Once an Eagle

  “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!”

  He flung Damon to one side and started off down the row. Sam leaped after him and caught him around the waist and they went down, rolling in the dirt road of the back line. He was astonished at Ben’s strength; though short, he was agile and in superb condition; and now he was filled with rage.

  “Sam—let—me go,” he panted.

  “No.”

  “Warning you—son of a bitch!”

  All at once he shook free, kicking and flailing, and leaped to his feet. Damon caught hold of an ankle and brought him down again and they crashed into the wooden platform that held the GI cans. After nearly a minute of clumsy grappling and floundering Sam got a half-nelson on him and held him pinned against the platform. Ben went on struggling furiously. A light flashed on, and Sam heard Marge’s voice above them:

  “Stop it, Ben, please stop! Please stop, now …”

  “—Let me up,” Ben said.

  “No.”

  “Sam, I’m warning you—”

  “Ben, don’t be a God damn fool,” he panted. “He’s drunk, he didn’t know what he was doing …”

  “The hell he didn’t!”

  “—he won’t even remember it tomorrow …”

  “By Jesus, I will—!” And he began struggling again, got an arm loose and clipped Damon in the face and neck before he subsided.

  “All right, you go ahead and beat him up, he’s too loaded to defend himself anyway, even if he could, and you’ll get a court—listen to me! At the very least. You’ll ruin your career for good. And for nothing at all … Is that what you want? A general court? Is it?”

  “It’s true, he’s right,” Marge was saying, right above them. The flashlight—she must have snatched it up from the kitchen table where Damon had left it when he’d come in to find Batchelder—kept playing over them and the garbage cans, the dead wisps of grass. “Listen to him, Ben, you’ve got to listen to him …”

  Krisler relaxed again; there was a pause and then he said: “All right. Okay. Let me go, Sam.”

  “Promise you won’t take off after him?”

  “…I promise.”

  “No fooling?”

  “No fooling.”

  Damon released him and both men got to their feet and stood without looking at each other, a little shamefaced, like schoolboys caught in some truant act.

  “Please, Ben,” Marge murmured, “come in now, come inside …”

  He glowered at her, his face gnomelike and harsh in the fitful light of the torch; his cheek was skinned and bleeding. “How could you let him do it?” he groaned.

  “Ben, it was nothing, I—”

  “What do you mean, nothing!”

  “Ben, he grabbed me! I was in looking at Susan and the baby and I came back into the living room to get the glasses and there he was, right there—and he grabbed me and started ranting …”

  “He had your clothes half off, for Christ sake—you didn’t have to just stand there and take it!”

  “Ben, honey”—she was starting to cry, her hand to her mouth—“I didn’t know what to do—he’s one of your instructors …”

  “You think I give a swift shit about that?” he stormed at her. “What I care about is us, you and me—they can take their stupid service schools and jam them up their nickel-plated ass, for all I care—”

  “Very pretty!”

  The three of them turned. It was Tommy, now in bathrobe and slippers, standing on the little back porch they shared. “What do you want—a medal or a cough drop? Well, you listen to me, Ben Krisler: you can take your lunatic heroics and jam them up your ass! You hear?”

  Startled, Damon gazed up at her. She was furious, her breast rising and falling, her hair whipping around her face; she looked barbaric and embattled and utterly beautiful. He hadn’t seen her like this since that afternoon on the parapet at Le Suquet, when he’d fallen in love with her. Ten years ago. He remembered that day all at once with a sad, tender pang. Ten years ago. Now she towered over them, her eyes glittering, incontrovertible in her beauty, her wrath.

  “What did you think you were going to do?” she demanded. “Kick him in the groin and put him on report—is that it? Why don’t you grow up! Do you think they’re going to drum him out of service and make you a brigadier? You idiot!—they’ll stick you in a nipa hut on Cebu until your toes rot off … ” Marge was crying softly now, and Tommy came down the steps and put her arm around her. “Come on, honey,” she said tenderly, “come on in and I’ll give you something so you’ll sleep. Come on in, and let these wounded heroes go and avenge their tarnished bloody honor … ”

  They trooped into the Krislers’ quarters one by one. Marge sat down at the kitchen table. Tommy gave her a handkerchief and put the coffeepot on the hot plate coil. The two men stood together awkwardly just inside the screen door.

  “You ought to be glad somebody’s willing to make a pass at your wife!” Tommy lashed out at Ben, who gazed back at her guiltily, rubbing dirt and sweat from his neck. “You ought to draw a tour spliced to dear old Muriel, or Nina Swanson, and see how you like that. Yes—some sweet, deadly, willful bitch who’d hound you morning and night, about a set of silver service or your bill at the post tailor’s or why in hell you aren’t pulling duty at Fort Myer. It’s a wonder there’s anything left of us to make a pass at, truth to tell. You don’t know how well off you are, that’s half your trouble … For God’s sake, go over and say something to her!” she commanded. “Can’t you see how she feels?”

  Ben looked penitent and cowed. He went over to Marge and kneeling by her chair put an arm around her. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said in a low voice. “I—jumped to conclusions.”

  “It’s all right,” Marge said; she caressed his cropped head vaguely. Her little button nose was red and her eyes were swollen. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Honey, I was just trying to … to let it pass over. He’s such a sad old dope of a man.”

  “He’s a dirty sneak.”

  “No—he’s sad. I ca
n’t dislike him—even after that …” All at once she looked at Damon. “Only what are we going to do now?”

  That was what they all said at such times. Sergeant Torrey after the hangfire row with Townsend at Hardee; Spofford during that stupid court-martial at Fort Halleck, when it was perfectly obvious the hanky-panky involving post-exchange funds went a good deal higher than Demarest; Corporal Taylor in that ruckus over the Indian girl at Dormer. What are we going to do now?

  “Do?” Tommy said. She swung around, holding the dented tin percolator in her hand. This was presumably a woman’s province, the violation of the defenseless wives of subalterns by drunken and irresponsible brass; he could tell she resented Marge’s appeal to him. “Do? Why, be just as sweet as apple cider, that’s what to do. Honey wouldn’t melt in your mouth. And then let him know—just as sweet as apple cider—that if he ever tries anything like that again, you’ll remove one slipper and give him a swift crack right across his flabby purple old nose …”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Marge responded anxiously.

  “Why in hell not?”

  “Tommy,” Damon broke in, “he was pie-eyed—he won’t remember any of it at all.”

  “He drove home, didn’t he?”

  “That’s a reflex action. He won’t recall a thing.” He came up to the table. “Look, Marge, he’s infatuated with you, he has been for some time and he forgot himself. That’s all. It was a momentary—aberration, and now it’s over and done with. What’s important is the school—”

  He stopped: something he’d said had caused her to break down again and he didn’t know what it was. “No,” she was saying, “no …”

  “Marge, it’s true. Let’s admit it and set it aside and go on from—”

  “No,” she said, weeping disconsolately. “I know I’m not attractive. I know. They’re only interested in me for one thing …” All three of them murmured in protest at this but she remained adamant. “No, it’s always been that way. Ever since high school. You can’t fool yourself about things like that.”

  “That’s not true, Margie, you mustn’t think that. Many men find you attractive, for a lot of reasons,” Damon heard himself saying, astonished at his own vehemence. “You’re witty, and intelligent, and—and lots of fun …” He groped his way along, feeling her gaze fastened on him in a kind of hopeless last appeal. He glanced at Ben, who now looked simply confused. Why in hell was he always the one expected to hold the fort? Well he was, he was stuck with it, and that was all there was to it. He went on, elaborating and inventing; and, surprisingly, it worked. The adolescent hobgoblins retreated, Marge’s anguish dissolved; she became soothed, sipping at her coffee. And finally she said in a faint voice, “Oh Sam, you’re so good to us all. What would we do without you?”