7/ch 2

honor, being picked over all the other Corps on the Post to play
the funeral, and it was a further honor to the buglar who played
the Taps. Prewitt was the logical choice for this job, and he,
along with the other men in the Corps, expected him to play the
Taps

55/Ch 5

in a vastly serious face. Now he smiled.

"That's swell," Clark said, like a pleased child. "Comeon.
Comeon, Andy. No, you stay here. I'll get em both."

When Clark came back, they retired to a vinecovered lattice work
corner, the only one in the beer garden, sitting on the grass like
proud hens over a nest of full beer bottles.

The Post berggarten was one of the few spots in Schofield Barracks
that stayed green through the summer, along with the officers' bridal
path, the officers' golf course, and the officers' Club. That may
be because a detail watered it every day and tended its grass loving-
ly. Or it may have been that the men who came there to lay on the
soft grass behind the lattice work fense and drink gallons of beer
and hold story sessions of the "old army", singing sessions of songs
that touched them mysteriously, and be ringside spectators to the
various fights that always broke, cheering the antagonists on while
at the same time dodging flying beer bottles--it may that these
things influenced the grass to be kindly and remain green in this
spot that was the nearest thing to home for them.

The Post Beergarden was situated in almost the center of the
Lower Post. It was easily accessible from all the Infantry quad-
rangles and from the Engineer quadrangle. It is jammed up between
two main streets, shaped like a long right angle triangle where these
two streets run together and another side street crosses them. Its
grass is very green, and its walks are spotless, at least during
the first of the evening, and its kanaka boys behind the bar are
joyous laughers and singers and jokesters. From all over the
garden triangle men began slowly to drift toward the vinecovered
spot where the two guitars rang. They carried their bottles of beer

56/ch 5

with them, and went back to the open bar set under a low roof to
order more. As they gathered, Clark dropped out embarrassedly, and
Andy played on alone. Two men in the lower point of the triangle
who were squaring off decided instead to listen to the music, and
ended up with their arms around each neck's, singing song after song.
Prewitt was relieved of
The job of buying the beer, there was more beer waiting for the
three of them than they could drink before closing time. The sing-
ing swelled and swelled, as more and more hard-faced men in chevrons
from PFC to master sergeant took up whatever song was being played.
The singing swelled so loud that the MPs had to come around to quiet
the place down. They played and sang until time for taps, for getting
Wahoo, remembering home, from whence these congs had come.

63/Ch 6

Quietly, as was his way, he slipped out of the Company alone and made the trip to Haliewa, without saying anything to anybody. There was none of the elation or exuberance that the other guys had in his preparation. He slapped nobody on the back, did not whopp with with joy of release, did not discuss across the squadroom where he was going, or when, or why. He did not even tell Andy and Clark that he was going. They had unconsciously expected him to go to town with them, and they were a little hurt. Mmmmm Prew was a funny one, and they did not understand him, but they both knew instinctively that he was a good Joe, a fine Joe.

Schofield Barracks is set up on a high plateau in the center and to the west of the main island in the group, Oahu. On the southern shore is Honolulu, Territorial Capital, and the huge natural harbor that is the navel base, Pearl Harbor. As you go to the north the population thins and the island becomes progressively more rural. The highway ascends gradually to the plateau, until suddenly it begins to cross deep craggy ravines of rosy crumbly rock of long dead volcanoes. These gulches slip up on you; they give you no warning more than a few high mounding hills. It is not fair of them. If you are making the trip for the first time, and are not a tourists who are always inclined toward gasping so that your gasps lose their meaning like the small boy who cried, "Wahf!" you gasp anyway and then look around to see if anybody saw you. That's the kind of unjust gulches these gulches are, too colorful and too three-dimensional to be described. These gulches even nearly live up to what the Matson Company advertizements say about them, that's the kind of gulches they are.

At one place the highway curves up over a small hill through a

64/Chap 6

deep bloodred cut. It curves to the right. You expect it to curve
on down the other side of the small hill. But it does not. There
is no other side to the hill. The highway curves left in an S, as
you expected, only there is no earth under it. It makes a long
gently dropping
slow/curve to the right where it runs into a cut in another one-sided
hill across this gulch, sitting confidently and disdainfully up on
its great concrete stilts. It is a ribbon, a flat ribbon of highway,
caught behind them flung from one side to the other, and caught and
held forever in its twisting propulsion, the twist to the left banked
nigh on the right, the twist to the right as it nears the other side
banked high to the left. The concrete stilts beneath it are after-
thoughts, added later just to assure drivers.

If you have made the trip before and know it is coming, and are
watching closely, you can see far below an intricate checkerboard
pattern of vivid greens and yellows and browns in these neat squares
and triangles, richly contrasted with the bloodred side-less hills.
Taro patches, and rice paddies, and various truck garden patches.
Like cardboard houses are the makeshift thrown-together shanties
where live the workers, cheap and expendable labor for the mine
mine backbreaking pineapple fields and lung-searing sugar mills.
The colored patches are beautiful; the grey shanties are not. These
people, conglomerates of Oriental and darkskinned bloods, augment
and stretch it further
their meager pay/by growing almost all their own food. They and
their fathers learned farming in a hard school, and no foot of soil
goes unwasted. Between and around these vivid and tremendously im-
portant patches is an intricate system of water ditches, each running
high
into the others here and there, all fed by a long/wooden sluice
that runs down the valley far below the highway. At the narrow

65/Ch 6

inland end to the right the source of this deep gash is hidden in
a shroud of mist; at the wider end, growing ever wider toward the
seap another curtain of mist obscured the finish of this nature's
whim. If you crest the hill at just the right time, you can see a
smoke
tiny train crawling along the far side, puffing its asthmatic/high
up into the still min bright air. At times the wind rages up the
valley, and if you are crossing then, you really gasp, because
though theminst you can see but little through the veil of mist and
rain, because the funnelled wind beats against the car and makes it
seem as though it will rise and float up the valley on the wind to
be dropped far down into the gulch like a wind-discarded leaf.

runs

On the other side the highway runs on up toward the Schofield
plateau, the red volcanic dirt becoming redder as you go. Reading
the plateau it runs in a straight line north until it ends at the
small bridged gulch that is the village limits of Wahiawa, a worker
town, but more truly a suburb of Schofield Barracks, ministering to
the needs of its men, which are mostly whores and liquor. At the
bridge the road makes an abrupt rightangle turn to the west, and for
a mile, like a fullfledged city avenue it runs between two rows of
fenced
tall and stately bulky fencings elms. Then it turns right again, as if
remembering its true mission and hurries on to the northward, pass-
ing along the eastern boundary of Schofield itself, squeezing in
between the fence and a great wood-eddered resorvoir.

From Schofield north the drop from the plateau is more gentle,
less breathtaking. Pineapple and cane stretch away on either side.
For fifteen miles the road runs uninterrupted by curves across the
flat plain of the red plateau, through pineapple and cane as far as
the eye can see. Then it enters the gently dropping hills and

As I write this I have before me a picture from the roto-
gravure section. It is a picture labeled: "AMERICAN CEMETARY
up
ON GUADALCANAL." The picture shows a native setting/crosses over
which mark American graves. I keep this picture on my desk. It
paints a moral to man: If I had died on the 'Canal, I would be
a cross, instead of ten fingers punching typewriter keys. It
makes a difference, you know. minnawam

I have tried to keep this fact in mind during the writing of
this book.

IF--

IF--I have subtly put this picture before you, my reader,
then I have succeeded. If I have not done so, then I have failed.

A cemetary is a rather pointless thing. When you, you that
is, my reader, are lying in a cemetary, it makes little diff-
erence whether you have a hallowed United States cross over you
or whether you have a minute designation in some Potters' Field.
(All the best communities have them.) What you have done, what
you have enjoyed, what you have LIVED, is what makes the differ-
ence.

The men under the crosses in the U.S. cemetary on the
'Canal didn't have much. Most of them were young men, like me,
and I won't attempt to tell you that they have sacrificed their
lives in a Great Cause. The only Great Cause is what people have
enjoyed, before it is their turn to be subjected to cross or stone.

The fact that a flag flies over the cemetary in which you, yes
you, lie, is not enough. Neither is it enough that an ignorant
native keep the grass mowed, and keeps the pretty crosses painted

and in line. At the risk of being trite, I say:

When you're dead, you're dead! That's all. That's as much as I know. Consequently, I don't hazard great aphorisms. I have what I want: the room in which I write this is just about all I want. I acquired it, not through labor, steafast and unthinking, but throogh the kindness of other humans. A think a great moral can be drawn from this.

Before me, also, I have a short, very short article clipped from the Chicago Daily Tribune (God Rest Its Soul). (Soul, that is.) It is a very brief item which tells of the sentencing to hang of two Negroes in Italy. They were sentenced to hang, die that is, "for the of Maj. Lewis B. Hildebrand of Baltimore, Md.," I quote: "A witness testified he overheard one of the men swear he would 'get' Hildebrand, who was in charge of a detention camp where the two men were confined."

Perhaps you do not see it, but there is a parellel between the cemetary on the ' Canal and the sentence of the two Negroes.

First, the officer was from Baltimore, Md.

Second, the two Negroes wer confined in a detention camp in which Hildebrand was of charge.

From my own experience in confinement by the U.S. Army, as a White, is enough to furnish motive for this "murder."

I have seen men, white men, swear to "get" the officer who beat them up with pick handles, and in one case torn the ears from a man's head.

I realize that this is uncivilized, and that it is undemocratic.

But what are we do about it, my reader, you and I?

Think it over, will you?

13/ch 3

get up at First Call, instead of sleeping until nine. He would have to stand Reveille and fall out for drill at eight. Instead of having his afternoons off, he would have to pull fatigue details. He was accustomed to spending as many as four nights a week in addition to weekends with his wahine at Haleiwa. That would have to go, too.

The only thing he was gaining by his transfer was that he would no longer be subject to authority of the Chief Buglar, who seldom bothered him. He was more or less a key man in the Bugle Corps, and he had reaped the privileges that went with being one. The only thing he gained was in feeling he had done the right thing.

The Chief Buglar had compromised his personal integrity, and he could not bring himself to take it without protest.

That son of a bitch Carter, he thought without anger.

He looked through the/double window of the Orerly Room and saw that there was another man in the with the Company Commander and the topkick. Captain Dana E Holmes was the Company Commander of G Company. Prewitt knew him as "Dynamite" Holmes, as he was called, Regimental boxing coach. He had seen Holmes often during the last boxing season, striding around the quadrangle dressed in slacks, sneakers, and an expensive turtlenecked sweatshirt, his badge of office which he wore constantly during boxing season. Warden, the First Sergeant, Prewitt had known in A Company where Warden had been a Staff Sergeant before he made top and was assigned to G Company. Prewitt sat down on a rickety chair on the porch, irritated at having to wait.

He knew ~~causally~~, some of the more notable figures of G Company, such as Jim O'Hayer, fighter for Holmes and manager of one of the gambling games in the maintenance sheds; Big Chief Choate,

17/Ch 3

by his wide pug nose, his strong chin, and the quivering ends of
his eyebrows. Just as suddenly as it had come, the grin left his
face. There was no residue of humor; it was as if he the grin had
never appeared there. "To see the Old Man."

"That's it," Prewitt said.

"I remember you," said the First Sergeant. "I'll call you."

Prewitt nodded and went back to shooting pool. He proceeded
methodically, shooting first one ball and then another into the
various pockets. He missed once. After he had shot in all the
balls, he took them out, raked them up, hung up his cue and went
out on the porch.

He moved the chair out of the creeping sun and sat down to wait.
The KP was still peeling his spuds. From the kitchen came the sound
of somebody banging around pots and pans. The irregular clacking
of the typewriter from the supply room had ceased.

Prewitt sat on the chair nervously, smoking cigarets, watching
the exhaled smoke float out into the sunchine where it suddenly be-
came full-bodied, visible in all its unending swirls. His nervous-
ness was not the nervousness of fright or dread; it was the nervous-
ness of a highly tuned organism, afflicted with an abundance of
nervoue energy, momentarily out of its orbit, not yet able to find
a new orbit into which to direct its superfluous energy. He was
unable to sit quietly in the chair and wait.

This interview with Captain Holmes was a pointless formality.
The business was over, the transfer concluded. He would listen to
a twenty minute lecture, unmstatt for which he had waited an hour, on
the chances of advancement in G Company--all of which had nothing
at all to do with the facts. Prewitt's natural efficientcy abhored

18/ch 3

all waste of time and energy.

He was small and seemingly frail, looking almost like a child
in a soldier suit, until you looked at his face. His face was
angular and sharp, infinitely old, infinitely wise with a knowledge
his experience would not let him take advantage of. A thin blade-
like nose, whose nostrils quivered delicately with each passing
thought. The cheekbones were high, giving the eyes a thin look.
The mouth was thin and perpetually compressed, indicative of an
inflexible will, overdeveloped through much exercise, a will that
had very often been the only thing he had had to hang on to. A
long thin sensitive chin made his whole head long and ascetic, re-
harsh
lieving the mmmtmm inflexibility of the mouth. There appeared to
be not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his whole head, or his
body for that matter. The shoulders were thin, the chest narrow,
arrested in development by childhood malnutrition, his wrists thin
and birdlike. There was no indication of physical power in his
whole body until you looked into his eyes or at the bunched muscles
at the ends of his lips. Here was a mind, said the eyes, and here
was a will, said that mouth, that were capable of giving and infor-
upon
ing any order whatever from the physical organism. The unexpected
radiation of physical power that came from him was due to this.
The eyes were extremely powerful, quick and darting in a nervous way,
missing nothing.

By the time he had smoked two cigarets, a man in white cook's
clothing came out of the Orderly Room, his face red and angry.

"All right, Prewitt," Bellowed the First Sergeant out the win-
dow. His desk sat facing away from the window and in such a posi-
tion that he could not see out the door down the corridor. He

19/ch 3

could not have seen Prewitt leave the pool table for the porch,
and yet he knew at once where he was. His voice was brusque, leav-
ing no chance for the possibility of error. Prewitt felt he had
been subtly scored upon and experience a slight twinge of admiration.

He rose and entered the Orderly Room, pausing long enough in
the corridor to take off his hat, put his arm through the strap
and sling it up over his shoulder, on his back. From the open
door he stepped three paces forward to the Company Commander's
desk, saluted and stood at attention.

"Private Prewitt reporting to the Company Commander as ordered,"
straight
he said in an alert expressionless voice, staring/at the wall
above the Captain's head.

"At ease," Captain Holmes said, returning the precise salute
with a casual movement.

Prewitt moved his left foot twelve inches, crossed his hands
behind his buttocks, and moved his eyes down to the Company
Commander's face.

Captain "Dynamite" Holmes was a tall man, though not quite so
tall as his first sergeant, with a heavy florid body. He was not
fat at all, but ten years in various Officer's Clubs over the
country had worn him down a little and he had begun to sag here
and there, most notably beneath his eyes, along his jawline, and
around his waist. Behind this sag there was still a memory of his
once handsome face and figure. Since this was not the boxing
season, he was still, at 10:30, dressed in CKCs. He wore no
blouse, and midway between captain's bars and collar, were two
Regimental insignias, admirably polished and affixed to the shoulders
of his shirt by his orderly. Beneath the partially open desk were
his legs, encased in spotless, gleaming riding boots of expensive

20/ch 3

leather.

Captain Holmes had come from Fort Bliss in Texas, a cavalry post, to Schofield Barracks in the Hawaiian Department. He had heard about Hawaii from officers who had been there, had read the Matson Company advertisements, liked what he heard and read, and had got himself transferred out of Cavalry into Infantry in order to do a tour of duty in the Paradise of the Pacific. His former status was attested to by his boots. Most officers wore boots, the regulation boots at that time being breeches, but the boots of Captain Holmes were perpetually adorned with spurs, short blunts of chrome steel fastened over the top of the boots with lengths of beautiful silver chain which the orderly of Captain Holmes kept exquisitely shined. They were a present from his wife. On the desk lay his campaign hat, a soft Stetson, unblocked like all officers' hats, and fitted with a chinstrap instead of a back head strap. The brim was slightly curled up, and instead of the and flat peak starched horizontal oval/dents in Prewitt's/hat, and the First Sergeant's hanging on a hook, Captain Holmes' hat had vertical triangular dents going up to a sharp peak. It was the hat of a Cavalry Officer, and Captain Holmes wore it proudly. He would not have allowed any of his men to let their hats get into such a disreputable position.

Captain Holmes picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk and studied them intently while he cleared his throat. He looked up at Prewitt abruptly from his armed straight-backed chair.

"According to this Special Order, dated today, you've been transferred to my company, Prewitt. I always make it a policy to talk to any new men coming into my company. I don't know what knid

21/ch 3

of organization you have been used to in A Company, Prewitt, but
in my company everything runs according to the book. I have a
smooth-running outfit, and I won't allow anything to bust it up.
I run this company my way, and what I say goes. Any man who fucksup
get broken, quick and hard. I won't tolerate fuckups, and I won't
have them in my company. If a man does his work, and keeps his
nose clean, does as I say, he'll get along. There plenty room for
advancement here. In this organization there is no favoritism.
I make it my business to see that every man gets just what he earns.
Whatever you have or have not done in A Company is of no consequence
here, you start with a clean slate, what you do with it is up to
you. Understood?

"Yes, Sir," Prewitt said.

First Sergeant Warden sat at his own desk, next the door, at
right angles to the desk of the Captain. His elbows were propped on his
His elbows were propped on the desk, his hands clasped in front of
him, the muscles of his shoulders bulging beneath his tightly
fitted shirt. He watched the interview with a look of secret
smugness, the ends of his eyebrows quivering with amused disgust.
"Shit, cried the king, and twenty thousand royal subjects squatted
and strained, for in those days the kind's word was law!"-- Sergeant
Warden grinned suddenly, and the devilish pixy look lit up his face
into a mask of unholy glee. The grin was gone almost before it
formed, leaving his face as it was before, seeretly smug and contem-
ptuous.

He kept silent.

"Good. Understood," said Captain Holmes. He laid the sheet of
papers on his desk and cleared his throat. "It says here you
were transferred at your own request. Why did you wish to leave

23/Ch 3

"That's right," said Prewitt, and offered no more. He stared impassively back at Warden's grin. Warden had known the whole story as soon as it happened.

"You think you're the best buglar in the Regiment?" Warden said, half-questioning.

"I know it, Sergeant," Prewitt said. "I'm not the only one that thinks so. I . . ."

"You think you shoulda played the Taps for old MacIntosh's funeral, hunh?" Warden cut in sharply.

Prewitt's eyes narrowed and he turned his head back to the front. "That's it," he said.

Warden snorted with elaborate disgust. "Helluva thing for a man to transfer over. If some of you punk recruits learned how much paper work there was in the army, you wouldn't be transferring every five minutes. It won't be so goddam easy to transfer out of this outfit." Warden was personally insulted that Prewitt had transferred.

Captain Holmes broke in on this rapid-fire conversation. He thinking about was remembering his riding date with Major Thompson's wife at 11:30. "I can use a good buglar in my company, Prewitt," he said. "My regular company buglar hasn't experience. His apprentice has the job because he's no good for anything else. He gets in everybody's way, can't learn to soldering; he's better off on SD."

Captain Holmes could not refrain from an involuntary glance of guilt at Sergeant Warden. It had been Warden's idea to put Private Clark on Special Duty, with the Bugle Corps. The only evidence on Warden's otherwise respectful face that he had caught the glance was a very slight quiver at the ends of his eyebrows.

"A PFC rating goes with the job," Holmes said. "I'll have the

24/Ch 3

order posted tomorrow."

"I don't want the job, Sir," Prewitt said with as much respect as he could muster. "I transferred to get away from the Bugle Corps."

It had not occurred to Captain Holmes that Prewitt would refuse the job and its accompanying rating. "What?" he said, forgetting himself long enough to ppen his eyes wide. Then he recovered. will

"You won't find straight duty in this outfit isn't like straight duty in the Old Seventh at Meade, Prewitt. This is a field outfit, not a parade outfit. Training, maneuvers, field problems, and marches. You better think it over."

"I'm sorry, Sir," said Prewitt obstinately. "I don't want to bugle."

"If the Company Commander says take the job, you take it," Warden said.

Prewitt said nothing, but his face underwent a subtle change. It became imperceptibly set and stubborn.

"Very well," said Captain Holmes disinterestedly. "Sergeant Warden will take care of you and get you assigned to a squad." Warden twisted his mouth in disgust. It was evident he thought made Prewitt should be forced to take the job.

Holmes rose and took his head, setting it on his head, slipping the wide chin strap around the line of his jaw. "Is there anything else for me to take care of today, Sergeant?"

"Yes, Sir," said Warden, in that violent intense voice he used whenever he spoke the words. "The Company Fund Report has to be made out and checked."

"You make it out," Holmes said. "Fix it up and I'll sign it

25/Ch 3

tomorrow. Is that all?

"No, Sir," said Warden violently.

"Well, whatever it is, you fix it. If there's anything that has to go in this afternoon, you sign on my name."

"Yes, Sir," said Warden with an edge of disgust. He laid down the papers he had picked up.

Holmes picked up his riding crop from the table beside his desk, preparing to leave. Prewitt came to attention and saluted. Holmes nodded, touching the end of his riding crop to the brim of his hat in acknowledgement. As Holmes turned to the door, Warden grinned impishly at this self-conscious action. Holmes saw too damned many military movies.

At the door Holmes turned back. "I hear you've done some fighting, Prewitt," he said. At this remark Warden snorted softly, then sat back down in his chair from which he had risen with a contemptuous movement. He extracted papers from a drawer and began to study them with elaborate disinterest.

"Yes, Sir," Prewitt said.

"Featherweight?" asked Holmes with an air of great knowledge.

"Bantam, Sir."

"You don't look like you could afford to lose that much weight," Holmes said authoritatively.

"I can dry it out, Sir," Prewitt said.

Holmes smiled warmly. "I think I should probably start training for a boxing season opens in a few months. I'll expect you out."

"I've quit fighting, Sir," Prewitt said, his face closing up in anticipation of another battle. "There's nothing in it."

"There can be a good deal in it--in the army," said Holmes

26/Ch 3

pointedly in a new fatherly tone due to his rakish hat being on his
head and his crop in hand.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I have no desire to go out," Prewitt repeated stubbornly. He'd be damned if he'd get himself beat up into a punchy so Dynamite" could get himself a little more glory in the Department.

Captain

/ Holmes's face became more set and his eyes narrowed. "Didn't I see you out on the green a couple of weeks ago?"

"Yes, Sir, but that kind of fight is different."

"You handled yourself well."

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I have no desire to go out," Prewitt repeated stubbornly. He'd be damned if he'd get himself beat up into a punchy so Dynamite could get himself a little more glory in the Department.

"You've got plenty of time to think it over," Holmes said shortly.
"I never use pressure to get me somebody out." He turned to leave.

"'Tensh-HUT!'" bellowed Warden, jumping to his feet.

Holmes again touched his crop to hat brim. "Carry on," he said, and left.

importantly

Warden turned to the open window to watch him stride/across the quadrangle through the midst of Dog Company, called to attention by their duty sergeant; Warden grinned with impish disgust.

After a moment Warden turned away from the window with an abrupt movement. He sat down at his desk and proceeded to riffle through one of the man sheaves of paper strewn across it, while Prewitt stood across the desk quietly waiting. After a full minute of silence broken only by the rustle of papers, Warden looked up suddenly, a sort of hurt perplexed look on his face, as if to say: Well, what the hell are

27/Ch 3

you doing here, taking up my valuable time?

Prewitt stared back at him impassively, and for some time the two men studied each other, like two opposing checker players taking each other's measure before the game began. There was no open dislike in the glance of either, only a sort of cold inherent mental antagonism. They were two philosophers, starting from the same initial premiss of life and each, by irrefutable argument, arriving at entirely opposite conclusions, yet these two conclusions were like twin brothers of the same flesh, the same blood, the same parents--only here and there betraying upon close examination a different cast of feature, a subtly different twist of bodywhich showed that they were not really twins at all but opposites.

Warden folded his arms and leaned on his elbows on the desk. The muscles of his big shoulders and arms rippled under the shirt had worn thin and almost white from repeated washings in the QM laundry.

"You haven't changed a bit, have you, Prewitt?" he asked sarcastically. "Haven't learned a thing."

Prewitt stared at him impassively, his high-cheekboned Indian type face closed, betraying nothing.

The ends of Warden's毛quivered slightly upward, and his face acquired a hurt indignant expression.

"What's the matter with you, Prewitt?" he asked in the same sarcastic vein, without expecting answer. Beneath his sardonic exterior there was an undercurrent of real quorum question, of sincere reflection, an attempt to get behind the other's mask. "You been in the army what, now? Four years?Command Fornahalf?"

28/ch 3

It's about time, ain't it, fer you to get over bein a punk ree-
croot and begin to learn somethin? You're too hard-headed, Prewitt.
You're still a young punk. The army ain't taught you a thing.
Warden unfold his arms and proceeded to light a cigaret, taking
his time. <u>Unemhjemspunk</u> The mood of reflection had passed. When
he spoke again, the cigaret bobbled in his mouth and he squinted
up through the smoke.

"This ain't A Company now, Prewitt. This is G Company, of which
I am the first sergeant. I run this company. Holmes is the
CO, but he is like all the rest of the officer class: a dumb
bastard that signs papers an rides horses an' get drunk up at the
ferkin Officer's Club. <u>I'm</u> the guy that runs this company.

"You aint got old Johnson between you and me now, Prewitt. If
you make a step, I'll crack you down. And there won't be no Johnson
to supercede me here."

Prewitt's level gaze stared back at Warden intently. "I
didn't see to be in G Company," he said quietly.

"The point is *you're* here," Warden said lazily, removing the cigaret from the corner of his mouth and knocking it on the ashtray on his desk. "Yer here, and you'll stay here. There won't be no transfering because somebody's hurt your feelins." Warden looked up at Prewitt with wide-open eyes, the ends of his eyebrows arched and quivering imperceptably, His deep light blue eyes were startling in his deeply burned face. He sat silently for a moment, feeling the deep-cored natural antagonism coursing through him.

"Come on," he said. "I'll fix you up. Where's your stuff?"

"Unemhjemspunk Still at A Company. I didn't want to pack my

softly

"You had a good deal as a buglar, but you toss it up because Carter hurt your feelings. You had a chance to go on SD here, as company buglar. An the Old Man wants you fer his boxing team," he said, mincing the last words. "You shoulda took him up, Prewitt. You won't like straight duty in my company."

soljer

"I can understand with any man," Prewitt said. "I don't like jockstrappin. I thought you didn't have no use for jockstraps," HE ADD-

EO WITH JUST A HINT OF SARCASM.

"I still aint," Warden said aggressively. "The Jockstraps don't run this company--in spite of the Old Man. You're the kind of soljer whom that oughta be jockstrappin, Prewitt. You'll never make a real soljer. Never in God's world."

29/ch 3

clean uniforms."

Warden grinned his sly pixy grin. "Still the dude, hunh?" he said, inspecting Prewitt's immaculate uniform. "Takes more than clothes to make a soljer, Prewitt. A whole helluva lot more."

Prewitt did not answer, but he did not shift his gaze. Warden stood up.

"Okay," he said in finality. "Come on and I'll fix you up. There's a machine gun cart leanin' against the wall between G and F. Take that for your stuff."

He took Prewitt out on the porch and into the supply room where the rawboned bald wryfaced PFC Leva, assistant to Jim O'Hayer the supply sergeant faced them across the counter.

"Transfer," Warden said. "Fix him up with everything."

& 33

Leva rapidly and efficiently made out a form 32, do led out matresscover, sheets, pillow, blankets, pack, foot locker and everything else that Prewitt would be leaving behind in A Company. in the cart

"Take that empty footlocker over/and trade it to Turner for your full one. Save you unpackin' it," Warden said.

"Thanks," Prewitt said wryly. Warden grinned down at him.

After the stuff was issued, Warden took Prewitt, his arms full of blankets, sheets, etc. upstairs on the first floor, pointed out an empty bunk with a naked stripped striped mattress.

"You got till one PM to get straightened out," Warden said, looking at his watch. "You fall out for fatigue this afternoon just like anybody else." He turned on his heel and went downstairs without another word.

Prewitt commenced putting his stuff in order, making up his bunk, rolling a combat pack, making an envelope old timer's envelope

30/ch 3

roll with shelter half and extra blanket, pegs and tent rope. He hung the pack on the foot of his bed like the others in the big squadroom and stowed the roof in his wall locker. The big squadroom very still with nobody in it, and his heels clacked, *hmmmm* hollow and loud.

After he had straightened everything up, he went over with the machinegun cart for his personal equipment, saying goodby to the men laying around Bugle Corps section of A Company's barracks as if he were going to another post instead of just across the quadrangle. He came back with the cart loaded, his ten uniforms lying on top and was changed into fatigue still on their hangers. He had everything put away before the company came in from drill and sat down on his bunk.

The G Company barracks resembled the barracks of every other company in the Regiment, except Hq Company and Service Company which barracked in the Regiment Hq building across the quadrangle. On the second and third floors above the kitchen were the two latrines which opened through swinging barrom type doors out onto the screened-in porches directly above the ground floor porch. Over the da yroom on the other side of the squadroom were identical porches, except that they had no stairs. At the back of these porches were small rooms where the higher noncoms bunked. From the porches on both sides three pairs of double doors, always open except in cold weather, opened into the squadroom, one large room that covered the mm company's whole section from wall to wall, supported by regularly spaced square concrete columns. In the squadroom the iron bunks stood in even rows at right angles to the long porches, leaving aisles between each set of double doors. The bunks were painted white, but from most of them large chunks of the paint had peeled

31/ch 3

or been knocked off. On the head and foot of each bunk was attached a small square of iron with a diamond shaped hole in the center. This was for the arranging of double beds. A second bunk could be inverted over the bottom one, its legs in the air and a steel bar run through the diamond shaped holes to hole it in place. But there were no double bunks now on either floor; there were only about 60 men in the company.

The squadrooms were empty now with the company out to drill, except for Prewitt. They gave the appearance of being high-ceilinged and cool because of the lack of light admitted by the three double doors on each side. Prewitt sat on his bunk, waiting for the company to come in and for noon chow, playing solitaire with a pack of cards from his footlocker. As he moved the cards he could feel the somehow comforting rough softness of the blankets under his hand. He played several games and then put the cards away unsatisfied. He sat back down on the bunk, alone in the big dim room, and took his quartz mouthpiece out of the pocket of his fatigue blouse. He sat on the bed, hefting its weight in his hand, then running his thumb over the inside of the cup. It was a fine mouthpiece; it was the best investment he ever made for fifty bucks.

10/ch 2

Captain Holmes hesitated, shot a glance of invitation at Warden. It was an unwritten law that personal matters of enlisted men were left strictly alone, unless they collided with official matters.

THE CATCH WAS THAT *the execution of this commandment* it was left up to the unit commander to judge whether or not they collided. Warden remained deliberately silent, forcing Holmes to ask, "Have you anything to say, Sergeant?"

"Yes, Sir!" exploded Warden with violent intensity. He appeared to be quite suddenly in a state of great indignation. "What kind of a rating did you have in A Company, Prewitt?"

"First and fourth," said Prewitt quickly, knowing well that Warden was aware of his former rating.

"What?" exclaimed Warden, a malignant expression on his face. "You took a bust from first-fourth to transfer to a rifle company as a buckass private? And you expect the Company Commander to believe you didn't have no trouble?"

"That's right," said Prewitt, turning his head away from the Captain for the first time, and speaking over his shoulder.

"You must of been burtin over something to do that," Warden rapped out. "What was it?"

"It's a personal matter," Prewitt repeated. "It has nothing to do with official matters."

"That's up to the Company Commander to decide. Were you busted before or after you applied for transfer?"

"Afterwards," said Prewitt immediately, realizing that Warden already knew these answers. "The transfer was at my own request, so I automatically had to take a bust, transferred Not In Grade."

Warden grinned again, suddenly, olently. "What'd you do, have a

63/Ch 6

quietly, as was his way, he slipped out of the Company alone and
the trip to Haliewa, without saying anything to anybody. There was
none of the elation or exuberance that the other guys had in his
preparation. He slapped nobody on the back, did not whoop with
the joy of release, did not discuss across the squadroom where he
was going, or when, or why. He was still more or less on probation
the rest of the Company; they still stood back and withheld judgment.
that
But Prewitt did not even tell Andy and Clark whom he was going.
They had taken it forgranted that he was going to town with them,
suddenly
and they were a little hurt at/finding him gone. Brew was a funny
hard
one, too quiet and with an odd/pride that was liable to jump out at
him when as cold rage when they had no idea they had done anything.
They could not figure him, but they knew instinctively that he was a
a good Joe, a fine Joe.

Schofleid Barracks is set up on a high plateau in the center and
to the west of the Rock, Oahu, the Capital Island in the group. The
plateau was all red dirt and all in endless level fields of pine-
apple and cane. The road from Schofield hardly rises to Kole Kole
Pass, but beyond the crest it winds down and down, curving in and
out of draws dizzyly until it finally comes out, after you've given
up hope, into the Waianae flatland at sealevel. Then you realize
how high the central plateau really is. From the Waianae side the
west range of mountains are really mountains, tall and jagged, ero-
sion-resisting, with the drop from Lovers' Leap a full five hundred
feet down.

Haliewa is to the north. Prewitt walked out through the sally-
port, crossed Waianae Avenue, and left through the Regiment's own gate
staffed by the Regiment's own guard details. Waianae Avenue is the

68/ch 6

to be his jocker, his punk. And the open but hardened face of the
other unknown bum who had stepped in and saved the kid from getting
knifed, getting cut badly in the arm for his pains.

long

The sad melancholy face of the tall thin bum who had painfully
seduced him in a jouncing boxcar when he was ten.

And the face of his mother, dead now fifteen years. Her skinned
back straggly hair and face lined with pain. Aged at twenty-five
from backbreaking work and the beatings of her husband.

He would be twenty-five in four more years.

All these flashing pictures, show disonnected and slowing into
influences
ever slower motion, were, in his life, going deep and maving
some meaning, but for the life of him he could never figure out
what. It all made no sense, except that somehow he knew it was
added up
wrong,
but he didn't know why.

Finally, the slowing pictures stopped, on the face of
his father, mean drunk, in the wavering light of the kerosene lamp
just after one of the times he had knocked his own wife to the
floor.

When the pictures stopped, the buzzing summer peace went out of
Prew. He sighed and stood up, donning his blouse and cap, fastening
his collar and tightening his tie. The whiskey bottles lay in the
grass empty, residue of two hours peace. Bintersto anyone passing
by that a man had sat beneath this tree. None would ever know that
it was Robert Lee Prewitt, soldier and adventurer, born in Harlan,
Kentucky. Prew laughed wryly. Then his face set and his eyes be-
came flat as he buttoned his blouse.

He walked up the road with his lithe catlike stride, dying in
the use of his thumb to the passing car, which once again had

47/Ch.5

would go out with the Company for the morning's drill. But not usually. There were only two in the Company. Captain Holmes and a young fire-eating second lieutenant named Culpepper, fresh out of the Point. His father and his grandfather had gone out of the point into G Company of this Regiment as second Company Commander and later louies, both rising to be/Colonel of the Regiment. He was following in their footsteps; everything was laid out for him; all he had to do was put in the time. He knew it, and it was apparent in his haphazard, casual, fun-loving actions. The only thing wrong with him was that he had been taught in his family and later in the Point that enlisted men must keep their place. This did not increase his popularity with the men.

Private Prewitt did not like being a valet, gardener, general handyman, and domestic servant. He had enlisted in the army to be a soldier. He was a soldier--in the mornings; but in the afternoons he became what he suspected was his real mission in life: a goddam flunkey for the officers. His pride rose and his face would draw closed like a flower after the sun has set. But he had made his own bed, and characteristically he accepted the situation bad equally with the good, because he had asked for it--and there wasn't much he could do about it anyway.

It became noticeable as the days went by, that whenever Prewitt happened to be at the head of the double line, Warden always happened to call out some particularly unpleasant detail: the manure squad,-- the "shitslinger" squad, or the trash collecting detail. This was especially unpleasant, because they went around in a truck to collect the trash, as distinguished from garbage from the cans behind the married officers' quarters. That in itself was not much, but because

["BOOK TWO", "CHAPTER 15", "From her house one block from the sallyport Karen Holmes\ncould see into the quadrangle through the little driveway between\nHQ Building and the 1st Battalion Batracks. The house was on the\ncorner made by Waianaef Avenue and one of the little sidestreets\nnamed after longforgotten great, officers. filmamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamamam

2/ch 15

dressing table she could watch the face of G Company's section of
the 2nd Battalion Barracks. If she sat and watched long enough,
she would see the bulky lithely moving figure of 1st/Sgt Milton
Anthony Warden crossing the groundfloor porch to the supply
room or the kitchen or else just standing still, leaning against a
pillar, evidently smoking, altho she couldn't tell from that far
away. She could see, tho, the little white blank circle of his
face turned toward her bedroom window, and she imagined with
a sudden thrill that twisted her stomach that he was looking right
at her. She liked to sit nude before her mirror, brushing her
hair, while the figure leaned against the pillar arrogantly with
the blank white oval of his face was turned towards her. Although
she had never told him about it, she was sure that by some strange
Alchemy of thought he knew what she was doing and got as big a
kick out of it as she did.

She hadn't been surprised the first time he came over to the
house. Since that first time she had gone over to the Company
looking for Dana and suddenly finding a man named Milt, she had
found more and more reasons for trips over to her husband's Orderly
Room. When Milt came around that afternoon looking for the Capn
with his hands official crammed with papers, she had been expecting
it. As it was, luckily, the Japanese maid already had the after
noon off.

But what she had not expected was the type of man she was to
encounter. She couldn't help being surprised, because she had never
calculated
met a man like him. Since the first of her unobserved indiscretions
against the domineering authority of 1st Lt Dana W Holmes, she had
refrained from picking her material from her own class. She did

3/ch 15

like then and had never liked them. They were weak in fiber; be-
neath the exterior hardness of officers and gentlemen they were
soft and mushy, disgusting to her personal discrimination, and her
contempt for all of them was limitless. For example, Dana would
not have minded her going to the bed of Col Delbert, fat white-
skinned white-haired old man that he was. In fact, Dana probably
believed that she had, and it was all right with him, it was even
expected. Dana had indicated to her subtlely without mentioning it,
that he attributed their present quarters more to her friend/IP
with the Colonel than to his own. In his way, he was even almost
proud of her, and to Karen this was the greatest indignity. What
swashbuckling
she had wan ted was a/husband who would have stuck a knife into Col
Delbert if he had looked crossed-eyed at her.

in Ft Bliss

When/she began her own secret campaign against the lord and
attitude
master/of her philandering husband, she had picked enlisted men, but
she never compromised her discriminate taste.

Dana would not have minded her going to the bed of Col Delbert, but
enlisted
he would certainly have minded her taking to bed him men from his

own company. And therein lay the greatest part of her MANNING retri-
bution. Besides that, she liked enlisted men. In contrast to the
men of her own class, they seemed to live simply. They seemed to
go back to basic first principles of justice that were the founda-
tions for the warped legal code of justice. They patterned their
lives on personal honor, rather than legal honor, and this appealed

to her, who had known only the labyrinthine legal justice under cover
of which were all manner of political canivings. In her life legal
honor held a high place, while personal honor suffered. But these
men lived by personal honor, and they followed their code without
recourse to the legal law, mainly because the Law did not recognize
their primitive code. Playing with them was dangerous, Karen felt,

4/ch 15

but in the danger was a live excitement that did not exist in her life. She preferred enlisted men to her husband's class, in spite of their ignorance. It was probably their ignorance that kept them in their code; they could not understand anything more complicated. She often wished she herself might be that ignorant.

And they were ignorant: Wilson the sullen fighter was incapable of thinking any further than his own immediate wants. But Wilson had a beautiful body, hard as nails and without a superfluous ounce of flesh. It was a body to be enjoyed, in the ring or out of it, and she could enjoy it even though Wilson could not. Henderson, too, was not capable of understanding the subtler things, but there was a vicious zest about him that was invigorating beside the orgiastic laxity of the Club's private alliances.

But now, in Warden, she had found a man who lived by that same primitive code, and yet who was not ignorant. He possessed an intellectual perception as deep as her own, and there was always in the back of her mind the possibility of grasping the secret principle that generated the virility that sparkled from his life. If she could only understand that principle, she too could hook onto the generator that would make her life a virile thing instead of the listless thing it was.

That first afternoon, with the maid gone for the day, Karen had invited him in. As he stood on the back step clutching the fistful of papers ostentatiously in his big fist, the look of infinite mutual contempt that had passed between them had made any other response impossible. *The man had seen him before.* He came, grinning that impish grin that always intrigued her, and laid the useless papers on the kitchen table where anyone might see them and wonder how they came there. It was up to her to put them out of sight,

5/ch 15

her heart beating painfully.

In the bedroom they had heard the child come home. Naturally, since he lived here, he came in the house without knocking. Karen experience an acute relief that she had closed the door, but it did not alleviate the fear as her son knocked on the bedroom door. She hustled Warden into the closet, and donned a negligee, and seated herself at the dressing table. When she told him to come in, she was brushing her hair. She let him in so he could see, because he was enough like his beefy father that she did not trust him, had never felt he was her child; that long broad phlegmatic face could never have come out of her flesh. There was nothing for him to see except a pile of CKCs on the floor which was not unusual. Dana Senior left his uniforms strewn around, and there was nothing visible in the pile to show it was an enlisted man's uniform. If she hadn't let him in, he might have mentioned it later accidentally or even purposely.

He was home from school early for some reason or other, and she got rid of him by sending him up to the Regimental playground. She was badly frightened, she didn't know why because she didn't give a damn about either of them: she had done her duty: she had bourn his heir, and she kept his home; beyond that she held to be Yet her life/her own, as his was. And she still was scared, and when she opened the closet door, Warden was sitting on a pile of shoes in the cramped space, his knees drawn up, the skirts of several dresses draped over his head like a crazy turban. His great shoulders were shaking helplessly with silent laughter, and his eyebrows furrowed with their Mephistophelian hook were quivering so high up on his head they seemed to be touching his hairline. She stood and watched him for a full minute, but he just looked at her and shook with silent laughter.

6/h 15

exasperatedly.
"What's the matter, you fool!" she said, "There's nothing funny about it. If you got caught you'd get twenty years."

Warden just shook his head. "I used to be a traveling salesman," he said at last, chokingly.

She could see the humor in it, but she still could not laugh.
If the boy had come into the bedroom without knocking . . . or
he might conceivably have opened the closet door for something or
other. A hundred possibilities. She began to suspect what later
she proved, that there was absolutely no fear in Milt. He just
didn't know what fear was. Doing something dangerous was one
thing, and the distant sound of someone the danger was
exciting, but when the danger faced you fear was natural. She
had thought everybody felt it; but it became increasingly clearer
that Milt did not. If the whim had struck him, he would just as
soon have marched out of the closet and shouted boo at the boy.
He just wouldn't have cared.

There was a guard that walked post along Waianae Avenue and
the two sidestreets that bounded the officers' quarters, for the
express purpose of catching enlisted men inside those limits after
Retreat. One night when "the Capn" was up at the Club for a
"conference" with Col Delbert, Warden had slipped through the guards
and come to the house. He was grinning malevolently and breathing
easily when he knocked on the backdoor. She had been frightened
stiff, not for herself because she could always handle Dana, but
frightened for Milt. She could not understand his deliberately
baiting his luck. As luck had it, the boy was in bed asleep.
Milt refused to go away until she had let him in. How he ever
found out about the party at the Club she could never find out.

The more he exposed himself, the more she got to worrying

7/ch 15

about him getting caught. Neither Wilson or Henderson would take chances. They played it safe. Warden, contrarily, took every chance, seemed to look for them, and yet he worked with an infnitely shrewd caution in opposition to the ignorance of the other two. She had never seen a truly smart enlisted man before, and she realized somewhat regretfully that now that she had, never again would she be able to degrade the beefy Capn Milt in his own bed with an ignorant EM. Gradually, she began to suspect the truth, that she was perhaps for the first time falling in love.

She questioned the maid about Milt. He came over one afternoon, really looking for "the Capn", and she saw him speak the Japanese girl familiarly to Daisy. He chucked/mum under the chin, and Daisy intimately at some whispered flier. laughed with him. Cautiously, so as not to betray her own interest, Karen asked Daisy about him. She found out that practically all the maids and waitresses on the Post, most of whom lived in Wahiawa, knew Milt, as intimately as she herself. Unreasonably, this made her jealous for the first time in her life. The rear with which she regarded his escapades grew until she insisted that the only place she would see him was off the Post.

She began taking a room in the Moana at intervals. The way Milt walked arrogantly into the sedate foyer of the prim Waikiki hotel and demanded her room number was typical of him. He wore the offduty uniform of gook shirt and slacks that marked a soldier as surely as CKCs ever did, and he would walk into the Moana lobby with the soiled shirt open over his bronzed chest, its short sleeves taut over his big arms completely unself-conscious as if he were several spheres above the respectable bespectacled hotel clerks who raised their eyebrows at him. His utter fearlessness seemed to extend to any facet of life, and she loved the attitude

8/ch 15

though she could not understand it. And Karen was not dumb by any
as an embittered bridalpath widow
means, neither/was she easily impressed. In the cool highcilinged
room with its green shutters closed on the patio with its great
gnarled tree Karen probed him about it.

Milt lay on one elbow on the rumpled bed, clad in loud
flowered trunks, a drink in one hand and a burning cigaret in the
other. "It amuses me," he said. "I got highclass clothes in my
wallllocker, fi want a wear them. But it tickles me to see these
punks bug their eyes out and start whisperin."

"But what about me?" Karen asked with simulated anxiety.
"You could get me into a great deal of trouble by being conspic-
uous. The best way to go about an affair like this is to make your-
self part of the scenery so nobody notices you."

"Yeah?" Milt said with vast surprise. "No kiddin."

"Don't you car what happens to me?"

Milt grinned impisnly. "Sure, I care, Baby. It'd break my
old heart fanything happened to you."

"But doesn't it make you self-conscious to see people staring
at your clothes and knowing you're a soldier?"

"Hell, no," he scoffed. "What have those bastards got that
they think I aint got? Why should I walk on my tiptoes beside
some son of a bitch's got a million bucks like these tourists? The
guy only happens to be a better robber than the next guy. That's
all. The easiest thing in the world's to make a million bucks, if
you want to spend your whole life and energy makin it. What makes
this hotel highclass? The simple fact that tourists with gough
come here. I should cater to rich tourists?"

"But they thing you're definitely vulgar and lowclass."

"So I'm low class. I should try to culvate being highclass?

9/ch 15

"That's the only alternative."

"But isn't there anything that other people value that you value?"

"What is this, a third degree, Baby? All right. What do they value? Basically, it comes down to money. Everything else they value is only some manifestation of dough? They value good silverware--dough. What difference does it make whether you have four knives, four spoons, four forks? Can you eat any better than if you only got a messkit spoon and a tin plate? Nope. Good silverware is only a symbol of the dough you got. The only use for such symbols is to show the man next to you how much you got him beat. The same thing goes for houses, cars, children, salary--beyond a certain point where you got enough to live comfortable. I got that much. The rest don't interest me."

"Then there's nothing you value?"

"Nothing I can't take or steal if I want it, easy enough."

"But aren't you afraid of getting caught--'stealing?'"

"I don't get caught, Baby."

"But you might. Aren't you ever afraid? Our domestic society doesn't like people like you, Milt. You're anti-social. You set of values, or anti-values, give the lie to everything people work for all their lives. Society isn't going to have its institutions ignored. They kill people for that--if not one way then another."

"They don't kill me, do they, Baby? They aint yet."

"But someday you'll get caught."

"Then that's when I'll bother about it. But till then I live my own life."

Karen wasn't satisfied. Her probing wasn't getting her anyplace. She was learning no more about this secret principle than

10/ch 15

she already knew.

"But why do you deliberately take such chances, Milt? Like slipping through the guards that night. You could have got ten years for that."

"It amuses me to outwit the stupid blockheads," Milt said. He emptied his glass and rose to mix himself another. Karen had brought the bottle; it was imported scotch. She had also paid for the room and the meals they ate in it. Karen had deliberately tried to shame him by her paying the expenses, not to hurt him but as an experiment. It never made the slightest impression.

"This is good stuff, Baby," he announced.

"Mix me one," she coaxed.

"Mix it yourself, fer Chrissake."

Karen rose without anger. "Milt, I'll never be able to understand you. Everything that other men live for and die for you're against. Sincerely against, and not just crying because you haven't it."

Warden snorted derisively. "Baby, there's only one thing men live and die for and that's either their own hippocket or somebody else's hippocket. Usually the latter. You talk to me about sassiety. You think I want anything to do with a sassiety like that? Guess agin, Kid. I love livin' too much for that."

Karen shook her head. "You're the most cynical person I've ever met." Strangely enough, this was true. Up till now she had been the most cynical person she ever met, but under Warden's scathing words, she found herself trying to convert him from his cynicism. She forgot her own cynicism in an effort to show Milt cynicism was wrong.

"Baby, the trouble with you you got romantic ideas. Get shut

11/ch 15

of them. Suckers like you are what makes the world go round."

"Yes," Karen said. "Round and round."

She made it a point to spend almost every weekend in town, alone. Dana didn't care what she did, as long as the house was not cluttered and as long as the boy had every attention he wanted. Daisy the maid took care of that. She spent the weekend at the house. From the unmistakable signs Karen knew that Dana had finally seduced her. He thought he was putting something over on Karen by letting her spend the weekend in town. Playing with a cheap little thing like that was about his line. It would serve him right if he contracted gonorrhea from her; she had been intimate with half the soldiers on the Post. Karen chucked when she thought of it; it would be a good joke on him.

From the window beside her dressing table Karen watched the summer dwindle away. Nothing happened to Dana. He was not forced to take up residence in the Officers' Ward at the Station Hospital. The summer sounds carried their heaviness into her heart as she moved around the house. She could hear the dusty scratchy voices of noncoms from the quadrangle and the/rattle of equipment, the sterile sound of feet marching shufflingly, unenthusiastically along Waianae Avenue. She watched the men, clad only in shoes and raincoats, assembling on the green for the monthly inspection. The thought of such an unqualified/intimacy made her physically sick. Milt however, had a raucous quip for it. He asked her how often the officers' wives had to stand shortarm inspection. It was distinctly a man's life, or so she had always thought, but now she wondered if it was anybody's life, and how anybody could stand it. At

12/ch 15

times the weary thought of a life, stretching into interminable
years, and spent in a succession of similar posts as this oppress-
ed her subordinates more than the parched summer sounds. Long
ago she had found herself unable to deaden her brain with all the
little subterfuges officers' wives occupied themselves with. She
could not stand the asininity of taking hula lessons at the Club
alongside the Fat buttocks and pendulous breasts of Majors' and
Colonels' wives, chattels without even the hope of mortgage, signed
sealed and delivered by the barbaric but incontestible diamond
ring--the bigger the diamond the higher the rank. With the hope
of nothing else but this before her, her life seemed to disinter-
grate into a sort of living death from which real death seemed
the single sincerity in the midst of insincerity, an inviting
and for once honest proposition. She never showed it, of course,
not even to Milt. Her practiced hauteur seemed
prove
to make her as cool and content inside as she appeared on the
outside.

In the midst of all this, Milt was the one bright light. In
August the great trucks lined the quadrangle square, and there was
the frenzied bustle of departure. When The great trucks rumbled
out, shaking the walls of the house, and she saw neither Milt nor
dreaded Dana for the whole two weeks of the maneuver. Then the
boredom of the rainy season, and the undulating perpendicular
silver mesh cut off her view of the G Company porch. And finally
the range season. The Company, including the officers, camped
out the whole two weeks on the permanent campsite behind the
rifle range. Three times Milt borrowed "the Capn's" recon and
drove in to the barracks, ostensibly to take care of some paper-
work. He sneaked past the guards in the diminishing night showers

13ch15

and stood on the backstep in the chasuble-like issue raimcoat and dripping campaign hat. It was touch and go with being caught all the time, and the army didn't fool with enlisted men who did fool with officers' wives. She warned him all the time until it irrtated him, yet she was proud he was taking desperate chances on account of her--even though she knew inside that it was not on account of ner at all. With a born perversity Milt seemed to seek every chance where the odds were highest against him, and then after he had defeated the odds he would grin that pixy's grin of triumph as if he was akid swiping cookies from his mother's cookie jar.

Karen knew it was going to end. The affair meant nothing to Milt except in its excitement. Milt, like herself, was avenging himself for the same beefy superiority Dana showed to everyone but his superiors in rank. She was only the instrument of his excitement and his vengeance, just as when it first started he had been her instrument. But she had reached the point where she was no longer satisfied to be just the instrument; she wanted to be the reason.

There was a quality in Milt that more and more she was becoming aware of. At first it had been his minimum hatred and his complete fearlessness that had attracted her. They were admirable qualities, qualities she needed to cultivate to defend herself against the things that were slowly throttling her. She had felt that if she could penetrate to the secret principle generating them and understand it, she too would acquire the qualities, because Milt was an intelligent man, not ignorant like the others. She noticed him using words that he would not have known if he were no more than he pretended being--an uneducated bum "livin off

14/ch 15

the govmint." It slowly began to dawn on her that beneath the implacable hatred there was something else--a sympathy, an understanding, a kind of personal integrity that was inviolable. It was silly and undoubtedly trite; but Milt seemed to hate things because he loved them. It didn't make sense certainly. It was all mixed up. But then what wasn't? Karen was searching the city dump of civilization desperately hunting for her own life, and she finally felt she was beginning to get hold of something. She didn't know just what, but something.

CHAPTER 20

Prewitt hitchhiked back to Schofield that night. Friday and Andy were long gone when he left the New Congress, as he had expected them to be. Warden, he left sitting in the front waiting room with Sandra after their trip to the room.

There was no credit on the seven passenger taxis that shuttled the daily exodus from the Inland Post to Honolulu and back again. Most of the drivers were ex-soldiers who had served on the Islands, taken short discharges to marry a halfcaste girl and thus forever cut themselves off from their Mainland homes. By policy the cab company picked these men. Like most other men once bummed but now mindless, they were prone to disregard their own former tribulations and they passed the frequent hitchhikers who had not the fifty-cent price of a fair with the double callousness of righteousness and habit.

Prewitt stood on the corner of Dillingham and King and watched without qualms the fading lights that roared away on the thirty mile trip to the warmth and familiarity of the barracks. For a man who had come in only a few hours before with over a hundred dollars in his pocket and who was returning with twenty cents in a foreign pocket he was veryphilosophical about the evening. It was not improbably that Warden, if he decided against paying the fifteen dollar allnight price for Sandra, was seated cozily in one of the many taxis laughing to himself. It was a generality Prewitt had often pondered on the bum: the amazing difference fifty cents could make in the progress of a man's life. Despite the hot days of Hawaiian "winter," the nights

2/ch 20

cooled with surprising swiftness, and the gook shirt and slacks
while fine for daytime were not enough protection against the
night.

It was a strange thing in looking back over the evening to
see how events shaped themselves toward what would become in-
alterable fact. The event was likely an unmitigated misfortune. During the trip
to town in the excited promise of an evening's freedom with
plenty of money, the least likely possibility had been that he
would be returning broke in strange clothes and with a lump on
his cheekbone. It was not without a tinge of regret that Prewitt
looked back over the events, remembering his thick roll, and
wondered what force or power it was that caused thing to happen
as they always seemed to.

It seemed that whenever his life touched Warden there was a
spark that burnt a scar into the insulation, and Prewitt could
not help wondering what whim of Fate had cursed him with--many-
mooded topkicker. Whenever Warden appeared on his scene, or else
he unwittingly entered Warden's sphere--which seemed to extend
everywhere--something untoward happened. It was foolish to be-
lieve that after tonight everything could continue on just the
same as it had yesterday. There had been a change, however un-
intentional, and the interpretation of future events could not
be the same as the interpretation of past events what happened
before tonight.

A man's life seemed to travel a channel like a river. The
man was supposed to control the direction of the channel. Actual-
ly, he only seemed to control it because he had gotten used to

3M/ch 20

the channel and he could call its shots. This was never plainer
than when all the unpredictable forces of chance seemed to band
together in the perpetration of some whimsical incident that
changed the whole course of the channel. A night like tonight
laid bare how truly little control the man poseessed over his
own life.

manmade

If this had been a book, governed by the/laws of human
drama, he would have fought Warden, instead of helping Warden
fight a raft of strangers. But That would have been logical,
understandable. But rarely, if ever, did the "turning points" in
a man's life arise from *inconsistencies* of this nature the dramatic con-
flicts of his character. Instead of following the laws of
human drama by which books were logically written, they followed
some whim of their own subject to no law--at least no law that
the logic of man could ever encompass. If he had fought Warden,
knife to naked knife, then there would have been the logical
dramatic conflict as the "turning point" of their correlation.
Instead of that, here was this abortion of a brawl which not
only resolved nothing but forced him to the side of Warden. And
that was the "resolution," the "turning point," of his relation-
ship with Warden; the meaningless, pointless, but concrete fact
that must necessarily change their association. It was not even
permanent, because both of them were still alive and in close
contact. As a "turning point" it was a flashout, due to some
cosmic joke, the same cosmic joke that always made trivial silly
things the turning point in men's lives.

There were a dozen brawls every night in the River Street
section, brawls in which somebody always almost got killed, yet

4/ch 20

hardly ever did a man die as a result of one of these silly
pointless brawls. The killings were something again, something
calculated which had nothing to do with the brawls. The sly wit
of the cosmic jokester had taken this into account when he let
Prewitt's eye catch the flicker of Tom's drawn knifeblade, so
would
that he immediately instinctively stick out his foot before he had
time to think of the implications in that act. Out of the
dozen scheduled for this particular night, the cosmic jokester
had picked a brawl in which the two arch enemies should fight,
not naturally: against each other, but on the same side! Was
there ever a more abortive, un-logical, un-sincere reason for
effecting a Change in a man's life? Yet there it was, cut into
the turning stone ribbon of time by the tapping hammer of the
present. Over. Done with. And nothing to be done about it.

All this Prewitt intuitively felt rather than actively
thought as he stood on the corner with his hands jammed into
the strange pockets for warmth and watched pair after pair of
headlights pass over him indifferently as they swung the corner.
He didn't want a change in his relationship with Warden; he was
capable of taking care of himself in his own way; and the irre-
vocable fact of the brawl and all its implications hung over him
heavily.

But during the next several days Prewitt's intuition was
proved right. Warden, too was aware of this silly reasonless
Change. His awareness was obvious in his attitude toward Prewitt.
He treated Prewitt exactly as he had always treated him, riding
him whenever the opportunity arose, offering sardonic comments

5/ch 20

which were uncalled for. A man who had no only been aided by
another in a fight like that, but who could conceivably presume
his life to have been saved by the other, could not possibly
help but have his attitude influenced. It was probable that
Warden could have handled the knifer without any help, but that
did not alter the fact that it was Prewitt who had tripped Tom
up, thereby putting Warden in debt for his life. Warden could
deny the debt with three dollars, or with nothing, being a man
who deliberately put no value on his life, but Warden could not
deny the awareness of the debt. It had either to influence him
toward gratitude or toward an increased hatred, but it could not
be discounted. The fact that Warden chose to ignore the incident
completely in his attitude toward Prewitt proved better than any
other action could have that he could not ignore it.