Then he got into the other bed, where he lay awake a long time, staring at the ceiling.
IV
People walking along the boulevard looked curiously through the railing at the line of men in olive-drab that straggled round the edge of the courtyard. The line moved slowly, past a table where an officer and two enlisted men sat poring over big lists of names and piles of palely tinted banknotes and silver francs that glittered white. Above the men's heads a thin haze of cigarette smoke rose into the sunlight. There was a sound of voices and of feet shuffling on the gravel. The men who had been paid went off jauntily, the money jingling in their pockets.
The men at the table had red faces and tense, serious expressions. They pushed the money into the soldiers' hands with a rough jerk and pronounced the names as if they were machines clicking.
Andrews saw that one of the men at the table was Walters; he smiled and whispered “Hello” as he came up to him. Walters kept his eyes fixed on the list.
While Andrews was waiting for the man ahead of him to be paid, he heard two men in the line talking.
“Wasn't that a hell of a place? D'you remember the lad that died in the barracks one day?”
“Sure, I was in the medicks there too. There was a hell of a sergeant in that company tried to make the kid get up, and the loot came and said he'd court-martial him, an' then they found out that he'd cashed in his checks.”
“What'd 'ee die of?”
“Heart failure, I guess. I dunno, though, he never did take to the life.”