From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [434]
Prew was puzzled. “But what about all the time before that? I was gone a week before maneuvers started.”
“He dont know about that.”
“But how . . . ?”
“God damn it!” Warden said. “Baldy Dhom carried you present. I was on furlough and he was Acting First and he carried you present. He was still carrying you present when I got back. He had me by the balls and I either had to go back and pick you up retroactive, or else carry it.”
“But your furlough was up three days after I left.”
“Dont kid yourself,” Warden said viciously. “I wouldnt of done it for you. I wouldnt have carried you one single day. You were a fuckup when you got in this company and you’re still one and you’ll always be one. I dont know why the fuck I’m down here bothering to talk to you right now.”
“Because you’re ashamed of being an officer,” Prew grinned.
“I’ve never been ashamed of anything I ever did in my life,” Warden snorted. “Includin that. Shame aint a spontaneous emotion; shame is an induced emotion. A man who knows his own mind dont know what shame is.”
“What book did you read that in?”
“If I had any brains I never would have fucked off and come down here in the first place.”
Prew did not say anything. He did not try to uncover any more of the unexplained four days grace, and he did not try to bore any deeper into what was such an obvious lie. He would have felt ashamed if he did.
“I guess you think I’m ungrateful,” he said finally.
“Everybody’s ungrateful,” Warden snorted. “I’m even ungrateful to myself, for all the favors I do me.”
“A mans got to decide for himself what he has to do,” Prew said.
“Everybody decides for themself,” Warden said. “And always wrong.”
“You aint been in that Stockade. I saw them kill a man in that Stockade. They beat him to death.”
“He probly ask for it.”
“Whether he ask for it or not aint the point. Nobody’s got the right to do that to another human being.”
“Maybe not, but they do it,” Warden grinned. “All the time.”
“Matter of fact, the guy did ask for it,” Prew said. “But that still dont give them the right to do it to him. He happened to be a friend of mine. Fatso Judson was the man who was responsible for it.”
“Dont tell me your worries,” Warden said. “I got worries enough of my own. I told you what I could do for you, and thats the best I can do.”
“Can you see why I cant go back there any more?”
“I cant see anything,” Warden said. “Can you see why I’d be an officer?”
“Sure,” Prew said. “I can see it. I’d like to be one myself sometimes. You’d make a good officer.”
“Then you can see more than I can,” Warden said viciously. “Lets get out of this firetrap.”
They pushed out through the surging mass and stopped outside to light cigarets. Across the street the Blue Chancre was lighted and yelling. The sidewalks were crowded with Men of Schofield. Letting down, letting way down, after six weeks to two months in the field.
They had to stand back against the building to keep from being carried along in the press. From the dark of River Street down at the end of the block to as far up the other way as they could see Beretania was blazing at them with neon and lighted display windows interspersed with the dark stairways of the whorehouses.
“It’s pretty,” Prew said. “I’ve always liked neon signs. I like to stand at one end of a street and look at them all strung out down along it. Theres fifty towns in this country that got prettier streets than Broadway. Memphis, Albuquerque, Miami, Colorado Springs, Cincinnati I like the crowds, too—except when I get in them.”
Warden didnt say anything.
“I wish I could go back,” Prew said. “I want to go back. But I cant do any more time, even to go back.”
“The only way you’ll ever go back without having to do time,” Warden said viciously, “is if the Japs or somebody bombs this fucking island and they let all the prisoners out to go fight.”
“You’re a big help,” Prew said.
“You can see what I think