General Merriwell thought carefully. His face lacked the harsh lines of the singers around the piano. It was both shrewd and pedantic.
“No, no,” he said, “of course I remember Kahala, but I was thinking of when I was in G–3 in Manila and Melville was a company commander.”
“Oh yes,” Muriel said, “Company A. Melville still goes on about Company A.”
“And let’s see,” General Merriwell said, “there was a trick dog that walked on his hind legs. What was his name? Don’t tell me. I mustn’t forget names. His name was Bozo; that’s it, Bozo.”
“That’s right,” Muriel said. “I’d almost forgotten his name myself.”
“I wonder where Gertrude is,” the General said.
“I think she’s playing bridge,” Muriel answered.
“If Gertrude’s playing bridge, I may as well sit down,” General Merriwell said. “Gertrude says you play a very sensible game, my dear, and Gertrude ought to know. You’ve been playing enough together lately.”
“There’s no one who’s more fun to play with than Gertrude,” Mrs. Goodwin said. “She has instinctive card sense and she’s improving all the time.”
“Let’s sit down,” General Merriwell said. “Would you care for a cigar, Mr. Skelton?”
“No thank you, sir,” I answered.
“When I took my last physical,” the General said, “I was told to slow up on cigars. It’s what might be termed a routine suggestion. Just one cigar. Well, here it is, just one cigar. That’s easy, because I’ve never learned how to smoke two at once.” General Merriwell smiled and waited, and we all laughed. “You don’t mind cigar smoke, do you, my dear?”
“I love it,” Muriel said. “I wish Melville would learn to smoke cigars and not those cigarettes.”
“Well, I’m relieved to hear it,” the General said. “We’ll have to see what we can do with Mel’s smoking. I hope Mr. Skelton will excuse me if I talk shop for just a moment. No, don’t go, Mr. Skelton,” and he patted my arm. “I just wanted to say, Muriel, how pleased I am to get my hands on Mel and to have him next door. The work has been crowding up lately. It’s time we had more men in Plans with long and practical combat records, but I’m a little afraid, from something that transpired this afternoon, that Mel is reluctant.”
“That’s just the way Mel always is when he starts with desk work,” Muriel said. “He always expresses doubts.”
“Somehow or other,” General Merriwell said, as though he had not heard her, “officers with combat records are often restless. Well, if Melville did not want this, he should not have rated so high at the War College. I went over all Mel’s qualifications off the record with Foghorn. By the way, his arthritis has been pretty bad lately.”
“Yes, I know,” Muriel said. “Mel and I called on him yesterday afternoon.”
“I made that pilgrimage, too, yesterday,” General Merriwell said. “Whenever anything important comes up, I like to get the Grimshaw angle. There’s always that jump between combat and no combat—a different thought pattern, as Foghorn put it. Foghorn told quite a funny story about the first time he saw you and Mel. Where was it?”
“Why, at Bailey,” Mrs. Goodwin said.
“Bailey, that’s right, at the old Small Arms School,” General Merriwell answered, “and you fixed a sand box for him. Well, Grimshaw says not to worry about Mel. He says put Mel anywhere and he can do anything.”
“That’s awfully sweet of Foghorn,” Muriel Goodwin said. “Melville, come over here.”
Melville Goodwin stood attentively in front of us.
“Yes, what is it, dear?” he said. “Does the boss want some of his Scotch?”
“The boss has just told me what Foghorn has been saying about you,” Muriel Goodwin said. “He says, put you anywhere and you can do anything. Now aren’t you pleased?”
“Yes, dear,” Melville Goodwin answered, “very pleased. Thank you for passing that on, sir. Sid, I think you and I ought to leave for the airport pretty soon.”
I had never thought that General Goodwin would take me to the airport. I had thought that I could simply call a taxi, but he seemed anxious to go with me, and somehow I still rated a Public Relations car, which Goochy had ordered. People were leaving already, the General said, and his ducking out for a few minutes would not break up the party, because Muriel and Bud and Enid would still be there.
“Airport, son,” he said to the driver, and then he added, “the commercial planes,” and he turned up the glass window that separated us from the driver’s seat. I was a little constrained, but he acted as though there had been no words between us, and I remembered that he must have lived through lots of torrid scenes. Someone in the army was always bawling out someone else and then forgetting it.
“Driving out here makes me feel as though I were pushing off somewhere myself,” he said. “I wish to God I were—anywhere.”
He must have been thinking of Hangar 6, at which army transport planes had previously been loaded, and from which I had left, myself, with Dottie Peale and that troupe of VIPs for Europe—and it would have been better for Mel Goodwin if that C–54 had never made the flight.
“I used to like these parties of Muriel’s,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m not in the mood for them now. Sid, do you ever feel as though you’d missed something? I mean something you’ve never known about?”
“Yes,” I answered, “I suppose everybody feels that way sometimes.”
“I keep thinking what in hell have I been doing with myself all these years,” he said. “Do you know when that idea first came to me?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, it came over me in Paris when I saw you and Dottie Peale. That’s why I began reciting about old Ulysses. Old Ulysses must have felt just that way, and he had the brains to recognize it.”
“That only goes to show that people like you should never mess around with civilians, Mel,” I said. “You can’t be me, and I can’t be you. Nobody can have everything.”
“All right,” he said, “let me ask you this one question. You wouldn’t want to be me, now would you?”
“No,” I said, and then I was afraid that I had sounded rudely fervent. “I wouldn’t have what it takes.”
“All right,” he said, “then you ought to see why I don’t want to be myself. Dottie sees.”
I seemed to be standing in front of a mental fluoroscope watching the simple motives of General Goodwin.
“Yes,” I said, “Dottie would. Dottie doesn’t want to be herself either.”
“Poor kid,” he said. “I know Dottie’s never had a break.”
“How’s that again?” I asked.
“You don’t understand Dottie,” he said. “You don’t try to. She’s like a …”
He stopped. He was not good at similes.
“Like a what?” I asked.
“Like a bird fluttering in a cage,” he said. “And Dottie knows what I’m going through. She’s got a lot of insight, Sid … and I’ll tell you something else about Dottie.”
“What else?” I asked.
“Dottie’s got guts,” he said. “Dottie and I have that in common. If we had to, we could both go down the line together. Dottie wouldn’t be afraid.”
Dottie had done what she wanted with him, and he was sewed up now. He was at peace with himself momentarily, because in his thoughts he and Dottie were walking away from the Pentagon together, away from General Merriwell and Plans, away from humdrum fact and into a roseate future where details did not matter—because Dottie had insight and infinite patience and they understood each other. It did not occur at all to Melville Goodwin that there could be a morning after.
“Mel,” I began, “take hold of yourself, for God’s sake,” but he stopped me. He wanted nothing to spoil his dream, and I was glad to see that we were pulling up at the airport.
“Don’t give me any more advice,” he said. “I told you I’m handling this myself from now on out. Push off and sitting well in order
smite.”
“For God’s sake, don’t recite that thing again,” I said, as the driver opened the door, and I made one last remark. “Don’t bother to come inside with me, Mel. Go back home where you belong and try to stay there.”
I wished again that Dottie and the VIPs and I had never left from Hangar 6. When all the Melville Goodwins were making their European crusade, they should have been left to do it alone, entirely alone.
“Well, good night, son,” he said. “Just remember, we have to work out these problems by ourselves. Happy landings, son.”
“Happy landings, Mel,” I said.
Fortunately I was leaving as I was sickeningly certain of where he was going to land. I felt as though I were walking away from a wreck, but I was leaving.
XXXII
The Service Takes Care of Its Own
Of course I should have known that you paid a price for becoming a confidant, just as you paid admission at the box office of a show. After an initial sense of compliment in being singled out as an adviser, you invariably ended up like Sindbad the Sailor with a helpless and beguiling Old Man of the Sea clamped upon your back. There was no escape from a friend’s problems. They aroused you in the watches of the night. They assailed you unexpectedly in the leisure moments of the day, until finally you faced the timeworn truth, that good or bad advice was inflated currency. Friends only wanted reassurance—never advice. I had made an unintentional commitment by sitting there at Savin Hill watching General Goodwin unroll the scroll of his career.
The Chicago plane was excellently equipped. Two beautiful uniformed hostesses, smiling rich lipsticked smiles, put each passenger at his ease as he climbed aboard, if only by making the gentle, playful remarks that hostesses customarily learn at hostess seminaries. We were all to relax on that happy plane and we were all to partake of a delightful mutual experience, flying in a pressurized cabin northwestward through the stratosphere. Coffee and meals and chewing gum would be served aloft, and fasten your seat belts, please, and no smoking until the signal is given. Beside the door of the Monel metal kitchenette where the hostesses stored hot meals and coffee, there was a squawk box, and when the plane was off the ground and had started on its skyward climb, the system addressed the passengers so softly and sweetly that I felt that the pretty hostess was speaking just to me. Good evening, I was being told; we were being welcomed one and all to a pleasant journey which would end at the Chicago airport near the late Al Capone’s Cicero. We were planning to cruise tonight at sixteen thousand feet, but due to the clear weather conditions, we would have glimpses of the great cities on our flight. The captain’s name was Arthur J. Ballinger. The copilot’s name was Hugh Munroe, and the rest of the crew up forward had names also, and so had the two hostesses, lovely names. During the flight, arrangements would be made for passengers who might so desire, to go to the forward compartment to view the workings of the aircraft. We were off, and pleasant journey, everybody.
We were off, up three miles in the air in a land of Wynken, Blynken and Nod, flying before the approaching dawn. After a moment of tension, which I always felt whenever a heavy plane left the runway, everything became smooth. The night was very clear, and as I was dozing off to sleep, I began to think of Melville Goodwin as taking off on a trip of his own, exercising no more control than I did over that Chicago flight. Melville Goodwin could unfasten his seat belt now. The army would handle his personal difficulties. The army had its ways of taking care of its own, when it came to woman trouble. I could see them already, in some Pentagon office, dealing in the broad generalities of love and life and then coming down to particulars. I could almost hear old classmates at the Point and old associates in the field talking about Melville Goodwin.
From a military viewpoint, the subject of woman trouble fell into several categories, and you ought to take a broad-minded attitude about it. Officers weren’t meant to be plaster saints. There were always a lot of pretty fast-moving gals and boys in any installation, and gals had to be gals and boys, boys, within limits; but it was necessary to face the fact that some officers could handle woman trouble better than others. Some could shed it as ducks shed water. Some were always getting in and out of it—and this was perfectly all right within limits—and overseas extramarital complications usually settled themselves automatically. Back in the States it depended on the officer and the general setup and on how you handled woman trouble. Some people could handle a lot of it just the way some others could handle whisky, and not a word against them. Gals had to be gals and boys had to be boys. For instance, some excellent officers had been unfaithful to their wives for years, and others had been cuckolds for a generation, without any of this sort of thing interfering with their general efficiency or their record. Frankly, anyone might take an unpremeditated roll in the hay by accident—where you had war you had to have sex—and anyone who got anywhere in the army could face the fact. Even the chaplains could face it, and army chaplains weren’t all jerks. You could get away with a lot in the army if you handled it in the right way and kept it within limits. For instance, everybody knew about Captain So-and-so and Colonel So-and-so’s wife, and none of this ever hurt Captain So-and-so, and he was a general now—all because it had been handled in the right way.
But then, there were some officers who were different. Take Mel Goodwin, for instance, and I could hear them already taking Mel Goodwin in the Pentagon. It was all very well back in the ETO, but you would never think anything like this of Mel Goodwin. He had never been off the deep end before. He had never shacked up anywhere. At his age it was somehow not right to start a shack-up job in New York, although the old motto: “Don’t play around within a mile of the flagpole” still held good. There were plenty of other arrangements he could have made that would have had a regulation quality. He should have known his way around, considering his age. You had to face it. What he was doing quite frankly denoted emotional instability, and emotionally unstable officers did not look well in Plans—not that there were not maritally unfaithful officers in Plans, but somehow these officers knew how to handle these problems. It was different when someone like Mel Goodwin suddenly took a stray. It was hard to explain the difference, but it shook one’s faith in institutions of regularity.
Such a conclusion was not fair, perhaps, but conventions very seldom were, and somehow I was sure that he had broken a convention. I could not define its limits, but he had done something unexpected when he should have been predictable. He had become an unknown quantity, and no one in Mel Goodwin’s situation could afford to be an unknown quantity. The thing to hope for was that he would get over it. That was undoubtedly what they were all saying at the Pentagon.
Melville Goodwin was still beside me invisibly when I was talking things over with Mr. George Burtheimer at breakfast in Chicago, and he was still beside me when I flew back to New York. Yet it never occurred to me that I would be called into a conference to discuss the love life of Melville Goodwin, until I suddenly heard from General Gooch.
He precipitated himself in the middle of my own affairs, right in the broadcasting company, at a most awkward moment. The army was always egocentric. It never could and it never would understand that civilians might have troubles of their own.
After I had been to Chicago, I naturally expected that Gilbert Frary would return from the Coast precipitously. He reached New York at two o’clock in the afternoon the day after I had arrived from Chicago, and he sent me word through Miss Maynard that he wanted to see me in his office at three. I was sure that he had stopped over in Chicago to see Mr. Burtheimer himself, but I was not worried about this any longer, because I had been over all the ground with Mr. Burtheimer and I had done rather well with him.
There is no need to go into the details here. They were sordid but they were practical. I did not like anything I had done. In fact I was rather surprised at myself now that I had accomplished what I had, for I had never realized that I might be good at business negotiations. At any rate, the whole affair was o
ver and settled by the time Gilbert Frary had arrived in New York, and I was willing and happy to see him in his office at three.
It was a beautiful office, less gay and modern than mine, but much more solid. Gilbert’s desk was a Florentine refectory table, and there was a fine tapestry on the wall behind it, and the chairs were Francis I. He had always said they were original Francis Firsts and that you could tell they were from the wormholes. This was not his outer office but the inner office, which he used when he wanted to get away from everything, and his couch in the corner with a pull-over blanket was there to prove it. There was not even an electric clock on the wall. In his sanctum, Gilbert always said, he wanted to be absolutely divorced from time.
I understood, of course, that there was going to be a scene, because Gilbert always liked scenes, so I was entirely prepared, and I closed the door carefully behind me.
“Hello, Gilbert,” I said. “How was it on the Coast? Did you come back with a lot of good ideas?”
I did not mean to be unkind about Gilbert’s ideas. I only made the remark by way of a conversational opening.
“Sidney,” Gilbert said, and his voice sounded choked, and he pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “Sidney, may I ask you a single question?”
“Why, yes,” I said, “go right ahead, Gilbert.”
Gilbert Frary looked at me sadly. He appeared deeply hurt and deeply shocked, and perhaps he was.
“My question can be phrased in a single word, Sidney,” he said. “I don’t want to be reproachful, Sidney. I don’t want to speak about distrustfulness or about what I might call ingratitude. I will not analyze my disillusionment about your integrity. Perhaps there has been some mistake, and I still want to love your integrity and still idealize, if I can, a lovely human relationship. The question I want to ask you, Sidney, is, Why, simply Why?”
“Why what, Gilbert?” I asked.
Gilbert sighed and dabbed his eyes with his cambric handkerchief, and there were genuine tears in them, but then, Gilbert always was emotional.
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