III
The oatmeal flopped heavily into the mess-kit. Fuselli's eyes were still glued together with sleep. He sat at the dark greasy bench and took a gulp of the scalding coffee that smelt vaguely of dish rags. That woke him up a little. There was little talk in the mess shack. The men, that the bugle had wrenched out of their blankets but fifteen minutes before, sat in rows, eating sullenly or blinking at each other through the misty darkness. You could hear feet scraping in the ashes of the floor and mess kits clattering against the tables and here and there a man coughing. Near the counter where the food was served out one of the cooks swore interminably in a whiny sing-sing voice.
“Gee, Bill, I've got a head,” said Fuselli.
“Ye're ought to have,” growled Bill Grey. “I had to carry you up into the barracks. You said you were goin' back and love up that goddam girl.”
“Did I?” said Fuselli, giggling.
“I had a hell of a time getting you past the guard.”
“Some cognac!... I got a hangover now,” said Fuselli.
“I'm goddamned if I can go this much longer.”
“What?”
They were washing their mess-kits in the tub of warm water thick with grease from the hundred mess-kits that had gone before, in front of the shack. An electric light illumined faintly the wet trunk of a plane tree and the surface of the water where bits of oatmeal floated and coffee grounds,—and the garbage pails with their painted signs: WET GARBAGE, DRY GARBAGE; and the line of men who stood waiting to reach the tub.