From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [236]
In both trucks, almost simultaneously immediately, there were answering cries, by the same men who had voiced the other cries, of “Shut up, for god sake” or “Hell yes. We got enough worrying to do about us without worrying about them” or “Yeah, drop that. Lets decide what we going to do.”
When quiet was restored, it was also discovered there were two men from F Company and one from E in the truck Prew was in. There was one man from F in the other truck, they said, but none from E. It was decided by the board of strategy that whoever it was that had informed was pretty well acquainted with G Company, although that did not greatly narrow down the choice. Apparently there were no men from the 1st or 3rd Battalions being called in at all, although all of them had run into plenty of men from both the 1st and 3rd Battalions working the circuit at Waikiki. It was decided that this was only a little local flurry, and not a general roundup. The best thing to do was to clam up and know nothing and recognize nobody. They didnt have any proof or they would have made a general roundup, all they were doing was to try and scare some proof out of somebody, that was all, just putting on the heat to scare somebody.
In both trucks when this deduction had been reached there was, almost simultaneously, a chorus of sighs of relief. This did not lessen either the nervousness or the worried anxiety of fear. Neither did it lessen the happy holiday air of Payday that accompanies any release from drill. Both conferences were adjourned practically simultaneously and broke up into excited discussions of the prospects.
Friday Clark, his long Wop nose a waxy yellow, was scared to death. When the conference was over, he got up and moved down the swaying jouncing truck, holding to the ribs above his head, and squeezed in beside Prewitt.
“Jees, Prew. I’m scared. Why they want to call me for? I never been out with one. In my whole life.”
“Neither has none of the rest of us,” Bull Nair drawled.
It drew a general laugh.
“In your whole life?” Readall Treadwell said.
“Oh,” Nair drawled. “You mean in my whole life.”
It got another laugh.
“Christ no,” Dusty Rhodes said. “You shewn me a queer, I wunt even know one of em things from a woman.”
“Thats no lie,” somebody said.
“Yeah, dont forget to tell the cop that, Scholar,” somebody else said.
“I dint mean it like that,” The Scholar protested. “What I meant is you show me a queer, I’d probly gap at him like this.” He bugged his eyes and gaped his mouth until it looked like the rictal cavern of a hungry young bird.
“Hey, Nair,” he said, liking the idea. “I’m gapping at you, Nair.”
“I’m gappin at you,” Nair drawled, and gaped back.
The Scholar laughed uproariously, and they started gaping at each other regularly.
“Look at Knapp,” Nair drawled, and pointed to the long thin unruffled form of the Corporal sprawled out on the bouncing seat. “He looks worried, dont he? Lets gap old Knapp.”
“Okay,” Rhodes said. “Probly do him good.”
They gaped at him in unison.
“We’re gappin you, Knapp.”
They laughed uproariously, looking at each other slyly with a country-man’s secret humor, as if they had discovered the greatest comedy routine that had ever been discovered.
“Gap this,” Knapp grinned, jabbing himself.
They were untouched. They started using their routine on first one and then another down the truck. It did not make much of an impression on the general anxiety.
“Its all right for them,” Friday said to Prew, his fawn’s eyes shy and wild with fear. “They chased queers. I aint never. What if they threwn my ass in jail? for something I aint never done?”
“I was only down there once myself,” Prew grinned. “You’re safe. They wont do anything to anybody anyway.”
“But look at how my hands are shakin,” Friday said. “I dont want to go to jail.”
“Hell, if they threw all the queens and queer-chasers in Honolulu into jail, the city’d go broke