Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [22]
Inwardly, Bill admitted that he was good. He had ample reason to think so. In college he had been a master athlete. Had played basketball in the Mountain States, where the game is rough and fast. His height and grace made him a star. In the six times he appeared in Madison Square Garden he outshone the competition. He was a crack tennis player, a bit of a golfer, a wizard at table tennis, and a good first baseman. In his studies he was also quite a man. Not an honor student, but he got far more A's than C's. He was a member of the best fraternity, a welcomed guest at the sororities, and a popular man among the younger set in Denver, Salt Lake, and Albuquerque. He was, in short, the kind of man the Navy sought. He was an officer and a gentleman.
In Albuquerque Harbison married the daughter of a wealthy family. She was a Vassar graduate and found Bill a fine combination of dashing Western manhood and modest cultural attainment. He at least knew what the Atlantic Monthly was. That was more than could be said for the rest of her suitors. And he could write the sweetest letters.
Bill was working for her father when the war started. Two evenings a week he ran a boys' club, where the roughest kids in Albuquerque met and worshipped the lithe athlete who taught them how to play basketball and keep out of trouble. When he volunteered for a commission, these tough kids collected more than $35 and bought Bill a watch.
Lenore was pleased when Bill got his commission. She thought he deserved to be more than an ensign. But she liked being able to say to her friends, "My husband, who is in the Navy..." or "Bill finds Navy life..." She had to admit that even though her brother did get a higher rank in the Army, it was rather nice to be a Navy wife.
Lenore followed Bill to Dartmouth, where he took his indoctrination in freezing weather, and then on to Princeton, where she knew dozens of other young Vassar graduates. Her father gave her money for rooms at the Princeton Inn. There she kept open house for hundreds of young married women whose husbands were taking the Princeton course in small boats and Diesel engines.
Lenore Harbison graced Princeton in the way that Bill had graced Denver and Albuquerque. She was doubly sorry to find Bill's stay at Princeton drawing to an end. It meant that her man was on his way to sea. It meant their wonderful days were over. Sadly she packed her things and waited in her sunny rooms for Bill to come back after the end-of-term review.
Bill hurried across the campus to take her to the train. He was solemn, but he was handsome in his blue uniform and white-covered cap. The gold on his sleeve, the brilliant buttons, and the carefully tied black tie graced his thin, sharp body. Lenore doubted if ever again he would appear so handsome.
Bill was quiet when he kissed her. He liked her flattering comments on his appearance. He had his orders! They took him to the South Pacific! Together they traced out the long Navy sentences. "To whatever port ComSoPac may be located in."
"The sentence dangles!" Lenore said, half crying.
I wonder what it means?" Bill said half aloud. "I wonder what kind of small boats they have out there?"
And so, like millions of others, Bill and Lenore trekked across continent to San Francisco, waited there in the steam and flurry of the grand old city, and went their separate ways. Lenore returned to an empty Albuquerque. Bill reported in at Noumea.
All the way across the Pacific he hoped that ComSoPac "had something good for him." He thought of what he might do in a staff job.
Travel about and check up on units that were slacking off. Might be flag secretary to an admiral. Might get on some pretty important committee. Might help to draft orders and sit on flag courts-martial. There was practically nothing available to an ensign that Bill overlooked, and to play safe, he also considered jobs usually assigned to full lieutenants and even commanders.
He was not, therefore, prepared when he was assigned as recreation