From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [111]
So saying, he charged into the KP room, bull-like, not giving the other a chance to change his mind, and hung his fatigue hat on the faucets of this prize that was a windfall. He was very happy to have outwitted Prewitt.
Prew was already washing egg pans at the big double sink in the kitchen when Readall Treadwell finally appeared, having been routed out with the rest of the Company by the CQ at First Call. He saw Reedy peek at him, quite surprised, then amble happily into the KP room, so happily that he almost bumped into Dining Room Orderly Maggio who was coming through.
“Comin through!” screamed Maggio, shoving the two empty platters he had in his hands in front of him. “Stand aside! Hot stuff! Comin through! Me and my table waiters,” he bawled commandingly, in the protective tone of an officer who looks out for his men, “we workin our ass off. They runnin us to death. Hot Stuff! Comin through hot stuff one side!” He pushed through to the kitchen to refill the platters, joyfully cracking the new whip of his authority that nobody paid any attention to, least of all his eight table waiters.
“Howm I doin?” he asked Prew under his breath. “Man, I’m rough. Puttin in for corporal tomorra.”
Prew stopped long enough to grin at him ruefully, before he went back to work, scraping, washing, and rinsing the food-encrusted cooking pans and the mucky mixing basins that were suddenly beginning to pile up on him now, that he had never seen so many of at one time before, and that, work as he would, he could not get caught up with. And he worked fast, listening to Readall Treadwell in the KP room across the entryway asking Bloom what had happened as he hung the soap bucket on his hot faucet and turned it on full force.
“I dont know,” future Corporal Bloom said disapprovingly. “Prewitt had first choice and he choosed them. It doesnt matter now, what matters is you’re late, Treadwell. You make it hard on everybody when you’re late. Your sink’s half full of plates already.”
“You think I’m late?” future and forever Private Readall Treadwell said. “You just dont know. Usually I don’ git here till the sink’s plumb full. You jist happen to be lucky.”
“Personally,” future Corporal Bloom said, availing himself of the FMs’ morale psychology, “I’d rather work with you than Prewitt, anyway. You and me can really slick them up, Treadwell. But you got to get on the ball, Treadwell. You got to hustle up and show some pride.”
“I’m happy,” forever Private Treadwell grunted. “You’re unhappy. But I’m happy.”
The pots and pans kept piling up on Prewitt puzzlingly. Never in his life had he seen a crew of cooks use so many pots and pans so quickly and so often. It took him quite a while to catch on to what Willard was pulling on him. It was so outlandish that for a while he thought it was his imagination, inflamed and offended by the rotten muckiness that covered every pore of him, that it was exaggerating in a wild effort to help him keep his pride. But it was obvious, as the stacks kept getting higher, that no cook ever used that many pans, even for an officers’ banquet at the Club, ladies invited.
It was not until the middle of the morning, however—when Maggio had lovingly sent his table waiters off to drill and got his tables all scrubbed, when Bloom and Treadwell had finished up their dishes, the three of them settling down disgustedly with no morning break to peel the spuds for dinner (but working, Prew noticed enviously from his steaming greasy sinks, with the raw spuds crisp and solid in the hands in cool clear water that did not film the arms with grease)—it was not till then that Stark noticed anything was wrong. Willard being far too shrewd to ever complain that Prew was slow.
“Kind of slow with the pots and pans today, aint you, Prewitt?” Stark said, stopping by the sink and looking at the crotch-high stacks of pans stacked all around him. “You should be done by now.”
“I guess I’m just slow,” Prew said.
“The cook’ll need them pans to cook in pretty soon.”
“They probly need them