From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [104]
Stark loved his kitchen, it was already “his,” with the single-mindedness women have been taught to dream of and expect, demand, and decry when attached to anything but love. Stark drove himself as hard or harder than he drove the cooks and the KPs. The dormant Company Fund was brought into the light, and Stark bought new silverware, he recommended the purchase of newer better equipment. There were even fresh flowers on the tables now and then, a unique experience in G Company. Sloppiness in eating was no longer allowed, and Stark enforced this new rule like a tyrant. A man who slopped catsup over his plate onto the oilcloth would suddenly find himself outside the door in the middle of a meal. The KPs lived a life of hell on earth, yet the reflective eyes in Stark’s sad sneering laughing face were always soft and no KP could force himself to hate him. They saw him working just as hard as they did, and they chortled at the way he rode the cooks. Even fat Willard was forced to work.
In less than two weeks, before the end of March, the tall cadaverous Sergeant Preem was broken to a private. Capt Holmes could be as hard as the next man, when it was necessary. He called Preem in and told him bluntly and militarily. Because after all, it was Preem’s own fault, nobody could have given him more of a chance than Capt Holmes. If another man was the better man, then by rights he should have the job. He gave Preem a choice between transferring to another company in the Regiment, or transferring to another regiment, because you cant let a former high-ranking noncom stay in his outfit as a private, its bad for discipline.
Preem, who had been rising every day at noon, oozing that stale mushy smell of a middle-aged drunk, and wandering out dazedly through his now bustling sparkling kitchen where there was no room for him, chose the other regiment because he was ashamed. He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He was through and he knew it. His gravytrain days were over. He heard his fate with a face that was as much dazed as it was impassive. He was a broken man.
“Captain,” Warden said, after he had left, “how you want me to make this order out? Busted for ‘Inefficiency’?”
“Why, yes,” Holmes said. “How else would one make it?”
“Well, I thought maybe we might make it ‘Insubordination.’ Everybody gets busted for insubordination sometime or other. A man who aint been busted for insubordination aint a soldier yet. But ‘Inefficiency,’ a man who’s got that on his record’s done.”
“Why, yes, Sergeant,” Holmes said. “Make it ‘Insubordination.’ I dont guess anybody’ll know, will they? Preem ought to have a break, as long as it doesnt interfere with the efficiency of my Company. After all, he served with me in Bliss.”
“Yes, Sir,” Warden said.
The order was made out that way, but he knew it was a futile gesture. The minute Preem appeared at this new outfit with his rubber hammer look they would know the story.
That night Stark bought the traditional boxes of cigars and passed them out at chow. Everybody was happy with the new food, new management, and new rating. Pvt Preem ate in obscurity at a back table, already completely forgotten, displaying that most touching mark in soldiering: the dark spots on his sleeves from which the stripes had been removed.
Stark, Warden, Leva, Choate, and Pop Karelsen celebrated the occasion and christened Stark’s three stripes with beer at a private table in the shouting befogged interior of Choy’s. There were four fights that night, and Big Chief had to be transported home in the usual manner. Leva went over for the big two-wheeled machinegun cart and with much straining and grunting the huge limp