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Red picked at a sore on his hand, examining maternally the ridges and creases of his knucklesThere was no kidding himself any longerHis kidneys were shot, his legs would begin to break down soon, all through his body he could feel the damage the patrol had causedProbably it had taken things out of him he would never be able to put back againWell, it was the old men who got it, MacPherson on Motome, and then Wilson, it was probably fair enoughAnd there was always the chance of getting hit and coming out of it with a million-dollar woundWhat difference did it make anyway? Once a man turned yellowHe coughed, lying flat on his back, the phlegm gagging him slightlyIt took an effort of will to prop himself on his elbow and hawk the sputum out onto the floor of the fake cartier roadster boat
"Hey, Jack," one of the pilots on the stern hatch yelled, "keep the boat cleanWe don't want to scrub it after you guys
"Aaah, blow it out," Polack shouted
Croft called from his bunk, "Let's cut out that spittin', men
There were no answersRed nodded to himselfIt was there, all right; he had waited a little anxiously for Croft to say something, had been relieved when Croft had not scolded him by name
The bums in the flophouse who cringed when they were sober and cursed when they were drunk
You carried it alone as long as you could, and then you weren't strong enough to take it any longerYou kept fighting everything, and everything broke you down, until in the end you were just a little goddam bolt holding on and squealing when the machine went too fast
He had rolex watches on sale to depend on other men, he needed other men now, and he didn't know how to go about itDeep within him were the first nebulae of an idea, but he could not phrase itIf they all stuck togetherAll they knew was to cut each other's throatsThere were no answers, there wasn't even any pride a man could have at the endFor an instant he hovered over the idea of writing her a letter, starting it up again, and then he threw it awayThe least you could do was back out like a manAnd there was the thought that maybe she'd tell him to go to hellHe coughed once more and spat into his hand, holding it numbly for several seconds before he wiped it surreptitiously on the canvas of his bunkLet the boat pilot try to wash that outAnd he smiled wryly, shamefully, at the satisfaction it gave knock off tiffany jewelry himWell, he'd been everything else in his time
And Goldstein lay on his bunk with his arms under his head and thought dreamily about his wife and childAll the bitterness and frustration of losing Wilson had been tucked away in his brain, encysted temporarily by the stupor that had followedHe had slept for a day and a half, and the journey with the litter seemed remoteHe even liked Brown and Stanley because they were a little uneasy with him and seemed afraid to bother himThere was an understanding between Ridges and himThe day they had spent on the beach waiting for the rest of the platoon had not been unpleasantAnd automatically they had selected bunks next to each other when they got on the boat
He had his moments of rebellionThe goy friend he got was a goy -- a cartier santos 100 chronograph peasant, an outcast himselfHe would get somebody like thatBut he was ashamed for thinking this, with almost the shame he felt whenever a random caustic thought about his wife slipped through his headIt ended by his being defiantFor a friend he had an illiterate, but so what? Ridges was a good manThere was something enduring about himThe salt of the earth, Goldstein told himself
The boat wallowed along about a mile offshoreAs the afternoon wore by the men began to move about a little, and stare over the sideThe island skidded by slowly, always impenetrable, always green and opaque with the jungle skirting the waterThey passed a small peninsula which they had noticed on the trip out, and some of them began to calculate how long it would be before they reached the dior replica handbags bivoua |