Read Online The Suicide Run: Five Tales of the Marine Corps by William Styron - Free Book Online
Authors: William Styron
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company at that. The captain flinched, his wife flushed pink again, and for an instant the spirit of Southern Baptist rectitude seemed to attend us like a tormented presence. But then the silence was broken by a voice at Lacy’s side, addressing him in melodious, unaccented French: “Bonsoir, bonsoir, mon vieux. Comment ça va? Oú étiez-vous? Je vous ai cherché partout. Êtes-vous là depuis longtemps?”
“Bonsoir, mon colonel,” Lacy replied. “ça va bien, et vous? Non, nous venons juste d’arriver. Colonel, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.” Then he turned and I was introduced to Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Marriott, United States Marine Corps.
“So you’re the writer Lacy’s been telling me about?” he said pleasantly. The way he pronounced “about”—making it rhyme with “boot”—told me he was a Virginian. “Well, it’s refreshing to have a literary man around. It adds a needed dash of variety, and I hope we can have a talk or two. … I’d like you gentlemen to meet my son Mike.”
It generally strikes me as an affectation when peoplespeak in French if there is no particular reason to do so, but both Lacy and the colonel were very fluent—the colonel, to my ear, practically flawless—and this, together with a slight tone of self-mockery, made it attractively droll. As for the colonel himself, I could not help being almost overwhelmed by his ribbons and decorations: if important enough, and if present in sufficient numbers, their luster does tend at immediate sight to dominate the image, and to outshine the face of their owner. Yet it was not just the magnitude of the decorations themselves that was so impressive (the Navy Cross and the Silver Star—each indicating an exploit of what must have been hair-raising valor—in addition to a Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart with stars denoting several wounds), but the dazzling collage of campaign and expeditionary ribbons and marksmanship awards which went along with them, and which could only be worn by a man whose life had been bound up with the marines since early youth. I was in the presence, I reflected, of an absolute professional. Even so, Colonel Marriott looked and (as I later learned) was barely past forty: it sharpened the contradiction between this spangled testimony to a career busily devoted to the arts of war and his worldly, cultivated manner. How, I wondered, had such a relatively young man lived a life so rich in military fulfillment yet found the time to become expert in another language and, presumably, to develop a taste for the Finer Things?
I shook hands with the colonel’s son—a boy of about eighteen who greatly resembled his father. Except for the obvious difference in their ages, and the fact that he was a shade taller, he could almost have passed for his father’s twin—which is to say that like his parent he was of mediumheight and athletically built (without, however, appearing aggressively muscled) and like him, too, had cropped sandy hair and intelligent eyes set deeply in a cleanly sculpted face. Despite this likeness, however, the lad had no intention of following his father’s career: that I learned soon after being introduced when, as Lacy and the colonel chatted, I asked him whether he was going to be a professional marine. I don’t know why I posed the question; perhaps the extraordinary resemblance made it seem inevitable.
“Lord no,” he replied in a soft voice. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” The response caused my scalp to prickle, largely because of its level frankness, devoid of any sardonic edge. He looked vaguely unhappy, a bit restless. Shifting my tack, I learned that he was a sophomore at Chapel Hill and that he hoped one day to be an architect. Suddenly his face crinkled up in a smile. “I think I’d rather sell hot dogs than be in the marines. If I ever get drafted I’ll do my bit in the air force.”
I had no more time to pursue the reasons for this mysterious stance,
“Bonsoir, mon colonel,” Lacy replied. “ça va bien, et vous? Non, nous venons juste d’arriver. Colonel, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.” Then he turned and I was introduced to Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Marriott, United States Marine Corps.
“So you’re the writer Lacy’s been telling me about?” he said pleasantly. The way he pronounced “about”—making it rhyme with “boot”—told me he was a Virginian. “Well, it’s refreshing to have a literary man around. It adds a needed dash of variety, and I hope we can have a talk or two. … I’d like you gentlemen to meet my son Mike.”
It generally strikes me as an affectation when peoplespeak in French if there is no particular reason to do so, but both Lacy and the colonel were very fluent—the colonel, to my ear, practically flawless—and this, together with a slight tone of self-mockery, made it attractively droll. As for the colonel himself, I could not help being almost overwhelmed by his ribbons and decorations: if important enough, and if present in sufficient numbers, their luster does tend at immediate sight to dominate the image, and to outshine the face of their owner. Yet it was not just the magnitude of the decorations themselves that was so impressive (the Navy Cross and the Silver Star—each indicating an exploit of what must have been hair-raising valor—in addition to a Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart with stars denoting several wounds), but the dazzling collage of campaign and expeditionary ribbons and marksmanship awards which went along with them, and which could only be worn by a man whose life had been bound up with the marines since early youth. I was in the presence, I reflected, of an absolute professional. Even so, Colonel Marriott looked and (as I later learned) was barely past forty: it sharpened the contradiction between this spangled testimony to a career busily devoted to the arts of war and his worldly, cultivated manner. How, I wondered, had such a relatively young man lived a life so rich in military fulfillment yet found the time to become expert in another language and, presumably, to develop a taste for the Finer Things?
I shook hands with the colonel’s son—a boy of about eighteen who greatly resembled his father. Except for the obvious difference in their ages, and the fact that he was a shade taller, he could almost have passed for his father’s twin—which is to say that like his parent he was of mediumheight and athletically built (without, however, appearing aggressively muscled) and like him, too, had cropped sandy hair and intelligent eyes set deeply in a cleanly sculpted face. Despite this likeness, however, the lad had no intention of following his father’s career: that I learned soon after being introduced when, as Lacy and the colonel chatted, I asked him whether he was going to be a professional marine. I don’t know why I posed the question; perhaps the extraordinary resemblance made it seem inevitable.
“Lord no,” he replied in a soft voice. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” The response caused my scalp to prickle, largely because of its level frankness, devoid of any sardonic edge. He looked vaguely unhappy, a bit restless. Shifting my tack, I learned that he was a sophomore at Chapel Hill and that he hoped one day to be an architect. Suddenly his face crinkled up in a smile. “I think I’d rather sell hot dogs than be in the marines. If I ever get drafted I’ll do my bit in the air force.”
I had no more time to pursue the reasons for this mysterious stance,
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