Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  “Not bad, huh?” Kneece was standing with his back to the dartboard, bent over so far rearward I thought he’d fall on his arse. In this fashion he was lobbing the darts and had actually managed to stick a few into the cork.

  Ricks sat apart from us, elbows on knees, hands closed round a cigarette, head hung forward, as if the most important concern in his universe just then was the puddles forming round his boots.

  Harry glanced at Kneece briefly over the tops of his glasses, sighed, and turned back to his paper puzzle. Harry’s shuffling of paper ceased as he saw something that turned his face… not so much hard as committed. He began to gather up his bits of paper one by one into a neat deck. “I’m going up there.”

  I think all three of us — myself, Kneece, and Ricks — froze for a moment, unsure we’d heard correctly, or that we’d understood what it was we’d heard, or afraid that we had heard correctly.

  Harry tucked his papers inside his windcheater. “Tonight. I’m going up there tonight.”

  “Going up where?” Kneece asked, but he already knew “To do…?” I asked, not really wanting to know Harry sighed, resigned. “I’m going after that night train.” Woody Kneece laughed derisively. “Major, you are truly something! You don’t give up!”

  Peter Ricks threw his cigarette away — apologies for the mess, Lilith — and slid into the booth bench across from Harry. “You can’t win,” he said flatly. “There’s big people behind this, people we don’t know about. There have to be, running interference for Duff on this side of the ocean, for Edghill back in the States. And people big enough to do that —”

  “We’re not going to get any authority to move on it the way this case is sitting,” Harry told him. “Right now, we’ve got nothing but some rumors and gossip and a couple of informed guesses. It’s too easy to pretend that what you can’t see isn’t happening.”

  “Out of sight, out of mind?”

  “Exactly. So you drag it out where everybody can see. You stand there with one of their bootlegged planes in hand, a bootleg cargo, a pile of coconspirators… I don’t care how big a mop they have, they can’t put spilt milk back in the bottle.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Uncle Ray,” Kneece drawled. “Only I understand him.”

  “They’re going to be real mad,” Ricks told Harry.

  “My heart goes out to them,” Harry said.

  “Y’all can’t be asking us to join this posse of yours!” Kneece went from mockery to incredulity. He turned to Peter Ricks. “And y’all can’t be thinking of going up there with him?”

  “I’m not asking anybody to do anything,” Harry said. “I’m telling you what I’m going to do.”

  “Even if we pull this off,” Ricks pointed out evenly, “they’ll crucify us.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You didn’t learn anything from what happened to y’all back in August!” Woody Kneece protested.

  “Oh, no,” Harry said. “I learned a lot.”

  “Last question,” Ricks persisted. “Is Grassi worth all this? You are the guy who broke his jaw, aren’t you?”

  Harry reached inside his windcheater and came out with the cracked photo of Grassi. He pushed the photo in Woody Kneece’s direction. “You left that with me, remember, Woody? In my kitchen back home. That wasn’t an accident, was it? Now, you take a look. He wasn’t just a picture. He was as real as anybody here. He was a pain in the ass and any other way you want to say not a nice person, but he was killed for no good reason and nobody seems to give a damn. If the only reason you put that uniform on was to make a point to Daddy, fine, you made your point: Go on home.”

  “There’s a lot of boys — a lot — who are dying every day for no good reason,” Peter Ricks said.

  “I can’t do anything about them,” Harry replied solemnly Peter Ricks picked up the photo. He sighed. “Pain in the ass.” He handed it back to Harry and smiled good-naturedly. “I don’t know what I’m worried about. You saw that buildup in Italy. They’re getting ready for a push. So, as far as I’m concerned, I can get it in Orkney, or get it in Italy, so I might as well get it here. At least here I have some kind of say in my own destruction.”

  “You need me.” I wondered who’d made that insane statement and then realized it was me.

  Harry shook his head. “Eddie, this isn’t your —”

  “You need me, Harry.” Stop your blathering, you, I scolded myself, but I kept talking: “You need someone outside the family. I’m a civilian, and a journalist. They can’t send me off to some frontier outpost in Italy or the Arctic.”

  “Factually,” Woody Kneece said wryly, “as I recall, didn’t you tell us you pissed off Mr. Sir John Duff and got your British arse sent all the way out to Malaysia?”

  “It’s a Scottish arse, Captain, and my story still ran. If I’m witness to this, I’m your leverage against them: I’m your guarantee this can’t remain invisible.”

  Peter Ricks groaned. “I don’t like this.”

  “Lieutenant, I appreciate your being concerned for my well-being, but it’s a bit misplaced. I have more experience under fire than anybody in this room save you.” In an unfair emphasis I knew he would never refute, I punctuated the statement with a knuckle rap on my wooden leg.

  “I still don’t like it,” he said. But his tone was resigned. Woody Kneece picked at the plate of nibbles, took a bite of a slice of Spam, made a disgusted face, and threw the remainder back on the plate. “Well, well. What’s the worst that can happen? If they bust me, I can always get a job working for my daddy.” He beamed a broad smile: “And y’all could always get a job working for me!”

  “See?” Harry said to Ricks. “We don’t have a thing to worry about!”

  Kneece put his hands in his pockets and came to stand over Harry’s table. “All right, Major. You got your posse. Let’s go tip over some milk bottles.”

  *

  The flight mechanic slammed the hatch of the Dakota and took a seat in the cargo cabin across from Sparks and the copilot. The only noise was the drumming of the rain on the aluminum hull.

  The copilot rapped knuckles on the bench. “With all present and accounted for, I hereby call this meeting of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club to order!” The crew chuckled, desperate to dispel the oppressive seriousness.

  Doheeny smiled. “Major Voss asked something of me…” The smile disappeared. “Well, what he asked, it’s not really for me to say yes. Maybe I better let him explain a bit.” Doheeny turned to Harry. “They’re all yours, Harry,” and he stood away.

  “I’m sorry for dragging you guys out into the rain like this,” Harry began, “but I thought we should have the privacy. You guys must’ve been wondering why you’ve been lugging Captain Kneece and me all over the North Atlantic, especially after that little ‘mishap’ at Kap Farvel.”

  The copilot raised a hand. “Yeah, well, sir, we did take a little umbrage at that!”

  Another spate of nervous chuckles.

  “OK, here it is,” Harry went on. “There’s a kind of smuggling ring running between the States and someone on Orkney. I say smuggling, but this isn’t just about somebody making a few bucks moving black-market nylons and booze. You saw that wreck back in Greenland. Three of the men on that ship were killed. A U.S. Army lieutenant on Greenland got wise to what was going on just a few weeks ago, and he was murdered — they put a bullet through his head — to keep their operation quiet.” He looked at their grave faces to see that they’d absorbed the story thus far. “The people involved in this business have some pretty powerful friends. So, the people who should be doing something about it are sitting back, and the people running the operation are so confident they’re not going to get touched, they’re not even waiting for things to cool down; they’re moving another load into the Orkneys tonight, right into the same place where they killed the Army lieutenant.” He cleared his throat. “Since nobody else wants to do anything about this, Captain Kneece and I, and some other fellas, we want to go up there ton
ight and try to put a stop to it.”

  “Major,” the copilot asked, “are you asking us to grab pitchforks and torches and go on after these bad guys?”

  “That’s not your job. Your job is to fly this aeroplane. That’s what me and my people need: transport to the Orkneys.”

  “So we fly you to the Orkneys,” Sparks said. “We’ve flown you just about everywhere else; so what?”

  “It’s not that simple, fellas,” Doheeny pointed out.

  Harry went on: “Because these people have powerful friends, and because going there would be a violation of a direct order sending us home… this could mean trouble for everybody involved.” He looked at the copilot and Sparks sitting together. “For you civilians, I don’t know what that would mean for your careers, now or after the war. And you, Sergeant, you’re Army —”

  The flight mechanic’s head bobbed in agreement. He looked at the sergeant’s stripes on his shoulder and waved his fingers at them: “Bye-bye, stripes.”

  “At the very least,” Harry agreed.

  “Harry — that is, Major Voss — he asked me to fly him up there,” Doheeny told his men. “But we’ve all been flying together a long time, too long for me to put your necks on the line for something like this unless you want to. This is purely voluntary.”

  The copilot fidgeted in his seat. “Cap’n, look, I’m just the meter reader up there in the dummy seat. If you want to ferry the major up, just say the word —”

  Doheeny was already shaking his head. “It’s got to be your decision. Each of you. I need a crew to fly this crate. That means if one of you says no, nobody goes. Nobody’s going to hold that against anybody: not me, not the major. To make sure none of you feel pressured into this, I thought we’d do this by secret ballot so nobody’ll have to worry about —” They had already been exchanging looks, their familiarity with each other precluding the necessity for any spoken dialogue.

  “Cap’n, with all respect.” The flight mechanic stood, tugging at the duck-billed cap in his hands. “You need a crew… we’re your crew.”

  *

  I stood in the doorway of her office for some time. Even then she didn’t notice me until that little chinless wasp Berwyck did. He’d come from his interior office to hand her some papers.

  “Cathryn, be a dear and retype this when you — oh! Mr. Owen!” He didn’t seem to know what to make of my rough clothes, hardy khakis of the sort I’d last worn on my jaunt to Malaysia.

  That’s when she looked up. Surprised. Unpleasantly. “Hello, Berwyck old man. How goes the war, eh? Working the slaves to the nub, are you? Is he treating you all right, Cat? No floggings, I trust. Tell me, and I’ll thrash this member of the oppressive proletariat!”

  He began inching back toward his office. “Sorry?”

  I came up to him — which made him flinch — and threw an arm about his shoulders. “A joke, Berwyck, a gibe, a jest!” He smiled weakly. “Of course. Well…” He wriggled out from under my arm with an admirable politeness. “We do seem to be seeing quite a bit of you lately.”

  “An aberration, Berwyck. Fear not. I’ll soon be retreating to my previous anonymity. Hope I’m not a bother.”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t mean to imply, well —”

  “Mind if I have a word…?” I cut him off mercifully — the poor blighter did seem to be foundering — nodding in the direction of my wife.

  “Yes, why, certainly. Cathryn, this is nothing urgent I’ve left you. When you have a chance” He stepped back farther into his office, keeping me in sight all the time as if concerned that once he turned his back I might pounce. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Owen.”

  “Always a pleasure, Berwyck. Toodles.”

  He closed the door behind him, which I thought curious, as it hadn’t been closed when I got there.

  “We are seeing a terrible lot of you lately,” Cathryn said. “I’m seeing more of you now than when we were married.”

  I clutched my heart as if struck by an arrow. “Spot on and deadly, my dear!”

  “How long were you standing there?”

  “I was dumbstruck by what my eyes beheld: Still Life — Woman and Typewriter.”

  “You’re a depressing sod.” She leaned forward, whispering: “I’ve helped you once, Eddie! Not again! If you’ve come back to —”

  “Nothing of the sort, Cat. Can we go somewhere?”

  She took me by the hand to the landing of the main staircase.

  I offered her my pack of Players.

  “No.” Then she remembered herself: “Thank you. You know, you torment that man unforgivably.”

  “Who? Old Berwyck? I love the little bugger, Cat. I think he’s an absolute delight.”

  “Little boys who pull the wings off flies think the same thing about the flies. Now: What is it you want this time?”

  I held out my latchkey to her.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s this about?”

  “Key to my flat, dearie. I’m off for a few days.”

  “And I’m to feed the fish and water the flowers?”

  “Cat, you should know better.”

  “Ah, yes, any living thing in your flat would have long since died of neglect.”

  “Or sued for divorce. Sorry. It was a bad joke.”

  “You’ve been off before without leaving me your latchkey.” She had yet to take the key.

  “It’s just in case you need to get in while I’m gone.”

  “With no flowers or fish, why should I need to — Oh, no.” Her eyes widened in dismay. “This has to do with why you were here the other day.”

  “I’m just off to do a little research —”

  “Sir John, Eddie? Sir John?”

  “A little louder, dear, I don’t think they can quite hear you down to the street.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised, not after the other night. Research? Bollocks! Think a little better of me than that! This is your grand gesture, isn’t it? This, this expedition of yours! And this” — she waved a hand at the latchkey — “is your hero’s farewell. I won’t have it, Eddie. It was enough to be married to you and worry if you were coming home —”

  “Cat, dear, how sweet! You still care!”

  “I should knock you over this banister. It would serve you right to have that haggis between your ears dashed all over the foyer.” She had vented, and now sagged back against the wall, drained. She held out a hand, snapping her fingers impatiently until I handed her a Players and lit it for her. “Eddie, I won’t try to talk you out of this. I learned long ago there’s no getting sense into that Scottish noggin of yours. What is it about heroic self-destruction that men find so appealing when they start questioning themselves?”

  I lit my own Players off the same match. “It is a puzzlement, eh, lass?”

  “Bollocks.” She held out her hand for the key. I handed it over.

  “It’s just that I’ve been thinking —”

  “A mistake for you.”

  “Aye. But I have to admit to not being all that impressed with myself.”

  “You of all people, Eddie. You’ve done your bit. Even if you only ever wrote one important story —”

  “I’ve written a million words, Cat, and gauging by the front page of the morning edition, none of them seems to have done much good by anyone. Just once, I would like to…” I wasn’t sure what it was I did want to do, but I knew she understood even better than I.

  “Merry Christmas, you silly bastard,” she murmured, gave me a sound slap on the cheek, then a peck where the blow had left my face hot, before she turned and hurried down the hall, back to her office with my latchkey in hand.

  It is on such paradoxes that great philosophers and poets better than I dwell.

  *

  The plan was simple. Leaving from Duxford rather than the usual ATC terminus at Prestwick allowed Doheeny to cheat his course eastward. Filing a flight plan that kept him over land as long as possible — a prudent enough maneuver prior to a North Atlantic crossing — b
rought his path even closer to Orkney, sending him up the east coast of Britain before heading out into the Atlantic across the mouth of Pentland Firth.

  From several canvas equipment bags Peter Ricks meted out cold-weather gear. One bag, however, remained untouched. As he was moving it out of the way I heard the clatter of metal and wood. “Something special Santa left under the tree,” he told me, “for later.”

  It was nearly six P.M. when we crossed out over the sea. In those northern climes, and it being December 24th to boot, it was already quite dark at six P.M. A sliver of moon flashed intermittently through clouds onto the black waters. Enough moonlight came down to bring out the shadowy hump of Hoy passing a few miles by our starboard windows. But then the clouds closed and Hoy disappeared into blackness as the Dakota drew farther from land, northwest out over the Atlantic.

  Doheeny came back from the cockpit to sit with us.

  “So when do we do this?” Harry asked him.

  “I was going to suggest now. We’re out far enough to where anybody can see it makes more sense to route us into Orkney than back to Scotland. We also just got a radio alert there’s a squall line bearing southeast. I don’t want to be in a one-engine race to the bam with a storm out here.”

  “I thought the engine failure was to be a bit of playacting,” I pointed out.

  “If it’s going to look good, I’m going to have to kill the engine before we land at Kirkwall. We’ll be fine. Without cargo, one of those engines could carry us all the way to Iceland. I just wanted to warn you it might get a bit bumpy back here.” Doheeny went back forward. “Hey, Marconi,” he flagged Sparks, “send your Mayday.” He slid back into his seat. “OK, Tonto, pull the plug.”