Adventure Magazine Cover — page 84: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

78 Snoots nor Dixie had been to dinner; that a pharmacist’s mate had come for their rations. This meant that they were on the sick list. So after dinner I went forward and below to the sick-bay on the berth-deck. Here all was buzz, hum and activity. The place was a beehive. Both doctors were stripped down to their undershirts. The senior doctor, Surgeon Waldo, was dancing about like a blue-ended fly, feeling pulses, inspecting tongues, barking orders. Off to one side his assistant, Surgeon Currant, was doing something to a man’s arm. A half- dozen pharmacist’s mates, towels on their arms, bottles, burettes in their hands, whirled and wiggled about like so many dancers about a May-pole. The bunks were all filled. Every one perspired. The smell of the place was sickening. ‘Too many coming down here with nothing the matter with ’em!” Surgeon GUANTANAMO BAY IS IN THE EXTREME EASTERN PART OF CUBA. Waldo was saying—no, I'll take it back. He was roaring like a lion with a tooth- ache: it! Ina time like this! Keep all these duty-dodging malingerers and sight- seers and information-seekers to —— out!” Says I to myself— “Breeze, as you werel”’ But before I could about face and start up the ladder, the old boy’s wrath-filled eyes were on me. “What’s your trouble!” he demanded, swooping down upon me with a menace of expression that was terrifying. It would have been far better for me had I told the doctor the truth and taken his growl. But I’d rather any day take a punch on the nose than a bawling out. And if I told him I’d merely come to learn what was the trouble with Snootful and Dixie— But there he stood, his glaring eyes on me. “My stomach, sir——’” “Vomit?” ‘“Why—a little, yes, sir.” Adventure ‘Pains in your back, loins, limbs? Hm. Stick out your tongue. Hm. Looks all right. Any chills?” “Yes, sir,” I answered—but hanged if I know why. “Followed by flushes of heat?”’ “Yes, sir.” That’s the worst of a lie—it takes more lies to make it good. “How long since you’ve been vac- cinated?”’ That word brought daylight. In one illuminative moment the whole thing burst on me—those “‘cases”’ the admiral wanted to know about; the ‘queer doings” Pete Miller had spoken of; our leaving the fleet and heading for Cuba; all this confusion and roundy-go-roundy about me. “Well? Well?” “Why, I feel much better now, sir, than I did a “How long since you’ve been vaccinated!” he roared. “Three years. When I enlisted,” I said, and as I spoke I had a very firm convic- tion that all was lost. “Hm. Oh, Currant,” he snapped to his assistant, ‘“‘here’s another one.” Then to me: ““Let’s see your tongue again. Hm. All right, just step over there to Doctor Cur- rant. He'll take care of you.”’ ‘“‘What’s your trouble!’ This he barked at Patty Ryan, a seaman who had just come down. ‘““Came down to see how Holt is gettin’ along, sir.’ “Oh, you did, eh? of here!”’ “Aye, aye, sir.” And Patty got. I felt like feeding myself to the sharks. I might have walked away just as Patty had. Here I was, lined up for a vaccination and no telling what next—and all because I’d rather take a punch on the nose than a growl. What next? The expression ‘‘Where do we go from here?” hadn’t yet been put to music. The World War was then only a family quarrel. After Doctor Currant had finished mak- ing scratches on my arm I was chased aft into the carpenter-shop, which adjoined the sick-bay. And here, among about forty others, I found Snoots and Dixie. Snootful was squatted on deck, his broad back to a stanchion, his big hands clasped about his Well, get to —— out C© MICLOOKS ©