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Show Flying - 42 Strolling toward the mess-hall John Henry dreams of a day when the Cubs beat Sandy Koufax and nobody knows it but him. Lieutenant White comes by, hands in pockets, no hat on, shuffling toward the officers' end of the mess-hall. They salute, and he takes a hand out of his pocket and waves at them. "He hadn't ought to do that," says Tex. "Officers hadn't ought to behave like that where everybody can see them. It ain't right." "He doesn't believe enlisted men should have to salute officers," says O'Connell. "He doesn't believe in the army." Near the mess-hall they come across Arkwright walking the other way beside a man with a clipboard. His eyes are filled with injured innocence and mournful contemplation of the fallen state of man, forced to live in a universe without justice, where outrageous things happen even to the most worthy of people. Hands turned upward, he is trying to explain and the man with the clipboard is taking notes. "Don't seem right," says Tex. "Army hounds a man like that for a mistake anybody could have made. Army just don't seem to understand, sometimes. A man can just get caught up in things happening and get all screwed up and there ain't nothing he can do." "Fuck the Army," says O'Connell, as they collect |