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Show Flying - 68 door, then goes back and smokes the first cigarette of the day with the latrine orderly, a new man who asked Sergeant Karafa for a three-day pass the day after he arrived, and was lucky that the Black Bear was in a good mood and only hit him with a week's latrine duty instead. The upstairs barracks orderly joins them and all three sit on the latrine floor and smoke, enjoying the break from work formation, until the lean form of Tucson John Sutter darkens the door. "What you men doin' in the barracks while work formation's going on?" says Tucson John hoarsely. "Having a circle jerk," says John Henry, who is in a foul mood because of the cricket plague. The frantic scuttling of the insects under his blanket at night makes him want to leap out of bed screaming. "That's an article fifteen for sure," says the upstairs orderly after Tucson John has taken John Henry's name and left. "Unless he turns you in to Biggs or Karafa, then you might just get a week or two of extra duty." Summoned to the office of his platoon leader, John Henry that very afternoon strolls along toward the orderly room, afraid. An article fifteen is nothing, but what if they insist on a court-martial? It was those fucking crickets, sir. I am haunted by crickets and have not slept for days. I was out of my mind for a bit and didn't know what I was saying. I meant no disrespect. |