The gods of odds

As readers of “Red Flags” know, Juris served on an small, extremely isolated base adjacent to a tiny town. The roads in and out were too dangerous to use for supply runs, so everything arrived — when it arrived at all — by air. This report comes from late September, 1967: “Running out of everything– soap, soda, sleep, but not sun, of course. The end of the month drought. And naturally everyone has been paid — already — and packing all sorts of money with no place to spend it, so it slides back and forth across gaming tables, boxes, bare ground. By tomorrow morning half the compound will have the other half’s money, but of course, with nothing to splurge on, the gods of odds will readjust the imbalance by the next dawn.”