“Ain't buried 'em yet. It's too rough.”
“What'd they die of?” asked Fuselli eagerly.
“Spinal somethin'....”
“Menegitis,” broke in a man at the end of the line.
“Say, that's awful catchin' ain't it?”
“It sure is.”
“Where does it hit yer?” asked Fuselli.
“Yer neck swells up, an' then you juss go stiff all over,” came the man's voice from the end of the line.
There was a silence. From the direction of the infirmary a man with a packet of medicines in his hand began making his way towards the door.
“Many guys in there?” asked Fuselli in a low voice as the man brushed past him.
When the door closed again the man beside Fuselli, who was tall and broad shouldered with heavy black eyebrows, burst out, as if he were saying something he'd been trying to keep from saying for a long while:
“It won't be right if that sickness gets me; indeed it won't.... I've got a girl waitin' for me at home. It's two years since I ain't touched a woman all on account of her. It ain't natural for a fellow to go so long as that.
“Why didn't you marry her before you left?” somebody asked mockingly.
“Said she didn't want to be no war bride, that she could wait for me better if I didn't.”
Several men laughed.
“It wouldn't be right if I took sick an' died of this sickness, after keepin' myself clean on account of that girl.... It wouldn't be right,” the man muttered again to Fuselli.
Fuselli was picturing himself lying in his bunk with a swollen neck, while his arms and legs stiffened, stiffened.
A red-faced man half way up the passage started speaking:
“When I thinks to myself how much the folks need me home, it makes me feel sort o' confident-like, I dunno why. I juss can't cash in my checks, that's all.” He laughed jovially.
No one joined in the laugh.
“Is it awfully catchin'?” asked Fuselli of the man next him.
“Most catchin' thing there is,” he answered solemnly. “The worst of it is,” another man was muttering in a shrill hysterical voice, “bein' thrown over to the sharks. Gee, they ain't got a right to do that, even if it is war time, they ain't got a right to treat a Christian like he was a dead dawg.”
“They got a right to do anythin' they goddam please, buddy. Who's goin' to stop 'em I'd like to know,” cried the red-faced man.
“If he was an awficer, they wouldn't throw him over like that,” came the shrill hysterical voice again.
“Cut that,” said someone else, “no use gettin' in wrong juss for the sake of talkin'.”
“But ain't it dangerous, waitin' round up here so near where those fellers are with that sickness,” whispered Fuselli to the man next him.
“Reckon it is, buddy,” came the other man's voice dully.
Fuselli started making his way toward the door.
“Lemme out, fellers, I've got to puke,” he said. “Shoot,” he was thinking, “I'll tell 'em the place was closed; they'll never come to look.”
As he opened the door he thought of himself crawling back to his bunk and feeling his neck swell and his hands burn with fever and his arms and legs stiffen until everything would be effaced in the blackness of death. But the roar of the wind and the lash of the spray as he staggered back along the deck drowned all other thought.
Fuselli and another man carried the dripping garbage-can up the ladder that led up from the mess hall. It smelt of rancid grease and coffee grounds and greasy juice trickled over their fingers as they struggled with it. At last they burst out on to the deck where a free wind blew out of the black night. They staggered unsteadily to the rail and emptied the pail into the darkness. The splash was lost in the sound of the waves and of churned water fleeing along the sides. Fuselli leaned over the rail and looked down at the faint phosphorescence that was the only light in the whole black gulf. He had never seen such darkness before. He clutched hold of the rail with both hands, feeling lost and terrified in the blackness, in the roaring of the wind in his ears and the sound of churned water fleeing astern. The alternative was the stench of below decks.
“I'll bring down the rosie, don't you bother,” he said to the other man, kicking the can that gave out a ringing sound as he spoke.
He strained his eyes to make out something. The darkness seemed to press in upon his eyeballs, blinding him. Suddenly he noticed voices near him. Two men were talking.
“I ain't never seen the sea before this, I didn't know it was like this.”
“We're in the zone, now.”
“That means we may go down any minute.”
“Yare.”
“Christ, how black it is.... It'ld be awful to drown in the dark like this.”
“It'ld be over soon.”
“Say, Fred, have you ever been so skeered that...?”
“D'you feel a-skeert?”
“Feel my hand, Fred.... No.... There it is. God, it's so hellish black you can't see yer own hand.”
“It's cold. Why are you shiverin' so? God, I wish I had a drink.”
“I ain't never seen the sea before...I didn't know...”
Fuselli heard distinctly the man's teeth chattering in the darkness.
“God, pull yerself together, kid. You can't be skeered like this.”
“O God.”
There was a long pause. Fuselli heard nothing but the churned water speeding along the ship's side and the wind roaring in his ears.
“I ain't never seen the sea before this time, Fred, an' it sort o' gits my goat, all this sickness an' all.... They dropped three of 'em overboard yesterday.”
“Hell, kid, don't think of it.”
“Say, Fred, if I... if I... if you're saved, Fred, an' not me, you'll write to my folks, won't you?”
“Indeed I will. But I reckon you an' me'll both go down together.”
“Don't say that. An' you won't forget to write that girl I gave you the address of?”
“You'll do the same for me.”
“Oh, no, Fred, I'll never see land.... Oh, it's no use. An' I feel so well an' husky.... I don't want to die. I can't die like this.”
“If it only wasn't so goddam black.”
––––––––
PART TWO: THE METAL COOLS
––––––––
I
––––––––
IT WAS PURPLISH DUSK outside the window. The rain fell steadily making long flashing stripes on the cracked panes, beating a hard