much worried

@@@@@ "I was in Washington about a year and a half ago," Conn said in his whisky voiceHearn sighed to himself, and eased himself slowly down on the sand, letting his head touch the ground, exposing his chest to the sunIts heat was palpable, and he could feel the sun boring through his eyelids, exciting his retina into blind and angry circles of redFrom the jungle a dank sulphurous breeze was exuded from time to time like the draft from an oven when the door is opened Hearn sat up again, folded his forearms over his hairy knees, and stared about the beachSome of the officers who had come down with them were swimming now, and a few others were playing bridge on a blanket inside the shade of a peripheral coconut tree which leaned over the beachAbout a hundred yards away on a small sand spit there was the occasional sharp ineffectual pop of a carbine as Major Dalleson threw a pebble into the air and fired at itThe water had deepened in color from its almost transparent early-morning blue to a deep violet, and the sun glittered over it like the reflections from a rainy pavement at nightAbout a mile to the right a lone landing craft was chugging leisurely in toward shore after having transferred a load of supplies from one of the freighters anchored out in the water Sunday at the beachIt was a little incredibleIf you added a few striped beach umbrellas, the average quota of women and children, this would be indistinguishable from any of the more exclusive beaches at which his family had bathed one summer or anotherPerhaps a sailboat should be substituted for the landing craft, and Dalleson could be fishing instead of shooting pebbles, but it was really close enoughCompletely incredibleOut of decency, perhaps, they had retreated for this beach party to the extreme tip of the peninsula, twenty-five miles from the base where the front-line troops were patrolling this Sunday morning against the Toyaku LineGo, my children, and God bless you, the General had said in effectAnd of course the guards along the road, and the detail of quartermaster troops who were bivouacked on the beach and were responsible this morning for patrolling the fringes of the jungle near where they were bathing would hate them for it, and as Cummings had said, would fear them even more He shouldn't have come along, Hearn decidedYet the headquarters bivouac would have been deadly this morning with most of the officers goneThe General would want to talk to him, and it was important to stay away from the General nowBesides, he had to admit it was pleasant hereIt had been a long time since he had felt the sun's heat relaxing his body, absorbing and melting his tensions "The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety," the General had said Then twentieth-century man was also a sunbatherHearn kneaded a stiffened cake of sand into powder between his finger