by James Jones
He grinned to himself, tautly and ecstatically, because he knew he had them where it hurt, and because he knew now for sure they could not do him in by Payday, and because for a moment he had wild visions that maybe this might even cure them, next time, and continued to hang on, his only dim hope of any relief at all centered in the coming of the afternoon and fatigue. But as it turned out he got no relief then either. As it turned out, at fatigue, he not only lost the lead he had gained at drill, he went in the hole.
It was his own fault. He was on Ike Galovitch’s home labor detail.
He had had for a long time now the habit of hanging around in the barracks until the last minute before falling out for fatigue. This was so that he would be on the very end of the line, in order to circumvent The Warden’s little game of Break It Off In Prewitt. The last half, or last third, of the Company—depending on the daily demands for fatigue labor that came down from Regiment—was always put to some job of policing in the Company Area and Ike Galovitch, by a standing order to The Warden from Capt Holmes, always had charge of this home use labor section. If Prew was on the end of the line, it was as if he were off limits to The Warden, and he would always get off with this. He would never get the cushy details, like the Officer’s Club detail or the golf course detail, but neither would he get the trash truck or the butcher shop. The Warden could easily have simply reversed the order of the Company and started with the other end, or if he wanted, just have held the worse detail back until the very last, after partitioning off Ike’s labor for home use. But he had learned that Warden would not do that, that that old private line of equity, drawn with such sharpness with such close secrecy that it was wholly invisible to everyone but Warden, would not let the big man take advantage of the situation in that way. Every time Prew would forget and fall in with the first half The Warden would be right there waiting savagely joyously with the worst detail the day’s crop offered, but as long as Prew was at the other end he was safe. It was, Prew often thought, as if The Warden had applied to his whole life the principle which applied to all other games of sport—that laying down of certain arbitrary rules to make success that much harder for the player to attain, like clipping in football or traveling in basketball, or in the same way, as he had read someplace, that sporting fishermen would use the light six-nine tackle in fishing for sailfish instead of the heavy tackle that makes it easy for the novice, thereby imposing upon themselves voluntarily the harder conditions that make the reward worth more to them. But where the fishermen only did it on their days off or on vacation, to gain some obscure satisfaction that the cutthroat business ethics of their lives no longer gave them, The Warden applied it to his whole life, and stuck by it. Prew knew he stuck by it because, after figuring it out, he had at times, when he felt in the mood, accepted the gambit and played the game by falling in at the head and trying to outwit Warden into giving him an easy detail, and once, the only time he made him miss, Warden had made it a point of giving him the Officers’ Club detail for the whole next week, as if penalizing himself, with as great a relish as when he penalized Prewitt. It was fun, and it broke up the monotony of living, and there was a closeness between him and The Warden, an understanding, tacit, never spoken of, but closer and stronger than even what he felt for Maggio. And whenever he did not feel like playing he would fall in at the end and Warden would not touch him. It was like King’s X in tag as a kid, except here it was not abused, it was honored. (Maybe that was what it was about The Warden: honor; yet Maggio had honor too, and was with him more often and had done more for him, than Warden, yet there was not as warm a closeness, not as great a love.) He did not understand it, but on this day he did not feel like playing.
After The Warden had read off the details, Old Ike lined his detail up and called them to attention as the other details scattered, marching off across the quad, the feet scuffing reluctantly and the shoulders sagging wearily as they dragged the heavy, food-full, nap-hungry bellies off to work.
“Now today,” Ike told his boys, his long lippy ape’s jaw thrust out commandingly at them, “we are going da inside of dis barricks to clean up. Hupstairs and donstairs all the windows wash and polishing. An of da dayroom an poolroom and CQ’s corridor da walls to scrub. Da Gomny Gmandr will inspect tomorrow all of it so you want to do it right and none of the goldbricking I want to see. Hokay. Hany queshuns?”
All of them had done this same job at least five times before. There were no questions.
“Dan coun hoff!” Ike bawled, raising his chest proudly like a bellows to make room for his close order voice. “Da ones hupstairs and donstairs da windows take. Da twos on da walls will work.”
They counted off. Prewitt and Maggio, who had deliberately fallen in one man apart, were both twos. The ones started for the supply room to get their rags and bars of sandsoap in the yellow wrappers labelled Bon Ami under the picture of the cuddly little fluffy chick that always outraged all of them with an unspeakable affront because as soldiers their lives had become such a close alliance with the grit of sandsoap. Sgt Lindsay, a fair-to-middling bantamweight, had charge of the ones. The twos started for the kitchen for the GI soap and brushes. Corp Miller, a worse-than-mediocre lightweight and Champ Wilson’s running mate, had charge of the twos.
“Hey you,” Ike bawled. “You Prewitt Maggio. To me here come, wise guys. How you men both twos are?”
“You counted us off, Ike,” Angelo said.
“You think a fast one can over Old Ike pull?” Ike said, glaring at them suspiciously out of the little red eyes behind the hairy brows. “Over my face the wool you can not stretch. I ham separating you two men together. You Maggio go hupstairs the ones wit. Tell Sargint Lindsay to Treadwell send back down the twos wit. Dis a fatigue, not no hold ladies sewing circle or vacation. In charge am I of dis detail and I work want not loafing. See?”
“I’ll see you later,” Angelo said disgustedly.
“Okay,” Prew said, with the unruffled equanimity of the perfect soldier.
“Hokay,” Ike bawled. “Move. Not all day. You Prewitt go back the twos wit and dont sometime figur on getting by with from me, see? I be around all time keep eye on you, see? You aint so tough smart guy as maybe think.”
Ike was as good as his word. He made his headquarters in the corridor hallway where the twos had set up the one-by-eight on the two stepladders they used for scaffolding, and where Prew was working, first standing on the board, then sitting on it, then kneeling on the floor, washing down swath after swath of the pebbly plaster wall from floor to ceiling.
“Dis a fatigue, not vacation, Prewitt,” Ike informed him, grinning wolfishly with the long sallow ape’s jaw, from time to time. “I got my eye on you.”
And he had. When Prew climbed down to rinse his rag, when he went outside to change the water in his bucket, when he turned around to resoap his GI brush—Old Ike would be there in front of him, watching suspiciously hopefully with the little sharp eyes in the sanguine bullethead like red buttons reflecting firelight on a lumberjack’s plaid shirt.
—“Dis a fatigue, not vacation, Prewitt.”—
But Ike’s hopes were groundless. Prew had been having a lot worse than that all morning, and had weathered it by playing perfect soldier. Ike’s efforts were almost pathetic, compared to the imaginative variety that, say, Dhom could give to the riding of a man. This could not get under his skin, not the sharp smell of the dirty soapy water, nor his own white water-wrinkled fingers, nor the stale cracker smell of the wet wall plaster.
It was not, strangely, until Capt Dynamite Holmes came bouncing in from across the quad, freshly showered, shaved, shampooed, and shined, his big boots gleaming—it was not till then that all these things suddenly got under Prewitt’s skin.
“Hello there, Sergeant Galovitch,” Holmes grinned, stopping in the doorway.
“Atten HUT,” Ike bawled, making two distinct words of it, and bracing his bigfooted longarmed missinglink’s body into an arch-backed travesty of it proudly. The me
n went on working.
“Everything under control, Sergeant?” Holmes said fondly. “Are you getting this place slicked up for me tomorrow?”
“Yes, Serr,” Ike grunted, uncomfortably because still bracing solidly, his thumbs along the seams of his trousers, somewhere down around his knees. “Slickem up. Everyting I am doing just like the Gomny Gmandr saying.”
“Good,” Holmes grinned fondly. “Fine.” Still grinning fondly, he stepped over to inspect the wall, and nodded. “Looks fine, Sergeant Galovitch, A-1. Keep up the good work.”
“Yes, Serr,” Ike grunted worshipfully, still bracing. The narrow shouldered barrel ape’s chest expanded out until it looked about to burst and Ike saluted, stiffly, grotesquely, looking as if the hand would knock his eye clear out.
“Well,” Holmes grinned fondly. “Carry on then, Sergeant.” He went on into the orderly room grinning and Old Ike bawled “Atten HUT” again, making it two words again, and the men still went on working.
Prew went on rubbing his rag over the pebbly plaster he had just washed and that suddenly sickened him now, feeling his jaws tighten reasonlessly. He felt as if he had just witnessed the sodomitic seduction of a virgin brunser who had liked it.
“All right, you men there,” Ike hollered proudly, moving slabfooted up and down behind them. “You men I want on the ball to get, see? Just begause da Gomny Gmandr comes around is to stop working no escuse. Dis a fatigue, not vacation.”
The men still went on working, wearily ignoring this new outburst because they had been expecting it, as they wearily ignored the other outbursts, and Prew went with them, suddenly suffocating in the wet plaster smell that enveloped him. He wished he had a pair of bright and shining boots.
“You Prewitt,” Ike hollered angrily, not finding anything else to criticize. “Lets looking a life. Dis a fatigue, not vacation for a seminaries of lady. I got to tell you all ready times too many. Now looking a life.”
If Ike had not mentioned him by name, with Holmes in there listening taking it all in, he could still have stomached it. But quite suddenly the words were beating against his ears, on and on, so that instinctively he wanted to shake his head to clear it.
“What the hell do you want, me to grow a couple more arms for Chrisake?” he said violently suddenly, hearing his own voice outhollering Ike’s astoundedly, yet seeing in his mind the Great God Holmes sitting grinning at his desk listening relishingly to his favorite sergeant. For once maybe The Man might like to hear what his men thought of his favorite sergeant, for a change.
“How?” Ike said flabbergastedly. “What?”
“Yas, what,” Prew sneered. “You want this job done so perfect and so fast why dont you grab a brush yourself? Instead of standing around giving orders nobody listens to.”
The men stopped mechanically washing and all stared at him, just as mechanically, and he looked at them, the rage filling him, now knowing why. He knew it was senseless, absolutely senseless, even dangerous, but for a moment he was wildly proud.
“Now listen,” Ike said, thinking hard. “This back talk are you giving me do I not want. To work get back on the lip shut button.”
“Oh blow it out your ass,” he said savagely, still mechanically scrubbing with his rag, “I’m working. What do you think, I’m floggin my doggin?”
“What,” Ike gasped. “What.”
“AT EASE!” roared Capt Holmes, appearing in the door. “What the hell is all this racket, Prewitt?”
“Yes, Serr,” Ike grunted, popping to attention. “Dis man bolshevik da back talk is giving to a noncom.”
“Whats the matter with you, Prewitt?” Capt Holmes said sternly, ignoring the momentarily shattered illusion of his favorite sergeant, “You know better than to talk back to a noncommissioned officer, and in that tone of voice.”
“To a noncom, yes, Sir,” Prew grinned savagely, aware now of the watching eight wide pairs of eyes. “But I have never liked being pissed on, Sir. Even by a noncommissioned officer,” he said, twisting the phrase.
The Warden appeared in the door behind Holmes and stood looking at all of them, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully, himself aloof from it.
Holmes looked as if someone had dashed a glass of ice water in his face absolutely without reason. His brows were up with disbelief and his eyes were wide with hurt and his mouth was open with surprise. When he spoke his voice quivered openly with both rage and start.
“Private Prewitt, I think you owe both Sergeant Galovitch and myself an apology.” He paused and waited.
Prew did not answer. He felt a shrinking in his belly at the thought of what this stupidity would do to his chances Payday, wondering what in hell had possessed him to do a thing like that.
“Well?” Holmes said authoritatively. He was as surprised by it as any of them, as surprised as Prewitt even, and had said the first thing that came into his head but he could not show that He had to back it up. “Apologize, Prewitt.”
“I dont think I owe anybody any apology,” Prew said savagely doggedly. “In fact, if apologies are in order, I think they’re owed to me,” he went on recklessly, wanting suddenly to laugh at the comedy of it, like a mother chastening a child to bring it back in line. “But then thats the way they always treat us, isn’t it?”
“What!” Holmes said. It had not occurred to him that an EM could refuse. He was as much at a loss now as Old Ike had been before and his eyes that had become almost normal size now got wider even than before. He looked at Galovitch, as if for help, then he turned and looked at Warden behind him, then he turned and looked vaguely out the corridor doorway. Corporal Paluso, a second-string Regimental tackle with a big flat murderous face that he tried to make people forget by adopting a heavy-handed bull-laughing sense of humor, and who had not missed a chance to work on Prew at drill all morning, was sitting on one of the backless chairs out on the porch and had turned and looked inside, his hard eyes in the murderous face as wide now as any of the others, as wide as Holmes’s.
“Corporal Paluso,” Holmes roared, in his battalion close order voice, which was the best in the Regiment.
“Yes, Sir,” Paluso said, and jumped up as if stabbed.
“Take this man upstairs and have him roll a full field pack, a complete full field, extra shoes helmet and all, and then take a bicycle and hike him up to Kolekole Pass and back. And see that he hikes all the way. And when he gets back, bring him to me.” It was a pretty long speech for his battalion close order voice that had been developed more for short commands.
“Yes, Sir,” Paluso said. “Come on, Prewitt.”
Prew climbed down meekly off the board without a word. The Warden turned around and disgustedly went back inside. Paluso led him to the stairs and a still-shocked silence reached out after them from the corridor like a cloud.
Prew bit his lips. He got his envelope roll out of the wall locker and the combat pack off the bed foot. He laid them on the floor and opened the light pack. Everyone in the squadroom sat up and watched him silently and speculatively, as they might watch a sick horse upon whose time to die they had gotten up a pool.
“Dont forget the shoes,” Paluso said apologetically, in the voice one uses in the presence of a corpse.
He got them off the rack under the footlocker and had to unroll the roll to put them in and then build the whole thing up from scratch in the deadness of the silence.
“Dont forget the helmet,” Paluso said apologetically.
He hung it under the snap of the meat can carrier, and picked the whole solid-heavy mess of straps and buckles up and shouldered into it and went to get his rifle from the racks, wanting only to get out of this sad, shocked silence.
“Wait’ll I get a bike,” Paluso said apologetically, as they came down the stairs.
He stood in the grass and waited. The sixty-five or seventy pounds of pack dragged at his back, already starting to cut in on the circulation of his arms. It was just about five miles to the top of the pass. In the corridor the great silence still
reigned.
“Okay,” Paluso said, using his clipped official voice because they were downstairs now. “Lets shove.”
He slung his rifle and they went out the truck entrance, still followed by the silence. Outside of the quad the rest of the Post moved busily, just as if there had not been a cataclysm. They passed Theater #1, on past the Post gym, past the Regimental drill field, and went on up the road, into the sun, Paluso riding embarrassedly beside him, the front wheel wobbling precariously at the slowness of the pace.
“You want a cigaret?” Paluso offered apologetically.
Prew shook his head.
“Go ahead and have one. Hell,” Paluso said, “theres no reason to be mad at me. I dont like this any better than you do.”
“I aint mad at you.”
“Then have a cigaret”
“Okay.” He took a cigaret.
Paluso, looking relieved, started off ahead on the bike. He cut capers on it and looked back grinning with the big murderous face, trying to make him laugh. Prew grinned weakly for him. Paluso gave it up and settled down to the monotony, wobbling along beside him. Then he had another idea. He rode a hundred yards ahead and then circled back, riding fast, a hundred yards behind, waving as he went by, and then circled back up, pumping as hard as his legs would go, to skid the brakes and slide alongside Prewitt. When this bored him he got off and walked a while.
They passed the golf course, went on past the officers’ bridle path, past the Packtrain, past the gas chamber, last outpost of the Reservation, and Prew plodded on concentrating on the old hiking rhythm, swing up and drop, swing up and drop, using only the thigh muscles on the upswing, not using the calf or ankle or foot muscles at all but letting the feet hit willy-nilly, the body’s momentum carrying it forward as the thigh muscles tensed for the next swing up, that he had learned from the old timers at Myer a long time ago. Hell, he could do ten miles standing on his head carrying two packs, he cursed, as the sweat began to run in bigger rivulets down his spine and legs and drip from under his arms and down in his eyes off his face.