The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (43 page)

 

 

Of what happened after that he was never certain. The room was suddenly
filled with swirling shapes. The candle clattered to the floor. In the
almost unrelieved darkness, on his hand and knees, Yale listened and
slowly tried to find his way to the door. Evidently the girl's pimp was
in the room, too. Yale suddenly saw the shape of Marie Louise. He lunged,
grabbed her and snapped the trench knife out of her hand. She screamed
and they rolled in a heap on the floor. He had dropped the briefcase and
was amazed at his luck when, twisting away from Marie's clawing hands,
he felt the briefcase beneath his hands.

 

 

He had just about made the door when a man lunged at him, shouting
gutturally in Arabic. Swinging his trench knife in an upward arc, Yale
felt it cut through the loose cloth in the Arab's dress. It crunched
against the man's ribs, sounding like the crumpling of a paper bag.
The man went down with a grunt.

 

 

Yale ran down the stairs. To hell with Trafford. The dirty drunken bastard.
He reached the street. In the foreboding silence of the night he could
hear his G.I. boots as they struck the cobblestones. He ran in panic,
feeling hot blood trickling from his side. Behind him he heard the whisper
of soft shod feet pattering insistently after him. Suddenly his trench
coat was grabbed from behind. It's useless, he thought, I'm too winded
to struggle. He flayed the air with his knife, catching a robed figure
who yelled in pain. Then another Arab leaped toward him. Yale could see
the flash of a curved knife. The knife caught his leg as he kicked the
charging figure in the stomach. The man went down in a heap.

 

 

Somehow, he got to the Atlantic Hotel. Except for an elderly man,
evidently a night clerk, the dimly lighted lobby was empty. Feeling faint,
wondering how seriously he was wounded, how much blood he had lost, Yale
sought inspiration. Unless he found someone to help him, he was going to
be in serious trouble. He didn't want to report to the Army. God knew,
if he got involved, where that would end for him or for Trafford. He
was certain that he had killed the Arab pimp. If I'm not too seriously
wounded, he thought, maybe I can prevail upon that Red Cross girl to help
me. Mrs. Wilson. Anne Wilson. That was her name. It was a long chance;
a wild idea. She might be a very moralistic type. She might resent it
. . . she hadn't been very cordial with Trafford.

 

 

But he knew he had to try. With a tremendous effort, he straightened
himself up, and walked toward the desk. He tried not to limp, worrying
whether the blood had soaked through his trousers. The old man behind
the desk looked at him sleepily.

 

 

"U.S. Army. An important package for Mrs. Anne Wilson." Yale patted the
briefcase he was carrying. "What room number, please?"

 

 

The old man shook his head. "Non. Les hommes ne sont pas admittés.
Les filles Américaines sont sur le deuxiéme étage."

 

 

"Quel est le numéro de la salle de Mademoiselle Wilson?" Yale muttered,
wondering if his French was understandable.

 

 

The man shuffled through his cards. Yale watched him impatiently. He was
tempted to snatch them out of his hands. If he doesn't hurry, he thought,
I'll never make it.

 

 

"Madame Wilson a le numéro quarante-huit. Non visiteurs!"

 

 

Yale ignored him. He dashed up the flight of stairs opposite the desk.
Loud protests in French followed him. He prayed the damned old fool
wouldn't arouse the hotel. When he reached the top of the first flight he
wondered if his old French lessons were correct. The second floor should
be the first. The dim light in the halls told him that he would have to
go another flight to reach Anne Wilson's room. Somehow, he half walked,
half crawled up the stairs, then wearily down a long hall, panting with
the exertion as he searched for number forty-eight. He knocked softly,
praying that she was alone in the room. What if she were bunked in with
some other girl? Or some other man? Anything was possible. He didn't know
Mrs. Wilson after all. God, why didn't she answer? He knocked again.
Gasping with the pain in his side and leg, he leaned against the door.
As he did, it opened. He staggered, and almost fell into the arms of a girl.

 

 

Anne Wilson recognized him. She told him to get out of her room at once.

 

 

"Please! I know it is a hell of an imposition. But please! Would you
help me? I'm wounded." He saw her look of surprise change to instant
sympathy. He saw that she had wrapped her trench coat around herself.
No nightgown protruded beneath it. Her legs were bare. She must sleep
naked. He grinned at her, and then fainted at her feet.

 

 

When he regained consciousness he was on her bed. "How did you ever get
me off the floor?" he asked weakly, noticing that she had stripped off
his pants.

 

 

"Oh, I'm a husky one, Lieutenant. I've learned how to wrestle all kinds of
stiffs in the past few years. Who has been using you for a pin cushion?"

 

 

"How long have I been out?" Yale asked, ignoring her question. "Funny,
I never had that happen to me before."

 

 

"About fifteen minutes. Long enough for me to sprinkle some sulfa on
your belly and leg and put on a bandage. You're lucky, I would say.
You were sliced right across the stomach about a quarter of an inch deep.
Not serious, but your calf is a mess. You'll have to get it sewed up."

 

 

Yale tried to thank her. "Oh, no," she said, wiping his face with a
damp cloth. "You're not getting off that easily. You've ruined my sleep,
got blood all over the sheets and are occupying the only bed in the room
and . . ."

 

 

Yale looked at her. "And what?"

 

 

". . . and you have a briefcase with a great many francs in it. I looked
in your billfold and found your I.D. card. So we start with your name . . .
Yale Marratt . . ." She grinned.

 

 

"I'm single . . . twenty-six . . . and exhausted. If you'll give me about
four aspirins and let me sleep on the floor, I'll appreciate it." Yale
struggled up. He tried to get off the bed.

 

 

She pushed him down. "Stay there. The bed is big enough for both of us."
She found some aspirins in her handbag and gave them to him. She rolled a
blanket and put it down the middle of the bed. "I'm a softy, Yale Marratt,
or else I'd boot you out of here in a hurry."

 

 

She turned the light out. Yale tried to sleep, but it was impossible.
The pain from the wounds became intense. His leg was throbbing, and his
stomach ached. The events of the night churned across his consciousness
in kaleidoscopic colors. He turned his head in the direction of Mrs. Wilson
. . . Anne Wilson . . . and listened to her even breathing. She was asleep
. . . he wished the light were on so that he could see her face. She was a
trusting woman, he thought, and a pretty one with her natural dark blonde
hair combed back from her forehead, held in place with a ribbon. He admired
her quick presence of mind. Her lack of fear.

 

 

Toward morning he must have dozed. When he awoke she was gone. He staggered
out of the bed, surprised to find that he was naked from the waist down.
He looked for his shorts and found them in the bathroom. She had washed
them, but bloodstains remained. They were too wet to put on. He found
her bag and cosmetics, and wondered where she had gone. He was looking
in the mirror, disgusted with his unshaven face, when she burst into the
room with a cheery good-morning. She was followed by a small moustached
man carrying a bag.

 

 

"This is a French doctor, my pantless friend," she said cheerily.
"I told him you would pay beaucoup francs to get sewed up. I bought you
a razor, and a pair of G.I. chinos leg 32, waist 36. You look almost six
feet." She started to toss her cosmetics into a knapsack, watching the
doctor as he removed the bandages she had put on Yale. "You owe me about
five hundred francs. G.I. pants are expensive on the black market. Your
own are too soiled to wear."

 

 

The doctor, who didn't bother to introduce himself, pointed Yale to the
bed. Quickly he snapped Anne Wilson's crude bandages from Yale's leg
and stomach. He ran his finger over the livid cut on Yale's belly, and
said with a distinct accent. "This eez a vairy interesting wound. Deep,
but not vairy serious. It weel heal. This one," he said, pointing to
Yale's calf, "we must sew. I weel do it, now!"

 

 

"I'm glad it's nothing serious, chum," Anne said, standing near the
door. "I took the twenty dollars from your billfold to cover the 500
francs you owe me. By the way, you're on a flight to Cairo at eleven
o'clock. If it is all the same to you -- last night never happened --
I'd prefer not to show any favoritism among that gang of wolves on
the plane. See you around -- Yale Marratt," she said. She closed the
door and was gone before Yale could protest. The doctor had strung a
needle with catgut. While Yale clutched the bed, muttering with pain,
the doctor swiftly sewed the gash on his calf.

 

 

 

 

Yale found a taxi to take him to the airport and limped aboard the plane
a few minutes before departure. A sergeant checked his orders. "Thought
you had gone A.W.O.L. Major down back looking for you seems mad as hell."

 

 

Yale walked past Anne Wilson seated near the front of the plane. She
looked at him and turned away, making it very obvious that she wasn't
going to be friendly.

 

 

Yale sat in his bucket seat and fastened his seat belt. He looked across
the plane into Trafford's face. Trafford stared back at him, contemptuously.
"Well, you cheap son-of-a-bitch! I see you made it," he said, angrily.
"You didn't give a shit what happened to me did you! You killed that
damned Arab, and left me to be the patsy. If it hadn't been for Bronson
I'd be in the jug right now."

 

 

"Bronson!" Yale said startled. "What was he doing there?"

 

 

"He was looking for you, friend. He said you pulled a fast one on him,
too. He wouldn't tell me what, but you're a lucky turd he didn't find
you."

 

 

Yale tried to explain that he had come to help but his voice was lost
in the roar of the engines being revved for the take-off. They finally
reached altitude. Yale unfastened his belt and moved across the plane
beside Trafford.

 

 

"Listen, you stupid bastard," Yale said. "I didn't come to interrupt
your orgy. You were out cold on the bed; your prick sticking in the
air. I tried to get you out of there, and one of your floozies made a
grab for me. She tried to castrate me. I got myself sliced across the
belly and my leg half chopped off . . . all because you have to stick
that thing of yours into anything in sight." Yale looked at him and
shuddered. "Brother, I don't even like to sit near you. You must be
crawling with bugs and V.D."

 

 

"Aw, you're a fucking pansy. I'm clean as a whistle. Had a nice shower
and a 'pro' courtesy of Uncle Sugar. The trouble with you, Marratt, is
that you think you're still in the States. I went on a little tear.
So what? You've gotta get rid of the germs that pile up in you."

 

 

"You're married, aren't you?" Yale asked, pointing to a wedding ring
Trafford was wearing. Trafford wore a huge signet ring over his wedding
ring practically obscuring it. Trafford looked at him bitterly. "It's
none of your god damned business." He looked out the window of the plane.
"I was married. I put this stupid band on and said I'd never take it off.
Caught her fucking a young lieutenant; a wise bastard like you. Right in
our apartment in St. Louis. How do you like that? Came home on leave . . .
and there she was. You know what I did?"

 

 

Yale shook his head. He looked at Trafford, feeling a troubled sympathy
for him. "I didn't do a damn thing. I just said, okay, friend, if that's
the way you want it. I walked out. Too bad. 'We had a nice little kid,
a girl." Trafford scowled. "But that's the way the ball bounces. In the
last analysis, no one in this world gives a crap for you anyway."

 

 

Yale didn't say anything for a while. He could feel in Trafford's words
a cold anger that was frightening if he let himself think about it. His
own anger at Trafford vanished. Why was it impossible for him to retain
hatreds? He had every reason to blame Trafford for his near death last
night, or to feel cold hatred toward Bronson who had probably come back to
kill him. Yet, all he could feel was a kind of sadness. Without thinking
he spoke his thoughts to Trafford.

 

 

"You see, I guess what shocks me is why most men and women insist on
degrading themselves. They grasp for each other . . . for the fleeting
beauty of consummation. For a tender second, they face the world with
wonder -- then they are so damned ashamed of their emotions that they
sneer at themselves and eventually try to degrade love in every way
possible. They seem to hate and despise love . . . the only integrating
factor in a disintegrating world. It bothers me. If men can't respect
each other, can't stand back in awe and reverence of the wonder of man,
I'm afraid civilization won't last long."

 

 

Trafford listened to him, astonished. "For Christ sake, you are a
moralistic bastard, aren't you? Look you've picked up an audience."
He grinned for the first time, nodding across the aisle to Bill Stevens
and Al Kanachos who had corralled Anne Wilson. They were sitting on
either side of her.

 

 

"It's difficult to hear you," Anne said, smiling. "We seem to hear only
the dirty words. It does seem like an interesting conversation. The
lieutenant sounds quite idealistic."