From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [466]
“Is he dead yet?” the Cpl said.
“Not yet,” Fred said.
“Look,” the Cpl said. “He had a gun. In the sand there. He didnt fire it?”
“He just stopped,” Harry said.
“You want me to take a look now?” the Cpl said.
“Wait a while,” Fred said.
That Fred. He was a good boy. He understood. It was like the having them find you with your face in the sand. He wanted to say something, to do something, something good, a joke maybe, that would show them how well he was going to do it. But when he tried to speak he found he couldnt. Cant even speak. Cant move now either. Can just lay and look at them. No audience after all. Well, it wont be so long. It’ll just be for a little while.
He wished he’d got a chance to read the rest of those books. And he hated to see the ones he had read be wasted. Somehow he had felt they would be used. The worst was to think how it would all go right on afterwards. Alma. And Warden. Maggio, somewhere. All go right on. He was selfish. He did not want it all to go right on.
You wouldnt think it would take so long. Even all tore up, it took so long. My body’s all tore up. My body. He did not want his body to be all tore up.
You can let go if you want to. They’d never know. You cant speak. You cant move. And its taking too long. And my body’s all tore up. Tore to pieces. Tore all up. Its a shame. And they’d never know.
But you’d know. You got to do it right. It wont take very long. Just a minute more now. And you want to do it good. Even if nobody will know it. Just another minute. Then it will end. Then it will be over.
He lay, feeling sweaty, and made himself look at it. At its being over. Looked it in the face, feeling sweaty.
I’m scared.
If you could just say something. Just a word. If you could just even move a little. If you could just do anything, besides just lay and look at them, and look at it. Christ, but the world was a lonesome place.
But then, as if in a way he was seeing double, he realized that it wasnt really going to end after all, that it would never end. There wasnt even that consolation, he thought sweatily. What he had thought once a long time ago, he thought, that day in Choy’s with old Red. How that there was always an endless chain of new decidings. It was right after all. That made him feel good, the being right.
“Man, those Thompsons sure do make a mess of them,” Cpl Oliver said. “Aint he dead yet?”
“I cant understand why he stopped,” Harry said complainingly. “Or why he didn’t shoot. It makes you feel like an awful son of a bitch. Hell, I didnt know. I was just firing. Honest, I didnt know a tall. Fred, listen?” Harry Temple was crying nervously. “Fred; Fred; listen?”
“Shut up,” Fred Dixon said.
“Honest, Fred? Fred, listen?”
“I said shut up,” Dixon said. He slapped him. “Take it easy, now.”
“I might as well look him over,” Tom Oliver said.
“Go over there and sit down, Harry,” Dixon said. “Oliver, what’d you find?”
“Nothing yet,” Tom Oliver said. “I knew he’s no soljer. Hey, wait a minute. Look at this. Heres an old SP Card. Dint I tell you that uniform looked funny? He’s over the hill, thats what he is.”
“Yeah,” Fred Dixon said. “What outfit does it say?”
“Pvt Robt E L Prewitt, G Company, —th Infantry,” Oliver said. “Well. So he is a soljer, after all.”
“Yeah,” Dixon said. “Tryin to get back to his outfit. Well, we better get in touch with them and have somebody come out and identify this body. Come on, Harry. Tom, you stay here. We’ll drive up the field phone station.”
Warden was in the orderly tent when the call came in over the field phone. He sent Rosenberry over to get Weary Russell and went himself. Lt Ross was gone to Schofield with Pete Karelsen for the day to see the Colonel to try and get Pete re-instated, and they were not back yet. Warden was glad they were not back yet.
“You’re in charge, Rosenberry, till we get back,” he said. “Make a note of any calls not emergency. Emergency calls