Cryptonomicon

"As long as we're pulling up stakes," Root says coolly, "I'll be coming along for the ride."

"I don't mean that," Bobby Shaftoe says. "I mean, why should the detachment have a chaplain?"

"You know the military," Root says. "Every unit has to have one."

"It's bad luck."

"It's bad luckto have a chaplain? Why?"

"It means the waffle-butts are expecting a lot of funerals, is why."

"So you are taking the position that the only thing a cleric can do is to preside over funerals? Interesting."

"And weddings and baptisms," Shaftoe says. All of the other Marines chortle.

"Could it be you're feeling a little anxious about the unusual nature of Detachment 2702's first mission?" Root inquires, casting a significant glance at the late Hott, then staring directly into Shaftoe's eyes.

"Anxious? Listen, Rev, I done some things on Guadalcanal that make this look like Emily Fucking Post."

All of the other Marines think this is a great line, but Root is undeterred.

"Did you know why you were doing those things on Guadalcanal?"

"Sure! To stay alive."

"Do you know why you're doing this?"

"Fuck no."

"Doesn't that irritate you a little bit? Or are you too much of a stupid jarhead to care?"

"Well, you kind of backed me into a corner there, Rev," Shaftoe says. After a pause he goes on, "I'll admit to being a little curious.

"If there were someone in Detachment 2702 who could help answer your questions about why,would that be useful?"

"I guess so," Shaftoe grumbles. "It just seems weird to have a chaplain."

"Why does it seem weird?"

"Because of what kind of unit this is."

"What kind of unit isit?" Root asks. He asks it with a certain sadistic pleasure.

"We're not supposed to talk about it," Shaftoe says. "And anyway, we don't know."

Down the hill, immense zigzagging ramps descend pompously over rows of tiger-striped arches to the strand of ramifying railway lines that feed the port from the south. "It's like standing in the drain of a fucking pinball machine," says B. Shaftoe, looking up at the way they have just come, thinking about what might come rolling down out of the Casbah. They head south along those railway lines and come into a zone of ore dumps and coal heaps and smokestacks, clearly recognizable to Great Lakes Eagle Scout Shaftoe, but here operated through some kind of cross-cultured gear train about a million meshings deep. They pull up in front of the Société Algérienne d'Éclairage et de Force, a double-smokestacked behemoth with the biggest coal-pile of all. They're in the middle of nowhere, but it's obvious that they are expected. Here--as everywhere else that Detachment 2702 goes--a strange Rank Inflation Effect is taking place. The coffin is carried into the SAEF by two lieutenants, a captain, and a major, overseen by a colonel! There is not a single enlisted man in sight, and Bobby Shaftoe, a mere sergeant, worries about what sort of work they'll find for him.There is also a Paperwork Negation Effect going on here; whenever Shaftoe expects to be stalled by the usual half an hour's worth of red tape, an anxious officer runs up and waves his hands furiously and he is allowed to proceed.

An Arab, wearing what appears to be a red coffee can on his head, hauls an iron door open; flames lunge at him and he beats them back with a blackened iron stick. The pallbearers center the head of the coffin in the opening and then shove it through, like ramming a big shell home into a sixteen-inch gun, and the man with the can on his head clangs the door shut, a tassel on the top of his can whipping around crazily. Before he's even got it latched he's yodeling just like those guys up in the Casbah. The officers all stand around agreeing with each other and signing their names on clipboards.

So with a dearth of complications that can only strike combat veteran Bobby Shaftoe as eerie, the truck leaves the Société Algérienne d'Éclairage et de Force behind and heads back up those damn ramps into Algiers. The climb's steep--a first-gear project all the way. Vendors with push carts loaded with boiling oil are not only keeping up with them but cooking fritters along the way. Three-legged dogs run and fight underneath the actual drive train of the truck. Detachment 2702 is also dogged by coffee-can-wearing natives threatening to play guitars made of jerry cans, and by orange vendors and snake charmers, and a few blue-eyed burnoose wearers holding up lumps of unwrapped and unlabelled dark stuff. Like hailstones, these may be classified by analogy to fruits and sporting goods. Typically they range from grape to baseball. At one point, the chaplain impulsively trades a Hershey bar for a golf ball of the stuff.

"What is that? Chocolate?" Bobby Shaftoe asks.

"If it was chocolate," Root says, "that guy wouldn't have taken a Hershey bar for it."

Shaftoe shrugs. "Unless it's shitty chocolate."

"Or shit!" blurts Private Nathan, provoking incredible hilarity.

"You heard of Mary Jane?" Root asks.