Dave Dawson at Truk

by Robert Sidney Bowen

And though it was still dark all about, the sense of touch returned to him, and his finger tips telegraphed to his brain the fact that he was actually in a warm, comfy bed. He could feel smooth sheets, and a soft mattress underneath him. And then little by little he became conscious of sound. Not individual sounds, but a merging of all different kinds of sound into a sort of faintly pulsating murmur. And with that faintly pulsating murmur there came to him a sense of motion, too. A gentle vibration that traveled throughout his entire body.

It had all the effect of lulling him into deep and untroubled slumber. But in that it did not quite succeed. It didn't because at that moment his eyes opened slowly and there was the image of Freddy Farmer's face centered in a vast expanse of white. But it was more than an image of Freddy, for the lips moved back in a smile, the eyes glistened with joy, and then came the spoken words.

"That's better, my lad. How do you feel, Dave?"

Dawson stared for a moment, and then closed his eyes tight, but when he opened them again Freddy Farmer's smiling face was still there.

"You dead, too, Freddy?" he heard his own voice speak. "How did it happen, fellow?"

The smiling lips broke into a chuckle, and Freddy Farmer shook his head in positive negation.

"Not a bit of it, old thing," he said. "I'm not dead, and neither are you. Though by rights you should be. How do the arm and leg feel?"

"Not dead?" Dawson mumbled, as he strived to get his brain functioning faster. "And what arm, and what leg?"

"Yours," Freddy Farmer said. "The left one. Your arm you broke, and your leg you wrenched pretty badly. And you smashed up your face a bit. But, as usual, you'll pull through. You must have protected the rest of your body with your head when you crashed into that blighter. If you'd only waited, though. I wouldn't have let the beggar get away. Your guns went out, eh?"

Dawson didn't say anything for a moment. Instead he used that moment to take stock of himself as best he could. It was rather difficult, because the lower half of his face was bandaged, and the bandages prevented him from looking down his body. It was easy enough to tell, though, that something was wrong with his left leg and left arm. He couldn't move either of them, and to attempt it started little pains shooting around.