“Do you suppose your CO. will ever forgive me for not making it to dinner with him tonight?” She smiled tiredly.

“He may be heartbroken, but he'll live.” In fact, the lieutenant knew that an hour or two before, the CO. had been called into a meeting with two generals who had arrived by helicopter for a secret meeting with the CO. that night. He would have had to leave Faye anyway. “I think hell be very grateful for what you did for the men.”

“It means a lot to me,” she spoke gently as she sat down on a large white rock in the warm night air and looked up at him after their last stop. There was something so magical in her eyes, and there was a strange tug in his gut as he looked down at her. It almost hurt to look at her, she brought up feelings that he had wanted to leave behind him in the States. There was no room for that here, no time, no one to share the feelings with. Here there was only killing and misery and loss, and anger sometimes, but the gentler emotions were too painful now, and he looked away from her as she stared at the back of his head. He was a tall, handsome blond man with broad shoulders and deep blue eyes, but all she could see of him now were the powerful shoulders and the wheat-colored hair. There was something about him that made her want to reach out to him. There was so much pain here, they were all so damn lonely and sad and young … and yet with only a little warmth, a touch, a hand on theirs they came alive, and they laughed and they sang … that was what she loved about these tours, no matter how tiring they were. It was like bringing new life to all of these men, even this young lieutenant, who was so tall and proud as he turned to face her again, obviously defending himself, or trying to, against all that he felt, and yet not quite able to shut her out after all. “Do you know, after spending the whole evening with you,” she smiled up at him again, “I don't know your name.” She knew only his rank, and they had never really been introduced.

“Thayer. Ward Thayer.” The name rang a distant bell, but she didn't know why and didn't really care. He smiled at her, and there was something cynical in his eyes. He had seen too much in the last year and she sensed that easily about him. “Are you hungry, Miss Price? You must be starved.” She had performed for hours, and had been touring the base, shaking hands, for three hours since. She nodded now, with a shy smile.

“I am. Do you suppose we should go knock on the C.O.'s door and ask if there's anything left?” They both laughed at the thought.

“I think I can dig something up for you somewhere else.” He glanced at his watch, as she looked at him. What was there about this man? There was something about him that kept making her want to reach out, to ask him who he really was, to find out more. There was something one couldn't know, and yet which one sensed about him. But he smiled up at her now, and he looked young again. “Would you be terribly offended if we check out the kitchen? I'll bet I can get you a real meal there, if you'd like that.”

She held up a graceful hand. “A sandwich would be great.”

“Let's see what we can do.” They headed back to his jeep, and drove swiftly to the long Quonset hut where the men's meals were prepared, and twenty minutes later, she was seated on a long bench faced with a plate of hot stew. It wasn't what she would have picked for a hot jungle night, but she was so hungry and it had been such a long night, that the steaming concoction actually tasted good, and Ward Thayer had a plate of it too. “Just like ‘21’, eh?” He glanced at her with his cynical grin again and she laughed.

“More or less … except it's not hash …” She teased and he winced.

“Oh God, don't say that word. If the cook hears you, hell be only too happy to oblige.” The two of them laughed again, and Faye was suddenly reminded of midnight suppers after school proms back home and suddenly she began to laugh harder as she looked at him, and he cocked an eyebrow over the handsome blue eyes. “I'm glad you're amused. This place hasn't struck me funny in well over a year.” But he looked happier now. He was enjoying her company and it showed, and nibbling at the stew, she explained it to him.

'You know … just like after the prom … when you have breakfast in some diner at five A.M. … this is sort of like that, isn't it?” She looked around the harshly lit room and his eyes followed hers and then searched her face again.

“Where'd you grow up?” They were almost friends now. They had been together for hours, and there was something about being together in a war zone. Everything was different here. Faster, more personal, more intense. It was all right to ask questions one would never have asked anywhere else, and to reach out in ways that otherwise one wouldn't have dared.

She answered him thoughtfully. “Pennsylvania.”

“Did you like it?”

“Not much. We were dirt poor. All I wanted was to get the hell out, which I did, the minute I graduated from high school.”

He smiled. It was difficult to imagine her dirt poor anywhere, and least of all in some hick town.

“What about you? Where are you from, Lieutenant?”

“Ward. Or did you forget my name again?” She blushed as he teased. “I grew up in L.A.” He seemed loathe to add more, and she wasn't quite sure why.

“You going back there after … afterwards?” She hated the word “war,” and by now so did he. It had already cost him a lot, too much, there were wounds now that would never heal, even if they weren't the kind she could see. But instinctively she knew that they were there.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Are your folks there?” She was curious about him, this sad, cynical, handsome young man, with the secrets he didn't want to reveal, as they ate their stew in the ugly, brightly lit mess hall on Guadalcanal. There were stiff blackout covers on all the windows, so the impression was that there were no windows at all. They were both used to that.

“My folks are both dead.” He looked evenly at her, something dead in his own eyes. He had said the word too often by now.

“I'm sorry.”

“We weren't close anyway.” But still … her eyes searched his again as he stood up. “More stew, or something more exotic for dessert? They tell me there's an apple pie hidden somewhere.” His eyes smiled and she laughed.

“No thanks. There's no room in costumes like this for apple pie.” She glanced down at the silver lame dress, and for the first time in several hours, so did he. He was getting used to her looking like that. It was different from Kathy of course … so different in her starched white … and eventually, the fatigues she wore….

He disappeared for a moment and then returned with a small plate of fruit and a tall glass of iced tea. It was more precious than wine here, ice being almost impossible to make. But he had filled the glass with the precious ice cubes, and she had been on tour often enough to know what a rare gift this was. She seemed to savour each mouthful of the chill drink as a few men came and went, staring openly at her. But she seemed not to mind. She was used to it. She smiled casually at them, always turning her eyes back to Ward, and now she had to stifle a small yawn, as he pretended to look crushed and shook his head, mocking her. He teased a lot, and there was something funny about him. And at the same time something sad.

“Funny, they always do that after talking to me. I put them to sleep every time.” She laughed and took another sip of the iced tea.

“If you'd been up since four o'clock this morning, you'd be yawning too. I suppose you officers hang around in bed until noon around here.” She knew it wasn't true, but she liked teasing him, it quenched some of the sadness in his eyes and she sensed that he needed that. And he looked at her oddly then.

“What makes you do this, Faye?” He suddenly dared to use her first name and he wasn't sure why, but it felt good on his lips, and she didn't seem to mind. She said nothing about it anyway.

“Some kind of a need I guess … to repay all the good things that have happened to me. I never really feel I deserve it all. And you have to pay your dues in life.” It was the kind of thing Kathy would have said and tears almost filled his eyes. He had never felt that kind of a need, to pay “dues,” to repay anyone for how fortunate he had been. And now he didn't feel fortunate anymore anyway. Not since …

“Why do women always feel a need to pay dues?”

“That has nothing to do with it. Some men do too. Don't you, in a way? Don't you want to do something nice for the next guy, if something good happens to you?”

His eyes grew rock hard as he looked at her. “Nothing good has happened to me in a hell of a long time … at least not since I've been here.”

“You're alive, aren't you, Ward?” Her voice was soft beneath the bright lights where they sat, but her eyes bore into him.

“Sometimes that's not enough.”

“Yes, it is. In a place like this, that's a lot to be grateful for. Look around you every day … look at the boys wounded and crippled and maimed … the ones who're never going home at all….” Something about the tone of her voice bore straight to his heart and for the first time in four months, he had to fight back tears.

“I try hard not to look at that.”

“Maybe you should. Maybe it'll make you glad you're alive.” She wanted to reach him, to touch the place that hurt so much. She wondered what it was, as slowly he stood up.

“I don't give a damn anymore, Faye. If I live or die, it's all the same to me and everyone else.”

'That's a terrible thing to say.” She looked shocked and almost hurt as she stared up at him. “What could possibly make you feel like that?”

He looked down at her for an endless moment, silently begging himself not to say anything more, and suddenly wishing she'd go away. But he stared at her, she seemed not to move at all, and suddenly he didn't give a damn who he told. What difference did it make now? “I got married six months ago, to an army nurse, and two months after that she was killed by a fucking Jap bomb. It's kind of hard to feel good about this place after that. You know what I mean?”

She sat frozen in her seat, and then slowly nodded her head. So that was it. That was the emptiness she saw in his eyes. She wondered if he'd always be like that, or if he'd come alive again. One day. Maybe. “I'm sorry, Ward.” There wasn't much else one could say. There were other stories much like this, some worse. But that was no consolation to him.

“I'm sorry.” He smiled a quiet smile. There was no point dumping it on her. It wasn't her fault. And she was so different from Kathy. Kathy was so quiet and plain and he had been so desperately in love with her. And this woman was all beauty and flash, worldly right down to the tip of every brightly polished nail. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tell you something like that. There are a thousand stories like that here.” She knew that there were and she had heard most of them before, but that didn't make them any easier to hear. She felt terrible for him, and as she followed him slowly back out to the jeep, she was glad she hadn't had dinner with the CO. after all, and she told him so, as he turned to her with that quiet half smile of his that somehow appealed to her, more than any smile she'd seen in Hollywood, at least in the last year or two.

“That's a nice thing to say.”

She wanted to touch his arm, but she didn't dare. She wasn't just Faye Price the actress now, she was herself. “I mean it, Ward.”

“Why? You don't have to feel sorry for me, Faye. I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself. I have for a long time.” But she saw more than that. She saw what Kathy had, and more. She knew how desperately hurt he was, how lonely, how shocked still by the pretty little nurse's death … his wife … it had happened two months after they got married, to the day, but he didn't tell Faye that bitter detail as he drove her back to the tent she'd been assigned. “I still think it's damn nice of you to come out here to see the men.”

“Thanks.”

He stopped the jeep, and they sat looking at each other for a long time, each with a lot more to say, but no way to say it here. Where did one start? How did one begin? He had read about her affair with Gable years before, and he wondered if it was over now. She wondered how long he would pine for the army nurse he had loved.

“Thank you for dinner.” She said it with a shy smile and he laughed as he opened the door for her.

“I told you … it's just like ‘21’ …”

“Next time I'll try the hash.” They were back to joking again, it seemed to be the only route open to them, but as he walked her to the door of her tent, and pulled the flaps back for her, there was something more in his eyes, something quiet and deep and alive in a way he hadn't been a few hours before.