"Speak of the devil," Dillon said as he saw Commander Feldt coming down the corridor. He raised his voice slightly.
"Well, there's the pride of the Royal Australian Navy."
"Hello, Dillon," Feldt said, offering his hand. There was even the suggestion of a smile on his face. "How are you"" It was not the reception Dillon expected. He wouldn't have been surprised if Feldt completely ignored him, and even less surprised if Feldt was grossly insulting and colorfully profane.
"Can't complain," Dillon said.
"You look like something the sodding cat dragged in." Commander Feldt then disappeared.
Three minutes later, in Banning's room, he surprised Dillon again. The shower curtain parted and a hand holding a bottle of scotch appeared.
Have a taste of this, Dillon," Feldt said. "It might not kill the sodding worms, but it'll give them a sodding headache."
"Bless you, my son," Dillon said.
"Sod you, Dillon," Feldt said, but there was unmistakable friendliness and warmth in his voice.
When Dillon came out of the shower, Feldt was sprawled on Banning's bed, holding the bottle of scotch on his stomach.
Banning was sitting on his desk.
"So how are things on Guadalcanal?" Feldt asked.
I am probably, Dillon realized, the first man he-or Banning, for that matter-has talked to who has been on the island.
"What I really can't figure is why the Japs haven't gotten their act together and thrown us off," Dillon said.
Feldt grunted.
"Are those stories true about the Navy sailing away with the heavy artillery, et cetera, or are you sodding Marines just crying in your sodding beer again?".
"They're true," Dillon said. He walked naked to the bed, took the bottle from Feldt, and drank a swallow from the neck.
"If it wasn't for the food the Japs left behind, the First Marine Division would be starving. And if it wasn't for the engineer equipment the Japs left behind, Henderson Field simply wouldn't exist. The fucking Navy sailed off with almost all of our engineer equipment still aboard the transports." Feldt looked at him a moment and then swung his feet off the bed.
"Cover your sodding ugly nakedness, Dillon," he said. "I asked one of the lads to fix you a steak."
"Thank you," Dillon said.
"Just for the record, you have the ugliest, not to mention the smallest-I will not dignify it by calling it a `penis'-pisser I have ever seen on a full-grown man."
"Sod you, Eric," Dillon said.
But for some inexplicable reason, I am glad to see you.
"What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Flacking," Dillon said as he pulled an undershirt over his head.
"What in the sweet name of Jesus is `flacking'?"
"I am a flack," Dillon replied. "What flacks do is `flack,' hence `flacking."
"What is this demented sodding compatriot of yours rambling about, Banning."
"I'm a press agent, Eric," Dillon said. "My contribution to the war effort will be to encourage red-blooded American youth to rush to the Marine recruiter and shame their families, friends, and neighbors into buying war bonds. That's what flacks do."
"I don't think he's trying to pull my sodding leg, Banning, but I haven't the faintest sodding idea what he's talking about."
"Neither do I," Banning said.
"I'm on my way home with six wounded heroes, two of whom I have yet to cast," Dillon explained as he pulled utility trousers on. "Said wounded heroes will be put on display all over America, with a suitable background of flags and stirring patriotic airs."
"You don't sound very enthusiastic about it, Jake," Banning said.
"I almost got out of it," Dillon said. "I almost had Vandergrift in a corner." Major General Alexander Archer Vandergrift, USMC, was Commanding General, First Marine Division.
"You almost had Vandergrift in a corner?" Banning asked incredulously.
"I went and asked him if I could have a company," Dillon replied and then stopped. The alcohol is getting to me, he thought. I'm running off at the mouth.
"And?" Banning pursued.
"He said, `Thanks very much, but captains command companies and you're a major." And I said, `I would be happy to take a bust to captain, or for that matter back to the ranks." And?" He said he would think about it, and I really think he did.
But then we got a fucking radio from Headquarters, USMC.
The Assistant Commandant is personally interested in this fucking wounded-hero war bond tour, it seems, and he wanted to know what was holding it up. And that blew me out of the fucking water."
"It's important, Jake," Banning said, more because he felt sorry for Dillon than because he believed in the importance of war bond tours.
"Bullshit," Dillon said. "They have civilians in uniform who could do as well as I can. I'm a Marine. Or I like to think I am."
"Yours not to reason why, old sod," Feldt said, "yours but to ride into the sodding valley of the pracks."
"Flacks," Dillon corrected him automatically.
"Flacks, pracks, flicks, pricks, whatever," Feldt said cheerfully. "You about ready to eat?"
"I'm a prick of a flack, who used to be a flack for the flicks," Dillon heard himself say.
Jesus, I'm drunk!
"Actually, old sod, I would say you're a prickless prack," Feldt said. And then he laughed. It was the first time Dillon could remember hearing him laugh.
The steak was not a New York Strip, charred on the outside and pink in the middle. It was thin, fried to death, and (to put a good face on it) chewy. But it covered the plate.