Cryptonomicon

For the rest of the way over he can't really see diddly, and even after he's back on the torpedo boat, all is confusion, and someone named Enoch Root insists on taking him below and working on his arm and his head. Waterhouse did not know until now that his head was damaged, which stands to reason, in that your head is where you know things, and if it's damaged, how can you know it? "You'll get at least a Purple Heart for this," Enoch Root says. He says it with a marked lack of enthusiasm, as if he couldn't care less about Purple Hearts, but is condescending to suppose that it will be a big thrill for Waterhouse. "And Sergeant Shaftoe probably has another major decoration coming too, damn him."

Chapter 33 MORPHIUM

Shaftoe still sees the word every time he closes his eyes. It would be a lot better if he were paying attention to the work at hand: packing demolition charges around the gussets that join the safe to the U-boat.

MORPHIUM. It is printed thus on a yellowed paper label. The label is glued to a small glass bottle. The color of the glass is the same deep purple that you see when your eyes have been dazzled by a powerful light.

Harvey, the sailor who has volunteered to help him, keeps shining his flashlight into Shaftoe's eyes. It is unavoidable; Shaftoe is wedged into a surpassingly awkward position beneath the safe, working with the charges, trying to set the primers with slimy fingers drained of warmth and strength. This would not even be possible if the boat hadn't been torpedoed; before, this cabin was half full of sewage and the safe was immersed in it. Now it has been conveniently drained.

Harvey is not wedged into anything; he is being flung around by the paroxysms of the U-boat, which like a beached shark, is trying stupidly but violently to thrash its way loose from the reef. The beam of his flashlight keeps sweeping across Shaftoe's eyes. Shaftoe blinks, and sees a cosmos of purple: tiny purple bottles labeled MORPHIUM.

"God damn it!" he hollers.

"Is everything all right, Sergeant?" Harvey says.

Harvey doesn't get it. Harvey thinks that Shaftoe is cursing at some problem with the explosives.

The explosives are just fucking great.There's no problem with the explosives.The problem is with Bobby Shaftoe's brain.

He was right there.Waterhouse sent him to find a stethoscope, and Shaftoe went chambering through the U-boat until he found a wooden box. He opened it up and saw right away it was full of medic stuff. He pawed through it, looking for what Waterhouse wanted, and there was the bottle, plain as day, right in front of his face. His hand brushed against it, for god's sake. He saw the label as the beam of his flashlight swept across it:

MORPHIUM.

But he didn't grab it. If it had said MORPHINE he would have grabbed it in a second. But it said MORPHIUM. And it wasn't until about thirty seconds later that he realized that this was a fucking German boat and of course the words would all be different and there was about a 99 percent chance that MORPHIUM was, in fact, exactly the same stuff as MORPHINE. When he realized that he planted his feet in the passageway of the darkened U-boat and let out a deep long scream from way down in his gut. With the noise of the waves, no one heard him. Then he continued onwards and carried out his duty, handing over the stethoscope to Waterhouse. He carried out his duty because he is a Marine.

Blowing this fucking safe off the wall is not his duty. It's just an idea that popped into his head. They've been training him how to use these explosives; why not put it into practice? He's blowing this safe up, not because he is a Marine, but because he is Bobby Shaftoe. And also because it's a great excuse to go back for that morphium.

The U-boat bucks and sends Harvey sprawling to the deck. Shaftoe waits for the motion to subside, then flails for handholds and pulls himself out from under the safe. His weight is mostly on his feet now, but it wouldn't be correct to say he's standing up. In this place, the best you can hope for is to scramble for balance somewhat faster than you are falling on your Keister. Harvey has just lost that race and Shaftoe is winning it for the moment.

"Fire in the hole!" Shaftoe hollers. Harvey finds his feet! Shaftoe gives him a helpful shove out into the passageway. Harvey turns left and heads uphill for the conning tower and the exit. Shaftoe turns right. He heads downhill. Towards the bow. Towards Davy Jones's Locker. Towards the box with the MORPHIUM.

Where the fuck is that box? When he found it before, it was bobbing in the soup. Maybe--horrible thought--maybe it just drained out of the hole made by the torpedo. He passes through a couple of bulkheads. The boat's angle is getting steeper all the time and he ends up walking backwards, like he's descending a ladder, making handholds out of pipes, electrical cables, and the chains that suspend the submarines' bunks. This boat is so damn long.