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Show because he was the highest-ranking non-com, but thanks to a general feeling that he was more officerly than the officers, outranking such examples as, say, Lieutenent Jennings, by four to one. He was older than most of the man -- there were touches of grey in his crew-cut - but he had a fine slender figure that revealed itself as surprisingly muscular when exposed in a bathing-suit, and a habit of cleanliness that put the others to shame. His well-honed body seemed happy in its element, with an easy grace that drew eyes more often than ha knew. He had been raised on a farm in Arkansas, a milieu humble enough to have kept him modest; his graceful tread seemed unconscious of itself. "Such a fine young man," said Louise, in a moment. She gave him a calculating appraisal. "Wonder why he hasn't married." Many of the Detachment ladies, asleep next to their fat/ lean/rangy/squat husband after, the task accomplished, he snored away in fetid contentment, had harbored similar thoughts, for the Sergeant played a role in the dreams of several of the feminine inhabitants of Naka (and one or two of the masculine) that he would have been appalled to discover. Into Phyllis's eye came a sly look, and she opened her lips to speak, only to close them again. "Granted," Louise continued, "there's nobody in Oji." Phyllis's slyness changed to incredulity, and her eyebrows rose. "Don't know I'd say that." |