sym0911ion's Journal

@@@@@ But even so there was a wry isolated
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But even so there was a wry isolated attention with which he watched the process unfolding between them

He saw the General about an hour later in his tentCummings was alone for the moment, studying some air operations reportsHearn understood immediatelyAfter the first two or three days of the campaign, when no Japanese air attacks had developed on Anopopei, it had been decided at higher levels to remove the squadron of fighter planes that had been assigned to the campaign and had operated from another island over a hundred miles awayThey had not been of great use but the General had been hoping that when the airfield he had captured was enlarged for the Air Corps, he could use that air support against the Toyaku LineIt had enraged him when the airplanes had been shunted to another campaign, and that had been the time when he had made his remark about enemies
He was studying the theater air operations reports now to find out if any aircraft were being used needlesslyIn another man it would have been absurd, a self-pitying castigation, but with the General it was notHe would absorb every fact in the report, probe the weaknesses, and when the time came and the captured airfield was ready, he would have a strong series of arguments, documented by the reports he studied now
Without turning around, the General said over his shoulder, "You did a damn fool thing today
The General moved his chair about slightly, and looked thoughtfully at Hearn"You were depending on me to bring you out of it He smiled as he said this, and his voice had become artificial, slightly affectedThe General had many different types of speech; when he spoke to enlisted men he swore slightly, made his voice a little less preciseWith his officers he was always dignified and remote, his sentences always rigidly constructedHearn was the only man to whom he spoke directly, and whenever he did not, whenever the down-to-junior-officer-level affectation slipped in, it meant that he was very displeasedHearn had once known a man who stuttered whenever he was telling a lie; this on a more subtle level was as effective a clueThe General was obviously furious that he had had to come to Hearn's support in such a way that headquarters would talk about it for days
"I guess I did, sir; I realized that afterward
"Will you tell me why you behaved like such an ass, Robert?" Still the affectationIt was almost effeminateThe General had given Hearn when he first met him an immediate impression of very rarely saying what he thought, and Hearn had never had occasion to change his mindHe had known men who were casually like him, the same trace of effeminacy, the same probable capacity for extreme ruthlessness, but there was more here, more complexity, less of a congealed and overt personality to perceive comfortablyThe General at first glance did not look unlike other general office