As if reading his mind, Jethro said, “Finish your drink, Milo, and Sergeant Webber in there will drive you over to my quarters. You can have a bath and a shave, Webber will trim your hair—and he does it well, too-then he’ll take your clothes out and burn them. There’s a full kit waiting for you in one of the lockers there, boots too. Then you can rest or sleep for what’s left of today. If you want anything else, just tell Webber. We’ll have dinner tonight, and I have to talk to you about some things. I need a promise from you.”
When he was as clean as hot water, GI soap, a GI handbrush, a GI toothbrush and GI tooth powder could render him, Milo used one of Jethro’s matched set of razors and shaving cream to take off the stubble that had been well on the way to becoming a real beard. Before dressing, he had the most solicitous Sergeant Webber take off most of his just-washed but still-shaggy hair, leaving a half-inch or less overall.
The clothing left for his use looked like GI issue, but a mere handling established that it was not, it was of far better quality—the mesh of the jockstrap felt like and looked like silk, the shorts and undershirt were of an incredibly soft cotton, and, although certainly of wool, the long Johns and the padded boot socks were almost as soft and unscratchy as the cotton.
Before he could even start to dress, however, Sergeant Webber, armed with a can of DDT powder and other assorted paraphernalia, said, “Uh, sir, don’t you think you should oughta let me go over your body for lice? It won’t none on your head, but that don’t prove nothing, of course.”
“You’re more than welcome to try, Webber,” agreed Milo, “but it’s a waste of your time. The critters don’t seem to like me, for some reason, never have. Nor do fleas, either.”
The noncom wrinkled up his brows. He did not want to call the officer a liar to his face, but that he did not believe him was abundantly clear. “Uhh, captain, sir, you better let me check anyhow, huh? Typhus ain’t nuthin’ to fuck around with. The Krauts is dyin’ of it right and left, and so was the fuckin’ Belgians and Dutch and Frogs, too.”
The well-meaning sergeant still was shaking his head and muttering to himself in utter consternation at finding no lice or any other kind of parasites on Milo’s body as he stuffed the worn, filthy, discarded clothing into what looked like an old gunny sack. But as he reached the door, he turned back to Milo.
“Sir, if you’re hungry, the gen’rul said I should go over to the mess and bring you back anything you wants, so what’ll it be, sir? Roast beef? Po’k chops? Sumthin’ else?”
His mind fixed on the neat, tightly made GI bunk in the next room, Milo replied, “Thank you, sergeant, but no, what I need is sleep, and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing before you get that jeep out there started. If you want to stop by and drop off a can of Spam and some C-ration crackers, that will be fine; I might even wake up long enough to eat them.”
A look of sympathy and solicitude entered the sergeant’s gray eyes. “It must be pure hell up there where you come from, sir. Here, sir.” He fumbled out an almost-full pack of Camels. “The gen’rul, he don’t smoke nuthin’ but a pipe, now, and I noticed you ain’t got but one or two left in that pack of Chesterfields.”
“Thank you, Webber,” said Milo, then asked, “You’re not a Regular, are you?”
The noncom grinned and shook his head. “Nosir, not me. I was in the CCC for near on three years when the fuckin’ Japs come to bomb Pearl Harbor; that’s when I ‘listed up and went to drivin’ school at Fort Eustis. But I likes the Army—I gets three squares mosta the time, a place to sleep, good clothes and shoes to wear and sixty dollars a month besides. I don’t think I could do that good as a civilian, sir, so I means to stay in after the war’s over, and the gen’rul says he thinks as how I oughta, too. Does the captain think I oughta? I knows you and the gen’rul was sergeants together in the Reg”lars, back before the war, so you oughta know.”
Milo nodded. “Yes, Sergeant Webber, I agree with the general. I think you’ll make a fine professional soldier.”
Milo came fully awake suddenly, with the knowledge that there was another person in the room with him, moving quietly, sounding too light to be Jethro or Webber. The light steps seemed to be approaching the bunk on which he lay. Looking out into the near-darkness through slitted eyelids, Milo sent his fingers questing to find the hilt of the knife strapped to his right thigh. With as little motion as possible, he drew out the honed length of steel blade, took a good grip on the tape-wrapped hilt and then waited, tensely, for whatever was to happen next.
A presence hovered above him for a few heartbeats of time, then receded, and he half wondered if this was only a waking-dream sequence, for all that he knew it to be very real. The bright white glare of light that burst through the briefly opened door to the outer room made it impossible for him to see anything much of the short person who exited and then drew shut the portal. But by straining his ears, he could hear the low-voiced conversation in the other room, and he could even identify one of the speakers, all of whom were conversing in Parisian French.
“He sleeps, M’sieu General. I was about to waken him, but thought that I first should ask you.”
Jethro’s voice replied, “You were wiser than you realized, m’petite. Had you laid hand to him he might very well have killed or at least crippled you.”
“This Captaine Milo Moray, he is so much a brute, then?” inquired a second, less husky female voice. “The general should have mentioned this thing earlier.”
“No, no, Angelique, he is a good man, a very good man, a true gentleman. It is only that he has been almost without any hiatus in combat since last year. And, ma cherie, one never should be so unwise as to awaken a man fresh from active warfare suddenly and unexpectedly in a darkened room.”
The woman called Angelique still sounded unconvinced. “It might be wise if we were to not waken him, mon general, for our Nicole is too precious, too vulnerable, to become the toy of some brutal and uncaring man. She is a gentle girl, convent-reared, and despite all that was wrought upon her by the Boches, all that I have taught her since, she still is far from hardness. No, mon general, I will give you back your gold and you will please to send Nicole and me back to Paris.”
“You are of a wrongness, Angelique,” sighed Jethro, “and I am surprised that you will not believe me on this matter, for I have never lied to you about anything. Have I? But I will make you a proposition: I will awaken Captain Moray and then introduce Nicole to him. We will leave them alone, and should he offer her any violence at all, I will double the gold I gave you and immediately have you both taken back to Paris. Is that agreeable, Angelique?”
There was more conversation after that, but Milo had once more sunk into sleep. When next he opened his eyes, the room was flooded with the white light of a gasoline lantern and Jethro was shaking the bunk and saying, “Milo? Milo! Come on, old buddy, come out of it. It’s me, Jethro. Wake up and have some champagne.”
Fifteen minutes later, Milo sat cross-legged on the head of the bunk, twirling his empty champagne glass between his fingers, watching the slim young woman who sat stiffly on the foot of the bunk, sipping at her own glass and puffing nervously at a Camel, carefully avoiding his gaze or at least refusing to meet it. From the other room could be heard an unclear mutter of conversation and squeakings from the bunk that had apparently been moved in while Milo slept. In the light of the lantern, he could see that she was pale, her dark eyes were enormous, her breathing was fast and her hands very tremulous.
He leaned a bit toward her and extended a hand. She flinched from his touch, then returned her body to its former position, clearly steeling herself for whatever. But Milo sat back and spoke to her softly in French.