The Young Lions (50 page)

Michael grinned at her. The Colonel next to her did not seem pleased with Michael. "Come, my dear." He took the girl firmly by the arm. "I'll give you a lemon if you come," the girl said over her shoulder, receding in silk undulations with the Colonel.

"A real whole lemon."

Michael looked around the room. Six Generals, he noticed, and felt very uncomfortable. He had never met a General before. He looked uneasily down at his ill-fitting tunic and the not-quite-polished buttons. He would not have been surprised if one of the Generals had come over to him and taken his name, rank and serial number for not having his buttons polished properly.

He did not see Louise for the moment, and he felt shy at going up to the bar, among the important-looking strangers at the other end of the room, and asking for a drink. When he had passed his sixteenth birthday he had felt that he was finished with being shy for the rest of his life. After that he had felt at home everywhere, had spoken his mind freely, felt that he was acceptable enough, if no more, to get by in any company. But ever since he had joined the Army, a latter-day shyness, more powerful and paralysing than anything he had known as a boy, had developed within him, shyness with officers, with men who had been in action, among women with whom otherwise he would have felt perfectly at ease.

He stood hesitantly a little to one side of the door, staring at the Generals. He did not like their faces. They looked too much like the faces of businessmen, small-town merchants, factory owners, growing a little fat and over-comfortable, with an eye out for a new sales campaign. The German Generals have better faces, he thought. Not better, abstractedly, he thought, but better for Generals. Harder, crueller, more determined. A General should have one of two faces, he thought. Either he should look like a heavyweight prizefighter, staring out coldly with dumb animal courage at the world, through battered, quick slits of eyes, or he should look like a haunted man out of a novel by Dostoevsky, malevolent, almost mad, with a face marked by evil raptures and visions of death. Our Generals, he thought, look as though they might sell you a building lot or a vacuum cleaner, they never look as though they could lead you up to the walls of a fortress. Fortinbras, Fortinbras, did you never migrate from Europe?

"What're you thinking about?" Louise asked.

She was standing at his side. "The faces of our Generals," he said. "I don't like them."

"The trouble with you is," Louise said, "you have the enlisted man's psychology."

"How right you are." He stared at Louise. She was wearing a grey plaid suit with a black blouse. Her red hair, bright and severe above the small, elegant body, shone among the uniforms. He never could decide whether he loved Louise or was annoyed with her. She had a husband somewhere in the Pacific of whom she rarely spoke, and she did some sort of semi-secret job for the OWI and she seemed to know every bigwig in the British Isles. She had a deft, tricky way with men, and was always being invited to week-ends at famous country houses where garrulous military men of high rank seemed to spill a great many dangerous secrets to her. Michael was sure, for example, that she knew when D-Day was going to come, and which targets in Germany were to be bombed for the next month, and when Roosevelt would meet Stalin and Churchill again. She was well over thirty, although she looked younger, and before the war had lived modestly in St Louis, where her husband had taught at a college. After the war, Michael was certain, she would run for the Senate or be appointed Ambassadress to somewhere, and when he thought of it, he pitied the husband, mired on Bougainville or New Caledonia, dreaming of going back to his modest home and quiet wife in St Louis.

"Why," Michael asked, smiling soberly at her, conscious that two or three high-ranking officers were watching him stonily as he talked to Louise, "why do you bother with me?"

"I want to keep in touch with the spirit of the troops," Louise said. "The Common Soldier and How He Grew. I may write an article for the Ladies' Home Journal on the subject."

"Who's paying for this party?" Michael asked.

"The OWI," Louise said, holding his arm possessively.

"Better relations with the Armed Forces and our noble Allies, the British."

"That's where my taxes go," Michael said. "Scotch for the Generals."

"The poor dears," Louise said. "Don't begrudge it to them. Their soft days are almost over."

"Let's get out of here," Michael said. "I can't breathe."

"Don't you want a drink?"

"No. What would the OWI say?"

"One thing I can't stand about enlisted men," Louise said, "is their air of injured moral superiority."

"Let's get out of here." Michael saw a British Colonel with grey hair bearing down on them, and tried to get Louise started towards the door, but it was too late.

"Louise," said the Colonel, "we're going to the Club for dinner, and I thought if you weren't busy…"

"Sorry," Louise said, holding lightly on to Michael's arm.

"My date arrived. Colonel Treaner, PFC Whitacre."

"How do you do, Sir," said Michael, standing almost unconsciously at attention, as he shook hands.

The Colonel, he noticed, was a handsome, slender man with cold, pale eyes, with the red tabs of the General Staff on his lapel. The Colonel did not smile at Michael.

"Are you sure," he said rudely, "that you're going to be busy, Louise?"

He was staring at her, standing close to her, his face curiously pale, as he rocked a little on his heels. Then Michael remembered the name. He had heard a long time ago that there was something on between Louise and him, and Mincey, in the office, had once warned Michael to be more discreet when Mincey had seen Louise and Michael together at a bar. The Colonel was not in command of troops now, but was on one of the Supreme Headquarters Planning Boards, and, according to Mincey, was a powerful man in Allied politics.

"I told you, Charles," Louise said, "that I'm busy."

"Of course," the Colonel said, in a clipped, somewhat drunken way. He wheeled, and went off towards the bar.

"There goes Private Whitacre," Michael said softly, "on landing barge Number One."

"Don't be silly," Louise snapped.

"Joke."

"It's a silly joke."

"Righto. Silly joke. Give me my purple heart now." He grinned at Louise to show her he wasn't taking it too seriously.

"Now," he said, "now that you have blasted my career in the Army of the United States, may we go?"

"Don't you want to meet some Generals?"

"Some other time," said Michael. "Maybe around 1960. Go and get your coat."

"O.K.," said Louise. "Don't go away. I couldn't bear it if you went away." Michael looked speculatively at her. She was standing close to him, oblivious of all the other men in the room, her head tilted a little to one side, looking up at him very seriously. She means it, Michael thought, she actually means it. He felt disturbed, tender and wary at the same time. What does she want? The question skimmed the edges of his mind, as he looked down at the bright, cleverly arranged hair, at the steady, revealing eyes. What does she want? Whatever it is, he thought rebelliously, I don't want it.

"Why don't you marry me?" she said.

Michael blinked and looked around him at the glitter of stars and the dull glint of braid. What a place, he thought, what a place for a question like that!

"Why don't you marry me?" she asked again, quietly.

"Please," he said, "go and get your coat." Suddenly he disliked her very much and felt sorry for the schoolteacher husband in the Marine uniform far away in the jungle. He must be a nice, simple, sorrowful man, Michael thought, who probably would die in this war out of simple bad luck.

"Don't think," Louise said, "that I'm drunk. I knew I was going to ask you that from the minute you walked in here tonight. I watched you for five minutes before you saw me. I knew that's what I wanted."

"I'll put a request through channels," Michael said as lightly as possible, "for permission from my Commanding Officer…"

"Don't joke, damn you," Louise said. She turned sharply and went to get her coat.

He watched her as she walked across the room. Colonel Treanor stopped her and Michael saw him arguing swiftly and secretly with Louise and holding her arm. She pulled away and went on to the cloak-room. She walked lightly, Michael noticed, with a prim, stiff grace, her pretty legs and small feet very definite and womanly in their movements. Michael felt baffled and wished he had the courage to go to the bar for a drink. It had all been so light and comradely, offhand and without responsibility, just the thing for a time like this, this time of waiting, this time before the real war, this time of being ludicrous and ashamed in Mincey's ridiculous office. It had been offhand and flattering, in exactly the proper proportions, and Louise had cleverly erected a thin shield of something that was less than and better than love to protect him from the comic, unending abuse of the Army. And now, it was probably over. Women, Michael thought resentfully, can never learn the art of being transients. They are all permanent settlers at heart, making homes with dull, instinctive persistence in floods and wars, on the edges of invasions, at the moment of the crumbling of states. No, he thought, I will not have it. For my own protection I am going to get through this time alone…

The hell with it, he thought, Generals or no Generals. He strode, upright and swift, through the room to the bar.

"Whisky and soda, please," he said to the bartender, and drank the first gulp down in a long, grateful draught. A British RASC Colonel was talking to an RAF Wing Commander at Michael's elbow. They paid no attention to him. The Colonel was a little drunk. "Herbert, old man," the Colonel was saying, "I was in Africa and I can speak with authority. The Americans are fine at one thing. Superb. I will not deny it. They are superb at supply. Lorries, oil dumps, traffic control, superb. But, let us face it, Herbert, they cannot fight. If Montgomery were realistic he would say to them, 'Chaps, we will hand over all our lorries to you, and you hand over all your tanks and guns to us. You will haul and carry, chaps, because you're absolutely first-rate at it, and we will jolly well do the fighting, and we'll be home by Christmas.'"

The Wing Commander nodded solemnly and both the officers of the King ordered two more whiskies. The OWI, Michael thought grimly, staring at the Colonel's pink scalp shining through the thin white hair on the back of the head, the OWI is certainly throwing away the taxpayer's money on these particular allies.

Then he saw Louise coming out into the room in a loose grey coat. He put down his drink and hurried over to her. Her face wasn't serious any more, but curled into its usual slightly questioning smile, as though she didn't believe one half of what the world told her. At some moment in the cloak-room, Michael thought, as he took her arm, she had looked into the mirror and told herself, I am not going to show anything any more tonight, and switched on her old face, as smoothly and perfectly as she was now pulling on her gloves.

"Oh, my," Michael said, grinning, piloting her to the door.

"Oh, my, what danger I am in."

Louise glanced at him, then half-understood. She smiled reflectively. "Don't think you're not," she said.

"Lord, no," said Michael. They laughed together and walked out through the lobby of the Dorchester, through the old ladies drinking tea with their nephews, through the young Air Force Captains with the pretty girls, through the terrible, anchored English jazz, that suffered so badly because there were no Negroes in England to breathe life into it and tell the saxophonists and drummers, "Oh, Mistuh, are you off! Mistuh, lissen here, this is the way it goes, just turn it loose, Mistuh, turn that poor jailbird horn loose out of yo' hands…" Michael and Louise walked jauntily, arm in arm, back once more, and perhaps only for a moment, on the brittle happy perimeter of love. Outside, across the Park, in the fresh cold evening air, the dying fires the Germans had left behind them sent a holiday glow into the sky.

They paced slowly towards Piccadilly.

"I decided something tonight," Louise said.

"What?" Michael asked.

"I have to get you commissioned. At least a Lieutenant. It's silly for you to remain an enlisted man all your life. I'm going to talk to some of my friends."

Michael laughed. "Save your breath," he said.

"Wouldn't you like to be an officer?"

"Maybe. I haven't thought about it. Even so – save your breath."

"Why?"

"They can't do it."

"They can do anything," Louise said. "And if I ask them…"

"Nothing doing. It will go back to Washington, and it will be turned down."

"Why?"

"Because there's a man in Washington who says I'm a Communist."

"Nonsense."

"It's nonsense," Michael said, "but there it is."

"Are you a Communist?"

"About like Roosevelt," said Michael. "They'd keep him from being commissioned, too."

"Did you try?"

"Yes."

"Oh, God," Louise said, "what a silly world."

"It's not very important," said Michael. "We'll win the war anyway."

"Weren't you furious," Louise asked, "when you found out?"

"A little maybe," said Michael. "More sad than furious."

"Didn't you feel like chucking the whole thing?"

"For an hour or two, maybe," said Michael. "Then I thought, what a childish attitude."

"You're too damned reasonable."

"Maybe. Not really, though, not so terribly reasonable," said Michael. "I'm not really much of a soldier, anyway. The Army isn't missing much. When I went into the Army, I made up my mind that I was putting myself at the Army's disposal. I believe in the war. That doesn't mean I believe in the Army. I don't believe in any army. You don't expect justice out of an army, if you're a sensible, grown-up human being, you only expect victory. And if it comes to that, our Army is probably the most just one that ever existed. I believe the Army will take care of me to the best of its abilities, that it will keep me from being killed, if it can possibly manage it, and that it will finally win as cheaply as human foresight and skill can arrange. Sufficient unto the day is the victory thereof."