The King's War

by Andrew Stanek

  Martin led him past the canteen and assumed a trajectory out of the village.

  “Where are we going?” Will asked.

  “You’ll see when we get there,” Martin said with a grin. Martin was carrying a pack over his shoulder, but it didn’t look like his usual medical satchel. It was also emitting a clanking noise, like glass hitting glass.

  It might not have been snowing or raining, but the ground was still frozen and pushed back hard against their feet as they trudged through the dirt and hardened slush that had accumulated alongside the road. The sun was partially concealed by the cloudy sky and a good southerly wind whipped their cheeks. Martin still refused to tell Will where they were going though, and they continued to march in relative silence save for the cawing of distant birds and the occasional truck that passed them on the road.

  Eventually, after two or three miles of walking, Martin guided them off the road and they began up a hill. A new sound had replaced the birds - a cacophonous hammering sound, the distinctive clanging of hand tools. It grew louder as they ascended the hill. The top of the hill came into view. It was covered with soldiers. Many of them had their rifles slung over their shoulders, but most were carrying materials and tools. They looked to be laying track and rails, pounding spikes into the ground with huge hammers, some stripped down to the waist, even in the ferocious cold, as they tried to set the tracks.

  Will caught a snippet of conversation from two soldiers nearby, smoking.

  “They shouldn’t be making us do this in winter,” one of the men said, between drags on his cigarette. “The ground’s too hard.”

  The second man swore violently, massaging his shoulder.

  The first man laughed darkly. “We’re supposed to get this done by new year’s or they’ll have our hides.”

  Martin ignored them and crossed the hilltop, to a point where a lone soldier was pounding away at a railroad spike.

  “Hey Nate!” Martin called.

  Nate put down his hammer and turned. He broke into a wide grin when he saw the pair of them.

  “Will! Martin!” he said. “Did you come up here just to see my sorry face?”

  “Brought you something too,” Martin said. He reached into his bag and pulled out two bottles of clear liquid that Will strongly suspected were moonshine. Nate accepted them, laughing.

  “Purely for medicinal use, right?”

  “Of course. There’s a little food in there from the village stores, too. I - uh - heard army rations weren’t being delivered.”

  “They’ve been on and off.”

  “So they got you building railroads, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Nate said, sitting down on a nearby stump. “It’s been a bit boring. 12th Guards Support Regiment has been building this line and we’re supposed to get it done by the end of the year. It stretches all the way to the other end of the canton. I’m being transferred to the navy next month though. I hear I’m gonna be stationed at the navy base near the village, so maybe next time you guys won’t have to walk quite so far to bring me booze. What about you two? You get my gift, Will?”

  “I sure did, though I still don’t know what I’m going to use the lathe for.”

  “If anyone can find a use for that old thing, it’s you,” Nate said confidently. “It was just collecting dust for us. It’s not like we can haul it out into the field whenever we need it and no one here’s a proper machinist. Not like you. You still building your airplane, by the way?”

  “Yeah. The village built me a garage for my practice, but it’s not big enough for the plane, so Harry’s letting me use his barn. I’m building it out there slowly. I found good wood and aluminum for the airframe in the scrapyard, but I’m missing an engine and tires. I haven’t made the propeller yet either.”

  “You’ll fly eventually.”

  “I hope so. What about you? You seen any action?”

  “What on the front? Nope. This is the closest I’ve been to the front. I’m glad for it. You know the forest? I hear it’s full of land mines and booby traps and every other kind of hell the rebels and the Black Force can throw at us. I’m happy fighting from the rear.”

  Then they started swapping stories. Nate told them about hammering down railroad tracks in all weather and all seasons of the year, how they were supposed to string telegraph lines alongside the track but the wire had never arrived in their stores, and how the officers complained the worst about the cold even though they didn’t do any of the work. Martin told his own stories, about the frostbite and his doctor’s practice. Will was telling him about the tractor and the radios when suddenly the loud noise of gunfire echoed across the hilltop. It wasn’t the periodic sound of one or two artillery rounds or a small burst of machine gun fire, like they were accustomed to hearing from the direction of the front, but a long, sustained cacophony of shots. The distinctive rat-tat-tat of a machine gun sounded most prominently. Its sound seemed to fill the air.

  Most of the 12th Guards Support Regiment just stared in the direction of the south-eastern front, where little pops of light were visible in the forest. Some of the soldiers unslung their rifles, looking uncertainly towards the treeline.

  “Is that ours or theirs?” someone shouted.

  “Its ours,” another shouted back.

  “What’s happening?” Will asked. “Is it an attack?”

  “I don’t know,” Nate said, shaking his head. “You guys had better get back to the village. We might be targeted up here.”

  Martin scrambled to collect his bag, Will started towards the side of the hill, and together they jogged back to town. The sounds of gunfire stopped just as Will reached the door of his house.

  “I’d better get back to my surgery,” Martin called. “You know, if anyone was hurt-”

  Will waved him off. “Sure. Go.”

  Martin jogged away.

  With one hand on the door to his house, Will paused, surveying the sky. It was cloudy - not nearly as clear as it usually was - and there was no sign of an aircraft, but he was momentarily sure that he’d seen something up there. There were specks of white amongst the clouds, like flocks of birds, but he couldn’t make them out. He shook his head and went back inside.

  Will spent most of the rest of the day indoors, sculpting the wing of the plane and listening intently to the radio. The announcer spoke of King Edward’s visit to the Royal University and address to the students there, but there was no discussion of the gunfire, no news of a battle or an attack.

  Well after evening fell, there was another knock at Will’s door. He opened it to find Harry standing outside, holding a lantern.

  “Need your advice on something,” Harry grunted.

  “Is it the tractor again?” Will asked, scooping up his coat.

  “Nah, the tractor’s fine. It’s something else. Come on. I’ll explain when we get there.”

  Confused, Will followed Harry out into the field. Harry steered him out into the furrows, coming to a stop near a drainage ditch. He held his lantern high, and the light fell on a half dozen or so pieces of folded paper that had fallen near the ditch. Some of the pieces of paper were white; others were colored. No, that wasn’t quite right, Will realized. He bent down and picked up one of the colored pieces of paper. It was a bank note - cash. He stared at it.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Why is there money all over your field?”

  “I don’t know,” Harry said with a shrug. “That’s why I asked you.”

  “How did it get here?”

  Harry shrugged again.

  The memory of the little bird-like things amongst the clouds flitted through Will’s mind.

  “It fell out of the sky,” he said quietly.

  “Might as well have done,” Harry said. “I really don’t know how it got here-”

  “No, Harry, I mean it really fell out of the sky. Someone shot it into the air with a cannon or a balloon or something.” He squinted at the folded, white papers. They were much larger than the cash. “Th
is isn’t money,” he said slowly. “What are these?” He bent over and picked it up. The flickering of Harry’s lantern, however, made it hard to read. Will squinted at it.

  However, Harry suddenly held the lantern high, maneuvering the light away from the pamphlet. Will looked up; the light of Harry’s lantern had fallen on an approaching army truck. Its headlights sparked to life and lit up the field, its engine noise growing louder and louder as it drove across the furrows and creaked to a halt right in front of them. A squad of soldiers poured out of the back. A few moments later a second truck pulled up along side the first and a full platoon spilled out into the field. Some of the soldiers unslung their rifles and pointed them at Harry and Will.

  A man wearing captain’s bars with a rifle over one shoulder strutted into the light. He approached Will, unslung his rifle, and slammed Will in the gut. Will doubled over.

  “What was that for?” Will asked.

  The captain did not reply, but he ripped the pamphlet out of Will’s hands.

  “Did you read this?” the captain asked furiously.

  “No. What is it?”

  “It’s rebel propaganda. You’re under arrest for possession-”

  “Wait, captain.” A second soldier stepped into the light. Will recognized him as one of the soldiers who Harry had given food - the taller one. “They’re good people. I can vouch for them. It’s just that this stuff happened to fall on top of them. It’s not their fault.”

  The captain gave the tall soldier a scrutinizing look.

  “Fine,” he said. “Let them go. Search the field, get this stuff together, and burn it. Then search the village. Every building.”

  The soldiers began to fan out. More trucks arrived, carrying more men, and they swept through the village as the captain had ordered. Will and Harry were not allowed to leave until the sweep had been completed. Will was finally allowed to return home around midnight; many of his tools had been scattered across the floor, but the aircraft wing was untouched. He sank into a troubled sleep.

  The next morning, he saw Martin in the canteen. He had a black eye.

  “What happened to you?” Will asked with surprise.

  “I had one of those pamphlets. I just wanted to read it.”

  “So they roughed you up? They shouldn’t have done that.”

  Martin shrugged. “At least they didn’t arrest me. I saw Harry this morning. He said they almost arrested you.”

  Will glanced confidentially around the soldiers in the canteen, who were chatting and drinking as though nothing had happened.

  “So, what did the pamphlet say?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get the chance to read it.”

  Chapter 7

  Winter came and went and there was still no rain. The planting season saw everyone who could be spared put out into the fields, but without rain, the increased focus on growing didn’t seem to mean much. No matter how many times they plowed the ground or planted seeds, the fact was that they couldn’t grow without rain. The rusty pipes that led to the river broke, and then they fixed them again, and then they broke again, and then they fixed them again, but the water that came out into the irrigation trenches was only a little trickle, far less than the roaring rush that Will remembered from his younger years growing up in the village. After weeks of difficult work, the village farm had rows of little green shoots to show for the effort, but Harry shook his head whenever he saw the plants. Will took this as a very bad sign indeed. Spring turned to summer with a minimum of rain and the harsh sun cracked the ground and the wind whipped up the topsoil as dust which roared through their city. On the worst days of the winds, people spent as little time as possible outdoors, going from place to place with their hands over their mouths, or else with clothes fixed over their faces as impromptu masks.

  Soldiers came down to the village more and more frequently to buy, beg, or barter food, but with less and less food available, Will had the nasty feeling that they were starving too. When he sat in the Canteen, Will could hear the soldiers talk about how the Colonel had told them to stop trying to buy food with the payroll; they talked about this order very bitterly indeed, because he gathered that they were not receiving their rations. They spoke of shooting at birds for food and driving out to the towns to find second jobs. Through it all they somehow managed to keep finding grain to put in the still that they ran behind the canteen to make moonshine, and there was never any shortage of alcohol at the bar.

  The unofficial town market, which had never consisted of more than a few farmer’s stalls to service the soldiers and the village folk, started doing a much stronger trade in black market food. Anyone with a job that they could use to make money - be it a soldier or a local official or even the town barber - began trading in these little stands to try to buy food. Will had even seen Ms. Diane bartering and arguing at the market - and the captain who had tried to arrest Will came down from the base to “confiscate” several sacks of maize on the flimsy grounds that it was contraband. There was always food available in the market, but the cost had more than doubled, and by the time the summer neared the prices were out of reach for all but the best-off among the village folk. One of the people who had a reliable supply of food was Martin, as the canton’s general shortage of physicians ensured he was often being called out to the next town or two over, and he came back with grain he’d taken as payment or money he could use to buy the same. Martin shared a fair amount of food with Harry and Will, and also several of his patients, as he complained that cases of malnutrition were mounting. Will was sure this was true, as people had started to talk about dizziness and lightheadedness, headaches, weakness, and starvation. Once or twice someone passed out in the street.

  The farmers themselves turned out to be the worst off. Though they all had their own little patches to grow food for themselves, without water, the effort had produced very little food by summer. The little shoots that populated the parched ground had mostly survived but hardly grown large enough to make a meaningful food supply. Harry and his parents were alright, since they had Martin for a friend, but other farmers were not so lucky. It was quickly becoming obvious that they needed another source of income to buy food at the market to survive. Some broke rocks and old fixtures to mix bags of low-quality concrete to sell. Others sold their gasoline rations, or even their trucks and livestock - though around the village, most had gotten rid of their livestock long ago. Others still came to the market with homemade goods, like washing detergent or wooden furniture, to barter for a square meal. Some boiled their shoes and ate the leather. None had yet starved to death, but Martin worried that in a few more weeks or months, the deaths would begin.

  Will’s little practice in his garage didn’t change much, as people with the usual cavalcade of broken engines and radios and cars kept him fairly well occupied. When he fixed the radios and tested them, the news anchors often spoke of the lack of rain and food, suffering nationwide, and professed hope that the rains would return in the winter. Will’s work on the plane sporadically continued, but slowly. Although he was not starving to death, he’d had to poke a new, tighter notch into his belt, and the hunger often made him feel weak and unambitious. Sometimes he too found himself wondering if this famine was going to be the end of all of them.

  Rations had long since sunk from three-quarters to half, from half to a quarter, and from a quarter to none. By the middle of the summer, when the weather was at its hottest and Will was feeling his weakest, Ms. Diane made an unexpected announcement at the town meeting. There were no regular announcements. After the usual choruses of “All Hail King Edward,” she launched into the issue with unusual directness.

  “We all know that there isn’t enough food,” she said plainly. “It’s barely rained at all this year and the crops aren’t getting enough water. So this Sunday we’re all going to go up into the mountains to look for food. The canton has had booklets printed for each of you.” Volunteers up and down the isle of chairs began to distribut
e books stamped with the royal crest as she spoke. “These booklets are guides to edible fruits, berries, roots, mushrooms, birds, and so on. This weekend, and every weekend for the foreseeable future, you are instructed to search for anything in this guide. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of this, but when searching the mountain, keep clear of the south-east forest. It’s filled with rebel forces and booby traps, and it could become a war zone at any minute.” She paused and frowned down at her papers, containing her notes for the meeting. Will had never quite realized how old and tired she looked; she always had projected an air of dynamic energy that had inspired the villagers to work ever harder. Now she appeared very different indeed. She licked her lips and hesitated before speaking, and Will realized that she was about to say something that she felt would meet with immediate resistance.

  “I would like to remind you that the War is ongoing. The Black Force and the rebels could attack and invade at any moment, and indeed they will one day. The ceasefire has been crumbling under their repeated attacks and provocations. It is only a matter of time. We have to continue to support our brave soldiers. I ask those of you who are able to find enough food on this expedition to volunteer to donate two-thirds to the army.”

  This was not a very popular statement. Some people began to boo and yell angrily; some of them were the very same people who had whooped and hollered with joy at the news of military victories in the past. A few people stood and began to shout at the stage, though their voices mingled together and Will couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying - their gestures and evil expressions said everything, though. Will was sure they would have thrown things if they’d had the strength to do so.