From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [27]
“Sure you will, Prewitt,” Warden said caressingly. “You goddam right you will. And you’ll throw your bugle on the trash heap just to do it. You’ll take your chances, and the odds you’ll give would make you sick, if life was a craptable. But thats just what it is, Prewitt.”
“I can soljer with any man,” Prewitt repeated, “and best him at it.”
“Okay,” Warden said. “So what? Since when has bein a good soljer had anything to do with the Army? Do you think bein a good soljer will get you a sergeant’s rating in this outfit? after what you just pulled? It wont even get you Pfc.
“You’re the kind of soljer ought to be jockstrappin, Prewitt. Then you could get your name in all the Honolulu papers and be a hero. Because you’ll never make a real soljer. Never in God’s world.
“When you change your mind and decide you might as well jockstrap for Dynamite after all, remember this: the jockstraps dont run this company—in spite of Holmes.
“This aint A Compny now, Prewitt. This is G Compny, of which I am First Sergeant. I run this compny. Holmes is the CO, but he is like the rest of the officer class: a dumb bastard that signs papers an rides horses an wears spurs an gets stinking drunk up at the stinking Officers’ Club. I’m the guy that runs this compny.”
“Yeah?” Prew grinned. “Well, you aint doin a very goddam good job of it, buddy. If you run this outfit, how come Preem’s the mess sergeant? And how come O’Hayer’s the supply sergeant, when Leva does the work? And how come most every noncom in ‘your compny’ is one of Holmes’s punchies? Dont give me that crap.”
The whites of Warden’s eyes turned slowly red. “You dont know the half of it yet, kid,” he grinned. “Wait till you been here for a while. Theres a lot more yet. You dont know Galovitch, and Henderson, and Dhom, the duty sergeant.”
He removed the cigaret from the corner of his mouth and knocked it with deliberate slowness on the ashtray. “But the point is, Holmes would strangle on his own spit if I wasnt here to swab out his throat for him.” He stuffed the burning coal out savagely and then rose languidly like a stretching cat. “So at least we know where we stand,” he said, “dont we, kid?”
“I know where I stand,” Prew said. “I aint never been able to figure out where you stand. I think . . .” The sound of someone coming in the corridor made him cut it off, because this was a private argument, a thing between himself and Warden that rank, whether high or low, would not appreciate. Warden grinned at him.
“Rest, rest, rest,” a voice said through the door. “Dont get up for me, men,” though both of them were standing. The voice was followed by a little man, shorter yet than Prewitt, who came walking quick-stepping with a ramrod back behind it through the door, dressed in dapper, tailored CKCs and sporting 2nd Lieutenant’s bars. He stopped when he saw Prewitt.
“I dont know you, do I, soldier?” said the little man. “Whats your name?”
“Prewitt, Sir,” Prew said, looking around at Warden who was grinning wryly.
“Prewitt, Prewitt, Prewitt,” said the little man. “You must be a new man, a transfer. Because I dont know that name.”
“Transferred from A Compny, this morning, Sir,” Prew said.
“Ah,” said the little man. “I knew it. If I didnt know that name, I knew it wasnt in the Company. I spent three bloody weeks sweating out a roster of this Company just so I could call each man by his name. My father always told me a good officer knows every man in his outfit by name, preferably by his nickname. Whats your nickname, soldier?”
“They call me Prew, Sir,” Prew said, still not acute, awake or cognizant before this swiftly talking blob of energy.
“Of course,” said the little man. “I should have known that. I’m Lt Culpepper, recently of West-Point-on-the-Hudson, now of this Company. You’re the new fighter, arent you, the welterweight? Too bad you didnt get here before the close of the season. Glad to have you aboard, Prewitt, glad to have you aboard, as the Old Man and his colleagues in the navy would say.”
Lt Culpepper sprinted around the little room laying papers here and there in their different boxes. “You probably know of me,” he said, “if you have read the