The Pledge by Howard Fast Page B

I’ll meet you there in an hour.”
    The thing that had stayed with Bruce after a stroll in the Maidan was that the fine green lawns were cut and kept smooth as carpeting, not with machines of any sort, not even with hand-pushed lawn mowers, but by natives who, on hands and knees, cut the grass with clippers. Why not? If the cost of a lawn mower could pay the wages of a bearer for a full year, why bother to purchase the lawn mower? Like all other things in India, it made sense in a weird, senseless way.
    When Bruce reached the Cricket Club, Legerman was sprawled on a bench, in the shade of a great live oak, straw in mouth, sipping a bottle of Coca-Cola.
    â€œGot one for you,” he told Bruce, reaching down next to the bench and coming up with another bottle of Coca-Cola, straw already inserted. When things were needed, Legerman produced them at the proper moment.
    â€œLegerman,” Bruce said, staring gratefully at the Coca-Cola, “don’t you have anything that pins you down? You are a sergeant in an army run by the sergeants, so you must have duties, responsibilities?”
    â€œI arrange time to do my own thing. You know, I was a p.r. man around Broadway, and you’re a newspaperman, and one day, God willing, this lunacy will be over — and well, one hand washes the other. You’re in trouble.”
    â€œHow do you know? God damn it,” Bruce went on, “how the hell do you know everything that goes on around here?”
    â€œI keep my ears open. Also, I occasionally date that cute little Wac who guards shithead Hillton’s door. Would you believe it, Major Hillton got his job in Intelligence out of being a clerk at police headquarters in Cleveland — not even a real cop, but a clerk. Officers are no bargain, but those cookies who got their jobs by appointment out of civilian life — they’re the worst.”
    â€œOK,” Bruce said, “I’m in trouble. Forgive me. I had a lousy morning.”
    â€œThey cutting orders for your departure?”
    â€œSo they tell me.”
    â€œAnd of course you’re not going. You’re going to stand on your rights as a journalist accredited to this theater and remain right here in Calcutta, and get your newspaper into it and maybe make a real case out of it.”
    â€œI had something of that sort in mind,” Bruce agreed.
    â€œSure. Why not?” Legerman nodded. “Your thinking is high class. That’s because you’re an American. Me too. We’re both full of motherhood and apple pie, even after Hitler, even after the gas ovens, even after what we both seen in this lousy town, because we’re pure. You know what happens, you fight this thing?”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œSure I’ll tell you, and don’t get your ass up and get sore at me, because I can see that’s what you’re doing. I had a girl friend back home, and you know what she used to call characters like you — shiksa boys. Good, educated parents who spoke real English right from the start, good private schools, good colleges, entry to anything. Bruce Bacon. You grow up with a name like that and with your looks and six feet from eating good food instead of garbage, and you don’t even need brains. You’re an American, Jack Armstrong. You remember Jack Armstrong on the radio, raise the flag for Hudson High, boys, Jack Armstrong loves Wheaties and so should you.”
    â€œOh, Christ, can it.”
    â€œI’m getting to you.”
    â€œI’m staying here,” Bruce said. “They’re not forcing me out. They haven’t got a leg to stand on, and I can blow this famine thing sky high.”
    â€œSure you can. Otherwise, what happens to apple pie and motherhood? Now let me suggest what will happen if you decide to stay here. One: they will remove your accreditation, and no wire service will be available to you. Two: they will stop your mail, and don’t think they