The King's War

by Andrew Stanek

  --Nate.”

  Will read the note twice, then shook his head.

  “He really shouldn’t have.”

  “Hey, he sent it because he believes in you,” said Martin, who’d been reading over Will’s shoulder. “And he’s right. They were absolutely right to have faith in you.”

  Nodding, Will flipped the on switch for the lathe experimentally and it began to spin.

  “Well, I’m glad to have it. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, though. Maybe I can get some scrap metal from the yard and make something out of it.”

  He turned it off again.

  “It’s good to be back. It’s good to be home,” he added, emphasizing the last words. He wanted to say something powerful, something that could convey how much gratitude he felt to Nate for sending him the lathe, to Harry for building the house, to Will for trying to find some memento of his old house to give to him, to the whole village for turning up and cheering for him and treating him like a hero returning from the war. No adequate words sprang to mind. Instead, he said, “Let’s go get a drink.”

  They left the house, crossing the street while shaking hands and chatting briefly with many in the lingering crowd of people who had come to welcome Will back. They reached the canteen just as Mack reopened it. The soldiers flooded in so quickly they might have had orders to invade it; Will grabbed a seat at the bar and Harry and Martin took chairs on either side of him. They talked for hours, well into the afternoon. Will told them about all the places he’d seen in the capital, the huge hotel that was supposed to be a hundred stories tall when it was finished, the elevators, the street cars, the schools, how there were telephones in every house and the power almost never went out, and how you could go to a store and buy whatever you needed. Then Harry and Martin told them about the roadwork, the rains, the growing and planting seasons, all the people they’d ever known and what they’d done, how the doctor Martin apprenticed under had introduced Martin to a pretty young girl from the next canton over, how the same girl had dumped him a month later for a different man... how Harry had gotten a new farm dog who wouldn’t sit or heel and how the soldiers were running a still out the back of the canteen now, when they thought no one was watching.

  Eventually, when all had been said twice or more and Will knew everything that had happened in his absence, he drifted out of the canteen and headed for home - his home - his very own house, just across the street. As he went, a familiar soldier leaning against the back of a truck in navy colors called out to him.

  “Hey, you’re the new village mechanic, right? You need anything? Tools, fuel, spare parts? I got ‘em cheap. Army surplus.”

  Will shook his head.

  “No, not right now. But maybe I’ll take you up on that one of those days.”

  The soldier shrugged. “Okay. You know where to find me.”

  Chapter 5

  Weeks had gone by since Will’s return to the village. His graduation had been in fall, but the season quickly transitioned into a cold but ominously dry winter. Will spent most of his time not in his little garage which the town had so thoughtfully built for him, but instead out in the village’s many houses, sheds, barns, and fields - fixing radios, trucks, piping, heating, electrical wiring - anything that could be broken and fixed, even if it was far outside his speciality or knowledge. Throughout it all, he kept his dream of building an airplane at the back of his mind. Occasionally when he was on a job and found something he felt might be useful, like a length of wood or a panel of glass, he asked if he could take it for later use. The owner almost invariably said yes, and by the harvest Will was left with a little pile of parts and materials in the corner of his shop. Whenever he could find a spare moment, he would also hike down to the canton junkyard, just a few miles from the village. It was filled with junk and garbage, like ratty old brushes and rotting food, but occasionally Will would find something helpful, like a length of good wood for the airframe in the trash pile. He also periodically spotted the dirty face of a young boy or girl amongst the garbage - the homeless children. He’d reported these children to the village mother, as she’d asked him to do so many years ago. She thanked him and promised to do something about it, but the children were still there when he returned to the junk yard. When he spoke to Ms. Diane again, she told him that the orphanage, which the Canton had worked so hard to build, was full, but there were still more orphans.

  By the time the harvest rolled around, Will had to temporarily abandon his mechanic’s practice to help out on the village farm. Everyone was always needed during the harvest, even though this year seemed more meager than ever. Ms. Diane had supervised as everyone, from Martin to Mack to Old Pete with his one arm, had come out of their homes and residences and gone out into the field, picking corn, rice, and wheat until nothing was left. They’d loaded two-thirds of each of the crops into the grain elevator, as Ms. Diane had instructed, and then another few kilograms of corn for every person who had participated. A big train painted in army colors, belching coal smoke from its furnace and creating an almighty racket as it came, had rolled up next to the grain elevator and taken custody of the bulk of the harvest, then sped it on its way towards the army base. What the adjacent navy facility did for food, Will could only guess - he supposed in the best of all worlds, they would share with the army.

  They had a festival, as they always did, to celebrate the harvest, and though there was dancing and singing and much praising of King Edward, Will could not help but notice that the portions of actual food were much smaller this year. Rations only got smaller from thereon out, and people started to wear their belts tighter and tighter.

  Still, hunger wasn’t the only problem in the village. There were also mechanical failures, lights to be changed, gas lines to be repaired, tools to be fixed, and Will was expected to do all of it - even if it wasn’t what he had studied while he was in the capital. Even as rations got smaller and the winter got colder, though, he didn’t complain.

  It was a few weeks into winter when he finally got around to inspecting the village’s older Type 5 Tractor, which Harry had complained was making funny noises. Will found himself flat on his back, peering up at the tractor’s undercarriage, tapping it with his wrench.

  “Run it,” he called up to Harry.

  Harry cranked up the engine with the gearing set to neutral. The tractor’s engine made a peculiar sputtering, coughing sound with loud clunks mixed in.

  “Well, it’s definitely knocking,” Will declared over the sound of the engine.

  Harry cut the engine and spat out his customary piece of chewing straw.

  “What’s that?” he asked, walking beside the tractor. Will could only see the denim-blue pant legs of his coveralls.

  “Knocking. It means that the fuel in the engine-” Will rapped it with the wrench. “-is igniting before it’s supposed to because it’s getting too hot. If it’s like this in winter I hate to hear it in spring...”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “Sure. I can adjust the compression ratio - that’s the amount the pistons squeeze the fuel by before it ignites... by adjusting the spark plugs to make them fire a little later. It’ll make the engine run smoother, but there’ll be less power. Of course, this wouldn’t be a problem if we could get better fuel.”

  “We’re not rationed for better fuel,” Harry said with a shrug.

  “Well, there’s also a new fuel additive, stuff called tetraethyl lead, that they started using in the capital to prevent problems like this,” Will continued. “It’s great. It makes the engine run smoother, cooler, stops knocking. The problem is I don’t think we can get any of that either. So you’re just gonna have to make due with less power.”

  As he spoke, he was adjusting a little screw on the four-cylinder engine that retarded the timing of the spark plugs.

  “There,” he said. “Run it.”

  Harry turned the hand crank and the engine roared to life. The knocking sound had disappeared.

  �
��Great,” Will said, panting a little. “If it starts doing that again - in summer maybe - call me again and I’ll adjust it. I can change the spark plug timing... there’s a little screw... why they put it on the bottom end is beyond me... or I might be able to change the practical stroke length of the cylinders.”

  The engine sputtered to a halt again. Will saw Harry’s feet shuffle and even though he couldn’t see him, Will could tell that Harry had shrugged.

  “You’re the scholar,” Harry said.

  “I wish you guys would stop calling me that,” Will said with a laugh, as he came out from under the tractor. “All I do is fix things.”

  “You’re bleeding!” exclaimed Harry, pointing at Will’s arm.

  “What?”

  Will looked down at his left arm. There was indeed a long cut running from his wrist to his elbow.

  “I didn’t even notice. It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Cold will numb you. I’ll go get Martin.”

  “Don’t bother. It’s only a scratch.”

  But Harry had already started jogging off, leaving Will alone with the tractor and his bleeding arm. A few minutes later, Harry had returned, with Martin jogging after him.

  “What’s the prognosis, doc?” Will said sarcastically, offering Martin his arm.

  Martin glanced up and down it, sighed, and unslung his bag.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” he said. “You didn’t hit any major arteries. Does it hurt?”

  “Nope. Not a bit.”

  “That could be down to the cold or that could mean something bad.”

  Martin produced a swab from his bag, dipped it in alcohol, and started to wipe away the blood.

  “That sting?”

  “A little.”

  “Yeah, you’ll live then.”

  After a few minutes, Martin cleaned up the blood and ran a small bandage along Will’s arm.

  “You cut yourself on this thing?” Martin asked, tapping the Type 5 tractor with his knuckle.

  “I guess so.”

  “This thing’s pretty rusty. I’m gonna give you a DTP shot, for tetanus. You’re lucky. I just - uh - got a few doses of this, and a clean needle.”

  He produced a glass syringe and a needle, gave Will’s arm a rudimentary wipe, and stuck him. Will winced, but it was over in a second.

  “Yeah, lucky me,” Will said, sarcastically. “You get a shipment from the canton hospital then?”

  “Uh, no, not exactly. A friend from the next canton sent me a few doses. I’d read about them in one of the medical journals and I thought they’d be good to have on hand. It’s a new development. Apparently they’ve been using them in the army and they worked pretty well.”

  “Good to hear,” Will said, massaging his arm.

  “If you want to thank me you could swing by my place. The radio stopped working.”

  “I didn’t realize you listened to the radio, Martin. I didn’t know you were interested in the news.”

  “It’s better than not listening to anything.”

  “Well, fine, I’ll come by in a minute. Just let me finish up here.”

  Will turned back to the tractor, but Harry suddenly tapped him on the shoulder.

  “There’s someone coming,” Harry said tersely.

  Martin and Will followed Harry’s gaze out to the corner of the field. There were indeed two men in olive green army uniforms tramping through the rough mounds and furrows of the frozen ground. They watched as the soldiers got closer and closer, finally coming to a stop in front of the broken down tractor.

  “Something going on?” Martin asked, looking curiously at them.

  Both men were fairly scrawny-looking and breathing heavily. Will thought he vaguely recognized them from the canteen. The taller of the two looked like he meant to do the talking; he shook his head.

  “No, there’s nothing going on. We just wanted to see if we could buy some food.”

  Harry and Martin exchanged surprised glances.

  “We just sent you some food,” Harry said gruffly. “Harvest wasn’t two months ago.”

  “Right, but they’re not delivering the rations,” the soldier said. “There was a bad harvest this year, I guess, so they’re not distributing like they’re supposed to. We’ve been up in the mountains, trying to find roots and stuff... Look, you got any food you could sell us? Please? I haven’t eaten in two days. If you don’t want money, we could work for it.”

  “I don’t think-” Will started, but before he had a chance to say anything else, Harry said, “sure.” He stomped off to his barn and came back with a small sack of rice, looking to be one or two kilograms.

  “This is from my own plot,” Harry grunted. “It isn’t part of the village rations; don’t worry.” He handed it to the taller soldier, who thrust a fistful of bills into his hand in return.

  “Thanks,” the soldier said appreciatively, turned back towards the base, and staggered off. Instead of tucking the bills into the pocket of his coveralls, Harry turned and handed it to Will.

  “Oh no, I can’t take this,” Will said, shaking his head. “I was just doing my job.”

  “Nah, you take it. I don’t need it.”

  Since there was no arguing with Harry once he’d set his mind to something, Will sighed and put the cash in his pocket.

  Martin was staring curiously after the soldiers.

  “Is this the first time this has happened, Harry?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “How often do they come here?”

  “Well, not them particularly, but I see soldiers here about once a week.”

  “Do you always give them food?”

  “As often as I can spare it.”

  “Why?”

  Harry shrugged. “It’s my job to grow the food. If they don’t have enough food, maybe that means I didn’t do a good enough job growing it, and I’ve got to give them more.”

  “That’s no way to think,” Martin said, surprise written across his face. “This was a bad year, you said so yourself.”

  “Yeah, but if I don’t grow the food for them, who will?” He squinted at Martin. “You ever seen a man starve to death? My pop has. He told me about it - people starved during the famine. We gotta grow enough food or people starve and that’s that. No one else is gonna do it.”

  “We give the soldiers two-thirds of our food and then some,” Martin said. “If they don’t have enough food - maybe - maybe that means there are too many soldiers and not enough farmers.”

  If he’d looked surprised at what Harry had said, Martin looked positively shocked at his own words.

  “Gotta have soldiers to fight the war,” Harry grunted. “That’s their place. It’s like Nate said. Some of us are farmers, some of us are doctors, some of us are scholars, and some of us are soldiers.”

  “Yeah, but - the front’s been quiet for the past few weeks,” Martin pushed ahead. “I haven’t heard much shelling or gun fire. Maybe the ceasefire’s holding. Maybe there really are too many soldiers. Those guys said they would be willing to work for food. Next time you should offer to have them work the field.”

  Harry shrugged. “No sense in working the field in winter.”

  “But you know what I mean, don’t you?”

  “Sure.” Harry looked like he didn’t have anything more to say about it. Will couldn’t tell if he’d thought it was a good idea or not. There was a brief silence.

  “Right, well, I should get back to town,” Will said. “I gotta get my other kit if I’m going to take a look at your radio, Martin.”

  “Sure.” Martin looked as if he’d forgotten about the radio. “I’ll be in my surgery. Actually, I’ll come with you. I’ve got to go into town anyway. See you, Harry.”

  Harry gave them a vague wave and cranked up the tractor engine, driving it into the barn as the pair walked back towards the village.

  It wasn’t a long walk, but it took longer than expected. Martin kept pausing and looking curiously back towards the farm, then the
mountains, then down the stretch of railroad tracks and road that led to the army base.

  “I think you’re right,” Will said after a while.

  “What?”

  “Maybe there are too many soldiers and not enough farmers. I mean, if they don’t have enough food even with our rationing then we need more people growing food.”

  “Oh, yeah, thanks. I mean, that probably means there are too many shmucks like us who aren’t growing food either, right? But if the rains don’t come... without water, nothing’s gonna grow, and then it won’t matter how many farmers there are.”

  “Let’s hope it rains then,” Will said. As they approached Will’s garage, opposite the canteen, they passed the familiar soldier leaning against his military truck.

  “Hey,” he called out as Will passed. “Need anything? I got tools, fuel, spare parts. Or I hear food’s getting pretty scarce around here. Want some extra rations? Cheap. Army surplus.”

  Will and Martin stared at each other.

  Chapter 6

  There was a knock on the door of Will’s garage, and Will saw Martin poke his head around the corner of the door.

  “Hey, Will, you doing anything?”

  “Uh, working on one of the wings.” He gestured to a large stretch of wood laid out on his workbench that he’d been sculpting into a shape suitable for flight.

  “Well you can do that later, right? I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “I get a bad feeling whenever you say that,” Will said, slapping his gloves together to knock the sawdust off.

  “Aw, don’t be like that. This is good. I promise. Come on. Put a coat on though. It’s cold outside.”

  Will grabbed his coat from a nearby peg and followed Martin out into the town. It was, indeed, cold outside. The winter was continuing much the way it had started, cold and dry, without so much as a hint of snow or rain. Much of Will’s work for the past few weeks had been repairing electric and gas heaters. Everyone thanked him profusely when he finished, though he couldn’t for the life of him say why, since neither the gas nor the electricity supply was particularly reliable. Some people had taken to burning wood for heat, and merry little columns of smoke were rising from many of the village’s chimneys. Will knew that Martin had been similarly occupied by the cold. Some of the farmers had come into his office with cases of frostbite, which left Will very thankful for his thick pair of workman’s gloves.