Battle Cry - Leon Uris [117]
The only movement was muffled voice and action of the poker players on the boarded hold at night. I was killing time, waiting for someone to go busted so I could get a seat in the game, when I noticed Gunner Keats standing in the hatchway, trying to get my attention. I went over to him. “What’s doing, Jack?” I asked. I always addressed him by his first name when we were alone. Keats moved me over to a dark corner, very quiet-like and secretive. I tried to think what could be wrong. “Did Huxley find out we jumped ship Christmas Eve?” I asked.
He looked about to make sure we were unwatched, then reached inside his shirt and handed me a bottle. “It’s for the squad, Mac. Happy New Year.”
“Scotch, real Scotch! Christ, I forgot it was New Year’s Eve…nineteen forty-three…thanks, Jack.”
“Happy New Year, Mac. I hope the ship’s captain doesn’t miss the bottle.”
I went to my section and aroused my boys and placed my finger to my lips, lest the secret spread. Seymour, the Intelligence man, seemed to wake at the first step and spring up with a catlike motion. I asked him to join us. We all moved deftly to the head and locked the door. I broke out the bottle.
“Compliments of the Gunner,” I said. “Happy New Year, men.”
“New Year’s?”
“How about that?”
“Scotch.”
“I’ll be go to hell.”
I passed the bottle. Marion skipped his swig and carefully measured Spanish Joe’s, pulling the bottle from his lips and passing it on.
“Aw gee, Marion, I thought you wanted me to drink yours too.”
We managed three small slugs apiece. We were all fully awake now and the steamy hold held no invitation for further sleep, so we began shooting the breeze.
“New Year’s Eve,” L.Q. said. “Know where I’d be now? In my old man’s car with a woman, heading for a party. You know, the high school crowd. We’d snitch a drink or two and get a nice warm glow up, then dance and get friendly with our dates. Dance till two or three and then find a nice dark corner and make out. The girls would all go upstairs and sleep and we’d sleep on the couch and the floor. Then around six, get into the cars and head for an all-night beanery and eat big plates of ham and eggs, just when the sun was coming up.”
“That’s about the way we did.” Danny said. “The folks let us get away with it once a year—you know, all being in the same crowd.”
“New Year’s should be spent in a whorehouse,” Spanish Joe said. “The girls usually get good and crocked and you can beat paying them for a couple of tricks.”
Marion’s face flushed, then Spanish Joe cut himself short and looked apologetic. I wondered whether it was spontaneous or intentional.
“You guys ought to get some hay in your hair. Nothing like a square dance on New Year’s,” seasick Seabags said.
“We generally get it where we can,” Burnside said, “Singapore, Reykjavik, Rio…it’s all the same to a gyrene.”
“I liked mine in a nightclub, a good loud noisy drunken nightclub with a rotten floor show and a ten-dollar cover charge,” Seymour said, holding up the last shot in the bottle. “I used to drink this all the time,” he said, “but a man should drink it slowly, sip it, get the full flavor. Never mix it. Let it trickle over the ice cubes. Good Scotch is nothing to be devoured like a hambone.”
We turned and looked at the thin man with the gaunt face. It was hard to judge his age. Or much else about him, for that matter. His good taste was obvious, but it is hard to tell the rich from the poor or the cultured from the ignorant when they are all in dungarees.
“You’re the guy from Intelligence, from Guadalcanal?” L.Q. asked.
“Yes,” he almost whispered, “I was just on Guadalcanal.”
“How was it, pretty rough, huh?”
“Rough?” he answered, laying the bottle down. “Yes, it was rough.”
“Give us the word.”
“O.K., I’ll give it to you.” He perched himself on a sink. His eyes narrowed. The ship speeded her engines, sending a steady vibration through