failure. Both Dale and the family doctor knew that was formalistic
icing on an extremely alcoholic cake - baba au rum, perhaps. But
only Dale knew there was a third level. The Viet Cons had killed
their son in a place called Ky Doe, and Billy's death had killed his
mother.
It was three years - three years almost to the day - after Billy's
death on the bridge that Dale Clewson began to believe that he
must be going mad.
Nine, he thought. There were nine. There were always nine. Until
now.
Were there? His mind replied to itself. Are you sure? Maybe you
really counted - the lieutenant's letter said there were nine, and
Bortman's letter said there were nine. So just how can you be so
sure? Maybe you just assumed.
But he hadn't just assumed, and he could be sure because he knew
how many nine was, and there had been nine boys in the D Squad
photograph which had come in the mail, along with Lieutenant
Anderson's letter.
You could be wrong, his mind insisted with an assurance that was
slightly hysterical. You're been through a lot these last couple of
years, what with losing first Billy and then Andrea. You could be
wrong.
It was really surprising, he thought, to what insane lengths the
human mind would go to protect its own sanity.
He put his finger down on the new figure - a boy of Billy's age, but
with blonde crewcut hair, looking no more than sixteen, surely too
young to be on the killing ground. He was sitting cross-legged in
front of Gibson, who had, according to Billy's letters, played the
guitar, and Kimberley, who told lots of dirty Jokes. The boy with
the blonde hair was squinting slightly into the sun - so were several
of the others, but they had always been there before. The new boy's
fatigue shirt was open, his dog tags lying against his hairless chest.
Dale went into the kitchen, sorted through what he and Andrea had
always called 'the jumble drawers,' and came up with an old,
scratched magnifying glass. He took it and the picture over the
living room window, tilted the picture so there was no glare, and
held the glass over the new boy's dog-tags. He couldn't read them.
Thought, in fact, that the tags were both turned over and lying face
down against the skin.
And yet, a suspicion had dawned in his mind - it ticked there like
the clock on the mantle. He had been about to wind that clock
when he had noticed the change in the picture. Now he put the
picture back in its accustomed place, between a photograph of
Andrea and Billy's graduation picture, found the key to the clock.
And wound it.
Lieutenant's Anderson's letter had been simple enough. Now Dale
found it in his study desk and read it again. Typed lines on Army
stationary. The prescribed follow-up to the telegram, Dale had
supposed. First: Telegram. Second: Letter of Condolence from
