songs roam in their heads … remembering her face … her arms … her legs … the mouth that seemed to kiss them, and then exploded into laughter and then grew serious again. They all remembered the look in her eyes when she had left them. They would remember it for months. Right now it was all they had. And Faye knew that. It was her gift to them.
“She's some woman.” The words were spoken by a thick-necked sergeant, and were unlike him. But no one was surprised. Faye Price brought something special out in each of them. Their guts, their hearts, their hopes.
“Yeah …” An echo voiced a thousand times that night by the men who had seen her, and the men who hadn't, who had been forced to be on duty, tried to pretend they didn't feel cheated. And in the end, they didn't have to pretend at all. Her request was unusual, but quickly granted, and the CO. was obviously surprised when he heard of it. He had even assigned his aide to take her around. She had requested permission to tour the base, to meet the men on duty that night. By midnight, she had shaken hands with everyone. So that the men who hadn't seen her performance had met her face to face instead, looking into those incredible green eyes, feeling the strong cool hand she extended, smiling awkwardly at her words. And in the end, each one felt he had been special … those who had heard her singing, and those whom she had come to see instead. Suddenly, men were sorry they hadn't been on duty, so that she would have come to see them. But all in all, everyone was pleased. And at twelve thirty she turned to the young man who had taken her around the base, and she saw something warm and friendly in his eyes. He hadn't looked that way at first. But slowly, she had won him over, as she had everyone else. He had wanted to say something to her about it all night, but there had never been quite the right time. He had been so skeptical about her at first, the cool Miss Faye Price from Hollywood … who did she think she was, coming to show off for the men on Guadalcanal? They'd been through enough, they'd seen it all. They'd already survived Midway and the Coral Sea, and the hideous naval battles it had taken to win and keep Guadalcanal. What did she know about it, Ward Thayer thought to himself as he first looked at her. But after all these hours at her side, he had begun to see her differently. She cared. She cared a lot. He read it in her eyes. Watching her meet the men's eyes, totally oblivious of her own charms, reaching out only to them with something they had never felt before made you care about her as well. There was a kind of warmth and compassion about her that in turn enhanced her already incredible sexual appeal. There were a thousand things the young lieutenant wanted to say to her as the night wore on, but it was only after she had finished her rounds that she seemed to notice him at all. She turned to him with a tired smile, and for an instant he wanted to reach out and touch her hand, almost to see if she was real. He almost wanted to comfort her. She had had a long, hard night. But then again, they had had a long, hard year … two years.
“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