The Hunters Read Free

asked.
    â€œOh, usually two or three days. Once in a while they’re here longer. One fellow I heard of has been here over a month, but he’s in Tokyo somewhere. They’re still looking for him.”
    â€œHe’d better hurry back or the war will be over.”
    â€œThere’s not much point in his hurrying now. He might as well take his time. He can’t get in any worse trouble.”
    â€œI wouldn’t think so.”
    â€œSome fool fighter pilot.”
    â€œNaturally, with that kind of independence.”
    The lean captain smiled.
    â€œI guess I know what you fly” he said. “I was sort of hoping not. We might have ended up in the same outfit together.”
    â€œNot this war, I’m afraid,” Cleve said.
    â€œIt was the same in the last one. You were in that, weren’t you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNo? Well, wrong again. I’d have thought you were. A war is
a war, anyway. I don’t expect that there’s much about them ever changes. I didn’t really want to come to this one, but you know how it is. All the complaining. All the mothers and their innocent sons. It makes you go in spite of yourself.”
    The lean man went on talking. He seemed not so much soldier as wanderer, moving lightly through life with a sharp eye and a subdued sense of time. It was hard to tell about men like that, but Cleve could not help liking him.
    They sat and smoked after the table was cleared and then, wordlessly agreeing, went into the bar. The crowd had preceded them. Slot machines rang with a continuous sound, and an uneven level of laughter and conversation supported some music being played at the far end of the floor where an orchestra was situated on a small stage. Japanese waitresses moved past in their neat uniforms, carrying trays of drinks. They were stocky girls, but graceful, with round scrubbed faces. A few were good-looking, and there was one who was exceptional, slender and well-formed. Her face had a rare calm quality. There was no way not to notice her.
    â€œNot bad, is she, but she’d go hungry in Tokyo.”
    â€œWhat?” Cleve said.
    â€œThey have some mean competition there.”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    The orchestra was playing a medley of American musical comedy numbers. A few couples moved dutifully about the dance floor, as isolated as sails on a sea. The women were occidentals, all of them plain. One was buttoned in a prim blue uniform with a white patch of some sort on her shoulder and an overseas-type cap on her head. She appeared to be forty or
more and was dancing with a solemn lieutenant. A third person could, with some difficulty, have passed between them.
    There was a wave of cold air from the door being opened. Cleve looked up. A group of five officers had come in and were standing near the entrance, surveying the club. They were all second lieutenants, and it was obvious that they had arrived only recently, that night perhaps. The assurance was missing. They stood close together, relying upon each other. After a few moments they chose a table and sat down nearby. Cleve watched with no real interest as they discussed what they wanted to drink and summoned a waitress.
    They were all identical, like the staff surrounding the emperor on a grand nineteenth-century canvas. There was just one who was misplaced. He was paler than the rest. He stood out like a strip of lemonwood in cedar and somehow seemed, comfortably, to be conscious of the distinction. The girl who came to serve them was the one Cleve had noticed. She stood obediently waiting. The pale lieutenant watched her coolly as he gave the order. She wrote it down and then slipped off. He whistled admiringly.
    â€œHow about that?” he said. “How would you like to get into that?”
    â€œWho wouldn’t?”
    â€œI bet she’d do it for a pack of cigarettes, too.”
    â€œAnd you’d help her smoke them, eh, Doctor?
    â€œWhy