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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

“Gee,” Cliff said with a strained unhappy eagerness, “I’d give anything to have you know my buddy Walt, and him to know you. You’d like him a lot, Johnnie. He’s a swell guy to pal around with. Christ almighty, the circus we used to have in Melbourne! I wish Walt could tell you about it some time, he could tell you so much better than I could. I don’t think either one of us ever laid a dame on leave that we didn’t do it together. He loved it and so did I, but it was never any good, I don’t care how hot she was, unless Walt was there too. We used to keep it up all night—not just once or twice, you understand, but seven or eight times.”

Absorbed and alarmed, John Grandin took out a cigarette to recover himself. Cliff at once started up from the edge of his chair on the other side of the room, but Grandin shook his head. “Never mind, Cliff, I’ve got it.”

This would never do; no, not at all. Never in a thousand years. Fond of him though he might be, John Grandin was disappointed and saddened thus to be made a fool of. He wanted to say: You’ve got the idea all right, Cliff, but oh, you’ve got it all wrong, too. . . .

“Say Johnnie,” Cliff went on, “did I ever tell you about the times a couple of guys and myself went up to Hollywood from San Diego? We had three-­day leaves from the hospital—”

“Just a moment, Cliff,” Grandin interrupted.

“Yes, Johnnie?”

“I thought you were seriously wounded. Billie couldn’t go out to California because you were too sick to see her—wasn’t that it?”

“Oh well, sure.” He laughed. “But Christ, they had to let us out once in a while or we’d have gone nuts. I wasn’t so sick all the time but what I was good for a piece of tail now and then.”

“I see. . . .”

‘‘Anyhow, these two buddies and myself went up to Hollywood to look over the place. You know how the movie stars make a fuss over you just because you’re a serviceman, specially a marine. Jesus, you can lay almost any of them if you’re in uniform. Like I started to say, we went from the canteen one night to the home of Marina Colfax out in Bel-­Air—you know, swimming pool, butlers, all that stuff—and almost before we had time for a drink, my buddies and the other two dames disappeared. Marina looks at me wise and says, ‘Well, what are you waiting for, kid?’ Can you beat it, Johnnie?” He laughed nervously; then he added with a grin: ‘‘We went upstairs, and before midnight I laid her three times.”