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By Root 13938 0

happen to beat Bloom down; and lay a while, watching the sky greying in the east and the night collecting in a pool between the mountains, feeling sleep like a great predatory cat perched heavily on his chest. He forced himself to push it off him and got up and dressed in fatigues and went down to the kitchen through the cool early greyness that was the best time to sleep. It was deserted when he got there, unhuman with its man-made dead machines squatting in the very early morning, and he sat smoking, feeling as he used to feel crawling out of some boxcar in some strange sleeping town at dawn with no lights anywhere to show him life was not extinct, but glad as he smoked that he was first down.

The fat cook Willard, who got his First Cook’s rating back when Stark made Sergeant, and who was in charge of the shift that would be on duty, was the first one to roll out, and the real trouble started then. Prew heard his alarm, quickly muffled, go off in the cooks’ room; then he came out, soft and fat, still buttoning his pants, and irritably sleepily obnoxious, to light the oil spray stoves and get a pot of coffee on, which was his duty as First Cook.

“Well, look who’s here already,” he ridiculed obscenely, squinch-eyed with sleepy malice. “You must want that easy job plenty bad, to throw away two hours’ sleep to get it.”

“No,” Prew said. “You just think that, because you like to sleep so goddam much.” He did not like the fat cook any better than the rest did, but he did not mind him.

“You sure dint meant to lose that easy job though, did you?” Willard grinned obscenely. “I guess you’d of got up just as early anyway, wouldnt you?”

“Thats right, Fatstuff,” Prew said, sneering the hated nickname, suddenly inflamed by this needling cook who hated to get up and was trying to take it out on him. “What do you want? me to say I always pick the hard jobs, like you?”

“I’m sure glad I dont have to pull KP no more,” Willard needled, grinning, giving the almost boiling coffee one more stir, and setting it off to settle.

“You pull KP ever day, Fatstuff. Only you’re too goddam dumb to know it.”

“At least I get paid extra for it.”

“Through no fault of yours. If you had to eat the food you cook you’d soon be thin, instead of a fat roasting pig.”

“Dont get wise with me, you might find yourself on KP again tomorrow.”

“Up yours,” Prew said, and helped himself to the coffee, deliberately without asking, pouring in a thin stream of the canned milk.

“Thats cooks’ coffee,” Willard said. “Wait till you’re asked.”

“I waited till you asked me I’d be dead. What makes fat men so mean and stingy, Fatstuff? Because they afraid they wont have enough to eat? It must be tough to be a fat man,” he grinned and moved up to the stove warmth, the hot dark liquid scalding down him sweetly, burning away the sleep and early morning chill.

“Goddam you,” Willard glowered. “You’re wise, aint you? I’m telling you, you keep on getting wise with me, you’ll find yourself on KP Payday. I still got enough stripes I dont have to take no KP’s lip.”

“Pullin your rank, ’ey?” Prew grinned, and filled his cup again. “He dishes it out, when he has to take it he pulls his rank. I always knew you were chicken, Fatstuff.”

“You’ll think I’m chicken,” Willard said. “You dont know what chicken is, wise guy. I only hope you get on pots and pans today, wise guy.”

Prew laughed, but not relishing it any more, knowing the fat cook was afraid because he was a fighter, but also knowing Willard would make him pay for this the rest of the day, if he got the chance, simply because he had not kept his mouth shut and taken Willard’s gaff.

The rest of them began to come in then, a sudden influx, and Willard let it drop. The kitchen began to fill with pleasant warmth and bustle that soon turned into unpleasant heat and frantic agitation to get the breakfast out on time. Stark was there, in the middle of it from the first, carrying papers in his hand, already doing tomorrow’s paperwork, but at the same time overseeing everything.

Prew was frying himself eggs and bacon on the corner of