Why had Richardson not captured them, taken them on board the Eel? Not possible. The sea was too heavy. It would have been impossible even with maximum cooperation from the Japanese — not to be expected under the circumstances. Nakame still had his rifle, and he had not given up. The Japanese were superior in numbers. They were so close to shore. Picking them up would have exposed Eel’s crew to unacceptable hazard, even assuming, in the storm then raging, they could have been gotten aboard.
The others were nodding agreement. Rich found his highball glass refilled yet another time. It was after dinner. “Time for the movie,” said the admiral. The same steward who had opened the door, served the drinks, and then put on the dinner, now busied himself with rigging a movie theater in the living room of the house. At least, it had been a living room, but it was apparent that Admiral Small had been using it for an office. The room had no rug, but there were a couch and sufficient comfortable chairs. A screen was set up in the entrance hallway, and a small projector was mounted on the top of the admiral’s desk. And now the steward showed himself to be a movie operator in addition to his other talents.
Four people had to sit on the couch intended for three, shoved in front of the desk. Automatically, Richardson was sitting beside Joan. The euphoria induced by drink and the obvious importance which everyone attached to his words throughout the evening had had their effect. The crowding was not uncomfortable.
The movie was a silly story with all the love-conflict clichés. It had no relation to anything that anyone present in that room had been doing for the past several years, received all the more attention because of it, and gradually Rich became more and more conscious of Joan’s thigh pressed close against his as they watched the convoluted situation unfold to its predictable conclusion.
His palms were sweating. Nervously he wiped them dry along the crease of his trousers, felt the backs of his fingers traveling along the smooth softness of Joan’s leg under her light skirt. She was not offended. His hand groped for hers. She returned the tentative pressure of his fingers.
The movie ended. The normally efficient steward seemed to have trouble finding the light switch. During the delay there was a slight bustle from the other two people who had shared the couch, Captain Joe Blunt and First Lieutenant Cordelia Wood.
Admiral Small was looking at his watch, suggested another drink. Mrs. Elliott and the two staff officers refused politely, swiftly bade their adieus, and were gone. The efficient steward appeared again at Richardson’s elbow with yet another very dark highball. But this time, knowing that he had already drunk far too much, and that very possibly it had been the admiral’s and Captain Blunt’s deliberate intention to get him tipsy, he took perverse pleasure in refusing it. Probably the plot had been kindly intended. He was, after all, the submarine skipper home from the wars. In addition, his host might just possibly have divined some of the inner tensions which still possessed him. Joan was standing very close to him, had been since the movie.
“Maybe we had better call it an evening too, Admiral,” Blunt said. “No need to call your driver. Rich and I will take the girls home in my jeep.”
“Okay, Joe,” said Small. “But remember, you’re not so much younger than I am!” The admiral’s smile was genial, but Richardson suddenly sensed something else in it, some reserve. There was an unspoken warning in it, a measure of disapproval. But it was not directed at him. Blunt’s quick, eager grin in response seemed a little strange, out of place. Richardson’s intuitions were not working. The expression on Blunt’s face was not quite the right one. Something lay just beneath the surface, out of reach, some tension of which he was unaware.
There was some difficulty in opening the door. The light-lock, a jerry-built structure of boards and heavy painted canvas, intended to prevent light from showing outside when the door was open, would permit only two to pass through at one time. To facilitate getting through, Joan took Richardson’s arm as a matter of natural course. She did not release it as they passed into the dark outside, instead hugged it to her a little tighter and strode out with him. He could feel her hip against his thigh as they walked toward the street.
The back seat of a wartime jeep will hold two people if they sit very close together. It is high and hard, with only a padded board for a backrest. It is a lot more comfortable if one puts his arm around the girl. Joan curled against his shoulder.
Blunt started the motor. “My quarters are right on the way,” he said. “Why don’t we stop there for that nightcap?” Nobody said anything.
There was a sentry box at the foot of the hill. The curfew sentry was already there. Perhaps it was later than Richardson had realized.
Driving slowly with lights out — in fact, there were no headlights at all on the jeep — Blunt braked to a near-stop. A grin, with a clear trace of envy, showed on the sentry’s face as he saluted and waved them on.
Captain Blunt’s house, like all the others in the general housing area, had been built before the war as quarters for married personnel. The largest houses were on Makalapa Hill, and they ranged on down to near barrackslike triplexes and quadruplexes, ranked row upon row, in the enlisted men’s area on the flat some distance away. Blunt’s house was smaller than Admiral Small’s and there was no steward in evidence. It was even more sparsely furnished.
In conformity with the blackout regulations, there was a light-lock arrangement at the entryway to permit passage without showing light outside the house. Inside, as in the admiral’s house, all the windows had been covered with heavy black paper.
“Rich, you and Joan make yourselves comfortable while Cordy helps me in the kitchen.” Instantly Joan was in his arms.
The man standing inside Richardson’s body who had always been the dispassionate and detached observer, was unaccountably missing. All Richardson’s senses were concentrated on feeling the hard outline of Joan’s hips, the soft tips of her breasts against his chest. One of her hands caressed his ear. Her mouth was partly open, soft, inviting.
This would not do. The others were only in the next room. They would be coming back in a moment. Joan seemed to anticipate his mood. Her tongue flicked the edges of his lips as she swung away.
There had been no sound from the kitchen. “Yoo-hoo,” called Joan.
This brought results. Noise of sudden movement. Ice clattered into glasses. Liquid poured.
The living room contained a slip-covered day bed made up as a sofa with pillows along the wall, and a single overstuffed armchair. Blunt and Cordelia Wood arranged themselves side by side on the day bed, backs to the wall.
Rich found himself seated in the overstuffed chair, with Joan perched on its broad arm. A single dim light burned in a corner. All four were quiet. The other couple was out of Rich’s view, off to the right beyond Joan, whose thigh stretched tight the fabric of her skirt, and whose bronzed legs, unfettered by stockings, dangled and occasionally touched his own.
“Rich,” said Joan softly, “you know I knew Jim?”
“Yes.”
“And that I know how terrible you feel about those lifeboats?”
This he could not answer. He had tried to be matter-of-fact, to avoid being defensive, as he described the action. Obviously he had not fooled Joan.
“You had to do it, Rich. There was no other way.”
Curiously, Richardson felt no objection to Joan’s probing. She held her drink in her right hand. Her left arm rested on the back of the chair, and now he could feel the tips of her fingers gently touching the back of his neck, gently rubbing behind and below the ear, softly stroking. “Jim used to talk about you some, you know, and little by little I came to know how much he admired you. The last time I saw him, he said you were his best friend.” Rich said nothing.