When she brought him a second recorder, the talking came easily, as now that he’d declared himself to her, all things were possible. He spoke of his older sister, Rosemary, with whom he shared a fond affection. He was not anywhere as intellectual or trained in the classics as she was, he told Lana, but Rosemary had never made him feel that not going on to university was a shame, unlike Georgina, who, as fiery as she was young and beautiful, had castigated him soundly for not having a “social conscience” and planning to do “something with your life.” Georgina was in her third year at London School of Economics and Political Science, and her social conscience had embraced the left of the political spectrum — a “born protester,” her father often lamented, claiming, not too far from the truth, that she seemed to have more causes then courses.
It was still difficult for William to speak to his father, even on the tape. He reminisced about the walks up on the chalk downs, the small, winding, tree-shaded lanes, and the holidays they had spent cruising the canals once so awfully neglected but now largely restored, like the two-barge-wide lock at Stoke Bruerne, where all the people had lined the canal to watch them squeeze through. Petrol must be rationed now.
When it came to the double amputation, he spoke quickly about the wonders of modern technology, how Nurse Brentwood had told him of the fantastic things they were doing with computer-controlled limbs these days, and how things you never realized — tape, for example — were a darn sight easier than having to write a long letter. “Never was much of a speller anyway, was I?” he asked his father. But he could not tell his father he loved him, no matter how much banter or reminiscence might have provided the opportunity to say it. He tried to say it outright near the tape’s end, but the words choked and he ended with a cheery “Love to all,” not realizing how many times he’d mentioned how kind and what a “wonderful person” Nurse Brentwood was, not using her first name, as for him to have done this would have somehow constituted an invasion of his love for her, cheapened it in some way. The name Lana had become something intensely private to him, something he carried with him.
By the time he had finished the tape, he was coughing again from the exertion, this time so badly that Lana took it upon herself to go and suggest to the senior medical officer that he authorize an X ray.
“That your boyfriend in two oh one?” the young medical captain asked.
“The patient,” said Lana icily, “in two oh one. Yes.”
“Why?” the captain pressed, reverting to rank after her rebuff.
“Well, I’m used to patients having that acetonelike breath— with a bad cold, flu, or something on top of what they’ve got already. But his breath smells of oil. I think he must have inhaled some.”
“Quite possible, but we should have noticed if there was a problem before this.”
“It’s difficult to sometimes,” proffered Lana. “Every man that came aboard — I mean that’s been in the water lately — had it on him, hair, fingernails.”
“Lipid pneumonia?” said the doctor, his tone more reasonable now. “Possible. Sometimes doesn’t show up for twenty-four hours or so.” Lana also remembered that it only needed a few milliliters of oil in the lungs for it to be fatal in some cases.
“All right,” said the doctor. “Let’s have a look at him. I wouldn’t mention why, though.”
“No — of course,” said Lana.
“Nurse?”
“Yes?” She turned. The doctor was taking off his stethoscope, slipping it into his white coat. “Sorry about that ‘boyfriend’ crack. Uncalled for. I’m glad we’ve got nurses like you.”
“Thank you,” she said, and as she walked away, the captain watched her for a long time, his fingers drumming on the stethoscope. Coming into the room, Matron saw him watching Lana Brentwood as, against regulations, Lana went down the stairs between upper and main deck facing forward instead of backward for safety’s sake. The captain was watching her backside through the very proper starch of her uniform.
“Doctor?”
He jumped. “Yes, Matron?”
“One oh eight. I think you should see him. I think he’s a malingerer.”
“Evidence?”
“Oh, all vital signs are normal. That’s what first aroused my suspicion.”
“Hmm, still,” the captain countered, “never quite know with these possible neuro cases. We’ve done the pointed stick bit on him. Let me check.” The doctor scanned the list of thirty-seven cases. “Far as I remember, he didn’t feel a thing.”
“He said,” replied Matron, “that he didn’t feel a thing. I’m not so sure. In any event, I’ve seen some you could stick a hat pin in and they wouldn’t flinch. Not if it meant they could get out of the fighting.”
“All right,” said the MO. “Any suggestions?”
“I’d wait till he was asleep.”
“My God, you’re a sly one, Matron. I could be sued.”
“In private practice, yes,” said Matron evenly, “but not in the navy, Doctor. We’re here to insure—”
“Yes, yes, all right. I’ll have a look at—” he took the chart from matron,”—Johnson now. Is he asleep?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Perhaps,” said the captain, “he needs a sedative. Settle him down a mite.”
Matron said nothing. She didn’t believe in unnecessary medication. “Well, when do you suggest?” pressed the doctor.
“Perhaps later this evening.”
The doctor sighed. “All right, but I would have thought we’ve got better things to do than weed out—”
“Doctor — if I might remind you. We have a very specific directive about this from both Ottawa and Washington. We must weed them out. Set an example. Besides, once they get ashore, that type is quite likely to pack up and—”
“Yes, yes. All right, Matron. I’ll jab him in the butt at midnight. How’s that?”
“I don’t enjoy this any more than you do, Doctor.”
“No, of course not,” he replied, but believing she did.
As she walked along the deck on her rounds, Matron saw the line far to the west that marked Newfoundland and the tiny dots out from it that were the fishing boats of the Grand Banks, and on the deck below she could see the La Roche girl pushing the Spence boy to X ray.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Though it was the mass of Soviet and Warsaw Pact armor together with Soviet Yak ground-attack aircraft that had pressed home the first attacks on the NATO positions in southern, central, and northern Europe, once the battle was joined, Soviet and NATO tanks mixing it up together in the massive confusion of dust, smoke, and darkness, it was the awesome and concentrated fire of the Soviet artillery that drove home the breakthroughs. While the Allies had expected the twenty-three-mile-range, eighty-pound shells from the Soviets’ self-propelled BM-27s to precede any Soviet breakthrough, it was an entirely new development that was now turning some NATO withdrawals into routes. This was especially true along the alluvial flats of the Danube, all the way from the Austrian-Czech border in the east, westward deep into southern Germany.
For Soviet artillery commanders, the most impressive and dangerous aspect of American arms was the ability of the Americans to move artillery batteries quickly and to reengage within minutes. Up until the late eighties the U.S. Army had also possessed the most accurate 155-millimeter in the world. The reason was political.
In a move that the South African ambassador in Ottawa had reported to Pretoria as being “typically Canadian” and a move Pretoria took immediate advantage of, the Canadian government had expressed no interest in a new artillery piece designed by a Canadian. The Canadian-invented gun was then built by the South Africans, a fact that made it ineligible for purchase by the U.S. Army, whose procurement was closely monitored by antiapartheid lobbies. The G-6, as the South Africans called the new 155-millimeter gun, was a self-propelled howitzer capable of firing a hundred-pound, HE bag-cartridge-propelled shell a distance of forty-two miles. It was the batteries of the Soviet-purchased G-6s that systematically destroyed the American and West German defensive lines and attacks.