“Aren’t you going to eat the food?”
“You have it,” said Alistair.
“Don’t tempt me.”
“I’ll have it later, then.”
“Suit yourself. Good view of the raid from up here?”
“It was lovely.”
Alistair took the jar of blackberry jam from its safe place on the floor and placed it back in the arrow loop. Simonson swallowed. Alistair enjoyed the effort it cost his friend to take his eyes off the jar.
“Why won’t you eat that stuff?”
“I prefer strawberry. How did the raid go?’
“We lost two local gunners. Zammit and Sillato. Another breech explosion. Zammit’s children came to the main gate and howled. Two boys and a little girl the wind could lift like thistledown.”
“Those guns aren’t safe to use.”
“But the poor men make such elementary mistakes. Apparently Zammit had the breech half closed and Sillato called it ready to fire.”
“Have trigger guards made and run chains to them from the breech door, on the far side from the hinge. Make them just the right length and the trigger won’t clear until the gun is properly closed up.”
Simonson frowned. “You think?”
“We did it in France when we had to use French gunners.”
Simonson looked over at the picture. “Aren’t you going to fix the frame?”
“I like it with the marks of the fire on it. It carries its own story.”
“Suit yourself. It will end up hanging in Berlin, in any case.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Simonson sighed. “The men never made these mistakes under you.”
“They weren’t so hungry, back then.”
“You flatter me.”
“But it’s true. You’re not absolutely the worst major in the Army.”
Simonson snorted. “Now I know you’re dying.”
Alistair screwed the tops back on the bottles of thinners. It was hard to get the tops on with one hand. Simonson, who could have helped, only looked at him doing it.
“Don’t make me beg. Will you let them take the arm off?”
“Why do you insist?’ ”
“Because I want you evacuated before the enemy parachutes in. You know very well we’ll be killed, and I would feel less awful if you were companionable enough to let me die alone.”
“Self-centered of you.’
“Isn’t it? Still, I would consider it a favor.”
“When we first met, you considered me too common to live.”
“Perhaps I have come to see some low merit in the lower orders.”
“This helpful war. It makes us better people and then it tries to kill us.”
Simonson grinned.
“What?” said Alistair.
“ ‘Well you make it sound just like Harrow.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Badly. Not the food, though. God, yes, even the food.”
“I’ll look the place up for you when I get home, then.”
Simonson looked up sharply. “So you will let us take off the arm?”
“Just make sure they leave the good one attached, will you?”
“Oh, there’s every chance. Fifty-fifty, at least. I shall alert the Navy immediately and have them sober up their best surgeon.”
May, 1941
WHEN HER MOTHER ORDERED Palmer not to give her any more morphine, Mary moved into the garret and took the last two brown glass bottles with her. She would give her mother a little space in which to become reasonable.
East of Pimlico, London was broken beyond hope in a way that was perfectly obvious, but which caused Mary no distress whatsoever. The impossible realism of the opiate shunned the impossible reality of the war. The two were oil and water. Even when something happened to shake one up, the day and the drug only separated into a million busy droplets, flowing around each other to rejoin their own kind. And then there one was again, on top of things, buoyant on the hour.
At the Lyceum, Bones was at the baby grand rehearsing “Hitler Has only Got One Ball”, reducing the piano part to the crudest single-piston pump and whining the vocals though his nose. After the first verse the lights snapped up on the stage and revealed a full big band and twenty-four minstrels who went straight into a colossal reprise of the song, with close harmonies and outrageous swing. The effect was magnificent, and Mary laughed with delight as she made her way down to the basement.
At the sound of her footsteps, three heads appeared over the counter of the bar. There was Zachary, Molly and a new boy of perhaps nine years, with puffy eyes and a green felt fedora.
“The hell are you?” said the new boy.
“Do you mind?” said Mary. “It is ‘Who the hell are you?’ Or more elegantly, ‘Who in hell’s name are you?’ I’m Mary. Glad to meet you.”
The heavenward glance he gave, as if she were too much. He exhaled a smoke ring. Mary realized that he had held out his hand for her cigarette as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and that she had passed it to him in an absence of mind while he had her so flustered.
“Give that back this second, you menace!”
He gave a superior look and exhaled through his nose. “I’m Charles.”