Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [110]
Willie disengaged himself gently, smiling at May. “Mother,” he said, taking her hand and May’s hand, “I’d like you to meet-ah-Marie Minotti.”
PART FOUR
SHORE LEAVE
CHAPTER 16
Shore Leave
Willie and May were huddled together in the moonlight beside a tall pine on the floor of the Yosemite Valley, in front of the Ahwanee Hotel. Their cheeks touched; their breath mingled in a cloud of white vapor. They heard a deep masculine voice call, in long-drawn tones echoing between the sheer valley walls, “Let the fire fall!” From the peak of a cliff a red cascade of embers came tumbling straight down through the darkness, a glowing, floating fiery column a mile high. Somewhere in the gloom cowboy musicians began a melancholy little love song. Willie and May turned to each other and kissed.
After a while they walked arm in arm into the hotel. Through the bright lobby decorated with multicolored Indian hangings, and skins, and horns, they strolled to the red-lacquered elevator. They rode up three floors and got out together. It was all of a long winter night before Willie returned to his own room, and sank into an armchair in an excess of stupefied pleasure, still thinking with joy of his last glimpse of May, enchanting in her simple white nightdress, with her red hair tumbled on her bare shoulders, smiling up at him as he closed her door. It was a perfectly satisfying picture, and he had no way of knowing that in her room below May was crouched in a chair, shivering and crying.
It was the familiar story: the young man back from the war, eager for his love, impatient of the cautious rules of peacetime; his girl no less eager for him, and ready to do anything to make him happy; and so, good-by rules! Willie had never tried to force May to yield to him. He had feared the entanglement more than he wanted this last intimacy, and their relationship had been full of sweetness without it. Nor did he force her this night. It happened; and it happened the more easily because they had both read lots of books which dismissed the rules as pretty primitive taboos and asserted that all morals were relative to time and place. Willie, floating in a daze of well-being, was certain at this moment that the books contained true wisdom. May, for some reason, wasn’t so sure. Anyway, the deed was done.
A couple of hours later, after May had telephoned him and both had confessed that they were wide awake, they sat at a table in the dining room, eating breakfast in a flood of white sunshine. Through the tall cathedral-like window they could see the nearby towering cliff, and pine forests dark green against the snow, and, far away, the everlasting white peaks of the Sierras; an especially agreeable contrast for a table set with a fine cloth, and fresh flowers, and fragrant bacon and eggs and hot coffee. They were both very gay. Willie leaned back and said with a luxurious sigh, “Well, it cost me a hundred and ten dollars, but it was worth it.”
“A hundred and ten dollars? For what? Two days in this place?”
“No, no. That was the ransom I paid to get off the Caine.”
He told May about the lost liquor crate, and described how, when he had requested a seventy-two-hour pass, Captain Queeg had hemmed and hawed, and finally said, “Well, now, Willie, it seems to me you’ve still got that fiasco with the crate on your record.” Whereupon the ensign had quickly answered, “Sir, I accept complete responsibility for my stupidity, and will try never to repeat such a bad performance. The least I can do, sir, is reimburse you for a loss which was