Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

Hawkins sat up. The fight was over. Now they were taking the women down the gangplank, and that was where the weeping was coming from—from the raddled bundles of living rags being carried by troopers onto the soil of Palestine and back onto the other ship, thirty-five feet away. Hawkins felt his throat. It was terribly sore, and blood was still oozing from a cut under his ear. He felt sick and lightheaded. He turned his head away from the women. He did not want to look at them. Lying next to him on the dock, very quiet, face downward, was a man. He had on an American Army shirt and a pair of Royal Air Force pants. He was barefooted and his feet were terribly cut and swollen, black with blood. Slowly, Hawkins took the man’s shoulder and rolled him over. The eyes were still open. The face was smashed, the jaw leering and dislocated, the teeth broken and red at the roots. But the eyes were open and they were the eyes of the man who had tried to kill Hawkins on board the schooner Hope .

Hawkins stood up. It was hard to walk, but he moved slowly over to the gate in the barbed wire at the other end of the dock Madox was there, sweating but looking pleased.

“Very well done, Hawkins,” Madox said. “I watched you. Are you hurt?”

“A little, sir,” Hawkins said, surprised at the croaking, strange noise that came from his throat. “Not too bad.”

“Good,” said Madox. “It’s just about finished here. We’ll be going back to camp in a minute.” He looked solicitously at Hawkins’ torn throat. “You’re in rather bad shape. You’d better not go with the others in the lorry. I’ll take you with me in my jeep.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hawkins flatly. He walked slowly over to where the jeep was parked and laboriously climbed into the back. He leaned against the canvas. He closed his eyes, thinking of nothing.

Ten minutes later, Madox and his driver got into the jeep, and the jeep rolled slowly through the gate. Hawkins did not look back purposely, but he could not help seeing the dock, the two boats, the old, silent, broken, deserted schooner, and the full transport, beginning to work up steam for the voyage to Cyprus. They were singing again on board the transport, but softer now, and wearily, and Hawkins thought, I must get Esther to translate that song for me. And on the dock, with the Arab laborer, still holding his wheelbarrow, standing curiously over him, lay the dead man, flat and alone. Hawkins closed his eyes as the jeep spurted away from the waterfront.

I wonder, he was thinking, slowly and painfully, because his head did not seem familiar or normal to him any more, I wonder if I can get off tonight to go into Tel Aviv to take Esther to the movies. Then there was the explosion, and even as he felt himself slamming through the air, Hawkins thought, They must have got hold of some Army mines. Then he hit. He moved with crawling, broken slowness, feeling everything slippery and sliding all around him, thinking with dull persistence, I must tell them, they mustn’t do this to me, they don’t understand, I was at Belsen. Then he lay still.

“ W e’re late,” Helen said, as the cab stopped at a light. “We’re twenty minutes late.” She looked at her husband accusingly.

“All right,” Fitzsimmons said. “I couldn’t help it. The work was on the desk and it had to …”

“This is the one dinner party of the year I didn’t want to be late for,” Helen said. “So naturally …”

The cab started and was halfway across the street when the Ford sedan roared into it, twisting, with a crashing and scraping of metal, a high mournful scream of brakes, the tinkling of glass. The cab shook a little, then subsided.

The cabby, a little gray man, turned and looked back, worriedly. “Everybody is all right?” he asked nervously.

“Everybody is fine,” Helen said bitterly, pulling at her cape to get it straight again after the jolting.

“No damage done,” said Fitzsimmons, smiling reassuringly at the cabby, who looked very frightened.

“I am happy to hear that,” the cabby said. He got out of his car and stood looking sadly at his fender, now thoroughly crumpled, and his headlight, now without a lens. The door of the Ford opened and its driver sprang out. He was a large young man with a light gray hat. He glanced hurriedly at the cab.

“Why don’t yuh watch where the hell yer goin’?” he asked harshly.

“The light was in my favor,” said the cabby. He was a small man of fifty, in a cap and a ragged coat, and he spoke with a heavy accent. “It turned green and I started across. I would like your license, Mister.”

“What for?” the man in the gray hat shouted. “Yer load’s all right. Get on yer way. No harm done.” He started back to his car.

The cabby gently put his hand on the young man’s arm. “Excuse me, friend,” he said. “It is a five-dollar job, at least. I would like to see your license.”

The young man pulled his arm away, glared at the cabby. “Aaah,” he said and swung. His fist made a loud, surprising noise against the cabby’s nose. The old man sat down slowly on the running board of his cab, holding his head wearily in his hands. The young man in the gray hat stood over him, bent over, fists still clenched. “Didn’t I tell yuh no harm was done?” he shouted. “Why didn’t yuh lissen t’ me? I got a good mind to …”

“Now, see here,” Fitzsimmons said, opening the rear door and stepping out.

“What d’ you want?” The young man turned and snarled at Fitzsimmons, his fists held higher. “Who asked for you? ”

“I saw the whole thing,” Fitzsimmons began, “and I don’t think you …”

“Aaah,” snarled the young man. “Dry up.”

“Claude,” Helen called. “Claude, keep out of this.”

“Claude,” the young man repeated balefully. “Dry up, Claude.”

“Are you all right?” Fitzsimmons asked, bending over the cabby, who still sat reflectively on the running board, his head down, his old and swollen cap hiding his face, blood trickling down his clothes.

“I’m all right,” the cabby said wearily. He stood up, looked wonderingly at the young man. “Now, my friend, you force me to make trouble. Police!” he called, loudly. “ Police! ”

“Say, lissen,” the man in the gray hat shouted. “What the hell do yuh need to call the cops for? Hey, cut it out!”

“ Police! ” the old cabby shouted calmly, but with fervor deep in his voice. “Police!”

“I ought to give it to yuh good.” The young man shook his fist under the cabby’s nose. He jumped around nervously. “This is a small matter,” he shouted, “nobody needs the cops!”

“Police!” called the cabby.

“Claude,” Helen put her head out the window. “Let’s get out of here and let the two gentlemen settle this any way they please.”

“I apologize!” The young man held the cabby by his lapels with both large hands, shook him, to emphasize his apology. “Excuse me. I’m sorry. Stop yelling police, for God’s sake!”

“I’m going to have you locked up,” the cabby said. He stood there, slowly drying the blood off his shabby coat with his cap. His hair was gray, but long and full, like a musician’s. He had a big head for his little shoulders, and a sad, lined little face and he looked older than fifty, to Fitzsimmons, and very poor, neglected, badly nourished. “You have committed a crime,” the cabby said, “and there is a punishment for it.”

“Will yuh talk to him?” The young man turned savagely to Fitzsimmons. “Will yuh tell him I’m sorry?”