One in 300 (17 page)

 

 

We looked around at a sudden uproar of whistles and wolf calls from the
other men in the ward. Sammy hadn't heard it before, but I had. It meant
Leslie or Aileen had just come in.

 

 

This time it was Leslie. She hurried along the ward, paying no attention
to the chorus of approbation, and stopped at the foot of my bed.

 

 

"I need you, Sammy," she said breathlessly, ignoring me. "It's Morgan again."

 

 

"What's he doing now?" Sammy sighed, hoisting himself up in a way that
showed how glad he must have been to sit down.

 

 

"It's what he's not doing," she told him. "I've done all I can, with no
result. Now you'll have to come and clout his ear."

 

 

"You might have done that yourself, without bothering me," Sammy grumbled.
"Surely you didn't let a little thing like that stop you?"

 

 

"That" was the sling supporting her right arm.

 

 

"Frankly, I did," said Leslie. "Morgan's looking ugly." She took a couple
of quick steps, bent over, and pecked me briefly on the cheek. There was
uproar in the ward again. Then she hustled Sammy out. Apart from that
quick peck she hadn't even glanced at me.

 

 

And odd though it might seem, I was pleased. I hadn't thought Leslie
was going to be as businesslike and brisk and good at handling people
as it seemed she was. I should have known, I suppose. She had been a
schoolteacher, and handling twenty to thirty boisterous kids was probably
good practice for handling a work party.

 

 

So Morgan Smith was giving trouble again, which meant he had been giving
trouble before.

 

 

"Who's this fellow who's making a nuisance of himself?" asked Ritchie
curiously.

 

 

"Morgan Smith. Why?"

 

 

"Oh, sometimes it's useful to know about people who make a nuisance
of themselves."

 

 

I grunted and went back to my thoughts.

 

 

Morgan had been a gamble, but so had they all. I had known all along the
risk that some of the men and women I chose, instead of being the people
who most deserved to live, would be the people above all who should have
been left behind.

 

 

Sammy hadn't been serious, I knew, when he said I was malingering, but
when I looked around the ward it seemed that everyone else there was so
much more seriously hurt than I was that it was high time I was up and
earning my keep, as Sammy said. Besides, if there was any strong-arm stuff
to be done in my work party, I should be the one to do it. Sammy was tough
enough, but slightly built. Leslie, normally, could look after herself,
but not with a broken ulna. John Stowe and Harry Phillips were much older
than Morgan. I was the only one so much stronger and tougher than Morgan
that he'd be ill advised to give me any trouble.

 

 

No one seemed to he asleep. I bellowed: "Nurse!"

 

 

She appeared at once, a rather hard-faced woman who had once, I believed,
been matron of a big London hospital. When she saw who had called for her
she frowned. We knew she had three other wards to look after. We weren't
supposed to bother her more than we could help, and people like me weren't
supposed to bother her at all.

 

 

"I know you're busy, Nurse," I said. "I just want to remove myself from
your charge. Seems there's trouble in my work party, and . . ."

 

 

"Lieutenant," she said wearily, "there's trouble in every work party.
People don't like working fourteen hours a day. When you join your group,
you'll have to give orders, and you'll have to be fit."

 

 

"I know, but . . ."

 

 

"People who can't take orders generally aren't very good at giving them.
Wait till the doctor sees you. When he says you can go, you'll go."

 

 

She didn't wait to hear what I had to say to this, but made her way out
of the ward again.

 

 

"That seems to be that," said Ritchie.

 

 

I ignored him.

 

 

Now that I knew I had to stay where I was, I was even more impatient to
get out of the hospital. Things were going on; Mars was being reshaped, my
ex-crew, now Work Party 94, was working on a job, and I wasn't with them.

 

 

The rain started again soon after that. Considering how little water
there was on Mars, compared with Earth, it was astonishing what the
planet could do with it. I hadn't seen the rain yet, for there were no
windows in our ward, but I'd heard it. Often.

 

 

None of us in the ward knew at first hand what conditions outside were
like, for the recent history of all of us was the same. We had all been
injured in lifeship landings on Mars, and brought straight to the hospital.

 

 

This time the rain sounded worse than usual. I wasn't surprised when
Leslie came back and the whistles sounded again.

 

 

Men are like that. Some of the patients in the ward were pretty badly
smashed up, but show them an attractive girl and they'd holler and
whistle, just to show they weren't dead yet. Even those who moaned and
whined and tossed about at other times made a gallant effort to look
happy and well when Leslie or Aileen was in the ward. That sort of thing
could give you a lump in the throat if you let it.

 

 

"We've knocked off for a bit," Leslie told me, sitting on the bed.
There was nowhere else to sit. "We couldn't do anything. We can hardly see."
She sighed. "I'll be glad when you're back, Bill."

 

 

"I tried to get out of here but was slapped down. What exactly is the
trouble, Leslie? What's wrong?"

 

 

She pulled herself together and smiled brightly -- the too quick smile of
so many women when the last thing they feel like doing is smiling.
"Oh, nothing really," she said. "Don't bother about it now. Just get well,
Bill, and don't worry. We'll be all right."

 

 

"Tell me," I insisted.

 

 

She hesitated, then it all came out in a rush. "It's not one thing, Bill.
It's about a hundred things, all piling up. It's the rain, and the winds,
and the dust, and the heat. Sand and dust in everything, grit in your
mouth and eyes and hair. It's the work -- digging out foundations for
buildings, and the wind filling them with sand and dust. Everybody
grumbling, saying the same things over and over again. It's trying to
sleep in a corridor, packed like sardines, with the sweat running all
over you."

 

 

She tried to stop, but the words came pouring out of her. "Then there's
the food, things you can't identify, things that taste like string.
No milk. No coffee. No eggs. No meat. No hot drinks, because water boils
when it's lukewarm. Washing in muddy water, because we've only enough
clean water for drinking and cooking.

 

 

"Everybody coming to you with their troubles. Betty afraid that with all
this work she's going to lose her baby. Little Bessie always in the way.
Jim working far too hard, the only one we have to stop working sometimes.
People from other crews trying to drag us into their quarrels. Back-breaking
days that go on and on and on until you really believe there's never going
to be an end to them, though you're so tired your brain's buzzing. Being
hot, cold, drenched, parched, tired, and restless, all within an hour
or so. Oh, I could scream!"

 

 

"Don't scream here," I said, "but cry if you like -- you might enjoy
that better than screaming."

 

 

"I expect so," Leslie said moodily, "but you need training to cry in
front of all these people, and I haven't got it. Any- way, there's all
that, and Morgan."

 

 

"Yes?" I said. "What about Morgan?"

 

 

"Morgan's a kind of last straw. I don't really mind the weather or
the food or sleeping with nineteen other women, because no one can do
anything about it. And the work's got to be done. There can't be any
improvements until we've put up more buildings, grown more crops, and
all the rest of it. But Morgan . . ."

 

 

"Well, what's he doing?" I asked a little impatiently.

 

 

She shook her head. "Wait till you see for yourself."

 

 

"Why the mystery? If he's a nuisance, he must be doing something.
What is it?"

 

 

"Just being a heel," said Leslie, "in every possible, conceivable way.
He's making Betty's life hell, though the poor kid tries to hide it.
Whatever he ought to do, he does the exact opposite. No, I knew I couldn't
describe it so you'd understand. You'll know soon enough."

 

 

She looked up as Aileen came in to see Ritchie. She and Aileen nodded
to each other.

 

 

"You know her?" I murmured.

 

 

"She's in 92, working near us. And she's one of the nineteen women I sleep
with. After eight hours crushed up against someone, you feel you know her."

 

 

I grinned. "I know it's easy for me to be cheerful," I said, "but is
everything really as black as all that? Just look back. On Earth all
that mattered was getting a place on a lifeship. People would have given
anything for that."

 

 

"I know," she said gloomily. "You needn't remind me how I tried to
bribe you."

 

 

She must really he feeling low if she took it that way. I pretended she
hadn't said anything.

 

 

"Then when we were on the lifeship," I went on quickly, "we just wanted
to get safely to Mars. Nothing else mattered. Even if we'd been told
about this, we'd have thought it was heaven. Now we're here, and in no
immediate danger any more, yet we're -- "

 

 

"I know," she said, still in the same gloomy tone. "We're waiting for
something worse. At least, I am. Can you blame me, Bill? All along we've
thought -- if only we get through this all right, everything will be
wonderful. And it never is."

 

 

"When something like this happens," I said quietly, "no one has any right
to think things are going to be wonderful. You have to be satisfied
just to be alive. After a big smack like this, things even out only
gradually. You've got to be patient."

 

 

I grinned again. "It's just as well I know you, Leslie, or I'd be doing
you an injustice. You're only unloading all this on me because you've
been cheerfully accepting everything that everybody else unloaded on
you. You feel you ought to have a chance to moan about things too."

 

 

She smiled despite herself. "There may be something in that. Oh, damn,
hear that? I think the rain's off. I'll have to go back."

 

 

She stood up straight with an effort. "Hurry and come back, Bill,"
she said. "I miss you."

 

 

"That's nice," I said. "But do it with moderation. Don't miss me too much."

 

 

Aileen didn't go when Leslie did. Apparently it was Aileen's rest period.
With Leslie gone, I looked idly at Aileen, who was talking quietly with
Ritchie.

 

 

She was certainly a good-looking girl, rather like Leslie in some ways.
They were both blondes for a start, Aileen very light, Leslie a deeper
gold. Neither of them was the model type. They both had the slim waist
and long, slender legs of a model, but they didn't have the exaggeration
of breast and hip. They both looked intelligent -- in fact, intelligent
rather than pretty. And they moved with the same lithe assurance.

 

 

The redheaded youth across from me kept trying to catch Aileen's eye and
making mildly erotic gestures. That sort of thing never bothered Leslie,
but it was obviously annoying Aileen. I heard her murmur to Ritchie:
"So help me, I'm going to blister that character's ears on my way
out." Ritchie chuckled.

 

 

I noticed that Aileen and Ritchie never touched each other. Her manner
toward him was more that of a rather nervous secretary than of a loving
daughter.

 

 

When at last Aileen rose to go, she looked across at the red-haired youth,
obviously intending to go over and tell him what she thought of him.

 

 

"Aileen!" I said sharply.

 

 

She turned, a little startled. She had never spoken to me. But when I
beckoned she came and bent over me.

 

 

"He's going to die tonight or tomorrow night," I said quietly.

 

 

She straightened abruptly. "Oh," she said, and her face went pink.
"Thanks for telling me -- Lieutenant Easson, isn't it?"

 

 

I nodded. She walked away along the ward. She must have flashed a friendly
smile at the redhead, from the reaction of the other men in the ward,
but as her back was to me I didn't see it.

 

 

Ritchie grinned. "Why did you have to spoil it?" he asked playfully.
"Why didn't you let her blister his ears and
then
find out?"

 

 

I frowned. "You think that would have been funny?" I asked incredulously.

 

 

"Yes. But then, I've been told I have a peculiar sense of humor."

 

 

"You have," I told him, and pointedly looked away. I heard Ritchie chuckle,
meaninglessly.

 

 

 

 

The doctor wouldn't clear me that day, or the next. The day after that
I was given my clothes and told I could go, but to take it easy.

 

 

The way it was said made it clear that it was said from habit, not because
the doctor thought I
would
take it easy, or that anyone could afford
to nurse himself with things as they were.