JOHNNY
33
Works like a horse and for what? The Missus don't give a damn about
him."
The
Mi~sus,
in a white tennis dress, her small sharp eyes always
watching to see that nothing in the kitchen went to waste, came to
Johnny and said,
"Can you work, Johnny?" She averted her eyes when !>he saw the
huge dirty bandage around the thumb. "Ja," Johnny answered, shaking
his head stubbornly, his eyes 2;lazed with pain, "me work, Missus, me
always work."
"Goddam sap," said the pantryman, listening.
But one morning Johnny could not get out of bed at all. He lay
in the damp misted twilight
uf
the tent and moaned. Sweat stood out
on his forehead. His whole am1 was stiff and swollen. Nobody was
awake in the tent and he lay there struggling to rise and crawl into the
wet stiff shoes under the bed.
The furnace had to be fixed. Hot water for the showers. Johnny
had to be up and working. He struggled, moaning with pain, but his
body would not answer.
The pantryman, awakened, took one look at the figure struggling
on the bed and the huge arm and ran for the camp doctor who had
arrived the night before.
The doctor got two weeks vacation free in exchange for his services.
He didn't like the idea of being used the first morning he got to camp.
There was a girl who was an ex-nurse. They got her to hdp.
The tent was wet and soggy with dew. The girl got a smell of
the air inside the tent and grimaced. Johnny lay on his back in the dark–
ness, moaning. He slept in his khaki shirt and long dirty underwear.
The doc lifted his hand and stripped off the dirty crusted bandage.
Huge, green, pusfilled, the enormous thumb emerged from the rag.
"0 my god," the girl said.
"You better get some boiled water quick," the doc said, "we'll
have to cut."
Johnny groaned "ah, ah," heavily in pain. "Must work, nobody
can work," he groaned.
"You lay still, Johnny," the doc said, "somebody will do your
work:."
"Nobody," Johnny groaned on the cot, "nobody do my work:."
The girl came back with a kettle of boiled water. "He's afraid he'll
lose his job," the doc said. "Better bring the old lady down."
