Johnny sighed. It was an imperfect world, but it was his world and he was still alive in it. And he had permission to kill. He was told that he was a member of the 1st Scout Company, which reported directly to Gen. Arthur MacArthur. The scouts were pleased. This was a great honor, since General MacArthur’s frontier skills and experiences were legendary. In actuality, however, the company reported to the general’s young son, who had been born and raised on the frontier and who also respected the Apaches’ unique fighting abilities. The dark-haired puppy was very young, but he seemed to know what he was doing.
It also amused Johnny that the blue bellies were becoming brown bellies, finally acknowledging the advantage those nice blue uniforms conveyed to a sniper. He was told the Germans wore a dark gray that was as difficult to see as brown.
Although Johnny would have preferred to wage war in the arid lands he knew so well, he had to admit that the ruined and abandoned buildings surrounded by woods and lush, uncropped fields and tall grasses might actually be better. Right now, for instance, he was only about a hundred yards away from a road down which horse-drawn wagons, German wagons, flowed at a steady but irregular rate.
He had been waiting hours for an opportunity. He would wait for weeks if he had to, but he knew from the insolent way the Germans traveled that his time would soon come. There were no pickets and no scouts or guards. The Germans must have thought they owned the land over which they traveled.
As the night shadows lengthened, the flow of wagons thinned almost to a halt. Finally, with the sun well below the horizon, Johnny’s sharp eyes spied a single wagon, lightly loaded and pulled by two slow horses, moving in his direction. As it drew closer, he saw the shapes of two heavyset men sitting in the front. By their silhouettes he confirmed they were Germans, and he knew they probably carried weapons. But he also felt he recognized their type. They were not combat troops. These were the older and fatter men who worked in the warehouses and parceled out their treasures as if they belonged to them and not their government. He could understand and respect the soldiers who fought him, but the ones who insulted him, spat at him, and made him beg for a blanket to ward off the cold he had learned to hate. The approaching sound of loud guttural voices showed the men’s indifference to their surroundings, which made them unlikely to be dangerous unless forewarned.
That would not happen.
Johnny carefully laid his rifle on some leaves. There would be no need for it. He left his shelter and began the stalk. On reaching the road, he stopped, checking first to ensure that no other wagons would disturb him as he closed in on his prey. As he did so, a change came over him. No longer was he a red-skinned, funny-looking little man who limped when he walked. Quietly, he had become the night in which he hid. Many of his people were still afraid of the ghosts of the dark, but Johnny had learned through bitter experience that the night was his protector. In a darkness of gentle breezes, he became the wind as well, any sound he made masked by the chatter of crickets and the caressing whisper of the grasses. In a few strides, he was within yards of the unsuspecting Germans. He was so close that he almost ran into the wagon when it unexpectedly stopped. He recovered quickly and froze in the weeds. The two men were discussing something in their own strange language, and one seemed a little angry while the other laughed.
Finally the one who had laughed stepped off the wagon and into the brush, only feet from where Johnny lay poised, ready to pounce. A moment later Johnny heard the man grunting and fumbling with his clothes. This was followed by more grunting and a quick stench that told Johnny that the fool was defecating. He checked the man on the wagon and saw him looking stolidly in the other direction, his body indicating he was upset by the delay. Johnny snarled silently and was behind the defecating German in an instant. His left hand reached around and clamped his mouth in an iron grip while the razor-sharp knife in his right hand ripped the life out of the German, who flopped for a few seconds and then lay still.
Johnny spun and checked the other German, who was still gazing at the sky. Johnny left the body and moved noiselessly around to the driver’s side of the wagon. He lunged upward like a panther and drove his knife into the second German’s skull from under his chin. The man gave a gurgling whimper, then he too was still.
Now what? The young MacArthur had said the idea was not only to kill Germans but to make them afraid as well, afraid of the night and the creatures roaming in it. Johnny grinned and went back to the brush for the first German. He dragged him out and laid him in the back of the wagon with his excrement- and bloodstained pants around his ankles. He followed this with the corpse of the second German, all the while coping with the horses made skittish by the sweet smell of blood.
When the bodies were neatly arranged, Johnny checked the wagon to see if there was anything important in it. There were only some rifles and ammunition, which he decided to keep, and a couple of tents, which he nonchalantly slashed. He scalped the two men and disemboweled them. Then he urinated on them.
He slapped the horses on their rumps and started them clopping down the trail. With a little bit of luck, they’d be well away from the kill site before they were discovered. If so, he could use the area again. Perhaps the wagon with its grisly load would make it all the way to a German camp. Wouldn’t that spoil their sleep!
Johnny slipped back into the night and the trees. His stomach growled a little, reminding him he hadn’t eaten in a while. He pulled a piece of jerky from his pouch and commenced chewing with gums that had lost most of their teeth. He hummed a happy tune. The two corpses in the wagon made for a total of six kills. Not bad for the first day.
Ian Gordon was resplendent in his red tunic. He snapped a quick salute. “My heartiest congratulations, General. To think I knew you when you were nothing-a mere, total, and useless nobody.”
Patrick smiled warmly. “Thanks, Ian. I knew you’d help me keep things in perspective.” He rose and grasped the other man’s hand. “Now, what are you doing here? How can our leadership in Washington spare you?”
“As a matter of fact they can do so rather easily. I am now one of several British officers assigned as observers to General MacArthur. There are others from several nations watching this wonderful war unfold. If you would spend more time at headquarters you would see other Imperial types like me: garishly uniformed Frenchmen, even more garish Italians, and-are you ready for this?-little yellow men all the way from Japan. All of them are here to see how the mighty Imperial German Army wages war against your brave little army. None, save us, gives a fig who wins. They just want to see what might happen if they go up against Germany.”