A Man Called Milo Morai

by Robert Adams

  Not until Milo had racked his Thompson, dumped his pistol belt on the table he called a desk, laid his helmet atop the belt and started to remove his jacket could Cohen manage to speak.

  His thin lips trembling, the noncom said, "But… but Milo, I seen it! A Kraut jammed a K98 bayonet in your chest at least twice. I know I seen it. I was in the trees not fifteen yards away. That's why I told everybody you was dead."

  Milo just smiled and gripped the stunned man's shoulder, saying, "I know, Bernie, I know you saw some poor bastard bayoneted, more than one, too, for they did that to fourteen men there. But they did miss me. I'd been cold-cocked during the fight, and I guess they thought I was already done for. When I did come to, the Krauts were long gone and the bodies of our guys were already stiff. I'm sure you did think I was dead, so forget it."

  Chapter XI

  The German counteroffensive of December 1944 was stopped, of course, crushed under the tank treads of General George Patton's Third Army, bombed and strafed incessantly by Allied air power and driven back with over 200,000 casualties. The so-called Battle of the Bulge quickly became history.

  While Charlie Company was dug in on the eastern bank of the Rhine River, at Remagen, helping to hold that precious span from recapture by the Wehrmacht, Milo received orders to report back to battalion headquarters. He found there a jeep and driver waiting to transport him farther back, to division headquarters. Ushered into a warm, dry building and given a chair, he promptly fell asleep.

  When at last he sat across the polished desk from Jethro, savoring his glass (real glass, cut and faceted) of cognac, he became unpleasantly aware of the fetid odor —compounded of wet, dirty woolens, gun oil, foul breath and flesh long unwashed—of himself.

  As if reading his mind, Jethro said, "Finish your drink, Milo, and Sergeant Webber in there will drive you over to my quarters. You can have a bath and a shave, Webber will trim your hair—and he does it well, too— then he'll take your clothes out and burn them. There's a full kit waiting for you in one of the lockers there, boots too. Then you can rest or sleep for what's left of today. If you want anything else, just tell Webber. We'll have dinner tonight, and I have to talk to you about some things. I need a promise from you."

  When he was as clean as hot water, GI soap, a GI handbrush, a GI toothbrush and GI tooth powder could render him, Milo used one of Jethro's matched set of razors and shaving cream to take off the stubble that had been well on the way to becoming a real beard. Before dressing, he had the most solicitous Sergeant Webber take off most of his just-washed but still-shaggy hair, leaving a half-inch or less overall.

  The clothing left for his use looked like GI issue, but a mere handling established that it was not, it was of far better quality—the mesh of the jockstrap felt like and looked like silk, the shorts and undershirt were of an incredibly soft cotton, and, although certainly of wool, the long Johns and the padded boot socks were almost as soft and unscratchy as the cotton.

  Before he could even start to dress, however, Sergeant Webber, armed with a can of DDT powder and other assorted paraphernalia, said, "Uh, sir, don't you think you should oughta let me go over your body for lice? It won't none on your head, but that don't prove nothing, of course."

  "You're more than welcome to try, Webber," agreed Milo, "but it's a waste of your time. The critters don't seem to like me, for some reason, never have. Nor do fleas, either."

  The noncom wrinkled up his brows. He did not want to call the officer a liar to his face, but that he did not believe him was abundantly clear. "Uhh, captain, sir, you better let me check anyhow, huh? Typhus ain't nuthin' to fuck around with. The Krauts is dyin' of it right and left, and so was the fuckin' Belgians and Dutch and Frogs, too."

  The well-meaning sergeant still was shaking his head and muttering to himself in utter consternation at finding no lice or any other kind of parasites on Milo's body as he stuffed the worn, filthy, discarded clothing into what looked like an old gunny sack. But as he reached the door, he turned back to Milo.

  "Sir, if you're hungry, the gen'rul said I should go over to the mess and bring you back anything you wants, so what'll it be, sir? Roast beef? Po'k chops? Sumthin' else?"

  His mind fixed on the neat, tightly made GI bunk in the next room, Milo replied, "Thank you, sergeant, but no, what I need is sleep, and that's exactly what I'll be doing before you get that jeep out there started. If you want to stop by and drop off a can of Spam and some C-ration crackers, that will be fine; I might even wake up long enough to eat them."

  A look of sympathy and solicitude entered the sergeant's gray eyes. "It must be pure hell up there where you come from, sir. Here, sir." He fumbled out an almost-full pack of Camels. "The gen'rul, he don't smoke nuthin' but a pipe, now, and I noticed you ain't got but one or two left in that pack of Chesterfields."

  "Thank you, Webber," said Milo, then asked, "You're not a Regular, are you?"

  The noncom grinned and shook his head. "Nosir, not me. I was in the CCC for near on three years when the fuckin' Japs come to bomb Pearl Harbor; that's when I 'listed up and went to drivin' school at Fort Eustis. But I likes the Army—I gets three squares mosta the time, a place to sleep, good clothes and shoes to wear and sixty dollars a month besides. I don't think I could do that good as a civilian, sir, so I means to stay in after the war's over, and the gen'rul says he thinks as how I oughta, too. Does the captain think I oughta? I knows you and the gen'rul was sergeants together in the Reg'lars, back before the war, so you oughta know."

  Milo nodded. "Yes, Sergeant Webber, I agree with the general. I think you'll make a fine professional soldier."

  Milo came fully awake suddenly, with the knowledge that there was another person in the room with him, moving quietly, sounding too light to be Jethro or Webber. The light steps seemed to be approaching the bunk on which he lay. Looking out into the near-darkness through slitted eyelids, Milo sent his fingers questing to find the hilt of the knife strapped to his right thigh. With as little motion as possible, he drew out the honed length of steel blade, took a good grip on the tape-wrapped hilt and then waited, tensely, for whatever was to happen next.

  A presence hovered above him for a few heartbeats of time, then receded, and he half wondered if this was only a waking-dream sequence, for all that he knew it to be very real. The bright white glare of light that burst through the briefly opened door to the outer room made it impossible for him to see anything much of the short person who exited and then drew shut the portal. But by straining his ears, he could hear the low-voiced conversation in the other room, and he could even identify one of the speakers, all of whom were conversing in Parisian French.

  "He sleeps, M'sieu General. I was about to waken him, but thought that I first should ask you."

  Jethro's voice replied, "You were wiser than you realized, m'petite. Had you laid hand to him he might very well have killed or at least crippled you."

  "This Captaine Milo Moray, he is so much a brute, then?" inquired a second, less husky female voice. "The general should have mentioned this thing earlier."

  "No, no, Angelique, he is a good man, a very good man, a true gentleman. It is only that he has been almost without any hiatus in combat since last year. And, ma cherie, one never should be so unwise as to awaken a man fresh from active warfare suddenly and unexpectedly in a darkened room."

  The woman called Angelique still sounded unconvinced. "It might be wise if we were to not waken him, mon general, for our Nicole is too precious, too vulnerable, to become the toy of some brutal and uncaring man. She is a gentle girl, convent-reared, and despite all that was wrought upon her by the Boches, all that I have taught her since, she still is far from hardness. No, mon general, I will give you back your gold and you will please to send Nicole and me back to Paris."

  "You are of a wrongness, Angelique," sighed Jethro, "and I am surprised that you will not believe me on this matter, for I have never lied to you about anything. Have I? But I will make you a proposition: I will awaken C
aptain Moray and then introduce Nicole to him. We will leave them alone, and should he offer her any violence at all, I will double the gold I gave you and immediately have you both taken back to Paris. Is that agreeable, Angelique?"

  There was more conversation after that, but Milo had once more sunk into sleep. When next he opened his eyes, the room was flooded with the white light of a gasoline lantern and Jethro was shaking the bunk and saying, "Milo? Milo! Come on, old buddy, come out of it. It's me, Jethro. Wake up and have some champagne."

  Fifteen minutes later, Milo sat cross-legged on the head of the bunk, twirling his empty champagne glass between his fingers, watching the slim young woman who sat Stiffly on the foot of the bunk, sipping at her own glass and puffing nervously at a Camel, carefully avoiding his gaze or at least refusing to meet it. From the other room could be heard an unclear mutter of conversation and squeakings from the bunk that had apparently been moved in while Milo slept. In the light of the lantern, he could see that she was pale, her dark eyes were enormous, her breathing was fast and her hands very tremulous.

  He leaned a bit toward her and extended a hand. She flinched from his touch, then returned her body, to its former position, clearly steeling herself for whatever. But Milo sat back and spoke to her softly in French.

  "Nicole, you need have no fear of me. I have been many long months without a woman, but it has not killed me, nor will I be injured by further abstinence. Had Jethro not brought you in to me, I still would be sleeping, and I can easily go back to sleep still, for I am very weary. I do not even need the bed; you may have it for the rest of this night. The floor is carpeted—just let me take one blanket and I will be fine. I am not really accustomed to such luxury as this anymore."

  He was as good as his word. Taking a last long drag, he stumped out his cigarette, then rolled off the bunk, taking a GI blanket with him. When he had turned down the lantern as low as he could without extinguishing it altogether, he removed the seat cushion from the chair, found a section of carpet that looked good, lay down and wrapped himself in the blanket and presently was softly snoring.

  Not until she was certain that the strange officer was truly asleep did Nicole Gallion even begin to relax. She now knew that all of this had been a grave mistake, that she never should have let the worldly-wise Angelique talk her into essaying such a thing, no matter how much the general had offered to pay. Angelique had reassured her over and over on the way from Paris how easy it would be to earn her share of the gold sovereigns. She said that she had acquaintances who had known and done business with the general twenty years ago, before the war, who said that he was a very rich man and generous.

  But now she knew that she could not go through with it, any of it. Not even for the vast number of francs that the gold and cigarettes would bring could she force herself to do this thing. She would just have to try to find some other way to provide for Papa—poor Papa, once so big and strong and vital, now all twisted and bent, crippled and blinded by the savageries of the Gestapo, yet still too proud to accept the charities of his fellow countrymen.

  She did not want to disrobe, but reflected that as she had but the one presentable dress it were best not to sleep in it. In search of a hanger for her garment, she eased open the door of a narrow wardrobe and found a man's silken robe, far too big and long for her, of course, but it would serve as a fine sleeping garment.

  The girl quickly removed her slip of American parachute silk, hung it beside the dress and, now covered in gooseflesh, slipped into the smooth, soft robe and padded over to the disarrayed bunk with its promise of thick blankets, not even thinking of extinguishing the lantern. As she slid under the sheet and blankets, she encountered a long, hard object. In wonderment, she drew the length of razor-sharp, needle-tipped, blue steel from out its rigid case, tested edge and point, then returned it to its case with the hint of a smile. Snuggling against herself, the knife close to her small hand, she settled for sleep.

  The moans and whimperings brought Milo out of his sleep. His first thought was, "Oh, God, who's been wounded now?" Then, "Why the hell didn't they turn the poor bastard over to the fuckin' pill-pushers instead of bringing him down here into the CP bunker?"

  The moans and whimperings continued unabated. He rolled over and sat up, looking in the direction from which the pitiful sounds were emanating. He wondered for a moment where he was and who the young girl on the bunk was, her pale face twisted, with tears squeezing out from beneath her closed eyelids, shaking all over, shaking hard, like a foundered horse. Just as he remembered, the girl began to speak, both in French and in halting, schoolbook German.

  "Oh, no, no, no, please, I beg of you, do not hurt him anymore. Oh, please, mein Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer, for the love of God, he knows nothing of the things you are asking, neither of us do, we are not the people you seem to think we are."

  "Oh, no, no, please, NO!" The last word was screamed, shrilly. The girl sat straight up in bed, her teary eyes wide open, the look in them compounded of infinite horror, her small hands clenched so tightly at her sides that red blood was welling up over the nails.

  Before Milo could move, the door burst open and a nude woman stormed in, her red hair wildly disheveled, her step firm as her jouncing breasts, and blood in her eye. "You pig," she snarled, "what are you doing to her? What…"

  Her voice trailed off as she noticed the widely separated sleeping arrangements.

  "I didn't touch her, Angelique," said Milo, concern patent in his voice. "I haven't laid one hand on her all night. I was asleep long before she was, over here. I told her she could have the bunk."

  "Then what… ?" Angelique began.

  Milo shook his head. "A nightmare, I'd presume. She woke me up moaning and whimpering and pleading with someone in French and in German. She was begging some man not to hurt some other man was all that I could understand."

  Jethro, just as unabashedly nude as Angelique, came in then, saying, "I think you might have chosen better than you did at the sum I'm paying you, my dear. Why did you choose to bring this strange creature?"

  The red-haired woman sighed and sank into the now-cushionless chair. "I brought her because she needs the money, needs it desperately. Except for the… the things that were done upon her by the Boches, in prison, where I first met her, she is an utter innocent. She was born to a class in which no trades ever are taught, so how else but this way could she support her father, who is now all the family she has left and is blind and crippled from being severely tortured by the Gestapo who suspected him of activities connected with the Resistance?"

  "They did the worst things to him in front of her, forced her to watch… and to listen, the beasts. That was most probably her nightmare, living once again that night of hell, the poor child."

  While they had been speaking, Nicole had slowly sunk back down onto the bunk and was once more breathing rhythmically, clearly sound asleep.

  In the outer room, all three of them wrapped in OD field shirts until the hard coal that Jethro had dumped into the space heater had time to get started, Milo, Jethro and Angelique sipped at a mixture of cognac and champagne and nibbled at cold Spam and C-ration crackers.

  When he had gotten his pipe going, Jethro said, "Milo, I'm sorry about all of this. I only was trying to help you get your ashes hauled tonight, since I doubted you'd been laid since you left England last June; and going without that long at a stretch can lead to recurrent bouts of stiffness in the neck… among other places."

  Milo shook his head. "In a way, I'm just as glad it all worked out this way, Jethro, because I'd have felt like some kind of animal if I'd found out about all this after I'd screwed that kid in there."

  Switching effortlessly to French in order to be certain that she understood, he said, "Angelique, the general will pay you two the full amount. As I told Nicole earlier, I reelaly need sleep far worse than I need sex, just now. I'll just go back to that spot of nice, soft carpet and get back to it; if you're worried about my sincerity, leave the door op
en and the light lit so you can see the bunk and her."

  Turning back to Stiles, he said, "And that girl has more than enough problems, it sounds like, without having to try to whore to take care of her father. Do you recall those stocks that my late friend in Chicago bought with the money I left him? I told you of them and you had me place them in your safe at the farm."

  At Stiles' nod, he went on, "Well, what would you say they're worth now? That is, how much would you be willing or able to pay me for them, if you knew the money was to go to Nicole and her father?"

  "I am not at all conversant with the current market, Milo," said Stiles dryly. "But when last I had the time and the opportunity, I think they were worth in the neighborhood of two thousand or two thousand five. Yes, I'll buy them from you, if that's what you wish."

  To Angelique, Stiles said, "Do you understand, m'petite? The captain has just sold to me certain personal possessions and has ordered that the monies be paid to Nicole, that she no more will lack of the means to care properly for her father. It will come to some sixty ounces of gold, or the equivalent in francs, pounds sterling or American dollars. Do you still think the captain to be a callous, unfeeling brute, Angelique?"

  Despite Milo's protests that he would be comfortable with just his carpet bed, Stiles opened a storage room, brought out one of several rolled-up mattresses and another blanket and a pillow, then helped to spread them in the place chosen by his friend.

  "I always keep spares on hand, Milo. Sometimes my guests get so drunk they'd fall out of their jeeps on the way back to their own quarters, were I to let them leave here. And we simply can't have our field- and general-grade officers lying drunk around the cantonment area, you know." He chuckled.