About
He exists to be watched learning, and he never speaks. Every appearance is a piece of physical behaviour: When the hoist stalls with a round half out of its cradle, his palms go flat on the bulkhead half a second after the man beside him, and stay there. The half-second is the whole character. Strikes down fast enough that the empty cradle goes back before the chief has to say so, and slowly enough that he is still doing it when the man beside him has finished.
He exists to be watched learning, and he never speaks. Every appearance is a piece of physical behaviour: When the hoist stalls with a round half out of its cradle, his palms go flat on the bulkhead half a second after the man beside him, and stay there. The half-second is the whole character. - Strikes down fast enough that the empty cradle goes back before the chief has to say so, and slowly enough that he is still doing it when the man beside him has finished. - On the crossing he is the one calling the rounds out loud on the way up, because the man beside him made him do it, "which was how that room had always taught anybody."