The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [125]
“Oh God, are you kidding?”
Welty completed the task, the sound of the tin can opening, replied in a whisper.
“Gotta eat.”
“No, you don’t. I don’t. Can’t even think about it. What the hell is that?”
“Stew I think. Don’t much matter. The rain fills up the can fast as I can eat it. It’s like … seconds.”
Adams had grown used to Welty’s amazing ability to ignore his surroundings, but this was pushing him too far. He felt the twist in his stomach, bent low, a convulsive surge driving hard up through his throat, the sharp groan. But there was nothing inside of him, just the painful grip of his stomach muscles.
“Hey, you got the dry heaves again? Oh crap. You want me to take your watch? Sit back down.”
Adams tried to relax his insides, stood slowly, knew he was exposed from the chest up, ignored that, nothing at all to be seen in the thick wet darkness. He tried to take a deep breath, find some way to cleanse the air in his lungs. The smells were a part of him, had filled his brain and his insides to capacity, but the thought of Welty’s stew and rainwater had been the last dismal straw.
“I’m okay. You enjoy your dinner. You twisted bastard.”
Welty ignored the insults, had heard them before.
“You’ll get used to it. You’re not a newbie anymore. And no matter what you feel like now … you gotta eat. At least drink some water. Got a full canteen here. What you don’t drink, you can lube your piece. Or hell, rub it all over your skin. You’re the one who thought gun oil would keep the damn fleas off you. The stuff in this damn canteen’s gotta be pretty close.”
Adams stared into the rain, water dripping from the brim of his helmet. He had done all he could to ignore Welty’s strange behavior, had kept the thoughts away that Welty seemed to like this, or that maybe he was just going nuts. It had happened to others, men suddenly crawling up out of their holes, calling out to someone, a girl, their mothers, the brutal conditions so complete that their brains had just abandoned them, gone off somewhere else. Most of those men did not survive long, and the ones who had were back in some place Adams didn’t want to think of. He had known a few of those in the hospital in San Diego, the ones who had gone Asian, who simply fell apart. It was a fear he still held on to, that it might be him, that the paralyzing panic would eat away at what sense he had left. But now, in the driving rain, with his buddy chomping down rain-filled stew, Adams could not escape the fear that he might be the only sane man left in the platoon.
With the gray light came the same amazing scene, rolling muddy hills, blasted clean of brush, the rain revealing even more bones, scraps of cloth, pieces of bodies. Adams kept his helmet low, peered up every minute or so, nothing changing but the slow drift of dense fog. Close to either side of him, the tops of helmets were just visible, some men moving inside the sanctuary of their foxholes. He examined the M-1, dripping water, mud on the stock, on the barrel, thought of the drill sergeant, nameless now, some huge monster of a man who tormented the recruits in San Diego, who would find the slightest smudge on a rifle barrel and punish you by making a man lick a dirty rifle clean. But saliva wasn’t clean, of course, so the recruit would then use his own toothbrush, soaked in gun oil, then, when the rifle was thoroughly brushed, the DI would make the man brush his teeth. It was obscenely idiotic, and Adams remembered every detail now, stared at the mud and rain on his rifle, wanted to laugh. Hey, asshole, what about this?