Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [182]
A coxswain was, by nature and by talent, leader of the singing. He was a slight boy under twenty. He had a fine, Irish tenor. Before the last notes of a song had died away, he would lead forth with another. Soon, as in every songfest I attended, he started the two old favorites of all males voices. In high falsetto he sang, "I'm coming, I'm coming! For my head is hanging low." I think we sang that song at least eight times. The real singers amongst us introduced variations and trills I had not heard before. The bellowers simply hit a few notes and held them deliciously long.
Then the coxswain started the other favorite. Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright. He had a fine voice for the carol and was joined by a bass who rumbled the low notes. It may seem strange that men aboard a ship about to go into action would choose to sing a German carol, a carol in fact so German that it sounds rude sung in English. Yet they did elect that song, and when they sang it, it was not German, even though more than half the men sang it in that language. Nor, in a sense, was it a religious song. It was merely a succession of glorious notes which men could hold onto with affection as if they were, indeed, memories.
Our singing was interrupted at 0230 by loud explosions. We hurried on deck in time to see a series of ammunition dumps on Kuralei go up. Spires of flame shot several hundred feet into the air, subsided, and then sprang higher. Again our ships, hundreds of them it seemed, were illuminated. Full in our path a cruiser loosed a salvo and passed into the darkness. Soon another took its place. New explosions rocked the beaches.
After some minutes we went below again. The mood for singing was gone. A heavy-set fireman who by choice was in the assault party sat next to me on the table, our feet on a bench. "I tell you, sir!" he said. "I haven't seen anything prettier than that since Market Street on a Saturday night!"
"You mean Market Street in Frisco?" a gunner's mate asked. Several men leaned forward.
"Yeah! Market Street in Frisco!" the fireman said.
"What a town!" another fireman murmured.
"You can say that again, buddy!" a seaman said approvingly.
Conversation ceased for a moment. All the men near me were thinking of Market Street in Frisco. Suddenly two men started speaking at the same time: "I remember..." one said. "It was on Market..." the second began. They laughed and each indicated that the other should speak first. The cook, whom nobody liked, broke the impasse.
"I was in Frisco four days," he said.
"So what?" a voice inquired.
"So it was the best leave I ever had," the cook replied. "What the hell did you do in Frisco?" the voice taunted. "Pick up a soldier?"
"Nyah, to you!" the cook replied. "It was Friday. I was having a fish dinner. I looked across the aisle and there was this babe."
"What was wrong with her?" the stooge asked.
"Where that babe was wrong," the cook said, "you'd never notice it!" The stooge had no comment. Men in the recreation room leaned forward. They were interested in what happened when the cook, whom they otherwise detested, met a girl in Frisco.
"What happened, cookie?" someone asked.
"Well, this babe-and I ain't kiddin', fellows. She was just about through her dessert and there I was on me soup. It looked to me like she was givin' me the eye, but you know how it is. A smart girl. Maybe she is. Maybe she ain't. She sort of puts it up to you."
"Thass the kind I like," a drooly voice interrupted. "The kind that puts it up to you."
"Knock it off! So what happened, cookie?"
"So quick as a wink I ditches my soup and steps beside her. 'You ain't finished your dinner!' she said. 'To hell with it!' I answered right quick. I give the waiter a couple of bucks and said, 'Keep the change!' Then the waiter said, 'But the young lady's?' So I slung him another two bucks. Well, the dame really give me the eye then. She seen I was a spender."
"What you was anglin' for