From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [252]
“Me and this guy arguing the Army,” Friday grinned.
“Well you dont have to stand in this goddamned swamp to do it, do you? God damn these mosquitoes!” They hung in kaleidoscope-shifting phantom clouds, frenzied buzzsaws never quite in his ears, wheeling and darting and as untouchable as fighting Indians on horseback.
“He got to stay close. His post is right over there,” Friday nodded at the road. He grinned. “He says the Air Corps is the worst and I claim the Infantry’s the worst. What do you think?”
“They none of them worth a damn,” Prew said, slapping at mosquitoes. “You ask me.”
“You dont mean that!” the Air Corps man said in a shocked, startled voice.
“I don’t?” Prew said, startled himself. “Why dont I?”
“I was only kidding,” Friday explained.
“Because—” the Air Corps man began.
“This is my buddy Prewitt,” Friday grinned at him, “that I was telling you about.”
“Oh,” the Air Corps man said. “Thats different. I didn’t know.”
“You dont want to pay any attention to what he says,” Friday grinned. “He’s a thirdy year man in the Infantry. He loves it. He can tell you all you want to know about it.”
“Swell,” the Air Corps man said eagerly; he stepped up and put his hand formally across the fence. “Sure glad to know you, Prewitt. My name is Slade.”
“All he wants to know about what?” Prew said, taking the hand.
“He wants to transfer to the Infantry,” Friday said.
“To the Infantry!”
“Yeah. To the Compny. Our Compny.”
“Not our Compny! What the hell for?”
“What for!” the Air Corps man Slade said excitedly. “Because I joined the Army to be a soldier, not a goddam gardener, thats why.”
Prew looked at him closer. “Most the guys I know are trying to get into the Air Corps.”
“Well, if they do they’ll sure regret it,” Slade said, waving indifferently at the swooping hordes around his head. “Unless they like being gardeners, that is.”
“Gardeners?” Prew said. “I thought everybody in the Air Corps went to a School.”
“Ha,” Slade said. “Sure. Join the Air Corps and learn a trade. Thats what my dad thought.”
“Your dad,” Prew said.
“Yes, when he got me to enlist in the Air Corps.”
“Oh,” Prew said.
“If I’d had any sense I’d have enlisted in the Infantry right then, like I wanted to do in the first place.”
“I told him you’d know how,” Friday said.
“How what?”
“How to go about transferring to the Compny.”
“Oh,” Prew said. “Sure. All you have to do is go up to Schofield and see the Compny Commander after we get back in garrison and——”
“In garrison,” Slade said enthusiastically. “That’s a good phrase, you know it? That sounds like soldiering.”
“Yeah?” Prew said. “It does? Well, you see the CC and get his permission to put in for transfer to his compny and then you see your First Sergeant and give him the letter from the CC and put in for it. Thats all.”
“Is that all there is to it?” Slade said. “I thought it would be hard. You know what I mean, complicated.”
“Me too,” Friday said.
“Hell,” Slade said. “If I had known it was that easy, I’d have done it before now.”
“What’d they do?” Prew said, “screw you out of your rating?”
“Ahh,” Slade said disgustedly. “They’re nothing but a bunch of goddam civilians in uniforms. Why, hell, when I got out of recruit drill and they gave me my classification interview I——”
“Your what?” Prew said.
“My classification interview,” Slade said, “I put in for armament school so I could be a gunner. So what do they do? They send me to clerical school at Wheeler Field and as soon as I graduate they put me in a regular goddam office. Desks, filing cabinets, and all.” He looked at them indignantly.
“Oh,” Prew said. “I see. And they cut you out of the rating that went with it, is that it?”
“Rating hell,” Slade said with outrage. “I didn’t stay long nough to get any rating. I quit and went on the guard. Hell, I could have stayed at home in Illinois and worked in a goddam office, or mowed yards. Without having to enlist in the Army and come to Wahoo to do it.”
“But how come you to pick the Infantry?” Prew said. “From what I hear, most guys in the Air Corps dont think so much of us Infantry.”
“I’ve always liked the Infantry,” Slade said eagerly. “In the Infantry they’re soldiers, not goddam civilians in uniform. They have to