“Hey, hey, hey. No. Not me, I’m a major.” He should be more emphatic about this, more convincing. Maybe it’s the ’sucking pig mask in the way. Only he can hear his voice, now given back entirely to himself, flatter, metallic… they can’t hear him. “Major Duane Marvy.” They don’t believe him, don’t believe his name. Not even his name…. Panic strikes him, deeper than the sedative has reached, and he begins to buck truly in terror against the straps, feeling small muscles along his chest stretch into useless twinges of pain, oh God, beginning to scream now with all his might, no words, only cries, as loud as the strap across his chest will let him.

“For pity’s sake,” the driver sighs. “Can’t you shut him up, Spontoon?”

Spontoon has already ripped the pig mask away, and replaces it now with one of gauze, which he holds on with one hand while dripping ether with the other—whenever the thrashing head comes within range. “Pointsman has taken leave of his senses,” he feels obliged to say, irritated out of all patience, “if he calls this a ‘calm imperturbable.’”

“All right, we’re on the strand now. No one in sight.” Muffage drives down toward the water, the sand just solid enough to hold the ambulance, everything very white in the small moon, which is at its zenith… perfect ice….

“Oh,” Marvy moans. “Oh fuck. Oh no. Oh Jesus,” the words in long drugged diminuendo, struggles against his bonds weakening as Muffage parks them at last, an olive-drab derelict tiny on this broad beach, the enormous slick stretching away moonward, to the threshold of the north wind.

“Plenty of time,” Muffage looking at his watch. “We’re catching the C-47 at one. They said they could hold up for a bit.” Sighs of comfort before turning to their task.

“That man’s connections,” Spontoon shaking his head, removing the instruments from their disinfectant solution and laying them on a sterile cloth beside the stretcher. “My, my. Let’s hope he never turns to a life of crime, eh?”

“Fuck,” groans Major Marvy softly, “oh, fuck me, will you?”

Both men have scrubbed, and donned masks and rubber gloves. Muffage has switched on a dome light which stares down, a soft radiant eye. The two work quickly, in silence, two wartime pros used to field expediency, with only an occasional word from the patient, a whisper, a white pathetic grope in his ether-darkness after the receding point of light that’s all he has left of himself.