From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [328]
“Six days,” Angelo Maggio grinned proudly out of the bent dented face. “But it was easy. It was nothin. I could do twenty days, or fifty days, just as easy,” he said, “I know I could. Why hell, if they—”
He stopped suddenly, guiltily startled, as if he had almost been trapped into making an admission. As Prew watched, the old wild wary miserly look that Prew had learned to recognize now, came onto his face.
“Never mind,” said Angelo Maggio slyly. “You’ll find out: I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now, the thing to do is to get you in with us.”
“Whatever you say, buddy. This is your show. And you’re running it,” Prew told him tightly. Six days, he thought. “When do we start? You name it.”
“Today,” Angelo said without hesitation. “Any time is okay, but its better to do it quick and then you dont have so much time to stew over it. Do it at chow this noon.”
“Check,” Prew said, and stood looking at him, at the tiny narrow-chested bonyshouldered undernourished frame of him with the thin legs and pipestem arms in the sacklike fatigue suit under the ridiculous looking fatigue hat that shaded the black burning eyes that were looking at him intensely. Six days, he thought, thats 144 hours.
“I got to tell you something,” Angelo told him painfully. He paused. “It was The Malloy made me tell you all about how it is in the Hole,” he confessed. “I wasnt going to tell you. I was just going to let you find it out. Like I did. I guess I was scared you’d back out if you knew ahead of time.”
“What made you think I’d back out?”
“Because,” Angelo Maggio said violently, “I know damn well I’d of back down if I’d of knew what I was going into the first time I got in there.”
Prew laughed. To himself it sounded very nervous. “I feel like a collegekid must feel goin in to take his first big exam,” he explained.
“Probly. Me, I wount know.”
“Me neither. Remind me to ask one some time and see.”
“Theres the whistle,” Angelo said. “Its quittin time.”
“Yeah,” Prew said, “it is, aint it?”
“I see you in three days, old buddy,” Angelo grinned at him, as they moved down, carrying their hammers, towards where the trucks had come up.
“I wonder how our dear friend Corporal Bloom is doing along about now?” Angelo tried to joke him.
“Probly made sergeant by now,” Prew joked back automatically, but his mind was not with it. His mind was sealed up in gum.
“Maybe only two days,” Angelo said, “and,” he said, “in Number Two Barricks, is where I’ll see you. Not on no rockpile.” He turned and went to his truck.
“Okay,” Prew said vaguely after him; “see you.”
Then he was alone, in the truck with the rest of the men from Number Three barrack, who could not understand this, and would probably not do it if they could, he thought proudly, trying to bolster himself a little.
But he would do it. And he knew he would do it. He had to do it. Because he wanted Angelo Maggio and Jack Malloy, and even Berry, to admire him, he wanted to keep on calling himself a Man, by his definition, there was no way out but to do it.
His mouth was dry and he wished he had a drink of water.
It was very lonely there in the close crowded truck.
Chapter 38
IT WAS ALWAYS very lonely, Cpl Isaac Nathan Bloom thought as he left the messhall that same noon. For a noncom it was always lonely.
He went on upstairs to his bunk.
As usual, the squadroom was deserted. Bloom did not know why he had expected it to be not deserted. For over two weeks now he had been the first one out, every meal, and the squadroom was always deserted, but he always hoped it would not be deserted. Today, in this heat, he had thought maybe there would be somebody who had passed up chow. Bloom did not see how any man could stuff his gut with hot food on a scorcher of a day like this. Himself, he had spent fifteen minutes of agony toying with the steaming food, making himself swallow bites his stomach did not want. He did it for two reasons: because, as a fighter, he had to maintain his health; and because he did not want to look conspicuous