6

He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, so while the rest of the men were still sitting about the fire in the dim light of the eternally setting sun, chatting and smoking tobacco, Billy lay back on his mat a few paces from the fire, covered by his roll-blanket, and shut his eyes, using his boots for a pillow. As he had been taking off his boots he had inspected them. They were not new, but very worn. Could that wearing be from just this two days' march? He didn't think so. No, he wasn't just a daydreaming philosopher with his questions; he wasn't a stargazer with his head in the clouds. Something was wrong here, terribly wrong; none of this made any sense, and he had to find out the truth. He gazed off at the men now, having lain back with his head upon his boots, and suddenly he could sense each of their hearts--not their spiritual, emotional hearts, but the bloody, muscled, disgusting organ itself in all its fleshy activity. He fancied that his attention on their hearts was making them beat faster, and he could sense seven muscled organs pounding at seven different rates at once, all of them out of beat with every other, and yet all of them beating faster, faster, faster because of the attention he was pouring into them with his mind; and then he grew terrified that he was going to kill all those men by killing their hearts, and tried to focus on something else. He thought now that they had noticed his attention on them, and so now he felt their communal attention on him grow especially strong--he felt certain they were talking about him in the golden sunlight; he felt very keenly their overpowering awareness of him and his posture and position. He tried to shift so as to get into a more comfortable position on his side, but when he did so he felt like he were posing for a fashion commercial shot or some other pictorial--he felt like every aspect of his body was for their sake only, and so he knew it must seem very awkward. He could hear Ducky the Coward moaning now, could hear that word "deeetective" and he realized suddenly what it meant. Some men, he supposed, who found themselves suddenly getting out of a chopper knowing only that they must find their company and fall into line, not remembering anything else at all, will try to find out what the hell is going on here, what this army is doing on this empty plain, whom they are fighting and where they are marching. Ducky was probably overwhelmed by this mystery--it disturbed him, and so he did what he was doing right now (as Billy gazed over at him): he pressed his palms into the sides of his head and hissed moans out through his clenched teeth. Other men became detectives, such as Billy was becoming, and sought after the truth. Yes: he was becoming a detective, and Ducky the Coward was doing his best to avoid becoming a detective--for everyone knew that detectives ended up in a bad way. But he could not help becoming a detective: and he would find out, the very next day, at the very least, what direction they were marching in. That would be a start, at least. He still felt uncertain about asking an officer his questions. He felt so full of the very vague questions that he had nothing concrete, clear, and certain enough to ask an officer, and he knew officers were very hard-headed men. If he asked an officer in what direction they were marching he would probably get a demerit for asking something irrelevant to his duty, and for wasting the officer's time. But he would get his hands on a compass and find out. These were the last things he remembered thinking before the oblivion of sleep.