Nevertheless I had signed up in order to win a vote.
Or had I?
Had I ever cared about voting? No, it was the prestige, the pride, the status … of being a citizen.
Or was it?
I couldn’t to save my life remember why I had signed up.
Anyhow, it wasn’t the process of voting that made a citizen — the Lieutenant had been a citizen in the truest sense of the word, even though he had not lived long enough ever to cast a ballot. He had “voted” every time he made a drop.
And so had I!
I could hear Colonel Dubois in my mind: “Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part … and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.”
I still didn’t know whether I yearned to place my one-and-only body “between my loved home and the war’s desolation”—I still got the shakes every drop and that “desolation” could be pretty desolate. But nevertheless I knew at last what Colonel Dubois had been talking about. The M.I. was mine and I was theirs. If that was what the M.I. did to break the monotony, then that was what I did. Patriotism was a bit esoteric for me, too large-scale to see. But the M.I. was my gang, I belonged. They were all the family I had left; they were the brothers I had never had, closer than Carl had ever been. If I left them, I’d be lost.
So why shouldn’t I go career?
All right, all right — but how about this nonsense of greasing for a commission? That was something else again. I could see myself putting in twenty years and then taking it easy, the way Ace had described, with ribbons on my chest and carpet slippers on my feet … or evenings down at the Veterans Hall, rehashing old times with others who belonged. But O.C.S.? I could hear Al Jenkins, in one of the bull sessions we had about such things: “I’m a private! I’m going to stay a private! When you’re a private they don’t expect anything of you. Who wants to be an officer? Or even a sergeant? You’re breathing the same air, aren’t you? Eating the same food. Going the same places, making the same drops. But no worries.”
Al had a point. What had chevrons ever gotten me?—aside from lumps.
Nevertheless I knew I would take sergeant if it was ever offered to me. You don’t refuse, a cap trooper doesn’t refuse anything; he steps up and takes a swing at it. Commission, too, I supposed.
Not that it would happen. Who was I to think that I could ever be what Lieutenant Rasczak had been?
My walk had taken me close to the candidates’ school, though I don’t believe I intended to come that way. A company of cadets were out on their parade ground, drilling at trot, looking for all the world like boots in Basic. The sun was hot and it looked not nearly as comfortable as a bull session in the drop room of the Rodger Young—why, I hadn’t marched farther than bulkhead thirty since I had finished Basic; that breaking-in nonsense was past.
I watched them a bit, sweating through their uniforms; I heard them being chewed out — by sergeants, too. Old Home Week. I shook my head and walked away from there—
—went back to the accommodation barracks, over to the B.O.Q. wing, found Jelly’s room.
He was in it, his feet up on a table and reading a magazine. I knocked on the frame of the door. He looked up and growled, “Yeah?”
“Sarge — I mean, Lieutenant—”
“Spit it out!”
“Sir, I want to go career.”
He dropped his feet to the desk. “Put up your right hand.”
He swore me, reached into the drawer of the table and pulled out papers.
He had my papers already made out, waiting for me ready to sign. And I hadn’t even told Ace. How about that?
12
It is by no means enough that an officer should be capable… . He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor… . No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention, even if the reward be only one word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate.
True as may be the political principles for which we are now contending … the ships themselves must be ruled under a system of absolute despotism.
I trust that I have now made clear to you the tremendous responsibilities… . We must do the best we can with what we have.
The Rodger Young was again returning to Base for replacements, both capsules and men. Al Jenkins had bought his farm, covering a pickup — and that one had cost us the Padre, too. And besides that, I had to be replaced. I was wearing brand-new sergeant’s chevrons (vice Migliaccio) but I had a hunch that Ace would be wearing them as soon as I was out of the ship — they were mostly honorary, I knew; the promotion was Jelly’s way of giving me a good send-off as I was detached for O.C.S.
But it didn’t keep me from being proud of them. At the Fleet landing field I went through the exit gate with my nose in the air and strode up to the quarantine desk to have my orders stamped. As this was being done I heard a polite, respectful voice behind me: “Excuse me, Sergeant, but that boat that just came down — is it from the Rodger—”
I turned to see the speaker, flicked my eyes over his sleeves, saw that it was a small, slightly stoop-shouldered corporal, no doubt one of our—
“Father!”
Then the corporal had his arms around me. “Juan! Juan! Oh, my little Johnnie!”
I kissed him and hugged him and started to cry. Maybe that civilian clerk at the quarantine desk had never seen two non-coms kiss each other before. Well, if I had noticed him so much as lifting an eyebrow, I would have pasted him. But I didn’t notice him; I was busy. He had to remind me to take my orders with me.
By then we had blown our noses and quit making an open spectacle of ourselves. I said, “Father, let’s find a corner somewhere and sit down and talk. I want to know … well, everything!” I took a deep breath. “I thought you were dead.”
“No. Came close to buying it once or twice, maybe. But, Son … Sergeant — I really do have to find out about that landing boat. You see—”
“Oh, that. It’s from the Rodger Young. I just—”
He looked terribly disappointed. “Then I’ve got to bounce, right now. I’ve got to report in.” Then he added eagerly, “But you’ll be back aboard soon, won’t you, Juanito? Or are you going on R&R?”
“Uh, no.” I thought fast. Of all the ways to have things roll! “Look, Father, I know the boat schedule. You can’t go aboard for at least an hour and a bit. That boat is not on a fast retrieve; she’ll make a minimum-fuel rendezvous when the Rog completes this pass — if the pilot doesn’t have to wait over for the next pass after that; they’ve got to load first.”
He said dubiously, “My orders read to report at once to the pilot of the first available ship’s boat.”
“Father, Father! Do you have to be so confounded regulation? The girl who’s pushing that heap won’t care whether you board the boat now, or just as they button up. Anyhow they’ll play the ship’s recall over the speakers in here ten minutes before boost and announce it. You can’t miss it.”
He let me lead him over to an empty corner. As we sat down he added, “Will you be going up in the same boat, Juan? Or later?”
“Uh—” I showed him my orders; it seemed the simplest way to break the news. Ships that pass in the night, like the Evangeline story — cripes, what a way for things to break!