by James Jones
“Charlie, I just can’t,” he said when the two days were up. “Too many things aren’t finished. I’ve got to run out the string, you know?”
“You’re going back?” They were in one of the four or five joints Charlie had first introduced him to. It was late in the night. The Tex Beneke Band was singing “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”
“I have to, Charlie,” Landers said.
“Well, the offer still holds. I don’t know how long it’ll be open. Like I said, you move away a few feet, and they focus on somebody else.”
“Sure. I know. And if it had all happened a month from now, well maybe.” But he didn’t really believe that. “I’ll leave on the bus tomorrow.”
When he said good-by to Loucine, she put her arms around his neck, and began to cry. “Oh, I’m going to miss you so, Marion.” Landers was startled.
Charlie delivered him to the one o’clock bus. As the big door closed, and the bus’s air hissed, Charlie called one last thing to him.
“Remember!” he yelled.
CHAPTER 28
THERE WAS AN AWFUL, frightening depth to the depression that hit Landers when the taxi from Luxor carried him back inside O’Bruyerre. The sprawling, grimy, coal-smoke-smeared, mud-greased areas of the huge camp stretched for miles. From miles away, the pall of coal smoke that hung above it was visible like a flat, gray umbrella. The place seemed to have grown in even the weeks Landers had been away.
To come back into it as an unidentifiable nonentity among tens of thousands of other nonentities was unbearable.
And yet, under the depression was the orange-colored pick of excitement in his chest, as his frantic adrenal glands poured into him the juices for his coming combat. He wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
Landers hated himself for coming back to it when he could have stayed away. But he could no more have stayed away than he could have changed himself into a genuine deserter.
There had been no trouble getting in, at the main gate. On the ride out from town he had thrown away the precious block of blank pass forms, in case he should be searched, and kept only the current one, filled out for the past three days. But the MPs at the gate paid no attention to him, and he hadn’t even needed it.
Once back inside under his own steam he was no longer a deserter. He was only an AWOL.
Once inside, he told the driver to drive him right on down to the 3516th’s barracks. After the expense of the ride out from town, it didn’t cost that much more. In Luxor, he had not even gone around to the Peabody to see Strange, partly out of shame for having lied to him, but partly because he did not want Strange to get on the phone to Winch, and have Winch involved with planning his return. But now some instinct of self-preservation, once he was back inside on his own, made him change his mind about Winch.
He told the driver to take him up to the Second Army Command building, instead. The numbers of men and vehicles and amounts of matériel that were on the move in the camp were overwhelming. When they passed the section of camp where the old Division had been which had left for England, he saw that a totally new Division with a different patch had moved in.
On the third floor of the Command building, Winch came out to get him. He led him past the acre and a half of clerks outside his private office, then shut the door and looked at him with a somber grin.
“So you’re back.” His voice sounded strangely faint.
“Back,” Landers said. “Yeah. I’m back.”
“At least you got back on your own hook. That will help some.” Winch hauled the bottle of Seagram’s up out of its desk drawer. “Make yourself a drink.”
Landers had intended to refuse a drink. But now it was in front of him, he accepted. “Thanks,” he said stiffly. It was so hard to know at any given time exactly what Winch was really thinking. It always had been. “Just how much do you know about all this?” he asked.
Winch stared at him a moment, with what appeared to Landers to be irritated disbelief. Then he said mildly, “I only know what Johnny Stranger told me when he phoned. And what Mayhew told me.”
“Mayhew!” Landers said. “You know Mayhew?”
“I went down there and talked to him, after I talked to Strange.”
“A shit,” Landers said. “An absolute shit.”
“Listen,” Winch said, “wake up. I’ve known everything about you since you went to that outfit. Where do you think those fouled up Morning Reports came, when those boys filled them out? Who do you think sent them back? Where do you think that payroll came, before it went on to Finance?”
“I don’t know,” Landers said with bravado. “Where? Here?”
“Do you have any idea at all of what is going to happen to you?” Winch said.
For the first time since he had come in the outside door, Landers looked at him seriously, the way he should have first looked at him. Winch looked pallid to him. He had lost the too thin, sharp look he had had. His face looked heavier, and his paunch had begun to come back. Office life was agreeing with him. Or wasn’t agreeing with him.
Landers grinned. “No. I don’t.”
“Mayhew wants to make an example of you. He’s going to send you to the stockade, and have you transferred overseas immediately, as a replacement. A recalcitrant replacement, is what they call them, secretly.”
“Fine,” Landers said. “Even better than I’d hoped.”
“You got any idea what it’s like to be shipped overseas like that? I don’t have to go into it, do I? A new outfit? You don’t know anybody? The dirtiest jobs. The most dangerous assignments. You’ll be on probation. No rewards, or thanks. No fucking Medals of Honor. You’re a marked man.”
Landers made himself grin. “All this was your idea?”
“I tried my level best to talk him out of it. To no avail. You hit him right where he lives. His outfit has fallen apart all around him.”
“Well,” Landers said. “At least there’s that. Second Army will—”
“Second Army will nothing. Mayhew is the favorite pet of some clique at Second Army HQ in Luxor. Nothing’s going to hurt him.”
“What about Prevor?”
“Prevor? If Prevor’s lucky, he’ll be sent overseas with the outfit, as Mayhew’s exec. If he’s unlucky, he’ll be reassigned right here. If Prevor’s very lucky, he’ll be able to hang on overseas until that fool Mayhew gets himself killed, and then Prevor will reinherit his old outfit and, if it isn’t totally ruined, make it back into something. But you won’t be there to see any of it.”
“I don’t care,” Landers said, and forced another grin. “At least I’ll have made that asshole Mayhew think a little.”
“No. Men like Mayhew don’t think much. They more run on pure instinct, like a dog does. The only trouble is, right now all that instinct is in hatred, and directed right at you.”
Winch suddenly turned clear around, turning his back on Landers, and sat down at his desk. He appeared to be breathing heavily. Angrily, Landers thought. But after a moment he leaned back in his expensive-looking swivel chair and appeared to grow calmer. Landers wanted to kick him in the balls.
“There’s only one way to get you out of this,” Winch said.
“Yes?” Landers breathed, sarcastically. “How?”
“We’ve got to get him to agree to let you go up to the hospital first, for a few days.”
“Hospital? What for?”
“For observation,” Winch said, calmly. “Before he sends you to the stockade.”
“Oh, no,” Landers said. “Oh, no.” He was standing, but he thought he was sitting down. So that when he put his hands behind him and pushed, and jumped up to his feet, he actually simply jumped straight up in the air and came back down on his heels. It looked peculiar, to say the least. “No, sir. Not me. You’re not going to pull any of that shit on me.”
“Well,” Winch said reasonably, “it’s either that, or off you go to the stockade immediately.”
“Not me,” Landers said. “No, sir. I’m not goi
ng to play psycho. Not for you. Not for anybody.”
“Well,” Winch said, “there’s not much to doing it.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to go about it.”
“Just act crazy,” Winch said. He was staring at him mildly. His face was wide open, receptive.
“Mayhew’s the one who’s crazy, not me,” Landers raged. “Look at the way he came into that outfit, and balled it all up. Antagonizing everybody.”
“I agree. But unfortunately we don’t have any way to handle Mayhew,” Winch said. The blandness left his face, and it knotted up. “Listen,” he hissed, “I haven’t mothered you fuckers, and babied you, all this time and all this way, for you to go and get yourself into a sure-death situation. I won’t goddam fucking put up with it. See?”
“Do you really think I could do it?” Landers said. Despite his bravado, he did not really want to ship out like that. He knew what it meant, as well as Winch. What he wanted was to creep into somebody’s arms, and be held. “You really think I could?”
“Tell them about your nightmares,” Winch said, his face calm again.
Vaguely, Landers wondered how Winch knew about that.
“Now listen,” Winch said, fast. “You go on down to your outfit. Take one of these camp cabs, outside the office here. No use in walking up, and letting them spot you a mile off. You go straight on in to your own barrack, to your own bunk. You fall out for the next formation, just like you never were away,” Winch looked at his watch, “next formation ought to be evening chow. If they don’t come for you, you fall out for evening chow. Okay?”
Before Landers could answer or even knew what was happening, Winch had him by the arm and was shooing him out. “I’m going to call Mayhew. And ask him to meet me. I’ll talk to him as best I can. I think he will agree. Okay? Now, scoot.”
“I can’t do it,” Landers said hopelessly, at the door. “I don’t know how to act crazy.” Once again he thought how impossible it was ever to know what Winch was thinking.
“Well, just try,” Winch said, looking at him. From the doorway, he watched Landers thread his way out through the desks and desks of clerks.
He went back inside and called Strange at the Peabody. He wasn’t sure Strange would be there, but after a moment Strange came on.
“I got him to go,” Winch exulted. “He’s agreed to go up to the hospital. Now I’ve got to talk fucking Mayhew into sending him.” He listened as Strange gabbled on, on the phone. “Hold it, hold it.” Strange asked an urgent question. “No, I don’t think there’s any doubt they’ll think he’s crazy. I think he’s crazy.” Suddenly Winch felt like giggling. He suddenly wanted to let his voice go deep and begin to talk gibberish, in a profound tone, to Strange on the phone. “Listen, I can’t talk now. I’ve got to call Mayhew. I’ll call you later. Will you be there?” He hung up and asked the operator to get him Mayhew at the 3516th.
In his way Winch had been preparing Mayhew for this moment. Mayhew had been belligerent, and excessively aggressive, at their first meeting. Winch had made himself stifle his own natural anger until he could get a fix on things. What he found out was that Mayhew was surprised and a little shaken that Landers would dare to go AWOL on him. Mayhew was much more concerned with what Second Army HQ would think of Mayhew. And Mayhew was more than a little impressed that the famous W/O Mart Winch would come to talk to him about it. Winch had let him run on a little bit and simmer down, then he had hit him with the story of Landers, Mayhew, and the telephone. Strange had told it to Winch. The reaction on Mayhew was phenomenal. His neck got visibly thicker, and he began to bristle again. Not a man who took well to criticism. At least not from anyone not his immediate superior.
Winch had all this well in mind, when he telephoned him this time. He said only that he had news of his wayward AWOL. And he suggested they meet at the officers’ club bar. Mayhew said he would meet him right away.
Winch had the barman set them up at a two-table off by itself, where they could talk. But it wasn’t where they would not be seen. It was just at the close of the working day. That fit in, too. He did not waste time on any amenities. “I’ve brought your boy back.”
“Yeah, I know. I saw him come in on my way out to come meet you.”
No element of surprise. Winch had hoped to have that. “Are you going to let him go up to the hospital for observation?”
Mayhew shook his bullet head. “It’s a stockade case. Already made up my mind. He deliberately did it to make me look bad.”
“I think it would be wise to let him.”
Mayhew shook his head. “In my mind there’s a question whether he’s a deserter. He was gone three weeks.”
“Nobody’s a deserter, if he comes back on his own and turns himself in.” “That’s not an absolute regulation.”
“It seems to me,” the celebrity Winch said, “that you’re more concerned with what Second Army HQ will think of you, than you are with anything else.”
Mayhew’s jaw came out and he began to bristle.
“Don’t be angry. But it seems to me a stockade case would make you look worse than having a nut, a real psycho, on your hands.”
“I don’t care. He did it deliberately. To make me look bad. I want him to get what’s coming to him.”
“All that’s personal,” Winch said sternly. “A personal vendetta.”
Mayhew shook his head. “Legally I’m right.”
But he was not as at ease as he seemed. Mayhew kept looking brightly around the bar. Winch knew he did not frequent the main officers’ club bar. A lot of colonels and lieutenant colonels were coming in now, most of them waving hello to Winch. Almost all of them knew him because they had to work through his Personnel office. Winch waved at a couple of colonels from Second Army, then waved for them to come on over. He stood up to introduce them to Mayhew, who jumped up right away.
Then what he had been waiting for came in the door. It was Col Stevens from the hospital. The thin, white-haired, dignified old West Pointer walked in. There was an air about Stevens that stood out everywhere. But now he was wearing the single star of a brigadier. His generalcy had gone through a month before. And he came right over, right away, without being waved to. “Hello, Mart,” he smiled warmly. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in a long while.” There was no question of the depth of his liking. When Winch introduced him to Mayhew, he nodded politely. “How is that young protégé of yours, Mart? What was his name? Landers?”
“Just fine, sir,” Winch grinned. “Just fine.” When he went on off and the two of them sat back down, Mayhew’s round head was stubborn.
“Then I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Winch said. “I’m going to go over your head, Captain. You send him to the stockade as an overseas replacement, and I’m going to put in for him and have him transferred to me.”
It was a grand slam poker bluff. Winch did not himself believe he had that much pull anywhere.
Mayhew looked disbelieving. “You’d really do that?” Then he stumbled over what to call Winch. And he chose the formal address. “Do that, Mr Winch?”
“I sure would. I trained him. He was in my old outfit with me.” Mayhew’s neck was redder than when he had been angry. “All right,” he muttered, as if to himself, “okay.” He downed the rest of his drink. “Okay. All right, Mr Winch. I’ll go down to my orderly room and have them take him to the hospital.” He looked as if he badly wanted to stay, and have another drink or two. And meet another general. But he got to his feet. “I hope we’ll see each other around, Mr Winch.”
“We will,” Winch said. Like hell. He watched him walk off to go to his orderly room. He was thinking that he must go and call Strange right away with the good news, from the pay phone in the club foyer. But he felt unaccountably worn down and tired.
Landers was already in Mayhew’s orderly room, under guard, when Mayhew got back. Landers had done everything exactly as Winch had told him. But Mayhew had come hustling out of the orderly room on his way to see Winch jus
t as Landers was crossing the frozen mud to the barracks, and had seen him. Mayhew had sent a man back.
Landers had gone on. But when he got inside to his old bunk, he found it completely dismantled. Blankets and sheets gone, mattress folded on the bar springs. The sight brought on Landers an acuter sense of homelessness than he had ever felt. The guys around the barracks, who had their blankets and beds, looked at him with noncommittal faces. The two guards Mayhew had ordered sent met him by the bunk.
Mayhew, when he came in from Winch, was his own inimitable self. He was hard and cold and tough and businesslike. “I’ve agreed to send you up to the hospital for observation. Some people seem to feel you should do that.” Mayhew himself did not agree, and he made that clear.
All of this was said in front of the other company officers who were clustered around, warming themselves at the space-heater stove, just in off duty. Landers thought he caught a sympathetic glint in the Mongolian eyes of Lt Prevor; and Lt Burns, Prevor’s former exec, gave him a genuine if terribly fleeting smile. Landers wondered if he had sensed a wave of relief pass among the officers at the mention of the hospital, or if it had come from just himself.
Young Lt Mathieson, one of the newer officers, was told off to the assignment of delivering him to the hospital prison ward, with the two guards.
The ride up in the jeep seemed to pass before Landers in a series of humiliating flashes like still-camera shots flashed on a screen.
And if you had seen and been in one hospital, you had seen and been in them all. They weren’t that different, Landers decided. Then the big steel door of the prison ward down at the end of the main corridor on the top floor clanged shut behind him.
At one point in the trip, as they descended from the jeep outside the hospital, Mathieson got a chance to speak to him alone, and did it quickly, looking around to see if he was being observed or overheard.
“I’ve been authorized to tell you that we’re all behind you. I was told to tell you we all know why you did it. And that we’re all going to do everything we can as officers, to get you out of this.”