transmitter's carrier and spoke in a quiet hiss. "Commsubron Killer from Sugar William Niner Zero. Message for Daddy. Sonnyboy just resigned from the Navy. Go to hell, all of you! Over and out!"

He shut off the receiver just as it started to stutter a shocked reply. He dropped the mike and let it dangle. He stood touching his fingertips to his temples and breathing in shallow gasps. Had he gone completely insane?

He sat down on the floor of the tiny compartment and tried to think. But he could only feel a bitter resentment welling up out of nowhere. Why? He had always gotten along in the Navy. He was the undersea equivalent of a fighter pilot, and he had always liked his job. They had even said that "he had the killer instinct"—or whatever it was that made him grin maliciously when he spotted an enemy sub and streaked in for the kill.

Now suddenly he didn't want to go back. He wanted to quit the whole damn war and run away. Because of Garson maybe? But no, hadn't he anticipated that before it happened? Why should he kick now, when he hadn't kicked before? And who was he to decide whether Garson was right or wrong?

Go back, he thought. There's the microphone. Pick it up and tell Commsubron that you went stir-crazy for a little while. Tell him wilco on his message. They won't do anything to you except send you to a nut doctor. Maybe you need one. Go on back like a sane man.

But he drew his hand back from the microphone. He wiped his face nervously. Mitch had never spent much time worrying about ethics and creeds and political philosophies. He'd had a job to do, and he did it, and he sometimes sneered at people who could wax starry-eyed about patriotism and such. It didn't make sense. The old school spirit was okay for football games, and even for small-time wars, but he had never felt much of it. He hadn't needed it in order to be a good fighter. He fought because it was considered the "thing to do," because he liked the people he had to live with, and because those people wouldn't have a good opinion of him if he didn't fight. People never needed much of a philosophic motive to make them do the socially approved things.

He moistened his lips nervously and stared at the microphone. He was scared. Scared to run away. He had never been afraid of a fight, frightened maybe, but not afraid. Why now? It takes a lot of courage to be a coward, he thought, but the word coward made him wince. He groped blindly for a reasonable explanation of his desire to desert. He wanted to talk 

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