From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [424]
The crowd milled indignantly in the small dayroom, everybody talking excitedly. Stark posted himself huskily in the doorway with Pete and the Chief flanking him. Warden gulped off the rest of his coffee and set the cup on the magazine rack and pushed his way down to the other end and climbed up on the pingpong table.
“All right, all right, you men. Quiet down. Quiet down. Its only a war. Aint you ever been in a war before?”
The word war had the proper effect. They began to yell at each other to shut up and listen.
“I want every man to go upstairs to his bunk and stay there,” Warden said. “Each man report to his squad leader. Squad leaders keep your men together at their bunks until you get orders what to do.”
The earth shudders rolling up from Wheeler Field were already a commonplace now. Above it, they heard another plane go roaring machinegun-rattling over.
“The CQ will unlock the rifle racks and every man get his rifle and hang onto it. But stay inside at your bunks. This aint no maneuvers. You go runnin around outside you’ll get your ass shot off. And you cant do no good anyway. You want to be heroes, you’ll get plenty chances later; from now on. You’ll probly have Japs right in your laps, by time we get down to beach positions.
“Stay off the porches. Stay inside. I’m making each squad leader responsible to keep his men inside. If you have to use a rifle butt to do it, thats okay too.”
There was a mutter of indignant protest.
“You heard me!” Warden hollered. “You men want souvenirs, buy them off the widows of the men who went out after them. If I catch anybody running around outside, I’ll personally beat his head in, and then see he gets a goddam general court martial.”
There was another indignant mutter of protest.
“What if the cocksuckers bomb us?” somebody hollered.
“If you hear a bomb coming, you’re free to take off for the brush,” Warden said. “But not unless you do. I dont think they will. If they was going to bomb us, they would of started with it already. They probly concentratin all their bombs on the Air Corps and Pearl Harbor.”
There was another indignant chorus.
“Yeah,” somebody hollered, “but what if they aint?”
“Then you’re shit out of luck,” Warden said. “If they do start to bomb, get everybody outside—on the side away from the quad—not into the quad—and disperse; away from the big buildings.”
“That wont do us no good if they’ve already laid one on the roof,” somebody yelled.
“All right,” Warden hollered, “can the chatter. Lets move. We’re wasting time. Squad leaders get these men upstairs. BAR men, platoon leaders and first-three-graders report to me here.”
With the corporals and buck sergeants haranguing them, the troops gradually began to sift out through the corridor to the porch stairs. Outside another plane went over. Then another, and another. Then what sounded like three planes together. The platoon leaders and guides and BAR men pushed their way down to the pingpong table that Warden jumped down off of.
“What you want me to do, First?” Stark said; his face still had the same expression of blank, flat refusal—like a stomach flatly refusing food—that he had had in the messhall; “what about the kitchen force? I’m pretty drunk, but I can still shoot a BAR.”
“I want you to get your ass in the kitchen with every man you got and start packing up,” Warden said, looking at him. He rubbed his hand hard over his own face. “We’ll be movin out for the beach as soon as this tapers off a little, and I want that kitchen all packed and ready to roll. Full field. Stoves and all. While you’re doin that, make a big pot of coffee on the big stove. Use the biggest #18 pot you got.”
“Right,” Stark said, and took off for the door into the messhall.
“Wait!” Warden hollered. “On second thought, make two pots. The two biggest you got. We’re going to need it.”
“Right,” Stark said, and went on. His voice was not blank, his voice was crisp. It was just his face, that was blank.
“The rest of you guys,” Warden said.
Seeing their faces, he broke off and rubbed his own face again. It didnt do any good. As soon