Gallery, The by Burns John Horne

Author:Burns, John Horne [Burns, John Horne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Gay, War, Novels
ISBN: 9781590178072
Google: SaE9AQAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 18630759
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 1947-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

My darling,

The headlines will have told you exactly where I am. I’m lying under my shelterhalf as I write this. In the distance I can still hear the firing. It sounds like fat popping in a frying pan. Darling, I’ve been through an indescribable twenty-four hours. With your lovely poet’s mind you can intuit the horror of it all. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that they gave us hell.

I haven’t suffered so much myself. I’m still in one piece. What got me was to see those lovely fellows in my company fall bubbling into the ocean or drop soundlessly in their tracks as I led them up the beach. I’m writing to you first, my darling. After that I have a long string of letters to get off to the families of my poor devils.

Lucinda, I know what death means now. I noticed some white hairs in my beard as I was shaving out of my helmet this morning. But this is war, and I hope the American people will wise up to the fact — but fast. I’m living in a grove where the rain never stops falling. The mud of North Africa is like melted chocolate ice cream.

A sentinel has just passed. Perhaps he too is thinking of his wife. The image of you is constantly before me. Keep sweet. . . .

Captain Motes read his letter over several times. Then he filled his washbowl and put the sheet of paper into it. He swooshed his letter quickly around in the water, then let the blurred letters dry. He sealed it in its envelope. On the lower left-hand corner he affixed the base censor’s stamp he’d brought overseas with him. He didn’t know whether a base censorship detachment had yet been set up in Casa; but if it had, that stamp would let his letter go through unopened.

Next morning Captain Motes, wearing leggins and side arms, reported to the Shell Building on Boulevard de la Gare. It was the headquarters of the Atlantic Base Section. He went at once to a certain office, the location of which he’d demanded of the MP. This was the most ornate and inaccessible of all the offices. At the desk was the captain who was aide to the commanding general. This aide sounded off, out of an easy familiarity with the great:

— Don’t be a goon, captain. You simply can not see the general. He’s still setting up ABS. The fighting stopped in Casablanca only last week. He’s a very busy man, the general . . .

— I’m afraid you don’t understand, sir, said Captain Motes with a mellow laugh. I am . . . keep this under your hat . . . an intelligence officer . . .

— A dime a dozen, captain, the aide beamed, picking up a phone. There were scads of em running around and asking stupid questions on the beach under fire. . . . He hates em. Now they’re coming out of their holes and askin for cushy jobs.

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