The King's War

by Andrew Stanek

  “Well, I spent two years in the capital but I can’t say I ever saw the King,” Will said honestly. “We weren’t allowed to go out much. There was a curfew on the students at the Technical School. They expected us to, you know, study.”

  “Ah, but I would have thought they’d at least let you see the parades. The capital is famous for them. Tourists come to see them.”

  “There might have been one or two parades,” Will admitted. “But I don’t remember them.” He didn’t say more than that, but it was true as could be. Always, his mind had been on learning - not repairing tractors and automobile engines, as the instructors had taught them, but in learning everything he could about airplanes.

  A silence passed between them.

  “What brings you out to the country?” Will asked the shabby-coated man at length. “You don’t look like you live here either.”

  “I’m a merchant,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “You name it, I sell it.”

  “Give me a few examples. What do you have?”

  “Pillows. Gum. Food. Fuel. Small furniture. Want a watch? I got plenty of good watches. Just like this one.” He stuck out his wrist to reveal a delicate silvery watch, which he quickly concealed again under the sleeve of his jacket. “Anything you want, I can get my hands on it and send it to you.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to sell engines would you? I could really use an engine.”

  The merchant burst out laughing. “You really are a mechanic, aren’t you? No, I don’t sell engines. They’re too heavy to transport. What do you want an engine for, anyway? Got a tractor to fix when you get back to your village?”

  “Something like that.”

  There was another lengthy silence. The merchant looked thoughtful.

  “I might be able to get you an engine,” he said after a long silence. “It’s not the kind of thing I normally deal in but I have a friend who works at the factory building Type 8 tractors. I could probably get him to send an engine my way. But it will cost you.”

  “Nah, never mind,” Will said with a shrug. “I don’t need it that badly. I was just curious.”

  “Fair enough,” the merchant said. “Need anything else? Copper wire? Laundry detergent? Medicine? I have the best medicines, just in case your doctor friend needs something like that. I buy them abroad. He need some?”

  “I don’t know of anything in particular.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Let me ask you a question,” Will said. “If you’re a merchant, and you’re making a lot of money, why don’t you wear a better jacket?” He eyed the man’s shabby jacket, covered in holes and patches. The fabric had worn thin in places and it was covered with splotches of unidentified muck.

  The man laughed.

  “You don’t know much, do you, kid? It doesn’t pay to show off. If he’d thought I’d been able to pay, that conductor would have easily asked me for double what he took. I don’t want to draw suspicion.”

  “What’s the point of having money if you don’t use it?” Will asked blankly.

  At this, the man laughed even harder, drawing the mute glances of a few of the other passengers on the train.

  “Having money doesn’t mean that you buy a nice jacket, kid. It means that you don’t have to worry about being homeless. You don’t have to worry about starving to death. You don’t have to worry about your son being called up or your rations confiscated. So yeah, in exchange for all that, I’ll gladly take an old jacket. Besides, I like this jacket.” He stared down at it fondly.

  Meanwhile, the train was slowing down. The country-side, which had previously been a steady blur, had finally come into focus. Familiar landmarks - the road that led to the army base, the farmer’s fields, the distant mountains, even the telegraph line that ran parallel to the track were all well-worn sights to Will. In fact, he could even see the canteen and the town hall.

  “This is my stop,” Will announced and stood. He tugged a single bag down from the overhead rack, slung it over his shoulder, and extended his hand to the merchant. The man shook it.

  “Good talking to you,” the merchant said. “Maybe we’ll meet again some time.”

  Will stepped out onto the platform, one thumb under the strap of his sack. He caught a glimpse of the merchant through one of the elevated windows of the train, but only for a moment. The train roared back to life and whipped away, and then Will was alone.

  Chapter 4

  As Will exited the station, he saw two very familiar figures standing in the street. Martin was waving at him excitedly.

  “Will!” he exclaimed, running up to him but stopping just short of embracing him. “Good to see you again. Look at you! A full-fledged scholar and traveler, now, huh?”

  Harry was standing just behind him, in dirty coveralls a size larger than he used to wear and a length of straw sticking out of the corner of his mouth. He gave a friendly wave but said nothing.

  “Good to see you too, Harry,” Will said happily. “Where’s Nate?”

  Martin’s smile faltered slightly. “We haven’t seen Nate since he joined up. He’s not here.”

  “You haven’t heard from him at all?”

  “I got a letter from him. He said that he was deployed up north, working on something or the other. He’s not on the front. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “Well, that’s good news, anyway.”

  “Yeah - but enough about that. Tell us about the capital.”

  “It’s an amazing place,” Will answered. They had started to walk, but he didn’t know where - he was following the other two. “The capital - it really does have skyscrapers. Huge buildings made of steel and concrete that stretch up fifty or a hundred stories, so high that they touch the clouds. Just like in your books, Martin! And there are more people then I ever thought there were.”

  “It’s supposed to be two million,” Martin said.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. There are shops in the city - not market stalls like we have here, but real stores, twice the size of the canteen, with everything you can imagine in there. And every family has a car in the city - not like the ones we see around here, farmer’s trucks and the old wind-up types, but sleek, new models that you don’t have to crank to start. It looks like they just came off the assembly lines. They have huge factories there too, with - I dunno - a thousand people each. When we were learning about how to repair heavy machinery they took us to a few of the larger ones. You know, the model factories, the ones that ran really smoothly...”

  He continued to tell Martin about everything he’d seen and heard - the people, the sights, the sounds, the large homes, the new cars, the many goods for sale, the trains...

  “And what about your airplane?” Martin asked him. “You build it yet?”

  “Haven’t even started,” Will replied smoothly. “But I’ll bet you I know how to build it now. I’ve got a - a blueprint, a sketch of what I want to do. I can’t make one of those sleek aluminum ones like the military has, because we don’t have a good machine shop here, but if I can get some decent wood, balsa wood maybe, then I’ll be able to make the air frame no problem. But enough about me,” he added, thinking he was rambling. “What’s been going on with you two? Harry? How’s the farm work going?”

  “There wasn’t enough rain last year,” he grunted. “Even less this year. If this keeps up we’ll have a drought. Crops aren’t getting enough water.”

  “Didn’t you ever fix the irrigation system? The pipes from the river for the trenches?”

  “Fixed ‘em and they broke again and we fixed ‘em again and they broke again,” Harry said tersely. “But that’s not the problem. If there isn’t enough rain, there isn’t enough water in the river.”

  Martin grinned. “I explained to him that the reason we get water in the river is because it rains and snows up in the mountains and that turns into the river down here - so if it doesn’t rain enough, the river’s going to go down too. I read a book on human geography,” he continued, seeing the expression on
Will’s face. “It was all about how important water is to civilization and all that.”

  “You and your books,” Will said, half smiling, half frowning.

  “Point is that there isn’t enough rain, and rain’s how we get water one way or another,” Harry said. “There’s more than enough to drink, but the river is too low to fill the trenches high enough to grow rice. We can still grow corn and wheat this year. But if this keeps up next year...”

  He trailed off and shrugged.

  “Maybe if we had one of those electric pumps we could pump ground water,” Martin said thoughtfully.

  Will snorted. “If we had power, you mean.”

  They had been walking all the time they had talked, drifting into a different part of the village, away from the canteen, the town hall, and the train station. Now they were nearer the farm. A string of small buildings, most of which Will had never seen before, lined the border between the farm and the town. Some looked like houses, others like small offices. They all seemed quite new, with concrete foundations.

  “What, did you just build these?” Will asked.

  “Sure did,” replied Martin. “Here, take a look.”

  He beckoned Will inside one of the nearby offices. Will followed curiously into a dark room - shades were drawn over all the windows. Martin flipped on an electric light and the room flickered into view. They were standing in the middle of a doctor’s surgery, surrounded by medical equipment and sterile white walls.

  “Ta-dah,” Martin said with a huge smile. “This is my surgery.”

  “Your surgery?” Will repeated. “You mean you’re a doctor?”

  “Sure am.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  “Thanks for saying so. I finished my apprenticeship in a year and passed the national exams, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “They just finished building this place a few months ago. It’s not much, but it’s mine.” He continued to grin proudly at it. “I probably don’t have everything they have in the capital, or even what they’ve got in the canton hospital... so not the fancy stuff you’re used to... and I’m not exactly well stocked for medicines; I haven’t got a shipment since I opened up... but hey, I’ve got bandages,” he said, pointing to some bandages. “And a scalpel. And disinfectant. And I’ve got power. And even a telephone in case someone has an emergency.”

  He pointed to a black phone on his desk with a large rotary dial.

  “I get the picture,” Will said with a grin.

  “No, no, you’ve got to see this,” Martin shot back. “Come on. I’ll show you.” He opened a door into a room that was mostly empty save for one large, bulky machine with a moveable lever arm and something that looked like a camera on the end. Will moved the arm experimentally. It creaked and rust flaked from the joints.

  “It’s an x-ray machine,” Martin announced, rapping it fondly with his knuckles. “It uses x-rays to take pictures of your bones. Isn’t modern technology amazing?”

  “I dunno Martin, this doesn’t look that new to me,” Will said as he inspected the joints. “It could use some oil.”

  “Yeah, it’s second-hand,” Martin replied, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to run his hand along it happily. “I got it from the canton hospital. They sent me this one after they received a newer model to replace it - figured I could make use of it.

  “Have you?”

  “Not yet. But as soon as somebody breaks a bone.” Martin rapped on it with his knuckles.

  “You do know how to use this thing, right?”

  “Oh, it can’t be that hard to figure out. I tested it a few times and I think I get the principle of it.”

  They drifted back out of Martin’s surgery and into the street as he continued to talk about his practice.

  “Anyway, I hope they send me some medicine - real medicine. Right now I don’t have much more than what I can scrounge up and buy at market. It’s pretty much all I can do to keep the needles sterile.”

  The village farm was now in sight. Harry had been following in silence ever since they’d entered Martin’s surgery.

  “What do you think?” Will asked Harry as they walked. “Would you trust this idiot to operate on you?”

  Harry shrugged. “Don’t think I’d have a choice.”

  Martin cuffed him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, you big lug.”

  “What about that tractor you were supposed to get?” Will asked suddenly. “You ever get it?”

  “Yep. Brand new type 8 tractor,” Harry replied.

  “Been using it?”

  “Both it and the old type 5. Run ‘em every day we have the fuel to. Maybe you could take a look at the old type 5, Will. It’s been running a little sluggish.”

  “Speaking of which,” muttered Martin. He had produced a large silver-colored pocket watch and was examining the hands. “It’s just about time. Come on, Will, we’ve got a surprise for you.”

  They led him back into the residential district and through the market. The streets were strangely deserted. Then they turned a corner to find what must have been the whole village standing outside of the town hall. When Will appeared, everyone started to clap and whoop as if he were a hero. Will stood stunned, looking around bewildered, as Ms. Diane came forward and took him by the hand.

  “William Gurnsley,” she called, in the voice she used when she addressed the town meeting. “Is the first person ever from our village to graduate from one of the King’s schools in the capital. It’s a great accomplishment that we should all be very proud of.”

  Everyone cheered. William looked out at the crowd in confusion. He could see Mack, the bartender, Old Pete next to him, Mr. and Mrs. Steagal, the teachers, and Harry’s parents. All of them were clapping as loudly as they did for news of national importance. Next to him, Martin was beaming. Even Harry, with his thumbs tucked behind his suspenders, looked a little bit proud.

  “So congratulations, William,” she continued. “We remember - and recognize that William had his family and his home so unjustly taken from him by the action of the traitorous rebels. Despite that, he overcame hardship to travel to the capital and become a distinguished scholar of the realm. So, in honor of his achievements - and to restore what was taken from him - in the name of His Majesty King James Edward, I hereby present you with a new place to live in the village: a new house, and everything you’ll need for your practice here.”

  She gestured grandly, theatrically, to a house standing directly adjacent to the town hall. It was a modest affair, just one story tall. It was painted a dull patriotic red, with an adjoining garage colored light tan.

  Will didn’t know what to say.

  Ms. Diane seemed to understand.

  “We all chipped in to build it,” she told him quietly. “Go on. It’s okay. Go inside.”

  She handed him the key and - throat feeling dry - he approached the little house, turned the key, and entered. Inside was sparsely furnished. There was a bedroom with a bed, a single dresser and chair nearby, a bathroom, a kitchen with a little table and a iron gas stove, an icebox, an empty closet...

  The modest decoration didn’t put him off in the slightest.

  Will wheeled around to find that Martin and Harry had followed him into the house.

  “You did all this for me?” Will asked.

  Martin grinned. “We couldn’t have you living in Harry’s barn, could we? Everyone chipped in, like Ms. Diane said. But to be honest, I think Harry did most of it. He was out here - mixing and pouring all the concrete, setting the pipes, nailing the wood.”

  “Thanks, Harry,” Will said. “I really - it really, really means a lot to me.”

  “Don’t mention it,” the farmer grunted back to him.

  “I - uh - I tried to dig through the ruins of your old house,” Martin said. “I wanted to find something that might have, you know, might mean something to you. Really make it home for you. But I couldn’t find anything.”

  “It means a lot to me that
you tried.”

  “Well, at least let me show you your shop. We’ve got one more surprise for you.”

  Martin crossed through a side door and into a garage. It wasn’t large - maybe big enough to house one tractor or two cars side-by-side - with the floor made entirely out of concrete. There was a wooden workbench in the corner with a set of rudimentary tools, hammers, wrenches, saws, and more. But sitting next to it was something extraordinary as far as Will was concerned - a large, standing electric belt-driven lathe. Sitting on top of it with a small envelope that said, “To: the Scholar, From: Nate.”

  “From Nate,” Will exclaimed. “He got this for me?”

  “He sure did,” Martin said. “I don’t know how he did - you’ll have to read his note and find out. I haven’t opened it.”

  Will moved to open the envelope but paused.

  “Why does everyone keep calling me the scholar?” he asked, bemused. “It’s not like I studied philosophy or government or something. I went to mechanic school. I learned how to fix tractors.”

  Martin laughed. “By our standards, that’s a scholar, Will. You’re more educated then ten of these country bumpkins put together.”

  Harry emitted a low, dark chuckle.

  Will ripped open the letter. The note inside, written in Nate’s familiar messy scrawl, read:

  “Hi Will,

  I heard about your big homecoming from Martin. Sorry I couldn’t come out to meet you. I’m on deployment up north working on the army telegraph and phone lines, but I figured I at least ought to get you something. One of our unit engineers had this old thing lying around and said he didn’t need it anymore, so consider it a gift from the 12th Guards Support Regiment. It’s a little rusty but it still works just fine - provided the electricity supply holds out. If anyone asks where you got it, say it was army surplus. I know you’re going to be a great mechanic and do the King proud. They were right to have faith in you. Good luck building your airplane.