None But the Brave Page #6

I regret to say the Lieutenant is correct!

And you know why! Because you took it as

an invitation to send a spy on the prowl!

That wasn't by my orders!

Oh, shove it, and don't forget to duck!

You just say the word, Captain,

just say the word!

I saw this once on Mindanao.

The coming of the monsoon!

Tidal wave weather.

We are going to need all hands at the well.

If we don't dike it

we'll be drinking salt water.

We'll secure our supplies

and meet you at the well.

And you make sure you bring all your men.

You, too!

Take all the supplies up the hill!

All right, come on, let's move.

There's some good trees just right

for cutting right up on top of the hill.

Yes, sir.

Lieutenant!

You gold-bricker,

I told you to bring all your men!

This is all! You haven't many either.

Maloney told me

you had at least two companies.

Oh, I'm surprised he believed that fake.

Oh, it's getting to where you can't even

trust your next-door neighbor.

- Let's put them in there.

- Let's go. Get those sandbags up there.

Throw that log around there, Roth.

Get it up there, will you? It's heavy.

Come on, let's go, gang.

I salvaged the radio, skipper,

then I stashed it away.

- Anybody see you?

- No, sir.

All right, let's move it, move it, move it!

Come on, move it, move it, move it, boys!

Thanks for... Thanks for pulling me out.

Don't thank me, thank him.

- Him?

- Yeah.

Well, I'll be a son-of-a-buck.

Yeah.

Yep. Be it ever so humble, this is it.

For the rest of our lives perhaps.

Unless that radio contact you made

changes your prospects.

A hula contest at Waikiki Beach?

That was a big help.

Your signalman was operating

in the transport.

Now no more transport, no more radio.

I went looking for that aircraft

while the rest of you were sleeping.

I looked for it, too,

while you thought I was sleeping.

We didn't find much, did we?

No.

I regret we'll leave so few relics for

posterity on this isle of the unblessed.

Lowbrow skull fragments

of machine-age man,

remnants of firearms,

and perhaps a well-preserved manuscript

as ancient as cuneiform.

Yours?

I was a staff writer for various periodicals.

Can't break the habit.

Well, I'll be darned.

I had you pegged as a bonafide samurai.

No.

There is not room in this heart

for the warrior.

It's too crowded.

What's her name?

Keiko.

We were married

on the day I left for the war

in my house at the foot of Mount Fuji.

My family's house for 300 years.

All the lives

which must have marched through it,

long gone, and to think it was still there.

That great mountain, so strong

and beautiful, seemed to protect it.

You know, we Japanese can figure

the time on the calendar by the flowers.

They were chrysanthemums then,

the sign of the end of autumn.

And to me, my Keiko

was more lovely than the blossoms.

There was less than an hour remaining

before my departure,

but I was convinced

that our decision to marry was right.

To marry, yet never to possess

her body for momentary joy.

Only to hold her in the arms of the heart

and the embrace of the spirit

beyond this life.

They promise us better days there.

Don't they?

Well, that shouldn't be too difficult

to prophesy.

It's easier to make a truce with you,

my friend, than with life.

No, you did right.

Chief, don't you think we'd better

get back, see what's left of the camp?

If that's not a command, Captain,

I prefer sitting just where I am.

All right, you rummy, stay here.

I'd probably wind up

having to carry you anyway.

Good night, Lieutenant.

Good night, Captain.

Kompai. "Thou shalt not kill. "

Dennis Bourke has lost a second lover.

One of these days

I'm gonna button your lip for keeps!

What was it you said? Second lover?

Mmm-hmm.

Love ain't always for people, Lieutenant.

Often it's an idea

that keeps pounding at you.

What kind of idea?

Oh, many kinds of ideas.

Do good, do bad,

rob a bank, build a hospital.

Or maybe a real big idea

like peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.

Or maybe an idea that keeps

driving old Dennis.

Win the war.

Smash everything that comes in your way.

Someone did get in his way?

You hit him where he lives.

You gave your girl a fair shake.

- Kompai.

- Aw, no more kompai.

Until you've told me about him.

Yeah, where was I?

About his girl.

Well, just before the beginning of the war,

he got busted up pretty badly.

Airplane crash.

And she wangled a government job

and got herself to the Philippines

to be near him.

Imagine coming all the way from the

United States to help this bum get well.

And she was some kind of girl, pal.

Some kind of a doll.

Once she kissed me

'cause she found out I got him

to the hospital in time to save his life.

Yeah.

She kissed me right there.

Soft as the wings of a butterfly.

I wasn't the kind of guy who went around

kissing ladies, but,

that little goober stuck there

just like it was a tattoo.

I guess I was kind of mushy about her.

Imagine a tramp like me.

Maybe that's why I dig at him so much.

Anyway, when he got out of sickbay

the flight surgeons

kept him grounded for a while.

And finally, just before the fall of Manila,

some of them were already

dancing on the lid of the coffin.

Well, he got his flying papers back

because we were short-handed in the air,

but he kept the secret from her

that he was shoving off the next day.

He briefed me

on what he had to do that night.

Break the news that I was gonna put her

on the next flight stateside.

She didn't fight it much.

She knew as well as any of us

that nobody but Dennis ever wins.

All she asked was that they be married,

figuring it would give her an excuse

to go on living, even if he was killed.

But he claims he thought

it wouldn't be fair to her,

married to nothing

but the memory of a selfish slob.

But I know his breed.

War's their meat

and home's wherever they can get it.

Oh, no. Lorie? Lorie!

Many times I've heard him call in his sleep.

Lorie. Lorie.

Don't take no headshrinker to figure out

that he wishes he was dead instead of her.

Conscience.

Exactly. That's the monkey on his back,

eating away at him like cancer, only worse.

Too slow, too mean to make an end of it.

Teaching him the hard way

that Lorie was his only real love.

And you are his self-appointed conscience.

She was real to me, too.

And I'll never let him forget

that the bomb was his mistress!

I'm sorry for him. I'd like to help him.

Don't! Just play it cool, Lieutenant.

Remember what he told you.

Don't forget to duck.

Got the antenna rigged.

We'll soon have it working now, sir.

If you don't claim we have to move it again.

Well, I have to keep experimenting, sir.

Gotta locate this joker where

she'll put out as good as she receives.

False alarm, eh?

No, I found footprints in there

leading from the beach.

Looked like maybe

they doubled back that way.

Did anybody see you with that radio

beside the fisherman?

- You mean the day of the storm?

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