“I've forgotten my relation to news.... Where are you going?”
“To see if that beef-train is in. I suppose you'll have rigged up a turkish bath and be in the cooling room by the time I get back.”
Peter fed the horses and had tea and black bread served for two, by the time Boylan called from a distance: “Put on the griddle, Peter--a regular steak.... I stopped in the farrier's on the way back and had it anviled a bit. That's what kept me,” he added.
Peter tossed it in the pan. Their fire was in the turf at the door of the fish shop. Boylan drew in close, having washed noisily, and deposited the remaining provisions in the two saddle-bags. “We're fixed for supper and breakfast,” he remarked, with a sigh.
“You said that the army that would win this war must win through famine. The Russians had better begin--”
“I didn't say anything about Mr. B. B. Boylan--”
“Mr. Big Belt Boylan,” Peter muttered, twisting his face away from the heat and sizzling smoke steam. The name held.
The huge Rhodes' man liked Peter more than the latter knew, and his likings of this sort were deep and peculiar. Boylan was nearing fifty, a man all in one piece--thick, ponderous, hard, scarred with _la viruela_, a saber sweep, a green-blue arc in his throat where some dart or arrow had torn its way in between vital columns. His head was bald and wrinkled, but very large, his neck and jaw to match, his eyes a soft blue that once had been his secret shame. Very often he had been called into the public glare.
“I was so hungry once,” Boylan said, “that I've been a slave to the fear of it ever since.” He referred to the Polar Failure. “Once in Farrel's Island--we were four,” he added. “We drew lots to find out which one of us we must eat. That _was_ a winter.... All you fellows may begin famine as soon as you like. You'll come a long way before you arrive at the personal familiarity of the subject earned by this same little fat boy.... Turn it again, Peter.”
Samarc rushed past, speaking excitedly in French, and in the shadows behind they saw the eyes of Spenski, sympathetic and wistful.
“What did he say, Peter?” Boylan asked quickly. “Samarc's French is like my Russian.”
“He said his face had been fixed for tea--and toast with Spenski--until we began to steam up the place. Now he's gone to the feed-wagons.”