by James Jones
Stark was between them before they met, the cigaret still hanging from his crooked about to laugh, about to sneer, about to cry, impassive mouth. He blocked Prew off with his hip and pushed Bloom back in the chest.
“Not in my messhall,” he grunted. “You want to play rough take it outside on the green. Nobody fights in this messhall. This messhall is to eat in,” he said proudly, “and thats all, by god. And its a good thing for you, Prewitt,” he added, “that you dint break that cup, or it would of cost you one thin dime next Payday.”
Bloom looked around the room. There was a little red spot on his forehead. “You want to go outside?” he said.
“Sure,” Prew said. “Why not? Lets go.”
“Well,” Bloom said. “What’re you waitin for? You scared or something?” He started for the door, unbuttoning his shirt as he went, and Prew followed him out the door and across the street into the quad where the tents were still pitched from the afternoon. The rest of them crowded happily out the messhall door behind him. From other messhalls and porches around the quad other men were already running, as if they had already known about it before it even happened and had only been passing the time until they could start running. They made a big circle around the two of them where Bloom was still taking off his shirt to expose the enormous milkwhite barrel of his bare chest. Prew took his own shirt off.
They fought for an hour and a half. It was five-thirty and not dark yet when they started. The first bout on the smoker card was to start at eight o’clock, but Bloom was not on till the main event which would not be till ten or ten-thirty, and they were still fighting when the detail from the gym began to set up the corners in the ring in the bandstand on the quad.
The only way to fight Bloom was to box him. Bloom had been more or less in training ever since last December and his belly was as hard as a rock. His head had always been as hard as a rock. If Bloom had not been so gunshy of being hit he could have finished it up quick. As it was, Prew would not have had a ghost of a chance anyway if it had not been for the natural speed he had always had and had developed into a personal style even more so, later at Myer. Even so, it took everything Prew had to keep away from him at all after the first ten minutes, he was so out of shape.
He could hit Bloom almost at will, but even with his punch which had always been remarkable for so light a man he could not even faze Bloom. He hooked Bloom tentatively in the belly several times with his left and gave that up. He decided to work on Bloom’s nose with his left. The first really good left he landed on Bloom’s nose broke it. He could feel it go under his hand, he knew it was broken, but it did not bleed much, just a tiny trickle that stopped soon, and that was all the effect it had. Bloom’s eyes watered badly for about five seconds and his face looked stunned for a moment, but his upper lip did not swell at all. It was like trying to knock out a bull moose with your fists.
Prew kept shooting at the nose but Bloom developed a trick of crouching way down like Arturo Godoy so that the left went way over his head, and then swinging up a whistling roundhouse right. The first two or three times Bloom did it he could have torn Prew apart with a left hook to the belly, but he did not do it, he kept swinging up the roundhouse right. After the first times Prew noticed Bloom moved his left way over to the right side of his face when he ducked, leaving a big hole in the left side of his face. Prew started feinting the left then and stepping in and throwing a straight right, straight down, at the place where the hole should be by then. The first few times he tried it he missed, but the next time he landed under Bloom’s left eye and knew Bloom would have a shiner out of that one but it was a small consolation because this punch did not faze Bloom any either. It was like one man trying to push a car over on its side.
Also, the next time Bloom ducked and he snapped down the right, Bloom bent his head and Prew hit him full force on top of the head and felt one of his knuckles go. It was not broken, only jammed back, but that was enough. Bloom came up out of his crouch grinning broadly. Prew gave up the right then and went back to jabbing his left for the nose and keeping his hurt right hand back for a shot at Bloom’s adam’s apple. That was about all there was left for him to do. It was like walking around a house and trying all the doors and finding them locked and then picking up a rock to break a window and then finding all the windows barred. By this time Prew was getting very tired.
The crowd around them, that was still growing, was having a fine time though. Several self-appointed custodians were going around making them keep back and give them room, and it was a lot like watching an exhibition in the ring. There was not much blood but the crowd did not mind in this case because they were all professionally interested in studying Prew’s problem. They were able to enjoy a vicarious part in Prew’s intellectual efforts without having to take the chance of being hit by Bloom, and every time Prew tried something they were very interested in seeing how it would work out and he could hear them discussing its prospects of success behind him as if they were watching the trying of a new gambit in a chess game.
Prew’s legs were very tired and his forearms, elbows and shoulders were getting sore from the punches he had caught with them. His right hand was swollen some and Bloom had seen it and gotten less gunshy and taken to rushing him. He still had not had a chance to land the right on Bloom’s adam’s apple. He was beginning to wonder if there would ever be a chance to. He did not want to try it unless he was sure because his hand would not stand many more misses that ended on Bloom’s head.
Anyway, Bloom was rushing him, swinging both hands, and he had all he could do to keep out of the way especially when Bloom got him back against the crowd. Once, like that, Bloom managed to land a straight right that way, a straight punch not a roundhouse, when he was back against the crowd and it exploded on his temple and then he was on his knees in the crowd lying across some spectator who had fallen under him, feeling very sleepy and very tired and everything sounding funny and far off and he had a very hard time getting himself back up because his legs did not want to work any more.
Another time, considerably later he felt, he tripped over somebody’s feet when Bloom rushed him back into the crowd, and fell without being hit. He saw the kick coming and rolled away from it feeling very angry, which he had not felt all day until now. Somebody had stepped in and pushed Bloom back and was admonishing with him about not fighting fair. He saw that it was Stark in the gathering darkness. The crowd was loudly agreeing with Stark. The crowd did not want their boxing exhibition ruined now after it was so fine by having them start fighting on the ground. Bloom was disagreeing.
When he stepped back in Bloom had his right drawn way back and cocked, to hit him, standing as close as they would let him get to him, and Prew came down with the heel of his field shoe smashing it down on Bloom’s instep. Bloom opened his mouth wide to yell, his right still drawn back and cocked but forgotten, and Prew jabbed hard with his left landing flush on the bad nose and Bloom yelled and put both hands up and he hooked with his left to the belly as low as he could get without actually hitting Bloom in the balls and Bloom did not grunt but he put both hands down, probably because the jab on the nose and the hurt instep had stunned him a little, and he was wide open for the right to the adam’s apple and Prew threw it. It hurt his hand like hell but it was worth it. Bloom choked and grabbed his neck with both hands and fell down off his feet for the first time.
On his knees his head hanging Bloom choked and hawked and gasped and felt of his neck gingerly and his face turned red, then purple, then almost black and he lay down. He vomited his supper and then got back up choking and rushed at Prew with his head down like a ram.
Prew had stepped back to give him room and it was lucky he had because if he had been any closer he would not have had time to bring his knee up in Bloom’s down-turned face if he had been any closer. As it was, the bone of his knee hit Bloom’s chest and only the thick pad of thigh muscles hit Bloom’s face and nose. Bloom went over backward and landed in the vomit, his n
ose that was broken but not bleeding or swollen, his eye that was blacked but not closed or swollen, his belly that was punched repeatedly but not bruised, his adam’s apple that should be mashed but could still swallow, all showing nothing, no worthwhile damage, and lay on his elbow breathing desperately and looked at Prew. Then he got up and started to come again, this time with his hands up cautiously, and Prew wondered Jesus Christ I’ve hit him with everything but the ring-post waterbucket and referee what do you have to do to him, and that was when the Battalion Chaplain, Second Lieutenant Anjer C Dick, stepped in from the back of the circle.
They were both very glad to see him.
“Boys,” Lt Dick said, “dont you think its gone far enough now? I hate to see you boys fight like this. Its only a waste of energy and nothing is ever decided by it. If you boys would put half as much energy into helping each other,” Lt Dick said in his mild religious voice, “that you do into hurting each other we would all be a lot better off and I would probably lose my job.”
The crowd laughed and Lt Dick looked around at them and smiled broadly.
Neither of them said anything.
“Besides,” Lt Dick said, “Bloom here is supposed to fight tonight, isnt he? If you boys fight much longer he wont have time to change clothes before he gets in the ring.”
The crowd laughed and Lt Dick looked around at them and smiled broadly. Then he put his arm around Prew and the other arm around Bloom and said, “Shake hands, boys. A little friendly fight like this is always all right, it cleans up a boy’s blood, but you dont want to carry it too far, do you? I want you to stop now,” he said. “Now shake hands,” he said.
They shook hands grudgingly and Lt Dick took his arms from around them and Prew staggered off to the barracks and Bloom staggered off to the gym to get ready to fight. Lt Dick stayed and talked with the crowd.
Prew sat on his bunk in the empty squadroom a long time. He decided he would not go to town. He went in the empty latrine and vomited up his supper but he did not feel any better. His head hurt and was very sore on the temple where Bloom had connected and that ear burned like fire. His hand was still swelling. His arms felt like he could not lift them and were beginning to show dark bruises of the punches he had caught on them. His legs quivered every time he stood up. He did not feel he had accomplished a whole hell of a lot. The thought of going to bed with Alma, or anybody else, made him feel utterly hollow. After a while, when he heard the first cheers from the quad of the first bout of the smoker, he showered and put on a clean uniform and went down shakily and out through the empty dayroom over to the Post Beergarden.
Chief Choate was sitting at one of the tables out on the grass under the trees. The Chief had moved over from Choy’s on account of the crowd at the smoker, but the forest of empty bottles and cans on the table might have been the same forest transplanted from his old corner table every evening at Choy’s. He looked up at Prew ponderously contentedly from out of his forest.
“Sit down,” he said. “You got a nice ear there.”
Prew pulled out a chair. He could feel his face grinning. “Its sore. But it dint catch enough the punch to get thick on me.”
“Here,” Chief said happily, “have a beer.” He inspected his forest with weighty deliberation and uprooted one of the trees. He pushed it over to Prew with all the formality of bestowing a medal. “What I hear,” he said in his slow careful way, “I’d say you done pretty fair. Considerin you wasnt in trainin.”
Prew looked at him, suspecting sarcasm. Then he saw that it wasnt. He accepted with dignity. He was beginning suddenly to feel a lot better. Chief Choate did not hand out beers and seats at his table promiscuously.
“I’m gettin too old for that kind of stuff,” he said modestly, and tiredly. “Jesus!” he said. “I dont see how he can even climb in a ring. Let alone fight. You really reckon he’ll still be able to fight?”
“He’ll fight,” Chief said. “That boy’s a horse. And he wants that rating.”
“I hope you’re right. I wouldnt want to of thrown him out of bein able to fight. I wouldnt want to do that.”
“What I hear you sure dint ack like it,” Chief grinned gently.
Prew grinned back and leaned back in his chair and picked up the beer. It was salty sharp in the long draught that cut through the thick spit in his throat clearing it, icily clearing his head. “Ahhh,” he said gratefully. “Well, he’s had it coming to him for a long time. He’s been askin for it ever since I got in this compny.”
“He sure has,” Chief said happily.
“But I wount want to cut him out of bein able to fight.”
“He’ll fight,” Chief said. “He’s a reglar horse. If he had the kind of mind to go with the rest of him there wouldnt be a heavyweight, even, in the Department could touch him.”
“He’s gunshy,” Prew said.
“Thats what I mean,” Chief said. “He’ll fight. And probly win. They got him matched with a green hand from I Compny. He’ll fight, but I bet he wont talk much for a couple days.”
“By god, I bet he wont,” Prew said happily.
“And he’ll always believe you done it on purpose to screw him.”
“So will Dynamite.”
Chief nodded his great head ponderously, as if it took considerable effort. “You’ll be on the shitlist for fair now. But you was already on it before. And I dont see how even Dynamite can court-martial you over a fair fight on the green when thats his own policy.”
“Hell no,” Prew said happily. “I dont see how they can do that.”
“Bloom wount be so bad,” Chief said thoughtfully philosophically, “if he just forgit for a while he was a Jew.”
Prew felt something come up into his mind again. “Hell,” he protested. “I dont give a damn he’s a Jew.”
“Me neither,” Chief said. “The guys call Sussman Jewboy all the time. He dont care. They call Bloom Jewboy and he wants to beat up on everybody. Hell, they call me Indian, dont they? Well, I am a Indian, aint I? Well, Bloom’s a Jew, aint he?”
“Thats right,” Prew said. He felt the something go back down again in his mind. “Hell, man, I’m French and Irish and German. So what? They call me Frenchy or Mick or Squarehead I wount be mad, would I?”
“Thats right,” Chief said ponderously.
“Thats right,” Prew agreed happily.
“Course,” Chief said, “I know some dumb fucks treat a Jew mean, but not in our Compny.”
“Sure,” Prew said. “Well, look how they treated the Indians.”
“Thats right,” Chief said. “And a man’s got to learn who to hit and who not to hit.”
“Thats right,” Prew said. He leaned back expansively, the beer had hit him quicker than usual, and looked around the yelling lattice-fenced triangular plot with its roofed U-shaped bar in the center of the three meeting streets that for the last twenty years had been hallowed ground. Over in one corner a grizzled knot of old master sergeants huddled over their beers excluding the young punks of forty by reminiscing about Villa in Mexico and the Philippine Insurrection when they had taught the fucking Moros and spiks what was what. Men hollered three deep at the bar. A group of recruits in shiny unfaded suntans were standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders singing We’re Captain Billy’s troopers, We are riders of the night, We are dirty sons of bitches and we’d rather fuck than fight. Over the hubbub now and then came the faint sound of a roar from the quad that told of a knockdown. It was all very permanent, and he knew that he was part of it. He had a place in all of it.
“Dont look like the other regmints takin much intrest in our compny smokers,” he grinned maliciously.
“Why the hell should they?” the Chief said gently. “We aint got a chance of a fart in a whirlwind of takin that trophy back next December, and everybody knows it.”
Prew looked at the great solid bulk of him, utterly unshakeable, and grinned, loving him for his unshakeability in what in the last month had become an unfounded maelstro
m of the whole universe. “Old Chief,” he said happily. “Old Chief. The mother-fucking jockstraps,” he said. “The fucking jockstraps.”
“Watch that, Mack,” Chief grinned. “I jockstrap a little bit myself.”
Prew laughed wildly.
“Have nuther beer,” the Chief said.
“Naw sir, my turn to buy one.”
“Plenty here. Help yourself. You earned it.”
“No sir,” Prew said stoutly. “I’m buying this one. I got money. I always got money, now.”
“Yeah,” the Chief grinned somberly. “I noticed that. You must of really line yourself up quite a deal with that snatch down town.”
“I aint doin so bad,” Prew grinned expansively. “Not bad atall.—Only trouble is,” he heard his voice saying, “is the goddam rip wants to marry me.”
“Well, hell,” the Chief rumbled philosophically, “she got that much money you be smart to go ahead and marry her, and let her support you in the style to which you would like to be accustomed.”
Prew laughed. “Not me, Chief. You know I aint the marrying kind.”
He walked over to the bar at the north end happily. You liar, he told himself happily, you and your big deals. Well, it was a good deal, a damned good deal, wasnt it? looked at one way. What the hell? A goddam man ought to have the goddam right to goddam dream. “Hey, Jimmy!” he hollered belligerently.
“Hey there boy!” big Jimmy hollered at him from down at the other end of the bar. His broad Kanaka face was grinning through the sweat and his hands opening and passing out cans and bottles as fast as he could pull them out of the cooler. At the other end of the cooler stood the Beergarden guard, always a Regimental fighter from first one outfit then another hired to keep order by the manager in compliance with Post orders, wearing his garrison belt and billy, badges of temporary office, and helping himself to can after can from the depths of the cooler while the helpless Jap manager watched him with frustrated pain on his smooth flat face.
“Gimme four, Jim,” Prew hollered over the rippling field of heads.