Richard Marsten - Murder in the navy

“Yes, sir.” The guard started running, and Jean began laughing.

“He must think you’re crazy,” she said.

“No. But he’s going to be mighty disappointed. After you, m’dear.”

They walked across the field, and he took off his jacket, over her protests, and spread it on the ground for her. They sat, and the stars were etched sharply overhead, and the world seemed to end at the perimeter of the ball field.

“I’m beginning to get sober,” he said.

“Are you? Well, good.”

“Why? I’m also beginning to remember why I got looped.”

“Schaefer again?”

“Schaefer again. Damnit, why’d they have to stick me on that damned investigation board?”

“Chuck, can’t you forget it? You know the Navy as well as I do. Look at it this way. How many men are killed when a ship goes down?”

“Sure.”

“Chuck...”

“Yes?”

“You’re not going to get morose, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” He laughed suddenly.

“What’s that for?”

“Mary. I was just thinking of Mary.”

“My girl friend?”

“No. Another Mary. A girl whom you are not — but I think I’ll kiss you anyway.”

“Chuck...”

He took her in his arms, and she tried to hold him away for just a moment, until his mouth found hers. And then she trembled slightly in the circle of his embrace and gave her lips to him.

“I’ll be seeing a lot of you, you know,” he said.

“I...”

“Yes, I will. Oh, yes, I will. You might as well get used to the way I kiss.”

She caught her breath, and when she spoke, her voice was very low. “I’m used to it already,” she said.

Masters heard reveille sounded over the ship’s p.a. system the next morning, but it didn’t get him out of his sack. He heard Le Page come grumbling awake in the bunk opposite him. He rolled over his face to the bulkhead, pulling the pillow over his head. Le Page shuffled around for his shoes, and Masters wondered why the hell they’d put a meathead like the Ensign in with him. A man should be quiet in the morning. A man should come to terms with life again slowly. He shouldn’t stumble around until life slapped him right in the face like a wet mackerel.

What the hell was Le Page doing now? Masters could hear the rattle of his dog tags, and beneath that another sound he couldn’t immediately identify. He placed it then, and he was tempted to throw his pillow at Le Page’s empty head. The goddamn jackass was making up his sack!

“Hey, Masters,” Le Page said. “Wake up, Masters. Reveille.”

Masters played dead. Maybe if he lay still, without moving a muscle, without breathing, Le Page would go away. Maybe Le Page would wander out to the boat deck and jump over the side.

“Hey, Masters!” Le Page shouted. “Come on, boy. Reveille! Don’t want to miss chow.”

From under the pillow and the blanket, Masters ominously intoned, “Le Page, you are a goddamned jackass.”

“You awake, Masters?” Le Page asked, apparently having heard the sullen mumble from beneath the bedclothes.

Masters held his breath.

“You awake?” Le Page repeated.

“Yes, goddamnit, I am awake!” Masters shouted. “A dead man couldn’t sleep in here with all the goddamn racket you’re making.”

“Well, gee, Chuck,” Le Page said, “I thought you wanted chow.”

“I don’t want chow,” Masters said.

“Well, how was I to know?”

“I don’t want anything. I just want silence. Complete silence,” Masters said. “I just want to sleep a little.”

“A rough night last night?” Le Page asked.

“I don’t want an hour-long discussion,” Masters said patiently. “I want to sleep. Go, Le Page. Go eat your chow. Eat my helping, too. Eat until you’re gorged. Eat until you bust! But just get the hell out of here and leave me alone!”

“Well, sure, Chuck. I mean, if you want—”

“That’s an order!” Masters roared.

“Yes, sir,” Le Page said. He scurried for the curtained doorway, and Masters smiled grimly and rolled over again.

He closed his eyes and tried to capture sleep again, but it was no use. He was awake. Well, I’m awake, he thought. Well, another goddamn day blooming on the horizon. Well, what’s so special about...

Jean. Jean Dvorak.

The name popped into his mind, and he suddenly remembered everything that had happened the night before, and a smile blossomed involuntarily on his face. He nodded in satisfaction. A nice girl. A real nice girl, one of the nicest he’d ever run across. Had he promised to call her today?

He didn’t remember. But he would call her, whether he’d promised or not, as soon as he could get off the ship. In that case, he thought, leave us get the hell out of our sack.

He swung his legs over the side of his bunk and scratched his chest idly, listening to the rattle of his dog tags. He yawned cavernously, stretched his muscular arms over his head, and then sighed.

His blues were thrown over the back of a metal chair, looking rumpled and disconsolate. He abruptly remembered all the Scotch he’d drunk the night before. Drunk was the word for it, all right. He wondered if he’d behaved all right with Jean. Yes, he was pretty sure he had. But a hell of a thing to mess up with a girl like that. You don’t run across a girl like that every day of the week.

“Tor-ay-oh-dor,” he sang suddenly, “don’t spit on the floor. Use the cuspidor. That’s what it’s for.”

Of course, this did not apply to a Navy vessel. There were no floors on a Navy vessel. There were only decks. “Tor-ay-oh-dor,” he sang again, “don’t spit on the deck. Use Le Page’s neck. Make the low-down sonofabitch a wreck.”

He smiled and pulled on his gray trousers. He went to the sink and washed his face. How many songs like that were there? he wondered, and then he wondered why he was so concerned with things musical this morning. Songs that could be twisted around, of course.

“My Devotion.” There was one.

“My abortion,” he sang, “was painful, and cost me a fortune...”

That was an old one. He’d learned it years back when the song was popular. He’d learned another one at that time, too, and it was probably the most disgusting distortion he’d ever heard. It was a take-off on “Jealousy.”

Leprosy, he sang silently, you’re making a mess of me. There goes my right ear. There goes my left ear.

He brushed his teeth vigorously, taking the taste of the song and the preceding night’s Scotch out of his mouth. Does Le Page ever wash? he wondered. I think all the sonofabitch does is eat. I don’t think he’s taken a shower since he came aboard. Someday I’ll tell him. Le Page, I’ll say, I have put up with this godawful stink for a good many moons now, Le Page my good man.

What godawful stink, Chuck? he will ask.

The godawful stink emanating from your rotund little form, Le Page, I shall answer. I suggest you take a shower, Le Page. I suggest you wash off all the crawling little vermin that are suffocating the opening of your navel and perhaps other apertures, Le Page. I suggest you do that right this minute, Le Page, and in case you were wondering about the strength of my motivations, that is an order, Le Page, that is a goddamned order! Now hop to it!

Someday.

Not now. Not right now. Right now I’m going to the wardroom, where I’ll stuff myself full of the garbage they call morning mess, which is exactly what it is. And then quarters for muster, and then I shall sneak away from this floating cracker box and make a call to the nurses’ quarters, and perhaps Jean will agree to see me this evening.

He dried his face and hands, flipped the towel onto his sack, and then walked out into the passageway and then onto the main deck. When he got to the wardroom, he studiously avoided sitting next to Le Page. He sat between Reynolds and Carlucci instead, and then he waited for the steward’s 64 mate to take his order. There was a choice of eggs this morning. He chose scrambled, and then asked for an immediate cup of coffee, which he downed almost the instant it was poured.