Ice-Cream Headache by James Jones Read Free Book Online

said ominously. The beefy Junker walked to it slowly, his steps jerky from rage, his arms dangling impotently. He stood against the black, porous cliff and Mazzioli followed him. “Where’s the men?” Mazzioli shouted to me above the wind. “I want a man to stand guard over this guy. You git a man and have him …”
    “There’s nobody here but me,” I called back. “I let them go up to the top of the hill. Two of them didn’t get any chow tonight. They went up to number one hole to listen to the guitar a while.” I walked over to him.
    I could see him stiffen. “Goddam you. You know there’s always supposed to be three men and one noncom here all the time. That’s the orders. You’re supposed to be second in command. How do you expect to handle these men when you don’t follow the orders?”
    I stared at him, feeling my jaws tighten. “All right,” I shrugged. “I let them go. So what?”
    “I’m turning this in to Lieutenant Allison. The orders are the orders. If you want to be on this road-guard to do your duty, okay. If you want to be on this road-guard to stop Coca-Cola trucks you can go back upstairs to the position. This road-guard is vital, and as long as I’m in charge of it everybody does like the orders says.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “You’re a rotten soldier, Slade,” Mazzioli said. “Now look what’s happened. I wanted you to help me search this guy’s car. Now there’s nobody here to guard this guy.”
    “Okay,” I said. “So I’m a rotten soldier. My trouble is I got too many brains.” He was making me mad and that always got him. Ever since I went six months to the University downtown in Honolulu.
    “Don’t start giving me that stuff,” he snarled.
    The Junker against the cliff stepped forward. “See here,” he said. “I demand you stop this bickering and release me. You’re being an idiot. I am …”
    “Shut up, you,” Mazzioli snarled. “Shut up! I warned you, now shut up!” He stepped to meet him and jabbed the muzzle of his pistol into the Junker’s big belly. The man recoiled and stood back against the cliff, his beefy face choleric.
    I stood with my hands in the pockets of my field jacket, my shoulders hunched down against the rawness of the wind and watched the scene. I had put my pistol away.
    “All right,” Mazzioli said to me. “The question is what’re we gonna do now? If there’s nobody here but you and me?”
    “You’re in command,” I said.
    “I know it. Keep quiet. I’m thinking.”
    “Well,” I said. “You could have the guy drive you up the hill to the lieutenant. You could keep him covered till you turned him over to the lieutenant. Then you would be absolved,” I said. Big words always got him.
    “No,” he said dubiously. “He might try something.”
    “Or,” I said, “you could search the car and have me watch the guy.”
    “Yeh,” he admitted. “I could do that … Yet … No, I don’t want to do that. We may need more men.”
    It was dark now, as black as the cliff face, and I grinned. “Okay,” I said, telling him what I had in my mind all along, “then I could call Alcorn down from up on the cliff and he could watch the guy.”
    “Yes. That’s it. Why didn’t I think of that before?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe you’re tired.”
    “You call Alcorn down,” he commanded me.
    I walked toward the cliff wall that reared its set black face up and up in the darkness several hundred feet. The wind beat on me with both fists in the blackness.
    “Wait a minute,” Mazzioli called. “Maybe we shouldn’t call Alcorn down. There’s supposed to be a man up there all the time.”
    “Look,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I think. Before you go ahead, you better get the lieutenant’s permission to do anything with this guy. You better find out who this guy is,”
    “I’m in charge of this road-guard,” he yelled into the wind, “and I can handle it. Without running to no lieutenant. And I don’t want