Sergeant Bubke came est late tonight while I was beading, not to play rummy this time, but to consult me about something serious which has occurred. It appears that when he inspected the contents of one of the Quonset huts he found that a considerable quantity of canned goods was missing several tin's of corned beef and a lot of canned vegetables and fruit.
He was deeply upset and took the whole business as a personal insult. I think he felt the same indignation which is experienced by the owner of a burglarized house who is furious less over the loss of material belongings than over the indignation of having his privacy invaded by a stranger. The situation also relected upon his dignity as a sergeant, something which he regarded with as much seriousness as a devout monk regards his vows. This should not have happened to him, and he meant to ferret out the mystery and bring the culprit to justice if it was his last act on earth.
He sat down opposite me with little drops of warm crystal rain still clinging to the big, indignant red face.
"I can't figger it out," he said. "I talked to all the boys and they are as much in the dark as myself. At first I thought it might be Homer stealing the stuff to give to his fuzzy-wuzzy girl friends. He must have to pay something for the tail he's getting and money doesn't mean anything to those greasy babes. Homer denied it up and down. I know that he can't tell the truth if it killed him but this time I kind of believed him. Even when I threatened to give him a super going-over he still stuck to his story. When I asked what he did pay for what he was getting, he just grinned like an ape and said, "I don't pay nothin'. They pay me!" Maybe that's true too. You can't tell about these skinny pink-haired bastards."
He always took a long time going into a story, bringing in all sorts of side issues. I'd been interrupted in the middle of writing and I tried to hurry him along in order to go back to what I was doing. Here in the jungle there are few interruptions but when one does occur, especially when I want to be alone to think and write, it seems monstrous and interminable. I said, "Did you inspect everything?"
He wiped the perspiration from his face. It had been dripping down into the black mass of hair that sprouted above the line of his T-shirt. He was a stickler for being neat and clean and such things disturbed him.
He said, "I was just comin' to that. After I questioned the boys I made an inspection for myself and discovered that some of the corrugated sheets at the end of the hut were loose and came off in your hand. They were held in place by a couple of short nails which came out easy. It looked all right until you touched it and then it came right off. It must be somebody from outside because if it was Homer or one of the other boys they could steal all they wanted while they were on guard without ever having to break in."
I looked at him. "Who do you think it is?"
As I told you the Sergeant is a great reader of mystery stories, having discovered them since he has been shut away here in the wet, crawling exile and boredom of the jungle. Like many uncomplex and simple creatures he is likely to take on the color of what he reads or sees in the movies and at times becomes a ham actor. He was in such a mood now, and despite the uncomfortable conditions and his own undoubted bewilderment and anxiety over the theft of the canned goods, he had begun to give a performance with only myself for his audience. He mopped his forehead again and leaned forward toward me. He glanced right and left as if to make certain that we should not be overheard and, in almost a whisper, said, "I think some of them yellow bastards must be hidin' out around here."
Although I was tempted to laugh at the pomposity of his behavior, I knew that I dared not for fear of hurting his dignity, and with the Sergeant dignity was the very foundation, the well-spring of all that he was and hoped to be the dignity of the Army and of the rank of sergeant.
So I said, seriously, "But there are no Japs around here. There never have been. The nearest they've ever been is on the next island. To get here they'd have to swim a forty-mile channel and then make their way another hundred miles through the jungle."
"I wouldn't put anything past the bastards," he said.
"Did you nail tight the sheeting again?" I asked.
"Yes. They'll have a hell of a time getting it loose without making such a racket you could hear it."
"Well, watch it and tell the boys to watch it. Probably it's one of the local apes that's been stealing." Then I added, "And you might check on the boys and make sure they're not sleeping on duty."
"Okay."
"How about a drink?" I asked. Here on this lonely island with only five of us there wasn't any of the nonsense about officers and enlisted men drinking together.
"Sure."
I poured a slug of whisky for each of us. He took his straight with a chaser of warm beer and I drank mine with some of the lukewarm water we had always boiled carefully in advance. Then the Sergeant returned to his favorite anxiety. For a simple man he had many of them but this was the one that troubled him most.
He said, "Captain, you don't think they've just forgotten us here on this goddamn island? You don't think they're going to leave us here forever?"
I smiled. "No, they know we're here. They send our pay. They ask for reports."
"I don't trust 'em." He crossed one heavy thigh over the other. "I'm in the Army, see?" he said. "And I've got respect for the Army. I've made it my career, as you might say. But I don't trust 'em." I poured him another whisky and his tongue grew a little looser. "Christ!" he said. Td hate to see any business run tie way they run the Army. I'm only a sergeant but I've been at it a long time and I've seen things. I've seen 'em smash up expensive machinery or leave it just to rust away. I've seen 'em dump good stuff like underwear and uniforms just because it was in the way or it took a little trouble to repack the tracks. I've seen them dump tons of food into the sea with people all around them starvin'. I guess the trouble is that in peacetime no really smart guy would go into the Army. I guess there must be something a little wrong about any guy who wanted a career in the Army... even some of them guys who went to West Point. I went into it because I didn't have to worry. I got fed and clothed and taken care of and because I kinda liked fighting... and now look what they done to me... shoved me off here in this sonofabitch place." He shook his big bullet head. "I've done a lotta thinkin' since I got stuck off here... more'n I ever did in my Me... and I've about decided there must be something wrong with a guy who wants to get into the Army. You know, he wouldn't be like other guys. He'd have to be just a little screwy. I guess that's why in peacetime an Army private is about the lowest thing you can find so far as most people are concerned. It's even that way with officers too. I've noticed it outside the posts. When they're on the post each one of 'em is a little king. But outside it's different. Why, even a general ain't as good as an admiral socially speaking. I guess the Navy's got something we ain't got. I guess that's why most of 'em like war. It makes them important and nobody cares how much they spend and they don't have to account to nobody. It's all for the good of the emergency and can't be helped." He paused for a moment thoughtfully and added, "I suppose what you call "the armed forces" could ruin any country if they go on the way they're goin'. Some of 'em are goddamn ignorant too... as ignorant as I am." He chuckled. "Maybe more so. They've just had a kind of narrow education but I've been around plenty. Some of 'em don't even know what people are like."
I'm putting all this down because I was astonished at so much wisdom coming out of somebody like the Sergeant. Sometimes the most simple people are the greatest fountains of wisdom because their view of life is perfectly direct and uncomplicated by such things as "issues" and "the good of the country" and "the good of the service" and "humanitarianism" and "the Common Man" and all the crap which muddies up the water of clear thinking and honesty and covers up deceits and hypocrisies and inefficiency and a thousand things all those expressions and words and abstractions which rarely have anything to do with the case but only confuse the issue and prevent progress while they make the people who use them feel warm all over as if somehow they were superior and more Christlike than other people. Sometimes I think that must be the real definition of a "liberal." Simple people don't get muddled up. They don't always see things, but when they do see them they see them plain and in terms of the truth and the fundamentals. Maybe thafs why Jefferson and Lincoln liked the plain, simple people liked and admired them.
I said, "I certainly think it would be tough on the country back home and on all the whole world if things got into the hands of the generals and admirals once the war is over."
He grinned. "Sometimes," he said, "I think what they'd like best is a kind of mix-up of war and peace where they could get away with all the things they're gettin' away with now and still not have to give up all the luxuries by havin' to fight or live in a jungle." He looked at me anxiously. "I couldn't be had up for what I'm sayin', could I?" he asked.
I laughed. "I don't know. It would depend on who heard it. You needn't worry about me, but when you're away from here I wouldn't take any chances. The regular Army is filled with pompous little jerks."
He was leaning back now as if he were relaxed over relieving his soul and saying what he'd wanted to say for a long time. Then he sat up suddenly and said, "There's still one thing that's worryin' me, Captain. When am I gonna get a chance to get off this island and get on a bender and see some women?"
"I can't answer that," I said. "I've written twice to headquarters to get leave for all of you. It can't be all at once but in turn. I've put you at the head of this list The only reply is that you are all urgently needed here in line of duty. The second letter they didn't even bother to answer."
"Line of duty! Christ! Why don't they just give all this crap in the Quonset huts to these fuzzy-wuzzies and call it a day. It would be a lot cheaper. God knows why they ever unloaded the stuff here in the first place. Here we are guardin' the hell out of it as if it was gold and diamonds, and after we spend the best years of our Me here they'll finally remember us and let us get back to civilization and then dump the stuff into the sea. They won't even give it to these bloody starvin' natives."
"If I'm here, I'll see to that," I said.
"Yes, but you'll be disobeyin' orders. Orders! Christ!" He actually spat on my clean floor in disgust. "Who knows where they come from? Half the time it's from some jerk in Washington or even maybe just a woman clerk. They never know nothing. It's just according to whether they wake up that morning constipated."
"Another drink?" I suggested, aware that for the first time I was really seeing inside the Sergeant. But he was cautious.
"No thanks, Captain. Better not Christ knows what I might say."
He stood up. "You know what I think? I think our whole bloody country is goin' to the dogs and fast. It's gettin' just like any of the second-rate countries anywhere. And I gotta get outa here, Major. I gotta get out. I'm getting crazy ideas... ideas like I never had before in my life. I gotta get outa here and go on a bust and lay some women. Jesus! I'm gonna blow up!"
As if to emphasize the passion of his outburst there was a sudden crash of thunder and the rain began to come down again as if someone had pulled the chain on a gigantic shower bath of lukewarm water.
"That goddamn rain!" said the Sergeant.
"What do you mean by getting crazy ideas? What ideas?"
He was quiet again. "Never mind," lie said. "I ain't gonna tell you. It's about all I can do to face 'em myself." He picked up his oilskin poncho. "I'm goin' back to the hut and try to sleep. You'd better get some shut-eye yourself. I ain't slept so well myself lately, and every night I keep wakin' up and every time I look across I can see a light over here." He looked at me sharply. "What's the matter? You getting ideas too?"
I grinned. "Maybe. Maybe you'd call it that. I'm thinking... and sometimes writing."
"What the hell can you find to write about out here? Nothing ever happens. Jesus, I write to a couple of girls back home just in case I get outa this hell hole sometime and might need 'em again... But I can't find a damned thing to write about except you know what and if I put what I was thinking on paper the censor would send for me all the way from Pearl Harbor and put me in the jug. Jesus! I even find myself makin' pictures of it. Is that what you're writin'?"
"No, not altogether, but that has something to do with it."
He flung the poncho around him and said, "I wish I could write if only to get some of what's drivin' me nuts outta my system. Thanks, Captain, for the drink and the chance to talk. You see, them other guys is so young and inexperienced they don't understand what you're talkin' about."
"Sure, Sergeant. Whenever you want to let off steam, come in and talk."
He went out of the door and the rain came down so thickly that he disappeared before he had gone more than ten feet. The sound on the corrugated roof was deafening. When he had come I had been annoyed because he had interrupted my work, and now that he was gone I felt suddenly at loose ends, wishing he had stayed on to talk. I wondered what the crazy thoughts could be which disturbed him so much. They might be serious or they might be nothing at all. People's ideas of what is crazy or dangerous or what is sin vary so greatly according, largely, to whether they are brought up Catholic or Methodist or Jewish or some other damned thing that you can't even guess very accurately about anybody.
His suggestion that there were Japs hiding somewhere about us in the jungle was disturbing. Although I had pooh-poohed the suggestion I could not altogether dismiss it. They were such hardy, tough little bastards, so determined to go on living, except when they were hysterical in the face of guns or a flame-thrower, that nothing was altogether impossible for them. They might have swum the forty-mile channel or made themselves a raft and paddled across under cover of darkness. They might even have done what was even more impossible fought their way through a hundred miles of horrible, tangled jungle. If they were around, if they were able to break into the hut without ever being heard or detected, then all of us might well be in danger of our lives. They could slip in while we were asleep and cut our throats or, if they got hold of any of the grenade supply, blow us all up with no trouble at all. There certainly wasn't anything pleasant about it.
After the Sergeant had gone I went back to my writing, in which I had just finished setting down the visit to Frank's family and the glimpse of the world I found among them, but when I tried to go back I couldn't get anywhere. Nothing would come out of my brain onto the sheets of paper and I gave it up. I wasn't ready yet for the next part. I hadn't digested it yet. It hadn't gone through the process of gestation, coming out clear and formed and understood and developed.
Idly I picked up the letter from Enid which a plane had dropped down on me with the other mail late this afternoon. We get mail about once every three weeks when a plane goes about over the islands dropping mail upon all the godforsaken, forgotten souls isolated like ourselves. For the moment there was something almost pleasant about seeing the handwriting because it involved a life so remote from the one I had been leading for months, a life which some day I might know again.
The letter began, "Darling," which at once set my teeth on edge again. It was an expression Enid perpetually used which always seemed false to me because it is a term which should be used in only two sets of circumstances. Either it is the meaningless expression used by a silly gushing woman indiscriminately and to eveiyone including the butcher or it is a term of passion shared only by two people to the exclusion of all else in the world. In the case of Enid neither use was justified. She was not the silly gushing type, Heaven knows, and certainly no such passion existed between us even in the beginning. If she had written, "Dear Hank," I would not have been annoyed. I would even have been pleased because it seemed friendly and normal, but "Darling" was superheated and false and a part of that interminable "acting." Thinking about this I suddenly wished that she had been the type who could have addressed me as "Honey" or "Sugar," for there is in the words something at once comical and friendly and warm, like the playfulness of certain uninhibited happy people in the midst of making love. But that did not suit her either. It would have been as false and as revolting as "Darling," I would have settled for "Dear Hank," which she used to call me when we went about together as kids, but of course that didn't suit the picture of our relations as she wanted them to appear to the world. Funny how even a single little word can make you happy or unhappy or filled with distaste when it is all wrong and used out of character.
Darling [she wrote], I haven't heard from you for three weeks and hope there's nothing wrong. I was a little surprised to hear that you didn't mind the life you're leading. One of the Hazeltine boys who's just back, looking like a skeleton from fever, says the life on those islands is hell, especially if there isn't a club or a bar or anything. But you always were peculiar about some things and I guess you've gotten more peculiar as time goes on. They say geniuses are peculiar. Maybe you're a genius. Ha! Ha!
There isn't much news to write. The children are well and miss you. Ronnie isn't doing too well at school and I had him examined thoroughly eyes, ears, nose, everything but the doctors could find nothing the matter with him. He just says he doesn't like school, so I suppose I'll have to work on him to make him like it. I've been reading books on the subject and one of them says that sometimes children who don't like school have secret frustrations and irritations at home but I know that can't be. Everything runs so smoothly here. It's not because he isn't bright. He's always asking questions sometimes about things he shouldn't be asking. That's where a boy his age needs a father. I've tried to explain to him but I'll be glad when you're back and can take him over. It'll please you to hear that he says home isn't the same with you away. When I asked him what he meant, he just said, if I don't know. It's like the house had got cold and foggy." So there's a tradelast. How about one from you?
Esther is all right. She's a good child and never has made any trouble. She seems always to understand, and when I'm in the dumps over your being away, she'll come and put her arms about me and say, "Darling, don't feel bad. Daddy'll be home soon, and when he comes back hell love you more than ever." Isn't that wonderful? She isn't a bit like Ronnie who sometimes seems to me cold and actually hostile.
The Ferguson boy was killed at Okinawa. I suppose it is a blow to them but he always seemed to me unattractive and fresh and, after all, he did make them a great deal of trouble with the girl from the wrong side of the tracks and being sued in that automobile accident. And the Villars boy is reported missing. I feel sorry for them losing an only child like that. Sometimes war does seem senseless but what are we to do but fight when it is forced on us?
I've sent you a package and I hope somebody else doesn't get it. I won't tell you what's in it. I want you to be surprised. I had the heating system gone over and it was frightfully expensive. Oh, yes, I forgot to say that I had to have the hedge taken out. Something got into it, bugs or something, or it wasn't trimmed properly, and it got to looking mangier and mangier so that I was ashamed of it. It really made the whole property look shabby and dirty. And it always made me feel that I was being shut in and smothered. I hope you don't mind too much. I did do my best to take care of it but I seem to have the opposite of a green thumb. I have only to touch something to have it witihter and die. The roses aren't too bad. I've followed your directions but they still have spots and the prettiest blooms were eaten up by some land of awful beetle. I've had to buy flowers for the House when I have people to dinner. I always pretend they come out of the garden so you needn't feel ashamed. '
Your mother stopped off here last week for a day and night. She's been on some kind of a tour got up by one of her organizations to sell war bonds. She looked very old and tired and I had quite a long talk with her, pointing out that she wasn't young any longer and couldn't stand what she used to, but it was like talking to a stone wall. I tried to make her rest as much as possible while she was here. You must try, darling, to write her more often. She seemed very hurt and jealous that I got more letters from you than she did. You know how she is.
I'd write more often but it seems almost futile as there's never any certainty when you'll get the letter or whether you'll get it at all. I'm going up to New York for the annual meeting of the class alumni. Wish you were going to be along. The country club seems very fanny with hardly any men around. They get fewer and fewer only boys or old men. It seems so useless for you to be out there in the middle of the Pacific doing nothing when you could be so happy here in the Me you've built up for your wife and children.
Now take care of yourself and when you come home we'll make up for all the lost months and years. You can't imagine how lonely I feel every time I look at your empty bed. And write me ... you don't know what your letters mean to me.
Enid.
Well, that was it. A nice letter. Exactly the kind of letter which would be written by a loving wife to a loving husband, from a wife who felt real concern about her husband's mother and left not a stone unturned for the physical welfare of his children... a wife you could leave behind and know that she would remain faithful and that everything would be well managed, except perhaps for things like the hedge. Yes, a nice letter... impeccable... a model... But,... But what?... It was the kind of letter an actor reads aloud in a play on the stage. It was also the letter of a bitch whose bitchery you would never be able to pin down and dissect.
I went to bed and turned off the light so the Sergeant wouldn't be disturbed about me when lie awakened with his own worries and torments. At least I didn't feel the need to go on a bender and see some women. But I was worried about the children, for I knew suddenly that Ronnie, at twelve, was already beginning to get the pitch and that Esther was going the other way. She was beginning already to act her part so that the production wouldn't be spoiled.
