Company K (Library Alabama Classics) Page 16

  “Maybe so,” I said; “I don't remember.”

  “I remember Carter Atlas,” said Pig Iron, laughing. “He was the boy who threw his mess-gear away one night when we had rice again.”

  “I don't remember him,” I said. “I don't seem to place him.”

  “John Cosley lost an arm,” said Pig Iron, “or was that Ollie Teclaw?—Anyway, I remember putting a tourniquet on one of them, and whoever it was, he kept saying I was putting it on too tight.—You remember John Cosley, don't you?—A tall fellow with red hair . . . ”

  I stood there thinking, trying to bring up the faces of the men I used to soldier with, but I couldn't do it. I realized, then, that I would not have remembered the face of Riggin, himself, if I hadn't known who he was beforehand. I began to feel sad because it had all happened so long ago, and because I had forgotten so much. I was sorry that I had come to the camp at all. Pig Iron and I stood there looking at each other. We didn't have anything to talk about, after all. Then we locked the old building and went outside.