Read Online Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates - Free Book Online

weaseled out of a combat assignment; the training program had been cut short and we’d all be overseas in a month). But one Saturday noon he had something less remote; he had gotten it from his own company orderly room, and it sounded plausible. For weeks, he told us, the plump lieutenant had been trying to get Reece transferred; now it appeared to be in the works, and next week might well be Reece’s last as a platoon sergeant. “His days are numbered,” the clerk said darkly.
    “Whaddya mean, transferred?” D’Allessandro asked. “Transferred where?”
    “Keep your voice down,” the clerk said, with an uneasy glance toward the noncoms’ table, where Reece bent stolidly over his food. “I dunno. That part I dunno. Anyway, it’s a lousy deal. You kids got the best damn platoon sergeant on the post, if you wanna know something. He’s too damn good, in fact; that’s his trouble. Too good for a half-assed second lieutenant to handle. In the Army it never pays to be that good.”
    “You’re right,” D’Allessandro said solemnly. “It never pays.”
    “Yeah?” Schacht inquired, grinning. “Is that right, Squad Leader? Tell us about it, Squad Leader.” And the talk at our table degenerated into wisecracks. The clerk drifted away.
    Reece must have heard the story about the same time we did; at any rate that weekend marked a sudden change in his behavior. He left for town with the tense look of a man methodically planning to get drunk, and on Monday morning he almost missed Reveille. He nearly always had a hangover on Monday mornings, but it had never before interfered with his day’s work; he had always been there to get us up and out with his angry tongue. This time, though, there was an odd silence in the barracks as we dressed. “Hey, he isn’t here ,” somebody called from the door of Reece’s room near the stairs. “Reece isn’t here .” The squad leaders were admirably quick to take the initiative. They coaxed and prodded until we had all tumbled outside and into formation in the dark, very nearly as fast as we’d have done it under Reece’s supervision. But the night’s CQ, in making his rounds, had already discovered Reece’s absence and run off to rouse the lieutenant.
    The company officers rarely stood Reveille, particularly on Mondays, but now as we stood leaderless in the company street our lieutenant came jogging around the side of the barracks. Bythe lights of the building we could see that his shirt was half buttoned and his hair wild; he looked puffy with sleep and badly confused. Still running, he called, “All right, you men, uh—”
    All the squad leaders drew their breath to call us to attention, but they got no further than a ragged “Tetch—” when Reece emerged out of the gloaming, stepped up in front of the lieutenant, and said, “P’toon! Tetch— hut! ” There he was, a little winded from running, still wearing the wrinkled suntans of the night before, but plainly in charge. He called the roll by squads; then he kicked out one stiff leg in the ornate, Regular Army way of doing an about-face, neatly executed the turn and ended up facing the lieutenant in a perfect salute. “All presen’accounted for, sir,” he said.
    The lieutenant was too startled to do anything but salute back, sloppily, and mumble “All right, Sergeant.” I guess he felt he couldn’t even say, “See that this doesn’t happen again,” since, after all, nothing very much had happened, except that he’d been gotten out of bed for Reveille. And I guess he spent the rest of the day wondering whether he should have reprimanded Reece for being out of uniform; he looked as if the question was already bothering him as he turned to go back to his quarters. Dismissed, our formation broke up in a thunderclap of laughter that he pretended not to hear.
    But Sergeant Reece soon spoiled the joke. He didn’t even thank the squad leaders for helping him out of a tight spot, and for the rest of the day