From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [358]
And Milt Warden felt this every time he watched her drive her husband’s battered Buick club coupé back home again.
Probably, Milt Warden thought the many times he watched her drive off down King Street through the traffic, she had come creeping back home often enough in the past that Dana knew the procedure ahead of time in advance.
Probably, Milt Warden thought the many times he watched her taillight disappear into a myriad of other taillights from the corners she had let him out on, she lets him have enough in between times to keep him hanging fire from going all the way and divorcing her.
Maybe, he thought the many times he carried the argument on out to its logical end, she even lets him have some now and then during the big love affairs, if she gauges the wind and finds it going against her. Maybe she’s going home to do it right now.
Certainly Dana would not let her get away with all she’s getting by, not unless he was getting something. Because Milt Warden knew positively that he wouldnt.
Probably, Milt Warden thought the many times he watched her leave him and go on back home, she doesnt really mind it. A woman couldnt live with a man for twelve or fifteen years without at least getting used to it, without its becoming at least less than uncomfortable.
Because Milt Warden thought all of these things, every time he watched her drive the Buick home.
His trouble was when he had admitted to her and to himself that he loved her. That was always the greatest single blunder in this game. That put him in her power as Dana had never been in her power. She could make him do anything now, even become an officer, now that she was sure he did love her. He was no longer a free agent, and as a result the old wild terrible strength that had been the power and pride of Milt Warden was gone.
But he only thought these things when he watched her driving back home. He never seemed to think them when he was with her. When he was with her, he only thought about how fine it was to be in love.
He got home early enough to make out his application for Infantry Officer’s extension course before chow. The remaining Bloom papers were still on his desk and he shoved them out of the way to make out the application. Then he signed it and put it on Holmes’s desk and went back to the Bloom papers and finished them up and sat back in his chair to await chow, and further developments.
Within a week the developments came, and Ike Galovitch was unceremoniously relieved from the supplyroom in favor of now-S/Sgt Pete Karelsen, to whom Dana (—oops; Capt Holmes—) bequeathed the by now more unintelligible snarl and coerced him into taking it by threatening his rating and the solemn promise that as soon as he trained the new featherweight NCO School Graduate Malleaux to take over he could go back to his beloved weapons platoon. Pete refused to speak to Warden for two weeks.
But before that, Capt Holmes had come in in the morning to find the signed application there on his desk and been so overjoyed that he offered his 1st/Sgt a three-day-pass on the spot, in spite of the state of the Company Administration, and when Warden refused it because (as he said) he did not feel he could take off at a time like this when the Company was in such a bad hole, was not only more overjoyed but could barely speak his appreciation and began for the first time in months to carry his topkicker around on a chip. Warden waited until the day after Pete was installed in the supplyroom to ask for his thirty day re-enlistment furlough.
Before such a request even Holmes’s ardent goodwill blanched visibly.
“But my god, Sergeant! Thirty days!” he said, without even clapping his hand to his head. “Its impossible! You know that. I’ll gladly give you a three-day-pass; I told you so; even two consecutive three-day’s. Then you would be abl