Redemption - Leon Uris [165]
“Aye,” he moaned.
“Where the fuck you been! Get your ass up. You’re last man to ride. I think it’s a waste of time but the regulations say you can ride. Come on, prawn, I’ve had a long day and I’m in an unpleasant mood.”
“Hey, Sarj,” Rory moaned, “give us an old hand.”
The serjeant snarled and jerked Rory to his feet and they stood eyeball to eyeball.
“Johnny Tarbox!”
“Aw, for Christ’s sake, Rory Larkin!”
“Shhh,” Rory said, putting his finger to his lips. “My name is not Larkin.”
Tarbox looked at his clipboard. “What’s this Landers shit? Getting away from the Squire, are you?”
“I’ll be of age by Christmas,” Rory said. “It’s the bloody essential agricultural industry. The old man can freeze me.”
“I don’t know about this,” Tarbox said with a sly grin. “You’ve shown me up in one too many A&P shows. See this. Stitches from our encounter.” The grin opened to a smile as Tarbox threw his arms about Rory. “Oh Jaysus, you’ve been drinking that rotten canteen rum and green beer,” he noted. “Not to worry. Half the kids here are underage.”
“You know, I heard you were doing some kind of recruiting,” Rory said. “Well, let’s get on with it. Give me an old horse, will you?”
“You don’t have to ride. I’m putting you right into headquarters company with myself. Want to hear the best? I’m Serjeant Major of the Seventh.”
“No!”
“Indeed, and the ladies better watch their knickers. Hey, Rory, you all right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You don’t look all right.”
“I’m not all right. I never had this set of feelings before. I don’t understand what they are. I don’t know how to manage them. I…ugh…got myself a little more involved than I figured on.”
“You’re not on the run, are you? You didn’t knock her up?”
“No, just…”
“Love?”
“Maybe.”
“Good. Keep it at ‘maybe.’ Listen, happens to the best of us what those little girls can shake at you, but just don’t let them get the collar around your neck. Anyhow, in the direction we’re heading there’s going to be a lot of ass out there to ease your pain…French ass.”
Johnny called over to a squad and told them the trials were done for the day and to get the horses settled.
“Johnny,” Rory said on impulse, “I’m going to need a big favor. You know how the old wheel spins around. I’ll owe you one soon enough.”
“What do you need?”
“Being as you’re helping judge these lads, there’s a kid I’d like to see get assigned to our company.”
“Our company, is it? I’m not a colonel. The officers make the final decision.”
“Well, you can jiggle the grades a little and kind of let the Colonel or whoever he is know you’ve a special wish or two…like with me.”
Tarbox gnashed his discomfort. “Who?”
“Terrific kid.”
“Who?”
“I teamed up with a kid named Chester Goodwood.”
Johnny flipped through the pages on the clipboard, then squinted. “The little fucker?”
“He is a bit short.”
My notation says he should be leading ponies for blind kids at the A&P shows.”
“He didn’t ride that bad, did he? I mean, he’s a polo player…jumped horses at Harrow.”
Tarbox shrugged.
“He is a good rider,” Rory pressed.
“He rides good enough, but Jaysus, five will get you fifty he’s a real underage runaway.”
“Take him, he’s a steal,” Rory said.
“I know you sheepmen are queer, but that shit doesn’t go in the army.”
“Cut it out, Tarbox. He’s a kid who needs a break. I just needed a break…you needed a break when the Squire gave you your first big muster…we all need a break. This kid is a wizard with the books and numbers.”
“Numbers! Books! What the hell has that got to do with the Light Horse?”
“You’re glinking me, Johnny Tarbox. You weren’t in the crater of a volcano when the old man upstairs passed out the brains. Did you or did you not tell me you’re going to be the battalion Serjeant Major? My mother does that job on the ranch and she spends half her life at it. Think! Muster rolls, pay rolls, sick reports, quartermaster reports…and the HORSES—you know how much ledgering and numbering and bookkeeping one fucking horse takes? You’re going to have five hundred of them and, I shit you not, you