From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [398]
His side was bleeding steadily and he took the other handkerchief, the clean one, and wadded it and stuck it inside his shirt and clamped his arm down on it, working hurriedly to catch it before it soaked down through his pants; it had already come through his shirt in spots and the gook shirt had been ripped open where the knife had gone in. But his arm would partly cover that.
Then he moved on out the east end of the alley, walking north away from town. After he had walked two blocks he stepped into another alley and sat down and leaned back against the wall to think it over now. It felt very cozily safe in the alley.
He ought to be somewhere up around Vineyard Street now. This was gook quarters up here above Beretania, tenements, and he didn’t know this part very well. But Vineyard Street, he remembered, ran east quite a ways. It was east that he would have to go.
It was useless to think about going back to Schofield now, cut up like this; they’d have him the first thing in the morning as soon as they found Fatso even if he did manage to get in through the gate. The only thing left to do now was to make it across town to Alma’s. If he could get to Alma’s he would be all right.
His mind was working very clearly, with the same crystal intensity of focus as in the fight, and he grinned at it ruefully. Lock the barn after the horse is stolen. If the son of a bitch could only think as clearly all the time as it did when it had to, we wouldnt never get into these positions where it had to.
He had not even considered the possibility of getting cut up so bad he could not go back to the Post. Any fool ought to of thought of that. He had not thought to bring extra handkerchieves either; dry handkerchieves would have helped to coagulate it faster.
The steady bleeding, slow, but still as inexorably logical and indifferent to plans and wishes as one of Jack Malloy’s Natural Laws, was beginning to soak through the handkerchief in spots and drip down his side again. He shifted the handkerchief again and clamped his arm back down on it and that stopped the dripping, but he still would not be able to climb on a bus or streetcar looking like this with a ripped-open shirt showing spots of blood. It might soak through on the bus where he could not shift it again and his mind coldly flashed him a picture of the consternation he would cause getting up to walk off a brightly lighted city bus. There was nothing in this world as red as blood. Not even Jack Malloy’s archenemies the Communists were as red as blood. Especially your own blood.
It was probably four miles to Kaimuki from here, then almost another mile up Wilhelmina Rise to Alma’s. And that was as the crow flies. You could add another mile for detours to keep on the side streets that were not lighted bright enough to show like the buses would. That made it about six miles to do, figuring liberally. And he would have to walk it. But if he could get to Alma’s he would be all right.
We want to figure this out right, he told himself, we want to be damn sure, we want all the percentages we can cluster. He might risk a taxi, provided he could find one on the side streets, if he thought he couldnt make it. We’ll keep that for the old ace in the hole. Some of them write to the old folks for coin, thats their old ace in the hole. Others have girls on the old tenderloin, thats their old ace in the hole. They tell you of trips they are going to make, from Frisco down to the South Pole; but their names would be mud, like a chump playing stud, if they lost their old ace in the hole. You’re already getting nuttier than a peach orchard boar, Prewitt. Pretty soon you wont know whether Christ was crucified or died with the screen door flux.
Sitting with his back against the wall of the alley he allowed himself time for one cigaret before starting, thinking it would clot up some if he held quite still. It was the best cigaret he had ever tasted. He smoked it slowly feeling cozily safe in the alley. Then he grinned again. Funny how the little things like a