From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [412]
As he came out of it and his eyes refocused themselves, he found himself staring at the Morning Report Book that Dhom had fouled up for him. Pass the buck, pass the buck, he told himself angrily. Let somebody else do it.
Well, Warden, what are you going to do? You got to do something.
That Dhom, if he’d only learned himself to speak good grammar he would probly be a Major today, he had all the other qualifications. The no good stupid son of a bitch, he raged furiously as he locked the Book up in his private desk drawer, theres nothing stupider than a stupid German.
He ought to be able to give him ten days or two weeks. Unless something special or unusual came up, like maneuvers. Annual maneuvers would be coming due pretty soon now. But even five days would be that much extra protection, on the records, later on, when he did come back. Because there was not any doubt in his mind that he would come back. Thirty-year-men went over the hill, sure. Often. Thirty-year-men did not desert.
Not because they didnt want to, he thought, because they couldnt.
Where the hell was a thirty-year-man going to desert to?
It was possible they might send somebody around from the Provost Marshal’s office, but he doubted it. Fatso Judson was not worth that much to the Army, or to the Stockade. Fatso Judsons were dime a dozen in any outfit. There was at least one of them in every company, and usually there were more. The Commandant of the Stockade—
—lets see, he thought going over them in his mind, who was it? He watched an almost endless parade of officers’ faces, then his mind stopped the film and backed up to one of them. Thompson, the mental dossier informed him, Major Gerald W Thompson, formerly of the Umteenth Infantry, commanded I Co as a Captain, moved to Battalion Adjutant, on to Regimental Aide-de-Camp, made Major in charge of S-3 Plans & Training, graduated to Post Headquarters and promoted to Commandant of the Stockade; the one whose wife both Holmes and Culpepper use to take up on the Honouliuli trail riding—
—anyway, he thought, still proud the old automatic filing system functioned so perfect, Thompson would already have another Fatso Judson already in stock. And plenty more on the waiting list. We got at least two of them in this outfit: Liddell Henderson and Champ Wilson would both make good Fatso Judsons with a very slight proper training.
No, he did not think anybody would be around. But if they did he would still be covered. The day they came around was the day he would have just discovered Prewitt was gone. And, if they did prove anything, he was still covered. The furlough would cover him. Let Choate and Dhom take the blame, the sons of bitches, they started it. But when a whole compny went stone-deaf and blind on a thing like this you did not have to worry much. Nobody would rat; Dhom and Choate sure wouldnt; the only one who would be likely to rat would be Ike Galovitch, and who the hell would listen to an old nut like Ike who was busted for Inefficiency? But even Ike wouldnt have the guts to speak in the face of all this opposition.
Having figured it out to his own satisfaction, he crushed out the foul-tasting cigaret that he had not wanted anyway and, on second thought, got up and went to the filing cabinet and got out his bottle that he had been careful to mark with indelible pencil before he left on furlough, and took a big drink for his hangover.
It tasted very thin.
Has that sly quiet son of a bitch Rosenberry been watering my whiskey?
No, it wouldnt be Rosenberry. Not Rosenberry. It was probly more likely that fucking son of a bitch Dhom!
He took another big drink, because it was thin, and then sat back down at his desk, still in the dirty crumpled but prize $120 Brooks Bros, powder-blue tropical-worsted that he had given so much thought to before he picked it to wear on his idyll. He was thinking that that was what a man got for trying to take a little time off. They not only fouled up his Morning