Violence in a tropical setting was a commonplace, nowadays, so that an island beach, far from being the romantic image that men longed to escape to, had become a symbol of death. Characteristically he speculated on what these boys had been through or left behind, boys who could not have dreamed in the safety of their beds in their parents’ homes that they would end up in this outlandish way, riddled with bullets on a beach they never heard of—young men who had so much to give to love and who would never make love again. That marine in the foreground hugging the earth with an almost amorous concentration, the booted feet toed in and the left arm cushioning the cheek for his long assignation—he would like to have been there with him, to lug the death-­heavy fellow farther up the sand out of reach of the creeping tide, there to cover him over with a blanket, perhaps, and to stay with him through the night.

. . . But what need had he of blanket or vigil? Five minutes after the picture was taken, no doubt, the medical corps had hauled away the body, along with dozens of others, and the photographer had sent off the film to his paper, wondering whether this one would turn out to be the lucky shot out of hundreds of similar shots which he had been sending home since the campaign began. He closed the magazine and put it away for good; and as he did so, he was aware of a desire to turn back to the picture again and again.

VIII

VIII

Ethel Grandin was aroused by a cry in the car. An infant a few seats away had set up a piercing catlike waul, and the distraught mother tried to shush her child with loud hissing sounds like escaping steam. The young sailor caught her eye and gave her a wink. “Some fun, eh lady?” She smiled politely, then picked up her book and pretended to read. There was nothing on earth she had to say to him—small talk, even with intimates, came hard with her—and whatever he might want to say to her would, she felt, be embarrassing and familiar.