These six days of Lunar bombs a-bashing all around our Bomb-Proof had reduced us Calhounian Crawdads of Company C to a sullen net of biped crustacean. With three false-alarms during the night, we waited through the dark hours, sleeplessly clutching our muskets, fixing and unfixing our electric bayonets, ever expecting General Lunarista's assault. But it didn't come. We crouched in crowded rank, ready to mount the walls. The luminous fog in our annuciators grew dim. The general order came to drain and freshen our annuciators' phosphoric and test each Pile's sulphuric. We crowded in line as best we could with our Pile lids unlatched, while the sergeants and corporals inspected the condition and alignment of our copper and zinc plates. Kelly inspected the voltages of the ranks with all eyes on the thick needle of his galvanometer box. Still we waited. Like the rest of the Slow-Polks, we were plenty exhausted. The phosphoric in us was stale. Our springs were run down. No more did we sing songs, neither patriotic nor bawdy. Half-Lip McCoy's concertina lay smudged in the dirt, trampled to splinters by the Pythagorean Brethern, as the Musics called themselves. With dark and dirty eyes we stared our ugly expressions at the strata of lantern lit darkness, letting the flies drink our sweat.

A small hiss of steam and clank of iron joints announced the arrival of P. P. F. S., his "Moral Surgeon" sash much stained by soot smoke, saltpeter, dried blood, acid drops, and dirt. <<Tick!...Sss-sss- Tick!...Sss-sss-Tick!...Tick-ick-ick!>> His grey swirling glass marble eyes stared dimly at us, and, ticking out his moral duty, he observed, <<Dugout Number 1. I have an announcement.>>

The men groaned. "Who cares," I said.

"Silence!" cried Kelly.

<<This announcement has two parts. The first part is Number 1. The second part is Number 2. The first part follows - # % * @ - >> Some of the men roused themselves to boo and hiss.

"Go make eyes at a locomotive," I heckled.

Kelly glared at me, then at Sergeant Mallory. Mallory sullenly waited for permission to thrash me. The Company was under the false impression that I had bested Kelly's constable. But I'd just given us both a jolt of the good galvinic. We were too burnt out afterwards to fight. Kelly was perplexed about what to do about me, a Discipline Problem under the protection of his natural sympathy.

<<Number 1 - # % * @ - Our acting commander, Captain Miles, has directed me to advise you on your sloppy uniforms. You look like locked-out manufactory waifs in a Bank Crisis - # % * @ - >>

"Now, Prince-Prez," called Sergeant Williams of Company B, rousing himself to defend the reputation of himself and his men. As he spoke he buttoned his ragged collar. "That ain't fair - We are Dough- Boys of Rough `n' Ready, not Fuss `n' Feathers... Ain't we, boys?" he called, expecting a rallying cheer, but all he got was a few desultory "Yeah"s.

The Metal Man snorted a little more steam and clinked a step forward. <<Look at you. Er-err-errr-roo! Filthy, dull, meek - Tick! - Tock! - Who represents progre-e-eggs eggs eggs - Tick! - and civilizations?>> His gears seemed to slip a cog or two and then catch up.

"But you can't sneak under the Big Top tent to see the circus elephant - lest you get your knees dirty! It's the spirit of the thing that counts, not the look of it!" I protested, standing up but averting my gaze from the confusion of his mesmeric miles of grey spirals.

Thick black and greasy coke smoke dribbled down around the edges of the Metal Man's stovepipe, its writhing snake-coils shrouding his handsome porcelain mask, hinting of a hideous guppy gaping grin, gulping the foul fumes, but his dumb grey eyes burned through, unkind eyes of Nature, stupidly lurid lizardish, with thickly languorous lids.

He spoke in such a soft-lisping hiss of steam-puffs that I almost didn't hear what it was impossible for him to say:

<<What is the weight and measure of spirit? If you weigh a corpse immediately before and after death, is there a change? What is that change? What accounts for the messy look of spiritless decay, but the one and only Spirit, the Spirit of the Worm? Is not that Worm your own animating spirit, Jack Borginnis, obedient criminal of Camp Greenhorn?

"What?" I cried. Beside me, Kidney Beanton and Six-Fingers Bourdett exchanged glances. Ever since my little rampart jig and tussle with the sarge there was talk of me going off my rocker. I didn't care. If I was, I wasn't the only one. Weren't we Regulars all a bit nuts, giving up ourselves as slaves to the president? Why'd he send us to steam up to the Moon in stinking balloons to die for? Of course, that was the regular life of a Regular, which is why hardly any American respected or even tolerably liked soldiers of their own army even - last I heard, Congress was about to cut West Point from the budget because it was so undemocratic and useless...That ruffled my fur the wrong way, let me tell you! Here I was about to get stuck in the gut by ten or twelve Lunar bayonets, and all the citizens I was protected so very far away - all them folks sitting by their fireplaces thought of me as nothing more than a slacker and a drunkard! And they were the same Young Americans who voted in my Commander- in-Chief! What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Of course, I was a bit lazy, and I did like to have a drink or two, or three even, maybe four sometimes - but I wasn't so different from most folks, mostly...I didn't have big ears like Six-Fingers, nor wasn't even Mormon for that matter. Although it was true that certain dire tribulations had caused me to slacken my grip on my lasso of Belief. In fact that lasso of Disbelief I now held was nothing but a slipknot noose of atheism tight around my yelping throat, by which means the lightning bearded iron visaged Awful Deity dangled me so jovially over the Inquisitorial iron racks, bone-crippling cages and hot stoves of Hell - like a plumb-line I dangled on the straight and narrow between Right and Wrong - but at least I wasn't ugly and disfigured like Half-Lip, who had to pay his whores double, who enjoyed his sinning so much he earned so large and wanton a pustule on his upper lip back at Annex Agonies that Judah Paine thought it judicious medical punishment to cut off the greater part of same. Though I was one, I had no mark that branded me an awful sinner. And I aimed to keep it that way. Since there was no Judgement, there was no Crime. That is why, when the Moral Surgeon reminded me of my crime, he reminded me that I had taken it upon myself to transfix my guilty carcass on my own lightning bolt of retribution. And that is why I - in my private agony and shame - did what I did a little while later -

P. P. F. S. ticked on:<<Number 2 follows - # % * @ - I, Prince- President Franklin Stove, offer breakneck fast crematorium services to any and all corpses - >>

This astonished the dugout. I broke out of my dingy mesmerism, angry.

"What insult is this?" asked Lieutenant Fisk of Company B.

"What the deuce, man?" called Kelly. "You'd best quit this game or your goose is cooked."

<<Not goose.>>

"He's mad," said Six-Fingers.

"He's making me mad," said one of the pugilists of Company C.

<<My purpose is Reason itself. Reason is the reduction of the irrational to its rational parts. My reduction of the corpse to cinders is certain and performed at breakneck speed.>>

The men murmured, beyond booing.

"This is too much!" said Lieutenant Fisk to Kelly.

"What are we going to do about it, boys?" I said, turning round to the Crawdads.

"Silence!" said Kelly.

<<First I break the bones into ten-inch sizes, in order to fit them in my furnace. Second I - >>

"Quit, Perfessor, or you'll pay for these wisecracks!" warned Sergeant Mallory.

His eyelids ticked tin taps up and down, seemingly in gear-slipping stutter. <<This service is indeed gratuitous. I offer satisfaction, rendering your flesh into boiler pressure.>>

"Hey! I've had enough of this chessplayer."

"What do you say, boys?"

\pard"Get'm!" The men moved forward a few steps.

<< - # % * @ - It is the only sure way to harness Progress to the sloppy work of the Worm - >>

"We done already tarred and feathered him once!"

"Looks like we got to bust his head off!"

<< - # % * @ - >>

"Easy, boys. Easy," said Lieutenant Fisk. He turned to P. P. F. S. "Now you, get out of here, or I don't know what will happen."

<< - # % * @ - Have you ever ruminated upon the sloppy work of the Worm? An example follows - >>

"Get'm!" someone called.

Fisk drew his saber and so did Kelly. They held their sabers lengthwise together, the Moral Surgeon behind them. The sergeants tried to push the men back, but couldn't.

"Get'm! He's against us! Do it for Jackson, boys!" I cried.

That call hit a chord, which reverberated:"Fer Jackson!"

<<Tick!...Sss-sss-Tick! - Sss-sss-Tick! - Tick-ick-ick!>>

The men pushed the sergeants back against the lieutenants. "Whoever shall attempt to harm the surgeon shall receive ten lashes," said Lieutenant Fisk. The men hesitated at this, and fell back. The lieutenants nodded and sheathed their sabers.

<< - # % * @ - Has anyone seen Sergeant Weigart - ?>>

"Don't let'm eat poor Oscar!" I shouted. "Revenge for Oscar!" I dodged to the fore -

"Revenge!" the men shouted, pushing me foreward. The lieutenants disappeared - the too-benign face of the Metal Man was right before me. Something clicked in my brain - I vented a gust of fury in the `scape value of my snarl - yelling, "Raaa!" I grabbed his porcelain ears and shook him, hard. The mesmeric grey lights dimmed. Automatically I tripped him Apache-style as Mallory taught me back at Camp Greenhorn, and with a dozen hands pressing down on me I toppled over his scalding chest and pushed myself back up again with one hand. With the other I smacked his big hard white face. Some of the men were yelling, "Kill him! Kill him!" and someone tried to pull me off - as I fell back I tore the "Moral Surgeon" sash off - the automaton wriggling on his back like an overturned turtle. I could hear the resounding clang of the men kicking him with their boots. I heard Kelly shouting at me and I shrugged free to smack the Prince- President again. <<Er-roo! Er-roo! Raaa! Tuck-tock! Er-roo-oo- aaa!>> he screamed, the sound of thousands of tiny iron teeth being stripped from their wheels. I heard Martha Miles screaming "STOP! STOP!" as I smacked him again. The Metal Man stung my arm with steam - he squirted scalding gas all around - we fell away. He rolled to left and then to the right, pushing upward, and stood up. One of his eyes glowed murkily, the other was dark. The glowing eye flickered in its murk, like heat-lightning in heavy clouds. "Just who or what are you?" I demanded as they pulled me back. He ticked, seeming to consider - .

<<Tick!...Sss-sss-Tick! - Sss-sss-Tick!...Tick-ick-ick!>>

"Who Am I?"

Chickens peck anything at all
Don't put your fingers in their craw,
My hens lay eggs for snakes to eat -
Rattlesnakes so hungry for meat -
Round and Around like stars they go
How fast stars fall you will soon know.

The Worm is kind; he likes to joke,
Tail in mouth the planets choke.
The stars are the Brain of God,
He's a bit odd. He's quite odd.
Tar and Feather me, string me up!
My birds peck at bones for their sup,
Such happy birds will then lay eggs,
Snakes eat white coal spit out the dregs.

I manufacture Sums of Quirks,
What I make is called Crewel-Works;
I am the Widget of the Worm,
Rest you assured that He Will Turn.
He breathes in death and out comes birth,
Moon will crack in the fangs of Earth.

And he turned and marched out of the Bomb-Proof.

"You bad luck charm!" I called after him.

My fist was numb. I was looking at it when Lieutenant Fisk grabbed me. His face twisted sourly. As Mallory tore off my dirty blouse and bound my wrists to the dugout rafter, Captain Miles came down to find out what was going on.

Outside, we learned, from the heated talk of the officers, the sentinels had challenged the Metal Man as he marched down the outer slope. Upon Captain Hawkin's orders they ran down to grab him, but he eluded them through the ditch, where they got caught themselves. He disappeared into the dark. Enraged, Hawkins fired several rounds of grapeshot, hoping to stop the deserter. We wouldn't know until the morning.

Captain Miles gave me a hard glance. "Carry on," he said. At first he stood with his arms crossed, watching, but when he discovered Martha standing beside him, he guided her into the gallery and was gone.

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