The Intruders

16

Singapore lies at the southern end of the Malay peninsula, a degree and a half north of the equator. This city is the maritime crossroads of the earth. Ships from Europe by way of Suez and the Red Sea, India, Pakistan, Africa and the Middle East transit the Strait of Malacca and call here before entering the South China Sea. Ships from America, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea and the Soviet Far East call here on their way east. The city-state is close enough to the Sunda Strait that it makes a natural port call for ships from the Orient bound for South Africa or South America via the Cape of Good Hope.

Although it is one of the world’s great seaports, Singapore doesn’t have a harbor. The open roadstead is always crammed with ships riding their anchors, except on those rare occasions when a typhoon threatens. There are few piers large enough for an oceangoing vessel, so the majority of the cargo being off-or on-loaded in Singapore travels to and from the ships in lighters. The squadrons of these busy little boats weaving their way through the anchored ships from the four corners of the earth and all the places in between make Singapore unique.

As befits a great seaport, the city is a racial melting pot. The human stew is composed mostly of Malay, Chinese, Thai, Hindu, Moslem, and Filipino, with some Japanese added for seasoning, but there are whites there too. British, primarily, because Singapore was one of those outposts of empire upon which the sun never set, but also people from most of the countries of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and, inevitably, America.

Visitors who have always considered their place, their nation, as the zenith of civilization here receive a shock. Vibrant, cosmopolitan Singapore is a major vortex, one of those rare places where the major strains of the human experience come crashing together and swirl madly around until something new is created.

To the delight of visiting American sailors, the British still had a military base there, Changi, and shared it with those stout lads from Down Under, the Australians, who naturally came supplied with Down Under lassies. Australian women were the glory of Singapore. These tall, lithe creatures with tanned, muscular legs and striking white teeth that were forever being displayed in dazzling smiles somehow completed the picture, made it whole. You ran into them at Raffles, the old hotel downtown with ceiling fans and rattan chairs and doddery old gentlemen in white suits sipping gin. You ran into them in the lobbies and restaurants of the new western hotels and in the bazaars and emporiums. You saw them strolling the boulevards and haggling with small Chinese women in baggy trousers for sapphires and opals. You saw them everywhere, young, tan, enjoying life, the center of attention wherever they were. It helped that their colorful tropical frocks contrasted so vividly with the drab trousers and white shirts that seemed to be the Singaporean national costume. They were like songbirds surrounded by sparrows.

“If Qantas didn’t bring them here, the United Nations should supply them as a gesture of good will to all human kind.”

Flap Le Beau stated this conclusion positively to Jake Grafton and the Real McCoy as they stood outside Raffles Hotel surveying the human parade on the sidewalk.

“I think I’m in love,” the Real McCoy told his companions. “I want one of those for my very own.”

The three of them had ridden the liberty boat two miles across the anchorage an hour ago. They had walked for an hour, taking it all in and had developed a terrible thirst. Just now they were contemplating going into Raffles to see if their need could be quenched somewhat.

“After forty-five days at sea, everything female looks mighty good to me,” Flap Le Beau said, then smiled broadly at an elderly British lady coming out of the hotel. She nodded graciously in reply and seated herself in a waiting taxi.

“Well, gentlemen,” Jake Grafton said, and turned to face the white antique structure, “shall we?”

“Let’s.”

The temperature inside was at least ten degrees cooler. The dark interior and the ceiling fans apparently had a lot to do with that, but the very Britishness of the place undoubtedly helped. The heat and humidity could stay outside — it wouldn’t dare intrude.

The American aviators went to the bar and ordered — of all things — Singapore slings. The waiter, a Chinese, didn’t bat an eye. He nodded and moved on. He had long ago come to terms with the curious taste in liquor that seemed to afflict most Americans.

“You sort of expect to see Humphrey Bogart or Sidney Greenstreet sitting around under a potted palm,” the Real commented as he tilted his chair back and crossed his legs.

Jake Grafton sipped his drink in silence. Forty-five days at sea riding the catapults, night rendezvouses above the clouds, instrument approaches to the ball, mid-rats sliders, ready room high jinks, lying in his bunk while the ship moved ever so gently in the sea as he listened to the creaks and groans…then to be baptized with a total immersion in this. Cultural shock didn’t begin to describe it. The sights and sounds and smells of Singapore were sensory overload for a young man from a floating monastery.

He sat now trying to take it all in, to adjust his frame of reference. He had been here once before, on one of his cruises to Vietnam. He tried to recall some details of that visit, but the memories were vague, blurred scenes just beyond the limits of complete recall. He had sat here in this room with Morgan McPherson…at which table? He couldn’t remember. Morgan’s face, laughing, he could see that, but the room…Who else had been there?

Oh, Morg! If you could only be here again. To sit here and share a few moments of life. We wouldn’t waste it like we did then. If only…

So many of those guys were dead. And he had forgotten. That the moments he had spent with them were fuzzy and blurred seemed a betrayal of what they had been, what they had given. Life goes on, but still… All that any man can leave behind are the memories that his friends carry. He isn’t really gone until they are. But if the living quickly forget, it is as if the dead man never was.

“… we oughta go buy some souvenirs,” the Real was saying. “The folks at home would really like…”

Jake polished off the last of his drink and stood. He threw some Singapore dollars on the table, money he had acquired this morning from the money changers aboard ship. “See you guys later.”

“Where are you going?”

He was going back to the ship, but he didn’t want to say that. “Oh, I dunno. Gonna just walk. See you later.”

Outside on the street he stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned toward the wharves. He walked along staring at the sidewalk in front of him, oblivious of the traffic and the sights and the human stream that parted to let him past, then immediately closed in behind him.

The next day Jake stood an eight-hour duty officer watch in the ready room. About two in the afternoon the Real McCoy came breezing in.

“Today’s your lucky day, Grafton. You are blessed to have Flap and me for friends. Truly blessed.”

“I know,” Jake told him dryly.

“We met some Brits. What a bunch they are! How we ever kicked them out of the good ol’ U.S. of A. is a mystery I’ll never understand.”

“A military miracle.”

“These are good guys.”

“I’m sure.”

“They’ve invited us to a party at Changi this evening. A party! And they swore that some Aussie women would be there! Quantas stews. Can you beat that?” Without pausing to let Jake wrestle with that question, he steamed on. “When do you get off?”

“Uh, two hours from now.”

The Real consulted his watch. “I’ll wait. Flap is taking the next boat in, but I’ll wait for you. I’ve got directions. We’ll grab a cab and tootle on over to party hearty. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a glorious opportunity to lower the white count. Oooh boy!”

McCoy strode up the aisle between the huge, soft chairs, past the silent 16-mm movie projector, and blasted through the door into the passageway.

Jake sat back in his chair and opened the letter from his parents yet again. It had been two weeks since the last mail delivery, via a cargo plane out of Cubi Point, and this was the current crop, delivered this morning — one letter from his mother. She signed it “Mom and Dad,” but she wrote every word. Nothing from Callie McKenzie.

Maybe that was for the best. It had been a hell of a romance, but now it was over. She was from one world, he was from a completely different one. Presumably she was doing her own thing there in Chicago, going to class and dating some longhaired hippie intellectual who liked French novels. What was it about French novels?

But he desperately wished she had written. Even a Dear John letter would be preferable to this vast silence, he told himself, wanting to believe it but not quite sure that he did.

Oh well. Like most of the things in his life, this relationship was out of his control. Have a nice life, Callie McKenzie. Have a nice life.

Darkness comes quickly in the tropics. Twilight is an almost instantaneous transition from daylight to darkness. Jake, Flap and the Real had just arrived at Changi by taxi and found the outdoor pavilion when the transition occurred. Whoom, and the lanterns in the pavilion were flickering bravely against the mighty darkness.

The Brit and Aussie soldiers had indeed not forgotten their invitation of the afternoon. They led the three Americans around and introduced them, but Flap was the only surefire hit with the ladies. Soon he had all five of the women gathered around him.

“The Aussies aren’t used to black men wearing pants,” the Real whispered to Jake. “Those stews will get over the novelty in a while and we’ll get a chance to cut a couple out.”

Jake wasn’t so sure. The soldiers seemed to be eyeing the crowd around Flap with a faint trace of dismay. Nothing obvious, of course, but Jake thought he could see it.

“Hey, mate. How about a beer?” The Australian who asked held out a couple of cold bottles of Fosters.

“Thanks. Real hard duty you guys got here.”

“Beats the outback. Beats that scummy little war you Yanks gave in the Nam, too. Saigon was a bit of all right but the rest of it wasn’t so cheery. This is mighty sweet after that busman’s holiday, I can tell you.”

“It was the only war we had,” the Real explained, then poured beer down his throat. Jake Grafton did the same.

Two beers later Jake Grafton was sitting at a table in the corner listening to Vietnam War stories from a couple of the Aussies when one of the stews came over to join them. “Mind if I join you chaps?”

“Not at all, not at all. Brighten up the party. How long are you in for this time, Nell?”

“Off to Brisbane and Sydney tomorrow. Then back here via Tokyo the following day.” Nell winked at Jake. “Girl has to keep herself busy now, doesn’t she?”

Grafton nodded and grinned. Nell returned it. She was a little above medium height, with fair hair and a dynamite tan. Several gold bracelets encircled each of her wrists and made tiny tinkly noises when she moved her arms.

“My name’s Jake,” he told her.

“Nell Douglas,” she said and stuck out her hand. Jake shook it. Cool and firm. And then he looked around and realized the Aussies had drifted and he and Nell were alone.

“So what do you do for the Yanks?”

“I’m a pilot.”

“Oh, God! Not another one. I’ve sworn off pilots for at least three months.” She smiled again. He liked the way her eyes smiled when she did.

“Better tell me about it. Nothing like a sympathetic listener to ease a broken heart.”

“You don’t look like the sympathetic type.”

“Don’t be fooled by appearances. I’m sensitive, sympathetic, charming, warm, witty, wonderful.” He shrugged. “Well, part of that’s true, anyway. I’m warm.”

Now her whole face lit up. Her bracelets tinkled.

“How long have you been flying with Quantas?”

“Five years. My father has a station in Queensland. One day I said to myself, Nell old girl, if you stay here very much longer one of these jackeroos will drag you to the altar and you’ll never see any more of the world than you’ve seen already, which wasn’t very much, I can tell you. So I applied to Quantas. And here I am, flying around the globe with my little stew bag and makeup kit, serving whiskey to Japanese businessmen, slapping pilots, giving lonely soldiers the hots, and wondering if I’m ever going back to Queensland.”

“What’s a jackeroo?”

“You Yanks call them cowboys.”

This could be something nice, Jake thought, looking at the marvelous, open, tanned female face and feeling himself warmed by her glow. There are a lot of pebbles on the beach and some of them are nuggets, like this one.

“So a station’s a ranch?”

“Yes. Sheep and cattle.”

“I was raised on a farm myself. Dad ran a few steers, but mainly he raised corn.”

“Ever going back?” Nell asked.

“I dunno. Never say never. I might.”

She told him about the station in Queensland, about living so far from anything that the world outside seemed a fantasy, a shimmering legend amid the heat and dust and thunderstorms. As she talked he glanced past the lanterns into the darkness beyond, at that place where the mown grass and the velvet blackness met. The night was out there as usual, but here, at least, there was light.

An hour or so later someone turned on the radio and several of the women wanted to dance. To Jake’s surprise Flap “Go Ugly Early” Le Beau proved good at dancing, slow or fast, so good that he did only what his partner could do. You had to watch him with three or four of the sheilas before you realized that he sensed their skill level almost instantaneously and asked of them only what they had to give. Nell pointed that out to Jake, who saw it then. She danced a fast number with Flap — she was very good — as the Aussies and Brits watched appreciatively. They applauded when the number ended.

Nell rejoined Jake and led him out onto the floor for the next slow number. “I don’t dance very well,” he told her.

“That’s not the point,” she said, and settled in against him to the beat of the languid music.

It was then that Jake Grafton realized he was in over his head. The supple body of the woman against his chest, the caress of her hair on his cheek, the faint scent of a cologne he didn’t recognize, the touch of her hands against his — all this was having a profound effect and he wasn’t ready.

“Relax,” she whispered.

He couldn’t.

The memory of his morning in bed with Callie four months ago came flooding back. He could see the sun coming through the windows, feel the clean sheets and the sensuous touch of her skin…

“You’re stiff as a board.”

“Not quite.”

“Oops. Didn’t mean it quite that way, love.”

“I’m not a very good dancer.”

She moved away a foot or so and looked searchingly into his face. “You’re not a very good liar either.”

“I’m working on it.”

She led him by the hand through the crowd and out of the pavilion into the darkness. “Why is it all the good ones come with complications?”

“At our age virgins are hard to find,” Jake told her.

“I quit looking for virgins years and years ago. I just want a man who isn’t too scarred up.”

She led him to a wall and hopped up on it. “Okay, love. Tell Ol’ Nell all about it.”

Jake Grafton grinned. “How is it that a fine woman like you isn’t married?”

“You want the truth?”

“If you feel like it.”

“Well, the truth is that I didn’t want the ones who proposed and the ones I wanted didn’t propose. Propose marriage, that is. They had a lot of things in mind but a trek to the altar wasn’t on the list.”

“That’s sounds like truth.”

“It is that, Ducky.”

The music floating across the lawn was muted but clearly audible. And she was right there, sitting on the wall. Instinctively he moved closer and she put an arm around his shoulder. Their heads came together.

Before very long they were kissing. She had good, firm lips, a lot like Callie’s. Of course Callie was…

His heart was thudding like a drum when they finally parted for air. After a few deep breaths, he said, “There’s another woman.”

“Amazing.”

“I’m not married or anything like that. And I haven’t asked her to marry me, but I wanted to.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think she gave up on me. Hasn’t written in a couple months.”

“You like your women dumb, then?” she asked softly, and put her lips back on his.

Somehow she was off the wall and they were entwined in each other’s arms, their bodies pressed together. When their lips parted this time, a ragged breath escaped her. “Whew and double whew. You Yanks! Sex-starved maniacs, that’s what you are.”

She eased away from him. “Well, that was my good deed for today. I’ve given another rejected, love-starved pilot hope for a brighter future. Now I think it’s time for this sheila to trek off to her lonely little bed. Must fly tomorrow, you know.”

“Going to be back in Singapore day after tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“What hotel? Maybe I can stop by and take you to dinner.”

“The Intercontinental.”

“I’ll walk inside with you.”

“No, just stay where you are, mate. I’ve had quite enough tonight. One more good look at you in the light and I might drag you off to my lonely little bed for a night of sport. Can’t have that, can we, not with you pining your heart out for that other silly girl.”

With that she was gone. Across the lawn and into the crowd.

Jake Grafton leaned on the wall and lit a cigarette. His hands were trembling slightly.

He didn’t know quite what to think, so he didn’t think anything. Just inhaled the cut-grass smell and looked into the darkness and let his heart rate subside to its normal plodding pace.

At least half an hour passed before Jake went back into the pavilion. Three half-potted Aussies were huddled around the piano watching Flap dance with the three stews who were still there. Le Beau had them in a line and was teaching them new steps to the wailing of a Japanese music machine. Everyone else had left, including the Real McCoy. Tomorrow was a working day for most of them.

Jake decided one more beer for the road wouldn’t hurt, so he picked a bottle out of the icy water of the tub and joined the piano crowd.

“Hey, mate.”

“How you guys doing tonight?”

“Great.”

“Sure nice of you fellows to invite us to your wing ding. Makes a good break after forty-five days at sea.”

“Don’t know how you blokes manage.”

“Prayer,” Jake told them, and they laughed.

The biggest of them was a brawny man three or four inches taller than Jake and at least forty pounds heavier. Most of his bulk was in his chest, shoulders and arms. He hadn’t said anything yet, but now he gestured to Flap. “Wish your bleedin’ nigger mate would pick his bird and let us at the other two.”

Jake Grafton carefully set his beer on the piano. This was getting to be a habit. The last time they had sent him to the Marines.

Wonder where they’ll send me this time?

He stepped in front of the big Aussie, who still had one giant mitt wrapped around a bottle of beer.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I wish your bleedin’ nigger mate would—”

As Jake drew back his right fist for a roundhouse punch he jabbed the Aussie in the nose with his left. This set the man momentarily off balance, so when the right arrived on his chin with all Jake’s weight behind it, it connected solidly with a meaty thunk that rocked Jake clear to the shoulder. The Aussie went backward onto the floor like he was poleaxed. And he stayed there.

“Nice punch, mate, but you—” said the one to the left, but his words stopped when Jake’s fist arrived. The man took it solidly on the side of the head and sent a right at Jake that connected and shook him badly.

Stars swam before Grafton’s eyes. He waded in swinging furiously. Some of his punches missed, some hit. That was the lesson he had learned as a boy on the grade school playground — keep swinging and going forward. Most boys don’t really like to fight, so when you keep swinging they will fall back, and ultimately quit. Of course, these soldiers weren’t boys and worse, they liked to fight.

His’ attack worked for several seconds, then the third Aussie, who was now behind him, grabbed him and spun him around. Before Jake could get set he took a shot on the cheekbone that put him down.

Dazed, he struggled to rise. When he got to his feet it was too late. All three of the Aussies were asleep on the floor and Flap Le Beau was standing there calmly scrutinizing him.

“What was that all about?”

Jake swayed and caught himself by grabbing the piano.

“They insulted Elvis.”

Flap sighed. “I guess we’ve worn out our welcome.” He took Jake’s arm and got him started for the door. “Ladies,” he said, addressing the three stews gaping at them, “it’s been a real treat. The pleasure of your company was sweeter than you will ever know.”

He beamed benignly at them and steered Jake out into the night.

The base was quiet. No taxi at the main gate. They waved at the sentry and kept walking. Jake’s right hand throbbed and so did his head. The hand was the important thing, though. He rubbed it as he walked.

“What really happened back there?” Flap asked.

“The big stud called you a nigger.”

“You hit him for that?”

“Yeah. The asshole deserved it.”

Flap Le Beau threw back his head and laughed. “Damn, Jake, you are really something else.”

“He was peeved because you were monopolizing the women.”

Flap thought this was hilarious. He roared with laughter.

“Want to tell me what’s so damn funny?”

“You are. You nitwit! All of them are bigots. Even the women. I wasn’t getting anywhere with them. Not a one of those women would have gone to bed with me, not even if I was the richest nigger in America and had a cock eighteen inches long. They’ll go back to Australia and tell all about their big adventure, talking to and dancing with an American nigger. ‘Oh, Matilda, you won’t believe this, but I even let him touch me.’ ”

Jake didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

After a bit Flap asked, “Think you broke your hand?”

“Dunno. Don’t think so. Maybe stoved it. Man, I got that big guy with a perfect shot. Had everything behind it and drove it right through his chin.”

“He never moved after you hit him. Bet it’s the first time anybody ever knocked him out.”

“Thanks for coming to the rescue, Kemo Sabe.”

“Any time, Tonto. Any time. But you could have broken your hand hitting that guy that hard.”

“Had to. He outweighed me by forty pounds. If I had just given him a you-piss-me-off social punch he would have killed me.”

“You’re a violent man, Jake.”

“I had a lot of trouble with potty training.”

The next morning he realized the dimensions of the quandary he faced. Nell Douglas was a fine woman, passionate, levelheaded, intelligent, thoughtful…And Callie McKenzie was one fine woman, also passionate and level-headed, intelligent, educated, well spoken…He was in love with one and could easily fall in love with the other. But the woman he loved hadn’t written in two months and had made it clear that he wasn’t measuring up.

The woman he could love wasn’t being quite so picky. No doubt when he knew her better she would get more picky— women were like that. But she wasn’t being picky now! And if you couldn’t take the heat there was always celibacy to fall back on.

Alas, celibacy didn’t seem very attractive to Jake Grafton. Not when you are in your twenties, in perfect health, when the sight, smell and touch of a woman makes the blood pound in your temples and your knees turn to jelly.

He sat in his chair in his stateroom savoring the memories of last night. Of how her lips had felt against his, how her hot, wet tongue had speared between his teeth and stroked his tongue, how her breasts had heaved against his chest, how her thighs had pressed against his while her hands stroked his back. Gawd Almighty!

He liked the way she talked, too. That flat Australian twang was sexy as hell. Just made shivers run up your spine when you recalled how the words sounded as she said them. “… I might drag you off to my lonely little bed for a night of sport.” Well, lady, I wish…

I don’t know what I wish! Damnation.

He was writhing on the horns of this dilemma when the door opened and the Real McCoy staggered through. He flopped into his bunk and groaned. “Wake me up next week. I am spent. Wrung out like a sponge. That woman turned me every way but loose. There are hot women and there are hot women. That one was thermonuclear.”

“Tough night, huh?”

“She was after me every hour! I didn’t sleep a wink. Every hour! I’m so sore I can hardly walk.”

“Lucky you escaped her evil clutches.”

“Never in my born days, Jake, did I even contemplate that there might be women like that walking the surface of the earth. Australia is merely the greatest nation on the planet, that’s all. That they breed women like that down there is the best-kept secret of our time.”

Jake nodded thoughtfully and flexed his right fist. It was sore and a little swollen.

“I’m getting out of the Nav, arranging to have my subscription to the Wall Street Journal sent to me Down Under, and I am going south. May the cold, blue light of Polaris never again meet my weary gaze. It’s the Southern Cross for me, Laddie Buck. I’m going to Australia to see if I can fuck myself to death before I’m forty.”

With that pronouncement the Real McCoy turned on his side and curled his pillow under his head. Jake looked at his watch. The first gentle snore came seventy-seven seconds later.

Were the women bigots? Well, Flap should know. If he said those three stews were prejudiced, they probably were. But what about Nell?

And what about you, Jake? Are you?

Aaugh! To waste a morning in port fretting about crap like this.

He pulled a tablet around and started a letter to his parents.

The liberty boat for the enlisted men was an LCI — landing craft infantry — a flat-bottomed rectangular-shaped boat with a bow door that flopped down to let troops run through the surf onto the beach. Jake often rode it from the beach to the ship. This evening, however, he was dressed in a sports coat and a tie and didn’t want to get soaked with salt spray, so he headed for the officers’ brow near Elevator Two. The captain’s gig and admiral’s barge had been lowered into the water from their cradles in the rear of the hangar bay. In ten minutes he was descending the ladder onto the float, then he stepped into the gig-Jake knew the boat officer, a jaygee from a fighter squadron, so he asked if he could stand beside the coxswain on the little

midships bridge. Permission was granted with a grin and a nod.

The rest of the officers went below into either the fore or aft cabin.

With the stupendous bulk of the carrier looming like a cliff above them, the sailors threw the lines aboard and the coxswain put the boat in motion. It stood out from the ship and swung in a wide circle until it was on course for fleet landing.

The water was calm this evening, with merely a long, low swell stirring the oily surface. The red of the western sky stained the water between the ships, gave it the look of diluted blood.

The roadstead was full of ships: freighters, coasters, tankers, all riding on their anchors. Lighters circled around a few of the ships, but only a few. Most of them sat motionless like massive steel statues in a huge park lake.

But there were people visible on most of the ships. As the gig threaded its way through the anchorage Jake could see them sitting under awnings on the fantails, sometimes cooking on barbecue grills, talking and smoking on afterdecks crowded with ship’s gear. Most of the sailors were men, but on one Russian ship he saw three women, hefty specimens in dresses that reached below their knees.

“Pretty evening,” the jaygee said to Jake, who agreed.

Yes, another gorgeous evening, the close of another good day to be alive. It was easy to forget the point of it all sometimes, easy to lose sight of the fact that the name of the game was to stay alive, to savor life, to live it day to day at the pace that God intended.

One of Jake Grafton’s talents was to imagine himself living other lives. He hadn’t been doing much of that lately, but riding the gig through the anchorage, looking at the ships, he could visualize sitting on one of those fantails, smoking and chatting and watching the sun sink closer and closer to the sea’s rim. To go to sea and work the ship and spend quiet evenings in port in the company of friends — it could be very good. I could live that way, he reflected.

Maybe in my next incarnation.

The Intercontinental was a huge, modern hotel built on a slight hill. The lobby was a cavern seven or eight stories high. Marble floors accented with giant potted plants, a raised bar with easy chairs in the middle, all the accents a plush burgundy, polyester fabric glued to the walls — yuck!

Jake settled into one of the bar’s overstuffed polyester chairs and tilted his head back. You could almost get dizzy looking up at the balconies, which were stacked closer and closer together until they met at the ceiling. Tropical plants hung from planters along each balcony, so the view upward was green. Dark green, because the lighting up there was very poor.

“Grotesque, isn’t it?”

He dropped his gaze from the green canopy above to the young woman walking toward him. He stood and grinned. “Yep.”

“The interior designer was obviously demented.” Nell Douglas settled into the chair opposite. A waiter appeared and hovered.

“Something to drink?” Jake asked her politely.

“A glass of white wine, please.”

“Scotch on the rocks.”

The waiter broke hover and disappeared behind a large potted leafy green thing.

“So how was your flight in?”

“Bumpy. Storms over the South China Sea. How’s your hand?”

“You heard about that, huh?”

“The other girls were all atwitter. Your black friend really impressed them.”

“Flap can move pretty fast when he wants to. He’s handy to have around.”

“If the necessity arises to knock people senseless. Is he lurking nearby now, just in case?”

Vaguely uneasy, Jake flashed a polite smile. “No, I think he came ashore earlier today hoping to cheat some opal merchants. And my hand’s fine.” He wiggled his fingers at her, pretending she cared.

Their drinks came and they sat sipping them in silence, both man and woman trying to sense the mood of the other.

After a bit Nell said, “He’s some kind of trained killer, isn’t he?”

That comment was like glass shattering. Amazingly, Jake Grafton felt a tremendous sense of relief. It had been a nice fantasy, but this woman was not Callie.

“I guess everyone in combat arms is,” he said slowly, “if you want to look at it that way. I deal in high explosives myself. I fly attack planes, not airliners.”

He took the plastic stir stick from his drink and chewed at it. Why do they put these damn things in a drink that is nothing but whiskey and ice? He took it out of his mouth and broke it between his fingers as he examined her face.

“I started the fight,” he continued, now in a hurry to end it. “One of the soldiers referred to Captain Le Beau as a nigger. He happens to be my BN and a personal friend. He is also a fine human being. The fact that his skin is black is about as important as the fact that my eyes are gray. That word is an insult in America and here. The man who said it knew that.”

“The only black people in Australia are aborigines.”

“I guess you have to be an American to understand.”

“Perhaps.”

The waiter reappeared with his credit card and the invoice. Jake added a tip, signed it and pocketed the card and his copy.

Her face was too placid. Blank. Time to get this over with. “Would you like to go to dinner?”

Nell Douglas looked this way and that, apparently searching for something to say.

Finally she sat her wineglass on the table and leaned forward slightly. She looked him in the eye. “It was wonderful the other night, and I am sure you are a fine person, but let’s leave it at that.”

He nodded and finished his drink.

“We grew up on opposite sides of the world.” She stood and held out her hand. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Sure.”

Jake stood and shook. She threaded her way through the potted jungle and made for the elevators.

“Did you get laid?” the Real McCoy asked late that night in their stateroom aboard ship.

“She said we grew up on opposite sides of the world.”

“You idiot. You’re supposed to fuck ’em, not discuss philosophy.”

“Well, it probably turned out for the best,” Jake said, thinking of Callie. He desperately wished she would write. She could write anything — if she would just put something in an envelope and stick a stamp on it.

He decided to write her.

He got a legal pad, climbed into the top bunk and adjusted the light just so. Then he began. He went through their relationship episode by episode, almost thought by thought, pouring out his heart. After eight pages he ground to a halt.

Every word was true, but he wasn’t going to send it. He wasn’t going to take the chance that he cared more than she did.

You aren’t going to get very far with the fairer sex if you aren’t willing to take some risks.

I’m tired of taking risks. Someone else can take a few.

Faint heart never won—

If she cared, she’d write. End of story.

The night before the ship weighed anchor Lieutenant Colonel Haldane asked Jake to come to his stateroom. According to the duty officer. Jake went.

Flap was already there sitting in the only chair. Jake sat on the colonel’s bed and Flap passed him a sheet of paper. It was a letter from the commander at Changi. Fight in the pavilion. Jake scanned it quickly and passed it back to Flap, who handed it to Haldane, who tossed it on his desk.

“The skipper of the ship got this. He wants me to investigate, take action, and draft a reply for his signature. What can you tell me?”

Jake told the colonel about the incident, withholding nothing.

“Any comments, Captain Le Beau?”

“No, sir. I think Mr. Grafton covered it.”

Haldane made a face. “Okay. That’s all. We’re having a back-in-the-saddle NATOPS do in the ready room at zero seven-thirty. See you there.”

Both the junior officers left. Jake closed the door behind him.

Twenty frames down the passageway he asked Flap, “Was that it? We aren’t in hack or candidates for keelhauling?”

“Naw. Haldane will apologize profusely to our allies, tell them that he’s ripped us a new one, and that’s that. It was just a friendly little social fight. What more could there be?”

Jake shrugged. “My hand’s still sore.”

“Next time kick ’em in the balls.”