The Captain was due in five minutes. Nervously, Noah checked the corners of his bunk, the arrangement of the towels in his locker, the shine on the windows behind the bunk. He saw the man next to him, Silichner, buttoning the top button of the raincoat which hung in its ordered line among his clothes. Noah had made certain before breakfast that all his clothes were buttoned correctly for the inspection, but he looked once more at his own clothes. He swung his overcoat back and then blinked. His blouse, which he had checked just an hour ago, was open from the top button down. Frantically, he worked on the buttons. If Colclough had seen the blouse open he would have been certain to restrict Noah for the week-end. He had done worse to others for less, and he had made it very clear that he was not fond of Noah. The raincoat, too, had two buttons undone. Oh, God, Noah thought, don't let him come in yet, not yet, not until I'm finished.
Suddenly Noah wheeled round. Riker and Donnelly were watching him, grinning a little. They ducked their heads and flicked at spots of dust on their shoes. That's it, thought Noah bitterly, they did it to me. With everyone in the barracks in on it, probably. Knowing what Colclough would do to me when he found it… Probably they slipped back early after breakfast and slipped the buttons out of their holes.
He checked each bit of clothing carefully, and leaped to the foot of his bunk just as the Sergeant shouted 'Attention!' from the door.
Colclough looked him over coldly and carefully and stared for a long time at the rigid perfection of his locker. He went over behind him and fingered every piece of the clothing hanging from the rack. Noah heard the cloth swishing as Colclough let the coats fall back into place. Then Colclough stamped past him, and Noah knew it was going to be all right.
Five minutes later the inspection was over and the men started to pour out of the barracks towards the bus station. Noah took down his barracks bag and reached into the small oilskin sack at the bottom in which he saved his money. He drew the sack out and opened it. There was no money in it. The ten-dollar bill was gone. In its place there was a single piece of torn paper. On it there was one word, printed in oily pencil. 'Tough.'
Noah stuffed the paper into his pocket. Methodically he hung the barracks bag up. I'll kill him, he thought. I'll kill the man who did that. No scarf, no blouse, no anything. I'll kill him.
She was in the crowded lobby, among the surging khaki and the other wives.
Noah saw her before she saw him. She was peering, a little short-sightedly, through the milling soldiers and women and dusty potted palms. She looked pale and anxious. The smile that broke over her face when he came up behind her and lightly touched her elbow and said, 'Mrs Ackerman, I presume,' was on the brink of tears.
They kissed as though they were all alone.
'Now,' Noah said softly, 'now, now…'
'Don't worry,' she said. 'I'm not going to cry.'
She stood back, holding him at arms' length, and peered at him. 'It's the first time,' she said, 'the first time I've seen you in uniform.'
'How do I look?'
Her mouth trembled a little. 'Horrible,' she said. Then they both laughed.
'Let's go upstairs,' he said.
'We can't.'
'Why not?' Noah asked, feeling a clutching sense of disaster.
'I couldn't get a room here. Full up. That's all right.' She touched his face and chuckled at the despair she saw there. 'We have a place. A rooming house down the street. Don't look like that.'
They joined hands and went out of the hotel. They walked down the street silently, looking at each other from time to time. Noah was conscious of the polite, approving stares of the soldiers they passed who had no wives, no girls, and were only going to get drunk that afternoon.
The rooming house needed painting. The porch was overgrown with grape vines and the bottom step was broken. 'Be careful,' Hope said. 'Don't fall through. This would be an awful time to break your leg.'
The door was opened for them by the landlady. She was a thin old woman in a dirty grey apron. She stared coldly at Noah, exuding a smell of sweat, age and dishwater. 'This your husband?' she asked, her bony hand on the door knob.
'Yes,' said Hope. 'This is my husband.'
'Ummm,' said the landlady, and did not smile when Noah grinned politely at her. The landlady watched them as they mounted the stairs.
'This is worse than inspection,' Noah whispered as he followed Hope towards the door of their room.
'What's inspection?' Hope asked.
'I'll tell you,' Noah said, 'some other time.'
Then the door closed behind them. The room was small, with one window with a cracked pane. The wallpaper was so old and faded that the pattern looked as though it was growing out of the wall. The bed was chipped white iron and there were obvious lumps under the greyish spread. But Hope had put a small bunch of jonquils in a glass on the dresser and her hairbrush was there, sign of marriage and civilization, and she had put a small photograph of Noah, laughing, in a sweater, taken on a summer holiday, under the flowers.
They avoided looking at each other, embarrassed.
'I had to show her our marriage licence,' Hope said. 'The landlady.'
'What?' Noah asked.
'Our marriage licence. She said you had to fight tooth and nail to maintain a respectable establishment with a hundred thousand drunken soldiers loose on the town.'
Noah grinned and shook his head wonderingly. 'Who told you to bring the licence down?'
Hope touched the flowers. 'I carry it around with me,' she said, 'all the time, these days. In my handbag. To remind me…'
Noah walked slowly over to the door. There was an iron key in the lock. He turned it. The clumsy noise of the primitive tumblers screeched through the room. 'There,' he said, 'I've been thinking about doing this for seven months. Locking a door.'
Suddenly Hope ducked her head. But she brought it up again quickly, and Noah saw she was holding a small box in her hands. 'Here,' she said, 'I brought you something.'
Noah took the box in his hands. He thought of the ten dollars for the gift, and the note at the bottom of his barracks bag, the ragged slip of paper with the sardonic 'Tough' on it. As he opened the box, he made himself forget the ten dollars. That could wait until Monday.
There were chocolate cookies in the box.
'Taste them,' Hope said. 'I'm happy to say I didn't make them myself. I got my mother to bake them and send them on to me.'
Noah bit into one of the cookies and they tasted like home. He ate another one. 'It was a wonderful idea,' he said.
'Take them off,' Hope said fiercely. 'Take off those damned clothes.'
The next morning they went out for breakfast late. After breakfast they strolled through the few streets of the small town. People were coming home from church and children in their best clothes were walking in restless, bored dignity among the faded flower-beds. You never saw children in camp, and it gave a homely and pleasant air to the morning.
A drunken soldier walked with severe attention to his feet, along the sidewalk, glowering at the churchgoers fiercely, as though daring them to criticize his piety or his right to be drunk before noon on a Sunday morning. When he reached Hope and Noah, he saluted grandly, and said, 'Sssh. Don't tell the MPs,' and marched sternly ahead.
'Man yesterday,' Noah said, 'on the bus, saw your picture.'
'What was the report?' Hope picked softly at his arm with her fingertips. 'Negative or positive?'
''A garden,' he said, 'a garden on a morning in May.''
Hope chuckled. 'This Army,' she said, 'will never win the war with men like that.'
'He also said, 'By God, I'm going to get married myself, before they shoot me.''
Hope chuckled again and then grew sober thinking about the last two words. But she didn't say anything. She could only stay one week and there was not time to be wasted talking about matters like that.
