by James Jones
“Its all very lovely, isnt it?” the girl in black said from down the rail.
“Yes. It is,” Karen smiled. “Very.”
The girl took a couple of polite steps nearer her along the rail, and then stopped. She was not wearing any leis.
“One rather hates to leave it,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Karen smiled, her communion broken. She had noticed the girl before. She wondered momentarily, now, from her poise and carriage, if the girl was not perhaps a movie star caught over here on vacation by the blitz and unable to get home any sooner. Dressed all in such simple, almost severe, but quite expensive black like that. She looked remarkably like Hedy Lamarr.
“No one would know there was a war, from out here,” the girl said.
“It looks very peaceful,” Karen smiled; out of the corner of her eye she looked at her jewels, the single ring on her right hand and the necklace, both pearls, that unobtrusively carried out the exquisite perfection of the simplicity. The pearls did not look like cultured pearls, either. And such flawless simplicity as that did not come simply. Karen had spent that time once herself, but not anymore. It required either the services of a couple of maids, or else painstaking hours of hard work. Before the evidence of it now, enviously, she felt almost frowsy. A woman with a small child could not compete in the league this girl played in.
“I can almost see where I worked from here,” the girl said.
“Where is that?” Karen smiled.
“I could point it out to you, but you couldnt see it unless you already knew the building.”
“Where did you work?” Karen smiled encouragingly.
“American Factors,” the girl said. “I was a private secretary.” She turned and smiled at Karen slowly out of the lovely childlike face, pale white, hardly touched by the sun, and framed starkly by the shoulder-length raven-black hair parted in the middle.
She has a face like a Madonna, Karen thought exquisitely. Watching her was like being in an art gallery.
“I should think that would have been a position to have hung onto,” she said.
“I—” the girl said and stopped and the Madonnaface clouded somberly. “It was,” she said simply. “But I couldn’t stay.”
“I’m sorry,” Karen said. “I didnt mean to intrude myself.”
“It isnt that,” the exquisite girl smiled at her. “You see; my fiancé was killed on December 7th.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” Karen said, shocked.
The girl smiled at her. “Thats why I couldnt stay any more. We were planning to be married next month.” She turned and looked back out across the water to shore, the lovely Madonnaface sad and pensive. “I love the Islands, but you can see why I couldnt stay.”
“Yes,” Karen said, not knowing what to say. Talking helped, sometimes. Especially if it was with another woman. The best thing was to just let her talk.
“He was shipped over here a year ago,” the girl said. “I came over afterwards and took a job, so I could be near him. We were both saving our money. We were going to buy a little place up above Kaimuki. We wanted to buy the place before we married. He was going to ship over for another tour of duty, maybe several. You can see why I wouldnt want to stay, cant you?”
“Oh, my dear,” Karen said, helplessly.
“Excuse me,” the girl smiled brightly. “I didnt mean to use you as a wailing wall.”
“If you feel like talking,” Karen smiled, “you talk.” It was these young people, like this couple, and their courage and their levelheadedness, unsung unknown unheroized, that were making this country the great thing it was, that made the winning of the war a foregone conclusion. Before this bravery Karen felt worthless and a slacker. “You go right on and talk,” she said.
The girl smiled at her gratefully and looked back at the shore. They had passed Diamond Head now, and the bluntness of Koko Head was looming up in the distance.
“He was a bomber pilot,” the girl said out across the water, “stationed at Hickam Field. He tried to taxi his plane off the apron and down to the revetments. They made a direct hit on it. Maybe you read about it in the papers.”
“No,” Karen said, impotently. “I didnt.”
“They awarded him a Silver Star,” the girl said out across the water. “They sent it to his mother. She wrote me she wanted me to have it.”
“I think thats very fine of her,” Karen said.
“They’re very fine people,” the girl smiled tremulously. “He comes from an old Virginia family, The Prewitts. They’ve lived there since before the Revolution. His great-grandfather was a General under Lee in the Civil War. Thats who he was named after: Robert E Lee Prewitt.”
“Who?” Karen said numbly.
“Robert E Lee Prewitt,” the girl said tremulously on the verge of tears. “Isnt that a silly old name?”
“No,” Karen said. “I think its a fine name.”
“Oh, Bob,” the girl said quiveringly out across the water. “Bob, Bob, Bob.”
“Now: now,” Karen said, feeling all the grief that had been in her boiling over into a wild desire to laugh out loud. She put her arm around the girl. “Try to get hold of yourself.”
“I’m all right,” the girl said, drawing a quivering breath. “Truly I am.” She touched her handkerchief to her eyes.
“I’ll walk down with you to your stateroom,” Karen offered.
“No,” the girl said. “Thank you. I’m perfectly all right now. I owe you a tremendous apology. And I do thank you. Excuse me, please.”
She walked away, the poise and the carriage both exquisitely perfect, in the exquisitely simple expensive black outfit, with the real-looking pearl ring and necklace, all looking as if she had walked right out of a page in Vogue.
Karen watched her go, thinking so this was Lorene of the New Congress, and that this was the first time she had ever really met a professional whore, at least to know who she was.
“Who’s your friend?” the young Air Corps Lt/Col said from the other side of her. He had just come up. “She certainly is a beauty.”
“Isnt she lovely?” Karen said, still wanting to laugh wildly. “I dont know her name, but perhaps I can arrange an introduction for you.”
“No; thanks,” the young Lt/Col said, looking after her. “She’s so beautiful she makes me feel uncomfortable. What is she, a movie star?”
“No, but I think she’s connected with show business. I dont honestly think an introduction would do you much good anyway. Her fiancé was killed December 7th. He was a bomber pilot at Hickam.”
“Oh,” the young Lt/Col said subduedly. “Thats rough.”
“She’s taking it pretty hard,” Karen said.
“I was at Hickam on The Seventh,” the young Lt/Col said in the same funereal voice. “What was his name. Maybe I knew him.”
“Prewitt,” Karen said. “Robert E Lee Prewitt. She said he came from an old Virginia family.”
“No,” the young Lt/Col said thoughtfully funereally. “I dont guess I knew him. There were an awful lot of bomber pilots at Hickam,” he apologized. “And an awful lot of them got it.”
“He was awarded a Silver Star,” Karen said, some bitterness in her making her unable to resist saying it.
“Then I ought to know him,” the young Lt/Col said funereally. “But, truthfully, just between you and me, they handed out such a lot of Silver Stars, both posthumously and otherwise, at Hickam, that it alone isnt much to go on,” he apologized.
“I suppose thats true,” Karen said.
“I got one myself,” he said.
Karen looked at his shirt then and saw it there right next to the Purple Heart ribbon.
“Oh, I didnt do anything,” he said hastily, “except get blown up by a bomb concussion that I couldnt have avoided anyway. But I took it anyway,” he added. “I suppose I shouldnt have.” He looked at her boyishly searchingly.
“I dont see why not,” Karen said.
“Well, there were so many guys who should
have got one but didnt,” he said.
“Your refusing yours wouldnt have helped them.”
“Thats true,” he said, relievedly. “Thats what I told myself.” He leaned his elbows on the rail and crossed his ankles. “And so you’re from Baltimore,” he said pleasedly. “I cant get over it. Its sure a small world.”
“It certainly is,” Karen smiled, “and getting smaller.” Now it will come, she thought, now he will ask me if he can drop out and see me sometime when he gets lonesome in Washington.
But he didnt.
“What table are you at, at dinner?” he said, instead.
“Table Eleven,” Karen said. “What one are you?”
“Table Eleven,” the young Lt/Col grinned, “Isnt that coincidence for you?” He took his elbows off the railing. “Well, see you at dinner, hey? I have things to do.”
“All right,” Karen smiled. “I ought to do some unpacking myself.”
She watched him walk off. But after he had gone a few steps, he turned and came back.
“I’m not really at Table Eleven,” he said. “I’m at Table Nine. I lied to you. But I’m going to be at Table Eleven by dinner time. Thats one of the things I have to do.”
“You mustnt wear yourself out,” Karen smiled, “doing it.”
“No.” He grinned engagingly. “You wont mind?”
“Why should I mind?” Karen smiled. “I appreciate your telling me, though.”
“Well,” he said, “I thought I ought to.” He looked at her, carefully but politely, and then he smiled. “Well, see you at dinner then.”
“We’ll be there,” Karen smiled, and looked over to see how Junior was making out at the shuffleboards. They were still playing the game, and there were five of them now.
The young Air Corps Lt/Col looked over at them, too, and then nodded at her and grinned, and Karen turned back to the rail.
They had passed Diamond Head quite a while ago. They were almost past Koko Head now. To the east of the big hump that always made her think of a whale’s head she could see the drop and depression that was the parking lot at the top of the cliff above Hanauma Bay. From this far out, if you did not already know it was there you couldnt have seen it.
Behind her, the five boys had swelled to seven and had given up being shuffleboards and taken to shooting at each other with cocked thumbs and explosive “Bohww!”s from behind corners and stanchions.
She took the six flower leis off over her head and dropped them over the side. This was as good a place to drop them over as any. Diamond Head, Koko Head, Makapuu Head. Perhaps Koko Head was the best place, really. The six leis fell together and the wind blew them back against the side of the ship and out of sight and she did not see them light on the water.
“Mother,” her son said from behind her. “I’m hungry. When do we eat on this old boat?”
“Pretty soon now,” she said.
“Mother, do you think the war will last long enough so I can graduate from the Point and be in it? Jerry Wilcox said it wouldnt.”
“No,” she said, “I dont think it’ll last that long.”
“Well, gee whiz, mother,” her son said, “I want to be in it.”
“Well, cheer up,” Karen said, “and dont let it worry you. You may miss this one, but you’ll be just the right age for the next one.”
“You really think so, mother?” her son said anxiously.
THE RE-ENLISTMENT BLUES
Got paid out on Monday
Not a dog soljer no more
They gimme all that money
So much my pockets is sore
More dough than I can use. Re-enlistment Blues.
Took my ghelt to town on Tuesday
Got a room and a big double bed
Find a job tomorrow
Tonight you may be dead
Aint no time to lose. Re-enlistment Blues.
Hit the bars on Wednesday
My friends put me up on a throne
Found a hapa-Chinee baby
Swore she never would leave me alone
Did I give her a bruise? Re-enlistment Blues!
Woke up sick on Thursday
Feelin like my head took a dare
Looked down at my trousers
All my pockets was bare
That gal had blown my fuse. Re-enlistment Blues.
Went back around on Friday
Asked for a free glass of beer
My friends had disappeared
Barman say, “Take off, you queer!”
What I done then aint news. Re-enlistment Blues.
That jail was cold all Sa’day
Standin’ up on a bench lookin down
Through them bars I watched the people
All happy and out on the town
Looked like time for me to choose, them Re-enlistment Blues.
Slep in the park that Sunday
Seen all the folks goin to church
Your belly feels so empty
When you’re left in the lurch
Dog soljers dont own pews. Re-enlistment Blues.
So I re-upped on Monday
A little sad and sick at my heart
All my fine plans was with my money
In the poke of a scheming tart
Guy always seems to lose. Re-enlistment Blues.
So you short-timers, let me tell you
Dont get yourself throwed in the can
You might as well be dead
Or a Thirty-Year-Man
Recruitin crews give me the blues,
Old Re-enlistment Blues.
Acknowledgment
LOOKING BACK, IT SEEMS to me now that the writing of this book was a collective enterprise. This is a rather startling development. If someone had suggested such a thought to me a couple of years ago when it was somewhat less than half completed, he would have been met with such a vehement attack of denial that he would have been forced to retire in embarrassment. Nevertheless, it is true.
Grateful acknowledgment is here tendered to the late Mr. Maxwell E. Perkins, for his help in even getting it started and his aid in keeping it going up to the time of his death; to Mr. John Hall Wheelock, for his periodic injections of encouragement and his help in editing it; to Mr. Burroughs Mitchell, for his sweating of it out over a period of almost three years without the slightest whimper and his fine work of editing; and to Mr. & Mrs. Harry E. Handy of Robinson, Illinois, without whose initial impetus I would never have started out to be a writer at all, and whose material and spiritual expenses over a period of seven years provided me with necessary nourishment.
Without all of these people this book would never have been written.
Afterword
Publishing History
“I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED to do a novel on the peacetime army,” James Jones wrote his editor, Maxwell Perkins, on February 10, 1946. Jones had resubmitted the manuscript of his novel They Shall Inherit the Laughter on January 17, 1946, and was impatient to learn the decision of the publishing house, Scribner’s. He perhaps had a premonition that the manuscript would not be accepted, for he sketched out several novels he was thinking of writing, including the one that became From Here to Eternity:
I want this protagonist to be: (Stewart is an old friend in the army, Wendson is a former 1st/Sgt of mine. I would use both in the same company.) ‘Draw Stewart’s life in army, his intense personal pride, his six months on stockade rockpile rather than admit he was wrong and accept company punishment when he felt he was right in his actions. The small man standing on the edge of the ocean shaking his fist, the magnificent gesture, both Wendson and Stewart completely fearless (unloved men, yet forced to prove to themselves that they can get along without love, because they have never had honesty or love, insist that they neither miss them or want them). Almost a criminal, almost an artist, but not either. . . .’
Perkins recognized the possibilities of a peacetime army novel, and he had serious reservations about They Shall Inherit the Laughter because he felt the readin
g public was not interested in the subject and that the work would insult military people and civilians.
Perkins telegraphed Jones on February 16, 1946:
“WOULD YOU CONSIDER PAYMENT FIVE HUNDRED NOW FOR OPTION ON STEWART NOVEL, AND SETTING ASIDE INHERIT LAUGHTER FOR REASONS ILL WRITE SOME FURTHER PAYMENT TO BE MADE AFTER WE APPROVE SOME FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS. WISH TO COOPERATE BUT HAVE MORE PAITH IN SECOND NOVEL AND HAVE FURTHER REVISION TO PROPOSED FOR LAUGHTER.”
Jones telegraphed Perkins his acceptance on February 17, 1946, stating, “PLACING MYSELF IN YOUR HANDS.” Perkins had edited Wolfe, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald, and his encouragement was vital to Jones, who left the army in 1944 after being wounded on Guadalcanal and spending months in a hospital near Memphis, Tennessee.
Jones had started writing after he joined the army in 1939 and had begun sections to appear in They Shall Inherit the Laughter while still hospitalized. He was angry and embittered about the possibility of being sent to the European theater of war, went AWOL, probably on November 1, 1943, and returned to his home in Robinson, Illinois. His mother had died while he was stationed in Hawaii, and his father, a dentist, had committed suicide.
Jones was psychologically wounded at that time, defiant and usually drunk. Lowney Handy and her husband, Harry, eventually let him into their home. She was an unofficial social worker, helping the troubled. She arranged Jones’s discharge from the army in 1944, and Harry supported him financially for six years while he wrote They Shall Inherit the Laughter and From Here to Eternity. Lowney was convinced Jones would be a major writer. She did not have a literary education, but she was an avid though unsystematic reader. She was seventeen years older than her young protegé. She became his teacher and at times his lover. Her abilities as a teacher were evolving but they began at an unsophisticated level. She dominated his life, but she allowed him time to learn to write. She did insist that he revise and revise. Her editing skills improved over the years, though she continued to be erratic in her judgments. A New Ager, she saw the world through the prism of Mme. Blavatsky and Theosophy and other Eastern thought and introduced these religions and philosophies to Jones, ideas in many ways opposed to his tragic view of life.