The Vanquished by Brian Garfield Page B

words.
    â€œCan you make it?”
    â€œI don’t know if my legs will work. Go on—go on.”
    â€œJesus,” Zimmerman shouted, “I hate, heroes. Come on, Evans.”
    He felt the correspondent’s hand tight on his arm and saw Zimmerman’s other hand supporting the girl; he threw all his concentration into climbing onto the precarious stilts of his legs and hobbling on them across the swinging deck. Graysleet pummeled his cheeks; the world rocked underfoot and water dashed the boat with massed energy.

CHAPTER 9
    The Sea Bird swayed deliberately. He found himself drifting fitfully into aimless dreams. There was a vast bright desert and a single staggering form, and he was thirsty; there was a high forest and the bounding white haunches of an antelope. Then it was dark, and the spray came over him, and water lapped at his feet on a beach somewhere.
    A hand touched his arm and he sat bolt upright.
    â€œBad dreams?” Zimmerman said.
    â€œNot so bad.” Charley blinked, finding himself on Zimmerman’s bunk, naked and wrapped in a blanket. Zimmerman stood by the stove holding Charley’s coat toward the heat, standing with feet braced wide against the ship’s heavy rolling. The storm, apparently, had dissipated. “Your sister all right?” Charley said.
    â€œYes, she’s fine. In her cabin. We owe you a lot of thanks for getting that spar off her—she might have been knocked over-board.”
    Sunlight came in through the open port. Zimmerman swayed slowly back and forth with the motion of the floor. “How do your legs feel?”
    Charley moved his legs. “All right. What time is it?”
    â€œNoon. I guess you’re hungry.”
    â€œI guess I am,” Charley said. “Thanks for putting me up.”
    â€œYour clothes are dry. Let’s go down and get something to eat—if the food wasn’t washed overboard.”
    â€œDid we lose anybody in the weather?”
    â€œNot that I know of.”
    â€œLucky,” Charley said, and climbed out of bed.
    â€œOne of the sailors got a bump on the head from falling through a hatch. And one of your men—Parker—was shot accidentally in the leg last night.”
    â€œI know.” Charley felt no particular pity for Chuck Parker. As Kimmel, who had shot him, had said, Parker had it coming.
    His expression was dour when he followed Zimmerman into the mess hall. The room was crowded with a noon-meal crowd. At the captain’s table sat General Crabb and Sus Ainsa and the officers. Charley recognized Oxley, the surgeon, and Captains McDowell, Holliday, and McKinney. There were half a dozen other officers whose names he did not know. Charley had seen most of them only at a distance.
    Norval Douglas and Jim Woods sat at the first officer’s table. That was where Zimmerman and Charley sat down. A heated conversation was in progress; Woods was talking: “—you can settle it, Norval. You were with the Walker expedition in ’Fifty-four.”
    â€œIt was a bloody mess,” Douglas said imperturbably. His eyes acknowledged Charley’s presence.
    â€œThere,” said Woods. “You see? None of them are easy, O’Rouke.”
    O’Rouke, a commonplace man with a ragged beard, said, “Just the same, this is different. We’re going down there to protect them, not invade them.”
    â€œIt will be fine,” Woods said, “if the Mexicans see it the same way you do. Hell, do you think we’d be gettin’ such high pay if we wasn’t going to be taking risks?”
    â€œWe haven’t been paid so high yet,” Charley said.
    Woods turned a mock-angry glance on him. “Leave that kind of talk be,” he said with a friendly tone. “There’s always one joker like you in the crowd, Charley. You’re a God-awful pessimist.”
    â€œWhat I see makes me that way,” Charley said, and bit into his meal.
    The