Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1944-11-24
CHAPTER XII

| ~SJ NoiA Iod lllSJ 1C INV
In Honolulu, where civilians aren't
allowed out of their houses after
dark" Steve said impatiently.
They'll come if you want them to.
And don't really give damn who
comes as long as you get Basil
Stromberg. Tell him you've got to
discuss the future of the sugar and
pineapple industries with this war
on, and the difficulties of shipping
between Hawaii and the Mainland,
with all these Jap submarines
around Three or four other
couples to balance the table-but a
nice gay crowd"
His deep voice became a rumble.
A minute later, Zorie heard car
start. The admiral presently re-
turned along the path he and Steve
had taken.
The sudden ferocity with which
war had burst upon the Pacific had
put all of them under an increasing
strain. And Paul was trying too
hard to make up for lost time. She
was finding his over-zealousness at
times trying and she was finding it
more and more difficult to keep
Steve out of her thoughts. One eve
ming at her stateroom door when
Paul had kissed her good night, and
had asked her-as he did so often
these dayS-if she still loved him,
she had murmured, "Of course I do,
Steve"
She was so frightened she turned
rn1I p,,t No. 1.
too low for him to hear, or his own
thoughts too turbulent. He hadn't no.
ticed the slip.
She could not drive Steve out of
her mind. And she was still I'M
decided, still torn between her in
fatuation and her patriotic scruples.
She had tried to rationalize it by
assuring herself that she could, any
time she wished, notify the authori-
ties, and by her knowledge that
there was still, in spite of her sure
suspicious, nothing she could prove.
| She dreamed about Steve. Often
there were strange dreams in which
both he and Paul figured.
If Steve suspected her suffering,
he was being very nice about it. 1t
was, she supposed with some bitter
ness, an old story with Steve-being
kind to all the women who made
fools of themselves over him. AS,
for example, Amber Lanning was
doing.
Most of all, she didn't want Paul
to become aware of it, although she
was sure that his renewed ardor
was making him blind. She did not
want Paul to be hurt. And regard
less of where her heart wanted to
lead her, her mind was still at the
controls. Her mind kept insisting
that she would, in little time, fully
re. yer. By then Paul would be
back on an even keel and they
would, at an appropriate time, be
married.
Of the remainder of the trip on
the blacked-out ship, she would I'M
reasonably recall most wildly, not
the frantic excitement of the passen-
| gers, nor the tension, the alertness,
the white War-Worn faces of Homo
lulu under martial law, but her
| childish jealousy of Stoves atten-
tons 10 Amber. Amber, with her
lack of inhibitons, wasn't making
any efforts to conceal the fact that
she, too, had gone overheard for
Steve
The war, curiously, affected Zorie
scarcely at all. After the first awful
feeling, when she learned of the
devastation at Pearl Harbor and at
the army and naval air base, her
self-possession returned. Her new
fearlessness was imperviour Che
wasn't afraid of torpedoes or Japa-
nese bombers and, as she saw nei-
Their submarines nor bombers, her
fearlessness was not tested. After
the first days attacks on Oahu, the
enemy was occupied with Wake,
Hong Kong, the Philippines and
Singapore. Yet Zorie was certain
that, if the enemy returned, she
would not be frightened.
Often she came upon Steve and
Amber, walking together, playing
ping pong, or the horse races, or
Switchboard. They were always
laughing, always so absorbed in
each other that they were oblivious.
She tried not to let Paul see how
it affected her-the bleak fury, the
jealousy, the hatred that swept her.
After the first day, there was little
war news. All the passengers ra-
dios were confscated and only curt
official bulletins from Washington
were issued. On the day after the
attack on Oahu, two United States
destroyers magically appeared and
escorted the Samoa" on her zigzag
course the rest of the way.
Zorie wondered how the war would
affect the plans, the status, of Steve,
the Lannings and Pierre Savoyard.
She had hoped that her problem
would be solved by the military au-
tnorities. She had expected all of
them to be detained for investiga-
ton when the ship reached Homo