by Jim Shepard
The officers were ahead 3 to 0—they scored when any part of Snowberry touched the ground as the gunners caught him, tallying on two real rib-thumpers and a cheapie can of corn when a limp foot touched—when Lewis abruptly announced Refreshment Break. He poured a bit of Scotch from an abandoned cup into his Coke bottle and took a slug. Behind him in a tin lid used as an ashtray Piacenti laid a C02 cartridge atop Gabriel’s now-lit cigar and everybody ducked. The cartridge exploded in a rain of tobacco leaf and the concussion knocked Lewis forward onto his knees. He got to his feet grimly amid the laughter, spattered with the dark bits of cigar and Coke, and shook his head. “I’ll have another, barkeep,” he said. “In a clean glass.” Complaining of ringing in his ears, he ended the game prematurely. He and Bryant sat beside Bean while Piacenti and Ball laboriously began to untie Snowberry, who was again showing signs of life. Lewis offered his Coke and Bean shrugged it off.
“I hate to see a grown man dry,” Lewis said.
Snowberry was helping them now with his feet. “You guys,” he said with diffused menace. “You guys.”
“What a stand-up bunch of personnel, huh, Bean?” Lewis said. “Even when the going gets tough, there’s still time for horseplay.”
The victorious officers had left. Snowberry pouted where he lay, rubbing his hip. There were tears in Bean’s eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” he said. “What am I doing here?”
Bryant patted his shoulder. Lewis said, “You don’t have to figure it out. Like today. All you have to do is turn on the Brownings and let them figure it out.”
Piacenti had started the jeep and was waving them over. Gabriel wanted another photo. Piacenti leaned on the horn, and revved the engine.
“I guess it’s my buddy,” Bean said. “I guess I haven’t gotten over him.”
“He’s dead and you’re not,” Lewis said.
“I feel bad,” Bean said.
“Feel good,” Lewis said.
“He told me if anything happened to tell his girlfriend the real story,” Bean said. “I think about that.”
“I think about home, takeoff, assembly, their fighters, our escort,” Lewis said. “Flak.”
They helped Bean to his feet, and climbed aboard the jeep. At the plane Gabriel arranged them as he had before. Snowberry said, “Why don’t you make little white marks on the fuselage over our heads so you can see how much we’ve grown?” For the photographer, though, he joined with everyone else in pointing to the newly painted iron cross on the nose, and holding up one finger.
Tuliese told them what they had already heard, from a pal of the departed Gus Fleener: the operation the following day was going to be big and unusual. “Unusual” in this case had clearly sinister connotations. Bryant suspected Berlin, and was both excited and panicked. He imagined the Providence Journal headline: LOCAL GUNNER A HERO IN HISTORIC FIRST RAID ON NAZI CAPITAL. He had once asked Lewis, Imagine your name in a headline back home? Lewis had responded, Imagine your name on a list in the back of the paper?
Leaves and training courses, they knew, had been postponed. The last few missions had been, Lewis claimed now to understand, morale builders—short and easy with few or no losses. By the time they’d finished chow, there were all sorts of signs that supported the rumors: the beautiful and clear skies, which in the new iconography of the bomber crews meant Danger and Impending Missions; the heavy coming and going at Operations, including a buck-up visit, it appeared, from some major brass; fleets of extra petrol bowsers and bomb trolleys. Spare planes were wheeled to the dispersals alongside the combat-ready ones. Crew lists were displayed an hour after dinner, which struck them as formal and unusual and ominous. Everyone feasible was on the list, including the very newest crews. Lewis joked grimly as he read it that he’d found the names of three of the base dogs, including Audie. They were just to sit around and wait. It was suggested they retire around eight-thirty or nine o’clock. There were hints that roust-up would be earlier than usual.
They sat in the barracks playing cards. They were going to sit and wait for three hours to go to bed, and the theatricality of the unusual preparations made the waiting much more difficult. Hirsch had come out, pale, from a navigators’ early evening briefing, and had not answered questions. He had gone straight to another building with an oilskin packet and could be seen through the window, bent over the pool of light on his desk, scratching long rows of figures with his pencil. Guys from Archangel and Cathy Says told the same story: navigators all over the base shaken and isolated.
Bean was signing his underwear. They found him cross-hatching lines on a small pile of laundry and he explained that that was what he was doing.
“What do you think, you’re going off to camp, Harold?” Piacenti asked.
“Maybe I am,” Bean said, and Bryant understood he meant prison camp.
For a moment he was back in nature camp in Connecticut, with Snowberry sick on Mello Rolls and Bean miserable without his parents. Bean was signing his underwear for prison camp, or as an identification aid (Lewis in talking about antiaircraft casualties had once in his presence made reference to “flak stew”), or because it was a reassuring ritual and maybe he thought the extra bit of caution would help ensure his safety, a gesture of faith in a world that rewarded Preparation and Conscientiousness.
“Maybe you should write your buddy’s girl, if you’re gonna write her, Bean,” Lewis said. “You know. Tonight.”
Bean held up a pair by the waistband—GEANT H. BEAN, U.S.A.R.—Bryant read. Bean’s undershorts were strangely oversized and he looked diapered in them. Snowberry called them his Sagbag Underwear. Lewis liked to suggest Bean was hoping he’d grow into them. “I already wrote her,” Bean said. “I had to tell her everything I knew.”
“Must’ve been humiliating,” Lewis muttered from his bunk.
Snowberry shook Bryant’s arm, and leaned close. “I can’t sit here,” he said quietly. “Let’s get out. Let’s go down to The Hoops. Some of the other guys’re down there. We’ll call the girls.”
“The girls?” Bryant asked. The idea sounded as bizarre as calling his parents. “They won’t be able to come down.”
“Willya try?” Snowberry said. He was bobbing from foot to foot. “They can try, can’t they? We got at least two hours.”
Bryant debated for too long and Snowberry whirled and stalked out, and Bryant got up and followed. At the door he looked back. Piacenti picked up a card and eyed it, tantalizing Ball. Bean folded underwear. Lewis lay with his hands behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. God, he thought as he trotted to catch Snowberry, Ball. What do I know about Ball?
Base preparations over the entire area depressed them further and they were happy to get out onto the lane to the village, away from the activity. Hundreds of Wright-Cyclones were being run up and tuned by ground crews and the result was a wavering roar like an immense child’s first tentative attempts at a musical instrument. The sound was cooler and quieter in the lane, a distant racket from another world. As they walked they heard running feet and Colin and his silent friend Keir from the base party caught up to them, and wished them a good evening.
Snowberry quickened his step, and the boys accelerated in little bursts to keep up.
“It’s quite busy this evening, isn’t it, Sergeant?” Colin said.
“Yes it is,” Bryant answered. Ahead of him Snowberry was pulling away and he tried to modulate his speed to keep the group together.
“We understand you need to keep secret about it,” the boy said.
“I guess we do,” Bryant said. “How have you been?”
“Quite well, thank you. Do you remember Keir?”
“Never forget a face. Or a rider.”
The boys were quiet, Keir embarrassed or shy. “Are you off on a walk?” Colin finally asked.
Snowberry came to a stop and turned on them, so that Bryant almost fell over him. “Look, kid,” he said. “We’re on a secret mission. We got a big day tomorrow. We’re not r
unning tours. We’re not giving interviews. Comprendo?”
“Gordon,” Bryant said.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Snowberry said. “I’ll meet you there.” He left.
Colin stood as if struck. Keir edged away, flushed, unable to look up.
“Colin, Sergeant Snowberry’s got a lot on his mind,” Bryant said. He crouched and rubbed his hand in the dirt. It was just his luck that this would have to happen now.
Colin said, “I understand.”
Bryant patted his pockets, but there was no chocolate or gum.
“We don’t want anything, Sergeant,” Colin said. “We don’t want anything.” Keir had already turned and was attempting to drift away.
“Well, what is it?” Bryant found himself asking with some exasperation. “What is it you want from us?”
Colin pulled further away. “We don’t want anything,” he repeated.
Bryant stood, angry with his dirty hands, angry that he was alone and Colin was alone on this lane. “I don’t know what you want from me, you know?” he said. “I’m not your father. I’m not a war hero. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
Colin backed toward Keir, who had already started for home in mortification.
“We don’t want anything, Sergeant,” he said. It sounded like a rebuke. “We wanted to wish you luck. We wanted to see you.”
Bryant turned from them and started walking. He turned back. Colin had taken Keir’s hand and was looking back at him. “Why are you out at this time of night?” Bryant shouted. “Isn’t your mother worried? Why isn’t anyone taking care of you?”
The boys remained where they were, holding hands, gazing at him, and were still there when he glanced back once more before the curve of the lane pulled them out of sight behind a hedgerow.
He sat fidgety and uncomfortable at a table near a window in The Hoops while Snowberry drummed tunelessly with his little finger and thumb on the table top. Snowberry had reached Jean, and whatever he had told her, she had agreed to come. Robin was coming as well. Bryant wondered irritably how melodramatic Snowberry had been. Snowberry wasn’t smiling or crooning. He was all business. He’d opened one of his condom packages and was snapping it back and forth between his fingers like a rubber band. He’d gotten them each a beer and they were either too nervous to drink or were waiting for the girls.
Snowberry stopped drumming. He rubbed his eyes with his balled fists and Bryant felt as if he was keeping a younger brother up. Snowberry widened his eyes comically to regain focus and said, “Are you thinking of proposing to Robin?”
Bryant stared at him, and shook his head. “This was your idea.”
Snowberry shrugged. “I just figured,” he said.
The girls arrived forty-five minutes later. The beers remained untouched. Bryant had spent his time musing on the convexity of the surface of the beer in the glass. Snowberry had gazed off toward the bar. Their spirits had deteriorated further.
“How long have you been waiting?” Robin said after they’d crossed to the table. “We were able to get a lift in an officer’s car. Very nice young man, who claimed to be a war correspondent.” She offered her hand and he squeezed it. Jean gave Snowberry a kiss on the cheek and he looked at her morosely.
“Are you keeping up with your drawing?” Robin asked him.
“No,” Snowberry said. To mitigate the rudeness he added, “Are you?”
Robin shook her head. It occurred to Bryant that the girls didn’t have beers, but he was unable for the moment to generate the sociability necessary to volunteer to get more. The two beers sat between them like curios they were jointly examining.
“Is it going to be so very bad tomorrow?” Jean asked.
“No,” Snowberry said. “There’s a lot of big talk, though. Bryant here is excitable. Me, I’ve got no worries.”
Jean appropriated Snowberry’s untouched beer and took a sip.
Robin said, “Is anyone going to offer to buy us drinks?” and Snowberry seemed to come to himself, but instead of rising moved Bryant’s glass in front of her.
“Well,” Robin said quietly, looking between them, and placed her hands on the table.
“What I miss is reading,” Snowberry said. “I used to read a lot.”
Jean agreed. “A number of us have been exchanging books,” she said. “People are reading everything and anything.”
Bryant nodded and no one carried the conversation forward.
“I saw a wonderful bit scratched on the wall of the loo here,” Jean said. “Did I tell you? It said, ‘Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.’”
When the boys didn’t laugh, Robin said “Well” again and shifted in her chair, and Bryant understood that what had been anxiety and sympathy was turning into frustration and resentment. He sat up, smiled ruefully for them both. “Well, heck,” he said. “If it is a big deal, we’ll probably all come back officers. That’s the Air Corps. Everyone moves up.”
“That’s right,” Jean said. “I expect you two will be running things before too long. Especially our young Gordon. In two years he has a chance to be quite an officer, that’s my guess.”
Gordon said, “In two years I have a chance to be nineteen.”
They were silent. He rarely mentioned his age; never around the girls.
He added: “Like Billy Conn used to say—I got my whole past ahead of me.”
“Billy Conn,” Bryant explained, “is a boxer Harold Bean’s always talking about.”
“Well,” Robin repeated, this time cheerfully, “I suggest we either all go for a walk, or call it a night. What do you say?”
Bryant was grateful for the idea. He was finding Snowberry oppressive, though he was behaving the same way. And he did feel that this was an opportunity to transmit something of how he felt to Robin.
They walked hand in hand. A few steps ahead Jean stopped to kiss Snowberry, and they passed them.
They sat beside a low stone wall. On the opposite side of the lane a cow gazed at them, scratching its chin in slow strokes on a wire gate. They heard a convoy of fuel bowsers coming from a long way off, and didn’t speak until they had passed. No one driving the trucks understood gear shifting and one by one they rounded the corner and ground noisily up the slight hill.
“What a nice image for things right now,” Robin said. “These cows with their mild eyes watching all this Yank bustle.”
Bryant suggested quietly that she might draw it.
She leaned his head closer with her hand. Her hair smelled of fir needles. “Oh, I’m not much use with lorries and big machines,” she said. “A lot of clank and precious few beautiful lines.”
He imagined her rushing to get dressed, hurrying into the night with almost no notice. “I’m sorry I’ve been jerky,” he said. “Thanks for coming out like this. I guess I’m just scared I’ll let everyone down. Scared I really don’t belong here, that nobody realizes that.”
It was dark. The shine on his boots interested him. Robin stroked his arm and tried to reassure him. As she spoke he grew less sure of himself, less sure of his ability to perform.
They could make out Snowberry and Jean thirty or so yards down the lane.
“Is Gordon all right?” Robin asked.
“He and Bean,” Bryant said. “They’re unhappy.”
“Just the two of them?”
He shrugged and made an amused sound with his tongue on his palate. “We all are.”
They sat in the dark and something twittered from a house eave behind them.
“I used to have dreams about you,” she said. “I used to dream the war was over or everyone had quit or one thing or another and you were living here. In one you were a tax assessor, of all things.”
He looked at her.
“Now I’m all dreamed out. They’ve stopped. That’s what Janie had said, you know, from one of her letters to my great aunt: I’m all dreamed out. She wrote it late one night at the cottage hospital.” She sighed, and bit her little finger lightly
. “I think at this point you need a child’s faith,” she said. “I don’t think I have that. Gone with the lavender icing, or something of that sort, I suppose.”
They sat a bit longer. He had shifted to a cross-legged position and his foot was asleep.
“How fitting,” she added, with some anger. “How fitting, Bobby Bryant, that your aeroplane should be called the Fortress. Defended on all sides.” She stood.
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking up at her in the dark.
“I mean I’m quite exhausted, thank you, trying to get through to you, trying to get you to volunteer something. I came all the way down here, Bobby, and you sit there.” Bryant stood, and shook his leg. It was not the best move.
“I say to myself, be patient with him, Robin, think of his position, he’s just a boy at any rate, how can you know what it feels like? But Bobby, is it really so very hard? Is it so hard to be straightforward with me? To tell me how you feel?”
He felt himself becoming angry and half understood the opportunity to avoid the question. He resented her the way he resented Colin. He had never been happier anywhere than he was with her, and he remained standing apart from her, shaking a sleeping leg. She waited, and he didn’t come up with anything to say.
“Bobby Bryant,” she said, and he knew how much he had hurt her. She touched her forearm with an open palm, as if he had hurt her there. “I have to go.”
Halfway to Snowberry and Jean she turned and said vehemently, “You had better not get killed. Don’t let me hear that. You had better not get killed.”
On the way back down the lane in the dark Snowberry with his hands thrust deep in his pockets golfed a stone twenty or thirty feet with a left-footed swipe and asked, “So what happened to you?”
