that,” Hoggenbeck said, grinning, and went behind his desk, where he got out a bottle of Seagram’s Seven Crown and two glasses. “See? I even remembered your brand.” He did not bother to close the curtains over the plate glass. Winch was acutely aware of its openness behind them. “When I seen your name on that manifest, I sent somebody right out for a bottle.” He paused to take a breath. “You fellows who are doing so much for us out there, you by God deserve every by God thing we can give you.” Winch thought coldly that this time there actually were a few tears in the chicanerous old hypocrite’s eyes. Probably they were even sincere. “Yes, I got a lot more than that,” Hoggenbeck said, taking back up his first thread. “Second looies for office boys, and captains and majors for assistants. They’re finally beginnin to realize just how valuable and important some of their old-time Regular noncoms are to this nation. There’s more worthless commissions floating around, that don’t know how to do nothing, than you can shake your dick at. Political commissions, that somebody bought for their kid or their cousin. They’re full up to choking with them. Nobody knows what to do with ’em and men like me and you can just about write our own ticket. I got me a big house outside the Presidio, and buying another. Got a piece of the NCOs’ Club. I’m in on a piece of the PX. Got a half interest in one of the gambling sheds. My wife’s got a shop. I tell you the sky’s just about the limit around here nowadays. The sky’s not even the limit. They need us, Mart,” old T.D. said, “they need us. Without us, nobody can run this damned civilian Army for them.” He filled the glasses. “Here,” he said, and poked one of them across the desk. “I knew your Division was out there. Relieved the 1st Marine on Guadalcanal. Then I saw your name on that boat roster, and you could of knocked me down.” He drained his own glass. “Tell me, what’s it like out there, Mart. Pretty rough? Hunh? Where were you hit?”
Winch thought his own mind must be deserting him, because he felt ice-cold all over. The whiskey in his glass seemed to have disappeared even before he touched the glass. Old T.D. refilled it. Winch’s teeth clenched. He wanted to pick up the beautiful, precious bottle of Seven Crown and crown Hoggenbeck with it, split his skull. In full view of every eye on the other side of the plate glass.
“Pretty tough? Pretty rugged, hunh? Is it as rough as the papers say? Don’t want to talk about it, eh?”
A picture of his blank-faced, fear-eyed platoons, bleeding and breathing mud for every yard of ground, passed across the inside of Winch’s eyes. Through it, he studied his old drinking buddy, coldly. Icy. All of that had nothing to do with any of this, nothing at all.
“It’s hell, T.D.,” Winch said, straight-faced. “Real hell. They’re great, tough fighters, those Japs. Rough. They’re mean.”
“I know they are, I know they are,” T.D. said.
“And they know the jungle. But we’ll lick them, T.D., we’ll lick them,” Winch said.
“I know we will, I know we will,” old T.D. said.
Winch realized his second glass was gone. T.D. refilled it. And refilled his own. “That jungle’s rough, hunh? Where did you get hit?”
“In the leg,” Winch said.
“Was it bad?”
“It was pretty bad. In fact, it was terrible, T.D.”
“Did you have a heart attack, too?”
“No, nothing like that. Just what they call a murmur. But the two, together. You know. And I was pretty sick, from dengue and malaria. I figured it ought to be enough to get me home, and that it was about time.”
T.D. cackled, and his bushy eyebrows went up and down. “I figured, I figured,” he giggled.
Winch winked, and then noted his third glass was gone. The straight, blended American whiskey, neat like that, was like the ambrosia of the gods. They could have all the Scotch in the world, if he could have one bottle of Seagram’s Seven. Old T.D. pushed the bottle over to him.
“You help yourself,” T.D. said. “I’ve got to keep my head about me. Got work to do. But you go ahead.”
Winch shook his head.
“You always could drink more than me,” T.D. said. “Or anybody.” He grinned. Leaning back in his deluxe swivel chair, he told Winch what he wanted to do