"Right, sir." I saluted sharply, whirled and marched back.
Lt. Dottlinger turned to Tetrick, told him to dismiss the Company after informing the men that all prior restrictions were lifted and the pass box would be open immediately. The Day Room would be reopened after proper cleaning. The men had already heard the lieutenant's words, and they cheered when Tetrick dismissed them. Most ran for the barracks to change for Town, but a few paused to ask unanswered questions of me.
I told Tetrick what I had done before I went in to see Dottlinger. He assured me that Dottlinger would not dare any more than an Article 15, Company Punishment. Tetrick seemed resigned that someone would be slaughtered for the greatest good, and seemed not to mind particularly that that someone was me. His attitude seemed to say, "It's for the best."
"To hell with it," I said. "Maybe I'll kiss the bastard and let him queer me out, or maybe bust his pussylick face for him and let him hang my stripes for teeth he ain't going to have."
"If you do, holler, so I can be a witness that he hit you first," Tetrick laughed.
But I had already thought of the worst thing he could do: ignore my confession, let me go, and then single out any enlisted man and bust him with evidence he would say I'd given; and if I didn't agree to this, then the Company would be back on restriction again. I was surprised how much I hated Dottlinger at that moment, but even more surprised to discover that I wasn't worried about my stripes and that I cared about the respect of my men. I had said, when I reenlisted back in Seattle, that God couldn't involve me with anything or anybody again; I wanted to be a happy, stupid, payday drunk. But what God couldn't do, Joe Morning managed.
Dottlinger did, as Tetrick had predicted, give me Company Punishment: two hours extra duty for fifteen days. One hour policing the Day Room and one hour marching in front of the barracks as an example with full field pack and blanket roll. "To begin immediately," he had said. He unlocked the Day Room, had me open the louvers, and gloated while I swept the floor with a short broom.
So for fifteen days no one spoke to me for fear I'd take their heads off. The whole thing was so public, marching in daylight, squatting in the Day Room like a recruit. Once at a particularly bleak moment Tetrick had said, "Tell him to fuck himself. He hasn't got a leg to stand on. He can't touch you within the regs."
"For a man with no legs, he's stepping on my toes pretty heavily," I answered – but thought about his suggestion more than I care to admit.
I had nearly decided that what I had done wasn't worth it when the only good thing of the time happened. This kid from Trick One came out of the barracks one day when the sun was pouring into my fatigues like lava, and at that dark, sun-bunded moment, had said, "Look at the little tin soldier. It walks, it talks, it's almost human." I don't suppose he intended that I hear him, but I had. Someone else had too. From the second floor above the door an invisible voice roared like the wrath of Jehovah. "Shut your wise mouth, fuckhead!" The kid jumped, looked around, then dashed back in the barracks, perhaps wondering if God hadn't spoken to him.
I glowed. I sparkled. I felt heroic for a change, instead of dumb. (I'm not ashamed: pride has turned better heads than mine.) Someone understood.
"Ah 'tis a kind voice I hear above me," I said, but only a deep laugh answered me.
But by the time my hour was over I had lost that quick lift under the sun. The sun wasn't merely in the sky, it was the sky. From horizon to zenith the heavens burned in my honor, and in my chest and back and head. And in the shattering light all clear things lost themselves. Colors faded into pale imitations of themselves and became dust.
I had come back to be alone, to find simplicity, and had found trouble, and in this trouble found I must fall back on that which I was, that which I would be, that which I had always tried not to be.
I am the eldest son of generations of eldest sons, the final moment of a proud descent of professional killers, warriors, men of strength whose only concern with virtue lay in personal honor. But I still misunderstood a bit that day, I still confused being a soldier with being a warrior. That small, mean part of me which had wanted to care about rank and security and privilege was dying, and with the death of order began the birth of something in me monstrous, ah, but so beautiful. My heritage called, and though it would be many long moons before I answered, the song had burst my cold, ordered heart and I hated in the ringing sweep of the sun, and I lived.
Historical Note 1
There are days, whole, long, lovely days in the mountains which have nothing to do with the sun. A thick damp fog drifts in, draping the peaks and the high valleys in eternal mourning, gray, misty mourning. The fog limits my view but increases my perspective (that is, I suppose, what limits are for), and though I can only see the two dripping pines and an occasional bird, I can hear the world on such days. Not that I stop staring out the windows; perhaps I hope to see a sound. On my own, of course; you know how I hate drugs. But the sounds, clean, sharp tones… they pierce the blanket. I am convinced (sadly so, according to Abigail, or perhaps she said madly; she tends toward an insecure mumble when she speaks) that the only reason I can't hear watches ticking on golfers' wrists is because of the pounding of their pulses as they stride confidently past the windows. I still live out those windows. They have become my connection with life, except for Lt. Abigail Light, because Capt. Gallard hasn't spoken to me since the day of the incident with Lt. Hewitt.
But as much as I stare out those windows, I didn't see Gallard creep up while I was reading the Sunday Stars and Stripes.
"The present may be captured in those limp pages, my friend, but the past, and the future too, are out here, across this dim, gray, timeless mist," a voice tolled in the window. I started, but caught only a glimpse of a golf cap, and wondered who the hell was playing tricks on a sick man. I should have known: a doctor.
In a few minutes the voice came again, disembodied, from the hall. "Yes, the past, dim, bloody past, my poor, mad fellow." Gallard stepped in, wearing rumpled short pants, a knit shirt, crepe-soled canvas shoes, and a nifty new golfing cap. He looked half-pleased, as if he had just made a hole-in-one which no one saw, and a drowsy smile lifted the sagging skin along his jaw line. His face always seemed to me well-used: Whatever the expression, from grin to scowl, and whatever the extent of his emotion, his face had a wrinkle for it.
"Jesus shit. I thought I was having a visitation," I said.
"You are, you are," he chuckled, smiling still more. "May I come in?"
"Please do, kind spirit. I'd rather have you where I can keep an eye on you, than prowling around in the fog scaring hell out of me," I answered, folding the paper. The pages were limp at that.
"It's hell I'm scaring in, not out. Murder must pay."
"On the installment plan?"
"Don't read that crap," he said, gesturing with a large thermos bottle from behind his back. "Isn't it enough that you give life, limb and dignity to the Army? You don't have to wipe your mind with their version of the news." He took the paper out of my hands and tossed it into the trash can.
"Okay. What are you up to, besides collecting newspapers for Great Britain?"
He explained that he wouldn't gather manure for the English, claiming that they were too hesitant about commiting their troops in World War II.
"Sorry," I interrupted. "But why are you creeping about the clouds?"
"Well," he said, paused, then got up to shut the door. "I was supposed to play golf with the Base Commander but, as you can well see, we were fogged out. So I've been at the Club, crying over a dozen vodka martinis with the old man. And since he gave me some good news about you, I thought you'd want to know. So here I am. Hate golf anyway. I'll give you a drink if you promise to stay sane." He poured two small ones out of the thermos. "Cheers?"