Whistle Read Free

much lived by superstition. We had to. When all of knowledge and of past experience had been utilized, the outcome of a firefight, or a defense or an attack, depended largely on luck. Awe of and reverence for the inexplicable, that heart of the dedicated gambler’s obsession, was the only religion that fit our case. We followed a God which coldly incorporated luck within Itself, as one of Its major tools. For a commander, give us the commander who had luck. Let the others have the educated, prepared commanders.
    We were like the dim early human who watched his mud hut destroyed by lightning and created God to explain it. Our God could be likened to a Great Roulette Wheel, more than anything.
    We had thought the God looked warmly on us, or at least our company. Now it seemed the Wheel was rolling the other way.
    There was nothing to do about it. As superstitious men, we understood that. That was part of the rules.
    We could only not step on the crack, not walk under the ladder, try not to let the black cat cross our line of advance in front.
    But it was difficult to accept, without fear. That the old company could change so completely. Become the home, the family, the company of some other group. It was about the last thing we had left.
    “Well—” one of us said, and cleared his throat massively. It sounded like a shotgun fired in a barrel. We all knew what this man meant, too. He did not want to pursue it. Otherwise, might not some of the bad luck rub off?
    “But all four of them at once,” someone said.
    “Do you think one of them might get shipped here?” someone else said.
    “If we could get Winch here,” one said.
    “Yeah, it would be like old times,” another said.
    Anyway, we could get some inside scoop firsthand,” someone said. “Instead of letters.”
    “Speaking of letters,” another said, and got up. “Speaking of letters, I guess we might as well get on with our chores. Huh?”
    At once, two or three men got up with him and moved away toward a couple of clean tables. Almost at once, two other men followed and joined them. Paper, pens, and pencils appeared, and post cards, envelopes, and stamps.
    In the sweet, reassuring, late-summer slant of Southern sun which exploded in a dazzle below against all that white, they began to write the letters that would pass the news on to the other hospitals across the country. Some wrote with their tongues sticking out of their mouth corners.
    The rest of us went on sitting. There was curiously little talk for a while. Then there was a sudden wave of signals for more coffee. Then we went on sitting. Most of us stared at the white walls or the white ceiling.
    We were all thinking about the four of them. The four of them could legitimately be said to be almost the heart of the old company. Now those four were making the same strange trip home. We had all of us made it. It was a weird, strange, unreal voyage. We had made it either on the big fast planes, or on the slow white ships with the huge red crosses on their sides, as these four were doing.
    We sat there in our demiworld of white, thinking about the four men making it as we ourselves had done. We wondered if those four were feeling the same peculiar sense of dislocation, the same sense of total disassociation and nonparticipation we ourselves had had.

CHAPTER 2
    W INCH WAS LOAFING in his cabin when the word passed that Stateside landfall had been made. Some breathless hysterical trooper stuck his head in, bawled out the news, and rushed away.
    At once it seemed the whole ship was galvanized. Winch listened to steps running back and forth across the transverse corridor outside. His four cabinmates put down their cards, and began tightening their bathrobes to go on deck.
    They were all staff/sgts or above in the crowded cabin. Morning rounds, about which the day was strictly centered in Army hospitals, and which on this Godforsaken meat wagon were only a grotesque formality anyway, were over. They were free to