Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [89]
And in all this super-pulsating life there were no women. Only half-scented folded bits of paper called letters.
As a result, sensible men shoved back into unassailable corners of their souls thoughts that otherwise would have surged through and wracked them. They very rarely told dirty jokes. They fought against expressing friendliness or interest in any other man. From time to time horrifying stories would creep around a unit. "Two men down at Noumea. Officers, too. Dishonorable discharge! Couple years at Portsmouth!" And everyone would shudder... and wonder.
And so men in the tropics, with life running riot about them, read books, and wrote letters, and learned to love dogs better than good food, and went on long hikes, and went swimming, and wrote letters, and wrote letters, and slept. Of course, sometimes a terrible passion would well up, and there would be a murder, or a suicide. Or like the time a crane fell over and crushed a poor dumb fellow too stupid to operate a crane. All morning a stolid farm boy stood by the body, and no one could move him until the heavy machinery was lifted off the mangled man.
"Come on," the MP's would shout. "Get away from there! Break it up!"
And the stolid fellow would reply, "He was ma' bes' buddy." Then everyone left him alone.
I doubt if Lt. Cable ever thought about himself in just those terms, but he knew very well that he mustn't brood too long over that tousle-headed girl in Germantown. He knew-even though his tour of battle duty on Guadalcanal had been short-that consuming passions are better kept in check. They burn you out too damned quick, otherwise.
And yet there was the need for some kind of continuing interest in something. He'd had a pup, but the damned thing had grown up, as pups will, and it was off somewhere on another island. He'd done a lot of reading, too. Serious stuff, about mechanics, and a little history, too. But after a while reading becomes a bore.
Bloody Mary of course was different. She was old and repulsive, with her parched skin and her jagged teeth. But finer than any dog or any book, she was a sentient being with a mind, a personality, a history, a human memory, and-Lt. Cable winced at the idea-a soul. Unlike the restless tropical sea, she grew tired and slept. Unlike the impenetrable jungle, she could be perceived. Unlike the papayas and the road vines, she lived a generation, grew old, and died. She was subject to human laws, to a human rate of living, to a human world. And by heavens, she was an interesting old woman.
"She has a husband," Lt. Cable wrote his sweetheart. "She says he is on another island where the French have moved all the young girls. She lives here to trade with the Americans. I think if the French knew this they would deport her to the other island, too. But since she stays here and behaves herself, I have no mind to report her. In fact, I find talking French and Pidgin English with her amusing and instructive. I may even arrange to take a few days off and visit the other island with her when she takes money to her husband. She says he will be surprised, for she has not less than nine hundred dollars. That will be a great deal of money in Tonkin. In fact, it would be a lot of money right in Philadelphia."
It was about two weeks after this letter that Atabrine Benny arranged a boat trip to the island upon which Bloody Mary's husband lived. Benny had to see to it that all Tonks had their supply of atabrine, and he visited the outlying islands monthly. This time he agreed to take Bloody Mary along, and at the last minute Lt. Cable decided to join them. He brought with him a mosquito net, a revolver, a large thermos jug of water, a basket of tinned food, and a bottle of atabrine tablets.
"My God, lieutenant," Benny said. "I got a million of 'em."
Everyone laughed, and the boat shoved off. I was down