by Jim Shepard
Bryant was shaking. “I’ll be outside,” he said.
“Just great, asshole,” Lewis said. He reached for his beer. “I’ll be in here.”
Bryant stormed out and paced the street in front of the bar, rehearsing what would occur when Lewis emerged. It began to drizzle, and he stood under an overhang. After half an hour he weighed going back in, and decided he had more pride than that, and began the long walk alone back to the base.
When Snowberry finally came in that night, Bryant asked what had happened after he left, and Snowberry related that they’d had a smash ’em up game of pub bowling, using the pint glasses, and had mucked it up with some of the locals. Even Bean had pitched in, although he’d been more or less forced to. He sighed happily, and Bryant again was aware of being left out. “You shoulda been there,” Snowberry murmured. “We are beyond a doubt the most destructive group of young men in history, in or out of pubs.”
“Did he say anything about my not coming back?” Bryant whispered in the dark. “Gordon.” But Snowberry was asleep on his back with his mouth open, snoring, and from a nearby bunk Lambert Ball grumbled that God, it was like sleeping in a stockyard.
Bryant spent the next morning going over Paper Doll with Tuliese and after lunch settled under the wing to read letters. Lewis had not spoken to him since the night before and he found himself overaware of any movement to or from the Nissen huts.
Piacenti and Ball were fencing with the detached whip antennas from two jeeps. They called En garde! and made gruesome stabbing noises. Bryant ignored them and they went on with their stamping and lunging.
A letter from Robin had come the day of the mission and V-mail from Lois had come that morning. In addition there was a letter from the village that he didn’t recognize. He thrilled a bit to the notion of a secret admirer and opened that one first.
Dear Sergeant Robert Bryant,
I hope this letter reaches you as it represents my regards. My mother suggested I might write you and thank you for your gift of gum and send support for your difficult task which we are all in together. I sincerely hope you are well and have not been hurt by German action.
Yours,
Colin Best.
On the back of the envelope Colin had drawn a bulbous B-17 with overprominent gun positions, all unerringly spitting dotted lines out to broken and tumbling smaller planes marked with black crosses. From one a stick figure with a pumpkin head fell spread-eagled and grimacing. Happy Shooting! it said underneath.
He sniffed Robin’s letter. It smelled like paper. He opened it. She had compressed her penmanship carefully, to fit more on the page.
Dear Bobby,
Eight a.m. in the damp garden this morning I innocently happened upon eight ravaged gooseberry bushes. In a strange way the sight was frightening. They had been gnawed bare and completely stripped, leaving only branches budding leaf skeletons. What a sight!—like a cartoon post-locust scene. Only twelve hours earlier, or less, the bushes had been healthy, leaved, and berried. We’re at a loss. Birds? They don’t eat the leaves and pips (they had stripped every cherry from the just-ripe cherry tree only the night before last, leaves untouched and messy pips strewn over the stones below). Clearly this unknown gooseberry lover had an appetite—the odd remaining leaf actually seemed to show teeth marks.
Other things. Mrs. H (the retired gardening expert I spoke of) was feeling down the other night—no word of a missing son in Africa—so I suggested a country walk. “I do so love the country,” she said. We walked for perhaps an hour, randomly, round unexplored areas just outside the village. We walked past great expanses of watercress growing in shallow flooded beds. She talked about how she missed her Derek and I talked about you. We walked past trimmed hedgerows, some sleepy sheep, big manors I suggested we’d one day have as our own. I could see she was very curious about Americans but reluctant to ask. She said that she had heard Americans were quite uncontrollable in public places but that she imagined a good deal of that was just talk and that she felt sure my young man would hardly be—and here she looked for the word—a cowboy. I told her how we had met, of your graciousness and our talk concerning the usefulness of the Red Cross. She asked if you were very free with gifts and I said you were generous but not like some. I told her as well that you might have the opportunity to meet.
Will we? Will you be able to arrange the leave? Write or ring up when you can. Mother says she’ll be the strictest of chaperones but I have plotted walks and activities certain to drive her back to her garden. Do you like to swim?
Robin.
He reread the letter, folded it crookedly back into its envelope, and opened the half-sized V-mail from Lois. Boy, what a Class A rat, he thought. He felt harder and pleasingly more like a soldier.
V-mail was photographed and reduced to save space and weight, and Lois had taped a factory newsletter over half her sheet. It was The Minesweeper, out of Groton, Connecticut. He frowned. What was she doing in Groton, Connecticut? The title was surrounded by anchor chains and the words Let’s Win an “E” in ’43. She had written over the top margin, Mama, what did you do in the war? Were you a Wave or a Waac? No, dear, I just hid things for other people to find, and found things others had hidden. He didn’t understand at first, and then the newsletter’s title came back to him, and he chuckled. The headline was They Call Her “Frivolous Sal,” and beneath it were a group of women standing before a clapboard wall, squinting and smiling uncertainly at the camera. There was a thick caption.
Call ’em Frivolous Sal if you care to, but if you do you’re as wrong as Tojo or “that funny little man in the dirty raincoat,” Herr Schicklgruber. The girls pictured above are employed in this yard—in the electrical shop, the copper shop, Navy warehouse and tool rooms. They’re doing their stuff!
Reading from Left to Right: Ilene Reavis, electric shop; Jerrie McManamy, cable room; Naomi Lundgren, electric shop; Betty Kelley, Navy warehouse; Alma Woolridge, copper shop; Dorothy Schnellhardt, copper shop. Second row: Evelyn Everett, electric shop; Joanie Swift, electric warehouse; Irene Erickson, electric shop; Louise Erickson, warehouse; Wilma Jacobsen, machine shop tool room. Third row: Marge Dotts, copper shop; Lois Simon, Navy warehouse; Amanda Duffy, Navy warehouse; Gladys Roeder, tool room; Martine Loomer, copper shop.
Lois’s name and job had been circled and an arrow had been drawn to her head in the photo.
Hi! Surprise! We’ve moved down to Groton and yours truly is now a Rosie! Can you believe it? I was scared at first but I’m really getting the hang of things and making new friends. I’m making thirty-five dollars a week! And I’m saving nearly everything, what with the rationing anyway. I’ve been pitching in at the USO, too. I haven’t got a minute to myself, it seems. I’m also plane spotting. Can you believe it? Naomi and I sit there with our little radio and work the graveyard shift Tuesdays and Saturdays. We haven’t seen too many planes. I keep waiting to see your B-17F. With its distinctive tail assembly I can tell it from a B-24 or B-25, so I’ll know it when I see it.
Everyone here is following the war the best they can. The newspapers leave so much out. I guess they have to. It sounds like things are really starting to go well for the Air Corps. Even though I know how terrible this war is, there is such an excitement in the air! I lie on my bed after a fourteen-hour day and I look over at my old Sonja Henie doll and I feel like it must have been a thousand years ago.
Bryant stroked the page with some fondness, trying to put a finger on a certain part of her.
Some of the servicemen throw notes out of the train windows or leave notes near the coffee machines at the USO. They’re not mash notes or anything; they say things like “Girls please write,” and then the name and address. I’ve starting writing a few—one in Fort Ord, California—and they’ve been perfect gentlemen. One even wished you all the luck in the world.
That’s all for now. I’m so tired my hand is wiggling. I miss you. Write when you are able.
All my love,
Lois.
“Let’s go, spruce up,” Gabriel told him. “The crew of Paper Doll is going to be interviewed by Impact magazine.”
Gabriel was circling the base collecting everyone and left Hirsch and Bryant in the day room.
Hirsch winced. “Great title, isn’t it?”
“Don’t wander off,” Gabriel called from the door. “And try not to have something hanging out of your nose when the guy’s talking to you.”
They sat down opposite one another. The silence was awkward. Bryant had an impulse to talk about the night before at The Hoops but stopped himself.
Hirsch pulled over the current copy of Impact and leafed through it. “‘11th AF Reconnoiters, Bombs, Strafes in Attu Action,’” he read. He showed Bryant the photo, a double-pager displaying nothing but snow-covered mountains with unappetizing black rock showing through on the slopes.
“What’re we looking at?” Bryant asked.
Hirsch leaned closer. “‘Reconnaissance photo located position of a unit of our scouts (see arrow) which came overland from Blind Cove on May 11.’”
He pointed to the arrow, which indicated a white expanse.
Bryant peered closely at it. “Those are the scouts, huh?”
“‘They were to join the attack at Massacre Bay, but are shown here turning left too soon.’”
“I’ll say,” Bryant said.
Hirsch sat back, bored. “Maybe they’re tunneling,” he said.
Bryant sneezed. “I guess they’re attacking that white area over there,” he said.
Hirsch shrugged. “Or this white area over here.” He shook his head. “Imagine fighting in a place like that?”
They nodded soberly together at their good fortune.
Hirsch ran a fingertip lightly back and forth over his eyebrow, an unobtrusive nervous habit. “‘Sousse Study Shows What Bombs Accomplish,’” he read.
Bryant waited. “What’s that?” he finally said.
Hirsch read silently for a moment. Then he said, “I guess we just captured this, and now they’re looking at what our bombing really did, instead of just high-altitude photo interpretation.”
Bryant brought his chair around and together they studied the photos. The images were largely unintelligible and they relied on the captions.
Damage to 300-400-ton ship is confined to bridge superstructure, one read.
Bomb damage negligible but a direct hit on the starboard side of this ship aft of the funnel set fire to its oil cargo. Bulkhead prevented flooding. Rudder and propellers were undamaged.
Crater 6 × 30 ft. caused by direct hit on this phosphates shed. The roof is out but note there is no damage to the concrete kiln walls.
Hirsch rubbed his chin. “Encouraging, isn’t it?”
“Well, they’re not hiding anything,” Bryant said. “I guess you could look at it that way.”
Lewis poked his head in, hesitated, and then came over to the table and sat down. “Gabriel said everyone was here,” he complained. He took the Impact from Hirsch and paged back and forth through it. “Who reads this rag?” he asked.
He held up for Bryant a photo of a dorsal turret with its front Plexiglas panel blown out. “How much you think they found of him?” Lewis asked. Bryant smiled, some pressure low in his throat. Lewis pointed to another photo, a B-17 with its entire nose missing.
“Flak,” he said. “No more Eddy. No more Hirsch. And we come home with a six-hundred-mile-an-hour slipstream through the plane. Gabriel and Cooper’s toes are like little rows of ice cubes.”
“Any tail pictures like that?” Hirsch asked.
“None,” Lewis said. “Hey, here’s a shot of Rabbi Rascal on her bombing run.”
“You know, you haven’t quite made being an asshole an art,” Hirsch said. “But I got to admire your dedication.”
“Hey, fuck you, pal,” Lewis said.
Hirsch was quiet, apparently considering the best way to respond. He was not one of the crew’s more aggressive second lieutenants.
“‘They Live to Fight Another Day Despite Damage,’” Lewis read.
“I guess the ‘They’ means the planes,” Bryant said.
“‘Rugged airframes can take it,’” Lewis continued, “‘because of special triple support construction.’” He held up a pencil. “Here’s your triple support construction,” he said. “Plane.” He indicated the pencil. He held up his other hand beside it, and made a rapid series of fists. “Flak,” he said. He brought the two together, and broke the pencil.
“Knock it off,” Hirsch said.
Lewis flopped the magazine in his direction and Hirsch looked at him malevolently.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Lewis said. “Fucking ninety-day-wonder Jew second looey.”
Hirsch got up and left.
Bryant pulled the magazine over and read silently while they sat and waited, not talking. Lewis drummed “Sing Sing Sing” on the table with his palms.
Gabriel came in with a sloppy and overweight captain and Bean, Snowberry, Cooper, and Eddy in tow. “This is Captain Ciervanski,” he announced. “I trust you’ll give him your full cooperation.”
Captain Ciervanski set a pad and some sharpened pencils down neatly on the table. He wished them a good afternoon.
“No one’s seen Ball or Piacenti?” Gabriel asked glumly. Bryant shook his head. “Now where’s Hirsch?”
“He said he didn’t want any part of this, sir,” Lewis said. “He said he didn’t care what you thought.”
“That’s not really true,” Bryant said.
“Well, we’ll go on with what we have here,” Captain Ciervanski said crisply.
“Sir?” Lewis said. “I didn’t know Impact did interviews.”
“They don’t,” Ciervanski said. “There’s no guarantee this’ll run, either. It’s a pet idea of mine. It’s really up to you guys.”
Snowberry gave Bryant an exaggerated shrug. He was Paper Doll’s lowest-ranking crew member, a tech three, so it wasn’t his place to comment.
“It’s a good idea, sir,” Cooper said. He so rarely spoke, the rest of the crew assumed in this case he was sucking up to Gabriel. “I think they think back home that guys like Clark Gable are flying the Forts.”
“Clark Gable is flying Forts,” Lewis said. “He’s in the 351st.”
“Imagine if they knew back home that we were in charge of things?” Snowberry said.
Ciervanski made a show of getting ready, waiting for them to quiet down or for Gabriel to bring them into line. Bryant tried to help. He liked Ciervanski, though they were expected to display a certain distaste for officers.
“I heard from a guy in the 351st that Gable is actually a good officer,” Willis Eddy said. “Though he don’t actually fly the Forts.”
“I heard that,” Cooper agreed.
“Which one of you is the youngest?” Ciervanski said. He had apparently given up waiting for Gabriel.
“Snowberry,” Gabriel said.
Ciervanski wrote that down. “How old are you?”
“Ah, eighteen,” Snowberry said.
“He looks very young for his age,” Gabriel said. When Ciervanski looked at him, he nodded helpfully.
“He has a twin brother who’s much younger,” Lewis added.
Ciervanski scribbled something down and smiled to let them know he was in on the joke. He went on writing.
“Whaddaya want to know?” Snowberry asked. There was a hint of anxiety in his voice—Bryant imagined him envisioning the headline Underage Gunner Wants to Be in the Fight—and he raised up a bit in his seat to try and decipher what the captain was writing. “I was born in August nineteen-twenty-something,” he said.
Ciervanski asked if his parents were proud of him.
“My dad’s dead,” Snowberry said. “My mom is, I guess.”
The captain scribbled, dissatisfied. “Let me open this up to all the guys,” he said. “You boys’re just starting out. First real rugged mission recently. How’d it strike you? What’re your feelings about co
mbat? What sort of advice would you pass on to green crews?”
They were silent. Gabriel looked at each of them, trying to force an answer.
“I don’t think we’re ready to be giving advice, sir,” Lewis said quietly.
Ciervanski nodded. They could see in his expression the dawning and dismal sense that his pet project might have to be scrapped, or at the very least carried through with another crew. He tried again.
“Are there any outstanding incidents you’d relate?”
“Outstanding incidents,” Eddy mused. “Well, once I saw an Arab eat a sandwich made of K rations and shaving cream.”
Ciervanski closed his pad, and laughed, which relieved them. “Well, Lieutenant, your boys may be ready for Fred Allen but I’m not sure they’re ready for Impact. It’s like trying to interview the Ritz Brothers.”
Gabriel got up from his chair. His face indicated his understanding that his chance to be the skipper of a more famous aircrew was slipping away. He gestured at Lewis. “I think the men are a little, you know, hesitant, sir, and don’t want to blow their own horn. Sergeant Peeters here took a 20mm incendiary in the chest, in the flak vest, on the last raid, and lived to tell about it.”
Ciervanski looked at him sadly, as if he had offered a bowel movement as news. “All right,” he said. “Tell me about it.”
Lewis related the incident with no elaboration.
Ciervanski wrote it all down dutifully. “We’ll get a shot maybe of you wearing the vest and holding the shell,” he said without enthusiasm.
He dismissed them soon after. There had been further silences, additional forlorn questions, spartan answers. Gabriel apologized for all of them. Ciervanski waved off the apology gracefully and said, “Maybe it’s tough getting everybody together like this. Bad idea. Tell you what, Lieutenant. I’ve still got an hour and a half. What do you say I wander around with some of the men in smaller groups and talk to them informally?”
So he ended up with Lewis and Bryant under the nose of Paper Doll. Lewis was explaining what he believed to be the weak areas of the Fortress’s defensive fire umbrella. Gabriel drifted by in the background, keeping a helpless eye on them, worried, Bryant knew, that Ciervanski was talking to exactly the wrong person.