OCR Text |
Show Flying - 31 CHAPTER III The Fifty-third Signal Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas stands tall in the dust on a cool morning in mid-August and waits for the Officer of the Day to come out of the guardhouse and take charge of this reveille formation. A thin man in a rumpled uniform slouches slowly toward the waiting troops, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground in front of him. "It's Lieutenant White," says O'Connell to John Henry in a whisper. "He lent me some of Kerouac's novels once, and he writes poetry. They say he's very unhappy." Even from the back, Sergeant Karafa, the platoon sergeant, looks outraged. He is a big stocky man with short legs, a rolling walk, and a deep love of order. They call him the Black Bear. Lieutenant White ambles up to the sergeant in charge and fixes him with a deeply melancholy gaze. The sergeant salutes crisply, with hate in his eyes, and White takes one hand out of his pocket to return it. "All present and accounted for, sir," says the sergeant. He salutes again with the utmost precision, but the unhappy lieutenant has already turned away and it is only his bent back that the salute greets as he slouches back toward his bed in the guardhouse, through for another week or two with this painful duty. |