Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“We’re all AWOL, Sergeant Monks, lieutenant for the evening, Lieutenant Fredericks …” He waved to a slightly smaller red-headed South African down the bar. “And myself. We’re farmers. Independent men. When the bloody O.C. said ‘no leaves,’ we said farewell. Sixty miles out on the desert for three weeks. Miserable little clerk of an O.C. Sergeant, I said, here’s a pip. Take off those bloody stripes. We wish to show you the glories of Shepheard’s and Gezira, so that you can come back and dazzle the poor bastards in the other ranks with tales of the high life of Cairo.”

“I’ve been talking to brigadiers all afternoon and evening,” Monks complained. “Wearing on the nerves.”

“If the O.C. shows up, it’s all taped,” Lee said. “I grab Monks by one arm, Freddy grabs him by the other. ‘We’ve just arrested the bugger, sir,’ we say. ‘Impersonating an officer.’”

“Ten years,” Monks said, grinning. “This round is on me.”

Peter laughed. He lifted his glass. “To sergeants everywhere.” They all drank.

“On my right,” said Lee, “is the American Air Force.”

The American Air Force raised its glasses at Peter and the pilot who sang started in on “Chattanooga Choo-choo.” There were two lieutenants and a twenty-four-year-old major.

“The American Air Force is going home,” said Lee. “Their tour is over. Home by way of England. The infantry’s tour is never over. Oh, the poor, stinking, bloody infantry, their tour is never over …”

“Unskilled labor,” one of the pilots said calmly. “We’re delicate and highly sensitive mechanisms. We are war-weary. Our Schneiders are low as an Egyptian whore. We’ve bombed too many places. We’ve seen too much flak. We are lopsided from wearing ribbons. We are going home now to instruct the young how to shoot.”

“I am going home to play with my wife,” the twenty-four-year-old major said soberly.

“The infantry is not under the same Awful Strain,” said the pilot who had been singing. “All they have to do is walk in and be shot. Their nerves are not stretched to the breaking point like ours. Captain,” he said, leaning back and talking to Peter, “you look a little war-weary yourself.”

“I’m pretty war-weary,” Peter said.

“He looks sensitive,” the major said. “He looks fine and sensitive enough to be at least a navigator. He looks like Hamlet on a rough night.”

“I was in the tanks,” Peter said.

“It’s possible,” said the major, “to get war-weary in a tank, too, I suppose.”

“It’s possible,” Peter said, grinning.

“… breakfast in Carolina …” sang the musical pilot.

“When’re you leaving for home?” Peter asked.

“6 A.M. tomorrow. 0600 hours, as they say in the army,” said the major.

“Five or six glorious days in London among our brave English Allies and cousins,” said the other pilot, “and then the Stork Club, the Harvard-Yale football game, all the blonde, full-bosomed, ribbon-conscious, lascivious American girls …”

“London,” said Peter. “I wish I were going with you.”

“Come along,” said the major expansively. “We have a nice empty Liberator. Pleased to have you. Closer relations with our British comrades. Merely be at the airport at 0600 hours, as they say in the army.”

“Did you see,” asked the singing pilot, “in the Mail today? Some idiot wants Princess Elizabeth to marry an American.”

“Excellent idea,” said the major. “Some upstanding representative citizen of the Republic. Post-war planning on all fronts. My nomination for Prince Escort is Maxie Rosenbloom.”

Everyone considered the suggestion gravely.

“You could do worse,” the pilot said.

“Infusion of sturdy American stock into an aging dynasty,” the major said. “The issue would be strongly built, with good left hands.…”

“Do you mean it?” Peter asked. “You really could take me?”

“Delighted,” the major said.

The singing pilot started in on “All Alone,” and everyone but Peter joined him. Peter stared unseeingly at the glasses and bottles behind the bar. In three days he could be home. Three days and he could walk into Anne’s room, quietly, unannounced, smiling a little tremulously as she looked up unsuspectingly. Maybe it was possible. He had had no leave since he’d come to Africa, except for two weeks’ convalescence. He could go immediately to Colonel Foster’s apartment, explain to him. Colonel Foster liked him, was very sympathetic. If he gave him a written order, releasing him from duty for twenty-one days, he, Peter, would undertake to get transportation back. Somehow, somehow … He would take all the responsibility himself. He was sure that Colonel Foster, who was a good soul, would do it.

Peter stood up straight. He spoke to the American major. “Perhaps I’ll see you at six o’clock.”

“Fine,” the major said heartily. “It’s going to be a great trip. We’re loaded with Scotch.” He waved as Peter turned and left the bar.

“All alone, by the telephone …” the wailing, mocking voices quavered in the night. Peter got into a taxicab and gave Colonel Foster’s address.

He felt he was trembling. He closed his eyes and leaned back. It was all absolutely possible. England was only three days away. Two weeks there and the desert and the guns and the dying and ruled paper and heat and loneliness and insane expanding tension would disappear. He could face the rest of the war calmly, knowing that he would not explode, would not lose his reason. It was possible. Men were going home to their wives. That American major. All so cheerful and matter-of-fact about it. England in three days, after the three years … Colonel Foster would most certainly say yes. Peter was sure of it as the taxi drove up to the dark building where Colonel Foster lived. Peter paid the driver and looked up. The colonel’s window was alight, the only one in the entire building. Peter felt his breath coming fast. It was a symbol, an omen. The man was awake. His friend, who could give him England tonight with five strokes of a pen, by luck was wakeful in the quiet night, when all the rest of the city slept around him. It would be irregular, and Colonel Foster would be running some risk, but he had rank enough and was independent enough to take the chance.…

Peter rang the night-bell to the side of the locked doors of the apartment building. Far in the depths of the sleeping stone and brick, a forlorn and distant bell sang weirdly.

As he waited for the hall-boy to open the doors, Peter hastily rehearsed his story. No leave in three years. The tension getting worse and worse. Medically graded, no chance of getting to an active unit. Regiment disbanded. Work deteriorating. Given to sudden fits of temper and what could only be described as melancholia, although a doctor wouldn’t believe it until it was too late. He knew the British Army couldn’t provide transportation, but here were these Americans with an empty Liberator. He’d get back somehow.

As he went over it, in the darkness, with the faraway bell sounding as though it were ringing at the bottom of a troubled sea, Peter was sure the logic was irrefutable; Foster couldn’t refuse.

When the hall-boy finally opened the door, Peter sprang past him, raced up the steps, too impatient to take the elevator.

He was panting when he rang Colonel Foster’s bell, and the sweat was streaming down the sides of his face. He rang the bell sharply, twice. He heard his breath whistling into his lungs, and he tried to compose himself, so that Colonel Foster would think him absolutely calm, absolutely lucid.…

The door opened. The figure at the door was silhouetted against the yellowish light behind it.