From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [3]
“I dont know. Why are you?”
“Because.” Red paused triumphantly. “Same reason as you: Because I could live better on the Inside than I could on the Outside. I wasnt ready to starve yet.”
“Thats logical,” Prew grinned.
“Goddam right. I’m a logical guy. Its only common sense. Why you think I’m in this Bugle Corps?”
“Because its logical,” Prew said. “Only, that aint the reason I’m in the army. And it aint the reason I’m in, was in, this Bugle Corps.”
“I know,” Red said disgustedly. “Now he’s going to start that crap about the thirty year men.”
“All right,” Prew said. “But what else would I be? Where else would I go? Me! A man has got to have some place.”
“Okay,” Red said. “But if you’re a thirty year man, and you love to bugle so, why are you quitting? That aint like no thirty year man.”
“All right,” Prew said. “Lets look at you: Since the Depression’s gettin over, since they started makin stuff to send to England for this war, since they started this peacetime draft—you’re on the Inside behind your common sense, like a man behind the bars. Your old job’s waitin for you, and you cant even buy out now since the peacetime draft came in.”
“I’m markin time,” Red explained to him. “I dint starve while Prosperity was behind that stack of howitzers, and before we get in this goddam war my hitch will be up, and I’ll be back home with a good safe job makin periscopes for tanks, while you thirty year men are gettin your ass shot off.”
As Prew listened the mobile face before him melted to a battle-blackened skull as though a flamethrower had passed over it, kissed it lightly, and moved on. The skull talked on to him about its health. And he remembered now the reason for this urgency of deciding right. It was like with a virgin, one wrong decision was enough to do it; after one you were not ever the same again. A man who ate too much got fat, and the only way to keep from getting fat was not to eat too much. There was no short cut in elastic trusses for ex-athletes, or in the patented rowing machines, or in synthetic diet; not if you ate too much. When you cut with life you had to use the house deck, not your own.
The reason was, he wanted to be a bugler. Red could play a bugle well because Red was not a bugler. It was really very simple, so simple that he was surprised he had not seen it standing there before. He had to leave the Bugle Corps because he was a bugler. Red did not have to leave it. But he had to leave, because he wanted most of all to stay.
Prew stood up, looking at his watch. “Its nine-fifteen,” he said. “I got to be at G Company at nine-thirty for my interview.” He grinned as he pulled the last word with his mouth, twisting it the way a badly silvered mirror subtly changes faces.
“Sit down a minute more,” Red said. “I wasnt going to mention this, unless I had to.”
Prew looked down at him and then sat down, knowing what it was that he would say. “Make it quick,” he said. “I got to go.”
“You know who the Compny Commander of G Compny is, don’t you, Prew?”
“Yeah,” Prew said. “I know.”
Red could not let it ride. “Captain Dana E. Holmes,” he said. “‘Dynamite’ Holmes. The Regimental boxing coach.”
“Okay,” Prew said.
“I know all about why you transferred into this outfit last year,” Red said. “I know all about Dixie Wells. You never told me, Prew, but I know it. Everybody knows it.”
“All right,” Prew said. “I don’t care who knows it. I dint expect it could be hid,” he said.
“You had to leave the 27th,” Red told him. “When you quit the boxing squad and refused to fight any more, you had to transfer out. Because they wouldnt let you alone, wouldnt let you just quit in peace. They followed you around and put the pressure on. Until you had to transfer out.”
“I did what I wanted to do,” Prew said.
“Did you?” Red said. “Dont you see?” he said. “They’ll always follow you around. You cant go your own way in peace, not in our time. Unless you’re willing to play ball.
“Maybe back in the old days, back in the time of the pioneers, a man could do what he wanted to do, in peace. But he had the woods then, he could go