The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [72]
"Not quite like the official handout, was it," Bill Reinking summed that up in the arid tone of a veteran editor. Uneasy with what Ben had to contend with, he asked: "Who makes a decision like that, how they classify that kind of a death?"
"Someone who wants every dead soldier in any uniform of ours to be a shining hero." Four for four, so far. The Supreme Team stays perfect with a little help from Tepee Weepy and in spite of me. Or Vic.
Just then Chick Jennings, the postmaster, reeled past on his way to the bathroom. "You sure know how to throw a party, Bill. And how you doing, Ben?" he delivered with a passing clap on the shoulder. "What do you think, this the year the boys will whip the Japs and Krauts and get to come home?" It was common knowledge Chick's son was a Navy quartermaster safely tucked away in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
"Not all of them," Ben said through his teeth.
"Ben," his father began, "people say things they don't—"
"I know, Dad, it's okay. I lost it there for half a second, is all." Don't get on your high horse, he chided himself, this is just the Officers' Club of the home front. He knew he ought to rouse himself to the business of festivity even though he had no stomach for it away from Cass. "Any chance to be home, do it," she had urged him to take the holiday pass, a case of use it or lose it. "Get away from this military madhouse. I'm on standby that weekend anyway, you won't be missing any ton of fun here. Go, palooka."
She at that moment was nursing her one lonely scotch in the back area of the Officers' Club known as the "orphans' corner." It felt odd to be there with the handful of male loners—for some reason, they tended to have tidy little cookie-duster mustaches like department store floorwalkers—who sat one by one staring out darkened windows as they toyed with their drinks. However, it was the safest territory around. A woman sitting alone anywhere else in the building invited the interest of every brass type with a touch of the screw flu. Here Captain Cass Standish was just another withdrawn officer trying to drink slow and write a letter. Besides, at midnight she had to go back on standby in the ready room; unless Germany or Japan directly attacked Great Falls, that meant another stint of killing time until 0800. Nineteen forty-four did not look like anything to celebrate yet; she hoped Ben was having better luck where he was.
Out of sight of Cass although definitely not out of hearing, the throng around the piano player gleefully spotted a target of opportunity as Della Maclaine and her date frisked in from outside. If they were somewhat mussed from fooling around with each other on the way over, in the overriding smudge of cigarette smoke and pall of alcohol no one was paying attention to personal tidiness. What caught the combined choral eye was the sassy tilt of the crush hat on Della's blonde flow of hair and, of course, the pilot's insignia prominent on her chest. The piano bunch was instantly inspired.
Oh, don't give me a P-39,
The engine is mounted behind.
She'll tumble and spin,
She'll augur you in,
Don't give me a P-39!
No, give WASPs the P-39,
Let them cuss the design.
There'll be medals in baskets
For flying those caskets,
Give WASPs the P-39!
Della gamely lingered and took it, the motor pool officer she was with nervous at her side. The song done, she sent a honeyed smile to the serenaders and gave them a thumbs-up. No, wait. It was a different digit. Passing the hooting piano gang as her date broke trail toward a table at the quieter far end, she could not help but notice the big pilot with a rakish flop to his dark hair giving her the eye as she went by, but she was not in the market for the glee-club type. Better someone with a jeep or classier