Hollywood knows that. Did you ever see Mutiny on the Bounty, or The Caine Mutiny? Great movies, both of them. Remember that scene with Captain Queeg, this battleship commander in World War Two, sitting there on the stand rolling those ball bearings around in his hand, ranting about who stole his strawberries? It was Humphrey Bogart at his best, playing this hard-nosed son of a bitch who rode his men mercilessly, and his first officer sympathized with his men and ended up undermining him, until it resulted in mutiny. The lawyer got the first officer off, then in the final scene he told the first officer he disgusted him, because what he did really was wrong. The system has rules and everybody has to obey them.”
“Strange words coming out of you,” she said as I got a good firm grip and hoisted down some more scotch.
“What? Because I act like a wiseass? Because I don’t seem to have a lot of respect for the system? Don’t kid yourself, Morrow. I was raised an Army brat,” I said, pausing only long enough to inhale a little more painkiller. “I’ve never shoved a bite of food into my mouth that wasn’t paid for by Army dollars. I saw my father go off to war three times. When the Army ships your father away to the other side of the world, and he’s being shot at, you do a lot of thinking about the Army and what it means. I actually got shot at a few times myself. That’s also been known to make one think about it, once or twice. I believe in the Army and all its silly rules. Doesn’t mean I like them, but God knows, we’ve won a lot of wars. We must be doing something right.”
Morrow was wearing a look of surprise, and I realized that I was drinking way too much and was letting my mouth get way too carried away. My ribs still hurt like all hell, though, so I kept wading through the glass in my hand. Besides, it would be a damned shame to let a perfectly good scotch go to waste.
She took a sip from her wine and studied the bruises and swells on my face. “You’ve had a difficult few weeks,” she said.
“I’m not complaining,” I answered, wondering if I should stick up my finger to get the waiter to bring two more. The waiter was actually sweating from running back and forth. People from other tables were staring at me.
“Do your ribs still hurt?”
“I think sho,” I admitted.
She giggled a little.
“What?” I asked. “Wassshh so damned funny?”
This was when I first noticed that my ribs hurt so much that they had made my tongue swell. Until that instant, I never knew my ribs were connected to my tongue.
“We’d better order dinner quickly and get some food in your stomach,” she said, flashing those wonderfully sympathetic eyes.
This was also about the same moment when I realized that eating had just gotten a little beyond my reach. I looked down at my silverware and there were at least ten forks. Which one would a polished gentleman choose, I wondered.
I said, “Mmmnydnodmebok,” or something like that.
Morrow stood up and came around the table. She took my arm, and she was really strong, because she hoisted me out of that chair like I was a fluffy pancake. She wrapped my left arm around her shoulder and led me out of the dining room. My left hand was dangling right across her left uptopper, and her naughty perfume tickled my nose. I wanted to give that comfy uptopper a gentle little squeeze, but my body was way past the point of listening to my brain.
She leaned me against the wall in the elevator, and I stood happily humming some song as we sped up to the third floor. Once we got to my room, she actually dug around inside my pants pocket until she found my key. Then she led me over to the bed. This was the moment I was waiting for. She thought I was intoxicated. She thought I was a harmless, incapacitated, drunken eunuch, too scotched out to raise ye olde noodle. Heh-heh-heh. I lunged toward the bed, tugging her along.
I said, “Youydod a jummbock,” and it was a real good thing she couldn’t understand a word I said, because what I’d just invited her to do was something nice girls don’t usually do.
The next thing I knew, the alarm on the nightstand next to my bed was howling at me, and I could hear someone pounding on my door. I rolled out of the bed and stumbled over and opened it. That damned Morrow had changed out of that fetching skirt and was back inside her BDUs again. Now how had she done that so fast?
She brushed past me and headed for my bathroom, while I stood there feeling stupid. I looked at the alarm clock. It read 7:40. I had set it to go off at six. I heard the shower go on, and Morrow went over to the phone and called room service. She told them to send up two American-style breakfasts and stylishly offered them a ten-dollar tip if they had it here in ten minutes.
She put the receiver down and said, “You’ve got five minutes to shower and shave. Don’t walk out of the bathroom naked, either. Army rules dictate that higher officers shall not display their Pudleys to lower officers. It wouldn’t bother me, but you’re the one who loves Army rules.”
Damn, so that’s what a Pudley is, I thought, as I lurched toward the bathroom. The shower felt great and my ribs only ached a little. Dr. Drummond and his scotch cure had accomplished another medical miracle. I emerged from the bathroom fully dressed about seven minutes later. Morrow was at the door paying the bellhop for our breakfasts.
I couldn’t help myself. “Where’d you learn about Pudleys?” I demanded.
“What?”
“Pudleys? Where’d you learn that word?”
That made her giggle a lot. “At that private girls’ school I went to. That was the word we used for… well, you know. Only for little ones, though. Big ones we called Humongos.”
I thought about that a moment. I took a bite of eggs and wetted it down with a little coffee. “I don’t have a Pudley,” I insisted.
“Be that as it may,” she said, smiling, “we’re going to be late, so eat quickly.”
“Okay,” I grumbled. “Just remember. I don’t have a Pudley. Maybe I’m not a Humongo, but damn it, I’m no Pudley.”
“Eat,” she ordered.
“Maybe I need to wear different pants or something,” I mumbled.
She was still smiling when we went out and caught a sedan to the air base.
Chapter 31
Terry Sanchez looked thinner. And more gaunt. There were dark, hollow pockets around his eyes, so deep it actually seemed as if his eyeballs were sucking in all the skin around them. His eyeballs themselves looked like brittle crystals that could shatter at any minute. He shambled when he walked, and his arms hung limply by his sides. I had the sense of a man who was rapidly deteriorating.
I pointed at the chair in the middle of the floor and asked him to be seated. He slumped into it and stared at me with a blank expression. I repeated the same explanation I had used the day before, taking care to update our understanding of what had happened in Kosovo.
His eyes were wandering around the room as I spoke, and he appeared too listless to be fazed that we had learned so much about the terrible events that occurred out there.
I paused, but before I could continue, Morrow suddenly said, “Terry.”
He looked up at her. Her voice became very soft, mellow and soothing. Almost like a violin playing a lullaby. Or maybe more like a concerned mother talking to a hurt child.
“Terry, we know now what happened out there. We want to hear your side, though. Do you understand what’s happening here?”
He stopped gazing around the room and looked into her eyes. “Yes.”
“Good,” she said, offering him a gentle smile. She was taking over the interrogation.
“It’s important for you to know we haven’t made any judgments yet. Things like this are never black and white. You were under terrible pressures. You were trying to do what was right. We want to hear your side.”
He was now staring into her eyes, as though they were a life raft he wanted to climb into.