Brief description:
The dust jacket:
Tracy Carpenter wanted an Army career. He was studying hard for his West Point exams while on his first tour as a sergeant with the Okinawa occupational forces, after the close of World War II. Then the CO who had encouraged his ambition was replaced by Major Michael Craig. From that time forward, an evil star seemed to rule every move Tracy made. The inevitable result was disaster.
Accident, error, had luck, faulty judgment, wrong companions—all these contributed to Tracy’s decline and fall, aided and abetted by Major Craig’s obsessive malevolence and implacable hatred for the young enlisted man; yet, in every crucial situation, what Tracy did seemed at the time the only thing he could do. When Major Craig refused him a furlough to take his exams, he reacted exactly as the sinister major had hoped. When the major denied him permission to marry Sutzico, the island girl he loved, he again strengthened his persecutors hand by going AWOL, in despair. Every path seemed to lead downward.
One stirring scene succeeds: another; the movement: never for a moment halts. Wild hinges, furtive amatory affairs, a raid on a bootleggers camp, a typhoon, and knock-down-and-drag-out fist fights all come alive, vivid, completely real.
Tracy Carpenter wanted an Army career. He was studying hard for his West Point exams while on his first tour as a sergeant with the Okinawa occupational forces, after the close of World War II. Then the CO who had encouraged his ambition was replaced by Major Michael Craig. From that time forward, an evil star seemed to rule every move Tracy made. The inevitable result was disaster.
Accident, error, had luck, faulty judgment, wrong companions—all these contributed to Tracy’s decline and fall, aided and abetted by Major Craig’s obsessive malevolence and implacable hatred for the young enlisted man; yet, in every crucial situation, what Tracy did seemed at the time the only thing he could do. When Major Craig refused him a furlough to take his exams, he reacted exactly as the sinister major had hoped. When the major denied him permission to marry Sutzico, the island girl he loved, he again strengthened his persecutors hand by going AWOL, in despair. Every path seemed to lead downward.
One stirring scene succeeds: another; the movement: never for a moment halts. Wild hinges, furtive amatory affairs, a raid on a bootleggers camp, a typhoon, and knock-down-and-drag-out fist fights all come alive, vivid, completely real.
Publication
Vantage Press, (1954) 1st,Hdbk,DJ,,VG