Pacific Glory

TEN

On Christmas Day, the captain, two engineers from the shipyard, and Marsh stood on top of the starboard engine reduction gear casing while the chief engineer unlocked the access plates. The Evans had been sent back from the Tarawa operation after a loud, rattling noise in the starboard engine forced an emergency shutdown. The reduction gears, weighing several tons, translated the 24,000 RPM of the steam turbines to the low-hundreds RPM of the ship’s propellers. Reduction gear repairs required the services of a shipyard, so once again Evans was back in Pearl.

The crew, of course, was heartbroken to be in Hawaii for the holidays instead of out on the gun line, to the point where the captain had wondered out loud to Marsh if whatever was loose in the reduction gearing was indeed an accident. He’d checked with Chief Gorman to see if there was anything to that, and the chief had laughed it off. Marsh tended to agree with him — their guys were a pretty gung-ho bunch when it came to shooting things up. While no one was going to pass up two weeks’ worth of liberty down on Hotel Street, Marsh thought that the notion of self-inflicted sabotage was pretty far-fetched.

Since they were going to be in the yards for two weeks, it was decided that Evans would be regunned, having put the allotted number of rounds through her five-inchers during all the shore-bombardment operations. This involved taking off the five gun barrels and replacing them with new ones, followed by a tedious process called a battery alignment. That project, plus the inevitable laundry list of broken pumps, valve repairs, hull preservation, and the accumulated mountain of low-priority of paperwork, meant full workdays for the entire two-week stay.

The good news, of course, was that, as XO, Marsh could take every night off, and that meant he was going to see a lot of Sally. Their letters throughout the grind of 1943 had drawn them much closer, and he was really looking forward to being with her. They’d only been gone since early October, but it had seemed longer. Marsh knew that there was one personal minefield he had to avoid: Glory. He could still remember the subtle change in Sally’s expression when he’d mentioned Glory’s name after the incident with the hospital ship. He’d told her then to forget Glory, and had promised himself that he would park all his adolescent pipe dreams in the memory locker for good. As he stood watching the engineers dive into the inner workings of all that oily bronzed gearing, though, he had to wonder: Forget Glory? Now that he was here in Pearl, that would be a lot easier said than done, until he remembered that Sally would probably have a role to play in that little project.

“What are you smiling about, XO?” the captain asked.

Marsh just shook his head and said, “Nothing, Captain.”

The captain looked at him and then shook his head. “It’s that nurse, isn’t it,” he said. “God help us. I do believe my XO’s in love.”

Sally came back into the room from the bathroom with her makeup kit, took one look at Glory, and said, “That’s not fair.”

Glory smiled, kissed a tissue, and examined the lipstick mark. She’d taken some time with the war paint tonight. She normally used very little makeup. It was expensive, and hard to get, and not a little unfair to parade down a ward of badly injured men tarted up like a chorus-line girl. Tonight, though, she had gone all out, with a dark blue, low-cut ball gown, heels, and her hair done up by a downtown hairdresser. She was wearing her one good pair of nylons and three strategically placed dabs of Lanvin’s Arpège.

“Okay,” Sally said. “Who’s the intended victim?”

“Superman,” Glory said. “I think he’s been playing a game with me.”

“Everyone else thinks you’re an item,” Sally said. “Not true?”

“Not even close,” Glory said.

“But you’re always together. Surgery, meetings, all those committees.”

Glory turned to look at Sally. “We’re getting ready to commission twenty-two field hospitals,” she said. “Even I don’t know where they’re going, but we’re looking at three thousand medical personnel. That’s business, Sally. War business. You ever find me not here at night?”

“Well, no,” Sally said, “but you know how the girls gossip.”

“Don’t be one of them.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. So what’s the game?”

“Ah, well, that’s the point. Superman has never put a foot or a hand wrong. Never made a pass. Never copped a feel. Holds my hand on the dance floor while talking over my shoulder to someone else.”

“I get it,” Sally said. “Deliberately ignoring the best-looking woman in the hospital. Finally got you wondering — lost my touch?”

Glory smiled again. “Possibly. So, tonight? I’m going to make an entrance. I’m going to walk right by him, flash him the fifty-thousand-watt smile, and then I’m going to ask the first officer I meet if he’d like to dance. Then the next one after that. Make a little stir. My contribution to their New Year’s celebration. Flirt shamelessly with everyone. Except Superman.”

Sally raised her eyebrows. “And what happens when one of your unsuspecting victims gets the wrong idea? Lady Everest is finally thawing out? How do you turn off that fire once you start it?”

“Easy,” Glory said. “Marsh Vincent will be there tonight. He called earlier, did I tell you? If I have to, I’ll run to him for safety.”

“Commander Vincent isn’t exactly indifferent to you, Glory. You run to him, looking like that, you may get a surprise.”

“Then maybe Superman will come to the rescue. We’ll find out how dedicated he is to his little game.”

Sally frowned. “Glory — this isn’t you.”

Glory slipped into her gloves. “It is now,” she said. “Besides, Sally, what do you know of me, really?”

“I know I’ve lived in your shadow for almost two years. You’ve been devoted to the memory of your husband. You’ve put up with an army of horny guys who want to take your pants off, and you’ve done it with dignity. Suddenly you’re going to play party vamp?”

Glory felt her face getting red. She thought of a hundred slashing comments she could make. Instead, she simply turned back to the mirror. “See you at the party, Sal,” she said.

When she turned back around, Sally had gone.

“Dammit,” she muttered as she got her purse.

Sally was right, of course, and Glory could not explain exactly what was going on, other than as a culmination of things: Stembridge’s long campaign of physical proximity coupled with studied indifference, the waves of wanting coming from every other healthy male she encountered in a world where the men outnumbered the women twenty to one, the abnormal juxtaposition of being beautiful while pretending to remain aloof from the earthy tensions of human desire. Superman had let his own guard slip for just that delectable second on the beach, as had she. There was no denying that sudden flash of desire, even if he had covered it up immediately with his usual false bonhomie.

She appraised herself in the mirror one last time. There was color in her face, and her lips were almost too red. The snug-fitting gown, the gloves, the heels, the sheen of wartime stockings, the whole package fairly shouted, Look at me. Tommy wouldn’t have let her out of the house looking like this. He’d have undone everything and hustled her off to bed.

She smiled at that memory, but then the smile faded, much as Tommy was fading from her life. War, she thought — the original no-one’s-to-blame divorce machine. She’d done nothing wrong, he’d done nothing wrong, and then this goddamned war had split them apart like a meat cleaver, and with the same stunning finality.

Face it, babe, she thought. Beast was right. Tommy is gone forever.

But I’m not. I’m still here.

Maybe it was time to live again, assuming she still remembered how.

She sat down by the upstairs window and watched as the nurses walked over to the officers’ club in a large group, most of them wobbling uncomfortably in heels they hadn’t had on in weeks. She waited until the main group just about reached the club and then went downstairs to the front verandah and sat down again. She could see the entrance to the club from the porch. She watched the stream of white dress uniforms going through the big glass doors. The New Year’s Eve party had started officially a half hour ago, but she wanted to wait for a quorum of potential victims before she made her entrance.

Marsh had called a few days earlier, but what she hadn’t told Sally was that he’d been calling for Sally, not her. She was glad for that, especially if it meant he’d gotten over his infatuation with her. He was such a nice guy. His homeliness was actually endearing. The two of them were perfect for each other, and they’d be even happier when Marsh finally realized that. Men were so damned slow sometimes. She’d been surprised to find out Evans was back in Pearl so soon after their last visit, but Sally had been positively beaming lately. She felt a stab of resentment: The war had snuffed out her marriage while bringing those two together.

Then she remembered that Mick McCarty would probably be in the club tonight. She wondered what he’d do when he saw her in her man-killer regalia. He’ll laugh out loud, that’s what he’ll do, she thought. Give it to Mick: He had a very low threshold for BS. The only problem would come if he was really drunk. She could always turn to the nearest group of officers, and they’d hustle him away from her so fast his head would spin.

And Stembridge? Really, what would he do? At every Navy social occasion they’d attended, he’d always broken off from whatever group he was with to greet her with a warm familiarity, a familiarity he’d never actually earned. Of course people thought they were an item. The fact that she’d been pretending for months she wasn’t the least bit available and he’d been pretending he wasn’t interested probably looked like some kind of mutual campaign to fool everyone else.

He was interested, though. She knew he was. All she had to do was stand just a tad too close to hear his voice change. That was one of his problems — he never stopped talking, lecturing, instructing, informing, arguing. On the other hand, he was indeed Superman in the OR. His eyes would light up over that mask as he peered down at the latest challenge, followed by the usual scramble to keep him supplied with instruments. Sometimes he’d leave the OR between surgeries, and she occasionally wondered if he was getting a hit of pure oxygen or perhaps something a little more chemical. She knew that wasn’t likely; the docs who were dependent on some kind of pills usually became more and more so, to the point where they just crashed and burned. Stembridge was just Stembridge — all energy, intelligence, polite impatience, and absolutely maddening reserve when it came to reacting to the guarded wiles of Glory Lewis. She checked the flow of traffic at the club, saw that it was diminishing, and decided it was time to go break some hearts, and one in particular, unless he really surprised her.

Marsh spotted Sally as soon as she came through the doors with the herd of nurses. He was one of at least a dozen officers to roll in on the group like a bunch of fighter planes, peeling away from the bar in an echelon formation of flushed faces and choker white uniforms. Ordinarily he’d have been late, but the skipper knew about Sally and had ordered him to cut loose on time and hand over the day’s remaining crises to the ship’s duty officer. He’d also gotten them rooms at the BOQ, using his clout as a commanding officer, so that neither of them had to stagger back to the ship in the wee hours in front of the crew.

Sally gave Marsh a big hug, much to the disappointment of two other guys who’d had her targeted.

“Buy me a drink, sailor?” she said softly.

“You betchum, Red Ryder,” Marsh said and whisked her away from the swarm.

They snared a table for two against the wall and just looked at each other. No matter what she says, Marsh reminded himself, we do not mention or even think about mentioning GL. Gazing into those blue eyes, he found that determination getting easier by the moment.

“I never expected you guys to be back so soon,” she said.

“What’d you tell the boyfriend, then?” Marsh asked.

“Which one, smarty? There’s at least, oh, I don’t know, four, five?”

She was wearing a shiny green longish dress, tight on top, with layers of interesting lace and nylon underneath. The outfit accentuated her lush body. Marsh always considered himself a leg man, but that tight top was hard to ignore.

“Eyes in the boat there, sailor,” she said with an arch smile.

“You wore that here,” he said. “I’m supposed to pretend you’re one of the boys?”

She took a deep breath, which did amazing things to the dress and all the lacy bits underneath. Definitely not a boy. Before he could gather his wits, the band started playing and she wanted to dance. Me, too, he thought. Slow and close, if possible.

They’d drifted dreamily through two numbers and were headed back to their table when Glory made her entrance. Even the guys in the band noticed, Marsh thought, because their timing went off the tracks for a second or two. The bustling crowd of officers at the bar turned like a drill team to stare before the bolder ones began to make their way through the dancers. Then Marsh noticed a table of older officers across the room, whose shoulder-board insignia indicated they were all Medical Corps. One guy in particular stood up when Glory arrived, a tall, dark-haired, and very handsome full commander.

“What are you looking at?” Sally said from below his right shoulder.

“Trouble, I do believe,” he said.

She turned to look and then whistled softly. “See the tall guy? The commander? Watch what happens.”

They sat down and watched as Glory made her way like the Queen of Sheba across the floor, slowly peeling her gloves off, one at a time. The commander got about five feet away and started to put out his hand. Glory turned one of her tungsten smiles on the poor guy, wiggled the fingers of her right hand in his direction, and then walked past him and straight into the nearest group of panting lieutenant commanders. The group closed around her like a mass of white chain mail and swept her back to the bar. Glory was talking to them as if she’d known them all for years. The tall commander stood there for a second, looking like a stunned bird.

“That was planned?” Marsh asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That’s Dr. Stembridge. Her boss, actually. They call him Superman at the hospital, because he’s always saying ‘Super!’ And also because he’s an incredible surgeon.”

“Not so super just now,” Marsh said. “I think I want to hear this.”

She drew apart from him and gave him a look.

“I’m all grown up now,” he said, “but there has to be more to this story. I wonder if she knows Beast is here.”

Sally looked alarmed. “Is he? Oh, my. This might get really interesting. You’ll have to ply me with lots more liquor, though.”

“Champagne do it?” Marsh asked.

“Every time,” she giggled. Her shining blue eyes banished all thoughts of Glory, who remained invisible behind her screen of white uniforms. Marsh decided to try some boldness of his own.

“Did I tell you I have a BOQ room tonight?” he said.

“Did I hear you mention champagne?” she replied, studiously ignoring any mention of a room.

“Ah, yes, you did,” he said. He signaled a passing cocktail waitress that he needed something. Once she’d taken his order he caught Sally trying to suppress a grin.

“What’s funny?” he asked. He almost had to shout over all the noise in the dining room.

“How long did it take you get up the nerve to tell me that?”

“About five seconds,” he said.

“I’m impressed,” she said. She leaned back in her chair, smoothed her hands through her hair, and ran a stockinged foot up the inside of his right leg under the table.

“Why don’t we open that champagne somewhere else, then?” she asked.

Marsh tried to say okay without whimpering too much, his interest in the back story of Superman and Glory long forgotten.

Glory found herself in possession of at least five cocktails and an equal number of anxiously attentive young men. It felt wonderful, even though she knew that at some point she’d have to do some maneuvering. It was almost like being back at Annapolis, with a crowd of Navy men pressing in on her, all with high hopes and all with no chance whatsoever. She saw some of the other nurses surreptitiously watching her. She stared back at two of them, who quickly turned away. She avoided looking over at the doctors’ table, not wanting to stir up any more unnecessary trouble.

All of them wanted to dance with her, but she said she needed another drink before she was ready for that. The five drinks in front of her became ten, and she dutifully tried them all, albeit in tiny sips. The noise in the club was growing as the band tried to make itself heard above the muted roar of conversation. Two tables of aviators were getting a little rowdy, but they were still in the amusing stage. The sheer number of people was defeating the overhead fans, and she felt herself beginning to perspire underneath all that makeup. She turned around and leaned back against the bar, carelessly thrusting her chest forward and then scanning the room to see what was happening. Unexpectedly, she locked eyes with Mick McCarty.

They stared at each other for a long moment while the buzz of anxious conversation all around her retreated into the background. Then Mick grinned that damned Irish grin of his. She couldn’t help it: She smiled right back.

She could almost hear him saying it: I go with the first girl who smiles. Then he was there, cutting her out of the crowd like a pro, substantially bigger than everyone around her, and then they were together on the dance floor. Mick never could dance, but he could definitely hold a woman and make her not care one whit about his dancing ability. His right hand rested just far enough below her waist to make her aware of it.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, imitating one of the downtown bar girls. “I love you so fucking much.”

She giggled. “I heard a story about you, that you were in hack,” she said to his shoulder.

“In hack, in trouble, in pain, in the drunk tank, in Pensacola, in a rehab clinic, and now back out here in pineapple paradise. Tomorrow or in a day or so, back to sea, this time in the Big E.”

“They’re taking you back?”

“Not willingly,” he said, “but believe it or not, we’ve got more carriers than aviators just now, so they kinda had to.”

She squeezed his left hand. “Why are you still wearing your gloves?” she asked.

“My right paw doesn’t look so good right now,” he said. “That was the rehab mission. It works, but it looks like Frankenstein made it.”

“I’d forgotten,” she said, as the band wound down one dance number and then shifted into the next one.

Just then Stembridge appeared. “May I have the honor, Lieutenant?” he asked, tapping Mick on the shoulder.

“You want to dance with me?” Mick asked innocently.

“Not my type,” Stembridge said, “but she is.”

Mick looked at Glory, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “Don’t go far,” she whispered.

Mick gave Stembridge a quick mock bow and went back to the bar. Glory offered her hand, and Stembridge stepped in. They began to dance as the crowd closed in. Glory waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Okay, she thought. I can play this game. Just for the hell of it, though, she moved into him, pressing one thigh and then the other where it might do the most good.

“I do believe I’m being disciplined,” he said finally.

“Whatever are you talking about?” she asked and bumped him again.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I don’t know. You and I have been close for months, but not really. I’d love to take you to bed, but every time I even think about making a move, you’ve…”

“I’ve what?”

He sighed. “You’ve nothing. I guess I’ve been too busy being Superman. I’m sorry, Glory. I should have paid more attention.”

“Is that what you think I wanted? Attention?”

He moved away from her. “Yes, I do. You may not have known it, but, yes, that’s what I think you wanted. Attention. A suitor, even.”

She looked away. He’d seen right through her. That’s exactly what she’d wanted, and, truth be told, she’d been dishonest about it. To him, to herself.

“It’s been two years,” she said. “Since that awful day. Perhaps you don’t understand.”

“Clue me in.”

“I’ve been the object of every man’s attention since I turned sixteen. Tommy was — special. He didn’t play games. He fell in love with me and I fell in love with him. That was precious. All the rest of it? That was, I think, lust.”

“Lust is human,” he said. “We poor men are wired for lust. Tarzan see Jane. Tarzan want Jane. Jane better lie down, or Tarzan will get out the club.”

“How convenient,” she said, looking up at him. “’Poor me, the big strong man says. I’m permanently disabled by a short-circuit between my brain and my—”

He put a finger on her lips, then pulled it away and examined the lipstick. “Poor me, indeed,” he said. Then he smiled, and so did she. “I keep asking myself: Am I in love with Glory Lewis, or is it just desire?”

“Come to an answer yet?”

“I want to know you as a woman. Not as a medical colleague, not as an OR supe, not as my chief assistant, but as a lovely woman. But I’ve felt all along that that can’t happen until you’re ready to be a woman again. I felt as if it would be wrong for me to, oh, what’s the right word — push?”

Then Mick was back. He tapped Stembridge on the shoulder, perhaps a little harder than necessary. “Commander,” he said. “May I have the honor?”

Stembridge stepped back, his gaze locked with Glory’s. “I guess I should have, after all,” he said. He nodded to Mick. “Lieutenant.”

Then he was gone and Mick had her enclosed in those massive arms. She wanted to look back, to say something to Superman, but the moment passed, probably forever. For some strange reason, she felt a small pang of regret. Then she felt Mick.

“Hey, I brought you a drink,” he said.

“So you did,” she said. “Hopefully there’s more where that came from.”

“The world’s supply,” he said.

She drained half of it and then handed the glass back to Mick. Then, looking directly into his eyes, she moved in and pressed her body against his. “Change of plan,” she whispered.

“Really,” he said, a knowing grin spreading across his face.

“Really,” she replied. “I’m going to the ladies’. You go out front and have a cigarette. Then we’ll take a walk or something.”

“Something,” he said. “Definitely something.”

By the time they got back to the nurses’ quarters, he was walking close behind her, letting those big hands roam, while she kept her mind blank and let him do it, whatever he wanted, until they fell into her room upstairs and she pushed him down onto her bed. There was no need for any more talk, and she knew it. He started to get back up, but she shook her head and then took her clothes off, slowly at first but then faster as her own need welled up. Mick stripped his clothes off in a flurry of uniform pieces, then lay back on the bed at full staff. Glory stared at him hungrily for a moment, then slid down on top of him, letting her breasts flatten up the length of his thighs as she stretched out and upward on his body.

“Go fast,” she murmured.

“I remember,” he said and then drove himself deep inside her. She gasped once, convulsing in a shallow release almost before she knew it. Then Mick grasped both her hips and started in, his eyes drinking in that heavenly body and the way her swaying hair obscured her face as she matched him. After a little while she came again, this time with a gut-wrenching force and a cry of deep release. He pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth while he arched his back and went even deeper, never stopping for a moment until she pulled away to catch her breath. In a moment she was prone on the bed and he was taking her from behind, those massive arms locking her into a violent, bruising embrace as he went for his own ride. He was hurting her now and she struggled, but then her body betrayed her and she once again rose to it as a wave of bliss overtook the pain and she felt him empty himself deep inside her.

She collapsed on the sweat-soaked sheet, trying to get her breath. Mick stayed with her, doing an awkward stationary push-up so that she could breathe. She was startled to see that the sheet was smeared with her lipstick and made to wipe it off except that her arms wouldn’t work. Her whole body felt like a mass of gelatin, every inch alive and quivering. He lowered himself to the bed alongside her and pulled her into a strong embrace, his breath smelling of Scotch as he buried his face in her damp hair and listened to her pounding heartbeat.

She thought of Tommy then, how he would never have taken her this way. Tommy loved her deeply but had never mustered this depth of sexual need or physical violence. Tommy was the brain. The gentle, loving brain. Mick was the Beast. She waited for a sense of guilt, but nothing like that came. She’d been emotionally dead for the last two years, but not anymore. She thought briefly of Marsh, fondly even. He was with his Sally, and she was perfect for him. Stronger than he was but a sufficiently wily woman to never let him know that, even as she gathered him in to precisely where he belonged. She felt Mick stir beside her. He began to stroke her bottom.

“Ever hear the story about the sex surveyor?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Sex surveyor turned up on a housewife’s front porch, asked if he could ask her his survey questions. Didn’t want to come in or anything, just ask his questions. She said sure. So he went through his list, then got to the last one. Which was: Do you smoke after having sex?”

“And?”

“She said, ‘You know, I’ve never looked.’”

She laughed, and then they both looked.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Let’s work on that,” he said.

“First, where’s that world’s supply?”

Marsh led Sally though the door to his BOQ room and locked it behind them. He was carrying the sweating bottle of champagne and realized there was nowhere to put it. The BOQ rooms were more like cells than hotel rooms: a single metal bed, a metal dresser, a closet, a sink, one chair, and a steel kneehole desk. The communal showers and bathrooms were down the hall. He put the bottle down on the desk, not sure of what to do next. Sally went to the bed and sat down, then indicated he should sit next to her by patting the bed.

“We need some ice,” he said. “A bucket or something. And some glasses. I forgot glasses.”

“That’s the last thing we need,” she said, kicking off her shoes. She patted the bed again. He sat down next to her. To his surprise, she bounced back up and then stood in front of him. Then she turned her back.

“Zipper, kind sir,” she said. “Please.”

“Right,” he said. He reached up and undid the little hook at the top of her dress and then lowered the zipper. It went a long way down the soft curves of her back. She reached over her shoulders with both hands, did something, and the dress slid to the floor. She was wearing a full-length slip, under which was a girdle, among other filmy female things.

For a moment he just sat there, his hands on her hips, the white nylon of her slip silky to his hands. Then he leaned his head forward, pressing his forehead into the small of her back, drinking in the scents of her perfume and rising arousal.

She flicked the straps off her shoulders, and the slip slid down her back, bunching at her waist. She said not a word, but he knew what was expected. He gathered the slip and pulled it down over her hips, still pressing his forehead into her back. Then he moved his hands over her waist and hips, as if to smooth the fabric of all the remaining underthings. She leaned back against him as he ran his hands down and then back up her thighs, softly but knowingly, his own excitement building. He stripped away the rest of her underwear until she was naked in front of him. Then she turned around, encircled his head with her hands, and told him to kiss her like he meant it.

An hour later Sally lay with her back to his perspiring chest, her hair in his face and the rest of her melted against him. When he opened his eyes he saw the champagne bottle on the table. It was still sweating, but not as much as he was.

God damn! he thought. She must have read his mind, because she squeezed his hand and let out a contented sigh.

“I think we missed New Year’s,” he said.

“I seem to remember some fireworks,” she said. “Does that count?”

Marsh grinned in the darkness. “You bet,” he said.

She was quiet for a few minutes. He thought she’d drifted off to sleep, but then she sighed.

“What?” he asked.

“A new year,” she said. “I can remember when New Year’s was purely fun, with everyone looking forward to what was coming next. Not anymore.”

“I suppose anything can happen over the next twelve months,” he said. “The bastards may even give up. They have to know by now they can’t win this thing. And Roosevelt will never negotiate with them. Not after December seventh.”

“You really believe they’ll give up?”

“No,” he said, after thinking about it. “It’s not in their blood, apparently. I heard that we had to kill forty-seven hundred Japs to take Tarawa, and that we lost nearly one thousand of our own guys dead in the process. Another two thousand wounded or missing. There were just seventeen Japs left alive when it was over.”

She sighed again. “Then this war will go on forever.”

“It won’t,” he said, “but it’s gonna seem like it. Tarawa was tiny — maybe a half mile across at its widest point. Wait until we have to go into the Home Islands.”

“Happy, happy New Year,” she said.

“It is right now,” he said. “Let’s see if that champagne is still drinkable.”

“Champagne makes me tipsy,” she said. “No telling what might happen then.”

“One way to find out. Let me up.”

“Up?” she asked innocently.

Sometime after midnight, Marsh walked her back across the lawns of Hospital Point to the nurses’ quarters. When they arrived at the front steps they were surprised to see a woman sitting in one of the chairs, her face in shadow.

“Glory?” Sally asked as she started up the steps. “Is that you?”

Marsh followed Sally up the steps and then stopped short. Glory wasn’t sitting in the chair — she was sprawling. Her expensive hairdo had come apart, and the straps of her evening gown were missing. The fabric across her front was riding dangerously low, and she was barefoot. The glazed expression on her face said she didn’t really care what she looked like.

“Glory, honey,” Sally said, going down on one knee. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Marsh thought he knew. She had finally succumbed to Mick, and from what he could see, Lady Everest had been well and truly conquered. She saw him looking at her and gave him a lopsided smile.

“Well, Marsh,” she said. “What do you think of your dream girl now, hmm?”

Sally shot him a warning glance over her shoulder and then tried to lift the fabric of Glory’s gown.

“Oh, hell, Sally, don’t bother,” Glory sighed. “It’s thoroughly used goods just now. Anyone have a cigarette?”

Sally stood back as Marsh stepped forward with his duty pack of Luckies. Glory took one, stuck it in her mouth, and then cupped his hand when he extended his lighter. She might be putting on a brave face, he thought, but he felt her fingers trembling. He wanted to reach out and hold her but knew that was impossible. She took one deep drag, blew it out sideways, looked over at Sally’s face, and then gave him another crooked, lipstick-smeared grin.

“I guess I’m not the only sinner on the porch tonight, am I?” she said. Even in the semidarkness, Marsh could see Sally’s face go red.

“Ah, well,” Glory said. “Happy damn New Year. What better way to usher in yet another year of world war than with a good, wholesome romp in the hay. God knows I needed it.” She hiccupped, put a surprised hand to her face, and then did it again. “It got just a little bit drunk out tonight,” she said.

“I think it’s time we got you upstairs,” Sally said.

Glory took a drag on the cigarette and then pitched it into the bushes. “What, am I intruding?” she said. “Three’s a crowd?”

“Glory, please,” Sally said. Marsh started to say something but thought better of it.

“Okay, you two,” Glory said and lurched forward out of the chair. Her gown immediately fell down, exposing her white breasts as she stood up. Marsh could not take his eyes away.

“Well, looky here,” Glory said, cupping her breasts with both hands. “Like all this, Marsh? Want to hold them for me? Mick sure did.”

“Glory!” Sally cried.

“Oops, I forgot,” Glory said, swaying a little. “It’s yours he wants, not mine. Right. Fair enough. Fair enough.”

She reached down for the bodice of her gown and covered up as best she could while trying to remain upright. Sally took her by the arm, gave him a weary look, and helped a very drunk Glory Lewis into the building.

Marsh sat down in the chair from which Glory had just risen. There was a lingering scent in the chair, a heady blend of perfume, cigarette smoke, booze, and seriously aroused woman.

He tried to keep his brain in neutral, not wanting to dwell on the obvious fact that Glory was finally completely beyond his reach. His feeble efforts not to recall her nakedness weren’t working. Then he realized that it wasn’t the end of the world after all.

Sally had not been drunk when she sat back on that bed. Tipsy, maybe, but the look on her face had been that of a woman with a plan who was not going to be denied. Their lovemaking had been exciting, even the inevitable comic bits as they explored all the various ways they fit together. After that, she’d been all business, radiating an urgent, primal need with nothing romantic about it, at least not until the second time. That had been much slower, gentler, deeper, her kisses lingering as his own emotions welled up after years of a relatively sterile bachelorhood. They were in love, and they’d just confirmed that in the only and best way they could.

And Mick? What had happened here? Glory looked like she had been roughly handled, and that made him wonder. Was all that slutty dialogue just the booze talking or something else, a woman who’d finally realized she needed a man and who’d found just exactly what she was looking for? In all his fantasizing he’d never imagined Glory as a woman with all her clothes off, hands on hips, telling him or some other man: Okay, sport, here it is. Fuck me if you’re man enough. She’d been right all along: He’d formed some dreamy, love-soaked image of this woman, without ever considering what it might be like if she ever said yes.

He heard Sally coming back downstairs. He stood up and went to the screen door. She stopped behind it but did not come out.

“So,” he said. “Happy New Year again, secret admirer.”

She smiled. “I have to get back upstairs. The room’s a disaster area. Right now she’s decorating the bathroom. She thinks Mick went back to the club.”

He glanced at his watch. “Club’s closed,” he said. “Has she said anything? Was this—”

Sally shook her head. “She says she needs a bath, that she needs to scrub and scrub hard, as she puts it. Poor thing. So many men have lusted after her for so long since Tommy died. And now…”

“I was one,” Marsh said.

“Well I know,” she said through the screen.

“Until you came along,” he said.

She smiled again. “Good answer, Commander. Very good answer. Think you can come see me before you guys go back out to sea?”

“If the XO will let me off the ship one more time, I will.”

“I thought you were the XO.”

“Why, yes I am. I guess that’s a yes. Night-night, secret admirer.”

Marsh walked back across the lawns to the officers’ club, which was indeed at darkened-ship. There were a few official cars in the parking lot but not a soul about that he could see. He did hear one, though. Someone was singing in a low voice over near the front door of the club. The beer song. Twenty-nine bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-nine bottles of beer …

He walked over and found a bleary-eyed Beast, still in his whites, with his tunic unbuttoned and a bottle of beer in his hand. He was sitting on the front steps of the club. For some reason his white shoes were off and sitting next to him. He looked up as Marsh approached, tried to focus, but then gave it up.

“I’ll go quietly,” he announced. “Don’t fuck with the HASP if you know what’s good for you.”

Marsh sat down on the step above the one Mick was perched on. That put his face level with Mick’s.

“It’s Beauty,” he said quietly. “Not the HASP.”

“Beauty Vincent, as I live and breathe,” Mick said. “You get to third base with that Sally-Wally tonight? She was positively cookin’ with gas, man. Lady with a mission. I thought I saw you guys sneakin’ out.”

Marsh didn’t say anything. Mick took another swig of beer, examined the empty bottle, and then threw it into the bushes, where it clinked against others already expired there. Then he looked sideways at Marsh.

“You’ve been back to the nurses’ quarters, haven’t you.”

“I took Sally back, yes,” he said. “We found Glory out on the front porch.”

“Was she now,” Mick said and then let go an enormous belch. “Came out to cool off, I imagine.”

“Cool off.”

“Yeah, classmate, cool off,” Mick snarled. “’Cause when I left she was still so hot her lipstick was melting. You don’t like hearing that, do you, lover boy?”

“That’s between you and her, I guess,” Marsh said. “None of my business.”

“Bullshit!” Mick spat. “You wouldn’t have come looking for me if that were true. You think I raped her, don’t you?”

Marsh finally looked back at him. “Thought crossed my mind, Mick,” he said.

“’Cause it was me, right? Mick McCarty, fleet fuckup. Got the girl drunk and then had my evil way with her. Is that it? That what you think?”

“What should I think, Mick?”

“Okay, Mr. Lingering Eye. I’ll tell you what to think. That was always the difference between you and me when it came to Glory Hawthorne. You think. I do.”

“Lewis,” Marsh said.

“What?!”

“Lewis. Her last name is Lewis.”

“Not anymore, classmate. Tommy Lewis is toast. Tommy Lewis, old Mr. Three Point Eight, he’s just part of that bad smell you get when you walk downwind of Ford Island. No, sir, there was no Lewis tonight. She let me know that in no uncertain terms, too. I don’t know what was going on between her and the pretty doctor, but tonight? No more Lady Everest. Out on the dance floor, all the way back to her room, and then when she pushed me down on that bed and looked me in the eye, it was time to get to it in a big, big way. I’ve got the fingernail grooves in my back to prove it. Wanna see?”

“No. I don’t want to see.”

“But somehow I’m the bad guy here, hunh?”

“I think you took advantage.”

“And that pisses you off? You who never had the balls to make the first move in your whole life? The guy who liked to watch? I remember you, classmate, when our little gang would go out cruising Crabtown. Mooning from a distance, so desperately in lu-u-u-v, but not man enough to take what was on offer.”

“Glory was never on offer,” Marsh said.

“Little you know, snake,” Mick said. “Here’s a secret — this wasn’t our first time, okay? My only problem was that back then? I wanted her so bad and I fucked her so hard and she climaxed so big, I scared her, and then she ran to Tommy, and Tommy, that old slash, made exactly the right moves and won the girl. Didn’t know all that, did you?”

Marsh was stunned. “No, I didn’t.”

“Listen to you,” Mick snorted. “‘No, I didn’t.’ Because you were too scared. I’ll bet you’ve been scared ever since this war started, haven’t you? This is man’s work, classmate. Warrior’s work. You better hope that cute little nurse doesn’t find out what you’re really made of, because she’ll write your fluttery ass off just like Glory did.”

“Glory made her choice a long time ago, Mick, and it wasn’t me or you. Nothing to do with being scared.”

“Bullshit. You’re still scared, aren’t you? Scared every day you’re out there with the Big Blue Fleet. Been scared since you first went to sea, am I right? And now? Watching you still pining like a damn dog around Glory? Time’s gonna come, Vincent. Time’s gonna come when you’ll get to meet the elephant, as the Civil War boys used to say, and that’s when you’ll find out what you’re made of. Personally, I think you’ll fuck it up.”

That stung. Marsh told himself it was just the booze talking. He said nothing.

“Oh, get the fuck out of here,” Mick said disgustedly. “Right now I’m a sailor on liberty. I just got laid, now I’m gonna get really drunk, then I’m gonna puke. Then I’ll go back to the ship with the rest of the liberty party. And tomorrow or the next day we’ll go back to sea, find some Japs, and kill ’em all.”

“And Glory?”

“What about her?”

“What happens to her?”

“Happens? What the fuck are you talking about? Oh, I get it. You’re a gentleman and she’s a lady. Yeah. Okay: Here’s what happens to Glory. She retires to a convent, takes the veil, and gives her life over to Christ to make up for the stain on her sacred honor, caused by a guy most appropriately nicknamed — Beast!”

Marsh got up and started to walk away.

“Eat your heart out, Beu-tee-e-e,” Mick yelled after him. “She’s a woman, not a saint. They all are. They’re women, first and last. Everything else, all that love and romance, that’s just our imagination. God put ’em all on earth so we could breed ’em, nothing more.”

Marsh turned around to stare. Mick suddenly grinned back at him.

“Now that’s the look you want, Tiger. That I-want-to-kill-you look. Practice that in front of a mirror. Think of me making Glory yell, if it’ll help. Then when the day comes and you’re looking Death in the face, lay it on him. Sometimes he blinks. Now get outta here. I gotta piss.”

Glory sat on one of the park benches at the very tip of Hospital Point and listened to a bugle playing taps over the outdoor announcing system at Hickam. The night was settling in as the yard tugs huffed back to their piers across the harbor and the steady stream of aircraft going in and out of Hickam began to thin out. She tried to ignore the dark wreck of Arizona, visible against the lights on Ford Island as little more than a black lump in the harbor. They’d removed her salvageable guns and the great bulk of her superstructure, so now she looked more like a dead animal than a warship. The removals did not change the fact that Arizona was now a tomb. There’d been talk of trying to remove all the bodies, but a diver’s report had settled that issue. The damage to her internal structure made work inside much too dangerous.

If she sat on the far right end of the bench, she couldn’t see the ship at all. She lit up a second cigarette, telling herself that it was to ward off the seaside mosquitoes, and watched the channel buoys blinking. She concentrated on trying to keep her mind empty when she came out here, and lately the cigarettes seemed to help. The events of New Year’s Eve were never too far from her mind, and today’s argument with Sally hadn’t helped things. It had been trivial, but the tension between them had, if anything, built since that night. She knew it was mostly her fault and that she was going to have to solve it pretty soon or get a new roommate.

She heard someone coming across the grass from the quarters, took one last drag on the cigarette, and pitched it over the seawall.

“Well, speak of the devil,” she said when she saw it was Sally.

“Devil is it now?”

“I was just thinking about how to apologize for being such a bitch. It’s all my fault, and I am truly sorry. Please forgive my bad behavior.”

“That’ll do it,” Sally said, “and you don’t have to throw away your cigarette on my account.”

“Old habits,” Glory said. “My mother would be appalled to see me smoking in public.”

“Mine had a three-pack-a-day habit,” Sally said. “It finally killed her, too, back in ’thirty-nine. I even got to watch. How are you doing with Superman these days? I don’t see the two of you joined at the hip so much.”

Glory laughed quietly. “I think he got the shock of his life at that party.”

“Not used to being upstaged, is he.”

“I did kind of throw it in his face,” Glory said.

“That’s what he gets for taking you for granted. Probably did him some good.”

“Probably why I’m back to all day in OR Two and not spending my days in perpetual meetings. When I think about it, that’s an improvement.”

“I have a delicate question to ask,” Sally said.

“Let’s see if I can guess,” Glory said. “Is there any biological reason for me to be throwing up in the bathroom every morning before everyone’s up?”

“Um, yes, that’s the one.”

Glory sighed. “Why not?” she asked the night air. “Why should my life presume to get back to some semblance of normal when the whole world is turned upside down?”

Sally didn’t answer that one. They sat there in the dark for a few minutes before Glory continued. “And no, I’m not in search of some back-alley abortionist, if you’re curious.”

“You’ll have the baby?”

“Of course I will. The baby didn’t do anything wrong. It shouldn’t be killed for my indiscretion.”

“How will you manage that?” Sally asked. “I mean, once they find out, they’ll—”

“They’ll what? Banish me to Molokai with the lepers? It’s not contagious, the last time I checked. I can work up through the second trimester. After that I’ll go on medical leave of some kind. The chaplain says there’s a Catholic convent downtown where women in my ‘delicate condition’—his actual words, God love him — can go to deliver and then get the baby adopted.”

“Wow” was all Sally could manage.

“The hard part will be dealing with everyone in the hospital. Lady Everest finally got hers. Knocked up like any common sailor’s girlfriend.”

“It’ll be a couple months before you show,” Sally said. “Maybe even longer.”

“Oh, I can’t imagine anyone saying anything, but they’ll think it. Even if they don’t think it, I’ll believe they’re thinking it. I’m just sorry that my first child wasn’t Tommy’s. We’d talked about it, but he was afraid that, with war coming, something might happen. And, boy, did it ever.”

“Who, I mean, do you, um, oh my goodness, I didn’t mean—”

Glory smiled. Poor Sally had embarrassed herself. “Do I even know who the father is?”

“No, no, no, I didn’t mean anything like that,” Sally protested.

“It’s okay, Sal, relax. I do know, and no one else needs to know, especially not Marsh Vincent or Mick McCarty. They have enough on their plates right now. This is my problem, and for now, my secret. The rest of the world can either like it or lump it.”