Ironclad

by Daniel Foster

  Garret couldn’t have cared less about St. John, but a tree that grew big chocolate beans would be welcome in his yard anytime.

  Fishy and the girl were certainly hitting it off. They were “getting on smashingly,” as Butterworth had muttered. “Jealous?” Velvet had muttered back.

  Bartram was asking the girl occasional, polite questions, and smiling at her answers, but whatever she was telling him, he didn’t share it with the rest of them, other than that her name was Nina.

  Fishy didn’t seem to care what Nina was telling Bartram. Fishy and Nina were sitting close together, sharing Fishy’s food. Despite the fact that they couldn’t talk to each other, there seemed to be an amazing amount of non-verbal communication happening between them. Garret had seen people fall in love, and he knew all about the spark that could sweep lucky couples away at a moment’s notice. He’d fallen in love with Molly at first sight, but this was different. It was as if the intensity of Nina’s earlier fear had been directly transmuted into the intensity of her connection with Fishy. It was magnetic, and it made Garret miss Molly sorely.

  In fact, around the circle, most of the guys were shooting envious glances Fishy’s way, except Burl, whose expression was guarded.

  “How you feelin’, Burl?” Garret muttered to him.

  “Oh, much better,” Burl replied with a smile.

  Garret didn’t believe him, but smiled back. Garret glanced at Burl’s plate. He had eaten quite a few carob pods, and nibbled his hard tack, but his beef was untouched.

  They all ate and joshed. Even Lieutenant Bartram cracked a joke or two, but they were smart jokes and nobody got them, except maybe Velvet, but he was laughing a little too hard, so Garret eventually decided Velvet wasn’t getting them either. The five year old girl had curled up next to Pun’kin and gone to sleep. Pun’kin had spread a tarp over her.

  “You guys have to come and meet my Mama and Daddy and my sisters,” Pun’kin said suddenly. “My Mama is the best cook in the state of Alabama. You guys gotta come and stay with us. Every summer.” Pun’kin dropped a fist on the log beside him as if it was a gavel.

  Smiles went around the circle, even Butterworth.

  “The early apples’ll be comin’ in any time now,” Pun’kin said. “My Mama’ll make us apple fritters. We make the best butter in the world to fry ‘em in. And she’ll let you eat ‘em til you’re sick.”

  “Is that what your family does?” Velvet asked. “Butter?”

  Pun’kin nodded proudly. “We’ve been dairy farmers for pert nigh a hun’erd years. Everybody comes from miles around to buy our butter and cheese.”

  “You make cheese too?”

  Garret watched the conversation, but he didn’t enter it. It relieved him just to listen, like a cool breeze on a sweaty brow. Fishy met Garret’s eye and quirked a half smile. It was the first time anyone had asked anyone else about their past, and they were all talking about it like old friends.

  “We always win the blue ribbons at the county fairs for applebutter and pear butter and all that,” Pun’kin said, chest puffed out. “And it’s ‘cause of our sweet cream butter. Best there is. We ain’t happy if we don’t come home with at least five ribbons.”

  Fishy kept a straight face, and knowing that Nina couldn’t understand him, he said to Pun’kin, “I’m more interested in those sisters you mentioned. Are they pretty?”

  “Sure as I’m sittin’ here! They’re the purtiest girls in—hey!”

  Chapter 32

  A hand was on Garret’s shoulder, shaking him awake. The person was also whispering to him. Aboard the Kearsarge, Garret would have leaped out of his hammock before his brain realized he was awake, but they weren’t aboard ship anymore, and despite Bartram’s best efforts, discipline was becoming lax. Garret grunted and clumsily pawed at the hand that was shaking him. “Mmf… Go away.”

  The voice kept whispering, but now was trying to suppress laughter too. “Get up Lover Boy, just be quiet about it.”

  Garret sat up and blinked owlishly around. It wasn’t morning, it was the dead of night. Also, it wasn’t Bartram who had awakened him, it was Fishy. Velvet was already up and moving stealthily around the fire to wake Burl. Fishy had also wakened Butterworth, and both of them were double teaming Pun’kin.

  Nina stood to one side, closest to Fishy, the firelight flickering over her alluring form, a teasing smile on her face as she watched Fishy and Butterworth try to rouse Pun’kin. The Alabama boy slept like a rock. Fortunately, so did Bartram.

  Garret glanced over at the Lieutenant, who always slept a ways from the rest of them, as if to separate himself from the commoners. Garret yawned, stretched luxuriantly, and decided that if Fishy and Nina were going to do something that would piss Bartram off, then Garret was all for it.

  Pun’kin was in a standing position, finally. Well sort of. Garret smothered laughter. Is he still asleep? Indeed, he appeared to be. Fishy and Burl had finally gotten Pun’kin off the ground, but he was slumped between them, head hanging, an arm around each of their shoulders.

  As Garret watched, they began hauling him towards the trees, his toes dragging in the dirt. A rattling snore issued from him. Grinning, Garret caught up to them and took Burl’s place under Pun’kin’s right arm.

  “Thanks,” Burl wheezed as he fell back. He coughed a bit. They stopped and looked back at him, but he waved them on. “Go ahead,” he rasped. “I’m right behind you.”

  They took his word and went. Nina was disappearing into the darkness in front of them. She flitted through the rocks and plants like a deer. Her motions reminded Garret of someone, but he couldn’t recall who. It wasn’t his Ma, at least, and that was a welcome change. Nina led them quickly back down the slope to the road, but instead of following it, she crossed it, hopped the opposite fence as easily as if she was stepping over a puddle, then led them out across a field.

  Pun’kin didn’t wake up until the third time they accidentally dropped him, and even then, all he did was loudly demand eggs and grits for breakfast. Unable to suppress their laughter that time, Garret and Fishy scooped him up and hauled him onward.

  “Where are we going?” Garret asked Fishy as they followed Nina’s quick stride into a waist-high field of flowers. It seemed odd to Garret that she was staying so far ahead of them. Garret would have expected her to stay at Fishy’s side, maybe hang on his arm and pull him teasingly along, but then again, despite the fact that Garret was married, he really didn’t understand anything about women. Maybe this was normal.

  In answer to Garret’s question about where they were going, Fishy shrugged and grinned in the dark. “I think she told me, but I don’t speak Serbian.”

  “Hope there’s some fanny that’s up for it,” said Butterworth eagerly, coming up to walk abreast of them.

  Garret was struggling to decode that, but Fishy clapped Butterworth on the back and said, “Something we can finally agree on!”

  “No, no, this way,” said Burl. He was a few feet behind them, guiding Pun’kin, who was moving on his own power, but appeared to be sleep walking.

  They descended the gradual slope of the old field, skirting an occasional large rock or scrub tree. They reentered a line of sparse trees, and for a moment Garret lost sight of Nina. Then she appeared beside them without a sound, making Garret jump, Butterworth swear, and Fishy smile. She ran her hand down Fishy’s arm, played with his fingers for a moment, then walked away, her hips swaying beautifully. They followed.

  Damn, I’ll bet she’d be amazing in bed. Garret blushed at the thought, and ashamedly apologized to Molly in his head. The light of a fire became quickly evident through the scarce trees. Fishy ran ahead to catch up with Nina, and motioned the rest of them to hurry. “Come on!”

  They emerged into a small clearing which was filled with a giddy atmosphere of youth and laughter. A bonfire roared in the middle of it all, throwing hot, intense light over the attendees. Brown earthenware jugs were being passed hand to
hand. Most of the partygoers looked like the sons and daughters of local farmers. A few wore cleaner dresses or shirts, but most were wearing their work clothes, some of the guys with mud still on their breeches. They wore it like a badge. Suspenders hung loosely over unbuttoned shirts, and beautiful girls were everywhere, sitting on guys’ knees, chatting coyly, laughing off awkward advances. Garret gawked.

  Wow. He looked at Nina, who was flirting with Fishy, then around the bonfire at the rest of the girls. Are all Serbian girls beautiful? But so was Molly. With effort, Garret wrestled his long-deprived libido under control.

  Garret’s internal sexual skirmish wasn’t the only wrestling match going. A few feet in front of him, a real one had just broken out. The combatants looked about Garret’s age, but their faces were dark with manly stubble, and their heavy shoulders strained the seams of their work shirts. Young men and women came running from around the fire, some bringing the brown jugs with them.

  Garret had wrestled with other boys in the Appalachians when he was growing up, but those matches basically amounted to trying to rub another boy’s face in the dirt. Whatever these guys were doing, it was disciplined. They didn’t go for the other’s legs at all, as if by some mutual agreement, but upper body strength was key, and both guys appeared to have lots of it. As Garret watched, one of the guys caught the other around the waist and lifted him bodily up and over into a graceful, falling take down. Their audience whooped and cheered. A couple of the guys whipped off their caps and slapped the champ on the back with them even as he tussled.

  Garret suddenly realized that he and Burl were standing by themselves. Fishy was disappearing fast into the trees, being pulled along by Nina. Velvet and Pun’kin were a short ways away, being offered a drink from a jug by a young Serbian guy. Butterworth was standing awkwardly by a tree, obviously trying to work up the courage to approach the two girls standing nearest him.

  And then another Serbian guy was standing between Garret and Burl, holding one of the jugs for Garret. He said something in his language. Garret had no clue what it meant, but it sounded friendly. The guy motioned with the jug again. Garret took it. It was heavy stoneware, like his Ma’s flour and sugar and coffee canisters had been.

  The guy gestured to the jug, said something else, then caught the eye of a dark haired girl who smile demurely, before looking away. The guy elbowed past Garret and walked a little faster than he needed to on his way towards the girl.

  Garret looked at the heavy jug in his hand, then around at the fire. Coals blazed merrily, while nearly two dozen guys and girls laughed, teased, flirted, and sometimes stole away into the trees. Garret looked back at the jug in his hands. He’d never had a drink in his life. His grandfather had died because of alcohol.

  But… I’m not my grandfather. I’m not my Pa. I’m not my Ma.

  Moreover, he was getting tired of letting the past define him. It was like a cage that shrank a little more each day. What would be so wrong with me just having a fun night? Just once. I’ve worked every day of my damn life, and most of my nights too.

  Garret’s Pa had handed him a hammer as soon as he could walk, and Garret had labored sunup to sundown to support his family ever since.

  I want to have some fun, Garret decided. Not to do something he’d regret, certainly not to cheat on Molly, just one night to let loose a little bit. Maybe he’d even get to stop feeling like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. I’ll keep my pants on. Garret lifted the jug to his lips and took a long pull.

  He didn’t remember much about the night after that.

  Oscar “Fishy” McClatchey laid on the ground gripping a sapling with one outstretched hand and a jutting rock with the other. Nina had placed him there and pointed to the objects she wanted him to take hold of while she shed her boy’s clothing like an unneeded second skin. As soon as she climbed onto him, he didn’t object to the rock or the tree. It was nice to have something to hang onto.

  He could have let go of the sapling and the rock of course, but he didn’t for two reasons. One, he didn’t want to do anything that might displease her, and two, he was really enjoying holding onto them. She’d laid him down in a spot where he had to stretch fully to grab the items she indicated, and it had a curious effect when she started rubbing her breasts on him and putting her angelic lips all over his groin.

  His upper body was pulled tight by the stretch, just like a guitar string wound tight around its peg. Every time she pulled her delicate mouth up his penis, the tingling sensation whipped from the pit of his stomach up through the tight muscles of his upper body, like plucking that guitar string. In a way, it was almost hard to stand it, but he would have laid there and let her do it until it killed him.

  Then she was kissing him, laying her full soft breasts on his chest, her soft stomach on his abdomen, pressing her small, naked weight into him.

  Then she dragged herself back down his body and her lips closed around his genitals again. She pressed her hands down on his thighs, pushing them open, stretching the insides of them as well. He almost let go of the rock as she pulled with her lips that time.

  On it went, more and more creative until he was sweating profusely and had no idea where she was going to come from next. She mounted him, pushing him eagerly up inside her warmth, and laid down on his chest to grind on him.

  Fishy had had sex with quite a few guys and girls over the years. Damn, she’s the best of both.

  “Why… you here?” she asked in broken, heavily accented English.

  Fishy wasn’t nearly as surprised by the fact that she could speak English as he was by what she was doing to his nipples with her tongue.

  “I’m in the Navy,” he said as best he could.

  She laughed a little in the back of her throat, and it made Fishy wonder if he could stick his tongue far enough down to get to the laugh and see what it tasted like.

  She began to both rise on him and writhe on his chest at the same time. “I don’t see your… eh, boat?” she said teasingly.

  “We just got off,” he said pausing for a sharp intake of breath as she pushed down on him, driving him so deep into her that he thought they might never come apart. Which he would have been fine with.

  He finished when she let up a little. “A few days ago,” he said.

  “Navy on land?” she said again, teasing.

  “We just need to get to Sarajevo,” he said between gasps. “Then I can come back for you. We’re almost done.”

  “No,” she said, her smile spreading, her eyes alight. “We’re not.”

  W

  Garret awoke the next morning with a pistol in his face. His mind was foggy and he had a pounding headache. He blinked, trying to see who was holding the gun. His eyes didn’t focus quickly, but vision wasn’t necessary for identification when Lieutenant Bartram yelled in his face. Bartram was so angry that his voice came out as a shrill screech.

  “Do you stupid bastards realize what you’ve done?! You’ve slept with the enemy!”

  Garret flinched under the sonic assault and crawled out from under Bartram’s pistol. Bartram wasn’t looking at him.

  Slept with the enemy? Garret had a moment of panic until he realized that his clothes were still on.

  “Get up,” Bartram screamed, “GET UP!”

  Booom! Everybody flinched and even Pun’kin jerked awake. Bartram had fired a shot into the dirt amongst them.

  “Get your worthless asses off the ground right now, or the next one goes in one of your empty skulls!”

  That, finally, cut through enough of Garret’s hangover to wake him fully. Did Bartram just threaten to kill us? Garret rolled over onto his butt and surveyed the scene. Dawn had barely come, pale and thin over the rolling Serbian countryside, but the air in the trees was already warm, promising a hot day to come.

  The burned-out skeleton of the night’s revelry lay all around them. Boot prints, scattered ashes, logs that had been used as seats. The cinder heap w
as smoldering, a big five foot wide heap of grey ash and black coals, still sending a plume of smoke trailing into the sky.

  That’s how he found us, Garret thought groggily. Damn.

  Garret, Burl, Pun’kin, Velvet and Butterworth were all scattered around on the ground sleeping in all manner of contorted positions. Velvet and Burl slept under ratty cloaks which the Serbians had apparently seen fit to leave with them.

  “Fishy,” Garret said blearily. “Where’s Fishy?”

  “Did you hear what I said sailors,” Bartram screeched. “Get your asses up! Fall in this instant!”

  Garret shoved himself to his feet, and since he was closest to Bartram, he picked a spot in front of him to start the line. He came to attention. A moment later, Velvet dragged himself up beside Garret, looking much the worse for wear, and came to attention as well.

  “Now sailor!” Bartram screamed at Pun’kin. Every time he yelled, it made Garret ‘s head pound harder. But Pun’kin didn’t come. He was kneeling beside Burl.

  “Guys, Burl’s real sick,” came Pun’kin’s hungover, but anxious reply.

  “Well I wonder why!” Bartram screamed, throwing a broken half of one of the brown jugs at Pun’kin. Instead of dodging, Pun’kin took the incoming pottery across his own back and neck so that it didn’t hit Burl.

  Garret’s instinct was to run to Burl’s side, but Bartram was seething, pacing, and waving his loaded pistol around. Velvet seemed to think better of moving as well.

  “Sir,” Garret asked, “Can we go see what’s wrong?”

  “No! You stay right there! And you,” he pointed the pistol at Pun’kin. “For the last time, get your ass over here.”

  Pun’kin didn’t have much choice, so he came, but kept glancing back at Burl the whole way.

  Even before Pun’kin had fallen in, Bartram was screaming in all three of their faces. “Do you fools have any idea what you’ve done? We’re going back to our camp right now, collecting our supplies, and hope to hell we can get far enough away before they bring the entire Black Hand here to wipe us out!”