Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille

Author:Nelson DeMille
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: FIC030000
ISBN: 9780759522565
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-04-01T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

31

Marcy and Ben Tyson sat across from each other at the small table. Tyson was dressed in a maize-colored linen suit. Marcy wore a yellow cotton-knit sweater and matching skirt.

Marcy said, “This was a fort?”

“Not this part. This is the new dining room. Most forts don’t have picture windows.”

“Don’t get smart.”

Tyson picked up the menu. “The steak here is good.”

“I don’t see any quiche on the menu.”

“Nor will you ever.”

“You say that with relish.”

“With steak sauce.”

“I’ll bet you stay in if you’re acquitted.”

“The military has a certain masculine appeal.”

“Don’t get carried away.” She looked at him. “Would you . . . would you ever go back in—I mean, under other circumstances—if they called you in a national emergency? Another war?”

Tyson replied, “Yes, I would serve my country again.”

“Even after what the Army has done to you?”

“They’ve done nothing to me. They think I’ve done something to them.”

“Would you go back in for an unpopular, Vietnam-type, undeclared war?”

“Mine is not to reason why. I didn’t even fight this recall as hard as I could have.”

“Boy, once they’ve got you, they’ve got you forever, don’t they?”

“I’m afraid so. Military service exerts a lasting influence on a man far beyond the short number of years he was on duty. Just like jail time. Ask anyone who was in—jail or the Army.”

“I believe you. I just don’t understand. I never understood how millions of men could clash on the battlefield, leaving piles of corpses, then do it again and again.”

“Men love war. They love fucking the enemy, and when they withdraw, there is a postcoital depression that lingers for the rest of their lives.”

“Scary, Ben. Scary.”

“Don’t I know it?”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Marcy looked out over the nearly empty dining room and saw a couple turn their faces away. She said, “Why do you suppose people are staring at us?”

“They are absolutely dazzled by the dashing new officer and his lady.”

She smiled grimly. “As long as they’re not saying, ‘There’s that war criminal and his whore.’”

“My dear, in the officer corps all the brothers are courageous and all the sisters virtuous.”

“I didn’t know that.” She sipped on her gin and tonic as she looked out the window. The night sky had cleared as suddenly as it had darkened earlier, and a stiff wind from the south fluttered the illuminated Stars and Stripes on the lawn. On the patio a barbecue was in progress, and she heard the sound of a steel band and saw the flames of the charcoal pit and the Tonga torches. She said, “There’s something vaguely anachronistic about this place.”

“That’s what you say about Garden City. In truth, you are the anachronism, a time-traveler from the sixties.”

“Perhaps you’re right. Still, this is a very closed society, isn’t it?”

“It’s supposed to be. It has its own internal reality, which is based in part on its own history, exclusive of the society outside the gates.”

“Now that I’m here in this environment, I’m beginning to understand you better.”

“I’m beginning to understand me better too.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.