"Luck. Nothing but luck," Rita said stubbornly, and Chester couldn't even tell her she was wrong.
"How many people did you shoot, Dad?" Carl asked.
That made Chester think of the massacre again. It also made him think of firing-squad duty. Neither of those was what his son had in mind, which didn't mean they hadn't happened. "Some," Chester answered after a perceptible pause. "I don't always like to remember that stuff."
"I should hope not!" Rita made a face.
"Why don't you?" Carl asked. "You joined the Army to kill people, right?"
Rita made a different face this time, a see-what-you-got-into face. Chester sighed. "Yeah, that's why I joined," he said, as steadily as he could. "But it's not so simple. You look at a guy who got wounded, and you listen to him, and it doesn't matter which uniform he's wearing. He looks the same, and he sounds the same-like a guy who's been in a horrible traffic accident. You ever see one of those?"
Carl nodded. "Yeah. It was pretty bad. Blood all over the place."
"All right, then. You've got half an idea of what I'm talking about, anyway. Well, imagine you just ran over somebody. That's kind of the way you feel when you've been through a firefight."
"But when you're in a wreck, the other guy isn't trying to hit you," Carl objected.
"I know. Knowing he's trying to get you, too…I think that's why you can do it at all. It's a fair fight, like they say. That means you can do it-or most people can do it most of the time. It doesn't mean it's a game, or you think it's fun," Chester said. Unless you're Boris Lavochkin, he added, but only to himself. Maybe that was what made the lieutenant so alarming: killing didn't bother him the way it did most people.
Carl was full of questions this morning: "What about guys who can't do it any more? Is that what they call combat fatigue?"
"This time around, yeah. Last war, they called it shellshock. Same critter, different names." Chester hesitated. "Sometimes…a guy sees more horrible stuff than he can take, that's all. If you can, you get him out of the line, let him rest up awhile. He's usually all right after that. War's like anything else, I guess. It's easier for some people than it is for others. And some guys go through more nasty stuff than others, too. So it all depends."
"You sound like you feel sorry for soldiers like that. I thought you'd be mad at them," his son said.
"Not me." Chester shook his head. "I went through enough crap myself so I know how hard it is. A few guys would fake combat fatigue so they could try and get out of the line. I am mad at people who'd do something like that, because they make it harder for everybody else."
"Did you run into anybody like that?" Rita asked.
"Not in my outfit," Chester answered. "It happened, though. You'd hear about it too often for all of it to be made up. Over on the Confederate side, they say General Patton got in trouble for slapping around a guy with combat fatigue."
"What do you think of that?" Rita and Carl said the same thing at the same time.
"If the guy really was shellshocked, Patton should have left him alone. You can't help something like that," Chester said. All the same, he was sure Lieutenant Lavochkin would have done the same thing. Having no nerves himself, Lavochkin didn't see why anybody else should, either.
Before Chester's wife and son could come up with any more interesting questions, the telephone rang. He stood closest to it, so he got it. "Hello?"
"Hello, Mr. Martin. Harry T. Casson here."
"What can I do for you, Mr. Casson?" Chester heard the wariness and the respect in his own voice. Rita's eyes widened. Harry T. Casson was the biggest building contractor in the Los Angeles area. Before the war, he'd wrangled again and again with the construction union Chester helped start. They didn't settle things till well after the fighting started. Now…Who could guess what was on Casson's plate now? If he wanted to try to break the union-well, he could try, but Chester didn't think he'd get away with it.
He started off in a friendly enough way: "Glad you're back safe. I heard you were wounded-happy it wasn't too serious."
"Yeah." The only wound that wasn't serious was the one that happened to the other guy. Chester asked, "Did you ever put the uniform on again yourself?"
"A few weeks after you did," Casson answered. "I was bossing construction projects, mostly up in the Northwest. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't come anywhere close to the sound of guns. Well, once, but that was just a nuisance raid. Nothing aimed my way."
"You paid those dues last time around." Chester knew the building magnate had commanded a line company-and, briefly, a line regiment-in the Great War.
"Generous of you to say so," Casson replied.
"So what's up?" Chester asked. "Latest contract still has a year to run."
"I know. All the more reason to start talking about the new one now," Casson said easily. "That way, we don't get crammed up against a deadline. Everything works better."
He was smooth, all right-smooth enough to make Chester suspicious. "You're gonna try and screw me, and you won't respect me in the morning, either."
Harry T. Casson laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about, Chester."
"Now tell me another one," Chester answered. "C'mon, man. We both know what the game's about. Why make like we don't?"
"All right. You want it straight? I'll give it to you straight. During the war, you got a better contract than you really deserved," Casson said. "Not a lot of labor available, and there was a war on. We didn't want strikes throwing a monkey wrench into things. But it's different now. Lots of guys coming out of the Army and going into the building trades-look at you, for instance. And it's not unpatriotic to care a little more about profit these days, either."
"So how hard are you going to try to hit us?" Chester asked. When Harry T. Casson told him, he grunted as if he'd been hit for real. "We'll fight you if you do that," he promised. "We'll fight you every way we know how."
"I think you'll lose," the building magnate said.
"Don't bet on it, Mr. Casson. You know how big our strike fund is?" Chester said. Casson named a figure. Chester laughed harshly. "Make it three times that size."
"You're lying," Casson said at once.
"In a pig's…ear," Chester replied. "We've been socking it away since 1942. We figured you'd try to give us the shaft first chance you got. We'll fight, all right, and we'll make your scabs sorry they were born. We whipped Pinkertons before. With all the vets back, like you say, sure as the devil we can do it again. Piece of cake, the flyboys call it."
"Siccing the Pinkertons on you was a mistake. I said so at the time, but my colleagues didn't want to listen," Harry T. Casson said slowly. "Do you swear you're telling the truth about your strike fund?"
"Swear to God." Martin made his voice as solemn as he could.
"Damnation," Casson muttered. "That could be difficult. Not just a hard strike, but bad publicity when we don't need it…Will you agree to extend the present contract unchanged for another two years, then? Come 1948, both sides can take a long look at where they are and where they want to go."
"You can get your friends to go along with that?" Chester asked.
"Yes, if you're sure the rank and file will ratify it."
"They will," Chester said. "Some of them might want a raise, but they're doing all right. Staying where we're at's a good enough deal."
"A good enough deal," Harry T. Casson echoed. "I'm not thrilled with it, but I think you're right. It will do. Good talking with you, Chester. So long." He hung up.