Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [184]
"Any you boys spend much time on Grant Street?" a seaman asked. "Well, I was down there one night and picked me up a Chinese doll. What do you guys honestly think about chop-suey lovin'? You think it's all right?"
There was a heated discussion as to whether any white man should date a Chink, the question being solved when the seaman flashed the picture he had of this particular almond-eye. The photograph, taken of the girl in her night club costume, made the earlier argument purely academic.
"What did you do in Frisco?" a fireman asked me.
"I seem to have missed the fun," I said. "Got in there one night and left the next night on the Clipper."
"You flew out?" the men asked.
"Yes."
"Was it in the Mars?" they asked.
"No. Regular Clipper." The fact that I had flown out made me an authority.
"How soon do you think the war will end?" they asked.
"About four years," I said. This was greeted with silence. The men thought what four years would do to them.
"We can hope, can't we?" a wag said in sepulchral tones. "You know what they say, sir? Optimist: 'In 'Forty-five, if I'm alive.' Pessimist: 'You and me in 'Fifty-three.' Realist: 'Golden Gate in 'Forty-eight.' Damned fool: 'A bit of heaven in 'Forty-seven.' "
"I don't get it," a seaman said. "Why the damned fool?"
"Cause they won't be any heaven left in 'Forty-seven! Guys back from Europe will use it all up!" The wag slapped the table.
"You think we'll be kept out here that long, sir?"
"Somebody will be," I said.
"You think you will be?"
"Could be."
"Ain't you mad about it, sir?"
"I was at first," I admitted.
"What happened?" the men asked. They were interested. This touched them, too.
"Oh, I sort of decided that it doesn't matter much when I get back," I said. Then the closeness of battle prompted me to honesty: "I don't think that I'm going to be stopped merely because somebody else got there first. I got a lot of work to do!"
A chief petty officer looked at me. "That's exactly how I feel, sir. Boy, I got a lot to do when I get home! The longer I stay away the more certain I am I'll do it, too."
"What you gonna do?" a voice asked.
"That's my business," the CPO said.
"I felt that same way in Frisco," a storekeeper added. "Said to myself, This is the last look for a long while. Make the most of it.' But you know what I did?" There was a furious bombardment outside. We looked at our watches. "I just couldn't make up my mind what to do first! So I lay in my damned room till about noon each day, got up, ate some lunch, and went back to bed. I went out a couple of nights, but it was lousy. I was glad when the ship sailed."
"Me?" a yeoman asked. "Them days wasn't long enough for me. Them Frisco street cars! Boy, I bet I rode a hundred miles a day on them babies. I'd get on and ask every pretty girl I met what she was doing. Kept right on until I made contact. Different dame every day. I been to Boston, Panama, San Diego. None of them compares with Frisco for a liberty."
"Say?" a seaman interrupted. "Ain't we movin'?" We remained silent. Yes, we were moving. We were moving toward the beach. Again we looked at our watches. A head appeared in the hatchway.
"Assault party!" Norval dropped his files and leaped for the gangway. "Assault party! Prepare to land. Prepare to land!"
When the smoky room was emptied, I went on deck. In the gray twilight of D-Day the first wave was going in. Fire raked them as they hit the coral. Jap guns roared in the gray dawn. But some of them got in! They were in! And now the battleships lay silent. The airplanes withdrew. Men, human beings on two feet, men, crawling on their bellies over coral, with minds and doubtful thoughts and terrible longings... Men took over.
THE LANDING ON KURALEI
WE WOULD have