Redemption - Leon Uris [241]
“Modi! Over here, baby!”
“Rory! Chester! Comrades!”
A bear hug. A slobbery kiss. Chester got his as well.
“Noisy place,” Modi said.
“Just wait.”
“There’s a real mess back on Lemnos. Not half enough beds for the wounded. We’ve been hearing bad stories.”
“You’ve heard right. It’s bad.”
“How are the gaffers?”
“Johnny’s dead,” Chester said.
“Johnny! Johnny Tarbox is dead!”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
As the mules were coerced ashore, some fifty wounded men who had been in a holding gully limped to the beach. As the last mule hit land, the wounded began loading onto the boat.
“The boats are filthy,” Modi protested. “They’re full of shit.”
“I told you it was bad. How many more boatloads do you have coming today?”
“A dozen. Four of them are barges. I thought we would be able to unload them on a pier.”
“All the permanent piers are down. The pontoons bounce like kangaroos.” I tried to sort it out. “We may have to beach the barges and smash them open, drive the animals out.”
Elgin reported that the first load of mules and handlers was ready. I told him to take them to Mule Gully. “Modi, you go to the paddock with Chester and take a look, then better come back here and help me get the rest unloaded. Turn the paddock over to a warrant officer.”
“Before I depart,” Modi said, pulling me aside, “I have maybe a small surprise.” He waved to a soldier standing almost hidden in waist-deep water at the rear of a landing craft. It was Yurlob Singh!
“Chester,” I said, “where’s Jeremy?”
“Second pier down.”
“Get him. Get out of here, Modi.”
Yurlob Singh waded in holding a ramrod posture as though he was determined to be soldierly to the bitter end, as if he were walking up the steps of the hangman’s scaffold.
“Let me explain,” Modi said.
“Wait over there for Chester!” I commanded, then turned to Mr. Singh. “Any fucking thing you want to say before we pay a visit to the brass?”
“Strictly according to regulations I am to use my judgment in being allowed to examine a forward position,” he recited.
“Bullshit. Try again.”
He stood at attention, as though to say, “No blindfold.”
“It is not within the realm of my human capacity to remain on Lemnos. I am prepared for anything from the whipping post to the firing squad. Send me back to Lemnos and I will leave again.”
“Oh, you big hero, you. You fucking raghead! You abandoned your post. How do we get replacement men and mules over here? Are the fucking mules going to walk on the fucking water!”
“If you will forgo your anger for a moment, I will explain.”
“Explain! You better fucking pray to your fucking fat Buddha!”
“I do not think that remark was appropriate.”
“Yurlob, you have no idea how many mules we are going to lose in a week.”
“But there is no problem. My home battalion, the Sikh Mountain Howitzers, was training next to us on Lemnos, as you know. We always carry many extra packers. I have ordered two warrant officers, men of extremely high caliber, to be transferred into the Seventh Light Horse and run the operation in my absence.”
“Yeah, I know, cousins from your home village.”
“How did you know that? Actually, only one is a cousin. The other is a brother-in-law.”
“You are in shit up to here,” I said, pointing to his eyes.
I sat in the sand about to burst. He sat beside me and tapped my shoulder timidly.
“May I speak?”
“Yeah…sure…”
“During the landing I prayed for all my gaffer friends. For the entire day I went into profound meditation. A message transported itself over the water to me. I am badly needed here. I received the message that Johnny Tarbox was killed.”
“Go charm a snake. Somebody told you.”
“Johnny is dead, then?”
I looked at him. Tears ran down his cheeks. The first boat filled with wounded, their blood mingling with mule dung, was being muscled off the sand bar. Hell, who could argue with such a premonition…but how could I explain this to jolly Christopher Hubble? Christ.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jeremy said on reaching us.
“Goddamned, Jeremy,” I said