The first letter to Pint worked like a charm. The night fire was still two days away, so the flame needed to be stoked. During the following nights I waited patiently in my bunk for Shipman to take a shower. When he departed his locker, I searched his belongings for the latest note from West. Shipman, like Pint, had accepted the offer to meet West behind the windscreen.
Over the next two days, Pint became increasingly eager as I brought the letters to him, lost in the fantasy. Having him under my thumb made me realize that, in gamer terms, I had just leveled-up. The fourth note to Pint must have tipped over a glass of tears inside the man. His loose-string incident was a blemish, but this - this was a full autopsy. The exterior of the Drill Sergeant hid a dire state within.
He sat down slowly into his chair and covered his face with his brown round until he collected himself. If only I had a camera, I could have sent the picture to National Geographic. Seeing a Drill Sergeant cry as rare as the Loch Ness Monster or the Yellow-tailed Woolly Monkey.
I asked, "What's wrong, Drill Sergeant?"
From behind the brown round, a hand came out, motioning for me to go away, but I stayed.
"Gosh," I said, "anything I can do?"
"No, no. I owe you already."
"I don't understand."
He lowered his face into his hat. "Sprungli, I can hardly explain it to you."
"I'm not good at much, but I'm a good listener," I said.
For a minute he said nothing, but stuffed his face into his hat, and when he finally cleared his mechanism and wiped his eyes, he looked up at me and spoke.
"I have been in the United States Army infantry for twelve years now," said Drill Sergeant Pint. "My first marriage fell apart while I was in the field at Fort Drum. Don't ask me to explain what I came home to find that weekend. Lost custody of my kids, because my lawyer did nothing, and I could do nothing while I was parked back in the mountain on another training exercise. Two years ago, I had a new fiancée. Iraq took care of that. The first time I went into the red zone, she nearly died from the stress. She knew then that she didn't want to be a soldier's wife. Then I got my orders to become a Drill Sergeant. It was either this or recruiting duty and there was no way in hell I wanted to visit high schools and cold-call parents." He tried to drink his coffee but couldn't, and he wiped his nose with his sleeve. "I go home to an empty house each night. I'm thirty-one years old. In eight more years, I'll have twenty years in. I can separate from the Army, start a second career, but...never mind. You don't understand what these notes mean, Sprungli. Why am I telling you this? This doesn't leave the office."
On his desk, the cup of coffee steamed away. He lowered his hat to the desk and then swirled the coffee around, looking down at the liquid like it was his Magic 8-ball, as if an answer would float up to the top.
"You better keep your mouth quiet."
"I will, Drill Sergeant."
"Or I'll recycle you."
"I know, Drill Sergeant. I'm trying to do better."
"I know you are."
A compliment. This caught me off guard.
"You're doing good, Sprungli. Much better. I mean, your boots shine, you're doing the exercises, even after the spider thing. I didn't want to tell you, but you did good during Drill and Ceremony, except for that spasm in your arm. But I don't want you to fall backward now and rest on your laurels, all because I told you that."
"No, Drill Sergeant. I'll keep trying." This complicated things terribly. Now that I had set him up, ballooning his hope, I needed to pop him. But how, unless West wrote a note cancelling the meeting?
"A guy like me," he said, lifting his red eyes to meet mine, "opportunity doesn't knock often. A guy like me only gets a few chances to find someone like West. And if she's in love with me, then that's all I need in this world."
My mouth started to form an apology, but his happiness and my fear of being recycled stopped me.
Chapter 23. Night Fire