From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [97]
Sighing inwardly at the helplessness of a man in the hands of Fate when he saw the Hickam Field taxi creeping around the quad like a stranger looking for an address, he waited till it stopped in front of here to unload a man and his equipment on the still-wet grass in this dark clean air that was as tangible as water and then went outside to meet the adversary. At least he could shake his fist at Fate that much, by refusing to fight it as a Defensive Action in the Orderly Room, he thought, prepared for anything.
“I dont care if he is a ex-dogface,” the new man said, staring after the departing taxi. “Thats still too much to pay.”
“Probly got a gook wife,” Warden said, “and half a dozen hapahaole brats to feed.”
“Aint my fault,” Stark said. “The govmint ought to pay for movin transfers.”
“They do. All except the ones that transfer at their own request.”
“They ought to pay for all of them,” Stark said doggedly, not missing Warden’s little dig.
“They will. After they get their Citizen’s Army built up to strength and we get in this war.”
“When that comes, they wont be no more transfers by request,” Stark said, and they exchanged a sudden glance of knowledge that Pete Karelsen could not have shared and that, prepared as he was, surprised Warden with his understanding. That other part of his mind that never entered into anything and always stood outside himself observing, made a mental note.
“They pay it for the officers,” Stark said in the same slow dogged drawl. “Everybody sticks the dogface. Even the ex-dogface.” He pulled a sack of Golden Grain out of his shirt pocket by its dangling tab and got a paper out. “Where I put my stuff?”
“In the cooks’ room,” Warden said.
“Do I see the Old Man now? or after?”
“Dynamite aint here now,” Warden grinned. “He may be back some time today, and he may not be back at all. But he wants to see you though.”
Making the cigaret, the sack dangling from the string held in his teeth, Stark looked up at Warden levelly. “Dint he know I was comin in?”
“Sure,” Warden grinned, picking up the biggest bag and the little canvas furlough satchel, “he knew it. But he had important business. At the Club.”
“He aint changed much,” Stark said. He took the other two blue barracks bags and followed, bending under the double weight balanced delicately on his back, across the porch and through the deserted messhall, dim and ghostlike now with the lights off. Warden led him into the tiny cooks’ room that opened off at the back, across the corner from the doors into the Dayroom.
“You can start stowing this. And I’ll call you if The Man comes in.”
Stark let the bags fall heavily and straightened up and looked around the little room that, shared with all the other cooks, would be home.
“Well,” he said, “I reckon I be here. I had to borrow money from the twenty percent men at Kam to git moved up here.” He hitched his pants up with one thumb, a dispassionate gesture. “It was rainin like a tall cow pissin on a flat rock, when I left there.”
“It’ll be rainin here tomorrow,” Warden said, going to the door.
“You ought to doubledeck these bunks in here, First,” Stark said. “Theyd be more room.”
“This is Preem’s territory,” Warden said from the door. “I never touch it.”
“Old Preem,” Stark said. “I aint seen him since Bliss. How is he?”
“He’s fine,” Warden said. “Just fine. Thats why I never touch his territory.”
“He aint changed much either,” Stark said, untying the drawropes of a bag and reaching in. “Heres my papers, First.”
Back in the Orderly Room Warden looked them over closely. Maylon Stark was twenty-four, they told him, had served two hitches and was on his third, had never done any time in a Stockade. That was all, not much to go on.
It was odd, he thought, leaning back and cocking his feet up on his desk, relaxing the big shoulders and thick arms smugly and with satisfaction