The Intruders (27 page)

The American aviators went to the bar and ordered-of all
things-Singapore slings. The waiter, a Chinese, didn’t bat an eye. He
nodded and moved on. He had long ago come to terms with the curious
taste in liquor that seemed to afflict most Americans.

“You sort of expect to see Humphrey Bogart or Sidney Greenstreet sitting
around under a potted palm,” the Real commented as he tflted his chair
back and crossed his legs.

Jake Grafton sipped his drink in silence. Forty-five days at sea riding
the catapults, night rendezvouses above the clouds, instrument
approaches to the ball, mid-rats sliders, ready room high jinks, lying
in his bunk while the ship moved ever so gently in the sea as he
listened to the creaks and groans … then to be baptized with a total
immersion in this. Cultural shock didn’t begin to describe it. The
sights and sounds and smells of Singapore were sensory overload for a
young man from a floating monastery.

He sat now trying to take it all in, to adjust his frame of reference.
He had been here once before, on one of his cruises to Vietnam. He
tried to recall some details of that visit, but the memories were vague,
blurred scenes just beyond the limits of complete recall. He had sat
here in this room with Morgan McPherson … at which table? He
couldn’t remember. Morgan’s face, laughing, he could see that, but the
room … Who else had been there?

Oh, Morg! If you could only be here again. To sit here and share a few
moments of life. We wouldn’t waste it like we did then. If only …

So many of those guys were dead. And he had forgotten.

That the moments he had spent with them were fuzzy and blurred seemed a
betrayal of what they had been, what they had given. Life goes on, but
still … All that any man can leave behind are the memories that his
friends carry. He isn’t really gone until they are. But if the living
quickly forget, it is as if the dead man never was. 11… we oughta go
buy some souvenirs,” the Real was saying. “The folks at home would
really like .. .”

Jake polished off the last of his drink and stood. He threw some
Singapore dollars on the table, money he had acquired this morning from
the money changers aboard ship. “See you guys later.”

“Where are you going?”

He was going back to the ship, but he didn’t want to say that. “Oh, I
dunno. Gonna just walk. See you later.”

Outside on the street he stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned
toward the wharves. He walked along staring at the sidewalk in front of
him, oblivious of the traffic and the sights and the human stream that
parted to let him past, then immediately closed in behind him.

The next day Jake stood an eight-hour duty officer watch in the ready
room. About two in the afternoon the Real McCoy came breezing in.

“Today’s your lucky day, Grafton. You are blessed to have Flap and me
for friends. Truly blessed.”

:’I know,” Jake told him dryly.

“We met some Brits. What a bunch they are’ How we ever kicked them out
of the good ol’ U.S. of A. is a mystery I’ll never understand.”

“A military miracle.”

“These are good guys.”

“I’m sure.”

“They’ve invited us to a party at Changing this evening. A party! And
they swore that some Aussie women would be there! Quantas stews. Can
you beat that?” Without pausing to let Jake wrestle with that question,
he steamed on.

“When do you get off?”

“Uh, two hours from now.”

The Real consulted his watch. “I’ll wait. Flap is taking the next boat
in, but I’ll wait for you. I’ve got directions.

We’ll grab a cab and toode on over to party hearty. Maybe, just maybe,
we’ll get a glorious opportunity to lower the white count. Oooh boy!”

McCoy strode up the aisle between the huge, soft chairs, past the silent
16-mm movie projector, and blasted through the door into the passageway.

Jake sat back in his chair and opened the letter from his parents yet
again. It had been two weeks since the last mail delivery, via a cargo
plane out of Cubi Point, and this was the current crop, delivered this
morning–one letter from his mother. She signed it “Mom and Dad,” but
she wrote every word. Nothing from Callie McKenzie.

Maybe that was for the best. It had been a bell of a romance, but now
it was over. She was from one world, he was from a completely different
one. Presumably she was doing her own thing there in Chicago, going to
class and dating some long-haired hippie intellectual who liked French
novels. What was it about French novels?

But he desperately wished she had written. Even a Dear John letter
would be preferable to this vast silence, he told himself, wanting to
believe it but not quite sure that he did.

Oh well. Like most of the things in his life, this relationship was out
of his control. Have a nice life, Callie McKenzie. Have a nice life.

Darkness comes quickly in the tropics. Twilight is an almost
instantaneous transition from daylight to darkness.

Jake, Flap and the Real had just arrived at Changing by ta7d and found
the outdoor pavilion when the transition occurred . Whoom, and the
lanterns in the pavilion were flickering bravely against the mighty
darkness.

The Brit and Aussie soldiers had indeed not forgotten their invitation
of the afternoon, They led the three Americans around and introduced
them, but Flap was the only surefire hit with the ladies. Soon he had
all five of the women gathered around him.

“The Aussies aren’t used to black men wearing pants,” the Real whispered
to Jake. “Those stews will get over the novelty in a while and we’ll
get a chance to cut a couple out.,$

Jake wasn’t so sure. The soldiers seemed to be eyeing the crowd around
Flap with a faint trace of dismay. Nothing obvious, of course, but Jake
thought he could see it.

“Hey, mate. How about a beer?” The Australian who asked held out a
couple of cold bottles of Fosters.

“Thanks. Real hard duty you guys got here.”

“Beats the outback. Beats that scummy little war you Yanks gave in the
Nam, too. Saigon was a bit of all right but the rest of it wasn’t so
cheery. This is mighty sweet after that busman’s holiday, I can tell
you.”

“It was the only war we had,” the Real explained, then poured beer down
his throat. Jake Grafton did the same.

Two beers later Jake Grafton was sitting at a table in the corner
listening to Vietnam War stories from a couple of the Aussies when one
of the stews came over to join them.

“Mind if I join you chaps?”

“Not at all, not at all. Brighten up the party. How long are you in
for this time, Nell?”

“Off to Brisbane and Sydney tomorrow. Then back here via Tokyo the
following day.” Nell winked at Jake. “Girl has to keep herself busy
now, doesn’t she?”

Grafton nodded and grinned. Nell returned it. She was a little above
medium height, with fair hair and a dynamite tan. Several gold
bracelets encircled each of her wrists and made tiny tinkly noises when
she moved her arms.

“My name’s Jake,” he told her.

“Nell Douglas,” she said, and stuck out her hand. Jake THE I N T RUD E
RS

shook it. Cool and firm. And then he looked around and realized the
Aussies had drifted and he and Nell were alone.

“So what do you do for the Yanks?”

“I’m a pilot.”

“Oh, God! Not another one. I’ve sworn off pilots for at least three
months.” She smiled again. He liked the way her eyes smiled when she
did.

“Better tell me about it. Nothing like a sympathetic listener to ease a
broken heart.”

“You don’t look like the sympathetic type.”

“Don’t be fooled by appearances. I’m sensitive, sympathetic, charming,
warm, witty, wonderful.” He shrugged.

“Well, part of that’s true, anyway. I’m warm.”

Now her whole face lit up. Her bracelets tinkled.

“How long have you been flying with Qantas?”

“Five years. My father has a station in Queensland. One day I said to
myself, Nell old girl, if you stay here very much longer one of these
jackeroos will drag you to the altar and you’ll never see any more of
the world than you’ve seen already, which wasn’t very much, I ran tell
you. So I applied to Qantas. And here I am, flying around the globe
with my little stew bag and makeup kit, serving whiskey to Japanese
businessmen, slapping pilots, giving lonely soldiers the hots, and
wondering if I’m ever going back to Queensland.”

“What’s a jackeroo?”

“You Yanks call them cowboys.”

This could be something nice, Jake thought, looking at the marvelous,
open, tanned female face and feeling himself warmed by her glow. There
are a lot of pebbles on the beach and some of them are nuggets, like
this one.

“So a station’s a ranch?”

“Yes. Sheep and cattle. “I was raised on a farm myself Dad ran a few
steers, but mainly he raised corn.”

“Ever going back?” Nell asked.

“I dunno. Never say never. I might.”

She told him about the station in Queensland, about living so far from
anything that the world outside seemed a fantasy, a shimmering legend
amid the heat and dust and thunderstorms . As she talked he glanced
past the lanterns into the darkness beyond, at that place where the mown
grass and the velvet blackness met. The night was out there as usual,
but here, at least, there was light.

An hour or so later someone turned on the radio and several of the women
wanted to dance. To Jake’s surprise Flap “Go Ugly Early” Le Beau proved
good at dancing, slow or fast, so good that he did only what his partner
could do. You had to watch him with three or four of the sheilas before
you realized that he sensed their skill level almost instantaneously and
asked of them only what they had to give. Nell pointed that out to
Jake, who saw it then. She danced a fast number with Flap-she was very
good-as the Aussies and Brits, watched appreciatively. They applauded
when the number ended.

Nell rejoined Jake and led him out onto the floor for the next slow
number. “I don’t dance very well,” he told her.

“That’s not the point,” she said, and settled in against him to the beat
of the languid music.

It was then that Jake Grafton realized he was in over his head. The
supple body of the woman against his chest, the caress of her hair on
his cheek, the faint scent of a cologne he didn’t recognize, the touch
of her hands against his-all this was having a profound effect and he
wasn’t ready.

“Relax,” she whispered.

He couldn’t.

The memory of his morning in bed with Callie four months ago came
flooding back. He could see the sun coming through the windows, feel
the clean sheets and the sensuous touc 1 of her s in …

“You’re stiff as a board.”

“Not quite.

“Oops. Didn’t mean it quite that way, love.”

“I’m not a very good dancer.”

She moved away a foot or so and looked searchingly into his face.
“You’re not a very good liar either.”

“I’m working on it.”

She led him by the hand through the crowd and out of the pavilion into
the darkness. “Why is it all the good ones come with complications?”

“At our age virgins are hard to find,” Jake told her.

“I quit looking for virgins years and years ago. I just want a man who
isn’t too scarred UP.”

She led him to a wall and hopped up on it. “Okay, love.

Tell 01′ Nell all about it. Jake Grafton grinned. “How is it that a
fine woman like you isn’t married?”

“You want the truth?”

“If you feel like it.”

“Well, the truth is that I didn’t want the ones who proposed and the
ones I wanted didn’t propose. Propose marriage, that is. They had a
lot of things in mind but a trek to the altar wasn’t on the list.”

“That’s sounds like truth.”

“It is that, ducky.`

The music floating across the lawn was muted but clearly audible. And
she was right there, sitting on the wall. Instinctively he moved closer
and she put an arm around his shoulder. Their heads came together.

Before very long they were kissing. She had good, firm lips, a lot like
Callie’s. Of course Callie was …

His heart was thudding like a drum when they finally parted for air.
After a few deep breaths, he said, “Mere’s another woman.”

“Amazing.”

“I’m not married or anything like that. And I haven’t asked her to
marry me, but I wanted to.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think she gave up on me. Hasn’t written in a couple months.”

“You like your women dumb, then?” she asked softly, and put her lips
back on his.

Somehow she was off the wall and they were entwined in each other’s
arms, their bodies pressed together. when their lips parted this time,
a ragged breath escaped her. “Whew and double whew. You Yanks!
Sex-starved maniacs, that’s what you are.”

eased away from him. “Well, that was my good deed today. I’ve given
another rejected, love-starved pilot hope for a brighter future. Now I
think it’s time for this sheila to trek off to her lonely little bed.
Must fly tomorrow, you know.”

“Going to be back in Singapore day after tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“What hotel? Maybe I can stop by and take you to dinner.”

“The Intercontinental.”

,,I’ll walk inside with you.”

“No, just stay where you are, mate. I’ve had quite enough tonight. One
more good look at you in the light and I might drag you off to my lonely
little bed for a night of sport.

Can’t have that, can we, not with you pining your heart out for that
other silly girl.”

With that she was gone. Across the lawn and into the crowd.

Jake Grafton leaned on the wall and lit a cigarette. His hands were
trembling slightly.

He didn’t know quite what to think, so he didn’t think anything. Just
inhaled the cut-grass smell and looked into the darkness and let his
heart rate subside to its normal plodding pace.