by James Jones
Landers looked at all their faces, and lied. “No. She didn’t. Why?”
Corello hooted, and then laughed. “She asks everybody. Or nearly everybody. But nobody admits they did. I certainly didn’t.”
“Well, she didn’t ask me,” Landers said. All of the others laughed.
“You’re the only one,” Corello grinned. “She’s a great blow job, all the same.”
They knew everything about her. It was true that she came from Montgomery. It was not true that her fiancé had been shot down in Africa. She didn’t have a fiancé. And never had had. One of the men who was not from the company was from Montgomery, and knew her and her family. It was an excellent family, apparently. Apparently she never went with the same man twice. And she apparently picked her men carefully. She had never tried to pick up Drake, for example.
“And she better never,” Drake snarled with an evil grin. “I can’t stand cunts like that. She’s a fucking pervert.”
When he could get away from them, Landers went into the big recreation center and flung himself down on an overstuffed couch to think about it. He had already noted that his night with Marty had made him even lonelier than before. All this other added on top of it made it even worse. Their coarseness made him sick.
The recreation center had been built as a basketball court and gym, with a theater stage at one end. When there were no basketball games, the demountable bleachers were taken down and furniture was strewn all around. Every night the folding chairs were put up on the court for a movie. After a while Landers got up from the couch and went over to talk to the pretty Red Cross girl in her cubbyhole with the Ping-Pong paddles and athletic equipment. Maybe it was at just that moment that he fell in love with her—or fell halfway in love with her.
Her name was Carol Ann Firebaugh. She was a Luxor girl, and was going to Western Reserve in Cleveland, where she was studying acting. In the summer she was a volunteer Gray Lady for Red Cross. And she had one eye, her right, which every now and then did not track quite straight. This coupled with her long, clean-lined legs gave her a sexual attractiveness that was almost insupportable. A great many of the other patients had noted her, too, but she liked Landers because he had gone three and a half years to Indiana at Bloomington.
Landers had been talking to her ever since he was let out into the hospital proper off his ward. Now he began to importune her steadily and stubbornly for several days until finally—on the same day when he first saw Strange after his return from furlough—she agreed to have a date with him outside.
Strange, when Landers saw him, was on his way to visit Prell.
CHAPTER 11
FOR THE FIRST FOUR days after his arrival Prell had done very little but sleep. Flat on his back and all trussed up again, there wasn’t that much he could do. And he was totally exhausted, physically and morally. In his little shaving mirror, the fragile, purple skin under his eyes seemed to have shrunk even farther back into his head. Occasionally he would wake up and drink some water or some soup. Kilrainey was well equipped for that kind of around-the-clock care. And fortunately, Prell had a night ward boy who worried about his charges. Also—somehow or other—the gossip that he was a potential Medal of Honor winner had preceded him, or at least come right along with him, and everybody on his ward including the nurse took a special interest in him.
Unfortunately Prell had not had such good luck in drawing a surgeon. Instead of the much-liked Curran, he had drawn the other chief surgeon, Colonel Baker. Prell’s troubles and his problems started there. And they started right away. As soon as Prell began to come around and be interested in things, he became aware of it. There was a sort of vibrant whisper about him everywhere around him on the ward that he could never quite come face to face with. Wherever he turned his head the whisper would cease there, and seemed to begin somewhere else behind him.
Col Baker was a tall spare older man, with gray-white grizzled hair, piercing eyes, and a seamed pouchy face that bespoke an irascible temper. It was reputed that he had been one of the two or three best orthopedic surgeons in America, just before the war. Baker looked like one of those men whose short temper was due to the shortness of time, and who could not be bothered to fool around with your sentiments and emotions if he was going to get your bones patched up, put back together and healed. In policy, he was much closer to the attitude of the administrator, Maj Hogan, which was to stick them back together and get them the hell out, willy-nilly—either back to duty if possible, or if not, then discharged and back to the farm—but get them out and open up the beds and make room for all the myriad others who, inevitably, would be coming along now with each new attack, each new offensive as the US began to move. Apparently, even at the first surgical conference on Prell, he had decided that the only thing to do with Prell was to amputate his right leg, which was not healing, and get him out of there and open up another bed.
Prell, who had been knocked out and only semiconscious at his first surgical conference, became aware of all this at the second conference, which was on his ninth day on the ward. Then he realized what the whisper about him on the ward was all about. But he had half suspected it already. He lay in the bed and watched and listened as the three officer doctors, Baker, Curran and Hogan, hovered over by the nurse, ward intern and enlisted ward boy, discussed his right leg as if it were some abstract problem in a chess game.
“I won’t give permission,” Prell said wearily when Baker put it up to him. It seemed to him he had been saying that same line all his life.
“We can do it anyway,” Baker said. “Without. If we decide it is to save your life, or is in your best interest.”
“Then I’ll sue the Army,” Prell said weakly. “I’ll sue the government. For every cent I can squeeze them for. And I’ll name you. For malfeasance.”
“A guardhouse lawyer,” Baker growled.
Prell nodded. “Yes, sir. When it’s my leg.” He had listened to them discussing it. He understood the mechanics. Because the splintered bone was at midthigh, it would mean sawing it off right up at the hip, so that there would be enough flesh left to make the protective flap to fold over. It made his spine go chilly.
“I don’t think you understand,” Baker said.
“I understand,” Prell said. “It’s my leg.”
Baker bulled right on. “The problem is your right leg is not healing. There is no infection—no serious infection—up to now. But we are keeping you pumped full of sulfa. To avoid that. But you can’t go on taking sulfa forever. In the meantime, you are getting weaker and weaker, slowly. If you do infect, you’re probably going to be dead. Do you understand that, soldier?”
Hogan was bobbing his head and grumbling his assent. Curran was looking off in the distance and doing and saying nothing. The nurse and intern and ward boy were all watching, their three sets of eyes like six vacuum cleaner nozzles sucking everything in.
Prell nodded. “I understand. The answer’s still no. Better dead than no leg.”
Baker’s eyebrows arched and his eyes narrowed. “I already told you we can do it without consent,” he said sharply. “It will take me a little longer that way, that’s all. I’ll have to send in a report and get clearance.” He peered at Prell, “Do you realize you are taking up attention and time and space that might save some other soldier’s life?”
“I don’t honestly give a shit about some other soldier’s life, sir,” Prell said. What a question to ask some man about to lose his leg. He noticed Curran had made a little movement, twisted his torso as if in protest.
The long-limbed Baker slapped both his big hands down on his knees. “Well, it is my professional opinion that we are going to have to take off that right leg of yours.” He got up. He looked at the other two doctors. “Unless there is some dissenting opinion with my colleagues here.” Hogan, already standing, shook his head vigorously no, and scowled. Curran, still seated, with an almost imperceptible movement, shook his head no, also.
Prell, looking at the three of them, could feel his
heart beating in him with a slow, heavy ominous beat that was both exciting and doom-filled. It was exactly the way he had used to feel sometimes before an attack. And for a split moment he almost gave up and agreed. He had been fighting and fighting it until he had nothing left to fight with. Instead, he just looked at them and kept his mouth shut as, slowly, Curran got up too and they left. The worst thing was this awful feeling of being completely in their hands and totally helpless. There was absolutely nothing more he could do. Except maybe scream. He tried to get a hold on himself. But he was still so worn out, from the trip and all the rest of it, that after a few minutes, although his heart was still beating heavily, he turned his head to one side and went to sleep.
Hell, maybe the fucking doctors were right.
His last waking thought was that he must get hold of Johnny Stranger, or some of the others from the company, and tell them. Maybe—just maybe—there was something they could do. Then as he dropped off he remembered that Corello had told him Strange was on convalescent furlough, and that was why he hadn’t been by to see him.
That was the way it hung for another week. Col Baker—or more often, Maj Hogan—would come by and read his charts and glower and shake his head. The right leg was not healing. Even the left was slow. On one of these visits Baker told him he had sent in the report and made the request to amputate. It didn’t seem to upset Baker much. Prell wanted to spit at him, or curse him, but he had neither the heart nor the will, nor the energy.
For one second Prell thought of telling him of his intention to shoot himself and knock himself off if he lost a leg, but then he didn’t. To do that would only bring a psychiatrist into it. And maybe get him put away in a lockup ward.
After a week of this anguish—on the same day, in fact, that Strange got back and came to see him—Prell had a surprise visit from the chief hospital administrator himself, a full bird colonel. The two surgeons were light colonels.
It was the first time within the memory of anyone on the ward that the chief administrator had visited a patient. In fact, it was the first time anyone, including the nurse and intern, had seen the chief administrator. Col Stevens was an elderly man and a West Pointer, with white hair, handsome features and a quiet manner. Prell knew when he saw him that screaming and threatening were not going to be any good, and that he’d have to try for something else. Rumor had it that Stevens was on the next promotions list to make brigadier. He sat by Prell’s bed for half an hour and talked to him in a kindly way. The upshot of his conversation was whether Prell was still adamant about refusing permission to amputate. Prell said that he was. Col Stevens said this posed a serious problem, not only for the hospital administration but for Prell himself. Prell was in danger. Col Baker had sent in a report that it was necessary to amputate Prell’s right leg in order to save his life. None of the other doctors had dissented. This was going to force a very difficult decision on the hospital administration, which in effect was himself. Col Stevens. Prell said again that he did not want to live without his legs, without one leg.
“Sir, it’s not as if this didn’t happen before,” he said. Prell was not at all above using his hollow, harrowed eyes on somebody, if he thought it might help him. “Back up the line they wanted to take off both my legs. But I talked them out of it, and I’m still here, and so are the legs. I’m sure that they’ll heal up, sir.”
“That doesn’t appear to be the case,” Stevens said.
“All it needs is a little time, sir.”
“Col Baker doesn’t seem to think so,” Stevens said, and drew a breath and let it out in a sigh. “You’re an old-timer, an old Regular, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I was just winding up my third hitch when the war started,” Prell said.
“Tell me, what would you do with your life?” Stevens said abruptly. “If you had your choice, that is.”
“I’d stay in the Army,” Prell said without hesitation. “Be a thirty-year man.”
“You would?” Stevens rubbed his handsome chin. “Anyway, it’s twenty years, nowadays. Not thirty.”
“I’d stay in thirty, anyway,” Prell said. “If they’d let me.”
“Well, were’s not much chance of that. Not the shape you’re in.”
“No, sir. I guess not. But it’s my dream.”
“You know, it’s written into your dossier that your Division commander recommended you for the Medal of Honor. Did you know that?”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it, sir. I’d rather have the leg than the medal.”
“Yes,” Stevens said. He smiled.
“What are you going to decide about the leg, sir?” Prell asked. He couldn’t help it. As he spoke, he was remembering back to when not so long ago, even just on the boat, what Stevens had just told him about the Congressional Medal would have been the biggest thrill of his life. Not any more.
Stevens shook his head, and then got up. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know because I don’t know, myself.”
“I had the impression, myself,” Prell said, “that maybe Col Curran didn’t feel quite as strongly about it as Col Baker.”
Stevens’ eyes sharpened, then showed disapproval. “No. That’s not possible. Col Curran didn’t file any dissenting opinion.”
“But I’m not his patient. Am I? And doesn’t Col Baker outrank Col Curran?”
“That wouldn’t make any difference,” Stevens said, “Not in something this important.”
“It might make a little difference,” Prell said. “What they call professional ethics?”
“No, no,” Stevens said. “No, no.” He turned as if to go, then stopped.
“You know, sir, I’m not at all sure I deserve that Medal of Honor,” Prell said to his back, taking advantage of the pause. “In fact, I don’t think I do. Not really. But I deserve the leg.”
Stevens turned to look at him, and then after a moment nodded once, crisply. He left without saying more.
It was only an hour or so after Stevens’ visit that Johnny Stranger came in to see Prell. He’d heard the news from Corello.
Prell felt he had done pretty well with Stevens. But feeling so did not make him very happy. He did not feel he had established any basic change in the chief administrator. What did the lawyers call it? Establish a reasonable doubt. That cunt Baker had called him a “guardhouse lawyer.” He told the whole tale to Strange, pausing to rest between paragraphs when he was tired.
Strange, as he listened, felt a terrible guilt. Here he was, running around on a furlough he didn’t even need, trying to get back in with a wife and family he didn’t even seem to know any more, or understand. Loafing for four lousy days downtown in Luxor playing poker. And all the time Prell needed him, lying here trying to save his damned leg from those goddamned civilian doctors. Gone when, for once, somebody really needed him.
At least this Col Stevens was one of their own. A West Pointer and an old Army man. But you couldn’t even count on that any more, nowadays. And anyway when did being a West Pointer make a man dependable? Some were, some weren’t.
Strange was not at all sure that the doctors weren’t right. Prell looked terrible. His eyes were sunk so far back in his head, and the skin drawn so tight over his cheekbones, that he looked like a skull. A dead man. But at least the fuckers could let him die decently, the way he wanted.
On the other hand what was there that Strange could do for him? Him, a low-life s/sgt of a mess/sgt? What colonels were going to listen to him? He told Prell that.
“I thought maybe if you went and talked to Curran,” Prell said. His purplish eyes were almost desperate. “Curran didn’t seem to be so strong for amputating it as the others.”
“I’ll certainly talk to him,” Strange said desperately. “But you know how much he’s going to pay any attention to me.”
“Maybe if you got all the guys together,” Prell said. “Get up a petition. Get them all to sign it.”
“A petition?” Strange said. “In the Army?”
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p; “Well, times are changing. And those guys aren’t soldiers. They’re civilians,” Prell insisted. “Maybe a petition would impress them.”
“I can try it,” Strange said. “I can try it.” He paused a minute, then said, “But listen. Wait a minute. You’ve given me an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll get Landers to go and talk to Curran.”
“Why Landers?”
“Well, you know. He’s a college man and all that. He speaks their language. If he was to talk to them, I think it’d carry more weight than if I went.”
“That’s a good idea,” Prell said, his sunken eyes widening to grasp at any hope. “Try that.”
“I will. I will,” Strange said.
He did not waste time on any formal good-bys. He found Landers in the big recreation center, talking to the pretty girl with the walleye, she nervous and behind her athletic equipment counter as if it were some protective wall between them. Strange would have laughed, normally.
“But why me?” Landers said, after they had gotten off by themselves on one of the couches on the basketball floor. “I don’t know Curran any better than you do.”
Landers was having difficulty concentrating. Carol Firebaugh had just accepted his invitation, about his twentieth invitation, to have a date with him outside. But instead of being elated, he suddenly found himself full of the old despair again. Inexplicably, he found himself seeing again the picture that had been emblazoned on his retinas that day on the ridge when he sat with the wounded and stared at the clean, white streaks down all the dirty faces from weeping. The two things were so far apart that there was no way of reconnecting them at all. Grown men. All of them. Himself included. She had been so circumscribed in her acceptance that it was almost a refusal. And the picture kept coming back, to oppress him. Something somewhere had stopped for Landers there that day. How could you explain that to someone who hadn’t been there? How could you say it to her? It made that kind of wild rage come back up in him. Reckless. He had been just on the point of withdrawing the invitation when Strange arrived.