From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [470]
Anyway, Lt Ross had already opened it and seen it first.
At Hanauma Bay, during the first five days after the bombing, they had set up the CP in the popcorn vender’s wagon under the grove of kiawe trees. Then when they got the tents from Schofield they still left it in there anyway, ostensibly for camouflage, but in reality because it had a wood floor and was up off the ground.
It was not very big in there and there were four of them, plus the field phone switchboard to the Positions, crowded into it when the Message Center truck delivered the G Company dispatch bag that morning. Him and Rosenberry and Ross, and Culpepper; since Pearl Harbor Culpepper had been promoted to 1st/Lt and been made the Company Exec. And when Warden looked up, they were all three grinning at him.
It was, he had thought sourly looking at them, the same half-assed foolish grin that everybody always got knowingly when some jerk passed out cigars because his stupid wife had a goddam baby. We know how you did it, the grins always implied slyly, we know what was required. Then the stupid jerk blushes; and if his wife is anywheres around she blushes; and if the goddam baby wasnt red as a beet it would probly blush too. I baptize thee in the name of the Grin, the Blush, and the Holy Twitchett; thou art born of woman; let us kneel, brothers, and all blush together before God; somebody had a baby.
“There’ll be some papers to sign yet,” Lt Ross grinned at him happily, when he handed it back. “And the oath to take. But to all intents and purposes you are now an Officer in the US Army, Sergeant. My congratulations.”
“Army of the US, Ross,” Culpepper corrected grinning. “How do you feel, Sergeant?”
“How the hell I supposed to feel?”
“Different,” Culpepper grinned. “Consecrated. Like a nun.”
“Will I sprout little gold wings, too? To go with the bars?”
They all insisted on shaking his hand. Even Rosenberry insisted on shaking his hand. And 2nd Lt Cribbage, one of the new ROTC boys, who came in along about then from his new command at Makapuu, insisted on shaking his hand.
“When are you going to pass out those cigars?” Cribbage grinned. He was a Purdue man.
“Sgt Warden would never pass out cigars,” Culpepper grinned, “not for a little old thing like a commission. You dont know your man, Cribbage.”
“Just the same,” Cribbage grinned, “I mean to get a cigar out of this promotion.”
“Of course, you understand, Sergeant,” Lt Ross grinned, “that this is only in the Reserve Corps. So dont get any big ideas. You’re still my 1st/Sgt until they send you to Active Duty back Stateside someplace.”
“You lucky bastard,” Culpepper amended, grinning.
“Amen,” Cribbage, grinned.
“Oh, Christ,” Lt Ross said. Lt Ross had just opened the other letter.
“Whats the matter, Ross?” Culpepper said.
“Look at this, Culpepper,” Lt Ross said. He handed him the letter.
Watching them, Warden thought again how much it was all like some kind of a club, a young gentlemen’s club, warm, friendly, completely secure, with its own comforting set of rules for parliamentary procedure. The letter went down the chain of command from Ross to Culpepper to Cribbage. Warden was fourth on the list. Rosenberry was last.
When it got to Warden and he saw what it was, he felt a little bit sick in his thighs. In the envelope was a WD policy circular to the effect that all EM of a certain age who were below the Grade of M/Sgt and were engaged in any form of active combat duty, as distinguished from administrative duty, were to be relieved from the active duty list immediately and their names submitted for the evacuation shipping list along with a request for replacements. And that was the end of Pete.
Just to clinch it, stapled to the circular was a mimeograph cut of a Regimental Special Order with the names of thirty or forty EM from the Regiment who would be