From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [490]
He stacked up the dishes, and put the stuff away in the refrigerator, and brushed off the table. He washed and dried the dishes in the sink, and put them away. He emptied the overfull ashtray and washed and dried it. Then, when there was nothing left to do, he sat down at the table and smoked a cigaret.
The cigaret did not taste any better than the sandwiches and cold milk. Major Holmes detested cold milk; and he could not cook. He wished he had not given the maid the day off. As soon as Karen and the boy left for home, he could start eating at the Bachelor Officers’ Mess. That was only a couple of weeks off, only until January 6th.
He mashed the cigaret out in the clean ashtray before it was half finished and got up from his table and bolted out through his back door, away from his house. He was back to the safety of his office long before his son came home for his lunch.
Chapter 56
ON JANUARY 6TH Milt Warden was in town on pass. Maylon Stark went with him.
It was the first day that passes were issued to the troops of the Hawaiian Department since the Saturday night before Pearl Harbor, and at ten o’clock, in the morning a well-primed yowling horde of wild men from all around the 90-mile perimeter descended upon Honolulu like spokes descending upon a wheel hub and began to line up outside the bars and whorehouses until even the lines got entangled and men heading for the New Congress Hotel suddenly found themselves inside Wu Fat’s Restaurant four doors up the street ordering drinks. It stayed just about like that all day long until the curfew. It, and the two days following, were a sort of red letter day. Not a bartender in town will forget them. Neither will many of the madams who were there then. Even a few of the respectable people still remember it.
The pass order stated explicitly that no more than one-third of the complement of any installation might be absent at one time. For G Company on the beach it was a problem in distribution. G Company had fourteen beach positions. The commander of each position (more often a noncom than an officer) was ordered by Lt Ross to turn in the names of one-third of his men to go on pass. Warden was given charge of the passes for the CP personnel. Stark had charge of the passes for the kitchen force.
There was an unwritten law that a commander did not go on pass until his men were served, and since they could not go themselves, the noncom-commanders (who unlike officers were not above conniving with enlisted men) gleaned what they could and there was a great exchanging of handclasps, currency, souvenirs, and not a few of the almost-priceless too-swiftly-dwindling whiskey bottles changed hands on the eve of January 6th.
Honor forbade Warden and Stark to put their own names down on their pass lists, but Warden saw to it that they both got their passes anyway. He simply filled out two extra pass forms beyond the quota and had Lt Ross sign them. Nobody in the Company disputed his breach of etiquette, least of all Lt Ross. Lt Ross knew a good thing, once it had been pointed out to him. From the day he turned down his commission Warden had had G Company wrapped and tied and stamped with the Indian sign the way he used to kid himself he had it under Holmes, but hadnt.
Stark had a pint bottle he had milked out of the pass situation. They finished that off on the way in to town. They made their first stop at Charlie Chan’s Blue Chancre. The Blue Chancre was not as crowded as the better bars. There was no line outside on the sidewalk. At the Blue Chancre people only stood three deep at the bar. They had to drink six drinks standing in the press before they could get stools at the bar and start drinking in earnest.
“Ahhh,” Stark sighed, as they slid onto the stools. “My feet was made for hikin, not for standin up in no bars. Even a Fort Bliss payday night in Juarez aint this bad.”
“Herro,