He unscrewed the lid again, scooped jam onto the blunt end of his pen, and tried it.
All over the desiccated island the bomb craters filled with rainwater. They overflowed, voiding their poison, until the water that pooled in them was sweet. Soon the first green algae began to bloom in their waters. Little creatures, outlandish and fitfully ambulant, multiplied on the bounty. Their tiny bodies quivered with unheard laughter. They lived and died and their resonant forms drifted down to the depths and as the sediment grew richer, plants took root in it, and reached up for the light, and were salves and banes and lilies. Their leaves unfurled and their stamens shook with laughter. Finches came and rested on the stems—the leaves trembled, the birds swayed like gymnasts, the laughter shook the air. More rains came, and seasons, and early evenings with light so delicate and shimmering that the laughter made ripples in the light itself, and turned the light to its own form, and the light made itself into the undulant bodies of lovers. Catherine looked up at him, laughter lining her eyes, while the river looped around meadows.
Simonson cradled his head. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever tasted. How tired he had been, how lost.
He screwed the lid back on the jam and replaced it on top of the stack of paperwork. One found new uses for the equipment one had. He would tell Hamilton the truth and finish the war as a sergeant, yelling at buttons and shoes.
At dawn he shaved, combed his hair and went down to the ops room.
“Sir,” he said to Hamilton, “Heath knew nothing. He’d recently lost his arm, he’d lost Briggs who was his friend, and he was in no state to make judgments. I ordered Heath to take the painting back to the church, and the loss of Briggs and the truck was my responsibility. I ordered Heath onto the evacuation flight. He had no agency in any of it, and nor did Med Command. I told them it was orders from top brass.”
Hamilton came out from behind his desk to shake Simonson’s hand.
“You understand, Douglas, that I really shall have to write this report? That the entire thing falls on you?”
“I understand, Fraser. And I’m sorry to ask you to do it.”
“You shall have a rest now, at least.”
Simonson tried for a smile. “Well, that’s something.”
Hamilton sighed, sat back down and nodded at the wall map of Malta. “Now we can speak freely, what would you do, if you were in charge of the show? With the strength we have, and the provisions remaining, and the enemy able to parachute in to any location?”
Simonson studied the map. “I think I might ask the men, sir.”
Hamilton blinked. “I certainly never had you as a democrat.”
“I mean I might ask for volunteers. There are some who will surrender, when the chance comes, and it seems useless to require them to fight if they can bear a life in captivity. And there are others who will prefer to resist, even though the outcome is clear. I think we have all been here long enough to know our minds by now.”
“So you would split our force?”
“Into two camps, yes. One to yield, another to hold.”
“And in which of the two camps are you?”
Simonson smiled. “Who knows which takes more courage—to die in battle, or to live in vain? It cuts all of us in two, I suppose.”
Hamilton frowned at the map. “And yet, you see, we are only issued with one island.”
March, 1942
IN THE FIRST BIG southwesterly of the year the Americans arrived in London. They came with the storm at their backs, up from Southampton in trucks. They ran a muscular breed of convoy, widening the roads where they had to, shrugging off the bombed-out houses with big-chested bulldozers they had shipped with them from Maine. When they reached the capital, though the officers were too good to mention it, they were amazed at how tiny it was. The landmarks were bigger in their photographs. The British themselves were quite small.
“Say that again in your accent,” said a lieutenant who had asked Mary for directions. She did, and it made both of them laugh. To discover that one had an accent was quite unexpected and wonderful.
Mary had seen the column rolling along the Strand, on her way to the Lyceum. The children had already been out watching it, and it was hopeless to imagine that she could teach them on a day like this. She had joined them instead as they stood in a neat line on the pavement, oldest to youngest, waving American flags they had made.
“What’s with all the Negroes, ma’am?” said the lieutenant.
“Oh,” said Mary, “you’ll find that almost everyone in Britain is colored. Didn’t they tell you in your briefing?”
The lieutenant looked at her in perfect bafflement. “No ma’am.”
“Well, I’m surprised. As far as the Scotch border we are as dark as pitch. It’s only north of there that the race is diluted.”
“And you, ma’am?”