donât need to snake their dirty whores in some enlisted manâs off-limits craphouse, then cover your ass with that Jesus talk of yours. Youâre a black man, a black king, every place but in your head, man.â
âGet off my case, Cutford. We bunk with them and eat with them and weâre supposed to be ready to fight with them. Youâre the main gunner, man. Why canât you figure you got to live with them, too?â
âFuck you, then, Oreo. Someday youâre going to see the light. Till thenââ
He tensed, expecting violence, but the corporal disappeared from the mirror. He hadnât touched him, even. When he was sure he was gone Will breathed out. He removed his cap, ran his comb through the stubble again, and ran up the ladder to the main deck.
From sixty feet up he could see all of Sicily. From the pier back the city lay like a pastel carpet. Miles of buildings festered between the hills and spread beyond them. Far inland a massive volcanic cone thrust upward like a thunderhead. In the afternoon brightness of the Mediterranean, Palermo seemed endless, immense, the largest city on the planet, and after weeks at sea or on barren maneuver areas the honking, dog-barking murmur of land, the chuffing of a rusty tugboat, the rich smells of exhaust and sewage and pasta were intoxicating. He joined ten score other marines and a few sailors at the rail and leaned his elbows on the warm metal, breathing deep. Silkworth was right, he thought again. He had smelled it from far at sea; had smelled it, stronger and deeper, all through the morning. Even the stink of the compartment, soap and ship, starch and cologne had become part of it, natural, like the perfume of a beautiful, unwashed woman, a naked woman who spread her legs from hill to hill before him.
To ease his sudden excitement he leaned forward, looking down at the pier.
Below them, on the outstretched sterngate (the ship had moored stern to), sailors in dungarees shouted and jumped back. The gangway had broken loose. It tilted, balanced for an instant, and then slid gracefully into the brown murk at the foot of the pier. The marines groaned. The sailors stared stupidly into the water. A fish circled belly up in sluggish scum, drink cans, oily rainbows. A fat chief in whites came out from inside the well deck and began giving orders. The marines shouted suggestions. A couple of linehandlers, a policeman, and a priest in hot-looking black watched from the pier. The sailors fished cautiously off the sterngate. The grapnel snagged something, they hauled away together, and the end of the gangway crept up into view, dripping slime.
âDonât drop it again,â Will shouted down, and beside him Washman laughed. âThese frigginâ squids kill me,â he said. The priest caught a heaving line and the policeman and two linehandlers joined him on it. When the far end of the brow banged on the concrete, the chief ran across and began lashing it to a bollard.
âLetâs head on out,â said Hernandez, with a deep sigh of anticipation.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
On the pier, free at last, they ranged themselves in swaggering line abreast. Past two passenger liners the quay ended at a modern-looking concrete building that as they neared it became flaking, prewar. Its walls flapped with posters in fading greens and reds. He looked back once. The Spiegel Grove looked small, moored among the liners; small and old, graceless and dirty. It had carried him in her guts for three months, and every minute of it he had hated her.
He did not look back again.
The six of themâGivens, Washman, Hernandez, Sergeant Silkworth, Liebo, and Harnerâstopped by common accord at the first bar beyond the gate, on a cobbled street as full of diesel fumes as traffic. The proprietor grumbled at their dollars, but took them. After two or three beers apiece to take the edge off they headed uphill at a more leisurely pace. Silkworth
âGet off my case, Cutford. We bunk with them and eat with them and weâre supposed to be ready to fight with them. Youâre the main gunner, man. Why canât you figure you got to live with them, too?â
âFuck you, then, Oreo. Someday youâre going to see the light. Till thenââ
He tensed, expecting violence, but the corporal disappeared from the mirror. He hadnât touched him, even. When he was sure he was gone Will breathed out. He removed his cap, ran his comb through the stubble again, and ran up the ladder to the main deck.
From sixty feet up he could see all of Sicily. From the pier back the city lay like a pastel carpet. Miles of buildings festered between the hills and spread beyond them. Far inland a massive volcanic cone thrust upward like a thunderhead. In the afternoon brightness of the Mediterranean, Palermo seemed endless, immense, the largest city on the planet, and after weeks at sea or on barren maneuver areas the honking, dog-barking murmur of land, the chuffing of a rusty tugboat, the rich smells of exhaust and sewage and pasta were intoxicating. He joined ten score other marines and a few sailors at the rail and leaned his elbows on the warm metal, breathing deep. Silkworth was right, he thought again. He had smelled it from far at sea; had smelled it, stronger and deeper, all through the morning. Even the stink of the compartment, soap and ship, starch and cologne had become part of it, natural, like the perfume of a beautiful, unwashed woman, a naked woman who spread her legs from hill to hill before him.
To ease his sudden excitement he leaned forward, looking down at the pier.
Below them, on the outstretched sterngate (the ship had moored stern to), sailors in dungarees shouted and jumped back. The gangway had broken loose. It tilted, balanced for an instant, and then slid gracefully into the brown murk at the foot of the pier. The marines groaned. The sailors stared stupidly into the water. A fish circled belly up in sluggish scum, drink cans, oily rainbows. A fat chief in whites came out from inside the well deck and began giving orders. The marines shouted suggestions. A couple of linehandlers, a policeman, and a priest in hot-looking black watched from the pier. The sailors fished cautiously off the sterngate. The grapnel snagged something, they hauled away together, and the end of the gangway crept up into view, dripping slime.
âDonât drop it again,â Will shouted down, and beside him Washman laughed. âThese frigginâ squids kill me,â he said. The priest caught a heaving line and the policeman and two linehandlers joined him on it. When the far end of the brow banged on the concrete, the chief ran across and began lashing it to a bollard.
âLetâs head on out,â said Hernandez, with a deep sigh of anticipation.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
On the pier, free at last, they ranged themselves in swaggering line abreast. Past two passenger liners the quay ended at a modern-looking concrete building that as they neared it became flaking, prewar. Its walls flapped with posters in fading greens and reds. He looked back once. The Spiegel Grove looked small, moored among the liners; small and old, graceless and dirty. It had carried him in her guts for three months, and every minute of it he had hated her.
He did not look back again.
The six of themâGivens, Washman, Hernandez, Sergeant Silkworth, Liebo, and Harnerâstopped by common accord at the first bar beyond the gate, on a cobbled street as full of diesel fumes as traffic. The proprietor grumbled at their dollars, but took them. After two or three beers apiece to take the edge off they headed uphill at a more leisurely pace. Silkworth
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