“Will you have some?” he turned. He noticed the fine fire. “Who built up the fire? Did you have the bearer in?”
“I’m good at fires. I’ll have some brandy too. And coffee. We have coffee.”
We have coffee, he said to himself. It struck him resoundingly. She said it as if they had been having coffee for years. Forever. It suddenly occurred to him that they had lived together, in the same room, for two days.
He was holding the brandy bottle in his hand looking at her, her arm against the mantle her head against her arm. Her eyes were no longer cold, impervious. They glowed slightly up at him with an empty blue brilliance. He knew from the war that it wasn’t only weariness and fatigue that made her eyes glow like that. It was suffering and fear. No, fear had a look all its own. Besides, there was a point where fatigue transcended even fear. Then there was only one thing left; numb bewilderment.
And that was it. That was the emptiness, the mournfulness of those eyes. Bewilderment. He had a sudden, holy urgency to protect her. It never occurred to him what impression he was making standing there as he was.
He poured brandy into the coffee cups. They drank it royale, silently, sitting on the couch by the coffee table in front of the fire.
The Doctor came in and looked over the laboratory reports, whistling Deep Purple off key as he did so. Con got up and leaned against the couch arm.
The Doctor came over. “He’s not in very good shape. The tests show nothing. But if he has malaria, and I, too, believe that’s part of it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the parasite would show up in a blood specimen. We’ll make further tests on that.
“His spleen is enlarged. The fact that his temperature hasn’t subsided makes me believe he has either two infections of the tertian parasite, or because of the condition of his spleen it might be an infection of the sub-tertian parasite. I lean toward the latter as the sub-tertian parasite has its sexual development in the tissues, bone marrow, and especially the spleen.
“Besides that there are complications. His blood pressure is high and his kidneys aren’t functioning properly. The large amounts of albumin lost in his urine have caused his blood to lose its capacity to retain fluid with his vessels. Actually Carla, I’ve never in my career seen such huge splotches of blood in any urine as in the specimen you saved for me. Well, anyhow, I don’t know whether it was caused by the malaria, assuming he has malaria, but he does have nephrosis. Known to the layman as Bright’s disease. At least that’s my conclusion at this point.
“If he hadn’t been sweat he’d be quite gone now, I’m sure. The situation is still very serious. His resistance is low. We can’t take a chance on moving him because at this point he is especially susceptible to the pneumococcus organism. Pneumonia. And unless we keep him cleaned out and break the malaria quickly, if he does survive, he could be impaired radically, permanently. If you’ll help me, we’ll try to get some atabrine down him. I have authority to order air-transportation to ship his specimens to Delhi for analysis. So if I may use your phone I’ll do just that. And put in a request to get a couple of nurses from the pool at the same time. Let me warn you once more,” Grey Travis said grimly, “his chances are not good. I’ll do all I can.”
They went about their business. Carla napped for three hours. After she had become active again Con found he provided very little usefulness. He went into his room to lie down and when he awoke it was the next morning.
Danny had a good night but his fever hadn’t broken. She and the Doctor had been up most of the night. They had sweat him again. Con took a hot bath and shaved and drank some brandy and coffee. Two army nurses arrived at noon and it was agreed they would take Con’s room. He packed his things and sent them to another room with a porter. Carla was packing up her things and he was waiting to take her home when he received a wire from Colonel Pearson.
The wire said that four Kachins had been seriously wounded by mistake, strafed by the American Air Force while marching to the training area. Liaison foul-up had gotten all black areas white, all white areas black four days before.
Con analyzed it. If Island hadn’t died they would have been in a black area the first day, exposed and in the open, with the entire Allied Air Force considering them fair game. Hundreds of men could have been killed, maimed for life.
He wondered about it for several moments. Then he knew there were some things that you could only wonder about so far. For if Island hadn’t died, if there hadn’t been that delay, the outfit could have been slaughtered.
CHAPTER XIX
They had built a fine semi-permanent airstrip at the new training area far north, back in the Hills. The day before they had flown out three of the wounded from the strafing attack. The fourth had died. Subadar Major La Bung La had taken out a hunting party and runners had been sent to all the villages to spread the word that they were recruiting again.
It was mid-afternoon of a crisp sunny day. Nautaung stood on the crest of the north hill above the camp from where he could see his Magic Mountain. He had carried some fresh earth from the new grave, and spoken words to the mountain, and now he spread the earth in circles on the ground. Then he broke off a twig and laid it at an angle over the fresh dirt and pointing towards the Mountain, then started for the camp.
He did not like this camp. It did not even smell right. He did not like it having met the bearded old man from Myitkyna who had wandered into the camp the very first day and had told him in the course of their conversation that he knew definitely that Subadar Major La Bung La owned property in Bhamo. He had frightened that old man off quick.
That would have been a terrible rumor to spread among his people. It could have caused great dissension. Soldiers did not own property. Every Kachin knew that. When a soldier owned property he was not a soldier anymore. He was a property owner. He had different values. Nautaung did not want to believe that the Subadar Major owned property. But it was obvious. Did not the Subadar Major own the American military binoculars that cost more than most property? Was it not true that La Bung La could no longer lie on his belly without first caring for the binoculars?
It had been a week of such things.
First they had been foolish and chanced lives for the body of Du Island. Then they had argued over who would take the chances. That was even more foolish. Then the thin one and the dark one had gotten drunk together because of their good fortune in both taking chances. That was the most foolish yet.
You could be foolish once in a while, Nautaung knew. That was even good. But not with such consistency. Pride was a very strange thing in a white man. It was like love that was sometimes not love. They wished to die for it. Why? he wondered. You do not die for things. You live for them. You die for other reasons. That could become very complicated; the white man’s kind of thinking.
What was done was done. You could make it good or bad. He could not make it good for them, he knew. But he could help.
He did not like that dream he had two nights before. He wondered where the Dua Con went in the dream. He saw the Dua Danny sliding down the hill toward the river. That was bad. He had strained to remember if he had gone into the water. Maybe it was best that he could not remember.
Old man, what is wrong with you today? he asked himself, approaching the area of the camp. Was there ever anything that was not done for the good? Not if you made it so. Never. Then you have not slept well? Well. But for the dream. Ahh, then old man you must be constipated? No, he grinned to himself. I must face it. I cannot fool myself anymore. Today I must feel like an old man if that is what an old man feels like. I don’t know.
You know it makes no difference. Old or young. Thunder storm or bright sun. We live things. From what we live we learn. From our living comes our wisdom. Whether it rains or the sun shines. Even when we sleep. We live. Do not our dreams live? We live as we sleep then.
Every sunset is different. No two the same. The day is different. Man at the end of each day is different. He may be more beautiful than the day
before or less. As the sun is so. But he is not the same.
We learn from the bad things like the thunder storm we cannot from our youth forget. That is the law. The first one we cannot disobey. To learn. To learn from good and bad. It is good there are two. The same subject every day would not be nice. Like in the Burma Rifles stripping over and over the same rifle. Or marching over and over the same march. Yes, like that. Or like having everyone in the world exactly as me. Ayheeee. That would be most horrible of all. It is good there are two. Good and bad. From one we could not learn.
He was walking in the area of the camp now. And the young Kachins who were his friends and loved him, waved and made jokes to him.
You need a bath, he said to himself. A small amount of the monkey stew and a bath. You will feel better. Then you can go make talk with the thin one, Du Niven. You can plant the seed of your old thoughts that they might grow young in him tomorrow. That was why a man was never old. A man was the seed of tomorrow. That was why a man never really died. Not ever.
He veered toward supply to pick up soap.
Bill Ringa was in the headquarters supply dump talking to Billingsly, Con’s number one boy and head muleskinner. Ringa had wandered the camp the past two days asking questions, accustoming himself to the operation and attempting to formulate a mode of conduct for himself.
Getting information wasn’t difficult for him. He had the gift of anonymity and had thoroughly trained himself in the art of making others feel at once that he was dependent on them; playing the ass, he called it. Already he had acquired a knowledge of the organizational structure that surpassed that of both Danforth and Lau’rel and his native poolroom shrewdness gave him a practical viewpoint towards the setup that wasn’t in the curriculum of Niven’s St. George’s Prep, in Newport.
Already Lau’rel had insisted that Ringa take temporary second-in-command of his company. Niven had offered to teach him how to operate the radio and code machine. And Danforth had told him to be wary and stick close by him, Johnny would show him the ropes.
Ringa was in demand and he knew it. But like a Vermont farmer that was offered an over-generous sum for his crop he showed no awareness to his position but only calculated to better himself even further.
Ringa had met Billingsly two days before when curiosity over Con’s monkey had driven him into the headquarters supply to watch Scheherezade drink scotch.
“That monkey is von mean son-of-a-bitch,” Billingsly had said. “Ever since the Dua Con left. She bite like all shit.” Billingsly had showed him the tiny teeth wounds on his hand.
The monkey had hissed and bared her teeth at Ringa. She had a peculiar look in her eyes when she fixed them on his neck as if she couldn’t wait to get her teeth into his jugular vein, as if all the stories about her being almost human were true, Ringa thought. He had some gum. He had unwrapped a stick in front of the monkey and begun to chew, then he had forced himself to hand her a stick. She had unwrapped it exactly as he had but with an intent curiosity. She had swallowed the gum immediately but she had liked it. And when he had come back today Scheherezade had screamed at him until he had given her another stick, then puckered her lips and eyed him affectionately. Ringa had been fascinated.
Now he was talking to Billingsly. “I’d like to learn that game,” he was saying.
“Sure,” Billingsly smiled, wiping his hands on the sides of his purple longi. “I teach you Chinese pokah too. You stick round a little while. I fix you nice omelet and Merican bacon. I got hot can of bacon,” he winked, grinning.
Johnny Danforth lumbered up. “What’s doin? Cards tonight, Billingsly?”
“New suckah for card game,” he laughed. “Ve play if Subadar Major gets back.”
“We got enough for a game anyhow,” Danforth said.
“No,” Billingsly said. “Du Niven not playing tonight.”
“I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch. Now he’s too important to play,” Danforth said menacingly.
“I thought you and Du Niven palsy-walsy now,” Billingsly said.
“What’s the use? You give a guy a break and right away he’s looking down his nose at you,” Danforth eyed Ringa. “There’s more goddamn politics around here than in a Democratic ward. You give a guy a few votes and right away he wants to be President.”
“That’s natural. Ain’t it?” Ringa said.
Danforth was studying him. The baby skin on the firm boyish face. He was awful young. He didn’t understand yet. Then Danforth shifted his eyes and saw the monkey. He raised one arm threateningly and sprang forward hissing at the monkey. Scheherezade sprang back and cowered for an instant, then hissed back with bared teeth her dark little eyes intent and mean. Danforth spit at her.
“Please, Du. You raise hell with that monkey lately,” Billingsly pleaded. “I get my ass in one hell of a sling if she flips her rocker. She’s one mean son-of-a-bitch now.”
“Get the goddamn thing out of my sight,” Danforth said.
“Yes, Du. Right avay, Du.” Billingsly had a hell of a time not getting bit when he untied the monkey and picked her up and left.
“Cards tonight,” Danforth shouted after him, then turned back to Ringa. He offered him a smoke and they lit up. “You got education?” Danforth asked abruptly.
“Couple years of high school.”
“Tough shit for you,” Danforth said. “Ya gotta have education around here. It don’t make no difference how much you know about anything if you ain’t got education. Look at me. I’m the oldest fighting man around here and they put a radio operator in command. What does that sound like?”
“Sounds like the army to me,” Ringa said as G.I. as he could. “Ain’t that the way the army does everything?”
“I coulda had the outfit,” Danforth said. “But I got principle against suckin ass. You’d think a man that had education would have principle against suckin ass. But that’s all education is. I figured it out. Learning how to suck other educated asses.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Ringa complimented. “But what about the Filipino? He went to Oxford. How come Lau’rel ain’t top dog around here?”
“He’s green. Besides he don’t want it. You’d think they’d of given it to him because he didn’t want it. They slipped up for once,” Danforth said authoritatively. “Lau’rel’s too busy worrying about his corporations. He’s always worrying. You can tell it’s about money. Hell, after the war our dear Con Reynolds will be lucky to get a job as his valet.”
“Lau’rel don’t act like he’s got big dough,” Ringa said pondering.
“Course he don’t. That’s why he’s got it. He’s real big stuff. That’s the way real operators operate. He’s no snob.”
The conversation was beginning to irritate Ringa. Danforth wasn’t playing it cool at all. Ringa didn’t mind listening to such a conversation but taking part in it was dangerous, he knew. Talk had a way of coming back. Sometimes things other guys said came back all mixed up, like you had said them yourself.
“That Lau’rel is shrewd,” Danforth was saying. “He musta bribed his way into this outfit to begin with. He’s old. He must be thirtyfive. Then he got it fixed so he didn’t have to take no real chances. So he gets a reputation as a big hero and the Colonel gets a few shingles to live on when they reduce him to captain after the war.”
Ringa wanted to smash his face in, the mouthy bastard. Ringa knew Colonel Pearson better than anyone. “You got the Colonel all wrong, John Danforth,” he said glaring, the muscles in his neck swelling as he tensed.
The sudden change in Ringa caught Danforth flat-footed, startling him. He had misjudged Ringa completely, he was aware.
“I drove for the Colonel,” Ringa said. “The Colonel’s got his own book and what you said ain’t in it. He may or may not be a shit, depending on how you look at it. But he’s the fairest shit that ever lived if he is. But he ain’t what you said,” Ringa said icily, penetratingly.
“That’s the way I heard it,” Danforth glared back balefully, ho
lding his ground.
Ringa knew he was lying. He hadn’t heard nothing. “You heard it wrong.”
Danforth’s eyes were still fixed. “I’m inclined to take your word for it. I don’t know you too good but I don’t know this other guy neither. But the way you held up in your first action I’m inclined to take your word. You proved yourself in my book.”
“Thanks,” Ringa smiled. In his eyes he did not smile, in the pit of his stomach the anger twisted hollowly. “That makes me feel good coming from you. You’ve helped me a lot,” he said evenly.
Danforth thought there was a razor edge of sarcasm in his voice. For a second he felt the dirty hand of inferiority for having been sucked in and bested, then looking at Ringa’s young, boyish face it went away.
“Let’s get over to the airfield,” Danforth suggested. “The airdrop’s due in a few minutes.”
“I can’t,” Ringa said. “I gotta see the priest. He knows I was born Catholic. I don’t want him to write my folks any letters that would upset em.” Where did that come from? That was pretty good. His old lady was dead four years now and he ain’t seen the old man since right around then. Pretty good, he said to himself. And gesturing to Danforth, they parted.
Jim Niven had had the diarrhea for the last week. And four days before he had wiped his ass on some leaves and the skin had broken into an itchy infection that was something like poison ivy. He still had the runs and had been straining the past hour not to crap because every time he crapped he would wipe the sulpha powder from his ass and would have to put on fresh. This, he had deduced, was what was causing all the wear and tear and a crap saved here and a crap saved there would reduce the friction considerably.
He was wondering now if his mother would be able to comprehend the frustration of crapping twelve times a day. She was sure a stickler for crapping. He could hear her now: James, you don’t look well today. Have you had your movement? Then she would get that dizzy book of Upton Sinclair’s out and read him a passage on enemas. You know the Hindus discovered the value of enemas by watching the birds after their yearly flights, she would comment. They would inject water up their rectums with their bills. He must have heard that one a hundred times before Mother had met that Duchess in Palm Beach and they had all made the big switch to Pluto water. Well, he thought, she sure would be proud of me now.
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