young Indiana farmboy, tried to watch the Major from the corner of his eye as the Major looked over his equipment. He would have been better off if he had not worried. His equipment was excellent. S/Sgt Judson said “You’re at attention, Prisoner. That mean eyes, too” without turning or even lowering his notebook and swung his grub hoe handle backhand by one end like a man warming up with a bat, across his chest loosely, all in one movement lightly, from where it hung at his side loosely just aft of the balance. The flat of the headend caught the farmboy accurately with just the right force in the side of the head without touching the vulnerable temple and the farmboy began to walk sideways, tacking off across the barrack as if he had decided to go away from this place, but his knees went out from under him almost immediately and he hit the floor on his face tiredly without getting far. S/Sgt Judson said “Pick him up” without looking up from his notebook that he was entering the demerit in, and the two men on either side jumped out and stood him up and started him back but his knees sagged as soon as they let go and he started down again so they just stood and held him up by his armpits helplessly and looked guiltily, as if it was their fault he would not stand up, at S/Sgt Judson. S/Sgt Judson said “Slap his face” as he and the Major moved on to the next bunk, and one of them slapped him and he came back enough to control his legs although he looked like he resented it. His head was bleeding some and some of the blood was on the floor where he had fallen and S/Sgt Judson said “Get a rag and wipe that blood up, Murdock, before it dries and you have to scrub it” as he and the Major came out into the aisle again to move on to the next bunk. The boy turned to his shelf, where there was no rag, and stopped. Then he had an inspiration. He got his GI khaki handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood up carefully dreamily and then as an afterthought wiped off his head too, still looking as if he was listening to a faroff musical concert of infinite beauty, and put the khaki GI handkerchief back into his hip pocket meticulously. By this time the Major and S/Sgt Judson were already finished with the last bunk which was only four up from the boy’s, and on their way to the door where the two riotgunned giants stepped aside for them while the third giant outside unlocked the doors.
S/Sgt Judson stopped in the door, without looking to see if the blood was wiped up, and said “At ease. Rest” and was gone. The guard outside locked the doors after him and followed. A sort of collective silent sigh seemed to go up from the barrack.
Cautiously at first like accident victims who dont know yet if they’re hurt, then with increasing confidence, the men inside began to move around stiffly, vague-eyed and self-conscious like bus passengers stretching after a long ride. They cleared their throats and began to talk loudly against a great silence which they could not dent and rolled themselves cigarets out of their Duke’s Mixture thirstily, avoiding the three casualties guiltily in the same way combat soldiers avoid their own wounded.
Prew stood by himself, without smoking. He wanted one, bad, but he would not let himself smoke one. He watched the others coldly, feeling himself begin to fill up slowly like a large bucket under a hard-pouring tap with the greatest disgust he had ever felt in his life. He did not know whether the greatest part of this disgust was directed at them or at the Major and S/Sgt Judson. Or at himself, for being a member of the human race. But he did know, with a kind of first-dawning understanding, why Angelo and Jack Malloy and Beer Belly Berry not only preferred to be in Number Two barrack, but were proud of it. He would be proud of it, too, when he got in Number Two, and he wanted to get there now, in a hurry.
Stonily he sat himself on the floor at the end of his bunk until the whistles blew Work Call, and the men seemed to sense his distaste because they left him alone and none of them tried to talk to him. Only when the rest of them had eased off from that first hungry smoke, did he compromise and let himself roll a cigaret.
The men did not try to tal