“Hi,” a voice said from the doorway.
He looked up, seeing the pharmacist’s mate again.
“Hi,” he answered.
“Got a chart for you,” the pharmacist’s mate said. “How you feeling?”
“Lousy.”
“You don’t look so lousy.”
“No? What’s that got to do with the way I feel?”
“Nothing. I just don’t trust people. ’Specially people with cat fever.”
“You the doctor here?”
“Nope.”
“Then it ain’t your job to diagnose. Besides, I’m the distrustful guy, remember?”
“Sure. I remember.” The pharmacist’s mate went to the foot of the bed and clipped the fresh chart there. “You been here before, ain’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly.
“I thought I recognized you.”
“So?”
“So nothing. You’re a sickly type, I guess.”
“That’s right. I’m a sickly type.”
“Mmm,” the pharmacist’s mate said, nodding.
“When’s the doctor coming around?”
“You can relax,” the pharmacist said. “He’s made his last rounds for today. He won’t be around again till tomorrow morning. Not unless you’re dropping dead. Are you dropping dead?”
“No,” he answered.
“I didn’t figure. I heard you choking a while back, though, so I figured maybe you was ready to kick off. You want me to get the doc, I’ll be happy to do that for you.”
“I can wait until morning.”
The pharmacist’s mate smiled. “Don’t I know it,” he said.
“If you’re finished piddling around, I’d like to get some rest.”
“Sure,” the pharmacist’s mate said, smiling. “Got to let a sick man get his rest. Had to give you a chart, though, you understand that, don’t you? Can’t tell the sick ones from the fakers without a chart.”
“Are you looking for trouble, mate?” he asked suddenly.
“Me? Perish the thought.”
“Then get the hell off my back.”
“Sure.” He shook his head. “You sure talk tough for a sick man.”
“I’m not so sick that I can’t—”
“G’night, mate. Sleep tight.”
The pharmacist’s mate left the room, and he watched the broad back in the undress blues jumper turn outside the door and vanish. He cursed the bastard, and then leaned back against the pillow, wondering if the pecker checker would cause him any trouble. All he needed was a malingering charge against him. That would mean a captain’s mast, sure as hell. If not a deck court. Goddamnit, why’d people have to stick their noses into your business?
When he heard footsteps again, he thought it was the pharmacist’s mate returning, and then he recognized the hushed whisper of the hospital slippers that were generally handed out to ambulatory cases.
A boy poked his head around the doorjamb tentatively.
He was a tall boy with brown hair and blue eyes, a kid of no more than eighteen or nineteen. He wore the faded blue hospital robe and the fabric slippers, and his face was very pale, as if he’d been isolated from the sun for a long time.
“You just check in?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“My name’s Guibert. You sick?”
“I’m in the hospital, ain’t I?”
Guibert entered the room. “Mind if I come in?”
“Well...”
“I’m the official welcoming committee. I been here for eight months now. I see everybody who comes and goes. Guibert the Greeter, they call me. Ain’t I seen you around before?”
“Maybe,” he answered. Goddamnit, was the whole hospital full of spies?
“What’s your name?” Guibert asked.
“What difference does it make?”
“I just like to know.”
“It’s on the chart,” he said frostily.
Guibert looked briefly at the chart “What’s wrong with you?”
“Cat fever.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Am I?”
“Sure,” Guibert said. “I been here for eight months now, like I told you, and they still don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Yeah?” he said dubiously.
“God’s truth, s’help me. I been looked over by every doctor in the Navy practically.” Guibert shrugged. “They can’t figure it out.”
“Are you contagious?” he asked suddenly.
“Me? No, don’t worry about that. They thought so in the beginning, but no more now. They had me isolated for three months, figuring I was carrying a dread disease or something. But I ain’t. They just don’t know what I got.”
“That right?” he asked, interested now.
“Yeah,” Guibert said sadly. “I just run a fever all the time. A hun’ one, a hun’ two, like that. Never goes no higher. But it’s always there, day and night. Man, a fever like that can drain you, you know it?”
“I can imagine,” he said. “And you been here eight months?”
“Eight months and six days, you want to be exact about it. The doctors think I got bit by a bug or something. I was in the Pacific before I come here, on the Coral Sea. They think I got bit by some rare tropical bug. Man, I got a disease unknown to medical science. How’s that for an honor?”
“Nobody else has this disease?” he asked.
Guibert shook his head, a little proudly, a little in awe. “Not that they know of. How’s that for something? You know, they thought I was goofin’ off at first. Malingering, you know? But they couldn’t just pass off the thermometer readings. Every damn day, a hun’ one, a hun’ two. Puzzled the hell out of them.
“So they finally sent me over to see a psychiatrist. He give me that Rorschach test, and a lot of other tests, puttin’ arms and legs on a torso, and fittin’ pegs into holes, things like that. They even give me an electroencephalograph test. You ever hear of that?”
“No,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s a test measures brain waves. They put these little wires on your skull, like they’re gonna electrocute you or something, and this measures your brain waves. They can tell from that whether you got a illness or not, like a tumor or something, you know? Well, I ain’t got nothing like that. My brain waves are perfectly O.K. And the psychiatrist says he never saw nobody as normal as me. Which is why they are all so puzzled. If I ain’t goofing, and if I ain’t nuts, then what’s wrong with me?”
“Search me,” he said.
“Sometimes I wonder myself. I never got bit by no bug, I can swear to that. There was a lot of bugs on Guam, but I never got bit. So how come I run this fever all the time? The way I got it figured, I’ll be in this damn hospital for the rest of my life!”
“Do they give you liberty?”
“No. Hell, no, how can they do that? I’m a walking guinea pig. They find out what’s wrong with me, man, they can lick cancer and the common cold.” Guibert shook his head sadly.
“Well, it can’t be too bad here.”
“Oh, no, it ain’t bad at all. Bunch of nice guys, and some real doll nurses. We got a honey on this floor, wait’ll you meet her. We got four of them, you know, but this one is a real peach. A nice girl.”
“Yeah?” he asked, interested again.
“Yeah, you’ll see her. Hey, are you from Brooklyn?”
“No.”
“Oh. That’s a shame. I’m from Brooklyn. I keep asking guys where they’re from, like in boot camp. When you can’t get out, you’re anxious to meet guys from your neighborhood, you know?”
“Yes,” he said.
“What ship you off?”
“U.S.S. Sykes,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“A tin can.”
“That’s good duty, ain’t it?”
“Well, it’s not bad,” he said.
“The Sykes,” Guibert said. “That sounds familiar. Why should it sound familiar?”