"Judith Merril - Peeping Tom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

remaining arm out of the cast for fifteen minutes some day.
You see Tommy Bender was still a nice young man then—after the combat, and the wound, and the
flies, and the rough hospitalization.
Dake was nothing of the sort. He'd been around, and he knew exactly what value he placed on a
woman. And he enjoyed talking about it.
Tommy listened because there was no way not to, and he wriggled and sweated and suffered, and
the itch in his leg got worse, and the stench from the garbage pile outside became unbearable. It went on
that way, hour after hour and day after day, punctuated only by the morning visit from the medic, who
would stop and look him over, and shake a weary, discouraged head, and then go on to the next man.
The leg was a long time healing. It was better after Dake left, and was replaced with a quietly dying
man who'd got it in the belly. After him, there was a nice young Negro soldier, somewhat embarrassed
about being in sick bay with nothing more dramatic than appendicitis. But at least, now, Tommy could
keep his thoughts and dreams about Candace to himself, untarnished.
Then one day, when it had begun to seem as if nothing would ever change again in his life, except the
occupants of the beds on either side of him, something happened to break the monotony of discomfort
and despair. The medic stopped a little longer than usual in front of Tommy's cot, studied the neat chart
Candy was always filling in, and furrowed his brow with concern. Then he muttered something to
Candace, and she looked worried too. After that, they both turned and looked at Tommy as if they were
seeing him for the first time, and Candy smiled, and the doctor frowned a little deeper.
"Well, young man," he said, "We're going to let you get up."
"Thanks, doc," Tommy said, talking like a GI was supposed to. "What should I do with the leg?
Leave it in bed?"
"Ha, ha," the doctor laughed. Just like that. "Good to see you haven't lost your spirit." Then he moved
on to the next bed, and Tommy lay there wondering. What would he do with the leg?
That afternoon, they came for him with a stretcher, and took him to the surgery shack, and cut off the
cast. They all stood around, five or six of them, looking at it and shaking their heads and agreeing it was
pretty bad. Then they put a new cast on, a little less bulky than the first one, and handed him a pair of
crutches, and said: "Okay, boy, you're on your own."
An orderly showed him how to use them, and helped him get back to his own bed. The next day he
practiced up a little, and by the day after that, he could really get around.
It made a difference.
Tommy Bender was a nice normal American boy, with all the usual impulses. He had been weeks on
end in the jungle, and further weeks on his back in the cot. It was not strange that he should show a
distinct tendency to follow Candy about from place to place, now he was on his feet again.
The pursuit was not so much hopeful as it was instinctive. He never, quite, made any direct advance
to her. He ran little errands, and helped in every way he could, as soon as he was sufficiently adept in the
handling of his crutches. She was certainly not ill-pleased by his devotion, but neither, he knew, was she
inclined to any sort of romantic attachment to him.
Once or twice, acting on private advice from the more experienced ambulant patients, he made
tentative approaches to some of the other nurses, but met always the same kindly advice that they felt
chasing nurses would not be good for his leg. He accepted his rebuffs in good part, as a nice boy will,
and continued to trail around after Candy.
It was she, quite inadvertently, who led him to a piece of good fortune. He saw her leave the base
one early evening, laden with packages, and traveling on foot. Alone. For a GI, these phenomena might
not have been unusual. For a nurse to depart in this manner was extraordinary, and Candace slipped out
so quietly that Tommy felt certain no one but himself was aware of it.
He hesitated about following at first; then he started worrying about her, threw social caution to the
winds, and went swinging down the narrow road behind her, till she heard him coming and turned to
look, then to wait.
She was irritated at first; then, abruptly, she seemed to change her mind.