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Back The Fall of Valor Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Introduction by Michael Bronski
  2. BEGINNING
  3. II
  4. III
  5. IV
  6. V
  7. VI
  8. VII
  9. VIII
  10. IX
  11. X
  12. XI
  13. XII
  14. XIII
  15. MIDDLE
  16. II
  17. III
  18. IV
  19. V
  20. VI
  21. VII
  22. VIII
  23. IX
  24. X
  25. XI
  26. XII
  27. XIII
  28. XIV
  29. XV
  30. XVI
  31. XVII
  32. XVIII
  33. XIX
  34. XX
  35. END
  36. II
  37. III
  38. IV
  39. V
  40. VI
  41. VII
  42. VIII
  43. IX
  44. X
  45. XI
  46. XII
  47. XIII
  48. XIV
  49. XV
  50. XVI
  51. About the Author

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Well, Billie’s got to have something to show the girl friends. You know women.” In the suitcase, on top of a pile of clean skivvy shirts, lay a pale-­khaki overseas cap with a pair of silver bars pinned on it. It was very flat; it took up hardly more room than a folded handkerchief. Grandin sat looking down at the cap. It looked almost touchingly neat, fresh, and military; exactly like Cliff. Here was something he did want.

“This vacation’s sure done me a lot of good. Isn’t Nantucket a wonderful island, Johnnie? Never felt better in my life! Why, I’m going to go through that examination like a breeze. . . .”

All in one passing moment John Grandin wanted it (that was all he did want of Cliff, he thought now), wanted to be able to look at it occasionally by way of remembering Cliff and the holiday—wanted it somewhere at hand when Cliff was far off on the other side of the world and gone forever; and in the same moment he rejected the idea and the thought as being shameless sentimentality, disliked himself acutely for having had the impulse at all—and could not keep from looking at the cap even as he refused it in his mind.

Hauman saw him looking. He reached out for the cap, held it for a moment flat in his palm, and said: “Would you like to have it, Johnnie? I got another.”

“What for?”

“Oh”—he shrugged—“souvenir . . .”

“Yes.”

“Lots of people like war souvenirs. They’re nice to have. Specially later, after it’s all over.”

John Grandin felt sick at heart. He wanted to say—he felt it impossible to keep from saying—Cliff, I’m very fond of you. The words stuck in his throat, he would never be able to get them out, never in a thousand years; and he was glad that this was so. He folded the cap and thrust it deep into his pocket; and as he did so, he believed he had never felt so foolish in his life.

XIV

XIV

When the Grandins came down to dinner, they found Billie and Cliff Hauman seated at their table.

“That Miss Fly put us here,” Billie explained, “I suppose because she knew we were friends. I tried to tell her that maybe you’d rather be by yourselves, but it seems she’s deaf as a clam.”

“Clams aren’t deaf,” Hauman said; “they’re dumb.”

“It’s ox that are dumb. Or wait, maybe you’re right.—What is it that’s deaf, Mr. Grandin?”

“Miss Fly.”

“Say Johnnie, I forgot to tell you! There’s a big party for servicemen tomorrow night at the Nantucket Yacht Club. How about going as my guest, Johnnie?”

“He means all of us, of course,” Billie said to Ethel.

“But I’m not a serviceman,” Grandin said.