From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [181]
Pete and The Chief launched into an argument over the respective merits of PI and the Panama Department, enumerating advantages and disadvantages and weighing them against each other.
“And I served in both of them,” The Chief summed up stolidly. “So I ought to know.”
Pete was definitely hampered because he had not been in PI.
“China,” the K Co top said. “China’s the place thats got them all beat. Aint that right, Milt? Your money’s worth ten, twelve times as much. In their rate of exchange. A private lives like a general, in China. I’m gunna ship over for China as soon as my time’s up in this rotten Pineapple Army. Aint that right, Milt? You served in China, you tell them.”
Warden was lying leaning on his elbow watching the moon ascend and looking at the lighted screens along the faces of the barracks; there were few shadows moving along the porches this night. He stirred.
“Ah, whats the difference? They all the ferkin same. Five cents of one, a nickel of the other.” He sat up and locked his elbows around his knees. “You bums make me sick. Always wishin you was someplace else then where you are. Always re-enlisting for a new place you aint been in, always changing, always disgusted with it after the first year.
“Anyway,” he said, “there wont be no China next year when your time is up. You’ll have to re-enlist for Japan.”
He lay back down and crossed his arms behind his head. “I knew a White Russian girl in Shanghai, though. Thats the only thing about China. Theres lots of them there. She was some kind of a duchess or princess. A countess, I think she was. Had blonde hair down to her crotch. Boy, she was beautiful. By god. The most beautiful woman I ever seen. And hot. The hottest woman I ever seen too. I should of married the bitch, I guess.”
“Oh-oh,” Pete winked at the others. “Here we go again.”
Warden sat up. “All right, goddam you. I dont give a damn whether you believe it or not. Her old man was a Rusky, got killed with the stinking 27th in Siberia, fighting the Reds. The 27th U.S. Infantry Russian Wolfhounds. Ever hear of them, you smug bastard? Your next-door neighbors, is all they are. You dont believe me, I’ll take you over there and prove it by Master Sergeant Fisel. He knew her old man.”
“I know,” Pete grinned. “I know. Have another drink and tell us all about it. Again.”
“Go to hell, you son of a bitch.”
“Theres the bugler,” The Chief said, and they all stopped talking then and turned to look at the corner of the quad where the guard bugler was raising his horn to the big megaphone to sound Tattoo. Sharply, insistently, he blew the complex notes of Lights Out. The four men lay quiet and absorbed until he had finished, blowing the traditional first and repeat, once to one side, then swinging the megaphone and pouring it out to the north against the 3rd Battalion. One by one the lights in the squadrooms around the quad went out.
“Well, thats it,” the K Co top said, completely inexpressively, unable to put this solid foundation stone in words. “That boy sure cant touch that Prewitt kid though,” he said. “Was you out here the other night he played the Taps? I swear sure as hell I thought I was gonna bawl. Its a shame that boy cant be playin one all the time.”
“Yeah, I heard him,” The Chief said. “He’s had a raw deal, that kid. All the