World in Flames

eh?”

“No,” she said, “I—” The train lurched, approaching the bend near Auvelais, and Lili bumped into the sergeant, quickly righting herself, blushing. “I am sorry, I—”

“Sorry!” said the sergeant. “Don’t you apologize, Lili. Just what we need on this—”

“Lay off,” said David.

“My, my,” the sergeant snorted at David. “I think he’s jealous, Lili. And ‘im wiv all those lovely letters. ‘Please, Davey, my hero — I want to marry you.’ Eh?” The sergeant was digging his elbow further into David. “Eh — that’s what they want, isn’t it, Brentwood? A bit of the old stick?”

David turned on him, but the sergeant, his face having lost all trace of humor, wasn’t to be interrupted, his grin the same expression he’d worn when whacking the heads off the brambles by the canal. “Can’t you take a fucking joke, matey? Eh?” Lili moved off.

“She’s gone now, Sarge,” said David icily. “You don’t have to—”

“Sergeant to you, Dick!”

“All right, sergeant,” said David quietly. “She’s gone.”

The sergeant sneered. “You fucking heros are all the same. Get a bit of fucking tin on your chest and you think you’ve got it on tap, right?” David turned away, refusing to be drawn further into argument, fixing his gaze back on the white-snow-dusted blur of the hills to the southeast, where the low country of Wallonia gave way to the formidable barrier of the Ardennes. His great-grandfather had been there — when Hitler’s panzers had broken through to make their last great counterattack of the Second World War, bringing the U.S. Allied advance to a bloody halt, inflicting over fifty-five thousand casualties on First Army’s Eighth Corps, and destroying more than seven hundred American tanks.

Soon David heard a noise like someone farting in a bathtub — it was the sergeant asleep, David marveling at yet another example of Murphy’s Law run rampant. If the army, concerned that David’s injuries might give him some trouble en route to Brussels, had wanted to choose a more unsuitable candidate for escorting him to identify the SPETS at the in-camera trials in Brussels, it couldn’t have chosen anyone as unsuitable as the British sergeant.

The sergeant’s mouth was agape, revealing a row of tobacco-and tea-stained teeth. The English, David had discovered, drank enormous quantities of tea. Now and then at the front he’d seen British Centurion tanks in revetment areas, the drivers jerry-rigging a small can of water by the exhaust, the water quickly coming to a roiling boil, and they’d let the tea stew until it was the color of Coca-Cola.

* * *

The sergeant mumbled something and closed his mouth, issuing a nasal whistle that immediately caused a stir farther down the aisle, a British naval rating, head bandaged, shouting, “Shut his cake hole!” The man across the aisle calmed the seaman down. Later the American sitting directly in front of David said the Limey sailor was probably freaking out because the whistle sounded just like the Russian RU-six thousands. “Depth charge rockets,” the American explained. “Russkis fire ‘em in horseshoe pattern — twelve at once. Only, they’ve put whistles on ‘em. Like the Stukas in World War Two. Frightens the piss out of you, the sub boys say.”

“You couldn’t hear ‘em under the water, though, could you?” proffered a sapper across the aisle who looked as if there was nothing wrong with him until David saw the man had no left hand.

“Like hell you can’t,” answered the man in front of David.

“One of my buddies is on one of those pigboats — says underwater, you can hear sound four times easier.”

“Faster,” commented David. “Four times faster.”

“You been in subs? A marine?”

“No,” answered David. “One of my brothers.”

“No way, man,” said the sapper across the aisle. “I want something I can get out of. In a hurry.”

“Like what?” challenged someone else.

“Yankee Stadium,” came the answer, the man who said it turning self-congratulatingly to David. But David was no longer there, having seen the line for the John was no more, easing his way out past the sergeant. Outside, canals flashed by under a leaden sky, the train picking up more speed, its sound louder now there wasn’t so much snow to muffle it, the train heading away from Wallonia, where Lili came from, and toward Waterloo, where Wellington had stopped Bonaparte.

* * *

Sitting in the relative peace of the washroom, David took out Melissa’s letter. A salvo of Russian rockets couldn’t have stunned him more than the first sentence:

Richard and I are engaged. I know this might be quite a shock, but I wanted to tell you straightaway. You always told me, Davey, that we should be honest with one another— that’s what I’m trying to do now. I hope you understand. It just sort of happened between Rick and me. I thought we were “just good friends”—I know you’ll think that sounds awfully corny, but honestly, we were — I mean we are. I mean we are friends, you know, but, well, Rick has really become quite a different person since you left. Oh, I know I’m not saying this right but — gee, I guess that makes it sound like your going overseas had something to do with it. Not really. It was actually sort of accidental and—

The train took a corner at speed, its rails squealing, throwing David hard against the hold bar. His stomach tightened. Christ! The thought of the wimp in bed with her made him want to throw up. While others were fighting and dying thousands of miles from home, the bow-tied weasel had got into her. Mr. Bland, cost-benefit analysis Stacy would no doubt have meticulously planned his moves. First, exemption from the draft in return for a four-year stint as an SAC missile silo jockey, sitting sixty feet under the ground in his protected, superhardened shelter, wearing his fucking cravat. It was true — women went for the uniform. Hell, what were a grunt’s fatigues next to sharp air force blue?

“Rick feels bad about it,” Melissa explained. “He hadn’t planned it that way.”

“No!” said David. “What other way did he plan it, the fucking—”

There was a thump on the door. “Hey, you all right in there?”

“What—?” shouted Brentwood. “Yeah. I’m having a crap. You mind?”

“Enjoy, man! Enjoy!”

“Damn!” said David, skimming over the rest of the letter, one phrase leaping out at him. “Richard—” Funny how women always used the guy’s full name when they were going to shaft you. Made it sound more civilized, David guessed.

… Richard has gotten me interested in the SAC program, too. I didn’t want to write you until I’d qualified. It’s a very intensive course, as you probably know. Didn’t want to talk about it too much for fear it mightn’t happen. Well — I passed! Not only that, but with “outstanding” commendation. So there, Davey! Who said women couldn’t man the silos? Of course, they’ve been doing it for years, I know, so I’m hardly breaking new ground. But — and this is so ridiculous — SAC won’t permit mixed teams — both operators have to be of the same sex. Can you imagine? TV cameras all over the place.

The next word was blocked out by the censor. Jesus, thought David, even the censor knew he, Brentwood, D., Medal of Honor and Silver Star, was being dumped. “… As if,” the letter went on,

anyone would try any hanky panky down there! Even if you wanted to, there are too many drills to keep you busy the whole shift. Anyway, I really like it, Davey. And it’s kind of nice, I think, that you’re over there doing your thing for the war and I’m here. Sort of keeps us closer. At least we can write, I hope. Some of the girls who have steadies on the subs say they don’t get replies for months on end. Hope you can write me more often than that! I called your mom the other day. She seems fine but is worried, of course, about your brother Ray, well, all of you, of course. But at least she more or less knows how things are with you and Robert and Lana. I mean you do write, but Ray, she says, has just stopped writing altogether. He’s had more laser plastic surgery apparently and it’s amazing what they can do nowadays. But apparently he’s been really depressed lately. He’s asked his wife (sorry — I can’t remember her name) to stop bringing down their two kids because he doesn’t want them to see him that way. Or so your mom says. Your dad’s taking it hardest, I think, though of course he would never admit it!!! Your mom says he keeps telling Ray, you know, “When the going gets tough,” etc., etc., etc.

“Oh Jesus,” David sighed, “no, no—”

He also told Ray the doctors told him that despite the severity of the burns, Ray’s physical condition isn’t too