The gaunt men were sitting around in a circle, pow-wow fashion, pretending to work out an answer and all feeling that there wasn't any, when McBride noticed Heinie, the cook, handling his automatic. It wasn't the mere fact that he was handling the weapon that deserved notice. It was the way he was handling it.
Heinie sat with a faraway look in his eye that was now glistening and now lackluster, fondling the gun in a way that suggested something. Black words not spoken, but safety off, a damp brow and moody reflections.
"Heinie," said McBride. "Anything wrong?"
Heinie's eyes came back from that far place with a start. He laughed bitterly. "Anything wrong! Two weeks without a damned thing to eat, and the man wants to know if anything's wrong!"
No respect for rank now. No more tin-soldier discipline. What penalty can you impose upon a man mere days from death?
Heinie stared back at McBride with a sort of thoughtful defiance. He didn't put away the gun.
"Then hand it over," McBride said, and started getting up.
Heinie's sunken eyes were suddenly glaring at the others over the muzzle of his gun. The others settled back, a little afraid but not caring much.
"As cook," Heinie was saying, "it's my place to prepare meals. I haven't been doing my job. Now I'm going to."
"Don't let it get you down, man," McBride cautioned. "It's not your fault if we haven't--"
"Listen to me!" Heinie cut in sharply. "I happened to be in the Navy when I was only a kid, and three other guys and myself were once in a fix a lot like this. Only we were adrift on the open sea in a life-raft. Three of us kept from starving to death, but we had to draw straws to do it. The one who got the short one--well, I've been having nightmares about it ever since. God! We didn't even have a fire--"
His voice trailed off, his eyes drawing inward with some shocking memory. McBride edged toward him.
"Hold it!" Heinie ordered, coming out of the daze.
McBride stopped, half inclined not to. He wavered, drew back, and decided to try and argue it out.
"You're--sick," he said. "Say you do kill one of us; do you think you could go through that 'life-raft thing' again? Do you actually think any of us, starving or not, could bring ourselves to do what you suggest?"