The Winston Affair by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page B

started. Adams looked out of the window down the train, and now, if such a thing were possible, it was even heavier with humanity than before.
    â€œThey don’t turn over, do they?” he asked the subaltern.
    â€œNever knew them to, Captain.”
    â€œSeems top-heavy.”
    â€œI know. Don’t know why, but they just never seem to turn over.”
    The train was now puffing and hissing its way through a wretched suburb of the city. In the mud and wooden huts, tiny flames were being blown to life in cooking pans. The lights winked and flickered in the gray dawn.
    â€œNew out here?” the subaltern asked.
    â€œThird day.”
    â€œI thought I didn’t recognize your patch, Captain. Lieutenant Frank Stephans.”
    â€œMy name’s Adams—Barney Adams.”
    â€œGoing far?”
    â€œBachree.”
    â€œI don’t envy you. It’s a pest hole. Its only claim to fame is a tawdry murder that happened there last month. I do hope you’re not to be stationed there, Captain.”
    â€œI expect to be back by four o’clock today.”
    â€œThat’s a relief. I was prepared to be terribly sorry for you.”
    They fell silent and stared through the window, and then Barney Adams dozed off. His dream through his light sleep was of going by train to West Point the very first time, and his pity for the boy he was then filled him with a plaintive sadness and awakened him.
    The train had stopped at a little station. The country was of rolling hills, terraced with tea gardens. The sun was rising and the air was clean and sweet. Barney Adams found himself smiling with pleasure.

Thursday 9.23 A.M .
    Bachree was something else entirely. Swinging and swaying, twisting and turning and dinging to the tracks through some unexplainable principle of balance, the train found its way into a noxious jungle bottom. When it stopped at the station platform which a faded piece of wood designated as Bachree, the rain had begun. It had not occurred to Barney Adams that he might encounter rain, and the heat had been so oppressive the day before that he had not even brought a coat with him.
    Nor was this ordinary rain. It was, so far as he could see, a structure of water, serious, implacable and earnest. It poured down with the unchanging force of a mighty waterfall, as if its source were absolutely limitless.
    There were only four steps between the compartment and the station shed, but in these four steps he was soaked. Under the shed, it was not dry, merely less wet, not only because the roof leaked and the rain splashed, but because the air itself was sodden. With him in the open-front shed were two British enlisted men and a British sergeant. Naked bearers brought mailbags and bales and barrels from the train. The enlisted men piled them in as dry a spot as they could find, and the sergeant checked off the goods. As he worked, he nodded at Adams and said, “Welcome to our watering place, Captain.”
    â€œDoes it always rain like this?”
    â€œWhen it rains, it rains like this. And it rains most of the time.”
    While he waited for them to finish, Adams attempted to light a cigarette. His matches spluttered and would not light. The train whistled, clanged and chugged away. The sergeant lit Adams’ cigarette with a lighter.
    â€œThank you.”
    A truck had pulled up to the outside of the shed, and now the enlisted men were loading the bales under its canvas.
    â€œIt doesn’t go far,” the sergeant explained, pointing to the shadowy bulk of a warehouse about a hundred yards away, “but one can’t trundle it through this rain. Are you looking for anyone, Captain?”
    â€œYour CO. I’m afraid I don’t know his name.”
    â€œNo CO here, Captain. I’m in command at the station, for the time being. We only have eleven personnel here now. The only commissioned officer is Major Kensington, but he’s not attached. He’s medical