From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [91]
Old Pete’s face opened up vainly into a smug grin, as it always did when he conceived a mot. “This man’s Army,” he said distinctly, his equanimity recovered, “has always been a jockstrap Army, ever since Tunney first started fighting for the Marines in France. And it’ll probably stay that way.” The kid, he thought, Mazzioli, would really have enjoyed that one.
“What do you mean, new one?” Pete said, equanimously slipping it on the end, like a senator sticking his rider on a sure-thing bill. “Did the transfer of this Fort Kam cook go through?”
“Who else?” Warden cried impatiently. “A cook. I got more would be cooks than I know what to do with now. And now he’s bringin in this Stark.”
“Yeah? Say, thats too bad,” Pete comforted comfortably. “By the way,” he said, with all the gossip’s subtlety, “whats the story on this guy? The Old Man mean to make him Mess Sergeant? What’ll he do with Preem?”
“I could transfer out of here tomorrow,” Warden raged on happily, “In Grade—get that? In Grade—to any one of ten compny’s in this Regmint. Why the hell should I work my ass off here with no cooperation or appreciation?”
“Oh, sure,” Pete managed to stick in, the equanimity fading. “Sure you could. I could be Chief of Staff too, except I cant stand leaving all my old buddies. But whats the story?”
“I dont have to take it,” Warden bawled. “I’m the best man in their goddam Regmint, and whats more they know it. I’m turning in my stripes, Pete, I mean it. I rather be a buckass private who just does what he’s told. If I had knew what was good for me, I’d of stayed in A Compny as a Staff.”
“We all know you’re indispensible,” Pete said bitterly.
“I’m too damn good to waste my talents in this outfit, thats a cinch,” Warden bellowed at him, going on unabashed, lashing himself into the cathartic tirade, battering at the other like the stream from a firehose. Why, he said, was Apey Galovitch running the First Platoon? Why did every noncom just happen to be a jockstrap? Why was Gentleman Jim O’Hayer the supply sergeant of this outfit? and where was Dynamite getting his gambling money that he lost like water at poker at the Club? “Officers,” he snorted. “West Point socialites. Learn to play polo, poker and bridge and which fork to use, so they can mingle with society and marry a goddam wife with money who can entertain and teach the gook maids how to serve English style and copy the colonial Britisher and be goddam professional soldiers with a private income, just like Lord-Kiss-My-Ass.
“Where do you think Holmes got his wife? Right out of a bargain basement in Washington that specializes in young ingenues, right out of Baltimore, political family with a private fortune. Only Dynamite miscalculated, and this family went broke. Before Holmes could get anything but his four polo ponies and that goddamned pair of sterling silver spurs.”
In the midst of his harangue, like a man in the calm center of a hurricane, seeing the curiosity brightening Pete’s eyes, he coolly warned himself away from Holmes’s wife and calmly steered it back to where he wanted it, on the things Pete already knew, and began on Sgt Henderson who had not pulled one day’s drill in almost two years because he was the nursemaid to Holmes’s polo ponies up at the Packtrain.
“Oh Jesus Christ!” Pete yelled back finally, putting his fingers in his ears, the equanimity beaten to death now by this wordy stream of energy that was battering him groggy. “Shut up. Leave me alone. Shut up. If you hate this place so much and can transfer out In Grade, why the hell dont you do it? And leave me alone?”
“Why!” Warden bawled indignantly. “You ask me why. Because I’m too goddamned kind-hearted for my own good, thats why. This outfit would collapse like a bamboo hut in a typhoon if I was to leave it.”
“I wonder why the General Staff aint never discovered you?” Pete yelled, feeling that what made it all so goddam bad was that damn near all o