by Len Levinson
Billie had been in the original recon platoon that had gone ashore on Guadalcanal and fought innumerable battles since then. He’d seen many of his close friends die, and had been wounded several times. His closest friend, Private Homer Gladley, had been killed during the final days of fighting on Bougainville, and Billie Jones hadn’t been right since.
He had become afraid, and didn’t want to die. He was praying for the Lord to save him somehow, but no great miracle had occurred, and he was becoming more AWOL with every passing moment, and more worried. He didn’t know what to do or where to go. Why wasn’t God helping him?
He heard the snap of a lock in a door and realized the church was being opened for the day. Panicked, he ran back and dived into one of the pews, ducking his head and lying on the floor. He knew he’d be in trouble if someone found him. The MPs would be called and they’d toss him into the stockade, where the guards would beat him to death.
He heard a door squeak open, and the voice of a woman humming “Faith of Our Fathers” drifted into the church. The interior became lighter as the doors were opened wide and the sunlight shone inside. The footsteps and hum of the woman came closer, she was walking down the main aisle of the church. Billie Jones bit his lower lips and hoped she wouldn’t see him, but he knew she would. How could she miss him?
“My goodness!” said the woman. “What in the name of heaven are you doing in there?”
Billie Jones raised his head and smiled. “Hello.”
She was a slender woman wearing a long skirt and glasses, around forty years old with graying hair. “I said what are you doing in there?” she asked again, not unkindly.
“Praying, ma’am.”
“Praying on your stomach? I never heard of that before. Are you a Christian?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Have you been here all night?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked him over as he picked himself up off the floor and stood in front of her. Although he wore civilian clothes, she surmised that he was a soldier. Nearly all the young, healthy-looking American males on the Hawaiian Islands were soldiers.
“Are you AWOL?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Hmmm. I think we’d better have a little talk. Come with me, please?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
All over Honolulu, teams of MPs prowled the streets, looking for AWOLs. Each team consisted of two men, and one of these teams, wearing tan dress uniforms with black and white MP bands around their right arms, entered an alley in a particularly tough neighborhood.
The alley stank of piss and garbage cans. A dog slept in front of a doorway, and halfway down the alley the two MPs saw the figure of a man wearing dirty white civilian pants and a colorful Hawaiian shirt.
“That looks like one over there,” said one of the MPs, a corporal.
The other MP, a pfc., followed him. Both men held their clubs ready to batter the man to a pulp if he started any shit with them, but the man in the colorful shirt lay still as if dead, his face cradled on his arms, surrounded by a pool of dried vomit.
“He looks Hawaiian,” said the pfc. “Maybe he’s a civilian.”
“Maybe,” said the sergeant. “See if he’s wearing dog tags.”
The pfc. didn’t want to touch the vomit, but he’d have to if he wanted to check for dogtags. The smell got worse the closer he got, and be kicked the man onto his back, then reached into his collar and found the silver-colored chain made of tiny metal balls.
“He’s got dog tags,” the pfc. said.
“What’s the fucker’s name?”
The pfc. leaned closer, nearly choking on the smell of vomit and booze. “Gomez,” he said, reading the dog tags. “Lupe Gomez.”
“He ain’t no Hawaiian,” said the Corporal. “He’s a spick. You watch him here while I go call the wagon.”
Morris Shilansky, barefoot and wearing his civilian pants, stood beside the window and held the window shade open a crack with his forefinger, peering down into the street.
He saw two MPs on the opposite side walking along, swinging their billy clubs. Shilansky let the shade hang back into its usual position and pressed his back against the wall, his heart pounding, but in his haste he bumped against a night table and knocked over a lamp, which fell to the rug.
Frankie La Barbara, sleeping on a bed, opened his eyes, grabbed his Colt .45 from underneath his pillow, and sat up, pointing the pistol at Morris Shilansky.
“Don’t shoot!” said Shilansky, holding up his hands as if to stop the bullet.
Frankie wore only his khaki skivvie shorts, and his wavy hair was mussed on his head. He lowered the pistol and jutted his lower jaw forward like a bulldog. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Nothing.”
“What’re you making such a racket for?”
“I bumped into the lamp by mistake.”
“I think when your father fucked your mother it was a mistake.”
Shilansky narrowed his eyes. “Hey, Frankie, watch what you say about my mother and father.”
“Fuck you,” Frankie said, reaching for his package of cigarettes. “You’d better watch where you’re walking in the morning. I need my sleep because I got things to think about.”
“Fuck what you got to think about.”
Both men looked at each other, wondering whether a little violence was called for. They were strong men, both around six feet tall, and each knew one of them would be in the hospital when it was all over, but neither could be certain he’d be the one to survive.
They decided what had occurred wasn’t enough to provoke a major confrontation. Frankie put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it up. Shilansky sat in a upholstered chair nearby and stared at a picture of apples and oranges in a bowl, hanging from the wall.
“What’re we gonna do today?” Shilansky asked.
“What d’ya think we’re gonna do?” Frankie blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “We’re gonna sit tight and stay out of sight; that’s what we’re gonna do. Maybe we’ll get some girls up here for a little fucking.”
“Now you’re talking,” Shilansky said.
Jimmy O’Rourke, the former stuntman from Hollywood, looked up the banana tree and saw a gigantic bunch of bananas. He figured there must be at least forty or fifty bananas in the bunch, sufficient for breakfast, and he was glad he’d stumbled unwittingly onto the banana plantation.
He was wearing fatigues and carrying a full field pack that contained bedding and two shelter halves, so he could pitch a tent someplace in a remote wooded area and wait for the war to end while living off the land.
He took off his full field pack and leaned it against the base of the tree. Then he grabbed the trunk and began to climb, one hand over the other, pushing up with his feet, until he reached the branch where the big bunch of ripe yellow bananas hung. Taking out his Ka-bar knife, he cut the bunch of bananas loose, and they dropped away, falling to the ground, landing with a thud. Jimmy jumped down, tore off five bananas, and sat with his back against the trunk of the tree. He peeled a banana and stuck the end into his mouth, biting it off.
It was ripe and delicious. A new plan formed in his mind. He thought maybe he should pitch his tent someplace in the surrounding countryside and live on bananas until the war was over. He’d read someplace bananas were very nutritious, and in a survival course at Fort Ord they’d told him a man could live off coconuts for the rest of his life and remain fairly healthy. He was certain he could find some coconuts someplace to supplement his diet. He could trap rabbits, if there were any rabbits on Hawaii; and if there were no rabbits, he’d trap something else. Somehow he’d make it. Anything was better than going back to the war.
He stuffed the rest of the first banana into his mouth and peeled the second banana. What a smart son of a bitch I am, he thought. The other guys are going to New Guinea, but not me. I’m gonna be alive when this goddamn war is over. I’ll go back to Hollywood and become a fucking star, a
nd nobody’ll know the difference. They’ll never catch me, because I’m one smart son of a bitch.
He finished the second banana and tossed the peel over his shoulder. Then he froze suddenly, because he realized he shouldn’t throw banana peels all over the place like that. He should take them with him and hide them in the forest, so no one would know he’d been around. Leave no tracks or anything else around when you’re in enemy territory. That’s what Sergeant Butsko used to say. They’ll never catch me, Jimmy O’Rourke said to himself. I'll outsmart them at every turn.
The bushes rustled in front of him, and all of a sudden, like a bad dream, a Hawaiian man appeared, wearing a wide straw hat and carrying a machete in his right hand!
Jimmy dropped his banana and reached for his Ka-bar knife. The Hawaiian man screamed and ran away. Jimmy lunged for his full field pack, put it on, grabbed a handful of bananas, and sped off in the opposite direction.
This is going to be a little harder than I thought, he told himself. I'll have to be more careful in the future, but anyway, they’ll never catch me because I’m a whole lot smarter than they are.
Lieutenant Breckenridge walked swiftly down the corridor of the hospital, heading toward the solarium. He passed nurses and orderlies, and patients limping on crutches and canes. Other patients lay on tables that had wheels and were pushed through the corridor. Lieutenant Breckenridge stepped to the side to get out of the way of one of these tables, and that placed him in front of a door to a room off the corridor. The door opened and Lieutenant Diane Latham stepped out, turning and finding herself face-to-face with Lieutenant Breckenridge.
“Yipes!” she said in alarm, and took a step backward.
“Uh-oh,” he muttered, taking two steps back.
They stood and looked at each other. He couldn’t help noticing how symmetrical and lovely the features of her face were, and she couldn’t help noticing how beaten and bruised he was, with his left hand bandaged and the big knot on top of his head.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m not dead,” he replied, “but I’m not going to hang around so you can finish the job.”
He walked around her and continued on his way to the solarium, limping slightly. She turned around and watched him, the light from the solarium making a halo around his head. He looked a mess, and she felt sorry for what she’d done, now that she’d had a good night’s sleep and wasn’t mad anymore. I’ve really got to do something about my temper, she said to herself. I might have killed the poor son of a bitch.
Lieutenant Breckenridge entered the solarium and saw Butsko near the window, reading the Honolulu Daily News. Butsko looked up as Lieutenant Breckenridge approached.
“That was fast,” Butsko said.
Lieutenant Breckenridge stopped in front of Butsko and pulled up a chair. “What was fast?” he asked.
“I just called you fifteen minutes ago. You didn’t get the message?”
“No, but I don’t have time to talk about that. Something terrible has happened.”
Butsko grinned mischievously. “Bet I know what it is.”
“Bet you don’t.”
“Bet I do.”
“How much you wanna bet?”
“How about ten bucks?”
“You’re on,” Butsko said.
“Okay,” Lieutenant Breckenridge replied, “why am I here?”
“Because Frankie La Barbara and Morris Shilansky have gone AWOL.”
Lieutenant Breckenridge blinked his eyes in surprise. “How did you know?”
“A little bird told me.”
“What’s his name?”
“He’s a she, and she owns a whorehouse. She’s an old friend of mine and she told me Frankie and Shilansky are holed up on the top floor of her whorehouse. She called me because she didn’t know what to do, and I called you because I think you should take a few men and go down there and get the stupid fuckers before the MPs do.” Butsko held out his hand. “Pay up.”
“What for?”
“I just told you why you’re here.”
“But you don’t have the whole story.”
“What’s the whole story?” Butsko's jaw dropped open in alarm. “Did they kill somebody?”
“No, but they’re not the only ones gone AWOL. Craig Delane, Billie Jones, Corporal Gomez, and Jimmy O’Rourke have gone over the hill too.”
Butsko held the palm of his hand to his face. “Uh-oh.”
“That’s not all,” Lieutenant Breckenridge said. “They were reported present and accounted for at formation this morning.”
“How the hell did that happen?”
“I told Sergeant Cameron to report them present and accounted for.”
Butsko wheezed and shook his head. “Looks like you’re on the way to a court-martial, my friend.”
“I thought I should give the men a chance to return of their own free will, without any serious consequences.”
“That was dumb. You put your ass in a sling for a bunch of guys who are no fucking good, who never were any good, and who never will be any good.”
“Well, we’ve all been together for a long time, and it seemed right to give them the opportunity to do the right thing.”
“That bunch’ll never do the right thing,” Butsko said, “because they don’t know what the right thing is. They only know how to do the wrong thing. They’re the fucking scum of the earth. Don’t you know that yet?”
“They’re good men underneath it all.”
“What a crock of shit that is. That kind of thinking is gonna get you into a whole world of trouble, if it hasn’t got you into trouble already.”
“What are you talking about?”
Butsko leaned forward and pointed his finger at Lieutenant Breckenridge’s nose. “There’s one important thing you haven’t thought about.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re all gonna get caught, probably today. And you know what’s gonna happen when they get caught?”
Lieutenant Breckenridge moaned pathetically. “I think I’m getting the picture.”
“I think you are too. It’s gonna go something like this: After they’re caught, somebody’s gonna realize they were carried on the morning report as present and accounted for. The next step is the MPs are gonna come looking for you.”
Lieutenant Breckenridge covered his face with both hands.”Oh, my God!”
“If I were you,” Butsko said, “I’d have a talk with Colonel Hutchins right away. Spill your guts out to him. Cry and beg and promise you’ll never do it again. Maybe he can stop the morning report before it gets to Division, because once it gets to Division, your ass is grass and the provost marshal will have the lawnmower.”
Lieutenant Breckenridge jumped to his feet. “I’d better get going right now!”
“You mean you’re still here?”
Lieutenant Breckenridge spun around and ran out of the solarium. He trotted down the hall past the nurses’ station, and Lieutenant Diane Latham looked up to see him narrowly avoid collision with a patient in a wheelchair by dodging around the wheelchair at the last moment and continue through the corridor at top speed.
Lieutenant Latham returned to her paperwork but couldn’t concentrate. She was curious about why he’d run like a maniac through the corridor. An expression of total panic had been on his face. What had transpired between him and Sergeant Butsko?
Her curiosity got the best of her, and she arose, laying her pen on the pile of paperwork. Adjusting the little nurse’s cap on her head, she walked out of the nurses’ station and down the corridor to the solarium, where she saw Butsko in the same place, the newspaper folded on his lap as he stared out the window. He appeared to be deep in thought.
“Are you all right, Sergeant?” she asked.
He craned his neck so he could see her. “What makes you think I’m not all right?”
“Because I just saw Lieutenant Breckenridge run through the corridor as if somebody were chasing him with a gun, and her
e you are, staring out the window as if something serious is on your mind.”
Butsko knitted his eyebrows together. “How well do you know Lieutenant Breckenridge?”
She became flustered. “I really don’t know him that well.”
“That’s good, because he’s in a whole world of trouble.”
“What’s he done?”
“He stuck out his neck for some of his men, and now he’s gonna get his head chopped off.”
“It’s really that bad?”
“He might be in the stockade before the sun goes down today.”
“Oh, my goodness!”
“He left so fast, I didn’t have a chance to ask him how come he’s all beat up. He looked like somebody chewed him over and spit him out, didn’t he?”
“He certainly did.”
“I don’t know who beat him up, but it must’ve been one big, mean son of a bitch.”
Lieutenant Latham didn’t know what to say.
“I wish I could get out of this hospital,” Butsko said. “All hell’s breaking loose out there, and I can’t do anything about it.”
Craig Delane walked across the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, wearing the silver bars of a first lieutenant on his collar and his Combat Infantryman’s Badge above his left shirt pocket. He was masquerading as an officer because he knew no MP would dare ask an officer for his pass. His tan class A uniform was neatly pressed, and he had the bearing of an officer, plus the education of an officer. He was certain he could get away with the masquerade for a little while, and all he needed was a little while.
He approached the desk, carrying a beautiful expensive piece of leather luggage, the type that a gentleman traveler would carry.
“Can I help you, Lieutenant?” asked the clerk behind the desk.
“A room for the night, please.”
“You’re alone, Lieutenant?”
“I am.”
“Sign in here, please.”
Craig Delane wrote a phony name on the hotel register, and the clerk told him the room would cost twenty dollars a night. The clerk called the bellhop, who led Craig to the elevator.