watch it. I’ll just have to watch for it,” Winch had mumbled. He was wondering if Landers was having nightmares, like those he himself was having. Strange of course couldn’t know that. And Winch wouldn’t ask.
“I aint spent as much time with him as I ought to have,” Strange said guiltily.
“Fuck him,” Winch said. “Everybody has to do a little something for himself on his own.”
Winch had not changed his mind about that. He still felt the same way, when one of his twenty-three clerks brought Landers into his private office in the Command’s three-story headquarters building.
Landers clearly did not know that he was receiving special treatment. Usually hospital reassignments never got past one of the twenty-three clerks. Winch himself never saw them. But he was not going to tell that to Landers.
Nor, Winch received the distinct impression, if Landers had known, would he have been very interested, impressed, or moved. Or affected.
But Winch had given explicit instructions that he wanted to see Landers, when he reported for duty. Landers obviously could not have cared less. Also, Landers was three days late, three days AWOL, Winch noted when he examined his papers.
Landers on the other hand, which Winch could not know, was surprised. He knew from Strange that Winch had made w/o and had moved into a big important job. But he had not guessed at the magnitude of the importance. This was at least the office of a colonel, that Winch was installed in.
“I see you’re a little late,” Winch said to him.
“Yes,” he said. “I took myself a three-day pass. To say good-by to my girl. They wouldn’t give me one.”
“Say good-by?” Winch said. “She’s only thirty-five miles away.”
“Yes,” Landers said. And would say no more.
Winch stared at him. Landers smiled. If Winch couldn’t figure it out, to hell with him.
“I see,” Winch said. “You don’t have a car, and wouldn’t be getting any passes except weekends. If then.”
“Yes,” Landers said. “But also, she’s one of the girls that hangs around up at our suite in the Peabody.”
Winch continued to stare at him, and nodded.
“She’s in love with me,” Landers explained reasonably. “But I couldn’t ask her to be faithful to me. Not up there. Not around that bunch.”
“And you couldn’t ask her to move out here to the village,” Winch said.
“I asked her,” Landers said. “She didn’t want to. I couldn’t blame her for that.” He felt very equable.
“So you took three days off to say good-by to her,” Winch said. “All lovey-dovey.”
“Yes,” Landers said, stiffly.
“Great,” Winch said. “Fine. Beautiful.”
“I view it as just another casualty of the war,” Landers said.
“Casualty?” Winch said. “Well, we can fix that AWOL up,” he said. “Right here in this office. We can fix up a lot of things here in this office.”
“Oh?” It was all Landers would let himself say. He did not expect, or want or need, any help from Winch’s shitty office. But Winch apparently did not understand that point, either. Because he went on.
“There are a lot of things this office can do, for certain people,” Winch said. “If you know me, you’re a friend of Jack Alexander. And if you know Jack Alexander—” He let it trail off, and grinned.
“Besides,” Landers said, “she doesn’t know where I’ll be, or what will happen to me. When I leave here.”
“You may never leave here,” Winch said.
“We can only assume it will be bad,” Landers said. “And that’s no way to leave a girl. Especially a Peabody girl.”
“Yeah. Well, I said you may never leave here,” Winch said, a lot louder. “You may even have your own car yourself. And all the passes you can handle.”
“Yes?” Landers said. “Ah, how? How so?”
“Very easy. Just assign you to myself here. You’re more than qualified. And nobody’s going to protest it anyway. You’ll have your three stripes back in no time, and maybe a couple of rockers. Hell, that was the whole plan from the beginning. When I first went to Colonel Stevens about you.”
“I think that’s indecent and immoral,” Landers said.
“Hell, didn’t Strange tell you all that?”
“No. And if he had I’d have told him the same thing. With all these poor fuckers going overseas and getting their ass shot off. I don’t want any part of that. Or anything like it.” He could feel a cold, brilliant, hardened diamond point of determination in him. Winch could not affect that.
“I grant you it may be indecent and immoral,” Winch grinned. “But that’s the way things get done around here, you’ll