"Freddie? He was a nice guy. No one could understand why he took off like that."
"What was his full name?"
"Frederick Hotchkiss. Why?"
"Do you think there's anything suspicious about two supply sergeants being taken out of the picture?"
"But Freddie deserted!" She frowned as she tossed the waste into a trashcan.
"How do you know that?"
"Gloria saw him drive out the main gate. He never came back. His personal gear was missing, so it seemed clear that he was gone for good."
"Maybe Gloria was mistaken. Did anybody else see him leave?"
"No. It was late, after lights out."
"No sentry at the gate?"
"No, we're a hospital, not a top secret military unit. People come and go all the time." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and touched her sleeve to her forehead, leaving little damp sweat spots on the soft green material. She looked tired.
"What was Gloria doing out that night?"
"I don't know, I don't keep tabs on her. You're a suspicious fellow, aren't you?"
"Goes with the job. How about you? Did you kill both sergeants?"
"No, I take care of patients. Doctors kill them." She picked up a tray of instruments, turned, and walked out, giving me an imitation over-the-shoulder look like Gloria's, fluttering her eyelashes.
"Tell that cute friend of yours to come back so I can change his bandages. He's not married or anything, is he?"
"Kaz? No, not married. Or anything."
She gave a little happy laugh as she left. I wondered if people understood how lucky they were when they could just be with someone they cared about. It sounded so easy. I started to think about Diana and suddenly realized that I was alone in the examining room for no good reason. Alone. It scared me. Stuck in a room alone, never able to move on and find the woman I love. It felt like a dream, a real bad dream. Like Kaz, waking up every day to the memory of loss, and the impossibility of ever having anything like the life he had once had. Or Vincent, sitting alone at a bar, sipping mint tea in an Arab bazaar, his homeland more memory than anything else, the dust of Algiers more familiar now than the streets of Warsaw. I looked at the four walls and shuddered a bit. I walked out without looking back over my shoulder.
Chapter Eighteen
I was right on time, Johnny-on-the-spot, with a jeep to take Harding and me east, up the coast to the British Motor Torpedo Boat base. He’d drive back by himself. I thought about that return trip, with Harding alone at the wheel, and I felt as empty as the passenger seat beside him. Feelings of loneliness and fear still had me by the^ throat. I tried to shake off the willies and looked at my watch and the front entrance to the hospital, again. No Harding. I killed the engine and the sudden silence sprang out at me. I jumped a bit, sat back, then took a deep breath, trying to imagine what lay ahead, on the other side of Harding's solo return trip.
Villard's destination was known to the commander of the Vichy French supply depot at Bone. I'd be there tomorrow, and I had to hope he was the kind of CO who would stay at his post and not retire when the British Commandos on a couple of destroyers crashed the docks. I also hoped he was the kind of guy who would spill the beans about^ Villard's next stop. Of course, the best bet for a snitch wouldn't be a guy who'd stay at his post when things got hot and heavy. I'd have to get to the depot quickly, ahead of the Commandos, and do some fast talking, courtesy of the French-speaking British officer they were sending in with me.
I looked at my watch again. Harding was late, which wasn't like him. Was he sneaking in some time with his old girlfriend? Come to think of it, that wasn't like him either. That was like me. I was becoming irritated. There wasn't much to count on in this war, but Harding had been a consistent hard-ass West Pointer since I'd first met him in England. Now he was showing signs of being a normal guy, a Buy-you-a-drink-buddy? kinda guy. I didn't like it. I preferred my bosses predictable, so I could rely on them, one way or the other. It only meant trouble for me if he started acting like he had half a heart.
A corkscrew wind blew up and dust gusted around the jeep. I closed my eyes and felt the fine sand pepper my face and force itself into every fold and crevice of my clothes. It was late afternoon and the sun was low in the western sky, pointing long fingerlike shadows toward the eastern hills. Toward Bone, Villard, Diana, and the Germans. It was getting cold, and I pulled up the collar of my field Jacket. My body shivered from bottom to top as I jammed my hands in my pockets, and waited some more.
Harding came trotting out of the main entrance of the hospital and jumped into the passenger's seat of the jeep. There was a smile on his face and I thought it was almost funny: It was as if we had somehow traded places and he was the happy-go-lucky Yank in love and I was the grim one, sandblasted and focused on my mission, no time for diversions or stories of lost and found love. All of a sudden I had the Urge to punch that smile off his face. I started the jeep instead.
"Sorry I'm late, Boyle," he said as he threw his web belt and gear into the back seat and put his helmet on. I thought about commenting on the fact that I'd never seen him sorry or late before, not to mention both at once, plus smiling. It would have been funny. My kind of trademark smart-ass comment. I didn't bother.
"No problem, Major," I said instead, looking straight ahead, easing up on the clutch and heading down the gravel drive to the main road. There was a convoy passing by, deuce and a half trucks and flatbeds With M-3 Stuart light tanks chained down. We waited as the men and armor rolled along, just like a parade. A jeep with a mounted. 30 caliber machine gun brought up the rear, the GIs riding in it wearing goggles and covered in dust.
"Hold up for a few minutes, or we'll be eating dirt like those tail-end
Charlies," Harding said. We sat and watched the convoy move down^ the road, trucks and tanks disappearing into a dust storm that blew down on us like cinders in city soot. More waiting. I felt helpless, frustrated, about to go crazy. I had to say something, anything.
"Did you get to spend time with Captain Morgan, sir?" That's it, get Harding to talk about his lady friend.
"A bit. She told me you pulled Doctor Dunbar's fat out of the fire."
"Yeah. Lucky I came along."
"She also told me you were obviously covering up for him."
"That's one smart lady. Sir."
"Tell me about it."
I didn't know if he was referring to her or if he wanted to hear more about Dunbar. I went with Dunbar. Going over this again might help me figure something out.
"The good news is we can eliminate Dunbar and the supply clerk as suspects in this smuggling operation. They're both small-time operators without enough sense to come in out of the rain. Dunbar got rolled trying to freelance half a dozen morphine syrettes Willoughby lifted for him." I told him about Willoughby and the supply truck and Dunbar at the Kasbah and his gambling debts. It felt good to talk, to take my mind off… what? What was bothering me? I couldn't pin it down, but I knew that Vincent had spooked me.
"They don't sound like the throat-slitting types," Harding agreed. "But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be court-martialed."
"I kind of had to promise a few things to get information out of them." I kept my eyes on tail of the convoy and waited for Harding to blow up. Not that a lieutenant's promise meant much to a major.
"What information?"
"I got Willoughby to admit it was Dunbar put him up to stealing the morphine, and Dunbar told me that their first supply sergeant went missing when the 21st was back in England. He took off one night after lights out. Captain Morgan was the last one to see him."
I let that sink in. For the next minute Harding didn't say a thing.
"What promise?" It took me a minute to get what he was asking.