cup and some GI pencils to sell, when they let me out of this”?” Prell said from the bed.
“They’ll do better than that,” Winch said. “They’ll give you a pension. And a leather leg. So you can go down to the American Legion on Saturday nights and show the boys your stump and tell them how you fought the war in the South Pacific. Just don’t tell them about your squad.”
“You son of a bitch,” Prell said. His voice did not increase in tone or volume, but the timbre of it got taunt, vibrant. “I’ll kill you when I get out of this. That’s a promise. I’ll spend the rest of my life looking you up, if it takes the rest of my life, and kill your sharecropping ass.”
“I don’t think so,” Winch said. “I’ll probably be dead long before you’re well enough to do anything.” There was probably more truth in that than he realized when he said it, Winch thought, and grinned. Oh, well. He would be his enemy. Everybody needed one enemy.
“At least, you won’t be going around leading any squads into any death traps,” he said.
The Indian eyes of Prell glittered at him from the bed. He didn’t answer.
“I think you’d better go,” the ward nurse said nervously from beside Winch, “really.”
“Okay. Well, take it easy, kid,” he said. “Keep fighting.” He turned on his heel.
Outside in the corridor he had to lean against the wall. He felt drained and absolutely gray all over, and had to suck in energy with his breath.
“Jesus Christ, Top,” Strange protested beside him. “What did you have to do that for?”
“Shut up,” Winch hissed, “you dumbass. Get the fuck away from me, and leave me alone.”
After a minute Winch straightened up, and headed back for his ward. Strange had only walked off ten steps away, and fell in step beside him.
Four days later, or perhaps it was five, Prell miraculously began to mend. It took that long to note the signs, and it took several days longer to be sure the signs were real and weren’t just temporary manifestations. As if nothing had even been wrong with it, except getting broken, the leg began to heal. The bone to knit. Strange found it hard to believe. He had been expecting a serious relapse, after Winch’s visit. In any case, Prell was mending, and the crisis they had all been waiting for for so long was past. Certainly Strange gave no credit to Winch’s visit. Rather the reverse. Winch had lost control of himself. Strange felt it showed how far gone the old 1st/sgt was, after whatever it was had happened to him. Strange and Landers spent a lot of time with Prell, and Strange noted that never once did Prell ever mention or refer to his conversation with Winch. It struck Strange that he would not like to be Winch, when Prell did get up and around.
Winch himself didn’t know what to think. He could not believe that what he had done had had that much effect. The change was too precipitous, too sudden and dramatic, for him to believe his action had caused it. Prell must already have been beginning to heal when Winch came to see him, if it could happen that fast. So, or so Winch felt, the whole thing had been a waste.
Landers had a theory of his own. Strange had told him, and sworn him to secrecy, about the scene with Winch; but Landers didn’t think that had anything to do with it one way or the other. A few days after the good news concerning Prell had circulated, he had run into Col Curran along one of the brick-columned walkways and Curran had stopped him.
“You know I’ve been wanting to tell you this, but I haven’t had the chance,” Curran said, with his weirdly merry grin Landers had been getting to dislike. “Do you remember something you told me that day you came to see me? About if we couldn’t give him something more, why didn’t we take something away?”
“No, I don’t,” Landers said. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, you did. And it set me to thinking. I spent half a night going over Prell’s case all by myself, because of it. Well, I found something nobody else had noticed. You know, all of you men from the South Pacific are still taking atabrine. Because of the malaria. You’re supposed to keep taking it for four months after you get back.” He leaned forward with his