“—An' it'll be so warm an' quiet, without any noise at all. An' the garden'll be full of roses an'...”
But the other voices kept breaking in, drowning out the soft voice with groans, and strings of whining oaths.
“An' he said I could sit on the porch, an' the sun'll be so warm an' quiet, an' the garden'll smell so good, an' the beach'll be all white, an' the sea...”
Andrews felt his head suddenly rise in the air and then his feet. He swung out of the darkness into a brilliant white corridor. His legs throbbed with flaming agony. The face of a man with a cigarette in his mouth peered close to his. A hand fumbled at his throat, where the tag was, and someone read:
“Andrews, 1.432.286.”
But he was listening to the voice out in the dark, behind him, that shrieked in rasping tones of delirium:
“There's a girl in the heart of Mary-land
With a heart that belongs to me-e.”
Then he discovered that he was groaning. His mind became entirely taken up in the curious rhythm of his groans. The only parts of his body that existed were his legs and something in his throat that groaned and groaned. It was absorbing. White figures hovered about him, he saw the hairy forearms of a man in shirt sleeves, lights glared and went out, strange smells entered at his nose and circulated through his whole body, but nothing could distract his attention from the singsong of his groans.
Rain fell in his face. He moved his head from side to side, suddenly feeling conscious of himself. His mouth was dry, like leather; he put out his tongue to try to catch raindrops in it. He was swung roughly about in the stretcher. He lifted his head cautiously, feeling a great throb of delight that he still could lift his head.
“Keep yer head down, can't yer?” snarled a voice beside him. He had seen the back of a man in a gleaming wet slicker at the end of the stretcher.