Chapter 2 – Camp Currahee
"God is less careful than General Motors,
for He floods the world with factory rejects"
–Mignon McLaughlin,
The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Forerunner Archives
A.I. Eternal Record – Converted for [Human] Comprehension
[98,360 Before Common Era]
Excerpt from "Battle of DM-3-1123 b – Post-battle Speech before the [Council of Stewards]"
By the Didact
"Fellow Stewards of the Mantle,
Seven days ago, our Suppression fleet engaged the anti-spiral disease known as the Flood on the planet of DM-3-1123 b. 149 ships corrupted by the Flood assaulted the planet—and, despite the valiant actions of the [men] who destroyed all the Flood vessels, the Flood entered the planet.
Our [men] continued to fight valiantly on the ground, but the flood had long since spread, and [Forerunner] Fleet Command deemed that prolonged engagement would be disadvantageous to the surviving populace.
Therefore, two days ago, the Fleet of Suppression evacuated over a million civilians from affected areas and then bombarded DM-3-1123 b from orbit. All Flood forces were destroyed in the battle, along with 225 billion of our infected or dead countrymen.
Today, I come before you a humbled [man]—humbled by the valor of our fleet, and the great sacrifice made by the citizens of DM-3-1123 b.
This is no victory, though it is not defeat. We have lost billions of our countrymen and countless ships and fleets to defend against a fleet that consisted of less than half a [battle group]. Yet we have learned.
We have learned not to underestimate this menace.
We have learned not to show mercy.
We have learned to fight.
And we will fight. We are the heirs of the [Precursors], the spiral race that has been blessed with both the rights and responsibilities of the Mantle, the stewardship of all peaceful spiral Races. We have committed our share of sins – [devolving] the [humans] and imprisoning the [San 'Shyuum] – but we will learn from our mistakes. It is our duty, as the greatest spiral race, to defend all of our brethren from the threat of The Flood. We have deprived our brethren of weapons in the hopes that we could be the ones who protect them, whether from the [spiral-nemesis] or from fellow races, spiral or not. Now the [humans], the [Sangheili], the [Jiralhanae], the [San 'Shyuum], the Chozo (ERROR – No [Human] Equivalent), the [kig-yar], the Yuuzhan Vong (ERROR – no [Human] Equivalent) and so many more look to us for our protection. We are the great hope of the Galaxy – it is time for us to truly don the Mantle of the [Precursors]. So let us cast away all our old enmities and devote ourselves to the tasks ahead – to be the shining beacon of light that will drive the darkness that is The Flood away from Spiral Civilization.
May It Be,
The Didact."
UFNSC Oprichnik
In Orbit Above XF-063 (A.K.A. Onyx)
Warm…like a bath. But kind of cold…
"Wake Up, Jean-G133." The voice was unfamiliar, but that of a man's, mournful, if not completely emotionless.
Jean Teppelin slowly opened his eyes. Where...?
He seemed to be looking out some kind of frosty window. On the other side, a rather dull, cold-looking grey room welcomed him. A slightly-flickering young man with the facial complexion of a smurf watched him disinterestedly. Looking around, Jean realized that the window enclosed him, forming a closed glass capsule. He raised his arm to touch the glass—and immediately shivered. The air was frigid, like a freezer. The glass, on the other hand, was warm. Instantly, the capsule opened up as a wave of warm air flooded into the Cryochamber. Jean craned his neck forwards—and blinked. He didn't remember going into the capsule naked. To be exact, he didn't remember going into the capsule at all. The last thing he remembered was being helped out of that robot by a group of soldiers with Guame.
"I see you're awake," the A.I. remarked dryly.
Dressed completely in black and decked in what Jean was pretty sure was eyeliner, the A.I. hardly seemed helpful – in fact, he looked like one of those Death Metal Singers that his father loved watching on the vids. The A.I. didn't seem too annoyed by Jean's lack of verbal response. "When you're ready, your articles are on the table," the A.I. explained as he indicated the table where Jean saw what looked like a folded uniform, along with his Drill necklace and, in a small box—"Guame!"
The armadillo slowly trundled over to the naked boy, who hugged it as the A.I. continued to watch impassively.
"This is kind of disturbing. Put on your clothes already. The others are waiting for you outside."
"—Asad-G097! Mapenzi-G098! Ash-G099! Falk-G100! Get onboard the red-striped Pelican!"
The landing bay of the Oprichnik was filled with children, each clumped into groups of about 20 or 30. One of the groups was being herded into the belly of one of the three Transport planes at the mouth of the bay, a yellow-striped Pelican. For their identical uniforms and articles, they may well have been students going on a field trip. Jean realized that he was far from the only one carrying something—though none of them carried an Armadillo in a small cage, most of the children carried bags. A few carried larger objects – one particular girl was carrying what looked like a metal baseball bat (judging by the dent, it had been well-used in the past). The soldier who had escorted him took a glance at the name tag on Jean's Chest.
"Jean-G108…you're with that group," the soldier intoned emotionlessly as he pointed at one of the clumps of children. As he quietly walked towards the group, Jean couldn't help noticing the diverse appearances and expressions of the children. Some of them were curiously looking at the bipedal Knightmares or the wedge-shaped Longsword Starfighters that had stood at the side, or at the officer whose megaphone-amplified instructions reverberated through the bay. Some were silently crying or muttering to themselves, and a few silently looked down at the ground or stared blankly at the air, as if they could see something that nobody else could see. If this was a field trip, Jean decided, it was an outing for mental hospital patients. Jean Teppelin had never been a very self-conscious boy, but he looked within the group for someone relatively normal. Deciding he didn't find anyone, Jean sidled quietly to the side of the group, where a blonde girl simply stared vacantly at her hands. She gave no sign of noticing Jean. Feeling as if it was slightly impolite to stare, he gave a nod, a nod she did not seem to notice.
"Err…hello?"
The girl's head snapped up as she caught his eye. Jean immediately froze, even as the girl lowered her eyes to her hands again. For a moment, he had felt like a deer staring down the barrel of a gun.
"Yeah…she doesn't talk much."
The female voice startled Jean, and he turned around to see another girl. Like everybody else, she wore the scaled down grey uniforms of the UFNSC Navy. With light-brown skin that contrasted notably from the almost snow-white skin of Jean and the blonde-girl, she could have well been a member of the Covenant from the way Jean stared.
"I tried talking to her," the girl explained, "She just gives you a death-stare…probably she had it really bad compared to us—are you alright? You look kind of out of it too…"
Jean blinked in surprise. Miridem City, almost homogenously from the Britannian Union, did not have much in the way of Racial diversity, and the fact that she seemed almost normal shocked him.
"Err…should I leave you alone…Jean?" The girl seemed worried now as she gave Jean a weird look that brought him back from his reverie.
"No, no, its fine…ummm…" he tried to crane his head over Sathya's crossed arms to look at her ID.
The girl uncrossed her arms to reveal the ID lapel on her left chest. "I'm Sathya…apparently G-124. My Last name is actually Sarasvati, though, from Kailasa. You?"
"Jean Teppelin, from Miridem. But what do you mean by had it really bad?"
"Didn't you ask around? We all lost our parents in the war. Well, not me, but you guys."
Despite the fact that the hanging bay was almost at freezing temperature, Jean felt his face turned hot. There was something insulting about the way in which Sathya had said it—in passing, as if talking about the weather.
"H-how can you just say things like that?"
Sathya blinked—and then turned red as she looked away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that—" then, suddenly, her faced hardened, as if remembering something. "But, honestly, it doesn't matter what happened to mine."
Jean opened his mouth to speak—just as an ear-splitting siren filled the air. Moments later, the Officer looked around to make sure all the children were watching him.
"Alright, if your ID is anywhere between G100 and G125, prepare to board the Pelican!"
Jean checked his number again. 108—that meant it was his call. Sathya, too, also checked her ID.
"Guess this is our ride."
Taking a sidelong glance at the blonde girl (who didn't seem to have noticed), Sathya leaned over to Jean and whispered, "should we check for her?"
"You do it," Jean replied – he did not look forward to getting what amounted to a stare from Medusa.
"Wuss," Sathya muttered as she sauntered over—dragging Jean with a surprisingly strong grip. "Hey, miss…I think we were called. Do you know your number?"
The girl's head snapped up, and Jean involuntarily shivered—but the girl simply glanced at her Lapel (which read "Samus-G119"). Wordlessly, she stood up and joined the group. Sathya gave an uncomfortable glance at Jean, who returned the glance just as uncomfortably as they piled into the passenger compartment of the Pelican. Silently, the children fought for the window seats, as if they were trying to find their places on a schoolbus. Jean, who was one of the last on, was confronted with a sea of heads, save for one seat—Jean shivered. And of course it's right next to Samus-G119. Jean, aware he had no other choice, awkwardly sat down, doing his best to avoid physical contact as he tried to simultaneously telepathically pull the harness from next to Samus-G119 in one hand and hold a box of Armadillo in the other. Already, this was turning out to be a very awkward trip, wherever they were going.
UFNMC Camp Currahee
XF-063, AKA Onyx
"Those are the new recruits, eh?"
The AI known as Deep Winter grinned as his flickering avatar (an old man with a snowy cape that stood at great odds with the warm weather) "gazed" out the window.
"Don't look like much," The scarred, silver-haired man next to him managed to squeeze out from between two teeth and a large, almost-bulbous cigar.
"Do they ever, Mendez? And don't they always do you proud?" the third man put down his mug of coffee as he walked over to the window.
"They do," Mendez replied shortly.
"Not that you'd ever tell them," the third man pointed out, to Deep Winter's amusement. Even Mendez cracked a chuckle with a little bit of moisture (not easy for someone who had been smoking for the last few decades), something he hid by derisively indicating at some of the new SPARTAN-IIIs.
"What's with the kid with the Rat? Or the one with a baseball bat? What is this, some kind of Fruitcake kiddie picnic?"
Deep Winter shrugged. "Directive S3G-634D specifies that they be allowed to bring a few reminders of the homes and families they lost. Keeps them driven to kill Covenant. Oh yeah, and that's an Armadillo, not a rat."
The third man sighed. "Back in my day, they took everything from us and just told us we were going to be SPARTANs."
Mendez chuckled. "Kurt, you're not nearly old enough to say Back in My Day."
Kurt Ambrose, otherwise known as Kurt-051, turned serious. "Still, they're not too bad a bunch…"
Mendez shrugged. "They're not terrible."
Kurt turned around at the two as he smiled slightly.
"…Let's make them the best yet. For Alpha and Beta."
"…where are we?"
"Is that a bunker?"
"Reminds me of Greensboro back from home."
"Are they going to kill us?"
"What are you, stupid? I think they woulda done that by now if they wanted to."
"I want to go home…"
"Sissies," Sathya muttered under her breath. Like lint thrown into a washing machine, the children had once again congregated into clumps after the Pelicans had disgorged them from their bellies.
"You'd think that they were four year olds, gawping at trees like they've never seen a fores—Jean?"
Jean, though, was too busy gawping at the trees as if he had never seen a forest—and he hadn't. With its carefully maintained parks, trimmed lawns and suburbs, Miridem City had not exactly been a national park. The smell of a thousand different plant scents, aromas, and stenches, combined with the seemingly endless forest combined to form an environment that (as far as Jean was concerned) may as well have been built by the Covenant.
Sathya gave an exasperated sigh, though she smiled at the same time. Jean reminded her of some of the younger boys in her gang of "Dacoits" back in Kailasa. In an outer-colony mining world such as Kailasa, the gap in wealth between the businessmen who had secured rights to the mines and the men and women who worked in the actual was huge. Many families simply could not afford to have another child, and with colony administration and police completely smothered in bribes, those who could not scrape enough money to leave the lawless planet simply abandoned their children in the streets. The lucky were rescued by NGOs, adopted by rich businessmen or taken in by the few soup kitchens available. Others, like Sathya, formed gangs of thieves, pickpockets and the like referred to satirically as Dacoits, after the mythical thieves of Indian Folklore. Sathya had led one group onto the very streets of New Rajasthan, and she remembered the awe of some of the younger members at the hulking skyscrapers of the city that reached through the haze of chemical smog into the blue skies above. For all his good manners and educated accent, Jean looked like any other street urchin looking up at the metropolis of Rajasthan.
"Come on, Jean, no time to gawp at trees." Sathya gently smacked Jean's head. She almost felt like a parent—after all, many of the children around her looked to be around four, five or six years old—little toddlers for a nine-year old like Sathya. Yet, she didn't find most of them particularly appealing, with their constant whining, like the spoiled, chubby little princelings in Rajasthan City.
"Why'd they drop us in the middle of nowhere?"
"Do you think there are any wild animals here?"
"People live in this kind of place?"
"I want to go home!"
"Not Happening." A voice boomed out over the crowd of children, all of whom immediately turned to the source of the sound—a group of UFNSC officers led by an old, scarred man in UFNSC uniform, and—"No way," a kid gasped.
The Golden reflective visor, the green, full-body armor, the size that easily dwarfed the UNSC officer next to him—even the normally-skeptical Sathya's jaw dropped at the sight of the SPARTAN. Everyone had seen them on TV – the nameless SPARTANS defending Humanity, taking on whole armies of the Covenant and Winning, anonymously putting their lives on the line for civilians. They were the superheroes of humanity, the knights in shining armor that every boy wished he could be. Jean (and the rest of the children) could only gawp as the SPARTAN drew a line with two fingers across his faceplate and then put both his hands on his helmet.
"No way…he's going to pull it off—"
Short Brown hair, green eyes, clean-shaven—Jean felt a twinge of disappointment. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting to be underneath the helmet, but this man underneath was too….normal. The head looked tiny, dwarfed by the huge armored body that supported it. A few other children evidently felt the same way.
"I thought they were robots—"
"Is that it?"
Yet, for all their disappointment, their discontent immediately died out as the brown-haired man looked at them gravely. All eyes followed him in silence as he gravely regarded each of them—and then broke into a smile.
"Hey, you all."
An asian boy near Jean leaned over and whispered, "They talk?"
"Yes, we talk." Jean and the asian boy both jumped a clear foot in the air as the SPARTAN spoke, smiling.
"Haven't you heard the vids? SPARTANS have super hearing."
All the whispering that had been going on in the crowd immediately stopped. The SPARTAN waited a few moments to see if the silence would remain (it did), and then he spoke.
"Welcome, SPARTAN-IIIs, to Camp Curahee."
Sathya and Jean exchanged glances, both of which said something like "Did he just call us SPARTAN's?" Judging by the reaction of the other children, they all felt the same thing—though they didn't dare say it out loud.
"We, the SPARTAN-IIs, were formed 27 years ago. There were 75 of us on that day. Today, there are about 25. We're getting tired. We're getting old. Humanity needs new heroes, new SPARTANs. And that is where you, the SPARTAN-IIIs come in."
The SPARTAN looked at them.
"Every single one of you is an Orphan. Many of you were orphaned by the Covenant. You've seen what they've done—destroying whole planets, killing whole families."
Jean looked down as the SPARTAN continued.
"As SPARTAN-IIs, it has been our duty to fight against that—and now it is your duty to take over.
This road isn't easy. You will face trials, you will face death, you will face difficulty. But you are all capable of succeeding.
Each and every one of you was screened for growth potential. Every single one of you has the potential to be a SPARTAN.
Every single one of you will Be a SPARTAN.
The SPARTAN paused as he glanced at the sky, now a vivid orange. "But you will have to wait another day to be a SPARTAN. Sleep well tonight…you're going to need it in the days to come. I'm Kurt-051. You can call me Kurt Ambrose, or just Kurt. Now I'm going to hand things over to Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez."
On closer inspection, the UFNSC's hair was not black, but a deep gray, the same color of the long creases under his eyes. Unlike Kurt, there was no hint of good cheer on his face, though Jean didn't see anything that suggested cruelty. "I'm Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez. Kurt and I are in charge of making you Ender's Game launchies into SPARTANs. Your training begins tomorrow. Today, though you eat. Captain Denbeck will take you to the mess hall," he said as he gave a nod to Captain Denbeck, a (similarly old) uniformed officer who gave a curt nod. "you will be assigned your bunk and quarters there. Every single man and woman who I have trained has done me proud. All 330 of you are no exception. I expect the best of you. Dismissed."
"So we're going to be SPARTANs."
Sathya chewed contemplatively. Jean couldn't help but be intimidated as she shoveled half of her plate into her mouth. Judging by the way some of the other children at the table were eating, Sathya's seemed to be the norm. Then again, they seemed to need it more. Jean was easily the smallest at the table—and, judging by the way that meat disappeared from his tray to be replaced by carrots or various other undesired vegetables, people noticed it. Sathya looked especially unsociable as she did her best to give out both her and Jean's share of dirty looks. "Little pricks," she muttered under her breath. Jean never really minded vegetables, but now they seemed to taste terrible as he watched his plate grow from a balanced meal into a salad. Jean could see one of the other children edge towards his plate, eyeing what little non-greens he had left without any pretense of discreetness. Well, children, hardly fit him. Though Sathya was tall, she was still dwarfed by this curly-haired giant of a man. When Jean stared at him, he merely grinned back, as if daring "what are you going to do about it?" in slow motion, Jean watched the hand reaching over the plate at a particularly large piece of meat. He raised his hands in a futile gesture—and then, with the speed of a man fleeing from his mistress's husband, Sathya's hand reached out and snapped shut on the boy's arm.
The boy, Jean and Sathya all froze for a moment as the sounds in their vicinity suddenly and miraculously ceased.
Finally, the boy mustered a glare. "What's your problem, asshole? I found it first!"
"It's his food."
The boy broke into a sneer. "what are you, his mother?"
"Errr…I'm not Hungry, Sathya, and he seems like he didn't quite get enough. You don't need to—"
"Well," Sathya cut in smiling, "I'm definitely not yours…she IS dead, right?"
The boy froze, his mouth halfway broken into a sneer. His mouth gaped open and closed again, like a fish suddenly without water. The hand that Sathya still held had curled into a shaking fist that Sathya was clearly struggling to contain.
"I'm not saying this again. Let go of my hand."
"Let go of his food."
For one moment, it seemed as if both of them would break off—Sathya lowered her gaze, and the boy looked away. Both saw the other's weakness—
Within the blink of an eye, any chance of reconciliation was gone. Sathya's head snapped back from the impact as the boy staggered back, holding his hands to his side. The crowd around them drew back as both of them collected their wits. Jean took a step forwards—and then froze as the words of those around him finally filtered through the sound of rushing blood in his ears.
"Shit, it's a fight."
"That girl shouldn't have screwed with him. Heard what he did to that kid on the Pelican?"
"I WAS that kid," a bandaged boy responded.
Sathya, of course, heard none of this, having now leapt at the boy in a rage. Grabbing a cup of water, she hurled it at the boy's eyes.
"cheap," someone in the crowd jeered.
The boy immediately raised his arm to block the water as Sathya swung her leg into his stomach. Anyone who lived in the ghettos in Kailasa knew that nothing was cheap. In a society where you were valued at less than a refrigerator, cheap was not an insult, but a status symbol. Sathya straightened up as she pulled her leg back. The boy hadn't even doubled over as she had expected, and she leapt back—
With a loud crack, her vision was filled with fireworks. Waiting Hands received her, only to push her back into the ring.
Back into the fight.
Jean felt paralyzed as Sathya leapt back, as if being punched in the face was usual for her. Yet, her opponent seemed less fazed for someone who had been kicked twice. And he was winning. With each hit, Sathya took a little longer to get up—and yet she continued to get up. Jean could only close his eyes.
What are you doing? The voice was back again.
…Not your business.
I phrased that wrong. What are you NOT doing?
Not getting killed?
Funny, I recall it was your food that was stolen.
If she hadn't stopped him…
Enough with the excuses. The voice was as cuttingly condescending as ever. If you're not going to do anything about it, then the least you can do is watch it. Open your eyes.
I don't—
OPEN YOUR EYES.
Jean's eyes snapped open. The murmur of the crowd had suddenly vanished. The crowd had faded into an insignificant blur—the only thing that mattered was the fight. Everything was now silent save for the slow panting of the two combatants—the crinkle of their uniforms as they undulated to the dances of the combatants—the slow shaaah of each individual strand of sweaty hair slapping on Sathya's face as she turned—the dull thump of impact as a fist collided with her face.
Watch. That is what happens when you let people fight on your behalf.
Slowly, Sathya leaned back. The blow had hit her under the chin, and for a moment, she floated in the air as her head arched back and then slowly descended.
A few drops of loose sweat and saliva slowly fell to the ground.
For a moment, it seemed like the fight was over.
And then the boy walked over. He had not come out of the battle unscathed—his cheeks swelled, and one eye was puffy and closed—but he walked steadily. With a silent horror, Jean and some of the others realized the implications. He wasn't finished. He silently loped over to where Sathya lay, panting.
You just going to watch this?
Jean tried to ignore the voice as the boy raised his foot, a striker ready to kick a soccer ball.
Your first friend and you're just going to abandon her.
Goddammit.
Little sheltered boy curses for the first time. How is that going to help her?
The boy drew his foot back. With a slow lurch, Jean felt himself going forward.
Want a front-row view? Guess it can be entertaining, the voice taunted.
"Shut Up."
What, and be like you? Watching from the sidelines while your first friend gets the living shit kicked out of her?
"Shut up," Jean growled under his breath.
Just like your parents? You just going to sit by while she dies, just like them? Because they're nothing compared to your safety, right? They died for your safet—
"SHUT UP!"
And, with that particularly profound statement, he leaped into the fray.
Jean blinked. What just happened? He was leaning against something large and warm, something that was slowly giving way. The wall of flesh toppled as Jean continued to lean onto it. Finally, it crashed over, onto the ground, as Jean straightened himself up. The boy fell, midkick, onto the ground with a crash. Jean took a step back. In retrospect, this hadn't been a good idea. I just knocked over someone twice as tall as I am. The boy now got up, visibly angry. "Who the f-ck did that?" Of course, the audience followed their oath of neutrality by all moving away from Jean. Ohhh crap.
"You did that to me?"
Jean opened his mouth to say No. What came out was "yep."
The boy slowly wiped a bit of blood from a split lip.
"Wanna go the same way as your mom there?"
Jean froze. Mom. Mom had protected him on Miridem. Shielding him from the Covenant instead of jumping out of the Warthog. That day, he had lost his only parents, his only friends, because he couldn't do anything.
And today, I'm going to lose Sathya until I do something.
Anything.
Jean raised his small fists, a mantis trying to hold back an oxcart. The larger boy ran at him, his fists raised—and then hesitated. For, though he would forget later, he and some of the others saw, for a moment, a glow from Jean's eyes as he ducked under the fist and hit him in the stomach. The boy staggered back, jolted by the unexpected force in that small fist. "You little shit, what were you hidi—" the boy never found out, for at that moment, a metal meal tray laden with food struck him over the head.
"You forgot your vegetables," Sathya muttered as she wiped a few loose carrots off the tray—and the slumped down against one of the benches. Jean leapt over the fallen boy as he took a quick glance at the bruises and cuts that covered Sathya's arms and face, his vision slowly clouding with the burning in his eyes.
"Sathya, you alright?"
Sathya clenched and then unclenched her fists. "I'll live," she pronounced.
"I'm so sorry I just left you there…I should have helped you sooner, or maybe called someone over, or maybe…ouch!"
Jean yelped as Sathya flicked his forehead with her finger. Sathya grinned through a blackening eye.
"How does it feel to stand for yourself, for once, you little bastard?"
Jean blinked—and then smiled back through his tears.
"Great."
Jean shuffled uncomfortably as he shifted Guame to another position. From the shuffles below him and around him, it seemed like the rest of his dormitory was also having trouble falling to sleep.
The dormitories, of course, were separated by gender. The boy's dormitories were further separated into 30-man rooms, with 15 bunk beds. Jean was assigned to room B1, to a bunk right above a lanky, dark boy with the dubious name of Goodnight-G109. The UFNSC officer had told them to sleep well—but, as anyone who travels often knows, sleeping on the first night in an unfamiliar locale can be difficult. Having given up on trying to sleep, Jean simply watched the night sky from the window next to his bunk. The dark carpet of the forest stood in contrast with the bright streetlights and careful organization of Miridem.
I guess there's really no going back, is there?
It seemed almost unreal. It was almost as if he was lying to himself.
There's no going back.
And suddenly, it hurt. Almost acutely, like a sword. In the chaos of the pelican ride and the orientation, it was easy to forget that you were millions of miles away from home. During the fight, the thought hadn't occurred. But now, in the silence, there were no more masks, no more covers.
Mom…Dad…
Miridem was gone, along with his mom and dad. The only thing left was memories…Jean knew that full well. Yet, logic did little to dampen the edge of emotion. Jean did not fight for long against the tears. He knew that boys were not supposed to cry, and it shamed him—but that did nothing to stem the tears.
He was so ashamed of his tears that he didn't notice the 29 other voices sobbing through the night.