Leon Uris (9 page)

Private Zachary O’Hara might well have been a Habsburg prince as he approached the reception line with plumed spiked white helmet tucked under his left arm.

“Ah, so we meet again, Private . . . ,” Horace said.

“O’Hara, sir.”

Then Horace caught his wife’s rather dazed expression. Holy Christ, what is this?

“My mother, Daisy Blanton Kerr,” Amanda said.

“Mrs. Kerr, thank you for having me.”

“For a moment I didn’t think you would get here,” Amanda said.

“I, uh, waited till everyone else went in.”

“How thoughtful,” Daisy said.

As Amanda linked arms with Zachary and they entered the great hall, all eyes were on them.

“What a handsome young man,” Daisy said.

Horace Kerr growled.

“Miss Amanda,” Zachary said, “could I check my sword? I don’t think I could manage a polka wearing it.”

A polka they did, a wild polka, and the circle grew around them and broke into cheers. It was the most giddy moment of her life, with a partner so perfect, so graceful, so manly. They caught their breath to applause as Amanda took a place near a sagging buffet filled with foods Zachary had never before seen. A line of couples drifted to them for an introduction.

Several plump young maidens allowed as how they had openings on their dance cards, to the discomfort of their escorts.

Thank God he’s not a captain, Horace thought as he chomped and chomped from a bottomless bowl of caviar.

After the first blast of Inverness, Private O’Hara gained quick control of himself. He was polite and at ease and so softly charming to the she-wolf pack.

Amanda, who had supposed he would be all thumbs, was having the tables turned on her in her own territory.

Amanda sorted out a few dances with Zach for her closest friends while their escorts sniffed. She more than made up for their discomfort by giving each of them a whirl with her and soon it all settled down to “great fun,” really great fun.

Amanda had insisted—no, demanded that her father hire a second orchestra, a band of black musicians who could banjo and blow out the new ragtime craze. It was not quite proper for a high social affair, but Horace Kerr’s daughter was not a run-of-the-mill debutante.

When the final waltz, gavotte, quadrille, and polka wound down, the black band took over and soon “Lisa Jane” and “Oh Them Golden Slippers” and “Baby Mine” reverberated off those sacred walls.

By midball, the revelers needed a break while loaded platters refilled the buffet. Horace Kerr was delighted by the thought that the ragtime dancing would be the talk of the town for weeks to come. Actually, he was rather pleased that Private O’Hara had brought out a flair in his daughter. She may have picked a fight she will not win with him. Ah, to be able to listen to their verbal duel, he thought.

Amanda led Zachary through the French doors.

“Time for a stroll in the garden,” she said.

They made their way down the broad stairs to the veranda, then down again to the most profound fountain in Maryland.

They passed benches of pecking puppy lovers and moved on
into a dark part of the garden. There was still sufficient light reflected to really study the white silk flow of her gown. She was sleek and fine and different from the hoopskirted girls with buckets of tight, hanging curls. Their show of junior cleavage was poor stuff alongside Amanda. Amanda was quite freely dressed and Zachary could see the press of her nipples, right up to the point of impropriety.

Her hair flowed easily, commanded by her slightest movement. Zach knew this girl’s eyes concealed a vast trove of wisdom and strength.

“Well, how does it feel to be the ‘belle’ of the ball?” she asked.

“I’m not quite sure,” Zachary said. “You’ve been the belle of the ball all your life, how
does
it feel, Miss Amanda?”

“Please call me Amanda.”

“Thank you, Miss Amanda. I’d like to know what whim passed through you to have me here in Inverness.”

“Well,” she started, “I was sitting in the waiting room of Secretary Culpeper’s office waiting for Father. I could see you in the foyer but you couldn’t see me. My book was very dull and one naturally looks about when one is just sitting there and waiting for one’s father. He had completely forgotten I was even there. So, I made a game of studying you, standing there so forthrightly. I grew curious. Can you speak? Could you support a mustache? Do you ever blink your eyes?”

“I do have a Marine buddy who has trained himself not to blink his eyes,” he answered.

“ ‘Well,’ I wondered, ‘can I get past this mighty lion guarding the gate?’ Men rule by raw power. Girls rule by sleight of hand. How do you find them?”

“Girls of sixteen can be very silly.”

“And boys of nineteen even more silly.”

“For your enlightenment, I am twenty and can support a beard,” he said.

“So I diverted your attention; it was easy to get past you.”

“If you had me ordered to Inverness to make me feel lowly and ill at ease, you have not succeeded.”

Zachary delivered his words smartly, not avoiding the intensity of her stare. He seemed to understand and was prepared for the game he knew she made of reducing young men to silly boys.

“Where did you learn to dance so well?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I was born and raised in the Marine Corps. I learned in dance halls. My da first set me on the end of a bar when I was six years old.”

“Oh . . .”

“My da was a top-ranking NCO. When we were stationed in and about civilization, we’d join the local church with other NCOs and their wives and we’d dance at . . . charity affairs.”

That stung! Quick now, Amanda . . . “And your mother?”

“She died a few days after giving birth to me.”

“Forgive me.”

“Of course,” he said, and smiled. “You know as well as I that if you are a Marine stationed in the capital, half your duty is to know how to dance.”

And she smiled and tottered for a moment on the brink of saying something, then decided. “Daddy’s garden is filled with couples who couldn’t wait for midball to get out here and neck. Most of them have been matched up by their parents at age eight, so that by the time of their cotillion they were virtually engaged. I know every girl here. Every one of them has been felt up. Except me. I have mushed around a little but never really found it to my liking.” Her hand touched his face and chin. “I think I’ve been waiting for someone who can support a beard.”

“I know it’s fuzzy, but the Marine Corps says I have to shave every morning whether I need it or not. Anyhow, I’m gaining on it.”

“Zachary,” she said with a new tone, different from her other tones.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I see boys and men look at my bosom longingly, but I’ve never let anyone touch my breasts.” Zachary turned a bit away from her. “Are you afraid?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Sit here with me on the bench,” she said, and rocked back and forth. “I’ve never revealed them before, not to my brother and hardly to my own mother and sister. Will you be my friend for a minute?”

He nodded.

“When I turned thirteen, something began happening inside me.”

“I think I understand,” he said.

“I was looking at myself in the mirror one morning and was overcome with the impulse to touch myself. It set off incredible sensations I did not know existed. I tried to speak about them to my mother, but it was not something to be spoken of. So I asked my dearest friend, Willow, but she was completely innocent. I soon learned that I was in a forbidden place. Here, this sudden wonderment was happening inside me, but it made my own mother too uncomfortable to speak about it. Touching myself was not only forbidden, but sinful. Parts of the Sunday sermons that had made no sense to me as a child suddenly made sense. I had gone in league with the devil. I couldn’t tell anyone how joyous it felt. I learned what was happening to me and I also learned that becoming a woman was a sentence to suffer. Zachary, I must be making you terribly uncomfortable.”

“No, not at all.”

“I’ve never even really enjoyed holding hands with a boy before this. I always had casual boyfriends, but I came to know they had their own stirrings, as well . . .”

Zachary nodded once more.

“When you are dancing and wrestling with boys you can feel them getting emotional beyond their ability to control. You know what I mean?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Boys would always be humiliated. Suddenly it struck me, one day, that it was a time, a moment when a girl had the power.”

“I think we are going too far with this conversation,” he said.

“You’re just like everyone else, Zachary, wanting to keep me locked inside a high square wall.”

“Amanda, I’m just a buck private.”

“I don’t believe that this is what God has in mind, to give us such tender feelings and not be allowed to explore them.”

Zachary stood and she stood with him.

“I’m very flattered, but there are some strict regulations against this,” he said.

“Then you are afraid . . .”

“Amanda Blanton Kerr and Zachary O’Hara together is rather ridiculous. This kind of . . .”

“Feeling,” she said.

“Yes, this kind of feeling is not for us.”

“But that’s not the way I feel at this moment,” she said softly.

They stood there silently and she nodded.

Zachary took off his gloves slowly, moved her dress down over a shoulder, and slipped aside her thin halter. Both of them took his hand to her breast and he felt it beautifully in rhythm with their gasping breath, then he kissed it and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her unconditionally. Before the fury came on, he took a step back and adjusted her clothing.

Zachary, she thought, this is everything!

Her gasps rose to a pant. She reached for him, but he held her off.

“I admire your confidence and candor, Amanda, and I appreciate your affection of the moment, but this is all we can have.”

“Touch me one more time.”

“No.”

“Then kiss me again.”

“Please, no.”

“Then you are a coward!” she said with sudden anger.

“Have you ever watched a man lashed with a cat-o’-nine-tails
and seen what he looks like after a month in solitary on bread and water?”

“That is what it seems like for me to take on the curse of being a female. I exaggerate but I don’t look forward to a life of it.”

Giggles from the girls on the garden bench reached their ears and a resumption of the waltz flowed out from the great hall.

“Will I ever see you again?” he asked.

“You’re stationed in Washington. After your debut here tonight,” she said, “we are bound to run into each other. I don’t feel we have to go out of our way to avoid each other.”

Amanda had been given a dose of her own medicine, finding herself spiraling beyond her capacity to control. She had dared herself into a magic moment and knew instantly that she must continue to own those moments in the future.

But it was so good, a thrill so wild, that the Marine standing before her could well take her over.

Zachary’s mouth had gone dry. Fear? No, I’m not afraid, but was anything before ever like this?

“I don’t think we have to go out of our way to avoid each other,” she repeated.

“I want to hold you again,” he said.

“No.”

“It feels too good. You’re the one who’s afraid, Amanda.”

“Damn you, Zachary!”

“And damn you, Amanda!”

•
10
•

The night was blustery and vile by the time Captain Storm arrived. After exchanging greetings, the stable boy brought in logs and renewed the fire as Tobias devoured his meal. Mr. Prichard, in his nightshirt, set out numerous bottles for them on the hearth and bid them good night.

The Gunny and the captain nailed their eyes to Ben Boone, who folded up a letter from the commandant.

“We’ve been aced out of an entire new class of heavy-armored cruisers. They’ll be carrying fourteen-inch guns, but no Marines.”

“So, I traveled all the way from China to hear this?”

“The navy set aside some space for us to hang up a few hammocks in case of emergency between the numbers one and two boilers and next to the powder store six decks down.”