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About three o'clock in the morning I came to. I was in Latouche's little house. On the bed. And I had the strangest feeling. My jaw was numb. The Army doctor had shot it full of cocaine. And I thought I heard my old friend Tony Fry talking, from a great distance.

"I should never have brought that foul ball down here," Tony was saying. "But don't worry! Latouche and the enlisted man beat him up. Swell job."

My eyes closed with pain and Tony patted me on the head. "You tried, Bus," he said. "But you should see what the enlisted man did to Harbison. Latouche helped, too."

Later that night, when the room was empty, I heard Tony's voice again. He was talking to Latouche in that quiet, earnest way he had. He was saying, in French, "Paris is the city most lovely. I went there with my Mother as a little boy." And I knew by the silence that I would never sleep with Latouche again. The pain in my heart grew greater than the hurt in my face. I tried to bury myself beneath the covers, but the Army doctor had them pinned to the sheets.

When I awoke next morning a French woman about twenty-five was fixing up the room. "Who are you?" I asked, through clenched teeth.

"Lisette," she replied.

"What are you doing here?"

"Latouche, she bring me up early this morning."

"What for?"

"For take care of you, Mister Bus." She motioned to an Army cot.

"Where'd you get that?"

"Colonel Haricot. He bring it up las' night." Lisette was pretty, plump, and kind. Her husband was in Africa. Hadn't been heard from since Bir Hacheim. She knew what a man down from the islands needed. They moved us out of Latouche's bedroom in about a week. When I could get around again I looked up two old parachutes for Lisette, one red, one white.

I didn't see either Tony or Latouche for three days after the brawl. They went to live in a little house near the edge of the jungle. Noé took them food. Finally, they came to see me. They motioned Lisette out of the room. Fry looked at me and said nothing. Latouche stood far from the bed and said in a hurried sing-song voice, "I sorry, Bus. You one good man. I wish I had a man like you. A good fighter. Tony tell me about you at Munda. What you do. I wish we meeting for the first time, Bus. No other husban'. No other wife. I sorry, Bus."

At night I would hear Tony at the small piano, picking out French tunes and themes from the operas. When the salon was empty, when Colonel Haricot's jeep had left, I would see Latouche dancing by herself among the chairs while Tony worked the small Army radio Colonel Haricot had given Laurencin.

"Come back to bed," Lisette would snap in French. "Leave them alone! Now Latouche has herself a man!"

I could not drag myself from spying. God, I don't know how I felt. But I would hear Lisette's soft voice again, in English: "Coming back to bed, Bus. It's her affair."

I should have stopped Tony right then. I knew he was fascinated by Latouche, But I never guessed at what would happen. With the rest of us, well, you know how it was. The girls were there. They were lonely. We had lots of money and Navy gear. It was a nice life.

But with Tony it was different. He learned to speak a little Javanese. He went everywhere with Latouche as she supervised the plantation. Didn't show up at camp for days in a row. They sat on a bench in the garden and he read to her. Latouche, I'd never seen her the way she was then. She told him the history of the islands, how her father had come there as a boy. They talked in French, in English, and in broken Javanese. At night a light would burn in her little house till almost morning.

Our drowsy routine was broken when we found that Marthe was going to have a baby. "That sergeant!" Latouche sniffled. "That goddam sergeant!"

"Well," I said. "I told you this would happen."

"Oh, you!" she shouted hoarsely. "What good that do now?" She pulled Marthe tenderly into a big chair made of teakwood. "How this thing happen?" she asked softly.

"I love him," Marthe replied in French.

"Sure you love him!" Latouche agreed. "We always do. But how you do it?" Marthe