THE DEAD WRITERS
405
It was dark when the trucks stopped-blacked out-so we couldn't
see where we were. A kind of castle outline in the blackness, but really
not even that, only a stone building spread back against a hill. We
went in. Each squad had an entrance of its own or so it seemed. Our
sergeant-name of Davis-had a fat candle in his hand, and he brought
us up some stairs into an imposing hall-vaulted ceilings two stories
high. There was straw on the floor and the walls at each end were
stone fireplaces. We dropped our stuff.. . .
Douglas helped. We dropped our stuff. We dropped our stuff
and found logs somewhere and-to hell with the blackout-started a
fire. The flames were what we watched, not each other. We thought
of what it was meant to be and all the wall turned to flame and the
hall went wild with it, the room had mass, simply mass--no size or
shape-and the fiery reds rushed against the darkness beating on us
and well
Let me tell you we were shit scared.
Let me tell you, boy, we never wanted that morning to come.
Sun go to cinders in the sea surge.
Douglas liked to rise with the morning and, above all, with the
particular, even drab particulars.
It
is a pleasure to stand in the
window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof
below; and close by Douglas often desired to stop. But Flint had
said and Douglas had believed, and believed as completely as he
could without having made words for it himself, that "the senses only
reply to the idea when addressed. You
cannot
belie;ve in the particu–
lars." Flint vexed-because he was positive. What after all did the
palace of monosyllables in Baltimore aver except that nothing but the
particular stirs to belief?
We dropped our stuff and waited. We couldn't sleep but we talked
only a little. After midnight, Sergeant Davis said in a loud voice what
we of course knew. "We're going in in a little while." After the pause,
he added: "Might be a good idea jf anybody's got anything to say to
spill it now. Koch, you got anything?" What Koch said was the pattern
for everybody else. He said:
"When we're sitting around next time, somebody won't be here,
that's for sure.
If
it isn't me, whoever it is, I'll miss him. We got a good
gang, fights and all. We've stuck pretty close and let's stick close now.
And for God's sake you ammo boys come up without being called. I'm
