Once a Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page A

boldly up to the table and asked him if he was saving that empty chair for someone. He’d taken one look at her abundant breasts and promptly pulled it out for her. Now if he could just recall the name she’d shouted at him over the swoony blare of “I’ve Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good ” . . .
    Bully’s on Broadway was the best juke joint and the worst kept secret in town. Soldiers, sailors and marines stood three deep at the bar, seeking a respite from the constant drumbeat of war news coming out of Asia and Europe. Between drags on their cigarettes and drinks from their bottles or glasses, they eyed the women dressed in their Friday night best who were coming in the door. Not to be outdone, the women eyed them right back.
    The couples who’d already connected were dancing beneath dimmed lights and dangling strands of leftover Christmas tinsel. Raucous cheers from the craps table in the next room said that some lucky sonovagun had made his point. An interservice-shouting match near the jukebox had attracted the bouncer, who was trying to break it up before it escalated into a fistfight.
    The loud music and even louder voices fell on deaf ears as Mike concentrated on his own battle plan. His objective was simple. First, he wanted to talk Blondie into leaving the bar with him; second, he wanted to take her to bed. The obstacles he faced, however, were a hell of a lot more complicated.
    For one thing, he’d taken an oath to conduct himself as an officer and a gentleman. So far he’d managed to remember he was the former. But given the golden opportunity that had landed in his lap, he was increasingly hard-pressed to remain the latter.
    And for another, he was running out of time. He’d been ordered to report to Camp Shanks, New York, with seven days leave home enroute. After eight months of training other men to become overseas replacements, he knew damned good and well what that meant. It was his turn to ship out.
    Mike finally resolved his dilemma with a maneuver as smooth as any he’d ever directed on a field of fire. He picked up the brown glass bottle with his left hand and slid his right from the cradle of the blonde’s slender waist to the side of her lush breast. Mission accomplished, he crowed silently when his wandering thumb encountered an erect nipple beneath her tight black sweater.
    “And people say we don’t know what we’re fighting for,” he toasted dryly, before taking a drink of beer.
    Blondie jiggled when she giggled.
    First Lieutenant John Brown and his fiancé, Kitty Martin, were too engrossed in each other to notice the shenanigans going on across the table from them. They exuded intimacy, sitting as close together as their chairs allowed. His right arm was draped across her shoulders and her cheek rested against his uniformed chest.
    “I know what I’m fighting for,” John said around the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
    Obviously tipsy from that second gin rickey she’d just finished, Kitty looked up and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously at him. They’d met at Randolph Field, Texas, where she’d been a typist and he an Army Air Corps cadet. Even though they weren’t yet formally engaged when he received his commission, she’d quit her job to follow him from training camp to training camp—and, ultimately, to Kansas City.
    “What’re you fighting for, Flyboy?” she demanded in a voice that was more slurred than sultry.
    Still nursing his first beer, John was drunk on love and happiness. And why not?  He’d completed his combat training with a “very high” rating and was scheduled to report to Chatham Field, Georgia, next week to begin final processing for assignment overseas. To top it off, he was going to marry the most beautiful girl in the world before he left.
    His answering grin was almost sappy. “I’m fighting for the right to spend the rest of my life with you.”
    Kitty’s reaction to his declaration shook him to the core. She sat bolt