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By Root 4528 0

short, angry, vicious sentences. They used fearful obscenity. There was a half-comic contrast between the formal, apologetic tones of the men on the ships and the bitter heat of the men on shore. It was such an interesting novelty that Willie listened for almost two hours. He had the thrill of hearing one man die in the middle of an incredibly foul stream of cursing. At least he surmised the death, because the man was pleading for naval shelling to eliminate a blockhouse that was spraying him with machine-gun fire; and suddenly his words were cut off. Willie had a vague shameful sense that he was storing up anecdotes for future parlor chats while other men were perishing, and that such behavior showed a want of feeling. But he didn’t turn off the radio.

However, he was troubled at lunch, at one particular instant. He was pouring thick chocolate sauce over his ice cream when a shocking explosion, more violent than any he had heard so far, made the silverware and glasses rattle; it felt palpable in the air against his face. He jumped up, with Keefer and Jorgensen, and ran to the starboard scuttle. Jorgensen yanked the tin wind scoop out of the opening, and the officers peered through. A colossal black cloud was climbing skyward over Namur. Long, ugly vermilion flames licked out of its boiling base. “Main ammunition dump, no doubt,” observed Keefer.

“I hope it blew a few thousand Japs to kingdom come,” said Ensign Jorgensen, adjusting his glasses.

“I doubt that it did.” Keefer returned to his seat. “They’re all in nice deep holes, what’s left of ’em. Some of our guys went up with it, though, that’s for sure.”

Willie stared at the holocaust for a minute or so, while a warm fragrant breeze fanned his face, and Ensign Jorgensen breathed on his neck, audibly chewing meat. Then Willie sat at his place again, and dug his spoon into the mound of white cream attractively laced with brown. It occurred to him that there was an unsettling contrast between himself, eating ice cream, and marines on Namur a few thousand yards away, being blown up. He was not sufficiently unsettled to stop eating the ice cream, but the thought worked around like grit in his mind. At last he spoke it aloud.

The other officers gave him vexed looks. None of them stopped eating their desserts. But Ducely, who was in the habit of dousing his plate with chocolate sauce in quantities that sickened the others, paused in the act of reaching for the sauce; then he poured only a thin spiral of brown on his ice cream, and put the pitcher down furtively.

Keefer, pushing back his clean-scraped plate, said, “Willie, don’t be an ass. War is a business in which a lot of people watch a few people get killed and are damn glad it wasn’t them.” He lit a cigarette. “Tomorrow they may have us sweeping mines in the lagoon. The islands will probably be secured. A lot of marines sitting around on their duffs on the beach, eating lunch, may see us all blown sky-high. None of them will skip a bite.”

“At least they’ll be eating K-rations, not ice cream with sauce,” said Willie. “It’s so-so luxurious, somehow.”

“Look, nobody will court-martial you if you don’t eat your ice cream,” said Keefer.

“We ferried a bunch of marines along the coast one night at Guadal,” said Maryk, spooning up his dessert. “Calm night, but they all got sick as dogs. This marine captain was laying over on that couch. He says, ‘I sure as hell don’t like Guadalcanal, but I’d rather stay on it a year than on this bucket a week.’ He said he’d jump ship if he heard we were going to sweep mines. He says, ‘Of all the lousy deals I know of in this war, sweeping mines is the worst. I don’t know how you guys can sleep nights just knowing you’re on a minesweeper.’ ”

“Can this ship really sweep mines?” said Ducely. “It seems so unbelievable, really-”

“You just handed in an assignment,” said Keefer, “explaining in seven pages exactly how we do it.”

“Oh, that. You know I copied it straight out of the Minesweeping Manual. I don’t even know what the words mean. What is that paravane thing they keep talking about?”