"What'd he die of?"
"Lack of spirit." The doctor stifled a yawn. His teeth were stained and dirty, and his hair lank and dirty, and his hands pink and spotless.
"You mean will to live?"
"That's one way of looking at it." The doctor glowered up at the King.
"That's one thing you won't die of, isn't it?"
"Hell no. Sir."
"What makes you so invincible?" Dr. Kennedy asked, hating this huge body which exuded health and strength.
"I don't follow you. Sir."
"Why are you all right, and all the rest not?"
"I'm just lucky," the King said and started to leave. But the doctor caught his shirt.
"It can't be just luck. It can't. Maybe you're the devil sent to try us further!
You're a vampire and a cheat and a thief…"
"Listen, you. I've never thieved or cheated in my life and I won't take that from anyone."
"Then just tell me how you do it? How? That's all I want to know. Don't you see? You're the answer for all of us. You're either good or evil and I want to know which you are."
"You're crazy," the King said, jerking his arm away.
"You can help us…"
"Help yourself. I'm worrying about me. You worry about you." The King noticed how Dr. Kennedy's white coat hung away from his emaciated chest. "Here," he said, giving him the remains of a pack of Kooas. "Have a cigarette. Good for the nerves. Sir." He wheeled around and strode out, shuddering. He hated hospitals. He hated the stench and the sickness and the impotence of the doctors.
The King despised weakness. That doctor, he thought, he's for the big jump, the son of a bitch. Crazy guy like that won't last long. Like Masters, poor guy! Yet maybe Masters wasn't a poor guy — he was Masters and he was weak and therefore no goddamned good. The world was a jungle, and the strong survived and the weak should die. It was you or the other guy. That's right. There is no other way.
Dr. Kennedy stared at the cigarettes blessing his luck. He lit one. His whole body drank the nicotine sweet. Then he went into the ward, over to Johnny Carstairs, DSO, Captain, 1st Tank Regiment, who was almost a corpse.
"Here," he said, giving him the cigarette.
"What about you, Dr. Kennedy?"
"I don't smoke, never have."
"You're lucky." Johnny coughed as he took a puff, and a little blood came up with the phlegm. The strain of the cough contracted his bowels and blood-liquid gushed out of him, for his anus muscles had long since collapsed.
"Doc," Johnny said. "Put my boots on me, will you, please? I've got to get up."
The old man looked all around. It was hard to see, for the ward's night light was dimmed and carefully screened.
"There aren't any," he said, peering myopically back at Johnny as he sat on the edge of the bed.
"Oh. Well, that's that then."
"What sort of boots were they?"
A thin rope of tears welled from Johnny's eyes. "Kept those boots in good shape. Those boots marched me a lifetime. Only thing I had left."
"Would you like another cigarette?"
"Just finishing, thanks."
Johnny lay back in his own filth.
"Pity about my boots," he said.
Dr. Kennedy sighed and took off his laceless boots and put them on Johnny's feet. "I've got another pair," he lied, then stood up barefoot, an ache in his back.
Johnny wriggled his toes,, enjoying the feel of the roughed leather. He tried to look at them but the effort was too much.
"I'm dying," he said.
"Yes," the doctor said. There was a time - was there ever a time? - when he would have forced his best bedside manner. No reason now.
"Pretty pointless, isn't it, Doc? Twenty-two years and nothing. From nothing, into nothing."
An air current brought the promise of dawn into the ward.
"Thanks for the loan of your boots," Johnny said. "Something I always promised myself. A man's got to have boots."
He died.
Dr. Kennedy took the boots off Johnny and put them back on his own feet.
"Orderly," he called out as he saw one on the veranda.
"Yes, sir?" Steven said brightly, coming over to him, a pail of diarrhea in his left hand.
"Get the corpse detail to take this one. Oh yes, and you can take Sergeant Masters' bed as well."
"I simply can't do everything, Colonel," Steven said, putting down the pail.
"I've got to get three bedpans for Beds Ten, Twenty-three and Forty-seven.
And poor Colonel Hutton is so uncomfortable, I've just got to change his dressing." Steven looked down at the bed and shook his head. "Nothing but dead —"
"That's the job, Steven. The least we can do is bury them. And the quicker the better."
"I suppose so. Poor boys." Steven sighed and daintily patted the perspiration from his forehead with a clean handkerchief. Then he replaced the handkerchief in the pocket of his white Medical overalls, picked up the pail, staggered a little under its weight, and walked out the door.
Dr. Kennedy despised him, despised his oily black hair, his shaven armpits and shaven legs. At the same time, he could not blame him.
Homosexuality was one way to survive. Men fought over Steven, shared their rations with him, gave him cigarettes — all for the temporary use of his body. And what, the doctor asked himself, what's so disgusting about it anyway? When you think of "normal sex," well, clinically it's just as disgusting.
His leathery hand absently scratched his scrotum, for the itch was bad tonight. Involuntarily he touched his sex. It was feelingless. Gristle.
He remembered that he had not had an erection for months. Well, he thought, it's only the low nutriment diet. Nothing to worry about. As soon as we get out and get regular food, then everything will be all right. A man of forty-three is still a man.
Steven came back with the corpse detail. The body was put on a stretcher and taken out. Steven changed the single blanket. In a moment another stretcher was carried in and the new patient helped into bed.
Automatically Dr. Kennedy took the man's pulse.
"The fever'll break tomorrow," he said. "Just malaria."
"Yes, Doctor." Steven looked up primly. "Shall I give him some quinine?"
"Of course you give him quinine!"
"I'm sorry, Colonel," Steven said tartly, tossing his head. "I was just asking. Only doctors are supposed to authorize drugs."
"Well, give him quinine and for the love of God, Steven, stop trying to pretend you're a blasted woman."
"Well!" Steven's link bracelets jingled as he bridled and turned back to the patient. "It's quite unfair to pick on a person, Dr. Kennedy, when one's trying to do one's best." Dr. Kennedy would have ripped into Steven, but at that moment Dr. Prudhomme walked into the ward. "Evening, Colonel."
"Oh, hello." Dr. Kennedy turned to him thankfully, realizing it would have been stupid to tear into Steven. "Everything all right?"
"Yes. Can I see you a moment?"