Once an Eagle (53 page)

There was a faint, brief rap at the door. It opened tentatively, and a figure was standing in the shadow. “Anybody home?” a hoarse voice queried. Damon, turning, heard his wife sigh and Ben mutter something. The door swung open farther then and admitted Major Batchelder, their instructor in logistics and supply. He was a pudgy, balding man with a very broad, flabby nose that looked as though it had been made of rubber and painted by some whimsical child.

“No, we've just taken off for the Greek Islands,” Ben's voice came flatly. “Little pleasure cruise, to get away from all the chicken.”

For a moment Major Batchelder gazed at them uncertainly, teetering a little—all at once winked, his large mouth hiking up hugely at the corners. “My students,” he declared. “My happy, carefree students. Mind if I come in?”

“You're already in, Butch,” Krisler answered. The junior officers had got to their feet, the women were wearing their shoes again. “Well: how are things among the nabobs?”

“Fluid. In the extreme.” Batchelder produced a silver flask whose bottom half was of leather sewn tightly around the metal, gave it a quick little shake and slipped it back into his hip pocket. “Muriel's angry at me,” he said truculently, eyeing them.

“Damned if I can see why,” Ben said.

“No, it's worse. She hates me.”

“They all do, Butch,” Ben answered. He had sat down again and picked up his glass. “That's the woman's mission. Our job is to beat up on subordinates and do everything in as stupid a way as possible. And
their
job is to hate our guts for it.”

“Ben,” Marge pleaded, “you know you don't mean that … ”

“Of course I mean it. Why shouldn't I?” His anger at this capricious intrusion had turned him savage. He couldn't throw one of his instructors out on his ear—which was what he dearly wanted to do—and so he glared at Damon and his wife. “I'm at my most meaningful early Sunday morning …”

“Oh, she doesn't,” Marge said consolingly to Batchelder. “I'm sure she doesn't hate you, Major.”

“Call me Clarence.”

There was a brief silence. “Come in and sit down, sir,” Marge went on. “Would you like a drink? I'm afraid there's only this funny old bottle of Ben's—”

“That'd do very nicely,” the Major said with alacrity. “Fact is, I'm just a trifle low on the oh-be-joyful at present.” Picking up the bottle he poured three fingers of gin into the glass Marge had brought him and drank off half of it. “Now where else could this happen?” he mused genially, wiping at his mustache with a forefinger. “Where else but in this small happy family? This band of brothers … ?”

“Nowhere else,” Ben answered dryly, leaning forward, his eyes snapping. “A thing like this couldn't happen anywhere else in the whole wide world. Can you imagine what that
means,
pal?”

“Ben,” Damon said quietly, but the Major's thoughts had wandered back to Muriel, a tall, stern woman who was a Daughter of the American Revolution and owned a silver tea service worth, it was said, two thousand dollars. “… Perhaps if we'd had children,” he murmured.

“I'm sure they would have taken after
you,
Clarence,” Tommy offered.

Batchelder's face changed: with the lightning perceptiveness of the alcoholic he had caught the note of sarcasm, although Tommy was smiling at him winningly. His eyes dropped, he coughed into his hand. “I know. I lack ambition. Muriel says I don't see life as the obstacle race it is—she says I try to run around the barriers instead of—putting myself
at
them properly. Her father was cavalry, you know. If I hadn't been assigned to that course at Riley I would never have met her at all …” He gazed at the stained fiberboard ceiling with a kind of fearful wonder, as though this thought had never occurred to him before.

“I just know you'd have made a good father,” Marge said impulsively.

His face gave a little quiver, and he pointed at her. “You're the girl I should have married,” he declared.

“You should have thought of that sooner, Clarence,” Tommy said sweetly.

“It's just like old General Forrest said.” Ben's lips drew back from his teeth. “Just a case of gettin' thar fustest with the mostest. Get me?”

Batchelder frowned in distaste. “That's very crudely put, Krisler.”

“You're looking at a crude character.”

Damon sat with his hands in his pockets, listening uneasily to the exchanges. It was no secret that Batchelder had been sweet on Marge for some time—they'd kidded her about it now and then. But this was the second time in as many weeks he'd dropped in late and sat drinking their liquor and gazing with wistful adoration at Lieutenant Krisler's wife. Borne on befuddled dreams of congeniality and rapport, he would stay on and on, and keep them up till dawn if they let him. Pathetic old bore. Military courtesy demanded they play the gracious hosts; but this hardly fell into one of the prescribed categories. He'd better break this up and forestall Ben's mounting irascibility. From behind the partitions one of the Krisler children—it sounded like Joey—muttered in his sleep. Damon got laboriously to his feet, yawned and said: “I think Donny just called, honey.”

“Oh, really?” Tommy caught his glance and rose quickly. “I hope you'll excuse us, Major, but I've got to check on the children.”

“Of course.” A good West Pointer, mindful of his manners, Batchelder stood up and made an odd little bow. “I daresay it's getting on a bit.”

“Hell no, pal,” Ben drawled. “Only about quarter to two.”

Damon said quickly: “May I offer you a lift back to quarters, Major?”

“Well, no.” Batchelder coughed. “Fact is, I'm in a bit of a jam—I wonder if you boys could give me a hand.”

“What's the problem?”

“It's the old chariot. She won't budge. Happened right out there on the back line—I was taking a little turn before retiring. Why I stopped in, matter of fact.”

“Fan belt go?”

“I don't know what it is, actually. There was this grating noise, and she sank down on one side and quit.”

Ben threw Damon a quick, exasperated glance but he ignored it. “Let's take a look.”

The night was overcast, without a moon; the air was cool and moist. The three of them walked uncertainly along the back line, following the beam of Sam's flashlight.

“Let's see now,” Batchelder said. “It was right about—ah, there she is.”

In the soft yellow cone of light appeared what looked like an old-fashioned shay bonnet—suddenly identified as a car top violently canted. About fifteen feet beyond the back line was a drainage ditch, and the Major's Hupmobile had its two left wheels in it.

“How'd you get down there?” Ben demanded.

“Well … I figured I'd made a wrong turn.”

“I guess so.”

Damon got down on hands and knees and looked under the car. The gear box was resting on a half-submerged boulder. “She's hung up,” he said to Ben. “We'll have to rock her off. She'll slide down another couple of feet, but that won't make any difference. Once she's clear of that rock we can pull her out with the LaSalle.”

“She's at one hell of an angle, Sam.”

“Yes. But she won't go over.”

“—I can't go home without that car,” Batchelder confided to them in a stage whisper, swaying close to their faces. “They never let you forget it, you know. Once they've got the upper hand. It's hell.”

Damon pressed the flashlight into his palm. “Just hold on to that, will you, Major? Just hang on to it good and tight.” He and Ben took hold of the front bumper and began bouncing the car while the instructor hovered around them, calling encouragement and advice. On the second try Damon felt the chassis move—and saw to his horror that Batchelder was lying prone halfway under the car. He shouted something, the car began to slide—it was impossible to hold it now—eased off the stone and checked at the bottom of the ditch with a bump and a quiver. Damon leaped around to the low side and called: “Major!—” There was no answer. “Christ,” he muttered. “Oh—my—Christ…” Light from the torch shone up fitfully through the wheels. “
Major
—”

“She's clear, boys,” Batchelder's voice came cheerfully. “She's clear …”

“You all right?”

“Can't seem to move my arm.”

Damon snatched up the flashlight. The instructor's sleeve was pinned under the wheel at the wrist.

“… Stupid son of a bitch,” Ben was saying hotly, “—don't you know enough to get in out of the
rain?
”

They lifted the wheel enough to free the Major, who scrambled to his feet, bumping his head on the fender. “Hot work, what?”

“Why don't you go someplace and sleep it off?” Ben demanded.

“My boy, that's hardly fair …”

“Major.” Damon took a deep breath. “Would you go back and get us another flashlight? We're going to need two for this. Ask Mrs. Damon to give you the battle lantern.”

“Right.” Batchelder turned like a wound-up tin soldier and stomped off toward the house, humming “Three O'Clock in the Morning.”

“Jesus, that was close,” Damon muttered.

“Dry your eyes. Why couldn't it have been his head?”

Damon went over and started the LaSalle; it turned over on the third try and he backed over to the ditch, nursing the choke with care. He got a length of tow rope out of the trunk and made it fast to the frames of both cars, while Ben started the Hupmobile. The racket was deafening.

“Now when you feel her start to move, open her up easy and cramp your wheel as little as possible. Okay?”

“On to Berlin.”

With both engines roaring full blast the Hupmobile rocked, shuddered, and then came up out of the ditch with ease. Damon backed up to put slack in the rope and reparked the LaSalle. Sweating, tired, he felt curiously exhilarated by the little crisis, the old car's performance.

“Man, that buggy's got power to burn.—What happened to Barney Oldfield?”

“Probably went to the latrine and fell in.”

“Nope—God protects all fools, drunks and field-grade brass.” Leaving Ben to disengage the tow rope he went back to the set. As he stepped on the back porch he heard Batchelder's voice and then Marge's; something bumped heavily, and there was a sound of scuffling. He went in through the kitchen of the Krislers' quarters—and stopped in amazement. The Major had Marge wedged into a corner of the couch; his arms were around her, he was bent forward trying to kiss her and Marge was struggling lamely and saying, “Clarence, please, Major—”

“Margie, dear—I'm a
lonely
man,” Batchelder was murmuring with passion, pressing her back on the couch. “A
lonely
man: don't you see?”

“No, now Clarence please, you've—”

“All these months—I've dreamed about you from afar …” The Major's head moved like a drugged chicken's as he tried to kiss her throat. Marge's eyes encountered Damon's—a glance he could see was neither terror nor desire but simply distress. She had changed into a housecoat after the men had left and it was hiked up around her hips; one of her slip straps was broken. A strand of hair was hanging low over her forehead, and her cheeks were flushed from exertion; she looked disheveled and provocative, and the Major was plainly aroused.

Damon stepped up and tapped him briskly on the shoulder; he gave a little jump and turned. “Everything's ready, Major,” he announced in his most official voice. “All ready to go.”

“What? Look here, Damon—”

“Time to go home, sir.
Home.
Car's ready and waiting.”

Batchelder squeezed his eyes shut in distaste. “Good heavens, man, can't you see I'm—engaged? Where's you—your sense of the
fitness
of things? the proprieties?… What car?” he shouted angrily.

“Muriel's car,” Sam said portentously, nodding at him. “You remember: Muriel's car. It's up out of the ditch now.”

The Major's eyes clouded. With reluctance he got to his feet and pulled at the front of his blouse. “Quite. Right with you.” He turned to Marge in an effort to summon up the tender-eyed ardor of a moment ago—without success. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps—another time, my dear.”

Marge pulled her housecoat together, laughed nervously and brushed back her hair. “It's all right,” she breathed, “—but you'd better go, now …”

Damon steered the Major out the front door and around to the back line where the Hupmobile was standing, its motor running smoothly. Ben was nowhere to be seen.

“There she is,” Batchelder cried softly. He clapped Sam on the shoulder. “I can't tell you what this means to me, my boy. All in the family, aren't we, Damon? All one loyal, good-hearted little family, tried and true …”

Sam watched him depart, grinning, shaking his head. The fatuous, addlepated old fool. He'd make it back to his quarters and cringe before the icy wrath of Muriel, draw off his boots and tumble into bed; and Monday morning he'd hold forth with admirable precision and some wit on the advantages and drawbacks of combat loading for amphibious assault on a hostile shore …

He turned. Ben Krisler leaped down the back steps and rushed up to him, his face white and wild.

“Where is he?” he cried. “Where is the son of a bitch?”

“Ben, what the hell—”

“He's gone! You let him go—!” he raged. “And you're my friend …”

“What's the matter?”

“The sneaky, sniveling bastard—I'll kill him! I'll break every bone he owns!”

Damon grabbed him by the shoulder. “Ben, for Christ sake—”

“The hell with you—get out of my way!”