Soldiers Pay by William Faulkner Read Free Book Online

across the bed, propping her back against the head board. “Lie down here and let’s decide on something.”
    â€œSure,” agreed Gilligan. “I better take off my shoes, first. Ruin the hotel’s bed.”
    â€œTo hell with the hotel’s bed,” she told him. “Put your feet on it.”
    Gilligan lay down, shielding his eyes with his hand. After a time she said:
    â€œWell, what’s to be done?”
    â€œWe got to get him home first,” Gilligan said. “I’ll wire his folks to-marrow—his old man is a preacher, see. But it’s that damn girl bothers me. He sure ought to be let die in peace. But what else to do I don’t know. I know about some things,” he explained, “but after all women can guess and be nearer right than whatever I could decide on.”
    â€œI don’t think anyone could do much more than you. I’d put my money on you every time.”
    He moved, shading his eyes again. “I dunno: I am good so far, but then you got to have more’n just sense. Say, why don’t you come with the general and me?”
    â€œI intend to, Joe.” Her voice came from beyond his shielding hand. “I think I intended to all the time.”
    (She is in love with him.) But he only said:
    â€œGood for you. But I knowed you’d do the right thing. All right with your people is it?”
    â€œYes. But what about money?”
    â€œMoney?”
    â€œWell . . . for what he might need. You know. He might get sick anywhere.”
    â€œLord, I cleaned up in a poker game and I ain’t had time to spend it. Money’s all right. That ain’t any question,” he said roughly.
    â€œYes, money’s all right. You know I have my husband’s insurance. “
    He lay silent, shielding his eyes. His khaki legs marring the bed ended in clumsy shoes. She nursed her knees, huddling in her blanket. After a space she said:
    â€œSleep, Joe?”
    â€œIt’s a funny world, ain’t it?” he asked irrelevantly, not moving.
    â€œFunny?”
    â€œSure. Soldier dies and leaves you money, and you spend the money helping another soldier die comfortable. Ain’t that funny?”
    â€œI suppose so. . . . Everything is funny. Horribly funny.”
    â€œAnyway, it’s nice to have it all fixed,” he said after a while. “He’ll be glad you are coming along.”
    (Dear dead Dick .) (Mahon under his scar, sleeping.) (Dick, my dearest one.)
    She felt the head board against her head, through her hair, felt the bones of her long shanks against her arms clasping them, nursing them, saw the smug, impersonal room like an appointed tomb (in which how many, many discontents, desires, passions, had died?) high above a world of joy and sorrow and lust for living, high above impervious trees occupied solely with maternity and spring. (Dick, Dick. Dead, ugly Dick. Once you were alive and young and passionate and ugly, after a time you were dead, dear Dick: that flesh, that body, which I loved and did not love; your beautiful, young, ugly body, dear Dick, become now a seething of worms, like new milk. Dear Dick.)
    Gilligan, Joseph, late a private, a democrat by enlistment and numbered like a convict, slept beside her, his boots (given him gratis by democrats of a higher rating among democrats) innocent and awkward upon a white spread of rented cloth, immaculate and impersonal.
    She evaded her blanket and reaching her arm swept the room with darkness. She slipped beneath the covers, settling her cheek on her palm. Gilligan undisturbed snored, filling the room with a homely, comforting sound.
    (Dick, dear, ugly dead. . . .)
    IV
    In the next room Cadet Lowe waked from a chaotic dream, opening his eyes and staring with detachment, impersonal as God, at tights burning about him. After a time, he recalled his body, remembering where he was and by an effort he turned his head. In the other bed the man slept beneath