From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [205]
“I wouldnt depend on that completely,” Jake said. “If he doesnt come around soon, so that he gets full benefit of the trainin’ season, he wont be any good to you anyway, will he?”
“Oh, yes,” Holmes said. “What I want him for is the Bowl season next winter, not the Company Smokers.” He smiled a little condescendingly, feeling he had won that round.
“Yes,” Jake pressed him, “but if he gets out of going out for Smokers, he’s still made you back down and lose face. And thats no good. Eh?” he said to Slater. “Am I right?”
Sam Slater looked at him some time before he answered. He had been sitting back, watching both of them, knowing they were playing for his approbation now. It warmed him. Jake of course had all the rank, but Jake was a coward and a member of the old Paternalism school that inevitably someday he and his generation would have to fight. And he liked young Holmes.
“Yes,” he said, finally. “Thats right. The important thing,” he said to Holmes, “is that you as an officer must not allow even a suspicion that an EM has made you back down. The boxing thing itself is unimportant,” he added, looking at Jake.
Jake preferred to ignore that one. He had gained a temporary advantage, and he had changed the subject; that was enough for now. But it was outrageous that he should even have to struggle with Holmes, he a Lieutenant Colonel. “If he doesnt come around soon,” he told Holmes coldly, “you have to break him. Have no choice. Throw the book at him, so that at least by winter and the Bowl Season he will be ready to talk turkey.”
“Yes,” Holmes said doubtfully. He had sensed the Brigadier’s favor in that last crack about the boxing, but he did not know whether he had enough collateral to plunge. “But I don’t think it will work that way,” he said, deciding to risk it. “I don’t think you can break this man.”
“Ha!” Jake said. He looked at the General. “Of course you can break him.”
“You can break any man,” Sam Slater said coldly. “You are an officer.”
“Thats right,” Jake said stoutly. “I remember when I served here at Schofield as a Captain and John Dillinger was a private. If there ever was an honest to God maverick that couldnt be broken, there was one. But by God they broke him. They broke him right here in the Post Stockade. I bet you he served most of his enlistment in the Post Stockade, by God,” Jake said indignantly. “Thats when he swore he’d get even with the United States if it was the last thing he ever did.”
“That doesnt sound like they broke him,” Holmes said, unable to back out now. “From the way he went after he got out of here, I would say they never broke him.”
“Oh yes they did,” Jake said. “J E Hoover and his boys broke him. They broke him right in two, that night in Chicago. Just like they broke Prettyboy Floyd and the rest of them.”
“They killed him,” Holmes said. “Not broke him.”
“Its the same thing,” Jake said indignantly. “What the hell ’s the difference?”
“I dont know,” Holmes said, deciding to give up. “None, I guess.” But he knew he did not believe that. It was in his voice.
“No,” Sam Slater said. “Jake’s wrong. There is a great deal of difference. They never broke Dillinger. You might as well be honest, Jake, and give him his due.”
Jake Delbert’s face thickened redly.
“You cant understand that,” Sam Slater said deliberately. “But I can understand him. And I think Dynamite here can.”
Jake sat down in his chair and raised his drink up to his reddened face and sipped it, and Sam Slater stared back at him unmoved. “But the important thing is they did kill him, like they always kill them. The only thing wrong with Dillinger was he was an individualist, and you cant understand that, Jake. But thats why they had to kill him. Crime never pays, see?” he grinned.
Holmes felt vastly relieved, but then as Slater spoke he had a vivid mental picture, suddenly, of how a little difference of opinion in thought, just like this one, say between a private and