From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [422]
Warden went about setting up his CP at Hanauma Bay for the second time, still with no Prewitt, but forgetting that now. Even in the memory of the old Island men like Pete Karelsen and Turp Thornhill, nothing like this had ever happened before.
Up to then they had always moved onto the beach, set the MGs up in the open, and slept on the sand in their blankets—or, if they were lucky like Position #16 on Doris Duke’s estate, in a beach cabana with the compliments of the estate’s manager (Nobody ever even saw Doris). That was the way it had always been, and that was the way they had assumed it would always be. That an enemy naval force could blow them to hell sitting out there in the open like that, long before it started to send barges in, they fully realized; and, knowing the Army like draftees will never know it, that was just what they expected to happen if the Island was ever attacked. But as long as there were bars to sneak off to and so many Americanized gook girls around to invite onto the position to inspect the awesomely lethal machineguns, they didnt give a damn one way or the other. Anyway, who the hell was ever going to attack this island anyway? The Japanese?
Showing them the MGs was an inspiration. It was practically irresistible. In addition to the awesomeness of the potential death in them there was the intriguing mechanical mystery of an unknown machine function that no American black brown or white can ever resist tinkering with to find out how it works. And with the hard cases you could even let them sit down behind the gun and swing it on the pintle and pull the dead trigger. Not even a virgin wahine could resist that. A haole girl, yes. But not a wahine, because in spite of the absolute triumph of American mechanics, plus all the efforts of the self-chosen-missionaries, American morals had come no nearer to winning a victory in the Islands than had American standards of comfort, so that they did not even mind being screwed in a shelter tent on the sand.
Rumor had it that the rest of the Infantry outfits were doing the same thing and building pillboxes on their positions, but G Company was getting more ass than it had ever gotten before in its history, in spite of the work. Not to mention all the pints and fifths they gave the wahines the money to buy for them, or that if they were broke the wahines bought and brought by themselves—(the good thing about wahines, Mack, that is different from white women, is that wahines like whiskey with their panipani almost as much as us soljers).
If there was anyone in the Company who wondered at all, it was Milt Warden who was unable to take advantage of the bonanza because of his newly acquired fear of fiascoes. Warden, perhaps alone, wondered if maybe this was finally the beginning? if perhaps somebody in Washington or somewhere had gotten ahold of some information or something that had finally worked its way down through channels. He had always wondered just how they began to begin; nobody that ever wrote about them ever seemed to mention just exactly how they began. But since nobody else said anything about it, he did not bring it up either. Maybe he was just being foolish. Besides, it would be a shame to spoil all the fun that everybody but him seemed to be having.
The job lasted a month. It was a wonderful time, even though there was a strict order against giving passes. In a situation like this who the hell wanted passes? Engineer Companies delivered them ready-cut beams and planking of koa wood that they had cut on the slopes of Barber’s Point. All they had to do was dig holes in sand and set beams in them and line them with planking, and then put beams over them and line them with planking, and then cover it all up with sand, after they had made sure the MG apertures