A DISTANT VICTORY
the way they desired, I think now, had he any knowledge of what
they wished, but he did nothing.
He
is
our prisoner, I thought. One of the enemy that has sworn
to kill us, and we have captured him.
The dressing of the lacerations and ulcers finished, the corpsman
who was working on him stepped back from the prisoner and indi–
cated that he was to put on his clothes. Either because he had entirely
dismissed from his mind the scene before
him
or by the knowledge
that he was to dress, the prisoner's fright was gone, and the stolid,
blank expression had returned to his face. He dressed himself hur–
riedly.
The shore patrolman led him out of our curious circle and
towards the door. "Gotta get him back 'fore both of us get caught
in this rain coming on," he said. At the doorway, as though he had
recalled something arresting out of his childhood, the S.P. halted
the prisoner and made him tum around and face the group of us,
motionless in the center of the room. "Where's your manners?" the
S.P. asked. "Ain't you gonna thank 'em for fixing you up like that?
Bow to 'em, bow to 'em,"' and he made quick, comic bowing motions
himself.
The prisoner took off his native straw hat and bowed low to the
flooring, in our direction.
Fleetingly, for an embarrassing moment of fear, I felt as though,
in the strained and hushed room, I were going to bow in return.
The prisoner had bowed ponderously three times and, before I
could realize it, the pair of them had disappeared through the door–
way into the night.
Some of the men who had gathered in the room during the
excitement began to wander off, and several of us went out upon
the porch behind the O.R. to watch the weather and to catch the
fresh coolness of the winds now springing up from the bay. A few
minutes later the rain began, the large drops slanting downward
faster and faster, and soon I listened to the forlorn rattling of it upon
the tin roof. It sougheq softly as the clean streams of rain impinged on
the dry earth. Cluttering delicately among the monstrous paperish
leaves, the wind and the rain swirled the banana trees massed om–
inously in the hospital yard.
"This will be an all night rain," one of the men said drearily.
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