No doubt a gentleman wart hog feels the same way about a lady wart hog — but, if so, both of us are very sincere.
There are other opportunities for recreation there, too. I remember with particular pleasure one evening when a table of Roughnecks got into a friendly discussion with a group of Navy men (not from the Rodger Young) seated at the next table. The debate was spirited, a bit noisy, and some Base police came in and broke it up with stun guns just as we were warming to our rebuttal. Nothing came of it, except that we had to pay for the furniture — the Base Commandant takes the position that a man on R&R should be allowed a little freedom as long as he doesn’t pick one of the “thirty-one crash landings.”
The accommodation barracks are all right, too — not fancy, but comfortable and the chow line works twenty-five hours a day with civilians doing all the work. No reveille, no taps, you’re actually on leave and you don’t have to go to the barracks at all. I did, however, as it seemed downright preposterous to spend money on hotels when there was a clean, soft sack free and so many better ways to spend accumulated pay. That extra hour in each day was nice, too, as it meant nine hours solid and the day still untouched — I caught up sack time clear back to Operation Bughouse.
It might as well have been a hotel; Ace and I had a room all to ourselves in visiting non-com quarters. One morning, when R&R was regrettably drawing to a close, I was just turning over about local noon when Ace shook my bed. “On the bounce, soldier! The Bugs are attacking.”
I told him what to do with the Bugs.
“Let’s hit dirt,” he persisted.
“No dinero.” I had had a date the night before with a chemist (female, of course, and charmingly so) from the Research Station. She had known Carl on Pluto and Carl had written to me to look her up if I ever got to Sanctuary. She was a slender redhead, with expensive tastes. Apparently Carl had intimated to her that I had more money than was good for me, for she decided that the night before was just the time for her to get acquainted with the local champagne. I didn’t let Carl down by admitting that all I had was a trooper’s honorarium; I bought it for her while I drank what they said was (but wasn’t) fresh pineapple squash. The result was that I had to walk home, afterwards — the cabs aren’t free. Still, it had been worth it. After all, what is money?—I’m speaking of Bug money, of course.
“No ache,” Ace answered. “I can juice you — I got lucky last night. Ran into a Navy file who didn’t know percentages.”
So I got up and shaved and showered and we hit the chow line for half a dozen shell eggs and sundries such as potatoes and ham and hot cakes and so forth and then we hit dirt to get something to eat. The walk up Churchill Road was hot and Ace decided to stop in a cantina. I went along to see if their pineapple squash was real. It wasn’t, but it was cold. You can’t have everything.
We talked about this and that and Ace ordered another round. I tried their strawberry squash — same deal. Ace stared into his glass, then said, “Ever thought about greasing for officer?”
I said, “Huh? Are you crazy?”
“Nope. Look, Johnnie, this war may run on quite a piece. No matter what propaganda they put out for the folks at home, you and I know that the Bugs aren’t ready to quit. So why don’t you plan ahead? As the man says, if you’ve got to play in the band, it’s better to wave the stick than to carry the big drum.”
I was startled by the turn the talk had taken, especially from Ace. “How about you? Are you planning to buck for a commission?”
“Me?” he answered. “Check your circuits, son — you’re getting wrong answers. I’ve got no education and I’m ten years older than you are. But you’ve got enough education to hit the selection exams for O.C.S. and you’ve got the I.Q. they like. I guarantee that if you go career, you’ll make sergeant before I do … and get picked for O.C.S. the day after.”
“Now I know you’re crazy!”
“You listen to your pop. I hate to tell you this, but you are just stupid and eager and sincere enough to make the kind of officer that men love to follow into some silly predicament. But me — well, I’m a natural non-com, with the proper pessimistic attitude to offset the enthusiasm of the likes of you. Someday I’ll make sergeant … and presently I’ll have my twenty years in and retire and get one of the reserved jobs — cop, maybe — and marry a nice fat wife with the same low tastes I have, and I’ll follow the sports and fish and go pleasantly to pieces.”
Ace stopped to wet his whistle. “But you,” he went on. “You’ll stay in and probably make high rank and die gloriously and I’ll read about it and say proudly, ‘I knew him when. Why, I used to lend him money — we were corporals together.’ Well?”
“I’ve never thought about it,” I said slowly. “I just meant to serve my term.”
He grinned sourly. “Do you see any term enrollees being paid off today? You expect to make it on two years?”
He had a point. As long as the war continued, a “term” didn’t end — at least not for cap troopers. It was mostly a difference in attitude, at least for the present. Those of us on “term” could at least feel like short-timers; we could talk about: “When this flea-bitten war is over.” A career man didn’t say that; he wasn’t going anywhere, short of retirement — or buying it.
On the other hand, neither were we. But if you went “career” and then didn’t finish twenty … well, they could be pretty sticky about your franchise even though they wouldn’t keep a man who didn’t want to stay.
“Maybe not a two-year term,” I admitted. “But the war won’t last forever.”
“It won’t?”
“How can it?”
“Blessed if I know. They don’t tell me these things. But I know that’s not what is troubling you, Johnnie. You got a girl waiting?”
“No. Well, I had,” I answered slowly, “but she ‘Dear-Johned’ me.” As a lie, this was no more than a mild decoration, which I tucked in because Ace seemed to expect it. Carmen wasn’t my girl and she never waited for anybody — but she did address letters with “Dear Johnnie” on the infrequent occasions when she wrote to me.
Ace nodded wisely. “They’ll do it every time. They’d rather marry civilians and have somebody around to chew out when they feel like it. Never you mind, son — you’ll find plenty of them more than willing to marry when you’re retired … and you’ll be better able to handle one at that age. Marriage is a young man’s disaster and an old man’s comfort.” He looked at my glass. “It nauseates me to see you drinking that slop.”
“I feel the same way about the stuff you drink,” I told him.
He shrugged. “As I say, it takes all kinds. You think it over.”
“I will.”
Ace got into a card game shortly after, and lent me some money and I went for a walk; I needed to think.
Go career? Quite aside from that noise about a commission, did I want to go career? Why, I had gone through all this to get my franchise, hadn’t I?—and if I went career, I was just as far away from the privilege of voting as if I had never enrolled … because as long as you were still in uniform you weren’t entitled to vote. Which was the way it should be, of course — why, if they let the Roughnecks vote the idiots might vote not to make a drop. Can’t have that.