As Ben said, “If war is hell, there must be some place worse’n hell, and we’re there!” And I heartily concurred in that opinion. Our little cubbyhole opened off of Troop Compartment D-13, and we were extreme aft and on the water line, which made it necessary to keep the portholes closed all the time. Being so far aft put us in an enviable position just over the propellers and beside the pumping engines that sent the drinking water throughout the ship and the hot salt water to the enlisted men’s showers. Did I say “enviable?” Where Esky might exist in solitary comfort, in so far as space was concerned, there were three of us, two grown men and me, and Esky to boot, all packed in like the proverbial sardines—except that those poor fish are only two-deep whereas we were stacked three-deep, with the bottom bunk resting almost on the floor deck and the man on top, Getterlow, unable to turn over because of the low-lying deck above. Esky could just squirm under my bunk. Ben had the middle berth, and probably an ordinary-sized man could be comfortable in it, but not Ben. Beside this tier of bunks was less than three feet of space—the dressing room for all three of us. A small ventilator came into the middle of the ceiling, and sent down a little breeze of cold air which was just refreshing enough to keep us alive and aggravate our misery by reminding us how cool and nice it was on deck. Of course, if you held your head under the ventilator for any length of time you might begin to feel that living was worth while, but the moment you removed your breathing apparatus from that one spot, your brains went reeling around in dizzy contortions and every breath seemed like a gasp. Such a place would be almost untenable at best, with the portholes open, but they had to stay closed and the place was as dark as a potato cellar, unlighted except for the thin irritating rays which strayed in from a solitary blue lamp in the middle of the main troop compartment.... Truly there couldn’t be any more hell in war than there was in this! The close, stifling, itch-producing atmosphere of the place defied description. Damp, heavy heat seemed to close about our heads and lungs, taking away all power of resistance, dissipating every desire to resist. Those water-pumps next door, instead of alleviating the hot, sweaty air, augmented it by pouring forth merciless waves of saturated matter which conquered and depressed almost without a struggle. We could only get out through the main compartment, and the only way into or out of that equally uninhabitable hole was by a narrow ladder at whose upper end a hatch opened into a paint and carpentry shop—a veritable factory of fumes and odors that would be sickening enough anyway; if you felt kinda sick and started for the open air, you would have to go through this final chamber of destruction, and when a man’s sick he don’t feel well enough to endure that.