"No."
ISNT THAT JUST LIKE HIM Q Q CANT DEPEND ON THAT MAN HE WAS THE
LOUSIEST ELECTRICIANS MATE ON THE SEA SPRITE AND HE ISNT MUCH BETTER
NOW SAY SAM REMEMBER WHEN WE HAD TO GET HIM OUT OF THE JUG IN NEWPORT
NEWS BECAUSE
I settled back and relaxed. I might as well. That was the trouble with
getting Arthur a new typewriter after a couple of days without one--he
had so much garrulity stored up in his little brain, and the only
person to spill it on was me.
* * * * *
Apparently I fell asleep. Well, I mean I must have, because I woke up.
I had been dreaming I was on guard post outside the Yard at
Portsmouth, and it was night, and I looked up and there was something
up there, all silvery and bad. It was a missile--and that was silly,
because you never see a missile. But this was a dream.
And the thing burst, like a Roman candle flaring out, all sorts of
comet-trails of light, and then the whole sky was full of bright and
colored snow. Little tiny flakes of light coming down, a mist of
light, radiation dropping like dew; and it was so pretty, and I took a
deep breath. And my lungs burned out like slow fire, and I coughed
myself to death with the explosions of the missile banging against my
flaming ears....
Well, it was a dream. It probably wasn't like that at all--and if it
had been, I wasn't there to see it, because I was tucked away safe
under a hundred and twenty fathoms of Atlantic water. All of us were
on the _Sea Sprite_.
But it was a bad dream and it bothered me, even when I woke up and
found that the banging explosions of the missile were the noise of
Arthur's typewriter carriage crashing furiously back and forth.
He peeped out of the suitcase and saw that I was awake. He demanded:
HOW CAN YOU FALL ASLEEP WHEN WERE IN A PLACE LIKE THIS Q Q ANYTHING
COULD HAPPEN SAM I KNOW YOU DONT CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO ME BUT FOR YOUR
OWN SAKE YOU SHOULDNT
"Oh, dry up," I said.
Being awake, I remembered that I was hungry. There was still no sign
of Engdahl or the others, but that wasn't too surprising--they hadn't
known exactly when we would arrive. I wished I had thought to bring
some food back to the room. It looked like long waiting and I wouldn't
want to leave Arthur alone again--after all, he was partly right.