Fling and Other Stories by John Hersey
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Overview: Colonel de Angelis thought again of Fort Sam. What was it he was trying to recall? At Fort Sam Houston he had been a captain. Those were dismal barracks. He had had the fourth bunk from the end on the right side in G. His sergeant major—what was his name? Benny something-or-other—that was great the time Benny pretended to trip and butted into Rassmussen. What a pathetic old character Captain Rassmussen was!
A silver C-54 roared low over the city and for a moment it seemed to be framed, from where the colonels rode, within the pailou, the high, skeletal ceremonial gate near the top of Rue Marco Polo. “Look at that!” Colonel Watson shouted, and at once he launched into what was certain, if past recitals meant anything, to be a long account of his uneventful flight across the Pacific. Colonel de Angelis only half listened. The rasping, effusive voice went on and on: “…hit the runway right on the nose, and we hadn’t been out of the overcast since Kwajalein…”; the story touched on all the commonplaces. Colonel de Angelis tried to distract himself by looking at the market, already crowded and obstreperous, spread out on the old glacis of the Legation Quarter, to their right as they rode—at the too colorful Japanese obis hung like wash on a line; booths where cloth shoes, old bottles, peanuts, suitcases, sweet potatoes, Chinese fiddles were for sale; men hawking, arguing in shouts, and talking loudly simply to be heard; and, at some distance on the curb, a bicycle-tire repairer waiting patiently a few yards beyond an area of broken glass he had scattered in the street. Colonel de Angelis remembered that he had had a bicycle at Fort Sam Houston. Fort Sam after the first war hadn’t seemed such a bad place; there was not much to do except avoid mistakes. On the whole, looking back, it was pretty good duty. A captaincy is a satisfying rank, when you’re young. It couldn’t have been so much fun for Captain Rassmussen, at his age. (“…I never saw so many wrecked ships,” Colonel Watson was saying, “as we did going in over Buckner Bay. My God, that must have been some typhoon…”) Colonel de Angelis, called back by the younger man’s voice when it seemed all at once to get louder, wondered what it was he so disliked about Colonel Watson. The other newcomers seemed to like him all right; they considered him cheerful, a good drinker, marvelous at liars’ dice, skillful at bargaining with the Chinks—a great fellow, they said. One man had even congratulated de Angelis on the luck of his draw for roommate. Anyone could room with Watson who wanted to. Perhaps, Colonel de Angelis thought, he could speak to the Chinese WASC representative at the hotel that afternoon and get himself shifted to a single room. Let’s see, he thought, get a haircut, go over to the PX for nail scissors—what was the other thing he had
Genre: Fiction > General Fiction/Classics
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