"I don't know. They didn't say. Colclough gave us all a drink of Three Feathers to celebrate. That's all I know. But that ain't what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to tell you something about yourself." Brailsford paused, obviously sourly pleased with the effect he was going to make in a moment.
"Your application for OCS," he said, "the one you put in a long time ago…"
"Yes?" Michael asked. "What about it?"
"It came back," Brailsford said. "Yesterday. Rejected."
"Rejected?" Michael said dully. "But I passed the Board and I…"
"It came back from Washington, rejected. The other two guys from the Company was passed, but yours is finished. The FBI said no."
"The FBI?" Michael stared sharply at Brailsford to see if this was some elaborate joke that was being played on him.
"What's the FBI got to do with it?"
"They check up, on everybody. And they checked up on you. You're not officer material, they said. You're not loyal."
"Are you kidding me?" Michael asked.
"Why the hell would I want to kid you?" Brailsford asked aggrievedly. "I don't go in for jokes no more. You're not loyal, they said, and that's all there is to it."
"Not loyal." Michael shook his head puzzledly. "What's the matter with me?"
"You're a Red," said Brailsford. "They got it in the record. Dossier, the FBI calls it. You can't be trusted with information that might be of value to the enemy."
Michael stared out across the parade-ground. There were men lying on the dusty patches of grass, and two soldiers were lazily throwing a baseball to each other. Across the parched brown and dead green the flag whipped in a light wind at the top of its pole. Somewhere in Washington at this moment there was a man sitting at a desk, probably looking at the same flag on the wall of his office, and that man had calmly and without remorse written on his record… "Disloyal. Communist affiliation. Not recommended."
"Spain," Brailsford said, "it's got something to do with Spain. I sneaked a look at the report. Is Spain Communist?"
"Not exactly," Michael said.
"You ever been in Spain?"
"No. I helped organize a committee that sent ambulances and blood banks over there."
"They got you," Brailsford said. "They got you cold. They won't tell you, either; they'll just say you don't have the proper qualities of leadership or something like that. But I'm telling you."
"Thanks," Michael said. "Thanks a lot."
"What the hell," Brailsford said; "at least you treat me like a human being. Take a tip. Try and wangle yourself a transfer. I ain't got no future in this here Company, but you got a lot less. Colclough is crazy on the subject of Reds. You'll do KP from now till we go overseas, and you'll be first scout on every advance in combat, and I wouldn't give a damn for your chances of coming out alive."
"Thanks, Brailsford," Michael said. "I think I'll take your advice."
"Sure," Brailsford said. He took out another toothpick and poked between his teeth. He spat, reflectively. "Remember," he said, "I ain't said a word."
Michael nodded and watched Brailsford lounge slowly along the edge of the parade-ground, back to the orderly room in which he had no future.
Far away, thin and metallic over the whispering thousand miles of wire, Michael heard Cahoon's voice saying, "Yes, this is Thomas Cahoon. Yes, I'll accept a collect call from Private Whitacre…"
Michael closed the door of the telephone booth of the Rawlings Hotel. He had made the long trip into town because he did not want to make the call from camp, where somebody might overhear him. "Please limit your call to five minutes," the operator said. "There are others waiting."
"Hello, Tom," he said. "It's not poverty. It's just that I don't have the necessary quarters and dimes."
"Hello, Michael," Cahoon said, sounding very pleased. "It's all right. I'll take it off my income tax."
"Tom," Michael said, "listen carefully. Do you know anybody in the Special Services Division in New York, the people who put on shows and camp entertainments and things like that?"
"Yes," Cahoon said. "Quite a few people. I work with them all the time."
"I'm tired of the infantry," Michael said. "Will you try to arrange a transfer for me? I want to get out of this country. There are Special Services units going overseas every day. Can you get me into one of them?"
There was a slight pause at the other end of the wire. "Oh," Cahoon said, and there was a tinge of disappointment and reproof in his voice. "Of course. If you want it."
"I'll send you a special-delivery letter tonight," Michael said.
"Serial number, rank, and unit designation. You'll need that."
"Yes," said Cahoon. "I'll get right on to it." Still the slight coolness in his voice.
"I'm sorry, Tom," Michael said. "I can't explain why I'm doing this over the phone. It will have to wait until I get there."
"You don't have to explain anything to me," Cahoon said.
"You know that. I'm sure you have your reasons."
"Yes," said Michael. "I have my reasons. Thanks again. Now I have to get off. There's an expectant sergeant here who wants to call the maternity ward of the Dallas City Hospital."
"Good luck, Michael," Cahoon said, and Michael could sense the effort at warmth that Cahoon put into the words, almost convincingly.
"Goodbye. I hope I see you soon."
"Of course," Cahoon said. "Of course you will."
Michael hung up and opened the door of the booth. He stepped out and a large, sad-looking Technical Sergeant, with a handful of quarters, flung himself on to the small bench under the phone.
Michael went out into the street and walked down the saloon-lined pavement, in the misty neon glow, to the USO establishment at the end of the block. He sat at one of the spindly desks among the sprawling soldiers, some of them sleeping in wretched positions in the battered chairs, others writing with painful intensity at the desks.
I'm doing it, Michael thought, as he pulled a piece of paper towards him and opened his fountain pen, I'm doing what I said I'd never do, what none of these weary, innocent boys could ever do. I'm using my friends and their influence and my civilian privileges. Cahoon is right perhaps to be disappointed. It was easy to imagine what Cahoon must be thinking now, sitting near the phone, in his own apartment, over which he had just spoken to Michael. Intellectuals, Cahoon probably was thinking; they're all alike, no matter what they say. When it finally gets down to it, they pull back. When the sound of the guns finally draws close, they suddenly find they have more important business elsewhere…
He would have to tell Cahoon about Colclough, about the man in the office at the FBI, who approved of Franco, but not of Roosevelt, who had your ultimate fate at the tip of his pencil, and against whom no redress, no appeal, was possible. He would have to tell him about Ackerman and the ten bloody fights before the pitiless eyes of the Company. He would have to tell him what it was like to be under the command of a man who wanted to see you killed. Civilians couldn't really understand things like that, but he would have to try to tell. It was the big difference between civilian life and life in a military establishment. An American civilian always could feel that he could present his case to some authorities who were committed to the idea of justice. But a soldier… You lost any hope of appeal to anyone when you put on your first pair of Army shoes. "Tell it to the Chaplain, Bud, and get a TS slip."