It was reasonable that Defoe would put aside his other duties and make a quick visit to Anzio, because Anzio seemed to need someone to do something about it pretty badly. My officer was part of a new levy being sent up there; the garrison was being doubled; there had been trouble. He was vague about what kind of "trouble" it had been, but it sounded like mob violence. I mentioned Caserta and the near-riot I had been in; the officer's eyes hooded over, and about five minutes after that he pointedly leaned back and pulled his hat over his eyes. Evidently it was not good form to discuss actual riots.
I accepted the rebuke, but I was puzzled in my mind as I tried to get some sleep for myself.
What kind of a place was this Naples, where mobs rioted against the Company and even intelligent-seeming persons like Renata dell'Angela appeared to have some reservations about it?
V
I slept, more or less, for an hour or so in that cramped coach seat. I was half asleep when the train-expediter nudged my elbow and said, "Anzio."
It was early—barely past daybreak. It was much too early to find a cab. I got directions from a drowsing stationmaster and walked toward the vaults.
The "clinic," as the official term went, was buried in the feet of the hills just beyond the beaches. I was astonished at the size of it. Not because it was so large; on the contrary. It was, as far as I could see, only a broad, low shed.
Then it occurred to me that the vaults were necessarily almost entirely underground, for the sake of economy in keeping them down to the optimum suspendee temperature. It was safe enough and simple enough to put a man in suspended animation but, as I understood it, it was necessary to be sure that the suspendees never got much above fifty degrees temperature for any length of time. Above that, they had an unwelcome tendency to decay.
This was, I realized, the first full-scale "clinic" I had ever seen. I had known that the Company had hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them scattered all over the world.