hooked together, then jerk, and a neat little ring of glass pops off one or both. He didn’t see any others at first, but when he examined the trash in the houseboy’s dust bucket, he found dozens of rings. Also, he noted, there were hundreds of cigarette butts, in spite of his standing orders against extinguishing them on the Day Room floor. He checked the four cases of empties. All except for one had been broken. Dottlinger took the dust bucket and dumped its contents in a neat pile in front of the innocently humming Coke machine. He shooed the houseboy out, closed and locked the double doors opening to the outside passageway, unplugged the Coke machine, which burped twice like a drunken private in ranks, rolled shut the louvers on both walls, turned off the lights, then locked the entrance from the Orderly Room.
He took the pass box from the 1st Sgt’s desk and placed it in his desk which he always kept locked. Then he called the Criminal Investigation Division.
The CID officer who came was a heavy Negro captain in a baggy suit and 1930s snap-brim hat which shouted “Copper!” He nodded his head when Lt. Dottlinger explained the situation and showed him the evidence, but said nothing. The CID man dusted part of one case of bottles at Lt. Dottlinger’s insistence. There were over two hundred partial, smudged and clear prints on them. When Lt. Dottlinger demanded that he run a check on the prints, the CID officer shook his head and said, “Lieutenant, they are Coke bottles. For treason, perhaps even for a murder, I might be able to run the ten thousand or so prints on those bottles, but for Coke bottles… sorry about that.” He shrugged and left. Tetrick heard Lt. Dottlinger mumble, “Damned nigger cops. Can’t expect them to understand the value of property.”
Shortly before noon a notice was posted on the bulletin board. There would be no passes pending confession of the bottle-breaker.
In theory mass punishment is against the Uniform Code of Military Justice but since a pass is a privilege rather than a right, it can be denied at any time for no reason.
Most of the men were extremely annoyed at first, but they quickly settled down, thinking, as did Lt. Dottlinger, that the guilty party would confess. During those first few days they found it almost refreshing not to be able to go to Town. They had the Airman’s Club and the Silver Wing Service Club to pass the nights, or they could bowl or go to the gym or the library. A new, exciting kind of party evolved in the large storm ditches on the edge of the Company Area, called Champagne Ditch Parties. Mumm’s was cheap at the Club and did not count on the liquor ration. The ditches were concrete lined, about five feet deep and shaped like an inverted trapezoid. A man could sit in the bottom, lean back and drink Mumm’s from a crystal glass, and hope it didn’t rain if he passed out. A kid from Trick One broke both arms trying to broad jump a ditch one night, but took little of the fun out of the parties.
So they did these things for one, two, then three weeks, but no one ever came forward. I noticed that Morning who had been the loudest and longest griper at first seemed to be resigned to the lack of Town. By the end of the fourth week the only hope was the return of Capt. Saunders. Tetrick had given up trying to persuade Lt. Dottlinger, and had taken to playing golf three afternoons a week, drunk before the tenth tee. The men were quiet, but uneasily so. They, like Morning, had stopped talking about it. They gathered shamelessly around the older dependent girls at the pool; they who had vowed to a man at one drunken time or another never to sully their hands on a leech. Even Novotny shouted from the high diving board, strutted his brown body before them and let them pity his scarred leg. He had taken an eighteen-year-old one to the movie one night, but Trick Two was waiting in ambush and hooted him out of the theater. “There are some things a man just
He took the pass box from the 1st Sgt’s desk and placed it in his desk which he always kept locked. Then he called the Criminal Investigation Division.
The CID officer who came was a heavy Negro captain in a baggy suit and 1930s snap-brim hat which shouted “Copper!” He nodded his head when Lt. Dottlinger explained the situation and showed him the evidence, but said nothing. The CID man dusted part of one case of bottles at Lt. Dottlinger’s insistence. There were over two hundred partial, smudged and clear prints on them. When Lt. Dottlinger demanded that he run a check on the prints, the CID officer shook his head and said, “Lieutenant, they are Coke bottles. For treason, perhaps even for a murder, I might be able to run the ten thousand or so prints on those bottles, but for Coke bottles… sorry about that.” He shrugged and left. Tetrick heard Lt. Dottlinger mumble, “Damned nigger cops. Can’t expect them to understand the value of property.”
Shortly before noon a notice was posted on the bulletin board. There would be no passes pending confession of the bottle-breaker.
In theory mass punishment is against the Uniform Code of Military Justice but since a pass is a privilege rather than a right, it can be denied at any time for no reason.
Most of the men were extremely annoyed at first, but they quickly settled down, thinking, as did Lt. Dottlinger, that the guilty party would confess. During those first few days they found it almost refreshing not to be able to go to Town. They had the Airman’s Club and the Silver Wing Service Club to pass the nights, or they could bowl or go to the gym or the library. A new, exciting kind of party evolved in the large storm ditches on the edge of the Company Area, called Champagne Ditch Parties. Mumm’s was cheap at the Club and did not count on the liquor ration. The ditches were concrete lined, about five feet deep and shaped like an inverted trapezoid. A man could sit in the bottom, lean back and drink Mumm’s from a crystal glass, and hope it didn’t rain if he passed out. A kid from Trick One broke both arms trying to broad jump a ditch one night, but took little of the fun out of the parties.
So they did these things for one, two, then three weeks, but no one ever came forward. I noticed that Morning who had been the loudest and longest griper at first seemed to be resigned to the lack of Town. By the end of the fourth week the only hope was the return of Capt. Saunders. Tetrick had given up trying to persuade Lt. Dottlinger, and had taken to playing golf three afternoons a week, drunk before the tenth tee. The men were quiet, but uneasily so. They, like Morning, had stopped talking about it. They gathered shamelessly around the older dependent girls at the pool; they who had vowed to a man at one drunken time or another never to sully their hands on a leech. Even Novotny shouted from the high diving board, strutted his brown body before them and let them pity his scarred leg. He had taken an eighteen-year-old one to the movie one night, but Trick Two was waiting in ambush and hooted him out of the theater. “There are some things a man just
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