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By Root 344 0

the dismissal by the German hospital doctors, and his inability to fight back in any way against them—all this overwhelmed him. He wanted a drink, three or four drinks, so bad that he was surprised. He had never needed liquor. But now, without hesitating any longer, he turned and started walking toward the avenue that led to the Officers’ Club. He felt for one moment a sense of shame that he was not going home. It was a quiet night at the club. There were some officers at the bar, but no music or dancing and only a few women. Mosca had three shots of whisky very quick. It worked like magic. He could feel the tension flow out of his body, the fear, and he saw everything in-correct proportion, that Hella had only a bad tooth and that the people who seemed such implacable enemies were only obeying laws imposed by others.

One of the officers at the bar said to him, “Your friend Eddie is upstairs shooting crap.” Mosca nodded acknowledgment and another officer said with a grin, “Your other buddy is up there too, the adjutant He's celebrating making major.”

“I gotta have a drink on that,” Mosca said and they laughed. Mosca unbuttoned his jacket and lit a cigar and had a few more drinks. He felt warm and sure that things would turn out all right. Hell, it was only a toothache, and he knew Hella was extra-sensitive to pain. It was funny how she had courage in everything except physical pain, he thought. She was a real coward about that Not coward; he felt a sudden rush of anger at himself that he thought of such a word in connection with her. But she cried easy. And now some of the warmness left him. In the inside pocket of his open jacket he caught a flash of white and remembered that a few days ago Hella had written her first letter to his mother and he had forgotten to mail it His mother had written asking for a letter and pictures of the baby. Mosca left the bar and dropped the letter in the mailbox in the hall. He hesitated for a moment, somewhere in his mind was a faint warning not to go up, but the whisky clouded over it. He wait upstairs to the game room.

Eddie was at a corner of the table, in one hand a small sheaf of dollar scrip bills. The adjutant was opposite him and there was something strange about the adjutant. Hie ingenuous face was flushed and twisted into an expression of slyness. Mosca felt a sense of shock. Christ, the guy was loaded. For one moment he thought of turning and going out. But then curiosity made him go to the dice table. He thought, Lets see if the bastard gets human on a drunk.

Eddie asked, “How's your girl?”

Mosca said, “All right.” A waiter came upstairs and into the room with a tray of drinks.

The game was slow—relaxation, not gambling. Mosca liked it that way tonight. He made small bets, talking casually to Eddie.

The adjutant was the only one playing with gusto. He tried everything to goad the players into higher action. When his turn came to shoot he laid down thirty dollars. Only ten was faded. He offered bets in various fashions, but the players, seemingly out of perversity, refused to become excited and continued to bet in one- or five-dollar amounts.

Mosca felt a little guilty. He thought,/could leave and go home and see how Hella is and then go to Yergen. But in another hour the club would close for the night. He decided to stay.

Hie adjutant, looking now for any kind of excitement and giving up hope of finding it in the game, said to Mosca, “I hear you had your Frauldn out to the base for some free medical treatment. You should know better than that, Walter.” It was the first time he had ever used Mosca's given name.

One of the officers said, “For Christ sake, relax, don't talk shop in the club.’

And in that moment Mosca knew why he had stayed, why he had come to the club. He tried to make himself leave now, tried to make his body move away from the table, tried to take his hands off the green felt. But the cruel satisfaction rose in his body and flooded over his mind and reason. All the humiliations and defeats of the past week poisoned his blood, the vessels of his brain.