stark said.
“I know,” Preem said. “And I aint expectin you to be. But I told you. Theys some men is smart and theys others that aint. Them thats smart gets on in life, and them that aint buys out.”
“Buy out,” Stark said. “And then what?”
“I don’t know,” Preem said. “They got you comin and goin. But a young man’s at least got a chance. But I never bought out, and you wont neither.”
“I said I wasnt smart,” Stark said. “Anyways, you cant buy out no more, with this war comin on.”
“Thats right,” Preem said. “But whenever a man likes somethin, he caint take cover. You got a cut on your eye, thats what the other man tries to hit. If you love the kitchen like I loved the kitchen, then you ought to get out of it and do straight duty. If you liked straight duty, then you ought to get in the kitchen. If clerkin’s what you hate, then thats what you ought to do. That way you’re safe, you’ll be a success then, you’ll get the ratings and you’ll keep them, because you wont have no weak spot where they can hurt you.”
Stark grinned. “That sounds like good advice. But like I said, I aint that smart.”
But Preem didnt grin. “One thing, Stark; watch out for Warden. He’s on your side now, because you do him some good. But dont ever trust Warden too much.”
“I never trust anybody too much,” Stark said.
“Okay,” Preem said. “You’re the hotshot. You dont need no advice. . . . You want to shake hands with me?”
Stark looked down at his list. “Sure,” he said.
“How old you think I am?” Preem said as they shook hands.
Stark shook his head. “I dont know.”
“I’m thirty-eight,” Preems grin was bitter. “Look fifty-eight, dont I?”
“Look oldern that,” Stark said, trying to make a joke of it.
Preem opened the doors and the steamy air from the sinks filled the stockroom.
“I wont be over to Choy’s no more,” Preem said, “but I ever see you over to the Post Beergarden, I’ll buy you a brew.”
“Okay, Preem,” Stark said. “So long.”
He watched the tall gaunt figure walk on through the KP room. It stopped once to look at the big built-in icebox. Stark sat down at his homemade desk and picked up the order list. Then he put it down and picked up his pencil. An order list was an important thing. You had to make one out for every day of the year. Three hundred and sixty-five order lists. Three hundred and sixty-six on leap year. Stark tore up his order list and threw it on the floor. Then he got up and looked at the sweating, water-soaked KPs bending over their sinks. He leaned on the door and studied them with reflective eyes set in a face that seemed about to laugh sardonically, or cry wearily, or sneer belligerently.
After a while he went back to his desk and took out a fresh blank. An order list was important, just as important as your menus.
Chapter 14
IT HAD ALL OF it, Prew questioned, begun with the quitting of the Bugle Corps. Everything else had followed naturally from that. It was like a staircase, with each step logically above the last, and that once you were committed to the very bottom step you had obviously to follow, each foot above the other simply, to get to the place where you were going. Because it was plainly the only way to get upstairs; or in this case, get downstairs. This was, he reflected, a staircase going down, each step below the other, the whole parallel column of them stretching down and down, to the point where the parallel lines of the banisters you could not jump over without being injured came together, the point shrouded in the mists of beyond-sight so you could not see it, and which mathematically was not a point at all but only an optical illusion that you never reached. This was the staircase he had entered upon when he had committed himself to the first step and quit the Corps, so he could forget all the subsequent steps (the step of being busted, the step of Violet, the step of not being a punchie, and all the other similar steps) which led down to this present step of no money, of rear rank privacy, of being unable to procure even momentarily (a moment, right now, would be all he needed) a woman when your bowels slid in you suddenly and greasily at the thought of one; led down to this, finally and worstly, present step of suffered scorn. He could forget all these, in looking back and taking stock, and concentrate on the very first step. He had taken that step of his own free will; he knew that then, and now, in ruminating back, he knew it now. But it was, he also knew an own free will that while it allowed him choice had presented only one alternative for him to choose from. If this was so, and he was quite sure that it was so, then that had not really been the first step at all, that quitting of the Corps, and there was no first step anywhere but only another mythical banister-meeting point shading off above him into god knew how long before he was ever born. Yet these steps were not haphazard. They were well built, well proportioned, all of a piece, and solid. They would never fall out from under you. They had been put there, each step a decision that was not a decision, part of a plan that was not a plan, each with its subsequent steps that were not subsequent steps. He saw all this quite clearly, knew it all quite positively, and realized quite surely that he could not have chosen other than he did. It was only that, after a while, not after a dozen steps, not after a hundred steps, not after five hundred steps, but after an infinitely infinite number of steps, the legs that took each single step so easily began to tire.
He pulled his first KP under the new Mess Sergeant two days after Preem’s shamefaced capitulation, three days before the end of March and the Payday he had been sweating out so hard. He had expected, knowing that his turn was coming inexorably up, that The Warden would have taken advantage of the fact and arranged it so his KP would fall on Payday, since he had done things like that before. So he was not only surprised, but almost pleased, to pull KP this time. He was certainly not expecting trouble.
Like the rest of the Company, he had watched the battle for the Mess dispassionately, not caring much who won, but knowing beforehand how it would obviously end. It was like watching the intricate, un-humanized move and countermove of pieces in a chess game from a master’s textbook, where you knew each move before it came and still must gasp in admiration at the beauty of the logic, but which did not touch the movement of your life. He had not cared at the time that Stark had won.
But after the night of the big celebration, when Stark had offered to buy him a second beer in spite of The Warden’s sarcasm, he had been glad that Stark had won. He had felt drawn to Stark and very grateful, even when the pride in him made him refuse because Stark had made a sudden rise to power in the Company, even when he wanted very badly to accept. He had felt there would be understanding there. And Prewitt needed understanding, male understanding. Almost as bad, or worse than he needed woman. He saw in Stark an admirable man, and he needed that too. So he was almost looking forward to this KP, as bad as he disliked KP. And he truly did dislike KP; it was amazing how unpleasant good food could become once the meal was over and a subtle chemistry changed it into garbage. He was hoping for a good KP.
But everything went wrong at the start. In the first place, he was on KP with Bloom and Readall Treadwell. Which meant that he would either have to work with Bloom, on dishes, or else take the rotten mucky job of pots and pans and let Reedy work with Bloom. Because there was no hope at all that Readall Treadwell, who never beat anybody anyplace, would beat Bloom down and get the second choice of jobs so Prew could work with him on dishes and leave Bloom the pots and pans. Bloom, who was a Pfc, who was a fighter, who was obviously soon to be a corporal, who had bravely stuck up for Pvt Prewitt when the boys had called him yellow, and whom he would not work with, ever.
Angelo Maggio was on Dining Room Orderly for that day, and he wished repeatedly that Bloom had got the DRO, and Angelo the KP, even though that was tough on Maggio.
He woke early; having kept the thought strong in his mind the night before, dropping off to sleep, that he must be the first down and get first choice of jobs, just in case Reedy did happen to beat Bloom down; and lay a while, watching the sky greying in the east and the night collecting in a pool between the mountains, feeling sleep like a great predatory cat perched heavily on his chest. He forced himself to push it off him and got up and dressed in fatigues and went down to the kitchen through the cool early greyness that was the best time to sleep. It was deserted when he got there, unhuman with its man-made dead machines squatting in the very early morning, and he sat smoking, feeling as he used to feel crawling out of some boxcar in some strange sleeping town at dawn with no lights anywhere to show him life was not extinct, but glad as he smoked that he was first down.
The fat cook Willard, who got his First Cook’s rating back when Stark made Sergeant, and who was in charge of the shift that would be on duty, was the first one to roll out, and the real trouble started then. Prew heard his alarm, quickly muffled, go off in the cooks’ room; then he came out, soft and fat, still buttoning his pants, and irritably sleepily obnoxious, to light the oil spray stoves and get a pot of coffee on, which was his duty as First Cook.
“Well, look who’s here already,” he ridiculed obscenely, squinch-eyed with sleepy malice. “You must want that easy job plenty bad, to throw away two hours’ sleep to get it.”
“No,” Prew said. “You just think that, because you like to sleep so goddam much.” He did not like the fat cook any better than the rest did, but he did not mind him.
“You sure dint meant to lose that easy job though, did you?” Willard grinned obscenely. “I guess you’d of got up just as early anyway, wouldnt you?”
“Thats right, Fatstuff,” Prew said, sneering the hated nickname, suddenly inflamed by this needling cook who hated to get up and was trying to take it out on him. “What do you want? me to say I always pick the hard jobs, like you?”
“I’m sure glad I dont have to pull KP no more,” Willard needled, grinning, giving the almost boiling coffee one more stir, and setting it off to settle.
“You pull KP ever day, Fatstuff. Only you’re too goddam dumb to know it.”
“At least I get paid extra for it.”
“Through no fault of yours. If you had to eat the food you cook you’d soon be thin, instead of a fat roasting pig.”
“Dont get wise with me, you might find yourself on KP again tomorrow.”
“Up yours,” Prew said, and helped himself to the coffee, deliberately without asking, pouring in a thin stream of the canned milk.
“Thats cooks’ coffee,” Willard said. “Wait till you’re asked.”
“I waited till you asked me I’d be dead. What makes fat men so mean and stingy, Fatstuff? Because they afraid they wont have enough to eat? It must be tough to be a fat man,” he grinned and moved up to the stove warmth, the hot dark liquid scalding down him sweetly, burning away the sleep and early morning chill.
“Goddam you,” Willard glowered. “You’re wise, aint you? I’m telling you, you keep on getting wise with me, you’ll find yourself on KP Payday. I still got enough stripes I dont have to take no KP’s lip.”
“Pullin your rank, ’ey?” Prew grinned, and filled his cup again. “He dishes it out, when he has to take it he pulls his rank. I always knew you were chicken, Fatstuff.”
“You’ll think I’m chicken,” Willard said. “You dont know what chicken is, wise guy. I only hope you get on pots and pans today, wise guy.”
Prew laughed, but not relishing it any more, knowing the fat cook was afraid because he was a fighter, but also knowing Willard would make him pay for this the rest of the day, if he got the chance, simply because he had not kept his mouth shut and taken Willard’s gaff.
The rest of them began to come in then, a sudden influx, and Willard let it drop. The kitchen began to fill with pleasant warmth and bustle that soon turned into unpleasant heat and frantic agitation to get the breakfast out on time. Stark was there, in the middle of it from the first, carrying papers in his hand, already doing tomorrow’s paperwork, but at the same time overseeing everything.
Prew was frying himself eggs and bacon on the corner of the griddle, a privilege that up until Stark took over Willard had guarded jealously from the KPs, but which Stark had let them have, when Stark called Willard down about the breakfast eggs.
“How many times I have to tell you to measure how much milk you put in scrambled eggs,” Stark said. “Throw this mess out.”
“But thats wasteful. I’ll have to do them over.”
“It’d be more wasteful to throw it out after we’ve served it and the men wont eat it,” Stark said. “Throw it out.”
“But there wont be time to start another batch, Maylon,” Willard said, trying to twist out of it, using Stark’s first name as a protection.
“I said throw it out. If we have to hold chow, we’ll hold it. But we wont feed these men slop. Will we?”
“My eggs aint slop, Maylon.”
“Throw it out, Fatstuff,” Stark said, like an umpire calling the play at second base against the crowd. “And when you come back turn your goddam oven down, unless you want to serve them scrambled rubber. You have to do them over twice, you will be late.”
“Oh, God,” Willard said, looking at the ceiling, “I dont know why it always falls on me. Here,” he bawled at Prew, “You. KP. Whatsyername. Throw this stuff out.”
“You know my name, Fatstuff,” Prew said.
“There,”
Willard said, squinch-eyed, to Stark. “You hear that? Thats insubordination. He been doin that to me all day.”
“Throw it out yourself,” Stark grinned. “He’s cookin his breakfast. You’re the one that ruint it.”
“All right,” Willard said. “By god all right I will. A Mess Sergeant who wont even stand up for his own cooks.”
“Whats that?” Stark said.
“Nothing,” Willard, who could not forget the day Stark took him out on the green, said.
After he had gone out, Prew said, “He’ll really have it in for me now,” and pulled a stool up to the aluminum pastry table and sat down to eat.
“He got it in for you?”
“I dint ask him could I have some coffee before I helped myself.”
Stark grinned; his one-sided, off-beat grin. “Always defending his rank. As a pillroller he might be all right. He’s fat enough. But as a cook he’s lousy. I think he sweats in all the food. Guys like him only talk, they never really bother anybody.”
Prew nodded, grinning, believing it when Stark said it because it was so obviously true of all gutless wonders; but it did not work out like Stark said, although Prew did not notice this. It worked out just the opposite. Willard did not let it drop. He shut up about it, but he did not let it drop. And because Pfc Bloom came rushing in shortly after to report, Willard had Prew where he could really bother him, in the kitchen, on pots and pans.
“Well?” Pfc Bloom said energetically, setting his coffee next to Prew, “what job you going to take? We might as well get it figured out. The rinsing sink’s the easiest. I dont mind the washing sink, myself. Which one you want?”
“I dont know yet,” Prew said, silently cursing Reedy Treadwell’s laziness.
“Dont know yet!” Pfc Bloom exclaimed.
“Thats right. I thought maybe you might want pots and pans.”
“Are you kidding?” Pfc Bloom asked. “Not me, buddy.”
“Some guys like pots and pans,” Prew said hopefully. “Some guys claim you get done quicker and get a longer morning break, on pots and pans.”