“You can’t keep old Herbie down.”
“No,” she said, “no, you can’t.”
The smile he gave her was odd, barely there, as if he hadn’t meant to smile at all. “You know,” he said, bent forward still, still stroking the dog’s ears, “I was thinking maybe when we come out in June for the wool, you might like to have Jimmie stay on for a bit. What do you think?”
* * *
And then, very gradually, things began to settle. If Herbie still wasn’t his old self, his moods altering so quickly she never knew whether to expect a joke and a kiss or a long impacted stare, at least he’d come awake. There was a ranch to run, and the necessity of it, of seeing to the accumulation of details the whole enterprise depended on, from tinkering with the generator and the windmill to providing meat for the pot and looking after the horses and the far-flung water sources for the sheep, seemed to speak to him in a way she wasn’t able to. He was up before dawn each morning, pounding the floorboards in his hobnailed boots, the stove lit, the coffee brewing and the kitchen swept by the time she joined him for breakfast. Then he went out on morning patrol, careful to be back by noon for lunch, and when he returned, the panniers he’d made for Hans were heavy with the wood he’d collected along the way. In the afternoon, he’d see to the house, moving from one project to another. It was his idea to build a lookout on the highest peak of the roof so the sailor boys could have a vantage over this part of the island and he made sure they were manning it (or boying it, as he said just to needle them) throughout the daylight hours. In the evening, he took Hans out and patrolled again, and when he came back he sat with the girls in the living room while they read aloud to him from their storybooks. Then it was the radio, then bed.
The first week of June brought word of the victory at Midway and he soared on the news, skipping round the living room and pumping his arms in the air till all the color rose to his face. “We’ve hit a grand slam this time!” he shouted. “Allies four, Nips zero.” And here came the whiskey. “A toast to Nimitz! To the brave boys of the Yorktown! And to our own sailor boys too. Reg, Freddie! To you! And to the defeat and unconditional surrender of those sneaking yellow bastards. Goodbye, Yamamoto! Goodbye, Hirohito! R.I.P. to the whole shitty lot of you!”
The next morning, she overslept. And when she did wake, at half past six, Herbie was still in bed beside her. She eased herself up, careful not to disturb him, thinking he must have been feeling the aftereffects of the celebration — he rarely drank more than two or three whiskeys at a sitting and she’d never known him to be hungover, but here he was in bed still and what else could it be? She made breakfast for the girls, left plates on the stove for the sailors, who also seemed to be sleeping late, and then sat at the table and ate by herself while the girls got themselves ready for school. At quarter of eight, when Herbie still hadn’t made an appearance, she went back to the bedroom to rouse him — he wouldn’t want to miss his morning patrol, which had become a kind of obsession with him.
The room was dark still. It smelled of him, of his sweat and the plain brown soap he used and the faint sweetness of witch hazel, which he liked to slap on his cheeks after shaving. But he hadn’t shaved. He was in bed still, lying on his back, perfectly composed, his arms at his sides and his feet making a tent of the blankets. She couldn’t tell whether his eyes were open or not. “Herbie, it’s getting late,” she whispered.
His voice came back at her, the dead voice, the one she dreaded: “I know.”
“I just thought I’d come in to wake you, for your morning patrol.”
“I’m not going.”
“Not going? But you’ve gone every morning since you got back.”
There was a noise from the courtyard, the gander squabbling with one of the Rhode Island reds Bob Brooks had given them so they could have eggs in the absence of George’s deliveries. They hadn’t seen George since the war began — and wouldn’t, she supposed, till it was over. There were rumors that the Air Corps had conscripted his plane, one more hardship to rise above. But at least the eggs were fresh, at least there was that. “If you hurry,” she said, “I’ll fix you some eggs — I’ve got fifteen minutes before the girls start school.”
He still hadn’t moved, but she could see that his eyes were open now, a dull sheen in the pale oval of his face, staring at the ceiling. “It’s no use pretending,” he said. “I can’t see a goddamn thing out there, even with the binoculars — especially with the binoculars. If the whole Jap fleet came to anchor in Simonton Cove, I wouldn’t know the difference.”
“You need glasses, that’s all. We’ll send you to shore to the eye doctor when Bob comes back.”
“And my hand’s useless. I can’t steady anything with it. The boys had to build practically the whole lookout by themselves. I just stood around.”
“And directed them.”
“A blind man can’t direct anybody.”
“You’re not blind. We’re going to get you glasses.”
“Get me a cane.”
“Stop it. You’re just making yourself crazy. And me too. Now, you can lie there feeling sorry for yourself all day if you want, but I’ve got the girls to see to.” She was at the door now, all the fret and worry of the past weeks souring in her till she could taste it in her throat. “And if you want eggs — or anything else, for that matter — you’re going to have to fix it yourself.”
The Note
Two weeks later — June eighteenth, the last day of school for the girls — she was as busy as she’d ever been, up before dawn to prepare a feast for Bob Brooks and company, who were due later in the day. He’d be bringing Jimmie with him and two of the shearers to help haul the wool sacks down to the harbor for transshipment to Santa Barbara, and she wanted to make a holiday of it — especially for the girls, who’d worked hard and were looking forward to their summer vacation. In addition to two legs of lamb, mashed potatoes, chili beans and the traditional hot sauce, she was planning a pudding of canned pineapple, odds and ends of bread, cornmeal, sugar and the leftover bananas that had gone black and densely sweet since the last delivery, the whole to be tied up in a muslin sack and steamed in her big pot. To start, there’d be clam fritters wrapped in bacon and half a dozen loaves of sourdough bread — and the wine Bob was sure to bring with him, lest the hands set up a revolt.
By seven, she felt she had things under control, or mostly, anyway, the lamb scored, studded with cloves of garlic and set aside in the cool room, the hot sauce simmering on the stove, the loaves browning in the oven, and breakfast — oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon, and coffee, of course — all ready to go. Reg and Freddie came in first, both of them looking pleased with themselves — they were looking forward to a break in the routine as much as she was. “Smells good,” Reg said, hovering over the table, cap in hand. “Need any help?”
“No,” she said, glancing up, “I think I can manage.” If Herbie was still at odds with them, she wasn’t. Over the course of these past months, she felt she’d come to understand them — it wasn’t their fault they were stuck out here. They were good at heart, both of them, and they’d gradually begun to pitch in more, once they began to realize how lucky they were — as lucky as the lucky Lesters — to be out of the real fighting, where every day men were drowned, crushed, burned to death in a rain of bombs and torpedoes. To be bored was a small price to pay.