From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [380]
It was a week before Malloy’s opportunity presented itself. Prew saw him every day when they came in from work, and every day he expected not to see him. In spite of all Malloy had told him about forgetting it, every evening he expected not to see him. Then the evening came when he did not see him, and Hanson when he locked up for them told the story of how Jack Malloy had just walked out of the motorpool in a pair of stolen greasemonkey overalls and nobody in the motorpool knew a damn thing about it. Pfc Hanson, whose worship of The Malloy was perhaps exceeded only by that of the late Pvt Blues Berry, was tickled to death. MP patrols were sent out through the pineapple fields and along the Honouliuli Trail; the gate guards down in the Post were alerted; the Wahiawa Patrol and the Shafter MPs downtown were furnished with full particulars and instructions. It was the first time anybody had ever escaped from the Schofield Barracks Post Stockade, except for three men ten years ago who had been brought back in less than twelve hours. But no trace of Jack Malloy was found anywhere. In Number Two, as Malloy had prophesied, they were as proud as party members whose candidate had just been elected as President.
Prew sat by himself and wondered wildly if he had not already met the new Messiah of the new faith Malloy had also prophesied. A Messiah who refused a following and preferred to work alone. Met him, and lived alongside of him, and failed to recognize him.
After two weeks of a fruitless search, accompanied by as intense an interest inside the Stockade as the outcome of the World Series, Jack Malloy’s escape tapered off into old stuff and, like everything else, before the constant pressure of the work like a stone against a steel blade, eroded away into boredom and nothingness.
In the Stockade, whatever else happened, you worked. You swung your 16 lb hammer to crush this rock, or you swooped a scoopshovel to load this rock you had already crushed, into the trucks that came. Work without purpose, work without end, work without pride. Your hands blistered, broke, bled, calloused. They corned up like a mailman’s feet. By their blisters, you thought wildly, shall ye know them, Lord, when the day of judgment came. And as soon as you busted all of this rock available, the Engineers came in and accommodatingly blasted more slabs of it out of the mountain for you. It was an unlimited mountain. And your muscles ached and toughened. And your mind ached and toughened. And your asshole ached and tightened, when you thought about a woman. You would be a tough, good, dangerous soldier, when you got out of this.
Chapter 44
IN ALL, COUNTING the extra time for the trip to the Black Hole and the transfer into Number Two, he served 4 months and 18 days, and G Company was changed.
The Warden was gone; on a 14 day furlough. Leva was gone; transferred to M Co and a S/Sgt Maylon Stark was a S/Sgt, and Lt Culpepper was the Company Commander now. Dynamite Holmes had been reassigned to Brigade HQ with a majority. Holmes had taken S/Sgt Jim O’Hayer with him and O’Hayer was a M/Sgt. They were expecting a new Company Commander, a Captain, to be shipped in any day. It was a different company.
He pulled in from the Stockade wearing the same CKC uniform he had worn at the trial. It felt strange and new after 4 months and 18 days of nothing but the outsize Stockade fatigues. The suntans were neither dirtier and more wrinkled, nor cleaner and more pressed. They had hung on a hanger in the Stockade supply room for 4 months and 18 days and except for a faint crease across the knees were just exactly like they had been when he took them off. He could not overcome a feeling of surprise at this. It was the same with everything.
He drew his bedding and equipment and his same old foot-locker with all the old familiar personal possessions in it just like he had left them but looking strangely new and unused. They were the same blankets, and the same riflebelt and pack and canteen, but Leva did not issue them to him. They were issued to him by the welcome-grinning S/Sgt Malleaux, the new supply sergeant. From behind Malleaux Pete Karelsen, a S/Sgt too now, and still on SD in the supplyroom, came up grinning to shake hands also. Apparently, he was still a celebrity. They asked him about Maggio. He had promised himself he would wait nine days.
In the o