“You bastard,” Leets said.
“Now stop that kind of talk,” Susan commanded.
“Susan, would you care to accompany me to lunch with General Sir Colin Gubbins tomor—”
“Goddamn it, Major, knock it off,” Leets said.
Tony laughed. “You’re getting a rather peculiar reputation in certain circles,” he cautioned. “You know, he tells anyone this mad scheme he’s dreamed up. Jerry snipers. Quite strange.”
Leets now felt fully miserable.
“It wouldn’t hurt a bit to listen to him,” Susan said. “You people have been told things all during the war you wouldn’t listen to. You never listen until it’s too late.”
Tony stepped back, made a big show of shock. “Dear girl,” he said theatrically, “of course we make mistakes. Of course we’re old fuddy-duddies. That’s what we’re paid for. Think how dangerous we’d be if we knew what we were doing.” He threw back his head and brayed.
Leets realized the man was quite drunk and beyond caring what he said, and to whom. But, surprisingly, there seemed to be in his act some affection for the miserable American and his girl.
“Listen, I know where there are some marvelous gatherings tonight. Care to come along? Really, I can offer Indian nabobs, Communist poets, homosexual generals, Egyptian white slavers. The relics of our late empire. It’s quite a show. Do come.”
“Thanks, Major,” Leets said. “I’d really rather—”
“Tony. Tony. I’ve taken to the American habit. You call me Tony and I’ll call you Jim. First names are such fun.”
“Major, I—”
“Jim, it might be kind of fun,” Susan said.
“What the hell,” Leets said.
Presently, they found themselves in a cavernous flat in a splendidly fashionable section of London, along with a whole zoo of curiosities from all the friendly nations of World War II. Leets, pinned in a corner of the room, drank someone’s wonderful whisky and exchanged primitive pleasantries with a Greek diplomat, while he watched as across the room Susan deflected, in rapid succession, an RAF group captain, a young dandy in a suit and tie, and a huge Russian in some sort of Ruritanian clown suit.
“She’s smashing,” Tony said to him.
“Yes, she’s fine, just fine,” Leets agreed.
“Is good very, no?” the Greek said, somewhat confusingly to Leets, but he merely nodded, as though he understood.
But after a while he went and got her, fighting his way through the mob.
“Hello, it’s me,” he said.
“Oh, Jim, isn’t it wonderful? It’s so interesting,” she said, beaming.
“It’s just a party, for Christ’s sake,” he said.
“Darling, the most wonderful thing happened today. I can’t wait to tell you about it.”
“So tell.”
“I say, guess who’s here now?” Tony said suddenly, at his ear.
“It’s Roger,” shrieked Susan. “My God, look who he’s got with him!”
“Indeed,” said Tony. “An authentic Great Man! That is the hairy-chested novel writer who kills animals for amusement, is it not? Thought so.”
“All we need is Phil,” said Susan.
“Phil who?” said Leets, as his young sergeant drew near, his eyes crazy with glee, pulling in drunken tow the great writer himself. The two of them weaved brokenly across the crowded floor, Roger guiding the blandly smiling bigger man along. The fellow wore some kind of safari-inspired variation on the Air Corps uniform, open wide at the collar so that a thatch of iron-gray hair unfurled.
“The famous chest, for all to see,” said Tony.
The writer had a pugnacious mustache and steel-frame glasses. He was big, Leets could see, big enough for Big Ten ball, but now he had a kind of drunken, horny benevolence, dispensing good fortune on all who passed before him. Several times in his journey, the writer stopped, as though to establish camp, but at each spot, Roger’d give a yank and unstick the fellow and pull him yet closer.
“Mr. Hem,” Roger declared when he got the big fellow near enough, “Mr. Hem, I want ya ta meet the two best friggin’ officers in World War Two.”
“Dr. Hemorrhoid, the poor man’s piles,” the writer said, extending a paw.
Leets shook it.
“I adored The Sun Actually Rises” said Tony. “Really your best. So feminine. So wonderfully feminine. Delicate, pastel. As though written by a very sweet lady.”
The writer grinned drunkenly. “The Brits all hate me,” he explained to Susan. “But I don’t let it bother me. What the hell, Major, go ahead and hate me. It’s your bloody country, you can hate anybody you goddamnwellfucking choose. Nurse, you’re beautiful.”
“She’s married,” Leets said.
“Easy, Captain, I’m not moving in. Easy. You guys, do the fighting, you have my respect. No problems, no sweat. Nurse, you are truly beautiful. Are you married to this fellow?”
Susan giggled.
“She’s married to a guy on a ship. In the Pacific,” said Rog.
“My, my,” said the writer.
“Hem, there’s some people over here,” Rog said.
“Not so fast, Junior. This looks like a most promising engagement,” the writer said, grinning lustfully, putting a hand on Susan’s shoulder.
“Hey, pal,” said Leets.
“No fighting,” Susan said. “I hate fighting. Mr. Hemingway, please take your hand off my shoulder.”
“Darling, I’ll put my hand anywhere you tell me to put it,” Hemingway said, removing his hand.
“Put it up your ass,” said Leets.
“Captain, really, I have nothing but respect. You’re the guy putting the hun in his grave. Putting Jerry to ground, eh, Maj? Any day now. Any bloody day. Junior, how ’bout getting Papa a drink? A couple fingers whisky. No ice. Warm and smooth.”
“War is hell,” Leets said.
“How many Krauts you kill?” Hemingway asked Leets.
Leets said nothing.
“Huh, sonny? Fifty? A hundred? Two thousand?”
“This is a terrible conversation,” Susan said. “Jim, let’s get out of here.”
“How many, Cap? Many as the major here? Bet he’s killed jillions. That Brit special-ops group, goes behind the lines. Gets ’em with knives, fucking knives, right in the gizzard. Blood all over everything. But how many, Captain? Huh?”
Leets said he didn’t know, but not many. “You just fired at vehicles,” he explained, “until they exploded. So there was no sense of killing.”
“Could we change the subject, please,” Susan said. “All this talk of killing is giving me a headache.”
“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter,” recited Hemingway.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” said Leets. He remembered bitterly: the tracers spraying through the grass, kicking spurts out of the earth, the sounds of the STG-44’s, the universe-shattering detonations of the 75’s on the Panzers. “It was just a fucking mess. It wasn’t like hunting at all.”
“Really, I’m not going to let this nonsense ruin my evening. Come on, Jim, let’s get out of here,” Susan said, and hauled him away.
They walked the cold, wet London streets, in the hours near dawn. An icy light began to seep over the horizon, above the blank rows of buildings that formed the walls of their particular corridor. Again, fog. The streets were empty now, except for occasional cruising jeeps of MP’s and now and then a single black taxi.
“They say at High Blitz Hitler never even stopped the cabs,” Leets said abstractedly.