"Daniel da Cruz - Texas Trilogy 01 - The Ayes of Texas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Da Cruz Daniel)

Forte's eyes were tired and uncomprehending. He didn't understand a word the man was saying.
"Three to five years," Sergeant Pyle mused. "That's a long stretch for a young man. The best
years of your life." He paused for that to sink in. "But there may be another way to handle this.
You're a big lad. You could easily pass for seventeen, even eighteen. With the war on, nobody
gets nosy about age any more. And think how much better it would be for you to serve your
country-come out with a wad of cash and a string of medals instead of a prison record. You'll see
the world, make friends, find adventure, save your money to start off business when the war's
over."
Gwillam Forte just looked at him.
"Well, what do you say?"
"Say?"
"About joining up. As a matter of fact, one of the Navy recruiters is a friend of mine. Chief
Armstrong. If I put in a word for you, maybe-just maybe-he might be able to get you in."
"I don't know."
The boy was bewildered. He knew there was a war on, but it didn't mean anything to him. Soldiers
and sailors came in the Kit Kat all the time-there were a lot of bases around Atlanta-and they
drank and boasted and cussed a lot and had a lot of fights. He guessed it was all right. He had
just never thought about it.
"I haven't got all night, young fellow," the sergeant said, picking up his pen. "Make up your
mind-the Navy or five years in the state prison."
"All right," the boy said quickly, afraid the big man would change his mind.
Sergeant Pyle smiled. "You've made a wise decision, lad. Now, here's how we're going to handle
this. You're already on the book. I can't do anything about that. But I'm going to write down the
charge as vagrancy. Later this morning, when you appear before the judge, you tell him you just
got into town last night, on your way to join the U.S. Navy. Got that?"
"Yes, sir."
"And if he asks your age, tell him eighteen. Now, how old are you?"
"Fourteen."
"Eighteen. You're eighteen years old. Now, how old are you?"
"Eighteen, sir."
"Good. He'll dismiss the charge-I'll see to it. Then I'll introduce you to Chief Armstrong. . . ."

Everything went as Sergeant Pyle predicted, and at midafternoon that same day, Gwillam Forte
was sworn in as an apprentice seaman in the United States Navy. On 3 May 1943, he joined the
draft headed for boot camp in Norfolk, Virginia.

2 MAY 1945
He used to lie in his hospital bed at night, sleep-less from pain, and try to remember what it was
like to have two hands and two feet. Like everything else about his earlier years, though, the
memories were elusive, probably because so few were fair.
The mean, blustering voice of his father-that was his first recollection. His whiskey-hoarse cursing
seemed to crowd out all other early recollections. It was fol-lowed, as often as not, by a cuff on
the side of the head when Gwillam became old enough to hold down a newspaper route and
came up short when the old man wanted to "borrow" two dollars for his Saturday-night toot. Not
that his mother, with the succession of "old school friends"-all male-who kept her com-pany for
half an hour or so those nights his father passed out on the living room sofa, was all that much
better. Still, when it came to that, neither was Gwillam himself, he had to admit. He peddled pens
and per-fumes pilfered from neighborhood drugstores to finance the movies he sneaked off to see
when he should have been at school, where he squeaked by from one grade to the next only
because his teachers found him too quarrelsome to tolerate another year. His only talent was