Page 16 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
The man went green. “Begging the major’s pardon. I, ah…You stepped off an enlisted carriage. I thought you—”
“Truly a comedy of errors. I will gladly forget this incident if you get me two men to carry a rather heavy trunk, another for our bags, and a vehicle to take us south to our sector of the front.”
“Right away, Major.” The sergeant snapped off a parade ground–quality salute and vanished into the night.
An hour later, the borrowed lorry deposited Bell, Fleming, and their gear at a compound of army tents set up in a clearing amid one of the only surviving copses of trees in this part of France. Nearby were pens for horses, whose breath steamed the quiet night. They were too far away to hear the barrage raging to their north.
“Last thing,” Bell said as the driver shut off the engine, “what was it the sergeant said back there? I couldn’t follow because of his accent.”
“The QOOH is a cavalry outfit, as you know, but there hasn’t been a proper cavalry charge since the disastrous early attempts that saw horse and rider cut down by the barrelful. We keep our horses, naturally, and exercise them regularly, but don’t use them in battle. Other units have taken to calling us Queer Oddities on Horses, aswe do look rather ridiculous practicing maneuvers we will never use in battle.”
“War is hell.”
“Your General Sherman, I believe. So where do you want your trunk?”
“I suppose wherever your NCOs congregate. I’ve brought stuff for your men, and it’s best the sergeants pass it about.”
The NCOs had a ten-person tent they used as an informal club, with some furniture either pilfered from abandoned farms or lugged up from Paris. Their prize position was a sideboard with a couple of liquor bottles that had been pilfered from an antechamber at the Hotel George V. Fleming wrapped a knuckle on a tent pole before entering the space, as was customary for all officers.
“Sergeant Major Everly, permission to enter.”
“Major Fleming. Welcome back, sir,” said a grizzled veteran with iron-gray hair and a brow as furrowed as a freshly turned farm plot. “By all means.”
There were a half dozen other NCOs in various poses of relaxation. The air in the tent was warm from the body heat and cozy with the scent of pipe tobacco. Light came from a pair of kerosene lanterns hanging from two poles.
Two of Fleming’s men lugged in the steamer trunk. “Gentlemen,” Fleming started, “this is Mr. Isaac Bell. He’s an observer from America who is to report directly to their President Wilson about the war. Sergeant Major, he will be your responsibility for his time here.”
“Isaac, this is Sergeant Major William Everly.”
The command NCO didn’t look too happy about this new responsibility, but took Bell’s proffered hand.
“Thank you, Major,” Bell said. “No one likes to have someonelooking over their shoulder and quietly judging, so I promise here and now that I will make all my judgments as loud as possible.” That got a few polite chuckles. “I also know that nobody likes a mooch, so I brought along some things for you and your men.” He opened the trunk with a theatrical flourish.
The men had gathered round, and when they saw the standard white and blue labels for Tickler’s Jam, a regular commodity on the battlefront, a couple groaned aloud. This was no treat.
Bell plucked one of the tins from the trunk, hiding the label a bit with his hands. “I hear that the plum and apple flavor is jolly good.” He spun the can so they could all read the label. “But strawberry is much better.”
At this the men roared their approval for such a rare delicacy. There were at least thirty such prized cans of jam. Under it were tins of kippers and crackers, a couple of bottles of scotch, bundles of thick wool socks, expensive cigarettes that actually contained more tobacco than filler, stationery to write home, chocolates, several vinyl records in case they had a phonograph, and anything else Marion could think of to give a common soldier a lift.
“I think this’ll cover your stay for a few days, Mr. Bell,” Sergeant Major Everly said. He’d splashed some whiskey into one of their bar’s mismatched glasses and handed it over.
“I was hoping it would.” Bell smiled back, noting that one of Everly’s eyes was slightly clouded by a cataract and that there was an old scar running down from its lid to his cheek.
Everly usually never talked about it with strangers, but he felt compelled to tell the mysterious American. “German with a trench knife two years back. He thought he’d blinded me when he saw all the blood. He stepped back for an instant. I kneed him in theclackers and whacked the back of his head with a shovel. Earned me a month of convalescence, though I’ll be blind in that eye soon enough and away from all this.”
That last bit was said with true regret. Bell saw that he was a career soldier who wanted nothing more than to shepherd his boys through the war and see them all returned home in one piece.
8
After taking an empty cotin a tent reserved for six sergeants, Bell was awoken before dawn the next morning and got his first good look at the camp. There were two companies bivouacked in the forest clearing and they were far enough behind the lines that all the men got to sleep in tents rather than holes and tunnels dug into the earth. They would face that horror once they rotated up to the lines and another two companies of men were given a week or so to stand down.
Mess was an open-sided tent with a metal chimney poking through the roof, and in the predawn shadows, men were already lining up for a hot meal, something that would also be a rarity at the front. The men ate on the ground, spooning boiled beef, which they called “bully” after the French verb to boil,bouillir, from mess tins they carried as part of their personal kit.
This was the last morning of their rotation away from the front, so they looked reasonably rested, their uniforms were cleaned, andany rips or missing buttons repaired. Though they were miles from the fighting, each man had their rifle within easy reach and all looked cleaned and oiled. Bell was able to sense rather than see the apprehension of returning to the battlefield. Their sector was quiet for the time being, but the fear of a German attack never went away. It was a shadow behind their eyes or a tremble in their fingers as they ate or held a cigarette. Month after grinding month was taking its toll and robbing these men of their youth.
Sergeant Major Everly sidled up to Bell. He hadn’t realized the night before because the NCO hadn’t gotten out of his chair, but the top of Everly’s head barely reached Bell’s chin. “Figured a civilian like you would still be abed.”
“Back in the real word I’m a private investigator. I tend to sleep when I can and wake when I detect others around me are moving about.”
