Lett returned on a fast-running cargo ship, reuniting with Jock and others they’d flown over with. Jock sized up the fittings, paint scheme, signs, and sound of the smooth engine and told Lett their vessel had probably been refitted during the war and commissioned to fight as a Q-ship or any manner of disguised, undercover merchant vessel with concealed weaponry. The cargo hold was off limits to them, but Lett figured that some of what was found in those caverns was making its way back to the US Territory of Hawaii, and that they were on board as extra watchmen if needed. Their cramped quarters, with its protruding bolts and bars, stacked bunks, and stale smells of his fellow humans, took Lett back to a wartime hospital ship where he’d despaired so much that he’d wanted to leap into the cold Atlantic and end it all. But this time, inside the head of this cargo boat crossing the postwar Pacific, he shot up his trusty dose—and he swore it was helping.

The men were able to lounge on the top deck of the clandestine trawler, and Lett sprawled in the sun on a pile of netting for the first few hours. The breeze and blue sky and open horizon should’ve brightened his thoughts. It helped him focus and simplify, like breaking down his M1 carbine did. Again he tried to justify his actions, and even the acts of Lansdale and Frankie, by recalling how understanding General MacArthur had seemed. Winning the war hadn’t been pretty and keeping the peace wasn’t going to be, either. Thus, men like Lansdale. Someone had to complete that dirty work. He just couldn’t be a part of it, not that way. It spooked him too much. He had to get clear of Lansdale somehow. But how?

Jock wasn’t helping his mood. Jock sulked. Jock joined him on the pile of netting, tugging on the coarse greasy cords. “I don’t know what you done on your special patrol or secret mission or whatever,” he said. “But I ended up getting duty. Mine was no joyride.”

Lett hadn’t told Jock about what he’d done. A grunt always kept things in right after. Maybe a part of him didn’t want Jock to know, to be sullied by it. Maybe he didn’t want what made him choke the commando or, worse yet, what Lansdale and Frankie had done to start catching like some fast-spreading onboard disease. Scurvy with a death wish, reopening previously healed wounds.