Once an Eagle (61 page)

He spent every free minute he had with her. They strolled through the crowds on Dasmarinas Street, they went swimming at the beach at Ponbal, they wandered along the Luneta and gazed off toward Cavite where the hulls of Admiral Montojo's ill-fated warships lay like great black-ribbed serpents in the ruddy orange light of the setting sun, and the thunderheads boiled up out of Mindoro in baleful, churning black towers. And then they would drive back to the house on Rizal; he would let her off at the front door, run the car into the garage and slip in the back entrance, to find her already sprawled on the bed, half-undressed, waiting for him, her arms extended.

“Hurry now, Joe, you—oh, I want you!”

His mind was caught in a tumult of sensation. This pale-blond woman with her small hands and feet, her immaculate bra and step-ins, was clamoring for him. For Private Joseph Brand of E Company. Her very greediness flattered him. She was a torrent of invention, of rapture, and he was equal to it: what she desired he could fulfill with ease. And when, rocking her tousled head on the pillows she cried, “Oh, you're delicious—oh, you're
burning
me!”—he knew a tight, swollen triumph that turned him giddy.

“Do you love me?” he would demand, almost harshly, withdrawing a little, holding her still. “Do you?”

“Oh yes, oh God, yes, anything—oh don't stop
now!
…”

She bought him things—a watch with a luminous dial, a pigskin wallet, a balisong knife with a carved haft—and he accepted them with grace. If it gave her pleasure. The objects meant little to him. But at inspection, during close-order drill or fatigues he would hold the knowledge of this affair of loving to himself with the prideful secrecy that had sustained him for so long in the white man's world, parading this new dance of emotions before his mind's eye like a bazaar vendor exhibiting the rarest of jewels to a privileged friend. He took even more pride in his appearance, withdrew still further from the few men in his company that he traveled with.

In three weeks it was all over. Her mother, now living in Santa Monica, was seriously ill. She would have to fly back to the States.

“When will I see you, Estelle?”

She looked at him with the vacant, languid smile. “I don't know, Joe. Have to see.” She packed hurriedly and made arrangements. He kept clear of her, contented himself with watching from a distance as she left in a calesa for Cavite. That night he tossed in his cot, seeing her sliding high over the long, westerly roll of the Pacific, hurrying toward the sun. In no time at all she would be half a world away. The next morning the reaction set in; he felt irritable and confused—he wondered what he had done up to now with himself; how he'd got through the days.

The day after that McClain began riding him. McClain was a sergeant, a heavy man with a handsome, fleshy face and wide-set, pale green eyes that dilated strangely when he smiled. He found fault with Brand's work on a truck and gave him extra police duty; when Brand remonstrated, he smiled a slow, sly smile and said, “What's the matter, Brand?—you got that tired, overtaxed feeling? You missing out on something good lately?” and the other men standing nearby laughed. They knew, then; they'd found out. He felt a quick flash of anger, and suppressed it doggedly. Filthy pigs—nothing was sacred to them, particularly where a woman was concerned. They fouled everything they touched.

When Ives the dispatcher put him on report for being fifteen minutes late on a run, he knew he was getting the treatment. Grimly he made sure that his shop work was impeccable, his appearance flawless. But the harassment continued, and the attitude of even some of his friends changed. The treatment. He had stepped out of line, he was to pay for it. And every day there was the sly, jowled face of McClain, the booming voice.

“Think you're too good for anything else, eh, Indian? Jazzing some nice white pussy. Made you feel pretty big, didn't it? Best you ever did for yourself …”

And finally, stung by the interminable riding, the memory of those royal hours he retorted: “What's the matter, McClain—you jealous?”

The Sergeant laughed. “Jealous!—you poor sod. Jesus, that's a hot one. I gave up on that before you even shipped out here. Half the regiment's been banging that bag for years. Why hell, she's known as the Manila Pegboard …”

The others had turned from their benches, watching him and grinning. He felt sick with rage and mortification. McClain was shaking with helpless laughter.

“That's a filthy lie,” he said thickly.

“What do you want me to do—describe her room to you? You want me to draw you a diagram?”

The whole shop was laughing at him now. His grandfather had been right: the white man was faithless, and wily, and boundlessly cruel. There was no limit to his hatred and his greed. None whatever.

But that she had let this insolent fat-faced bastard actually undress her, climb into that bed and enter her body—

“—Still doesn't believe me,” McClain was saying, wagging his head. “Hell, she'd lay anything in pants, animal-vegetable-or-mineral. And she finally got around to you—and you think that makes
you
so special!… Brand, you're the last man in. You want me to tell you the way she likes to do it?—you want me to describe the way she puts her—”

He had no sense of decision, of willed movement. McClain's face swept nearer strangely, its expression shifting from mirth to blank surprise as he lunged in and swung, and felt the shock high in his shoulder. Someone whispered something in an awestricken voice, but he didn't hear the words. There was only the frieze of faces and he followed in quickly, riding his fury, swinging as hard and as fast as he could. He reeled from a blow on his cheek he never felt, pressed in again. McClain fell hard then, bumping against a fender, gripping it awkwardly as he went down, dragged himself up again. Brand started in—all at once brought up short by the long, narrow blade.

“All right,” McClain said in a low snarl. Blood was streaming from his mouth and the corner of his eye. “I'm going to carve you good—”

Even then he felt no fear; only hatred, and the need to arm himself with something better than his bare fists. Someone had seized him by the arm and shoulder but he spun away, raced between two vehicles, darted along the green metal machinist's bench, the press drills and vises—saw the length of pipe and snatched it up and whirled around. McClain was on him, a heavy shadow against the light. He danced to one side and swung the pipe. The knife clattered on the concrete and McClain grabbed his arm with a short, fretful cry. Now Brand heard Ives shouting: “Break that
up
now!” But he didn't care. They were all enemy, all of them. To the end, then. He dropped the pipe and hit the Sergeant again and again, felt the blood spatter in his face and throat; then slamming him against the side of a truck he seized McClain's throat in both hands and squeezed with all his might. The fat face swelled, congested, flushed a deep red. Voices clamored in his ears, hands pulled at him and struck him but nothing could reach him through the churning red froth of his rage. This monster was going to die. Now.

Then something struck him on the back of the head—a sharp, cold dart of pain, and darkness rushed in over him like the wings of a great bird.

 

He stabbed out
his cigarette and crossed his arms on his knees. His legs ached from the drag of the irons and his head burned and throbbed. The Captain was watching him in silence; a slow, sad smile that was not malice or contempt—a smile that distressed him. There had been a man like him back at Gray Forks: Mr. Canby, a thin, gaunt man with thick wrists who headed the Bureau for Indian Affairs, who had told him he ought to try to get an education, finish high school—or at least go to work in the moccasin factory at Gant Creek: there was steady pay there. He had looked out of the window at the high red flank of the mesa. Hand-made moccasins, turned out by machine. What he wanted to be was a mechanic—but there was no job for a mechanic at Gray Forks; the few Indians who had cars kept them running themselves. And there in town was Charlie Mantowari, back from Hawaii, with his pressed uniform and ribbons and the four chevrons and the little gold ladder of hashmarks, playing cards with Big Foot and Johnny Owl and the others, talking of long ago battles in France, and Diamond Head, and the Islands …

“So then you gave up,” Damon was saying.

He shook his head angrily. “They gave up on
me.
And I'll die before I give them an inch of ground.”

“Same thing.”

“What?”

“Same thing,” the Captain repeated. “A rebellion like yours is just as bad as lying down and letting them walk all over you. Worse. You're telling them to break you in little pieces. You're asking for it.”

“I don't see it that way,” he answered.

“What other way is there to see it? You sit here, refusing to defend yourself, fighting Jarreyl and the whole stockade—and McClain is on pass in Manila, stripes and all, laughing at you still. It doesn't make sense …”

He set his jaw. “I've got my reasons.” He had said all he was going to, even for as straight a guy as this Damon looked to be. There were things a man had to keep to himself, no matter what.

Damon had taken his penknife out of his pocket and begun to clean his fingernails. “She doesn't need your protection, you know,” he said. “Miss Melburhazy. She can take care of herself, she's been around.” Brand could not hide his surprise, but the Captain's eyes were still fixed on his nails. “You're playing McClain's game, Brand—you're doing just what he wants you to do: saying nothing, wiping yourself out … so he can even get back in with her again.”

This angered him and he started to speak, but Damon held up his hand, watching him now with that mournful, unsettling gaze. “All right, maybe she's a nympho, maybe she's sick, maybe she's just a rich gal out for thrills. I don't know and I don't want to. It's none of my business, anyway.” He pointed one finger bluntly. “I'll tell you one thing—she wouldn't be worrying about
your
good name if the shoe was on the other foot … Let it come out at the court, if it does.” He smiled wryly. “Don't worry—the rich very rarely suffer in a situation like this. It's people like you and me who get stuck with the check.”

Listening, he fidgeted on the boxes. This Damon was sharp, no doubt about it—he'd spotted the whole thing in a flash, he knew more than he'd been aware of himself. The penknife had a horn handle, like Mr. Canby's. A sign. Like the deactivated cartridge. That had been a sign he'd read incorrectly, though.

Damon snapped the blade shut and turned to him directly. “How many people saw the fight?”

“I don't know—seven, eight guys.”

“Then they saw him draw the knife on you.”

“Yeah. But that doesn't prove anything—they're all scared of McClain.”

“We'll see about that. Maybe I can make them a little bit more scared of me.—He definitely pursued you with the knife?”

“Hell, yes—he almost had me when I turned around …”

There was a little pause, while the breeze plucked at the tent flaps and sent the cascao dust spinning in fine white eddies.

“It's up to you,” Damon said quietly. “All in your own hands. We can beat this—most of it, anyway, with a little luck. I think we can. But you've got to want to battle, yourself. And in the right way, not this private war you're waging with the stockade.” He leaned forward, fist on his thigh. “You've been a good soldier, Brand, with a clean record right up to now. You could make something of yourself if you want. Now, how do you want it?”

It was hard to change when you'd made up your mind; hard to back away on a resolve. But now, looking at the lined face, the steady, unabashed gaze, he knew the Captain was right and he was wrong: he would destroy himself this way, and nothing would be solved one way or the other. He'd been wrong about Estelle, too—and now his pride was causing him to beat his head against a wall. Here was one white man—and an
officer
at that, for Christ sake—who felt he was something more than a sneaky no-good redskin son of a bitch; who read him like a book and wasn't afraid to sit there and tell him so.

“All right, Captain,” he said. “It's worth a try.”

7

“Oh, we're going
to have another one of those Sistine Chapel sunsets!” Tommy Damon exclaimed. Her eyes turned like a little girl's toward the balcony where the evening sky, streaked with feathery bits of cloud, burst into a torrent of vermilions and golds, fiery against an azure that paled to infinity. “They're just incredible, aren't they?”

“Yes, they are,” Emily said in her soft, remote voice. “They almost make it all worth it, sometimes …”

Massengale glanced at her, but her expression was quite serene. “Darling,” he chided her lightly, “you're so sere and Bostonian this evening.”

“Well, it
is
the least they can do, Court,” Tommy said, “after frying our brains to a crisp all day long.”

“Rewards and punishments, eh?”

“Oh, no! I only believe in rewards …”

The four of them laughed, and Massengale leaned forward and patted Tommy's hand; she was one of the few people he permitted to call him Court. He had never called anyone by his nickname—he'd made it a kind of minor trademark of his—and he firmly discouraged the use of his own. If Damon had ever done it he'd have crawled all over him. But Damon had never called him anything but Captain, and now Major.

“That's the spirit,” he commended her. “Still, there's no evading the effects of climate on the human animal. Have you ever noticed that the plastic arts stem from the tropical and semitropical lands? and the interior, mystic ones from the north? For instance, can you imagine a really first-rate Scandinavian painter? or a Sibelius from the Mediterranean basin?”

“Scarlatti came from Naples, I believe,” Emily said quietly.

“An isolate exception. The point is that we associate music, the most mystic of the arts, with the north—Wagner, Bach, Mozart. And the descriptive, the pictorial media with the south: Leonardo, Titian, El Greco and so on.”

“What about literature?” Damon asked him.

“—I haven't got that worked out yet,” Massengale answered, and they all laughed again. “It's true, though—sometimes I think life is nothing more than a series of rewards and punishments levied on us like furloughs and fatigues. It's Emily's ferocious New England Calvinism rubbing off on me, I suppose. That's why I always pray to Huracán and Quetzalcoatl every evening as the sun sets. It's how we got this little eyrie here, you know.”

“Don't kid me, Court,” Tommy taunted him. “I know how you got this little eyrie—you twisted Luis Martegaray's arm in the most charming manner!”

Blinking, he feigned shock. “My dear! A lowly career officer on the far-flung battle line—I only bow my head and serve.”

“Yes—but you do it so much more
graciously
than the rest of us …”

He smiled, running his eyes over the light, high-ceilinged room. There were latticed windows made of scores of squares of translucent mother-of-pearl shell, which slid into wall recesses after dark. The floors were mahogany, and gleamed like ruddy glass. The Spanish chest on one wall was two hundred years old and had belonged to Don Basilio Augustin Davila, the Captain-General of Manila, who had surrendered to Dewey. There were low rosewood chow-chow benches, nested ifilwood tables, porcelain lamps adorned with dragons and exotic fish, dark now against the gleaming white walls. Above their heads the huge-bladed fans turned softly, like blunt protective wings. An impeccable taste, if he did say so. He had assembled it slowly, with care, in this spacious apartment high over Manila, had staffed it with the most competent and deferential servants, and the Massengales' dinners were the talk and envy of the post. It was exactly the impression he wanted to convey—a dignified, almost somber elegance, tempered by his own wit and catholicity of view. Tonight was the kind of evening he liked most, though—a simple dinner à quatre, free of the other pressures, the unremitting effort involved in impressing superiors whose minds were painfully, pathetically limited and slow. Like Fahrquahrson. That fatuous idiot, living some kind of pukka sahib India garrison dream laced with California calisthenics—couldn't he see the world had changed beyond recognition in barely the last
twenty
years? No, he obviously couldn't. But to have to serve with such mental basket cases …

“Emily,” Tommy was saying, “this sauce is delicious!”

His wife smiled softly. “Don't praise me. That's Courtney's doing—he supervises all the sauces and salads. It drives Asunta wild, but she puts up with it.”

“She does well to,” he murmured.

“Ha! the steel hand in the velvet glove,” Tommy teased him. “But what'll you do when they get their independence and we all have to go home?”

He shook his head at her, his eyes narrowed. “Not a chance.”

“But isn't that what President Quezon has flown stateside for?”

“It can't possibly work. Have you gone over and watched them? the legislature?” He took a sip of wine. “It's a Breughel—a jungle Breughel. A gentleman in a fancy barong-tagalog gets up and makes a maundering speech for
Independence Now;
a representative from Bontoc—he is still wearing his straw hat—wants dominion status, an Igorot in a polo shirt interrupts him to shout about the price of sugar, a great fat hulk from Davao offers a gurgling testimonial to the greatness of the Moro peoples. The Manila gentleman attacks him savagely, the Moro insults both him
and
the farmer from Bontoc. The chair bangs and thumps away—it ought to be a bolo, not a gavel—and by now everyone is roaring at his neighbor with no one listening to anyone else. A barrio cockfight is a good deal more dignified.”

“What do you think we ought to do with the Islands, Major?” Damon asked.

“Outright annexation.”

The Captain's brows rose, and Tommy cried: “Oh, but we can't do that, can we?”

“Why not? We are still responsible for their defense, according to this cock-eyed constitution of theirs. Why not treat it like the Northwest Territory, earmarked for eventual statehood? Everybody thinks we're at the end of our national expansion—as though the Pacific Ocean were some sacred blue barrier. Why? We're not going to give up the territory of Hawaii, are we? Then why all this pussyfooting about the Philippines? See how they're situated—like a compact little necklace slung right across the throat of Asia …” He talked on, developing his theme as the ideas came to him, watching their faces: his wife, benign and veiled; Damon respectful, attentive and very steady; Tommy frankly captivated and alive—her eyes sparkling in the candlelight, her lips just parted in that charming way that made her look even more lovely and disturbing than ever.

“Look at the geographical logic of the situation: 225 miles due north of Mayraira Point is Formosa, 400 miles north by east Japan's island chain, 750 miles due west the Indo-China Coast, 120 due south the Celebes and Halmahera. We have a dozen points of contact with Southeast Asia …”

“From another point of view you could say we were well inside the jaws of Southeast Asia, couldn't you?” Damon asked him.

“Only if you hold the thesis that all salients are untenable, which I don't think you do. An adequately supported salient is a source of anxiety to one's opponent, and an ever ready base for taking the offensive against him. Beyond that, you're flying in the face of the inherent thrust of history. The basic terrestrial movement is westward.” Recent studies revealed that infants first start to walk in a westerly direction. Europe had moved west across the Atlantic for a thousand years, the Mayans had peopled Oceania, following the trades—anthropologists had noted the recurrent elliptic eye motif in Yucatán, Tonga, the Sepik River cultures. “We trekked west because we had to. The Louisiana Purchase, the War with Mexico, Seward's Alaska venture—they were all in a certain sense perfectly necessary, as natural as breathing.”

“Except for the poor old Indian, that is,” Emily said quietly.

“Oh my God, don't bring up Indians!” Tommy exclaimed, “—if I hear anything more about Indians I'll shriek …”

“Oh, yes,” Emily said. “The court-martial. I think you did a noble deed, Sam.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” Damon answered with a wry, mournful smile.

“He drove us all crazy with it, I can tell you that,” Tommy told them. “Sat up till all hours preparing the case. Reading tomes that would choke a carabao. Ridiculous! You'd think he was defending Emile Zola … They said he had tears in the eyes of half the court when he got through. I don't believe it, though. Do you, Court?”

Massengale laughed, watching her lips. “Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind/ Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind …” The trial of Brand had become a cause célèbre on the post for the last month—a source of mirth, irritation and violent argument in the messes. Everybody had an opinion. The fault was McClain's for not keeping a private in hand; the fault was Jarreyl's for running such a stupid, bloody Andersonville; the stockade was a trifle severe perhaps, but there was no help for it, it was simply necessary to keep the EM in line: if you started making exceptions where would you stop? Damon's heart was in the right place, but his enthusiasms were unfortunate; he was quixotic, he wasn't sound—trouble with him was he'd never got over being an EM himself; he was a God damned fool who ought to run his company and keep his nose out of things that didn't concern him—injecting the racial issue into a fuss of this sort was bad medicine out here in the Department, where we had a position to maintain; the whole affair was prejudicial to the best interests of the service …

The wrangles, the cautious, muffled arguments had gone on and on; Massengale had listened in amusement. The question of the Melburhazy girl was dynamite, of course—if her involvement became a matter of record it could have some serious consequences. Colonel Fahrquahrson was furious with Damon, and it was rumored that General Whitley was displeased by all the notice the affair was getting throughout the Islands. But the Captain had skirted the girl's implication neatly. When he'd been able to establish the fact that McClain had been drinking the morning of the episode and had pursued Brand with the knife, the anti-Damon faction went into fits; and his summation on the duties and responsibilities of noncommissioned officers was a little masterpiece. The court's deliberation had been brief: Brand was acquitted, the case was closed, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

Massengale watched the author of all this acrimony seated at the other end of the table—shortened now for the four of them—eating with deliberate care and listening to his wife. Damon was a disappointment to him. Taking the case had been stupid, essentially: stupid because it alienated those in power without accomplishing anything commensurate. He'd handled it superbly, but what good was that? Now Fahrquahrson and half the rank out here had him down for a Bolshevik, a guardhouse lawyer. That was the trouble with Samuel: for all his competence he was really like most career officers—he had never got over being a boy, stamped with a boy's enthusiasms. True, he wasn't a poker addict (though he did play occasionally), he didn't philander or turn into a rummy the way a lot of them did; and he did continually struggle to expand his mind to meet military and political problems—which was what had attracted Massengale to him in the first place. But it was all wasted if he let sentimental impulses like this business with Brand ruin his chances for advancement …

“How is the noble red man?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “Is he properly grateful?”

The Captain's face became very still and somber. “Yes,” he said. “He's grateful.”

“Oh, Court,” Tommy cried, “—how can you
ask
such a question? He's wild with worship, he says he'll follow Sam wherever he goes—he wants to be Sam's orderly.”

“He could do worse,” Massengale observed.

“But Sam won't do it. He says Brand is NCO material and it might stand in the way of his getting ahead. But Brand says he doesn't care.” She tossed her head, and her hair swung delicately against her throat. “He's so devoted! They're all like that. Loyalty from the bottom up, I believe it's called.”

“That's what it's called,” Damon said. “Don't let this digression of Tommy's interrupt you, Major. Go on with your westward theory, will you?”

“Oh. Yes—I'm sorry, Court.” Tommy looked charmingly rueful. “I get up here in this palace and everything goes to my head. But honestly, do you think we ought to just—take them over? the Philippines?”

Soberly he nodded. “We were moving correctly—Hawaii, Commodore Perry's trip to Japan were in the right line. But then we turned sentimental. We allowed a simple geographical obstacle to prevent us from pursuing our destiny. The Pacific. We shrank from it: it was perfectly silly. We should have gone on to Manila
then
—not as a result of the accidents of battle—and established our hegemony in Borneo, New Guinea, possibly even New Zealand and Australia. Don't be shocked—we're talking of the vast movements of peoples here, not a romanticized concept of representative democracy. An ocean empire, sustained by small, efficient, professional garrisons and a vast fleet based at Salamaua, Brunei, Soerabaja—even Bangkok …”

“Court,” Tommy chided him, “you're not an army man at all—you should have gone into the navy.”

He smiled, pleased with her. “You know, you might be quite right about that. There's a finality, a sense of clean strategic force about naval operations that the land service can't match. Don't tell old Fahrquahrson, though—he'll start huffing and puffing and slashing at the desk with his crop. It's bad enough to have him mad at Samuel without his getting down on me.”

“Wouldn't we have run into the Dutch and British interests if we'd followed that course?” Damon asked.