Read Online One to Count Cadence by James Crumley - Free Book Online Page B

arrest, sir? I don’t understand. A phone call from home, sir? Tell me.”
    “What? Don’t be silly. Get your shirt on — now!”
    “You had me scared there for a minute, sir. I was sure it must be trouble.” Morning started to walk away.
    “Morning! Get your shirt on!”
    “Yes, sir, right away. But I’ve been copying for over an hour and I ah… need to go to the latrine, sir.”
    “Now!”
    “Yes, sir!” Morning fumbled with his sleeves, put the wrong arm in once, then buttoned one button too high, then one too low, and all the time jumping from one foot to the other. As he undid his pants, he shouted, “Jesus!” and ran for the latrine, his shirt tails flapping and his pants tumbling around his ankles. He ran like a man trying to hold a balloon between his knees. He didn’t have any shorts on and the men laughed at his bobbing, bare white ass. He came back shortly, relieved, stretching and sighing, “Sorry about that, sir. But I just couldn’t wait another second.”
    Dottlinger was twice as red in the face now, and he slapped his ball-point pen in his hand as if it were the swagger stick he couldn’t carry any more. “Why aren’t you wearing shorts, soldier?” he burst out. Levenson, our red-headed, freckled faced Jew, popped from behind the antenna patch panel, grinning like a weasel, giggling in his high-pitched voice, then ducked back as Dottlinger turned.
    “Sir?” Morning asked.
    “The Army went to great trouble to issue you underwear, and gives you a clothing allowance, so why aren’t you wearing shorts?” He shook his pen at Morning. “Don’t you have any, soldier?”
    “Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I do.”
    “Why aren’t you wearing them?”
    “I always wear them for inspections, sir. Always.”
    “I don’t care about inspections. Why aren’t you wearing them now?”
    “It’s quite personal, sir, and I’d rather not discuss it in front of the other men, if you don’t mind, sir.” Ordinarily Dottlinger would have understood personal modesty, but not now.
    “I don’t care what you’d rather not do — I want to know why, soldier!”
    Morning ducked his head and mumbled something.
    “Speak up!”
    “They crawl… they get in the…” He even managed a blush. “In the crack of…” He seemed overcome by shame. “The crack…” Not a sound.
    Dottlinger sighed, and for a moment I had visions of him ordering all pants dropped to check the shorts situation, but he caught hold of himself. “Morning, don’t let me catch you without shorts again.” Levenson giggled. You could see the resolve in Dottlinger’s face to get Morning. “You think that’s funny, Levenson.”
    “Yes, sir,” he answered.
    Dottlinger started to say something, then paused as if to say, “What can you do with a crazy bastard who sits around naked all the time in the barracks.” He knew he had been taken for a ride, and a weary, familiar one at that. He looked like four o’clock in the morning. His face told of years of being the kid chosen last for the ball games, a fox first caught, a never successful hound, the kid who could never keep up, and he was behind again. He stayed a while longer, checking the building, listlessly searching for dust or dirt in a place cleaned and inspected three times a day. When he came up from the offices below, he said to me, “I believe the area under the major’s desk could use some wax and a buffing, Sgt. Krummel, especially where he puts his feet. If you’d take care of that, please…” he said walking toward the door.
    Petty bastard, I thought, no longer quite so understanding. “Yes, sir, I’ll get the shit-house mouse on it right away.”
    He turned back. “I’d prefer if you didn’t refer to the Operation’s orderly in that manner, Sgt. Krummel. This is not the old Army, you know. We realize that profanity exhibits a vocabulary deficiency, and I don’t think a man with a master’s degree should suffer from that particular problem, do