The Recruit

Among those familiar with the South Radar Station, to stand the watch there was to be in limbo. This referred to the station's remoteness from the island's inhabited areas, and to its lack of diversions. It stood stark and lonely as a lighthouse, at the island's south end, out on a point of land surrounded by ocean, sand and sky, the companion of palm trees and seagulls.

It had been established there during the war because the site was extremely advantageous: the radar screen commanded an unimpeded sweep of three hundred twenty degrees of the ocean and sky, and the visual sweep was almost the same. In those days the distance from the main installations, six miles to the north, and the lack of anything between except mountainous jungle had been no deterrent, for the war's prosecution had required extraordinary measures. But now the war was ended, and the necessity for constant vigil was removed almost entirely; time, in other words it would be only a matter of official orders until the station would be abandoned.

But this had not yet happened. For most of the radar personnel, the one thing in their lives to look forward to was the day when the watch would be secured forever, and the station and its site given back to the gooney birds. To them, assignment there was an exile from civilisation even as it was in the islands. It was banishment from the land of the living. The hours hung heavy.

To some, however, it was idyllic. These were they who never became adapted to military life; they to whom its unremittingly regimented nature was rancourous; to whom it was irony that he is called a private who eats, sleeps, washes, worships and dies en masse. For them, the watch was a reprieve, a time of respite, a holiday. Excepting visits from the duty officer and the officer of the day, the station was left entirely to the watch; accordingly, they spent most of the time pursuing their private inclinations.

One such was a marine. He liked the station because there he could sit under a palm tree and watch the ocean and give himself up to daydreaming, or throw off his uniform and swim or stretch his limbs in the sand and sun himself. But he was not indolent. He had the marines' ésprit de corps, manifested in a certain self-conscious self-assurance, and he knew he had it; but he often reflected, while looking at his body, that his pride was not unjustifiable.

Another was a sailor who prized the watch because the station's situation appealed to his logic and pleased his esthetic sensibility. This produced in him a feeling of proprietorship, so that he spent much time in keeping the station shipshape and the area around it free of trash and driftwood. He was ignorant of his own surpassing beauty.

The first time these two stood the watch together, the marine was already there when the sailor arrived. He stood at the door and watched him approaching along the beach. He liked the way the other walked. He also liked the boy's appearance itself. He looked on as the sailor bent down, picked up a shell and sent it skimming far out over the water. mattachine REVIEW

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How do they get into those uniforms?» he asked himself. When you get a boy like this dressed like that, you really have something. He gave a low whistle.

The sailor, coming inside from the brilliantly sunlit beach, was blinded by the comparative gloom of the station's interior, so that for some moments he could not recognize any object in the room. When his vision began clearing, he was surprised to see the marine so close. But he extended his hand in a cheerful greeting. The marine, impressed by this departure from the conventional rivalry obtaining between the navy and marines, returned the greeting. The marine's hand, and the warm, strong handshake pleased the sailor, so that he shook off the vestiges of blindness and looked more attentively at the marine's face. That, too, pleased him. But he was startled by something in the expression of his eyes. At other times, in other places, chancing to turn about, he had found a man or a boy watching him with this same expression; they, upon seeing him turn, had averted their gaze, but not before he had seen this look. Each time before, he had been with someone else, or had been occupied so that there was no opportunity to investigate the thing; but he had mused upon it long after. Sometimes it seemed that he almost understood what it meant; but not quite. Now it was there again, and this time he was by himself, and unoccupied. He glanced around the room to ascertain whether they were alone. They were. Apprehension smote him. He sought refuge in conversation, and mentioned the admittedly banal subject of the station's remoteness. The marine smiled, and replied that it was not necessarily an inexpedience, that there were compensations; that, indeed, this was a quality highly valued by some. The marine's steady, unequivocal look unnerved him. He could not face it. So he stared at the floor instead, and was enormously chagrined. He wished that he might be so self-assured, to enjoy whatever interior calm it was in the marine that afforded him that candour. He also wished he could fathom that expression in his eyes. It was quite enough in itself; but he also found it impossible to look for more than a moment at a handsome boy, if that boy were looking at him. It had always been that way. He wondered why. He suspected there was something wrong with him.

The marine offered him tea, and this broke the impasse, and the sailor was glad, and accepted it readily. The beverage fortified him, and he was able to converse suitably, although he noted, with considerable discomfiture, that the marine continued looking at him. He tried to be unaware of it. He strove, too, to avoid thinking how handsome the marine was, and how uncommon his behavior, because these things disquieted him, and he could not tell why. Then the radio signalled, and the marine took up the earphones. The sailor, greatly relieved by this interruption, immediately recognized the opportunity to scrutinize the marine in turn, and did so. He saw that he was, indeed, handsome; exceedingly so. He observed, too, that the uniform was admirably designed for such a one, that it was especially commendable in not having hip pockets in the pants, thus leaving that area uncluttered and neat, and the natural contours of the body uninterrupted. It occured to him that he would

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