She was of her own era; the era of his youth. Always he would be the child to her; the odd inquisitive little boy stolen away from her by an Empire that had requested his service, by a father who had proudly consented. And never would she forgive his father, not even in death, or England for absorbing the son that had been rightfully hers.
Society had failed totally as a compensation for love. Liquor remained her only companion. Yet stubbornly she clung to the self-contradiction of the passing years as tortuously oppositely her mind inched backwards. Finally she had forgotten to love entirely.
When love fled loneliness had rushed in totally shadowing her within its colorless cloak. Frightened and alone she submerged deeper into the dark cavern of an unreal world.
The pit was bottomless but somewhere in the dark below, she must believe, there was a shelter. There was always a shelter of a kind for everyone in Western civilization. Marriage was a shelter for children who had made a mistake. And the tabloids were a shelter for people to hide their own guilts within the greater guilts of others. Social drinking was a shelter under which we were allowed to guzzle. And a nervous breakdown was the shelter for the delirium tremens which followed. Why, why always did we search for a shelter, Danny asked himself.
What was it to live without the painful joys of life. The joy of the tired sleep when the body had extended itself. Or the raw stiff sting of the cold as it fled before the warmth of the fireplace. Or the joy of the relief of the pain when the womb had spilled the child. To live sheltered of that was not to really live but to exist, Danny knew.
Three P-51s roared low overhead. Danny glanced over and saw Con, sitting down now, pulling at tufts of green grass in the shade by the trunk of a large tree. Danny wandered over. He would have to send his mother a nice star sapphire before he headed back to the hills. Or maybe an ivory elephant. He tried to remember which it was that she was collecting last.
Later, the Colonel came out of the tent and woke Danny and Con as they slept on the turf. They went into the tent and were seated at the head of a long conference table and after being introduced were questioned intensely, severely for over twenty minutes; especially probed as to their views of the political attitudes of all occupied peoples of Burma, and of the present techniques employed by them in winning the Burmans to the Allied cause.
At times the questioning had become almost too intricate, almost probing in nature. Immediately Father Barrett, from his seat between Colonel Pearson and General Wingate, would intervene defendingly. The diplomacy of the priest’s rebuttals, his knowledge of the Big Picture, and the respect he commanded, surprised both Danny and Con.
They were dismissed with a great deal of courtesy and formality, but not until various appointments had been made for them with lower echelons of command.
Con walked out of the tent slightly light-headed and rather weary. He lit a cigarette and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, squinting from the abrupt sunlight: “My God, Danny, are we that important?”
“I wouldn’t think so. But actually we are the only white men active in that part of the country. The staff just wanted to relieve their minds about the situation. You know. More or less reassure themselves about the decisions they’ve already made,” Danny paused. “Actually they’ve had their plans drawn up in London and Washington for months. That’s the way they work, you know.”
But there had been a hidden meaning in bringing them here, Danny presumed. The scapegoats had been briefed, the sacrificial lambs were in the pen should any of the plans bungo. General officers didn’t get to be general officers by taking the blame for the things that went wrong. Not in the British army. Not in any Army for that matter. Colonel Pearson was making public record of his sources of information along with everybody else. And you really couldn’t blame him for that; it was rather rough company to be traveling in if you weren’t prepared.
They stayed at the Gwolior base for four days conferring with various unit leaders, seeing very little of the Colonel and the priest. They had their drink with Mountbatten the first night in his small tent near the airfield, and the next morning after His Lordship had departed for his headquarters in Ceylon, they drove four miles in their jeep over the spread out area to the airfield where the 1st Air Commandos were wet running the snatching of gliders from the ground by airborne DC-3s.
Danny and Con were greatly impressed with the ingenuity and cocky assuredness of Cochran and Allison. Talking to these young Colonels they realized the age of air warfare had become a reality. The airborne invasion of the Chindits in Burma was the refresher, the practical school and testing ground for the tactics soon to be employed against Hitler in the expected invasion of Europe.
That second night, after a torrid sweaty day, General Wingate asked them to join him for a bath in a nearby river. The bearded General with his cryptic eyes, his terse nervous speech, and boyish bashfulness waited for them on a flat rock near the edge of the water, nude, but wearing a pith sun helmet.
The Man, as Wingate was called, who had won Abyssinia almost single handed and who had guided the Jews in Palestine had a very open mind. Danny suggested to him that the use of heavy weapons behind the lines was feasible with airsupply. Tentatively, The Man had argued that it would be at a sacrifice to the mobility of the columns of men whose very existence depended on their fleetness of foot. But when Danny pressed that the weapons were expendable, that they should not be carried but destroyed after their need had been satisfied and new ones flown in when they were required, The Man’s eyes had come alive and he broke into a rapid dissertation at what he could accomplish with such increased firepower.
Once near the end of their bath, Con would never forget, a rather strange thing occurred. It was after several barren minutes of silence just as the reddish-orange sun was bisected by the horizon that the General, waist deep in the water, turned to them.
“Have you ever read Grey’s ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’?” he asked.
And they had nodded.
“Good,” Wingate had said, and that was all.
Several minutes later The Man had toweled himself on the bank, walked over and extended his hand, and without a word turned and walked away barefooted, the towel around his waist, his pith helmet set perfectly centered on his head.
Stilwell called Con in singly the next morning because Con’s Kachins occupied the Chinese side of the Burma Road. He warned the young American of the corruption that existed in Chungking and of the War Lords that were playing three sides against the middle. The long nosed solidly built aging man with the incisive get-to-the-point manner gave Con his personal verbal directive to keep alert for the renegade Chinese guerrillas. And to give them no consideration or mercy even if they claimed the support of the Nationalist government, ordering Con to report to him personally, immediately, any such bastard activities that occurred in the Kachin area of operation.
Vinegar Joe Stilwell was not a sour man, Con thought. A sad man. But not sour. Once the General had pointed to his map after he had removed his glasses, and had missed the location he intended by a good six inches. Looking into the small, hawk eyes, Con had suddenly, hurtingly realized the old man was almost blind.
The afternoon of the third day they spent with Michael Calvert. It was an education in demolitions by the most highly regarded sapper in the British Army. Mad Mike talked demolitions as some men will speak of women or poetry, and caressed and eyed the explosives in much the same way. He gave Con and Danny some excellent formulas for bridge blowing, and later in the day happily demonstrated the blowing of a railroad track.
The Colonel scheduled their departure for the fourth morning, and the night before they left they all attended a party with officers of the Black Watch. Con and Danny had gone over to the chaplain’s quarters and picked up the priest. The Father was near exhaustion, having exercised a gruelling schedule commandeering men of influence and attempting to gain sympathy and consideration for the Kachin people in the inevitable fight that would be
waged when the peace was drawn.
They all got drunk on scotch and warm water. There was the usual drunken free-for-all, the destruction of most of the Black Watch’s lounge furniture, and a multitude of cuts, bruises, and black eyes. At three in the morning Father Barrett blessed them all from his position atop the bar. When he finished with the Latin Benediction he raised his bottle: “To those few of the best of us left,” he said. Then drank, set the bottle down, curled up on the bartop and slept.
They left in the very early morning feeling very heavy headed, flying north toward Delhi, sitting around the conference table in the rear of the plane just as when they had arrived. Feeling no better. Maybe worse. Drinking strong black coffee wearily.
“As I said the other day,” Con said, “I’ll take the jungle any day. This life will kill a man.”
“I’ve a little good news for you boys,” the Colonel smiled tiredly, rubbing the rough five day stubble of his beard.
“Good news is always welcome,” Danny said.
There was a moment of considerable silence. “Go on, Ray lad,” the priest spoke heavily. “Don’t keep the lads waiting.”
“I’m sending you on a little holiday.”
Con turned quickly to Danny, then shifted his narrowing eyes. “Not for me. I’m going back to the Hills.”
The Colonel rose up slightly. The veins of his bull neck swelled, his face reddened, his huge fists clenched. Slowly, unwaveringly he turned to Danny, then to the priest, then back to Con. “You’re getting a little overbearing, Reynolds … and you, too, Danny,” he said incisively, slowly.
The priest opened the hole in his grey-black beard as if to speak then closed it slowly.
“You forget I’m running this show,” the Colonel said piercingly. “I’ve taken a lot from you two and I’m willing to take it, because I know what I’m asking of you. But before either one of you put on my pants you’re going to have to grow up enough to fit them.”
Slowly he looked from Con to Danny, then back to Con again. “Who do you guys think you are? … God? … That you’re irreplaceable,” he said sarcastically, bitingly, his eyes raging.
“The Kachins got on for hundreds of years before you were born. And they’ll get on after you’re dead.” He shifted his eyes once more around the table. “There is no such thing as an indispensable man.”
There was no movement, only the drone of the big plane engines and the steady pulsating vibration. Then the Colonel leaned back, the color vanishing from his face, his sinews unraveling slowly. He reached into his breast pocket and took a pack of cigarettes and threw them on the table.
He half-grinned awkwardly. “I appreciate your sense of responsibility,” he said sincerely, his voice quivering slightly. “No officer has a right to ask of you half the devotion you’ve given your jobs. But we must know where we stand. It’s only fair to the men. Only fair to ourselves.”
Con picked up the pack of cigarettes and turned them over idly. He held the pack to Danny. “I know you don’t smoke, but will you join me for a cigarette,” he half-smiled at the Englishman.
“I’ll smoke on that.”
“The Saints and the Virgin,” the priest said. “Ray, after this ’ere war I think I’ll bottle you. Never have I gotten over a hangover so quick,” he slid the canteen from his belt to the table. “Ay. A cigarette and a little drink.” They all laughed forcedly, self-consciously, and drank around.
“I’m sending you to Mosorrie,” the Colonel said. “A hill station in Nepal.”
“I’ve been there many times,” Danny turned to Con. “It’s a wonderland.”
“’Tis a beautiful city. High in the Himalaya’s. Fine hotels. Beautiful homes,” the priest said dreamily. “’Tis where the great rajahs, the nabobs, have their cottages. I was there once, myself.”
“You’ll stay a week, ten days,” the Colonel was watching Danny smoking his cigarette awkwardly, taking the smoke in quickly, not inhaling, puffing it out. “You won’t have any worries about your troops.”
“Ay,” the priest said to Con. “I’m going to join your group and take them way deep in the hills. No rest. Just hard trainin’,” the priest eyed the Colonel as if to verify his statement.
“That’s it,” the Colonel said. “I’ve made those arrangements. And I’m bringing Danny’s outfit far up north. Far out of the active area. Training and recruiting for them, too.”
“What about the men getting some time off?” Con asked. “Lau’rel needs it bad. The Indian Danforth is edgy, and Niven always looks like he needs a rest. Even Mike Island could do with a holiday.”
“I’ve planned for that,” the Colonel replied. “I’m bringing them out one by one, or two by two. Whatever way you suggest. That is after you get back.”
“Sounds good,” Danny said. “It will probably be the last opportunity to rest before the monsoon bogs us down.”
“And Con,” the Colonel smiled. “I could probably arrange it for Margaret to come up to Mosorrie.”
Con drew deeply on his cigarette and looked out the port dourly. The sun shone brightly and scattered white clouds drifted aimlessly. “I appreciate it,” Con said softly from a distance. “But I think I’ll need the time for myself. There are a lot of things that I want to think over.”
Quickly the Colonel shifted his eyes to Danny. Danny hunched one shoulder questioningly, and lifted one eyebrow.
“As you like, Con,” the Colonel said.
Con lowered his eyes and reached for the canteen, raised it, hesitated, then set it down absently. He looked out the port and his teeth gritted hurtingly. Forcibly he strained within himself until his jaw muscles relaxed.
That had been his adventure. Margaret. The Great American Adventure. Boy meets girl. The disciplined, inherent American talent for rationalization; mistakenly identifying indulgence for love and felicity. The 20th Century false equation that was as acceptable as Coca Cola or the World Series.
Cash plus Car plus Cabaret plus All American girl plus Hotel Room equaled love equaled felicity.
All his life he had lived under the illusion that he was living the Adventure while all the time he had been living in it, in the dream of it.
That was the tradition you inherited, he said to himself. How religiously you believed that. But where, Con old man, do we go from here? Where do we go now that you know that instead of inheriting a tradition, the tradition has inherited you? Where? To another adventure?
To another Margaret and her Adventure. The medical bastards and their Adventure. Join the Marines Adventure. The Submarines Adventure. The Para-Troop’s Adventure. Hi Ho Silver Adventure. Jane Russell Adventure.
It was a lie. All a lie. A lie you did not have a chance to accept or decline but which has owned and possessed you since the day you were born. The indulgence of: girls, cash, car, cabarets, hotel rooms. The attaining of: position in the community, the regular guy. “We’ve got to get that Reynolds in the Country Club. He’s a regular guy.”
You’d die for that, wouldn’t you, Con Reynolds? Why not?
Hell. You were raised to be, above all things … a regular guy.
He laughed bitterly within himself. Was that really what it all came to? Was it regular guys that built the country? Was it?
Hell no it wasn’t.
It was the irregular, uncommon guys that built the country. Irregular, uncommon guys like his boyhood hero the first John Adams. He was the first born. It was the patrimony of an eldest New England son to go to college. His father had destined him for the Congregational Ministry and Harvard. But young John believed in his own destiny, not that which had been created for him. He studied the law; not out of disrespect to his father but out of a respect to himself. It was unheard for a boy to disobey his father in New England in those days; especially when his father was a church deacon. John Adams was not a regular guy, as he later proved.
You never heard praise for men like him anymore. Or for Billy Mitchell. Or that Cornelius Vanderbilt, the old Commodore, who
they said was nothing but an eccentric, selfish old man. Whatever happened to the true story of how in nineteen seven on that black Thursday with the banks about to fail and old Cornelius coming to the rescue with fifty million cash, saving a nation, one man saving a nation economically because he had faith. What the hell was happening to America? he wondered. What was happening in this crazy movement of the common man and the common adventure? Where was the thrill in living a lie? Was that the thrill that you and Margaret had?
Oh you ass, he thought bitterly. You stupid.…
“You’ll pick up your duffle bags in Delhi,” the Colonel was saying. “I had them flown there. Then the pilot will fly you on to Dehra Dun. Mr. Turner, of General Motors, will have a cab there to meet you.”
“Isn’t that the white moustached chap that Con met at the Three Hundred Club?” Danny asked.
“That’s him,” the Colonel replied. “He’ll be your host while you’re in Mosorrie. His company wants you boys to be their guests. They’re picking up all your bills.”
“That’s sporting of them,” Danny said sincerely.
“Liquor bill and all, Ray, lad,” the priest’s blue eyes darted.
“Everything.”
“I think that’s a mistake,” Con grinned boyishly, stroking his goatee.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” the Colonel grinned, scratching his neck.
“The lads will bankrupt ’em. Sure as the Saints they’ll bankrupt ’em.”
“Not General Motors, Father,” Con said. “That’s one outfit the U.S. Government can’t even break.”
The plane dipped sharply to starboard changing course.
“Colonel,” Danny said nonchalantly, “have you ever heard of a chap called Colonel Piccolo?”
The Colonel twisted his massive frame, deceptively aware, and at once Danny wished he hadn’t asked.
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