The Suicide Run

The suicide run.

five tales of the Marine Corps.

William Styron.

BLANKENSHIP.

AMID THE SMELLY STRETCH of riptides and treacherous currents formed by the confluence of the upper East River and Long Island Sound stands a small low-lying island. Surmounted for most of its length by ancient prison buildings, it is an island hardly distinguishable, in its time-exhausted drabness, from those dozen or so other islands occupied by prisons and hospitals which give to the New York waterways such a bleak look of munic.i.p.al necessity and-for some reason especially at twilight-that air of melancholy and erosion of the spirit. Yet something here compels a second glance. Something makes this island seem even excessively ugly, and a meaner and shabbier eyesore. Perhaps this is because of the island"s situation; for a prison island it just seems to be in too nice a place. It commands a fine wide view of the blue Sound to the east and the white houses on the mainland nearby-houses which, though situated in the Bronx, are so neat and scrubbed and summery-looking as to make New York City seem as remote as Nantucket. One pa.s.sing by the island might more logically envision a pretty park here, or groves of trees, or a harbor for sailboats, than this squalid acre of prison buildings. Yet perhaps it"s the buildings themselves which make the place look more than ordinarily grim and depressing-so that the cleanly utilitarian, white marble structures on the other of the city"s islands seem, by comparison, almost beguiling sanctuaries. These date back nearly a century, soot-encrusted brick piles of turrets and fake moats and parapets and Victorian towers. With these, and with their crenellated battlements and lofty embrasures and all the sham artifices of fortressed power, the buildings possess a calculated, ridiculous ugliness, as if for someone locked within the walls they must add to the injury of simple confinement the diurnal insulting reminder-in every nook and cranny unavoidable and symbolic-of his incarceration.

Time has imparted little dignity to the place. Rain and soot and wind have weathered it, but the stain which they have printed upon those grandiose walls seems to have left no patina of mellowness, and has only made them more dirty. It would be a sad place to be. In any case, whichever makes the island so oppressive-the prospect, so close, of the clean white houses, or the prison"s appalling architecture-either, to anyone held captive there, would make the idea of freedom more precious. Precious enough, indeed, that a man might risk-given enough anguish, and enough fury-the mile of channel, and the extraordinary tides.

It so happened that during most of the last war the island and prison were in the possession of the United States Navy, which had leased the place from the city in order to lock up members of its personnel-sailors and marines and coast guardsmen-who had offended against the rules and regulations. These prisoners (although the population naturally fluctuated, it rarely went below two thousand men) were not major offenders. That is to say, they were not men who had murdered or committed treason or viciously a.s.saulted an officer or committed any crime so dreadful that the total weight of naval wrath and justice had sunk mountainously about them and had swallowed them up for twenty years. But if these men had not been guilty of supreme crimes, they were not precisely minor offenders, either: they had thieved and raped and deserted and had been caught committing b.u.g.g.e.ry and had been drunk or asleep, or both, while on duty and had been, almost to a man at one time or another, away without leave. They had all received courts-martial of some sort, and their average term of sentence was three and a half years. Yet, possessing neither the respectability of innocence nor the glamour of ruthless criminals, they shared a desperate, tribal feeling of inadequacy and were often victims, even within themselves, of sour contempt. No one displayed this contempt, however, with such c.o.c.ky amus.e.m.e.nt as the marines who were on the island to guard them, and who called them simply "yardbirds."

The prisoners were a sad lot, and the marines (there were two hundred of them, officers and men) ruled the island with a piratical swagger and a fine grip on the principles of intimidation. Few prisoners were ever beaten, for this in itself was a court-martial offense; but the history of bondage has shown that to slap a man about invites rebellion, while a tyranny of simple scorn cows the will and ulcerates the soul. Armed only with short billy clubs of hickory, the marines sauntered safe and serene and with a wisecracking arrogance among the fidgety horde, poking ribs and facetiously whacking behinds. The prisoners were gray with the grayness of men who seldom are exposed to light and suffer the sick, constant ache of loneliness. It was the peculiar grayness somehow stamped only upon the perpetually browbeaten-a lackl.u.s.ter and forlorn complexion, the hue of smoke. By day the prisoners worked-making rope in the rope shop, shoveling coal in the power plant, hauling garbage, sweeping and swabbing their barracks floors. Then there was an enormous siren, mounted atop a water tower. It was this machine, like an intransigent apocalyptic voice, which seemed to dominate the island and the proceedings of each day. Like an archangel"s horn, too, it was apt to blow at any hour. It had the impact of a smack across the mouth, and at its shocking, pitiless wail the prisoners fled galloping across the island like panicked sheep, egged on by the ma rines" rowdy cries. Shortly then, in front of their barracks (because always perhaps this morning one of them, in grief and desperation, had climbed down off the seawall), they were checked and counted one by one, standing in desolate ranks beneath the wide unbounded sky and the outrageous brick battlements and towers.

But if it was the enlisted marines who so mortified the prisoners, it was the officers on the island (there were twenty-five of them, seven marine officers in charge of the guard and the rest naval men: legal experts and administrative officers, doctors and dentists, chaplains to attend to the prisoners" unmanned spirits, and a psychiatrist or two to adjust their often chaotic heads) who enjoyed sovereign and unchallengeable power, and to whom the prisoners accorded a cowering respect. At their approach the prisoners scrambled erect, removed their caps (being forbidden to salute), and stood in alarmed and rigid silence. Such were the rules, and thus even the meanest lieutenant might feel that same spinal thrill and hot flush of privilege that a cardinal must feel, or a general at parade, and sense chill little ecstasies of dominion. Yet of all these officers-including the marine colonel in charge of the island, and the ranks of bra.s.s beneath him-none was treated by the prisoners with such craven and fl.u.s.tered diffidence as a certain marine warrant officer named Charles R. Blankenship. This in a way was remarkable, for he was not a cruel or angry man.

Blankenship was in charge of the blockhouse, where the more violent and wicked prisoners were kept behind foot-thick doors and in ugly little cells. He was not a large man-indeed, he was of only average height-but there was a quality he had (perhaps the erect military carriage or the suppleness of his well-knit body, which was outlined always so cleanly because of the tailored cut of his uniform) that gave the impression of cool coordinated strength. Nor did he display this strength with any of the swagger or parade which sets off the toy soldier from the sober professional. His bearing, rather, was that of a man who has long ago outgrown any callow tendency to strut (had he ever possessed any at all) and wears pride in his uniform with an offhand confidence and conviction, like the suave self-a.s.surance with which often some very beautiful woman, so long accustomed to stares and admiration, wears her beauty.

At this time Blankenship was a little over thirty years old. In the Marine Corps this is young for a warrant officer, who is usually a grizzled, fat old man who has struggled upward through the ranks to find himself, in his declining years, a kind of serene and crusty androgyne-no longer a member of the common mob yet not really an officer-who putters about in his flower beds or, slouched in potbellied salute at some twilight parade, is referred to with misty affection as "the old Gunner," and in general receives the legendary and universal respect shown to wise old codgers. It was this fact more than anything-that even in a time of war (it was then 1944), when promotions were many, he could attain at thirty what for most marines took nearly a lifetime-that reinforced Blankenship"s pride in his rank and his achievement, and lent to his manner such solid a.s.surance. It was not a swollen or presumptuous pride. It was simply the pride of one who is aware of his abilities and who feels respectably fulfilled upon having those abilities recognized, no matter how luckily expedited by the accident of war. Blankenship asked for little else. For, like many regular marines, he had never had any particular desire to become a commissioned officer-a captain or a colonel. For him it was enough to remain a good marine, no matter what the rank. He knew, too, that forced to revert, as would a.s.suredly happen when the war ended, to his old rank, he would become a sergeant again-a good marine-without shirk or complaint or demur.

Now it developed that at dawn of a gray, bl.u.s.tery morning in November-almost five months to the day after his arrival on the island (and following two years of combat duty in the Pacific)-an event occurred which for the first time disrupted the orderly pattern of Blankenship"s daily routine. An escape, or what appeared to be one-the first in nearly a year-had been discovered by one of the guards as he made his regular rounds through the chill and misty light. As he told it later (he was a burly young marine from Kentucky with an adolescent voice which cracked excitedly, and the highly informed, solemn air of one who knows he is a partic.i.p.ant, maybe even the key figure, in something momentous), the asphalt parapets along the seawall were shrouded in fog, so thick in fact that he had had to walk, as he put it, "right cautious" in order to keep from falling into the sea and even his dog, a great vicious Doberman with milk-white tusks which could crush through a man"s wrist or calf bone like so much soft clay, had lost his footing once and had stopped to sniff the murk and raise his head to whimper. Had it not been for the wind, the escape might have gone unnoticed until the morning count, much later. As it was, the marine said, it was the wind that had tipped him off, that bore to his ears through the impenetrable, somber dawn a faint flap-flap-flapping, a steady sound like that of a loose tin signboard, or of metal banging against brick. Which in fact it was, just that: a heavy window section forced open, bars, rivets, and all, from the washroom of a barracks not twenty feet away, and left dangling against the wall. It was a deft clean job, done with a crowbar or a pipe; yet how, everyone speculated later, it had been accomplished without arousing the slumbering prison was more than a mystery, for it should have made a noise like the shrieks of the d.a.m.ned-prying loose from reinforced concrete nearly a quarter ton of steel. At any rate, the marine called the corporal of the guard, and the corporal hustled up to the officers" wardroom and woke Blankenship, who happened to be officer of the day.

"So it was just your misfortune to have the duty, wasn"t it, Gunner?" said Colonel Wilhoite, with a wide smile, later on in the morning.

"Yes sir," Blankenship said, "it"s tough. But somebody"s got to have the duty. Five of us stand it, plus those seven officers. We all figure we"ve got one chance in twelve for an escape to land on our day. My number just came up wrong, that"s all. Tough."

"Sit down, Gunner. Have a cigarette." This was the colonel"s office, one of those arid military chambers, bare save for desk and chairs, a single filing cabinet, and two framed photographs of the commandant and a youthful, sprightlier Franklin D. Roosevelt. Past the windows was the Sound, blue and glossy now with oblong shapes of sunlight. A tugboat hooted lugubriously in its pa.s.sage seaward. The colonel sighed.

"Remarkable, simply remarkable," he whispered. "A boat. You say they built a boat."

Blankenship lowered himself into a chair and lit a cigarette. "They certainly did, sir. There was this shed near the carpenter"s shop. It was what you call a hobby project. There were just these two guys. The chief who runs the place thought they were building birdhouses or something. Anyway, they were making birdhouses whenever he looked in. Then we found it broken into this morning-the shed, that is. They had sawhorses rigged up. They even had made templates for the thing. Then we saw this track across the ground to the seawall, just the sort of a track a seven-or eight-foot skiff would make being dragged across the ground."

"Remarkable," said the colonel again, "simply ingenious. Imagine, building a boat. How perfectly remarkable."

"Our boats were out since six, also the harbor police. They found no trace, so they must be ash.o.r.e."

"Ransacking some house in Great Neck, no doubt." The colonel paused, inspecting the tips of his fingers, then looked up to contemplate, with dreamy, moist eyes, the far reaches of the Sound. "I must say it was most remarkable." Wilhoite was a round man of about fifty with thinning gray hair and a florid elastic face upon which an exceedingly stunted and inconsequential nose had been implanted, like a pittance or an afterthought. It was a feature which detracted from a face that otherwise might have been formi dable and strong, and may have been a factor which had helped to prevent him from becoming a general. He had distinguished himself in action at Belleau Wood, but a touch of asthma and other things had kept him from seeing combat in this war.

Blankenship, waiting, watched him narrowly. So far, Wilhoite had proved unpredictable, and Blankenship had not been very successful in his attempts to gauge what was forthcoming from the man. He would not yet be so extreme as to call the colonel a fool, but there was something about him which was silly and erratic, that much was true. He was a man of changey moods, a generally amiable person who ran his affairs with a sort of harried competence. He had freely admitted to Blankenship his ignorance of prisoners, asking plaintively why, of all places, headquarters should have sent him here. This candor, Blankenship felt, had in a human sort of way been to his credit. But it embarra.s.sed Blankenship-with a crawling, inward discomfort-to know that he knew more than his commanding officer, and that Wilhoite-with his awkwardly solicitous, ingratiating over-familiarity-knew he knew more, too. With sudden ugly pain at this thought, and with the confusion of the last few hours still boiling about in his mind, Blankenship, who had been peering up at Wilhoite as he gazed dreamily, chin on fingertips, out to sea, turned uneasily away, thinking that he had known superior officers who had been bullies and drunkards and cowards, or all three, but never before one to whom his own att.i.tude stopped, for some reason, just so short of actual indifference.

The colonel finally spoke. "Look, Gunner, we can"t pin this on anyone. We"re just lucky we"ve had such a good record so far." He paused, sucking his lips. "Look, you had brig duty in the Old Corps. How the h.e.l.l do you think we can stop this sort of thing? If those birds did it so easily, there are two thousand others around here who"ll get the same idea."

Even as he spoke Blankenship had almost parted with the words, having stored them up a half hour before, having sensed, somehow, that he would be asked. Yet now he chose his manner of speaking, avoiding brusqueness and, above all, condescension: "One, sir, I"d double the guard on foggy nights. Two, I"d suggest securing and lock-bolting all those old window frames. Then I"d shake down-right now-every barracks and cell block on the island and get rid of any old stored-up pipes and crowbars. As for boats, sir, that"s a bit outside my experience, but I"d certainly keep a tight watch on my tools and lumber."

The words were out, the advice delivered. Blankenship felt a vague sense of shame, almost as if, a child, he had been beset by his own father for some sc.r.a.p of wisdom. He wished the interview were over.

"And they were-who, Gunner?" Pencil poised, the colonel waited while Blankenship said all he knew, giving him the same dry and tedious details-the names of the two men, their home addresses, convictions and sentences and conduct in confinement-that he had hastily that morning memorized from the record books and had already told the colonel not five minutes before. He had prepared himself for this, too, with casual almost unthinking efficiency born out of ten years" habit which forced him to consider in times of crisis not only the crisis itself but its future complications. It was one of the talents he had which had gotten him his warrant, and he knew it-a reflex as effortless as breathing which caused him to grasp an emergency at its core while aware each second of its all but invisible growths and tendrils, too, its imminent threats and its chances for exploitation. It was a talent which applied in this situation-an exasperating flight of two yardbirds who should never have been allowed to be in a position to escape at all-with no more or less fitness than it had applied on Guadalca.n.a.l, where with a mortar-blasted hunk of flesh as big as a small fist gouged out of his leg, flat on the ground with the hot funky stench of jungle in his nose, he had kept up for a night and a day a telephoned hourly situation report to Division, "thus contributing substantially to interunit liaison and to the success of the operation," his Silver Star citation had read, and thus being, as General Stokes had afterward told him himself, "the only G.o.ddam operations chief in the G.o.ddam division who ever remembered to let us know what the h.e.l.l was going on."

Blankenship felt the wound now, as he had ten times a day in whatever damp weather and probably would for the rest of his life, an icy trembling twitch like electric voltage pulsating in his thigh: for a brief dolorous instant it battened cruel teeth down to the marrow of his bone; then the trembling ceased. He shifted his leg, with the pain vexing him all the more because he had had to repeat these things to the colonel, and as he finished his report and the colonel began fussily to rummage through a drawer, Blankenship felt his irritation grow and grow, along with a frustrated and powerless outrage at this morning"s mess, which could have been so easily prevented but which, more importantly, had left him feeling so cheated and unfulfilled. Nor was it an anger directed so much against the colonel now, or the two escaped prisoners (whom he had never laid eyes on except for their record-book pictures), but against some totally abstract concept of order, an order which-for the moment at least-had allowed itself to become corrupted and in default. For when the corporal of the guard had aroused him hours before, breathing into his ear the word "escape," the word had shocked him from slumber like ice water and, even as he methodically but without one second"s hesitation drew on his clothes, heavy scarf and gloves and field jacket, had made him feel a slow mounting thrill of antic.i.p.ation so intense and freighted with promise that it was like a sort of ecstasy.

He had felt it before, this cold excitement involving something to which he could hardly a.s.sign a name-challenge, perhaps, or summons to duty-at any rate a quickening of his senses so clamorous and memorable that in long periods when it was not there he had found himself waiting for it, waiting for the crisis with the tranquil, fierce patience of a communicant awaiting the moment of pa.s.sion, or a hunter in the marsh watching the final defenseless swoop of birds. It was as if this morning he had once again and for the first time since Guadalca.n.a.l been given the call, ordained to bring to some sudden threat of disequilibrium a calm and unshakable sense of order. And he had rushed out into the swirling white dawn with a chill of delight up his back and with his mind clicking like an adding machine. Yet now as he watched the colonel rifling clumsily through his papers, something close to despair returned as he recalled how, instead of the escape being nipped off neatly, the sheep back in their fold, his very first glance at the ruptured window and bars separated so beautifully from their pinnings had told him that, this time, he would have little chance for triumph.

"I can"t find the main number of the F.B.I.," the colonel said.

"I already called them, sir," Blankenship put in.

The colonel looked up. "I should have known," he said mildly. "I forgot. It"s in your special orders, isn"t it? And-"

"I called the rest, sir. The harbor and city police and the state police. I finally woke up some dogface over at Fort Sloc.u.m, and then I called the police in New Roch.e.l.le and in Na.s.sau County. I also put in calls to the cops in those birds" hometowns-Decatur, Illinois, and some little place in Wisconsin. They said they"d have their eyes peeled."

A look of bafflement came over the colonel"s face, and perhaps of hurt, too, as if he had become impaled upon the keen cutting edge of Blankenship"s finesse. "By G.o.d, Gunner," he said with a cramped little grin, "you got these birds all taped up." He rose stiffly and went to the window and stood swaying there, dumpy and morose, hands locked behind him. There was little else to do, the two men were irretrievably gone, and Blankenship wished to be dismissed. He had not taped up anything; he had seized every proliferating growth of the emergency save its essential core. He had not caught those men-that was that-and he felt stuffed with sodden, inert disappointment, remembering how not four hours before and in spite of the sight of the neatly professional breakout he had still been possessed by that familiar chill, immaculate excitement, and his mind had worked with a clarity so pure, so aerial and flawless, that it seemed as if mounds of cobwebs had been torn away from his vision, and that he was suddenly looking for the first time at everything around him through the sheerest transparent gla.s.s. And how at that moment something more than logic-an intuition, rather-had told him that those yardbirds had built a boat. Even now he could only guess at how he had arrived at that remarkable judgment, a judgment which turned out to be not only remarkable but true; he only knew that he had known it, and instantly, with as much cert.i.tude as he knew his own name, rank, and serial number, and that armed with this cert.i.tude he had been spared going through the seven or eight hapless, groping steps of another man.

He had ordered the alarm sounded, and an immediate count, sending two squads of the guard up to the work area to hunt for a place or shed where a boat might have been built or hidden. And so not ten minutes later, tearing back from the armory through the greenly mounting light, strapping on his pistol, he was neither surprised nor even particularly gratified to hear some sergeant call out through the mist and over the shrill fantastic racket of the siren: "Gunner, we found a shed ... a boat was-" because he already knew. He hadn"t answered, but had just galloped to the dock and commandeered one of the patrol boats he had ordered warmed up five minutes before, despairing even then-as the light came up dimly and revealed a Sound motionless and bare of all except a flock of swooping gulls-of finding anything, but touched still, almost to his soul, with this strange combination of fury and joy.

The colonel turned. "Gunner, just how did you know they had built this G.o.ddam boat, or skiff? Macklin told me you were out there on the water snooping around for a boat less than ten minutes after the alarm went off. If the guard had found that sprung window an hour before you"d prob ably have gotten those birds."

"Well, one, sir, I figured they knew they"d freeze to death if they hit the water in this kind of weather. Two, the ferry stops at midnight. If they were going to try and smuggle themselves out in a truck or something on the ferry, they certainly wouldn"t make a breakout at night but just hide themselves sometime during the day and then try to get aboard. Three, the foggy night. Perfect to get lost in ..." Blankenship halted. "I don"t know, sir. I guess I just felt this thing."

"Remarkable, remarkable," Wilhoite muttered and fell silent. He returned to his desk and sat down. Then he smiled, his words broadly explanatory, apologetic, and rather relieved, as if he had abruptly shifted from his shoulders a pack full of sand: "Well look, Gunner, it"s n.o.body"s fault, as I said. We"ve had a good record. I don"t think the Bureau will be down our necks for this. I"ll just put those recommendations of yours in effect and-" He raised his eyebrows and paused, and there was the same puzzling smile on his harried, honest face; but if his expression was meant to indicate some unspoken, possibly mysterious understanding between them, Blankenship had no idea what it was. For a moment the look seemed to transmit a sort of shy, quiet admiration, but whatever it might be Blankenship felt embarra.s.sed and looked away.

"Yes sir?"

The smile faded. "Nothing, Gunner," he said briskly. "I think that"ll be all." When he arose, Blankenship got up, too. But then the voice became soft again, even wistful. "G.o.d, how I hate this job. I envy you First Division boys. Why the h.e.l.l I couldn"t have gotten one of those Saipan regiments, instead of this ... hooligans and eight-b.a.l.l.s and jerks. I"ve put in sixteen letters in the past year but every G.o.ddam time I hear b.u.med has turned me down on account of my lousy wheezing chest ..." As he spoke Blankenship wished to shut his ears against this labored, querulous confession, but even so felt a mild tug of sympathy for such a man, past hope of glory and with time running out, who could still entertain some l.u.s.trous vision of fulfillment. Separated by a star and a pay grade and slight asthma from the goal of his life, he had already begun to wither. Old soldiers never died, it was true, especially if they were generals, but old colonels did; for among such reasons as that, Blankenship was content with his own world, where a man out of the pure comprehension of his duty might sometimes feel the keen, rapturous excitement he had felt that morning, and need not finally end up with skull battered to a pulp against a wall of politics and chance and ambition, like Wilhoite, in whose eyes already were specters of battles unseen and medals unwon and the slow final ooze of unlaureled retirement-of lawn chairs and rose gardens and horseshoes pitched in slumberous, dying arcs against the palms of St. Petersburg. The thought depressed Blankenship; he wished the colonel would stop talking and let him go. But when he finally did cease, with the words "That"s how it is, Gunner, those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds at headquarters have you over a barrel every time," Blankenship forced himself to smile-out of some momentary, curious sympathy.

"I know what you mean, Colonel," he said. "I don"t much like brig duty, either."

There was a knock at the door, which opened without a second"s pause to let in a chill gust of air from the corridors and a pretty blond woman of about thirty, sleek in furs. "Darling," she said breathlessly, "I have to have-Oh, excuse me, I didn"t know anyone-"

"Suzie, I"ve told you-" the colonel began.

Blankenship moved toward the door. "That"s all right, Mrs. Wilhoite, I was just going."

"Suzie, I"ve told you-"

"Webby, I have to get the eleven o"clock ferry, and I"ve got to have some money if I"m to see the caterers and do all those things-"

"Excuse me, Mrs. Wilhoite," Blankenship murmured, squeezing by.

"I"m sorry, darling," she went on, "but I do have-Oh, Mr. Blankenship, you are coming to the party, aren"t you?"

"Which party is that, Mrs. Wilhoite?"

"Which one? The Thanksgiving party, of course, tomorrow night. You are Mr. Blankenship, aren"t you?"

"Yes," he said, then quickly: "I mean yes, I"m coming, and I am Mr. Blankenship."

She gave a small bright laugh, which he found himself echoing, rather foolishly, with a faint grin. "Oh good," she said. "So many of you officers we never see, and I always get you confused with that-what"s his name?-Lieutenant-"

"Darling," the colonel put in, "if you"re going to make that ferry-"

She turned and Blankenship slid away, pulling on his gloves. Outside the building, a cold damp blast of air struck him; he shivered, slanting his eyes toward the sky. It had become suddenly dim. Eclipse-like, a luminous corona surrounded the sun, and a shifting rack of mist, outriders of those great gray clouds which all morning had mounted to the north, brought a stiff wind and the promise of snow. The asphalt expanse of ground was deserted, except for a dozen gray prisoners in the distance, marching dejectedly in column and guarded by a lone marine. Against the advancing overcast the buildings, the brick towers and battlements, seemed to take on a sudden baronial and oppressive splendor; here and there lights winked on, though it was nearly noon. There was something in the scene hinting too much at the final white onset of winter; to Blankenship, with the climate of the tropics still steaming in his blood, it was touched by a vague sense of menace. Quickly descending the steps, he hurried toward his blockhouse, pa.s.sing clumps of prisoners, pinched with cold, who arranged themselves in frozen and panicky attention when he approached. Yet as he muttered the usual "As you were," he gave the prisoners hardly a glance, beset as he was with the same troubled feeling of anger and impotence he had had in the colonel"s office, which he had thought a breath of cold air might cure, but hadn"t.

Nor was it only the escape now, although as he thought of the escape again another pang of failure came like the quick blow of a fist at the pit of his stomach, when he remembered how in the boat at dawn, rounding a point of rocks-pistol unlimbered and feet braced against the spray-drenched gunwales and with the siren roaring in his ears like the ascending demented howls of souls chained in h.e.l.l-he had thought, in one final and illusory moment of self-deception, that he had spotted those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. He had not, of course. What had appeared to be, in that fraudulent and compromising light, a boat had turned out to be nothing but a cardboard box heaved over some ship"s side. It had not been the quarry which he felt at that instant he would have literally sacrificed a leg or an arm to capture, but a maddening piece of driftage upon which the words HORMEL FINE SOUPS had been written and which, with its mirage-like deceit, gave him a second"s furious resolve to strangle the manufacturer of both soup and box. For he felt he had been tricked in the race at every turn. It was as if those yardbirds had been handicapped two lengths instead of the one length that was fair and just, and to this excessive advantage had been added the ultimate merciless ridicule of cunningly strewn debris, like soup boxes, in the wake of their victory. He had been tricked, all right, and as he strode toward the blockhouse entry he felt suddenly so abortively hollow and outmaneuvered that the feeling was close to exhaustion. Something else troubled him, too-something he knew he should be worrying about-but this, whatever it was, he banished from his mind when, at the entry to the blockhouse, he saw the look on Sergeant Mulcahy"s face and knew that more trouble was in the air.

Mulcahy"s chronically jaundiced expression was only in part due to the sourness of his nature, for he was still recovering from malaria. He was gaunt, ugly, with a crooked nose-a regular with fifteen years" service. His contempt for the prisoners was both artless and profound. It was based simply, as he had expressed it to Blankenship, on the fact that the convicts, whom he referred to categorically as "skunks," had all been experiencing blissful s.e.xual connections in New York or Chicago while he was "out contracting the jungle rot." He might have been a bully, except that his spleen had become so enfeebled by malaria and general world-and war-weariness that his only cruelty was an occasional drowsy prod or poke. "A little goosin" don"t hurt "em none," he had said to Blankenship, but it was something which now and then he had to be called down on. At this moment his dilapidated, sulfurous face wore a look of the plainest disgust.

"What"s up?" Blankenship said.

"Ah, there"s some guy here thinks he"s top dog."

"New man?" The gate swung open slowly, eased to behind Blankenship with a pneumatic hiss.

"Did you get those two birds this morning, Gunner?"

Mulcahy"s irrelevance, together with the renewed reminder of his failure, so annoyed him that he turned and snapped: "I said, G.o.ddammit, Mulcahy, is he a new man?"

Mulcahy drooped. "Yes, sir. Five days p.i.s.s and punk."

"For what?"

"Fighting. He just come in from B Company. Colonel had him up for office hours this morning."

Blankenship entered the office, a corner room with enormous barred windows, while Mulcahy shambled in behind. "So what"s the trouble, then?" he said, sitting down. "What cell"s he a.s.signed to?"

"Fifteen, sir. Well, Gunner, he just wouldn"t cooperate. This skunk comes in here with a bunch of smart-guy c.r.a.p, saying how much he didn"t like the smell in here and all and how it "irritated" him-that"s the word he used, Gunner, I swear to G.o.d-to have an outside cell where there was no view and only blower ventilation, and all. He was just running off at the mouth, that"s all. I mean I never saw such a smart son of a b.i.t.c.h-"

"So-" Blankenship, staring Mulcahy down, felt the blood rushing to his eyes in anger, and saw the sergeant"s freckled, sallow face sheepishly begin to crumble. "So-" he repeated.

"Well, Gunner, it was just a little tap right over the eye-"

"G.o.ddammit, Mulcahy!" His fist thumped hard, painfully, on the desk, in a fury made thrice potent by the events of the morning. "I told you to keep your G.o.ddam Irish paws off these prisoners-"

"Gunner, I swear before G.o.d-" Protectively, Mulcahy rolled back his bleary yellow eyes. "It didn"t even make a br-draw blood," he stammered. "I put a-"

"Quiet!"

"Yes, sir."

"I"ve told you for the last time. You lay hands on these birds anymore and I"ll have you up before the colonel in two seconds. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir," he said glumly.

"O.K. Now go get that man and bring him here."

"Aye-aye, sir."

"And give me that club," he added, holding out his hand. "Some of you people are so G.o.ddam Asiatic you"d beat your own grandmother."

Mulcahy exited in gangling, clumsy haste. Blankenship sank back in his chair, calmer now, faintly ashamed at his outburst, and reflecting that, after all and in spite of everything, Mulcahy was a good marine, and likable even if he was stunningly ignorant. But as he slumped slowly back, antic.i.p.ating a few seconds" rest-perhaps a catnap, even, to clear from his mind the morning"s tension-the siren, howling for the midday count, went off above him. It was a sound which, being so familiar, should not have disturbed him, but now in his frustration and weariness the noise seemed to pour through the walls in wildly ascending and racking gusts and, reaching its crescendo, to probe into his eardrums like lancets. One window was cracked open; he got up, scattering papers, and slammed it down. As he turned again, he noticed that his hands were trembling-a phenomenon so rare and strange that it caused him a fleeting sense of panic. Perhaps it was only a cold coming on, perhaps a recurrence of his malaria. He walked toward the wash basin, meaning to inspect his eyes in the mirror, but at this moment there was a knock. The door opened; as it did, the siren ceased its clamor, falling swiftly earthward in a remorseful sullen groan.

"This here is the man, Gunner," said Mulcahy.

Blankenship sat down, shooed Mulcahy out, and looked up to meet the prisoner"s gaze.

"What"s your name?" he said.

"McFee."

For a moment Blankenship said nothing, for there was something familiar about this man; he was certain he had seen him before. This certainty was in itself curious enough, since few prisoners had memorable faces but only drab achromatic promontories upon which noses, mouths, and ears were struck like gray and similar shapes of putty. What was more striking now was the man"s expression. That, too, Blankenship recalled, from wherever and whenever it was: an aspect at first glance no different, in its wan sun-sheltered anonymity, from all the rest of the prisoners, yet swiftly and hauntingly unique-intelligence, perhaps? Perhaps no more than something in his level blue eyes which seemed halfway between scorn and defiance. Then Blankenship remembered: the face floating toward him through cigarette smoke and a confusion of laughter, a voice-"Drink, sir?"-too straightforward to be insolent yet touched with a whisper of mockery, and a parting smile, finally-like the one he wore now-that was not so much a smile as a smirk, expressing some mysterious and inner satisfaction. Of course. He had seen this man months before, working as a waiter at the only one of the colonel"s parties he had ever been to.

"Look, McFee," he said at length, "I don"t know what kind of language you"ve been getting away with over at the colonel"s quarters, but over here when you"re asked your name you give your full name and you give your serial number and you say sir. Do you understand that? Now let"s have it."

"McFee, Lawrence M., 180611." There was a pause, one which though somehow avoiding disrespect still flirted perilously with the notion of contempt, and the "sir" came only a cagey half second before the crucial, unbearable instant. It was odd, bold, and Blankenship felt a surge of anger, not so much at this behavior as at the fact that he himself suddenly felt, here among two thousand spineless and craven sn.o.bs, a sneaking admiration for such talented arrogance. He continued to gaze at McFee. It was a young face-twenty-five or twenty-six, he judged-with features usually described as "clean-cut," and unshrinking blue eyes. Without his miserable denims he might have been taken for a college football star, for he was big and broad-shouldered, and even standing now at attention he had all the relaxed, supercilious grace of a campus athlete.

"What"s the matter with you, McFee? The duty sergeant told me you"ve been giving him a hard time."

"He tried to strong-arm me."

"Mulcahy told me you were beating your gums about the accommodations we"ve got over here."

"I was," he said calmly. "They stink. I said so and your f.u.c.king gorilla clobbered me."

This outspoken audacity so took him aback that Blankenship rose from where he was sitting, strolled to a spot within a foot of McFee, and propped himself on the edge of the desk. "They do, do they? They stink, huh?" As he spoke, confused and casting about for words, he was aware that he was managing to control his voice-a remarkable fact considering the fury he felt rising at this man"s insolence, and which was not so much directed at the insolence itself but at the cool, even fearless self-possession with which he a.s.sumed it. Now he was so close to McFee that he could feel the warm steady breathing that crossed the short s.p.a.ce of air between them and was aware, for the first time, of the round welt on McFee"s forehead where, indeed, Mulcahy must have swatted him. The welt was an inconsequential blob of swollen pinkish flesh, but it was nonetheless a visible and now accusatory brand, a tiny ensign of oppression and illegal abuse. For the moment it gave McFee a slight but telling advantage, and it aggravated Blankenship"s silent fury.

He had never had a prisoner face up to him before. Because it baffled him he stalled briefly for time, and altered his tack. "What did you want to get caught fighting for, McFee? You had a nice soft job in the colonel"s house. Now you"ll just be another one of the b.u.ms. You must have had a pretty good confinement record to have gotten such a nice job. What are you, a swabjockey?"

"I wish the f.u.c.k I was."

"You a hooligan?"

"I"m a marine," he said, with a trace of bitterness, and also of disdain. He stood there steadfast and ma.s.sive, with his irritating animal grace and with his breath coming warmly and steadily from the set contemptuous smile on his lips. Along with his anger, Blankenship felt a chilly shiver of excitement, as if he had received a personal and even physical challenge from this defiance. And although both his conscience and regulations forbade him to, he felt now, too, an irresistible desire to bait and goad-something he"d never lower himself to do with an ordinary prisoner.

"You"re not a marine, McFee," he said quietly, "not anymore. You"re a yardbird. A b.u.m. Didn"t you know that?" He paused, while for a second, in an attempt to stare each other down, their eyes met hot and unwavering. "You"re swill. Slop. You"re not any more of a marine than Shirley Temple. You"re lower than whale s.h.i.t on the bottom of the sea. You know the saying, don"t you, McFee?" Yet while he spoke he felt a mild mean twinge, as if he were degrading not McFee but himself by using all the stale worn-out obscenities employed numbingly and twenty-four hours a day by every beef-witted sergeant on the island. And staring at McFee while he said them, seeing the look of contempt widen, enlarge, lines of amus.e.m.e.nt springing into his eyes, Blankenship halted, then said, "What did you do, McFee? Desert? Like all the rest of these patriotic citizens?"

"If you look in my record book, Gunner, that"s the word they use. I call it something else."

"What do you call it?"

"I call it liberate."

"Liberate from what?"