Once an Eagle (74 page)

He glared at her again. “Do you care? Do you, really?”

“—No,” she answered, “no, I don't in the least. Drive just as fast as you like.” His morose, contained fury excited her. All her senses aroused from the battle with Jarreyl, the naked sexual force of it, and the taut, strange duel between him and Court, she thought, All right: I'm ready now. I'm ready for anything at all. The lashing rain, the straining featherheaded palms and booming wind had sealed them off together, gliding through the tropic darkness. When he stopped in the little grove behind her quarters and shut off the motor she thought, Maybe he'll beat me now; maybe he'll—

“Poor little grand little girl,” he was saying. “Poor Andromeda. Chained to all the sad, hopeless, romantic dreams.” His face was very near hers, as it had been in the club, but his expression was different—it was stamped with a fervor that shook her. “It has nothing to do with you. Nothing at all. You don't want
this
…” He flicked the hand resting on the wheel's rim toward the massed bougainvillea, the palms, the naked, storm-whipped bay. “All this obeisance and servitude … You want to change the shape of things, have them at your feet. A world at your feet.”

“Yes,” she said tensely, “that's what I want …”

“I
knew
it!” His voice was exultant and fierce. “Oh, we two, together—do you realize what we could have accomplished? Why, we could have swept the stars into a basket … ”

“It's true.” She came against him, then. She wanted it—she wanted to be possessed by him, dominated and devoured and overwhelmed. She knew she desired it with all her might. She could no more stop herself now than a man falling from a cliff into the sea.

“—not only that,” he was saying, “but you have fire, and delicacy, and balance … Let's make a pact, you and I. A pact of—”

“Take me,” she breathed. “Please. Take me now.”

“What?”

“Now. I don't care. Right now.” She reached up for him, curving toward him, adrift on a sea of yielding.

“No—wait,” he said. His eyes were white with anxiety: he looked like a man faced all at once with an unexpected and fearsome choice. She gazed at him in wordless consternation. He had withdrawn a little, stiffly—he was saying: “You don't understand—it's not that at all, that's no answer—” The corner of his mouth twitched faintly once. “You don't understand at all …”

Staring at him, watching his eyes, she began to understand. She was flooded with rage, with mortification and disgust.

“—You bastard!” she cried.

“No, now wait—” He raised the hand resting on the wheel, as though to ward off her anger. His eyes were full of fear now; she could see it clear as day. “You've misconstrued what I've been saying …”

“—I've misconstrued nothing! Not a damned thing! … ” If she'd had a weapon in her hands at that instant she would have tried to kill him. “I understand—all too well!” She was still trembling; her eyes filled in spite of herself. “Oh yes, I understand—don't you think I don't!” It was all clear to her now, what no one—not Fahrquahrson or MacArthur or the AG's office or the Chief of Staff—knew about Courtney Massengale. She knew: but the cost, the
cost
of knowing—!

She pushed open the door, and her right arm and shoulder were immediately drenched. He reached toward her, saying, “Thomas, look, you don't—”

“No!”

“
Tommy
—”

“No! I said
no!
No more!” She yanked the hussar's jacket off her head and shoulders and flung it in his face. “You dirty—oh God, oh God, you—
coward!
… ” His hand caught at her shoulder now, but she twisted away from him and leaped out into the rain, caught her heel on the running board and felt it snap off. She turned, frantic with confusion and despair. Rain was streaming in her eyes, pelting her—a chill, aqueous burden. He was staring out at her, motionless, his face drawn and hard, his eyes narrowed to slits. His mouth curved down at one corner, she could see it in the faint emerald glow from the dashboard. To do this to someone!—someone you'd known and liked, seen from day to day—

She whirled around. Holding her torn gown together, coolly sobbing, limping on the heelless shoe, she ran through the rain.

10

The cargo net
rippled and swayed, the forty-foot launch far below lifted and yawed away, straining against its lines. The men descended gingerly, crablike, their rifle butts now and then catching in the rope strands. Someone below him swore and looking down, Damon saw Tellerman gripping a fist and glaring upward.

“
Vertical
strands,” he called, “grip the verticals. You know better than that.” Well, cargo nets were not the answer—their six-sided weave was no good for this. What they needed was a perfectly square webbing, so no one would be tempted to grab the cross strands and get a boot on his fingers. Below him, nearer now, the launch lifted and sank rhythmically, and he watched it through his knees, timing the surge. He caught up to Millis, who, his head craned, was looking nervously down.

“Your belt, Millis,” he said.

“What?”

“Your belt should be open.”

“Oh—I forgot, Major.”

“So I see.” The boy glanced at him in distress, not wanting to let go with either hand, and Damon said crisply: “Never mind it now. You're holding up the show. Come on and get in the boat.”

He timed the launch, caught it on the top of the rise and jumped; the fall made his feet sting. Lieutenant Feltner was saying, “Come on, you people, move up now, give 'em room,” and Damon followed the general movement toward the bows. The lift and fall of the launch against the ship's iron side was mesmeric. It certainly looked like more than a three-foot rise. Down here, low over the water, the breeze was fresher; clear and cold.

“Just
breathe
that ocean air,” a voice crowed beside him. Jackson, thin as a rail, his handsome, lantern-jawed face creased in delight.

“All set, Jackson?” Damon asked him.

“Just straining at the barrier, Major.”

“That's the pitch.”

Boretz was watching both of them distastefully. His face was rigid and the knuckles of his hand clutching the gunwale were white. This was stupid: every man ought to know how to swim and swim well. The marines insisted on it and they were right. If you fell overboard you still might drown before you got rid of your pack and rifle, but you might not; and at least you'd have some confidence about saving yourself.

They cast off, easing away from the bulging gray wall of the ship's side, and the swells caught them unfairly, rocking the boat like a big, ungainly cradle. Millis, three men behind him, was swallowing, the tip of his tongue protruding from his mouth. Off to the east a row of oil tanks squatted like totems to a new mechanical race of gods, and beyond them the dunes, where they were to land, rolled and broke in low saffron hillocks. Damon looked at his watch. Eight seventeen. Men were still creeping down the nets and dropping into the boats; clumsy, shaggy birds falling out of a tipped nest. The white cloth bands on their helmets made them look bizarre, like some medical detachment.

“We going to reach the line of departure on schedule, sir?” Lieutenant Feltner asked; he was a slight man with the face of a harassed clerk, and the complexities surrounding this enterprise overawed him.

“Not a chance in a million, Ray,” Damon answered cheerfully.

Sergeant Bowcher, overhearing them, snorted. An old regular who had served nearly everywhere, he turned his flat, brick-red face toward the ship in disapproval. “Ought to be wider nets. Then the launches could come alongside in series—five, six of 'em.”

“Ought to be a lot of things,” Damon said.

Bowcher snorted again. “Think we'll fool 'em any?”

“Wouldn't be surprised. If they're as fouled up as we are, we can't miss.”

Bowcher grinned and shook his head; Lieutenant Feltner looked shoreward anxiously. They were part of the first joint amphibious maneuvers ever held in divisional strength—an operation already marked by confusion, mountainous paperwork, and interminable wrangling with the Navy, who had stonily insisted they had neither the ships nor assault facilities. As executive officer of Third Battalion, 477th Regiment, Damon was taking a company and supporting units ashore in a diversionary feint to draw defenders away from the main landing on Monterey Beach, east of the commercial pier. They'd had eighteen days' training but it was not enough—not nearly enough. A Marine Corps colonel named Buckman had told them amphibious assault was the most difficult of all operations—except amphibious withdrawal, which was even worse—and it was easy to see why. There were a hundred thousand problems: combat loading of the vessels, debarkation of troops to the landing craft, the weather, hitting strange beaches without fixed positions—

“How long are we going to be at this?” Millis asked no one. “All this rolling around?”

“That's what she said,” Jackson retorted, “when the bed broke.” There was a chorus of laughter, and someone said:

“Join the Navy, and be a frog …”

They hung in the swells, wallowing and sinking. Millis was sick all over his jacket and the pack of De Luca the radio operator, who swore at him.

“—Sorry, Vinnie,” Millis croaked feebly, wiping his lips. “Real sorry.”

“You stupid bastard. How'm I going to get that off?”

“Didn't know—it was going to happen.”

“Next time put your head over the God damn side …”

They had trained for several days on the float at Lake Hadley, using wooden pontoon boats. But the lake had been calm; the reflections of the tall pines had hung in the water like green glass. Here the wind was biting cold—now and then the spray lashed them lightly; the raw, greasy fumes from the boat's engines made them all cough. Three planes went over, Navy fighters in a tight, fat clump, heading toward Point Piños.

“What the hell are we waiting for?” Dougherty demanded.

“For you to start puking!” Jackson yelled at him, laughing.

The coxswain, a tall man in a pea jacket standing at the raised platform at the stern in front of a canvas screen, called something, and the motors roared; Damon saw him shove his hip against the snakelike pipe of the tiller. The assault waves had formed now, raggedly. Eight forty-two. Not too bad. The launch, moving with the wind and waves, had fallen into a tight, slewing motion that was exhilarating at the same time it made him feel queasy. Starker, a sergeant and ex-merchant seaman, was watching him slyly to see if he was going to be sick. What a boot for the Battalion that would be—old Sad Sam, the Night Clerk, the hiking fool, flashing his hash all over the command! He took several slow, deep breaths, gritted his teeth and grinned back at Starker, who all at once looked rather green around the gills himself.

“Hoo-eeeee!” Jackson yelled. “Ya-hoooeeeee!”—a piercing, racketing rebel yell that had half a dozen of the men grinning.

“All right, Jackson,” Lieutenant Feltner called, but without force.

They swept on, the sunlight dazzling on the water, the winter air fresh and bitter, smelling of salt and old iron. To the west the pine hills behind Monterey lay in a dense feathery green, and off to their left Mount Toro rose up gray and gaunt and sere, like the hide of a wolf. The beach, far away, looked pure white. Here and there the morning sun flashed in the windows of houses along Alvarado Street like mirrors tilted. Idyllic. An idyllic place to hold a landing exercise. Japanese infantry might be looking at it from this vantage point, someday. Would they? It was possible; just possible …

Little black puffs bloomed from back of Del Monte Heights, and Sergeant Bowcher pointed and said: “Spotted us.” Damon nodded. Simulated artillery. While he watched, a TBF came low along the shore, smoke belching from its tail in a pretty white rolling plume that spread and thinned, churning on itself. They were swinging off to the east now, running at an angle to the shore, racing on the blue water, pitching and rolling. His arm was tired holding to the gunwale. Millis was sick again, bent over, retching between his knees. My God, he thought, that boy must have eaten five breakfasts this morning. Now Boretz beside him was sick, and Martinez; it was catching. Ahead of them the smoke was breaking into rifts and snatches, torn by the wind, and through it he could catch glimpses of the oil tanks. They were nearer now, much nearer; he could make out the scaling ladders running up their sides. Here and there stands of eucalyptus were visible, looking ragged and yellow against the pines.

There was a shout; he looked aft. The Navy chief in the well below the tiller platform held up three fingers. Three hundred yards. Sergeant Bowcher raised his head and roared: “All right. Load and lock! Load and lock!” Damon watched the platoon fumble with the clips of blank cartridges, their rifles clashing against each other as the boat dipped and swayed. This would need rehearsing, too.

Now he could see the surf. It looked heavy—wide, frothy fans sweeping up the beach and sliding away again; a ponderous, looping motion, hidden by the next grainy, emerald shoulder of breaker. They clearly hadn't been expecting anything like this in the operations room at six this morning. Feltner was shouting some instructions to Sergeant Bowcher and he gripped Boretz's arm and called: “Keep a good grip on that lifeline when you go over the side. Along the gunwale. Here!” Boretz and Millis both nodded; they were looking at him as though he'd just asked them to jump into a cauldron of flaming oil. “And your rifle
high
—over your head!”

The launch lifted more steeply now, pitching, the slick combers sliding past at the gunwale's edge and dropping astern. The coxswain shouted something, and the sailor in the bow leaped up on the stem, a mooring line coiled in one hand. They lifted wildly, set down with a thud that jarred their spines, lifted again. The seaman was gone. Damon glanced aft once more, saw the chief's arm shoot up. Sergeant Bowcher was roaring over the dense thunder of the surf, “Over—you—
go!
”

Damon flung himself up and over, pivoting on his left arm. The water took him like a million fiery needles and he gasped—he had no idea it would be this cold. His feet hit solidly, then went out from under him the next instant as a wall of water swept over his head. Damn. This was more than they'd bargained for. Gripping the rope he let the surge carry him toward the bow, remembering with an almost giddy gratitude Colonel Pearson's insistence on the installation of lifelines on all launches, much to the disgust of the Navy. Something struck his thigh; he turned, saw a hand with a rifle moving abreast of him, not five feet away, then nothing, then a legginged foot spin into view. He lunged out, hanging onto the line, reached into the swirling white froth and clutched something—an intrenching tool, then an arm; hauled the figure up by main strength. Millis, his mouth gaped wide, eyes rolling frantically. They slammed back upon the bow; the boy came against him with a rush that banged their helmets together like dulled cymbals. Millis was gripping his neck and shoulder in a paroxysm. Damon laughed in spite of himself. “Stay with it now! Keep your mouth closed!… Get a drink?”

Millis went into a fit of coughing, wagging his head. “—
Terrible!
”

Damon laughed again. “Hang on to that rope!” He grabbed another man named Reidy and pulled him back to the boat's side. The power of the surf was astonishing: it had the ponderous, irresistible force of earth moving, of a landslide. He caught hold of the mooring on the next surge, struggled forward—went to his knees in the undertow, got up and ran out on the flat beach. The sailor on shore, minus his white hat, was pulling with all his might on the painter. Looking back he saw a dozen men in the water, clinging to the lifeline, not moving; with their tin hats and glaring eyes they looked like a row of kids hiding under some basins.

“Come on!” he roared; he couldn't keep from grinning. “Get going now, come on! It won't get any easier …”

Two other boats were ashore. Another had broached and was rolling dangerously, its whalelike underside looking raw and vulnerable. Once out of the water it was easy: the sand was a light tawny color, hard as clay baked in the sun—nothing like the Atlantic beaches. The platoon was coming ashore now, sinking and swaying in the surf, bunched on the mooring line or floundering in the water like drunks trying to find their way home; the launch rocked and banged cruelly, the helmsman fighting the tiller, trying to keep her from broaching. There was a better way to do this; there had to be. If there were enemy infantry in those dunes—if there were only two machine guns—they would all of them be dead or drowned by now …

He ran up the beach, shivering, glad of the exercise, the delicious freedom from the massive dragging weight of the water. Up ahead he could see four, five men running swiftly. There was no sound of firing. Good. Or possibly it was a trap. To his right he could see Cavallon and DiMaestri and several others milling around and talking to one another excitedly: they had just braved the terrors of the deep, and now they wanted to exchange tales of comfort and glory.

“Starker!” he shouted, catching sight of the Sergeant. “Get those men going! What are they waiting for—champagne?” Making a fist he pumped his arm rapidly up and down. Jesus: what would they do in the real thing?

He loped through a gap in the dunes, where pebbles winked like onyx jewels in the sunlight. His teeth were chattering but his body was warming up and he ran hard, feeling in high spirits after all the paper work and delays. Millis was scampering along beside him, and Braun, the runner, and two others; and he winked at them solemnly.

Emerging from the cut, he paused. The ruined granary, or warehouse or whatever it was supposed to be, was nowhere in sight. They'd been put ashore too far east. Up ahead he could see Lieutenant Feltner and two other men lying prone in a manzanita thicket at the top of a dune; their fatigues were slick and black with sea water. While he watched, Feltner gave the hand signal for
take cover,
and one of the others rolled over on his back and gingerly raised his rifle above his head with both hands.
Enemy in sight.
Damon frowned. Too bad. Well, it was probably to be expected. He remembered old Joe Stilwell at Benning, the lean, ascetic face, tart and professorial, the shrewd little eyes behind the steelrimmed spectacles: “Strategical surprise in an opposed landing, gentlemen, is extremely difficult to accomplish, as air and surface scouting can be carried out a long distance to seaward, and may very well result in the premature discovery of an approaching expeditionary force.
Tactical
surprise, however—as regards the commencement of operations against a particular beach on a particular time—is often possible. And every effort—repeat,
every effort,
gentlemen—should be made to effect it.”